Soccer Dad

Has New York Times Coverage Of Israel Actually Improved?

If this keeps up, maybe.

The New York Times reports on a tragedy that happened on Monday:

A Palestinian mother and her four young children were killed in northern Gaza on Monday during an Israeli operation against militants there, and a dispute quickly arose over exactly how they had died.

The Israelis said they shot a missile from the air that hit two armed men who were carrying heavy explosives, which blew apart the family’s house behind them. Palestinian witnesses said they believed an Israeli tank shell or a missile from a drone flew into the small house, killing the four as they were eating breakfast. Two other children from the same family were badly wounded and hospitalized.

The first thing that is striking is that the article wastes no time presenting succinctly what each side claims happened, even mentioning Israel first. Haven't we read articles where all too often more weight is given to the Palestinian side?

Defense Minister Ehud Barak blamed Hamas. “We see Hamas as responsible for everything that happens there, for all injuries,” he said while on a tour of an Israeli weapons factory, Israeli radio reported. “The army is acting and will continue to act against Hamas, including inside the Gaza Strip.”

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, a bitter rival of Hamas, condemned the killing of the mother and her four children. It said in a statement that the Israeli army escalation in Gaza “would harm the efforts to agree on a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians.”

After Hamas took over Gaza last June in a battle with forces from Fatah, which now leads the Palestinian government from the West Bank, Israel imposed a blockade on the area, severely limiting supplies into it. Thousands of crude rockets have been launched against southern Israeli towns and communities in recent years by Hamas and smaller factions, which oppose Israel’s existence.

The article actually gives a context to why Israel has imposed a blockade. True, there is still no mention of the 'T' word, but no one is going to finish the article thinking it is reporting that Israel has put the blockade in place because they are out to get the Palestinian Arabs.

Also, note how Hamas' motive is described--not as resistance to Israeli occupation, a misleading claim since the land was never Palestinian-controlled land to begin with and is best described as disputed--but instead that Hamas is opposed to the very existence of Israel. How often have we read that in The New York Times!

Instead of mentioning border closings and the reduced supplies to Gaza without a context, the article describes the actions taken by the terrorists as the reason behind Israel's actions:

Militants have tried to infiltrate the border crossing into Israel five times in recent weeks. That has led Israel to keep the border closed more often, further reducing supplies and worsening the already severe humanitarian crisis there. Cooking gas has essentially run out since the supplier became too afraid to deliver, Israeli security officials and Gazans say, closing most bakeries.

A quote is even given squarely putting the responsibility for the increased suffering in Gaza on the shoulders of Hamas:

The United Nations agency that provides the most aid in Gaza suspended its work for four days because of fuel shortages. While United Nations and other international officials complain angrily about Israel’s policies, the attempted infiltrations have recently prompted criticism of Hamas by the European Union, which accused it of actions that “lead to further suffering of the population.”

Maybe part of the reason for the change is Israel's own reaction to what happened. Unlike the Gaza Beach incident--where Israel rushed to apologize before investigating and discovering evidence that the forensic evidence indicated that mines Hamas planted on the beach were responsible--here the IDF made clear from the start where responsibility lay:

The IDF Spokesperson wishes to stress that the responsibility for the injuring and killing of uninvolved civilians lies with the terrorist organization Hamas, which operates within civilian population, using them as human shields and risking their lives by keeping bombs and explosives near them.

The question is whether Israel can continue to take necessary measures in defense of Israeli citizens, undeterred by the terrorist tactics of Hamas--and say so, and whether the media is willing to bring real balance to its reporting by given context to its articles.

Till that time, this New York Times article will remain an oddity.

span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE: Check out Elder of Ziyon: Al Jazeera and B'Tselem agree that missile didn't hit house

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and New York Times.

Two hundred nineteen years ago

George Washington gave his first inaugural address.

On April 30, 1789, George Washington delivered his first inaugural address to a joint session of Congress, assembled in Federal Hall in the nation's new capital, New York City. The newly-elected president delivered the speech in a deep, low voice that betrayed what one observer called "manifest embarrassment." Washington had not sought the office of president and was humbled by the request to serve.

When kim confronted ehud

Back in December North Korea condemned the Israeli raid on what we now know to be a Syrian nuclear reactor.

North Korea lashed out Tuesday at Israel for invading Syrian airspace last Thursday, its official news agency said.

"This is a very dangerous provocation little short of wantonly violating the sovereignty of Syria and seriously harassing the regional peace and security," a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea strongly denounces the above-said intrusion and extends full support and solidarity to the Syrian people in their just cause to defend the national security and the regional peace," he added.

Last week it was revealed that perhaps there was an even bigger reason for North Korea to condemn Israel.

Ten North Koreans may have been killed in an Israeli air strike on Syria in September, NHK reported on its Web site, citing unidentified South Korean intelligence officials.

The 10 people, whose remains were cremated and returned to North Korea in October, had been helping with the construction of a nuclear reactor in Syria, Japan's public broadcaster said. Some North Koreans probably survived the air attack, NHK said.

Now, President Bush is making the connection explicitly. The New York Times reports:

Making the first remarks in public about the Israeli attack by any American official, Mr. Bush said that his administration maintained a cloak of secrecy to avoid the risk of further military conflict in the region, including possible Syrian retaliation against Israel. He said that risk of conflict “was reduced” now.

Mr. Bush did not explain why exactly the administration disclosed the information at this point, but the timing coincided with renewed efforts to persuade North Korea to abide by last year’s agreement to acknowledge all of its nuclear activities. The North Korean activities include what administration officials assert are a still undisclosed program to enrich uranium and the sale of nuclear technology to countries like Syria.

“We also wanted to advance certain policy objectives through the disclosures, and one would be to the North Koreans to make it abundantly clear that we, we may know more about you than you think,” Mr. Bush said at a White House news conference.

Senior officials have signaled that the administration may accept a less-than-full disclosure, allowing North Korea, for example, not to explain its nuclear cooperation with Syria in the kind of detail that American officials have now done.

In his remarks on Tuesday and at Camp David on April 19, the president appeared to back off such a compromise. He restated his demand that North Korea make “a complete disclosure” about its proliferation and enrichment activities.

More than that President Bush emphasized:

Mr. Bush said that the disclosure of a covert Syrian reactor, which Syria has denied, should persuade other countries to support United Nations Security Council resolutions intended to keep Iran and other countries from developing nuclear arms.

“We have an interest in sending a message to Iran and the world for that matter about just how destabilizing a nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East,” he said.

In addition to his comments about the North Korean aid to Syria, the President also added (according to the Washington Post):

Bush avoided criticism of former president Jimmy Carter's recent talks with Hamas, the radical Palestinian group classified by the U.S. government as a terrorist entity. The United States refuses to engage with Hamas, which Bush said is "undermining peace."

"They're the ones whose foreign policy objective is the destruction of Israel," he said. "They're the ones who are trying to create enough violence to stop the advance of the two-party state solution."

The President implicitly gives too much credit to Fatah, but it's correct for him to acknowledge this.

Left unsaid, is that this episode suggests that the "axis of evil" was quite possibly more than just a rhetorical flourish.

Crossposted on Yourish

Drill

Like high food prices, high oil prices result from a number of poor policy decisions coming together at the same time as Robert Samuelson argues in Start Drilling.

The truth is that we're almost powerless to influence today's prices. We are because we didn't take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.

It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both "energy independence" and cheap fuel. They deplore imports -- who wants to pay foreigners? -- but oppose more production in the United States. Got it? The result is a "no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality," writes Robert Bryce in "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence.' "

It's easy to blame the oil companies when they boast record profits, but those profits are the result of consumption. Per sale, oil company profits aren't that great. Jeff Jacoby wrote a few years ago:

But profits can't be judged by dollar amounts alone. What counts is the percentage of revenues those profits represent. ''Our numbers are huge because the scale of our industry is huge," Exxon CEO Lee Raymond tried, probably in vain, to explain during last week's big Senate hearing on oil company profits. Exxon's profits last quarter amounted to 9.8 cents for every dollar of sales. Is that obscene? Well, it was more profitable than Shell (which netted 7.8 cents of each dollar of revenue) or Chevron (6.6 cents) or BP (4.6 cents). But compared to Coca-Cola (21.2 cents), Bank of America (28.3 cents), or Microsoft (33.2 cents), it was nothing to write home about.

While I don't know what the current returns are, I suspect things haven't changed that much.

But there is one sector that benefits a lot more from the investment of the oil companies: government. Jacoby again:

In fact, the real gas and oil profiteers weren't represented by the CEOs getting grilled on Capitol Hill last week, but by the demagogues doing the grilling. Over the past 25 years, according to the Tax Foundation, oil companies paid state and federal taxes of more than $2.2 trillion (in inflation-adjusted dollars). During the same period, the companies' profits totaled $630 billion -- less than a third of the government's take. Government revenue from gasoline taxes alone has exceeded oil industry profits in 22 of the past 25 years.

Again these are old figures, but I suspect that not much has changed.

Now I realize that it's a lot easier of Rep. Markey to condemn oil executives citing several of a billion dollars than it is for the same executive to argue that he only makes cents on the gallon, large numbers are worth thousands of words in politics. However that doesn't make the oil company executives wrong.

Samuelson continues:

The best we can do is to try to exert long-term influence on the global balance of supply and demand. Increase our supply. Restrain our demand. With luck, this might widen the worldwide surplus of production capacity. Producers would have less power to exact ever-higher prices, because there would be more competition among them to sell. OPEC loses some leverage; its members cheat. Congress took a small step last year by increasing fuel economy standards for new cars and light trucks from 25 to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. (And yes, we need a gradually rising fuel tax to create a strong market for more-efficient vehicles.)

Increasing production also is important. Output from older fields, including Alaska's North Slope, is declining. Although production from restricted areas won't make the United States self-sufficient, it might stabilize output or even reduce imports. No one knows exactly what's in these areas, because the exploratory work is old. Estimates indicate that production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge might equal almost 5 percent of present U.S. oil use.

Sens. McCain and Clinton are recommending a tax holiday from gas taxes this summer. As a consumer such relief would be extremely welcome. However, given that supply and demand is fueling the rise in oil prices, such an effort would likely increase demand and thus exacerbate the problem.

I'm not thrilled with Samuelson's recommendation to raise oil taxes, however to the degree that it suppresses demand it might be worth considering. (The problem other than the burden to the consumer is that tax windfalls encourage politicians to spend more.)

If you're a politician it's easy to demagogue the oil companies and pretend that you're protecting your constituents. But wouldn't we all benefit if Congress would let the industry do what it does best rather than casting it as a villain?

Submitted 04/30/08

This week's Watcher Council nominations have been submitted.

Past Is Never Past - Done With Mirrors looks out how writers look at history myopically considering the present to be "normal."
The Company One Keeps - Joshuapundit considers the supporters of Barack Obama and observes that those who end up making the news come with a lot of baggage.
Oppressive Speech Regulation - Rhymes With Right documents regulations aimed at affecting free speech in Colorado. Given the tizzy some in the media have gotten over the idea of requiring picture IDs to vote, it's amazing that not many have given much attention to this obvious curtailing of free speech.
Outfoxed By Obama & The Twelve Unasked Questions - Wolf Howling offers his late advice to Chris Wallace on what questions the host ought to have asked Sen. Obama this past Sunday. (They were more probing than the ones Wallace did ask the Senator.)
An Article About Islam Most Amazing for What It Doesn't Say - Bookworm Room takes on a Berkeley conference about Islamaphobia and notes the many things that were not (according to a newspaper account) discussed at the conference - such as Islamic terror.
Moral Relativism Reaches a New Low - The Colossus of Rhodey.Hube simply and elegantly debunks another case of BDS.
Rising Food Prices - The Glittering Eye looks at the phenomenon that's been our bane in recent weeks - high food prices - and examines the reason why. He believes that ethanol doesn't play a major role in the crisis. A recent Washington Post editorial gives two estimates:

The International Food Policy Research Institute, which is critical of ethanol, pins about 25 to 33 percent of the recent price rise on biofuels; the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization guesses about 10 to 15 percent.

Obama's Exxon Valdez - Cheat Seeking Missiles considers three choices that Sen. Obama had when it comes to addressing his relationship with Rev. Wright. Yesterday Sen. Obama essentially chose the third of the three options - to announce a break with the Reverend. Yet I didn't find myself at all convinced by the performance. Perhaps it's my own skepticism about the candidate, but I see that I'm not alone.
Teacher Arrested Not Once, But Twice! - The Education Wonks brings us the case of a female teacher who behaved inappropriately with two of her students. He argues that had the gender of teacher and student been reversed, the punishment would have been more severe. I suspect he's correct.
Wright's Revenge - Hillbilly White Trash distinguishes between Bill Cosby's call for Blacks to empower themselves and Rev. Wright's call for Blacks to hold whites in contempt for their problems. He also was unimpressed with Sen. Obama's performance yesterday.

But when you are running for president you tell everyone that your problem with Wright is that he hates the nation that you love (even if you don't) not that your just pissed off that he's "dissing" you.

The Total Witlessness of Obama Apologists - Right Wing Nut House debunks many of the defenses offered by Sen. Obama's apologists for the Senators flirting with people who hold extreme views. This isn't a matter of smearing the Senator but of questioning the judgment he claims to possess and that would qualify him to be President.
Throwing Bashar a Lifeline - I wonder why PM Olmert was recently sending signals to President Assad that he's interested in ceding the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace. It would seem that given the recent revelations about Assad's adventurism that Olmert should be working to isolate him further.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

May The Arab Countries Never Have A Democracy!

Senior Editor of National Review, Jay Nordlinger, writes:

I remember meeting with Saif Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator’s son, along with other journalists in Davos. He had an explanation for why the Arabs had lost all their wars against Israel: Because Israel is a democracy, and those other countries are not democracies. In a democracy, explained young Qaddafi, merit is key, so that those who rise to the top levels of the military are apt to be capable. In the Arab countries, said Qaddafi, cronyism prevails, so the commanders tend to be no good. That’s why Arabs keep losing wars.

“May you never have democracy,” said an Israeli journalist under his breath. I have never forgotten it, and one can certainly understand it.

I have to disagree with Mr. Nordlinger--the reason that Arabs keep losing wars against Israel is not because of cronyism. The reason they keep losing is that they keep getting second (and third and fourth chances). If the Arabs were to not only lose a war, but also allowed to suffer the consequences of that defeat--that would go a long way towards resolving the Middle East crisis.

In Groundhog day in Gaza,The Belmont Club writes about how the very organizations that should be preventing war and bloodshed have instead imposed themselves in such a way that the natural resolution of conflicts is prevented and continued war is guaranteed:

Almost unnoticed in the course of this absurd tragedy is the assertion that third parties, like the UN and the EU, have some acquired the right to determine what is proportionate force between belligerents. In the past belligerents were free to determine what, within accepted usages, constituted a casus belli. And they approached the problem with the knowledge that if they went to war rashly or foolishly, they would pay the price of defeat and possible loss of territory. But today the right to determine when and where to fight back against aggression has been usurped by a bunch of bureaucrats in the UN and in Brussels. Aggressors all over the world are no longer so reluctant to cause trouble, secure in the knowledge that the UN will always be there to save them from a knockout count with their sacred bell.

Today nations neither suffer the consequences of aggression nor the benefits of righteous self defense. In its place the 'International Community' has create a perpetual limbo in which a continuous trickle of misery is considered an acceptable price to pay so that the authority of the 'International Community' can be upheld and its vanity embellished. Not actual peace but the protection of this perverse 'International' system has become the actual goal of diplomacy. In order to pay for it, Palestinians will be left abandoned to their oppressors, for employment as human shields while Israelis will be admonished to die without whimpering. Not in order to achieve a solution, but simply to turn the page of the calendar. Even the 20th century holds few examples of such political immorality and futility.

War is sometimes the price nations have to pay to win peace. But only the United Nations, and the sadly the European Union too, can create a system where war is endured only to guarantee more war -- and the prerogatives of the International System. All in the name of Peace, too.

Two years ago, Amir Taheri put it this way:

For a war to be won, it is not enough for one side to claim victory. It is also necessary for one side to admit defeat. Yet in the Arab-Israeli wars, the side that had won every time was not allowed to claim victory, while the side that had lost was prevented from admitting defeat. Why? Because each time the United Nations had intervened to put the victor and the vanquished on an equal basis and lock them into a problematic situation in the name of a mythical quest for an impossible peace.

It is time for the West to step back and allow Hamas to earn the consequences of firing rockets at the innocent civilians of another country.

And they are only the first in line.

by Daled Amos

Crossposted at Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Israel.

How Long Have We Been Trying To 'Bolster' Abbas?

Better question: Was there ever a time that there has not been talk about the need to bolster Abbas. Apparently, from the beginning it was clear that Abbas is the kind of leader who cannot stand on his own two feet.

Abbas served as the first Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority from March to October 2003, when he resigned.

Christian Science Monitor, July 2, 2003:

The subtle campaign to bolster Abbas
Bush tries to solidify Palestinian leader's position without making it look like he's tool of Washington.

And nothing says support for Abbas like releasing terrorists (August 5, 2003):

A summit between Palestinian and Israeli leaders was cancelled today as the US-backed road map to peace ran into further trouble.

Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were due to meet but both sides are understood to be angry over recent developments.

Palestinian sources said their side had pulled out because of Israel's decision to release 440 Palestinian prisoners - about 100 fewer than originally thought - and with few long-term prisoners among them.

Two years later, Abbas was elected President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on January 9, 2005.

ABC News on February 9, 2005:

Commentary: Action Needed to Bolster Abbas

United States, Israel Need to Engage and Offer More Than Compliments and Encouragement

By June 3, 2005:

Inmates freed to bolster Abbas

Israel released 398 Palestinian prisoners yesterday in an attempt to support Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Mr Abbas, who came out of hospital yesterday after heart surgery, faces difficulties because Palestinians believe his election has not led to any real improvement in their lives or an easing of the occupation.

The prisoner release is the second by Israel this year but critics claim it consists mainly of petty criminals and those near the end of their sentences. Few are political activists or those convicted of political violence against Israel.

Obviously, it didn't take long at all to realize the need to strengthen an obviously weak leader.

But if the need to unilaterally strengthen Abbas is so great, what good is he to either the US or Israel now--and how great a danger will he be to whatever status quo is foisted upon Israel should a Palestinian state be created?

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Abbas.

(Toilet) paper money

Montgomery County Maryland is facing a budget shortfall. How will they address it?

By limiting toilet paper:

Montgomery County labor leaders are urging county officials to ration rolls of toilet paper and bars of soap for inmates as a way to cope with a nearly $300 million budget shortfall.

The suggestion to limit inmates to two to three rolls of toilet paper and two bars of soap each week is part of a long list of budget cuts the Municipal & County Government Employees Organization submitted to the council as it weighs raising taxes, trimming services and revising employee contracts that include raises for workers.

I hope we don't start hearing from prisoners rights advocates how this is balancing the budget on the backsides of the inmates.

(Sorry.)

One hundred nine years ago

Duke Ellington was born April 29, 1899.

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington, often said to be America's greatest composer, bandleader, and recording artist, was born on April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C. Titled "Duke" as a youngster, Ellington turned down a visual arts scholarship to focus his life on music. With a background in classical, popular, ragtime, and stride music, Ellington emerged as arguably the greatest single talent in the history of jazz.

Extra! extra! in abu dhabi

There's a new paper in town!

ONE of the Middle East’s wealthiest ruling families has a new asset: The National, a newspaper that promises independence from its royal owners.

The paper, an English-language daily based in Abu Dhabi, published its first issue on April 17, under close scrutiny in the Middle East and abroad. With its pledge to emulate Western newspaper standards and to “help society evolve,” The National is an anomaly in the Middle East, where most media are tightly controlled by the government.

“We aim to produce an excellent newspaper out of the region” that will set a new standard for other publications to aspire to, said Hassan M. Fattah, the deputy editor, who was a correspondent for The New York Times in the Middle East before joining The National. “Being government-owned does not equal being government-run,” he said. “There are no ministers sitting in my office” telling the paper what to write.

Western newspaper standards?

The National, which aims at expatriate and local professionals in Abu Dhabi, has published a few articles with criticisms of the region, like one about severely overcrowded private schools, which limit companies’ abilities to attract new people. It has also printed controversial opinion pieces, one asking Arabs to welcome Jewish investors to the region and another warning that Emirate culture is disappearing.

Is encouraging Jewish investment controversial in the West?

Crossposted on Yourish.

abu dhabi

Reuters post mortem

Throughout the day Reuters reported:

Israeli fire hit a house in the Gaza Strip on Monday while a family was eating breakfast, killing six Palestinians, including four children and their mother, residents and medical officials said.

Elder of Ziyon and Israelly Cool! followed the story and did a little research over the course of the day and showed that there was some doubt that it was "Israeli fire" that hit the house.

Israelly Cool!:

What I am not seeing in the mainstream media is this version reported in the Jerusalem Post (hat tip: Shy Guy):

The Palestinian mother and her four children who were killed Monday during IDF ops in Beit Hanun were not hit by a tank shell but rather were killed when ammunition carried by gunmen exploded, Army Radio quoted an IDF source as saying.

Elder of Ziyon:

After reading the IDF explanation as well as the PCHR preliminary investigation into the deaths of the mother and four daughters this morning, I am convinced that the IDF version is correct - the IDF shot a missile at two terrorists who were outside the Abu Meatak home, and the explosives that at least one was carrying exploded, killing most of the family.

I'd add that Elder of Ziyon did not just rely on the IDF report.

The NY Times managed to acknowledge the Israeli version of the deaths.

The Israelis said they shot a missile from the air that hit two armed men who were carrying heavy explosives, which blew apart the family’s house behind them. Palestinian witnesses said they believed an Israeli tank shell or a missile from a drone flew into the small house, killing the four as they were eating breakfast. Two other children from the same family were badly wounded and hospitalized.

The Washington Post does too:

Israeli military officials said the blast was caused by explosives that the two gunmen were carrying in backpacks. But Gazan medical officials said the Israeli fire had directly struck the one-story, corrugated metal home of the Abu Meiteg family as the children and their mother began to eat breakfast.

The children ranged in age from 1 1/2 to 5. The blast also killed a teenager passing by the home, and the Israeli military said he may have been one of the targeted gunmen.

The Post also takes care to acknowledge the sixth death. (Israel claimed to have killed the two gunmen, so the death toll should be seven not six. Or was the teenager double counted.)

The Post also gives some context:

The attack took place in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, a frequent launching area for rockets targeting southern Israel. The Israeli military said 18 rockets and more than a dozen mortar shells were fired from Gaza on Monday, adding to a tally that stands at more than 1,600 for the year. One Israeli home was damaged by the attacks, but they caused no serious injuries.

But Reuters is less a news agency than a mouthpiece for Hamas.

The game is up so what does Reuters report?

Palestinians carry the bodies of four children and their mother during their funeral in the northern Gaza Strip April 28, 2008.

That's the complete report. Instead of reporting that there was any doubt about the circumstances surrounding their deaths, Reuters doesn't leave us with any hints that their earlier assertion was mistaken or incomplete.

UPDATE: Crossing the Rubicon points out that Andrew Sullivan is doing all he can to promote Hamas without context too. Utterly irresponsible.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, hamas.

Reuters: Birds gotta peck, spuds gotta cool

Let's begin with the BBC on what may be the crucial details:

The Israeli army said it had "targeted from the air two Palestinian gunmen who were approaching the soldiers while carrying large bags on their backs.

"A big explosion erupted on the scene... indicating the presence of bombs and explosives in the gunmen's bags," the army said.

"As a result of this big explosion, extensive damage was caused to a house that was near the gunmen and uninvolved civilians were hit."

And now Reuters. This is an amazing demonstration of biased journalism. It builds one paragraph after another until finally reaching the sentimental novelistic dribblings about chickens and potatoes.

Israeli fire hit a house in the Gaza Strip on Monday while a family was eating breakfast, killing six Palestinians, including four children and their mother, residents and medical workers said.

Israel challenged the account, describing the deaths as tragic and saying they occurred when an aircraft fired at two militants carrying bags filled with munitions that detonated and destroyed the home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

Local residents said no militants were killed in the explosion.

So much for that. That's the first of four paragraphs supporting the Palestinian point of view:

"They have wiped out my family," said the children's father, Ahmed Abu Meateq, blaming Israeli forces and weeping as the bodies were prepared for burial.

The carnage cast another shadow over Egyptian efforts to forge a ceasefire between Israel and militant groups and end violence threatening U.S.-brokered Palestinian statehood talks.

"This aggression does not serve efforts being exerted to achieve calm, and it obstructs the peace process," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, referring to Israel's military activities, said in a statement carried by WAFA news agency.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, without giving details of the raid in Beit Hanoun, said Hamas Islamists controlling the Gaza Strip bore overall responsibility for casualties among non-combatants because gunmen "operated among civilians."

Not scare-quotes exactly, but a similar effect. Even the supposed presentation of the Israeli side contributes to the overall pro-Palestinian thrust of the proceedings.

Medical officials and residents of Beit Hanoun, an area where militants frequently fire rockets at Israel, said an Israeli projectile smashed through the ceiling of a one-storey house where a family was having breakfast.

They said four children -- siblings whose ages ranged from 1-1/2 to 5 years old -- and their mother were killed in the house during what the Israeli military described as an operation against rocket launching crews and snipers.

"They were eating and they were hit," a neighbor said at the site, where chickens pecked at a bloodstained floor and cooked potatoes grew cold in a pot. [...]

After all those gestures meant to suggest journalistic balance, let's just lurch into sob-mode. Pass the kleenex. See EOZ for more on this event.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Hillary Compares Outsourcing to the Holocaust

That is the title of a post by John Podhoretz at Contentions, in reaction to an article in today's New York Times:

At the union hall in Gary, she grew so animated in describing the plight of old-line industrial workers that she described them in language from the oft-repeated poem, attributed to the German pastor Martin Niemöller, about the victims of Nazism. “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist,” goes the version inscribed on a wall at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. After coming for the trade unionists, it continues, “they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.”

In Mrs. Clinton’s version, she intoned: “They came for the steel companies and nobody said anything. They came for the auto companies and nobody said anything. They came for the office companies, people who did white-collar service jobs, and no one said anything. And they came for the professional jobs that could be outsourced, and nobody said anything.”

“So this is not just about steel,” she finished.

Podhoretz intones:

In what may be the most appalling rhetorical gambit of her political career, and perhaps the worst of any candidate this entire campaign season, Hillary Clinton yesterday effectively analogized the loss of American jobs to the destruction of the Jews:

I don't buy it. I have written before that I find Hillary Clinton to be manipulative (see here and comments), but here she is merely using the metaphor that people are not immune from the suffering they ignore in others--at no point does she explicitly compare the workers to Jews.

There's plenty to criticize in Hillary "Sniper Fire" Clinton, in what she claims as well as in the policies she claims to espouse. No need to read into what she says.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Hillary Clinton.

220 years ago today

Maryland ratified the Constitution and became the 7th state of the Union.

Here's a complete (alpahbetical) list of the states, the year they were admitted to the Union and other relevant facts.

Pariah on pariahs

In Pariah Diplomacy, ex-President Jimmy Carter argues that continued boycotting of Hamas is counter-productive.

After enthusiastically cheering on the success of Maoists in Nepal, he turns his attention to the Middle East.

The Carter Center had monitored three Palestinian elections, including one for parliamentary seats in January 2006. Hamas had prevailed in several municipal contests, gained a reputation for effective and honest administration and did surprisingly well in the legislative race, displacing the ruling party, Fatah. As victors, Hamas proposed a unity government with Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah as president and offered to give key ministries to Fatah, including that of foreign affairs and finance.

Hamas had been declared a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, and the elected Palestinian government was forced to dissolve. Eventually, Hamas gained control of Gaza, and Fatah is “governing” the Israeli-dominated West Bank. Opinion polls show Hamas steadily gaining popularity. Since there can be no peace with Palestinians divided, we at the Carter Center believed it important to explore conditions allowing Hamas to be brought peacefully back into the discussions. (A recent poll of Israelis, who are familiar with this history, showed 64 percent favored direct talks between Israel and Hamas.)

Similarly, Israel cannot gain peace with Syria unless the Golan Heights dispute is resolved. Here again, United States policy is to ostracize the Syrian government and prevent bilateral peace talks, contrary to the desire of high Israeli officials.

Now I'm glad that he brought up his history in observing Palestinian elections. But first let me remind you that his election observing also confirmed the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, despite plenty of evidence that he cheated. Chavez recently added to his self accrued powers, arguing further that Carter was wrong to have certified his election in the first place.

In acknowledging his role in certifying the election of Yasser Arafat in 1996, Carter takes pride in another fixed election that he certified despite evidence of its fraudulence.

And of course now he prides himself on supervising an election that brought Hamas to power.

He argues that it is the refusal to recognize Hamas and Syria that prolongs conflict in the Middle East. Yet he fails to realize that it was giving legitimacy to the likes of Yasser Arafat that has prevented peace in the Middle East. Terror organizations and rogue states don't become good actors through elections or any other phony attempt to play down their mischief.

After all these years he still doesn't get it. He is a living example of the self-deluded Westerner. (via memeorandum)

UPDATE: There's less to Carter's little factoid about 64% of Israelis supporting talks with Hamas than meets the eye. His dishonest presentation - including his continued denial of being warned away from Meshaal by Sec. Rice - should remind all readers of Carter's own history. It's not one of candor.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, hamas.

Girl shields father from israel

CNN reported that the 14 year old daughter of a member of Hamas was killed as Israel attempted to arrest her father.

Weasel Zippers emphasizes a key sentence in the report:

Palestinians inside the house fired at the troops while the family was still inside, she said.

Al the hamas news ...

The New York Times reported on the Toronto transit strike, Iran vs. Barbie, and a dispute about Champagne.

The Times even reported that Khaled Meshaal acknowledged that a truce with Israel is nothing more than a "tactic." (As if you would expect anything else from a group that increases terror when it says its asking for peace.)

In the course of the report, the AP observes that:

The Egyptian deal would also include a prisoner swap and the reopening of Gaza’s border crossings. The territory has been virtually sealed by Israel and Egypt since Hamas violently seized control from the rival Palestinian faction Fatah last June.

