Soccer Dad

Huffpo zeros in on the proportionality issue

For most Leftists, disproportionality seems to be a buzz-word to be tossed off casually. Lionel Beehner embarks on the promising course of actually explaining and applying the doctrine of proportionality. A lot of the paragraphs are like this:

The targeting of civilians, whether deliberate or not, violates the 1949 Geneva Conventions. As such, Hamas sprinkles its militants around population centers as a form of deterrence but also to maximize world outrage when Israel responds with overwhelming force and ends up killing scores of civilians. What's remarkable is that time and again Israel falls for the bait. Regardless of how many Hamas fighters it kills or what kind of signal it sends to Syria and Iran, world perception is what ultimately matters, not body counts. And the tide of public opinion seems to invariably side with the underdog, regardless of who's to blame.

So did Israel use proportionate force or not? One paragraph notes "growing confusion as to what constitutes a legitimate military target." Another begins "Critics say Israel has a history of using disproportionate force." Are those critics correct? Here are the last two paragraphs:

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have condemned Israel's "disproportionate use of force" against Hamas. The Obama camp has been mum on the issue, only to issue anodyne statements standing by Israel's right to defend itself and urge a peaceful solution. But this issue -- what is an acceptable level of violence in response to attacks by non-state actors -- will rear its ugly head again, whether along the Turkish-Iraqi border, in northwest Pakistan, or in Gaza. There is no agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a proportionate response to terrorist attacks.

States, especially those with hyperactive militaries and nukes at their disposal, cannot be given carte blanche to retaliate. But it should be in their own self-interest not to respond with disproportionate force. After all, non-state actors tend not to be deterred much less defeated militarily. All that results is a surge in recruits and international sympathy for the non-state actor -- in this case, Hamas. Yes, it's tough for states to sit on their hands in the face of incoming rockets. But to respond, especially with disproportionate force, is suicidal.

That last sentence suggests that somehow, in this course of this article, Israel has actually been determined to be guilty of that disproportional thing, but I can't find an actual argument that leads to this conclusion. This is less hostile towards Israel than the writing of most leftists, but it is just as muddled. The word for what Hamas did to provoke Israel is "bombardment," or "shelling." Some of the weapons pointed at Israel and fired are described as "mortars." In one incident last year a single rocket injured 70 people. What situation could merit a military response more than this one? Once it is admitted that a military response is justified, then all the proportionality doctrine demands is that the force used should not be in excess of what is needed. Compare the arguments that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were disproportionate, which usually involve the idea that Japan would have surrendered anyway. In this case it seems doubtful that the point of sufficient force will be reached, must less exceeded.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

The Claim Of Proportionality Is An Outgrowth Of Seeing Terrorists As Criminals

Andy McCarthy is in the process of writing an article on the issue of proportionality. In the meantime, he suggests a list of articles on the topic:

I want to add two cents to the much needed efforts of Ramesh and Victor (see, e.g., here and here) to correct the perversion of the concept of proportionality. I noted this trend back in the summer of 2006, when it was applied to Israel's military operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Also highly recommended is "Leashing the Dogs of War," a great article by our friends David Rivkin and Lee Casey, published by The National Interest in around autumn 2003. Also well worth the time is David & Lee's 2004 NRO article, "What Israeli Illegality?"

But the point that McCarthy does address in his post seems to indicate that the claim of proportionality as applicable to war is an outgrowth of the attempt in general to treat terrorists are mere criminals. If so, when critics of Israel raise a cry for proportionality--it is actually not an isolated accusation raised against Israel per se. True, it was not raised nearly to the same degree against the US in Iraq, but as liberals grow more comfortable and with the P-word, we can expect it to be used against any other country that defends itself against terrorists.

McCarthy writes:

I argue that there is no international law of warfare because Israel, like the U.S., has wisely declined to join the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. It has therefore not consented to Protocol I's effort to convert warfare from a military campaign into a hyper-legal regulatory exercise that favors terrorist factions over national armed forces.

Most of the world has signed on to Protocol I -- including, regrettably, our NATO allies (the Brits ratified it in 1998, the same year Blair's government incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law). It is on the basis of this consensus -- among countries that have either abdicated their national-defense responsibilities or stand to gain by Protocol I's tilting of the field toward terrorists and so-called "national liberation" movements -- that Israel and the U.S. are now routinely accused of war crimes. But a set of obligations only constitutes "international law" if a country has agreed to be bound by it. Israel and the U.S. have not agreed to be bound by Protocol I. Consequently, there is no law violation in failures by Israel or us to meet its impossible terms (impossible, that is, if the objective of a military campaign is to be victory). [emphasis added]

Thus Ramesh Ponnuru defines proportionality this way:

The traditional just-war standard is that military action should be "proportionate" in that it causes fewer harms than it seeks to prevent. That's a sane and sound moral standard. It does not mean that military means must inflict only as much pain as the enemy has inflicted.

The seed for the idea of downgrading the ability of a country to protect itself may go back to the UN. Back in 2006 there was a UN report, which described self-defense by a country as a concession--one that was reluctantly granted and strongly limited--and not as a right per se:

Self-defence is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal duty to respect the right to life of others. Self-defence is a basis for exemption from criminal responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. Self-defence is sometimes designated as a "right". There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another. [emphasis added]

When the right to defend yourself becomes nothing more than a dispensation, there will always be people ready to assume the right to annul it.

by Daled Amos

Operation Cast Lead: How Would Fatah Have Done It?

Boker Tov, Boulder makes an interesting observation:

The so-called Quartet, the United States, Israel and the Palestinians all agreed to the Road Map, right?

Well it says.... in Phase I ... that "individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on the Israelis anywhere" are to be arrested, disrupted and restrained. It also calls for, and I quote:

"sustained, targeted and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure."

That's EXACTLY what Israel is doing! It's right there in the Road Map, so why all the brouhaha?

Israel is only doing what the poorpalestinians were supposed to have done all by themselves, by May 2003. Since they didn't, or couldn't, Israel stepped up and is doing their dirty work for them.. for the betterment of the entire world.

That raises the question: just exactly how did the Quartet expect that Fatah would go about targeting terrorists and dismantling their infrastructure?

Gaza: The Hedgehog, The Fox...And The Jackal

Bret Stephens quotes Archilochus, who said: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing"--and it is Hamas, according to Stephens, who knows that one big thing.

But it wasn't always that way:

Once upon a time -- say, from modern Israel's first stages in the early 20th century until the 1973 Yom Kippur War -- it was the Jews who played the role of the hedgehog. Zionism, for all of its factions and facets, revolved around the straightforward idea of getting and keeping a state. Doing so required land, people and arms, the more of each the better. Only secondarily was it about legitimacy, peace, economic growth, cost-benefit ratios or any other, more delicate, ingredients in the overall makeup of modern statecraft.

That was when Jews, Zionists, were focused and that concentration that the Zionist idea gave them enabled Jews to achieve great things. But times have changed.

Today, however, it is Israel that has assumed the role of the fox. It defeated the second intifada in 2005 and then promptly withdrew its settlements and soldiers from Gaza. It bombarded Lebanon for 34 days in 2006 not for the bald sake of victory (a word that appears to have been banished from the Western military lexicon), but for a much more ambiguous goal of "quiet." Israel pursues an identical aim in its current conflict against Hamas, where it previously attempted to walk the fine line between squeezing Gaza economically without quite prompting a humanitarian crisis.

Just as Israelis have changed from being hedgehogs to being foxes, Hamas has developed into being something of a hedgehog. Hamas has demonstrated its complete incompetence in governing--the job that it was supposedly elected to do--

But Hamas knows one big thing, which it labels "resistance" or, for Western audiences, "ending the occupation." Just what that means was made clear by Palestinian cleric Muhsen Abu 'Ita in a televised interview. "The annihilation of the Jews here in Palestine," he said, "is one of the most splendid blessings for Palestine."

...Hamas believes, in short, that while Israel will do many things, and do them well, it will not do the main thing. And that, in turn, means that as Israel exhausts its target list, as eventually it will, the storm will pass. Then the green flag of the movement will fly defiantly over the tallest building left standing, its prestige hugely boosted -- and Israel's commensurately diminished -- throughout the Muslim world.

Stephens does not refer to the fox and hedgehog allegory as an argument against the idea of Israel's current operation in Gaza. Instead, he offers the comparison as a warning and a reminder that war allows for only two possible outcomes: victory or defeat--and Israel had better be very aware of this fact, because Hamas more assuredly does.

Which brings us to the jackal--not referred to by either Archilochus or Bret Stephens. It is my own contribution, based on a post I read by Jeffrey Goldberg:

I've been talking to friends of mine, former Palestinian Authority intelligence officials (ejected from power by the Hamas coup), and they tell me that not only are they rooting for the Israelis to decimate Hamas, but that Fatah has actually been assisting the Israelis with targeting information. One of my friends -- if you want to know why they're my friends, read this book -- told me that one of his comrades was thrown off a high-rise building in Gaza City last year by Hamas, and so he sheds no tears for the Hamas dead. "Let the Israelis kill them," he said. "They've brought only trouble for my people."

Goldberg himself most certainly does not see nor describe Fatah as jackals, but one does get the impression that Fatah--who humbled when Hamas threw them out of Gaza--is more than happy to have Israel do the dirty work for them of getting rid of their tormentors so that they can just come right in a collect the spoils.

Khaled Abu Toameh of The Jerusalem Post writes:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah loyalists are dying to return to the Gaza Strip after being kicked out by Hamas in the summer of 2007.

On Sunday, senior Fatah officials in the West Bank relayed a message to Israel to the effect that they would like to see the IDF "finish off the job" in the Gaza Strip by removing Hamas from power.

The officials made it clear that they were ready to assume control over the Gaza Strip as soon as the IDF eliminated the Hamas regime. Abbas, who held talks with the Egyptians, Saudis and Jordanians over the past 48 hours, is also reported to have expressed his readiness and desire to return to Gaza.

For all of their eagerness, Fatah is unlikely to get their wish--not merely because the Palestinians of Gaza are not eager to have them return. Israel itself is not not focused on toppling Hamas from power per se. 

Roundups and conference calls on gaza

Jack's been doing roundups of news about Israel's war against Hamas. Please check out his latest.

On the PR front Israeli officials held two conference calls yesterday. One was a real conference call with bloggers such as Gateway Pundit, Jewish Current Issues and Atlas Shrugs. Daled Amos has more. Plus the Israeli Consulate in New York yesterday held a Twitter conference.

Crossposted on Yourish.

About that ceasefire

While there's been some talk of a truce between Israel and Hamas, according to today's NYT, Israel likely to reject 48 hour cease fire plan.

The idea of a 48-hour cease-fire emerged from a conversation between Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel. It was supposed to establish at least a temporary pause in the fighting that would allow humanitarian relief to be delivered to the besieged coastal strip. Aides to Mr. Barak said he was interested in exploring it with Prime Minister Olmert and the rest of the cabinet at a security meeting on Wednesday.

"The leading option right now is still a ground invasion, but the target of this operation is an improved cease-fire, and if that can come without the invasion, fine," a close aide to Mr. Barak said Tuesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not Mr. Barak's authorized spokesman. "But, of course, Hamas has to agree, and there has to be a mechanism to make it work."

In Paris, Mr. Kouchner met with his European Union colleagues Tuesday over the Gaza crisis and called publicly for a permanent cease-fire. A similar call came from the so-called quartet of powers focused on the region -- the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

The devil, of course, is in the details. The "mechanism" the anonymous source talks about will be nearly impossible to implement. While the talk of a "permanent cease-fire" sounds noble, the reality Elder of Ziyon observes is somewhat different.

Rocket attacks occurred before, during and after disengagement; before, during and after Hamas elections; before, during and after the Hamas/Fatah unity government; through the Hamas coup, through the worldwide blockade of Gaza, through the 2007 "truce" and through the 2008 "truce." They happened while Gazans were happily employed at the Erez Industrial Park in Gaza as well as when it was shut down, they happened while Jews lived in Gush Katif and when they didn't, when the crossings were opened and when they were shut.

In recent there have been a number of truces between Israel and Hamas and rocket fire continue throughout them all. So should Israel agree to a ceasefire, it would essentially be tying its own hands from responding.

This is something even the State Department acknowledges according the Times:

"That is different from the cease-fire that existed in the last six months," said the spokesman, Gordon Duguid, noting that Hamas had routinely violated the previous agreement by firing rockets into southern Israel.

Of course, given that Israel has stated that its purpose is to eliminate the possibility of even more rockets from Gaza, a "cease-fire" - that magic concept - would effectively be a defeat for Israel.

There are two other interesting observations in the Times article:

In Gaza, Hamas militants issued a taped statement vowing revenge for those killed in the Israeli air raids since Saturday and warning that a ground invasion would prove painful for Israel. Palestinian officials say that more than 370 people have been killed, among them, the United Nations says, at least 62 women and children and an unknown number of civilian men. Two sisters, ages 4 and 11, were killed in a strike in the north as concern was growing around the world that the assault was taking a terrible toll on civilians.

Of course the statement's taped. There's no way they're doing anything that might give away their positions.

And then there's this:

His 13-year-old son, Yousef, was with him. When asked his view of the situation, Yousef took an unusual stand for someone in Gaza, where Israel is being cursed by most everyone. "I blame Hamas. It doesn't want to recognize Israel. If they did so there could be peace," he said. "Egypt made a peace treaty with Israel, and nothing is happening to them."

Remember this isn't the only case of a child saying this.

[Interviewer] "How many were you?"

[Girl] "Seven.In the other room were my mother, my father, my yonger brother and another sister, who is 13 days old. I say, Hamas is the cause, in the first place, of all wars."

PMW - the source of the interview - noted in a followup e-mail that the girl's statement was likely a reflection of the views adults around her hold.

While two data points hardly represent a trend, they are remarkable. The NYT reported yesterday (h/t BotWT):

In the fourth-floor orthopedic section, a woman in her late 20s asked a militant to let her see Saleh Hajoj, her 32-year-old husband. She was turned away and left the hospital. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Hajoj was carried out by young men pretending to transfer him to another ward. As he lay on the stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head.

Mr. Hajoj, like five others killed at the hospital this way in 24 hours, was accused of collaboration with Israel. He had been in the central prison awaiting trial by Hamas judges; when Israel destroyed the prison on Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital. But their trials were short-circuited.

In a land of summary executions, taking a stand against the ruling authority can be rather dangerous. I'm surprised that anyone would express an opinion that didn't blame Israel.

Israeli author David Grossman, on the Times' op-ed page though argues that Israel should fight fire with a cease-fire.

NOW, after the heavy blow that Israel has dealt to the Gaza Strip, we would do best to halt, turn to the leaders of Hamas and tell them: Until last Saturday, we restrained ourselves in responding to the thousands of Qassam rockets fired at us. Now you know how severe the retaliation can be. So as not to add to the death and destruction that has already taken place, we intend, unilaterally and absolutely, to hold our fire for the next 48 hours.

Even if you continue to fire on Israel, we will not respond by resuming combat. We will grit our teeth, just as we did in the days and months before our attack. We will not be drawn into using force.

Furthermore, we hereby invite all concerned countries, nearby and distant, to mediate between us and you, in order to reinstate the cease-fire that ended earlier this month. If you also cease hostilities, we will not renew them. If you continue to shoot while we hold ourselves back, we will respond accordingly when the 48 hours end. But even then we will leave the door open to negotiations to re-establish the truce, and even seek a broader agreement.

This should be Israel's next move. Is it possible, or are we already captives of the all-too-familiar ritual of war?

Huh? So if Israel holds it fire for 48 hours unconditionally, that will accomplish what? It will free Israel from the "all-too-familiar ritual of war?"

Will the 250,000 people living within range of Hamas missiles object to being fair game. But at what point would Grossman say that it's proper for Israel to defend its citizens? He concludes with this:

And one more inevitable thought. Had we taken this approach in July of 2006, after Hezbollah kidnapped two of our soldiers -- had we held our fire then, after our initial retaliatory strike in Lebanon and declared that we were waiting for a day or two to calm the situation and give mediation a chance -- we would likely be in a better position today. That, too, is a lesson that Israel's government should have learned from that war. In fact, it is the most important lesson we must learn.

Perhaps, I should not fault Grossman for this thought, as his son was killed defending Israel in 2006. But the problem wasn't that Israel fought Hezbollah, it was that Israel didn't finish the job.

UPDATE: A question about the proliferation of Grossman's op-ed.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Notes On Today's Conference Call On Gaza

Today at 12pm EST there was conference call via phone sponsored by America's Voices In Israel, in conjunction with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israeli Consulate of New York. The purpose of the call, was to brief bloggers and broadcasters on the latest developments regarding Israel's response to continued rocket and mortar fire from Gaza. Among the speakers was Malcolm Hoenlein, head of Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Brigadier General in Reserve Relik Shafir of the Israeli Air Force and Deputy Chief of Mission in the Israeli Embassy in Washington Jeremy Issacharoff. Questions were answered from everyone who had something to ask.

I took notes, which I would like to share. I am solely responsible for any errors, unintentional misrepresentations, omissions and misspellings of names.

The conference started with a mention of 2 particular sources of information:

A new group on YouTube: IDFnadesk, which has videos--mostly illustrating the care the IDF has taken in the bombings of Hamas infrastructure. As a side note, Noah Pollak of Contentions has noted that YouTube has started to remove some of those videos.

Daily Alert  which is prepared by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and has summaries of and links to the key stories of the day--with an index of past issues.

Malcolm Hoenlein gave a short introduction, saying that putting aside the policy side of things, people forget why the current Israeli operation started. It is important to keep the context of how we got to this point, the kind of context that we do not get from the media at large.

He noted the truce just ended, which began in June 19--how incomplete it was and how it ended. He pointed out that since 2001 there have been over 8,000 rockets/mortars fired. The reason for conflict is that Hamas at the end undermined the truce that it did not keep to begin with.

Israel tried coordinating with Egyptians to renew the truce,  but Hamas had a different agenda.

The rate of rocket fire has increased since the truce--and even during the truce also, Hamas increased ranges of their rockets and fortified structures.

The key point is that Israel did go for diplomatic option first.

A second point Hoenlein made was that Hamas wanted this crisis, that Abbas has been getting more support from moderate countries and Hamas has therefore felt isolated. 

In terms of Israel's operation:

o The goal is to cripple the terrorist infratstructure that provides a threat to Israeli citizens---Israel is not interested in ending up with a situation that is worse than they started out with. Israel wants to stop Hamas's military goals. They know about the collateral damage, and regret it. On the other hand, in terms of Hamas--their onlytarget is civilian.

o Israel is very sensitive to the humanitarian effort--89 trucks of humanitarian aid have been allowed through till yesterday with more  added in south Gaza and another 5 ambulances provided by Turkey.

More than 2700 trucks carrying aid have been allowed into Gaza over the last year.

Gen. Shapir from Ashkelon came on the phone. He was speaking from Ashkelon which had taken about 29 hits from Qassam. There were not many on streets there. From the Airforce's point of view, it will be a long and tedious battle and they hope to avoid collateral damage.

Israeli Ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff was also present and answered some of the questions. 

Questions and Answers

Israel Matzav asked about the exit strategy and what the long term goal for Gaza was. 

The Ambassador answered that the goal now is the pinpoint attack. Israel is currently monitoring and assessing the situation. Cannot look at the current conflict in conventional terms.
Malcolm Hoenlein added that it is just too early for an exit strategy. It is Hamas that needs to worry about an exit strategy

Atlas Shrugs asked how Israel intends to take guns out of hands of Hamas while at the same time leaving Hamas in place? And what about world criticism? 

The Ambassador answered that if Israel takes weapons out of their hands, then it does not matter so much what their goals are. First and foremost is to defend citizens and keep them out of range of the missles. 

General Shapir added that Israel is in for the long haul, and cannot tolerate the current situation. They cannot bomb each place from which Hamas bombs Israel because that entails colloratoral damage. Going about it the way Israel is doing it will take longer.

I had trouble hearing who asked the next question. It sounded like "Allen Nathan from Babylon Network". He asked what they thought about Hizbollah's threat to come in from the north to help Hamas. He asked whether based on Nasrallah's  comment in 2006 of not anticipating Israel's strong response if Israel was concerned

The General recalled Teddy Roosevelt's comment about talking softly and carrying a big stick, that Nasrallah knew what to expect from Israel if Hizbollah interfered.

The next question sounded like it came from Ralph Levy from a kibbutz who asked about whether Israel was contemplating re-occupying Gaza to any degree.

The answer was that Israel will not go in. They will respect the sovereignty of Gaza and that there will be no buffer zone established via occupation. By the same token, no one will be allowed to shoot at Israel--if they do, they will face the consequences.

Jerry Gordon  of Israpundit asked about how effective have the sorties against the tunnels in the south of Gaza been and how Israel would create from the air a zone free from bombers.

The General answered that they have taken out tunnels from first day by bombing entrance and exits. Most tunnels have caved in and are now unusuable. When the IDF sees movement on the border they will bomb again.

The IDF cannot guarantee a complete stop to the bombings, they can only guarantee that if they see terrorists, the IDF will shoot them. They will not bomb where 'uninvolved' citizens may be hurt. Israel has warned Gazans through leaflets and phone calls that they should move out of the area before bombs are dropped. That is why there has been a minimum of causualties.

I asked for further detail about the final goal--if it was just for a ceasefire with Hamas.

The Ambassador said it is premature to say much more but there will be no return to the status quo--that is not an option. 

The General said that Israel wants to be sure that security is dramtically changed and thatthere will be new rules of the game.

He introduced the idea of having a legitimate representatives of the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority assert itself in Gaza and how Hamas is eventually phased out of control. He stressed that there are a lot of different things to address in such a ceasefire, such as smuggleing arms form Iran. Israel is still not sure if it is at that point yet; they are still assessing.

Mere Rhetoric asked about the avoiding the danger of an artificially short deadline how Israel can resist international pressure.

The Ambassador noted that during the time that Hamas was raining rockets on Israel at will, the world did not run to the Security Council for a truce. But now when the world sees Israel taking steps to defend itself--then there is a reaction.

