Soccer Dad

Sophomore jinx

Griff Witte is quickly becoming my favorite Middle East correspondent. He adds to his impressive debut with an excellent sophomore effort, Strikes in Gaza Kill 18 Palestinians; Hamas Rocket Barrage Injures 2 Israelis. (That's facetious.)

First he writes that Israel is now under attack from Grad missiles.

Seven rockets have landed in the city of Ashkelon in the past two days, prompting accusations from Israeli officials that Hamas is using more formidable rockets than it has in the past. Ashkelon, a coastal city of about 120,000 people, is six miles north of Gaza. Israeli officials said the rockets that landed there have been Iranian-made, Grad-style rockets, which have a longer range and are considered more lethal than the relatively crude Qassam rockets that Hamas has traditionally used.

"What we saw today was really an escalation," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel, asserting that the greater range of the Grad rockets means that "a quarter of a million Israeli citizens are in danger." Mekel indicated that a stronger Israeli response may be in the offing. "Israel left Gaza not in order to return to it. However, the continuation of terror may put Israel in a position where we have no choice," he said.

Nowhere does he provide the background that the Hamas breach of the border with Egypt is the reason that Hamas has been able to upgrade its capabilities. Then he follows with this.

Israel pulled its settlers out of Gaza in 2005. Last June, Hamas seized control, ending a power-sharing deal with the secular Fatah party, which favors negotiations with Israel. Since then, the volume of rocket fire has increased and pressure has grown on the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to topple Hamas, a radical Islamic movement that has both a military wing and a network of social services and that seeks to eradicate Israel.

(Yes Fatah favors negotiations. What about Abbas's comments yesterday?)

Why "topple?" Why not defeat? When someone's trying to destroy you it's a war not politics. Or is politics just war by other means? But at the end of the paragraph he seems incapable of calling Hamas a terrorist organization. It's an "Islamic movement" with a "network of social services" that by-the-way "seeks to eradicate Israel."

Let me try.
"Since then the number of attacks by the terrorist organization Hamas on Israeli civilians has made ti imperative for the Israeli government to defeat Hamas.

Nice direct and to the point.

Crossposted on Yourish.

The fine art of flying (with the president)

Bob Geldof has certainly had an interesting career. He's been a rock singer, an activist and now he's a magazine writer. His assignment: to write about President Bush on the President's African trip. (Apparently he remains healthy, unlike some others in the press corps.)

Geldof's portrait of the President is respectful but wary. Clearly he agrees with what the President's done for Africa even while he vehemently disagrees with the war in Iraq. I was somewhat taken aback by some of Geldof's comments to the President. In another time such "cheek" would be punishable by imprisonment if not worse. Still the President comes off as gracious and well meaning. Geldof, I don't think comes off as well. (See Don Surber.)

Why is Geldof traveling with the President? Because he wants to raise awareness of the positive change President Bush has brought to the African continent. It's something that he's agitated for, for years. He thinks, (correctly) that the President doesn't promote his own accomplishments in this area effectively.

It is a very good article but I think it misses one thing, though both men touch on the topic. Geldof chides the President for once dismissing the importance of Africa. The President successfully and imprssively deflects the criticism. Still, eight years ago President Bush did argue against nation building. Now he's actively involved in it in Iraq and even his efforts in Africa have strengthened central governments. Why is it important now?

The answer, of course, is 9/11. President Bush doesn't approve of nation building for the sake of nation building. But he saw what happens when there's no effective government. It allows organizations like al-Qaeda to form and metastasize.

While it's true that Geldof's view of the Iraq war is typical Hollywood, there was a fascinating exchange that shows he isn't totally consumed by such pretensions.

You forget that Bush has an M.B.A. He thinks like a businessman in terms of the bottom line. Results. Profit and loss. There is an empiricism to a lot of his furthest-reaching policies on Africa. Correctly, he's big on trade. "A 1% increase in trade from Africa," he says, "will mean more money than all the aid put together annually." He's proud that he twice reauthorized the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a modestly revolutionary Clinton Administration initiative that enabled previously heavily taxed exports to enter the U.S. tax-free. Even though oil still accounts for the vast amount of African exports to the U.S., the beneficial impact of AGOA on such places as the tiny country of Lesotho, and its growing textile industry, has been startling.

Geldof comes off as a lot more serious than a typical celebrity activist. But I think that the President comes off even better.

(via memeorandum)

bob geldof, president bush.

Razing mccain

One of the remarkable aspects about last week's NYT hit piece on Sen. McCain is that once you get through the allegations about his "romantic involvement," there were a lot of words, but, seemingly not much else. What exactly did Sen. McCain do wrong. According to an article in Forbes, not much. (via memeorandum)

During the six-year-long fight that followed, McCain never wavered from his opposition to the legislation Paxson pushed, which would have diverted those billions into his company's coffers and away from the U.S. Treasury. Whether McCain did any other, smaller favors for Paxson is a question that will draw new attention as the campaign heats up. But, at least on the issue of most consequence, the two strong-willed men were implacable foes.

Remarkably even Public Citizen came down on Sen. McCain's side.

We are compelled to note something that has been lost in the recent criticism of Sen. McCain’s association with lobbyists: Regardless of how many lobbyists are working on his campaign or raising money for him, John McCain fought for 14 long, hard years for reforms that seriously limit lobbyists power. He has fought for campaign finance reform, limits on gifts and travel from lobbyists, and extensive public disclosure of lobbyists activities - all of which limit the influence of lobbyists and the companies that hire lobbyists in Washington, D.C.

As the article notes, Public Citizen doesn't normally side with Republicans.

Charles Krauthammer, makes an interesting point, (or here) though. There's really nothing wrong with lobbying.

Lobbying is constitutionally protected, but that doesn't mean we have to like it all. Let's agree to frown upon bad lobbying, such as getting a tax break for a particular industry. Let's agree to welcome good lobbying -- the actual redress of a legitimate grievance -- such as protecting your home from being turned to dust to make way for some urban development project.

There is a defense of even bad lobbying. It goes like this: You wouldn't need to be seeking advantage if the federal government had not appropriated for itself in the 20th century all kinds of powers, regulations, intrusions and manipulations (often through the tax code) that had never been presumed in the 19th century and certainly never imagined by the Founders. What appears to be rent-seeking is thus redress of a larger grievance -- insufferable government meddling in what had traditionally been considered an area of free enterprise.

Good lobbying, on the other hand, requires no such larger contextual explanation. It is a cherished First Amendment right -- necessary, like the others, to protect a free people against overbearing and potentially tyrannical government.

The worst he can say about Sen. McCain, is that he is too self-righteousness.

It must be said of McCain that he has invited such astonishingly thin charges against him because he has made a career of ostentatiously questioning the motives and ethics of those who have resisted his campaign finance reform and other measures that he imagines will render Congress influence-free.

Ostentatious self-righteousness may be a sin, but it is not a scandal.

Nor is it a crime or a form of corruption. The Times' story is a classic example of sloppy gotcha journalism. But it is also an example of how the demagoguery about lobbying has so penetrated the popular consciousness that the mere mention of it next to a prominent senator is thought to be enough to sustain an otherwise vaporous hit piece.

But of course, the hit piece wasn't just about lobbying. It was about romance. After all, the Times chose to illustrate it with a photo of the lobbyist in an evening gown rather than business attire. That wasn't likely a mistake.

And Kevin Williamson at NRO's Media Blog quotes someone who sees sexism in the hit piece.

Though it's not my usual way of looking at things, there's something to that charge. Consider for a moment that Vicky Iseman, in her early thirties, had developed a career of working for industries who trusted her to make her case to lawmakers. (Even if we don't assume, like Krauthammer, that such a career is noble.) She clearly was a successful professional. And how does the New York Times treat her? Like she's a trophy for a powerful man.

The dishonesty of the article is compounded by the collateral damage to Ms. Iseman and her reputation. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the Times much cares.

john mccain, lobbying.

Not closed

I recently commented on the closing arguments of the Enderlin/Karsenty case in France. Based on the information I had, I questioned how France 2 could have alleged that King Hussein visited Jamal al-Dura. After checking back with my source, he figured that he had been mis-informed about the incident. So I shouldn't have gone ahead with writing what I did, as it was so outlandish, I should have waited for confirmation. My mistake.

Council speak 02/29/08

The Council has spoken.

This week's winning council entry was In A PC Nation, How Will The GOP Run? by Cheat Seeking Missiles outlining the minefields Sen. McCain will have to negotiate if he is to go from Republican nominee to President. In runner-up, Obama (with links) & McCain's Petard, Wolf Howling rakes up some muck, finding that Sen. Obama not only is playing politics to affect the race for president but that he also manipulated the rules to grease the skids for his first election. I was honored to be voted into a tie, for runner-up for my entry, Find the adjectives.

In the non-council portion of the competition, my nominee, to Die in Jerusalem part II by My Shrapnel - a letter of protest to a producer who reduces terror to parallels was the winner. The runner-up was American Thinker's The fierce urgency of lies, a critical examination of the defenses thrown up by Sen. Obama's supporters.

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

watcher's council.

Shalom usa - sderot

I received an e-mail from Shalom USA that Sunday morning (9 - 11 AM EST) they will be devoting nearly the entire show to Sderot. One of their guests will be Alon Davidi, head of the Committee for a Secure Sderot. Also, for those of you who live in the Baltimore area be aware:

On Tuesday, March 4, Shalom USA Radio presents Alon Davidi of Sderot, founder and head of the Committee for a Secure Sderot. Mr. Davidi will speak at 7:30 pm at Suburban Orthodox Congregation. The event is free and open to the public. The Committee for a Secure Sderot was established for the purpose of strengthening the resilience of the city's residents, and helping residents cope with the various problems caused by the deteriorating security situation. Mr. Davidi just completed ten days of living in a tent in snow-bound Jerusalem, to raise public awareness of the plight of Sderot. In February, the Jerusalem Conference awarded to the Committee for a Secure Sderot its Prize for Jewish Bravery

In the Baltimore area you can catch Shalom USA on 1370 AM or, if not, on the internet.

sderot, shalom usa.

Before Muslim Protests Were All The Rage

Muslim groups protested and made demands even before 9-11, in the US. Daniel Pipes recalls an incident when CAIR made an unsuccessful attempt to have a statue of Mohammad removed:

In 1997, the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded that part of a 1930s frieze in the main chamber of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. be sandblasted into oblivion, on the grounds that Islam prohibits representations of its prophet. The seven-foot high marble relief by Adolph Weinman depicts Muhammad as one of 18 historic lawgivers. His left hand holds the Koran in book form (a jarring historical inaccuracy from the Muslim point of view) and his right holds a sword.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, however, rejected CAIR's pressure, finding that the depiction "was intended only to recognize [Muhammad] … as an important figure in the history of law; it is not intended as a form of idol worship." Rehnquist only conceded that court literature should mention that the representation offends Muslim sensibilities. His decision met with riots and injuries in India.

But not all attempts were equally unsuccessful.

In contrast, back in 1955, a campaign to censor a representation of Muhammad in another American court building did succeed. That would be the New York City-based courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department of the New York State Supreme Court. Built in 1902, it featured on its roof balustrade an eight-foot marble statue of "Mohammed" by Charles Albert Lopez as one of ten historic lawgivers. This Muhammad statue also held a Koran in his left hand and a scimitar in the right.

Daniel Pipes' point?

Recalling these events of 1955 suggests several points. First, pressure by Muslims on the West to conform to Islamic customs predates the current Islamist era. Second, even when minimal numbers of Muslims lived in the West, such pressures could succeed. Finally, contrasting the parallel 1955 and 1997 episodes suggests that the earlier approach of ambassadors making polite representations – not high-handed demands backed up by angry mobs, much less terrorist plots – can be the more effective route.

But note that Pipes' point is more than just to suggest that Muslims can and should utilize the normal channels available for protesting and bringing about change. Instead, the point he is trying to make is a good deal more controversial:

This conclusion confirms my more general point – and the premise of the Islamist Watch project – that Islamists working quietly within the system achieve more than ferocity and bellicosity. Ultimately, soft Islamism presents dangers as great as does violent Islamism.

Read the whole thing.

Pipes writes at The Islamist Watch Project about what he refers to as The Threat of Lawful Islamism--particularly about the changes being attempted in Western society:

Lawful Islamists advance their cause through lobbying politicians, intimidating the media, threatening international boycotts, making predatory use of the legal system, advancing novel legislation, influencing the contents of school textbooks, and in other ways exploiting the freedoms of an open society. They advance their agenda in incremental steps, each of which in itself is minor but in the aggregate point to fundamental changes in society. Here is a sampling of such steps taken by non-Muslims to accommodate Islamists:

• Sell land at discount prices for building mosques or other Islamic institutions.
• Ban Hindus and Jews from a jury hearing a criminal case against an Islamist in Great Britain.
• Allow a prisoner the unheard-of right to avoid strip-searches in New York State.
• Let students in public (i.e., taxpayer-funded) schools use empty classrooms for prayers in New Jersey.
• Permit public schools and public airwaves to be used to convert non-Muslims.
• Recognize polygamous marriages for tax purposes in the United Kingdom.
• Set aside women-only bathing at a municipal swimming pool in France or use taxpayer funds for Muslim women-only swimming times in Washington State.
• Arrange for women-only classes at a taxpayer-supported university.
• Blame women for being the victims of rape by Muslim men in Norway.
• Develop a special hijab for female Muslim employees of a leading home furnishing company, sporting the corporate logo.
• Ban the use of piggybanks—the symbol of frugality—in their advertising by two major British banks.
• Establish panels, councils, or advisory boards uniquely for Muslims.
• Authorize Muslim-only neighborhoods or events.
• Apply the "Rushdie rules" – accepting Islamist intimidation and silencing critics of Islam.
• Punish anti-Islamic views through the application of criminal charges, as has occurred to critics of Islam in Australia and Canada.
• Prohibit families from sending pork or pork by-products or "Any matter containing religious materials contrary to Islamic faith" to U.S. military personnel serving in the Middle East.
• Require that female American soldiers in Saudi Arabia wear U.S. government-issued abayas.

And you thought Campus Watch was controversial.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Islam and Daniel Pipes and Islamist Watch.

Are you grid enough?

Daled Amos recently commented on the implications of Egypt supplying electricity to Gaza.

Now Jordan is set to start supplying electricity to Jericho. Jordan, of course, claims that only humanitarian concerns are involved.

Jordanian officials insisted the Jericho hookup is only to help Palestinians and has no hidden political goal. "It's meant to meet Palestinian power needs," said Nasser Judeh, the minister for information.

Maybe, but one observer sees a little more:

But Jordanian political analyst Saleh Zaytoun said the new supply does carry "political overtones." He called it "reminiscent of the custodianship the countries (Jordan and Egypt) once provided" for the Palestinian territories.

"[C]ustodianship?" Between 1948 and 1967 Egypt and Jordan were holding onto Gaza and the west bank of the Jordan River as custodian for the Palestinians? So that means during those nineteen years the Arabs supported the cause of Palestinian independence and were just holding onto the lands for the benefit of the Palestinian people.

Give me a break. They didn't care about Palestinian statehood any more then than they do now. Palestinian statehood is a cause that only had resonance once it could be used against Israel. Create a Palestinian state and there's no need to hate Israel. Of course that hate is important than the state. Even now.

On a side note: The reporters name is Jamal Halaby. Does anyone know if he's related to Queen Noor?

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, egypt, jordan.

Occupation saves babies

You read an article like this:

A report commissioned by the United Nations says Palestinian terrorism is the "inevitable consequence" of Israeli occupation — a claim Israel rejected Tuesday as inflammatory.

The report — posted on the U.N. Human Rights Council's Web site — says that while Palestinian terrorist acts are deplorable, "they must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation."

The report accuses the Jewish state of acts and policies consistent with all three.

and you wonder how does it jibe with this?

Palestinian Infant Mortality Rate Lowest in Arab Countries

Or as LGF writes:

For all of the wailing and screaming over Israel’s brutality toward Palestinians, here’s a chart helpfully provided by Reuters Alertnet showing that infant mortality in the Palestinian Authority is lower than in any of the surrounding Arab countries.

Ironically, even the person who seemingly commissioned the report doesn't seem much impressed with it.

The 25-page report will be presented next month to the 47-nation rights council, which has been criticized — even by its founder, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan — for spending most of its time reproaching one government, Israel's, over alleged abuses.

Has Kofi Annan shed his anti-Israel stance since retiring as Secretary General?

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel.

Less popular than the president

Rasmussen Reports that

Just 24% of American voters have a favorable opinion of the New York Times. Forty-four percent (44%) have an unfavorable opinion and 31% are not sure. The paper’s ratings are much like a candidate’s and divide sharply along partisan and ideological lines.

As I expected, Don Surber didn't let this one go.

Bush?

35% favorable, 61% unfavorable, Rasmussen reported.

Granted, NYT’s net of -20 is better than Bush’s -26 net.

But still, he is the president. He has the 48% of the country that voted for John Kerry predisposed to disliking him.

What’s the New York Times’s excuse?

Maybe President Bush doesn't criticize and attack the Times with the same frequency that the Times does the administration.

via memeorandum.

new york times, president bush.

Trading attacks

The New York Times reports on yesterday's violence in southern Israel, Hamas and Israelis Trade Attacks, Killing Several (via memeorandum - the headline, BTW, is much better than one that appeared in South Africa. It's a problem in Australia too.)

Not much remarkable about the article.

Palestinians said two of the militants killed in the first Israeli strike were Abdullah Edwan, a rocket engineer, and Muhammad Abu Aker, a rocket squad commander. Residents said the men were going to a training camp in southern Gaza. Two were masked, they said, and returned from Iran three weeks ago.

Relatives of Mr. Edwan, who was said to have been the main strike target, said he was trained in Syria and Iran. Two other militants were wounded, medical officials said.

The chief of Israeli military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, told Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday that Gaza militants had undergone intensive training in Syria and Iran and had taken advantage of the recent 11-day breach of Gaza’s border with Egypt to return to Gaza.

"Rocket squad commander" and "rocket engineer?" It makes them sound like civil service positions. Given that Hamas rules Gaza, maybe they are. My preferred term would be "terrorists."

But what's also revealing is that the Israeli fear that the breach in the border fence would allow terrorists and materiel to enter Gaza has been confirmed. ArabNews reported the same thing.

The one Israeli killed in the qassam attacks, was killed at the Sapir College, leading Backspin to wonder:

Expect those sniveling UK academics to speak out?

And though a Qassam landed in the parking lot of a hospital, I doubt that we'll hear a lot of outrage that a hospital was attacked.

To keep track of the latest see Israelly Cool!.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, hamas.

Closing arguments

Roger L. Simon is correct when he writes:

I was up early this morning to help with PJM's ongoing coverage of the Al Dura Trial in Paris. We seem to be almost alone in the US media bothering with this trial, yet it has arguably tremendous historical significance.

Of course the U.S. media, and, I suspect the media around much of the world are incapable of introspection. The Enderlin/Karsenty case reflects badly on the media and their capacity to remain objective observers.

From what I've read of the case so far, France 2 has been incredibly arrogant in its approach. Back in Novermber its behavior led observers to believe that in an American court, the network would have been held in contempt for its correspondent's blatant falsehoods on the stand.

According to Backspin that same old arrogance was evident today:

"It was a fight of the institutional thinking," said Mozes. "The strongest argument France 2 could come up with is that Charles Enderlin is an institution in this country. They said that [Jamal] Al-Dura was visited by King Hussein, which shows how important this case is. France 2 wanted to show how respected personalities participated. They hardly challenged the facts and preferred to play up the players and institutions involved."

This is beyond belief. The event in question occurred at the end of September 2000. King Hussein died February 1999, about 20 months earlier. So his visit to Jamal al-Dura was really important: either he was divinely prescient or he returned from the grave. I'm surprised that no one called France 2 on that. [see below]

Regardless, Phillippe Karsenty isn't out of the woods. Backspin's correspondent writes:

Mozes said the French TV network's lawyers also sought to discredit Karsenty with handwriting analysis, treating him him as lightweight. "They ridiculed him, like, how dare he criticize an institution like France 2" Mozes said.

Will the three-judge panel break from the conventional wisdom? That's the million dollar question. "It'll require a lot of courage," Mozes said, crediting Judge Laurence Trebucq for giving Karsenty time and leeway to show all the material he wanted.

Although Mozes described Karsenty's presentation as "cool and articulate," Mozes suggests Karsenty may have overprepared. "There are so many strong arguments showing that something isn't right with the video. Karsenty got lost in a huge number of arguments, rather than hammer home at three or four."

For more background see this video interview with Tom Gross.

UPDATE: Originally Backspin reported that it was King Hussein. When I pointed out that King Hussein had already died at that time, my contact realized that the problem might have been in the transmission of the information. In an NYT story on the subject, it mentions Jordan's king. It's possible that France 2 used the same designation and the correspondent accidentally substituted the name of the longstanding monarch.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, media bias, karsenty, enderlin.

Obama To Jews: Ich Nisht Bin Ein Muslim!

“I am not a Muslim and I never have been. I never studied at a Madrassa and I have never sworn on the Koran. I am committed to Christianity.”
Barack Obama

And to think that when they started comparing Obama to Kennedy, I didn't take them seriously.

Allison Kaplan Sommer looks at Obama's first personal appearance in front of a group of 100 Jewish leaders in Cleveland, in an effort to allay their fears.

Instead, some of his statements in the forum raised concerns, notably when he was quoted as saying

“I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel… If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress.”

Now, Obama has an interview with Yediot Aharonot. The full interview will come out at the end of the week, but in the meantime, Sommer has a translation of 3 questions with Obama's responses.

We assume Obamas will not make the same mistake twice.

Read the whole thing.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Barack Obama.

Palestinian 'Gridlock'?

Abbas cannot prove himself by making the trains run on time, but he is going to show Gazans that he is the man by connecting more areas of Gaza to Egypt's electricity grid:

The proposal also would bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' claim to represent Gaza, which was taken over last June by the Hamas militant group after routing Abbas' forces. Abbas now rules from the West Bank and wields little control over Gaza.

Hamas is actually on board with this, claiming that it will strengthen ties with their fellow Arabs and make them less dependent on Israel.

At Contentions, David Hazony notes who the actual winners of this tactic actually are:

The transfer of Gaza to Egypt’s electrical grid is a major step towards enabling Israel to wash its hands of Gaza, making it Egypt’s problem–which is what I had previously insisted was really happening with the blockade and its subsequent breach. The winners in this transfer are Israel (which wants to be able to say it’s not occupying anything in Gaza) and Hamas (which is becoming increasingly in charge of what happens in the Palestinian territories); the losers are the PA (which is incapable of maintaining control over the territory it has been given) and Egypt (which has no desire whatsoever to be responsible for Gaza, but now finds itself with little choice). Now we just need to wait for the international community to recognize that when Israel pulls out of “occupied” territory and cuts its economic ties, it cannot be simultaneously blamed for both a “blockade” and an “occupation.” It’s one or the other–or maybe neither.

On the other hand, while Eric Trager agrees with Hazony for the most part, it could be that it's the Palestinians as a whole who will lose. The Hamas view that "the better you know us, the more you'll love us" is not panning out:

Consider the sudden shift in public debate at the American University in Cairo. Although AUC has long been a hotbed of anti-Israel activism, students are exhibiting a staggering decline in their enthusiasm for the Palestinian cause, with a rift developing between a small cadre of pro-Palestinian activists—most of whom are Palestinian—and the rest of the student body. Last week, the pro-Palestinian Al-Quds Club organized the “End the Siege on Gaza” sit-in—an effort that was heavily promoted on campus and via Facebook. During the demonstration, protesters held posters accusing Israel of terrorism and ominously vowing, “Palestine, we die so we can live!” Meanwhile, student speakers compared Gaza to a cage—all in all, typical rhetoric that the AUC student body had long embraced as doctrine.

Yet the student body—which is roughly 80% Egyptian—was hardly impressed. According to The Caravan, turnout was far less than expected, with students noticeably uninterested in the sit-in.

Come to think of it, there really is no reason for Palestinian Arabs to be any more popular in Egypt than they are in Lebanon, Iraq and Kuwait.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Palestinians.

Is it bad to be pro-likud?

The other day the Jerusalem Post reported on some comments Sen. Obama made (via memeorandum):

"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel," leading Democratic presidential contender Illinois Senator Barack Obama said Sunday.

"If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress," he said.

He also criticized the notion that anyone who asks tough questions about advancing the peace process or tries to secure Israel by anyway other than "just crushing the opposition" is being "soft or anti-Israel."

(A complete transcript is here.)

Matthew Yglesias is encouraged by the comments:

This is music to my ears and, frankly, very much the attitude that's Israel's long-term future requires. Still, in some quarters the man may as well have just festooned himself with swastikas.

Elder of Ziyon disposes of this nonsense efficiently

It is curious that Obama is adopting an apparently anti-Likud stance. Likud, after all, was responsible for Camp David and the surrender of the Sinai to Egypt; and Likud was in power when Gaza was abandoned.

Obama's statement seems even more naive when the latest polls in Israel show Likud handily beating Kadima and Labor. As Shmuel Rosner asks, does this mean that a President Obama would not support a Likud prime minister?

Also, as The American Thinker observes, the word "Likud" has turned into a generalized anti-Israel term by the far left, pretty much their equivalent to "Taliban." It is hard to read Obama's comment as anything but influenced by the strong anti-Likud stance of people who clearly are anti-Israel.

As far as Rosner's question goes, if a hypothetical President Obama is anything like former President Clinton, the answer is "yes." As this article reminds us:

In the last two months, Mr. Arafat has traveled Europe and the Arab world extensively, from Finland to Bahrain. At his meeting on Tuesday with President Clinton, the second in recent months, it is highly unlikely that the President will promise to recognize a Palestinian state in the future. The Clinton Administration has long insisted that both Israelis and Palestinians refrain from taking any unilateral action on the issues -- like statehood -- that are supposed to be hammered out in the final status negotiations between them.

But Mr. Clinton gives Mr. Arafat a kind of international recognition just by meeting with him -- especially given what the Israelis have dubbed the American ''snub diplomacy'' toward their Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

(Actually "snub diplomacy" was an American term mentioned in a Washington Post article a year earlier.)

This is how President Clinton acted and it undermined Netanyahu and brought Ehud Barak and the Labor Party to power. Prime Minister Barak was a lot more cooperative with President Clinton and withdrew Israeli troops from Lebanon and continued negotiating with Yasser Arafat, including an attempt to give Arafat nearly everything he wanted at Camp David in July 2000.

We now know that the withdrawal from Lebanon strengthened Hezbollah and led to the eventual war with that terrorist organization. Clinton's failure to side with Netanyahu and challenge Arafat to comply with signed agreements led to the so-called Aqsa intidfadah.

I know, as Elder of Ziyon observes, that "Likud" is an insult meant to dismiss a political opponent as ideological and impervious to reason. President Clinton worked against the Likud Prime Minister during his presidency and Israel paid a very high price.

If that's what Sen. Obama advocates by his pro-Likud statement, then I think it's safe to say that he doesn't have Israel's (or frankly, America's) best interests in mind.

Crossposted on Yourish.

barack obama, israel.

Radical preachers

In When Jihad came to America, Andrew McCarthy sketches a brief history of the blind Sheikh and his followers, especially El Sayyid Nosair, who killed Rabbi Meir Kahane, and the failure of authorities to tie them to the larger evil that they served. Still at the end McCarthy asks:

Would a successful interdiction of Kahane’s murderer, or swift and thorough investigation of Abdel Rahman’s circle in its aftermath, have prevented the monstrous deeds of subsequent years? That is of course unknowable. But an aggressive effort by United States authorities would have indicated a seriousness of purpose toward the threat of Islamic terrorism that itself might have changed the story of our times for the better. We still live, and will continue to live, with the consequences of our own blindness.

It is unknowable. It also recalls an article by Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson who observed that information from the terror trials of those who blew up the American embassies in Africa told us that:

In the often long waits between terrorist attacks, Al-Qaeda's member organizations maintained operational readiness by acting under the cover of front-company businesses and nonprofit, tax-deductible religious charities. These nongovernmental groups, many of them still operating, are based mainly in the U.S. and Britain, as well as in the Middle East. The Qatar Charitable Society, for example, has served as one of bin Laden's de facto banks for raising and transferring funds.

Osama bin Laden also set up a tightly organized system of cells in an array of American cities, including Brooklyn, N.Y.; Orlando, Fla.; Dallas; Santa Clara, Calif.; Columbia, Mo., and Herndon, Va.

This was written at the end of May, 2001. That date makes it almost prescient. Again its unknowable whether or not a more aggressive approach towards Al Qaeda operatives on American soil would have prevented 9/11. My suspicion was that the American based cells likely helped provide logistics for the 19 terrorists, but that has never been established.

So it's interesting to read this article, Imam From Va. Mosque Now Thought to Have Aided Al-Qaeda in light of the knowledge of the degree to which Al Qaeda cells were operating on American soil.

The FBI also learned that Aulaqi was visited in early 2000 by a close associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the blind sheik, who was convicted of conspiracy in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and that he had ties to people raising money for the radical Palestinian movement Hamas, according to Congress and the 9/11 Commission report.

But the bureau lacked enough evidence to bring a case, and closed its investigation. Around the same time, two future Sept. 11 hijackers -- Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, fresh from an al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia -- turned up at Aulaqi's San Diego mosque in early 2000.

Witnesses later told the FBI that Aulaqi had a close relationship with the hijackers in San Diego. "Several persons informed the FBI after September 11 that this imam had closed-door meetings in San Diego with al-Mihdhar, al-Hazmi and another individual," the Joint House-Senate Inquiry reported. In press interviews at the time, Aulaqi denied having such contacts.

This doesn't prove my suspicion, but it suggests that my suspicion was correct.

Taken together all three articles illustrate that the possibility of more terror on American soil was very real. One thing that the Bush administration deserves credit for is keeping the homeland safe. I don't think after 9/11 it was obvious that we wouldn't be struck again.

Crossposted on Yourish.

al qaeda.

Mshari Al-Zaydi: "The party believes that borders are nothing but mud barriers and that we are all just martyrdom projects"

This is a stunning article in some ways. You might not be so unreserved yourself about grouping Egypt and Saudi Arabia with the forces for "stability, calm and peace," but you have to admit that Al-Zaydi has Iran's number (and that of its minions and satellites). On that score he has a lot to teach all but a select few Western commentators.

[...] The Arab region is divided between some parties who seek to transform it into a land of strife, war, martyrdom and another Karbala, such as illustrated by some of the slogans raised in the Iranian demonstrations that hailed Lebanon as 'Karbala' following the assassination of Mughniyeh. However, there are also those who want to head in another direction towards progress, developing the economy and catching up with the contemporary world. Such a contradiction may be summarized as: the two cultures [trends] of life and death and it can be used to describe the conflict between these two visions, such as those of Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran and Syria on the one hand, and the March 14 Coalition Forces, Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the other. The latter culture is one that propagates stability, calm and peace and is against revolutionary trends, suicide operations and weapons.

This is why Hezbollah, Iran and those that orbit in the same circles should not expect the world to praise or commemorate Imad Mughniyeh since his life and efforts – and even his death – reflect the interests of a hostile party, namely Iran and its supporters. My approach is not one that stems from Sunni-Shia sectarianism to which I oppose strongly; rather it emerges from a practical description of reality.

What I am referring to is the audacious manipulation of Khomeini's Iran of all Shia followers around the world with the intention of attaching them to pure Iranian interest under holy slogans about al Hussein's blood and the symbolism of Karbala. Exalted slogans that evoke religious sentiments become provocative and rebellious and ultimately only serve the interests of the Iranian political agenda, and moreover do nothing to quell the rebellious groups that are far from the Iranian territories.

Division among the Arabs has reached unprecedented depths; compliments and rehashed words about the interests, dreams and objectives of the Arab nation are useless, as are the tours and statements issued by Amr Moussa [Secretary-General of the League of Arab States].

So, which Arabs are we referring to? Are they the Arabs of Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, or the Arabs of Egypt and Saudi Arabia? Is it the procession of Arab martyrs, bomb devices, the media of martyrdom and the war on America and "death to the United States"? Or is it about the Arabs for globalization, education and sustainable development? Are we referring to the Arabs of Dubai or those of the southern neighborhood [Lebanon]?

We are all suffering a chronic state of division and differences. Regardless of our position towards his personality or history, when Walid Jumblatt speaks about the impossibility of coexisting with the culture of Hezbollah, he touches upon an open wound – notwithstanding the anger that it evokes among Nasrallah's supporters and the Syrian 'orphans' in Lebanon.

All it takes is tuning into Al-Manar TV, which is affiliated to Hezbollah, to gauge your feelings and reactions. You will find yourself bombarded by scenes of martyrs, death, explosions and songs of praise for suicide bombers and other media tools that are only dedicated to one purpose: to glorify the dead and persuade the living to seek the same end so that they may share the same fate as the archetypal martyr: al Hussein. And it goes on and on…

But if you happen to change the channel to any other, even if it were the Disney Channel you would suddenly feel as if you had just exited a stifling steam room to an open space with fresh air and scenes of life; a place where death does not reign.

The culture of Hezbollah that Walid Jumblatt refers to is a death culture – even if some turbaned members of the party try to convey otherwise. Only a few days ago, Hezbollah affiliates appeared on Al-Manar saying that the party's martyrs are the ones responsible for spreading life since the afterlife is eternal!

Notwithstanding their words, the truth is quite different. Based on this transcendental culture that claims to be founded upon divine vindication and heavenly purity; this culture that governs Hezbollah is an exception on every level and is quite different from the rest of the misguided groups that are far removed from the light of faith and religion.

Among these exceptional characteristics is the lack of any real dependence on the state and nation since Hezbollah seeks a deeper aim; that is, Islamic unity under the symbol of the Supreme Guide, bless his holy secret. The party believes that borders are nothing but mud barriers and that we are all just martyrdom projects that will only exist until Judgment Day and the advent of the Awaited Mahdi [the Savior among Shia Muslims].

Indeed, this is the mobilizing culture that drives vital youth to become reduced to nothing but guns and bombs that heed the direction of Sayyed Nasrallah or follow the orders of Hajj Radwan. And this is exactly what happens to their Sunni counterparts who have been recruited as the soldiers of Al-Qaeda and other Islamic movements that adopt the Salafist Jihadist approaches – they are the sons of heavens not of this world.

A friend of Imad Mughniyeh's mother told Asharq Al-Awsat (18 February 2008) that even thought they had succeeded in killing Imad, hundreds who adopt the same approach would emerge. And although she may have exaggerated the figure, her prediction rings true. The ceaseless spawning of similar candidates is a defect and shortcoming and certainly not a reason to praise and rejoice. How could we, or even Hezbollah and their affiliates, be proud and praise this abundance of suicide bombers and their mentors?!

The defect, originally, is a defect in culture and mindset. Even if Hezbollah were to liberate the Shebaa farms and free the prisoners held in Israeli prisons, it would still not mean that it would shift into becoming a civil party with a civil ideology and a civil vision. The party will not stop generating individuals who are obsessed with death and martyrdom since its very structure is built upon 'resistance', as Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah told the 'understanding' General Michel Aoun in their second meeting. And yet, the very thing that makes Nasrallah proud of the nature and essence of his party is precisely what concerns and alarms us about it.