Somehow the Times missed that Hamas disrupts fuel supplies to Gaza:

Hamas militiamen in the Gaza Strip on Sunday attacked fuel trucks headed toward the Nahal Oz border crossing, forcing them to turn back, sources in the Palestinian Petroleum Authority said.

The fuel was supposed to go to the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the sources said.

"Dozens of Hamas militiamen hurled stones and opened fire at the trucks," the sources added. "The trucks were on their way to receive fuel supplied by Israel. The drivers were forced to turn back. Some of them had their windshields smashed."

The Palestinian Petroleum Authority reached an agreement with Israel over the weekend to receive 250,000 liters of fuel after UNRWA complained that it did not have enough fuel to distribute food aid to more than 500,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

(via memeorandum)

Somehow the Times neglected to report that "Hamas kept the border 'virtually sealed.'"

(My complaint isn't just with the NY Times. The Washington Post didn't seem to carry the story either.)

Then again I suppose that the Times is governed by a maxim of "All the news that UNRWA sees fit to print."

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, hamas.

Lying for peace

Yesterday when I blogged about this article I missed the most important part of it:

National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, at a news briefing in January, suggested that Bush's 2004 letter was aimed at helping Sharon win domestic approval for the Gaza withdrawal. "The president obviously still stands by that letter of April of 2004, but you need to look at it, obviously, in the context of which it was issued," he said.

Even without the "secret agreement," it seems pretty certain that President Bush approved of Israel building in areas it intended to keep. But Steven Hadley said that we should look at "the context." What does he mean? That a President may issue a false assurance to Israel in order to further the peace process?

This kind of paternalism is why I don't believe it's possible to call President Clinton a good friend of Israel. In order to get the Hebron agreement through the Netanyahu government, the Clinton administration assured Netanyahu that he would have the authority to determine the scope of further withdrawals unilaterally. When Netanyahu ordered the first withdrawal and Arafat declared himself "insulted," Clinton started a diplomatic campaign against Netanyahu until the Prime Minister capitulated at Wye.

It's one thing for an American government to disagree with Israel openly. But to use subterfuge in order to get concessions from Israel subverts Israel's democracy. Also, a little humility might be in order.

According to Danny Yatom it was the United States who insisted against Israel's wishes to have Hamas included in the 2006 elections. The Hamas victory - other than showing the popularity of terrorism against Israel that has further increased the violence in the Middle East.

The larger question emerges: If two consecutive administrations feel that it was correct to mislead Israel with false assurances, is this something that Israel should come to expect in the future? Will Israel be able to count on America?

Israel.

Distracted

Charles Krauthammer makes an observation in Obama's Distractions (or here)

In the now-famous Pennsylvania debate, Obama had extreme difficulty answering questions about these associations and attitudes. The difficulty is understandable. Some of the contradictions are inexplicable. How does one explain campaigning throughout 2007 on a platform of transcending racial divisions, while in that same year contributing $26,000 to a church whose pastor incites race hatred?

Exactly. How does one claim to be "post-racial" while regularly listening to (and subjecting his children to) sermons of racial hatred? My guess is that "post-racial" referred to a country who would vote for a man with a different color skin, but not necessarily to the candidate himself. In other words, he was trying to take credit for white America's enlightenment.

Dr. Krauthammer punctures another Sen. Obama's pretension that I hadn't considered:

Obamaphiles are even more exercised about the debate question regarding the flag pin. Now, I have never worn one. Whether anyone does is a matter of total indifference to me. But apparently not to Obama. He's taken three affirmative steps in regard to flag pins. After 9/11, he began wearing one. At a later point, he stopped wearing it. Then last year he explained why: Because it "became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security."

Apart from the self-congratulatory fatuousness of that statement -- as if in this freest of all countries, political self-expression is somehow scarce or dangerous or a sign of patriotic courage -- to speak of pin-wearing as a sign of inauthentic patriotism is to make an issue of it yourself. For Obamaphiles to now protest the very asking of the question requires a fine mix of cynicism and self-righteousness.

It's kind of like the guy at the psychiatrist's office who's subjected to an ink blot test. Asked what he sees, each time he answers "A naked woman." The psychiatrist observes, "Mr. Smith, you have a dirty mind." To which Mr. Smith replies, "But Doc, you're the one showing me the dirty pictures."

I'd like also to direct your attention to Wolf Howling's very complete analysis of Sen. Obama and what those questions about his character mean. Rhymes with Right also looked at Sen. Obama from a similar perspective.

In an editorial A discouraging word The New York Times offered this advice:

As he looks beyond Illinois, Mr. Obama should get used to the idea that people are noticing his behavior.

Actually, the sentence was written about then Sen. George Allen (and Virginia) about whom a single word misspoken derailed his campaign for re-election. I thought "macaca" was a distraction, not a pattern. But when someone's running for president, the patterns of his behavior are not distractions, but indicators of how he will act as President.

UPDATE: Blue Crab Boulevard summarizes:

From Obama's dismissal of small town Americans to his defense of the indefensibly wrong Reverend Wright, Krauthammer nails the real distractions Obama is using. Trying to distract people from his own behavior and questionable associates.

(via memeorandum)

barack obama.

Throwing bashar a lifeline

via memeorandum

Israel Matzav noted that PM Olmert has apparently gone even beyond Ehud Barak's generous concessions to Syria and promised Bashar Assad the complete Golan even up to the Kinneret.

But my question is why now? Why would Olmert extend a lifeline to Assad at this point?

It's just been revealed the Syrians were re-arming Hezbollah. The United States is just revealing more evidence that the site Israel hit in Syria was a nuclear reactor. In other words it's time to be pressuring Syria not giving into its demands.

Of course this wouldn't be the first time that Israel has strengthened an enemy at a critical time. In 1993 Israel rescued Arafat from political oblivion with Oslo. In 2000 Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon allowing Hezbollah to bolster its power and leading to the 2006 war. In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza after killing the leaders of Hamas, giving Hamas a platform to regroup and intensify its war against Israel.

Past experience says this isn't the time to concede anything to Syria.

Yesterday the NYT reported that Israel and Syria hint at progress on Golan deal:

Peace overtures between Israel and Syria moved up a gear on Wednesday when a Syrian cabinet minister said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel had sent a message to President Bashar al-Assad to the effect that Israel would be willing to withdraw from all the Golan Heights in return for peace with Syria.

The Syrian expatriate affairs minister, Buthaina Shaaban, told Al Jazeera television, “Olmert is ready for peace with Syria on the grounds of international conditions; on the grounds of the return of the Golan Heights in full to Syria.” She said that Turkey had conveyed the message.

Israeli officials did not deny the statement from Damascus but would not confirm it either, offering a more general, positive reaction. “Israel wants peace with Syria; we are interested in a negotiated process,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Olmert. “The Syrians know well our expectations, and we know well their expectations.”

The Washington Post today gives some background of past efforts:

Syria and Israel last held direct peace talks in 2000. The negotiations, mediated by President Clinton in the waning days of his administration, foundered over how much authority Syria would have over the coast along the Sea of Galilee.

It's also worth pointing out that Assad insisted that Israel agree to his terms of withdrawal before negotiating with Israel. This is the reason Assad didn't make peace with Israel.

Elliott Jager notes that Assad the younger isn't likely to be welcoming Israel with open arms even if he gets all he (and his father) demand up front:

WHATEVER HIS motivations, Israel should judge Assad by what he says and what he does. Assad insists that even under a peace treaty normalization is out of the question. This is how he put it at a conference in Damascus last week: "Restoration of land and rights may lead to relations based on routine, but not [necessarily] normalization. What happened in Jordan and Egypt is proof to us that the public does not want normalization, and therefore nobody can impose it on anybody else. I know that the Syrian people reject normalization and therefore I will not impose it on them."

Still that doesn't stop Ha'aretz from enthusiastically supporting the surrender of the Golan in Don't be afraid of Peace with Syria. (I won't call it peace, because I don't believe that the withdrawal from the Golan will bring peace.)

There seems to be a need to repeat, over and over, this basic fact: Nothing contributes to Israel's security more than a peace accord. Before the protests of solidarity with the Golan Heights begin, it should be emphasized that withdrawal from the Golan in exchange for peace is endorsed not only by bleeding hearts, but by distinctly security-minded figures. The supporters of the Golan are West Bank settlers, like Golan resident Effi Eitam, who see any withdrawal as a national catastrophe; parties that gain strength by sowing security-related fears, such as Israel Beiteinu; those with economic interests in the region, hikers, bird-watchers, wine connoisseurs and winemakers; and mainly the people of the past, who still consider the lookout point on Mount Hermon to be "Israel's eyes," even though those eyes did not prove a very effective source of warning in 1973. Today, neither advance warning nor deterrence rely on the "Alpinists" (the elite IDF unit trained for snow operations), and the missile war expected in the future is not affected by natural boundaries, whether of the flowing or the ascending kind.

Of course it could be argued that Israel hasn't come to a hot war with Syria since 1967 while it held the Golan. Also, why need peace come only on Syria's terms? Why can't Israel obtain peace for half the Golan? Surely if Assad would agree to a compromise that would be a better indication of peace than if Israel meets his unconditional demands, wouldn't it?

Here's Jager again:

It is in Israel's long-term interest to have a peace treaty with Syria, but not at any price. Israel would have to make irrevocable strategic concessions. So it's hard to imagine many Israelis having the confidence to support a deal that does not signify a true opening of genuine peaceful relations.

That's the subtlety Ha'aretz and like minded folks miss. Syria views talking peace only in terms of what it will receive. So Assad and his lackeys can say "peace," but don't mean peace in any meaningful sense of the word. They want territory, and they'll deign to accept that territory from Israel.

By insisting that ceding territory is the same thing as achieving peace, Ha'aretz accepts Syria's "peace" talk at face value. It is a view that unhelpfully echoes through the diplomatic world. But it puts Israel at a disadvantage. Israel then in the name of "peace" is required to cede real assets in return for nebulous future considerations. It requires an element of trust that Bashar Assad, in his recent activities, has contradicted.

If people want peace, there needs to be a demonstrated change of heart from Damascus. Ceding the Golan Heights by itself won't bring peace, unless one defines peace simply as the acceptance of land by a hostile country.

Meryl offers her thoughts.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, syria.

Watcher's review 04/25/08

As readers of Soccer Dad are aware, I'm a member of the Watcher's Council a group of twelve bloggers who submit and vote on posts every week supervised by the Watcher of Weasels.

That is every week except this week. Unfortunately, this week due to a wardrobe technical malfunction, the Watcher was unable to run the voting this week. Here's hoping that he's back next week.

In the meantime, fellow council members JoshuaPundit and Wolf Howling (and I) have decided to give you a roundup of this week's entries. So we asked and got submissions from most of our fellow council members.

So with no further ado, in the order they were received.

1) Rhymes with Right - When an Obama supporter claims that the activities of Ayers and Doehrn were just youthful indiscretions, Rhymes with Right responds: Not just Youthful Indiscretions -

We are talking about setting off bombs in the United States Capitol, the Pentagon, and New York City Police Headquarters. In other words, acts of terrorism, not youthful hijinks that cause one to blush and shake one's head in dismay over having been so foolish.

Rhymes with Right's non-council submission this week is about convicted killer Selwyn Davis at Urban Grounds.

2) Wolf Howling - In The Central Issues of Obama's Candidacy Wolf Howling shows that the "distractions" that Sen. Obama complains about are measures of his own character and that it speaks volumes, that he no longer wishes to address them. Normally, Wolf Howling reads Krauthammer first thing on Fridays, this week though, it looks like Krauthammer read Wolf Howling last week and simply summarized his findings. :-)

3) Hillbilly White Trash - In Is it time to consign Reagan to the dustbin of history? Hillbilly White Trash argues in the negative and attributes the sentiment to "Rockefeller Republicans" who, in the person of John McCain, are now controlling the Republican party. My impression of Sen. McCain is somewhat different.

His non-council entry is My dad the spy (redux) at White Trash Republican.

4) Cheat Seeking Missiles - In Our Crumbling Civilization he asks what kind of society produces a college student who aborts for art? Pointedly he notes about Yale University where teh student is attending (quoted in part)

Yale of course is not alone among universities that have lost all sensibility, but it seems to be intent on carving out a place for itself as the most nonsensical of universities: It hired Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former Deputy Foreign Secretary of the Taliban; it employs Dr. LaMont Cole, an environmentalist who taught his students, "To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world over population problem;" ...

This is a story that I didn't comment on because of how disturbing it is. Cheat Seeking Missiles went where I couldn't.

His non-council entry is Barack Obama's meeting with Typical San Francisco Citizens at the satirical site The Nose on your Face.

5) JoshuaPundit - In Where Hamas gets it right, JoshuaPundit agrees with Zahar that it was wrong of the United States to ignore the results of the Palestinian elections in 2006. But for somewhat different reasons than Zahar would acknowledge!

His non-council submission was Playing with Fire at Shrinkwrapped.

6) Bookworm Room - Bookworm Room looks at and dismisses Root Causes. She finds that root causes say more about the one espousing them, then those who have supposedly fallen victim to them.

Her non-council nominee is I can has Freedom of Speech at Thought you'd never ask.

7) Colossus of Rhodey.Hube - In The Not-So Proportionate Death Penalty (Should It Be?), Hube wonders:

If proportionate representation was expected in every facet of life, whites would make up 70% of the NBA, Jews would only be 3% of any profession, and blacks and Hispanics would comprise 12-13% of all college professors. Etc. However, these figures are clearly not the case.

In two sentences he demolishes the premise that proportionality is an immutable law of nature (and conversely that the lack of proportionality indicates some evil design.)

His non-council submission is Legalized Child Stealing in Arlington County, VA at Open Markets.org

8) Done with Mirrors - In Documentary, Done with Mirrors doesn't spare "Expelled." But he also doesn't spare the New York Times whose politics allow it to forgive Michael Moore what it won't forgive Ben Stein.

His non-council nomination is Zombie Times Obama visits Billionaire Row.

9) Right Wing Nuthouse - Right Wing Nuthouse gives no quarter to Bill Maher in DEFENDING THE POPE AND OTHER COUNTERINTUITIVE UNDERTAKINGS and expresses his own admiration of the current Pope.

His non-council submission is the Obama Aesthetic by Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker.

10) The Glittering Eye - In Reactions, the Glittering Eye wonders what's behind the NYT making a big deal over Chinese students protesting pro-Tibet activism in the West. Is it ignorance? Or just bad writing?

The Glittering Eye offered an excellent look at MSM distortions with his submission of Pentagon study? Current Events? Not so fast ... from the Small Wars Journal as his non-council choice this week.

11) My nominee was The Damned Lies of the J-Street in which I examined elements of the new "pro-Israel" lobbying group, J-Street.

My non-council nominee was Meryl Yourish's Muslim schools create a new class of African beggars, which describes how enterprising headmasters get around the prohibition of accepting money for teaching the Koran.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

To build or not to build

Israelis Claim Secret Agreement With U.S.

A letter that President Bush personally delivered to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon four years ago has emerged as a significant obstacle to the president's efforts to forge a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians during his last year in office.

Ehud Olmert, the current Israeli prime minister, said this week that Bush's letter gave the Jewish state permission to expand the West Bank settlements that it hopes to retain in a final peace deal, even though Bush's peace plan officially calls for a freeze of Israeli settlements across Palestinian territories on the West Bank. In an interview this week, Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed this understanding in a secret agreement reached between Israel and the United States in the spring of 2005, just before Israel withdrew from Gaza.

U.S. officials say no such agreement exists, and in recent months Rice has publicly criticized even settlement expansion on the outskirts of Jerusalem, which Israel does not officially count as settlements. But as peace negotiations have stepped up in recent months, so has the pace of settlement construction, infuriating Palestinian officials, and Washington has taken no punitive action against Israel for its settlement efforts.

The supposed letter apparently explicitly confirms Israel's version. But U.S. officials deny it.

Here's the key:

In a companion letter to "reconfirm" U.S.-Israeli understandings, Weissglas wrote Rice that restrictions on the growth of settlements would be made "within the agreed principles of settlement activities," which would include "a better definition of the construction line of settlements" on the West Bank. A joint U.S.-Israeli team would "jointly define the construction line of each of the settlements."

Weissglas said that the letter built upon a prior understanding between then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, which would allow Israel to build up settlements within existing construction lines. But Powell denied that. "I never agreed to it," he said in an e-mail.

Daniel Kurtzer, then the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said he argued at the time against accepting the Weissglas letter. "I thought it was a really bad idea," he said. "It would legitimize the settlements, and it gave them a blank check." In the end, Kurtzer said the White House never followed up with the plan to define construction lines. "Washington lost interest in it when it became clear it would not be easy to do," he said.

One of two motives exist for each side lying. Either American officials scared of the political damage are denying giving Israel the authority or PM Olmert feels a need to assure its public that it's getting diplomatic support as he comes under scrutiny for promising the complete Golan to Syria.

The rest of the article consists of American officials explaining why accepting Israeli building even around Jerusalem is damaging to the peace process.

I disagree with the American view on this. Mahmoud Abbas has shown with recent statements that he is still committed to terror. That, not Israel building homes near Jerusalem is the biggest obstacle to peace.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel.

Carter at his word

Jimmy Carter on Secretary Rice (via memeorandum):

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of not telling the truth about warnings she said her department gave Carter not to speak to Hamas before a Middle East trip. . . .

"President Carter has the greatest respect for ... Rice and believes her to be a truthful person. However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true," a statement issued by the Carter center in Atlanta said on Wednesday.

"No one in the State Department or any other department of the U.S. government ever asked him (Carter) to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested that he not meet with Syrian President (Bashar) Assad or leaders of Hamas," it said.

Meryl on Carter's truthfulness:

But then, Carter is an expert at finessing the language when he wants to get around taking responsibility for his actions. Like justifying suicide bombing in his anti-Israel screed. Of course, he apologized for making people think that he justifies suicide bombings. But then you have to wonder, since he’s constantly using the language of the terrorists (”40 dead Palestinians for every Israeli” is straight out of the Hamas playbook). It’s getting hard to tell the difference these days.

Unsurprisingly, Firedoglake disagrees.

But take the NYT report Carter Says Hamas and Syria Are Open to Peace:

Jimmy Carter said here on Monday that in talks in Damascus, Syria, over the last several days, he obtained a significant concession from the militant group Hamas regarding Israeli-Palestinian peace and found Syrian leaders eager for a full peace treaty with Israel.

Mr. Carter said he extracted a promise from Hamas to respect the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip negotiated by Hamas’s rivals in the Palestinian Authority if it were ratified by a referendum of the Palestinian people.

Then he seems to backtrack:

In a subsequent interview, Mr. Carter struck a more cautious note, saying, “I’m not claiming it’s a breakthrough.” He added, “I don’t have any control over whether or not Hamas does what they tell me.”

Hardly a display of confidence. But then the reporter gets Carter:

But Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader with whom Mr. Carter met in Damascus, gave a televised news conference late Monday in which he seemed to contradict Mr. Carter’s statements. “Hamas accepts the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and with full and real sovereignty and full application of the right of the Palestinian refugees to return, but Hamas will not recognize the state of Israel,” Mr. Meshal said.

The Washington Post finds another hole in Carter's assurances:

The talks resulted in a written agreement. An English version that Carter released reads in part: "If President Abbas succeeds in negotiating a final status agreement with Israel, Hamas will accept the decision made by the Palestinian people and their will in a referendum monitored by international observers . . . even if Hamas is opposed to the agreement."

The terms, however, give the group substantial room to later back out. Hamas officials, for instance, have said that any referendum must include Palestinians living in exile worldwide -- something that could make the vote logistically impossible.

These contradictions show that Carter is capable of hearing only what he wants to hear. I suspect that was the operating principle in the case of the State Department warning.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel.

The Pope And The Grand Imam--Only One Has Left The Middle Ages Behind

Andrew Bostom takes advantage of Pope Benedict's visit to the US to compare the Pope with Grand Imam Tantawi. On the one hand:

Earlier, writing in December 2000, the future pope (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) affirmed his close alignment with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, and the ecumenical thought of his predecessor and dear friend, Pope John Paul II. Ratzinger's statement reiterates this "new vision of Jewish-Christian relations," and even acknowledges a role for Christian anti-Semitism in the Holocaust itself:

Down through the history of Christianity, already-strained relations deteriorated further, even giving birth in many cases to anti-Jewish attitudes, which throughout history have led to deplorable acts of violence. Even if the most recent, loathsome experience of the Shoah was perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian ideology, which tried to strike the Christian faith at its Abrahamic roots in the people of Israel, it cannot be denied that a certain insufficient resistance to this atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians.

He then implores that a new relationship be forged between the Church and Israel out of the tragic ashes of the Holocaust, based upon overcoming "every kind of anti-Judaism," and engaging in sincere, meaningful dialogue.

Then there is the Grand Imam:

In contrast to the pope, consider Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the current Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. For more than a thousand years, since its founding in 792 A.D., Al-Azhar, has served as the academic shrine — much as Mecca is the religious shrine — of the global Sunni Muslim community (Sunnis are about 90 percent of Muslims).

Tantawi's Ph.D. thesis, Banu Israil fi al-Quran wa-al-Sunnah (Jews in the Koran and the Traditions), was published in 1968-69. In 1980 he became the head of the Tafsir (Koranic Commentary) Department of the University of Medina, Saudi Arabia — a position he held until 1984. Tantawi became Grand Mufti of Egypt in 1986, and a decade later he took his current post as Grand Imam.

My forthcoming book The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism includes extensive, first-time English translations of Jews in the Koran and the Traditions. In the 700-page treatise, Tantawi wrote these words:

[The] Koran describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah [Koran 2:61/ 3:112], corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people's wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness. . . . Only a minority of the Jews keep their word [Koranic citations here]. . . . All Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims [Koran 3:113], the bad ones do not.

These are the expressed, "carefully researched" views on Jews held by the nearest Muslim equivalent to a pope.

Actually, back in 2002 MEMRI noted that Tantawi had a change of heart regarding suicide bombings. He changed his mind and decided to support them:

Within the past year, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, the top Egyptian cleric of Al­Azhar University, has shifted his position regarding the targeting of civilians in suicide bombings. While he previously stated that Palestinians should refrain from targeting civilians, he recently declared that martyrdom (suicide) operations and the killing of civilians are permitted acts and that more such attacks should be carried out. Tantawi's positions were posted on www.lailatalqadr.com, a website associated with Al­Azhar.

"[Sheikh Tantawi] emphasized that every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land and cause the cruel Israeli aggression to retreat…" [emphasis added]

In an editorial last year addressing the case of the 6 Imams who were removed from a plane after acting suspiciously, the Investor's Business Daily notes the activities of other Imams:

Omar Abdul-Rahman, a blind sheikh, is serving a life term for plotting to blow up several New York landmarks. Imam Ali al-Timimi, a native Washingtonian, is also behind bars for soliciting local Muslims to kill fellow Americans. Imams in New York were recently busted for buying shoulder-fired missiles. Another in Lodi, Calif., planned an al-Qaida terror camp there.

In his book The Crisis of Islam, Bernard Lewis paints a picture of Islam that implies that Imams such as Tantawi and his friends are making up the rules as they go:

Because holy war is an obligation of the faith, it is elaborately regulated in the sharia. Fighters in a jihad are enjoined not to kill women, children, and the aged unless they attack first, not to torture or mutilate prisoner, to give fair warning of the resumption of hostilities after a truce, and to honor agreements. [p. 39]

Besides dictating who can be attacked, Sharia also dictates how:

The medieval jurists and theologians discuss at some length the rules of warfare, including questions such as which weapons are permitted and which are not. There is even some discussion in medieval texts of the lawfulness of missile and chemical warfare, the one relating to mangonels and catapults, the other to poison-tipped arrows and the poisoning of enemy water supplies. On these points there is considerable variation. Some jurists permit, some restrict, some disapprove of the use of these weapons. The stated reason for concern is the indiscriminate casualties that they inflict. At no point do the basic texts of Islam enjoin terrorism and murder. At no point--as far as I am aware--do they even consider the random slaughter of uninvolved bystanders. [p. 39.]

Which leaves the question of what do you do when the Imams themselves do not follow Islamic law.

Read Bostom's article.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Islam.

You Think Gaza Is Crowded? Try Tel Aviv!

From Israel Like This As If:

Some people will tell you that Gaza is the most crowded place on earth. Actually, Tel Aviv (aerial view at right) is much more densely populated than Gaza.

The first modern Hebrew city, not quite 100 years old, has already managed to cram almost 400,000 residents into its 51.8 square kilometers. This makes Tel Aviv more densely populated than Hong Kong or Singapore, which in turn are much more crowded than Gaza. (A note on comparative crowding appears below, at the end of this post.)

The claim that Gaza is the most crowded city on Earth continues to be circulated--for example:

The UK politician George Galloway wrote in The Glasgow Record last month that the Gaza Strip is "the most densely populated piece of earth on the planet." Galloway wrote that 1.5 million Palestinians live there.

Here are some of the numbers for comparison--and Gaza just does not compare:

Tel Aviv
7,445 people/sq km
(385,000 people, 51.8 sq km)

Hong Kong
6,352 people/sq km
http://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/population.pdf

Singapore
6,252 people/sq km
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/keyind.html

London
5,100 people/sq km

Tel Aviv metro area including suburbs
5,050 people/sq km
(2.3 million people, 453 sq km)

Moscow
4,900 people/sq km

Tokyo/Yokahama
4,750 people/sq km

Warsaw
4,300 people/sq km

Gaza Strip per CIA projection
4,270 people/sq km
(1,537,269 population July 2008, 360 sq km)

Gaza Strip per George Galloway
4,167 people/sq km
(1.5 million people, 360 sq km)

Gaza Strip per Daoud Kuttab
3,822 people/sq km

The numbers for London, Tel Aviv metro area, Moscow, Tokyo/Yokohama and Warsaw are from the City Mayors site.
http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html

By the way the numbers for Cairo are 9,400 people/sq km (12,200,000, 1,295 sq km)--yet Gaza is noteworthy for overcrowding.

Read the whole thing.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Gaza.

Posted by daledamos at 11:45 AM

1701 still toothless

via memeorandum

Ha'aretz reports:

According to a government source in Jerusalem, the incident caused great embarrassment for UNIFIL. The source described the incident, explaining that UNIFIL troops on patrol discovered the truck and chased it down and pulled it over. When the UNIFIL troops approached the vehicle, the source said, armed Hezbollah men exited the truck and threatened the troops at gunpoint. The UNIFIL patrol then went back into their cars, according to the source, and returned to their base.

The report submitted to the Security Council said the incident occurred on the night between the 30 and 31 of March. "This serious violation of the UN resolution raises concerns," the report said.

While it doesn't seem to be in response to the above incident, Israel Matzav notes that Arutz-7 is reporting that returning Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi wants to change the UNIFIL"s rules of engagement and Hezbollah is none too happy about the proposed changes.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced last week that he would be reviewing the rules of engagement for the 2,500 Italian soldiers serving in the UN force, saying the troops were being prevented from reacting to certain situations. "We pledge our support for the strengthening of democracy (in Lebanon)," he said, "but we want to look at the rules of engagement. Our soldiers find themselves in a unique situation...because they cannot react. We will re-examine the rules of engagement."

The Hizbullah-led opposition in Lebanon warned against amending UNIFIL's rules of engagement, saying that it would change it into "occupation forces." The use of that language is meant to signal that Hizbullah terrorists would begin targeting UN forces in attacks.

We already knew that Hezbollah was re-arming as expected.

I doubt that Berlusconi will be successful in changing the rules of engagement. The UN just does not have the political will to challenge Hezbollah.

More at the Jawa Report, Solomonia and LGF who explains the media's missing this story with:

I think Britney Spears was doing something very important around that time.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, hezbollah, unifil.

Hillary's transformation

via memeorandum

Lisa Schiffren at the Corner:

Mark is right. It is clear that Obama can't win the Reagan Democrats — for reasons that are cultural rather than specifically racial. The consensus on cable is that there will be massive defections of Hillary voters to McCain in November if Obama is the nominee.

What is astonishing is that Hillary Clinton can win them.

Schiffren argues further that part of Sen. Clinton's new wider appeal comes from her ability to smooth out her rough edges and attributes it to learning from the campaign.

On a more specific point, co-blogger Daled Amos questions a response of hers on an answer she gave about defending Israel. While his objections to the response are well made, commenter Joshuapundit observes, that Sen. Clinton has changed regarding Israel and her support is more than mere pandering.

I know that as First Lady, Sen. Clinton stood by and listened as Suha Arafat slandered Israel. Whether it was out of agreement or simply not wanting to offend her hosts isn't clear. But when it comes to Israel she's done more than just cast the right votes on a number of symbolic issues. For example last year she stood introduced Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch when he presented his report on Palestinian textbooks. Is this transformation dictated by political necessity? Maybe. But she has clearly changed.

And she doesn't demand to eat her waffles in peace.

hillary clinton.

YAWN! Hillary:If Iran Attacked Israel With Nukes 'We Would Be Able to Totally Obliterate Them'

This according to ABC News.
Looks like someone is after the Jewish vote.

3 questions:

o Was there ever any question that if Iran would actually use nuclear arms against Israel that 'we would be able to totally obliterate them'? The real question is not if the US would be able to take action--the question is whether we would take strong action. Hillary does not answer that.

o Secondly, considering the indications that Iran has been behind the killing of American soldiers in Iraq, shouldn't Hillary be directing her suddenly hawkish pronouncements against what Iran actually is doing?

o And the fact that Hillary is not addressing Iran's killing of our troops--doesn't that indicate that Hillary is full of baloney?

Or is she still recovering from the sniper fire in KosovoBosnia?

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Hillary.

Happy 7th

Who wrote this about George Soros?

The brainwashing took on this man. He's a relic from an earlier age, a classic example of the Jew that is taught to hate what he is and what he stands for.

Meryl Yourish. As they say in the blogosphere, read the whole thing

How did I find this ancient bit of blog wisdom?

Well I was trying to find something appropriate (not this or this) so I scrolled through Instapundit links to Meryl. Actually Meryl's two year blogging post (again courtesy of Instapundit) gives a sense of what the blogging world was like 5 years and what it evolved from.

(Going through these posts it appears that there was a friendliness and an informality among bloggers that's somewhat missing nowadays.)