Malcolm Hoenlein noted that there is goint to be a meeting of the Arab Foreign Ministers tomorrow.

He stressed the importance of getting out as accurate a picture as possible.

He said again that Israel is still in the mode of the operation and that Israel does not want to go back to status quo.

Gateway Pundit asked that though Israel has the support of the current US Administration, whether there are any concerns over the incoming one. 

The Ambassador's response was to paraphrase the quote from Obama when he was visiting Sderot:

"If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it," added the US senator from Illinois, who spoke in front of book shelves filled with mangled Kassam rockets that had been fired into the area.

"And I encourage Israel to do the same."

He said that though the new admininstration had not yet taken office, there have been communications. He also stressed that there has been no thought given to the timing of the operation against Gaza vis-a-vis when Obama would be taking office.

Rick Richman of Contentions asked about Israel's concerns about a new front developing.

The Ambassador said that Israel was watching closely, mindful of the 2006 kidnappings.

The General said that Israel had made it clear to Hizbollah and anyone else that Israel will this time provide any response necessary. If Hizbollah acts up, they will have to deal with a repeat of of 2006--Israel was not happy with the war in 2006, but learned the lesson that if you have to fight, then you fight. Israel has shown this to Hamas and will show Hizbollah too if need be.

Malcolm Hoenlein concluded the conference call, reiterating that "the truth is our strongest weapon."

He pointed out that currently there were now ½ million Israelis now within range of Hamas and their rockets. He stressed that Hamas is not a ragtag group--it has an army of 15,000  plus support from others.

The conference call concluded with a reminder that there will be other calls.

Please let me know if there are any corrections to be made to my transcript.

by Daled Amos

Record breaking global warming in the pacific northwest

Record-Breaking Snow Buries Northwest

The roof collapse came as Spokane set a monthly record for snowfall, at 59.7 inches, after 8.3 inches were recorded in the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m. Monday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Ellie Kelch. That's more snow than the area receives in a typical winter.

The previous record of 56.9 inches was set in January 1950. Snowfall records in the area have been kept since 1893, Kelch said.

(emphases mine)

Reporter, heal thyself

McClatchy's terror apologist Jerusalem Bureau Chief Dion Nissenbaum writes about Israel's military response to the Hamas threat against its citizens by writing:

The Gaza Strip has had its fair share of bad days over the years, from the spark for the first Palestinian uprising to the razing of Rafah to the Hamas takeover.

So to say that Saturday was the deadliest day in decades for Palestinians is saying something.

Israel is in the midst of carrying out its own version of "shock and awe" by dropping more than 100 tons of bombs on Gaza that have killed more than 250 people, injured hundreds more and set off a volatile new phase of the conflict with Hamas.

Some perspective please. What's going on in the Congo?

A Ugandan rebel group known for its horrific cruelties has massacred 189 people and kidnapped at least 20 children over three days in northeastern Congo, U.N. officials reported Monday.

The cultlike Lord's Resistance Army carried out the attacks on three villages between Thursday and Saturday, according to Ivo Brandau, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.

The group killed 40 people in the small town of Faradje on Thursday, and over the next two days, it attacked the villages of Doruma, where rebels massacred 89 people, and neighboring Gurba, where 60 were killed, Brandau said, citing reports that the United Nations received from local authorities.

(h/t Meryl)

In Iraq:

At least 670 Kurdish militants have been killed by Turkish forces in counter-terrorism operations this year, the country's General Staff said on Thursday.

The largest numbers of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatists were killed in February and May - 250 and 179, respectively - mostly in the course of Turkish army air raids in northern Iraq, where PKK camps are based.

(h/t Meryl again)

So yes a lot of people have been killed by Israel, but as Ralph Peter points out,

Israel's attack aircraft appear to have accomplished that part of the mission. As I write, some 300 terrorist dead have been reported in Gaza, while the propaganda-savvy information office of Hamas has strug- gled to prove that 20 civilians died.

Given the fact that Hamas adheres to the terrorist practice of locating command sites, arsenals and training facilities in heavily populated areas, the results suggest that the IDF - supported by first-rate intelligence work - may have executed the most accurate wave of airstrikes in history, with a 15-to-1 terrorist-to-civilian kill ratio.

So despite the cynical tactic that Hamas has adopted of placing its infrastructure in civilian neighborhoods, Israel has minimized civilian deaths as much as possible. The only people who are outraged are Hamas and their various mouthpieces like Nissenbaum.

Given Nissenbaum's role as a spokesman for Hamas then, his later complaint about Israel doesn't much move me.

But, as the BBC's Jo Floto noted last month after Israel first barred journalists from entering Gaza, Israel has joined a notorious and small list of countries preventing reporters from doing their job.

Israel, which prides itself on being the healthiest democracy in the Middle East, joins North Korea, Zimbabwe and Burma in denying media access to a major story.

It's a cheap shot. First of all, even he acknowledges that he has stringers in Gaza. But again, given Nissenbaum's history of flacking for terrorists, his "freedom of the press" argument carries no weight with me. If he were serious about reporting I might take his complaints about the closure seriously. But since he abuses his position by defending terrorists who kill Jews rather than reporting, he's in no position to question the motives of the Israeli government or compare it to the worst tyrannies in the world.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Be very, very skeptical

One of the common memes about Israel's war against Hamas is that Israel is strengthening Hamas by causing Palestinians to rally around the terrorist group. Of course we heard this for years. It was the reason Israel couldn't fight Fatah based terror from 1993 to 2003. But of course, Operation Defensive Shield changed that. Israel fought Fatah and Fatah lost. Now Israel's being lecture: Don't fight Hamas, you'll only make them stronger. In other words, Israel's being advised to "lie back and enjoy" the Hamas terror. And of course the unilateral surrender is wrapped in a cloak of false concern that if Israel fights back it will only make things worse for itself.

In the Washington Post's report:

Israeli officials have, in recent days, pointed hopefully to indications that support for Hamas within Gaza is eroding. Israeli and Palestinian analysts say Israel's strategy appears to be to weaken Hamas enough that the group has no choice but to sign a truce on Israel's terms. But there is a risk that approach could backfire.

Rawiya Shawa, an independent Palestinian legislative council member who lives in Gaza City, said attacks on targets such as mosques and university buildings are uniting the population behind Hamas and neutralizing the internal opposition.

(Notice how no news reports say anything like "Hamas's efforts to wreak havoc on Israel might backfire and lead Israel to destroy the infrastructure that Hamas has worked hard to build." Only Israel has to worry about backfiring strategies.)

And of course there was Daoud Kuttab's offensive op-ed (via memeorandum):

While it is not apparent how this violent confrontation will end, it is abundantly clear that the Islamic Hamas movement has been brought back from near political defeat while moderate Arab leaders have been forced to back away from their support for any reconciliation with Israel.

What's abundantly clear is that it's not at all obvious that Hamas will benefit from this war. If Israel miscalculates and ends the war unsatisfactorily, it will benefit Hamas just as the war in 2006 benefited Hezbollah. But if Israel significantly degrades Hamas' capabilities and kills a number of Hamas' leaders, Hamas will be weakened.

Contrary to what Kuttab wrote, Egypt (which has enable Hamas to re-arm and fortify its offensive capabilities) blamed Hamas for the fighting.

Now Jeffrey Goldberg reports that a friend of his from Fatah, is rooting for the IAF! (via memeorandum)

I've been talking to friends of mine, former Palestinian Authority intelligence officials (ejected from power by the Hamas coup), and they tell me that not only are they rooting for the Israelis to decimate Hamas, but that Fatah has actually been assisting the Israelis with targeting information.

(There is some room for skepticism. Would Fatah really admit to helping Israel? Or are they gauging that Hamas is that unpopular? After all Hamas was supposed to be the good government terrorists and they haven't delivered a better quality of life for Gaza in the past two years.)

And Hamas isn't necessarily winning hearts and minds in Gaza either:

[Interviewer] "How many were you?"

[Girl] "Seven.In the other room were my mother, my father, my yonger brother and another sister, who is 13 days old. I say, Hamas is the cause, in the first place, of all wars."

Those concerns about Israel's offensive backfiring are the hopes of those who doesn't wish Israel to defend itself. I don't think that it's all "abundantly clear" that Israel will end up strengthening Hamas by destroying it.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Four Days After Hamas In Gaza: Now What?

What Is The Goal?

Regardless of the successful start of Israel's operation in Gaza, comparisons with Hizbollah in 2006 are obvious. As long as Hamas is able to continue firing rockets into Israel, there will be questions--the biggest one being: what constitutes victory?

Over at Contentions:

Eric Trager writes about the surprise and strength of Israel's attack:

All of these factors should point to a quick Israeli victory. There is, however, one major complication: Israel has yet to declare the long-term goals of its Gaza operation - and, in turn, has not defined "victory."

Rick Richman makes the same point while indicating what some of the unacceptable conclusions to this operation would be:

Although Israel has not yet made its ultimate strategic objective clear, it is hard to see, given those remarks, that an acceptable outcome would be simply a new ceasefire, or a Lebanon-type resolution where an international force protects Hamas while it rearms.

At TNR, Yossi Klein Halevi suggests that really, Israel has 3 options--3 which are really 2: a limited attack geared towards giving Israel better terms at the next round of ceasefire talks with Hamas or overthrowing Hamas and replacing it with a foreign power such as Egypt. The third option consists of starting with option 1 but being drawn reluctantly into option 2.

Yet for all of that, Halevi also concludes that no one seems to know what Israel's goals are in Gaza:

We still don't know what the government wants to achieve, and what the army believes is achievable. What constitutes victory? Will we know how to translate military success into political gain? Will the government be strong enough to resist world pressure, even in the event of a disastrous accident that results in Palestinian civilian casualties?

If the pundits don't know what Israel's final goal in Gaza is, do we dare hope that the Israeli government does?

Can Anyone Tell Us What Israel Is Doing In Gaza?

Shmuel Rosner writes that the operation is not about bringing Hamas down, but rather "about getting a better deal"--whatever that might mean. In an earlier post Rosner wrote:

One should listen carefully to the words uttered just minutes ago by Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the wake of the military operation in Gaza. He was not talking about toppling Hamas's rule - as both his Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu have advocated just days ago [December 21]. Olmert, burned by his painful 2006 Lebanon experience, rejected the ambitious goals that these two contenders for Prime Ministership have made parts of their campaign.

...Today, appearing in a short press conference, the Prime Minister conveyed a similarly cautious message: The operation has a very specific goal - to give the Israeli civilians living in the southern part of the country their life back. When Hamas will agree to commit itself to "understandings" - according to which rockets can't be launched into Israel - the goal of this operation will be achieved. Until the next round.

Olmert may not have promised to topple Hamas, but according to the article Olmert did vow "to restore quiet to the lives of Israel's southern residents." Truly restoring quiet is no less difficult than actually bringing Hamas down.

Reading that first article Rosner links to, in Haaretz, Barak seems to be the one creating a situation with less wiggle room:

Barak on Saturday also said Israel "cannot really accept" a cease-fire with Hamas, rejecting calls by the United Nations and the European Union for a truce after Israel Air Force strikes killed at least 230 people in Gaza.

"For us to be asked to have a cease-fire with Hamas is like asking you to have a cease-fire with Al-Qaida," Barak said in an interview with Fox News. "It's something we cannot really accept."

Asked whether Israel would follow up the air strikes with a ground offensive, Barak said, "If boots on the ground will be needed, they will be there."

"Our intention is to totally change the rules of the game," he said.

No ceasefire...ready to send in ground troops if needed...totally changing the rules of the game--that is a lot for Israel to accomplish, presumably before Obama's inauguration on January 20th. Then again, Barak may have the most to gain in terms of his political asperations depending on how the operation turns out. Should that make me more--or less uneasy?

Gaza Without Hamas: A Goal Or Just A Slogan?

Not surprisingly both Livni and Netanyahu have been caught up in the rhetoric and have both promised to bring Hamas down--and that was already back on December 21 before the current operation even started, with both talking about how they will topple Hamas.

Khaled Abu Toameh writes that in the short term, Israel seems to have been successful to a degree:

What is certain so far is that Hamas has been dealt a severe blow with the demolition of almost all its security and civil institutions and the loss of hundreds of its supporters and police officers.

Moreover, Hamas appears to have lost some of its credibility due to the fact the Islamist movement was unprepared for the surprise offensive - a fact that contributed to the deaths of dozens of policemen who were attending a graduation ceremony in Gaza City on Saturday.

Hamas's relatively moderate response to the operation (only a few dozen rockets and mortars that have killed one Israeli citizen so far) has also harmed the movement's reputation.

Prior to the attack, Hamas operatives had threatened to fire thousands of rockets at Israel, including Beersheba and Ashdod.

Hamas's top leaders in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siam, have all gone underground out of fear of being targeted by Israel. Just a few days ago the three had proudly announced that they were not afraid of death and would be "honored" to join the bandwagon of Palestinian "martyrs." The general feeling on the streets of the Gaza Strip on Sunday night was that the countdown to the collapse of the Hamas regime had begun. As one local journalist put it, "We don't know who's in control of the Gaza Strip. The feeling is that the Hamas regime is crumbling."

That feeling may be very fleeting should Hamas prove itself capapble of a sustained bombardment on Israel, especially if they can fire those rockets almost at will. 

And even if it should happen that Israel were capable of ridding Gaza of Hamas--who would take its place. Abbas would love to return to Gaza, but it is questionable if the Palestinians of Gaza want him back or if it would seriously be in anyone's best interests. Besides, Gazans seem not to have turned against Hamas, according to Toameh, and instead have turned their anger against the Palestinians Authority and Egypt for apparently supporting and encouraging Israel in the current operation.

--Which again brings us back to the question as to what Israel's goal is.

Gillerman's Promise

Here is a short interview with former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman, being asked questions about the goals and objectives of the operation:



The Bottom Line

Bottom line, while the title of the interview is "Hamas Has Everything to Lose," the fact remains that Israel is in a far riskier situation:
 

• Israel has moral imperatives that still restrict what it can do
  
• We know from 2006 that world pressure on Israel to stop will only increase
  
• This is an operation that Israel probably does not want to continue into Obama's inauguration
  
• A simple ceasefire is not enough
  
• Conversely, Israel will have to have something meaningful and tangible to show for all this
  
• At the minimum, success will be measured by the cessation of rockets from Gaza
  
• If the rockets continue, even in reduced numbers, the logic of the operation will be questioned
  

When you come right down to it--Israel has everything to lose.

by Daled Amos

Did a hamas lie find its way into a washington post headline?

Noah Pollak observed about a headline in the Washington Post alleging that Israel had rejected a truce with Hamas:

But nothing of the sort happened; no truce has been offered by anyone involved, least of all Hamas, and there is nothing in the story that even begins to substantiate the claim made in the headline. The headline is simply fabricated from whole cloth, a piece of naked propaganda designed to portray Israel as an unreasonable aggressor.

Mere Rhetoric, Meryl and Elder of Ziyon noticed something else: The AP uncritically reported a false claim of Hamas that Israel had violated a truce understanding over the weekend.

This raises the question: Did the Washington Post's headline writer decide to insert his own take on the conflict into the headline based on the false AP report?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Weblog award 2008 finalists

via Mom in Israel:

Congratulations to the following blogging friends for their nominations as finalists for the 2008 Weblog Awards
Daled Amos
Colossus of Rhodey
Israelly Cool
Elder of Ziyon
The Glittering Eye
Israel Matzav
and of course Little Green Footballs.

UPDATE: Whoops. Snapped Shot too!

The media assault on israel

The American media is doing all it can to undermine Israel's case for war. I'm not just talking about those anti-Israel bloviators whom Noah Pollak amusingly call the "juicebox mafia," but the opinion pages of major American newspapers have been mobilized to condemn Israel.

Following up on his paper's poorly argued editorial criticizing Israel yesterday, Jackson Diehl weighed in with Olmert's Final Failure:

Israel's new battle with Hamas in Gaza means that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be remembered for fighting two bloody and wasteful mini-wars in less than three years in power. The first one, in Lebanon during the summer of 2006, punished but failed to defeat or even permanently injure Hezbollah, which is politically and militarily stronger today than it was before Olmert took office. This one will probably have about the same effect on Hamas, which almost certainly will still control Gaza, and retain the capacity to strike Israel, when Olmert leaves office in a few months.

It's astonishing that anyone, presumably as informed as Diehl - who was once the Post's Jerusalem bureau chief - could write something so unserious. (Richard Boudreaux of the LA Times highlights a number of differences between Israel's justified attack against Gaza with its justified attack against Hezbollah. via memeorandum)

Israel struck at Gaza not for some frivolous reason, but because the situation was intolerable. Wtih roughly 250,000 of its citizens in rocket range from Gaza and Hamas having used a ceasefire to improve its ability to strike at those citizens, Israel had to act. The point of the attack isn't to force another ceasefire - that would be frivolous as the failure in Lebanon turned otu to be - but to significantly degrade Hamas's abilities. I expect that part of what Israel will need to do before it stops is to kill the likes of Haniyeh, Zahar, and Abu Tir.

The end of the op-ed is disturbing too. In the next to last paragraph, Diehl writes:

Worst of all, Abbas followed in a long tradition of previous Palestinian leaders by reacting to a far-reaching Israeli offer with an uncourageous demurral. Olmert has never publicly disclosed the terms he discussed with Abbas, but sources say he went well beyond what Israel agreed to at the Camp David talks of 2000, previously the closest approach to a deal. I'm told Olmert offered to support the groundbreaking concession of allowing thousands of Palestinian refugees to "return" to Israel over a period of years; he also agreed to divide Jerusalem between Israel and Palestine. Abbas, like Yasser Arafat at Camp David, refused to sign on to a compromise that the world would have hailed.

This is Olmert's failure. How could he go further than Camp David? The Palestinians would be rewarded for their refusal to accept the terms of Camp David if Abbas had had the guts to accept Olmert's offer. But Diehl whitewashes what went on. If this report is correct, Abbas "refused" to make peace. That's hardly Olmert's fault. It doesn't occur to Diehl that even the "moderate" Palestinians might not be committed to a peaceful resolution of their conflict with Israel. Finally Diehl concludes:

So Olmert, like Ehud Barak eight years ago, will end his term as prime minister by bombing rather than liberating Palestinians. He will be remembered for his wars -- but it may be many years before Israel again has a leader as willing to make peace.

If the current fighting leads to an actual victory over Hamas then Olmert will get a small measure of credit in an otherwise dismal record. But Diehl ought not to mourn the lack of an Israeli leader willing to make peace, when he has noted that it was Abbas who refused Olmert's stupidly generous terms. The lack of peace doesn't result from the lack of (misplaced) Israeli efforts.

It's a measure of how awful and ill-informed Diehl's op-ed was that it was endorsed by anti-Israel and antisemitic pundit, Helena Coban.

But the Post isn't done. Today it features an op-ed by Palestinian "moderate" Daoud Kuttab, Has Israel revived Hamas?, Kuttab starts with:

In its efforts to stop amateur rockets from nagging the residents of some of its southern cities, Israel appears to have given new life to the fledging Islamic movement in Palestine.

"Nagging?" What an immoral declaration. OK, this fellow was "nagged" to death. The Post ought to stick to allowing terrorists op-eds instead of phony "moderates." Kuttab's all too predictable argument is that by attacking Hamas Israeli has succeeded in making Hamas more popular. Maybe he spoke too soon. The question is whether Israel will fight to win or not. If Israel fights to win, then Kuttab would do well to remember:

Take, for example, Israel's targeted assassination of Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, and Ismail Abu Shanab in 2004. With its top leadership eliminated in a span of only a few months, Hamas was in utter disarray. Specifically, after Yassin's death, Hamas never found a religious leader to fill the void. His death made Hamas increasingly vulnerable to the widely held perception that it was simply a group of violent terrorists with no religious mandate.

Israel can defeat Hamas if it kills the right people and sufficiently degrades Hamas's offensive capabilities. Kuttab isn't serious, but he served the needs of the Post's editorial staff by adding one more voice of objection to Israel defending its citizens.

The editors of the Post, unwilling to leave bad enough alone, have added an unsigned editorial to their campaign against Israel, Divided on Gaza.

If the Lebanon war is any indication, the bloodshed in Gaza -- which is being endlessly looped on Arab satellite channels across the region -- will strengthen the Iranian camp at the expense of the secular Sunni forces. Thousands of people joined pro-Hamas rallies in Beirut, Cairo and Amman, Jordan, yesterday. Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader whose popularity soared after he survived his battle with Israel, delivered a fiery speech in which he demanded that Egypt open its border with Gaza "and help Gazans in their struggle." The weak and unpopular government of President Hosni Mubarak allowed some aid deliveries yesterday and will find it hard to resist further concessions if the fighting continues.

Of course allowing the Iranian camp to declare victory strengthens it. As I argued yesterday, the Post should be using its reportorial abilities to expose the Iranian threat and leave the fighting to Israel. (The Post can't even bring itself to mention that Israel, too, is allowing emergency deliveries into Gaza and treating the wounded in Israeli hospitals.) If Israel defeats Hamas and kills some of its leaders, those street demonstrations will prove nothing.

Israel was offering upbeat assessments of its air offensive yesterday even while warning that it could continue for some time and possibly expand to ground operations. Yet, as in Lebanon, no decisive military victory is likely: Israel will not be able to topple Hamas unless it fully reoccupies Gaza, and it will probably not be able even to stop the rocket attacks on its cities without some kind of political settlement. For that, Israel will need the mediation of Egypt, Saudi Arabia or other Sunni states. Israel must be careful not to allow its military campaign to undermine its own diplomatic end game -- or to hand another political victory to an Iranian regime that remains a far greater threat to Israel than Hamas is.

Maybe no decisive military victory is possible. But my guess is that Israel has some specific goals in mind and that when it achieves them - and only then - will it stop. Even it achieves its goals would the Post grant Israel the victory? My guess, based on its current offensive, is that it won't. Maybe the Post's editors ought to stop shedding so many crocodile tears. Based on the editorial's they've run and the op-ed's they've commissioned, it's clear that they object to Israel defending itself.