But this time Hezbollah's leader and the Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Ali Jaafari have raised the ceiling of their demands and the party's arms and ideology have now become entangled with Israel. As such, the aim behind Hezbollah's armament, and therefore its culture and exceptional nature, is to annihilate Israel!

This is why after the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh; Nasrallah came out to say that his blood would wipe out Israel. A few days later General Jaafari offered his condolences and support to Mughniyeh's supporters and said that Hezbollah would eliminate the Israeli virus “soon” according to Asharq Al-Awsat as reported by the Iranian Fars News Agency (FNA).

Thus, Hezbollah’s arms and culture will always exist until Israel no longer exists . . .

See the original article for the punch-line. See this for some of the references.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Submitted 02/26/08

The Watcher's Council nominations are up.

Mrs. Obama's ‘Proud’ Remark: It's the GOP's Fault - The Colossus of Rhodey explicates Mrs. Obama's remarks about being proud of the United States and explains that the very liberalism that she subscribes to is what identifies her as part of group and not an individual.
Packer on Iraq - Done With Mirrors critiques an essay about Iraq by war critic George Packer. Though he approves of the essay on the whole, he has some criticisms.
Unforced Errors - The Glittering Eye argues that, while well-intentioned, America's intervention in the Balkans was actually counter to American interests.
Obama (with links) & McCain's Petard - Wolf Howling raises questions about Sen. Obama's role in preventing the appointment of at least a quorum of FEC commissioners and relates it to an effort he undertook in his first campaign to manipulate the democratic system.
Associated Press, Like Others, Retails Malicious Rumor as "Reporting" - Big Lizards goes after an AP report that dishonestly paints Sen. McCain with the same brush as ex-Pres Clinton and Gov. McGreevey. Of course that implies something that hasn't been proven and seems very unlikely to have happened.
In A PC Nation, How Will The GOP Run? - Cheat Seeking Missiles wonders how the Republicans will run against the first black or female major party nominee and why the Republicans haven't started working on that problem yet. One possibility is to get Ken Blackwell, Lynn Swann and Michael Steele to campaign. After all apparently it was OK to vote against them even though they are black.
The Pursuit of Happiness - Bookworm Room notes that California's constitution effectively guarantees people happiness itself, even without the pursuit. She follows such silliness to its logical ends and what it implies.
John Murtha: Porker of the Year! - The Education Wonks observes that Nancy Pelosi's ally has won a new award. Not one that's likely to adorn his congressional office, though.
"I'd rather be with God against man than with man against God..." - Joshuapundit recounts the story of a Portuguese diplomat, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who chose to save Jews during the Holocaust even at the cost of his career, standing and wealth. An important piece of history.
An Ethics Flap That Isn't - Rhymes With Right looks at factors that show the flimsiness the NYT's allegations against Sen. McCain. For one, if it was significant, why did the Times endorse McCain? For another he points to the sum one company donated to Sen. McCain and was impressed by how small it was.
Still At Risk: The Shocking Ignorance of Our Young - Right Wing Nut House laments the failure of our educational system to provide a basic knowledge of our cultural heritage to the current generation of students.
Find the Adjectives - Wolf Howling credits me with using a "semantic scalpel" to dissect an article from the Washington Post about Israel and Gaza.

My nominee for non-council post is My Shrapnel's, To Die in Jerusalem, Part II, in which she, a survivor of a terror attack, punctures the pretensions of a director who is so interested in parallelism, she misses some real stories.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

In Proportion To What?

In The Sderot Calculus, Bret Stephens addresses the absurdity of some of the arguments made against Israel's attempts to defend Sderot.

There is the argument that no matter how unbearable life may be in Sderot, life in Gaza is worse, an argument that conveniently ignores the fact that to the degree that conditions in Gaza are caused by Israel--as opposed to Hamas misrule--it is a direct result of those Kassams launched against Sderot. Without these terrorist attacks, there would be no siege.

More common is the argument that any Israeli response to Palestinian terrorism much be 'proportionate'. When viewed objectively, this argument is just absurd, especially when we see that every attempt by Israel to comply with claims of humanitarian concerns is just met with new claims, while the most basic right of self-defense is ignored:

Does the "proportion" apply to the intention of those firing the Kassams -- to wit, indiscriminate terror against civilian populations? In that case, a "proportionate" Israeli response would involve, perhaps, firing 2,500 artillery shells at random against civilian targets in Gaza. Or should proportion apply to the effects of the Kassams -- an exquisitely calibrated, eye-for-eye operation involving the killing of a dozen Palestinians and the deliberate maiming or traumatizing of several hundred more?

Surely this isn't what advocates of proportion have in mind. What they really mean is that Israel ought to respond with moderation. But the criteria for moderation are subjective. Should Israel pick off Hamas leaders who are ordering the rocket attacks? The European Parliament last week passed a resolution denouncing the practice of targeted assassinations. Should Israel adopt purely economic measures to punish Hamas for the Kassams? The same resolution denounced what it called Israel's "collective punishment" of Palestinians. Should Israel seek to dismantle the Kassams through limited military incursions? This, too, has the unpardonable effect of resulting in too many Palestinian casualties, which are said to be "disproportionate" to the number of Israelis injured by the Kassams.

By these lights, Israel's presumptive right to self-defense has no practical application as far as Gaza is concerned. Instead, Israel is counseled to allow goods to flow freely into the Strip, and to negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas.

Compliance with international demands, with their limited concern for real human rights, will only continue to help Palestinian terrorists while tying the hands of Israel.

Stephens concludes with a precedent for Israel in American history. While Congressman Weldon compares Palestinian terrorists in Gaza with Japan in WWII, Stephens looks earlier:

On March 9, 1916, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked the border town of Columbus, N.M., killing 18 Americans. President Woodrow Wilson ordered Gen. John J. Pershing and 10,000 soldiers into Mexico for nearly a year to hunt Villa down, in what was explicitly called a "punitive expedition." Pershing never found Villa, making the effort something of a failure. Then again, Villa's raid would be the last significant foreign attack on continental U.S. soil for 85 years, six months and two days.

Once upon a time, countries did what they thought was necessary to protect their citizens from attacks. Today, we have to look in history books to find examples of countries that take who they are and what they stand for seriously.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel.

Juggling carnivals 02/26/08

Incoming Carnivals

Kosher Cooking Carnival #27 is up at Gillian's Food History.

Jack's Shack hosted the 155th edition - the I fell asleep at my keyboard edition - Haveil Havalim - the Jewish/Israel blogging carnival. If you see the shear amount of material he accumulated he not only didn't sleep in a bed last week, he likely didn't eat at the table either.

And of course many thanks to Dr. Sanity for linking to a post of mine in the latest Carnival of the Insanities. Check out posts by Yid with Lid, Simply Jews, Contentions, Wolf Howling, Israel Matzav, Judeopundit and much, much more!

blog carnivals.

Red, blue, purple

The Washington Post, last week, explored the subject of Sen. Obama's appeal in Red States and how it might work in November.

"We aren't going to have 47 percent on one side, 47 percent on the other side, 5 percent in the middle, and they all live in Ohio and Florida and you only campaign in two states," Obama often tells audiences.

His talk of exploding the map has been helped by McCain's emergence as the likely GOP nominee, since McCain has received relatively weak support in many of the red states in which Obama hopes to do well, in the South and Plains. But while Obama has shown an ability to reshape voting patterns, his record in the primaries suggests that he still has a ways to go in making significant inroads in Republican states.

The red states where he has won have tended to be in the Deep South, where victories were based on overwhelming support from African Americans, or in mostly white states in the Midwest and West, where he relied on a core of ardent backers to carry him in caucuses, which favor candidates with enthusiastic supporters. He has not fared as well in areas that fall in between, with populations that are racially diverse but lack a black population large enough to boost Obama to victory.

Some political scientists say this suggests that Obama will have an easier time with white voters in more racially homogeneous GOP-leaning states than in states where a mixed population has introduced a more difficult racial dynamic. The University of Kansas's Burdett Loomis points to Interstate 70, which cuts across Kansas, Missouri and southern Illinois, as a sort of dividing line between the red-state areas to the north, where Obama has done well and those areas where he has struggled.

"You get below I-70, and race may play a role," he said. "You get to southern Missouri, and you're really moving south. And Oklahoma has some of those elements, too."

One aspect of Sen. Obama's support that the Post leaves out is that he appeals to a higher income segment of the population.

On the other hand Don Surber looks at some of the early polling data and sees that John McCain is surprisingly strong in Blue States.

The Powerline guys look at different polling and see McCain as the fusion candidate (at least for now.) (via memeorandum)

Obama's numbers are virtually indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton's. Thirty-four percent of respondents say they will definitely vote for him, but 43 percent say they will definitely vote against him, a net -9 (not -7 as the Rasmussen chart indicates). It is John McCain who breaks the mold: the same number, 34 percent, say they definitely will vote for him, but only 33 percent are committed to voting against McCain. So far, at least, it is McCain, not Obama, who shows the potential to unite Americans across a broad ideological spectrum.

Despite the hype, others have observed that Sen. Obama has an unwaveringly liberal voting record. Unlike Sen. McCain who has legislation to his name that shows cross-aisle cooperation and was a member of the bi-partisan "gang of 14" Sen. Obama has voted and acted along universally liberal lines in the Senate. The record, in this case - if bi-partisanship is valued by the electorate - clearly favors Sen. McCain.

john mccain, barack obama.

Musical monday #35

Sorry, I posted this late.

You know the drill. All the songs are united by something. A theme or common denominator. Your mission, should you choose it is to identify the songs and figure out the theme. Good luck.

If you haven't taken a look at last week's Musical Monday #34, please do. It's the classic of the genre. Yes I know the answers have been posted, but don't look in the comments. Check it out, you won't be disappointed. And remember next Monday to look at Elie's Expositions where it's his turn.

And without further ado, here's #35.

1) You tell me mistakes, Are part of being young
2) She played around and teased me with her carefree devil eyes
3) My money's low and my suit's out of style,
4) I'm so young and you're so old
5) It's hurtin' me more each minute that you delay
6) Judy and Johnny just walked through the door
7) 'Cause you think you can be true to two
8) Maybe all you need's a shoulder to cry on
9) Those weak words you whispered, were nothing but lies
10) Could it be a faded rose from days gone by
11) My mother says you're playing a game
12) Twenty people knocking 'cause they're wanting some more
13) And I can take you to the nearest star
14) A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view.
15) Now it's "us", now it's "we"
16) I played with your heart, got lost in the game
17) The DJ knows my voice now
18) Plant a rose, you can plant any one of those
UPDATE: I forgot a few
19) You broke my heart, 'Cause I couldn't dance
(I have heard that this fit the pattern, but I haven't found anything online confirming it)
20) Love is a losing game
21) An empty house, a broken fairy tale

Here are the answers to Musical Monday #33. As Fiery Spirited Zionist figured out the theme was groups with "and the" in their names. Thanks also to Clayton, JudeoPundit, Elie's Expositions and Rubicon3 for playing. Did I take too many liberties?

1) He blew up very suddenly I guess his name was probably Bruce
Balloon Man - Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
2) Uno, dos, one, two, tres, quatro
Wooly Bully - Sam the Sham and the Pharohs
3) I hit cruise control and rubbed my eyes
Runnin down a dream - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
4) I knew he must a been about seventeen
I love Rock 'n Roll - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
5) There's no reason why my being shy should keep us apart
Going out of my head - Little Anthony and the Imperials
6) Now I don't want you back for the weekend, not back for a day
Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
7) Well there's a brand new place I found-a
Going to a Go Go - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
8) Cause the dolphins make me cry
Only Wanna be with You - Hootie and the Blowfish
9) We thought about someone else, but neither one took the bait
Stuck with You - Huey Lewis and the News
10) And when the sun comes up, I'll be on top
96 Tears - Questionmark and the Mysterians
11) Well, there's nothin' that you ain't tried, To fill the emptiness inside
Kicks - Paul Revere and the Raiders
12) We’ve done no wrong with our blinkers on it’s safe and calm if you sing along
Happy House - Siouxsie and the Banshees
13) Here's my story, sad but true
Runaround Sue - Dion and the Belmonts
14) We're gonna load it up baby now
Shotgun - Jr. Walker and the All-Stars
15) Instinct is the common lawyer
All that Jazz - Echo and the Bunnymen
16) A cool evening dance
Mandolin Rain - Bruce Hornsby and the Range
17) Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box
What I am - Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians
18) Cocaine Katy
Cover of the Rolling Stone - Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show
19) ...take a look at you, then I'm not so blue
Groovy kind of Love - Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders
20) Well they've got a new dance and it goes like this
Peppermint Twist - Joey Dee and the Starliters
21) In Houston we just started a new dance
Tighten up - Archie Bell and the Drells
22) Our dreams have magic
Our day will come - Ruby and the Romantics
23) Freedom came my way one day
I shot the Sheriff - Bob Marley and the Wailers
24) I'm telling you right away
I'm telling you now - Freddy and the Dreamers
25) This stone is genuine like love should be
This Diamond Ring - Gary Lewis and the Playboys
26) She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes
Night Moves - Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band
27) But now you're sad, your mama's mad
Rosalita - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
28) There's a thrill upon the hill
Let's go, Let's go, Let's go - Hank Ballard and the Midnighters
29) But is her sweet expression, Worth more than my love and affection ?
Stop! In the name of Love - Diana Ross and the Supremes

Find the adjectives

We all know that in journalism it is the job of the reporter to answer 5 W's - Who, what, where, when, and why. Usually some combination of nouns and verbs - with perhaps some articles, adverbs and prepositions - will suffice. So when you start seeing a proliferation of adjectives you need to ask, "what else is the reporter telling me?"

For our first edition of "Find the adjective" we will explicate In Israel, Some See No Option but War
By Griff Witte of the Washington Post.

Here's the setup:

SDEROT, Israel -- Aharon Peretz has spent most of his 51 years in this cactus-fringed, working-class town, and he would like to stay.

But his wife and six children feel differently: Daily retreats to the basement during rocket strikes from the nearby Gaza Strip have frayed their nerves, and an attack that cost an uncle both his legs has convinced them it's time to go.

Peace will return for his family, Peretz has decided, only if Israel chooses to go to war with his neighbors.

Now here's the next paragraph:

"There is no other option," he said. "Israel must enter Gaza and deal seriously with those who are launching these Qassams," as the crude rockets are known.

What's the only adjective that the reporter uses? Did you say "crude?" Why that's 100% correct! Excellent. So what is the reporter telling us? Why he must be telling us that the threat of the Qassams is not that great because it's a "crude" rocket. See how enlightening this exercise is!

OK. Ready for the next paragraph?

That sentiment is gaining currency across Israel, and the political rhetoric is growing more bellicose. With each new barrage of rockets, the government comes under greater pressure to conduct a massive military operation that might improve conditions in Sderot, but could also entail heavy casualties on both sides and further undermine the already anemic U.S.-backed peace process.

Hmm. Let's see there's "bellicose" and "massive" and "heavy." So immediately after minimizing the threat to Israel, the reporter uses words to show that Israel's response would be "massive." Implicitly, he's saying that a response from Israel will necessarily be out of proportion to the threat.

Another paragraph and more adjectives:

The government has so far resisted the calls for a wider war beyond its present Gaza strategy of intense political pressure, a crushing economic embargo and frequent military strikes targeting those suspected of responsibility for the rockets. A full-scale invasion, officials say, could backfire and benefit Hamas, the armed Islamic movement that controls the territory. Israel also insists it does not want to be drawn back into Gaza less than three years after it withdrew its settlers and troops.

Now this paragraph is a bit trickier, because some of the adjectives are hidden as participles. So let's have at it: "intense" and "crushing" and "frequent" actions are taken against those "suspected" of attacking Israel. So again Israeli plans are described with certainty and intensity whereas the actions of Hamas are given a level of deniability.

I'd also argue that after the Gazan shopping spree in the Sinai, it's hard to say that the economic embargo has been all that "crushing."

There is of course one adjective missing: "terrorist." In describing Hamas, the reporter can't even call it "militant," it's "armed." The NRA would fit that description too.

We'll skip a few paragraphs to:

Still, Dror said, the cost of an invasion would be high. Gaza is one of the world's most densely populated places, with likely military targets scattered throughout civilian areas. The military estimates that in a full-scale invasion, about 100 Israeli soldiers and 1,000 Palestinians would die, he said.

OK, here my beef is with an *adverb*: "likely." Military targets are scattered throughout civilian areas. That's part of what makes Hamas a terrorist organization. Instead the reporter qualifies this Hamas strategy. No qualification is needed.

The Qassams have made life difficult in Sderot, a desert town of 20,000, and other areas near the Gaza border. But so far, casualties have been limited.

By contrast, over the first two months of the year, Israeli military operations involving both ground troops and airstrikes have resulted in the deaths of 126 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza. The Israeli military says that in the past three months, 180 Palestinian fighters, as well as 13 civilians, have died during its operations.

The key adjective in these two paragraphs is "difficult." Qassams that could land anywhere are not dangerous, just difficult. On the other hand, Israel's killed quite a few Palestinians. That the vast majority of them were indeed involved in terrorist attacks against civilians doesn't seem to play into the reporter's moral calculus. And again, the deaths of the civilians would seem to be a function of the Hamas tactic of placing weapons and terrorists in civilian areas against the rules of international law.

"What's coming out of Gaza is not a strategic threat," said Shalom Harari, a former top Israeli military intelligence official. "It's terrible. It puts political pressure on the government. But it's not a strategic threat."

Harari is concerned it could soon become one, however, as Hamas gains military strength through support from Iran. That assistance could in time mean rockets with much longer range and far greater accuracy and lethality, he said. The government's critics on the right raise the same concern in arguing for the Israel Defense Forces to go into Gaza as soon as possible. The number of Israelis under threat from the rocket fire, they say, is bound to grow unless the military acts.

"Soon enough, they'll also threaten Tel Aviv if we do nothing to stop them," said Yuval Steinitz, a lawmaker from the Likud Party, which advocates a hard-line policy in dealing with the Palestinians.

Steinitz said the military would have to occupy Gaza for, at most, a few months. In that time, he said, Israeli forces could eliminate Hamas's weapon stockpiles, destroy the rocket launch sites and reassert control over the Egyptian border, where explosives are smuggled in. The casualties may be high, he said, but the operation would save lives in the long run.

"I'm not saying it will be easy. The world, at the beginning, might condemn us," Steinitz said. "But this is the only real solution. This war of attrition is not good for us. No state would tolerate daily rocket attacks on its soil."

So first an expert with no ideological is interviewed (this is a case of a missing adjective) who says that Hamas doesn't present a "strategic" threat to Israel. Then a counterpoint is provided by Yuval Steinitz (who, by the way, is a former member of Peace Now, but came to his senses) who is described as "hard-line." It's not clear that Dr. Steinitz's judgment is any less valid, but the political qualification serves notice of the reporter's disapproval of Steinitz.

There is no guarantee, however, that a major military operation would succeed in stopping the attacks. It could increase them. Military analysts and government officials also worry that Israeli troops would get stuck in Gaza, locked in urban warfare with a guerrilla force that has been preparing for just such a fight.

OK, here there are no "adjectives" I could point to. Still the thought that a major military operation would increase attacks is pure speculation. Arms and terrorists don't spontaneously generate. Destroy enough of both and the enemy won't be able to respond with the same frequency as it did before.

Matti Steinberg, a former adviser on Palestinian affairs to Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency, said there is a far less costly way to stop the attacks: a cease-fire.

Without one, Steinberg said, Israel is on a path toward war, which could have disastrous consequences for the U.S.-backed peace process that began in Annapolis late last year. "The entire rationale of Annapolis would be doomed," he said.

An invasion, he said, would ultimately strengthen support for Hamas and undercut Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the more secular Fatah movement.

Here's another expert without an adjective attached to his name, so it's not hard to figure out that he will be against an invasion. Why ceasefires have worked so well in the past, let's try another one. Why the "rationale' of Annapolis isn't damaged by continued terror against Israeli civilians is not explained.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum agreed. He said the group was expecting a major Israeli offensive and warned that it would only lead to more armed resistance. "Any military operation against Gaza will not give security to the occupation," he said. "It will just increase the popularity of Hamas."

And in case we didn't understand that an invasion would be bad, the reporter gets an opinion from a Hamas spokesman. Would any degree of self-interest be involved? Perhaps his statement betrays a fear of serious Israeli military action?

Again I have no adjectives to criticize here, just noting that a Hamas spokesman is not exactly a disinterested observer. But the adjective "hard-line" is missing.

Israel's Gaza policy has already drawn intense international criticism, particularly for its reliance on economic pressure, which U.N. and European Union observers have warned could lead to a humanitarian crisis.

So here's another problem helpfully identified by the reporter, Israel has been subjected to "intense" criticism because it uses "economic" means that could lead to a "humanitarian" crisis.

Now we saw above that war crimes (Qassams aimed at civilians) make life "difficult" in Sderot. And we've seen that the reporter has established the inadvisability of a military response. Now, the rather restrained Israeli response is being described as extreme. So apparently our intrepid reporter believes that the only reasonable response to terror is to allow civilians to remain targets and only employ passive protection to Sderot's population.

Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Israel's response has been "proportionate and, within the confines of international law, what is considered justifiable self-defense."

But it has not stopped the rocket fire.

No it hasn't. And "confines of international law" don't particularly confine Hamas do they?

On Friday, thousands of Israelis demonstrated their solidarity with Sderot's residents by streaming into the city to shop. Despite the threat, the cloudless winter day took on a carnival-like atmosphere, with DJs spinning dance music and shoppers walking the streets seemingly unconcerned by the possibility of an attack.

"We don't have many days like this," said Michael Amsalam, 58, a town councilman. But he was not optimistic there would be many more.

I have no beef with these paragraphs, and the final two are fine too.

When a nearby motorcyclist unexpectedly revved his engine, Amsalam flinched, then described what it was like to hear a rocket fall on his town, with nothing to do afterward but brace for the next one.

"Only the ones who live here know the feeling of the Qassam, the feeling of fear," he said.

Maybe the Post's reporter should live in Sderot for a week and he won't be so quick to dismiss Israeli fears and possible plans to strike back. I don't know that a full scale invasion is a good idea; however a news story should make an effort at balance. It was very clear how this reporter felt from his generous use of adjetives.

UPDATE: ** indicates a correction.

Crossposted at Yourish.

Israel, media bias.

Comparing Japan In WWII With Hamas

From Arutz Sheva:

...US Congressman David Weldon (R., Florida), who visited Israel last week, said Israel should strike back at Gaza in one fell swoop. "During World War II," Weldon told the Makor Rishon newspaper, "the U.S. attacked Japan mercilessly. Despite the ethical problems, everyone now agrees that this caused Japan to surrender, thus saving many lives, including Japanese lives. This is the reason I think Israel should hit the Palestinians with one fell swoop, thus defeating them. Otherwise, this cruel situation of today will continue year after year, decade after decade."

"Just like parents have to protect their children," Weldon said, "a state must protect its citizens, especially those who are threatened such as those in Sderot. If a country would attack the U.S., I would support turning that country into dust. If it’s right for the U.S., it's right for Israel."

Congressman Weldon does not make the connection explicitly, but the fact remains that Japan in WWII also relied on suicide bombings.

Interestingly, last year Fox News had an article on how Kamikaze pilots were being looked at as role models for Japanese Youth:

No one is publicly calling for young Japanese to kill themselves for the nation these days. But the renewed hero-worship of the kamikazes coincides with a general trend in Japanese society toward seeing the country's war effort as noble, and mourning the fading of the ethic of self-sacrifice amid today's wealth.

...Despite the pilots' reputation abroad as suicidal fanatics, Japanese hearts have always had a soft spot for the kamikazes. Long celebrated in movies, books and comic books, the pilots are seen as innocent young men forced by a desperate military into sacrificing their lives to protect their country.

The Japanese reject the comparison of the kamikaze with terrorists, and perhaps they are more accurately compared with Lehi:

Museum director Takanobu Kikunaga said the pilots gave their lives for their families, not the emperor, and they were attacking military targets, not civilians. He also argued that it was hypocritical of Europeans and Americans to compare kamikazes with terrorists after colonizing wide swaths of the world, including Asia.

Another distinction is that for the Japanese, the Kamikaze represent an ethic of commitment and self-sacrifice. The same cannot be said for the culture of self-destruction upon which terrorist suicide bombers are weaned. The cultures of the Japan and Palestinian Arabs could not be more different.

In his book The Arab Mind, Raphael Patai recalls:

As a widely read Arab friend of mine once remarked in a critical vein, both the Japanese and the Arabs are ready to kill in order to regain their lost honor; but the Japanese will kill himself, while the Arab will kill somebody else. [p.224]

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Palestinians.

Into the breach again?

Before the Hajj started, Elder of Ziyon noted:

Now, Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is planning to embarrass Egypt into opening Rafah by demolishing the wall near the crossing and forcing Egypt to directly stop the pilgrims from going to Egypt - or forcing Egypt to let them through. PPA says that Hamas plans to demonstrate on Friday and demolish the wall on Saturday. Whether this is true or not, Hamas is clearly playing political games with their devout Muslim population.

Now in Gaza, Hamas might be planning to do the same at the Israeli border. (via memeorandum)

Israel has put paramilitary police on standby and boosted surveillance along the Gaza border in case Palestinians try to break through into Israel as they did in Egypt last month, security sources said on Sunday.

A pro-Hamas group said it would hold a peaceful protest on Monday in which it estimated that 40,000 to 50,000 women and children would form a "human chain" stretching the length of the Gaza Strip. Organisers said they had no intention of breaching the border.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli Defence Forces said: "The IDF is preparing based on reports from the Palestinian media." She declined to elaborate.

Like Elder of Ziyon noted a few months ago, the intelligence about what's going to happen was in the Palestinian media.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured across the Rafah border breach into Egypt to stock up on goods in short supply in the coastal enclave because of an Israeli blockade.

This is the short version. Residents of Gaza flush with cash bought quite a few luxury goods also. And Israel is pretty certain that terrorists and materiel also crossed the border at that time.

LGF observes:

And they’re releasing children from school so they can be on the front line.

Powerline suggests:

Hamas's stage managers in Iran must think the time is ripe for the usual misdirection that accompanies international attention to their nuclear weapons program.

Or it might just be now that the dry run worked so well in Egypt they want to breach the Israeli border to increase the ease with which terrorists could slip into Israel again.

Crossposted on Yourish.

gaza, hamas, israel.

I am change

Early polling in Iowa shows that how the state will vote in November, depends on the candidate (via memeorandum):

Whether Iowa turns red or blue in the fall presidential election may have a lot to do with which Democrat is on the ballot against Republican John McCain, according to a new Iowa Poll by The Des Moines Register.

Barack Obama would carry Iowa if he were the Democratic nominee running against McCain, if voters feel in November the way they do now.
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But McCain would carry Iowa in an election matchup with Democrat Hillary Clinton if the election were held now, according to the new poll.

From what I've seen, Iowa is a microcosm of what we've been seeing in polling so far. (Related thoughts at Outside the Beltway.) So assuming that Sen. Obama is the Democratic nominee, does Sen. McCain have a chance?

Bill Kristol thinks so. (via memeorandum)

Barack Obama is an awfully talented politician. But could the American people, by November, decide that for all his impressive qualities, Obama tends too much toward the preening self-regard of Bill Clinton, the patronizing elitism of Al Gore and the haughty liberalism of John Kerry?

It’s fitting that the alternative to Obama will be John McCain. He makes no grand claim to fix our souls. He doesn’t think he’s the one everyone has been waiting for. He’s more proud of his country than of himself. And his patriotism has consisted of deeds more challenging than “speaking out on issues.”

The case that Kristol makes is that Sen. Obama's claim to change consists of voting for him. He, not policies he espouses, represents change. Kristol thinks that come November this pose will wear thin.

From my perspective I hope that's the case. However there are many possible narratives that could still emerge to tell the story of this campaign. It could be the vigor of youth vs. the experience of age. That's not a narrative that will necessary help Sen. McCain.

john mccain, barack obama.

For star trek geeks

If you're really geeky, all episodes of the original Star Trek series are available for download at CBS. (h/t Crossing the Rubicon3)

BTW, why is this on CBS and not NBC, as you might recall.

Mr. Spock: Here is the readout, Captain. The computer has identified the alien vessel as a 1968 Chrysler Imperial with a tinted windshield and retractable headlights.

Captain Kirk: And the little blue and orange numbers?

Mr. Spock: That's called a "California license plate", and it's registered, or was in 1968, to a corporation known as "NBC". Wait.. there's something more.. The computer isn't sure, but it thinks this NBC used to manufacture cookies.

So my best guess is that CBS has a hand in the producing the upcoming Star Trek movie so it's hoping that making the original show available will generate interest in the movie. (Though CBS and Viacom have split there's still a production company called CBS Paramount.)

(The main post is about the Church of Spock, which Daled Amos figures is one of the more mainstream tourist sites in Lynchburg.)

If you're super geeky here are Star Charts of the whole Trek Universe. So if you want to trek through the Romulan Empire or vacation on Bajor, here's all the info you need. (h/t Colossus of Rhodey)

Crossposted on Yourish.

star trek.

McCain and the nyt

via memeorandum

I hope to explore the McCain article in more detail, but time constraints force me to deal with Clark Hoyt's description of the controversy in today's NYT.

But in the absence of a smoking gun, I asked Keller why he decided to run what he had.

“If the point of the story was to allege that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist, we’d have owed readers more compelling evidence than the conviction of senior staff members,” he replied. “But that was not the point of the story. The point of the story was that he behaved in such a way that his close aides felt the relationship constituted reckless behavior and feared it would ruin his career.”

I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

Hoyt is correct. He got to the point of the article and rejected Keller's weak defense.

I doubt that the article would have been so prominently featured if it was just an examination of Sen. McCain's "reckless behavior." The "romantic" aspect was key to the importance attached to the article. That's the scandal that would have sunk McCain's presidential bid. The fact that the Times published a picture of Ms. Iseman in a glamorous gown proves the point. (My wife pointed out that if it was important that she was a lobbyist, why not publish a picture of her in a business suit? Surely that's the way Sen. McCain more likely saw her.)

But there's an annoying point to Hoyt's column.

The article had repercussions for both McCain and The Times. He may benefit, at least in the short run, from a conservative backlash against the “liberal” New York Times. The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story, in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics — sex — it offered readers no proof that McCain and Iseman had a romance.

Hoyt was not correct to surround "liberal" with scare quotes. I take you back to the man who originally held Hoyt's job, Dan Okrent.

I'll get to the politics-and-policy issues this fall (I want to watch the campaign coverage before I conclude anything), but for now my concern is the flammable stuff that ignites the right. These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you've been reading the paper with your eyes closed.

But if you're examining the paper's coverage of these subjects from a perspective that is neither urban nor Northeastern nor culturally seen-it-all; if you are among the groups The Times treats as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide (devout Catholics, gun owners, Orthodox Jews, Texans); if your value system wouldn't wear well on a composite New York Times journalist, then a walk through this paper can make you feel you're traveling in a strange and forbidding world.

Start with the editorial page, so thoroughly saturated in liberal theology that when it occasionally strays from that point of view the shocked yelps from the left overwhelm even the ceaseless rumble of disapproval from the right.

Across the gutter, the Op-Ed page editors do an evenhanded job of representing a range of views in the essays from outsiders they publish - but you need an awfully heavy counterweight to balance a page that also bears the work of seven opinionated columnists, only two of whom could be classified as conservative (and, even then, of the conservative subspecies that supports legalization of gay unions and, in the case of William Safire, opposes some central provisions of the Patriot Act).

One of the major failings of the NY Times is that it doesn't keep a strict separation between its editorial and news pages. The editorial views profoundly affect what is covered and how it is covered.

Dan Okrent, was not perfect, but he understood this reality. It's a shame that his successor does not.

Hoyt recognized one elephant; he ignored the bigger one.

media bias, new york times, john mccain.

Non-violence in gaza

In Gaza's Culture of Self-Destruction Yael Kaynan writes (via memeorandum):

The people in Gaza need to stop and take a good look at the culture and society that they are creating and begin to think hard about how they might begin to undo the damage to their social fabric that is, with every day that passes, increasing. They should begin their social re-engineering not for the sake of their Israeli enemies across the border, nor to increase their standing on the world stage, but rather for their own sakes because inculcating blind hatred, with a murderous twist, against another group has some unintended side effects for the culture that does the inculcating.

When children are raised on a steady diet of hatred, disrespect for human life, and violence, those children grow up to be violent and with no regard for the life, or well-being, of others. And not just for “those” others but for all others, including those within their own society.

Of course when you live in a world more than 70 people get injured in a non-violent demonstration, that realization is pretty far away.

I find the Israeli demonstrations of non-violence a lot more convincing.

Crossposted on Yourish.

gaza.

About that two-state solution

Co-Blogger, Judeopundit, observed an under-noticed story in the New York Times the other day, Arab Leaders Say the Two-State Proposal Is in Peril. In the Perils to Two-State Pauline, by way of introduction he provides some background, in fine factious fashion:

Back in the days when Hamas lead the Enemies of Peace on Both Sides Inc., Palestinian Division, Israel negotiated the beginning of a two-state solution. They negotiated in good-faith, and together with Yassir Arafat, who was negotiating in bad faith, there was some implementation of the solution. Some of that implementation still stands: that is why Israel recognizes something called the "Palestinian Authority," although the former enemies of peace, now friends of Hudna, have since seceded from it.

Back in 2000 (aided and abetted by famous advocates of Apartheid Dennis Ross and Bill Clinton) the Zionist Entity made a serious final status proposal. It was met with an increase in terror. Then, of course, Israel created further obstacles to peace in 2005 by putting Gaza, some of the territory offered in 2000, into Palestinian hands anyway. The non-achievement of Palestinian state viability, we learn, threatens more "radicalism," but if that is where the radicalism comes from then what did the Saudis spend their money on, anyway?

Surely it makes the Times article easier to swallow when you recall that despite the righteous calls of Saudi leaders for "peace" they used to hold telethons to raise funds for the families of suicide bombers.

Israel Matzav working off a different version of the news observes:

'Our friends the Saudis' are threatening to withdraw their 'peace initiative' in which they have offered 'full recognition' of Israel (but not diplomatic relations - contrary to what the al-AP article quoted below implies) in return for Israel returning to the pre-1967 Auschwitz borders and allowing the country to be flooded with 'Palestinian refugees' that will make it into another Arab state. Unless, of course, Israel accepts it immediately.

My Right Word looks at the elements of the so-called peace offer and rejects them:

The Arab League's plan's main operative section reads:-

I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.

III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Those are unacceptable. They deny the history of the conflict, ignore Arab agression, rewards Arab terror, inadequately provides for Israel's future security and existence and Jewish character.

He also links to a more detailed analysis of the "Saudi peace offer."

Last month Joshuapundit noticed something else disconcerting about the Saudi plan.

Price Turki al-Feisal, a senior Saudi prince and the former ambassador to the US and the UK was unintentionally revealing today in an interview with reuters as to what Israel's Jews can expect if they acept the Saudi `peace' ultimatum.