My first memory of Meryl was her takedown of Andrew Sullivan on the booing of Paul Wolfowitz at the Israeli solidarity rally 5 years ago. She was right, of course, when she wrote:

But the rally was the Israel Solidarity Rally--not the Israeli and Innocent Palestinian Civilians Solidarity Rally. We went to Washington to make our points--not listen to theirs. We went to hear speakers talk of the innocent Israeli civilians who are dying--murdered by Palestinian "martyrs"--whose comrades hide in the midst of innocent Palestinian civilians.

And of course I'd credit Meryl not only for being a model, but someone who actually encouraged me to blog (whether she realized it or not.)

And now of course, along with Snoopy the Goon, I am now a co-blogger of Meryl's. So what can I say except for Happy Blogoversary and may you go from strength to strength! And may I say your blog doesn't look a day over 5.

Here are some flowers for the occasion. (The nice thing about pictures of flowers is that they don't fade or die. They're also cheaper.)

North bridge

April 19, 1775

Reviving dry bones

One of the famous prophetic events discussed is when God shows the prophet Yechezkel (Ezekiel) a valley of dry bones and asks the prophet if those bones could yet live. In the end God re-forms the bones into living men. There is some debate in the Talmud whether this incident happened or whether it was just a prophetic vision. Still it serves as a powerful metaphor that years of exile would not destroy the Jewish people.

To some, the rebirth of the Jewish nation in 1948 was an example of dry bones being given new life. And according to an article, On Eve of Passover, Bread Stirs Deep Thoughts in Israel, by Ethan Bronner in the New York Times, more Israelis are taking the Jewish part of their identity more seriously.

Hametz is bread and other leavened products that many Jews do not eat for the eight days of Passover, which starts Saturday night. The Bible says that when God freed the Jews from enslavement in Egypt, they left in such a hurry that there was no time for their bread to rise, and to mark that circumstance, consuming leavened bread during the holiday is forbidden.

The focus of the debate here is a ruling by a Jerusalem municipal judge overturning the convictions of four shops and restaurants for having sold pizzas and rolls during the holiday last year despite a law that many thought prohibited businesses from doing so. The judge said the law barred only the public display of hametz, not its sale inside shops.

While most debates about the painstakingly negotiated public role of religion in Israel line up along predictable lines of observant versus secular, this discussion has been different. And it speaks to a palpable anxiety over the need to define and defend the Jewish nature of the state, even as Israel’s 60th anniversary approaches next month.

In opinion articles and informal conversations, some nonreligious Israelis said that they liked the eight-day absence of hametz, and that it was a small but potent symbol of a unique collective identity.

I don't agree with everything in the article, but Bronner gives a look at the non-religious religion that exists in Israel. This is decidedly different from the Jew-less Israeli who is the hero of Ha'aretz. Or of Shimon Peres. And it's a (phony) formulation much beloved by Thomas Friedman. As he wrote ten years ago in "The Morning After"

On the morning after being defeated by Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel's 1996 elections, the Labor Party leader, Shimon Peres, was asked what he thought happened. ''The Israelis lost,'' said Mr. Peres. ''The Jews won.''

What Mr. Peres was referring to was his notion that Israel had become divided between ''Israelis'' and ''Jews.'' The ''Israelis'' tend to be secular, with their primary loyalty to Israel as a state and their own individual and material advancement. They see Israel's future as being in the peace process and in greater and greater integration with the region and the world at large. The Israelis, though, come in two varieties: the dovish, liberal Israelis (49 percent) and the conservative, security-hawk Israelis (25.5 percent). The dovish Israelis pretty much liked Oslo as it was, and voted for Peres; the security-hawk Israelis wanted a better Oslo, and voted for Bibi to make it happen.

The ''Jews''(25.5 percent), by contrast, come from the traditional and Orthodox communities, the West Bank settlements and the religious-Zionist movements. They are devoted to a traditional conception of Judaism and see the Israeli state as a means to fulfill Judaism's commandments, not as an end itself. The Jews are skeptical of integration, which they equate with assimilation, and they see Israel as fated to perpetually struggle with its non-Jewish neighbors. They were threatened by Oslo and voted for Bibi in hopes that he would kill it.

In some precincts to be Israeli without the baggage of being Jewish is celebrated. But I think that it's relegated to a certain strata of the "enlightened." I also think it's damaging as Jonathan Rosenblum writes:

Nothing better captures the Palestinian game plan than a story that I have told before, related by Palestinian legislator Selah Temari. While imprisoned in an Israeli jail for security offenses, Temari came to the conclusion that Israel was far too powerful to ever destroy. He decided that when he got out of jail he would devote himself to tending his own olive tree and abandon the struggle against Israel. He even began to study Jewish history to gain insight into the perseverance of the Jewish people in the face of so much adversity.

Then one night he was looking through the bars of his cell, and he saw his Jewish jailer eating a pita. “How could you be eating bread?” he asked. “Don’t you know it is Pesach?” The jailer answered him: “Do you really expect me not to eat bread, because of something that happened 3,300 years ago?”

That night, records Temari, he twisted and turned all night. By the morning, he reached the conclusion that the Palestinians could expel the Jews. A people that had lost its sense of connection to its past and to the Land could be defeated.

Fortunately, those who deny their Jewishness are a relatively small minority of Israelis. Who better to illustrate this than Dry Bones cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen. In two sharp recent cartoons, Kirschen mocked the Jerusalem court ruling. As he writes.

I am a secular Jew and I live in a non-religious suburb of Tel Aviv and I am outraged at this attempt to assault our culture and to wreck the Jewishness of the Jewish State. It is precisely the "public display" of leavened bread which I find most offensive.

It is heartening to read that it isn't just religious Israelis who wish to live in a Jewish state. As Bronner reports and Kirschen protests, the Jewishness of Israel is important to quite a large proportion of the Israeli public, no matter what the out of touch elites wish to believe.

Crossposted on Yourish.

pesach, israel.

Council speak 04/18/08

The Council has spoken.

The winning entry was Wolf Howling's amazingly complete and compelling The Next moves in an existential Chess Match, which both assessed the status of our conflict with Iran and what steps we need to take next. The runner up was Hillbilly White Trash's Does America need a new enemy. One Brit thinks so a fine example of the art of fisking.

On the non-council side of things, the Watcher himself broke a tie in the voting and chose Baldilocks's It's the white church Obama is talking about to win over Zombie chronicles the Olympic torch relay in SF an illustrated overview of the many protests over China and its hosting of the Olympic games.

Congratulations to all the winners!

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

watcher's council.

Revoking the honors

Backspin notes that Mahmoud Abbas has withdrawn his nomination to honor two terror abettors.

The Al Kuds Mark of Honor, the PLO's highest medal, was meant be awarded in a ceremony in Ramallah Thursday to two female terrorists who helped kill Israelis. The terrorists' families were slated to receive the honors in their stead.

Abbas informed Itzik that the awards for the two terrorists, as well as for other Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, had been revoked.

Still as the Jerusalem Post reports, the decision to award the honors came was at the sole discretion of Abbas himself. Surely that calls his commitment to peace into question, whether or not he chose to do the right thing in the end.

Or as Israel Matzav points out:

The fact that under intense Israeli and international pressure, Abu Mazen backed off the intention to make the awards, is meaningless. It certainly gives no indication that he felt that there was anything improper about giving them. The fact that he even thought of giving awards of this nature shows that in Abu Mazen's mind, there is still nothing wrong with terrorism. The intention to give out awards like this is not only "not conducive to peace negotiations." It shows that we're not even sitting at the same table.

(via memeorandum)

Yesterday's Backspin noted that journalist Fiamma Nirenstein won a seat in Italy's new government. It linked to an excellent article she wrote about how she became a "fascist." There are more articles of hers available in English at her website. In particular I'd like to call you attention to How suicide bombers are made and Israel's last line of defense.

Crossposted on Yourish.

palestinian authority, fiamma nirenstein.

A casualty in the hamas/fatah civil war

The Washington Post today also features an article about the Fatah Hamas war focusing on the death of Majd Barghouti, a Hamas sympathizer. Missing from the account are the stories of how Hamas killed members of Fatah last year - by throwing them off roofs - or their "kneecapping" of their victims.

When the preacher's body arrived at the hospital, his back was scarlet where he had been whipped with pipes. His legs were black with bruises. His wrists were sliced open and bloodied.

The Palestinian Authority, which had been holding Majd Barghouti in an intelligence-service prison for the previous week, soon declared that the popular Hamas imam, or prayer leader, had died of a heart attack.

But eyewitness accounts, photographs, video and an independent Palestinian investigation released this month suggested that he was tortured to death during his February detention.

Later Griff Witte reports:

Historically, Hamas has been stronger in Gaza while Fatah has dominated the West Bank. But the trend lines of Palestinian public opinion in recent months have defied geography: Hamas's popularity is surging across the board and Fatah's is waning. Hamas's appeal relies in part on a militant response to what it sees as Israeli aggression, such as the makeshift rockets that Gazans fire into southern Israel, while Fatah engages in peace talks with Israel that have yielded scant progress.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a qualification here. "[W]hat it sees," is correct. Israel, usually is defending its land not launching offensives.

Crossposted on Yourish.

hamas.

Zahar, with a difference

The Washington Post has once again given op-ed space to the member of a terrorist organization. In it Mahmoud al-Zahar gets to criticize Israel and praise Jimmy Carter. Zahar of course starts off with an outright falsehood:

President Jimmy Carter's sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acts as if a few alterations here and there would make the hideous straitjacket of apartheid fit better. While Rice persuades Israeli occupation forces to cut a few dozen meaningless roadblocks from among the more than 500 West Bank control points, these forces simultaneously choke off fuel supplies to Gaza; blockade its 1.5 million people; approve illegal housing projects on West Bank land; and attack Gaza City with F-16s, killing men, women and children. Sadly, this is "business as usual" for the Palestinians.

Israel isn't choking off fuel supplies to Gaza. The fuel company owners are refusing shipments from Israel.

Yet this Hamas op-ed is different from previous ones. For one thing the tone is much more hostile to Israel, suggesting that Zahar wrote this himself. For another, the Post ran its own editorial countering Zahar.

ON THE OPPOSITE page today we publish an article by the "foreign minister" of Hamas, Mahmoud al-Zahar, that drips with hatred for Israel, and with praise for former president Jimmy Carter. We believe Mr. Zahar's words are worth publishing because they provide some clarity about the group he helps to lead, a group that Mr. Carter contends is worthy of being included in the Middle East peace process. Mr. Carter himself is holding what appears to be a series of meetings with Hamas leaders during a tour of the Middle East. He met one militant in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Tuesday and was reportedly planning to meet Mr. Zahar in Cairo today before traveling to Damascus for an appointment with Khaled Meshal, Hamas's top leader.

Mr. Zahar lauds Mr. Carter for the "welcome tonic" of saying that no peace process can succeed "unless we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions." Yet Mr. Zahar has his own preconditions: Before any peace process can "take even its first tiny step," he says, Israel must withdraw to the 1967 borders and evacuate Jerusalem while preparing for the "return of millions of refugees." In fact, as Mr. Zahar makes clear, Hamas is not at all interested in a negotiated peace with the Jewish state, whose existence it refuses to accept: "Our fight to redress the material crimes of 1948 is scarcely begun," he concludes.

I'm glad that the Post did these two things. It's more defensible. However, I still don't believe it should have run the op-ed. The editorial refuting Zahar is strong and points out the extremism of Zahar's positions. Finally the editorial concludes:

Mr. Carter justifies his meetings with familiar arguments about the value of dialogue with enemies. But he misses the point. Contacts between enemies can be useful: Israel is legendary for such negotiations, and even now it is engaged in back-channel bargaining with Hamas through Egypt. But it is one thing to communicate pragmatically, and quite another to publicly and unconditionally grant recognition and political sanction to a leader or a group that advocates terrorism, mass murder or the extinction of another state. That is what Mr. Carter is doing by lending what is left of his prestige to an avowed terrorist such as Khaled Meshal -- or Mahmoud al-Zahar.

It's good that the Post didn't let either Carter or Zahar off the hook. I think it would have been better not to publish the op-ed in the first place, but at least like this, readers don't have to go to far to read a necessary rebuttal.

UPDATE: Elder of Ziyon accentuates the negative.

UPDATE II: Picked up by Buzztracker.

UPDATE III: I must be mellowing. LGF, Meryl, and NRO's Media Blog all hit the Post hard. And Boker Tov Boulder points out a distinction without a difference in the editorial.

Crossposted on Yourish.

hamas.

Jaywalking On J-Street

J-Street, the liberal Jewish answer to AIPAC has burst onto the scene!

Well, sort of. Despite the friendly name (AIPAC sounds stodgy by comparison), J-Street seems wary about showing itself.

If you do a search of the jstreet.org, you'll find that the domain name is protected by DomainsByProxy.com, unlike AIPAC--doing a whois on their URL gives their address and phone number.

Then there is George Soros:

MoveOn financier George Soros, an initial backer of the concept for the group, pulled out of it, [executive director of J Street, Jeremy] Ben Ami explains, because he thought his presence might ultimately be unhelpful, given his reputation as a bankroller for liberal groups.

Ben Ami is being generous. Actually

Planners remain secretive in large part to avoid a repetition of last year’s controversy. Early reports about an AIPAC competitor that would amalgamate the efforts of the major pro-peace process groups, with possible funding by mega-philanthropist and progressive activist George Soros, produced a storm of unwanted publicity and scared off some potential participants.

All you need to do is look at Soros' previous work:

A study that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the nearly $100,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003. [emphasis added]

But that doesn't mean that J-Street eschews all leftists--just that they will play down their positions on Israel. Noah Pollak, who participated in a journalists conference with J-Street notes:

J Street places near the top of its list of supporters someone named Avram Burg, who may not ring a bell to many Americans, but who is notorious in Israel. Burg advocates, among other things, the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state; recommends that Israeli parents secure foreign passports for their children; and compares Israel today to late 1930’s Germany. When asked during the call why someone like Burg is affiliated with J Street, the group’s proprietors downplayed and misrepresented the man’s radicalism. It is difficult to imagine how the J Streeters believe their organization will be taken seriously as a pro-Israel lobby at the same time they advertise the endorsement of a figure like Avram Burg. [emphasis added]

J-Street itself is not quite as wary about its goals. According to the Washington Post, J Street is going to try something new:

The group is planning to channel political contributions to favored candidates in perhaps a half-dozen campaigns this fall, the first time an organization focused on Israel has tried to play such a direct role in the political process, according to its organizers.

No word yet from Mearsheimer and Walt.

More importantly, while the new group claims to be filling the wide gap left by the 'right wing' AIPAC, and representing the majority of American Jews, there are indications that it is J-Street that is need of a reality check:

Some veteran Middle East experts said the new group faces the political reality that many American Jews have become disillusioned over the years with the peace process and what they consider to be the intransigence, hostility and--in some cases--terrorism of would-be Palestinian partners. While Bush early on in his administration grew skeptical of the peacemaking efforts of President Clinton, he received very little push-back from organized American Jewry.

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said the group "has a very steep hill to climb because peacemaking has acquired a bad reputation over the years in the Jewish community, and there is a widespread fear that U.S. intervention on behalf of peace will lead to pressure on Israel." [emphasis added]

Thus Democratic fundraiser Alan Solomont's claim that

the definition of what it means to be pro-Israel has come to diverge from pursuing a peace settlement

could be more accurately be expressed as:

the definition of what it means to be pro-Israel has come to diverge from guaranteeing Israel's security from terrorism.

Eric Trager has challenged the assumptions underlying J Street on two levels:

Firstly, the claim that the majority of American Jews is contradicted by the fact that support for a Palestinian state cuts across Democratic/Republican lines. On the other hand, 58% of American Jews oppose compromise on Jerusalem--the step required by Abbas in order to 'make peace.'

Secondly, the avenue for change in Israeli policy in terms of settlements is in addressing the Israeli government and the Israeli voting public directly--not through lobbying the US to apply pressure on Israel. Along those lines, it should be noted that the group claims:

20 prominent Israelis, including former top officials of the Shin Bet, Mossad and the foreign ministry, have signed a letter supporting J Street.

So with such support in Israel, why go after the US politicians--is the goal of J Street to back the Israeli public--or bypass it altogether?

Bottom line, nothing should be taken for granted when it comes to J-Street.
Starting with its relevance.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and J-Street.

Jimmy's antidemocratic tendencies

Bret Stephens nails Jimmy Carter:

That's not quite what Mr. Carter said, however. He said the dictator "speaks" for "all" the people, just as the people in a democracy speak for themselves. Taken at face value, this is a reflection of every dictator's conceit: that his will is also the general will, whether the people agree with him or not. This is what Fidel Castro meant when he praised Cuba's elections, in which only the Communist Party is on the ballot, as "the most democratic in the world." Perhaps Mr. Carter has harbored similar views about the relative merits of his opinion versus the people's since he was turned out of high office by 44 states.

(via memeorandum)

As I've noted before Jimmy Carter has used his prestige to legitimize the likes of Hugo Chavez and Yasser Arafat. Maybe it's because he was turned out of office so ignominiously that he has contempt for the will of the people.

John Podhoretz adds:

Those who believe this kind of relationship is the most and the best Americans can expect from a difficult world usually think of themselves as hardened by experience — serious, appropriately cynical, tough, and without illusion.

Incredibly Ha'aretz, with no sense of irony, claims that Israel owes Carter a debt of gratitude.

Whether Carter's approach to conflict resolution is considered by the Israeli government as appropriate or defeatist, no one can take away from the former U.S. president his international standing, nor the fact that he brought Israel and Egypt to a signed peace that has since held. Carter's method, which says that it is necessary to talk with every one, has still not proven to be any less successful than the method that calls for boycotts and air strikes. In terms of results, at the end of the day, Carter beats out any of those who ostracize him. For the peace agreement with Egypt, he deserves the respect reserved for royalty for the rest of his life.

Peace with Egypt was largely the result of Sadat's running from Carter's efforts to re-engage the Soviets in the Middle East. Here success was the residue of ineptitude. It's important not to give Carter too much credit here. As president Carter reached bottom; as ex-president - despite some successes - he continues to dig.

Crossposted on Yourish.

The damned lies of j-street

J-Street is a new group that calls itself "...political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement."

Matt Stoller of Open Left writes:

It's a significant moment for progressive Jews who have previously not had our voices represented in the foreign policy realm, drowned out by right-wingers intent on the most hawkish policies out there.

This is not a lie.

It is not a statistic.

It is a damned lie.

Remember after Israel forced thousands of Israelis from their homes and made Gaza Judenrein? This was supposed to be the first test of Palestinian self government.

Israel reasonably wanted to keep control over the Rafah border, but Secretary of State Rice prevailed upon Israel to leave its security in the hands of European observers.

And who voiced their support of this policy? Why it was the very progressive forces who claim that they've been silenced all these years.

Don't take my word for it. Let's roll the way-back machine.

Here's an APN action alert from November 2005:

The arrangements you helped broker in the November 15th accord are enabling Palestinians, for the first time, to control entry and exit from Gaza, via Rafah. They will also lead to the upgrading and expansion of other crossing points between Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, and the expediting of the export of this season's agricultural goods from Gaza. In addition, the accord paves the way for the passage of people and goods between Gaza and the West Bank, and should lead to a reduction in the obstacles to movement within the West Bank. The agreement will permit the Palestinians to begin, for the first time, to construct a seaport, and recognizes the importance of continued discussion regarding the re-opening of a Palestinian airport. The components of this breakthrough will dramatically increase investment in Gaza by the private sector as well as financial assistance from donor countries.

All of these developments will take place in the context of providing for Israeli security. This includes, among other things, the presence of the European Union as third-party monitors at Rafah, the provision of high-tech security equipment and appropriate training for personnel working at border crossings, coordination between Israel and the Palestinians with respect to travel of certain individuals, and explicit recognition in the agreement that "security is a prime and continuing concern for Israel and that appropriate arrangements to ensure security will be adopted." The agreement also stipulates that security services from Israel, the PA, the U.S., and Egypt will continue to coordinate on security issues and will participate in the security working group.

I've highlighted some of the more egregious examples of failed expectations, but the short story is that Israel's ceding of control of Rafah has brought neither prosperity to the Palestinians nor security to the Israelis. It has strengthened Hamas. Hamas now has 20000 men under arms and is regularly increasing the quantity and lethality of the materiel it possesses. (Now like minded folk are advocating talking to Hamas!) The prescription Americans for Peace Now - represented on J-Street by its CEO, Hillary super delegate, Debra Delee - advocated has failed miserably. Is APN expressing its regrets? Or condemning Hamas?

No, it's still claiming that the main obstacle to peace is Israel's failure to cede enough territory and the Administration's failure to press Israel to cede more. (This applies not only to APN but to the other constituent groups and individual who populate J-Street.)

Does it matter that when the administration did press Israel and Israel acceded to the pressure that it led to more violence and less security for Israel? No. They still advocate more of the same. So not only do they advocate policies that failed in 1996 (when Israel withdrew from cities in 1995, it led to an increase in terror in 1996), in 2000 (when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon it strengthened Hezbollah) and in 2005 (Israel's withdrawal from Gaza strengthened Hamas), these progressive organization advocate policies that increase violence and hurt Israel. Yet they have the chutzpah to claim that they are pro-peace and pro-Israel. They are neither.

These same people couldn't wait to get rid of PM Netanyahu, yet when Netanyahu was Prime Minister, Israel saw a lessening of terrorism and Palestinians were more prosperous.

The morally bankrupt groups claim that it is skeptics of the peace process who threaten Israel and who are ideological rather than realistic. But the progress (if you can call it that) of the past 15 years has shown a much different story. I'm not the only one who sees that J-Street is anti-Israel. (via memeorandum)

I should also point out that these progressive groups get plenty of attention. They are regularly featured in the Forward. James D. Besser who reports on politics for nearly every single American Jewish weekly, is sympathetic and give them plenty of coverage. What's remarkable is how much attention they get despite the fact that their views are a distinct minority, not just among Jews but among Americans generally.

J-Street is full of crap. And it's time that someone called them on it.

I wrote previously about J Street.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, j street.

Submitted 04/16/08

This week's Watcher Council nominations have been submitted.

Bull*! - Done With Mirrors takes issue with Allah - or at least with the use of the term to mean God generically.

The Candidates on the Economy: Taxes The Glittering Eye introduces us to the tax plans of the three remaining major candidates. This is an enlightening exercise as it is free from partisanship and judges each candidate on the merits of his/her proposals without checking to see if it fits a certain ideology.

Does America Need a New Enemy? One Brit Thinks So... - Hillbilly White Trash expertly fisks one John Laughland. Laughland claims to be a conservative but the evidence shows that he has lurched significantly to the Left making his critique of the Bush administration somewhat less than convincing.

The MSM -- Mis-educating the Masses - Bookworm Room shows how the media abets politicians who smear toothpaste on the couch. (Well, not really. She shows how the MSM covers for their favored candidates and causes - like global warming, see Cheat Seeking Missiles below. The toothpaste is a metaphor.) The one thing I disagree with is Sen. McCain's take on Sen. Obama's elitism. The "bitter" comment was important. It changed the tone of the remarks from sympathy to condescension. That's a point I make in my entry this week, see below.

Further Proof That the Western P.C. Left Is Akin to the Societies They Admire -The Colossus of Rhodey
observes the degree that PC thought police emulate totalitarian regimes.

Warmie Psychic: Global Headache Coming! - Cheat Seeking Missiles rants about the one track mind of global warming evangelists. It is a lot easier to make your case when you ignore the reality that escapes your predictions.

Bedtime For Bonzo? The Clinton Eclipse - Joshuapundit mercilessly anticipates the end of Clinton line. I don't know if we've seen the BITTER end yet, though.

Censorchimps: The Mandarin Subspecies - The Education Wonks write about (more) repression in China and lists many particulars in the indictment of that regime.

The Next Moves In An Existential Chess Match - Wolf Howling considers American options versus Iran by seamlessly weaving together disparate sources (and yes he linked to me! thanks) to illustrate the situation and the choices.

Wright's Eulogy For Black Fascist Parishioner - Rhymes With Right recalls an incident from the life of a recently deceased judge who was eulogized by Rev. Wright. Seems that the judge had some rather extreme tendencies.

Elitism and the Elitist Elites Who Think They're the Elite - Right Wing Nut House contrasts the elitism of modern day liberals with that of our founding fathers (as well as modern day bloggers) and finds modern liberal elitism to be about control. I don't think that he gives our founding fathers enough credit. No matter how elitist they were, they did create a system that has survived - largely intact - for more than 200 years.

Painting? - I wrote about the tendency of the MSM to portray Sen. Obama's opponents as twisting his words. Actually his words were quite revealing (and damaging) by themselves, his opponents just emphasized that revelation.

My non-council nomination this week is Carter: "I've Been Meeting With Hamas Leaders For Years", by Daled Amos, in which he examines who's bought Carter's loyalty as well as the ex-President's rank hypocrisy.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

Israel alone

On Friday I commented on Charles Krauthammer's column despairing that anything could be done to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yesterday I noted that Ze'ev Chafets argues that that fact means that Israel must take matters into its own hands.

What I had forgotten is that last year two researchers concluded that Israel likely has the technical ability to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. In a paper "Osirak Redux? Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities," Whitney Raas and Austin Long consider a number of factors that Israel needed to address in order to be able to strike and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

Daniel Pipes was impressed enough to summarize their findings in a column Israeli Jets vs. Iranian Nukes. Pipes finds their scenarios plausible but cautions:

The great question mark hanging over the operation, one which the authors do not speculate about, is whether any of the Turkish, Jordanian, American, or Saudi governments would acquiesce to Israeli penetration of their air spaces. (Iraq, recall, is under American control). Unless the Israelis win advance permission to cross these territories, their jets might have to fight their way to Iran. More than any other factor, this one imperils the entire project. (The IDF could reduce this problem by flying along borders, for example, the Turkey-Syria one, permitting both countries en route to claim Israeli planes were in the other fellow's air space.)

I'd add in a few more cautions. One is that Israel, if it were to target Iran would almost certainly have to have dry runs. Long flights by Israeli jets will be detected. Will those who have the satellites keep quiet.

Israel no longer has the element of surprise. According to an account of the Osirak operation, Raid on the Sun, the Israeli planes overflew King Hussein's yacht. King Hussein was puzzled by the Israeli jets but simply ignored them for one reason or another. Next time, a similar occurrence would compromise the mission early.

Finally there's still the matter of the necessary constitution to carry out such a long mission. This mission would require a lot of stamina to fly non-stop. It was tough enough to do in 1981, it will be a lot further now. All the high tech equipment doesn't reduce the physical strain such a missionn would be on the pilots.

I hope it doesn't come to it, because I wouldn't want Israel's safety to have to depend on such a complex mission. Still I suppose that it's better to have a plan.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, iran.

New anti-israel group has trouble raising funds

Ynet reports (via memeorandum):

A new survey conducted by a Washington DC-based evangelical organization among American Christians has found that 82% of them believe they have a moral obligation to support the Jews and Israel. The poll, conducted among Catholics and Protestants alike, tested their stance on Jerusalem's future and ways to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat.

The poll reveals a number of other common sense findings. By 32 to 24 percent those surveyed figure that a Palestinian state will be a terrorist state. 65 percent of those surveyed believe that Iran is developing nuclear weapons with which to attack Israel. And by 45 to 9 percent those surveyed said that they wouldn't support a President who pressured Israel to concede issues that endangered its security.

Meryl's celebrating:

And how refreshing it is to have Jews and Christians on the same side of an issue for a change. Here. Have a virtual handshake, folks.

Israel Matzav is fretting:

I wonder if 82% of American Jews believe that they have a moral obligation to support Israel. Given the number of moonbats among American Jews, I doubt it.

(And yes, historically, Americans, not just Jewish Americans, favor Israel by a wide margin. Support for Israel is not just a Jewish issue, it's an American issue.)

A report in the Washington Post confirms Israel Matzav's fears, Jewish Liberals to Launch A Counterpoint to AIPAC

Some of the country's most prominent Jewish liberals are forming a political action committee and lobbying group aimed at dislodging what they consider the excessive hold of neoconservatives and evangelical Christians on U.S. policy toward Israel.

The group is planning to channel political contributions to favored candidates in perhaps a half-dozen campaigns this fall, the first time an organization focused on Israel has tried to play such a direct role in the political process, according to its organizers.

Organizers said they hope those efforts, coupled with a separate lobbying group that will focus on promoting an Arab-Israeli peace settlement, will fill a void left by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and other Jewish groups that they contend have tilted to the right in recent years.

The obliviousness of these people is amazing. No American President was more invested in the kind of peacemaking they want than Bill Clinton. He shunned Binyamin Netanyahu while welcoming Yasser Arafat. And did he get a peace treaty at the end of his term?

"The definition of what it means to be pro-Israel has come to diverge from pursuing a peace settlement," said Alan Solomont, a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser involved in the initiative. In recent years, he said, "We have heard the voices of neocons, and right-of-center Jewish leaders and Christian evangelicals, and the mainstream views of the American Jewish community have not been heard."

Solomont is a top fundraiser for the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), but the organizers include supporters and fundraisers for both Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). Many prominent figures in the American Jewish left, former lawmakers and U.S. government officials, and several prominent Israeli figures, as well as activists who have raised money for the Democracy Alliance and MoveOn.org, are also involved.

A peace settlement to be pro-Israel must not endanger Israel. Israel is markedly less secure now than it was in 1993. So promoting the kind of process that Israel's been involved in over the past 15 years is not pro-Israel. That's because those who feel that their primary goal is to support peace, means ignoring Palestinians violations of agreements.

"The genesis of this is really the frustration on the part of a very substantial portion of the American Jewish community that despite the fact that there is broad support for a peace-oriented policy in the Middle East, there doesn't seem to be the political will to actually carry it out," Ben-Ami said. "We have not been effective at transmitting the message that there is political support for these positions in the American Jewish community and their allies."

I really don't think that it's a substantial part of the American Jewish community. It might be a substantial part of the wealthy, liberal, American Jewish community, but qualifying it like that would make the "J-street" initiative looks rather narrow.

As far as the "political will" is concerned, it's lacking because any mildly perceptive observer realizes that the Palestinians have used their newfound benefits (land, money, weapons) not to build a functioning society but to build a a terror infrastructure with which to attack Israel. The lack of "political will" that Ben Ami observes is simply an observation that the peace process hasn't worked.