The New York Times has finally weighed in too with War over Gaza. Surprisingly, it's marginally less hostile to Israel than the Washington Post has been. Still it suffers from its own bit of silliness:

We hope he does not mean a ground war. That, or any prolonged military action, would be disastrous for Israel and lead to wider regional instability. Mr. Barak and Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, both candidates to succeed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in elections set for February, must not be drawn any further into a competition with the front-runner, Benjamin Netanyahu, over who is the biggest hawk.

If a ground war defeats Hamas, it won't lead to greater regional instability. Hamas and other Iranian proxies are sources of instability. Defeating them is a good thing. And Barak, Livni and Olmert are hardly hawks.They are doing what they see as being necessary to defend their citizens. The imputation of cynicism is disappointing if not unexpected.

(The NYT actually had a somewhat sympathetic op-ed towards Israel by Benny Morris.)

What are the antidotes to this editorial poison?

Read Sderot under Siege by David Keyes. David Bernstein's takedown Glenn Greenwald is excellent. Jack's got a second roundup and is working on a third. Israelly Cool and the Muqata are still liveblogging. And while not all posts are about Israel, I've put together a link to the best pro-Israel blogs through Google Reader here.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Sherlock holmes was not needed

A bank robber in Chicago yesterday made it easy for authorities to solve the case. He wrote his demands on his pay stub.

The evil state of delaware

On our way home from New Jersey on Sunday night, the traffic wasn't bad. We hit some traffic as the two legs of the New Jersey Turnpike merged so I moved over to 295 South. The traffic in Maryland was clear. Did I miss something? Yes I did, I missed Delaware. After the Delaware Memorial Bridge the traffic moved well until Routes 95, 295 and 495 merged. Oh there was some warning. One of those overhead traffic signs warned of congestion. That congestion lasted from the merge until the toll plaza some ten miles later.

The Delaware Turnpike, on both its north and south sides, has awful tolll plazas. The plazas have EZ-Pass lanes available at the extremes and advertises them. (Other lanes may be EZ-Pass accessible but the Turnpike authority only promotes the lanes at the extreme left and right. This leads drivers to switch to those lanes. If the traffic is heavy it leads to massive slowdowns like what we experienced Sunday night. For an extra hour and fifteen minutes we traveled at 5 to 10 miles and hour sitting in a needless delay.

Why do I blame the Delaware Turnpike's toll plaza for this unfortunate series of events? Because the remainder of the roads were free from traffic. The only reason there was a backup was the poor design of the Delaware Turnpike's southern toll plaza. There was no backup approaching the generous toll plaza at the end of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. There was no back up in Maryland. And even though we got off the New Jersey Turnpike, there are places where 295 passes close to it, and again, the NJ Turnpike, except apparently where its two legs merged was clear.

So it must be that the awful jam on the Delaware Turnpike was the result of high volume compounded by the poor design of the toll plaza at its end that reduced the flow to a stop and go. And my family and I were forced to spend an extra 75 minutes in Delaware for no good reason.

The state is evil.

UPDATE: As the comment below makes clear, I didn't really explain my frustration adequately. Assume that a car takes up 25 feet. That means that there are ~211 cars per mile. Multiply that by 4 lanes and 10 miles and you have 8448 cars over a ten mile stretch. It took 75 minutes extra, so let's multiply 8448 by 1.25 and you get 10560. Divide by 24 and you get that the people in those 8448 cars (assuming at least one occupant per car) cumulatively wasted 440 days due to Delaware's poor traffic engineering. Now that 440 days is a rough estimate of the minimum amount of time wasted. Obviously it was more than that. But short of producing a Tom Cruise movie there are few endeavors that can lead to such a great waste of time.

An e-mail from my cousins

My cousins, Hayim and Renee Smith of Jerusalem sent this e-mail on Sunday. Reprinted with permission.

Hi All,

This will be a short note to let you know what we see and hear of the Gaza Battle now going on, from our home in Jerusalem.

We dont put on the radio or TV on Shabbat (Saturday) so we spent a quiet Shabbat oblivious that the war had broken out. When the Shabbat was over at about 18:00, we put on the TV. Usually there is either a talk show or a soccer game. But this time, there was a news broadcast, very unusual, indicating that something special was going on. Then we went onto the internet and read that Israel had attacked Gaza with a large airstrike, at Saturday noon.

Our daughter Yosefa and her family had gone on Friday to visit Rachel in Neve Zuf, a settlement in the Shomron for Shabbat. B**** K*******, our grandniece from Rhode Island was also there. (B**** is in Israel for a year's study.) It was the last days of Chanucah and the weather was clearing up after a couple of days of very needed rain.

In the early afternoon, the telephones started ringing in Rachel's house, very unusual for Shabbat. The first call was for Adam, Yosefa's son, telling him to report immediately to his army base. Adam is an officer in a select combat unit. Adam had sprained his foot the week before. But Adam's problem now was how to get, crutches and all, to his army camp.

The next phone call was for Hagai, Rachel's son, to get moving to his army base. Hagai is in the tank corps. Yosefa, in addition to her own car, had borrowed my car on Friday to get everyone to Rachel's house. With so many grandson's with driving licenses, my car gets borrowed quite often. The car gets borrowed even though the car is a 1988 Citroen.

The boys decided that Hagai would drive my car with Adam to Adam's pick-up point. And then Hagai would drive my car to Jerusalem, to Hagai's pick-point.

All this time, no TV or radio in Rachel's home. So there was no idea why the boys were being called back to their army bases on Shabbat.

Saturday night, we sat glued to the TV watching what had happened during the day. We have three Israeli TV stations that show news. And we also have Fox news from the States and Sky news from England. The Israeli airforce was concentrating on bombing missile launching sites, missile storage areas, missile fabrication points, Hamas terrorists concentrations, police stations etc. Today Sunday, Israel is starting to bomb in addition Hamas government offices.

The bombing is pin point bombing. The objectives having been closely studied over the past 8 years that the Hamas has been attacking Israel with their Khasam rockets. Many of the objectives are in civilian houses, next to schools and other civilian concentrations. As of this Sunday morning, the estimate is that about 300 killed in Gaza and about 700 wounded.

Hamas is still bombing the Israeli towns around the Gaza Strip with their Khasam missles. Irsrael has declared the zone 10 km around the Gaza Strip as a high dangerous area. People in that area should get to a protected area within 15 seconds of an air raid alarm. The town of Sderot is within that zone. The alarm is considered ovre 5 minutes after the alarm is sounded.

An additional 10 km zone has been declared a 30 second warning area. The town of Netivot is in that zone, An additional 10 km zone has been declared a 45 second warning zone. The port town Ashdod, Kiriat Gat and Ofakim are in that zone. Our grandnephew Aaron Smith and his family live in Ofakim. Israel is distributing for free, vibrating alarm beepers in the 15 second alarm zone to the hard of hearing who do not hear the air raid alarms

Beersheba is outside of these zones and is being considered as a dangerous area.

Israel has opened one of the Gaza border crossings, Kerem Shalom, for medical supplies and essential foods. Egypt is reported to have opened her Rafiah border crossing to receive wounded for treatment in Egypt.

Many Gaza children and adults are being treated in Israel hospitals. I guess it will be sometime before these patients get visitors from Gaza.

Here in Jerusalem, and as far as I know, and in Israel in general, everything is normal, stores are open, enough bread and dairy products. The only thing that we are missing, is a battery radio, that works.

We hope this message finds you all well. Let's hope that whatever is going on now, will last long enough to achieve a quiet situation on the Gaza Israel border.

Happy Chanucah

Renee & Hayim Smid, Jerusalem

Hamas and its boosters

Ethan Bronner of the NYT reports opines at the end of his recent report (via memeorandum):

There is palpable satisfaction at the moment in the Israeli government and the military because the operation so far is seen as a success. Few have focused on the fact that at this stage in the 2006 Lebanon war, there was the same satisfaction -- before things turned disastrous.

True, it could backfire, but let's go over a couple of things. For one, the current war against Hamas is being run by an actual general not a self-important political appointee. And Israel aware of the role the media plays in handing victories to terror organizations is being more careful in cultivating the media this time. Taken together with apparently careful planning, things are less likely to go wrong this time. Why it almost seems if Bronner is rooting for Israel to fail.

If he were, he wouldn't be alone.

When you read leftists writing about Israel's attacks against Hamas there is really only one conclusion you can reach: They support Hamas. Plain and simple.

In a withering attack on J-Street, Mere Rhetoric observes:

So I'm wondering: if you're objectively more anti-Israel than countries that officially want to wipe out Israel - to the extent that you go out of your way to condemn the Israeli government and the Israeli electorate when they won't - does that mean that you can't call yourself a "pro-Israel organization"?

But it's not just J-Street. Here's Ezra Klein (via memeoarandum).

There is nothing proportionate in this response. No way to fit it into a larger strategy that leads towards eventual peace. No way to fool ourselves into believing that it will reduce bloodshed and stop terrorist attacks. It is simple vengeance. There's a saying in the Jewish community: "Israel, right or wrong." But sometimes Israel is simply wrong.

This isn't about Israel being wrong, it's about whether Israel has the right accorded every other nation in the world to defend its citizens. If you don't believe Israel has that right, you are not just wrong: you support Hamas. That's it Mr. Klein. Don't pretend that you mourn for Jews being killed by terrorists. You are using your perch to defend those terrorists. You are wrong and you are anti-Israel. You also hold a view that is morally indefensible.

Q and O follows Klein's logic to its absurd, immoral conclusion.

Of course the fact that Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel and certainly weren't lobbing those missiles into Israel as an act of harassment, but as an earnest attempt to kill Israelis, isn't factored into the condemnation. Somehow, because Hamas has lousy killing machines, Israel must be constrained in their destruction of them and their capability until, I guess, they show marked improvement in killing Israelis. Then, perhaps, Klein and other would find Israel's reaction "proportional".

Similarly The Other McCain rips apart Glenn Greenwald and his ilk:

Are there no innocent Israelis, no "numerous children" imperiled by the haphazard Hamas rocket and mortar attacks of recent days? Did not Israel warn Hamas that a continuation of the attacks would not be tolerated? It seems to me that one must either justify the Hamas attacks or else admit Israel's right to act in self-defense. Greenwald and other critics might argue that Israel had a right to act, but has overreacted. However, in doing so they seek to make themselves arbiters of Israeli defense policy.

Noah Pollak administers the same treatment to Daniel Levy.

Let's be clear, if you feel that Israel is wrong to defend its citizens, you support Hamas. And at least as Mere Rhetoric suggests, have the common courtesy not to call yourself pro-Israel if you do.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Last night and candle of channukah

A kind of "wild" look to our candles tonight.

A more standard view of all the Menorahs.

The Shamash that couldn't.

A closeup of 3 oil flames.

Approximately 2AM, the final flame of Channukah

Last flame, out of focus.

Policeman, terrrorist, ...

Aside from the NYT shamelessly rewriting this story, this paragraph really bothers me.

Israeli officials said that anyone linked to the Hamas security structure or government was fair game because Hamas was a terrorist group that sought Israel's destruction. But with work here increasingly scarce because of an international embargo on Hamas, young men are tempted by the steady work of the police force without necessarily fully accepting the Hamas ideology. One of the biggest tolls on Saturday was at a police cadet graduation ceremony in which 15 people were killed.

The justification for killing armed members of Hamas well, that's "Israel says." But if you're a more sophisticated sort, like a reporter for the NYT you know better: those poor blokes have joined Hamas because they need the jobs. Neat, isn't it? Israel starves the Palestinians, forcing them into Hamas's arms and then butcher them. Damn impressive planning on Israel's part. (I'm not going to raise the inconvenient question of how it is that if Israel's blockade is so awful that Hamas is able to keep its public well-armed but not well-fed.)

Let's, however play a little game. Can you tell the difference between a Hamas policeman and Hamas terrorist? Again. Policeman. Terrorist. They wear the same uniform. The only difference I see is that the terrorists - I mean militants - wear masks too. If the only difference between the guys who are terrorists and the guys who are just earning an honest living is a mask that can be kept in their back pockets, then even the guys in the latter group lose a presumption of "innocent civilian."

I fail to understand the lengths the media and other fellow travelers go to defend terrorists.

Crossposted on Yourish

Hamas--Not Your Father's Hizbollah

(Note: In addition to Israellycool, Jameel at Muquata is also liveblogging.)

A dose of humility ...

for pundit and blogger alike from Jeff Jacoby.

Present company *sigh* included.

Covering for iran

There is no kind way to describe today's Washington Post editorial Israel Strikes with a subtitle:
Hamas suffers a serious blow -- but the real winner may be Iran.

ISRAEL'S AIR offensive against the Gaza Strip yesterday should not have been a surprise for anyone who has been following the mounting hostilities in the region -- least of all the Hamas movement, which invited the conflict by ending a six-month-old ceasefire and launching scores of rockets and mortar shells at Israel during the past 10 days. The initial Israeli strikes appeared to deal a punishing blow to the Islamic movement, reportedly killing several of its leaders and dozens of other militants and security force members. Inevitably, however, civilians were among the more than 200 reported Palestinian dead, and renewed Palestinian rocket fire against Israeli cities killed at least one person. While Israel could justifiably describe its action as one of self-defense, it's far from clear that it will end up improving the country's security -- even as it risks a wider conflict.

What's missing here?

Hamas did not invite the conflict by ending the ceasefire. It invited the conflict by using the ceasefire to build up its offensive capabilities against Israeli civilian targets. More than a year and a half ago the New York Times reported:

The concerns of Shin Bet and the army, their officials say, include the following: as much as 30 tons of weapons-grade explosives smuggled into Gaza from Egypt, either through tunnels or through the desert; new rocket-building expertise from non-Gazans smuggled into Gaza or from Gazans who received training from Hezbollah or in Syria; a small but unknown quantity of better antitank missiles, of the general kind used so effectively last summer by Hezbollah against Israeli armor and Israeli troops sheltering in houses; a small number of ground-to-air missiles; and the construction of Hezbollah-style concrete bunkers and tunnels in crowded Gaza that will make any Israeli infantry operation harder to carry out.

And while the tone of the article is "Israel says this ..." rather than "Hamas has done this ..." it's interesting to note that the beginning of the article reports:

The commander, who gave the briefing at the request of The New York Times and spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Hamas's improved rockets had a range of about 10 miles, which would allow them to hit the Israeli town of Ashkelon.

This assessment has proven all too true, so it's reasonable to assume that the rest of the Israeli security assessment has been on target.

Furthermore, Barak Ravid's important article in Ha'aretz makes clear that Operation Cast Lead was not some hastily drawn up attack launched for electoral advantage, but rather a carefully designed attack aimed at reducing Hamas's ability to threaten tens of thousands of Israelis. The IDF's catalogue of Hamas controlled targets provides further evidence of the care that went into planning the attacks.

So while the Post may note "... Inevitably, however, civilians were among the more than 200 reported Palestinian dead ..." it is silent on who's at fault. That silence may be fairly equated with excusing Hamas for its tactic of placing its troops and munitions among civilians.

Israeli officials say the aim of the attack is a modest one: to force Hamas to return to the uneasy and informal truce, under which Palestinian rocket and mortar fire was curtailed if not entirely stopped and Israel relaxed but did not lift its economic blockade of Gaza. Hamas's Damascus-based leadership, which ordered an end to this "calm," as Israel calls it, also seems to have a relatively limited objective. It demands an end to all Israeli (and Egyptian) restrictions on movement in and out of Gaza in exchange for more quasi-peace. One considerable obstacle to such an outcome is that Israel is engaged in an election campaign in which the various candidates -- including the serving defense and foreign ministers -- are staking out hawkish positions. The outgoing Bush administration, for its part, was quick to offer support to Israel yesterday and to blame the conflict on Hamas.

And good for the Bush adminstration for doing so. And shame on the Post for covering for Hamas.

Over time, however, a fight in Gaza could be costly for Israel. Military commanders have repeatedly warned that it could lead to punishing attacks on Israeli cities, spread to the West Bank or Lebanon, or force a ground invasion that would cause thousands of casualties and leave Israeli troops stranded without an exit strategy. Israel cannot stop rocket attacks by military action alone; eventually a political deal will be needed. And any hopes its leaders have of overthrowing Hamas's government in Gaza are probably illusory, unless a long-term reoccupation of the territory is undertaken.

Yes, a long term fight in Gaza could prove costly to Israel. But there comes a point when any responsible government must say, "no more" and protect its citizens. I think that the Israeli government waited way too long, the Post disagrees. But an "exit strategy" is hardly Israel's biggest problem. The Post lauded Israel's "exit strategy" from Gaza in 2005. But as Eric Rozenman of CAMERA noted:

... according to the editorial, the success of the Gaza disengagement depends not on Abbas stemming terrorism from the Gaza Strip but on Israel clarifying that it will make "further territorial concessions" regardless of what the Palestinian Arabs do.

If the editors of the Post were truly concerned with peace in the Middle East, they'd be as demanding of the Palestinians as they are of Israel. But of course, the onus falls on Israel, and the "exit strategy" of 2005, has now led to an "entrance strategy" 3 and a half years later.

One of the great untold stories of the "Aqsa intifada" is that Israel defeated it. Yes it was costly. But when Israel defeated Fatah, in Operation Defensive shield, it greatly reduced terror attacks. As I've noted previously:

What did work? The military solution as Moshe Arens recalled last week:

But once the Israel Defense Forces and the security services began to seriously tackle Palestinian terror, following the massacre at the Park Hotel in Netanya in the spring of 2002, it quickly became clear that terror could be defeated by force. As a matter of fact, it could be defeated only by the use of force. The terrorists view any hints of Israeli willingness to give in to a portion of their essentially limitless demands as a sign of weakness, which only serves to encourage further acts of terror.

Noah Pollak, who linked to Arens, observed:

The extent to which Israel's military victory in the intifada is simply not acceptable for discussion in enlightened quarters is amazing as a matter of cultural psychology. But this refusal also has a crippling effect on Israeli politics, as the military option against Hamas is continuously framed as a foreordained failure.

Operation Defensive Shield, did roll back the terror capabilities of Hamas and Fatah. It also was very costly in terms of lives. But that doesn't mean that it was a failure; the actions that necessitated Defensive Shield were the problem.

The Post certainly isn't concerned with Israeli casualties or exit strategies, it is caught up in its own myopia about the ineffectiveness of military operations when launched by Israel, so it presumes military operations - even carefully considered ones - will never work and then comes up with a few boilerplate terms to justify its objections.

While the fighting lasts -- and Israeli officials were warning yesterday that it could be prolonged -- Hamas's principal sponsor, Iran, will have achieved a tactical success. Israeli diplomats have been working feverishly in recent weeks to focus international attention on the Iranian nuclear program as the Obama administration prepares to take office. They've been warning that the new U.S. president will have to act quickly if an Iranian bomb is to be stopped. Now, for weeks or possibly months to come, all eyes will be on Gaza -- on the fighting, the continued suffering of civilians and the need for a fresh settlement. Israel might have avoided this fight, and gained a diplomatic advantage of its own, by relaxing the economic blockade. Now it will be embroiled in a costly battle that, in the end, is a distraction from the most serious threat it faces.

The illogic of this final paragraph is astounding. First of all, just because Israel faces a threat from Iran, doesn't mean that the threat from Gaza doesn't exist. Second of all, Israel's failure to destroy Hezbollah in 2006 strengthened Iran's hand in the region and emboldened Hamas to imitate Hezbollah's success. Hamas's efforts to build its terrorist infrastructure were copied from Hezbollah.There's no need for a "fresh settlement" unless one believes - as apparently the editors of the Washington Post do - that terrorists who threaten innocents ought not to be defeated but given an "exit strategy."

Worse, the Post's editors claim that there's an "either ... or" here that will allow Iran to escape scrutiny for its atomic program. Maybe the Post could devote more resources to determining how close Iran is to developing an atomic weapons and fewer towards finding fault with Israel's efforts to defend its citizenry. In other words, the Post has the power to scrutinize on Iran's mischief, but since that would require some real reporting instead of simply finding critics of the Bush administration. It takes a special level of chutzpah for the Post to blame Israel for diverting attention from the Iranian threat, when its own reporting on the threat has been incredibly superficial.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Juggling carnivals 12/29/08

Incoming Carnivals

It's been a year now since Jack's taken over the administration of Haveil Havalim. He's done a great job, involving many new bloggers in the project, including this week's hostess Material Maidel. As archiver of the Jewish blogosphere, Jack's also put together an excellent roundup of news and opinion from Gaza. Please check it out and leave him a note of appreciation.

Carnival of Maryland #48 is up at Inside Charm City. I see I wasn't the only blogger who's fascinated with clouds! Could it be something in the air?

Council speak 12/29/08

The Council has spoken.

This week's winning council entry was The Razor's, The Symbol of Oppression, a meditation on the origins of, meaning off and devastating effects of the peace symbol. Tie for second place were Joshuapundit's Cheney Slaps Biden Upside The Head - an admiring look at the outgoing (and unfairly vilified) Vice President's exit interview with Chris Wallace and Mere Rhetoric's Smug Liberal Sophistication Undisturbed By Decades Of Disastrously Wrong Domestic And International Predictions, a refutation of a number of accepted liberal foreign policy pieties.

On the non-council side, the winner was John Stossel's Arrogant Conceit. Stossel writes:

Obama and Emanuel want us to believe that their blueprint for reform will bring recovery from the recession. Yet we have recovered from past recessions without undertaking a radical social and economic transformation.

Apparently Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman hasn't gotten the message. The runners-up on the non-council side were Larrey Anderson's Climate Crisis = Logic Crisis - at the American Thinker - who remembers, as I do, the certainty that we were headed for a new ice age just three decades ago - GIGO - and Dhimmi Watch's Fitzgerald: If we cut off the jizya, could things become even worse? a look at even more examples of throwing money at enterprises of dubious value.

Congratulations to all the winners!

watcher's council.