Prince Turki, who was previously head of Saudi intelligence, said that if Israel accepted the Arab League plan "one can imagine the integration of Israel into the Arab geographical entity....We will start thinking of Israelis as Arab Jews rather than simply as Israelis," he said.

Or, in simple terms, Israel will be `absorbed' into the Arab world and it's Jews will become dhimmis, living at the sufferance of the Arab majority...just like in the good old days,when Jews knew their place, took care to keep their heads from ever being higher than a Muslim's and mostly lived under conditions that make the old Jim Crow South look positively beneficial.

Getting back to the NY Times, we read:

Egyptians and Jordanians say that the way events have evolved, there is no likelihood that a real Palestinian state would be formed. A truncated entity, one dotted with Israeli settlements and divided by internal Palestinian conflict, would in the end be no state at all, and would serve only to empower radicals and fuel the conflict in perpetuity, Arab political analysts and government officials said.

The "internal Palestinian conflict" is whose fault again?

That despair is accompanied by anxiety and fear that momentum is moving in favor of the more radical players, like Hamas and its patron state, Iran.

“Hamas is going to be fortified,” said Mahmoud Shokry, a retired Egyptian ambassador to Syria who serves on the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, a government advisory group. “Not only Egypt, but all the Arab countries have to think about this.”

A few months ago Egypt conspired (with Iran) to allow a group of Hamas affiliated participants go on hajj to Mecca from Gaza, preferring that group over a group of Fatah affiliated participants approved of by Israel. So for an Egyptian official to lament about the strengthening of Hamas (and Iran) is sheer hypocrisy.

Egypt worries that absorbing Gaza would seem to extinguish the rallying cry of Arabs for a Palestinian state. It would also be a financial burden and create a potential for spreading throughout Egypt the kind of Islamic extremism promoted by Hamas, which is an offshoot of Egypt’s homegrown Muslim Brotherhood, a group that is banned but tolerated.

Jordan sees the prospect of having to take responsibility for the West Bank as a financial burden and an existential threat to its very identity. “There are fears a federation will be forced on Jordan and the Palestinians,” said Taher al-Adwan, editor of the Jordanian newspaper Al Arab Al Youm. “This is completely rejected by the Jordanians and by the Palestinians as well. Jordan is already half-Palestinian.”

There is also the broader fear, that absorption would make permanent the fight over the land Israel is on, giving radical groups a cause to rally around, and moderates nothing to point to.

A financial burden for Egypt? Well let's just say that during the recent wall breach, the disparity in wealth between Gaza and the Sinai, was on display. Residents of Gaza came off rather better.

And why would say, Jordan taking on the responsibility of the West Bank threaten it existentially? Why does the reporter fail to inform that the majority of Jordan's population are Palestinians and having control over more Palestinians might make the population restive against control of the Hashemite occupiers. (The Hashemites originate from the Arabian peninsula.)

An of course there's still the problem that even the moderates, by advocating resolution 194, aren't really all that moderate either.

And please make sure that you read Judeopundit in his entirety, especially the sections that put into bold. They're very telling.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, arab league.

The Perils of Two-State Pauline

How many ways can there be to spin the same old dreary reality? The New York Times exhibits considerable optimism on this point in their latest offering on Israel and the Palestinians: "Arab Leaders Say the Two-State Proposal Is in Peril." Let's review a bit, shall we?

Back in the days when Hamas lead the Enemies of Peace on Both Sides Inc., Palestinian Division, Israel negotiated the beginning of a two-state solution. They negotiated in good-faith, and together with Yassir Arafat, who was negotiating in bad faith, there was some implementation of the solution. Some of that implementation still stands: that is why Israel recognizes something called the "Palestinian Authority," although the former enemies of peace, now friends of Hudna, have since seceded from it.

Back in 2000 (aided and abetted by famous advocates of Apartheid Dennis Ross and Bill Clinton) the Zionist Entity made a serious final status proposal. It was met with an increase in terror. Then, of course, Israel created further obstacles to peace in 2005 by putting Gaza, some of the territory offered in 2000, into Palestinian hands anyway. The non-achievement of Palestinian state viability, we learn, threatens more "radicalism," but if that is where the radicalism comes from then what did the Saudis spend their money on, anyway? I hope that whets your appetite for the main course--you are going to be asked to swallow a great deal:

Arab leaders will threaten to rescind their offer of full relations with Israel in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied lands unless Israel gives a positive response to their initiative, indicating the Arab states’ growing disillusionment with the prospects of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At an Arab League meeting next month in Syria, the leaders are planning to reiterate support for their initiative, first issued in 2002. The initiative promised Israel normalization with the league’s 22 members in return for the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as the capital, and a resolution of the issue of Palestinian refugees.

But this time, "there will be a message to Israel emphasizing the need to respond to the initiative; otherwise, Arab states will reassess the previous stage of peace," said Muhammad Sobeih, assistant secretary general of the Arab League in charge of the Palestinian issue. "They will withdraw the initiative and look for other options. It makes no sense to insist on something that Israel is rejecting."

Many Arab leaders never warmly embraced the idea of a two-state solution to the conflict because of their distaste for Israel, but they accepted it as a means to stabilize the region and tamp down extremism. Now, however, there is a growing feeling that Israel wants to create only a rump Palestinian state that would be neither viable nor truly sovereign. And that, officials say, is not only unacceptable, but also dangerous.

Are you getting tired of the "viable state" meme? Viable is what sense? Is Lebanon's current pluralistic form politically viable?

That perception hit Arab leaders hard when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crashed through the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt last month, in the wake of an Israeli policy to cut off supplies to Gaza to protest the rule of Hamas there and the continuing rocket fire on Israel.

When the Palestinians poured into Egypt, suddenly, officials in both Jordan and Egypt — the only neighbors with peace treaties with Israel — grew frightened that Israel planned to solve its Palestinian problem by forcing Egypt to absorb Gaza, and Jordan the West Bank. [...]

"There is a general Arab sentiment of despair regarding this issue," said Dureid Mahasneh, a member of the Jordanian team that negotiated the treaty with Israel in the 1990s. "I challenge you to find anyone who took part in the negotiations with Israel to say that he is optimistic."

That despair is accompanied by anxiety and fear that momentum is moving in favor of the more radical players, like Hamas and its patron state, Iran.

"Hamas is going to be fortified," said Mahmoud Shokry, a retired Egyptian ambassador to Syria who serves on the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, a government advisory group. “Not only Egypt, but all the Arab countries have to think about this.”

Arabs blame Israel — as the occupying power — for the diminishing viability of a two-state solution, even while Mr. Sobeih said he would never, under any circumstances, accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. [...]

Oops! Somehow a significant detail appears!

“People no longer trust that a Palestinian state can be established, for one sole reason: the brutality of the Israeli state and the retreat of the Arab world,” said Abdullah el-Ashaal, a former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister and a professor of international law at Cairo University, who was articulating a widely held position in this region. "And this is why there is a return to the radicalization of the Arab attitude, meaning the words 'peace process' no longer hold any meaning." [...]

Or at least any meaning that has to do with peace.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

A little tarnish on the halo

Watching last night's debate, John Podhoretz observed about Sen. Obama:

This is telling. He really doesn’t like being criticized. Not that anybody does. But he’s showing some prickliness, and that is something Republicans can use to their advantage if they do it cleverly.

A few weeks ago Charles Krauthammer observed a similar gracelessness:

It showed a side of Barack Obama not seen before or since. And it wasn’t pretty. Asked in the Saturday Democratic debate about her dearth of “likability,” Clinton offered an answer both artful and sweet — first, demurely saying her feelings were hurt and mock-heroically adding that she would try to carry on regardless, then generously conceding that Obama is very likable and “I don't think I’m that bad.”

At which point, Obama, yielding to some inexplicable impulse, gave the other memorable unscripted moment of the New Hampshire campaign — the gratuitous self-indicting aside: “You’re likable enough, Hillary.” He said it looking down and with not a smile but a smirk.

Rising rock star puts down struggling diva — an unkind cut, deeply ungracious, almost cruel, from a candidate who had the country in a swoon over his campaign of grace and uplift. The media gave that moment little play, but millions saw it live, and I could surely not have been the only one who found it jarring.

(Hot Air disagreed with Krauthammer.)

Of course, it's one thing to note a weakness. The trick as Podhoretz noted is how to exploit it.

barack obama.

Containing the iran/syria axis

Der Spiegel reports that Iran will soon have enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. How soon? Hot Air answers:

Even if they’re exaggerating, though, EU computer models of the enrichment facility at Natanz show that if Iran’s figured out how to operate its centrifuges at peak efficiency — a big if, but technological breakthroughs in this area aren’t beyond their reach — they could have bomb material by … the end of the year. Operating at 25% efficiency? Next year. When, at least, we’ll have the audacity of hope to dazzle them with.

Apparently the Iranians didn't draw the same conclusion from the NIE that American pundits and policy makers did.

(via memeorandum)

In the meantime one of the measures to contain Iran is under legal attack.

On December 19, 2007, a U.S.-based law firm succeeded in freezing the funds of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in France on behalf of American clients who, in the judgment of U.S. courts, were victims of terrorist attacks sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Four CBI accounts at Natexis Banques Populaire totaling 90 million Euros, 52 million Swiss francs, and 25 million British pounds were included the freeze. CBI accounts at Bank Melli (the National Bank of Iran) in Paris that held 231 million Euros and $52 million were also frozen.

The action taken against Iranian accounts in Europe to enforce U.S. court judgments was unprecedented. Presently, the freeze is being challenged in French courts; on February 24, 2008, a French appellate court will decide whether the freeze should be lifted or U.S. court judgments against Iran should be enforced. The recipients of Iranian funding, like Hizbullah and Hamas, have not only undermined U.S. interests, but also French national interest in the Levant. Moreover, Hamas has been designated by the European Union as an international terrorist organization.

That hasn't deterred the Bush administration from taking economic action against Iran's ally Syria.

The Bush administration yesterday froze the U.S. assets and restricted the financial transactions of Syrian businessman Rami Makhluf, a powerful behind-the-scenes middle man for the Syrian government, in a move targeting the political and economic inner sanctum in Damascus.

As a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Makhluf, 38, is a key player in the Assad dynasty and is the force behind Syria's effort to privatize state-owned enterprises. However, his power over vital business monopolies has helped the government retain control over Syria's most important economic assets, according to U.S. officials and outside experts.

"Once you hit Rami Makhluf, you're at war with Syria," said Joshua M. Landis, a former Fulbright scholar in Syria who teaches at the University of Oklahoma. "When you sanction Rami Makhluf, you're also sanctioning all the people who deal with him, including the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country."

One can only hope that the economic sanctions will be effective in containing Iran and preventing it from developing nuclear weapons and restrain its efforts in extending its influence. Right now, it doesn't appear that it will be enough.

Crossposted on Yourish.

iran, syria.

Council speak 02/22/08

The Council has Spoken.
To all winners, congratulations on a job well done.

On the council side of the ledger the winning submission was Right Wing Nuthouse's Make Washington's Birthday a National Holiday Again, in which he uses a little known story of the revolution to make the case that George Washington was the one indispensable member of the revolution. The runner up was Wolf Howling's Iraqi Political Progress Leaves Few Places For The Left To Move The Target on the Left's efforts to define the terms of victory in Iraq in standards that make victory impossible.

OOn the non-council side of things the winning entry was Michael J. Totten's (currently filling in for Instapundit who's on vacation) The dungeon of Fallujah in which he describes a disturbing success on the road to normalization. The runner up is Israel Matzav's How Rachel Corrie Really Died (Hint: Not Protecting a House) a post that has to change how we look at Rachel Corrie and was noted by LGF!

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

watcher's council.

Craving apartheid

LGF links to an exchange between the Israel and Saudi ambassadors in columns in Canada's National Post.

Without seeing the response, I would think that Israeli ambassador Alan Baker won with this paragraph:

Complete freedom of religion for all is strictly protected in Israel — unlike in neighbouring countries, which recognize only one state religion, Islam, and even criminalize and persecute the practice of other faiths. Consider, for instance, Saudi Arabia, whose police recently arrested 40 Christians for the “crime” of praying in a private house. Followers of the Baha’is religion, who are persecuted in Iran, are welcomed in Israel, and maintain their central religious institutions in Haifa and Acre. Coptic Christians, who face restrictions in neighbouring Arab countries, enjoy freedom of religion in Israel.

But the Saudi ambassador, Abdulaziz H. Al-Sowayegh, calls on the experts:

For this reason, I leave it up to readers to learn about the reality on the ground in Israel by referring, for instance, to the American peace activist Rachel Corrie on the internet or Palestine: Peace not Apartheid by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

Yes, Rachel Corrie and Jimmy Carter will present readers with an accurate portrayal of the situation in the Middle East.

What about checking on the victims of Israeli, apartheid? Israeli-Arabs and Palestinians?

According to a recent poll cited by David Hazony,

... no fewer than 75 percent of Israeli Arab youth, and over 70 percent of the overall Arab population, support the idea of national service. Nor is this just a matter of getting better jobs, or equality with Jews: According to the poll, “68 percent of those who support national service said they are in favor because it contributes to the country and Israeli society.”

So if, as the Saudi ambassador suggests, Israel offers Arabs apartheid, apparently a high percentage of Arabs crave apartheid. Or perhaps it isn't apartheid that Israel offers.

It's also worth commenting on Hazony's observations:

This is astonishing on a number of fronts: First, it suggests that what most people think about the loyalty of Israeli Arabs may be just wrong. Second, it suggests an enormous disparity between what elected officials are saying on a central issue of political identity, and what their own voters actually believe–which makes one wonder what the point of all those elections was. Third, it suggests that Israeli Arab leaders are much more interested in appearing to be a part of the Arab world than in advancing the actual interests of their constituents–which makes one wonder where their funding must be coming from. Finally, it suggests that, contrary to proper democratic functioning, there is something preventing more reasonable candidates from being fielded among the Israeli Arab community.

Daled Amos observes succinctly:

It is also indicates that once again, everyone is all too eager to accept what self-serving Arab leaders are claiming.

If there's one phrase that's been more counterproductive to peaceful coexistence in the Middle East than anything else it's been the description of the PLO as the "sole legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people." By giving a group committed to the pan-Arab goal of destroying Israel the power to define the terms of what was acceptable, the world effectively assured that peace could never be achieved.

Back in the early eighties a professor named Menachem Milson wrote an article in Commentary arguing that Israel ought to circumvent the PLO supporting mayors of Arab cities and reach out to "village leagues" as he called them, to find Palestinians who would deal with Israel. Milson left his post after a year and suffered quite a bit of vituperation for trying to circumvent the PLO. However, subsequent events have seemingly vindicated his judgment.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, arabs.

Surging toward success?

The surge is not succeeding according to Michael Kinsley. Why not?

So, the best that we can hope for, in terms of American troops risking their lives in Iraq, is that there will be just as many next July—and probably next January, when time runs out—as there were a year ago. The surge will have surged in and surged out, leaving us back where we started. Maybe the situation in Baghdad, or the whole country, will have improved. But apparently it won't have improved enough to risk an actual reduction in the American troop commitment.

Taking (and I believe misconstruing) President Bush's words, Kinsley argues since the troop level on Jan 20, 2009 will be no less than it was before the surge, the surge will, by definition, have failed.

I think that President Bush's hope was indeed to get troop levels down, but that wasn't the goal. That would be the effect of success on the ground. To say that the whole point of the surge - as Kinsley does - was to reduce troop levels is disingenuous.

In fact, on a number of levels, Charles Krauthammer points out, (or here) the situation on the ground has changed, remarkably, for the better. After noting the lessening violence, he lists three new pieces of legislation that have been passed in the past week essential to creating an effective government:

First, a provincial powers law that turns Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but also elections by Oct. 1. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has long been calling this the most crucial step to political stability. It will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.

Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni. Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenue -- about 85 percent of which is from oil -- to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.

So along with military successes there have been some political successes too. Early in the article Krauthammer quotes Sen. Joe Lieberman that

"Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq."

In addition to the ways Krauthammer shows that Democrats have run from success, there's Kinsley's formulation that the surge can only be successful when there are fewer troops than there were when the surge started. By making that his metric of success, Kinsley effectively ignores the changes that would allow an eventual reduction of troops and put a timeline in place.

(This would seem to be a good time to recommend once again, Wolf Howling's post on how the Left keeps on moving to the goalposts to ensure that the adventure in Iraq will never be successful. I'd also add that in addition to the successes Krauthammer mentions, Moqtada al-Sadr is expected to extend his ceasefire, apparently backing away from his saber rattling earlier in the week.)

Krauthammer ends by telling what's at stake.

Imagine the transformative effects in the region, and indeed in the entire Muslim world, of achieving a secure and stable Iraq, friendly to the United States and victorious over al-Qaeda.

I don't know how quickly these transformations could take place, however it is folly to say that they won't or can't because they don't happen overnight.

UPDATE: I couldn't believe that I was reading Kinsley accurately, but Max Boot and Wolf Howling read it the same way I did.

iraq.

Overwhelming Majority Of Israeli Arabs Want To Serve In Sherut Leumi

In Israel, The National Service Program is the 3rd possibility--between military service and exemption--used mostly by Orthodox women.

Until now.

David Hazony has a post at Contentions about the effort to expand the National Service Program to include Israeli Arabs "as a way to help integrate them into mainstream Israel, help their economic situation, and remove the stigma of disloyalty."

Arab leaders--including Arab members of the Knesset are opposed to the idea:

Balad Faction Chairman MK Jamal Zahalka insisted that any Arab who volunteered for national service will be considered "leprous" and the Arab society will "vomit him out."

Haaretz reports that Israeli Arabs are not deterred:

Poll: 75% of Israeli Arab youth back national service

Seventy-five percent of Israeli Arabs between the ages of 16 and 22 support voluntary national service, according to a poll released yesterday.

...The poll found that, once given basic information about national service conditions and its goals, not only Israeli Arab youth were supportive of the idea, but so were 71.9 percent of all Arab men and 83.8 percent of all Arab women.

...Just over 27 percent of Arab youth said they would volunteer even in the face of family members' opposition, while 35 percent said they would volunteer despite the opposition of town leaders. Forty-two percent said they would volunteer even if the majority of Israeli Arab leaders express their opposition.

Sixty-eight percent of those who support national service said they are in favor because it contributes to the country and Israeli society, while 89.7 percent said they support the project because it would lead to greater equality between Arabs and Jews.

What do these poll results reveal? Hazony writes:

This is astonishing on a number of fronts: First, it suggests that what most people think about the loyalty of Israeli Arabs may be just wrong. Second, it suggests an enormous disparity between what elected officials are saying on a central issue of political identity, and what their own voters actually believe–which makes one wonder what the point of all those elections was. Third, it suggests that Israeli Arab leaders are much more interested in appearing to be a part of the Arab world than in advancing the actual interests of their constituents–which makes one wonder where their funding must be coming from. Finally, it suggests that, contrary to proper democratic functioning, there is something preventing more reasonable candidates from being fielded among the Israeli Arab community.

It is also indicates that once again, everyone is all too eager to accept what self-serving Arab leaders are claiming.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israeli Arabs.

Last night's eclipse

Full Moon

Last Night's Eclipse

UPDATE: Fire Ant Gazette has a much better (and stranger) photo of the eclipse.
lunar eclipse.

More mughniyeh fallout

Unlike the fanciful account in the Times of London, AP has an interesting view of what it would have taken to kill Imad Mughniyeh, provided by an ex-Mossad agent who saw the results of Mughniyeh's work first hand.

Although Israel and the U.S. perhaps top the list of suspects in Mughniyeh's assassination, Tsafrir said, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia are also among countries that had "unsettled accounts" with him. And he likely had internal opponents.

"A person like this makes a lot of enemies," Tsafrir said.

An operation like the one that killed Mughniyeh last week would have been extremely complex, requiring years of intelligence work and dozens of people, he said. "It's not a matter of just pressing the button," he said.

"An operation like this would take tremendous amounts of intelligence _ human intelligence, not electronic intelligence," he said. "You need the ability to find people, to check the location, to install the device, and to escape" _ no simple task in the middle of a hostile capital.

"The agents could be recruited, or infiltrated into the organization, or both. But there would be dozens involved, and everything would be compartmentalized: People wouldn't know what the others were doing, and would only know what they needed to know," Tsafrir said.

Clearly, if Israel carried out the hit, it would suggest that it is acting with a surprising amount of freedom in Syria.

But Tsafrir points out that Mughniyeh wasn't disliked only by the Israelis. Nor were his enemies only non-Muslims.

It's been reported Kuwaiti parliamentarians are initiating legal proceedings against other Kuwaiti lawmakers for their eulogy of Mughniyeh.

The opposition Popular Action Bloc yesterday expelled its members Adnan Abdulsamad and Ahmad Lari over their participation in a mourning rally for top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah who was killed last week. The surprising decision came as pressure mounted on the two lawmakers, with some MPs either urging the government to take legal action against them and others already preparing for lifting their immunity to allow their prosecution.

The Popular Action Bloc, headed by veteran MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun, strongly condemned in a statement that the participation of the two MPs in "the rally to mourn terrorist Imad Mughniyah who brutally killed two Kuwaitis during the hijacking of the Jabriya plane" in 1988. It added that the rally was held on Kuwaiti territory after 20 years of the hijacking "which has hurt the feelings of Kuwaitis". The expulsion came following a lengthy meeting of the group and after consultations with all members, the statement said. Besides Abdulsamad and Lari, the group comprises of five MPs.

Though Israelly Cool points out that the Kuwaitis who deplored the eulogy weren't much interest in Israelis killed, it does point to a Shi'ite/Sunni rift that may have some significance.

Barry Rubin noticed

Yet, wait a minute; it reveals a major shift from what has been true for the last 60 years or more.

Jafari, and other Iranians, don't want to say that Iran itself is going to do the wiping out. After all, such hints in the past strengthened international resolve against Iran getting the nuclear weapons that it might use to destroy Israel. Such a posture also justifies an Israeli attack on Iran, since that country is openly threatening genocide against it.

In effect, though, Jafari is erasing all the historical actors in the conflict: Arab states, Arab nationalist groups, Sunni Muslims, and--most remarkably of all--the Palestinians.

The battle is being waged by the heroes of today and the victors of tomorrow--Shia Muslims, and Lebanese ones at that. It is not even a Muslim-Jewish battle (which is in general the Islamist line), because the great majority of Muslims are also not included.

So perhaps that's why the Kuwaiti lawmakers are reacting so strongly. What's going on is a Shi'ite/Iranian war for hegemony in the Middle East. The Kuwaitis scared to challenge Iran directly (Kuwait has been swallowed up once already) so they focus their rage on its proxy instead.

(This Iranian war might also explain why PM Olmert and DM Barak have refused to budge. A motivation other than, or in addition to, arrogance, may be a sense that with the Iranian threat, continuity is important. h/t judeopundit)

As I've mentioned before there seems to be a lot hidden from view right now. I suspect that we'll see a lot more action in the coming months on the Israeli/Iranian front that seems disconnected but would really be part of this ongoing conflict.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, iran, hezbollah.

Green flags

This is the funeral of Shadi Zghayer and Mohammed Herbawi the two terrorists who launched an attack in Dimona two weeks ago. Israel returned their bodies to their families in Hebron for burial. (Despite my suspicions at the time, they did not come from Gaza.)

Note the green flags being displayed. Those are the flags of Hamas and this is Hebron where, supposedly, Fatah holds sway. This suggests that Fatah either can't or won't prevent Hamas from operating openly.

Either way, not a good sign.

Crossposted on Yourish.

hamas.

Significant microbe

A number of bloggers have noted that Iran's President Ahmadinejad's latest rhetorical attacks on Israel.

Steven Peter Rosen wonders if the change in terminology is a harbinger of something more sinister. (via memeorandum)

Some streams of discourse are chronically laden with dehumanizing rhetoric. Detecting meaningful shifts requires close study of the discourse of interest over time, and I have not done this with regard to Iran and Israel. Casual observation suggests that references to Israel as a “cancer” are old, but that the reference to Israel as a “black and dirty microbe” is new.

On the basis of my historical research, my recommendation was that a significant shift in discourse of this character be used as a indicator that we should focus intelligence collection assets on a target that is now suspected of being willing to engage in mass killing by unconventional means, and to issue specific deterrent threats of retaliation.

The Belmont Club counters that the likelihood of Iran using biological weapons against Israel is more related to its ability to protect its own population.

The critical nature of these variables implies that any enemy country or terrorist organization contemplating a strike must game things out beforehand. This would probably take the form of a deniable test attack to see how Israel or the US respond. Or perhaps an unrelated Western country could be chosen as the guinea pig to see how an equivalent society would fare in the face of a similar threat. Without a test run to gauge the effects of their weapons an enemy force would run too great a risk that the strike would fail, exposing them to a devastating response. Second, even primitive enemies would probably take steps to protect their core assets from a riposte by investing in low-tech precautions like creating redoubts in distant areas to which key personnel could retreat. Again, the key to early warning is to detect enemy defensive or planning operations first.

But what if Rosen and the Belmont club are being too specific in their approach? Maybe the change in terminology isn't indicative of a non-conventional attack but of a conventional one.

The other day David Hazony wondered if Israel and Hezbollah were headed to war again. He concluded that, despite the escalating tensions, neither side was anxious to fight right now.

Of course another possibility is that Hezbollah (and its sponsors Syria and Iran) is less likely to fight now that Imad Mughniyeh is dead. Assuming that Israel killed Mughniyeh, maybe they did it to avert an attack or even war in the near future that he was involved in planning.

There is a lot going on now, much of it underneath the radar. Maybe Israeli is fighting Lebanon III but doing it a lot more quietly and effectively than Lebanon III.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel,

Confirming the kill

I wrote yesterday about the importance in many situations of killing a terrorist who might still present a threat. It reminded me of an incident in the Old City of Jerusalem a few months ago. The New York Times reported then.

According to the police and witnesses, two armed security guards who work at a nearby yeshiva were walking near the Jaffa Gate on Christian Quarter Street when the young man attacked one guard and took his gun. He shot the guard in the upper chest and ran toward the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, chased by the second guard, the witnesses said.

There was an exchange of fire and bystanders were wounded, mostly by ricochets. The gunman was badly wounded, witnesses said, slumping against a wall, and was told to drop his gun. He died in a narrow street lined by shops. Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab member of Parliament, said that the man was killed when he was already down, but the police said that they could not verify the charge.

One witness told Israel Radio: “I saw the wounded man on the ground wasn’t moving at all. I didn’t see anything in his hands. I saw two security guards continuing to shoot at the man.”

By quoting the witness and referring to the account of the killing as a "charge," the reporter Steven Erlanger implicitly accuses the guards of over-reacting.

Only later in the article do we learn:

Two other security guards who have lived in the Old City for 20 years were nearby, both armed. They refused to give their names, but one said: “We work according to rules, and one of the very clear orders we have is that when we see a terrorist who is armed, we are instructed to shoot back at him until we kill him. This way we will prevent a bigger incident.”

I know that the witness says that he/she didn't see anything in the attackers hands, but that doesn't mean that there was no weapon nearby either.

Given that the attacker had shot a number of people before he was killed, he hardly deserves the benefit of the doubt. At the time the guards were bound to "....prevent the bigger incident."

Crossposted on Yourish.

terrorism, israel

Alinsky in the family

Instapundit asks:

But I think that Alinsky was an influence on Hillary, too, wasn't he?

Perhaps he should read this psychological blogger named Dr. Helen who illustrates how Sen. Clinton uses Saul Alinsky's principles in scoring political points.

Her responses to questions about gun control indicate that perhaps she has just fallen back on the old tired techniques of Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, on whom she wrote her senior thesis.

In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky opens with a Prologue in which he describes some elementary techniques for those who want to change the world. Communication is key, and one should communicate with the experiences of the audience, and "give full respect to the others value." By telling a story about herself hunting, Clinton has aligned herself with the nearly two-thirds of Americans who say they believe the Constitution guarantees each person the right to own a gun.

They're both from Knoxville, do you figure he knows her or even reads her blog?
:-)

instapundit, dr helen, saul alinsky.

More mor

I'd like to remind you something Seraphic Secret wrote (in the comments) in the aftermath of Dimona bombing and the actions of the heroic policeman, Kobi Mor.

A head shot to a terrorist trying to self-detonate is an amazing accomplishment. Under those circumstances your heart is racing, your throat is dry as the Negev, and fear is eating your soul. Kobi Mor is quite a man, and a great marksman. He risked his life and saved many lives.

Mr. Mor saved many lives by keeping his cool and ensuring the second terrorist was dead before he could detonate his bomb. If an illustration was needed for how incredible his feat was, note this report from Iraq:

The 42-year-old electronics store owner peered outside and saw an Iraqi soldier draw a pistol on a young woman wearing a black robe. The woman raised her arms. “I have nothing on me,” she pleaded.

But she did: Mr. Ali saw wires protruding from her clothing. The soldier, hands shaking, fired two bullets at the woman as she began to run toward the shops. Then another shop owner shot the woman again with a Kalashnikov assault rifle that he said he keeps in his store for protection.

The young woman fell hard, Mr. Ali said, but “managed to press the detonation button with her last breath.”

The explosion, near the National Theater, killed three people and wounded eight, according to the Iraqi police. The death toll would have been greater if the Iraqi soldier had not screamed a warning, said Hamid Khalil, who has a tea shop on the same street.

“He was very brave, but hesitant a bit,” Mr. Khalil said.

My point is not to fault the Iraqi soldier, but the story illustrates the difficulty of what Mr. Mor did and gives context to the challenge he faced.

Crossposted on Yourish.

kobi mor, terrorism.

Where credit is due

Henry Kissinger was interviewed by Der Spiegel (and helpfully excerpted by Ocean Guy)

SPIEGEL: Isn’t German and European opposition to a greater military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq also a result of deep distrust of American power?

Kissinger: By this time next year, we will see the beginning of a new administration. We will then discover to what extent the Bush administration was the cause or the alibi for European-American disagreements. Right now, many Europeans hide behind the unpopularity of President Bush. And this administration made several mistakes in the beginning.
[…]
Kissinger: … But I do believe that George W. Bush has correctly understood the global challenge we are facing, the threat of radical Islam, and that he has fought that battle with great fortitude. He will be appreciated for that later.

SPIEGEL: In 50 years, historians will treat his legacy more kindly?

Kissinger: That will happen much earlier.

Henry Kissinger thinks that President Bush will be vindicated for dislodging Saddam and, in general, taking the fight to the Islamists.

But there's another area where he's starting to get credit, even if not at home.

Reuters reports Unpopular at home, Bush basks in African praise (via memeorandum)

Unpopular at home and in much of the world during the last year of his presidency, George W. Bush is basking in rare adulation on his African tour.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete poured praise on Bush in Dar es Salaam on Sunday, the second day of his five-nation African tour, each compliment applauded warmly by members of the east African country's cabinet.

Although around 2,000 Muslim demonstrators protested against Bush on the eve of his visit, many thousands more cheering, waving people lined his road from the airport on Saturday.

According the article the adulation isn't rare in Africa at all.

Don Surber observes

No president has made fighting AIDS and HIV in Africa a bigger priority than George Walker Bush. He has quietly, in his way, forged ties with African leaders and their people that both American and Africa will enjoy for decades to come.

Reuters reported: “Because of the U.S. anti-malaria program, 5 percent of patients tested positive for the disease on the offshore islands of zanzibar in 2007 compared to 40 percent three years earlier, the Tanzanian leader said.”

Remarkable.

However the Reuters reporter mocks the President, the significance of his policy was not lost on Bob Geldof. (h/t memeorandum)

Mr. Geldof is an Irish rock and roll singer and longtime social activist who has helped, along with U2 rocker Bono, raise awareness about need in Africa. His most well known achievement is organizing the Live Aid concert in 1985, which raised money for debt relief for poor African countries.

But Mr. Geldof has remained closely engaged with African affairs since then, and he spoke off the cuff to reporters today who were waiting for a press conference with Mr. Bush and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the U.S. press for ignoring the achievement.

Mr. Bush, said Mr. Geldof, "has done more than any other president so far."

"This is the triumph of American policy really," he said. "It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion."

"What's in it for [Mr. Bush]? Absolutely nothing," Mr. Geldof said.

Similarly, a few years ago, Geldof's partner in raising awareness of problems in Africa, Bono, gave President Bush credit for his efforts.

There are a few ironies that come to mind.
1) Eight years ago candidate George W. Bush mocked the idea of nation building. After 9/11 though he came to realize that a vacuum of governance allows malignant movements to metastasize. In effect President Bush has been fighting the war on terror on two fronts: he's taken the battle to the Islamists and he's sought to deprive them of the bases they need to flourish. Bush's many critics accuse him of not learning or adapting. In these ways, it's pretty clear that President Bush has learned lessons in office that he didn't conceive of when he was just a candidate.
2) For the first six years of President Bush's tenure anytime an European head of state differed with him it was major news. Now that African heads of state are praising him, it isn't reported straight but in contrast to his unpopularity at home. Perhaps the media ought to look at the way they've treated the President and wonder if their coverage plays any role in the public's perception of him.
3) Michelle Obama has never been proud of her country in her adulthood until her husband's success in his presidential bid. Amazingly when her country reached out to protect the most vulnerable of the world, it didn't make her proud.
4) If the words of Bob Geldof and Bono toward the President had been critical, how many papers would have run with those criticisms on A1?

President Bush hasn't been a perfect president, but he has adopted many policies that have been good and possibly even transforming. He doesn't get nearly enough credit for them. Part of the problem, of course, is his failure to communicate his policies effectively. But part of the problem has also been the refusal of his opponents - especially those in the media - to give him his due.

Maybe Kissinger's right, and we'll start seeing some reconsideration of his record sooner rather than later.

Crossposted on Yourish.

president bush, africa.

Submitted 02/20/08

Watcher's Council nominations are up.
WWRD? - Rhymes With Right asks that Republicans follow Ronald Reagan's example and support the Republican nominee this year rather than running the risk of having a Democrat in the White House for the next four years.
Re-Wiring the Problem - Done With Mirrors neatly disposes of an argument alleging that honor killings are no different from domestic violence in the West, as each are representative of man's injustice to woman.
Le Figaro on the Upcoming American Presidential Election - The Glittering Eye analyzes Le Figaro's analysis of the American election. I found the discussion about the costs of the election quite fascinating.
Iraqi Political Progress Leaves Few Places For The Left To Move The Target - Wolf Howling shows how the Left "...hears what [it] wants to hear and disregards the rest" regarding Iraq using the NYT, Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi as milestone markers.
When a Man Stops Believing in God... - Big Lizards looks at the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion that Britain adopt Sharia courts and the many (non-religious) fallacies he accepts to reach his conclusion.
Why You Should Roll Your Eyes and Laugh at Democrats Who "Want Every Vote Counted" - The Colossus of Rhodey points out that with the refusal to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida and the super-delegates the Democrats lose any right to lecture us on the finer points of "one man one vote." For related reading, check out the New Republic from Nov 2000 for an article "Overtime" by Ryan Lizza in which he asserts confidently that VP Gore would win the election by virtue of the fact that they had better election lawyers. The triumphant tone of the article is very telling.
On The Mountaintop With Obama - Cheat Seeking Missiles compares Sen. Obama's speeches to those of a very effective preacher, but warns that that is the wrong paradigm for a politician. A preacher is working to save our souls, but the government often pursues policies that ignore our souls.
Muslims and the Right Not To Be Offended - Joshuapundit very effectively starts with the picture of cartoon depicting the idea that Jews control the world and doesn't start protesting as he wonders about the response many Muslims have to ideas that offend them. He figures at some point those Muslims who get violent when their sensibilities are offended will go too far and find that even the very (or overly) tolerant West has limits.
Dumb Question - Bookworm Room is inspired by a movie to wonder what the source of anti-American agitation was during the Viet Nam war and why did it start.
The Disastrous D.C. School System - The Education Wonks looks at the DC school system's record and makes the point that the amount spent per pupil does not necessarily correlate with success.
Make Washington's Birthday a National Holiday Again - Right Wing Nut House dramatically brings a largely unknown moment in American history to life to prove that George Washington was America's "indispensable man" and thus deserving of his own holiday.
Anti-Terror Fantasies - In which I question the veracity of a fantastic tale in the Times of London that claims to tell the real story of the killing of Imad Mughniyeh.