Take away all of the qualifications and this paragraph pretty much sums up the problem:

Some veteran Middle East experts said the new group faces the political reality that many American Jews have become disillusioned over the years with the peace process and what they consider to be the intransigence, hostility and--in some cases--terrorism of would-be Palestinian partners. While Bush early on in his administration grew skeptical of the peacemaking efforts of President Clinton, he received very little push-back from organized American Jewry.

Well it's not just what we "consider," it's what we've observed. And frankly, President Bush was correct. The more American Presidents push for peace, the more Palestinians demand and the less Israel gets credit for its sacrifices.

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said the group "has a very steep hill to climb because peacemaking has acquired a bad reputation over the years in the Jewish community, and there is a widespread fear that U.S. intervention on behalf of peace will lead to pressure on Israel."

Again it's not just a "widespread fear," it's exactly what we've seen from the first Bush administration and, as noted above, from the Clinton administration too.

But here's the kicker:

The initial efforts will be relatively modest: Ben-Ami said the group aims to try to raise at least $50,000 or more for a handful of campaigns this fall as a "test case." But the group intends to raise its profile in future campaign cycles, and some major liberal fundraisers have already committed to the venture, including Solomont, high-tech entrepreneur Davidi Gilo and former New York City corporation counsel Victor Kovner, a supporter of Clinton's presidential bid.

Given the high powered nature of the organizers of this group, $50,000 is pretty small change. I think it reflects that these folks represent pretty much themselves. I also think that it's telling that no Republicans are publicly associated with this effort yet, reflecting the stronger commitment to Israel in the Republican Party at present.

Crossposted at Yourish.

Israel.

Al Qassam Brigades Information Office: "Rules of the game in Gaza have changed"

This is probably half-bluster and half-justified. Israel should do something about the justified part:

Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic resistance movement Hamas, warned the Zionist occupation forces that "rules of the game" in Gaza Strip have changed, and that any OF invasion of the Strip won't be a "picnic".

Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades warning came after OF officer of the elite forces was killed and two other soldiers were wounded during OF incursion into Khanyounis city, southeast of the Strip. One QB fighter was martyred in the armed clashes.

According to local sources, earlier OF attempt to advance into Jabalia city, north of Gaza city, was botched by Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades fighters who also forced the invading troops to retreat.

"The killing of the OF officer was a clear message to the occupation that any OF incursion into the Strip will cost it a high price as rules of the game have changed in Gaza Strip", asserted Abu Obaida, the spokesman of the Brigades.

"If the [Zionist] occupation wished to try invading the Gaza Strip once again, then they will lose a lot as they have seen what had happened to them in a limited incursion; yet, if the OF troops opted to continue their intrusions into the tiny Strip, then their losses will be more as the invasion of Gaza won't be a picnic for the Zionist occupation soldiers", the Brigades spokesman furthermore underlined.

Moreover, Abu Obadia disclosed that the Palestinian resistance capabilities were in continuous development, and Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades fighters along with other Palestinian fighters became also more organized and prepared.

That's true, no doubt.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Ex-first lady Rosalyn Carter to assume bodyguard duties for snubbed husband

Israeli leaders shunned former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a visit because of his plans to meet Hamas and Israel's secret service declined to assist U.S. agents guarding him, U.S. sources said on Monday.

"They're not getting support from local security," one of the sources said, on condition of anonymity.

The anonymous source went on to explain that a little-known tradition of first-lady firearm expertise allowed ex-first lady Rosalyn Carter to capably take on security responsibilities.

Asked to confirm her gun-toting role and the tradition of first-lady sharp-shooting, Mrs. Carter replied, "Yes, it's true. Hillary thinks she's Annie Oakley, but you should have seen Lady Bird. Anyone who started up with her would have been pumped full of lead in a Texas minute."

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Source: Reuters, additional reporting by Yitz

Eying little girls with bad intent ...

may soon be illegal in Maine.

Dr Helen asks

I have a lot of questions about such a law. What does peering actually mean? Does staring at a teen who looks 25 when one is at the beach count? Does staring at some kids like I did a few years ago because they looked like they were trying to get into some trouble count or am I excluded from the law because I am a woman? A Class C Felony is a serious charge, will people (mainly men, I assume) be put in jail for the simple act of staring? How do you know the person had the intent of "visual sexual aggression"? How does one determine if staring or peering is aggressive or not? One person's aggression is another's peaceful gaze. This law seems very vague and unfair. Does anyone in Maine care?

The way I read the story too, it seems that the authorities wish to peer into peoples' minds, presume to know their intent and take action based on that presumed intent.

(via memeorandum)

Kind of like hate crime laws.

Juggling carnivals 04/14/08

Incoming Carnivals

Esser Agaroth one of the regular hosts of Haveil Havalim has done another fine job on Haveil Havalim (the Jewish/Israel blogging carnival) #162 - the Pesach Edition.

Thanks to Dr. Sanity for including a link to me in the latest Carnival of the Insanities along with posts by JudeoPundit, Yid with Lid, Gateway Pundit and Ace as well as many other fine blogs.

I followed Batya's lead and submitted a post to the Carnival of Family Life that was included.

Sideshow

The weekly trivia game Elie and I alternate hosting, Musical Monday #42 is up at Elie's Expositions. And I'd like to warn you that MM will be taking a short hiatus for Pesach/Passover and should return here on May 5.

Movin' on up

One of those things that's nice to see is when bloggers get recognized outside of blogging.

Jewish Current Issues (along with Powerline) forced Norman Podhoretz to clarify his position regarding "disenagement."

Boker Tov Boulder's expose of U.S. sponsored Palestinian activities (not all of them benign) got noticed on the ZOA's radio show (link good until 4/16/08). (h/t In Context)

Treppenwitz (and his wife) have been engaged to help a political candidate.

And View from a Height actually is a political candidate himself.

blog carnivals.

Tool rhymes with fool

Jimmy Carter can't even get respect from Shimon Peres these days.

A poster at Firedoglake, Ian Welsh, though, considers Jimmy Carter the best friend Israel ever had! After botching history (Carter created the conditions for Camp David by planning to bring the Russians back to the Middle East, after Egypt had expelled the Russians, not due to his diplomatic expertise.)

Of course Welsh has also been asleep for the past 15 years or so when Israel did all it could to enable a Palestinian state and got terror in return. I love this gross understatement:

Now let's add in the usual caveats—the Palestinians have hardly been angels; in fact they have been thugs. They have often negotiated in bad faith (though certainly no more often and probably less often than the Israelis, in recent years). They do engage in terrorism, though what the difference to the victims between being killed by a suicide bomber or missile is compared to being killed by a tank, helicopter or bomb has always escaped me—except that tanks, helicopters and bombs kill far more people than the weapons of a terrorist or guerilla. They have certainly often been stupid and done things that weren't in their best interests.

And if the Palestinians wanted a state, they would have had it by now. The writer may delude himself on this point but if the Palestinians were building an economy instead of a terrorist infrastructure they'd have had their state by now.

The bad faith of the Palestinians is evident when its "moderate" leaders claim that there's no basis for a Jewish state in the Middle East and when those same moderates criticize Israel for protecting its own citizen. Nothing that Israel has done in the past 15 years comes close to rejecting very premise of the peace process, which is exactly what the "moderate" leaders of the Palestinians.

But the bottom line is that Israel is the party that can make or break negotiations. Israel is the party with the full army. Israel is the party with the money. Israel is the party that refuses to actually negotiate with the lawfully elected representative (which is Hamas) of the Palestinians.

And Israel needs a peace more than the Palestinians do. That seems counterintuitive, but the Palestinians are on a path that leads to victory and the Israelis are on a path that leads to loss. Yes, the Palestinians will suffer more, much more, than the Israelis getting there, but that's not relevant to the end-state, except in that they may not be very gracious to the Israelis once they have won. Germans killed far more Russians than vice-versa and lost. America never lost a battle in Vietnam and killed at a 10:1 ratio. It didn't matter.

Israel doesn't have the power to "make or break" the negotiations. Because even Fatah has never forsworn terror as a tactic to get what it wants, that means Israel needs to accede to every single demand of the Palestinians or then its efforts at peace are deemed insufficient.

Twenty years ago who would have believed that the Palestinians would be ruling themselves in Gaza and a handful of cities in Judea and Samaria? And yet they are? Who would have believed they would have accomplished all that and still portrayed Israel as an evil occupier?

Israel doesn't make or break negotiations. The Palestinians, through violence, hold veto power over the peace process. The Palestinians' friends, like Mr. Welsh, do them no favors by assuring them that they are nearly always right and that they ought to suffer no repercussions for their ongoing bad faith.

A true friend tells you when you're walking down the path to defeat. A true friend tells you when you're acting despicably. And that's why Jimmy Carter is Israel's best friend in America—the only President to negotiate a lasting peace between Israel and one of its enemies and the only major figure to tell the Israelis that they're walking a path to their own destruction.

Here's hoping Israel wakes up and listens and acts. If it doesn't, within the lifetime of many of us here today, there will be no Israel as it exists today; there will be no "Jewish" state.

Again, Camp David was the result of a Carter blunder and Israel does have a treaty with Jordan. But if a true friend tells you hard truths, why is this friend of Israel going to Israel's enemies? Why is he encouraging Hamas, which is building an arsenal of offensive weapons to use against Israel armed by the Iranian regime that is rhetorically (if not practically) devoted to Israel's destruction?

That these questions never occur to Welsh shows that what he shares with Jimmy Carter is not friendship with Israel, but enmity.

Fresno Zionsim pegs Carter as a tool of the Saudis. The Heathlander drags out the same busted myth Carter used yesterday that a majority of Israeli support ongoing talks with Hamas. And Carter admits that he's been meeting with leaders of Hamas for years. Israel Matzav fisks yesterday's Carter gabfest on ABC. (via memeorandum)

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, , hamas,jimmy carter, iran.

Preventing the next holocaust

The other day I wrote about Charles Krauthammer's most recent column. He argued that since it's clear that negotiation and sandtions have failed to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb, the United States had to expressly state its support for defending Israel. I had thought that the column wasn't the greatest I read. On the other hand, Krauthammer didn't seem to be operating with the luxury of alternatives.

At Contentions, Gordon Chang thinks that American deterrence is still possible. Noah Pollak thinks that such a declaration will have the exact opposite effect.

David Hazony, though, takes a different tack. He links to a Ze'ev Chafets column arguing that the Iranian bomb is out of American hands, however:

What’s more, it is fair to say that Israel is not a weak country. It has developed a powerful set of strategic options. In the best case, it would be able to act on its own to degrade and retard the Iranian nuclear program as it did in Iraq (and, more recently, Syria). In a worse case, if the Iranians do get the bomb, Iranian leaders might be deterred by rational considerations. If so, Israel’s own arsenal — and its manifest willingness to respond to a nuclear attack — ought to suffice.

If, on the other hand, the Iranian leadership simply can’t resist the itch to “wipe Israel off the map” — or to make such a thing appear imminent — then it would be up to Israel to make its own calculations. What is the price of 100,000 dead in Tel Aviv? Or twice that? The cost to Iran would certainly be ghastly. It would be wrong for Israel to expect other nations to shoulder this moral and geopolitical responsibility.

Note that this isn't just a discussion of an Osirak like strike, but of first use of nuclear weapons if necessary. I don't believe that an Osirak like strike is possible: Iran is farther away than Iraq and the surprise factor can't be as great anymore.

I would add that if it comes to that, and I hope it doesn't, it's not just the failure of the United States. There are many nations and world bodies who have been quite happy to humor Tehran and pretend that its extremism was just for public consumption. Sometimes it pays to take fanatics to heart.

Crossposted at Yourish.

Israel, iran.

Painting?

The Washington Post reports, Opponents paint Obama as Elitist:

Obama's comments came at the end of a lengthy answer in which he rejected the notion that voters were passing him over simply for racial reasons, saying instead that his campaign of hope and change was having difficulty in "places where people feel most cynical about government."

"Everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class . . . don't want to vote for the black guy,' " Obama said at the fundraiser.

"Here's how it is: In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism."

In an effort to minimize the effects of Sen. Obama's "bitter" comments, the Post presents the context of his remarks. Reading this, it's very clear that this is a very skilled attempt at political jujitsu. He's implicitly striking out at both Republicans and Bill Clinton (and by association, Hillary Clinton) and blaming them for the economic problems he intends to address.

Up front though, the Post reported those remarks: In remarks first reported on the Huffington Post Web site, Obama said,

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them.

"And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not," he went on. "And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Here the criticism of previous administrations becomes explicit, but then he changes his tone with "...it's not surprising..." Those three words are words of condescension, not sympathy.

Willam Kristol eventually gets to the point and describes this as Sen. Obama's mask slipping:

What does this mean for Obama’s presidential prospects? He’s disdainful of small-town America — one might say, of bourgeois America. He’s usually good at disguising this. But in San Francisco the mask slipped. And it’s not so easy to get elected by a citizenry you patronize.

And what are the grounds for his supercilious disdain? If he were a war hero, if he had a career of remarkable civic achievement or public service — then he could perhaps be excused an unattractive but in a sense understandable hauteur. But what has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans

Former speech writer John Podhoretz describes the failure like this:

A campaign that believes its role is to “require you to work,” and is partially based on the demand “that you push yourselves to be better,” really does have it backwards. It’s the president who is “required to work,” who needs to “push himself to be better.” His role is not to analyze and address the shortcomings of the voter and the voter’s spiritual, political and ideological weaknesses, which is what Obama’s remark the other day portends. His role is to represent the voter. This is a crucial distinction, and if Obama is unable to make it, he will not become the president.

Meanwhile the Politico puts words in the Clintons' mouths:

Rip off the duct tape and here is what they would say: Obama has serious problems with Jewish voters (goodbye Florida), working-class whites (goodbye Ohio) and Hispanics (goodbye, New Mexico).

(via memeorandum, Instapundit)

From my perspective, this is entirely too glib. I don't believe that the Democrats will lose the Jewish vote in November. There's too much of an effort to boost Sen. Obama in the Jewish community. I don't buy it, but there are many who do. (Besides, I don't think that the Democrats would win Florida anyway.)

But read the whole article. Later on it argues referring to VP Gore and Sen. Kerry:

Both men lost control of their public images to the right-wing freak show — that network of operatives and commentators working mostly outside of the mainstream media — and ultimately lost their elections as many voters came to see them as elitist, out-of-touch, phony, and even unpatriotic.

Obama is a much less familiar figure than Kerry or Gore, with a life story that is far more exotic, who is coming out of a political milieu in Chicago politics that is far more liberal.

The freak show has already signaled its early lines of attack on Obama. Polls show a significant percentage of Americans believe — falsely — that he is a Muslim. Voter interviews reveal widespread unease with minor and seemingly irrelevant questions like why he does not favor American flag pins on his lapel. Nor have we heard the last about Wright and his fulminations.

This is like the "painting" metaphor in the Washington Post headline. Gore's and kerry's failures have little to do with how they were painted. It had to do that their public images matched the perception. The paint wouldn't have stuck if hadn't been appropriate. (And those who criticized George W. Bush didn't have success portraying him as stupid? An unfair label, no doubt. But it stuck because of his sometimes awkward way of expressing himself.)

Powerline takes strong issue with this to score some partisan points:

Now, VandeHei and Harris want to declare voters' concerns about Obama out of bounds by associating them with the "right wing freak show." In fact, however, it is entirely legitimate to wonder whether a candidate whose spiritual mentor says "God damn America," and who was himself drawn to that mentor when he heard him blame the world's problems on "white men's greed," is the kind of person who should be elected President. And let's not start throwing stones about "downright fiction." The "right wing freak show" hasn't fabricated any charges against Obama. The fabrications, so far, have all come from the liberal ("mainstream") media, like the New York Times, and Democratic politicians, like Jay Rockefeller and Howard Dean, just as they did in 2004.

If there is a "freak show" on the fringes of American politics, it can be found on the Left, at fever swamps like the Daily Kos and Democratic Underground that specialize in conspiracy theories and hate. It's interesting, though, to find out how former mainstream reporters--Harris and VandeHei formerly wrote for the Washington Post--feel about those who have broken the liberal monopoly on the news.

Just One Minute though, takes things tongue in cheek:

That said, their point - that if the Evil Republicans could turn Al Gore and John Kerry into effete strangers, Barack will become a space alien - is indisputable. Of course, as with Kerry, the effort to depict Obama as an out-of-touch urban lib will be like pushing water downhill; it is so much easier when reality is on your side. In a nut shell, the Dems have six more months of trying to stay in costume at the masquerade ball; Republicans have six more months to strip away Obama's mask. Who ya gonna bet on?

Again, if the characterization didn't match the candidate it wouldn't stick. The issues and idiosyncrasies are there, it is the opponents who frame them once the paint is dry.

More at memeorandum here and here.

barack obama.

Israel policy failure

Sometimes organizations do what you expect them too. CAIR, for example, has no issue with Jimmy Carter shaking the blood soaked hands of Khaled Meshal.

Sometimes the organization that does the advocating is surprising. For example two leaders of the Israeli Policy Forum are advocating outreach to Hamas. Why is this surprising? Well the IPF writes on it website that one of its goals is:

IPF sponsors exceptional educational programs and publications, which produce a unique cadre of effective advocates for a two state solution. (emphasis mine)

So now Geoffry Lewis and Seymour Reich write that we should be Finding a way to bring Hamas In. That's Hamas the organization dedicated in word and deed to a one state solution - one without Israel.

Lewis and Reich write:

IT'S BECOMING increasingly clearer that reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement requires finding a way to bring Hamas into the process. This must be done without compromising Israeli or American interests.

Many respected Israeli security officials, including two former heads of Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, arrived at that conclusion some time ago. So have 64 percent of Israelis, who said, according to a Haaretz-Dialog poll taken in February, that they would negotiate directly with Hamas to end the rocket attacks from Gaza, controlled by Hamas since June 2007, and to secure the release of the captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

As noted before the Israeli poll approving talks with Hamas only gave respondents one choice. A different poll giving Israelis the choice between talking and fighting, showed that Israelis much preferred fighting their enemies than coddling them.

Lewis and Reich praise Sec. Rice for her decision to engage Hamas indirectly.

Rice appears to recognize these realities. During her previous visit to the Middle East early last month she used Egypt as an intermediary to open a channel between Israel and Hamas to mediate a cease-fire. This is a significant and commendable development. It could facilitate reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of the year, the goal of the Bush administration, or during the next administration.

And since then what? Well Hamas manufactured a fuel crisis, using as cover for an attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot. So would you say that bringing Hamas in has been helpful, or has it emboldened them?

Back at the beginning of the peace process, advocates like Lewis and Reich claimed that it was necessary to talk to Arafat and Fatah and to isolate Hamas. In the past 15 years, Fatah has shown itself to be uninterested in peace (or more precisely: uninterested in any commitments to helping peace but plenty interested in receiving the land, guns and money in exchange for those phantom commitments) and Hamas has gotten even stronger.

Now after Fatah has proved itself uninterested in making peace, Hamas is left with power, so Lewis and Reich propose that Israel now talk to Hamas. Have they been paying attention to the past 15 years? Why would talking with Hamas work any better now than talking with Fatah did in 1993?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel.

Clinton reveals she once accidentally shot a fellow hunter

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, criticizing Barack Obama's remarks about bitter rural dwellers who "cling to guns," revealed that she once accidentally shot and wounded a campaign contributor during a weekend quail hunt on a friend's Arkansas ranch.

The 78-year-old wounded man ended up in intensive care at a Little Rock hospital after being hit by several pellets of birdshot.

After reiterating his regret for his choice of words, Obama turned the tables on Clinton — mocking, among other things, her sudden fealty to the rights of gun owners.

"She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsman, how she values the second amendment. She's talking like she killed a guy. We all know he lived."

Obama continued, saying "Hillary Clinton is out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday and she has Gumbo Mudders on her 4-wheel drive and a winch on the front bumper and she chews Red Man Chewing Tobacco. Come on, she knows better. That's some politics being played by Hillary Clinton."

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Sources: AP, CNN, blend at medium speed for two minutes

At long last, a seder that celebrates freedom from non-local food sources

Every politically correct seder needs a new definition of freedom. Here is one in which slavery is not having a health food store to overcharge you for your produce and claim that it's locally grown:

Passover is also called the "Holiday of Spring," a time when green symbolizes new life. The color also represents all things eco-friendly, which serves as the inspiration for this year's Workmen's Circle community seder.

Each year the Pico-Robertson community center, which embodies progressive Jewish values, features a "third" seder with a theme, such as immigration or labor. This year's event, "The Sustainable Seder," will be held on April 27 and will be catered by Meg Dickler-Taylor, owner of Large Marge Sustainables, whose motto is "Fresh. Local. Organic. Don't Panic."

"Passover is a celebration of a lot of things, primarily the freedom of the Jews [from] enslavement of Egypt. Every year, if we are to create a dynamic civilization, we have to reapply that concept of freedom to what we're experiencing in our environment right now," she said.

Dickler-Taylor said she feels enslaved to relying on sources far from home for her food.

"If we can find a way to eat locally, in the coming years, we will feel more secure," she said.

Dickler-Taylor spoke at the Workmen's Circle on April 3 about how to create a sustainable, organic seder. [...]

The rest of the article tells you what to do: "Shop With Recyclable Bags," "Use Durable Table Settings," invite a western grey whale to the table, eat bitter organic seaweed to protest the right-wing smear-machine's exploitation of Obama's "bitter" remarks . . .

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Sen. obama "bitter" over bowling in altoona

(Soccer Dad News Service) Campaigning today in Indiana, Sen. Barack Obama let off some steam about the rigors of the campaign trail.

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, they just don't have culture.

"So you go Altoona and try to bowl, to show that you're not better than they are. And you stink at it. And some blogger says he could bowl better than you when he was five. And you have to go diners and drink coffee there instead of Starbucks. Or beer instead of white wine And somehow I have to convince these folks that I don't feel superior to them. Well it's not surprising, then, that I get bitter."

Asked to respond to this put down, Roxanne Hart, who bowled against the presidential contender (and Senator Casey), said, "I'm disappointed that he feels bitter over having bowled with me, I thought he was one of us."

Apprised of this reaction, the Senator's staff released a statement in his name: "Sen. Obama mis-spoke. He meant to say that he felt "better" for having participated in many of these activities. Indeed, he feels like a better man knowing how the less sophisticated live."

Sen. Clinton seems a lot more comfortable with the bible and gun toting crowd. Heh, indeed. (via Instapundit)

barack obama, pennsylvania, bowling.

Al-Hayat J: "Gaza is threatened with submergence in the dark compost in a few days"

This is auto-translated, with the usual lapses in readability, but the meaning is fairy clear:

Gaza - New Life - Douhan Hasan - and agencies - warned general manager power station in the Gaza Strip yesterday from the station stopped working entirely because of the fuel crisis facing the sector, a result of the closure Israel Nahal Oz crossing, which fuels with him.

He said Rafiq Maliha, director general power station "that the station would depend entirely on the work over several days will lead to complete paralysis in all sectors, unless Israel provide us with fuel."

He added, "the station stopped entirely depends on the amount of consumption by the citizens." The company began distributing electricity yesterday cut the electricity supply within the distribution areas of Gaza.

For his part, the spokesman Jamal Darsawi Electricity Distribution Company "If you do not enter the fuel there will be a real catastrophe because the power station would depend on what action deprive than 55 MB."

He continued: "This will ultimately drive to cut electricity periodically on citizens by no less than ten hours a day on each region."

As the independent MP Jamal al-Chairman of the People's face of the siege "to stop the power station means stop everything and comprehensive destruction in the Gaza Strip and stop health services, environmental, power outages and disruption of the cell phone and fixed communications."

"The stations and sewage treatment standstill and the material is pumped sewage into the sea directly."

According to Reuters, quoting various officials, the Palestinians are refusing to "distribute fuel in the holding tanks," so Israel can't supply any new fuel anyway. Where would it go? They need empty tanks to pump into:

Mahmoud al-Khuzundar, head of the Gaza Fuel Suppliers' Association, denied any Hamas role in the strike and said the association will not distribute fuel in the holding tanks until Israel increases the amount it supplies . . .

Israeli and Western officials said even if Israel agreed to restart the flow of gasoline and diesel to Gaza, it will not be able to do so until fuel tanks on the Palestinian side have been emptied out.

The Dark Compost reigns in Gaza, beware the Dark Compost . . .

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Shalom Zachar tax in California?

The proposer of the bill is a Democrat, of course. The rationale: "The people who use alcohol should pay for part of the cost to society, just like we've accepted that concept with tobacco . . . " In a sane world, anyone who uttered a sentence like that would be out of public life forever. Just about everybody "uses alcohol" in this society, and the health and other problems generated by people who don't use it responsibly are already paid for to a large extent by the general public. And almost everything alcoholic that someone might buy instead of beer has a higher alcohol content. From Mercury News:

Joe Six-pack will have to pay a lot more to get his buzz on if Assemblyman Jim Beall has his way.

The San Jose Democrat on Thursday proposed raising the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack, or 30 cents per can or bottle. The current tax is 2 cents per can. That's an increase of about 1,500 percent.

Beall said the tax would generate $2 billion a year to fund health care services, crime prevention and programs to prevent underage drinking and addiction.

"The people who use alcohol should pay for part of the cost to society, just like we've accepted that concept with tobacco," Beall said.

He added that the beer tax hasn't been touched since 1991, and the increase then was meager.

But the freshman lawmaker will have to lift the legislative equivalent of a full keg of beer over his head to get his tax enacted. That's because it would require a two-thirds vote in the Assembly and Senate - and then, because it's a constitutional amendment, it would have to be approved by voters. Republicans say it's a non-starter.

"I predict the shelf life will be very short," said Assemblyman Roger Niello, R-Sacramento, vice chairman of the budget committee. "It's a piecemeal approach to the budget that completely avoids any discussion of spending discipline, which is fundamentally why we have the problem that we have." [...]

Time is running short. I'm glad I got to do one last post about chometz before Pesach. (Hat Tip: Drudge)

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Why read the nyt or haaretz ...

when you could have gotten the scoop from Elder of Ziyon.

via memeorandum

Ha'aretz reports:

Hamas seizes half the fuel Israel sends to the Gaza Strip and uses it in part for its military wing's vehicles, Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials said Thursday.

Israel cut off the only source of fuel for Gaza's 1.4 million people Thursday after Wednesday's deadly attack on the only fuel transfer point into the territory.

But Israeli defense officials indicated that the cutoff would not last past the weekend.

Nir Press, commander of the military liaison unit for Gaza, said Hamas takes about half the fuel transferred to the Gaza Strip.

Hussein al-Sheikh, a PA official, told Haaretz that Hamas seizes some 400,000 of the 800,000 liters of diesel transferred to Gaza weekly and intended for uses such as generators, hospitals, water pumps and sewage pumps.

Israel Matzav reacts

That fits right in with the attack on Nahal Oz, doesn't it? And soon, we will see televised pictures of Gazans sitting in darkened rooms with their curtains drawn in the middle of the day, won't we?

The New York Times reports about another consequence of last week's terror attack:

The Israeli incursion came after militants from Gaza broke through the fence on Wednesday and attacked the Nahal Oz fuel depot, the transfer point from which all fuel is piped from Israel into Gaza. Two Israeli civilians employed by the company that supplies the fuel were killed in the attack. Fuel deliveries into Gaza were temporarily halted, but were expected to resume after the weekend.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for the attack, since it controls Gaza, although three smaller groups claimed joint responsibility. Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told a gathering of his supporters on Thursday that Hamas “will not be able to continue to act against Israel’s citizens as it acts today.” He would not elaborate on the cryptic threat but added, “The state of Israel will stand behind the things that I said.”

Again reading Elder of Ziyon would have clued Isabel Kershner in that it wasn't just Israel that holds Hamas responsible, but Hamas claims credit for "softening" Nahal Oz with mortars. (Even if they didn't claim credit, mortars are very loud. The authorities, such as they are in Gaza, had to be aware of them being fired and didn't stop them. As such, at the very least, Hamas was at least implicitly complicit. But as EoZ observed, the complicity was explicit.)

The Spine wonders what Israel's thinking by absorbing the terror attack, publicizing the information about Hamas stealing the fuel and nonetheless planning to resume fuel shipments early this week! Maybe Israel Matzav needn't worry about those darkened rooms.

As I noted last week, the protests over gas seemed a bit convenient prior to the attack on Nahal Oz. So does Solomonia

Very clever. Keep the fuel, blame it on the Jews, increase resentment, stage strikes for a compliant international press. It's a sales job at home and an export all at once.

This is one more example of how the media distorts things in ways to make war more likely.

Hamas stealing fuel for its own purposes, isn't so novel. When Fatah was in charge of Gaza, its henchmen were capable of using fuel for their own purposes at the expense of the citizenry. Eleven years ago Ha'aretz reported:

The fuel sector is an excellent example of a particularly profitable monopoly. Residents of the territories consumer 40 million liters of fuel per month. Under Israel's administration, by far the largest share of the market was dominated by Pedasco, jointly owned by Israel's large fuel companies (Paz, Delek, and Sonol). The company sold gasoline and oil to 65 private stations throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The stations' Palestinian owners leased their equipment from Pedasco.

Pedasco had contracts for supply with the station owners through beyond the year 2000. Under the economic agreement between the Authority and Israel, the Authority pledged not to interfere with contracts between Israeli suppliers and Palestinian customers that had been signed before the signing of the Paris protocol. Promises are promises, and reality is reality. On October 18, 1994, the underlings of Jibril Rajoub, chief of the Authority's preventive security forces, informed all service station owners that they may not accept fuel from anyone except Dor Energy. Two days later, armed emissaries of Rajoub blocked the entry of Pedasco tankers into the territories of the Authority.

The service station owners sent a letter to the Authority requesting that they be permitted to continue working with Pedasco. Rajoub turned down the request. Eli Halahmi, former CEO of Pedasco: "After the Authority consolidated power in the territories, Rajoub took over and announced that henceforth service station owners would be required to pay an additional tax, at a rate based on their daily sales. Preventive security's `fuel patrol' takes daily measurements at the service stations and checks the differences in the balances of the black gold between the morning and the evening."