Of sewers and stimulus

A VOA News article presents some current Democratic and Obama-team economic thinking. According to Obama adviser David Axelrod:

"Every economist from left to right agrees that we have to do something big in terms of job creation . . .

Is that really true? Jacob Sullum deconstructs "Obama's job fetish":

Obama wants to spend $150 billion on "developing and deploying advanced energy technologies, including solar, wind and clean coal." He says this plan "will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, decrease our dependence on foreign oil and create jobs that can't be outsourced."

Leaving aside the desirability of "energy independence" and the merits of Obama's approach to reducing carbon dioxide emissions (which has the government, rather than the market, picking the most efficient methods), the fact that he lists "jobs that can't be outsourced" as a distinct goal is troubling. Paying people to dig holes and fill them in again also creates "jobs that can't be outsourced," but that doesn't mean it's a smart investment or an appropriate use of taxpayers' money.

The sort of thinking described here seems to be really rampant. Accroding to the VOA article:

. . . Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown expressed the views of many Democrats: that the economy cannot recover without receiving a significant boost, and that the only entity capable of providing it right now is the federal government.

Brown also spoke on This Week, saying "When you see what has happened with consumer spending, in Christmas especially, with [low] holiday sales, and you understand that 70 percent of the economy is all about consumer spending, we need a real stimulus to get people to spend money. And that means putting money in infrastructure, water and sewer."

Did I miss something there? Sewers are important, but I am not sure what building sewers is supposed to do for consumer spending. Both ends of the political spectrum agreed, for the most part, on propping up the major banks, but there are convincing voices out there arguing that Obama's stimulus package is likely to make things worse.

Peter Schiff asks "what can we expect from the coming avalanche of federal activism?" He answers:

By borrowing more than it can ever pay back, the government will guarantee higher inflation for years to come, thereby diminishing the value of all that Americans have saved and acquired. For now the inflationary tide is being held back by the countervailing pressures of bursting asset bubbles in real estate and stocks, forced liquidations in commodities, and troubled retailers slashing prices to unload excess inventory. But when the dust settles, trillions of new dollars will remain, chasing a diminished supply of goods. We will be left with 1970s-style stagflation, only with a much sharper contraction and significantly higher inflation.

According to Fred Barnes, Obama has some "unusual ideas about the economy":

"The American economy has worked in large part," he said last week, "because we've guided the market's invisible hand with a higher principle: that America prospers when all Americans can prosper." That's not exactly the way Adam Smith described the invisible hand of free markets.

When he announced his picks for top energy and environmental posts, Obama praised California for adopting the most stringent emission standards in the country. "And rather than it being an impediment to economic growth, it has helped to become an engine of economic growth," he observed.

At best, it hasn't helped much and more likely has hurt the California economy, which is currently cratering.

Right, I wouldn't promote California as the model of sound policy.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Guardian: "Analysis: The latest attacks in Gaza rank with Deir Yassin and the Sabra and Shatila massacres"

The title of the post quotes the blurb on the Guardian front page (click on the screen-shot for a closer look), which links to the following article:

[...] For in the end what has happened in the past few hours is simply an expression of what has been going on for days and months and years: the death and fear that Gaza's gunmen and rocket teams and bombers have inflicted upon Israel have been returned 10, 20, 30 times over once again. And nothing will change in the arithmetic of it.

Not in Gaza. But perhaps in a wider Arab world, becoming more uncomfortable by the day about what is happening inside Gaza, something is changing. And Israel has supplied a rallying point. Something tangible and brutal that gives the critics of its actions in Gaza - who say it has a policy of collective punishment backed by disproportionate and excessive force - something to focus on.

Something to be ranked with Deir Yassin. With the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Something, at last, that Israel's foes can say looks like an atrocity.

The author puts the comparison into the mouth of the "Arab World," but he means it himself. Deir Yassin was followed, perhaps revenged, within days by the much less well-known Hadassah Hospital Convoy Massacre. The Sabra and Shatila massacre was carried out by Arabs. The AP, in reference to the current Gaza operation, states "Most of the casualties were security forces . . . "

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Update: Great minds think alike!

IDF Strikes Back At Hamas Gaza

Last updated at 11:44pm

Note: Israellycool is live-blogging the Israeli retaliation against Hamas

Tracking the action in Sderot

If you want to keep track of the Qassam strikes on Sderot, check out the QassamCount tweet from Sderot, which I also have on my blog to the left.
There is also an RSS feed.

Elder of Ziyon has a calendar tracking the daily rocket attacks from Hamas in Gaza.
Israel At Level Ground has a series of posts that have been tracking rocket attacks from Gaza.

Overview of what the IDF is doing in Gaza

The IDF site has some overall info on the strike into Gaza:

The IDF Strikes at Hamas Terror Infrastructure in the Gaza Strip
27 December 2008 , 18:47

On Saturday morning (Dec. 27), the IDF implemented the "Cast Lead" operation in a series of aerial strikes against Hamas targets and terror infrastructure facilities, in the Gaza Strip. All Israeli pilots returned safely to their bases. The strikes were implemented in light of the ongoing terrorist activities by the Hamas terror origination in the Gaza Strip, and the continuation of rocket and missile fire at southern Israel and the injuring of Israeli citizens living the towns and cities of southern Israel. The IDF will continue its operations against terrorists in accordance with constant assessments held by the Chief of Staff. This operation will be continued, expanded and intensified as much as required.

The information on targets that were hit was gathered by the Intelligence Corps during the past few months and the targets include Hamas terror operatives that operated from the organization's headquarters, training camps and weaponry storage warehouses.

From Artuz Sheva: IDF Releases Photos of Hamas Targets, Terror Training Facilities

The IDF on Saturday night released aerial photos of Hamas facilities targeted by IAF fighter pilots on Saturday in Operation 'Cast Lead.'

The photos show the military training facilities Hamas has developed in Gaza, from where Israel forcibly evicted close to 10,000 of its Jewish citizens in August 2005 in hopes of establishing peace with its Palestinian Authority Arab neighbors.

Check out the pictures.

Note that these are pictures of the facilities before being hit.

And how did Israel get the necessary intelligence about Hamas targets? What's good for the goose...

Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning.

The disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.

Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well.

First Reactions From Europe

Emanuele Ottolenghi notes the expected response from Europe:

Less than a day after Israel began its long overdue operation against Gaza, European journalists are already dispensing their predictable wisdom on why Israel can't win and why its actions will inevitably - and always - boomerang. Ian Black, writingin theGuardian, warns of the likelihood that support for Hamas among Palestinians will increase. Now, there are many ways one could criticize Israel's operation and be thoughtful (for example, by saying that Israel might have acted earlier); Black's attempt is not one of them.

First, Israel's operation is not a PR exercise to win the hearts and minds of Palestinians. Second, Hamas already has plenty of Palestinian support - it won an election, remember? And it was a fair one, believe it or not. Third, who cares about public support? A party that has just announced it will chop off thieves' hands, and strictly enforce all other manner of Islamic punishment is not exactly concerned about "hearts and minds."

Repressive regimes don't need support if they are willing and capable of terrorizing their own populations, and defeating them is not best done by convincing their frightened citizens to rebel. If in doubt, ask Iraqis how easy it was to do so under Saddam Hussein . They can now give you an honest answer.

John Podhoretz notes that although the results of the attack are not known right away:

But there are three things to say about it immediately. First, when you hear people call on Israel to show "restraint," remember that "restraint" is precisely what Israel has been showing for the past three and a half years as Hamas has launched thousands of Kassam rockets at Sderot and other locations inside Israel. Second, this was not an attack but a counter-attack, almost purely an act of self-defense that featured extensive warnings in the days before it was launched in an effort to minimize civilian casualties. Third, the Hamas terror bases were evidently located in civilian neighborhoods. According to international law, the responsibility for any civilian casualties in such a situation rests entirely with those who a) failed to wear uniforms and b) interwove themselves with non-combatants. The fault is Hamas's, not Israel's.

Bradley Burston of Haaretz also addresses the claims for Israeli restraint. He writes:

It is, abruptly and again, wartime. Across the globe, the selective pacifists of the left and the recliner Rambos of the right are spoiling for their next battle, the war in Gaza.

They will fight one another in letters to Congress, in cable news sound bites, in raucous talk-radio phone-ins, in the virtual mega-heroics of the online battlefield of the talkback.

They will fight one another in the United Nations as well, unashamedly one-sided in their concern for human life.

Herewith the first in a two-part guide to the 10 most gratuitous, least productive, most resolutely ingenuous claims likely to be hurled in an effort to attack Israel.

The first five are arguments of the anti-Israel left, claims which are, curiously, as tired as they are unflagging.

Read it!

Ed Morrissey knows what world's reaction should be:

The world should step aside and quit interfering in the war Hamas so desperately wants and will desperately lose if left to their own devices.  As long as Hamas controls Gaza, a state of war exists, and cease-fires do nothing to advance peace, as this year has proven yet again.  Tiresome calls for "restraint" don't work when one side is determined to have war.  The best way to resolve this conflict is to allow Hamas to have its war and get utterly crushed by Israel or overthrown by Gazans to avoid that unavoidable conclusion.

In Star Trek, Captain Kirk and Ariel Sharon, I quoted Amir Taheri that it is the world's attitude--preventing a conclusion to a war and sticking to it--that has allowed the conflict to continue and reach this stage.

So What Is Israel's Goal As The IDF Goes Into Gaza?

Noah Pollak puts it best:

Israel's job is not necessarily to topple Hamas rule -- that would be a tall order, being that there is no competent Fatah force to replace Hamas in Gaza -- but to humiliate the swaggering resistance, to kill as many of its leaders and militants as possible, and to demonstrate to Hamas' allies that the IDF and Israeli government learned the right lessons from the 2006 war. This will require more strikes like those of this morning, and it will require the IDF to stop Hamas' rocket fire -- either through military dominance, or by forcing Hamas to conclude that it must cease its attacks lest its rule be terminated. The former is much more likely than the latter.

Shmuel Rosner sees this restraint implied in Olmert's own words:

One should listen carefully to the words uttered just minutes ago by Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the wake of the military operation in Gaza. He was not talking about toppling Hamas's rule - as both his Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu have advocated just days ago. Olmert, burned by his painful 2006 Lebanon experience, rejected the ambitious goals that these two contenders for Prime Ministership have made parts of their campaign.

Fear of Repraisals

Allison Kaplan Sommer reports for Pajamas Media on the importance of the timing of the retaliation:

Saturday was the appropriate day to do it from the Israeli perspective -- a day when stores would be closed, schools wouldn't be in session, and residents of Sderot, Ashkelon and other parts of southern Israel would be in their homes with their families, where they were ordered to stay, close to their shelters.

Spookily, Israeli television broadcast live from all of the hospitals in the southern part of the country even before any casualties were showing up, a reflection of the fear of the size and nature of the reprisals that are expected -- as were the ambulances deployed across the region. It didn't take long until they arrived; residents of the city of Netivot rushed into shelters as rockets began to fall there -- all broadcast live on television. Similar scenes in Sderot quickly followed as the Israeli casualty list began.

Reaction From the Palestinian Authority

Apparently the PA is all set should Hamas be removed from power:

Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah said Saturday that they were prepared to assume control over the Gaza Strip if Israel succeeds in overthrowing the Hamas government.

"Yes, we are fully prepared to return to the Gaza Strip," a top PA official told The Jerusalem Post. "We believe the people there are fed up with Hamas and want to see a new government."

Another PA official said Fatah had instructed all its members in the Gaza Strip to be prepared for the possibility of returning to power.

"We have enough men in the Gaza Strip who are ready to fill the vacuum," he said. "But of course all this depends on whether Israel manages to get rid of the Hamas regime."[Hat tip: Israel Matzav]

Apparently the PA is unaware that one vacuum cannot fill another vacuum.

The US Response to the Israeli Retaliation to Hamas

Bush has responded to the attack--through spokesman Gordon Johndroe:

"Hamas' continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop. Hamas must end its terrorist activities if it wishes to play a role in the future of the Palestinian people.

"The United States urges Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza."

Powerline notes:

President Bush stands alone among the quoted leaders. He alone issued a statement declining to equate the parties or call on them both to cease...Contrary to the implication of the White House statement, however, Hamas's reason for being among "the Palestinian people" is terrorist.

Now let's see if Obama has anything to say.

Considering the response from the world to the Hizbollah-Israel war, one can imagine we have only begun to see the hand wringing that will come.

Israel's PR Response

Israel apparently is going to try to do a better job on the PR front:

Israel to mount emergency international PR effort in wake of Gaza campaign

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Saturday instructed the Foreign Ministry to take emergency measures to adapt Israel's international public relations to the ongoing escalation in the Gaza Strip.

Livni instructed senior ministry officials to open an aggressive and diplomatic international public relations campaign, in order to gain greater international support for Israel Defense Forces operations in the Gaza Strip.

Yeah, good luck with that--from Judeopundit:

Guardian: "Analysis: The latest attacks in Gaza rank with Deir Yassin and the Sabra and Shatila massacres"

Judeopundit explains the difference the difference, noting also the admission by the Palestinian Arabs themselves that the vast majority of those killed were the terrorists:

Israeli warplanes rained more than 100 tons of bombs on security sites in Hamas-ruled Gaza Saturday and early Sunday, killing at least 230 people in one of the Mideast conflict's bloodiest assaults in decades. The government said the open-ended campaign was aimed at stopping rocket attacks that have traumatized southern Israel.

Most of the casualties were security forces, but Palestinian officials said at least 15 civilians were among the dead. More than 400 people were also wounded.

The vast majority of those killed were Hamas police officers and security men, including two senior commanders, but the dead included several construction workers and at least two children in school uniforms.

--and then removed it.

And so it goes.
Sunday is another day...

Ayatollah Kashani denounces "interferences of the Zionists in the Christian world"

The Iranian regime continues to express its benevolent concern for the "Christian world":

Tehran's interim Friday Prayers Leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, called interferences of the Zionists in the Christian world, America in particular, as very regrettable.

He congratulated the birth anniversary of the Jesus Christ to all Christians around the globe.

Addressing worshippers converged in Tehran University campus on Friday, Ayatollah Kashani said Jesus Christ was the herald of peace.

He advised the Christians not to let the Zionists interfere in their destiny.

"While the Zionists have caused humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip and Palestine, how could the Christian world answer the crimes?" he said.

"While the message of Jesus Christ is restoration of peace and tranquility, why you keep silence?" he asked the Christians.

Ayatollah Emami Kashani said the Jesus Christ is a great Messenger of Allah and his greatness was described more in the holy Qoran rather than Bible.

The Telegraph reported a few months ago:

A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against . . .

For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the "crime" of abandoning one's religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.

Today, Rashin's brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran's holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran's new law. [He is now out on bail awaiting trial.]

MPAC-UK, of course, is calling on Muslims to thank Channel 4 for Ahmadinejad's Xmas message. (Hat Tip to "SilverLJ" from the comment thread to the MPAC post for pointing out the relevance of the Soodmand case.)

Crossposted on Judeopundit

A Brit That Will Lead To Neither Tzedek Nor Shalom

I came across this from Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, founded by Marcia Freedman, who is also a member of J Street's Advisory Board. In an open letter to President-Elect Obama, they write:

We the undersigned, call on you, President-elect Obama, to pledge to make resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a top priority of your Administration.

While you come into office with a long list of problems before you, the long-simmering conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is among the most urgent. After eight years of half-hearted diplomacy, there is no time left to walk softly and hope for the best.

The consequences of failing to establish a durable peace are grim. The influence of Iran and Hezbollah would grow among an increasingly bitter Palestinian population, and extremists would have further excuse to do vicious battle with the West. It is difficult to calculate the damage that a downward spiral into fresh waves of violence could hold.

American Presidents traditionally look to the Jewish community for insight on Israel-related policy. As Jewish clergy, we pledge to mobilize our people behind your leadership for a mutually-acceptable, two-state solution. We pledge to support you through difficult, trying times, and to celebrate with you when the job is done. We pledge to let the American public know: An American President who dedicates himself to the establishment of a durable Israeli-Palestinian peace acts in the best interests of Israel and the United States.

* We call on you to dedicate yourself to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel early in your first term.

* We call on you to appoint, within your first 100 days in office, a high-level, highly-regarded envoy to the region, an individual who has the ear of both Israelis and Palestinians, the respect of the American people, and ready access to your Oval Office.

* We call on you to establish mechanisms of enforcement and follow-through, so that decisions made and agreements signed will be respected and brought to fruition.

Amazing, calling on Obama to push a square peg through a round hole.

Are they oblivious to the fact that the Palestinians are not ready for a state and that a state at this point would only create another base for terrorist attacks?

And to top it all off--they do not even try to distinguish between the PA and Hamas. They don't even mention them! In other words, they are not pushing for a state on the West Bank alone, but dealing with Hamas just as with the PA.

Forget the reality on the ground--just have Obama create a second Palestinian state!

It's Hopeless

I came across a blog commenting on the possibility that Israel make take action against Hamas for the continued barrage of Kassams--a barrage that did not stop during the 'truce'.

According to this blog:

What Olmert doesn't note is that there was a long cease-fire, during which Israel kept blockading Gaza, so that they don't have enough food or water. He's been starving them because he doesn't like their democratically elected government. Not launching missiles hasn't worked for citizens of Gaza. From their point of view there's little reason not to fire missiles at Israel. Being shot by Israeli soldiers probably doesn't seem like a much worse way to go than starving... or watching their children starve.

The comments tend to follow the same line of thought:

• But hungry fenced in people are so much more fun to shoot.
  
  
• i suspect they think that now is the time to acquire additional territory and to knock down the rock throwers while the shrub will agree.
  
  
• no it's just where they want them. defenseless.
  
  
• Ah, but when you mention this to a number of Likudnik Jerusalem-Post-reading Jews I know, and they start hollering about rockets, not admitting that maybe the rockets might stop if Israel wasn't starving the Gazans.
  
  
• why don't they both just stop it?
  
  
• Israel stop starving the Gazans, Gazans stop shooting missles at Israel being in the stronger position, I would suggest that Israel initiate that bargain.
  
  
• It would(will?) be interesting hear what OB has to say on this but with Rahm at his ear it's doubtful that OB will have anything critical to say about Israel. If Israel wants to starve people and deprive them of water OB like all before him(other than Pres. Carter)most likely will just look the other way or join in blaming the victims for daring to fight for the their lives and loved ones.
  
  
• We all know that without US support Israel couldn't continue to do this and that any other country engaging in what amounts to a slow motion genocide would be stopped. And we all know those among us from congress to the public who make it possible for Israel to continue this genocide for land by calling black white.
  

It's one thing for people not to know the history of the region over hundreds of years, or since 1948, or 1967--but to be blissfully unaware of what is going on during the last 6 to 12 months? To claim that the bombs are in reaction to Israel withholding the materials being used to make the bombs or restricting the movement of terrorists?

The responsibility for this...ignorance falls squarely on the lap of the media.

By the same token, what can we do to document the facts and get them out there?

by Daled Amos

Light blogging

I will be busy over the weekend so blogging will be light until Sunday night/ Monday morning. (I don't know my co-bloggers' schedules though.)

I plan to post the new Shiny Happy Dhimmi when I can get back before a keyboard.

Talkin' turki

Former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Turki al-Faisal offers Peace for the Mideast. Subtitled "How Our Plan Could Aid Barack Obama's Efforts" the op-ed is ostensibly a demonstration of how magnanimous the Saudis are in the efforts to seek Middle East peace. After reading through it and getting to the end, the final paragraph is quite amusing.

Stabilizing the Middle East will require patience, determination, tough diplomacy and empathy. The effort, however, will be well worth the result. As the late Indian diplomat Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru Pandit said: "The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war."

That saying that ends the op-ed is pretty ironic. For in the article, al-Faisal mentions very little that Saudi Arabia will commit to. Maybe it will require great effort to achieve peace in the Middle East, but the Saudis (and Arabs) won't be making any such effort. It's kind of like Tom Sawyer getting all of his friends to whitewash the fence and then pretending that he expended a great effort in doing it himself. Here's what the Saudis (and Arabs) offer from their end:

The Arab world is willing to pay a high price for peace, not only recognizing Israel as a legitimate state but also normalizing relations and putting a permanent end to the state of hostilities that has existed since 1948.

What a great sacrifice! The Arabs offer to recognize and normalize relations with Israel. Normally negotiations start from the premise that both sides recognize the legitimacy of each other and proceed from there. In this case the Saudis (and the Arab world) offer to recognize Israel's legitimacy based on the conclusion of Israel's negotiations with the Palestinians - on the Saudis terms!

And it's also quite generous of him to consider "normalizing relations" with Israel. Again it is an amazing sacrifice to consider. Given Israel's technological advances and its ongoing efforts to help other nations, it seems that normalization would help the Arab world. The sacrifice being made by the Arabs right now, is by boycotting Israel.

The idea that Israel's legitimacy should be determined by the approval of a group of countries that routinely deny or severely curtail basic freedoms and equality to their citizens would be funny if it were not so perverse.

But let's go to the substance of Prince Turki's article, shall we?

First of all there's some false history here.

The Oslo Accords of 1993, the first direct agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis, marked a turning point. There was a true spirit of cooperation, expressed through the mutual desire of Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 tragically ended this hopeful development.

After PM Rabin was assassinated Israel withdrew from six cities handing over all responsibilities including security to Yasser Arafat and the PA in late 1995. At the beginning of 1996 Israel was struck with a series of devastating terror attacks over a ten day period. Arafat had been more than happy to receive land, but utterly failed to take responsibility for the territory he was in control of. He allowed Hamas to organize attack Israel. Those terror attacks convinced Israelis that the peace process was too dangerous and were decisive in getting the Israeli electorate to vote for Binyamin Netanyahu. And despite Netanyahu's reputation of being a hard liner he withdrew Israel from most of Hebron.

What ended the "peace process" was the bad faith of the Palestinians. Arafat continually violated the terms of the agreements he signed with Israel. And after Arafat torpedoed the Camp David summit in 2000, he prepared the "Aqsa intifada" in an attempt to shift blame from his own refusal to make peace onto Israel.