My non-council nominee was the Terror Finance Blog's U.S. rewarding Palestinian terrorism.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

Catro retires

The New York Times reports:

Fidel Castro stepped down Tuesday morning as the president of Cuba after a long illness, ending one of the longest tenures as one of the most all-powerful communist heads of state in the world, according to Granma, the official publication of the Cuban Communist Party.

"[M]ost all-powerful?"

Now, just days before the national assembly is to meet to select a new head of state, Mr. Castro resigned permanently in a letter to the nation and signaled his willingness to let a younger generation assume power. He said his failing health made it impossible to return as president.

“I will not aspire to neither will I accept — I repeat I will not aspire to neither will I accept — the position of President of the Council of State and Commander in chief,” he wrote.

He added: “It would betray my conscience to occupy a responsibility that requires mobility and the total commitment that I am not in the physical condition to offer.”

A conscience? Who knew? Jeff Jacoby wrote last year:

Freedom House gives Cuba its lowest possible rating for civil liberties and political rights, placing it with Burma, North Korea, and Sudan as one of the world's most repressive regimes. Hundreds of political prisoners are behind bars. Among them, writes Carlos Alberto Montaner in Foreign Policy, are "48 young people [imprisoned] for collecting signatures for a referendum, 23 journalists for writing articles about the regime, and 18 librarians for loaning forbidden books." Political prisoners can be beaten, starved, denied medical care, locked in solitary confinement, and forced into slave labor. Castro long ago eliminated freedom of religion, due process of law, and the right to leave the country.

And the death toll.

According to the Cuba Archive, which is documenting the deaths of each person killed by Cuba's rulers since 1952, Batista was responsible for approximately 3,000 deaths. Castro's toll has been far higher. So far the archive has documented more than 8,000 specific victims of the Castro regime -- including 5,775 firing squad executions, 1,231 extrajudicial assassinations, and 984 deaths in prison. When fully documented, the body count is expected to reach 17,000 -- plus the tens of thousands of Cubans who lost their lives at sea while fleeing Castro's Caribbean nightmare.

Castro of course steps down on his accord. No referendums to worry about. Apparently he didn't worry about much at all.

"Condemn me, it doesn't matter," Castro once said. "History will absolve me." But as Castro's ultimate day of judgment draws near, history is not likely to be so kind.

Michelle Malkin (via memeorandum) of the now-former dictator. History may not be kind, except perhaps the kind that's written in Hollywood.

fidel castro.

Beyond mainstream

In this past week's Baltimore Jewish Times, Dr. Robert O. Freedman analyzed the chances of peace "Beyond Winograd."

The primary alternative to Olmert, former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, is likely to freeze the peace process by not permitting further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank, thus preventing the contiguous Palestinian state that Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has been demanding.

Those of us who remember when Netanyahu was Prime Minister, remember that he withdrew Israeli troops from Hebron. So to argue that he would certainly not withdraw from any territory is simple propaganda. Prof Freedman, a vocal member of Americans for Peace Now is simply promoting the view that PM Olmert is good for Israel because he's most likely to cede territory to the Palestinians.

What's remarkable about the article is the absence of assigning any responsibility to the Palestinians for peace. To Dr. Freedman peace can only come from acceding to the demands of the Palestinians.

Since Barak wants to return as prime minister, he cannot afford to appear weak on the Palestinian issue. This is the case because Netanyahu has argued that the withdrawals from southern Lebanon (under Barak) and Gaza have led to disasters.

Note the qualification "Netanyahu has argued." Except it's pretty clear that Netanyahu is correct. After Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah was afforded the opportunity to build its forces in southern Lebanon eventually becoming intolerable in the summer of 2006, forcing Israel to strike back. And the continued barrage of rockets emanating from Gaza certainly suggests that the withdrawal from Gaza was not an unqualified success.

The strongest opposition to Olmert’s plan for a two-state solution will come from the so-called “Hilltop Youth,” children of the Religious Zionists who settled the West Bank in the 1970s and 1980s. The largest group of Israelis opposing further withdrawals may be called “security pragmatists,” individuals who oppose further withdrawals from the West Bank. This group forms the bedrock of Netanyahu’s support.

This is a nice way of marginalizing Netanyahu. Netanyahu is a tool of an extremist group. Well why don't we look at recent polling from Israel. Here's a poll from February 7.

If elections were held today how would you vote (expressed in % and mandates based on those with opinion) Actual Knesset today in [brackets] 06% 11 [29] Kadima 10% 19 [19] Labor 18% 34 [12] Likud

So then Likud, according to this poll, has more support than Labor and Kadima combined. Likud (and its leader Netanyahu) is not the fringe party that Freedman seeks to marginalize. Rather he is trying to promote his own extreme agenda by defining anyone who disagrees with it as outside the mainstream.

Surrendering territory to Fatah or Hamas has not yet brought peace. Nothing Freedman writes can change that.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, peace process.

Bracing

My co-blogger Judeopundit takes Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman to task for his argument that Israel hitting Imad Mughniyah was likely counterproductive in "Bracing for revenge." In two sentences he neatly disposes of Mr. Bergman's argument:

Obviously terrorist groups are capable of horrendous operations for reasons other than revenge. The consequences of not crossing "red lines" could be to allow a terror organization to build its capabilities and then take the initiative when it feels ready.

The Terror Wonk dealt with the question in Will Hezbollah retaliate? He lays out the information supporting the possibility and against he possibility of retaliation. While he feels that Israeli and Jewish organizations ought to exercise increased vigilance, he doesn't (seem to) feel that revenge is automatic.

And there are indeed counterexamples to show that killing the right terror bosses will effectively reduce terror.

Last year, Elder of Ziyon noted that the Israeli killing of Sheikh Yassin and Dr. Rantisi had likely been a factor in the reduction of terror deaths Israel suffered in recent years. Also during the "Aqsa intifada" Israel hit a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Afterwards, terror attempts by the group were marked by failure. (In one case the terrorist entered a store and showed of his explosive belt warning everyone in advance of the explosion.)

There seems to be plenty of evidence that when Israel kills a terror leader who is skilled in launching operations (recruiting, training and planning), it will see less terror rather than more.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, terrorism.

Juggling carnival 02/18/08

Sideshow

Let's start off with the sideshow this week. An exceptionally creative and challenging Musical Monday #34 awaits you at Elie's Expositions.

Incoming Carnivals

Esser Agaroth puts a lot more than 2 cents worth of effort into this week's Haveil Havalim #154, the Jewish/Israel blogging carnival. Check it out! (I was surprised to learn that Esser Agaroth is a waffler!)

And thanks to Dr. Sanity for including a link to me in the latest Carnival of the Insanities. I got mentioned along with co-blogger JudeoPundit and Jules Crittenden.

Upcoming Carnivals

We're reaching the time to get your entries into the Kosher Cooking Carnival.

Also this Sunday the next Carnival of Maryland is scheduled.

blog carnivals

AFP gets a headline right anyway

The headline: "Iran predicts Hezbollah will destroy Israel." In other words, Iran doesn't just harbor some vague hope that Israel will disappear from the pages of history.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Monday predicted Hezbollah would destroy Israel, in a new verbal onslaught against the Jewish state after the murder of a top commander of Lebanon's Shiite militant group.

"In the near future, we will witness the destruction of Israel, the aggressor, this cancerous microbe Israel, at the able hands of the soldiers of the community of Hezbollah," the ideological force's commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying . . .

Appreciate the use of the word "murder"? Try this:

Ahmadinejad has provoked international outrage by repeatedly predicting that Israel is doomed to disappear. He also courted more controversy by playing down the scale of the Holocaust . . .

"Playing down the scale"?

Iran insists its position is in no way anti-Semitic but anti-Zionist, pointing to the continued existence in the country of the largest Jewish community in the Middle East after Israel . . .

After so many Jews fled the country that worldwide Iran now has only the third largest population of Persian Jews. According to Ynetnews, Israel has complained to the UN about the "cancerous microbe" remark. There isn't much novelty there. Ahmadinejad called Israel an "infectious gland" in July of 2006. What is an "infectious gland," anyway?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Sieg Heil

LGF noticed something about the Hezbollah salute. (via memeorandum)
It's Almost Supernatural noticed the same thing about "Palestinian Security Forces" and the "Fatah militia."
Elder of Ziyon noticed it about "supporters of the Fatah movement" Hezbollah's 10 year old recruits and a Gaza rally for Hamas.
Israelly Cool notices it among Palestinian security forces near Tulkarem.

Repeat after me, "We have nothing against Jews, it's the Zionists we hate."

I guess that this bit of history from Bernard Lewis can't be ignored.

In 1940, the government of France surrendered to Nazi Germany. A new collaborationist government was formed and established in a watering place called Vichy, and General Charles de Gaulle moved to London and set up a Free French committee. The French empire was beyond the reach of the Germans at that point, and the governors of the French colonies and dependencies were free to decide: they could stay with Vichy or rally to de Gaulle. Vichy was the choice of most of them, and in particular the rulers of the French-mandated territory of Syria-Lebanon, in the heart of the Arab East. This meant that Syria-Lebanon was wide open to the Nazis, who moved in and made it the main base of their propaganda and activity in the Arab world.

It was at that time that the ideological foundations of what later became the Baath Party were laid, with the adaptation of Nazi ideas and methods to the Middle Eastern situation. The nascent party's ideology emphasized pan-Arabism, nationalism, and a form of socialism. The party was not officially founded until April 1947, but memoirs of the time and other sources show that the Nazi interlude is where it began. From Syria, the Germans and the proto-Baathists also set up a pro-Nazi regime in Iraq, led by the famous, and notorious, Rashid Ali al-Gailani.

UPDATE: Solomonia observes:

They're not the only guys who use that kind of salute in the region. It attests to the direct influence of European Fascism on some of the trappings that these area groups have taken on. Fertile ground.

Crossposted on Yourish.

islamo-nazism.

New York Times braces for revenge

"Bracing for Revenge," a current editorial in the New York Times, seems to think that the Mughniyeh assassination was obviously Israel's doing and possibly a bad idea because of the massive retaliation that might ensue. The AMIA bombing, the author reminds us, followed the assassination of Sheik Abbas Musawi. Did you know that Mughniyeh was captured on tape celebrating? That nicely contextualizes leftist denial that Hezbollah is a terrorist group, doesn't it?

The telephone monitors of the United States National Security Agency turned up “not a smoking gun, but a blazing cannon,” in the words of a Mossad official. A senior Hezbollah operative, Talal Hamiyah, was taped rejoicing with Mr. Mugniyah over “our project in Argentina” and mocking Israeli security services for not preventing it.

We learn that Ehud Barak ruled out an operation against Mughniyeh in 2000, "surely" with "the aftermath of the Musawi assassination in mind." Now, the author wonders whether "Mr. Barak has unlearned his lesson or not." Why is "don't mess with Hezbollah" a bad "lesson" to "unlearn"?:

As Hezbollah draws no fine distinctions between the United States and Israel, both nations, along with Jews around the world, might well have to pay the price for the loss of the man whose mystical aura was as important as his operational prowess . . . an inkling of how the group might respond can be found in the July 2007 statements of Michael McConnell, America’s director of national intelligence, expressing grave apprehension about Hezbollah sleeper cells in the United States that could go into action should the Americans cross the organization’s "red line."

This line has now been crossed. Only the severest of countermeasures by the intelligence services of Israel and the United States will prevent last week’s assassination, justified as it was, from costing a vastly disproportionate price in blood.

That's an interesting appearance of the "disproportionate" meme: don't provoke Hezbollah into doing something "disproportionate." The editorial raises interesting issues, but not quite the ones it thinks it does. I wonder if the author, Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, realizes that he has made a case against assassinating Bin Laden? Obviously terrorist groups are capable of horrendous operations for reasons other than revenge. The consequences of not crossing "red lines" could be to allow a terror organization to build its capabilities and then take the initiative when it feels ready. That all presumes, of course, that the West is ready to do what is necessary to root out terror, however unpalatable the necessary actions might be. Bergman unwittingly suggests that our other option is to buy some peace and quiet until the unthinkable happens anyway.

Crossposted on Judeopundit.

If ... you must 02/18/08

If you haven't read Embedded with the enemy at Snapped Shot; you must.
The comfort the media often has with terrorists is disturbing. The post reminded me of an article from back in 1989, when the NYT's Israel correspondent traveled around with terrorists who'd throw rocks at Israeli buses.
If you haven't read The Waiting Game at My Shrapnel; you must.
What's it like to be missing?
If you haven't read Israelly Cool's The Hamas Spin Zone; you must.
I ain't afraid of no Israelis.
If you haven't read Imagine that: the State Department defines antisemitism at Daled Amos; you must.
It's actually a pretty good definition. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that this definition guides State Department policy much.
If you haven't read The decline and fall of the state of Israel at Seraphic Secret; you must.
Israeli leadership suffers from a lack of ideological coherence and clarity; something Israel's enemies possess.
If you haven't read Argentinean prosecutor would rather have seen Mugniyah in court at Israel Matzav; you must.
I understand the objection to Nisman's wish. However, he did a lot of good work building his cases. It's harder to simply dismiss the targets of his investigations as "freedom fighters." On the balance this is one of the good guys. If more foreign governments were taking stands against Israel's enemies, they'd have much less room to operate.
If you haven't read the Spine's No courtrooms for terrorists ; you must.
If you haven't read Mere Rhetoric's Lebanon Government Heading Off Civil War By Siding With Hezbollah; you must.
My initial thoughts were that the killing of Mughniyah would strengthen the opposition to Hezbollah in Lebanon. This indicates otherwise.
If you haven't read Dershowitz writing opera; Finkelnstein plans rebuttal at Judeopundit; you must.
Finkelstein's absurdity seemingly knows no bounds.
If you haven't read Seymour Hersh denounces "Jewish Money"... at Judeosphere; you must.
Seymour Hersh who specializes in writing exclusives about nothing has more inanity to share.
If you haven't read This is Europe at Bookworm Room; you must.
If you haven't read Hamas 1993 at the Dry Bones Blog; you must.
If you haven't read US Aid finances Palestinian terror at the Terror Finance blog; you must.
If you haven't read 6 degrees at Shira Bat Sarah; you must.
In which Shira bat Sarah quite nicely fisks some global warming arguments.
If you haven't read Ocean Guy's Lies in Print; you must.
When you put the tables together it undermines the claim of the reporting.
If you haven't read Wolf Howling's Iraqi Political Progress Leaves Few Places For The Left To Move The Target; you must.
This is what blogging should be. Taking the long view where the MSM takes the short view. Wolf Howling does a nice job of illustrating the NYT's logical dead end when it comes to Iraq. (Or perhaps how it tries to avoid the dead end.)

What if it were palestine?

Three years ago I mocked a New York Times editorial that demanded that Kosovo show that it deserves its independence. I don't know that Kosovo has demonstrated its worthiness or not. The Palestinian Authority - whether the Hamas section or the Fatah section - has not shown its worthiness despite the aid that the West continues to lavish upon it.

So now that the NYT reports Kosovo declares its independence from Serbia.

The province of Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday, sending tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians streaming through the streets to celebrate what they hoped was the end of a long and bloody struggle for national self-determination.

Kosovo’s bid to be recognized as Europe’s newest country — after a civil war that killed 10,000 people a decade ago and then years of limbo under United Nations rule — was the latest episode in the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia, 17 years after its dissolution began.

It brings to a climax a showdown between the West, which argues that Serbia’s brutal subjugation of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority cost it any right to rule the territory, and the Serbian government and its allies in the Kremlin. They counter that Kosovo’s independence is a reckless breach of international law that will spur other secessionist movements across the world.

I have to wonder: what if it were Palestine?
What if it was Mahmoud Abbas who declared independence? (From whom would be a different matter.)

Would the Muslim world rush to recognize it? Would the West hesitate? Would Israel resist? It wasn't that long ago the Arafat seemed threatened that he'd declare independence if certain conditions weren't met by a deadline.

Nowadays no one talks about Palestinian independence anymore.

In declaring independence, Kosovo’s prime minister, Hashim Thaci, a former leader of the guerrilla force that just over 10 years ago began an armed rebellion against Serbian domination, struck a note of reconciliation. Addressing Parliament in both Albanian and Serbian, he pledged to protect the rights of Kosovo’s Serbian minority.

We know that if it were Palestine there'd be no discussion of Palestine's Jewish minority as the removal of Jews from Palestine has become a seeming precondition for peace.

Kosovo, a desperately poor, predominantly Muslim landlocked territory of two million, has been a United Nations protectorate since 1999, policed by 16,000 NATO troops. Its unemployment rate is about 60 percent and average monthly wage is $250.

Electricity is so undependable that lights go out in the capital several times a day. Corruption is rife and human trafficking threatens to entrench a lawless state on Europe’s doorstep.

The Eastern half of Palestine would be landlocked though Gaza has a port.

Three years ago Daniel Pipes reported that foreign aid to the Palestinians was $300 per person. CAMERA shows that foreign aid has increased when the Palestinian declined, but can't show if there's a cause and effect to that relationship. However, a few weeks later CAMERA showed that there was a correlation between foreign aid and terror. Still it's pretty clear that the Palestinian economy is better than Kosovo's.

In an outpouring of adulation for the United States, the architect of NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign against Serbian forces under President Slobodan Milosevic, revelers unfurled giant American flags, carried posters of former President Bill Clinton and chanted, “Thank you, U.S.A.” and “God bless America.”

Hundreds of people, many waving Albanian flags, celebrated in Times Square. Revelers in cars drove in circles around the area, leading chants whenever they passed the crowds gathered on the sidewalks.

That spirit of exaltation contrasted sharply with the despair, anger and disbelief that gripped Serbia and the Serbian enclaves of northern Kosovo. In Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, as many as 2,000 angry Serbs converged on the United States Embassy, hurling stones and smashing windows.

It's safe to assume that if Palestine declared its independence we wouldn't see outpourings of adulation for the United States despite the aid and political support. The reaction in Israel would likely be mixed.

The Washington Post opines in Independent Kosovo:

This logical step toward completing a united and democratic Europe would have occurred years ago if not for the lingering and poisonous nationalism of Serbia and its encouragement by Vladimir Putin's Russia. Serbian politicians of all stripes have ardently declared they will never accept Kosovo's independence, while Mr. Putin has prevented the U.N. Security Council from adopting the careful scheme a mediator worked out more than a year ago. European governments frightened by the prospect of Serbian-sponsored violence or a move by Russia to recognize breakaway provinces elsewhere in Europe dithered for months before agreeing to deploy the new E.U. mission.

If Abbas would declare independence would the Washington Post applaud the move? Would it attribute the delay to Israeli resistance?

So far it appears that the backlash against the new state will be containable, and the fears -- which were echoed by some American conservatives -- overblown. Both Russia and Serbia have backed down a little, swearing off the recognition of other splinter states or the use of violence. Up to 100 countries are expected to recognize Kosovo, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and most of the other E.U. members. Serbian President Boris Tadic won reelection two weeks ago on a platform of moving Serbia toward the European Union despite its recognition of Kosovo.

I can't see Abbas or any leader of Palestine running on a platform of reconciliation with Israel. And I can see Israeli leaders opposing an independent Palestine but resigned to it.

The Kosovo government of Hashim Thaci has promised "security for all citizens"; he will need to act aggressively on that pledge and prevent any incitement against the 100,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo. It is NATO's job to prevent violence by either community; Western troops will be needed for the foreseeable future. In the end, though, a peaceful and prosperous future in the Balkans will depend on the Serbs. If they choose to break with their ugly history of nationalism and embrace a liberal democratic future inside the European Union, Kosovo's course can also be smooth. If they choose endless and futile resistance to Kosovo's independence, the Serbs will isolate themselves from Europe and likely become vassals of Russia. Now is the time for Mr. Tadic and other would-be modernizers of Serbia to match their convictions with courage.

I don't think that this is just up to the Serbs. Still I'd expect that if this were happening in the Middle East, the Post would be placing the burden of success on Israel.

Hot Air (via memeorandum) makes the case for ambivalence.

... where I come down on Kosovo’s independence is to hope for the best but be aware that it’s likely to encourage some of the world’s worst actors and jihadist revolutionaries to get on with their own separatist schemes.

There's also a related question: why didn't Arafat and why haven't Abbas or Haniyeh declared independence? From what I understand the difference could be what the end goal is. The Kosovar Albanians make up over 90% of what is the territory of Kosovo. They don't seek any more territory (for now.)

The Palestinians are claiming that they are entitled to a lot more territory than they currently hold. (I'm not just referring to the lack of continuity they have in Judea and Samaria; they want all of what is now Israel.)

Declaring independence would necessitate settling for the current areas alone. Fatah and Hamas might be able fight Israel to a standstill if Israel's goals are limited. But I doubt they have the ability to capture and hold territory.

But getting back to the beginning, much of the support for independent Kosovo comes from a sense of sympathy for the Kosovar Albanians who were subject to ethnic cleansing less than 20 years ago. Despite the popularity of the Palestinian cause in some circles, I suspect that the less than universal support for an independent Palestine follow from the association of Palestinian nationalism with terrorism. Terror might have successfully put the Palestinian cause on the map, but it also might be the brake that prevents the Palestinians from declaring independence.

UPDATE: Here's extensive background and a pessimistic outlook from JoshuaPundit.

Crossposted on Yourish.

kosovo, palestinian authority.

Still the (first) one

Don Surber observes that the Clinton and Obama campaigns are buying votes and concludes:

Funny how liberals screamed about money corrupting politics. Now they have the dough and nary a word is said by the good government people in protest.

He's not bothered by the fact that they are buying support but at the way the practice is accepted by those who would presume to be above such sort of "corruption." Of course, vote buying is a time honored tradition of the American political system. And this President's day weekend, it's fitting to recall that the practice goes back to ... our very first President, George Washington.

As Pogue told Knight Ridder reporter Matt Stearns in a 2002 interview, Washington viewed the liquor business from both a business and political perspective. It made him money and got him votes, Pogue explained, since it was customary at the time for politicians to treat voters to liquor at Virginia’s polling places.

Washington once lost a campaign when he failed to do so, Pogue said. “From then on, he always treated. And he always won.”

But then, I suspect that the Father of our Country's (other) views on alcohol wouldn't be so accepted nowadays.

Although it’s not known if Washington drank his own whiskey — he was a light drinker who favored rum and fortified wines — he was convinced of the salutary effects of alcohol on his troops as they were battling the British. As he wrote to a congressional leader in 1777, “The benefits from moderate use of liquor have been experienced in all armies and are not to be disputed.”

Or, as he instructed the commissary general of purchases for the Continental Army in 1777, “There should always be a sufficient quantity of spirits with the army, to furnish moderate supplies to the troops … such as when they are marching in hot or cold weather, in camp in wet, on fatigue or in working parties, it is so essential that it is not to be dispensed with.”

I suspect that a soldier nowadays imbibing so much as a bit of extra Nyquil might find himself on the way out of the army very quickly, whether or not the beneficial effects of alcohol are disputed.

Crossposted on Pillage Idiot.

george washington, bourbon.

Status quo ante

Elaine Sciolino reported late last week,
By Making Holocaust Personal to Pupils, Sarkozy Stirs Anger

President Nicolas Sarkozy dropped an intellectual bombshell this week, surprising the nation and touching off waves of protest with his revision of the school curriculum: beginning next fall, he said, every fifth grader will have to learn the life story of one of the 11,000 French children killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

“Nothing is more moving, for a child, than the story of a child his own age, who has the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as he, but who, in the dawn of the 1940s, had the bad fortune to be defined as a Jew,” Mr. Sarkozy said at the end of a dinner speech to France’s Jewish community on Wednesday night. He added that every French child should be “entrusted with the memory of a French child-victim of the Holocaust.”

Adding to the national fracas over the announcement, Mr. Sarkozy wrapped his plan in the cloak of religion, placing blame for the wars and violence of the last century on an “absence of God” and calling the Nazi belief in a hierarchy of races “radically incompatible with Judeo-Christian monotheism.”

Crunchy Con applauds the effort but wonders if it will help

France has a massive problem with these Muslim ghettoes and the children within them who are being raised as veritable Hitler Youth, and if Sarkozy thinks expanding Holocaust education is going to solve the problem, he's dreaming. On the other hand -- and this is why I support what he's doing, with the same reservations that offend Simone Veil -- I believe it is imperative to reach the hearts of the French majority, and inculcate within them from a young age an emotional identification with the victims of the Shoah.

He goes on to describe how the mini-series "Holocaust" affected him and hopes that President Sarkozy's plan will have on the majority of the French population.

Contentions.Noah Pollak shows that this episode isn't isolated, it's part of a pattern with the new French President.

Have you heard what the French President has been saying lately?

On Wednesday, he declared that “I won’t shake hands with people who refuse to recognize Israel,” a snub directed at Muslim leaders. On the same day he warned that France may join the U.S. and Canada in boycotting the UN’s anti-Israel hatefest (known officially as an “anti-racism conference”) in Durban, South Africa: “France will not allow a repetition of the excesses and abuses of 2001.”

He has pledged to attend Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations in May, and after the recent suicide bombing in Dimona, sent a condolence letter to Shimon Peres in which he went out of his way to declare that he will always stand with Israel against terrorism.

His rhetoric on Iran of late has surpassed President Bush’s in its spirit of determination: “Proliferation is a grave threat to international security. We cannot sit by and do nothing while Iran develops technologies which are in violation of international law.”

Sarkozy made some of the above comments at the annual dinner of the CRIF, the umbrella organization of the French Jewish community — it was the first time a French president had ever attended.

I can think of at least 3 ironies with the new French President.

1) His new wife comes from a world where Palestinian revolutionary chic is quite in fashion.
2) In another year or so it might be conservatives who are wishing that the American President was more like the French President, mirroring the distress of the Left over the past 8 years.
3) Depending on who's elected President in November, France might return to its pre-1967 role as Israel's chief ally in the West.

Crossposted on Yourish.

nicolas sarkozy, france.

Anti-terror fantasies

Did Israel do it?

Who knows?

Uzi Mahnaimi claims to know. Uzi Mahnaimi claims to know lots of things, not all of them are true.

Mr. Mahnaimi is one of three reporters credited with "Israel kills terror chief with a headrest bomb." (via memeorandum) None of the reporters is bylined in Damascus so how do they know:

At 10.35pm he decided to go home. Having exchanged customary kisses with his host, Hojatoleslam Ahmad Musavi, the newly appointed Iranian ambassador, Mughniyeh stepped into the night.

Minutes later he was seated in his silver Mitsubishi Pajero in a nearby street when a deafening blast ripped the car apart and killed him instantly.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, someone had replaced the headrest of the driver’s seat with another containing a small high-explosive charge. Israel welcomed his death but the prime minister’s office denied responsibility. Hezbollah accused the “Zionist Israelis” of killing its “brother commander” but believed the explosive had been detonated in another car by satellite.

One witness said: “I held his head in my hands, kissed him farewell. His face was burnt but intact and he had received serious injuries to his abdomen.”

Other than the one item attributed to "Israeli intelligence sources" how could any of them have known such details not being in Damascus?

Israel Matzav expresses skepticism.

The only named source is described as "a former major in unit 504 of Israeli military intelligence who was in charge of Mughniyeh’s file." If my google search of the source is correct, he is currently living in the United States and is not likely to be privy to the current goings on in military intelligence. In short, while I believe that the manner of the killing may be correct, I have serious doubts whether Israel really did it. And as to what Mugniyah had been up to in the last two years, anyone could have guessed that.

Blackfive expresses admiration.

I like Mr. Dagan's style. I mean, what kind of sick and twisted individual would give a guy, who is an undisputed and unrepentant terrorist murderer like Mughniyeh the M-18 Claymore mine headrest he so sorely needed?

Maybe Israel killed Mughniyah, maybe not. I remain skeptical about the detail. (Even Mahnaimi writes "Whatever the truth about the bomb..." Certainly if all those terrorists have been killed by Israel, that is impressive and Meir Dagan deserves credit for rebuilding the Mossad's effectiveness.

The manner of Mughaniyah's death isn't the only area where there's been misinformation. We've also seen it from state and non-state actors who see his death as sign of moderation among non-moderates.

Martin Kramer scores the Hezbollah sympathizers who differentiate between the political and terrorist divisions of Hezbollah. JudeoPundit observes that the price for telling the truth about Hezbollah, is falling out of its favor.

I am reminded of the fact that when Human Rights Watch attempted to follow its reports criticizing Israel's conduct during the Lebanon war with one critical of Hezbollah, its relationship with Hezbollah immediately soured. You have to wonder what price it paid for its previous access to South Lebanon.

The cost of maintaining an exclusive relationship with Hezbollah is a very short leash.

And Contentions.James Kirchik skewers the "hands-off Syria" crowd.

“Reasonably behaved with regard to Israel?” You’ve got to love how Clemons uses the construction “Seymour Hersh argues” as if it were de facto proof of the charge’s veracity. He then goes onto applaud Syria for its “restrained” response to Israel’s attack last year on suspected nuclear facilities, as the Baathists in Damascus held back from causing “domestic strife” in Israel, a terrific euphemism for terrorism I’ll remember the next time my younger brother and I get into a fight about playing X-Box or something. When Hezbollah inevitably retaliates for the murder of Mughniyeh at an El-Al airport counter or Jewish Community Center, perhaps Clemons will wag his finger at Syria for its “bad behavior.”

Dumb still looks free has related thoughts concerning the Presidential race.

Often actions that occur in the shadows end up getting shrouded in even more confusion than clarity.

UPDATE: Someone else questioned an aspect of Times story, Shrinkwrapped. (h/t Seraphic Secret)

Far be it for me to disparage the perspicacity of the intrepid reporters of the Times, but doesn't it seem just a tiny bit unlikely that a headrest bomb could be so carefully constructed as to cause serious damage to the victim's abdomen but leave his head, the presumed target of immediate interest, intact? Maybe its just my natural skepticism, but I would think the layers of editors about which the MSM is so proud, might have noticed the seeming anomaly.

Of course, as I mentioned before, how the reporters got a statement from an eyewitness in Damascus when none of them were located there, is a bit of question. So it's not all that surprising that a manufactured witness would give manufactured testimony.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Imad Mughniyah, syria, hezbollah.

Mughniyeh and Hezbollah manipulation of academics

Martin Kramer has a current important post at MESH about Hezbollah's recently reversed policy of denying that Mughniyeh was a member and the tendency of academic "experts" on Hezbollah to just echo Hezbollah evasions. Discussing the book "Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism" by Judith Palmer Harik, Kramer comments that Harik

spends a few embarrassing pages agonizing over this question: “Was Mughniyeh a member of Hezbollah?”

Now that Nasrallah’s eulogy has placed Mughniyah officially in the pantheon of Hezbollah’s greatest martyrs (with Abbas al-Musawi and Raghib Harb), this question looks absurd. That it ever arose is a testament to the discipline of Hezbollah in sticking to lies that serve its interests. One of its paramount interests is concealing from scrutiny that apparatus of terror that Mughniyah spent his life building.

In the comments, Michael Young observes:

This is emblematic of a wider problem. Hezbollah has been very adept at turning contacts with the party into a supposedly valuable favor. Scholars, particularly in the West, who can claim to have a Hezbollah contact are already regarded as “special” for having penetrated a closed society, so that readers are less inclined to judge critically the merits of what the scholars got out of Hezbollah. The same goes for book editors. Since Hezbollah denied knowing Mughniyah, few were willing to say “This is rubbish, I’m going to push further.” The mere fact of getting that denial was regarded as an achievement—one the authors were not about to jeopardize by calling Hezbollah liars.

I am reminded of the fact that when Human Rights Watch attempted to follow its reports criticizing Israel's conduct during the Lebanon war with one critical of Hezbollah, its relationship with Hezbollah immediately soured. You have to wonder what price it paid for its previous access to South Lebanon. More on Mughniyeh and the experts here.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

The inevitable hillary

SNL rebroadcast the 9/29/07 episode.
It made fun of the "Hillary is inevitable" meme. (Maybe that's why they re-broadcast it. I suspect that this doesn't quite do it justice, but here's the transcript.

To my as-yet-undetermined Republican opponent -- the candidate I will have defeated -- I want to compliment you -- whoever you turn out to be -- in advance, on running what I am sure will have been an honorable, albeit losing campaign. A campaign in which you, no doubt, have raised important issues. Issues that, unfortunately, will have gone largely unnoticed, since virtually everyone will assume -- correctly, as it turns out -- that you have no chance in winning.

UPDATE: Hello to my visitor from Chappaqua!

snl, hillary clinton.

Great leap forward preempted by hungry party officials

The J-blogosphere is currently giving some attention to a Hamas kiddie television character, a giant Jew-eating bunny. Some of you may recall, however, that someone bred real giant bunnies in Germany and that he was sending some of them to North Korea for breeding purposes with the idea of helping the great powerful prosperous socialist nation with its starvation problem. It turns out that none of that Rabbit flesh is ever going to get to the starving Korean in the street because the supposed breed-stock rabbits were all eaten by party officials! As before, Spiegel Online has the story:

A German pensioner who made headlines last year (more...) for breeding giant rabbits -- and selling a batch to North Korea with the idea of easing hunger -- is the subject of a short documentary by an American director in the the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. Director Julius Onah made the five-minute film . . . after reading about Karl Szmolinsky on SPIEGEL ONLINE. And in doing so, he learned that the rabbits may have been eaten by North Korean functionaries instead of the starving people for whom they were intended.

Szmolinsky is a 68-year-old German living in Eberswalde, near Berlin, who won a prize for breeding a 10.5-kilogram (23.1 pound) rabbit named Robert in 2006. Robert was the size of a small dog. When North Korean leaders saw photos of him they contacted Szmolinsky through a breeding federation, hoping to purchase a line of "German Giant Grays" to alleviate hunger in their hermetic Communist state. [...]

"In April of '07 Szmolinsky was supposed to go to North Korea himself and oversee the breeding of the rabbits," Onah told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "But some time between January and April he found out that the rabbits he sent got eaten (by senior officials). All 12 of them. So he refused to cooperate (more...) with the North Koreans." [...]