Hamas isn't really less corrupt than Fatah. It might not be that the leaders of Hamas seek to enrich themselves as much as the leaders of Fatah did (and probably still do) but they do divert resources at the exepnse of those they purport to govern. Maybe the fact that they use those resources to attack Israel instead of enriching themselves makes them selfish, but not less corrupt.

Crossposted on Yourish.

hamas, Israel.

How Israel Can Win: Learning From Petraeus

In Obama Imitates Olmert, Michael Totten wrote:

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.

There is a growing recognition of the need for that to change. The Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs has a paper available online (PDF only) entitled Winning Counterinsurgency War:The Israeli Experience. Written by Major-General Yaakov Amidror, the report draws in part on the US experience in Iraq, which is mentioned throughout the paper:

Recent military progress by U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq have begun to counter much of the previous analyses that view counterinsurgency warfare as an inevitably hopeless quagmire that will bog down any Western army which engages in such a mission. During October 2007, the new commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, an authority on counterinsurgency warfare, managed to cut monthly U.S. fatalities to a third of what they were a year earlier. Attacks in the Sunni-dominated Anbar Province fell from around 1,300 a month in October 2006 to under 100 in November 2007. There were over two hundred fatalities per month from car bomb attacks alone in the Baghdad area in early 2007, yet by November and December that number fell dramatically to around a dozen fatalities per month. These results did not constitute a decisive military victory, for U.S. commanders were the first to admit that al-Qaeda had not been defeated. But the results certainly indicated that a counterinsurgency campaign was not a hopeless undertaking. [emphasis added]

In Part II: The Conditions Necessary for Winning the War Against Terrorism, Amidror lists 6 basic conditions for conducting an asymmetrical war correctly:

An examination of many terrorist events throughout the world (but especially the Israeli experience in fighting Palestinian and Hizbullah terrorism) shows that six basic conditions can be defined which, if met, provide the foundation for defeating terrorism:

• A political decision to defeat terrorism, stated explicitly and clearly to the security forces, and the willingness to bear the political cost of an offensive.
• Acquiring control of the territory in and from which the terrorists operate.
• Relevant intelligence.
• Isolating the territory within which the counterterrorist fighting takes place.
• Multi-dimensional cooperation between intelligence and operations.
• Separating the civilian population from the terrorists.

These conditions are necessary but insufficient; they do not ensure victory over
terrorism, but without them victory is impossible.

Perhaps one of the most key points is the recognition of the 2 innovations made in this kind of warfare--and the need to address them head on, a fact that will by necessity force Israel into direct confrontation with the expectations and condemnations of the West:

An intensive study of asymmetric warfare shows two innovations: civilians are part of
the terrorist organizations’ strength and capabilities, and therefore friction with them cannot be avoided; and the media expose counterterrorist activities in a way which is liable to influence the way decision-makers respond, with little connection between the truth and what is reported. These two innovations taken together demand that a new principle be added to the IDF’s list of war principles: “image and legitimization,” whose purpose is to make commanders of all ranks relate to both in planning the fighting and its execution. This means that at every level, whoever plans and carries out an action in war has to consider how it will be presented and appear in the media. He should, by commission or omission in planning and execution, reinforce both internal (inside the State of Israel) and external (by the world in general) legitimization for Israel’s actions in the war. Military planners have to be aware of the issue of involvement of civilians: on the one hand, some of them may have to be harmed when there is no choice, and on the other, there must be untiring effort to prevent them from being injured, insofar as this is possible. All this must be done while paying the greatest possible attention to the need to explain to the Israeli public, and to the world, every action carried out, including failures.

As opposed to the Americans, it is not necessary for Israel to add “restraint” in the
use of force as a principle of war. For Israel that would be a grave error. Sometimes
the need might arise, but generally speaking, a small country like Israel can deal with terrorism and guerrilla organizations only if its response is not proportional and is carried out in such a way as to convince the other side that it too has something to lose. A proportional response will drag Israel into a war of attrition whose rules will be determined by the terrorists, and which it will lose. A country like Israel can successfully cope with terrorism and guerrilla tactics only if it retains the ability to respond disproportionately; otherwise, it will find itself fighting according to the enemy’s rules. [emphasis added]

And we all know what that is like, because that is exactly what Olmert has acquiesced to as Prime Minister.

Amidror concludes:

The discussion above has shown that one can essentially vanquish terror, even if it is
a victory that only prevents terror from successfully implementing its plans, while it
does not influence the terrorists’ intentions. Victory of this type requires constant and determined effort from the moment that it is attained, for if not, conditions will revert to their former sorry state as soon as the terror organizations deem themselves strong enough.

"Constant and determined effort." If Olmert were only to apply himself to Israel's security with as much concentrated effort as his machinations to keep himself in power--Israel's safety would be assured.

Read the report.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Terrorism.

Eve's manipulator

According to the Midrash - the extra-biblical Jewish traditions - the snake who tempted Eve had two legs and could walk. Only after the sin did God punish the snake and deprive him of legs. ("... on your belly you will move ...")

According the BBC a new fossil has been found that shows a two legged snake.

What was lost tens of millions of years ago is now found.

A fossil animal locked in Lebanese limestone has been shown to be an extremely precious discovery - a snake with two legs.

Scientists have only a handful of specimens that illustrate the evolutionary narrative that goes from ancient lizard to limbless modern serpent.

Not just motive

Elder of Ziyon made an important point yesterday about the atttacks at Nahal Oz. On the surface it seemed illogical for an attack against the entry point for gas to Gaza. He points out the terror attack with the complicity and active involvement of Hamas took advantage of an opportunity. The terrorists could strike, so they did.

The terrorists hit wherever they can. Certainly they might try to abduct rather than kill Israelis, but for the most part they will kill any Israeli in the Middle East that they can. Thanks to Israeli defenses, they don't have the luxury of choosing targets based on perceived symbolic value; they will choose the weakest point they can find and kill whomever they can, not caring if the victims are women, children, Arabs or Jews, and cause all the damage and panic they can.

Whether it's the buildup of weaponry and infrastructure in Gaza by Hamas that's accelerated after "disengagement" or Hezbollah's buildup in the wake of Israel's retreat from Lebanon, these terror organizations are more about acquiring means and exploiting opportunities. (I would add that the terror directed against Israel by Hamas with the complicity of Fatah in early 1996 was the result of Israel's withdrawal from Ramallah, Kalkilye, Jenin, Nablus and Bethlehem in late 1995. This effectively transferred responsibility for maintaining order to the PLO, which had no interest in doing so. Hamas was thus able to build a terror infrastructure that was able to carry out the series of bus bombings and other terror attacks in February and March of 1996.) These organizations are dedicated to destroying Israel and killing Jews.

Of Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah the one that's least effective now is Fatah. That's because it was largely the target of operation Defensive Shield. It's not the corruption that dooms Fatah, but weakness. There is, you see, a military solution to terror: destroy the organizations who perpetrate it.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Freedom of vp choice

Right Wing News polled a number of conservative bloggers their feelings on who would be the best and worst choices for Sen. McCain to pick as Vice President.

I have to admit to being a bit surprised by some of the results.

While Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska is certainly an attractive candidate, she's pregnant and declared herself out of the running. I'm surprised she ranked so high among the good choices. I'm also surprised that Bobby Jindal ranked so high as he just started his term as governor of Louisiana. Why pull him out before he's accomplished much? He's young enough that he can build his resume and still be a good choice in 8 or 12 years. (Although I'd love to see him at the top of the ticket in the future.) I really don't understand the second choice: Michael Steele, the former Lt. Gov. of my state, Maryland. Yes he's black and he's charismatic, but he hasn't won an election on his own and served as Bob Ehrlich's second in command. I've already written why I don't believe that Condoleezza Rice is a good choice.

I would have ranked Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota higher. I'd agree with choices 1, 3, 6, 8 and 9 Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, Mark Sanford, Haley Barbour and J. C. Watts as all being strong choices.

I find the least desirable list a better set of choices.

via memeorandum.

Endgame

Remember how smug, insufferable, know-it-all David Ignatius informed us that the NIE showed that our policies towards Iran were all wrong? Here's how he put it in a Post-Global forum:

Sometimes events create space for diplomacy where none existed before. I want to think that this might be the case with the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. What matters about the NIE is less the details than the atmospherics. The details themselves are hard to parse: Yes, we now believe that in 2003 Iran halted a previously unknown covert military program to build a bomb; but no, that doesn't mean Iran has stopped its threatening nuclear activity or that it has given up its ambition to be a nuclear power. When you boil it all down, the United States has aimed its intelligence rifle at Tehran--and shot itself in the foot. It has undercut its old policy and embarrassed itself and its allies. So what's the advantage in that, you ask? Simply this: The NIE creates a way for both parties to come to the negotiating table without losing face. Both sides can start a new narrative, in place of the old one that led to an impasse. It is this serendipitous aspect--this unexpected reversal of the parameters of the game--that interests me most.

Shortly after its release my Watcher's Council colleague Wolf Howling wrote:

Our intelligence agencies have done our nation a tremendous disservice. It will, inn the long run, likely cost us bitterly since it puts off any reckoning with the single most destabilizing force in this world. Every day that reckoning is put off will increase the cost we will pay and gold and blood. And if Iran achieves a nuclear arsenal, that cost we will pay will rise exponentially.

Charles Krauthammer points out in today's column, the Holocaust Declaration (or here) that this week's announcement that Iran was installing 6000 new centrifuges demonstrates that we have reached a point of no return.

It is time to admit the truth: The Bush administration's attempt to halt Iran's nuclear program has failed. Utterly. The latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions, which took a year to achieve, is comically weak. It represents the end of the sanctions road.

At home, the president's efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program were irreparably undermined by November's National Intelligence Estimate, whose "moderate confidence" that Iran has not restarted nuclear weaponization -- the least important of three elements of any nuclear program -- has promoted the illusion that Iran has given up the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yet uranium enrichment, the most difficult step, proceeds apace, as does the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

The president is going to hand over to his successor an Iran on the verge of going nuclear. This will deeply destabilize the Middle East, threaten the moderate Arabs with Iranian hegemony and leave Israel on hair-trigger alert.

This failure can, however, be mitigated. Since there will apparently be no disarming of Iran by pre-emption or by sanctions, we shall have to rely on deterrence to prevent the mullahs, some of whom are apocalyptic and messianic, from using nuclear weapons.

(Keep in mind the second paragraph when you read Ignatius's praise for Thomas Fingar from a couple of years ago. What Fingar and those involved in the NIE exercised was not caution. It was recklessness to create an illusion of complacency.)

At this point then, what does Krauthammer counsel?

How to create deterrence? The way John Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis. President Bush's greatest contribution to nuclear peace would be to issue the following declaration, adopting Kennedy's language while changing the names of the miscreants:

"It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran."

This should be followed with a simple explanation: "As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people."

This policy -- the Holocaust Declaration -- would establish a firm benchmark that would outlive this administration. Every future president -- and every serious presidential candidate -- would have to publicly state whether or not he supports the Holocaust Declaration.

Krauthammer then acknowledges that such a policy may not deter the likes of Ahmadinejad, but it would likely (or maybe just hopefully) spur rational actors in Iran to take charge and restrain or depose him.

Krauthammer further argues that such a policy isn't just necessary to save the Jews of the world (see his 10 year old essay At Last Zion for a fuller treatment of this topic), but to confirm America's role in the world as a beacon of freedom.

For the first time since the time of Jesus, Israel is the home of the world's largest Jewish community. An implacable enemy has openly declared genocidal intentions against it -- in clear violation of the U.N. charter -- and is pursuing the means to carry out that intent. The world does nothing. Some, like the Russians, are literally providing fuel for the fire.

For those who believe that America stands for something in the world -- that the nation that has liberated more peoples than any other has even the most minimal moral vocation -- there can be no more pressing cause than preventing the nuclear annihilation of an allied democracy, the last refuge and hope of an ancient people openly threatened with the final Final Solution.

UPDATE: If this report in the Times of London is accurate, the recklessness of the NIE is even more apparent.

A previously unknown missile location, the site, about 230km southeast of Tehran, and the link with Iran's long-range programme, was revealed by Jane's Intelligence Review after a study of the imagery by a former Iraq weapons inspector. A close examination of the photographs has indicated that the Iranians are following the same path as North Korea, pursuing a space programme that enables Tehran to acquire expertise in long-range missile technology.

Geoffrey Forden, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there was a recently constructed building on the site, about 40 metres in length, which was similar in form and size to the Taepodong long-range missile assembly facility in North Korea.

Avital Johanan, the editor of Jane's Proliferation, said that the analysis of the Iranian site indicated that Tehran may be about five years away from developing a 6,000km ballistic missile. This would tie in with American intelligence estimates and underlines why President Bush wants the Polish and Czech components of the US missile defence system to be up and running by 2013.

So as Tehran reaches the point of completing its quest for the requisite fuel, it is working on a delivery system too. Not exactly the pause that the NIE proclaimed in its summary.

Jihad Watch mentions that this isn't just about "filthy bacteria," it's also about "corrupt powers."

Note the resonance that this kind of talk will have with the American Left, which sees the U.S. as the chief of the "corrupt powers." And remember: this man was applauded at Columbia University.

"Iran: President wants to 'annihilate corrupt powers,'" from AKI (thanks to Insubria).

Israel Matzav cautions:

Will this wake the world up to the fact that Iran's nuclear aspirations are not just Israel's problem? Don't hold your breath. In the meantime, expect countries like Germany to continue to undermine sanctions in the pursuit of the Almighty Euro.

Gina Cobb reminds us that this emphasizes the importance of missile defense, a position that I imagine with which Poligazette wholeheartedly agrees.

(via memeorandum)

Crossposted on Yourish.

iran.

Council speak 04/11/08

The Council has spoken.

On the Council side the winning post was
"If You Give A Mouse A Cookie"... Accommodating Islam reflections on how Islam works its way into society by Joshuapundit. The Council runner up this week was The Wizard of Ooze, a point by point deconstruction of Sen. Obama's image by Bookworm Room.

Among non-council participants the winning entry was Creating a European Indigenous People's Movement by The Brussels Journal. The runner up was Your federal Government At Work... For Palestinians an excellent illustration by Boker tov, Boulder! of how the American government promotes the extremism of the Palestinians.

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

watcher's council.

IRIB: "Great economic evolution plan devised"

Sounds like they are going to give even greater play to the might of Songun in the spirit of Mt. Paektu--no, wait, that's North Korea:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at one of courtyards of Imam Reza's Holy Shrine that plan for country's economic evolution is devised and ready to be implemented.

President Ahmadinejad further stressed, "We need to prepare ourselves for a great economic surgery, fundamental reforms, and a great construction movement."

The President further reiterated that the Iranian nation is today a model, the witness to many internal and international great events, and the pioneer of justice seeking in the world, adding, "We need to eliminate our country's shortcomings rapidly hand in hand of one another, and to construct our dear Iran as best we could."

That should all be accomplished by about Tuesday.

He said, "We need to solve our country's economic, cultural, and development problems and then to heed the international responsibilities of our revolution."

Ahmadinejad added, "Our enemies are strongly annoyed due to rapid advancement of the Iranian nation, which is why resorting to various means and different plots they try to create obstacles in the way of our nation's further progress and development."

He considered resorting to nuclear issue, regional engagements in such countries as Iraq, Afghanistan and the like, as well as the issuance of numerous resolutions against the Iranian nation as pretexts aimed at blocking the path of our nation's advancement."

Yeah, the war in Afghanistan was just a pretext aimed at blocking Iran's development. Another item at IRIB announces "Era of IRI's enemies over- President." "Enemies are afraid of the grandeur and dignity of the Iranian nation," says A although "concern of the Western powers over development of a bomb by Iran is nothing." He concludes:

"What they are afraid of is a country which has raised against them in a world under their domination."

The president warned big powers against moving against the will of the Iranian nation, stressing, "If they continued their opposition to the will of the Iranian nation, they would receive a crushing response from the brave Iranian people."

Typical rhetoric about Iran's nuke program: deny and threaten. Meanwhile, the NY Times reports: "Hamas in Largest Arms Buildup Yet, Israeli Study Says." That is also largely Iran's doing. The clock is ticking. Even the trashing of Iran's civilian economy by that "evolution plan" won't slow it down.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Don't cry to me

via memeorandum

AFP reports on yesterday's violence on the border with Gaza.

Two Israeli civilians and seven Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in an explosion of violence on the Gaza Strip border after Palestinian commandos stormed into Israel.

The attack came after early morning fighting left an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian gunman dead, shattering a month-long lull that followed a bloody Israeli blitz on Gaza aimed at halting rocket fire.

The Israeli army said Palestinian fighters, under cover of mortar fire, breached the border near the Nahal Oz terminal that provides Gaza with its fuel supplies, and moved into Israel.

The militants shot dead two Israelis working at the terminal in what the army called a "failed abduction attempt."

The report notes that Islamic Jihad and two other groups took "credit" for the attack but that Israel holds Hamas accountable. The logistics necessary to carry out this kind of attack were probably significant enough that the authorities would have to have been aware of the planning. Of course, since the authorities are also terrorists, they had no reason to prevent the attack.

And this would be a breach of the "lull" or "ceasefire" or whatever you want to call it. Unless mortars and qassams are considered breaches. So I guess this qualifies as an escalation, though it's not one that can be pinned on Israel, unless one blames Israel for responding.

Michael Goldfarb takes the obvious lesson from the continued violence from Gaza and applies it to Iraq:

Israel withdrew unilaterally, ended the occupation of Gaza, and a terrorist group took over the territory. The result is cross-border violence. The same thing happened after the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. So tell me again how unilateral withdrawal from Iraq will lead to a different result? Granted AQI won't be able to run across the border to kill Americans, but there is no doubt that terrorists can strike from a great distance when they are allowed to plot and train unmolested.

Last week we saw pictures of Gaza with gas stations that were out of fuel and read that Gazans were protesting Israel's restriction on allowing gas into Gaza.

Taxi drivers queue outside a petrol station in Gaza April 7, 2008, as they wait to fill their cars with fuel. Owners of petrol stations in Gaza said on Monday that they have ran out of fuel as Israel has not allowed fuel to be supplied to Gaza everyday.

Yesterday it was the transfer point of gas into Gaza that was attacked. If Hamas doesn't care enough about Gaza's gas supplies to prevent this attack, why should anyone care if Israel chooses to deny Gaza the resource it needs to run and that, in effect, allows terrorist to attack Israel?

UPDATE:
Boker Tov Boulder blasts AFP for grouping all the fatalities together instead of emphasizing that the initial attack killed two Israeli civilians. The picture she mentions of a "militant" going to a funeral shows a guy with a Kalashnikov. Most funeral I've attended haven't had folks show up sporting assault rifles.

Perhaps she should have saved some of her outrage for the Washington Post for it's disgraceful headline: Gaza Fighters Attack Fuel Depot Inside Israel

Fighters?!?! At least use the somewhat judgmental term "militants." (Yes, I know that they are terrorists, but no way the Post headline writer would use that term.)

Anyway the reporting here isn't bad. In particular:

A Hamas spokesman denied the group had been involved in the Nahal Oz attack, but lauded it as courageous and vowed further strikes.

Despite the denial, Israel said it blamed Hamas, which has controlled the territory since it seized sole power 10 months ago. The armed Islamist group won Palestinian elections in 2006 but failed to maintain a power-sharing arrangement with the rival Fatah movement, which dominates the Palestinian Authority and has strong support in the West Bank.

Israel's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Hamas would "bear the consequences" for the attack, which spokesman Arye Mekel said was proof that the group "really doesn't care for its own people."

"This is the same group that was complaining we were not sending enough fuel. Now that we're sending enough, they try to blow the place up," Mekel said.

This is exactly the way the attack should be viewed.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Doing the dictator boogie

via memeorandum

Lee Smith in TNR argues that talking with the bad guys isn't a cost free exercise.

So, it was not doctrinaire anti-diplomatic tendencies that led the Bush administration to curtail relations with Syria. The administration's outreach had done nothing to alter Syria's behavior, and to keep talking would merely demoralize anxious American allies in Lebanon, which has become one of the U.S.'s most valuable assets. Not only has Lebanon been a key venue for taking on Iran by facing down its proxy, Hezbollah, but the pro-Western government there led by Christians, Druze, and moderate Sunnis represented precisely the sort of Middle East the administration's democracy advocates had envisioned. An Obama White House may have no interest in "regional transformation," but the delicate diplomacy required to support Lebanon still represents an almost insurmountable barrier if it chooses the road to Damascus.

The short version at Betsy's Page:

What Asad wants is not acceptable. So how is Obama going to engage in a helpful dialog with Syria without giving in more than what any thoughtful American foreign policy should find insupportable. To engage Syria, President Obama would have to sacrifice Lebanon to Hezbollah so that Syria could have a base to keep attacking Israel. Is that what Obama's idea of diplomatic engagement with our enemies?

Meanwhile the Powerline guys got Smith to expand his thoughts regarding Jimmy Carter:

Carter and his White House staff misunderstood the nature of the Khomeini government back in 1978 and it seems that he, like the incorrigible Brzenzinski, have learned little about Iran since then. It is, above all, a revolution and one of its goals is to overthrow the established order by routing the US and drive it from the region. In the Persian Gulf, Iran is bullying Washington's Sunni allies and, as General Petraeus's Senate testimony yesterday made plain, waging open war against the US in Iraq. In the Eastern Mediterranean it is fighting US allies in Lebanon and Israel and threatening Egypt, the largest Arab state and still in many ways the most influential.

But in general the issue is that the rogues attach importance to talks and require that the democracy grant them something in return. This means that the democracy either grants the wish or appears to be the unreasonable one. This happened throughout the Oslo process. Preconditions are always a part of dealing with the devil.

Crossposted on Yourish.

New York Times-Owned Radio Station Thinks Hemorrhoids And Sderot Lack Decorum

WQXR, the classical music station owned by the New York Times has canceled an ad describing the situation in Sderot:

"It's unbelievable. At the end of the day, WQXR listeners are interested in Israel," AJC spokesman Michael Geller told Page Six. In the ad, AJC Executive Director David Harris says: "Imagine you had 15 seconds to find shelter from an incoming missile. Fifteen seconds to locate your children, help an elderly relative, assist a disabled person to find shelter. That's all the residents of Sderot and neighboring Israeli towns have. Day or night, the sirens go on. Fifteen seconds later, the missiles, fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza, hit . . . Their aim is to kill and wound and demoralize . . . This is what Israelis experience daily."

In a letter to the AJC, WQXR general manager Tom Bartunek said parts of the spot were "outside our bounds of acceptability. First, the opening line . . . does not make clear that the potential target of the missile is not our listening area, and as a consequence, runs the risk of raising anxiety in a misleading way. Second, the description of the missiles as arriving 'day or night' and 'daily' is also subject to challenge as being misleading, at least to the degree that reasonable people might be troubled by the absence of any acknowledgment of reciprocal Israeli military actions." [emphasis added]

At least the General Manager of WQXR is able to put everything into proper perspective:

Geller said Bartunek told the AJC the "general tone" didn't meet WQXR guidelines for "decorum," and the station also bans ads for "hemorrhoid cream or sexual potency pills."

An editorial in The New York Sun points out that it is not as if The New York Times does not acknowledge the situation in Sderot--on April 5th it came out with A Town Under Fire Becomes a Symbol for Israel:

This long neglected immigrant town a mile from Gaza, pounded by Palestinian rockets for the past seven years, is taking on a new identity, edging into the center of Zionist consciousness as a symbol of the nation’s unofficial motto: “Never Again.”

True enough. Then again, when Steve Erlanger finally acknowledged what Hamas was up to in his In Gaza, Hamas’s Insults to Jews Complicate Peace, the closest he got to recognizing the situation in Sderot was:

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children’s programs praise “martyrdom,” teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel.

That's one mention of rockets, but no mention of the main target, Sderot--not even once in the entire article.

Sderot has to deal not only with Iran's proxy, but also The New York Times' delicate sense of propriety.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Sderot.

Man-bro-whatever

Other than sending me his less desirable readers, Maryland Blogger Alliance founder, Pillage Idiot is a connossieur of the lifestyle observations of the NY Times. Three years ago he posted his thoughts about a "new" trend called "man dates."

The New York Times's numerical reporter, Jennifer 8. Lee, writes about the rules by which straight men operate when going out with a male friend. You know, so that people don't think they're, like, uh, GAY!!!! (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) Lee calls this a "man date," as in "Last election, Bush won a man date with Dick Cheney."

I'm not certain why the NY Times decided that two men going out together must be considered a "man date." I used to call such outings going out with friends. But the Times made a big deal about it, so it must be a trend that has escaped my notice.

(In the interest of full disclosure, Pillage Idiot and I have gone out on a couple of "man dates." We discuss things that we could never discuss with our wives. Well actually we discuss blogging which would our respective wives to tears, which is why we would never discuss it with them.)

The Seattle Time is apparently behind the - uh - Times, as it recently discussed "Bro-mance" (h/t Dr. Helen)

As Dr. Helen describes the article, it appears that "Bro-mance" can fill the void in a man's life before he marries and since men are marrying later more of them indulge in this. Frankly, I don't understand why the two are mutually exclusive. Can't a man have a male friend and still be married?

I'm kind of conservative, so perhaps that's my shortcoming in comprehending these newfangled trends. Maybe I'll go bowling with the boys later and discuss it with them.

Ah gee, I see that George and Brad have a bromance. I really am behind the times - both Seattle and New York.

man dates, bromance.

The real mccain

via memeorandum

Slate recently ran reprint of part of a NYT magazine profile of Sen. McCain written by Michael Lewis, The great McCain story you've probably forgotten. It tells of the Senator's devotion to one of his political patrons: liberal Democratic Congressman, Mo Udall.

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain. "He's not going to wake up this time," McCain said.

On the way out of the parking lot, McCain recalled what it was like to be a nobody called upon by a somebody. As he did, his voice acquired the same warmth that colored Russell Feingold's speech when he described the first call from John McCain. "When you called Feingold … " I started to ask him. But before I could, he interrupted. "Yeah," he says, "I thought of Mo." And then, for maybe the third time that morning, McCain spoke of how it affected him when Udall took him in hand. It was a simple act of affection and admiration, and for that reason it meant all the more to McCain. It was one man saying to another, We disagree in politics but not in life.

Read the whole thing.

Or if you prefer read the whole original.

While I think that Sen. McCain's obsession with money in politics and his effort to address it are wrongheaded, the idea that a politician in power would reach out to one out of power to address an issue that they agreed on, is something that is rather uncommon these days.

For all the talk about Obama's "new style" of politics such as David Brooks's observation here:

Clinton had sounded like a traditional executive, as someone who gathers the experts, forges a policy, fights the opposition, bears the burdens of power, negotiates the deal and, in crisis, makes the decision at 3 o’clock in the morning.

But Obama sounded like a cross between a social activist and a flannel-shirted software C.E.O. — as a nonhierarchical, collaborative leader who can inspire autonomous individuals to cooperate for the sake of common concerns.

Clinton had sounded like Old Politics, but Obama created a vision of New Politics. And the past several months have revolved around the choice he framed there that night. Some people are enthralled by the New Politics, and we see their vapors every day. Others think it is a mirage and a delusion. There’s only one politics, and, tragically, it’s the old kind, filled with conflict and bad choices.

Sen. Obama doesn't represent much new about politics. As Wolf Howling and Big Lizards have pointed out, Sen. Obama hasn't had to work up a sweat in any earlier elections as his opponents have found themselves outmaneuvered legally before the races even started. Sen. Clinton has been mocked for expecting a coronation, but she did run a real race in 2000. Sen. Obama's managed to eliminate his competition before a race has been necessary.

And his hardball politics contrasts with Sen. McCain who showed undying respect for a mentor and who helped shape Sen. Feingold's career. With McCain, the personal supersedes the political. With Sen. Obama, despite the soaring, uplifting rhetoric, everything is politics. Granted he views his politics as an engine of change; but the poltics to effect that change is as base as old politics that it's supposed to transcend. As Bookworm Room has shown, the Obama of the rhetoric is not the Obama of the flesh.

Either read the short Michael Lewis or the long one, but get a sense of Sen. McCain. Unlike either of his possible opponents this fall, whatever his faults, Sen. McCain is real.

john mccain.

Getting defensive

The Orioles are a surprising 6 - 1 after one week of play. According this breakdown at their ESPN page, the team is doing well around.

AVG	R	OBP	SLG	OPS	SB
.285	40	.359	.474	.832	7
2nd	2nd	2nd	2nd	2nd	5th
ERA	BAA	OPS	SV	WHIP	QS
3.71	.224	.702	4	1.21	2
4th	2nd	4th	2nd	2nd	12th

With the second best run scored total and the fourth best ERA, the Orioles are scoring runs at a good clip and preventing them at good rates. Last year the Orioles had the fourth worst run total in the AL, 756, nearly 40 runs below the AL average and the next to worst ERA.

Peter Schmuck looking for a reason for the Orioles' early success argues that the Orioles are motivated by being dissed.

When the Orioles shock the world and reach the World Series this October, we'll look back on April 7 as a watershed day in club history.

We will all remember it as the day the O's - in unison - let us know they were mad as hell and not going to accept the ridiculously low expectations that have been ascribed to them by the supposed experts in the media.

It makes for a nice story, but if you don't have the requisite talent, you're not going to win, no matter how motivated you are. The Orioles performed poorly last year and since then jettisoned one of their top hitters and their top pitcher. There's no reason to assume that this year's team will be improved in the long term.

Bill Ordine though, noted something that might explain the improved pitching.

Having said that, it is not all pixie dust and luck. Coming from behind or winning the close ones at the end as the O's were able to do a few times against Seattle means not allowing games to get out of hand early. And a key to that is simply playing sound defensive baseball. During their five-game winning streak, the Orioles have committed just one error.

The Orioles have since made a second error, but errors only describe balls that were missed that the fielder got his hands on. Deffensive efficiency measure the percentage of balls in play that the fielders have turned into outs and the Orioles lead the AL in that, by a significant margin. The Orioles lead the AL with a .772 mark, second place belongs to Boston at .740. Obviously that's not likely to continue. (Last year Toronto was the most defensively efficient team with a .712 mark. Even if the Orioles remain at the top of this year's rankings, it won't be .772, so the pitching will necessarily suffer.)