So what does Prince Turki demand from Israel in return for such magnanimity?

In return, we ask Israel to pursue the just course laid out in various international resolutions and laws: to withdraw completely from the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, returning to the lines of June 4, 1967; to accept a just solution to the refugee problem according to U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194; and to recognize the independent state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.

East Jerusalem? Yes that means that Israel must cede French Hill, Ramot, Ramat Eshkol and other neighborhoods to the north and Gilo to the south of Jerusalem for example. Prince Turki obviously knows that no Israeli government is going to this.

For years the mantra was that peace had to be based on resolutions 242 and 338, in recent years though the Arabs have hearkened back to 194. Part of the problem is that Israel was moving close to 242, so it became necessary to move the goalposts. (Why 194 should be the basis for anything is crazy.) Also 194 contains specific language about refugees:

"the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible"

I suppose the way that Prince Turki interprets this is that it grants all Palestinians the right to return. He would have no problem if Palestinians became the majority in Israel and finished Israel demographically, which is what the "right of return" is code for.

But let's say he's serious. We then must remember that there were likely more Jewish refugees from the Arab world than Arab refugees from what was until 1948, Palestine. So why doesn't Turki offer to start a compensation funds for the Jewish refugees who were forced from their homes by Arab countries in 1948 and the years following the war? Perhaps he could even sweeten the pot by offering to compensate the descendants of Jews who were expelled by Saudi Arabia when it conquered two provinces from Yemen. Of course the answer is that in the Turki's mind there are only "Palestinian" refugees. No other refugees resulted from Israel's War of Independence.

If peace is truly the goal, Israel must cease all provocative actions, such as continuing the building of settlements on Palestinian lands, which is a clear violation of international law. If it does not, the world will conclude, as has former president Jimmy Carter, that Israel is interested only in increasing its power and its bargaining position.

Building settlements is provocative? Importing Grads and firing them on civilians isn't? It is not a clear violation of international law, but rather a selective application of international law, as Dore Gold writes:

As noted above, in many other cases in recent history in which recognized international borders were crossed in armed conflicts and sovereign territory seized, the language of "occupation" was not used -- even in clear-cut cases of aggression. Yet in the case of the West Bank and Gaza, where no internationally recognized sovereign control previously existed, the stigma of Israel as an "occupier" has gained currency.

Shimon Peres has offered to discuss the Arab peace initiative anytime, anywhere, and we welcome this response. At this point, the Saudi government is constrained from direct talks with Israel. Egypt and Jordan have been commissioned to meet with Israel on behalf of the Arab world. Once agreements between Palestine, Lebanon and Syria are reached with Israel, Saudi Arabia will join fully in ending hostilities and establishing diplomatic and normal relations with Israel.

The Saudi government "is constrained" from talking turkey with Israel? Please, no need for a passive voice here. The Saudi government refuses to talk with Israel. Please note the Saudi response to President Peres's offer:

"The disappointing side of President Peres' comment is that he chose parts of the Arab peace plan and left other parts untouched," Faisal told reporters on Thursday.

The Arab peace plan is an all or nothing deal. It isn't a "peace plan" then, but an ultimatum.

Peace will require worldwide efforts. The United States, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United Nations must embrace the Arab initiatives and pressure Israel to do the same. As Barack Obama takes office, he should not miss this critical opportunity to steer the region toward peace. Obama ought to pursue a comprehensive policy that deals with all the hot spots in the Middle East.

Notice what's essential here: "pressure Israel." This is the essence of the "Saudi peace initiatve." It is a lot of nice sounding words and concepts, which offer little to Israel in return for substantial material concessions by Israel to be forced on Israel by international pressure. The Arabs offer insubstantial initiatives, Israel is supposed to relinquish land. It doesn't sound all that equitable to me.

Here are a few of the initiatives that Prince Turki recommends:

Call for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shebaa Farms in Lebanon. This would remove the issue of "national liberation" from the arsenal of Hezbollah's propaganda and mitigate Syrian and Iranian interference in Lebanon.

The "national liberation" issue was supposed to have been resolved by Israel's withdrawal to the international line between Israel and Lebanon in 2000. It was a withdrawal that was endorsed by the UN. That Israel's occupation of Lebanon is still an issue is because the Arab world is changing the terms of the agreement. Shebaa Farms was Syrian territory and its status should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and Syria. Syria ceded Shebaa Farms to its vassal state Lebanon strictly to maintain the "national liberation" issue for Hezbollah. In fact the first sign that the Saudi peace initiative (other than its source) was a fraud from the start is when then Crown Prince Abdullah changed it to demand that Israel withdraw from Lebanon too. That was not originally part of Abdullah's plan. He only added it after meeting with Bashar Assad as he tried to gin up Arab support for his ultimatum.

Encourage Israeli-Syrian negotiations for peace. This would engage Syria and diminish Iranian obstructionism. It would also force Palestinian groups based in Syria to follow the Syrian example.

Would it? Syria has demonstrated time and again that it is interested in being viewed as essential to peace in the region but that it is unwilling to act in any way to promote peace. It teases with its promises and works towards more violence. As Danielle Pletka put it recently:

Herein lies the fatal flaw of this transformational vision. It assumes that Syria's leaders want Syria to become a normal state, when in fact, it is essential to the regime's survival that it remain a pariah. Mr. Assad and his mafia have made an art of extorting subsistence assistance from the outside world, most recently by holding out prospects for better relations with the West and Israel. But a new Middle East would mean the end of Mr. Assad, which is why he will always turn back to Iran, and why the road to peace in the Middle East will never run through Damascus.

If you look through this document there is one word you don't see and that's "terrorism." That's because Prince Turki doesn't believe that violence against Jews is problematic. Sure he uses the language of "occupation" to justify his vilification of Israel and implicitly justify terror against Israel. But that's because he realizes that openly stating that killing Jews because they're Jews isn't acceptable in polite circles. He understands that some Jew killing is acceptable for the right reasons though.

There is nothing in this op-ed to suggest that Saudi Arabia or the Arab world is any more committed to peace with Israel than it was in 1948. For all the importance that Prince Turki claims to attach to peace, there is no getting around the arrogance and intolerance of the op-ed. This is a document that shows the continued Saudi offense at the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. It betrays an unseriousness about peace and reconcilliation. Recognizing Israel as a "legitimate state" is a steep price? At what bazaar? It's only a steep price for someone who doesn't believe that non-Muslims should be allowed sovereignty anywhere in the Middle East.

Instead of words from a blowhard like Prince Turki, what the Middle East needs is some action. Perhaps he could take charge of changing the Durban II conference from an Israel bashing forum to one which actually promotes understanding and coexistence.

It won't happen, because Prince Turki is used to getting his way without expending any effort. This op-ed reflects a selfish and unproductive outlook. I suppose this is better than giving an actual terrorist forum, but not by much.

Crossposted on Yourish.

IRIB: "President hosts family of Imad Mughniyeh"

Someone at Huffpo babbles "Ahmadinejad's uniting message of peace and human rights may be the only world leader speech you can agree with this Christmas." Meanwhile, he appears in the Iranian media honoring one of the most vicious terrorists who ever lived, and with an only slightly blunter deployment of the same rhetoric about "bullying powers" that appeared in the X-mas speech:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Wednesday hosted the members of the family of the Lebanese assassinated commander Imad Mughniyeh, assuring them that the Zionist regime and other bullying powers are doomed.

Meaning the U.S. and Britain.

President Ahmadinejad also said the martyr Mughniyeh frustrated Zionism by his brave resistance and campaigns.

"Today, thousands of the like of Imad Mughniyah will continue his resistance and follow the path of martyrdom until the final victory is achieved and the God's promises are realized," Ahmadinejad told the audience.

The Mughniyeh's family thanked IRI for its advocacy to the world's oppressed, especially the oppressed Palestinian nation.

They also underlined that the path of resistance martyrs must be kept.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Co-bloggers

Consider this a kind of end of year report.

Soccer Dad has two fine co-bloggers, Daled Amos and Judeopundit. I'm writing this, because I notice that often - maybe as much as half the time - when another blogger quotes Soccer Dad, he or she is actually quoting my co-bloggers. I appreciate the mention, but I feel kind of bad getting credit for someone else's work.

I look at blogging as being media criticism and I'd say that's what makes a plurality of my posts. However, Daled Amos and Judeopundit have different focuses.

Daled Amos - one time classmate and friend for 25+ years - looks at the relationships between the governments of Israel and the United States. So if you see a post on diplomacy, it's likely his. Frequently he refers links to Contentions. (I do that quite a bit too.) Also if it's a post on Jewish communal concerns it's more likely to be Daled Amos than me. Daled Amos also has a very good sense of the "big story" which results in his posts getting picked up by memeorandum. A recent top notch post by Daled Amos was his survey of Sharia financing and the risks inherent in it.

Judeopundit spends a lot of time wading through the swamps of the official media of tyrannies. So if you see an item from Press TV, it's likely his. Or if there's dong, jong or gong in the title, he probably posted it. He also gets lot of good stuff from MPAC-UK. Last week he noticed an inconvenient admission by Hamas that was carried on Al Jazeera.

I asked Daled Amos and Judeopundit to join me here because I found their perspectives matched closely with mine, though their focuses were often different. I figured that readers would get bored of just reading me all the time and also that it was good to have possible backups in case I was out of town or something.

So please read Soccer Dad, and check out my co-bloggers too, because not all of their fine work ends up here. Thanks for reading!

Gray and white and cloudy

Some morning contrails from a few weeks ago.

Framed on two sides by leafless trees, this picture has a more forbidding look to it than the scene I saw. I didn't compensate at all for the brightness of the sun, and used the default settings.

A house in front of the clouds.

Some little clouds.

Cloud "fingers."

I have a pretty big collection of cloud photographs. I hope to put them up at some point, but these will have to do for now.

Diffracted light ii

Last time out, I didn't do exactly what I wanted to with the diffracted light on the wall behind the computer desk. So here, for the full context are three shots, zooming in a bit with each.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Asghar Bukhari receives letter from entity which is "everywhere"

Asghar Bukhari, MPAC-UK co-founder and spokeman, who was in the news a few years ago when it was revealed that he had sent money to David Irving, was back in the news more recently when he stated that "any Muslim who fights against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise." The next development in the saga is that he has received an anonymous letter from one of the various entities who are commonly said to be "everywhere":

Today, further intimidation tactics were used by the highly organised Zionist Lobby.

Asghar Bukhari, a spokesperson for MPACUK, has recently been targeted by powerful Zionists demanding he go to jail for standing up for the Palestinians and saying Muslims have every right to defend themselves.

Today, on 24th December, Zionists showed they meant business and were totally hell bent on using fear and intimidation by posting an anonymous letter at the home address of Asghar Bukhari. The letter mentioned Bukhari's support for the Palestinians with a veiled threat that they were watching him and sinisterly commenting that 'we are everywhere' [...]

Other recent achievements of the entity which is "everywhere" include orchestrating the recent spate of piracy incidents, Zionist death bats, the Qassam misfire ray, and, of course, the Mumbai attacks.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Banking On Shariah

That seems to be the latest thing, as James Joyner writes about in his article in The New Atlanticist, Islamic Banks Surge, Thanks to Financial Crisis: where he quotes from AP business writer Emma Vandore:

France is becoming the latest country to woo Islamic banks, which avoided much of the damage from the subprime mortgage crisis by following strict principles laid out in the Quran -- as the global financial crisis broadens the appeal of Islamic finance. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has promised to make adjustments to the regulatory and legal arsenal to enable Paris to become a major marketplace in Islamic finance. At a recent forum in Paris, she said Western financiers could learn a thing or two from the Islamic world as global leaders try to establish "new principles for the international financial system, based on transparency, responsibility and, I would like to add, moderation." "In this sense, Islamic finance is calling out to us," she said.

Finance that complies with Shariah, or Islamic law, accounts for around $700 billion of assets and is growing at 10 to 30 percent a year, according to Moody's Investors Service. That's grabbing the attention of governments eager to oil their liquidity-strapped economies with money and deposits from the Islamic world. Islamic finance is concentrated in the Persian Gulf and Muslim parts of Asia such as Indonesia and Malaysia but is spreading into North Africa and Europe.

Vandore waxes poetic on the many virtues of Sharia banking

A November report by Moody's shows that Islamic banks have been fairly resilient. No Islamic financial institution has acknowledged investing in Bernard Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme, and Saleh Al Tayar, Secretary General of the Franco-Arab Chamber of Commerce, said the $4.9 billion hit taken by Societe Generale SA from what it calls unauthorized trading by Jerome Kerviel couldn't have happened in an Islamic institution. "If global banking practices were based on Islamic practices then we wouldn't be seeing the kind of crisis we are living through now," he said.

Islamic financial institutions work on a philosophy of prohibiting transactions considered immoral and promoting greater social justice by sharing risk and reward. Investing in casinos, pornography, arm dealers or anything to do with pork is out: long-term investments in projects considered to benefit society are in. Interest payments, short selling and contracts considered excessively risky are also prohibited. That rules out some of the products that got Western finance into so much trouble such as subprime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations or credit default swaps. [emphasis added]

Since the reference to pork is more likely referring to pig than to government appropriations, adding it to the list of risky/illegal investments does seem a bit out of place.

Also, I was under the impression that the Muslim world was not escaping the global recession unscathed. Back in October, The Jerusalem Post reported:

Stock markets across the Arab world experienced unprecedently sharp losses when trading began following the Id al-Fitr holiday earlier this week. The seven stock markets in the oil rich Gulf states shed around $150 billion of their capitalization in the course of the week.

The market in Saudi Arabia sank by 7 percent. In Egypt, the key index fell by around 16%. One Saudi economist quoted by Agence France Presse described the latest developments as a "catastrophe." For a number of reasons, the Arab world may well prove particularly vulnerable to the world economic downturn. This fact has political implications for the region, which are already being glimpsed and acted upon by various regional forces.

This hardly supports the impression that investing and banking according to Shariah provides any insulation from the global market. Nevertheless, the US Treasury Department is also looking into Sharia Banking.

In this regard, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. has addressed other concerns about Shariah-Compliant Finance (SCF) to the Treasury:

Specifically, we shared with them a detailed legal memorandum written by one of our experts - David Yerushalmi, an attorney specializing in securities law who is deeply knowledgeable about the comprehensive theo-political-legal code that authoritative Islam calls Shariah. Mr. Yerushalmi's memo makes a compelling case that there is both civil liability and criminal exposure associated with SCF.

This is so because, at its core, Shariah is sedition: It explicitly espouses the violent overthrow of all secular governments and constitutions - including those of the United States - in favor of a global Islamic theocracy. The Yerushalmi memo makes clear that Shariah advisors - who play a central role in this industry as it falls to them to determine whether transactions are Shariah-compliant or not - and/or the companies that employ them appear to be involved in one or more of the following: racketeering, anti-trust violations, consumer and securities fraud or material support for terror.

Gaffney gives an example:

In these regards, it might be helpful if, while Secretary Kimmitt is in Qatar, he pays a visit to one of the most prominent of the SCF advisors, Sheik Yusef al-Qaradawi, who serves on, among numerous others, the Shariah advisory board of two Qatari Islamic banks. As my colleague Christopher Holton has pointed out in a recent posting on the Family Security Matters website , Qaradawi has called for the Islamic world to use the present financial crisis to destroy Western capitalism and replace it with "an Islamic economic system."

Inquiring minds among Treasury's experts trying to "learn about Islamic banking" might also be interested to know that, in a 2006 interview with the BBC, Qaradawi also declared that he calls SCF "jihad with money, because God has ordered us to fight enemies with our lives and our money."

The question is whether this particular line of attack on SCF goes too far. David Yerushalmi, one of Gaffney's experts mentioned above founded a group called SANE that opposes the Federal bailout of AIG in a lawsuit. According to an email I received from the group:

The basis of the lawsuit is that AIG intentionally promotes Shariah-compliant businesses and insurance products, which by necessity must comply with the 1200 year old body of Islamic cannon law based on the Quran, which demands the conversion, subjugation, or destruction of the infidel West, including the United States. To help achieve these objectives and with the aid of federal tax dollars, AIG employs a three-person Shariah Advisory Board, with members from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Pakistan. According to AIG, the role of its Shariah authority "is to review [its] operations, supervise its development of Islamic products, and determine Shariah compliance of these products and [its] investments."

Of particular significance is the Pakistani Board member, Dr. Muhammed Imran Ashraf Usmani. Dr. Usmani is the son and devoted disciple of Sheik Mufti Taqi Usmani, the leading authority on Shariah financing who, in 1999, authored a book dedicating an entire chapter on why a Western Muslim must engage in violent jihad against his own country - even if Muslims are given equality and freedom to practice their religion and to proselytize.

Just how easy is it to find a relationship between a Muslim and a relative or associate who is an extremist?

Supna Zaidi, assistant director of Islamist Watch gives another reason for caution:

In the case of SCF, only Sharia scholars can decide whether a financial product is permissible (halal) or not. They are thus the only individuals who can theorize as to why or how a product can become "halal." This removes the ability of all practitioners who are not part of the SSB from engaging in product development beyond doing what they are told to find and prevent any illegality. If questions of fraud, breach of duty, negligence, criminal liability, etc. arise over any transactions, these same individuals will nevertheless remain liable.

...In its worst-case scenario, SSBs [Sharia Supervisory Boards] act just as unilaterally, can go back on previous decisions, or contradict the decisions of other SSBs. Who is right and who decides? What administrative body or court in the U.S. is in a position to question a Sharia-based product? Even if transactions state New York as the jurisdiction for dispute resolution, the courts must invariably rely on Sharia-based decisions from foreign courts for theories and interpretation. If a U.S. court offers a decision based on its own theory, who will make the decision binding since Sharia is divine, i.e., not to be superceded by secular law?

I don't know if anyone has addressed the question of whether such potential legal conflicts are reason for concern.

Joyner concludes his article with an interesting point that seems to have been lost in the middle of all this:

It's worth noting, too, that while Sharia banking has Islam-specific limits, such as prohibing loans to fund "anything involving alcohol, gambling, pornography, tobacco, weapons or pork," most of the practices Vandore emphasizes are age-old and cross religious boundaries: "Charging high interest rates to lend money is repeatedly condemned in the Bible. The Greek philosopher Aristotle denounced it, the Romans limited it, and the early Christian church prohibited it. Western theologians eventually distinguished interest from usury, and it was reintroduced to Christians and Muslims around the time of the Renaissance. " [emphasis added]

This is an issue that is only going to grow, since we are unlikely to see a return to basics when a ready-made solution seems to be available. Unlike steps towards accomodation of Muslims that are based on fear or appeasement, accomodating Sharia Compliant Financing is based on good old fashioned greed.

by Daled Amos

"Alleged"

I've already complained about David Ignatius's glowing puff piece about the chinless ophthalmologist of Damascus, but there was one point I missed:

A relaxed Assad clearly believes that Syria is emerging from its pariah status. An international tribunal is still scheduled to meet in The Hague to weigh Syria's alleged role in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. But in the meantime, Assad is receiving a stream of visiting diplomats. He looks like a ready partner for Obama's diplomacy, but a cautious one -- waiting to see what's on offer before he shows more of his hand.

(emphasis mine) Alleged?!

Here's Benny Avni:

The UN named an investigation team soon after the killing. Its first head investigator, tough German cop Detlev Mehlis, shocked the region by conducting the closest thing to a perp walk ever attempted by a UN official.

Mehlis wrote a report that implicated the innermost circles around Syrian President Bashar Assad in Hariri's assassination. In the report it released to the Security Council, the UN Secretariat redacted names like Assad's brother Maher and brother-in-law Assef Shawkat. But the full text was leaked to the public, and to this day it remains the most solid indictment of the Assad clan.

I think that Assad's role in the assassination is more like "confirmed." The question is to what degree the UN will cower before him instead of confronting him. Ignatius apparently decided that the proper course of action is to provide cover for Assad.

Another point worth emphasizing is this. Ignatius wrote:

Assad's easy demeanor suggested that he's more firmly in charge now. The Bush administration's attempt to isolate Syria has failed, even in the judgment of senior White House officials. That leaves Assad in the catbird seat, courted by European and Arab nations and conducting back-channel talks through Turkey with his erstwhile enemy Israel.

(emphasis mine)
Danielle Pletka:

Nor does Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, seem cut out for the role of a 21st-century Anwar Sadat. Insecure in his own palace, erratic in his statements and crude in his stewardship, Mr. Assad seems more likely to be the victim of a coup than a champion of peace.
...
Mr. Assad -- broadly disliked at home, a member of a mistrusted Alawite minority, comically inept at managing his country's resources -- can maintain his grip on power only as long as he is seen as a vital instrument of Israel's defeat.

May I suggest that the reason Ignatius observed Assad's "easy demeanor" is because the interview took place in Damascus. Assad knew that Ignatius wouldn't dare write anything critical, having been granted an exclusive audience. I suspect he also realized that Ignatius's purpose was to score cheap points against the outgoing administration and that he'd benefit from some free PR. That "easy demeanor" was probably despite Assad's standing in his own country.

In writing about the interview Powerline concludes:

But even if Assad could be trusted to do so (a huge leap of faith), what does he have to offer when it comes to limiting Iran's influence? It is Iran, not Syria, that influences/directs Hezbollah. More generally, Iran's power and influence are a function of ithe inspiration supplied by its ideology, the wealth (now diminished) produced by its oil industry, and its military strength, soon to be bolstered in all likelihood by nuclear weapons. Syria doesn't add (or potentially subtract) much from this equation.

Obama may be naive, but we can reasonably hope that he is not naive enough to enter into any sort of partnership with the likes of Bashar al-Assad. Making concessions to evil tyrants is bad enough. Making them to evil tyrants of no major importance is senseless.

But that naivete is manifest in the Ignatius column. Ignatius represents foreign policy sophistication of the type that will appeal to President-elect Obama.