We also learn that Szmolinsky got "harassing phone calls" from animal rights advocates, who appear to have had a point.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

The Lesson Israel Can Learn From Petraeus--But Cannot Implement

I had a short post about what the US has learned from Israel's experience in it's war with Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2006. Now, over at Contentions, Michael Totten has an excellent post on the difference between the US approach in Iraq vis-a-vis what Olmert did in Lebanon:

American General David Petraeus proved counterinsurgency in Arabic countries can work. His surge of troops in Iraq is about a change of tactics more than an increase in numbers, and his tactics so far have surpassed all expectations. The “light footprint” model used during former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but American soldiers and Marines had no chance of defeating insurgents from behind barbed wire garrisons. Only now that the troops have left the relative safety and comfort of their bases and intimately integrated themselves into the Iraqi population are they able to isolate and track down the killers. They do so with help from the locals. They acquired that help because they slowly forged trusting relationships and alliances, and because they protect the civilians from violence.

The Israel Defense Forces did nothing of the sort in Lebanon. Most Lebanese Shias are so hostile to Israel that such a strategy might not work even if David Petraeus himself were in charge of it. Even then it would take years to produce the desired results, just as it has taken several years in Iraq. Israelis have no wish to spend years fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon. International pressure would force them out if they did.

A Petraeus-like strategy wasn’t an option for Olmert.

Totten's piece leads up to how Obama wants to impose an Olmert-like solution in Iraq for dealing with the insurgents, but the key difference between the current US and Israeli strategy--and the impossibility of Israel implementing Petraeus strategy--is instructive.

Read the whole thing.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Petraeus and Obama.

Council Speak 02/15/08

The Council has Spoken.
To all winners, congratulations on a job well done.

This week's winning Council entry was Mandate me, baby about the distortions that crops for ethanol introduce into the marketplace that health care mandates will introduce into the economy at Rightwing Nuthouse, which won top honors by virtue of a tie-breaker over Wolf Howling's Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and McCain Derangement Syndrome, which is self-explanatory as it comes.

On the non-council side Beldarblogs Are We At War? And What Is the Political Consequence of That For Conservatives In This Election? at attempt to show how the war is necessary for those who woudl claim otherwise. The runner-up is Michael Totten's The Final Mission part II about how soldiers are preparing their Iraqi counterparts to take security responsibility for their own land.

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

watcher's council.

Torahs in the navy

I just received an e-mail about a Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) that was rescued from Lithuania and is now being used aboard the USS Truman.

Truman Sailors listen to Sen. Carl Levin as he speaks during the Torah Dedication Ceremony in the hangar bay of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater presented the Jewish Torah to Truman to be displayed for 41 years. The Torah is one of the few holy scrolls from Lithuania to survive the Holocaust. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Arturo Chavez (RELEASED)

USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) Commanding Officer, Capt. Herman Shelanski, left, and Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, bow their heads in prayer at the commencement of the Torah dedication ceremony in the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier's hangar bay. The holy Jewish Torah in the background, one of the few scrolls from Lithuania to survive the Holocaust, was presented to Truman by the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, and will be on loan to Truman and displayed for 41 years, or the duration of the ship's life. The smaller Torah in the foreground, known as the Truman Torah, was presented to President Harry S. Truman by Israel's first President, Chaim Weizmann in gratitude for America's diplomatic recognition of the state of Israel in 1948. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kristopher Wilson (RELEASED)

Aboard USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) Nov. 20, 2003 -- Rabbi Michael A. Oppenheimer carries a 300-year-old Torah that was presented to the Navy's newest nuclear powered aircraft carrier by the Oppenheimer family. The family heirloom is one of only 300 Torahs that survived the Holocaust during World War II. The ship will safeguard it during its 50-plus year life span, when it will then be returned to Oppenheimer's grandchildren, who were in attendance and witnessed the ceremony. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Anthony Walker. (RELEASED)

It's not clear if these Torahs will be used or just displayed. (The 50 year lifespan mentioned in the above caption is the ship's expected lifespan.)

The Truman Torah was rescued by Project Judaica.

It seems that Project Judaica is similar in focus to Rabbi Menachem Youlus who has devoted himself to rescuing Torahs, especially from Europe.

(h/t Cousin Steven)

torah scrolls, us navy.

Apparently the oppression didn't kill her

MSNBC is reporting that the world's oldest person is alive and living in Israel. Perhaps more surprising is that she's an Israeli Arab.

Mariam Amash filled in the routine form with anything but routine information. Amash, who recently applied for a new Israeli identity card, said she was born 120 years ago — a claim, if confirmed, that would make her the oldest person in the world. The Guinness Book of Records currently lists 114-year-old Edna Parker of Shelbyville, Ind., as holding that title.

Sabine Haddad, a spokeswoman for Israel's Interior Ministry, confirmed that Amash, from the Israeli Arab village of Jisr a-Zarka, is listed in the population registry as having been born in 1888. "We're just not sure it's correct," Haddad said.

The listing was based on a birth certificate issued by Turkish authorities who ruled the region at the time, she said. Ministry clerks in an Israeli city near Amash's village found out about her claim this week when she came in to replace an identity card she lost.

Before Guinness will list her in its book of world records they will want more corroborating documents. Still it's reasonable to assume that she's probably more than 100.

If Israeli oppression were as bad as some of its critics claim, I doubt that there'd be many Palestinians living past their 70's. Still people will decry Israeli oppression as if it's so unique it deserves special mention. It may not be true, but it does pay well.

(I see via technorati that someone aged 116 recently died.)

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, oldest living person.

Hope is like bottled water

USA Today's Chuck Raasch writes of the Democrats' audacity of hope. (via memeorandum)

After describing the what draws people to the Senator from Illinois, Raasch notes some discordant notes. For one thing he quotes a political consultant, Steve Jarding (who worked for John Edwards) who says

"Historically, while hope may well sell in the spring, it wears thin by fall when it is trumped by issues of security and experience," Jarding said.

At the end Jarding offers another observation:

"In my 30 years of doing this," Jarding said, "I have never seen anything like the swooning the ... primarily television media has done over Obama."

Swooning it turns out isn't just a figure of speech. James Taranto lists a series of campaign events (credited to James Vicevich) where a Sen. Obama supporter faints. (via memeorandum) Taranto observes

What exactly are we to make of this? A cynic might wonder if the whole thing isn't staged, given how often it happens and how well-honed and self-serving Obama's standard response seems to be.

But if it's spontaneous, that's in a way even more unsettling. At the New Hampshire rally, Larry David of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" fame quipped, "Sinatra had the same effect on people." Sinatra made girls swoon by singing romantic songs. But America isn't electing a crooner in chief.

Obama has a talent for eliciting intense emotion--an ability that can be dangerous in a politician. What more does he have to offer? That's a hard question to answer, and it makes the prospect of an Obama presidency quite worrisome.

Well, even if Sen. Obama isn't getting unanimous approval from the pundit class, he seems to be doing well among dictators of the Western Hemisphere. Current President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, who, admittedly was elected this time around, considers Sen. Obama "revolutionary." (via memeorandum)
Given Mr. Ortega's first term in office, I'm not sure that the Senator should be so flattered.

Finally Charles Krauthammer has cast an unflattering light on Senator Obama's campaign, in "The audacity of selling hope." (or here)

There's no better path to success than getting people to buy a free commodity. Like the genius who figured out how to get people to pay for water: bottle it (Aquafina was revealed to be nothing more than reprocessed tap water) and charge more than they pay for gasoline. Or consider how Google found a way to sell dictionary nouns-- boat, shoe, clock -- by charging advertisers zillions to be listed whenever the word is searched.

And now, in the most amazing trick of all, a silver-tongued freshman senator has found a way to sell hope. To get it, you need only give him your vote. Barack Obama is getting millions.

In short Krauthammer finds the Senator's appeal to have a pseudo-religious component to it. And he finds it unsettling that Senator Obama may well be headed towards the nomination.

(For an alternate view of that new inevitability see Jay Cost's dissent. Cost argues that there may not be any "momentum" for Sen. Obama. Since Super Tuesday he's been winning the demographics he's been winning all along with little indication that he's started encroaching on Sen. Clinton's demographics. Recent polling seems to confirm Cost's analysis.)

Krauthammer writes that, growing up in Canada, he witnessed a similar "national swoon" over Pierre Trudeau who went on to become Prime Minister. However, Krauthammer, sees none of Trudeau's positives in Senator Obama.

But even there the object of his countrymen's unrestrained affections was no blank slate. Pierre Trudeau was already a serious intellectual who had written and thought and lectured long about the nature and future of his country.

Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He's going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can't possibly redeem. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Promises to transcend the conundrums of entitlement reform that require real and painful trade-offs and that have eluded solution for a generation. Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war -- with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow.

Krauthammer isn't hopeful that the American public will see through the Senator's lack of substance (and seriousness) until it's too late.

barack obama, hillary clinton.

Conservative Rabbis Are Asking For Trouble

Conservative Rabbis are asking that the Church make a change in its prayers:

The revision of a contentious Good Friday prayer approved this week by Pope Benedict XVI could set back Jewish-Catholic relations, Conservative Judaism's international assembly of rabbis says in a resolution to be voted on next week.

The prayer calls for God to enlighten the hearts of Jews "so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men."

The draft resolution states the prayer would "cast a harsh shadow over the spirit of mutual respect and collaboration that has marked these past four decades, making it more difficult for Jews to engage constructively in dialogue with Catholics."

Read the whole thing.

But dialogue works both ways, and at some point the Church will make some requests of their own--in fact they already have. In October last year Cardinal Francis George of the Archdiocese of Chicago suggested a quid pro quo:

But this should mean that Jews, in turn, consider amending their own religious texts, he said.

"It does work both ways. Maybe this is an opening to say, 'Would you care to look at some of the Talmudic literature's description of Jesus as a bastard, and so on, and maybe make a few changes in some of that?'"

Are Conservative Rabbis willing to open this door and deal with requests by the Church to change Jewish texts?
And how far are they willing to go?

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Judaism.

The aftermath

Terrorwonk asks After Mughniyah: Will Hezbollah retaliate?

Taking these factors into account, this may have been an ideal time for the Israelis to remind their enemies of their capabilities and serve justice to one of the world's most wanted terrorists. Nonetheless, the prospect of a retaliatory strike cannot be ignored. If it comes, it will probably be outside the region. Direct attacks on Israel from Lebanon could invite retaliations in Lebanon which would isolate Hezbollah even further in the current Presidential stand-off. Israeli institutions worldwide will undoubtedly be on high alert. Hopefully Jewish communal institutions and U.S. military bases (the other favored Hezbollah targets) will also tighten security.

One thing is certain. This attack does not put Hezbollah out of business and it will undoubtedly review its internal security carefully and identify how crucial information about Mughniyah’s whereabouts leaked. About 35 years ago, Fatah faced the same problem of protecting its leaders from Israeli assassins. The response was to establish an elite bodyguard that became known as Force 17. It was with Force 17 that a young Imad Mughniyah began his long and terrible career.

I had been speculating that perhaps with a critical leader taken out under Syria's scrutiny, it might put a crimp in Syrian operations and perhaps lead to an opening in Lebanon. So TerrorWonk puts that idea to rest.

However, what if, as Time (and some others) alleges, Syria or Iran did it just to show that they were good guys? John Podhoretz doesn't think they have anything to worry about.

Get it? Iran and Syria might have killed the terror master they created and ran in order to prove they will take care of bad terrorists — but you know, they won’t be willing to be so noble and charitable should the United States do something against them. This is one of the most embarrassing pieces of geopolitical analysis ever published. And in Time’s glorious tradition of doing everything it can to think the best of tyrannical Arab states. Well done, Time (rhymes with crime).

Crossposted on Yourish.

Imad Mughniyeh.

Peace whenever

Working from reports in the Jerusalem Post and on Arutz-7 as well as using some of her own detective work, In Context writes about the legal problems Peace Now is facing and speculates on how it might impact their fundraising.

Crossposted on Yourish.

peace now.

Mug shot

The Associated Press reported

One of the world's most wanted and elusive terrorists, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed by a car bomb in Syria nearly 15 years after dropping almost entirely from sight. The one-time Hezbollah security chief was implicated in attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, a string of brutal kidnappings and bombings of Jewish sites in Argentina.

The Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its top ally Iran accused Israel in the assassination, a charge denied by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office.

The United States welcomed the death of Mughniyeh, who was indicted in the U.S. over the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. The FBI had put a $5 million bounty on Mughniyeh.

"The world is a better place without this man in it," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "One way or the other he was brought to justice."

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the agency was waiting for confirmation of Mughniyeh's death and its circumstances. "If this information proves true, it would be considered good news in the ongoing fight against terrorism," he said.

Michael Ledeen gives his assessment of what Mughniyeh was involved in:

His bloody arms reached into South America, both in the creation of Hezbollah bases and in the murderous operations in Buenos Aires in the mid-nineties that led to his indictment by the Argentine Government. And I have no doubt that he was involved in setting up terror cells in the United States. Remember that he was both the operational chieftain of Hezbollah and a high-ranking officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force.

Elder of Ziyon reports on Mughniyah's ties to Fatah, including his possible involvement in the Karine A affair and observes:

So the same "moderate" leaders of the PA were intimately involved in working together with this master terrorist - and murderer of hundreds of Americans as well as Argentine Jews.

The Counter-terrorism Blog has more along these lines, specifically his role with Force 17:

Mughniyah cut his teeth as a teenage gunman with Force 17 in Beirut in the late 1970s. Mughniyah’s links to Fatah are also not ancient history. While Hezbollah’s growing with relationships with the Palestinian Islamist groups has been well reported, Hezbollah has also worked to build connections within the ostensibly secular Fatah. Force 17 officers founded the very first Hezbollah cells in the Gaza and the West Bank. The strategic significance of the Palestinian terror groups moving into Iranian orbit should not be underestimated.

The AP makes the following observation:

Mughniyeh's death was the latest in a series of blows to major terror figures in recent weeks. Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaida leader, was killed in late January by a missile fired by a U.S. drone in western Pakistan. This week, Pakistani security forces critically wounded and captured Mansour Dadullah, a top Taliban figure, in a firefight also near the Afghan border.

Pajamas Media's Meir Javedanfar looks at as another battle won against Iran:

The successful findings, tracking, and assassination of Mughniyeh come on the heels of a number of other major Western intelligence coups against Iran over the last several years.

First was the elimination of Iran’s long-range Zilzal missiles by the Israeli air force, in the space of 30 minutes, during the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. These missiles, which were imported from Iran via Damascus, had been guarded carefully under the supervision of Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah intelligence operatives. The very fact that Israel was able to locate and eliminate them early on in the war showed that Iran and Hezbollah’s counter-intelligence operations were seriously compromised.

Then came the defection of General Ali Reza Asgari in March 2007. He was Iran’s former deputy defense minister and a senior contact man between Iran and Hezbollah. He was a highly valued Iranian asset. Despite that, Western intelligence agencies managed to recruit him and helped him defect while he was on a trip to Syria, without the Iranians being able to do much.

I was thinking along different lines, as is David Schenker

Mughniyah’s death raises some interesting issues. The fact that Mughniyah was killed in Damascus highlights the Asad regime’s increasing difficulties in protecting the terrorists they provide with “safe haven.” In 2004, another guest of the regime, Hamas leader Izzeddin Subhi Sheikh Khalil, was killed by a car bomb in Damascus. The Israelis bombed an Islamic Jihad training camp in 2003, buzzed Asad’s Latakia palace in 2006, and destroyed a presumed North Korean-supplied nuclear facility in 2007. As Mughniyah’s aunt told AFP earlier today, “We were shocked to learn that he was killed in Syria. We thought he was safe there.”

In all of these cases, to put it mildly, the Syrian response has been remarkably restrained.

I was thinking more about the hit killing of Mughniyah, the destruction of the Syrian missiles and the destruction of the possible reactor building. If the reports about Israel having a mole in the nuclear facility were accurate and now this, it would suggest that Israel has rather advanced covert operations in Syria right now.

Noah Pollak also entertains the question, Did Israel do it? He doesn't say conclusively but leans in that direction.

Daled Amos has an excellent roundup and wonders if this will lead to any questions about Sen. Obama's campaign.

Finally, here are the thoughts of Lt. Col. Robin Higgins, widow of Col. Rich Higgins, one of the victims of Mughniyah.

Crossposted on Yourish.

terrorism, Imad Mughniyeh.

Overcoming mistrust

Following up on yesterday's attempt to evade responsibility for terrorism, Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad continues his PR blitz with the willing participation of the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler complaining that since Annapolis Israel hasn't done enough.

Kessler, like any good PR flack makes sure that we all know Mr. Fayyad's qualifications.

Fayyad, a former economist with the International Monetary Fund, enjoys good relations with U.S. officials. He is visiting Washington this week to meet with U.S. officials -- including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush -- and to promote a new public-private partnership to create educational and economic opportunities for Palestinian youth, such as refurbishing West Bank youth centers in Nablus, in Hebron and in Ramallah.

.

Fayyad has his say:

Fayyad, in comments during an appearance at the Aspen Institute and in a separate interview, said Israeli officials often shower him with praise, then take no concrete steps on dismantling security roadblocks or restraining the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. "You see no change in the way that Israel operates," he said.

"Atmospheres are much better, [but] checkpoints have increased, not decreased. We have good meetings, friendly meetings. A lot of promises of 'We will think about this, this makes sense,' " he said. "I am happy when somebody tells you you are making sense. I would be a damn lot happier when I see things begin to happen."

In the interview, Fayyad insisted that his comments were "not meant to be pejorative. This is the reality. I am just trying to state it as it is."

At least Kessler quotes an Israeli source who disputes this:

A number of Israel officials, including Ambassador Sallai Meridor, were in the audience when Fayyad spoke at Aspen. An Israel official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he did not want a public spat, strongly disagreed with Fayyad's assessment. He said Israel has released Palestinian prisoners, transferred Palestinian tax revenue, signed agreements on industrial zones and handed over security responsibility of some Palestinian areas.

"Israel's made a strategic decision to help strengthen the Palestinian Authority in an effort to cooperate in fighting terrorism and reaching a historic compromise of two states for two peoples," the official said. "Unfortunately, Palestinian terror continues against Israeli citizens, including by elements affiliated with the Palestinian Authority."

Three recent terrorism attacks against Israelis were committed by members of the Palestinian security services, the official charged.

"the official charged?" Come on. They were committed by members of the PA's security services. No qualification necessary.

Fayyad gets a last word in.

"You have to overcome years of mistrust," Fayyad acknowledged. "I am trying to tell them is this is a new period. If something bad happens, I feel bad, but it is not policy. This is a big difference."

Well when your security forces are still engaged in terror and your propaganda still calls for the destruction of Israel, it doesn't really help to overcome the mistrust does it?

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, palestinian authority.

Off the marc

The Washington Post today features a fawning profile of HRW activist Marc Garlasco, The Man on Both Sides of Air War Debate

Garlasco is uniquely suited to understand both sides of the air war debate: He knows what the bombs can do, and he knows the price of errant attacks. In the five years since he moved from targeter to human rights advocate, he has lobbied for greater deliberation in the military's use of air power. He has made it his mission to prevent the use of cluster munitions and has argued for smaller bombs that have less impact on surrounding areas -- like the bombs that the Air Force now uses in Iraq.

and

"The objective is not to end war, it's to change the way militaries wage war," Malinowski said. "In order to do that, we need people who can speak with credibility to military leaders. Marc is effective because he speaks the language of the community he seeks to influence, he comes from that culture. . . . They tend to see him as a constructive critic rather than the enemy."

Hard to argue with that.
Or maybe not so hard.

The problem with this approach is that it ignores article 28 of the Geneva conventions.

The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.

(h/t Seraphic Secret) What Garlasco is doing is pushing for democracies and respecters of human rights to reduce the lethality of their military attacks in order to absolve terrorists and rogue states from their responsibilities according to international law. The pressure HRW brings to bear is only on the side of those who respect human rights. Their efforts will have no effect on the rogue elements of the world who don't give two hoots.

Going to Page 2 of the profile we learn:

Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap Jr., the service's deputy judge advocate general and an advocate of air power, said Garlasco's background has helped him build relationships in the military.

"I think that Marc is the prototype of what many nongovernmental organizations are seeking -- that is people with real expertise," Dunlap said. "I have not always agreed with Marc, but I have never found him to be driven by an ideological agenda."

And here is where I disagree completely. I didn't just find this article at random. I saw the name Garlasco and I remembered something about him. Nearly two years ago a Palestinian family at the beach on Gaza was hit by an explosion killing 8. Garlasco immediately blamed Israel for the blast using his credential as a military expert for HRW. The problem is that his expertise was in targeting, not damage assessment. But that military credential shielded him from questions that ought to have been asked.

Worse, a timeline established by NGO Monitor show how Garlasco reversed himself, seemingly to remain true to HRW's (anti-Israel) agenda rather than acting independently. HonestReporting also scores Garlasco for contributing to a report faulting Israel for destroying houses that hid smuggling tunnels. (Israelly Cool! points out that smuggling tunnels are still a big problem and aren't always so easy to spot.)

I'd probably have questioned Garlasco's sincerity regardless. However knowing of his past I'm not just guessing. Given the article's failure to mention Garlasco's fiasco from Gaza, it really is a fluff piece more suited for the Style section than the A section.

Crossposted on Yourish.

hrw, media bias.

Submitted 02/13/08

Watcher's Council nominations are up.

It's Going To Be One Interesting "Race" - The Colossus of Rhodey outlines how identity politics is defining the Democratic campaign. This leads to all sorts of oddities such as the resignation of Sen. Clinton's campaign manager becoming an election issue because she's Hispanic. Or Gov. Ed Rendell saying that a significant number of the citizens of his state wouldn't vote for a black candidate. Great copy, but didn't Rendell win his second term against Lynne Swann? Maybe he should have stepped aside and let the black candidate win.
Philip's Complaint, or Liberal Political Thinking in a Nutshell - Bookworm Room does a nice fisking of Philip Roth's interview with Der Spiegel. Of particular note is her observation that Roth's view of blacks is somewhat outdated.
The Balance - The Glittering Eye discusses bio-fuels. He questions whether bio-fuels actually contribute to global warming as recently reported. The bigger problem that he points to is how efficiently land is used to produce the necessary ingredients for bio-fuels.
Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and McCain Derangement Syndrome - Wolf Howling thoroughly takes apart the McCain Derangement Syndrome especially as espoused by Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. (Are Democrats and liberals now going to insist that Sen. Clinton disassociate herself from said support?) His main point: that only a person of principle can be expected to make the correct decision in difficult times. (I actually think that Sen. Obama is a man of principle, just the wrong principles.)
The Problem of Double Standards In Political Speech/Contribution Limitation Laws - Rhymes With Right uses the Obama campaign to illustrate a problem with the McCain-Feingold act. Should Oprah's stumping for Sen. Obama count as an in-kind contribution based on her (it may be assumed) substantial speaking fee? But if we don't limit the Oprah speeches how can we limit any speech?
America In a Six-Word Slogan - Cheat Seeking Missiles post launched thousands of comments with his contest for finding a six word slogan for America. I tried one already at the end of this post, but I wanted to do one in haiku. So how's this?
Opportunity.
America's excellent.
Still deniers doubt.
None Dare Call It Murder - Joshuapundit goes off after the State Department for considering a request from the Palestinian Authority to reverse extensive damages awarded by courts for its encouragement of terror. He does a really nice job of outlining the cases involved and fill in detail. This is especially flattering because he based this post on one of mine.
Trying a Child For Her Own Murder: Legalistic Idiocy - The Education Wonks complains about a murder trial where the victim's biological parents attempt to paint their abused child as deserving of death.
How the Democrats Will Attack McCain... and Fail Miserably - Big Lizards analyzes the likely dynamic of the upcoming general election. He doesn't believe it will be about issues, but about character. That is where Sen. McCain has an advantage over his two Democratic counterparts.
Complex - Done With Mirrors focuses on what "military-industrial complex" the famous phrase in Pres. Eisenhower's farewell speech meant in context. It apparently was a reference to government intervention in private initiatives. Done with Mirrors wonders if any (viable) candidate nowadays would consider moving away from that.
Mandate Me, Baby - Right Wing Nut House explores the possibility of mandated health care and the problems it will cause. This is one thing to keep in mind if you're thinking of voting Democratic in November. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and if the government attempts to create the free lunch, it will become even pricier.
Of Israel, the Palestinians and the United States - My entry this week has to do with the old thinking of the Middle East that is advocated by Roger Cohen in an essay supporting Sen. Obama and two articles that refute his premises.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

Releasing Terrorists--The Clintons Beat Olmert To The Punch

Debra Burlingame--a former attorney and sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001--writes about how Bill Clinton pardoned FALN terrorists to further Hillary's Senate campaign while Hillary played along. Back during Clinton's time in office, the US, like Israel, was under terrorist attack:

The perpetrators were members of Armed Forces of National Liberation, FALN (the Spanish acronym), a clandestine terrorist group devoted to bringing about independence for Puerto Rico through violent means. Its members waged war on America with bombings, arson, kidnappings, prison escapes, threats and intimidation. The most gruesome attack was the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing in Lower Manhattan. Timed to go off during the lunch-hour rush, the explosion decapitated one of the four people killed and injured another 60.

FALN bragged about the bloodbath, calling the victims "reactionary corporate executives" and threatening: "You have unleashed a storm from which you comfortable Yankees can't escape." By 1996, the FBI had linked FALN to 146 bombings and a string of armed robberies -- a reign of terror that resulted in nine deaths and hundreds of injured victims.

Sounds like the sort of thing that would make Palestinian terrorists proud--and a bit jealous. At the time, President Clinton confirmed his commitment to the victims of the terrorist attacks and pledged that he "will not rest until justice is done."

As it turned out, just as FALN channeled Fatah and Hamas--Bill Clinton channeled Olmert, stopping just short of actually using the phrase that the terrorists 'had no blood on their hands':

Mr. Clinton justified the clemencies by asserting that the sentences were disproportionate to the crimes. None of the petitioners, he stated, had been directly involved in crimes that caused bodily harm to anyone. "For me," the president concluded, "the question, therefore, was whether their continuing incarceration served any meaningful purpose."

Keep in mind that the charges the terrorists were convicted on included "conspiracy, sedition, violation of the Hobbes Act (extortion by force, violence or fear), armed robbery and illegal possession of weapons and explosives -- including large quantities of C-4 plastic explosive, dynamite and huge caches of ammunition."--and of course all of the law enforcement agencies opposed the pardon.

Clinton not only failed to follow proper federal guidelines for commuting sentences--the terrorists themselves had never requested a pardon.

So why did Clinton do it? Burlingame has a suggestion:

Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the midst of her state-wide "listening tour" in anticipation of her run for the U.S. Senate in New York, a state which included 1.3 million Hispanics. Three members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus -- Luis V. Gutierrez (D., Ill.), Jose E. Serrano, (D., N.Y.) and Nydia M. Velazquez, (D., N.Y.) -- along with local Hispanic politicians and leftist human-rights advocates, had been agitating for years on behalf of the FALN cases directly to the White House and first lady.

Originally, Hillary supported the pardon--and changed direction when it became clear public opinion was opposed. This only made matters worse:

Meanwhile, Puerto Rican politicians in New York who'd been crowing to their constituents about the impending release of these "freedom fighters" were enraged and insulted at Hillary Clinton's withdrawal of support. "It was a horrible blunder," said State Sen. Olga A. Mendez. "She needs to learn the rules."

...Tom and Joe Connor, two brothers who were little boys when their 33-year-old father, Frank, was killed in the Fraunces Tavern attack, were dumbstruck to learn that White House staffers referred to the FALN militants as "political prisoners" and were planning a meeting with their children to humanize their plight.

Meanwhile, Clinton demonstated why Olmert, despite his own political acumen, is still only a rank amateur by comparison:

The House launched an investigation, subpoenaing records from the White House and Justice in an effort to determine whether proper procedure had been followed. President Clinton promptly invoked executive privilege, putting Justice Department lawyers in the impossible position of admitting that they had sent the White House a recommendation on the issue, but barred from disclosing what it was.

The comparison between how the Clintons and Olmert deal with terrorism is very relevant and very real:

While the pardon scandals that marked Bill and Hillary Clinton's final days in office are remembered as transactions involving cronies, criminals and campaign contributors, the FALN clemencies of 1999 should be remembered in the context of the increasing threat of domestic and transnational terrorism that was ramping up during the Clinton years of alleged peace and prosperity. To wit, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Tokyo subway Sarin attack, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 1995 "Bojinka" conspiracy to hijack airplanes and crash them into buildings, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, the 1996 Summer Olympics bombing, Osama bin Laden's 1996 and 1998 "Declarations of War" on America, the 1998 East African embassy bombings, the 2000 USS Sullivans bombing attempt, the 2000 USS Cole bombing, and the 2000 Millennium bombing plot.

This argument looks familiar:

It was within that context that the FBI gave its position on the FALN clemencies -- which the White House succeeded in keeping out of news coverage but ultimately failed to suppress -- stating that "the release of these individuals will psychologically and operationally enhance the ongoing violent and criminal activities of terrorist groups, not only in Puerto Rico, but throughout the world." The White House spun the clemencies as a sign of the president's universal commitment to "peace and reconciliation" just one year after Osama bin Laden told his followers that the United States is a "paper tiger" that can be attacked with impunity.

Read the whole thing.

With all the talk about Olmert's willingness to release terrorists, it is jarring to note that Clinton did the same, and for far less of a reason.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Terrorism and Olmert and Clinton.

"Leave Saudi Women Alone!" and attack the Jews instead

A defense of the position of women in Saudi Arabia is inevitably going to involve--what else?--holocaust denial:

The United Nations’ interest in the situation of women in the Kingdom really puzzled me. It looked as though Saudi women live in a huge prison guarded by people whose only interest is to humiliate and degrade women as much as possible.

It seemed as if the women in this country were desperately seeking words of help and promise of rescue from these organizations so that that they can begin life afresh enjoying all the freedom they lost a long time ago.

I wonder how members of such organizations — whose hearts apparently bleed for those oppressed and suppressed — are so concerned about the Saudi women, but fail to realize the tragic plight of the women in Palestine and Iraq.

I wish the UN addressed the concerns of the women in Gaza who are starving to death because of the Israeli blockade in place for the last eight months. Before that there was a siege that lasted one year. Palestinian women and children are struggling for survival. Children are dying because there is no food and there are no medications. I don’t see the UN raising a voice to condemn what is going on in the Gaza Strip.

UN organizations are not concerned about Palestinian women languishing in Zionist jails. They are being held unfairly without any charges or trial. They are being kept away from their children and husbands. How I wish these organizations opened their eyes and talked to us about these continuous tragedies and traumas. As for the situation of Iraqi women, they’re in endless distress. They’ve been traumatized with no end in sight to their miseries. How come these organizations don’t see a tragedy that TV screens bring to our living rooms?

Don’t they know that the US-led war has so far caused the death of more than one million Iraqis, a majority of them women and young girls? Maybe they know it and hence their horrifying silence?

I won’t say that the reason for their silence is that all these catastrophes are caused by America and Israel and they don’t want to annoy the global superpower and the regional superpower. I’ll only assume that they have good intentions and are trying to find out the truth. Maybe they want to make every nation feel happy.

These organizations should realize that every nation has its religious distinctiveness that’s taken into consideration when it comes to enacting laws. Islam has its Shariah rules, whether in granting women their rights or treating them as equals to men. Islam doesn’t deny other people their religious distinctiveness.

The Jews guard their religious distinctiveness with zeal. The same applies for Christians, Buddhists and others. This religious distinctiveness is respected in their laws. I’ve never heard a country or an organization objecting to Jewish religious regulations. No country, individual or organization can criticize Jews without inviting charges of anti-Semitism. In fact, nobody can question the truth about the holocaust even if it is scientifically and historically documented. [...]

Finally, I say to all those who cry over the situation of women in Saudi Arabia, whether they are outsiders or citizens: Leave the woman alone. Saudi women are capable of taking care of themselves without the help of these busybodies . . .

Oddly enough, Arab News illustrates the ability of Saudi Women to "take care of themselves" with another headline that reads "Ex-Husband Continues to Make Life Hell for Abused Wife."

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Imagine That--The State Department Defines Anti-Semitism!

On the State Department website, The Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism offers a “Working Definition” of Anti-Semitism, based on the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC):

In light of the longstanding commitment of the U.S. to free speech and other individual freedoms as demonstrated within our Constitution, the Office of the Special Envoy believes that this definition provides an adequate initial guide by which anti-Semitism can eventually both be defined and combated, and therefore presents this "working definition" as a starting point in the fight against anti-Semitism.¹

Working definition: "Anti-[S]emitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti[-S]emitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

Just keep in mind that the footnote above refers to the inevitable 'fine print' at the bottom of the page:

The recitation of the EUMC "working definition" of anti-Semitism should not be construed as an acceptance of that definition, or the statements and examples thereunder, as United States policy.

True, the fine print tends to undercut the entire endeavor, but the examples given of anti-Semitism are interesting.

Among the general examples of Anti-Semitism are some that pertain to the Arab world in general and Ahmadinejad of Iran in particular--and possibly those who claim the Iraq war was foisted upon the US by the "Israel Lobby":

o Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as a collective - such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

o Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g., gas chambers), or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

o Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

o Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Here are some of the examples of anti-Semitism as applied to the treatment of Israel--which would apply to Israel's 'peace partners' and again, the Arab world in general, as well as the United Nations:

o Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor).

o Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

o Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

o Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

The report also includes the obvious caveat:

However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.

Read the whole thing.

All in all, it's obvious why no one is advertising that such a definition exists.

Sometimes, the biggest strike against a 'working definition' is that it actually does work.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: anti-Semitism.

The last refuge of the palestinian authority

The Palestinian Authority is making an effort to avoid paying damages it incurred for fostering terror. The State Department is considering helping. Glenn Kessler reports in Palestinians Ask U.S. To Intervene in Suits Over Terrorist Attacks.

The State Department is considering supporting the Palestinian Authority in its quest to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments won by American victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel, according to Palestinian officials and defense lawyers involved in the cases.

U.S. officials insist that no decision has been made regarding the complex litigation, which could force the Bush administration to choose between supporting compensation for victims of terrorism and bolstering the Palestinian government as the United States presses for a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The outrage here is that the PA continued to receive foreign aid despite the fact that its leaders were still tainted with terrorism. Now the PA is crying for relief for its own failure. (Actually "complicity" might be a better word.)

One thing is pretty clear, is that this is a last ditch effort by the PA to evade responsibility. The (pdf) original ruling against the PA dealt with the issue of "sovereign immunity." The court decided that since the PA was not a state, it did not enjoy sovereign immunity. Later its non-status actually saved it when a judge ruled that funds belonging to the Palestine Monetary Authority could not be frozen on account that it was not the same entity as the defendant the Palestine National Authority. My guess is that now all the legal maneuvering has reached an end, so now the one protection left to the PA is the State Department.

In the past, the State Department has defended Iran against the lawsuit of Steven Flatow. So we can expect the State Department now to take the side of the terrorists rather than that of the victims.