I can't complain that the team is exceeding expectations so far. In 2005, with a seemingly more talented team the Orioles were second only to the White Sox in the AL for three months until the team collapsed. Maybe this is a team that will build a solid foundation for the future and maybe they'll manage a .500 season if enough things go right.

For now I'll just enjoy the ride.

baltimore orioles

Juggling carnivals 04/09/08

Incoming Carnivals

The 30th edition of Carnival of Maryland is up at Prince George's. It's a very nice roundup of news from around the state.

Haveil Havalim #161 is UP a fine tour of the Jewish blogosphere is up at Jtown Underground. In just 11 editions since taking over the administrative chores of HH, Jack has managed to get 3 or 4 new hosts. Nice going!

Please check out the latest carnival of Rock and Roll that includes a link to last week's Musical Monday.

And thanks, as always, to Dr. Sanity for including a link to a post of mine in the latest Carnival of the Insanities. It wasn't the one I had submitted, but it was a good choice! Thanks.

UPDATE: Whoops! How could I forget? The pre-Pesach Kosher Cooking Carnival is up at Mother in Israel. I had a post in mind but didn't blog it in time and then didn't submit it!

blog carnivals.

The wisdom of (the) solomon (project)

via memeorandum

Foreign Ministry opens Sderot bureau / Neta Sela

The group will be taken to view Sderot and Israel's 'narrow waistline' by helicopter in an effort to convey the true meaning of a return to the borders of June 4th 1967. The guests are also scheduled to visit with the top negotiator for the Palestinian Authority, Saeb Erekat and may also meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni.

"We are looking forward to an informative and educational trip," said National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) Executive Director Ira Forman, director of research for the Solomon Project Research.

"It is important that progressive bloggers and leaders of progressive organizations learn first-hand about the current situation in Israel. We also want to provide them with an eye-opening experience that will help them better understand the complexity of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Among those participating in the tour are Daily Kos editor David Waldman and former Moveon.org lobbyist Tom Matzzie, who currently heads the anti-war 'Campaign to Defend America.'

LGF doesn't hold out much hope:

And wouldn’t it be wonderful if unicorns from space cured the common cold?

I checked out the link to the Daily KOS editor, David Waldman (or Kagro X) and he didn't seem to address Israel at all. Maybe he was chosen because he hasn't displayed any antipathy towards Israel.

The Moderate Voice.Jill Miller Zimon writes:

I haven’t written much about this, but I will be traveling to Israel for two weeks later this year. What saddens me is that the government of Israel thinks that a visit to Israel might be able to accomplish what none of us who have tried to be reasonable on sites such as Daily Kos about Israel have been able to accomplish.

That assumes that the impetus of the trip came from Israel. But the article reports that the Solomon Project organized the trip. (From what I can tell, the Solomon Project appears to be related to the NJDC. It's not just because Ira Forman is involved with both organizations. The Solomon Project's analysis of the 2004 Jewish vote was done, in part, by Stanley Greenberg's polling firm.)

Ira Forman and the NJDC have a problem. Even as they promote the essentially Democratic nature of the Jewish electorate, and claim that support for Israel is bi-partisan, the Democratic electorate is markedly less pro-Israel than is the Republican electorate. (h/t Mere Rhetoric)

The Democrats seem to be far less supportive of Israel than Republicans. The margin is significant - 20% (84% GOP, 64% Dem. Note that they dislike Iran and the Palestinian Authority in similar numbers). And one can argue that 64% is still very nice, a clear and unshakable majority. But imagine this: If Democrats would have been as favorable of Israel as Republicans, Israel would have been at the top of the list, second only to Canada and Britain. And here is another such nugget: "Younger adults are also more likely than those 55 and older to have favorable views of" Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Iran. They are less likely to have favorable view of Israel.

So perhaps Forman is correct to try and convince more blog reading Democrats that they ought to support Israel. I agree with the skeptics, but at least he's trying to make a difference.

If nothing else, it serves to remind the public that not every Democrat is likely to seek out Khaled Meshaal like a certain ex-President is reported to be interested in.

The Other McCain writes (via memeorandum)

It's impossible to find words strong enough to denounce this move by Carter. It demonstrates his indifference to who Hamas is and what Hamas does. Hamas is is an organization dedicated to the annihilation of Israel. It exists for one purpose and one purpose only: To kill Jews.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, democrats, republicans.

Palestinian Refugees Get A Chile Reception

The Occupied Territories were among the top ten fastest growing economies in the world during the 1970's The World Bank

The reception in Chile is the kind theses refugees appreciate and deserve:

Chile on Sunday greeted 39 Palestinians from a refugee camp in Syria for permanent resettlement, and local residents turned out to give them a rousing welcome.

"Leave your suffering in the past and let Chile be the fountain of your newfound happiness," deputy Interior Secretary Felipe Harboe told the tired newcomers, who spent 40 hours traveling to this farming community north of Santiago.

The Palestinians, 23 of them children, were greeted by an official welcoming committee and many cheering locals who waved Palestinian flags and signs recalling their own Middle Eastern descent from immigrants who arrived when La Calera was founded in the late 19th century.

"Through you we relive the adventure of being an immigrant," La Calera Mayor Roberto Chahuan, the grandchild of Palestinians, told the exhausted refugees who were to be settled in apartment buildings in the town.

After the ceremony, the Palestinian families were escorted to their apartments. Local authorities will provide education, health care and Spanish classes.

The 39 Palestinians are the first of a group of 117 Chile has accepted to resettle under a 2007 program it agreed to with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

What is not immediately clear from the article is that these refugees are from Iraq, as initially reported when the agreement was first made last year in September:

Chile accepts 100 Palestinian refugees displaced from Iraq

Several Chilean cities have offered to take in as many as 100 Palestinian refugees that are currently living in refugee camps along the Iraqi border. These include the cities of La Calera and San Felipe in Region V, and Ñuñoa in the Metropolitan Region.

There are currently 1.100 refugees in Chile
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will provide housing and food for the next two years, while the cities guarantee access to education and health care.

What is most interesting is the history and success of Palestinian Arabs in Chile, especially in La Calera. According to Wikipedia:

Due to its central location and the pioneer commercial work of the Palestinian immigrants, La Calera is nowadays the main commercial centre in the interior of the Fifth Region, even though it is not the capital city in the province, and also the industrial source to work for the rural population around it. Taking into account the fact that La Calera is a very small town with an infrastructure and economy not noteworthy at all in the zone, the city has developed commerce in a very advanced way. The inhabitants surrounding it in a circle of 15 km radio overpass the 150,000, which allows the development of downtown La Calera as a commercial centre. José Joaquín Perez and Arturo Prat Streets are full of Stores and Shops owned originally by Palestinians.

...Among the important immigrant communities set in La Calera before 1950, Palestinians and Italians stand out, which makes it the town with the largest proportion of Palestine people out of the Mid-Eastern World.

The success of the Palestinian Arab community in Chile is not surprising. Efraim Karsh has written about the success of Palestinian Arabs before the Intifada:

The larger part, still untold in all its detail, is of the astounding social and economic progress made by the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli "oppression." At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire. Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor. Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60 percent of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83 percent. Within a brief period after the war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors.

...During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world-ahead of such "wonders" as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. [emphasis added]

CAMERA also notes that:

the Palestinian territories had one of the ten fastest growing economies during the 1970's, just behind Saudi Arabia (which benefitted from the oil shock of 1973), and ahead of Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. (World Bank, ratio of real per capita GNP in 1980 to real per capita GNP in 1970)

This is based on the publication by The World Bank: Developing the Occupied Territories: An Investment in Peace

And during the 1990's, things were looking up again. Check out this article from March 1995, Soon The Gaza Strip Will Be Competing With Singapore, all about

the industrial parks which the leadership of the [Israeli] Foreign, Industry and Finance Ministries is planning at this very moment, under total secrecy. The goal: to establish between 8 to 11 such parks on the cease-fire line between Israel and the autonomous areas, which the Palestinian Authority will control within the next few months.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is the one who envisioned all this, and those close to him say with pride: We are getting closer to Singapore, Taiwan and Hong-Kong, in huge steps.

And then, after the vision arrives to develop the cities Gaza, Dir Al- Balah, Ofakim and Sderot it will be copied in the cease-fire line between Afula and Jenin, to Mt. Hebron and Tul-Karm, and will reach the entrance of Kochav Yair.

Each industrial park will be established for about 10,000 employees, and will sit on 2,000 dunam of land, with considerable financial assistance from foreign investors and also governmental subsidies. The Palestinians will run them, and be its workers, for the most part.

The fact that the progress has disappeared and the dreams are in ashes is the responsibility of the corrupt and murderous Palestinian leadership. La Calera, Chile gives a hint at what could have been.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Palestinians.

Submitted 04/09/08

The Watcher's Council nominations are up!

The Judgment Thing - The Glittering Eye writes about the cynical way that the Democratic contenders position themselves regarding Iraq. (Yes there's more, but I have to summarize this succinctly.)
In Honor of the Final Season of "Battlestar Galactica" ... - The Colossus of Rhodey looks at the "history" of the humans of Battlestar Galactica and offers a suggestion that would have made their acquisition of technology a bit more "realistic."
Air Hypocrisy Radio Suspends Randi Rhodes - Rhymes With Right accuses Air America of hypocrisy for suspending Randi Rhodes for her recent comments. They should have taken action for her history of outrageous insensitive comments.
Media Fish in a Barrel - Done With Mirrors does an independent analysis of a picture illustrating a story in the Independent and finds it to be recycled.
Starts Well, Ends Badly - Hillbilly White Trash fisks an analysis of the Heller case.
"If You Give A Mouse A Cookie"... Accommodating Islam - Joshuapundit looks at Harvard's recent granting of separate gym time for Muslim women who wish to exercise modestly and sees it as allowing the first of many accommodations to Islam.
The Wizard of Ooze - Bookworm Room examines the ideology of Sen. Obama. She says not to dismiss him as an empty suit, but as a true believer. I'd also like to call your attention to a Rolling Stone article The Radical Roots of Barack Obama recently renamed "Destiny's Child."
Assumptions & Conclusions About Sadr, Maliki and the Basra Offensive - Wolf Howling addresses a number of assertions about the nature of the Iraqi government's offensive against Al-Sadr's forces in Basra.
Quote of the Day: Unsacrificed Virgins Edition - Cheat Seeking Missiles expresses his admiration for a young lady who's committed to waiting.
Censorchimps: The East Texas Subspecies - The Education Wonks jumps on some administrators taste for censorship. A John Edwards t-shirt? What would have happened if he'd really done something bad like slashing a teacher's tires?
Progress In Iraq a Tough Sell for Petreaus - Right Wing Nut House lays out the difficulties that he expected Gen. Petreaus to have in presenting the surge's progress in Iraq. May I also call your attention to yesterday's column by David Brooks, to Michelle Malkin's roundup and to this map that Gen. Petreaus presented illustrating the surge's progress?
Black, White, Grey - In my post I looked at the (relatively) free pass Sen. Obama has received regarding his ideology and attachment to a controversial figure. See Bookworm Room above for a fuller treatment of the same.

On the non-watcher's side I'd like to call your attention to my nominee, Israel Matzav's Peace Piece by Piece Now's 30th anniversary celebration, in which the foreign financed organization celebrates its birthday claiming to represent the Israeli public when, in fact, its views are paid for by foreigners and are actually closer to those of the PA than of Israel.

JoshuaPundit's nominee Boker Tov Boulder's Your government's dollars at work .. for the Palestinians an examination of how the U.S. government supports not such innocuous projects in support of the Palestinians.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

Nuke Day in Iran, Nukes "good experience for youth," "annihilation," etc.

Ahmadinejad's announcement that 6,000 more centrifuges have been installed at the Natanz nuclear site is getting a fair amount of press coverage today. It so happens that it's the jolly occasion of "National Nuclear Technology Day" in Iran, commemorating the first production of nuclear fuel at Natanz. Here's a typical story from IRNA: "Iran nuclear program, good experience for youth: MP"

A parliamentarian said on Tuesday that the national nuclear program, despite foreign pressures, is a good and useful experience for the young generation.

Reza Talaie-Nik, a member of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, told IRNA that peaceful nuclear program is an honor for the Iranian youth.

He added that the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear achievements have paved the way for the country's significant diplomatic and technological progress at international arena.

All Muslim nations praise Iran's nuclear achievements and express their support for Iranian nuclear program, the MP added.

Nothing delights Sunni Arabs more than the the thought of Persian Shias with nukes. The nukes are for purely peaceful purposes, right?

He expressed the hope that the Islamic Republic would gain more victories in its peaceful nuclear activities through national unity and Islamic solidarity.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a ceremony marking the third anniversary of National Day of Nuclear Technology in Natanz nuclear site, the central province of Isfahan, Tuesday.

On this day two years ago, Iranian scientists produced uranium enriched 3.5 percent in its Natanz facility and the country became self-sufficient on production of fuel thanks to the efforts made by young talented experts. [...]

Here's a passage from an IRIB story entitled "IRI gains N-technology at highest level":

[...] "During the bullying period of some powers, the Iranian nation didnot entered the show of these powers and continued its independent path," [Ahmadinejad] said.

He underlined that the Iranian nation could break the satanic hegemony of these powers and this would be the focal point in extinction of them.

Funny how none of that rhetoric made it into the BBC or Reuters articles, isn't it?

"The speedy trend of fall of the bullying powers has been started," he said.

He advised the big powers to quit aggressive relations and stand by the nations because this would be in favor of them.

"If the big powers continue their aggressive approach, their annihilation will be near," he said. [...]

The thought of Iran's making all that peaceful technological progress will make them so mad that they'll just poof out of existence!

Crossposted on Judeopundit

The very model of a middle east correspondent

Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post is one of those Jerusalem bureau chiefs who have parlayed their time in the Middle East into a book and further fame and fortune. Now the Deputy Editorial Page Editor of the Washington Post, he holds forth about foreign affairs most weeks. This week he treated us to The Road Map to a Gaza War.

Like him I believe that Israel is reaching a point where it can't ignore the rockets from Gaza any more. However, I don't view an eventual Israeli counterattack as an intolerable escalation.

Diehl starts:

Seven years ago George W. Bush's incoming foreign policy team blamed the Clinton administration for an eleventh-hour rush for a Middle East peace agreement that ended with the explosion of the second Palestinian intifada. Now, with less than 10 months remaining in office, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are engaged in a similar last-minute push -- yet they don't seem to recognize the growing risk that their initiative, too, will end with another Israeli-Palestinian war.

I don't remember how Diehl felt in 2000. However the incoming Bush administration was correct. The Clinton administration's push for a treaty couple by its ignoring the constant Palestinian violations of previously signed agreements were contributing factors to the "Aqsa intifada" that Arafat launched in September 2000. The value place on Arafat as being an indispensable "peace partner" shielded him from the diplomatic isolation he so richly deserved.

That battle seemed on the verge of beginning a month ago, when Hamas for the first time began firing Iranian-made missiles at the Israeli city of Ashkelon -- in addition to the volleys of homemade rockets it has been aiming at the smaller town of Sderot for several years. After a punishing series of Israeli airstrikes the fighting subsided, and with the State Department's encouragement Egypt began to broker discussions about a more enduring truce. In previous columns, I've argued that such a cease-fire in Gaza is the least bad of Israel's limited options.

Well, yes, Diehl did argue that allowing rockets to continue falling on Isreali citizens was the least bad option. But what's driving the Israeli view?

But officials portray Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak as having little interest in a deal with Hamas. They acknowledge that a suspension of attacks by both sides might make the ongoing peace talks easier -- and that the outbreak of an all-out conflict would almost certainly kill the Annapolis process. Yet, increasingly Israeli officials see the confrontation in Gaza with Hamas as more important in strategic terms than the talks with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The view in Jerusalem, as more than one official put it to me, is that there is no alternative to a military collision with Hamas in Gaza, probably before the end of the Bush administration.

The grim Israeli view is driven to a large degree by what officials say is the massive and continuing smuggling of weapons into Gaza, sponsored by Iran and tacitly allowed by Egypt, which despite considerable pressure from Washington shrinks from actions that might trigger its own confrontation with Hamas. Hamas is building hardened bunker systems and stockpiling missiles in imitation of the infrastructure built in southern Lebanon by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement. The Israelis say hundreds of Hamas militants have traveled to Iran for training in targeting and firing Grad missiles, Iran's version of the old Soviet Katyusha.

Note how, to Diehl, the idea that the current situation is intolerable is an "Israeli view." Somehow it doesn't occur to Diehl that if a portion of a sovereign country was uninhabitable due to terrorism, that is reason to wage war against the terrorists.

Worse, he acknowledges that Egypt a country officially at peace with Israel is turning a blind eye to the terrorist build up. He also acknowledges (though with "the Israelis say" as a qualification) that Hamas is a proxy of Iran the neighborhood bully.

Sobered by the bloody nose it suffered when it attacked Hezbollah's Lebanese base in 2006, the Israeli army has been training against Hamas's Gaza strong points. But officials say that the longer the army waits to take on what is now viewed as a strategic threat, the greater Hamas's chance will be to inflict heavy casualties or strike southern Israeli cities with missiles. The cease-fire Egypt seeks (and that Hamas sometimes says it wants) would only make the problem worse, in the Israeli analysis, by giving Hamas the opportunity to accelerate its buildup.

Notice again that Diehl writes about the threats Israel is facing and then qualifies it with "in the Israeli analysis." Anyone who observed what happened in northern Israel in 2006, knows this to be true. Hezbollah was allowed to arm and fortify its positions for six years with no harassment from Israel. Hamas is doing the same; not because it's a social services organization, but because it is a terrorist organization.

Bush and Rice would like Israel to hold off against Hamas until Olmert can complete an agreement on principles for a final Israeli-Palestinian settlement with Abbas. While Olmert still wants that deal, it's become increasingly clear to the Israelis that an Abbas-led government will never be able to implement it. Despite extensive international aid, the West Bank Palestinian administration remains little more than a shell kept in power by Israel's troops. Hamas, the Israelis say, can stop the peace process at any time by resuming missile attacks against Ashkelon. And whatever happens in Gaza -- whether an Israeli-Hamas truce or all-out war -- Abbas stands to be further damaged. His prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has hinted privately that he might favor an Israeli attack on Hamas, because it would allow Abbas's Fatah movement to take control of Gaza. But Abbas's security forces are unlikely to be strong enough to control Gaza's population of 1.5 million anytime soon.

If Bush and Rice would like Israel to "hold off" then they are mistaken. In essence Diehl is arguing here that Hamas is essential to peace and Israel ought to deal with Hamas rather than fight it. Fatah is probably not capable of taking over anything. I wouldn't trust them even if they were. But Fatah's capabilities have been largely destroyed by Israel because, despite its commitments, it built terror infrastructure instead of an economic one.

The Israelis say the coming confrontation won't necessarily involve a full-scale reoccupation of the Gaza Strip. Given the predictable international backlash against any Israeli offensive, and the inevitable satellite television coverage of suffering Palestinians, Olmert is likely to wait for a clear provocation from Hamas. Perhaps it won't happen for a few more months. But what concerns some Israelis is the lack of readiness by the Bush administration for the possibility that its drive for Mideast peace will be overwhelmed by a Mideast war.

But there's also a lack of readiness on the part of some analysts to acknowledge that clear provocation has been given over the past 7 years. (Yes Hamas terrorists were firing rockets into Israel before "disengagement." Their frequency increased after Israel surrendered Gaza.)

Daniel Pipes writes:

Sadly, indeed embarrassingly, the children are those of S'derot, an Israeli town of 19,000 near the border with Gaza that has been under a missile barrage since the Israeli retreat from Gaza in September 2005, with thousands of missiles to date. These have causing damage to property and injuries and death to residents.

The national government of Israel has basically averted its collective eyes from this tragedy, leaving the citizens of S'derot and potentially other towns to fend basically for themselves.

Into the breach now has come www.SaveIsraelsChildren.com, a Brooklyn-based non-profit that matchmakes between "families wanting to send their children abroad, and families who are willing to provide a temporary ‘home' for these children."

Comment: The need for such a private initiative points to the moral and operational bankruptcy of the Olmert government in Israel. (April 3, 2008)

Similarly, Norman Podhoretz who supported the Israeli abandonment of Gaza writes:

Obviously I could not foresee that Sharon would be felled by a stroke and that Ehud Olmert would be left to follow through on his strategy. Nor did I anticipate the takeover of Gaza by the terrorists of Hamas. Nor in any of the wildest worst-case scenarios I could conjure up did it ever occur to me that, in the aftermath of disengagement, an Israeli government—any Israeli government—would sit by passively while missiles were being fired day after day from Gaza into Sderot or any other patch of Israeli territory.

The provocations are ongoing. Israel has shown incredible (but misguided) restraint. That allows analysts like Diehl to assume that Israeli cities under fire is a natural state of affairs. There is no other country that would tolerate what Israeli tolerates if it had the capacity to strike back. And Israel has the capacity to do so.

To Diehl, the worst possible thing would be for Israel to strike back. But for Israel to strike at the Hamas infrastructure stands the best chance of giving Israelis living in Sderot normal lives. It stands the best chance of keeping larger cities such as Ashkelon or Ashdod of coming into the range of longer range rockets. Hamas cannot be trusted. Egypt cannot be trusted. Iran must not be trusted.

If the Bush administration is holding Israel back it is doing Israel grave harm and hurting the fight against Iran. Terrorists do respond. Israel's non-response has given Hamas encouragement to continue terrorizing Sderot and prepare to sow fear and destruction over a wider area. However much Diehl thinks that an Israeli war with Hamas is a bad idea, the status quo is worse.

Crossposted at Yourish.

Bottom up concilliation

In a network of Truces David Brooks argues:

The surge didn’t create the network of truces, but the truces couldn’t have happened without the surge. More than 70,000 local council members are paid by the Americans. They rely on the U.S. military to enforce bargains and deter truce-breaking. Thanks to these arrangements, ethno-sectarian violence dropped by 90 percent between June 2007 and March 2008. That’s the result of political progress, not just counterinsurgency techniques.

It has become common to belittle these truces. After all, they are not written by legislators on parchment. And indeed there’s a significant chance that they will indeed collapse and the country will devolve into anarchy.

But in certain societies, this is the way order is established, through what Salzman calls “balanced opposition.” As long as the network of truces holds, then the next president (Democrat or Republican) will have an overwhelming incentive to nurture the fragile peace.

One of the fallacies of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process was that the PLO was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people so that Israel had to deal with the PLO. As it happened the PLO was one of many illegitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. Imposing the PLO on Israel (and the Palestinians) was a folly of the first order.

Maybe the idea of relying on the central government is essential to success in Iraq has been downgraded and that stability will emerge from the little fiefdoms now being created around the country.

Pay-Per-Riot News

Arutz Sheva has a post about the City of David organization, which has purchased properties in Silwan (Shiloach). Part of the controversy is centered around the claim of archaeological digs that supposedly disrupt the lives of the local Arabs. Hussein Siyam, the Mukhtar of Silwan--a tribal leader in the area--has come out publicly to say that in fact the digs are pre-existing and in fact all that is being done is just cleaning out those digs.

So what is the cause of the misunderstanding? One of the causes, according to Siyam:

“A German news company recruits activists here and gives them money to make problems in order to report on them,” he claimed.

A German journalist, also at the Mukhtar’s home, told his colleagues that the claim seemed a bit “Middle Eastern” to him, but he conceded that local Arabs were hired by foreign agencies – conceivably able to get the news fastest because they are involved in producing it.

This raises again the issue of Pallywood.

Put this in the context of the shrinking number of foreign bureaus as print newspapers as the emphasis is being placed on local coverage--as described by Media Backspin. One of the main sources for news from the region becomes the few who maintain foreign bureaus and the news agencies such as AP and Reuters, who become hard-pressed to provide news about the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Check out Augean Stables and the post Pallywood Strikes Again. Richard Landes discusses the video provided by France2 and Charles Enderlin and how in fact it backs up the claim that staged news has been foisted upon the public as real. In the video below, Landes demonstrates how the proof allegedly provided in the raw footage does not hold up. But more than that, at about 6:45 minutes into the video, Landes talks about the reaction of the judge in the case, who at one point turned to Philippe Karsenty and asked "so AP has also sold out?"

Good question.

Have we entered the era of supply-side reporting?

DC Rally protesting Abu Ghraib
	anti-World Trade Organization protest in Cancun

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Pallywood and Media Bias.

The wages of moderation

via memeorandum

Boker Tov Boulder lists many of the ways that the American government is supporting the terrorist activities of the PA.

It's worth adding that though the administration publicly favors isolating Hamas, in fact even the moderate Fatah has been using foreign aid to support Hamas as Elder of Ziyon has noted.

PM Fayyad has even been honest enough to admit this.

Why is it again that our government (and the Israeli government) considers Fatah moderate?

Crossposted on Yourish.

When condi met johnny

William Kristol writes in the Shape of the Race to Come in which he lays out this nightmare (for Republicans) scenario (via memeorandum):

I can report that lots of conservatives and Republicans expect Barack Obama to be our next president.

Some Republicans are grasping at the idea that a long, bitter fight for the Democratic nomination will weaken Obama. Their hopes are about to be dashed. After the results are in from Pennsylvania on April 22, or from Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, it should become clear that Hillary Clinton won’t be able to catch Obama in the overall popular vote. Without that possibility, Clinton won’t have a shot at persuading superdelegates to break her way.

So Clinton will probably concede by mid-May. She’ll be a gracious loser (they’ll hide Bill away somewhere). The weeks that follow will be a Democratic lovefest. And the money will keep pouring in to the Obama campaign, ensuring Democratic dominance of the airwaves in the summer.

The Democratic convention is the last week in August. Shortly before, Obama will pick his running mate. He’ll have good choices available to him: experienced figures like Sam Nunn, Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle, a senator with military service like Rhode Island’s Jack Reed — or, of course, Hillary Clinton. Then the Hollywood-produced and directed Democratic convention will be all uplifting Change and inspiring Hope, and it will work.

What could Sen. McCain do to counter this? One possibility that's getting discussed is selecting Condoleezza Rice as his VP. Not only that, but it's being reported the Sec. Rice has been actively campaigning for the slot.

I'd guess that I'm skeptical of this claim that Sec. Rice is running. Just a few weeks ago when the speculation started, she was pretty emphatic about not seeking elective office.

I have always said that the one thing that I have not seen myself doing is running for elected office in the United States. I have -- for elected office, because I didn't even run for high school president. You know, it's sort of not in my genes.

Look, it's possible she was just being coy. But if she was, it would be pretty soon for her to start campaigning after making a statement like that. It would come across as perhaps a bit too over-aggressive. Sen. McCain isn't picking his running mate until the convention. We've still got four months to go. For Sec. Rice to be openly campaigning now, I think, would be bad form.

I'm not usually into conspiracy theories, but I suspect that such whispers may be coming from her political detractors. They may have seen her talk in front of Grover Norquist's group and perhaps other activities as suggesting that she's intersted in raising her profile for consideration. I don't think that it's coming from her.

But aside from that, I don't see Sen. McCain choosing Sec. Rice to be his VP. On one hand having the second female candidate and first black candidate for VP, would perhaps blunt some of the appeal of Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton. And there's no doubt that Sec. Rice has high level experience.

However, Sen. McCain is likely to position himself apart from the current administration. There is no one in the Bush administration who is identified with the President more than Sec. Rice. I believe that alone among his cabinet she was advising him as a candidate. It will be hard for Sen. McCain to distance himself from the Bush administration if Sec. Rice were on his ticket.

Specifically, Sec. Rice is a liability regarding the war in Iraq. Sen. McCain can argue that he supported the war but differed with the administration on its execution. He could even argue that his views had been followed, the war would have shown better results sooner. However, columnist David Ignatius has argued that as National Security Adviser, Sec. Rice didn't mediate successfully between Secretaries Powell and Rumsfeld. I don't necessarily take Ignatius seriously, but if he makes the case, you can be sure the Democrats will.

In short, I can't see Sen. McCain choosing Sec. Rice as his VP. Strata-sphere, though would disagree.

Musical monday #41

Every week Elie and I switch off
You know the drill. All songs have something in common. What is it? No googling etc.
1) Oh, won't you come with me and walk this land
2) That's really, really where I'm going to
3) ...but these tears I cant hold inside.
(This is for a specific version of this song.)
4) I want you so bad babe
(I hope this is specific enough.)
5) I saw you dancin' in the gym.
6) The purple piper plays his tune,
7) She sends a cable comin' in from above
8) And the morals that they worship will be gone
9) I have accountants pay for it all
10) with fiery eyes and dreams no one could steal
11) ... woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand.
(I don't know what it is but I hate this artist. But the song fits)
12) Talk and song from tongues of lilting grace
13) But please don't take it badly,
14) And we both know hearts can change
15) I never meant 2 cause u any pain
16) Mr. Mojo Risin
17) a glass of wine in her hand
18) you know sometimes words have two meanings.
19) Engineer boots, leather jackets
20) Maybe get a blister on your little finger
21) 'Cause quittin' just ain't my schtick
22) By making his world a little colder
23) I'm comin' to liberate you, confiscate you,
24) Like a dog without a bone
25) we got a real pressure cooker going here
UPDATE: There were 3 or 4 songs I had in mind that I'd forgotten, so let's round this out to 30.
26) It took a while, but she looked in the mirror,
27) The night is coming and the starling flew for days
28) You've been running and hiding much too long.
29) On a silver black phantom bike
30) We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks

Solutions to 39 and other stuff hopefully tonight!

19 months

At 1:15 AM this morning she turned 83 weeks old.

The communication continues to improve. It seems that not a day goes by when she doesn't discover a new word. (Or that we don't discover that she knows a new word.)

One day I asked her what a horsie says. She told me "naaay." She's just about ready to take the SAT's.

Of course there are special speech patterns that I have to get used to. "Bottle" for example means both bottle and cup. So if she asks for a "bottle" and gets increasingly frustrated with me for offering her a bottle, it's because she wanted a cup. That is pretty typical from what I've observed. Babies often use general terms before they learn specific incidences.

(Our next youngest used to call all animals "Max" after my in-laws dog. It wasn't just dogs that were Max, but all animals, until she learned to differentiate.)

She also now eats by herself a lot more. She can drink from an open cup. When we eat together, there's a pretty good chance she'll come to me and motion for my glass. At that point she wants to drink from my open glass - even if its water - than drink from her own cup.