(via memeorandum)

There will, no doubt, be plenty of wise men and women advising Obama who will tell him that Assad is the key to peace in the Middle East. And clearing the way for them is David Ignatius who whitewashes the dictator.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Submitted 12/25/08

Watcher's Council submissions are up!

Obama Engulfed By Pay to Play? - The Provocateur doesn't think that the Blagojevich scandal is going away anytime soon. While President-elect Obama and his staff may not have been involved in any wrongdoing eventually the scandal will bring down one or more of his allies. I have to wonder why good government advocates like the editors of the Washington Post eagerly accept the conclusion of President-elect Obama's own investigation that clears him yet remain incurious about his dealings with the Chicago political machine. Is it possible that he's the only Chicago politician who remains untainted by the questionable machinations of the Daley machine? He's never even taken a stand on the corruption like (too few) others have.
Impeach Jerry Brown - Rhymes With Right argues that Attorney General Moonbeam of California ought to be impeached for ignoring the will of the electorate regarding Proposition 8.
Cheney Slaps Biden Upside The Head - Joshuapundit writes an extended appreciation for Dick Cheney and sums up the Vice President with a quote from Ronald Reagan:

"There's no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care about who gets the credit."

Destruction of Property - The short version is "Being a liberal means never having to say you're sorry." Bookworm Room gives her daughter a lesson in ends vs. means. A laudable result doesn't mean that the way of achieving it is proper.
How to Give a Bonus - This one could be title, "How to give a bonus to someone who may not deserve it." The Glittering Eye provides a clever suggestion.
*Yawn* Lincoln "parallels" for Obama - The Colossus of Rhodey.Hube takes a shot at more mindless lionizing of President-elect Obama and makes the important point that if someone is going to hold up Lincoln as a great president despite the many liberties he took to prosecute the Civil War, than he also ought to be less outraged at the actions President Bush has taken to prosecute the War on Terror.
Gay Anger At Warren Unwarranted - Cheat-Seeking Missiles, who attends the Saddlebrook church, testifies that the church is welcoming to all, including gays. While Rev. Warren objects to the sin of homosexuality (due to his beliefs) he is welcoming to all who worship at his church.
The Symbol of Oppression - The short version is "Being for peace means never having to say you're sorry."The Razor looks at the history and consequences of the peace movement. It's not as benevolent as its name implies.
Re-evaluating America's Biggest Threat - Right Truth looks at the biggest threat facing the United States. She doesn't think that the United States will be defeated by force as much as by unilateral surrender, like what we see happening across the pond.
Smug Liberal Sophistication Undisturbed By Decades Of Disastrously Wrong Domestic And International Predictions - "Being a liberal foreign policy advocate means never having to say you're wrong." Mere Rhetoric looks at much of what passes for foreign policy sophistication and notes that much of it is wrong.
Don't get too chummy with that flaming dummy - In my post this week I contemplate the damage the media do assigning meaning to protests in the Arab world. After all, do they reflect the will of the people or of the regime where the protest is being held?

Read. Enjoy. Be informed.

watcher's council.

Juggling carnivals 12/25/08

Incoming Carnivals

After a slight delay the latest Haveil Havalim is up at Jewlicious. If you like science fiction, there's a link to a review of a book of Jewish science fiction.

And the latest Kosher Cooking Carnival is up at Here in HP. Please check it out for pictures, news and (Kosher) recipes.

Yemen Times: "Hamas has gone through a metamorphosis"

Yes, Hamas, you've come a long way, baby, since your terrorist days:

Anyone who has been watching the Palestine resistance of Hamas for some time now cannot help but appreciate the great transformation that the movement has become subjected to since Mr. Khalid Mash'al took the helms of authority. Unlike most Salafi oriented organizations one has heard of throughout the world, Hamas is sophisticated, enlightened, well-organized and apparently moving forward towards their desired goals of approaching some form of desirable settlement of the Palestine tragedy. Anyone who has the audacity to say that the Palestine problem is not a tragedy ought to be indoctrinated in the school of "Holocaust Mania". There they will teach one how to make the most of a terrible situation. Of course this is not by all means any endorsement of the horrific crimes of the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, but rather to emphasize that what the Palestinian people have been subjected for close to a century now is by equal standards just as deplorable as the unforgivable crimes against humanity inflicted by the Nazi regime.

It goes without saying: the Palestinians definitely have a right to seek redress from the criminal Zionist regime that carried out and is still unabashedly carrying out all the massacres, evictions, imprisonment, torture, inhumane treatment and you name it and you will find it crime against humanity that exists within the Holy Land. Similarly, they have the right to seek redress from an international community (especially including their own Arab brethren, Moslem and Christian) for literally watching all the tragedies that are unfolding daily in Palestine as if they were just a soap opera running ad infinitum. It is with this logic then, that organizations like Fatah, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and all the other Palestinian resentence movements definitely have the right to exist and the right to use any civilized methods to obtain their freedom from the horrendous occupation that they are subjected to in the sparse territory that still fragilely remains under their feet. It would be useless to see under their control, because the Palestinian population of the remaining Palestinian enclaves is under the perpetual siege of the most horrible occupation of all times headquartered in in Tel Aviv.

Coming back to Hamas then, one is understandable that the early days of the formation of this rapidly growing religious resistance movement may have been highlighted by the uncontrollable spontaneous reactions of fighting organized and systematic terror with seemingly chaotic, spontaneous spot displays of nervous terror like suicide attacks against restaurants or discotheques filled with drunken kids of parents who hailed from the former Jewish ghettos of Europe or spoiled Jewish kids from New York, who have just passed their Bar mitzvahs. Of course, this observer is not agreeing to this form of resistance. On the contrary, this observer has always suggested that Hamas would better get its act together and note that such tactics do not achieve any real strategic goals or worse do not even have the understanding and sympathy of even the strongest advocates for human rights and justice. Yet, one might ask: what about what the Palestinians went through, in terms of massacres, beginning from Deir Yassin to Sabra and Shatilla to Janin? Where not hundreds of innocent and unarmed Palestinians slaughtered mercilessly either by Zionist regular forces, paramilitary mobs of settlers or mercenary thugs of Lebanon and elsewhere, who forgot that they were killing their very own kind. To this day the Palestinians are undergoing suffering inflicted by illegal setters, who are filled with hatred and chauvinism of the West Bank and Gaza (now to a very small extent in the latter), except for the siege by the merciless Israeli Government. Yet even with all that behind them, Hamas has come to realize that this is indeed a formidable enemy that has come to wrest them of their God given right to live in peace as indigenous people of the land, which Zionist demagogues believe is their Divinely ordained real estate (without ever explaining to the world how the Lord Al-Mighty got into the real estate business in the first place?).

For the record, one must state that the successes of Hizb Allah have had a profound influence in shaping the current characteristics of the Islamic Resistance Movements of both Al-Jihad and Hamas. The sophistication and the finesse of the modus operandi of Hizb Allah has caused the latter two genuine resistance movements to shift their strategies from wanton almost irresponsible inflictions of senseless death to legitimate means of resistance targeting the very important elements that give the Zionist state its comfortable sense of security and well-being, including going after responsible world opinion towards realizing their goals of relief from a horrifying occupation and redress for all the past wrongs inflicted against their people. If Hamas, like the Jihad continue to carry on with this spirit of right versus wrong, good against evil, justice against oppression and outright thievery (which is really what Israel is all about), then for sure, the world will realize that they indeed have a strong case. Happy Anniversary, Brother Khalid and all the brave and gallant people that make up your remarkable organization with Al-Fatihah to the souls of Chairman Sheikh Ahmed Yassin of Hamas and Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestine Authority, both of whom gave their lives honorably for the liberation and freedom of their people.

Clad in the jumpsuit of resistance, Arafat bravely fought the Zionist microbes rampaging through his body . . .

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Is There Something In The Eggnog?

I've never tasted the stuff--thank you--but it does seem like some are imbibing this stuff early.

In his post, Feliz 'dinejad!, Mark Steyn gives the background to the annual address given in Great Britain on December 25th:

One of the interesting questions since 9/11 has been whether prosperous but desiccated post-national states can in effect outsource the remnants of national will entirely to a professional military. Ever since King George V's first radio broadcasts to the Empire in the 1930s, it has been a tradition every December 25th for the Sovereign to deliver a Christmas message to the Commonwealth. These days, the Queen's thoughts are mostly the usual "celebrate diversity" multiculti pap, she having been well nobbled by her courtiers in this respect (her husband is another matter). Inevitably, even this PC boilerplate is felt to be "exclusive" and so in recent years Channel 4 has invited someone every Christmas Day to deliver an "alternative Christmas message". It's generally the familiar stillborn provocations to a no longer extant "mainstream" - a gay activist, a woman in a burqa, etc.

This year, they are doing something a little different--inviting a leader of another country to give the address. But of all of the leaders to choose from...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran will give a message of seasonal goodwill on Christmas Day as an alternative to the Queen's traditional broadcast.

Noah Pollak's reaction is similar to Steyn's:

What would be an appropriate way for a national television channel to observe Christmas? One thing of which I am certain is that such an observance would not involve airing a message from the president of an Islamic terrorist theocracy whose most recent relations with your country involved the abduction in international waters of 15 members of your Navy and parading them on state television.

...One wonders whether Ahmadinejad will repeat what he said in 2005, after an Iranian convert to Christianity was abducted and stabbed to death in Iran: "I will stop Christianity in this country."

Yet it appears that some Jews are drinking from the same eggnog:

Outcry as songs are re-written for anti-Israel carol concert at famous church

Organisers of a Christmas carol concert being held in a famous church have been condemned for rewriting traditional verses to attack Israel.

Far from bringing tidings of comfort and joy, the participants will instead sing about 'war crimes', 'assassinations' and the 'oppression' of Palestinians.

The concert, which has been organised by anti-Israeli campaigners, is due to take place on Wednesday at St James's, Piccadilly, a Christopher Wren-designed church in Central London.

...The event, called Bethlehem Now: Nine Alternative Lessons And Carols For Palestine, has been organised by Jews For Boycotting Israeli Goods, a group of secular British Jews opposed to Israeli policies.

Mike McNally, writing about this on Pajamas Media, gives an example:

So, for example, "While Shepherds Watched" becomes:

While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground,
Some occupying soldiers came and bulldozed all around.

Personally, I think his homemade example has more pep:

To the tune of "We Three Kings" ...

Palestinian martyrs we are,
Wearing bombs we travel afar.
Jews we hate, we don't discriminate
Blowing up yonder bar

Of course, it is traditional this time of year to blame Israel for the exodus of Christians from areas under Palestinian control. 

This year, BBC journalist Aleem Maqbool--who reported that a Palestinian "militant" was dragged out of cafe and killed, execution-style, by IDF soldiers in Ramallah in an accounted contradicted by multiple other accounts--is going for a walk.

Now, Maqbool, is walking from Nazareth to Bethlehem, retracing a journey made by Mary and Joseph in the New Testament story of Jesus's birth. Maqbool follows in the footsteps of other journalists such as The Times's Stephen Farrell, The Guardian's Rory McCarthy and the BBC's own Matthew Price, whose December 2005 report was described by Israeli Foreign Ministry sources as one of the most dreadful ever broadcast by the BBC (something of an achievement considering the amount of BBC anti-Israel output).

Maqbool attempts to treat his journey, complete with donkeys, as a personal road trip rather than the blatantly politicized efforts of journalists such as his colleague Price. Unfortunately, he over-romanticizes the Palestinians while portraying the IDF in a sinister light, exerting a strong but subtle bias.

Give me Chanukah and latkes any day.

UPDATE: And it just keeps getting better and better:

Priest puts mosque in Nativity scene

Italy's Right-wing Northern League have reacted with fury after it emerged that a Roman Catholic priest added a model mosque to his church's nativity scene.

UPDATE 2: Michael Rubin writes:

The irony of Britain's channel 4 giving Ahmadinejad the pulpit in the name of free speech is that as he was speaking, Iranian authorities raided and closed down the BBC's Tehran offices and, separately, in the spirit of goodwill to man, ordered Christmas trees banned from Iranian kindergartens...

[Hat tip: Powerline]

by Daled Amos

More mideast euphemisms

There's another entry in the annals of euphemism in Middle East reporting.

The word is "study" as in:

Hamas ready to study new Gaza cease-fire with Israel

A headline seen in many online news stories yesterday.

Here's what it really means:

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip bombarded the western Negev with dozens of Qassam rockets and mortar shells on Wednesday, burdening diplomatic efforts to revive a truce that expired over the weekend.

The Magen David Adom rescue service declared its highest level of alert by late morning, after nearly 60 Qassam rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern Israel. Some 40 of these were launched between 9 A.M. and 1 P.M.

Maybe "burdening diplomatic efforts" is a euphemism for "Hamas launched an all out war."

Here's another euphemism:

Domestic politics fuels Gaza conflict

Mere Rhetoric neatly disposes of that characterization on the Israeli side. On the other side, the conflict arises from Hamas's stated goal of destroying Israel. I suppose that given the public support for such a goal, domestic politics may well be fueling the conflict against Israel. But on Israel's side the conflict stems from self-defense, not political calculations.

Welcome to the Middle East, region of the euphemisms.

Crossposted on Yourish.

The truth about david ignatius

At the end of his post about a Washington Post editorial yesterday, Daled Amos writes:

Maybe they should just go back to having terrorists writing op-eds.

Maybe someone in the Post's editorial department was listening because today, op-ed columnist David Ignatius acted as a PR flack published an interview with President Bashar Assad of Syria, A New Partner in Syria?.

Assad is apparently an apt observer of the American scene.

In all three "hopes," Assad seemed to be looking for a new start with Obama after years of chilly relations with Bush. Assad said he knew little about Obama or his policies but has heard that he is more in contact with ordinary people than Bush has been, which, Assad contended, would give Obama a better understanding of America.

The three hopesare part of a list of demands Syria published right after the election in order for Assad to "receive Obama." In other words, Ignatius is serving the purpose of the official Syrian media.

On the trick question of Syria and Iran how does Assad deal with it?

On the crucial question of Syria's future relations with Iran, Assad was noncommittal. He said the relationship with Iran wasn't about the "kind of statehood" Syria has or its cultural affinities but about protecting Syrian interests against hostile neighbors. "It's about who plays a role in this region, who supports my rights," he said. "It's not that complicated."

Supports his rights? Surely this ought to have inspired a followup question from Ignatius. But it didn't.

Here's what a more serious observer, Danielle Pletka, just wrote about Iran and Syria.

Yet Iran and Syria's ties have only deepened. Indeed, Iran most likely had a role in financing Syria's construction of the illicit North Korean nuclear reactor, remains one of the largest foreign investors in the country and conducts joint training with the Syrian military on advanced Russian-supplied weaponry.

It is not inconceivable that the regime in Damascus might throw its supporters in Tehran under the bus in exchange for prestige, cash and a free hand in Lebanon.

Ignatius didn't ask anything about Syria's nuclear program. And Pletka's observation about what it would take to draw Syria away from Iran is chilling. Again all Ignatius is doing is flacking for Assad, not interviewing him.

Ignatius also asked Assad about Hezbollah:

Asked whether Syria was prepared to restrain Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite militia in Lebanon, Assad said this was a matter the Israelis should sort out in separate negotiations with the Lebanese. Indeed, he promoted the idea of the other negotiating tracks -- which would draw in, at least indirectly, Hezbollah and Hamas.

"The longer the border, the bigger the peace," Assad said. "Hezbollah is on the Lebanese border, not Syrian. Hamas is on the Palestinian border. . . . They should look at those other tracks. They should be comprehensive. If you want peace, you need three peace treaties, on three tracks."

Again, no follow up. Just acting as a megaphone for Assad. Pletka, though, writes:

But it is unrealistic to expect President Assad to dispose of Hezbollah and Hamas in the same way. Mr. Assad -- broadly disliked at home, a member of a mistrusted Alawite minority, comically inept at managing his country's resources -- can maintain his grip on power only as long as he is seen as a vital instrument of Israel's defeat.

More generally:

Herein lies the fatal flaw of this transformational vision. It assumes that Syria's leaders want Syria to become a normal state, when in fact, it is essential to the regime's survival that it remain a pariah. Mr. Assad and his mafia have made an art of extorting subsistence assistance from the outside world, most recently by holding out prospects for better relations with the West and Israel. But a new Middle East would mean the end of Mr. Assad, which is why he will always turn back to Iran, and why the road to peace in the Middle East will never run through Damascus.

Pletka's assessment is in line with that of Barry Rubin in his book "The Truth About Syria" In an interview with Michael Totten this is how Dr. Rubin describes people like David Ignatius.

To begin with, to understand Syria--like other regional forces--one must first examine the nature of the regime and its real interests. The way to do this is not to cite the latest interview or op-eds by Syrian leaders or propagandists in the Western media or what one of them told some naïve Western "useful idiot" who traveled to Damascus but rather to look at what the Syrian rulers say among themselves, what they do, how they structure the regime and perceive of their interests.

Syria is not a radical regime because it has been mistreated by the West or Israel but because the regime needs radicalism to survive. It is a minority dictatorship of a small non-Muslim minority and it offers neither freedoms nor material benefit. It needs demagoguery, the scapegoats of America and Israel, massive loot taken from Lebanon, an Iraq which is either destabilized or a satellite, and so on.

No matter how generous, gracious or accommodating Ignatius portrays Assad, Assad is interested in only one thing: perpetuating his own rule over Syria. Getting more direct control over Lebanon would also be to the dictator's liking. Portraying him as some sort of Middle Eastern Mr. Rogers as Ignatius does shows how little he understand the subject of his interview. Ignatius assumes (or pretends) that Assad is like him holding the same hopes and same premises about what constitutes peace. But Assad is motivated by his own ambition, not by any hopes for a peaceful Middle East.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Washington Post: Israel Should Give Hamas A Bailout Too

Far be it that Hamas should suffer the consequences of bombing Israel. According to The Washington Post--its not really Hamas behind it, think of the suffering, and think of the resultant increase in tension in the region. Israel should bail out Hamas.

But The Post editorial is as sloppy as their underlying theme is insulting.

According to The Washington Post, everything is relative. All you have to do is read this morning's editorial about Gaza and the very first thing that hits you in the face is this:

AFTER SIX months of relative calm, hostilities once again are escalating between Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. [emphasis added]

That strikes me as rather cowardly on the part of The Washington Post. The best it can muster to describe what Sderot has had to suffer during this 'truce' is:

During the summer and fall, the rocket fire from Gaza diminished but never entirely stopped.

Maybe The Washington Post should get together with Ehud Barak and get their stories straight. It was just yesterday that Barak was waxing nastalgic over the calm--except that he thought the calm was during the time preceding the past 6 months:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned the Cabinet that broad military action is increasingly likely. "In order to return to a calm like six months ago, we will probably need a wide-scale operation," he said, according to a meeting participant who spoke on condition of anonymity under government guidelines.

Apparently, you get your calm where you can make it up find it.

The Washington Post seems to lack the ability to gather the facts--or does it merely find the numbers of rockets fired by Hamas at the innocent civilians of Sderot to be inconvenient? I imagine that Sderot finds those rockets to be even more inconvenient.

Noam Bedein, Sderot Media Center director, gives the numbers:

"No damage was done, and nobody was hurt" - The falsification of the
fictitious ceasefire: 377 missiles were launched towards Israel during
the "relaxation" period.

This Friday, the 19th of December, is the last day of the ceasefire
between Israel and the Hamas.

This is the second declared ceasefire in the past two years. It began
in June 19th 2008, and is destined to end in December 19th of this
year.

According to the IDF's spokesperson, approximately 377 missiles were
launched from Gaza towards Israel. More missiles than "just" the 315
that were fired during the first ceasefire, which lasted from the 26th
of November 2006 to the 15th of May 2007.

The question is: why couldn't The Washington Post have done that--make it clear to their readers that calm over a 6 month period means that only 377 rockets were fired at Sderot? Were they unable to get the numbers, or just too embarrassed--embarrassed at how stupid this entire editorial would appear?

The Washington Post editorial makes just one ridiculous point after another:

Neither side seems to want such an all-out fight -- particularly not Israel, whose defense minister has pointed out that an invasion could cost hundreds of lives and leave thousands of Israeli troops stranded in Gaza without an exit strategy.

Hamas does not want a fight? How do they know? Israel's defense minister is quoted as to why they don't. Couldn't The Washinton Post find a similar quote from Hamas why they don't? What does that tell you?

But neither Israel nor Hamas has been satisfied with the informal cease-fire they reached in June with the help of Egypt.

Well, I can understand that Israel is dissatisfied--they are being fired at. Remind me again why Hamas would be dissatisfied with a cessation of hostilities? Or are they merely upset that Israel reacts to being bombed?

Israel, in turn, allowed only a modest increase in the flow of goods into Gaza, which has been under virtual siege since last year, and frequently sealed off the strip entirely in response to fresh attacks.

In the eyes of The Post, a purely defensive measure becomes an act of retaliation? If only The Washington Post were the only newspaper that could be accused of such bias.

In a last-ditch effort to defend Hamas, The Washington Post blames 'the other Hamas':

Hamas's Damascus-based leadership appears to have imposed a decision to end the cease-fire upon its administration in Gaza, which will have to live with the resultant suffering.

Please join me in a moment of silence out of respect for Hamas in Gaza and their long history of searching for a peaceful end to the war they have declared on Israel. Or has nobody at The Washington Post read the Hamas Charter?

Even then, according to the Post, the end to the cease-fire that is being foisted by Damascus-Hamas on Gaza-Hamas is a purely defensive measure:

The aim appears to be to force Israel to lift the blockade on the territory, something it is already under growing international pressure to do.

At the end of its editorial, The Post offers a solution:

Israeli officials rightly point out that no country should have to tolerate missile attacks on its cities; such attacks justify a military response. But Israel would be better positioned to defeat Hamas politically and diplomatically if it allowed the full resumption of food, medicine and fuel deliveries to Gaza and made clear its willingness to end other restrictions on civilian trade in exchange for a full cessation of rocket attacks and other hostilities.If Hamas is to be toppled, it will have to be through a political process led by Palestinians.