The third paragraph is mistaken on a number of counts:

Testimony in Israeli courts has connected senior Palestinian leaders -- such as the late Yasser Arafat -- to specific terrorist attacks involved in the lawsuits. But Palestinian officials have argued that it makes no sense for the United States to be providing millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority while U.S. courts are threatening to bankrupt it.

The testimony was not in Israeli courts but as the document shows was offered in an American court. While the testimony did indeed tie Arafat to the terror, he was dropped as a plaintiff. That's a shame because if his pilfered millions could be attached, there would be no need for the State Department to intervene. (But then those are located in France.) But the problem is that the foreign aid was given on the premise of changed behavior on the part of Arafat and his henchman. Since they didn't change, it was given under false premises. It's hard to have much sympathy.

Secretary of State Rice's initial response to the pleas of the Palestinian Authority were originally admirable.

After the Ungar case, about $200,000 in two of the PLO mission's bank accounts were frozen in 2005, a situation that Safieh called a "nightmare." On June 18, 2005, then finance minister (and now prime minister) Salaam Fayyad wrote to Rice, urging State to intervene, saying that the Ungar lawsuit was a "serious obstacle" to effective Palestinian participation in peace talks and was inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy.

Abbas also wrote to Rice in November 2006, after another court froze more than $100 million in retirement funds for Palestinian workers that were being managed in the United States.

Rice responded with a neutral letter. She noted that the Ungar case had gone all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to review it, so "the judgment is final and enforceable in United States courts." She suggested that the Palestinian Authority explore "out of court solutions so as to avoid enforcement actions."

I find it incredible that at every turn the Palestinian Authority asks for independence and at every turn it seeks to be excused for its failure to exercise its basic responsibilities. I hope that the State Department will be strong, but past experience shows that it will likely aid the terrorists.

It's also interesting how terrorists and their supporters use law - that they flout when it suits them - to evade responsibilities of past actions but even to block investigation of their current activities.

UPDATE: I wished I'd thought of this when I first posted. There's a famous definition of chutzpah: A man who kills both parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.

The PA's plea that the United States bolster it and prospects for a "breakthrough" in peace talks by reversing the courts and ignoring its past support of terror, is nothing if not audacious.

In None Dare Call it Murder, blogging friend JoshuaPundit fills in a number of details, including a point I glossed over - the PA isn't hurting for cash, no matter how much they claim they are.

PrariePundit has thoughts similar to mine (h/t larwyn):

The Palestinians are masters of avoiding responsibility for the acts of the terrorist they support and nurture. They set up several different groups to attack Israel while acting as if they are powerless to stop them. What they are asking the State Department to do is award this sham. In fact the State Department should be supporting these law suits which penetrate the maze put up by the Palestinians. To do otherwise is to support terrorism.

Surprisingly Andrew McCarthy (via memeorandum) agrees with the Palestinian Authority.

Exactly right! It makes absolutely no sense for the United States to be providing aid to a non-state entity dominated by parties pledged to the destruction of Israel, which represents a people who breed, support and even vote for terrorists when given the chance.

OK he agrees that it makes no sense to both aid the PA and punish them for terror. Somehow I don't expect that the PA would agree with his conclusion though.

The problem here is not the judgments; it's the aid.

Crossposted on Yourish.

peace process, terrorism.

Ramzy Baroud on manufactured realities

A recent piece by Ramzy Baroud, "Media Language and War: Manufacturing Convenient Realities," tackles a subject that many people would not associate with "manufactured realities": the recent bombing of an outdoor pet market by two female human bombs. Baroud laments the lack of "thorough analysis," but seems merely to be demanding the superimposition on the story of the Nancy Pelosi narrative of a failed surge:

[...] Any thorough analysis of the story would have to examine several related factors. First, it would need to juxtapose the high death toll with US and Iraqi governments’ reports of 'calm' in the Baghdad area. The claim of a ‘return to normalcy’ in the Iraqi capital has been propagated for months, as a way of validating US President’s Bush’s military 'surge'. Even if we buy into the questionable statistics aimed at hyping the positive outcome of the surge – questionable because they are only promoted by US and Iraqi military sources, with vested interests in downplaying the seriousness of the 'insurgency' – the violence seems to have shifted from the capital into northern areas, especially Mosul.

Instead of admitting failure in halting the violence which has plagued Iraq since the US occupation of 2003, US and Iraqi authorities resort to a continued and violent language to confuse and distract from the real issues.

This is how Alissa J. Rubin began her article for the New York Times (January 31): "The unsettled situation in northern Iraq continued Wednesday as Iraqi troops massed in Mosul to fight Sunni Arab extremists". This is a brilliant way to divert attention of the story from the failure of the surge to manipulate other values, and lumping these values to create a completely fallacious association: "Sunni Arab extremists." [...]

But what of the bombings themselves?

[...] What do the bombings tell us about the security situation in Baghdad, the success or failure of the ‘surge’ or the war which is driving people to suicide in its most brutal manifestations?

Apparently, it tells us nothing.

But Lt. Col. Steve Stover, spokesman for the Multi-National Division-Baghdad has an explanation that seems, at least from the point view of CNN much more relevant than the seemingly unimportant questions above. "By targeting innocent Iraqis, they (those who dispatched the 'mentally disabled' women suicide bombers) show their true demonic character." Thus, CNN headline: "'Demonic' militants sent women to bomb markets in Iraq." In Western media language, Arab women are perpetually oppressed victims, and they must maintain that role for the story to read right. Thus, the women bombers cannot be viewed themselves as extremists, but as victims in the hands of extremists.

Within hours the buzz words on online news were 'mentally disabled' and 'demonic'.

But what does 'demonic' mean exactly? What real issues does it address? And why should such an irrelevant outburst define the deadliest bombing in Baghdad in months?

Focusing on such extraneous associations - mindless, mad, demonic women, possessed and acting on the behest of bearded and cunning al-Qaeda ‘Arab Sunni, extremists’ – does much more than simply distract from the many military and policy failures in Iraq. It helps create a parallel universe to that of the real world, thus presenting a substitute image that shapes and reshapes the perceptions and imaginations of faraway news consumers.

The "real" world is a very non-demonic place, evidently:

The 'real world' - whether that of Iraq, Palestine, Burma, Kenya or any other - is a world that, although seemingly chaotic, is very much rational. It is predicated on the values of cause and affect. What may seem 'demonic' and 'mad' to a non-media person should not appear the same to a journalist. The latter’s responsibility is to narrate, contextualize and deconstruct with an independent and critical eye, not merely reiterate what has been told to him by 'official sources'. [...]

On a certain level it is hard to argue with Baroud's insistence about the failure to contain violence--the surge certainly failed to prevent the transformation of mentally disabled women into human bombs--but all that contextualization and deconstruction seems to lead to the most hackneyed of narratives--remotely detonated human bombs as people "driven to suicide" by the war. By the war? Aren't bombings part of the war? The people who dispatched those women are also interested in narratives. Their narrative ends with murderers entering paradise, the worldwide triumph of radical Islam, and sometimes we are also reminded that the terrorists' narrative involves depravities that most people don't even dare to imagine. So somebody--but not CNN--did create a "parallel universe."

The act of turning those women into bombs to slaughter people like animals (and actually along with animals) bursts, with demonic vitality, out of all the hackneyed Leftist narratives about terrorism--resistance to occupation, economic despair, whatever--rendering them crumpled and fraudulent husks. Why is Baroud so desperately fighting to drag the screen back in front of the obvious? He and the terrorists, I suspect, have a shared commitment to certain manufactured realities.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Of israel, the palestinians and the united states

Roger Cohen in today's New York Times argues that Jews ought to embrace the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama in "No Manchurian Candidate. " Like the NJDC he sets up lots of straw men in his defense of Sen. Obama. (Of course he dismisses such inconveniences such as Sen. Obama's embrace of Rev. Wright or the appearance of Zbigniew Brzezinski among his advisers. To Cohen, those are just questions that Jews ask. Well those questions are substantive and they haven't been answer satisfactorily.)
Why does Cohen think that Sen. Obama will be good for Israel?

Foreign policy will roar back once this is a straight Republican-Democrat fight. A Democrat who’s going to win has be strong on core American defense principles, which include Israel’s security.

Obama feels Israel in his kishkas, all right. Equally, he feels dialogue, which has been his way of getting things done since he became a Chicago community organizer in the 1980s. There would be no six-year time-outs on Israel-Palestine under an Obama presidency. “He’d be actively involved from day one,” said Axelrod.

Jews should get over the scaremongering: Obama is no Manchurian. Nor is he blind to the fact that backing Israel is not enough if such U.S. backing provides carte blanche for the subjugation of another people.

It's funny, because President Clinton followed the exact course that Cohen advocates and his term ended with the foreign official who was honored with the most trips to the White House, Yasser Arafat, launching a terror war against Israel after he refused a peace deal. (A point working against Sen. Obama, is that the one American involved in those peace talks who feel that the failure wasn't Arafat's is Robert Malley, now another one of Sen. Obama's advisers.)

Of course that last sentence is a way of dismissing any who dare disagree with Cohen's mistaken view of what will bring peace in the Middle East. (And he talks about "right wing bullying!) The concerns about Sen. Obama are real and only a partisan of the Senator would dismiss them instead of addressing them.

As I noted, the idea that anyone who disagrees with someone like Roger Cohen is not necessarily advocating the Israeli "subjugation of another people." Barry Rubin boils down the current prevailing view in Israel in Pay Now Nothing Later.

The central theme of Israeli thinking today is readiness to accept a two-state solution and to give up almost all the territory captured in 1967 for real peace, coupled with the view that there is no prospect of the other side making and implementing this desired outcome.

In effect, the policy is to demonstrate Israeli willingness for negotiation and compromise--showing how good a deal could be--but making it equally clear that nothing material will be given unless something very real and specific is provided in exchange.

Nor does this mean that nothing has changed. Much of the Arab world--notably the governments of Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Gulf states, would like the conflict to go away. But they are not prepared to do much themselves, nor can they deliver the Palestinians and Syria, those without whom there can be no agreement, not to mention an increasingly important Iran. Thus, while shifts in the Arab world are a positive development--the fact that a war between Israel and Arab states is unlikely is a huge advance over the past--at the same time formal peace remains closer in theory but not so much in practice.

The question isn't as Cohen presents that Israel must do something, but how will the Arab world change to accept what Israel will offer? That's what frightens me about all of the remaining candidates for President (including my choice, Sen McCain).

How much will the next President adopt the prevailing view, that peace can only come as the result of some measure of American pressure on Israel is a problem. Cohen who believes that, also dismisses whatever President Bush has done over the last eight years. Frankly, by staying on the sidelines as much as he did, he probably helped matters. He also tried to reformulate how we should view the Arab/Israeli conflict. That he didn't stick by his principles is unfortunate as Natan Sharansky and Bassam Eid write in today's Wall Street Journal. (h/t Bald Headed Geek.)

The real breakthrough of Mr. Bush's vision five-and-a-half years ago was not his call for a two-state solution or even the call for Palestinians to "choose leaders not compromised by terror." Rather, the breakthrough was in making peace conditional on a fundamental transformation of Palestinian society: "I call upon [Palestinians] to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. . . . A Palestinian state will never be created by terror -- it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions, based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism."

Many critics argued at the time that linking the peace process to a transformation of Palestinian society was a radical departure in peacemaking. It was. And it was long overdue.

The prevailing view in media, academic and diplomatic circles has failed to achieve peace time and again. It has strengthened the Palestinian terror organizations by absolving them any responsibility. As the Annapolis conference has marked a return to paying the Palesitnians to behave, I wonder if the next President will reverse this backward destructive trend.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, peace process.

Israel won!

In today's New York Times, Daniel Gavron writes of "Israel's Secret Success."

The Palestinian Hamas, which rules Gaza, refuses to recognize Israel, but even that movement seeks a long-term truce, which is tantamount to de facto recognition.

Tantamount? To what? Today's New York Times reports:

Rocket fire from Gaza has killed 13 Israelis in the past seven years, many of them in Sderot. The attack on Saturday caused an uproar in part because of the youth of the wounded brothers. The rocket caught them in the street, and they had not had time to take shelter after the municipal alarm sounded.

Part of one of the younger brother’s legs was amputated, doctors said, but the condition of both brothers had stabilized by Sunday. About 40 rockets were launched on Friday and Saturday, army officials said.

Elder of Ziyon concluded from a report at YNet that

1. Palestinian Arab terrorists remain depraved as ever, celebrating the pain of innocent civilians.
2. Islamic Jihad's morale must be amazingly low, as they continue to lower the bar of what they consider "victory" just so they can have something to celebrate and not feel like total losers.
3. Mosques in Gaza are used, today, to promote terrorism.

Israel Matzav added that

Underground Kassam launching pads big enough to hold katyusha rockets were discoverd by IDF forces operating in northern Gaza early Thursday. Taking advantage of the breach in the Rafah border wall, Hamas has wasted no time in using the recent weeks to boost its weapons and explosives supplies, as well as receive training and instructions from foreign operatives who slipped into Gaza from Egypt after the Rafah border wall was blown up.

From these items we see that the Palestinians in Gaza have
1) stepped up their attacks on Israel.
2) celebrates the injury of civilians
3) have prepared more advanced weaponry.

Perhaps I'm missing something in the subtlety of international relations, but I would conclude that such behavior is tantamount to declaring war or to a commitment to continue fighting, not de facto recognition.

Gavron writes later:

Problems remain, of course. We Israelis have made a shambles of our Zionist enterprise by establishing settlements in the Palestinian territories we have occupied since 1967. Either we must disentangle ourselves from the Palestinians, or else create a structure for sharing the land with them. Many of the flagship Jewish settlements are so deep in Palestinian territory that no matter how the borders were to be redrawn, the settlements would be left inside Palestine.

And the current talk of swapping “settlement blocs” in the West Bank for equivalent amounts of land in Israel near the border is unrealistic. For any “two-state solution” to work, we would need to conduct a complete withdrawal from the West Bank. Even so, the success of the Zionist enterprise would be astounding.

The problem isn't, of course, the Palestinian desire to destroy Israel. No, it's "settlements." Maybe then Gavron could explain why in the one area where Israel evacuated all "settlements" - Gaza - the terror has persisted. Not suicide bombers, for the most part, the wall around Gaza has kept them out, but Qassams. Clearly the Kool-Aid he's drinking has been spiked with lotus.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, hamas.

Musical monday #33

Elie's Expositions and I switch off hosting Musical Monday. This week it's my turn. You know the drill. No searching. Figure out the name of the song and the theme. This week's there's a little twist. I'm not looking for more than one version of the songs below. There could be 2 answers for 22 but the others should only have a single version. Once you figure out the theme, you'll know what I mean.

1) He blew up very suddenly I guess his name was probably Bruce
2) Uno, dos, one, two, tres, quatro
3) I hit cruise control and rubbed my eyes
4) I knew he must a been about seventeen
5) There's no reason why my being shy should keep us apart
6) Now I don't want you back for the weekend, not back for a day
7) Well there's a brand new place I found-a
8) Cause the dolphins make me cry
9) We thought about someone else, but neither one took the bait
10) And when the sun comes up, I'll be on top
11) Well, there's nothin' that you ain't tried, To fill the emptiness inside
12) We’ve done no wrong with our blinkers on it’s safe and calm if you sing along
13) Here's my story, sad but true
14) We're gonna load it up baby now
15) Instinct is the common lawyer
16) A cool evening dance
17) Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box
18) Cocaine Katy
19) ...take a look at you, then I'm not so blue
20) Well they've got a new dance and it goes like this
21) In Houston we just started a new dance
22) Our dreams have magic
23) Freedom came my way one day
24) I'm telling you right away
25) This stone is genuine like love should be
26) She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes
27) But now you're sad, your mama's mad
28) There's a thrill upon the hill
29) But is her sweet expression, Worth more than my love and affection ?

Previous editions:
Musical Monday #32
Answers for Musical Monday #31 (a joint production)
Musical Monday #30
Musical Monday #29

Musical Monday #28
Musical Monday 27
Musical Monday #26
Musical Monday 25
Musical Monday 24
Musical Monday 23
Musical Monday #22
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.

Dershowitz writing opera, Finkelstein plans rebuttal

A recent article in the Forward documents an interesting case of musical chutzpah:

Alan Dershowitz may have finally found a vocation that allows him to make more noise than he does as a celebrity lawyer, professor at Harvard Law School and prolific author. His new calling? Opera.

"This is my current retirement project," Dershowitz told The Shmooze. "It’s the only one without a deadline except the one God and nature has imposed on my longevity."

Dershowitz’s opera-in-the-making tells the story of Gershon Sirota, a world-famous cantor who was nicknamed "the Jewish Caruso" after the great tenor Enrico Caruso. Sirota’s star rose in Odessa and then, in the early 20th century, in Warsaw. The cantor died in the Warsaw Ghetto, a tragedy that Dershowitz plans to dramatize.

"In the first act, I establish who he is, his great influence," Dershowitz said. "At the end of the first act, the Nazis occupy Warsaw. In the second act, he learns that he has an opportunity to go to America with his family. The crux of the opera is his decision whether or not to leave Warsaw. He decides to remain, and is murdered along with his whole family." [...]

Norman Finkelstein has denounced the intended opera as the "latest shameful episode" in Dershowitz's career, and a "tansparent attempt to musicalize the holocaust industry, with the intended goal of justifying the theft of Palestinian land." Finkelstein further pointed to Dershowitz's lack of musical training to claim that the opera would be "plagiarized" and derived from an unpublished musical work by Joan Peters:

Dershowitz is not without musical experience — he was a choirboy growing up in Brooklyn’s Boro Park at Temple Beth El, and at one point he dreamed of becoming a cantor — but he readily admits the limitations of his prowess. He is writing the libretto for the opera and picking out melodies on the piano, and down the road he plans to get help from more seasoned musicians. [...]

As Tikun Olam blogger Richard Silverstein comments:

I think he needs more than an arranger. He needs a ghost composer.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Juggling carnivals 02/10/08

Incoming Carnivals

Jack continues to make his mark on Haveil Havalim as he has recruited a new hostess I'll Call Baila who hosts Haveil Havalim #153. If you're interested in Jewish blogging, check it out! To submit for the next edition click here.

Thanks to Dr. Sanity, as usual, for featuring a post of mine this week in the current edition of Carnival of the Insanities. I also posts from Miriam's Ideas (same subject as mine) and Yid with Lid.. To submit for the next edition click here.

And finally, check out Spewker (who was in the studio for Shalom USA this morning) for the latest (and well done) Carnival of Maryland. To submit for the next edition click here. Congratulations to Pillage Idiot on the first anniversary of the carnival! And while her post about celebrities and candidates is amusing, does it really go back to Ronald Reagan? Richard Nixon, for example, showed up on Laugh In once. I think that celebrity mingling with politics isn't such a new phenomenon. Still if the Grammys determine anything, it looks like Sen. Obama will be our next President.

Sideshows

TV Trivia Thursday 11 is up at Elie's Expositions.

And check back here tomorrow, (hopefully) for Musical Monday #33. (I hope I got that right.)

blog carnivals

Hate america first

via memeorandum

Author Phillip Roth weighs in on the American political scene with Der Spiegel.

SPIEGEL: What will remain of the current president, George W. Bush? Could he be forgotten once he leaves office?

Roth: He was too horrendous to be forgotten. There will be an awful lot written about this. And there's a lot to be written about the war. There's a lot to be written about what he did with Reaganism, since he went much further than Reagan. So he won't be forgotten. Someone has said he's the worst American president we've ever had. I think that's true.

SPIEGEL: Why?

Roth: Well, the biggest thing would be the war, the deceptions surrounding the entrance into the war. The absolute cynicism that surrounds the deception. The cost of the war, the Treasury and the lives of the Americans. It's hideous. There is nothing quite like it. The next thing would be the attitude towards global warming, which is a global crisis, and they were utterly indifferent, if not hostile, to any attempt to address it. And so on and so on and so on and so on. So he's done a lot of harm.

SPIEGEL: Since your book is set in that week during the 2004 elections, can you explain why Americans voted for Bush once again?

Roth: I suspect it was the business of being in a war and not wanting to change, and political stupidity. Why does anybody elect anybody? I thought highly of John Kerry when he began, but he couldn't stand up against Bush. The Democrats aren't brutes, which is too bad, because the Republicans are brutes. Brutes win.

In response David's Medienkritik-Online observes:

This repeated presentation of one line of American thought with little to counter it - essentially creates a mentality among readers that makes meaningful dialog with non-leftist Americans difficult to impossible. After all - they represent a quasi-evil movement to many Germans.

One has to wonder how much longer the Bush Derangement Syndrome can continue to act as a substitute for original political thought.

He's got a point. Has Roth really thought his positions through? 65 years ago, would a German magazine be interviewing a Jew? How did that situation change? Did Nazi Germany simply decide to stop seeking lebensraum? Did Nazi Germany simply tire of persecuting Jews? Or did some nations have to take arms against the tyranny and stop it?

Caught in his unreal world Roth lashes out at President Bush. Still he sees some good in America. All is not lost, earlier Roth is quoted earlier:

SPIEGEL: What made you interested in Obama?

Roth: I'm interested in the fact that he's black. I feel the race issue in this country is more important than the feminist issue. I think that the importance to blacks would be tremendous. He's an attractive man, he's smart, he happens to be tremendously articulate. His position in the Democratic Party is more or less okay with me. And I think it would be important to American blacks if he became president.

SPIEGEL: It could change society, couldn't it?

Roth: Yes, it could. It would say something about this country, and it would be a marvelous thing. I don't know whether it's going to happen. I rarely vote for anybody who wins. It's going to be the kiss of death if you write in your magazine that I'm going to vote for Barack Obama. Then he's finished!

True, as Tim Blair writes, this is awfully condescending. He gives himself too much credit and as Bookworm Room notes, he seems 60 years behind the times, considering Sen. Obama a credit to his race.

Next to Doris Lessing though, I'd have to say that Roth is absolutely enlightened. (also via memeorandum)

If Barack Obama becomes the next US president he will surely be assassinated, British Nobel literature laureate Doris Lessing predicted in a newspaper interview published here Saturday.

Obama, who is vying to become the first black president in US history, "would certainly not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would murder him," Lessing, 88, told the Dagens Nyheter daily.

Somehow, we've had black (and Hispanic and Asian) cabinet secretaries and the angry, white Neanderthals haven't come out with torches and pitchforks insisting that they ought to know their place in society.

Heck, Jules Crittenden notes that the American record is a lot more enlightened that the European one.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Britain has even had a black candidate for prime minister. In fact, I’d be happy if someone can name the European country that has even entertained the notion of someone of non-European descent for any top post, where the local skinheads wouldn’t start rioting in the streets while the local burgermeisters go into a panic, if such an idea were floated.

(And while you're there check out this comment.)

Getting back to President Bush, I just saw Leon Fleisher's, My White House Dilemma Mr. Fleisher, a 2007 Kennedy Center honoree writes:

What made me unhappy and continues to trouble me was that I was required to attend a White House reception on the afternoon of the gala. I cannot speak for the other honorees, but while I profoundly respect the presidency, I am horrified by many of President Bush's policies.

In the past seven years, Bush administration policies have amounted to a systematic shredding of our nation's Constitution -- the illegal war it initiated and perpetuates; the torturing of prisoners; the espousing of "values" that include a careful defense of the "rights" of embryos but show a profligate disregard for the lives of flesh-and-blood human beings; and the flagrant dismantling of environmental protections. These, among many other depressing policies, have left us weak and shamed at home and in the world.

Thus he bravely treads on new ground:

Therefore I am making known the dilemma I faced during my most celebrated hours. Perhaps speaking about my internal struggle will loosen the ties that bind future honorees -- not to mention the generations of artists they mentor and for which they serve as models -- from the code of silence that has pervaded this pinnacle of artistic recognition.

There's a word for Mr. Fleisher - ingrate. If part of the honor involved a celebration of his accomplishments at the White House and he couldn't abide by the "protocol of slience" and be honored by this President, let him graciously reject the honor and state his reasons for doing so. Had he done that, I could have respected his opinion.

But after accepting the accolades of the nation, for him to complain about being honored is simply discourteous. But it was apparently too important to him to receive the honor; he couldn't turn it down. So instead he accepted the honor and then repaid the President with an insult.

I'm a bit late to the party, but Cheat Seeking Missiles is holding a contest to find the best 6 word slogan for America. I've been struggling to find one. (I had been trying to do it in haiku.)

But after reading all of this unctuousness, I need an antidote. So, here's mine:
The freedom to insult us gratuitously.
No, it's not the most positive one. But it serves as a rebuke to these ingrates (OK with the exception of Doris Lessing) who benefit from America and see nothing wrong with spewing hatred of its leaders and its citizens. They wouldn't have reached their high perches if not for the freedom that America afforded them. And yet they won't let their sheltered view of politics keep them from spitting at the country, affecting a sense of moral superiority towards the very people whose tastes have spawned their successes.

BDS, america, president bush.

Yiddishe nachas *

Not.

And amid all this hype, Winehouse's representatives said late Friday that she won't attend tonight's Grammys in Los Angeles. Although she resolved her visa issues with the U.S. Embassy, she'll still appear via satellite from London. Winehouse apparently decided not to stray too far from the very place she sang about never entering: rehab.

The New York Times tells the story of
a new principal at a troubled high school. (h/t Shalom USA.)

On his first visit, in October 2004, he found a police officer arresting a student and calling for backup to handle the swelling crowd. Students roamed the hallways with abandon; in one class of 30, only 5 students had bothered to show up.

Who is he?

Junior High School 22, in the South Bronx, had run through six principals in just over two years when Shimon Waronker was named the seventh.

. . . “It was chaos,” Mr. Waronker recalled. “I was like, this can’t be real.”

Teachers, parents and students at the school, which is mostly Hispanic and black, were equally taken aback by the sight of their new leader: A member of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect of Hasidic Judaism with a beard, a black hat and a velvet yarmulke.

“The talk was, ‘You’re not going to believe who’s running the show,’ ” said Lisa DeBonis, now an assistant principal.

Not surprisingly, not everyone has accepted him, though it seems that most of the critics are no longer with the school, so it might just be that they have an ax to grind.

When an etiquette expert, Lyudmila Bloch, first approached principals about training sessions she runs at a Manhattan restaurant, most declined to send students. Mr. Waronker, who happened to be reading her book, “The Golden Rules of Etiquette at the Plaza,” to his own children (he has six), has since dispatched most of the school for training at a cost of $40 a head.

Flipper Bautista, 10, loved the trip, saying, “It’s this place where you go and eat, and they teach you how to be first-class.”

In a school where many children lack basic reading and math skills, though, such programs are not universally applauded. When Mr. Waronker spent $8,000 in school money to give students a copy of “The Code: The 5 Secrets of Teen Success” and to invite the writer to give a motivational speech, it outraged Marietta Synodis, a teacher who has since left.

“My kids could much better benefit from math workbooks,” Ms. Synodis said.

Mr. Waronker counters that key elements of his leadership are dreaming big and offering children a taste of worlds beyond their own. “Those experiences can be life-transforming,” he said.

One of the themes in the report is that Mr. Waronker has a personal touch. For example:

So when Emmanuel Bruntson, 14, a cut-up in whom Mr. Waronker saw potential, started getting into fights, he met with him daily and gave him a copy of Jane Austen’s “Emma.”

“I wanted to get him out of his environment so he could see a different world,” Mr. Waronker said.

My guess is that despite the problems, Mr. Waronker is having some success. And it comes from his seeming religious commitment to the school.

Back in Crown Heights, Mr. Waronker says he occasionally finds himself on the other side of a quizzical look, with his Hasidic neighbors wondering why he is devoting himself to a Bronx public school instead of a Brooklyn yeshiva.

“We’re all connected,” he responds.

Gesturing in his school at a class full of students, he said, “I feel the hand of the Lord here all the time.”

* Yiddishe Nachas could be translated as "Jewish Pride." It's something I get when I read of someone like Shimon Waronker, but not a spoiled, self-destructive pop-singer.

Crossposted on Yourish.

shimon waronker, amy winehouse.

Ahmadinejad blather thick today

This is all from IRNA, the most official of the various Iranian news agencies. Ahmadinejad's rhetoric is notable for the endless laundry lists of virtues supposedly promoted by Iran and problems caused by the World Arrogance:

President: Iran wants expanded ties with all states except Israel:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Sunday that Iran wants expansion of relations with all nations and countries, except the illegitimate Zionist Regime.

President Ahmadinejad told representatives and ambassadors of more than 100 countries based in Tehran that spirituality, ethics, human dignity, fraternity, kindness, passion and mutual respect are bases of such relations.

He said current international system, particularly the system governing the United Nations and the UN Security Council, is inherited from the World War II and has been designed by the victors in the said War for dominating the world and for exerting power over global wealth, culture and economy.

He added that since the system has been based on injustice, discrimination and immunity of a special group, privileges and special rights, they can never be able to base their decisions on justice and rights of nations -- the outstanding example being developments in Palestine and the type of their approach towards them . . .

The president said recourse to truth and giving more weight to human dignity, passion and kindness in international engagements serve as a main pillar of Iran's foreign policy . . .

. . . the Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes and supports all efforts for the defense of the rights of the oppressed, administration of justice and promotion of friendship, love and peace worldwide . . .

. . . Iranian nation will along with all free and independent nations continue its efforts to ensure a world full of justice, peace, friendship and lasting security . . .

Want more?

President: Victory of Iran's Islamic Revolution is victory for mankind:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Sunday that Islamic Revolution's victory is in fact victory for mankind, culture of monotheism, purity, justice, peace and kindness, all of which belong to humanity . . .

He said before Islamic Revolution, human beings were subject to doom between blades of marxism and capitalism. The two blades targeted personality, dignity, identity and lofty values of human beings, he added.

Calling Iranian nation a monotheist nation, President Ahmadinejad said that had been among the big advantages of Iranian nation throughout history and the result of the Iranian nation's monotheism, freedom, refusal to bow to injustice and dictatorship, campaign against corruption and injustice and their case for independence, non-intervention of foreigners in their internal affairs and defense of the oppressed . . .

There's still more:

President: Iranians determined to proceed in path to progress:

[...] The president said disrespect for such principles as justice, spirituality, ethics and human dignity is the root cause of all problems, wars, conflicts and hostilities worldwide. [...]

What about personal hygiene?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Oddities of 2008

I know that (barring a really surprising comeback by Mike Huckabee) for the first time in 48 years, Americans will be electing a sitting Senator to the Presidency.

There's a lot more that I didn't know.

Here's a bit of amazing trivia for the historic election of 2008: It's the first time two sitting senators will run against each other as their party's nominee for president.

In fact, only two sitting senators have ever been elected president--John F. Kennedy, who ran against then Vice-President Richard Nixon in 1960, and Warren G. Harding, an Ohio Republican who beat the Democratic governor from his home state to win the 1920 election.

I thought that the trend towards governors winning the White House was a new one. I did not think that it was so rare for a Senator to be elected President. (And I certainly thought that Senators earned nominations more frequently.)

Why do Senators so infrequently win the prize, or even compete for it (i.e. win their party's nomination)?

Here's some speculation: With six-year terms, senators have long histories of roll-call votes. They often appear to flip-flop on issues, or will vote against a slightly different version of a bill--remember John Kerry's claim about voting for war funding before he voted against it? Other times, a senator will vote for a bill simply because there is an amendment attached that would be favorable to his or her constituents.

This amounts to a field day for opposition research teams: Few things are easier to twist in a 30-second campaign spot than a Senate voting record.

That, of course, is a modern reason. There weren't 30 second campaign spots in the 19th century. And sitting Senators weren't elected then either.

There's another oddity we might see this year. According to Jonathan Rauch, the presidency will be won by Sen. Barack Obama.

As every grocer knows, many products have sell-by dates. Bread lasts a day or two, milk maybe a week. Well, presidential aspirants have a sell-by date, too. They last 14 years.

Herewith, Rauch's Rule. Actually, it was pointed out to me by a young political genius named—but I can't tell you his name, because he works in a government job and asked me to keep his name out of my article. Sadly, I must myself take credit for the Law of 14:

With only one exception since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, no one has been elected president who took more than 14 years to climb from his first major elective office to election as either president or vice president.

(I'm assuming that Sen. Clinton's unelected position of First Lady would count as a "major elective office" since it seems to be part of her political resume. That being the case, her expiration date passed two years ago and there's only one contender who hasn't worn out his freshness quotient.

Of course there would be a real challenge to the 14 year rule if Sen. Clinton wins the nomination despite her campaign's reported current fears. So we'd be left with two choices: either disregard her time as First Lady and define "major elective office" strictly or consider it the second exception (since Teddy Roosevelt) to the 14 year rule.

George W. Bush took six years. Bill Clinton, 14. George H.W. Bush, 14 (to the vice presidency). Ronald Reagan, 14. Jimmy Carter, six. Richard Nixon, six (to vice president). John Kennedy, 14. Dwight Eisenhower, zero. Harry Truman, 10 (to vice president). Franklin Roosevelt, four. Herbert Hoover, zero. Calvin Coolidge, four. Warren Harding, six. Woodrow Wilson, two. William Howard Taft, zero. Theodore Roosevelt, two (to vice president). The one exception: Lyndon Johnson's 23 years from his first House victory to the vice presidency.

And, of course, if our next President is John McCain, we certainly have the second exception.

election 2008.

Sharia for britain

Last week the Archbishop of Canterbury said that it wouldn't be a bad idea for Shari'a to be adopted in England. Martin Fletcher added his two cents:

As one who has been hauled in front of a Sharia court I would like to risk having my hand — or head — chopped off a second time by suggesting that the Archbishop of Canterbury just might have a point.

Fletcher thinks he's being funny. He is actually saying that he considers those who disagree with him as extremists. But the main part of the story really is infuriating:

We waited in the yard of an old police station. An alleged drug dealer lay on the ground on his stomach, his hands and legs bound together behind his back. Several wretched faces stared out from the dark interiors of cells with barred windows. A bunch of women engaged in some sort of domestic dispute arrived and waited patiently behind us.

Finally the drivers, still arguing furiously, were each told to make their case to a couple of religious elders. They had barely begun before the court adjourned to a nearby carpet for sunset prayers.

When it resumed, and both drivers had had their say, the court pronounced. The two men were ordered to apologise to each other and we were all dismissed.

The court performed its duty with admirable dispatch and minimal fuss and everyone went away happy. It was quicker, cheaper and just as effective as a British magistrates’ court.

After describing the "wretched faces," he tells how his own encounter ended and "everyone went away happy." Well not everyone. Not the "wretched faces" he saw when he arrived.

LGF was absolutely correct to highlight those lines. Fletcher's self-centeredness is very much on display. What if the court had decided differently, would he still be so smug? Is he so certain that the episode couldn't have ended worse for him and his entourage? Or even the other party?

The Belmont Club notes that Sharia law doesn't always produce good (or consistent) outcomes in a post delightfully entitled "My sentence was reduced to beheading." It's the story of Sandy Mitchell, who was working in the desert kingdom.

He was held in prison for three years and tortured until he eventually signed a confession, which he later had to read out on Saudi television. A sharia court sentenced him to having his head partially severed, followed by public crucifixion.