She also feeds herself a bit. My wife showed me a way around the yogurt problem. It's to pour yogurt into a bowl and hand her a spoon. She will eat like that. It's not neat, but it accomplishes the purpose of getting some food into her. (Even with crackers, for example, seemingly she'd rather take them out of the packaging than have me hand them to her!)

One thing she does really well is going down stairs. She just goes limp and slides. I sometimes get a jolt when I see how fast she moves!

As she approaches two, she is increasingly contrary and manipulative. She loves to fight me when I'm dressing her. She'll run away and force me to catch and restrain her. And it's not common for her to kick.

If she doesn't want to do something she will twist her body to make it more difficult to lift her. And she really has the head shaking/"no" thing down really well.

Sometimes it can be a little frustrating when I'm in a rush and I have to chase her down, but of course, she's extremely affectionate and when she runs to me when I come home at night, there's no better feeling. Often then, we also play a rigorous game of hide and seek.

Previous related posts:
18 months, 17 months, 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.

Haddad-Adel calls for boycott of "West," Wilders film attacks Bill O'Reilly, Pope misunderstood "Organic Verses"

Fars News comes unglued over Fitna: "Speaker Calls on Muslims to Boycott Trade with West"

Iranian Parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said that the Muslim world should boycott trade with any country that allows insult to Islam.

That's just about every non-Muslim country there is.

Haddad Adel was quoted by press tv as stating that sacrilege of Islamic sanctities is the ugliest kind of cultural onslaught and violation of human rights.

Speaking at the first open parliament session in the new Iranian calendar year (started March 20), he pointed out that it is astonishing that the West has so vehemently targeted Islam in recent years.

"The Western countries are making optimum use of books, films, animations and their media to weaken the beliefs of Muslims and to insult Islamic sanctities," Haddad Adel said.

He expressed his opinion that the Western countries will reconsider their attitude toward Islam when they see their economic interests at stake.

The remarks by the Iranian parliament speaker followed a 17-minute-long anti-Islam film produced by the far-right Dutch politician Greet Wilders, which mocks at Islamic values.

The movie titled "Fitna" features shocking insults to Islam and Islamic values. It urges Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from the Koran and starts and finishes with a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) with a bomb under his turban, originally published in Danish newspapers.

Last week, Iran summoned Dutch Ambassador Radinck van Vollenhoven to protest at the film.

The envoy, for his part, voiced sorrow about the broadcast of the "anti-Islamic" film and emphasized that it was condemned by the Dutch government.

Meantime, A Non-Governmental Organization in Iran has started production of a documentary called 'Beyond Fitna' to respond to the far-right Dutch politician's provocative dissertation.

According to FNA reports, the Iranian organization called 'NGO Islam and Christianity' has already started production of the documentary.

The NGO's documentary called 'Beyond Fitna' deals with incitement of violence in the Bible. Muslims believe that the book deemed holy by Christians today is a distorted version of the original Bible.

'Beyond Fitna' focuses on the orders given to worldwide Christians in the (distorted version of) Bible for stoking violence, committing genocide, attacking others, beheading and burning women and children who have been taken into captivity.

The documentary recycles film clips from crimes committed by extremist Christians under the inspirations of the said Bible teachings, and aims to provide a response to the allegations made by Pope Benedict XVI, who called Islam a religion of violence after misunderstanding certain Organic verses.

Isn't that a book by Salman Rushdie?

'Beyond Fitna' is produced while an overwhelming wave of protest is shown by worldwide Muslim and Christian communities against Wilder's movie.

Wilders' provocative movie sparked worldwide protests even before it hit the Internet on March 27.

Wilders' movie is a documentary-style exposé of American trash-journalist Bill O'Reilly's militant calls for violent demonstrations and reprisals against "unbelievers" who dare to oppose his dogma. [...]

Imam O'Reilly?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

It's not ideology it's competence

Remember 20 years ago when a Massachusetts governor running for President told the sitting vice president in a debate that what Americans were looking for was competence not ideology. So the sitting VP, took ever effort to show that Massachusetts governor's competence was questionable and in November George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis to become the 41st President of the United States.

This year a former governor of Massachusetts ran for President and one of his selling points was his managerial competence. And one of his main accomplishments was the universal healthcare system he implemented in the Bay State.

Well now the NY Times reports, In Massachusetts, Universal Coverage Strains Care via memeorandum:

Once they discover that she is Dr. Kate, the supplicants line up to approach at dinner parties and ballet recitals. Surely, they suggest to Dr. Katherine J. Atkinson, a family physician here, she might find a way to move them up her lengthy waiting list for new patients.

Those fortunate enough to make it soon learn they face another long wait: Dr. Atkinson’s next opening for a physical is not until early May — of 2009.

In pockets of the United States, rural and urban, a confluence of market and medical forces has been widening the gap between the supply of primary care physicians and the demand for their services. Modest pay, medical school debt, an aging population and the prevalence of chronic disease have each played a role.

Now in Massachusetts, in an unintended consequence of universal coverage, the imbalance is being exacerbated by the state’s new law requiring residents to have health insurance.

And then there's this:

Studies show that the number of medical school graduates in the United States entering family medicine training programs, or residencies, has dropped by 50 percent since 1997. A decadelong decline gave way this year to a slight increase in numbers, perhaps because demand is driving up salaries.

Fears of malpractice and insurance hassles no doubt play a role in the decline of "family practice" physicians. So now this universal plan that will overburden practices threatens another disincentive.

Don Surber opines:

Good intentions also lead to shortages in everything. What the New York Times calls “unintended consequences,” I call predictable.

While there are certainly reasons to like the thought of Mitt Romney as VP, maybe it's a bit early to be speculating about it.

UPDATE: Mahablog writes:

Another rightie, Soccer Dad, concludes that the primary care physician shortage proves Mitt Romney (credited with the Massachusetts health care program) is incompetent. Romney may be incompetent, but the fact is whenever and however the U.S. finds a way to provide decent health care services to those currently uninsured, whether by public or private means, what’s happening in Massachusetts is going to be a nationwide phenomenon.

I didn't mean to say that universal care plan in Massachusetts proves that Romney is incompetent. I was careless in my analogy. What I meant to say is that the problems attributed to the Massachusetts healthcare system represent a negative in Gov. Romney's otherwise impressive resume. Comparing him to Dukakis was unfair. But I'm glad that Mahablog accepts the premise that Dukakis was incompetent.

I'm also pleased to be called a "wingnut" and compared to Don Surber. Considering the source, both are (unintended) compliments. Please read The Glittering Eye too.

election 2008, massachusetts.

Marash speaks out

David Marash who was the American face of Al Jazeera English has an interview where he explains his decision to leave. I find his naivitee about Al Jazeera a bit disconcerting. Still here's his identification of the point where AJE stopped being "objective" or "transparent."

DM: I think that the world changed about nine, ten months ago. And I think the single event in that change was the visit to the gulf by Vice President Cheney, where he went to line up the allied ducks in a row behind the possibility of action against Iran. And instead of getting acquiescence, the United States got defiance, and instead ducks in a row the ducks basically went off on their own and the first sort of major breakthrough on that was the Mecca agreement, which defied the American foreign policy by letting Hamas into the tent of the governance of the Palestinian territories. This enraged the State Department and was one crystal clear sign that the Mideast region was now off campus, was off on its own. And it is around this time, and I think not coincidentally, that you see the state of Qatar and the royal family of Qatar starting to make up their feud with the Saudis, and you start to see on both Al Jazeera Arabic and English a very sort of first-personish, “my Haj” stories that were boosterish of the Haj and of Saudi Arabia. And you start to see stories of analysis in The New York Times where regional people are noting that Al Jazeera seems to be changing its editorial stance toward Saudi Arabia. I’m suggesting that around that time, a decision was made at the highest levels of [Al Jazeera] that simply following the American political leadership and the American political ideal of global, universalist values carried out in an absolutely pure, multipolar, First Amendment global conversation, was no longer the safest or smartest course, and that it was time, in fact, to get right with the region. And I think part of getting right with the region was slightly changing the editorial ambition of Al Jazeera English, and I think it has subsequently become a more narrowly focused, more univocal channel than was originally conceived.

I don't necessarily read this as Marash blaming the administration, though I suppose it could be read that way. It does make me wonder why the United States spends so much effort trying to make nice with the Arab world when it's clear that the Arab world doesn't much care for us.

Incidentally this contradicts Marash's earlier claims that the English at the station were more anti-American than the Qataris. (Maybe that's true, but it was suggested that it was the Brit anti-Americanism that alienated him.)

Related thoughts from the Jewish Press.

Crossposted at Yourish.

al jazeera.

Not right and left

In his first outing as the NY Times correspondent in Israel, Ethan Bronner turns in a reasonably good effort with A Town Under Fire Becomes a Symbol for Israel about life in Sderot.

My only real quibble with the article is this:

As much as Sderot is a symbol, it is also a kind of Rorschach test — a screen onto which various political factions project their hopes and fears. For the right, it is evidence that only force will stop the rockets; for the left it is evidence that force is not the answer and that the rockets cannot be stopped without a new approach.

One attempt at a new approach involves a group in Sderot that has started holding discussions with Palestinians in Gaza via speakerphone. The group, Another Voice, is urging a cease-fire. There is also a new blog, a discussion between a resident of Sderot and one of Gaza, both anonymous.

To break this down as political is an odd choice. Bronner, himself reported earlier:

The sense that Sderot is actually Israel’s front line in its battle for legitimacy and self-respect has gained real currency, just as in the Arab world the suffering of Gazans has taken on a special significance. For Israelis, the conviction of Sderot’s importance began growing with the huge increase in rocket fire since the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and after the 2006 war with Hezbollah, which sent thousands of rockets into northern Israel.

(emphasis mine)

That observation alone underscores that the lesson of the political right is the correct one. Political concessions haven't earned Israel the peace that was predicted. And the end of the item emphasizes this point:

Avi Farhan, who was a settler in the Sinai before it was returned to Egypt and then in Gaza before the Israelis withdrew, said he agreed with Rabbi Fendel that the withdrawal was a mistake. Standing on a bluff near his new apartment, he can see what remains of his former Gaza settlement, now a staging ground for rocket fire.

“From my old house, they can now shell my new house,” he said ruefully.

Israel withdrew from the Sinai, and then Gaza and the Arab world still treats it as hostile. Will more withdrawal bring peace closer or encourage Israel's enemies? It's not an issue of right and left but an issue of whether Israel learns from experience.

UPDATE: Yaacov Lozowick writes:

The question remains, when will the Palestinians understand what will - namely, that they demonstrate that their goal is to build their state next to ours, rather than to destroy ours and then to wallow in their misery.

Boker Tov Boulder thinks that perhaps things are looking up at the Times with Bronner replacing Erlanger. I wasn't so fond of the coverage when Bronner covered Israel for the Boston Globe, so I'm far from convinced.

Crossposted at Yourish.

israel, sderot.

A nice pizza change

File this under, "why didn't I think of that?"

Marylander gets big slice of Web pie via memeorandum

Fourteen years ago, Chris Clark shelled out 20 bucks to register the domain name "pizza.com." This afternoon, he sold it for $2.6 million.

"It's crazy, it's just crazy," he said somewhat giddily yesterday morning from his home in North Potomac. By then, a week's worth of anonymous bidding at an online auction site had pushed the price to today's high. The auction closed at 2 p.m. today.

"That amount of money is significant," said Clark, 43, who recently launched a software company. "It will make a significant difference in my life, for sure."

Council speak 04/04/08

The council has spoken.

The council winner this week, is JoshuaPundit's Black Liberation Theology, a primer on the belief system of Sen. Obama's paster Jeremiah Wright. Wolf Howling won the runner up position with Another UN Obscentiy describing how the UN violates in own charter in the name of some higher purpose (protecting Islamic sensibilities.)

The non-council winner this week is 5 years 1 year at acute politics, a tribute to a fallen soldier. The runner up was my nominee, Council alumnus Strata-Sphere's critique of Eric Lichtblau's critique of FISA. I'd be remiss if I didn't mentioned Avian Chorus by Paragraph Farmer that won me over by its clever use of Eagles' lyrics.

Congratulations to all the winners.

If you enjoy the watcher's council and blog and wish to join yourself, there's a seat that's now Up For Grabs. Follow the instructions to apply and good luck.

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.

If ... you must 04/04/08

If you haven't read Pakistan Airlines ad, 1979 at Elder of Ziyon; you must.
Yes, I know its old. But it's incredibly eerie.
If you haven't read It such to be Jim McDermott at Maryland Conservatarian; you must.
It' not every month that someone gets outed as a paid (though perhaps unwitting) shill of Saddam Husseien and gets hit with a $1 million judgment.
If you haven't read A volleyball story at the Fireant Gazette; you must.
If you haven't read Son of Strangers Among Us at Seraphic Secret; you must.
These last two are fantastic examples of finding the "rest of the story."
If you haven't read Frum Boxer at Shiloh Musings; you must.
What's more unusual a Chassid who acts with Melanie Griffith or Rabbi who boxes?
If you haven't read Hitting the Trail at View from a Height; you must.
If you can help see Keep those cards and letters coming.
If you haven't read about Shalhevet Pas at Israel Matzav; you must.
And read Seth Lipsky's tribute, The Little Flame.
If you haven't read Charles Enderlin Again Protected By The French Courts at Daled Amos; you must.
It's a scarlet letter for the information age.
If you haven't read Iran's Press TV devotes three headlines to the idea of a coming war involving Israel and Lebanon; you must.
Despite an upcoming civil defense drill in Israel, the IDF is denying reports of suspicious movements on the part of Syrian reserves. I'm unsure what ratcheted up the tensions, but they appear to be dissipating.
If you haven't read Fresno Zionism's Mental disorders of the academic left; you must.
If you haven't read the Bush commitment to defensible Borders at Jewish Current Issues; you must.
I hope to address the Podhoretz article at a later date. And while it doesn't address Podhoretz read Sharansky and Bassam Eid.

Black, white, grey

In Two Black Americas, columnist Eugene Robinson makes an important observation:

In a sense, then, the most striking measure of how far African Americans have come since 1968 isn't the rise of Barack Obama. It's the story of Stanley O'Neal.

That's not to minimize the prospect that a nation midwifed by slavery could soon have its first black president. But O'Neal did something that would have been equally unimaginable 40 years ago. He rose to become chief executive of Merrill Lynch, one of Wall Street's biggest firms; by all accounts, he was a taskmaster of a boss who cared less about whether subordinates liked him than he did about the bottom line. He placed big bets on mortgage-backed securities, generating record profits for the firm. When he got caught in the mortgage crisis several months ago and was forced to write off billions in losses, he resigned -- and floated back to earth with the help of one of the loveliest golden parachutes Wall Street has seen.

Oh, and his grandfather was born a slave.

I'm not going to say I love Robinson's cynical tone, but his point is essentially correct. And he concludes with

It's misleading, then, to make any general statement about the condition of black Americans without recognizing black America's diversity. Economically speaking, there is one group of black Americans that has achieved success and one that hasn't -- and the distance between those groups is growing. To make more progress toward Martin Luther King's dream, we have to make an honest assessment of how far we've come -- and honestly account for who's been left behind.

When one listens to Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, one hears the continued emphasis on racism, but Robinson's essentially arguing that America is pretty much colorblind. If there's a reason to admire Sen. Obama, it's that he's eschewed the language of Sharpton and Jackson - even if he allows his proxies to indulge in it.

However Sen. Obama loses his bearings when he talks about the national conversation on race. Charles Krauthammer observes in the Fabulist vs. the Saint (or here):

In his swoon-inducing Philadelphia speech, Obama had instructed the nation from on high that America was greatly in need of a national conversation on race -- a need curiously absent before his pastor's words sent his campaign into a tailspin -- and that he, Barack Obama, was ready to lead it. Everything was now on the table, except his association with Wright. Because to "play Rev. Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election" would simply be a "distraction" from the suffering of the American people, which, of course, is the work of the usual suspects: corporate outsourcing and "the special interests in Washington."

The national conversation on race doesn't allow us to ask why behavior and talk - like Rev. Wright's - if displayed by a white person, would place that person outside the bounds of polite society. The conversation on race doesn't allow us to talk about why it's a crisis if whites don't vote for a black candidate but take it in stride when blacks refuse to vote for a white. (Hillary Clinton is carrying the white vote by a large margin, but if she were carrying it by the same proportion that Barack Obama is carrying the black vote, the nomination wouldn't be in question. If Sen. Clinton's white support exceeded Sen. Obama's black support, you can be sure there'd be plenty of discussion about white racism - or at least white resistance to a black candidate.)

Yes whites are the majority in our country. And yes our country has a history of racism. Yet it's hard to say that little has changed when opportunities that weren't available 40 or even 20 years ago. A black child, as much as white child can dream of becoming President or CEO.

UPDATE: A slightly different take at Likelihood of success. He does not agree with my premise of equating black intolerance with white intolerance however he writes:

There is also a flip side to this argument, which is what Shannon is pointing out here. If blacks as a group, at this stage of the game, expect their group identity, their legitimate shared experiences and perceptions, and their interests to be taken seriously, they have got to stop playing the game she has described. Not because I say so, or she does, or a judge will, but because the majority will not have it. The concept that people are wicked for being who they are is not only ironic when applied by blacks, once considered by some satanic themselves simply because of their negritude. It is not only morally and logically unsupportable. It is a loser of an argument. Liberalism is premised largely on guilt; but that much guilt is not being distributed through the water supply.

UPDATE: Juan Williams makes a similar point (or I'd like to think it's similar - via memeorandum)

So far, Mr. Obama has been content to let black people have their vision of him while white people hold to a separate, segregated reality. He is a politician and, unlike King, his goal is winning votes, not changing hearts. Still, it is a key break from the King tradition to sell different messages to different audiences based on race, and to fail to challenge racial divisions in the nation.

Mr. Obama's major speech on race last month was forced from him only after a political crisis erupted: It became widely known that he'd sat for 20 years in the pews of a church where Rev. Jeremiah Wright lashed out at white people. The minister cursed America as worthy of damnation, made lewd suggestions about the nature of President Clinton's relationship with black voters, and embraced the paranoid idea that the white government was spreading AIDS among black people.

Here is where the racial tension at the heart of Mr. Obama's campaign flared into view. He either shared these beliefs or, lacking good judgment, decided it politically expedient for an ambitious young black politician trying to prove his solidarity with all things black, to be associated with these rants. His judgment and leadership on the critical issue of race is in question.

election 2008.

Collabarative dissonance

With the recent report that the U.S. monitors concluded that the PA has not been doing what it should to prevent terror, the PA has been making an effort to show that it indeed has been doing all it can and that problems, well blame those on Israel.

Earlier this week Ha'aretz reported:

Omran sounds enthusiastic about the changes he expects, but does not hide his criticism of the Israel Defense Forces commanders he meets with frequently.

"I'll give you an example. Last night, about 3 A.M. a van with yellow [Israeli] plates crashed into a wall of the Bank of Palestine, about 200 meters from here. I couldn't send even one soldier because we're not allowed to operate in the city after midnight according to the agreement with the IDF.

"I asked the civilian police to check it out, but they were afraid; they thought it might be your undercover unit," he told Haaretz.

"We decided to wait until 6 A.M. when we're allowed to operate again. To send out a patrol, I had to wake up the Palestinian liaison unit, who had to contact with their Israeli counterparts, who had to wake up the Israeli sector commander, who would check whether they were his people or not. If this was a criminal or security matter, the suspects would be long gone," Omran says.

Omran says the PA security forces are working energetically against armed men in the sector. "I'll arrest anybody who dares move around with a rifle, even our own intelligence people," he says. "We've given every bomb we've found to the Israeli side, we've prevented attacks and they know it," he adds.

I don't believe Omran's boasts, though I suppose there can be some problems with coordination. Of course the fact that there are still these problems after 15 years go back to the trustworthiness of the Palestinian police until now. (And it was a Palestinian policeman who murdered Ido Zoltan recently, so caution is still important.)

And there's this:

But Israel and the U.S. say you're letting Hamas and Jihad activists go.

"In Israel they forget that we also have laws and I have to bring every suspect to a remand hearing within 24 hours. Suspects are often set free on bail. Other times, I let people out after they agree to give us information. So Israel comes and arrests them.

I wonder about this. It's not like the PA has ever been so good with laws before. They never really fulfilled Rabin's vision of going after terror suspects as if they didn't have to worry about B'Tselem. I kind of doubt that they pay attention to such niceties all the time now either.

Reuter picks up on another Palestinian complaint.

When a Palestinian law and order campaign started in the occupied West Bank late last year, Western advisors quickly realised they had a problem: Palestinian forces had no place to put all of their prisoners.

Many of the Palestinian Authority's prisons, some dating back to the Ottoman era, were destroyed by Israel after a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 and peace talks broke down.

The few prisons left and the dysfunctional judicial system, plagued by backlogs long before statehood talks were relaunched in November alongside the security crackdown, can't cope with the influx, Palestinian officials and their Western advisors say.

Not enough jails. James Taranto, focusing on the complaint that Palestinian police were complaining about the lack of prison space and improved security in some places, joked that the filled jails is the reason that there's improved security in some places.

He focused on the wrong thing though.

In the town of Jericho, near the Dead Sea, 51 detainees cook, pray and wait in sweltering concrete cells so small they barely have room to stand up and stretch. The facility is meant to hold 40 people. "You sit here and you rot," said Yousef Judeh, a 34-year-old father of five accused of collaborating with Israel. His case still pending, he has been languishing here for two years.

I don't know if this guy is typical of the inmates, but he was accused of "collaborating with Israel." I have no idea if the charge is even accurate, it can be made when someone wants to get someone out of the way. But the fact that someone who was helping Israel is in jail says something about the Palestinian Authority's mindset. They're not doing enough to fight terror against Israel and they're punishing their own citizens who are accused of making an effort to do so.

Maybe if the PA wasn't arresting people who are accused of fighting terror, they'd have more room in their prisons for the real troublemakers.

Crossposted on Yourish.

palestinian authority, israel.

Adrift on the editorial page

In Adrift in the Middle East the editors of the NY Times argue:

Israel marked Ms. Rice’s visit by agreeing to remove 50 of its roadblocks restricting travel in the West Bank. That leaves 530, roughly the same number as at the start of 2007. Any goodwill was erased when, hours after she departed, Israel announced its intention to build 800 new homes for Jewish families in the West Bank. Mr. Abbas promised more energetic efforts against terrorism — a promise he has made before — and agreed to end his monthlong boycott of meetings with Mr. Olmert.

Of course the editors didn't note that along with the removal of the checkpoints came a return of terror attempts. When the very basic premise of "peace" is undermined as it has been consistently over the past 15 years, I find it hard to get exercised about Israel building homes for Israelis. Let's see a stop to incitement, results in fighting terror and an end to endemic corruption on the part of the PA and then we can talk about what Israel ought and ought not do.

Just coming back to the table will not matter much unless Washington starts to push in earnest for the compromises that are the only basis for an agreement. President Bill Clinton first proposed the outline in 2000: a secure Israel and an economically viable Palestinian state, divided by roughly the June 1967 borders, and including reasonable compromises over Jerusalem.

And that agreement failed to stem the violence that was then orchestrated by Yasser Arafat. And despite the words "secure Israel" I have little confidence that Israel would be secure under those terms. Nor do I see any compromise on Jerusalem as being reasonable.

At the end the editors put its recent reporting on Hamas incitement to use:

They, as well as Washington, would also have to deal with the disruptive reality of Hamas, which broadcasts anti-Semitic propaganda and encourages deadly rocket fire into Israeli towns. The essential first step is to encourage efforts by Egypt and other Arab nations to press Hamas toward a complete cease-fire.

If that can be achieved, the United States and Israel should start exploring the possibilities of talking directly with Hamas, though not in a way that excludes the far more statesmanlike Mr. Abbas.

Doing so does not imply approval of Hamas’s past methods or future goals. It does acknowledge that Hamas has a strong constituency — and a lasting peace would have to include these Palestinians as well.

Talking to Hamas gives leverage to Hamas, which effectively legitimizes its "past methods and future goals." It happened with Fatah, which earned the prize of peace talks despite never changing its underlying commitment to terrorism or destruction of Israel.

Yes Hamas has a strong constituency. But that needs to change before there can be peace. Showing that there's no penalty to be paid for advocating terror will only strengthen those who hold those views.

Don't talk to Hamas. Don't stop building. Stop terror. Then you will have peace.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel

Maliki or not

Unlike The Glittering Eye who saw Maliki's Basra offensive as flawed from conception and Austin Bay, who saw it as a sign of progress for the Maliki government, Max Boot steers a middle ground: correct in conception, flawed in execution:

Lacking political support and encountering a tougher than expected foe, the prime minister seems to be ceasing major combat operations. If so, that is the worst of all worlds: Having started a fight, it is imperative to finish it. By not doing more damage to the Sadrists, Maliki allows them to claim a victory. That is the same mistake the coalition made in fighting the Sadrists in 2004 and that Israel made in fighting Hezbollah (which has been training some of the Sadrists) in 2006. The situation in Iraq is made all the worse because it was an Iranian Quds Force general who finally brokered the c ceasefire in Basra, thus reinforcing Iran's dominant role in the south.

Prior to this latest outbreak General David Petraeus had been pursuing a more subtle strategy. He has been working to incorporate the more moderate Sadrist elements into the political process while sending Iraqi and American Special Operations forces to capture or kill the ruthless Special Groups that are funded and directed from Tehran and that are largely outside of Sadr’s control. Maliki has upset that calculated campaign plan, leading mainstream Jaish al Mahdi elements to take up arms alongside the Special Groups. With the Basra offensive petering out, Petraeus should be able to get back to his more low-key approach.

According to an Instapundit correspondent, it sounds like Gen. Petraeus made some omelettes out of the broken eggs.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, General Petraeus quietly and deftly encouraged the central government of Iraq to:

(a) concentrate not on JAM, but on the criminal element within JAM. "Anyone on the street with a weapon is a criminal." This effectively divided the JAM members. Next,

(b) focus on the humanitarian element of the operation. Pushing much-needed food and water to trapped inhabitants encouraged even more JAM members to stay home and take care of family members. Finally,

(c) show that fighting is not going to solve the needs of Iraq.

By addressing the essential services issues and bringing central government people to the provincial sessions to address concerns, people see their government taking an active role in solving the problem.

The effect was that Moqtada al Sadr got to make a point, Maliki demonstrated his resolve, the Iraqi Army and Police showed themselves to be capable and professional, and there's a sense of a better day coming in Basrah. Without the strong response of the central Government, the militia-led uprising could have very easily led to further lawlessness, mayhem, and devastation. The Coalition trained and helped equip and arm the Iraqi Army. The surge allowed us to clear and hold areas long enough to bring violence levels down, so the government could start focusing on essential services. If anything, the surge came too late because people have been without services for far too long.

The colonel continues:

I don't know how long before the GoI will transform into a model government able to care for its citizenry. However, if the Coalition left suddenly at this point in time, the many tribal and sectarian militias, like JAM, would seize control from the GoI. Soldiers would return home to fight for their homes and families. The country would slip into civil war along sectarian lines over distribution of oil revenues. The Sunnis would seek partnerships with Saudi Arabia and the Shia with Iran, and you can see where that would be heading. These recent insurgent attacks cannot be allowed to undermine the incredible value added by the surge. Likewise, the vital importance of remaining here until the Government of Iraq is viable cannot be overstated.

Are the Democrats listening to this counsel?

iraq.

Saving the children

There was a horrible news story the other day about a father who called the downtown hotel desk and said that he had just killed his children.

A Montgomery County man killed his three young children at a downtown hotel, then called the front desk, according to Baltimore police.

The man, identified as Mark Castillo, 41, of Silver Spring, called the desk at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor at Camden Yards around 1:15 p.m. Sunday and said he had just killed his two sons and daughter, said police spokesman Sterling Clifford. Police identified the children as Anthony, 6, Austin, 4, and Athena, 2.

After hotel security called police, Clifford said officers went to the 10th-floor room and found three children dead and a man with minor cuts that appear to be self-inflicted. Clifford did not have details on how the children were killed. He said the children's bodies were still at the hotel Sunday evening.

It turned out that Castillo had drowned his children.

The Washington Post today editorializes about what might have been done differently that could have prevented this crime.

It's simplistic to blame the judge. During a two-hour hearing, Judge Dugan wrestled with conflicting "he said, she said" accounts. A court-ordered psychological evaluation had concluded that the "risk of harm Mr. Castillo poses to his children is low," while noting that he loved and cared for his children. The judge took the unusual steps of requiring Mr. Castillo to provide proof that he was in psychological counseling and appointing a lawyer to oversee the best interests of the children. Nonetheless, he was constrained by the strict standard of proof that Maryland has set for a protective order to be granted. For the past 20 years, there have been efforts to change the current standard of "clear and convincing evidence" to that used in many other states, "a preponderance of the evidence." The reform, a priority for those who work with victims of domestic abuse, has repeatedly fallen victim to the defense attorneys who control key legislative committees.

I find it interesting that the editorial observes that the presence of defense attorneys stymies a change in law that would be helpful in cases like this. It makes me wonder if any statewide legislation that might make Baltimore safer suffers the same fate. Still I think it's good that the Post acknowledges:

We are under no illusion that this one remedy would have averted the tragedy of the Castillo case.

Still the editorial continues:

It is for that reason that this case should be reviewed by the General Assembly and the Maryland judiciary to see whether laws and procedures need changing. It is striking, for instance, how many judges cycled through this case over its nearly two-year course. Would there have been a different outcome if one judge had dealt with all aspects of the case and had the benefit of continuity? Similarly, does it make sense to rotate judges in and out of family court? A series of tragedies involving children in the District prompted the assignment of judges specifically trained to handle the complexities and nuances of family law. New programs are being developed to assess the risk of violence; some question whether the traditional adversarial system of justice is best suited to deal with emotional family matters.

These all seem reasonable. But until humans are blessed with clairvoyance, we're never going to be able to prevent every tragedy from happening. The question is whether we can do more to reduce the possibility of such cases from recurring.

Nonetheless there's a troubling quote at the beginning of the editorial:

"He told me what would be worse is if he killed all of us. Then he said actually worse than that would be if he killed the children and not me so that I would have to live without them," Ms. Castillo told Judge Joseph A. Dugan Jr. in an unsuccessful bid for an order of protection.