All Israel has to do is return to the status quo, including supplying the fuel Hamas is taking for itself for the rockets to bomb Israel with.

Yeah, that was going well.

The Washington Post seems ill-equipped for offering suggestions about how to deal with the Israel-Palestinian war.

Maybe they should just go back to having terrorists writing op-eds.

by Daled Amos

Eyeless on the potomac: the wapo tells israel to defend itself with the goodwill of hamas

Israel has some tough choices ahead. Amos Harel of Ha'aretz writes:

According to leaks from Jerusalem Sunday, a decision has been made for an extensive military action, and a ground operation is not out of the question. At this stage, Israel apparently prefers other options. First, the air force will go in, striking not only rocket-launching cells but also attempting to hit the manufacturers, suppliers and commanders. Targets might also include Hamas bases, offices, and if there's an escalation, assassinations of senior Hamas officials.

As for a ground operation, the question is how to get Hamas to go back to the understandings in place at the beginning of the cease-fire without risking all-out fighting that would begin with rockets on Ashdod and Be'er Sheva and end with the return of Israeli armor to Gaza.

But as Harel noted earlier:

Israel's leaders seem to be realizing their error of recent weeks vis-a-vis Hamas. Hamas concluded from Israel's declarations that we want peace and have no intention of taking over Gaza; that it is free to strike at the Negev as much as it wants because Israel is afraid of an entanglement.

In other words if Hamas thinks that it will suffer no consequences, it will attack Israel.

On the other hand.

A point the media has missed over the past few days is that most of the rockets are being launched by Islamic Jihad and smaller factions, which Hamas has stopped reining in. If Hamas goes into action, there could be 100 rockets a day instead of dozens.

Understand then, what Harel is saying, is that Hamas allowed the rockets to be fired into Israel. The problem is that if Hamas actually gets involved in rocket firing, the violence against Israel will be greater.

Yaakov Katz of the Jerusalem Post writes about what Hamas has accomplished in the past six months

Since the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Hamas has been involved in one of the most intensive military buildups - for a terrorist group - in modern history. It, everyone knows, is no longer a small terrorist group just capable of building explosive belts for suicide bombings.

While Hamas used the past six months of a "cease-fire" to train its forces, it also took advantage of the suspension in IDF operations to fortify its military posts in the Gaza Strip. According to one high-ranking security official, Hamas has dug dozens of kilometers of tunnel systems throughout Gaza that will be used by fighters to move from one place to another undetected.

Knowing this renders today's Washington Post's nostalgic editorial More Rockets From Gaza even more lame than it appears at first glance. The subtitle of the editorial is "Israel must protect its citizens -- but can it do so by military action?" and, as you can guess the answer is "It depends how you define 'must' and 'no.'"

The Post's editors lay out:

Neither side seems to want such an all-out fight -- particularly not Israel, whose defense minister has pointed out that an invasion could cost hundreds of lives and leave thousands of Israeli troops stranded in Gaza without an exit strategy. But neither Israel nor Hamas has been satisfied with the informal cease-fire they reached in June with the help of Egypt. During the summer and fall, the rocket fire from Gaza diminished but never entirely stopped. Israel, in turn, allowed only a modest increase in the flow of goods into Gaza, which has been under virtual siege since last year, and frequently sealed off the strip entirely in response to fresh attacks.

Notice the equivalence between Israel's blockade and Hamas's targeting civilians. Unfortunately the Post uses the inflammatory language of "virtual siege" when in fact it has been nothing of the sort. First of all, Gaza abuts Egypt too. If there's a siege of Gaza it's something that Egypt participated in too. Second of all, these past six months Hamas has been importing weaponry and construction material through their infrastructure of tunnels. If civilian supplies are short, it's because Hamas has chosen Qassams over butter.

The editorial spends a lot of time concentrating on Hamas's popularity and uses that supposed popularity as an argument against an Israeli military campaign. Of course, if they'd been paying attention, the editors would know that Hamas's popularity has decreased lately and would lose elections to Fatah. And of course worries about Hamas's popularity should come second to protecting Israeli citizens, so saying that Israel shouldn't attack Gaza.

Overall the editorial fails to acknowledge that Hamas has used the quiet to re-arm and protect its infrastructure against Israeli attack. This has now put the Negev - possibly even as far as Be'er Sheva - into rocket range. So the basic flaw in the editorial is a failure to take Hamas's threat to Israel seriously.

But more troubling is this. Nearly three years ago at the time that Hamas won the legislative elections, the editors of the Post welcomed the victory:

Having prescribed democracy as an essential condition for a Palestinian state, the Bush administration can hardly stand in the way of electoral participation by a movement that represents a large fraction of Palestinians. It must hope that Hamas eventually will embrace democracy as the sole means of advancing its agenda, rather than as a mere tool to prevent its own disarmament or any Palestinian concessions to Israel, and that it will feel obliged to moderate its tactics and agenda while serving in government. Whether or not that happens, a Palestinian Authority backed by Hamas may be able to restore a semblance of order to Gaza. In the dismal present circumstances, that would be a step forward.

The problem then, as it is now, is that Hamas - regardless of the fact that they won a majority votes - is not a democratic movement. It is a terrorist organization devoted to the destruction of Israel. The only order that Hamas brought to Gaza was its own. It brutally drove out (and killed) Fatah's people and used Gaza as a base to launch attacks against Israel. Now, as Ha'aretz and the Jerusalem Post report, they've used the territory they control to build a military infrastructure that threatens a significant portion of Israel's Negev. Now having seen that Hamas has parlayed its electoral win into an improved positions for its terrorist operations, it's disingenuous for the Post's editors to tell Israel, well, they ought to trust the electoral process again.

When I saw this editorial, I figured I wouldn't be the only one who would be bothered by it. So in these troubled economic times, I did what any other enterprising capitalist would do: I outsourced the fisking of this editorial to some friendly bloggers. The do great work, and what's more they work for cheap. Joshuapundit brought a military perspective to his response, Mere Rhetoric a rhetorical and political perspective and Elder of Ziyon marshaled the facts that contradict the Post's assumptions.

JoshuaPundit:

I can just imagine the sort of 'Israeli thinkers' the WAPO has in mind..probably the same sort of people who thought Arafat could be trusted, totally retreating from Gaza was a great idea and that a six month respite for Hamas to build up its military was an even better one.

Another 'ceasefire' is going to bring Hamas around? Wasn't that the idea of the last one? Worked well, didn't it?

I've got a small bit of news for these people. An all out war against Hamas would not 'strengthen radical factions' it would kill and defeat them.But only if it were an all out war,that included shutting down the Israeli-supplied electricity and taking out the power plant and Gaza's infrastructure as well as targeting Hamas' military and its leadership for annihilation.

It won't easy or pleasant, but the longer Gaza festers the more costly it will get. The Palestinians will not do a damned thing to dismantle Hamas. Israel will have to do so itself.

Mere Rhetoric quoting and then skewering the editorial sentiment:

After six months of relative calm, hostilities once again are escalating between Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Between Friday and yesterday some 60 rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel, whose air force responded with strikes against the launchers. So far there have been no serious injuries on the Israeli side, and one Palestinian has been reported killed.

That's a blase way of putting it. I would have written something like "over the weekend Palestinian soldiers rained down explosives on Israeli schools and hospitals, reaching Israel's largest port city, scoring direct hits on homes, and turning southern Israeli into a warzone." But I guess "some 60 rockets were fired from Gaza" adequately conveys the situation. And I do appreciate how they're using the passive voice / active voice trick - "rockets were fired" / the Israeli "air force responded." It's been a mainstay of anti-Israel bias since before I began blogging and I give a little sniff of nostalgia every time I see it.

Elder of Ziyon:

Wow. Israel sent in daily deliveries of goods essentially every day from August through October, truckloads of food, medicine, fuel, clothing, building materials, and other goods. In return, Hamas built up an arsenal of more rockets, imported tons of explosives, gathered more money by taxing smuggled goods, didn't lift a finger to take administrative responsibility of Gazans' daily lives (leaving that to Western money filtered through Fatah institutions,) and created an infrastructure to kidnap more Israeli soldiers. And the wise old men of WaPo now say that Israel should do exactly the same thing again?

UDATE: A number of other bloggers joined in. Daled Amos mixed a reference to domestic politics in with Washington Post: Israel Should Give Hamas A Bailout Too and uses sarcasm to good effect:

Please join me in a moment of silence out of respect for Hamas in Gaza and their long history of searching for a peaceful end to the war they have declared on Israel. Or has nobody at The Washington Post read the Hamas Charter?

Boker Tov Boulder observes:

The Washington Post does not revile HAMAS terrorists, it lends them credibility. And it warns Israel not to respond militarily to the rocket attacks -timed just so, to hit children on their way to school- because "a war would only strengthen the movement's most radical factions." Instead they urge that Israel feed their enemy and make certain they have plenty of medicine and fuel, as if on a full stomach, in good health and with their tanks all gassed up, HAMAS would somehow be more palatable... or less dangerous.

And My Right Word fisks selected quotes in WashPost is really dumb. The naive silliness of the editorial is emphasized by updates at the end of the post on the latest escalation by Hamas against Israeli civilian targets.

And finally Meryl points out the Post is doing Hamas's work for them:

Second, they want the fiction of the truce so that idiots like the editorial writers at the Washington Post will chastise Israel for refusing to supply her enemies with the means of her destruction, rather than chastise the terrorist group that wants to destroy Israel.

Crossposted on Yourish.

In the dough

On Thursday nights, my job is to make Challah for Shabbos.
Still in the bread machine.

Braided.

Baked.

My daughter focuses on dessert.
Future sugar cookies.

Ready to eat.

Future chocolate chip cookies.

Getting warmed up.

All done. (Actually a previous batch.)

Exhibit 2009 - the legacy of the land - extended

Most of these pictures are from the rooms of Yehuda (Judah) - about the kings and Zevulun - about the sea and its treasures.

The Torah's limits on a king

The throne of Shlomo Hamelech (King Solomon)

A mosaic of the sea, the inheritance of Zevulun.

The "book" of Yonah (Jonah)

Looking out to "sea"

A Sukkah

And finally a display from a past exhibit:

The photo doesn't do it justice. It's a huge wall hanging.

I posted previous pictures of the exhibit here.

(Whoops, the title should be Exhibit 2008, not 2009.)

Here's an announcement, the hours have been extended for this coming weekend too.

The political method

One of the criticism of the Bush administration is that the President ingonred evidence to pursue his own beliefs, not only in terms of matters of war and peace, but also in the area of science. Like the President was somewhat skeptical of claims of global warming. So the NYT happily greets President-elect Obama's new scientific advisors with an editorial, A New Respect for Science. For instance:

We are also heartened by Mr. Obama's choice of John Holdren, a Harvard physicist, as his science adviser. Mr. Holdren has served as chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as has Ms. Lubchenco. Both have argued strongly and repeatedly for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gases to avoid catastrophic climate change.

And of course Mr. Holdren's record supports this enthusiasm. John Tierney writes:

In 1980 Dr. Holdren helped select five metals -- chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten -- and joined Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Harte in betting $1,000 that those metals would be more expensive ten years later. They turned out to be wrong on all five metals, and had to pay up when the bet came due in 1990.

After allowing that this mistake might have been a learning experience, Tierney observes:

Consider what happened when a successor to Dr. Simon, Bjorn Lomborg, published "The Skeptical Environmentalist" in 2001. Dr. Holdren joined in an an extraordinary attack on the book in Scientific American -- an attack that I thought did far more harm to the magazine's reputation than to Dr. Lomborg's. The Economist called the critique "strong on contempt and sneering, but weak on substance"; Dr. Lomborg's defenders said the critics made more mistakes in 11 pages than they were able to find in his 540-page book. (You can read Dr. Lomborg's rebuttal here.) In an earlier post, I wrote about Dr. Holdren's critique of the chapter on energy, in which Dr. Lomborg reviewed the history of energy scares and predicted there would not be dire shortages in the future:

It sounds as if Dr. Holdren would be inclined to shape his views in order to fit "...the administration's political agenda." I thought that that's what the Times objected to.

Ehud Barak Should Get Rid Of Those Rose-Colored Glasses

Back in May 2000, under the headline Israel's humiliating flight from Lebanon, Jeff Jacoby wrote:

There is no putting a pretty face on Israel's humiliating rout in southern Lebanon last week, but that didn't stop Prime Minister Ehud Barak from trying.

"Israel's presence in Lebanon tied its hands to some extent," he declared on Thursday. "But from now on, there are no limits on a tough Israeli response to all aggression against it." The day before, he boasted that the troops had departed Lebanon "without a scratch." This, he said, "is a happy day."

Sure, the past 8 years have been just one long Yom Tov.

Fast forward to today, when Ehud Barak is at it again:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned the Cabinet that broad military action is increasingly likely. "In order to return to a calm like six months ago, we will probably need a wide-scale operation," he said, according to a meeting participant who spoke on condition of anonymity under government guidelines.

So, before the 'truce' things were calmer? Was there a particular day or hour that Barak had in mind?

by Daled Amos

Musical monday #73

Every week Elie and I switch off hosting Musical Monday. Guess the lyrics, figure out the theme. No googling. The last four this week kind of fit. Let me know if you thing I should have included them.

1) Because fashion is smashin' the true meaning of it
2) Giant steps are what you take
3) But that'd change if she ever found out about you and I
4) Now and then, you need someone older,
5) The sun's still shining in the deep blue sky, But it don't mean nothing to me
6) Now everytime I go for the mailbox , gotta hold myself down
7) Birds are singin' gettin' louder and louder
8) Tears are fallin' and I feel the pain,
9) "Give her up, don't bother the world isn't comin' to an end"
10) And I say by that time I ought to be in my prime,
11) with the feeling always central and the southern central freight
12) But what youre keepin to yourself, oh, you know it just ain't fair
13) Toss and turn, wake up burning
14) They do the sand dance don't you know
15) I could play the message that you left for me
16) Winding and swirling and dancing along,
17) I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
18) They told me that I never would recover
19) ... mansions of glory ...
20) ... like so many summer fields
21) I can hear the guitars playing lovely tunes
22) Holly came from Miami f.l.a.
23) They headed down to, ooh, old El Paso
24) My dad and I just had a fight, and he stormed out the door
25) You keep lying, when you oughta be truthin'
26) She took my old jean jacket and my new sunglasses
27) ... don't go walkin' slow, cause devil's on the loose.
28) I found the simple life, weren't so simple
29) Down in the tunnels, trying to make it pay
30) I was a high school loser,
31) With your button-down lips, and your roller blind eyes.
32) With auburn hair and tawny eyes.
33) Just let me grieve in private, cause each time I see
34) And ain't it wond'rous, the way she does it
35) Oh, I did some damage, I know it's true
36) Me and Del were singin'
37) ... hey there fellow with the hair colored yellow
38) And you golden rule to rust
39) Well leave the t.v. and the radio behind
40) Get a shoe thrown at me from a mean old man

Here are the answers for Musical Monday #71. Thanks to Elie for making this viable. The theme was spelling out words and acronyms. As the clues to this week's Musical Monday make clear, I missed a few!
Congratulations to Clayton for figuring out the theme!

1) "Gonna keep on dancing to the rock and roll"
"Saturday Night", Bay City Rollers
2) "But everybody's kickin' sand"
"Living In The USA", Steve Miller Band
3)"Like to tell you 'bout my baby"
"Gloria", Shadows of the Night, Doors, etc.
4) "And somebody else's favorite song"
"FM", Steely Dan
5) "Out by the gas fires of the refinery"
"Born In The USA", Bruce Springsteen
6) "Put away the books, we're out of school"
"Vacation", Connie Francis
7) "T-t-t-teachers gonna show you"
"ABC", The Jackson 5
8) "Huarachi sandals too"
"Surfin USA", Beach Boys
9)"Our little boy is four years old and quite a little man"
"Divorce", Tammy Wynette/Dolly Parton
10) "You made me feel alive, but something died I fear"
"SOS", Abba
11) "Lock up your back door and run for your life"
"TNT", AC/DC
12) "I pushed her away, I walked to the door"
"Lola", The Kinks
13) "And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me"
"God Bless The USA", Lee Greenwood
14) "Put your pride on the shelf"
"YMCA", The Village People
15) "(sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me)"
"Respect", Aretha Franklin
16) "Did I miss the long freeway?"
"Back in the USA", Chuck Berry/Linda Ronstadt
17) "Honey disconnect the phone"
"Back in the USSR", Beatles
18) "Be back before it melts in the pan"
"I'm a Woman", Peggy Lee/Maria Muldaur
19) "We were two kids and I was was into AM rock"
"WOLD", Harry Chapin
20) "Which one of us is right if we always fight"
"Diamonds and Pearls", Prince
21) "With their pipedreams in their heads and very little money in their hands"
"R.O.C.K in the USA", John Mellencamp
22) "Treasure these few words 'till we're together"
"PS, I Love You", The Beatles
23) "Quick sack, 12 pack, back again"
"Beer Run", Garth Brooks and George Jones
24) "Mama had a time tryin' to raise nine kids"
"T-R-O-U-B-L-E", Travis Tritt
25) "'Hiya, Mr. Jackson'"
"(I've Got A Gal In) Kalamazoo", Glenn Miller
26) "Mrs. Johnson wore her miniskirt into the room"
"Harper Valley PTA", Jeannie C. Riley
27) "Style is timeless and fashion's only now"
"Method of Modern Love", Hall and Oates
28) "You're my flavour of the week"
"Be Aggressive", Faith No More
29) "I'll tell anyone whose heart can comprehend"
"Miss You Much", Janet Jackson
30) "Leave the real one far behind"
"Safety Dance", Men Without Hats
31) "The Cokes are in the icebox"
"Having a party," Sam Cooke, Little Stevie

Seated between iraq and israel

Rick Richman pays tribute the Irish diplomat and scholar Conor Cruise O'Brien. He notes Martin Peretz's observation that the NYT in its obituary doesn't make mention of his book, "The Siege."

O'Brien was a contributor to The Atlantic, and that magazine has an extensive excerpt of the book online called Why Israel can't take 'bold steps' for peace. Some of it is dated. But a lot of it still stands. I don't agree with all of his observations, but it is a fine essay.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Could or would?

The death of Mark Felt - Deep Throat of Watergate fame - inspired former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie Jr. to ask, "Could we uncover Watergate today?" Instapundt observes that Downie is asking the wrong question rather the question:

. . . is whether the press would cover a Watergate if it happened under a Democratic administration.

Consider a few data points.

1) Newsweek had a story about an inappropriate relationship between President Clinton and an intern. Newsweek was not going to publish it, until Matt Drudge got wind of the story and publicized on his website.

2) During the 2004 Presidential election 60 Minutes aired allegations that President Bush had received favorable treatment during the Viet Nam war. Dan Rather produced a document showing to "prove" the charge. Charles Johnson showed that the memo could not have been produced on the typewriters at that time.

3) A number of the images during the Israeli-Hezbollah war of 2006 were doctored or staged. Again it was bloggers, not the MSM that noticed.

4) Earlier this year a French court found that Philipe Karsenty had not libeled Charles Enderlin when he claimed that Enderlin had fabricated his report about Mohammed al-Dura. Though Enderlin's report was the basis for much of the subsequent media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian violence there was next to no MSM coverage of this decision that demonstrated Enderlin's dishonesty.

5) Subsequent to Watergate, the Washington Post used its position as the exposer of official corruption to campaign for campaign finance reform. However there were limits to its curiosity. For example when its favored candidate this past election cycle, President-elect Obama's campaign was found to have disabled protections to allow the acceptance of anonymous and potentially illegal donations, the Post followed up - rather late - with an article on the subject, hidden on page A2, a week before the election. There was a single follow up with no outraged editorial at the way candidate Obama skirted the laws the Post insisted were necessary to limit the corrupting influence of money in politics. (At least the Post allowed Bradley Smith to tell it like it is. The Post's wimpy criticism of Obama on the topic of campaign finance reform - "a cause he injured" - in its endorsement proved Smith's point.)

Towards the end of his article Downie asks:

In today's cacophonous media world, in which news, rumor, opinion and infotainment from every kind of source are jumbled together and often presented indiscriminately, how would such an improbable-sounding story ever get verified?

It's funny but the one item of investigative reporting that Downie cites as coming from the blogosphere is the U.S. attorneys firings. Not one of the items mentioned above, was a concern of his. I don't think he's been paying attention, but there has been a lot of investigative journalism going on. Of course many of those bloggers doing the investigative work are looking at stories that Downie's paper has been curiously incurious about.

Mr. Downie ought to follow Instapundit's suggestion and stop wondering if his paper "could" uncover another Watergate and wonder if they "would."

Likelihood of Success disagrees and argues that visions of glory would inspire journalists to look beyond petty partisanship in the pursuit of corruption. On the other hand, I look forward to seeing the media get its instincts back in four to eight years.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Diffracted light

Diffracted light - reflected off the CD cases, I think - on the wall behind the computer.

Richard Falk in the Guardian: "The blockade of Gaza serves no legitimate Israeli function"

Richard Falk, the UN's special Israel-basheur and conspiracy kook, was recently prevented from entering Israel. The Guardian gives him editorial space to prevent his view of what happened, including his denunciation of the Israeli blockade on Gaza. The lack of an actual argument here is breathtaking:

The blockade of Gaza serves no legitimate Israeli function. It is supposedly imposed in retaliation for some Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that have been fired across the border at the Israeli town of Sderot. The wrongfulness of firing such rockets is unquestionable, yet this in no way justifies indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the entire civilian population of Gaza.

What is "indiscriminate" about the blockade? All blockades and economic sanctions target a country's collective interests. Generally, such measures serve as a more restrained first step before a conflict escalates to the active military stage, although Hamas has been at the military stage for years. Hamas is not a "non-state actor" anymore; it is the government of Gaza, the "democratically-elected" government of Gaza we are constantly told. Governments are not supposed to get involved in wars that they cannot win and it is generally disastrous for the people they rule if they do, particularly if they expect their ostensive enemy to deliver goods and supplies to them.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Shai Agassi And Electric Cars--Maybe Not A Pipedream

Last year, in Will Israel Lead The Way In Using Electric Cars?, I wrote about Hillel Halkin's opinion piece in The New York Sun, Israel's Electric Revolution? (still available) where he bemoaned how

Israel is a country with a very high level of technological creativity and innovation, but once past the planning stage, its innovations have generally been developed by others.