The sentence was later reduced to beheading, before the Saudi authorities finally conceded that al-Qa'eda terrorists had planted the bomb and let Mr Mitchell return home to Halifax, West Yorks. ...

His torturers told him his wife and son were "involved" in the plot, even though his son was only a year old, and Mr Mitchell finally cracked when the jailers told him: "We will torture them. When you hear their screams, you will know they are suffering because you haven't told us the truth."

Judeopundit saw an article that casts even more doubts on the wisdom of Sharia courts

Commander Steve Allen, head of ACPO's honour-based violence unit, says the true toll of people falling victim to brutal ancient customs is "massively unreported" and far worse than is traditionally accepted. "We work on a figure which suggests it is about 500 cases shared between us and the Forced Marriage Unit per year," he said: "If the generally accepted statistic is that a victim will suffer 35 experiences of domestic violence before they report, then I suspect if you multiplied our reporting by 35 times you may be somewhere near where people's experience is at." His disturbing assessment, made to a committee of MPs last week, comes amid a series of gruesome murders and attacks on British women at the hands of their relatives. [...]

Think about that for a moment. If these practices are so prevalent now, what would happen if Sharia would become official? Couldn't you expect that these practices would be perpetrated with even greater frequency once Sharia became official?

(via memeorandum)

Crossposted on Yourish.

islam.

The teacher and the terrorists

(An open letter to Deborah Howell, ombudsman of the Washington Post.)

Over the past two years, you defended the decision to publish op-eds by representatives of Hamas, a terrorist organization. It is a decision that cannot be justified. Still, you defended your position. In defense of your 2006 decision to publish Ismail Haniyeh's op-ed you wrote:

Good editorial pages and commentators enlighten and provoke readers to broaden their thinking.

Except that, as James David Besser later reported, Ismail Haniyeh didn't write the op-ed. It was written by American supporters of Hamas. So instead of publishing the undiluted views of the leader of Hamas, you published a slickly produced piece of propaganda.

The only possible justification for publishing the op-ed then, is that was the opinion page. It's a very weak justification. Still, I suppose, it's better than publishing propaganda for Hamas in your news pages. That is exactly what you did last week.

In her article "Israel to Intensify Strikes If Rocket Fire Continues, Ellen Knickmeyer reported:

Also, a 42-year-old Palestinian high school chemistry teacher was killed when a shell hit a school just before classes started in the morning, said Jamil Suleiman, director of the hospital in the Gaza village of Beit Hanoun. Three 16-year-old Palestinian boys, all students, were wounded, Suleiman said.

Israel denied targeting the school, saying it was firing at rocket teams that use the border village as a base for attacks on Israel. On Thursday, fighters fired at least seven rockets at the southern Israeli town of Sderot, wounding one person, the Israeli military said.

The problem is that Israel didn't just deny targeting the school. What happened is not a matter of dispute. Ms. Knickmeyer found a nice quote from the Egyptian foreign minister dismissing the significance of the Qassam attacks because they gave Israel an excuse to attack Gaza, but somehow she missed the AP report that it had actually photographed rocket launchers near the school.

(It's possible that one of the AP reports available on the Washington Post website included this bit of information. However, according to my search of your website, Ms. Knickmeyer's report was the most recent. Since it carried the byline of you reporter and it's the one that appeared in your print edition it's the most significant.)

There is no excuse for failing to report the presence of the rocket launchers near the school. As blogger Elder of Ziyon noted, placing armaments in close proximity to civilian institutions is a war crime.

Instead of presenting a "conflicting viewpoints" version of the news, your reporter had an obligation to present the evidence that the Israeli version was accurate. Failing to do that in the original news story, there should have been a followup with the relevant information omitted from the original story.

The New York Times mentioned the AP report, so the information was available to be reported.

In this case the Post failed in its obligation to provide undistorted news. You owe your readers a correction.

ps I am posting this on my blog in anticipation of a response, which I will publish (if I receive it) uncommented on afterwards.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, hamas.

17,000 victims a year of honor violence in Britain?

The Independent obviously wants you to connect this to the current controversy concerning the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks proposing UK Sharia courts, and the source of the 17,000 figure seems to be somewhat speculative, but this is absolutely mind-boggling anyway:

Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs.

And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest.

The crisis, with children as young as 11 having been sent abroad to be married, has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years.

The Home Office is drawing up an action plan to tackle honour-based violence which "aims to improve the response of police and other agencies" and "ensure that victims are encouraged to come forward with the knowledge that they will receive the help and support they need". And a Civil Protection Bill coming into effect later this year will give courts greater guidance on dealing with forced marriages.

Commander Steve Allen, head of ACPO's honour-based violence unit, says the true toll of people falling victim to brutal ancient customs is "massively unreported" and far worse than is traditionally accepted. "We work on a figure which suggests it is about 500 cases shared between us and the Forced Marriage Unit per year," he said: "If the generally accepted statistic is that a victim will suffer 35 experiences of domestic violence before they report, then I suspect if you multiplied our reporting by 35 times you may be somewhere near where people's experience is at." His disturbing assessment, made to a committee of MPs last week, comes amid a series of gruesome murders and attacks on British women at the hands of their relatives. [...]

Read the rest and see the "related" links.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Ramattan News Agency: "Human Rights Groups Ask 'Beatles' not to Participate in 60th Anniversary of Israel"

EOZ recently posted about Israel's apology for not letting the Beatles play in the Zionist Entity 40 years ago. Now "40 Human Rights organizations"--that's 10 per Beatle--are asking the surviving Beatles not to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba:

Over 40 Human Rights organizations from around the world called on the "Beatles" to boycott Israeli 60th anniversary, asserting that what happened in 1948 was a brutal ethnic cleansing and massacre of Palestinians and theft of their land.

In an open letter, received by e-mail, the organizations who campaign for peace and justice for the Palestinian people called the surviving Beatles, Ringo Starr and Sir Paul McCartney, and to the families of George Harrison and John Lennon, asking them not to accept any invitation to join in the 60th Anniversary.

The letter describes what happened in 1948. This was not a peaceful legally conducted creation of a safe haven for Jews escaping Europe but a brutal ethnic cleansing and massacre of Palestinians and theft of their land.

Somehow, in the course of that "massacre of Palestinians," almost a percent of the Jewish population was killed.

"The Zionist movement had set out to claim the whole of Palestine for the creation of a Jewish state long before the Nazi atrocities had occurred. In 1948 they took 78% of the land and brutally exiled or killed 750,000 Palestinians and destroyed over 400 villages," the organizations of Palestine Solidarity campaign said.

An invitation was delivered last week by the Israeli ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, during a visit to the Beatles Museum in Liverpool. [...]

The Beatles were also called upon to renounce the words "But when you talk about destruction/Don't you know you can count me out."

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Islamic Republic achieves mouse

Many stories in the Iranian Press claiming technological or military achievements are garbage. What are the odds that they really did this?

Scientists of the Royan Research Center has successfully produced a mouse using embryonic stem cells, it was reported on Saturday.

Director of the center's stem cells group, Hossein Baharvand, said that the mouse was produced by mice embryonic stem cells.

In the next phase, Baharvand added, the Royan's experts are to produce mice with specific characteristics by genetically changing the mouse embryonic stem cells.

"The mechanism could be used in studying the performance of a specific gene in a living body," Doctor Baharvand said.

He added that the mouse was produced from embryonic stem cells taken from a black mouse that were later injected into the blastosists of a white mouse.

The resulted embryos were then transferred to the womb of another mouse and finally a chimera mouse was born.

Established in 1991, Royan initially started its work as a center for limited surgeries, but in 1998, it was developed into a center for stem cell researches.

Royan means embryo in Farsi language.

The center comprises six different research groups including men infertility, women infertility, epidemiology and stem cell researches.

Successful producing of Iran's first cloned lamb, Royana, in 2006, is another major achievement made by Royan's scientists.

As long as they don't try it on Ahmadinejad.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Raising mccain

In Bush begat McCain (or here), Charles Krauthammer argues that by nominating John McCain (other than virtually assuring that a sitting senator will be elected President for the first time since 1960) the Republicans have essentially voted for an extension of President Bush.

Who in the end prepared the ground for the McCain ascendancy? Not Feingold. Not Kennedy. Not even Giuliani. It was George W. Bush. Bush begat McCain.

Bush remains popular in his party. Even conservatives are inclined to forgive him his various heresies because they are trumped by his singular achievement: He's kept us safe. He's the original apostate sheriff.

If national security, though, was the overriding issue why didn't the electorate go for Rudy Giuliani, whom Krauthammer argued wasn't as much of apostate? He doesn't address that. But he does point out something very important:

Conservatives are on the eternal search for a new Reagan. They refuse to accept the fact that a movement leader who is also a gifted politician is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.

People do take Reagan for granted. He was very gifted. We won't likely see anyone like him again for years. So conservatives must realize that there isn't likely to be another Reagan and learn to live with lesser politicians.

Given that he's the choice of the Republican Party Sen. McCain reached out to his critics yesterday in his CPAC speech. (via memeorandum)

I know I have a responsibility, if I am, as I hope to be, the Republican nominee for President, to unite the party and prepare for the great contest in November. And I am acutely aware that I cannot succeed in that endeavor, nor can our party prevail over the challenge we will face from either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, without the support of dedicated conservatives, whose convictions, creativity and energy have been indispensible to the success our party has had over the last quarter century. Many of you have disagreed strongly with some positions I have taken in recent years. I understand that. I might not agree with it, but I respect it for the principled position it is. And it is my sincere hope that even if you believe I have occasionally erred in my reasoning as a fellow conservative, you will still allow that I have, in many ways important to all of us, maintained the record of a conservative. Further, I hope you will grant that I have defended many positions we share just as ardently as I have made my case for positions that have provoked your opposition. If not, thank you for this opportunity to make my case today.

What's remarkable is how conciliatory this is without pandering. Mary Katharine Ham on the speech:

The end was very strong, about being his nation's "imperfect servant," and having made many mistakes that "you can attest to, but need not." Ha. Such is the magic of McCain that his transgressions are often too obvious to dance around, so he goes ahead and addresses them outright, as he did with his conspicuous absences from CPAC and various disagreements with the base.

The only part that didn't ring true was that he's always respected the positions of the base. Respected our ignorant, nativist positions, that is. Ha. Other than that, I enjoyed much of it.

Powerline reacts:

In reality, McCain is not as bad as some conservatives made him out to be when it looked like his nomination might be avoided, and he's not as good as other conservative will make him out to be now that his nomination is inevitable. Tthe bottom line is that McCain made the right move by reaching out to conservatives through this speech, and the conservative audience made the right move by reacting well to this overture.

I am hopeful that Sen McCain will generally govern from the right. I am more hopeful that he will do a better job of defending his positions and policies than President Bush has. That would allow the war on terror to continue and perhaps convince those wavering to support it.

john mccain, election 2008.

I musta got lost

An Israeli professor solved a problem that has been bothering mathematicians for nearly 40 years.
Trakhtman solved the "Road Coloring Problem," which was raised by Israeli mathematics Prof. Binyamin Weiss and others in 1970. There are many forms but the most popular one among experts goes like this:

A man reaches a town he has never visited before and drives around trying to find the home of his friend even though there are no street names. The friend says not to worry and that he will provide instructions (left, right, left...) on how to get there.

This is called synchronizing instruction. The problem is whether by using such instructions, the driver could reach his destination no matter where he was lost, said Prof. Stuart Margolis, a colleague and mentor of Trakhtman who made aliya from the US and joined Bar-Ilan the same year as the Russian mathematician.

"He is brilliant with a high IQ," Margolis told The Jerusalem Post. "It's God-given gray matter in his brain. He is shy, reserved and very modest. He intentionally offered his paper to an Israeli journal even though any mathematics journal in the world would be overjoyed to get it. Now he's working on a real algorithm to implement his solution."

What's the most remarkable part of the story?

A 63-year-old mathematics professor at Bar-Ilan University, who worked as a guard for about five years after his aliya from the former Soviet Union in 1990, has solved an abstract math problem that has befuddled experts for the last 38 years.

He started over again in the middle of his life and now has achieved fame in his field.

I'm guessing that something like this would apply to Rubik's cube.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, mathematics.

Council speak 02/08/08

The Council has Spoken.
To all winners, congraulations on a job well done.

The winning council post is (unsurprisingly) A short Hitch by Done with Mirrors. It's a post steeped in history defending the symbolism of the Confederate battle in face of criticism of said symbol by Christopher Hitchens. The most Ridiculous Story of 2008 by Cheat Seeking Missiles a well deserved put down of novelist Michael Chabon's narcissistic and overblown essay hailing the messianic virtues of Sen. Barack Obama.

On the non-council side the winning entry was Changing the organizational Structure at Small Wars Journal; a description of the necessities of a modern anti-insurgency campaign. Runner up was EU Referendum's Mass producers of distortion, describing how the media operate.

Though it didn't place in the top two, I nominated the Provocateur's The terribly mixed record of Alan Greenspan.

If you're a blogger and you like what you see, please consider submitting your own post to the competition. Just followt the rules here. With only 2 first place finishes all year I was pretty far down in the rankings.

watcher's council.

Health, education and welfare - hamas style

I wondered about this report when I first read it.

An Israeli missile hit a school in Beit Hanoun, killing a teacher and wounding three pupils, hospital officials said.

Two of the wounded were initially identified as fellow staff members but the Education Ministry later said all three were pupils aged 16.

"What was the fault of a teacher, an emissary on a sacred mission?" the ministry said in a statement deploring the attack.

Keep in mind the claim of the Education Minstry later. The next two paragraphs provided a likely explanation for what happened. (And keep in mind that Hamas specifically fires its qassams at the very times that Israeli children are going to or returning from school.)

An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops had fired on a Palestinian rocket crew spotted inside Beit Hanoun.

"We certainly did not target a school," she said. An investigation is under way to determine whether the building might have been hit by a stray missile.

But as is Israel's nature, it was checking to make sure that it didn't make a mistake.

Elder of Ziyon saw a later report that confirmed Israel's first response.

Associated Press Television News footage showed the school to be a series of huts in a rural area. A rocket-launching device was spotted between some olive trees, indicating militants had used the school for cover to launch attacks.

Elder of Ziyon observes:

Placing a rocket launcher on the grounds of a school is, of course, a war crime. But Hamas, as well as the "moderate" PA, will cynically use use the death of a teacher as proof of supposed Israeli attacks on civilians.

Do you think that the spokesman from Hamas's Education Ministry didn't know that rockets were being launched within proximity to the school?

Meryl notes another example of how Hamas looks out for the welfare of its constituents.

Hamas policemen seized a convoy of humanitarian aid bound for the Palestinian Red Crescent on Thursday evening, the second convoy it has taken from the aid agency, aid employees said.

Policemen from Hamas halted 14 trucks filled with food and medicine at a checkpoint after it crossed an Israeli checkpoint into Gaza on Thursday, said employees of the Palestinian Red Crescent, who declined to be named, fearing reprisals from Hamas. A Hamas official said the aid was seized because the organization was distributing aid to former Fatah fighters and not to impoverished Palestinians.

And she lists other Hamas assaults on the freedoms of the residents of Gaza.

When Hamas was building support for its "political" program it could count on the support of credulous reporters who would portray them as cuddly policy wonks. Now they're showing they're true colors (not just towards Israel) and the media tries to find the one thing that possibly casts the organization in a positive light: that it hadn't claimed any suicide attacks in four years until this week's in Dimona. I don't think that it was for lack of effort. And given its record, especially recently, it's hard to comprehend why reporters are still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. (It might be that Hamas was accurate in claiming "credit" for the attack in Dimona.)

At some point we ought to start seeing reports on how Hamas is starting to create a backlash in Gaza by its shows of reckless disregard for its constituents. Somehow, I don't think that we'll ever read a significant number of such reports.
UPDATE: Ellen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post covers some of this. In a related slideshow (using an AP report) the strike on the school is desribed as part of the "escalating violence." No word on the AP report on the presence of the rocket launchers near the school. Given the reliability of Hamas on similar matters in the past, it's remarkable that Knickmeyer didn't at least include a line to the effect of: "Often when Israel strikes at civilians it's in response to weaponry or fighters located among non-combatants." We'll see if she corrects the story in subsequent reports.

Crossposted at Yourish.

israel, hamas, gaza.

Shootings at city hall

I saw this terrible news out of Missouri:

A man known for confrontations with city officials killed five people at a city council meeting in suburban St. Louis Thursday night before he was shot to death by police.

Two Kirkwood police officers and three people attending the meeting were killed by the gunman, who rushed the council chambers and began firing as he yelled "Shoot the mayor!" according to St. Louis County Police spokesman Tracy Panus.

Two others were wounded, including Mayor Mike Swoboda. Two council members reportedly were shot, but it was not clear if they had been killed.

It reminded me of this incident from 1976:

April 13 represented the 30th anniversary of the darkest day in Baltimore City Council’s history. On that date in 1976, 35-year-old local restaurateur Charles A. Hopkins went on a rampage in City Hall, shooting and killing Councilman Dominic M. Leone and wounding several others. As a result of the attack, Councilman J. Joseph Curran Sr. suffered a heart attack, which ultimately claimed his life 11 months later.
...
“‘How can I help you, fella?’” —Slain Councilman Dominic M. Leone’s last words before being viciously gunned down by Hopkins, as recounted by Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke (D-14th District) prior to a moment of silence in honor of the 30th anniversary of the shootings.

There's more here.

When I was looking for information about the shooting at the Baltimore's City Hall I came across some other interesting tidbits:

1904 Mayor Robert M. McLane, Mayor of Baltimore, shoots himself (or was shot) to death in his home at 29 W. Preston Street. The death officially was ruled a suicide. The mayor had seemed depressed about the fire's destruction of his city. Yet he had just returned with his wife from a pleasant lunch engagement. Some believe that the mayor's wife shot her husband to death. The young mayor (born 1867) was a newlywed at the time of his death. He had married Mary Van Bibber on May l4, 1904, two scant weeks before the fatal shot was fired. The shooting occurred May 30, 1904. Mayor McLane is buried in Greenmount Cemetery. An ongoing Baltimore mystery.

I believe that Greenmount Cemetery is also the final resting place of Edgar Allan Poe.

And there was another shooting at Baltimore's City Hall 19th century too.

James F. Busey a Democratic ward heeler of the lowest type, but a man who has political influence enough in this city to carry the Seventeenth Ward around in his vest pocket, was shot and mortally wounded in front of the City Hall before noon to-day.

city government, crime, baltimore.

Squirreling it away.

Warning: This is a little gross. Proceed at your own risk.

Him: After work I've got to go rake all the leaves in my backyard. I also have about a bazillion acorns!

Me: Sounds like a squirrels paradise to me. Is your yard overrun with them?

Him: Nah, I keep a BB gun by my back door and they scurry away when they know I am home.

Me: Does the BB actually kill them or does it startle them because of their thick coat of fur?

Him: Sometimes, I hit 'em just right and they run a few steps and then keel over dead.

Me:So, what do you do with all these dead squirrels laying around your yard? Do you pick them up and throw them in the trash can?

Him: I burry 'em sometimes or else I put them in a plastic bag and then put them in the freezer?

Me: In your freezer??!

Him: Yeah, that way they harden up and then I put them out in the trash on trash day so they don't stink everything up.

Me: Sounds like you are the Jeffrey Dahmer of squirrels.

Him: Well, I don't know if I would go THAT far!

Me: What does your wife say about sharing here freezer with dead and frozen squirrels?

Him: Well, actually I am not married.

Does that make you nervous little fella?

squirrels

If ... you must 02/07/08

If you haven't read Just one Minute's Barack v. McCain; you must.
In which he considers the possibility of Sen. McCain running against a divided Democratic party.
If you haven't read Wolf Howling's Of John McCain, Kos Coulter and the Goldwater Myth; you must.
In which he makes a point about the importance of Republicans coming together and generously links to me and other similarly minded bloggers.
If you haven't read JoshuaPundit's Sooper Dooper Tuesday Update; you must.
This is a really excellent roundup of percentages and observations about the electorate.
If you haven't read Libs and McCain's age at Don Surber; you must.
I was pretty appalled when Anna Quindlen played the age card. Don thinks we'll see more of it and worse.
If you haven't read Hollywood Kool Aid at Seraphic Secret; you must.
On the other hand there are other issues that Democrats would prefer not to explore.

If you haven't read How was your day yesterday? at Jewish Current Issues; you must.
He recalls a summer spent near Sderot and thinks about what it must be like to live in that area now.From my friend Avraham, a recent oleh

It's a short video of what a Kassam attack sounds like. For those who can't make out the words, the warning Tzeva Adom (color red) sounds from loudspeakers all over the city. There are 20 seconds from the first warning until the missile lands.

Twenty seconds is not much time to get the kids out of the car or van and into a shelter. It's not much time to get everyone out of bed and into a reinforced room, if a family is lucky enough to have one. (Many homes, if not most, do not have a reinforced room.)

Unfortunately, this is reality for Sderot.

If you haven't read How did it get there at Life in Israel; you must.
In which he deals with the possible Jewish origins of the Blarney stone.
If you haven't read National Inane Answering Machine Message day at the Almanac of Miscellaneous Merriment; you must.
I used to leave silly riddles on my machine. It annoyed some people, so I stopped.
If you haven't read Questions and Answers with Treppenwitz at A Simple Jew ; you must.
If you haven't read I used to be smart once upon a time at Treppenwitz ; you must.
I still think that he's pretty smart; and an excellent wordsmith.

sderot, election 2008, language.

Surging into gaza

A day after the NY Times reporter that Hamas is taking credit for the suicide attack in Dimona, the Washington Post reports the same thing.

If proved to be the work of Hamas, Monday's suicide bombing in the southern Israeli town of Dimona would be the militant group's first within Israel since 2004.

Hamas said the two Palestinians who carried out the attack were from the West Bank city of Hebron. Many Israelis speculated Monday that the bomber and an accomplice had left Gaza after Palestinians last month demolished much of the border wall that divides the territory from Egypt, allowing hundreds of thousands of Gazans to exit and reenter the strip unhindered.

Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since June, does not recognize the state of Israel and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel. Suicide bombers affiliated with the group killed hundreds of Israelis from the mid-1990s until Hamas announced a 2005 cease-fire.

I'm not sure why the Hamas claim is so credible. (It might be true; it's just impossible to know at this time.) The Post reports that the two bombers named by the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade have been reported missing. There doesn't appear to be any such corroboration of the Hamas claim.

(And here too, Hamas is credited with observing a "ceasefire" over the past three years.)

The Jerusalem Post reports that the wall breach has been helpful to jihadis.

Thousands of Arab men have flocked into the Gaza Strip from Egypt in the past two weeks, offering to join in the fight against Israel, sources close to Hamas said Wednesday.

The men, who came from Egypt and several other Arab countries, entered the Gaza Strip after the border with Egypt was torn down, the sources said, adding that they had offered to join Hamas and other armed groups.

Egyptian sources said the men had toured a number of training bases and security installations belonging to Hamas and other groups and expressed their desire to remain in the Gaza Strip and launch attacks against Israel.

This would seem to support the Israeli charge that the terrorists came from Gaza. The breach was used for beefing up the terrorist forces inside Gaza.

But the next sentence is fascinating:

The sources said some of the men had recently fled from Iraq, where they had been carrying out attacks against US troops.

Another sign that the surge is working. I guess they figure that they'll have more success against Israel than against American troops at this time. (How did these training facilities exist under the watchful eye of the Egyptians anyway?)

israel, hamas, gaza.

The wmd of the muslim world

A blogger The Sudanese Thinker calls Israel a WMD.

Let’s shelter our oppressed Palestinian brothers. Let’s put them first before any of those living a few feet away from us. They deserve more help. The problems in our own backyards don’t matter, and for many they don’t even exist, but those that are miles and miles away from us do — through our television screens, the radios’ shouts and screams, opinions of the Arab streets, and our schools’ books and distorted dreams.

Oh Lord, destroy the sons of pigs and apes. They are our wonderful leaders’ deadly Weapons of Mass Distraction.

(emphasis mine.)

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel.

The fluid electorate

Michael Barone wonders what's happened to the campaigns this year. In Open Field politics he argues that every single campaign has made a serious mistake. (Most of course have been fatal or near fatal. Two though will yield the major party nominees. Actually maybe Mike Huckabee's campaign has been a success; it just never could reach enough people.) Barone's conclusion:

Mostly absent from political coverage, and even from many of the candidate debates, has been discussion of public policy. Voters lacking signposts in this open field have responded in ways that don't make much sense: Republicans concerned about the economy tilted toward Mr. McCain, who once said he didn't know much about the economy, and Democrats eager to withdraw from Iraq tilted toward Mrs. Clinton. The ideas vacuum in campaign 2008 still remains to be filled, and opinion may still take sharp and unpredicted turns.

So this suggests that it's about personality. It might explain why Sen. Obama who's been given "get out of substance free" would do so well against the Clinton machine. It would also explain why Gov. Huckabee is doing so well.

Or maybe it's about the current occupant of the White House. Maybe President Bush has managed to unite the country. Maybe his various political mis-steps - even when his policy was correct has the electorate searching for the anti-Bush. Sen. Obama is articulate in a way the President Bush is obviously not. Sen. Clinton is seeking to succeed the man who succeeded her husband. And Sen. McCain has been viewed at odds with the President for the past eight years.

Perhaps what we're seeing is "Bush fatigue," just as "Clinton fatigue" prevented VP Al Gore from benefiting from the economic success of the Clinton years. Maybe it's a good thing for Republicans that VP Cheney isn't running.

Mort Kondracke, though, points out something else that's rather distressing for us Republicans: McCain's Challenge: Democrats Hugely Outvoting GOP:

After Super Tuesday, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) has every right to declare himself the Republican presidential frontrunner, but he has miles to go in getting himself and his party in shape to face his Democratic opponent.

One measure of his task is that more than 14.6 million Democrats went to the polls on Tuesday and only 9 million Republicans -- indicating a vast enthusiasm gap between the parties.

McCain polls reasonably well against both Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), but they have a sagging economy and a massive national desire for change going for them in addition to the energetic desire among Democrats to get the White House back.

This would be consistent with the "Bush fatigue" idea. Democrats would feel it a lot more strongly than Republicans. It also would signify that McCain's early lead will evaporate after the conventions.

Perhaps when pollsters ask voters what motivates them, one question ought to be about President Bush and what he effect he has/had on their vote.

john mccain, hillary clinton, barack obama.

Self imposed?

The NYT reports:

Israel appeared to face a heightened threat from Palestinian suicide bombings on Tuesday after the military wing of Hamas officially claimed responsibility for a lethal blast the day before at a shopping center in the southern town of Dimona.

The claim by the Qassam Brigades wing of Hamas, the militant Islamic group, signaled a possible end to its self-imposed moratorium on such attacks that had lasted more than three years.

"Self imposed moratorium?" Really? In response to a specious BBC report on the Dimona attack that called terror attacks "rare," Judeopundit pointed out that terror attacks have been attempted quite frequently over the past few years.

No mention, of course, of thwarted attacks. According to Jewish Virtual Library 187 suicide attacks were thwarted in 2006. This story from 10/7/07 mentions 7 suicide bombings thwarted in "the last month and a half."

Suicide terror attacks haven't been rare. Fortunately successful suicide terror attacks have been rare due to Israeli preventive measures. The Wall Street Journal opined this week, in the Israeli Lesson

Instead, the difference has come because of Israel's increasingly successful antiterrorist efforts. Key to that success has been the construction of its ostensibly "illegal" security fence, its equally "illegal" targeted assassinations of key terrorist leaders, its "disproportional" attacks on terrorist enclaves in Jenin and elsewhere, and other actions that saved innocent lives but which much of the international community deplored.

One of the most common arguments against Israel's actions is that it would feed a "cycle of violence." It's fair to say that what happened is closer to the opposite. As Israel put pressure on terrorist leaders, they were forced to spend their time running for their lives rather than planning the next attack.

Why does the term "self imposed moratorium" bother me? Because we're dealing with a terrorist group. Even if the Qasam brigades really had a ceasefire and observed it: other terror groups have been attempting attacks with the forbearance of the Hamas and Fatah governments and Hamas has done nothing to stop the hail of Qassams regularly fired at Sderot and other localities within Israel. Praising a branch of Hamas, which may or may not have stopped a specific attack is awfully faint praise when every other branch of Hamas (even the so called "political" branch) is involved in some way in terror against Israel. So why bother?

I would argue that Isabel Kershner is trying to minimize the likelihood that the breach in the Egypt-Gaza border has given Hamas more opportunities to launch attacks against Israel. (Indeed, this is cited as an "Israeli concern.")

Kershner does point out the possibility that more than one team of terrorists was sent to Israel and that only one team, so far, has been successful.

Like much the rest of the MSM, the Times leaves the victims anonymous today.

terrorism, hamas, israel.

Super Tuesday: Identity over Ideology?

One of the surprises, for me anyway, of yesterday's primary outcome was the extent that identity figured into the process. People were well aware of the identity factor for the Democrats. I will just note that women are a bigger "minority" than blacks and Hillary maintained parity with the more politically-adept Obama.

Now consider the Republicans: Romney lost potential ideologically-conservative votes in Bible-belt states to a former Baptist minister who played up the anti-Mormon angle. But of course he won in Utah. And Montana and Alaska, which he also won, are in the top ten states for Mormon congregations. Arizona is, too, but that's McCain's state. California and New York, which are at the biggest risk, perhaps, from terrorism were won by a Democrat who takes pains not to be seen as weak on Terrorism and a Republican who emphasizes the war on Terror.

Some have concluded that immigration did not end up being such a big issue in the primaries yesterday, but it is interesting to note that I live in California and that every campaign ad for McCain that I heard on the radio talked about immigration and nothing else. So identity mattered the most, local interests came in second, and ideology came in at a distant third.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Primarily fun

How's your candidate doing?

For now, I'd say that my second choice seems to be doing OK.

But what about the really important stuff.

Like which candidate supports which baseball team? And Hillary Clinton is a lifelong Yankees fan. Republican choices are here.

And don't go to the polls until you've read the Belarusian endorsements.

Pillage Idiot is looking past the budget deficit, to a much more important deficit. He takes a historical look at the alarming nickname gap that we are facing this election season. I don't know if "Rhymes with witch" counts.

And just for the fun of the political process, check out WOW: WV Republican Convention at Boker Tov Boulder.

politics,humor.

Submitted 02/06/08

Watcher's Council nominations are up.
I'd Have To Ask?? - The Colossus of Rhodey is incredulous. In Dallas he'd have to get permission to give a student less than a 50. He takes issue with a scheme to protect students from the consequences of his/her actions.
The Anti-McCain Republicans - The Glittering Eye considers the strong dislike many conservatives for Sen. McCain. He thinks it self defeating. I agree. (See below.)
A Short Hitch - Done With Mirrors reflects upon the little recognized aspects of the Civil War and civil rights movement. The purpose of this informative essay is to show that the Confederate battle flag was not, originally, a symbol of racism or of a commitment to slavery.
Good Immigrant, Bad Immigrant - Bookworm Room uses a biography of Irving Berlin to highlight a different era's view towards immigration. It wasn't just that they appreciated the freedom and opportunity available to them in the new world, they also realized that no batter how bad things were in the New Country, they were infinitely worse in Europe. (I realized this when I saw the manifests of ships carrying my great-grandfather and later my great-grandmother, grandfather and great-aunt. My great grandfather left a pregnant wife and toddler to establish a life for himself in America.)
Why Should We Care Whether Hillary or McCain Wins? - Big Lizards makes a better and more detailed case than I did (see below) as to why conservatives/Republicans would be foolish to sit out or vote Democratic in the general election.
Cutting Off Berkeley - Rhymes With Right advocates appropriate retaliations for the Marine haters in "Beserkly." He also notes that a crime was reported and ought to be prosecuted.
The Most Ridiculous Story of 2008? Part 2 - Cheat Seeking Missiles eviscerates an op-ed by Michael Chabon arguing that failing to support Obama is to rally against hope, or some other such nebulousness. It's wonderful to see an amateur skewer the pretensions of a professional. See similar (if less detailed) thoughts by John Podhoretz.
Obama Disparages the Military & Gets a Pass On Iraq From Fox News - Wolf Howling notes the troubling tendency of the media - in this case a reporter for Fox News - to give Sen. Obama a pass on what he actually believes. In this case it has to do with the current success of the "surge" in Iraq and the role that it plays in making the West more secure. In this case Sen. Obama won't concede the success of the surge and considers the American presence in Iraq to have no benefit at all.
Expelling The U.S. Marines - The Education Wonks writes about the "Beserkly" City Council's decision to honor Code Pink and expel the Marines. Here's a nice quote:

Isn't it ironic that the college town that has always preached tolerance to the rest of us should be so intolerant as to no longer welcome the very folks who are willing to put their lives on the line in order to preserve that very right to preach to the rest of us?

The Super Tuesday Shuffle -- And Beyond - Joshuapundit considers the state of the candidates. He thinks that if Sen. McCain is elected President, it could well lead the Republicans on a march to oblivion. On the other hand, he understands that Sen. McCain is likely to understand how to defend America (militarily), a quality no Democrat possesses. And he takes the opportunity to regret that the presidential campaign of Rep. Duncan Hunter, never got traction.
The Debate of Almost, Mostly, Republicans - Right Wing Nut House looks at the remaining Republican candidates for President and sees not a conservative in the bunch. He suggests that this reflects (at least in part) a general move to the left of the American electorate.
Campaign Consultant Kang Speaks - in my entry this week I reflect on the ancient Klingon wisdom when considering the approach of Ann Coulter towards John McCain.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

Criticizing sen. obama

At the NJDC blog today, they reprinted an attack on a number of critics of Sen. Barack Obama. I entered a comment disputing a number of the charges in the post, but it has not yet been published. At best comments - especially, from my experience, critical comments - take a while to show up at the NJDC blog, if they show up at all.

So I copied what I wrote in response.

It's funny that you should compare Ed Lasky's analysis with Walt and Mearsheimer, indeed one of the most damning bits of information about Senator Obama's campaign are his advisers (Samantha Power and Zbigniew Brzezinski) who accept the "Jewish Lobby" thesis. As I've commented before, though you've declined to make public, I'm mostly bothered by the presence of Robert Malley on the Senator's list of advisers. (He may not be the main Middle East adviser, but the campaign's denial wasn't categorical either.) Again, by setting up straw men, you fail to address very real concerns about the Senator's positions.
It's also pretty clear that the madrassa tale, originated in the Clinton camp, so maybe save some of your fire for your allies.
Sen Obama's church has been an issue, not because of his denomination, but because of its leader. Here's Rolling Stone: Obama wasn't born into Wright's world. His parents were atheists, an African bureaucrat and a white grad student, Jerry Falwell's nightmare vision of secular liberals come to life. Obama could have picked any church -- the spare, spiritual places in Hyde Park, the awesome pomp and procession of the cathedrals downtown. He could have picked a mosque, for that matter, or even a synagogue. Obama chose Trinity United. He picked Jeremiah Wright. Obama writes in his autobiography that on the day he chose this church, he felt the spirit of black memory and history moving through Wright, and "felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams."
If a Republican candidate for office chose to attend a church whose leader was an outspoken advocate of David Duke would you be silent? Please don't insult my intelligence by saying that you would. Rev. Wright is an advocate of Louis Farrakhan. Despite the soothing words he utters when he knows he knows he's being quoted, I believe that this choice speaks more sincerely of Sen. Obama's beliefs. You may disagree with that. But I find it hard to believe that you'd be silent if the shoe was on the other foot.
Finally, Mr. Forman, Daniel Pipes is not a flack. In fact if you wanted some good criticisms of President Bush's policy towards the Middle East, you'd find plenty at Dr. Pipes's website. I'm a flack. You're a flack. (I don't mean that as an insult; we're both partisans pushing specific candidates.) Daniel Pipes is a scholar. (Now that Mayor Giuliani has dropped out of the race, I have no idea if he will even endorse a different candidate.) His article about Sen. Obama was not the result of opposition research, he took everything from published reports. At the very least you owe Dr. Pipes an apology.
I don't expect that you will publish this comment, because I'm raising questions you'd prefer not to address.