Why isn't that enough to constitute a threat on which to act? Did Mr. Castillo deny saying that? I'm forced to conclude that the problem may be less the process than the law. In which case changing the standards for what constitutes a threat is where the major effort must go.

murder.

Pieces of april

Former Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie has broken her silence.

During the run-up to the war, the Iraqi government released a transcript of Glaspie's meeting with Hussein on July 25, 1990, which suggested that she gave tacit approval for an invasion. Glaspie managed to convince lawmakers that the transcript was inaccurate and that she had forcefully warned Hussein not to invade. But her credibility eroded after the leak of her classified cable to the State Department about the meeting, which suggested a more conciliatory conversation with Hussein.

In the interview, Glaspie insisted that the Iraq transcript "was invented by Tariq Aziz," the deputy prime minister. "Tariq was a master of words as a previous Minister of Information and editor of a newspaper," she said. Glaspie asserted that she told Hussein to "keep your hands off this country."

Glaspie's cable was declassified after a Freedom of Information Act appeal by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The cable, along with others obtained by the archive, suggests that she was largely carrying out a policy, pushed by State at the time, of seeking to improve relations with Iraq.

Glaspie's cable says that President George H.W. Bush "had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq," adding that Hussein in turn offered "warm greetings" to Bush and was "surely sincere" about not wanting war.

Whether or not Amb. Glaspie warned or encouraged Saddam Hussein, it's pretty clear that she read him wrong. And if in the runup to the invasion of Kuwait the American government was still looking to improve relations with Saddam, the government was ill informed about Saddam's intentions. One could guess that there was an intelligence failure then.

She acknowledges that she was misled by Saddam:

Glaspie said the Mubarak call was crucial in convincing her that any sense of crisis had passed. She said that she was "foolish" to believe that Hussein would not lie to both her and Mubarak, and that she left Baghdad to go on a short vacation. Before she left, she sent another cable titled "Iraq Blinks -- Provisionally," also obtained by the archive.

Hussein, "a megalomaniac," thought "that my government did not have any guts, that we would not fight and certainly not for that little [piece] of desert that was Kuwait for him," Glaspie told al-Hayat.

It's unclear from this reported interview whether Glaspie's failing were hers alone, or whether the Bush administration as a whole didn't take Saddam's threat to Kuwait seriously enough.

Unsurprisingly we're also told that Glaspie didn't think that the Iraq war was a good idea.

iraq

Are soccer players addressed as "Your Excellency"?

According to people taking a recent BBC poll, Iran has the most negative influence of any nation in the world. (Guess who occupies the "second worst" position.) If only those poor, misguided poll-takers had read the following from IRNA:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Iranian people have always endeared Latin American nations' freedom movements against despotism and the hegemonic system.

In a message to Argentine soccer celebrity Diego Maradona, President Ahmadinejad thanked Legendary soccer player for supporting the Iranian nation and bestowing an autographed T-shirt on the Iranian nation as a sign of his affection for Iran.

In a meeting with Iranian Ambassador to Buenos Aires Mohsen Baharavand in December, 2007, Maradona presented the T-shirt which read "With all my affection to Iranian people".

"I am with the Iranian people, from the bottom of my heart, I support them. I say it because I feel it, because I mean it," he added.

President Ahmadinejad's message to Maradona reads, "I am sincerely thankful for his Excellency's kindness towards the righteous and revolutionary Iranian nation. Latin America is the land of pure, hospitable, kind and oppressed nations, on whose body one can see deep scars of whips stroke by the arrogance for several hundred years. We are well aware of the heavy political pressures exerted on the Argentine government and nation to give up their legal rights, dignity and independence and pitting Argentine government against the independent, free and revolutionary governments."

"We are confident that the nice nation and revolutionary statesmen and politicians of the country will along with other sincere Latin American nations continue with their glorious resistance and make the ill-wishers unhappy in light of their unity and vigilance. We will always remain beside you and are confident that future belongs to nations."

He went on to say, "We do know that championship of the youth of the country in the sports arenas, especially in the field of football, is sign of the nations' strong and valuable talents and is an outcry against backwardness caused by domination of the arrogance."

Nothing thwarts the schemes of the World Arrogance like sports success!

He noted, "The Iranian nation has always been endearing and supporting the freedom seeking and liberation movements of the Latin American nations against the despotic and the hegemonic systems. We are thankful to God Almighty for growing awakening and the justice and independence seeking movements in that important part of the world." Concluding his message, Ahmadinejad prayed God Almighty for success of the famous figure, Maradona, in serving the great Argentinean nation and for victory, progress and success of the Latin American nations, especially Argentineans.

Isn't that sweet? Just brings tears to your eyes, doesn't it?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Maan News: "Palestinian magician wants to walk through Israel's Apartheid wall"

What would be magic with a Palestinian flavor? Pulling a rabbit out of a keffiyeh? I know! Magic with a victimhood theme!

[...] A handsome and slightly boastful thirty-six-year-old, Elias Hzayneh from Bethlehem studied English literature at Bethlehem University. Five years ago Elias got married and has a two month old baby girl. While on a trip to Spain he was introduced to a magician who organizes conferences about magic. Since childhood Elias says he was crazy about magic.

His biggest dream is to use magic to both overcome and combat the effects of occupation . . .

When I asked him about Israel's Apartheid wall, he gazed into space for a moment and then answered: "Before three years I was about to start a project which is building a collage to teach magic and make workshops and conferences about magic but the construction of the wall ruined my plans so I traveled and left my dream behind the wall."

"I am always invited to conferences about magic in Jerusalem but I don’t have permit and so I can't cross the checkpoints so I am prevented from performing in Jerusalem and other parts behind the checkpoints," he added.

He said that people in Bethlehem left their business and came to watch his show at Al-Selizyan sports club in Bethlehem; he thinks that people here are frustrated and they lack cultural activities . . .

Can magic overcome oppression? Elias thinks so. "I am preparing to penetrate the Apartheid wall of Palestine the same as David Copperfield when he penetrated the wall of China."

Maybe he should make a daring escape from the tower of self-pity.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Michell malkin channels alan alda

Alan Alda
"Entrepreneurs create jobs. Business creates jobs. The President's job is to get out of the way."

|Michelle |Malkin

I did a brief segment on Neil Cavuto earlier today about Hillary Clinton’s new jobs program. The woman can’t pay her campaign bills, but she’s a whiz at coming up with endless plans to spend your money “creating jobs.”

hillary clinton, economics.

Iran's Press TV devotes three headlines to the idea of a coming war involving Israel and Lebanon

The first article doesn't sound as predictive of war as the headline does:

Israel 'all set for war with Hezbollah'

[...]Barak . . . claimed that "Hezbollah is getting stronger, but so is Israel", adding that "I would suggest that no one of the other side of the border mess with Israel, for their own good".

He also alleged that "Hezbollah, lurking on the other side of the border, is wary of firing at Israel at the moment, but continues to plot various schemes throughout the entire northern front".

Tension is high amid speculations that Hezbollah might deal a blow to the regime in retaliation for the assassination in Damascus of its top commander Imad Mugniyah.

Israel has been on high alert following the end of a 40-day mourning period for Mugniyah, having formerly threatened Lebanon to wage another war if Hezbollah retaliates for the killing of Mugniayah.

The next one is based on an al-Quds al-Arabi story from Wednesday, as the article explains:

Syria 'preparing to repel Israel attacks'

Syria is conducting wide-scale military exercises in preparation for an Israeli strike which might be combined with an attack on Hezbollah.

The Syrian army is closely monitoring the movement of Israeli forces along the northern border, the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported on Wednesday.

In addition to the military preparations, the sources said on the condition on anonymity, that Damascus has raised its security alert level over the concerns that Israeli forces would infiltrate its territories through one of its bordering countries, mainly referring to Lebanon.

The newspaper reported that Damascus viewed the Israeli media reports and statements made by senior Israeli officials as attempts to prepare the Israeli and global public opinion for a war against Syria.

Over the past few weeks, the Syrians have stationed three armored divisions, special forces and nine mechanized infantry divisions opposite Lebanon's western valley, as the Syrians estimate that a ground Israeli invasion may take place in that area. [...]

The next story presents Syria's denial of the report, although still quoting a Syrian spokesman that "there are indications that Israel is preparing a military assault against Syria with the US backing":

Syria denies reports of military drill

[...] "The report, which was published in [the London-based daily], Al-Quds Al-Arabi is totally false," Col. Ahmad Munir Muhammad, a member of the Syrian parliament's National Security Committee, told The Media Line on Wednesday . . .

"Syria is not massing forces [along the border] and is not summoning its reserves", although "there are indications that Israel is preparing a military assault against Syria with the US backing".

"The national Lebanese resistance movement [Hezbollah] has proven that it can thwart an Israeli attack on its own," he added.

The purpose behind such an Israeli invasion, said Muhammad, would be to divert the pressure of public opinion from the "American crisis in Iraq and the crises within Israel."

Is Iran about to order Hezbollah to start another war?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Submitted 04/02/08

The Watcher's Council nominations are up!

Let me go out of order this week and welcome new council member Hillbilly White Trash to our lineup. He leads off this week with The Moral Blindness of the Left in which he excoriates the media (specifically Jonathan Alter plus others) for whitewashing the misdeeds of Sen. Clinton.
Or Not - Done With Mirrors runs through a list of events that happened in Iraq - or not. I still haven't got a handle in the recent Sadr-Maliki conflict. I've seen that Sadr surrendered, that the surrender was engineered by Iran and that Maliki surrendered. Or not.
CD22 Runoff -- Shelly Sekula Gibbs Vs. Pete Olson - Rhymes With Right writes a brief for Shelley Sekula Gibbs the candidate for what was Tom DeLay's seat in the Republican primary. Still he'd even prefer Pete Olson over the incumbent, Nick Lampson. Speaking of political races, Joshua Sharf of View from a Height (who won the non-council competition a few months ago) is running for Colorado's state legislature.
Black Liberation Theology - Supposedly Sen. Obama has initiated the all-important "conversation about race" in our country. What the MSM have ignored is why racism is not unacceptable when adopted by Blacks. Joshuapundit addresses this, offers a credible explanation of what Sen. Obama was doing in Trinity United, and why it's not an entirely credible excuse:

Political life in black America is centered around churches, and Obama had political ambitions. Trinity United happens to be Chicago's largest and most politically active black church, and as a black man in that part of Chicago with political ambitions, it may be that he merely used the Trinity United Church of Christ as a political stepping-stone for his election to the Illinois State Senate.

On the other hand, he and his wife have been active members for two decades, and have a long standing close personal relationship with Jeremiah Wright..or as Obama himself put it, this racist and anti-Semite is `like family.' Even more damning as far as I'm personally concerned is that he allowed his children to listen to and be indoctrinated by Wright during their formative years. One customarily doesn't do that with one's children unless one agrees with what is being taught on a deep level.

It's an excellent brief on the issue Black Liberation Theology.
Interpreting the Events In Basra - The Glittering Eye casts a jaundiced eye on the Sadr/Maliki rift and sees it as more of a power play by Maliki than an attempt to restore order.
The Repeated Historical Falsehood - The Colossus of Rhodey writes that the historical truth of the Tuskegee experiment was bad enough, there's no need to (and it is indeed unhelpful to) enhance it with false details.
The Messiah-Shtick - Bookworm Room debunks the Obama as Messiah phenomenon. I know that description doesn't quite do it justice, but it was as succinct as I could be.
Another UN Obscenity (Updated) - Wolf Howling criticized the UN Human Rights Commission for whitewashing Wahhabism and the Bush administration for failing to confront the issue.
'Tis The Season For Parents and Kids To Be Scammed - The Education Wonks takes issue the "Who's Who ..." industry that has developed to separate parents from their hard earned money to see their children mentioned in books. Confession: some 30 years ago my parents bought one of these books. It was flattering for me. But it didn't take too long before I wondered what was the point.
Answering Yasmine - Cheat Seeking Missiles responds to a convert to Islam.
Can We Just Walk Away From Iraq? - Right Wing Nut House writes not right now, but as the situation changes and it becomes clearer that the American presence isn't helping, it might be time to consider such.
Sticks and Stones - I wrote about yesterday's article in which Steven Erlanger, on his way home after a number of years as the NYT correspondent in Jerusalem, wrote well about the incitement (called "insults" in the headline) of Hamas against Jews. Still it was disappointing that a subtext of the articles was that he was whitewashing Fatah at the same time.

My nomination for the non-council post was NY Times Reporters Try To Defend Grave Mistake -- Of Course Fail by The Strata-Sphere, a long post critiquing reporter Eric Lichtblau's coverage of FISA.

Wolf Howling and JoshuaPundit have also reviewed the Council posts.

UPDATE: While it doesn't necessarily bear on the subject of whether or not the United States should have invaded Iraq, Right Wing News reminds us what kind of psychopath Saddam (and Uday and Qusay) was. More on topic though, is Austin Bay's take on the Sadr/Maliki showdown in which he was more positive than either the Glittering Eye or Right Wing Nuthouse.

Saddam's old cohorts managed to convince themselves that if they spread enough money around, killed enough people and hammered the U.S. electorate with bloody headlines the United States would leave and the Iraqi government would eventually collapse -- and they would return to power. Saddam's capture, trial and execution has all but snuffed out the old-line Baathists. Recall Maliki stoutly defended his decision to carry out the court's sentence of capital punishment. He bet with Saddam dead the tyrant's cult of personality would wither. It has.

Al-Qaida pursued the same strategy of blood for headlines. Al-Qaida in Iraq tried to ignite a sectarian war -- its now-dead emir, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, made that goal explicit in February 2004. Al-Qaida massacred en masse, to the point that U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D for Defeatist) declared the war in Iraq lost. Then, the Sunni tribes in Anbar turned on al-Qaida. Sunni political integration is by no means complete, but al-Qaida has failed.

Now the Shia-led Iraqi government focuses on its chief Shia nemesis. How the Iraqi government handles Sadr matters. In August 2004, Sadr's thugs grabbed the Grand Mosque in Najaf. Sadr was counting on Americans to bomb the mosque. The United States opted to follow the political lead of Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani's aides told coalition officers: "Let us deal with Sadr. We know how to handle him and will do so. However, the coalition must not make him a martyr."

The Iraqi way often appears to be indecisive, until you learn to look at its counter-insurgency methods in the frame of achieving political success, instead of the frame of American presidential elections.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

O-pening day

The beginning of the baseball season is a time for optimism for all teams. Even the Orioles this year. After all, all teams start off 0 - 0.

Hope springs eternal!

And then you read that Angelos is getting ready to sell the team at the end of the season and that the Orioles have just traded Brain Roberts for a serious package of prospects - including Felix Pie - from the Cubs.

Then you realize it's #$@&* April 1.

Still with something like 160 games left for the season here are some nice previews.

The Wall Street Journal's Daily Fix runs through MLB with previews built on the beat witers for each team.

Baseball Prospectus has its projected standings. And if you wish to get involved in a group project it also has Predictaron 2008 that you can participate in.

Check out the Power Rankings at Fox Sports.

Baseball Crank has his six divisional Win Share projections up.

And of course, check out the predictions at Baseball Musings.

UPDATE: Last week, former major leaguer, Doug Glanville inaugurated a column in the NYT, The Boys of Spring. I very much like the first effort:

Everyone who makes it to big league camp was a baseball legend at some point in his life. It was big fish from big and small ponds thrust into the biggest pond of their lives, most of us just trying to find some plankton of an opportunity in the last slot of a 25-man team.

I had sparkling college All-America and first-round draft pick credentials, but I found out pretty quickly that I didn’t have any idea how to approach a major league curve ball.

Crossposted on OTB Sports.

Silence of the njdc lambs

In the weeks since revelations about Sen. Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright became known, I was wondering when we'd hear from the National Jewish Democratic Council. Well we've finally heard from them on the controversy.

That's right.
Silence.

(Note: I'm referring to the NJDC's blog. Maybe individual members have commented on the controversy or issued public statements. Usually those would be linked to on the blog. Certainly if a Republican candidate had a similar relationship with a racist we'd have seen something on the blog.)

No condemnation of Sen. Obama's ties to a racist and antisemite. No expression of regret that the junior senator from Illinois didn't condemn Rev. Wright until the issue became an embarrassment.

The NJDC, though, is quite happy about the prospect of having so many Jewish super-delegates to the Democratic convention.

According to a Gallup Poll published yesterday, Jewish voters are split roughly down the middle. 48% prefer Senator Clinton, and 43% prefer Senator Obama; this 5-point lead for Senator Clinton is within the margin of error. With the race as close as it is, these Jewish superdelegates could play a pivotal role in determining the Democratic presidential nominee.

So Jews could play a role in handing the Democratic nomination to a white woman instead of a fellow who attends a church whose former pastor considers "Israel" a dirty word. That isn't exactly something I'd be excited about.

Perhaps a group of Jewish Pennsylvania politicians understand that too. The Caucus reports: Pa. Jewish Leaders Praise Obama in Letter

The letter, which can be found online here at the Jewish news service JTA, praises Senator Obama at length for his recent speech on race and argues that he shouldn’t be held accountable for incendiary remarks made by his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

While we are profoundly disturbed by the unpatriotic, bigoted and anti-Semitic comments of the retired pastor of Senator Obama’s church, we are moved that Barack stood up at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia earlier this month, and “condemned in unequivocal terms the statements of Reverend Wright” and expressed his own views on issues near and dear to the heart and soul of the Jewish community.

Specifically, in repudiating the remarks of his former pastor, Senator Obama said Reverend Wright “expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country…a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”

“We respectfully ask that you stand with Senator Barack Obama and vote for him on April 22,” the letter ends.

Sen. Obama's speech, to my mind, contained too much equivocation to be viewed in such a positive light. It was less a "repudiation" than asking others to understand where Rev. Wright was coming from.

The Caucus item concludes:

Henri Barkey, chairman of the international relations program at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., is an unpaid foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign who affixed his signature to the letter. Senator Obama has been “misrepresented” by his association with Reverend Wright, Mr. Barkey said, and Jewish people should hear the truth about Mr. Obama’s pro-Israel policies from fellow Jewish people.

“This is how American politics can get — very dirty and personal,” Mr. Barkey said. “My sense in this day and age is you don’t let anything fester. You set the record straight, and perhaps that should have been done earlier. When you don’t respond quicker, people assume it’s true.”

Dirty? Personal? Sen. Obama's ties with Rev. Wright really go to the heart of his character. The most charitable explanation is that Sen. Obama didn't accept what he was hearing or was even appalled by it, but he attended the church because it was politically expedient for him to do so. Of course that makes him as cynical as we've come to expect politicians to be. Nothing messianic about that. It's politics as usual, with an unusually articulate salesman making the deal.

Israel Matzav critiques the Jewish Pennsylvania politicians:

Not every 'liberal cause' is reconcilable with Judaism. But it's clear that these 'leaders' have decided to replace the Jewish version of social justice with their own.

Still other aspects of Sen. Obama's ties to the church are hard to explain away. How does Sen. Obama pose as a supporter of Israel when his church's newsletter published the manifesto of Hamas without, apparently, eliciting any sort of objection from the senator? (h/t Colossus of Rhodey.Hube) And how does he stand by his church's support for Minister Farrakhan? He may have denounced Farrakhan, but he did march in the million man march. What's expedient? Sen. Obama's flirtation with Farrakhan or his disavowal of said relationship? The same can be asked of his ties to Rev. Wright.

The NJDC considers talks of Sen. Obama's ties with Farrakhan to be smears. As mentioned above, Sen. Obama's ties to Farrakhan aren't unfair game. They speak against his "post-racial" appeal. They also suggest that Sen. Obama's is good deal more cynical than his supporters would acknowledge. This isn't American idol we're talking about. We're talking about a campaign to see who will lead the free world.

Someone who has built his career by tolerating the intolerant needs to explain that tolerance. Sen. Obama's reassessment ought to have come before Rev. Wright or Minister Farrakhan became liabilities. That it didn't raises questions about Sen. Obama's sincerity in repudiating them.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Charles Enderlin Again Protected By The French Courts

Apparently in France, denouncing Anti-Semitism can make you an Anti-Semite.

In "Are the Al-Dura Critics Anti-Semites?" John Rosenthal details the case of Nicolas Ciarapica, who blogs at Blogdei. Ciarapica quoted from the article “French Jews Are Completely Fed Up,” by the editor-in-chief The Metula News Agency, Stéphane Juffa--and was accused of the “racial defamation” of Charles Enderlin:

“French Jews Are Completely Fed Up” consists precisely of a denunciation of anti-Semitism in France. Indeed, the immediate context for Juffa’s piece is the most heinous anti-Semitic crime in recent French history: the murder of Ilan Halimi. Halimi was the young French Jew who in early 2006 was kidnapped and then savagely tortured over a period of three weeks by a gang from Bagneux in the Parisian banlieues. Interrogated by the police, members of the gang - appropriately enough called the “Barbarians” - made no secret of the anti-Semitic prejudice that animated the group.

In the first part of “French Jews Are Completely Fed Up”, Stéphane Juffa connects the open anti-Semitism of Ilan Halimi’s tormentors to the distorted representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the French media and, in particular, to Charles Enderlin’s Al-Dura report on France2. “Is it so hard to understand,” he writes,

that the Islamist-wannabe thugs of Bagneux imagined that in torturing to death Ilan Halimi, they were avenging, among others, the “martyrdom” of little Mohammed Al-Dura, which was staged by Talal Abu-Rahma with commentary by Enderlin and broadcast for free in France and to the four corners of the globe by [the French public broadcasting company] France Télévisions.

In part two, Juffa connects the distortions of the French media in turn to France’s traditionally pro-Arab Middle East policy: commonly known as “la politique arabe de la France” or “French Arab Policy.” He then returns to the question of the consequences for French Jews: offering a typology of different ways that French Jews respond to the anti-Semitism in their environment. The passage is worth translating at some length: both for its own sake and so that the reader - apparently unlike Nicolas Bonnal, the presiding judge in the Ciarapica case - can appreciate the context of the passage that the Parisian court would judge to be anti-Semitic. Enderlin’s name appears amidst a list of several French Jewish journalists, all of whom are accused by Juffa of having incited anti-Jewish hatred through false or tendentious reporting. [emphasis added]

When Nicolas Ciarapica was found guilty in February of having “racially defamed” Charles Enderlin, he had to pay 1 euro in damages plus court costs.

But the French court required him to do one more thing:

In addition, Ciarapica has been required to publicize the judgment on his website for two months. Visitors to Blogdei are currently greeted on the homepage and indeed all pages by a boxed message in all capital letters that reads: “NICOLAS CIARAPICA, THE DIRECTOR OF THIS PUBLICATION, HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY OF RACIAL OR RELIGIOUS DEFAMATION WITH REGARDS TO CHARLES ENDERLIN.” When one clicks on the box, a window opens up containing a somewhat longer message, which specifies that Ciarapica’s offense was to have insulted Enderlin “by virtue of his belonging to the Jewish community.” Nicolas Ciarapica has thus been obliged by the court to wear a sort of electronic scarlet letter, clearly branding him as an anti-Semite.

Whatever else may be happening in the actual Al-Dura trial, elsewhere the French judicial system is still intent on protecting Charles Enderlin from criticism.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Charles Enderlin and Nicolas Ciarapica.

Tarnishing the clinton brand

E. J. Dionne argues that the way that Sen. Clinton has been running, has been doing Damage to the Clinton Brand (or here.) His op-ed includes this observation:

Yet much of this has been lost. Bill Clinton's approach to the South Carolina primary, the Clinton campaign's effort to ignore everything it once said about the irrelevance of the Florida and Michigan primaries, Hillary Clinton's willingness to say (or imply) that John McCain is more prepared to be president than Obama -- all this and more have created a ferocious backlash against the Clintons. The result is that when the word "Clinton" crosses their lips, many Democrats sound like Ken Starr, Bob Barr and the late Henry Hyde.

You read that and then recall that Richard M. Scaife (he of the original vast right wing conspiracy) has reconsidered Hillary (via memeorandum)

Her meeting and her remarks during it changed my mind about her.

Walking into our conference room, not knowing what to expect (or even, perhaps, expecting the worst), took courage and confidence. Not many politicians have political or personal courage today, so it was refreshing to see her exhibit both.

Sen. Clinton also exhibited an impressive command of many of today's most pressing domestic and international issues. Her answers were thoughtful, well-stated, and often dead-on.

Particularly regarding foreign policy, she identified what we consider to be the most important challenges and dangers that the next president must confront and resolve in order to guarantee our nation's security. Those include an increasingly hostile Russia, an increasingly powerful China and increasing instability in Pakistan and South America.

Like me, she believes we must pull our troops out of Iraq, because it is time for Iraqis to handle their own destiny -- and, more important, because it is past time to end the toll on our soldiers there, to begin rebuilding our military, and to refocus our attention on other threats, starting with Afghanistan.

Or that Clinton supporter Gov. Rendell of Pennsylvania is calling Fox News the "most objective."

This isn't tarnish. This is triangulation. Sen. Clinton isn't just running a race for delegates. She's running a race for November. She needs to position herself to the center for that. It's a bit early, I suppose. But at this point she has nothing to lose. And positioning herself for November gives her the added argument of 'electability" that she hopes will help her capture enough delegates to have the opportunity (though a slim one) in November.

hillary clinton
(via memeorandum)

Sticks and stones

The New York Times deals with an important issue, that's slightly masked by the title: Hamas’s Insults to Jews Complicate Peace Effort. The reporter, Steven Erlanger, is actually reporting about incitement not simple insults. Part of the problem is that Erlanger is coming awfully late to the issue. This has been going on for the past 15 years and it doesn't just come from Hamas. What Erlanger does right is that he consults with Itamar Marcus of PMW and Yigal Carmon of MEMRI. He doesn't call them "conservatives" or "right-wingers" or use any other qualification. In fact he acknowledges

Along with Mr. Marcus’s group, the Middle East Media Research Institute, or Memri, also monitors the Arabic media. But no one disputes their translations ...

The rest of the paragraph though mentions many in Gaza who are upset with the incitement. However I think Erlanger cherry picks a bit as he continues:

While the Palestinian Authority of Fatah also causes some concern — its textbooks, for example, rarely recognize the state of Israel — Yigal Carmon, who runs Memri, said Hamas and its media used “the kind of anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish language you don’t really hear any more from the Palestinian Authority, which hasn’t talked like that in a long time.”

I'm not going to dispute Yigal Carmon, he follows these matters daily. Erlanger, I think, is giving too much credit to Fatah. Earlier he wrote:

Such incitement against Israel and Jews was supposed to be banned under the 1993 Oslo accords and the 2003 “road map” peace plan. While the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has made significant, if imperfect efforts to end incitement, Hamas, no party to those agreements, feels no such restraint.

Since Hamas took over Gaza last June, routing Fatah, Hamas sermons and media reports preaching violence and hatred have become more pervasive, extreme and sophisticated, on the model of Hezbollah and its television station Al Manar, in Lebanon.

The bland reference to Fatah produced textbooks doesn't tell the whole story. Last year Fox News reported about a recent text book. It didn't just exclude Israel.

"The books don't allow for a Palestinian child to accept Israel as a neighbor," Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media Watch's director, told the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) of the United Nations. "When you define the conflict as a religious war you are no longer fighting for your own national identity or territory but for Islamic destiny. You have to accept either Islam or Israel," Marcus said.

"I would be happy if the books talked about a national struggle to get as many rights as possible. But to package it as an everlasting war is to generate years of conflict. It's child abuse against their own kids," he said.

And in a press conference with Sen. Hillary Clinton last year, Itamar Marcus said:

The head of the committee is Dr. Naim Abu Al-Humos, former PA minister of higher education. As such, this schoolbook report is not reflecting Hamas ideology, this is reflecting the Fatah ideology. This is very significant, because the new schoolbooks indicate a merging of Fatah towards Hamas ideology.

And by mentioning the textbooks, Erlanger lets Fatah off the hook for its other anti-Isreal propaganda efforts, such as glorifying Ala Abu Dhaim.

Mahmoud Abbas's official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper has honored the killer of the eight high school students gunned down this week with the status of Shahid - Holy Islamic Martyr. In so doing, the PA is sending its people a straightforward message of support for the terror murders and the murderer. According to the PA interpretation of Islam, there is no higher status that a human being can achieve today than that of Shahid.

The official PA daily Al Hayat Al Jadida prominently placed a picture of the killer on the front page, with the caption, "The Shahid Alaa Abu D'heim." In a Page One article on the terror killings, his act is again defined as a "Shahada achieving" action.

Maybe this doesn't approach the level of indoctrination of what Hamas does, but this is still pretty clearly incitement, "significant, if imperfect efforts" notwithstanding. This incitement was one of the reasons Nita Lowey put up an objection, later withdrawn, to the United States sending $150 million to the PA.

While I'm glad to see the NY Times cover this topic, there's little new here that someone with an internet connection and an interest in the topic wouldn't be able find out on his own. Palestinian incitement should have been on the agenda of all news organization over the past 15 years. That it is so rarely covered reflects poorly on the Jerusalem based correspondents.

Still the article disappoints as it appears to be an effort to whitewash Fatah and show Hamas as the major problem.

I'm not saying that things aren't worse under Hamas, (see the latest from MEMRI - via memeorandum) I just don't think Fatah deserves a clean bill of health in this matter.

UPDATE: More at memeorandum, buzztracker and blogrunner.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, hamas, fatah.

Video: Palestinians Supported Hussein; Now They Support Obama

There is no comparing Hussein and Obama--but considering the Palestinian record of backing winners...

Al Jazeera has posted the following on YouTube:

While US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads rival Hillary Clinton in the polls, Palestinians in Gaza are launching their own attempt to boost his campaign.

I found out about the video on Weasel Zippers, who writes about the Palestinian effort:

Unfortunately for them, Arabs calling from the Middle East soliciting votes for Obama is going to have the opposite effect they intended....

Yeah, and Palestinian support for Saddam Hussein didn't do him much good either. However, at least you can understand how Palestinians were drawn to Hussein--he actually took action on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs, giving money to the families of suicide bombers. In the case of Obama, Palestinians reveal once again that it is the rhetoric that is primary.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Palestinians and Barack Obama.