I know that certain aspects of comment are a bit petulant. However, I fail to understand why the NJDC doesn't focus more on the Sen. Obama's advisers. If we are to take their arguments seriously they must answer substantive criticisms, instead of dismissing all criticism as a "smear campaign."

barack obama.

Low hanging times

Barry Rubin has at the NY Times, especially outgoing reporter Steven Erlanger.

Speaking about restrictions, it might be worth mentioning that there are no such Israeli restrictions on the West Bank. Why is that? It is because the Palestinian Authority regime there doesn't systematically encourage and facilitate terrorist and rocket and mortar attacks on Israel. This, then, is the central issue pertaining to the Gaza Strip, and not the apparently motiveless meanness that much media coverage makes it seem to be Israel's reason for so acting.

There are 16 paragraphs remaining in the New York Times version. Do you think that we will be told that some of the restricted goods Palestinians bought in Egypt are guns, ammunition, explosives, and material for making rockets? Of course not.

Since he's having so much fun, I'd love to pile on. In today's report about yesterday's terror attack in Dimona Isabel Kershner noted:

The Israeli authorities had warned in recent days that Palestinian militants had taken advantage of the breach of the border, which occurred after Hamas blasted sections of a wall between Gaza and Egypt on Jan. 23. Egyptian forces resealed the border on Sunday.

"Had warned!" Why is this couched in any sort of a qualification? Go to page 2 of the report.

According to his mother, Mr. Aghwani left the Gaza Strip for the first time in his life on the first day that the border with Egypt was breached, shopping for her in the Egyptian border town of Rafah. He went in and out of Egypt several times over the next few days, leaving the house for the last time on Wednesday, the family said.

What Israeli officials "warned" was confirmed by the mother of one of the terrorists. There's little doubt that during his trips back and forth to Egypt, he was recruited to carry out yesterday's attack. By qualifying what happened as an Israeli "warning" the reporter adds an element of uncertainty that shouldn't be in the article.

Elder of Ziyon notes what the NYT and other MSM outlets are leaving out of their stories. (Funny, when it came to giving op-ed space to Hamas biggies it was essential to our democracy to allow them a platform for their sanitized propaganda, but when it comes to telling us how the residents of Gaza really feel, they get sort of skittish.) Simply Jews takes his whacks at an NYT Israel correspondent of the past. He does have a gift of understatement doesn't he?

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, terrorism, media bias.

Sy's lies

via memeorandum

Investigative reporter, Seymour "Sy" Hersh has an exclusive for the New Yorker, "A strike in the dark," alleging that Israel didn't really know what the nature of the facility it bombed last September in Syria was. (As is the nature of the New Yorker, the article appears in its "Fact" section, even though the nature of the essay is highly speculative.)

The only solid piece of evidence he seems to present against the idea that the structure was possibly nuclear is what he writes about the ship Al Hamed, that reportedly offloaded cement at the Syrian port of Tartous a few days before Israel bombed the Syria site.

But there is evidence that the Al Hamed could not have been carrying sensitive cargo—or any cargo—from North Korea. International shipping is carefully monitored by Lloyd’s Marine Intelligence Unit, which relies on a network of agents as well as on port logs and other records. In addition, most merchant ships are now required to operate a transponder device called an A.I.S., for automatic identification system. This device, which was on board the Al Hamed, works in a manner similar to a transponder on a commercial aircraft—beaming a constant, very high-frequency position report. (The U.S. Navy monitors international sea traffic with the aid of dedicated satellites, at a secret facility in suburban Washington.)

According to Marine Intelligence Unit records, the Al Hamed, which was built in 1965, had been operating for years in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, with no indication of any recent visits to North Korea. The records show that the Al Hamed arrived at Tartus on September 3rd—the ship’s fifth visit to Syria in five months. (It was one of eight ships that arrived that day; although it is possible that one of the others was carrying illicit materials, only the Al Hamed has been named in the media.) The ship’s registry was constantly changing. The Al Hamed flew the South Korean flag before switching to North Korea in November of 2005, and then to Comoros. (Ships often fly flags of convenience, registering with different countries, in many cases to avoid taxes or onerous regulations.) At the time of the bombing, according to Lloyd’s, it was flying a Comoran flag and was owned by four Syrian nationals. In earlier years, under other owners, the ship seems to have operated under Russian, Estonian, Turkish, and Honduran flags. Lloyd’s records show that the ship had apparently not passed through the Suez Canal—the main route from the Mediterranean to the Far East—since at least 1998.

This is very slick, but thanks to Captain's Quarters, who links to a Telegraph story, that last assertion is highly suspect. The Telegraph reported:

Since leaving Tartous, one of Syria's main ports on the Mediterranean, the ship's trace has disappeared and it is not known whether western intelligence agencies are tracking the vessel.

"I became suspicious after the first reports from Syria about the attack so I traced all traffic into Syrian ports in the days prior to the incident," Mr Solomon said.

"There were five ships but the interesting one was the one with a connection to North Korea - the Al Hamed."

He said he cross-referred to other maritime databases to establish the ship was not a regular visitor to the Mediterranean but had come through the Suez Canal in late June. (emphasis mine)

It had registered itself for the Suez transit as a South Korean vessel but Mr Solomon said this was standard procedure for North Korean ships seeking to avoid international constraints on North Korea.

Mr. Solomon, is Ronen Solomon, an Israeli who tracked the movements of the ship, Al Hamed until he lost track of it sometime after it left Tartous. In other words, any possibly incriminating evidence that might have been aboard the ship was gone. Also, Solomon established, contrary to Hersh, that the ship had indeed passed through the Suez.

But even without this contradiction, Hersh's report doesn't seem to support his basic claim. For one thing he makes much of the Israeli silence after the bombing, but he doesn't even bring up the fact that North Korea protested the Israeli raid. He acknowledges the presence of North Korean workers but dismisses the importance of their presence in Syria, attributing it to a military agreement between the two countries.

In fact that's how Hersh builds his case. He emphasizes the sources who agree with his conclusion and dismisses those who disagree.

Here's another bit from Hersh.

It is unclear to what extent the Bush Administration was involved in the Israeli attack. The most detailed report of coöperation was made in mid-October by ABC News. Citing a senior U.S. official, the network reported that Israel had shared intelligence with the United States and received satellite help and targeting information in response. At one point, it was reported, the Bush Administration considered attacking Syria itself, but rejected that option. The implication was that the Israeli intelligence about the nuclear threat had been vetted by the U.S., and had been found to be convincing.

Indeed there was an ABC report in mid-October that includes all of the information that Hersh included. But it included an even bigger bombshell.

A senior U.S. official told ABC News the Israelis first discovered a suspected Syrian nuclear facility early in the summer, and the Mossad  Israel's intelligence agency  managed to either co-opt one of the facility's workers or to insert a spy posing as an employee.

As a result, the Israelis obtained many detailed pictures of the facility from the ground.

The official said the suspected nuclear facility was approximately 100 miles from the Iraqi border, deep in the desert along the Euphrates River. It was a place, the official said, "where no one would ever go unless you had a reason to go there."

But the hardest evidence of all was the photographs.

The official described the pictures as showing a big cylindrical structure, with very thick walls all well-reinforced. The photos show rebar hanging out of the cement used to reinforce the structure, which was still under construction.

There was also a secondary structure and a pump station, with trucks around it. But there was no fissionable material found because the facility was not yet operating.

The official said there was a larger structure just north of a small pump station; a nuclear reactor would need a constant source of water to keep it cool.

The official said the facility was a North Korean design in its construction, the technology present and the ability to put it all together.

It was North Korean "expertise," said the official, meaning the Syrians must have had "human" help from North Korea.

Now how did Hersh miss this? This is a claim that Israel knew that the building was a reactor of North Korean design because they had pictures taken by a spy in the facility. Did Hersh just go to page 2 of the ABC report and skip the first page?

I can't speak to the veracity of this report, I have no way of judging it. Hersh doesn't even address it! It would be one thing if the report of the Israeli spy appeared in some other source that Hersh cited, but this claim that directly contradicts his conjecture appears in the very same article that he cites and he doesn't even challenge it.

One of the biggest problems with this story, is that he builds up Dr. David Albright, an independent expert who believes the building bombed by the Israelis was indeed the beginning of a nuclear facility. Only once does Hersh challenge Albright, except to parse a later statement of Albright's and conclude that Albright wasn't as certain about his identification of the facility.

The challenge comes from the IAEA, who seemed like they'd have trouble identifying the noses on their respective faces and led by a man who considers Assad his "brother." I can't say that the credibility or independence of the IAEA ranks higher with me than Albright does.

I know that Hersh is hailed as an investigative reporter. But in this case he doesn't seem to have come up with any big scoop. Instead he selectively used sources to emphasize his conclusions. Sure there was some investigation involved, but for all his work there's not much of conclusion there. I could have speculated just as effectively as he did. Is there such a thing as a speculative reporter?

Noah Pollak was skeptical about Hersh's big scoop, with good reason

Crossposted at Yourish.

seymour hersh, syria, israel.

BBC pronounces suicide attacks on Israel "rare"

The article title is "Rare suicide bombing hits Israel":

Israel was hit by series of suicide bombings in the 1990s and 2000s, peaking after the Palestinian intifada or uprising broke out in 2000.

However, there were only two such attacks between April 2006 and now, the last being in January 2007 when a bomber blew himself up in a bakery in Eilat, killing three people.

No mention, of course, of thwarted attacks. According to Jewish Virtual Library 187 suicide attacks were thwarted in 2006. This story from 10/7/07 mentions 7 suicide bombings thwarted in "the last month and a half." Our BBC article ends with barely-disguised editorializing about Israel's obviously unjustified measures to prevent those "rare" attacks:

Israel argues that restrictions it imposes on about four million Palestinians in Gaza and large parts of the occupied West Bank are crucial in preventing such attacks, though the blockades have been condemned as "collective punishment" by the UN.

Hamas used the term "glorious" to describe the attacks.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Update: They have already deleted the word "rare" from the title.

Update: Someone else is critical of the BBC.

Closing the barn door

The Washington Post reports Egyptians Reseal Border, Cutting Access From Gaza

Egyptian construction workers in blue hard hats rolled barbed wire across the last breaches of the Gaza Strip's border wall with Egypt on Sunday, reasserting Egyptian control of the frontier after Palestinian guerrillas used explosives and machinery to knock down the barrier.

Egyptian and Palestinian forces had been signaling for days that the border would be sealed again, slowly choking off access for the hundreds of thousands of Gazans who had sought to leave the strip after the walls fell 11 days ago. This weekend, milling crowds of Gaza traders only watched, without throwing stones or shouting, as Egyptian construction workers and soldiers hoisted concrete blocks and rolled out barbed wire over the last gaps in the wall.

I guess we'll see how long this closure will last. But it's interesting how the crisis is described.

The border crisis began late last month when Israel sealed entry points from Israel into Gaza. Israeli officials said they were acting in response to guerrilla rocket attacks from Gaza toward southern Israel.

The crisis began with an Israeli action. The qassams? Well "Israeli officials said they were acting..." "Said they were acting?" Any idiot could see that 40 qassams a day was an intolerable situation and yet the reporter qualifies her report with "Israel officials say" as if that were a debatable point.

Of course the Post portrays the diplomatic aspects of the Gaza-Egypt border fence but ignores the terror enabling aspects of the breach, even in speculation.

But there's no reason to speculate. The Jerusalem Post reports, Woman killed, one critically hurt in Dimona suicide attack:

One woman was killed and 38 people people were wounded, one critically, in a suicide attack in a Dimona commercial center Monday morning.

Police said the attack was carried out by two attackers, but only one succeeded in detonating his explosives. The other terrorist was killed - seconds before he could detonate his explosives belt - by Kobi Mor, a police officer from an elite unit who happened to be on the scene.

More on the heroism that stopped the attack from being worse:

Shalom Bar Avi, a journalist speaking to Channel 10, said "I am here no longer as a journalist but as a simple citizen ... I pray and hope my wife is okay."

Bar Avi praised the police's quick response to the attack, and said Mor, the officer who identified the second attacker shot "four or five times ... he took no chances."

Later Mor's heroism was revealed in detail: He shot the terrorist in the head, and when the latter in his last breath still tried to press the detonator button, shot him four more times and killed him. Mor managed to kill the terrorist before he could explode and without hitting his explosive belt, thus preventing a much more devastating attack.

Given the proximity of this attack to last week's border breach, it's safe to assume that this attack was enabled by the passage of munitions and terrorists across the Gaza-Egypt border. Just like terrorists fired a Grad missile at Ashkelon shortly after the Iran/Hamas group of pilgrims returned from their hajj. Hamas looks like it's using these opportunities to widen their array of attacks against Israel. It's a slow escalation, looking to see what it can get away with. Hamas's patron Iran must be very pleased with the results of the latest escalation.

And of course the issue isn't just the immediate terror attack, it's the longer term that's got to be a concern now. (h/t Backspin)

Considerable amounts of high quality weaponry were smuggled into Gaza through the breached border with Egypt along the Philadelphi rout, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin stated during a cabinet security briefing Sunday. Diskin further stated that “its is difficult to determine the precise amounts, but a great deal of high quality weaponry, including long range rockets, antitank missiles and anti-aircraft missiles, was smuggled into Gaza, and these are weapons that usually do not find their way into the Strip.”

More troubling, noted that Shin Bet chief, is the fact that the breach along the Philadelphi route allowed many militants trained in Egypt, Syria and Iran, to return to the Gaza Strip.

Predicting that the border with Egypt might likely remain breached for quite a while, Diskin warned that “all activities that previously took place underground can now take place far more easily above ground.”

Meryl concludes

Israel cannot trust her security to anyone else. Time and again, the world has proved that it has no problem with dead Jews.

Somehow I don't think this is the time to be strengthening the hand of Hamas.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has decided to relax the criteria regarding prisoners to be included in an exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit and push forward with a swap, despite vociferous objections by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), The Jerusalem Post has learned. Olmert met on the matter Sunday with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, Internal Security Minister and former Shin Bet head Avi Dichter, Minister without Portfolio and former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon, Environment Minister and former deputy Shin Bet head Gideon Ezra, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann.

And that's against the recommendations of one of his intelligence directors.

The withdrawal from Gaza followed by the withdrawal from the Philadelpi corridor has been a security disaster for Israel.

Liveblogging Israelly Cool! now has the death toll at 3. And of course the peace partners celebrate the terror. Harsh words from Bloodthirsty Liberal.

UPDATE: Seraphic Secret explains the heroics of Kobi Mor:

Head shots, even from just a few yards, are incredibly difficult. In the aftermath of a homicide bombing, as another terrorist is about to detonate, your every instinct is to flee. Kobi Mor is an exceptional man.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, hamas, terrorism, fatah.

The judicial mccain

The Volokh Conspiracy.Ilya Somin writes of doubts conservatives could have about John McCain as nominator of future Supreme Court justices.

If he wants to have any chance at all of saving McCain-Feingold, a President McCain will have to appoint justices committed to upholding it. As a practical matter, however, there are few if any conservative jurists who are both 1) qualified to sit on the Court, and 2) likely to vote McCain's way on campaign finance issues; I can't think of even one offhand. Almost any well-known jurist likely to vote the conservative way on federalism, property rights, abortion, and other major constitutional issues is also likely to be just as committed to striking down McCain-Feingold as the conservatives currently on the Court. Thus, McCain will be strongly tempted to appointmoderate to liberal justices or a "stealth" candidate like Justice Souter with no clear judicial philosophy. The stealth approach failed for George W. Bush when the Harriet Miers nomination blew up in his face. However, McCain might do better with it, since he would be facing a Democratic-controlled Senate rather than a Republican one.

In other words a President McCain would be interested in cementing his record as a legislator by preserving McCain-Feingold, so he would be more inclined to nominate judges who would be inclined to uphold the law, despite its obvious first amendment problems.

Today, in McCain and the Supreme Court Professors Steven Calabresi and John McGinnis argue that McCain is the better bet (of the two remaining viable Republican candidates) to appoint justices with a proper conservative philosophy.

First of all they argue that the importance of nominees to the Supreme Court is magnified by the fact that starting the next term six of the sitting justices will be over 70. (For whatever reason Supreme Court justices seem to blessed with longevity, so I'm not sure that this is necessarily reason for concern.)

So the first concern of Profs. Calabresi and McGinnis is electability. Citing current polling they argue that McCain is more electable than Romney. They also point to Sen. McCain's record of voting for reliable conservatives to the Supreme Court. But what about his legislative legacy?

We recognize that there are two plausible sources of disquiet. Mr. McCain is perhaps the foremost champion of campaign-finance regulation, regulation that is hard to square with the First Amendment. Still, a President McCain would inevitably have a broader focus. Securing the party's base of judicial conservatives is a necessary formula for governance, as President Bush himself showed when he swiftly dropped the ill-conceived nomination of Harriet Miers.

Perhaps more important, because of the success of constitutionalist jurisprudence, a McCain administration would be enveloped by conservative thinking in this area. The strand of jurisprudential thought that produced Sen. Warren Rudman and Justice David Souter is no longer vibrant in the Republican Party.

The first reason; that he'd require "judicial conservatives" to govern effectively doesn't seem very convincing on its face. After all, it would be easier to get along with Democrats and not challenge them. (Of course, given his across the aisle outreach, especially in recent years, he might find Democrats more receptive to his nominees.)

Then the second reason that they don't dismiss McCain is

Others are concerned that Mr. McCain was a member of the "Gang of 14," opposing the attempt to end filibusters of judicial nominations. We believe that Mr. McCain's views about the institutional dynamics of the Senate are a poor guide to his performance as president. In any event, the agreement of the Gang of 14 had its costs, but it played an important role in ensuring that Samuel Alito faced no Senate filibuster. It also led to the confirmation of Priscilla Owens, Janice Rogers Brown and Bill Pryor, three of President George W. Bush's best judicial appointees to the lower federal courts.

The Gang of 14, it's been pointed out elsewhere, despite its problems, did ensure that a number of good nominees got to the bench.

While I'm still inclined to support John McCain, I wish that Profs. Calabrese and McGinnis had been a bit more convincing.

john mccain.

17 months

At 1:15 AM this morning she turned 74 weeks old.

As I mentioned last month she started walking. That means that when I put her down, I don't feel her knees buckle as she now stands with ease. It also means that she's stopped her "scooting." That's something I'll miss. Instead of crawling like most babies she'd propel herself across the floor in a sitting position, using two legs and an arm.

She's pretty adept at going downstairs. She gets on her stomach, backs to the stairs and then slides down pretty quickly. She has on occasion tried to walk down stairs, but we try to discourage that as she's not big enough for that yet.

Like her sisters she's gravitating towards dolls; her "babies." She puts them in the little crib, and the little car seat and covers them with such care or just drags them behind her on the floor. (Her 6 year old sister, I'm reminded, also liked trucks. She used them to transport her dolls.)

Her other favorite toy seems to be her sister's "Hello Kitty" pocketbook. Well now it's her pocketbook. And when she's ready to go out she'll grab the pocketbook. When we can we put her toy cell phone in the pocketbook so she'll be able to stay in touch. (And when we're readying her to go, she say "bye-bye.")

She "kisses." Of course it's more like she rubs her cheek against someone else's.

She loves "cogus." (cookies) "Cogus" can be rice cakes, crackers or cookies. But don't try to give her a cracker when she sees a chocolate chip cookie. She also likes to take her crackers out of the package rather than having handed to her.

While she imitates dogs by panting and sticking out her tongue, she roars for a bear.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing, so hopefully later I'll update this post.

Previous related posts: One month, two months, three months, four months, five months, six months,seven months,eight months, 9 months, 10 months, 11 months, One year, 13 months, 14 months, 15 months, 16 months.

Juggling carnivals 02/04/08

Incoming Carnivals

Jack's Shack continues his stewardship of Haveil Havalim - The Jewish and Israel related blogging carnival - with the prophetic Haveil Havalim #152 - Patriots must lose edition.

Thanks again to Dr. Sanity for featuring a post from Soccer Dad in the latest Carnival of the Insanities - the Super Duper Tuesday edition.

This past week's Musical Monday was featured at the latest Carnival of Rock and Roll. Please remember to check out Elie's Expositions later today for Musical Monday #32 which should include the latest clues as well as the answers for MM 31, which was a joint project.

blog carnivals

When spouses collide

It appears that a week from Tuesday, my wife an I will cast votes for different candidates. I only remembered one time when it happened before. In 1992 I voted for Bill Clinton in the general election and my wife voted for George H.W. Bush. Our daughter told us that in 2000 we also voted for different candidates in the GOP primary. I supported George W. Bush and she supported John McCain.

Of course we don't have nearly as much invested in our support of different as the Schwarzeneggers do.

California first lady Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy clan, endorsed Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for U.S. president on Sunday, days after her husband, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, backed Republican John McCain.

Have you ever voted for a different candidate than your spouse?

john mccain, barack obama.

Down with aptitude!

Here is an Independent article about doing away with "Grammar Schools." To American ears that sounds like phasing out primary education altogether, but in England a "Grammar School" is a secondary school which requires prospective entrants to pass an exam called the "eleven plus." Since the primary goal of education is fairness, it is amazing that such schools still exist.

Grammar schools should be scrapped to make the education system fairer for pupils from deprived backgrounds, a government-funded report says. Faith schools and academic selection are contributing to segregation between rich and poor, the study for the Department for Children, Schools and Families found.

Backing wider use of lotteries to allocate school places, it suggested that the Government "phase out" England's 164 remaining selective grammars. Popular faith schools could also be forced to take a quota of children from families with no religious beliefs, the research suggested.

They could just grade by lottery also.

"Fair and just policies on school admissions are an important mark of commitment by governments to equality of opportunity," it concluded. "Selection by prior attainment is also largely selection by social background. One option would be to phase out selective schools. Another is to require the admissions authorities for grammar schools to ensure equal social representation among those who qualify on the 11-plus test."

The study, by academics at Sheffield Hallam University and the National Centre for Social Research, is the first full-scale survey of secondary school admissions in England since 2001. It revealed that parents were largely happy with schools their children attended.

But researchers warned that many schools--especially grammars and faith schools--were socially exclusive and took more pupils from wealthier backgrounds. They criticised the Government's expansion of specialist secondary schools with the right to select up to 10 per cent of their pupils on "aptitude" for a particular subject, such as music or maths. The proportion of secondaries in England which select pupils by aptitude more than trebled from 1.3 per cent in 2000 to more than 4.1 per cent by 2006.

"There were therefore more children in 2006 than in 2000 subject to selection by aptitude," the study said. Selecting pupils on their aptitude for, say, music or languages is not the same as general academic selection, the researchers said. But they said wealthy families were better equipped to help their children develop these aptitudes.

"There are strong arguments to suggest that selection by aptitude is likely to be socially selective by default," the report said. "A high relative attainment in any of the subjects (even sport) will involve expense of resources of time and money for travelling, equipment and training. More affluent families have more of these resources." [...]

Parents in those families might also have the dreaded aptitude thingy.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Technorati Tags: Britain, education, aptitude, Grammar Schools

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It was evening, it was morning

Lightness of Being

The bright sun dissects the airglow above Earth's horizon in this view photographed with a digital still camera from the Space Shuttle Columbia during the STS-107 mission.

Space Shuttle Columbia and the STS-107 crew perished during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003.

Image Credit: NASA

Israeli forensic expert solves mystery of Ilan Ramon's diary

"Once we started to examine the papers, we saw that they could split into three categories. On eight pages, you could see the writing clearly, it hadn't been washed out. The pages were curled up and tattered, and it was like working on a jigsaw puzzle putting the fragments back into place. Just to know where to orient the fragments, I had to try every single permutation and combination. It took a few weeks to put the puzzle of those eight pages back together," said Brown.

Once completed, Brown photographed the pages and sent them to Rona Ramon who was back in Houston at the time.

One of the pages contained the handwritten Sabbath prayer of the wine - the kiddush - which Ramon had written out in order to be the first Jew to recite the blessing in space. Brown said that because of her religious background, she was able to piece together the scattered letters that remain on the page.

"When I speak about the diary to a non-religious audience and I say 'I found this word, this word, and this word - what could this document be?' They usually don't know, but when I ask the question to a religious audience, they answer right away - 'it's the Kiddush.'

Crossposted on Yourish.

ilan ramon, kiddush.

Border break bad for tunnel business

The entrepreneurial spirit no doubt triumphs in the end, but in the meantime it may encounter setbacks. From Ramattan News Agency:

"It is really a disaster for us, we do not know what to do, we lost lots of money," said Abu Yassine, a tunnel owner in the city of Rafah, south of Gaza.

Abu Yassine, 42, who has been working as smuggler two years and a half ago, feels so upset and disappointed after Palestinian militants blew up the border line with Egypt.

Last week, Palestinian militants blew down the border line between the Gaza Strip and Egypt letting hundreds of thousands to pour into Egypt and to buy food and essential materials.

Abu Yassine, declined to give the real name, says that all the goods used to be smuggled from under the ground, people bring them from the holes of the knocked down borders.

"In my last proposed deal I lost $ 150000, it was planned that I will receive 13 tons of food materials through tunnels, but two days before the borders were destroyed, and the food passed through the big holes in the smashed borders," He said.

He showed us his card of membership at "Palestinian Businessmen Association" in Gaza and covered the name with his thumb.

"I am a businessman, after the Israeli blockage I had no business, so I work in underground tunnels," he said.

Abu Yassine and his 7 team members work on the Palestinian tip of the tunnel while hundreds others work in other scores of tunnels along with the border line between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

"If the border line will be closed again I will resume smuggling and make money, but if they were still opened I will quit smuggling," he said.

Abu Yassine is not the only Palestinian who is "upset" because of tearing down the borders. Hundreds of Palestinians work in the "sector" of tunnels.

Before the explosion, Hamas militants called the owners of the tunnels and informed them two hours before the explosion to evacuate the tunnels from workers and goods as it is very possible that the tunnels would collapse, according to Abu Yassine.

At least two thousands of Palestinians in Rafah work in tunnels, as tens of smuggle tunnels link the two, Palestinian and Egyptian, parts of Rafah city. [...]

Two thousands, and now they are all out of work? There's your humanitarian crisis.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Gaza, Egypt, Rafah, tunnels

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A monopoly on yerushalayim

Monopoly - the board game - is looking for a new cities to feature. (The classic game, of course, is based on Atlantic City New Jersey.) If I understand the goal, Hasbro/Parker Brothers is looking for 20 cities to feature in a global Monopoly game. The top 20 cities of 68 pre-selected cities will make it onto the board. Also a later round of voting will net two "wildcard" cities for inclusion. (If you want you may nominate a city to be one of the wildcard cities, but this has no bearing on the 20 main cities.)

Right now Jerusalem is ranked at 26, so why not register and vote for Jerusalem? You may vote once a day. (The website is not very easy to navigate.)

I should have realized that Yehuda would have something to say about this. He's skeptical.

Crossposted on Yourish.

jerusalem, monopoly.

Campaign consultant kang speaks

Commander Kang - "...only a fool fights in a burning house."

Jonah Goldberg writes:

It's that I disagree with the overwhelming impression that supporting McCain is some kind of lunacy. I have serious disagreements with McCain. I think it is entirely right to disagree with him on all sorts of issues and entirely legitimate to think he would be bad for the party, bad for conservatism or bad for the country to have him as the nominee or the next president. I agree with some of those sentiments, disagree with others.

But this disaster talk leaves me cold. McCain wouldn't be my first pick. Then again, none of the candidates were really my first pick. But I think the notion that, variously, conservatism, the country or the party are doomed if he's the nominee or the president is pretty absurd.

And he gets to the heart of the issue with this:

And I find such claims odd coming from some people who've insisted for a couple years now that the war on terror is the #1 overriding issue of this campaign. Some people who said as much, used that logic to support Rudy Giuliani. Maybe they were right that Giuliani would be a better wartime president than McCain. But, that's an argument that requires a pretty substantial leap of faith given Giuliani's very meager foreign policy experience (never mind that Giuliani is now endorsing McCain). I haven't heard anyone make a credible case that McCain wouldn't be a good commander-in-chief. So it's a bit hard to believe McCain would be a disaster given that he would be — at minimum — pretty good on the single most important issue facing the country.

Well I think that he's underselling Giuliani here, but he's correct about the "...single most important issue facing this country."

(via memeorandum)

Victor Davis Hanson argues that the ideological purity that many demand of McCain just wasn't there in the rose colored past.

Reagan, and Bush I and II all adjusted to that unfortunate reality. A Democrat did not appoint Souter, O’Connor, or Kennedy, nor raise payroll and gas taxes in the 1980s, nor sign amnesty and de facto open-border legislation in 1986, nor, later, increase federal spending well past the rate of inflation, or offer amnesty again in 2007. Tax cuts were great, but without caps on spending they were unfairly slurred as revenue reducers once deficits soared. Recent Republican congressional scandals mirror-imaged some of the Clinton-era roguery.

Reagan’s pragmatism on taxes, amnesty, new federal programs and government expansion, was continued by both Bush I and II. In that regard, McCain seems a continuum, not an abject disconnect.

And he hits the nail on the head with this:

His problem is mostly temperament — when he strayed he was blunt about what he was doing and sometimes gratuitously offended his base in a way that neither Reagan nor the Bushes dared. That is a legitimate concern of tactical aptitude, but not one so much of ideology.

(again via memeorandum)

That's an important point. It's not that he isn't all conservative. It's that the issues which he's differed from the conservative base he's made a point of publicizing his differences.

Here's a guy with a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 82.3. Even acknowledging that in recent years he has voted less conservatively he is still a far cry from either potential Democratic nominee. And if you look at his advisers these are all people with solid Republican if not conservative credentials. With a legal mind like Ted Olson's (and others) joining him from the Giuliani campaign, it's clear that he's won over some serious conservative intellectual firepower. This isn't just window dressing.

Maybe McCain isn't an ideal choice. But he's certainly not a bad choice. And he doesn't come close to being a disaster.

Maybe Ann Coulter should consult with Commander Kang.

A similar point about Ann Coulter is made here, but with considerably less restraint.

john mccain, politics.

Blair seeks "clever strategy" against Hamas

The Hamas "strategy" isn't really "clever." They just keep firing Qassams and play victim when Israel tries to fight back. It isn't Hamas cleverness that perpetuates the situation, but simply the fact that public pressure, some of it from the Israeli left, helps them. A "clever strategy" isn't required to defeat them, just a consistent one. The consequences for continued Qassam fire must be inevitable and unendurable for the Gazans. Now on to the convoluted dithering from Blair via AFP:

[...] "Hamas have a clever strategy, which is why I keep saying we need a clever strategy as well, which helps the people, isolates the extremists and points out the fact that if at any point in time the rockets stop, the whole situation will be transformed," Blair said.

The 54-year-old represents the so-called Quartet of major players in the Middle East peace process -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.

"This is a deal that could definitely be done, and it could definitely be done this year," Blair said. However, unless confidence could be restored between the two sides, the chances of a deal were thin, he added.

Blair said Bush was serious about sealing a deal before he leaves office in January 2009.

"The American engagement in this has altered significantly both in quality and quantity in the past two months, there is no doubt about that. When I saw him (Bush) in Jerusalem, he was completely up for it," Blair said.

"The question is, how do you create the circumstances on the ground where the Israelis get confidence that their security concerns are being met and the Palestinians get confidence that the occupation will eventually be lifted?" he said.

"Without that confidence about the state of the situation on the ground the negotiation becomes more difficult. Sometimes people have looked at this process as one in which if you cut the deal the facts on the ground will alter.

"In my view it is as much the other way around. Unless you can change the facts on the ground the deal becomes difficult to cut."

He said resolving the Arab-Israeli issue would boost the "forces of moderation".

"Resolving it would be a hugely symbolic act, not just between Israel and Palestine but Islam and the West between people of different faiths. There is nothing more important to world peace than resolving this question," he said.

"Linkage" again. There is linkage actually. The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is democracy (including an electorate that won't vote for dictators) in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

"From the start, the Hamas 'brotherhood' showed no interest in the concept of the state inasmuch as it was keen about the concept of the Ummah."

Tariq Alhomayed's essays are usually fascinating. This is very critical of the US, but it is hard to imagine many Western commentators so frankly stating what Hamas is about:

[...] It has become impossible to talk about the dream of a Palestinian state so long as the Palestinian issue remains stifled at the Rafah crossing, but is this strange? Of course not! From the start, the Hamas 'brotherhood' showed no interest in the concept of the state inasmuch as it was keen about the concept of the Ummah. This means that it views the fall of Arab regimes as something that should not be lamented – provided that the goal is to attain a united Islamic state.

This is notwithstanding the fact that anyone questioning or responding to Hamas or addressing its brotherhood cloak is immediately accused of working for the US. This is the fundamental strategy employed by Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which is to eliminate all Arab states so that the Ummah may emerge.

And yet, the ones who have benefited the most in the last few years from America's presence in our Arab region have been Hamas and the MB. Their electoral achievements in Palestine and Egypt came while riding on the shoulders of Condoleezza Rice – who admitted a few days ago in Davos that there had been mistakes, by which she meant the democratic process in the region.

Prior to the Palestinian elections that brought Hamas to power and under intense US pressure to run Palestinian elections, US President George W. Bush looked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the eye during their meeting in the Oval Office and said, if you elect someone from Hamas to be in charge of the Gaza municipality, don't you think that he will clean up the city and abandon military operations to become more concerned with people's interests? And with that, Abu Mazen's hands were tied because Washington did not know Hamas well.

After Hamas reached power through elections and pressure from George Bush, it declared its rejection of the Oslo Accords and the conventions signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) – in fact, Hamas took arms up against Abu Mazen after the Mecca agreement and yet today, anyone who opposes it is dubbed an American!

The same applies to the 'mother' party, The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood which recently attacked the US president during his last visit to Sharm al Sheikh and hinted that they were displeased with the manner by which the Gulf countries had greeted their guest, forgetting that had it not been for the immense US pressure they would not have had such a strong presence in the Egyptian parliament. Moreover, Mr. Nabil Shaath would not have demanded the counsel of the MB in Egypt to resolve the Rafah crossing issue with Hamas if it had not been for that pressure. [...]

Crossposted on