As an example, he offered hi-tech entrepreneur Shai Agassi's proposal for making electric cars ubiquitous:

A small country running almost entirely on electric cars 10 or 15 years from now and serving as a model for the world? Or the pipedream of an overambitious businessman dragging his government into an expensive boondoggle that may make it the world's laughingstock?

The key to Agassi's plan is an entire rethinking of the electric car model, as described in an article in Wired this past August:

Agassi dealt with the battery issue by simply swatting it away. Previous approaches relied on a traditional manufacturing formula: We make the cars, you buy them. Agassi reimagined the entire automotive ecosystem by proposing a new concept he called the Electric Recharge Grid Operator. It was an unorthodox mashup of the automotive and mobile phone industries. Instead of gas stations on every corner, the ERGO would blanket a country with a network of "smart" charge spots. Drivers could plug in anywhere, anytime, and would subscribe to a specific plan--unlimited miles, a maximum number of miles each month, or pay as you go--all for less than the equivalent cost for gas. They'd buy their car from the operator, who would offer steep discounts, perhaps even give the cars away. The profit would come from selling electricity--the minutes.

Agassi is still going strong--he has a website (Better Place) and a blog (The Long Tailpipe). Just last month at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media had a half hour conversation with Agassi:



Maybe this time, Mr. Halkin, we are talking about more than just a pipedream.

Footnote: Something else novel is going on with Israel's roads:

Though it sounds like a farfetched idea, a small stretch of road in Israel capable of producing electricity will undergo testing next month.

Underneath the surface of asphalt, roadway engineers fitted a layer of piezoelectric crystals, which generate an electric current when pressure is applied to them. This would allow the road to capture the energy that a car or truck transfers to the ground when it drives by.

Its developers say that the one-kilometre stretch of road is capable of generating 400 kW of energy, enough to power eight small cars. Now, there aren't any details about how this figure was calculated, but it's a promising idea especially if multi-laned highways and traffic-plagued urban areas are considered.

The Environmental Transport Association (ETA) says that if these crystals were installed on every stretch of motorway in Britain, the output of electricity would be sufficient to run 34,500 small cars.

And there is a connection:

One neat tie-in with the electric road is that Israel will be starting an electric car program in conjunction with Nissan [which is partnering with Agassi]. As the project ramps up and vehicle sales increase, these roads could play an important part in developing the "fuel" for electric cars by contributing back to the main electric grid.

For many years scientists and engineers have tried to figure out a way to generate electricity from roads and passing cars. This could potentially be the most effective way of doing it. Other ideas include embedding solar cells into the road surface and installing small windmills by the roadside that harvest the wind produced by passing vehicles.

Better and better.

[Hat tip: Miriam Schwab]

by Daled Amos

More "Youth Riots"--This time in Sweden

From the BBC:

Swedish city hit by youth riots

Police said all sorts of "troublemakers" had got involved

Dozens of youths have rioted in the southern Swedish city of Malmo for a second consecutive night, setting cars on fire and clashing with police.
"We've had a very difficult evening," a police spokeswoman told the AFP news agency late on Thursday.

"There have been fires burning since this afternoon... extensive damage to public property, and... stone-throwing and bomb threats against police."

Apparently this story has not been getting a lot of coverage. Care to guess why? Here is a clue:

She said the trouble was linked to the closure of an Islamic centre.

Oh.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn points out that the rioting is in Rosengard, a suburb of Malmo "the most heavily Muslim neighborhood of Sweden's most Muslim city."

Let's see.

Here is an excerpt from Muslims in the West By Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad:



Muslims make up as much as 60% of the population of Rosengard and 20% of Malmo as a whole.

Moriel Ministries has a post, Muslims Rule Sweden, with links to a number of articles, with translations, of what is going on in Malmo. For example:

http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,529910,00.html

Malmø , Sweden . The police now publicly admit what many Scandinavians have known for a long time: They no longer control the situation in the nations's third largest city. It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants. Some of the Muslims have lived in the area of Rosengård, Malmø, for twenty years, and still don't know how to read or write Swedish. Ambulance personnel are attacked by stones or weapons, and refuse to help anybody in the area without police escort. The immigrants also spit at them when they come to help. Recently, an Albanian youth was stabbed by an Arab, and was left bleeding to death on the ground while the ambulance waited for the police to arrive. The police themselves hesitate to enter parts of their own city unless they have several patrols, and need to have guards to watch their cars, otherwise they will be vandalized. "Something drastic has to be done, or much more blood will be spilled" says one of the locals.

Even articles having nothing to do with the topic tend to mention the Muslim population when the topic of Malmo comes up:

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, one of the most spectacular soccer players ever, comes from the infamous, Muslim dominated area of Rosengård in Malmö, Sweden's third biggest city.

He presently plays for the major European club of Inter Milan and has formerly been contracted by Juventus, Ajax and Malmö FF among others.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, known as "Ibra" to Italian soccer fans, is one of the very few Muslim immigrants from the Malmö region who've made major success in any area of life (another exception is Hip hop artist Timbuktu - not especially well known in the US though).

Many Rosengård Muslims strive to isolate themselves from the rest of Swedish society and are often dependent on welfare, in contrast to several Muslim immigrants in other parts of Sweden, for instance those living in Gothenburg (Sweden's second largest city after Stockholm) of which many have found work, for instance in big industries like Volvo.

So why does the BBC shy away from a problem that apparently so widely known?
Well, we are talking about the BBC...

by Daled Amos

Post-ceasefire post-mortem

Barry Rubin in Liar, Liar, pants on ceasefire on reasons why it was a mistake for Hamas to end the ceasefire:

The first is that they ending the ceasefire while George W. Bush is president. Certainly Israel feels freer to hit back at Hamas now than after Barrack Obama is inaugurated simply because the new administration would want to avoid a crisis before it consolidates its plans and team. Also, the United States is likely to prefer quiet as it begins withdrawing from Iraq.

Second, the ceasefire is being suspended on the eve of a major Palestinian crisis as Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas announces a self-extension of his term in office. One might think Hamas would prefer to keep the Israel front Israel quiet for a while to focus on battling Fatah and the PA.

Finally, there's the Israeli election campaign. While this doesn't make large-scale Israeli retaliation inevitable, such a move would make the current government more popular with the electorate.

Of course mitigating against those is:

[Hamas] knows suffering can be blamed on Israel. Western pragmatists reason: obviously the Palestinians must prefer peace, prosperity, and statehood. Rejectionism must then be due to desperation and the lack of a good offer or faith in the West. In fact, though, the situation is not due to our mistakes but to their deliberate choices.

Thus, Hamas can well conclude that the best way to put pressure on Israel and--in its own mind at least--gain Western help--is to be more radical, not more moderate.

To cite one example, what is considered America's leading newspaper recently reported that both sides violate the ceasefire: Hamas fires rockets at Israel; Israel retaliates by closing the border. By this definition, the fact that Hamas and its allies fire rockets at Israeli civilians doesn't allow any Israeli response, military or otherwise. This is the kind of thinking Hamas seeks to promote.

and:

In addition, macho militancy in the Middle East does bring popularity, both domestic and international. The last quarter-century has also shown that Western sympathy can be manipulated by increasing violence and blocking solutions to the conflict in a way that will be blamed on Israel.

May I suggest another reason why Hamas ceased the pretense of a ceasefire? Because it achieved what it set out to. Judeopundit noticed in a Al-Jazeera report:

Palestinian group Hamas has declared that the six-month ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza Strip is over.

The ceasefire officially ended at daybreak in Gaza on Friday and came after armed Palestinian groups admitted that they had been using the truce to train and better arm themselves.

And indeed, This Ongoing War linked to an earlier post of mine that cited a report after one month of the "ceasefire."

The cessation of the IDF's operational activity in the Gaza Strip, as stipulated in the lull arrangement, is being used by Hamas and other terrorist organizations to advance their military buildup and increase their readiness for a likely scenario of a future confrontation with the IDF. Since the beginning of the lull, weapons and ammunition have been smuggled into the Gaza Strip on a similar scale to the pre-lull times, despite an improvement in the Egyptian activity against the smugglers. Furthermore, Hamas has significantly accelerated its training activity and its military buildup, publicly announcing it on Palestinian and Arab media.

This is why it's frustrating when a newspaper, like the New York Times - and much of the MSM - characterize the ceasefire strictly in terms of whether either side is firing. If Hamas is building a tunnel to attack Israel and Israel attacks, well Israel broke the ceasefire. More generally, Barry Rubin describes it like this:

To cite one example, what is considered America's leading newspaper recently reported that both sides violate the ceasefire: Hamas fires rockets at Israel; Israel retaliates by closing the border. By this definition, the fact that Hamas and its allies fire rockets at Israeli civilians doesn't allow any Israeli response, military or otherwise. This is the kind of thinking Hamas seeks to promote.

Israel is hamstrung if it plays by these rules and the media portrays this as being even-handed. Does it make a difference how Hamas utilized the ceasefire? It certainly makes a good talking point, but the truth doesn't seem to have sunk in.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Council speak 12/21/08

The Council has spoken.

This week's winning entry was Bookworm Room's Selfish is as selfish does as she gives voice to every parents concern and she provides some observations to support her conclusions. The runner up this week was Mere Rhetoric's Obama: Since We All Know That Engagement With Iran Won't Work, How About A US Nuclear Umbrella For Israel? which points out that President-elect Obama's promise undermines his premise.

On the non-council side, the winning entry was Brussels Journal's On Deconstructing the Majority: Nothing To Do With Islam? Really?. The runner up was Shrinkwrapped's Some disparate dots, a look at the worldly assumption of the incoming Obama administration. Some other worthy non-council posts were Some Points worth making by Treppenwitz, To the man who threw his shoes at President Bush and missed by Pundita and Euphemism of the year by Meryl Yourish.

For a full list of the winners and many other fine posts check out the Watcher.

For more commentary by the Watcher's Council (and many other fine bloggers) check out the latest National Journal bloggers' poll!

Congratulations to all the winners!

watcher's council.

Shiny happy dhimmi - #6

Blogs to read while watching the crocodiles eat.*

1) The rage of the flying shoes. Brave journalist asks for pardon. What an impressive resume. The Arab world and the media still hate us!

2) Euphemism of the year! A more explosive award. Wow the end of the year honors just keep on coming.

3) Terrorism as a level of charity. Doctor heal thyself.

4) Their name is Campbell, does that make them soup Nazis? They probably drive a Ford.

5) Peace processing is such as success, we need to do more of it. Yes, the more things change ...

6) Accidentally like a martyr.

7) Isn't mocking a captive a violation of the Geneva conventions? Where's the outrage?

8) More proof that the Israeli-Arab conflict is the center of all instability in the Middle East. Israel, the great Arab hope.

9) If you don't hear what they're really saying, you're not listening closely enough.

10) The ceasefire is over. And the "blockade" continues.

11) ... and pass the nuclear weapons.

12) Nobel-esse bilge. Advising the kidnappers, that should rate another peace prize.

13) More evidence of the Temple that was never there. Don't know much about history.

14) A special talent to kiss Arafat and curse fellow Jews.

* Winston Churchill
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last"

Previous editions: #5, #4, #3,#2, #1.

Arab Countries To Israel: Take Out Hamas!

Considering that Hamas is an Iranian proxy and Arabs are not particularly enamored of Iran, this makes sense--especially since Hamas is an easier target than the other Iranian proxy: Hizbollah.

From Dan Diker, a foreign policy analyst with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairsvia Powerline:

Hamas rockets continue to smash into southern Israel today, but this morning's headline in Israel's Maariv daily newspaper will likely not be discussed in Washington media, diplomatic, and policy circles: "Arab Countries to Israel: Cut off the Heads of Hamas' Leaders." Israel's Maariv reports unnamed heads of Arab states that have passed diplomatic messages to Jerusalem encouraging Israel to kill Iranian funded and trained Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas' firing of scores of rockets against Southern Israel during the current "cease fire".

This of course runs in the face of the increasingly accepted position:

Strangely, while some of Washington's closest Arab allies are recommending Israel kill the Hamas leadership a recent report by the Saban Center of the Brookings Institute, "Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the next President", recommends that Israel and the United States talk directly with the Hamas while jettisoning the U.S. led Quartet's standing pre-conditions for dealing the Iranian backed Muslim Brotherhood group.

Strangely?

Also mentioned by Diker is this interesting little nugget:

A Palestinian Authority official reminded me earlier this week that Hamas received two million dollars from Lashkar e Taibe (the group that massacred nearly 200 in Mumbai this month) during a December 2006 meeting in Pakistan that was first reported in the Italian newspaper Corriera Della Serra.

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere and didn't find anything after a quick look through Google. Has anyone been looking into this?

Diker concludes:

Washington and Western allies would do well to take notice. There is clear and growing concern and even incredulity among not a few Arab leaders and former officials at what they see as underlying naiveté behind what appears to be a softening of the US and Israeli posture towards Hamas.

Read the whole thing.

That would be the same naiveté that allows the West to pour billions into the PA while the Arab world steps back.

Obama's intent to talk with Iran would be another example of that naiveté--and can't be making the Arab world very happy.

UPDATE: At Contentions, David Hazony expands on the lessons from the Hamas/Lashkar e Taibe connection:

There are those who say: Terrorism is evil, wretched, and should be boycotted at every turn -- every turn, that is, until the terrorists get a lot of power, or begin to look like sovereign states. At that point, the only way to deal with them is through talking. Power triumphs over principle, realpolitik trumps moral revulsion.

We can understand where this is coming from. After all, the Soviet Union was a very bad regime, and the West only defeated them through a combination of the soft walk and the big stick. But Hamas and Iran are much, much smaller creatures, and it seems that the bar for negotiation has been drastically lowered. Every time we legitimize such regimes through negotiation, we are overcoming an extremely important moral sensibility in ourselves, diluting it and weakening it. We are also drastically incentivizing the terrorists' rise to power. The West used to say to its enemies: Stay small, below the radar, and we'll mostly ignore you. Now it's saying: Get yourself a piece of land and something that looks like an army, and the West will suddenly soften its posture.

Now would be a good time for the West to wake up.

by Daled Amos

Don't get too chummy with that flaming dummy

Didn't his parents teach him not to play with fire?

Bonus: Note the third word on the protest signs: "Foolish."

Priceless isn't it?

There something serious to this though. Whenever there's a protest in the Arab world, there are no shortage of reporters who'll trumpet it as the "Arab street" speaking and having something of value to communicate to us in the West.

It was especially true this week after Muntader al-Zaidi threw his shoes at President Bush. Major American newspapers ran front page stories about how al-Zaidi is now a hero of the Arab world.

The media's behavior is disgraceful. The media promote themselves as champions of freedom and liberty and yet for every Arab protest against President Bush, or Danish cartoon or the atrocious conditions in Gaza that they promote - yes, promote, not report -there's a question that's not asked.

Where's the protest against the treatment of Copts and political opponents in Egypt? Or where's the protest against honor killings? Or where's the protest against the persecution of Christians in the Arab world? Or where's the protest against the rockets being launched against civilians in southern Israel? Or where's the protest against the increasing rate of executions in Iran? Or where's the protest against the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia? Or where's the protest against the stifling of dissent in Syria?

And the answer to each of these questions is: there are none. The government wouldn't allow it.

Mr. al-Zaidi is living proof of that. He threw a shoe at President Bush and is still breathing. Had he done so six years ago when Saddam Hussein was hosting a foreign dignitary, there wouldn't have been enough left of him to bury.

The media must know this. And yet they report uncritically on Arab protests, without even a hint of irony, as if we are to take these protests as the voice of the people.

In many of these reports there's a scarcely contained glee that the protesters validate their hatred of President Bush and share their contempt of Israel. The solidarity boosts the reporters' progressive credentials. But the protesters only protest what their governments allow. So in the end, the reporters and the media they work for are simply giving voice to the despots and hurting the cause of freedom they claim to champion.

Crossposted on Yourish.

When does it become a farce?

The New York Times explains why the Israeli ceasefire with Hamas didn't work:

Their job, the Hamas officials said, was to stop the rocket attacks on Israel not only from its own armed groups, but also from others based in Gaza, including Islamic Jihad and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades.

It took some days, but they were largely successful. Hamas imposed its will and even imprisoned some of those who were firing rockets. Israeli and United Nations figures show that while more than 300 rockets were fired into Israel in May, 10 to 20 were fired in July, depending on who was counting and whether mortar rounds were included. In August, 10 to 30 were fired, and in September, 5 to 10.

But the goods shipments, while up some 25 to 30 percent and including a mix of more items, never began to approach what Hamas thought it was going to get: a return to the 500 to 600 truckloads delivered daily before the closing, including appliances, construction materials and other goods essential for life beyond mere survival. Instead, the number of trucks increased to around 90 from around 70.

Israeli officials acknowledged that transferring previously banned goods had been the plan, but said that there was no specific date for the increase and that it was to happen in steps. But the rockets never fully stopped.

Or the explanation could be a lot simpler.

Hamas considers Israel an illegitimate state and is doctrinally committed to its destruction, while Israel views Hamas as a terrorist group that must be dismantled.

The first part is certainly true. The second part isn't quite right. Hamas is a terrorist organization by definition, not due to some quirky Israeli "view." Terrorist organizations that are committed to one's destruction are not reliable good faith partners for anything. And yet:

Yet each needs the other to hold its fire. That is why negotiations over another truce have started, again through Egypt.

When does trusting Hamas become a farce?

Maybe Israel doesn't need another truce.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Economic villains and heroes

James Pethokoukis listed the 10 dopiest business and economic leaders of the year. I dont' know to what degree Alan Greenspan is responsible for the current crisis, but most of the criticisms seem right on target, especially #3:

The bailout trio. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner decided to let Lehman Brothers fail in September, triggering a global collapse of financial confidence, as well as wrecking the money and commercial paper markets. The move also led to massive hedge fund redemptions, which forced them to liquidate stocks. And don't forget the ever evolving $700 billion Paulson plan to bail out the banks. Buying assets one day, injecting capital the next. And the crisis rolls on ....

Fausta adds one.

Are there any heroes? Well Robert Samuelson names two: Paul Volcker and Ronald Reagan.

The subjugation of inflation was principally the accomplishment of two men: Paul Volcker and Ronald Reagan. If either had been absent, the story would have unfolded differently and, from our present perspective, less favorably. Reagan, president from 1981 to 1989, and Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1979 to 1987, forged an accidental alliance that was largely unspoken, impersonal, and misunderstood. There was no particular personal chemistry between the men. Nor was there any explicit bargain--you do this, and I'll do that. Although Reagan supported Volcker, many officials in his administration openly criticized him. Even while the alliance flourished, it sometimes seemed a mirage.

But the alliance was genuine, a compact of conviction. Both men believed that high inflation was shredding the fabric of the economy and of American society. The country could not thrive if it persisted. Buttressed by these beliefs, they broke with the past. Each had a role to play, and each played it somewhat independently of the other.

Volcker took a sledgehammer to inflationary expectations. He raised interest rates, tightened credit, and triggered the most punishing economic slump since the 1930s. In December 1980, banks' "prime rate" (the loan rate for the worthiest business borrowers) hit a record 21.5 percent. Mortgage and bond rates rose in concert. By the summer of 1981, consumers had trouble borrowing for homes and cars. Many companies couldn't borrow for new investment. Industrial production dropped 12 percent from mid-1981 until late 1982. In many industries, declines were steeper. In autos, it was 34 percent (from June 1981 to January 1982), and in steel it was 56 percent (from August 1981 to December 1982). By 1982 the number of business failures had tripled from 1979. Construction starts of new homes in 1982 were 40 percent below the 1979 level. Worse, unemployment exploded. By late 1982, it was 10.8 percent, which remains a post-World War II record.

Reagan was resolute in the face of all this. He did not back down and trusted Volcker. Volcker's back and will play a role in the Obama administration. (So will Timothy Geithner.) Inflation undercut consumer confidence. As a result we've seen a tremendous economic expansion.over the past 25 years.

With the current economic crisis, consumer confidence is taking a big hit. Though the cause or the crisis is different, will Volcker know how to fix things like he did last time? Will President Obama listen regardless of the political cost?

What's wrong with the 17th amendment?

Charles Krauthammer sees the positive in Gov. Blagojevich's behavior (or here):

In light of the pending dynastic disposition of the New York and Delaware Senate seats, the Illinois way is almost refreshing. At least Gov. Rod Blagojevich (allegedly) made Barack Obama's seat democratically open to all. Just register the highest bid, eBay-style.

This wasn't an unqualified success for the American way, though:

Sadly, however, even this auction was not free of aristo-creep. On the evidence of the U.S. attorney's criminal complaint, a full one-third of those under consideration were pedigreed: Candidate No. 2 turns out to be the daughter of the speaker of the Illinois House; Candidate No. 5, the first-born son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Krauthammer's main point, though, is this:

It's not the end of the world, but it is an accelerating trend that need not be encouraged. After all, we have already created another huge distortion in our politics: a plethora of plutocrats in the U.S. Senate, courtesy of our crazed campaign finance laws. If you're very very rich, you can buy your Senate seat by spending as much of your money as you want. Meanwhile, your poor plebeian opponent is running around groveling for the small contributions allowed by law. Hence the Corzines and the Kohls, who parachute into Congress seemingly out of nowhere.

Having given this additional leg up to the rich, we should resist packing our legislatures with yet more privileged parachutists, the well-born.

Kathleen Parker who is so infected by Palin Derangement Syndrome that she is quickly becoming the essential must-miss "conservative" columnist, tells us that Caroline Kennedy is no Sarah Palin. Caroline Kennedy, to Parker, doesn't need to be qualified for the Senate because she'd only be one of 100. But that wasn't the issue, the issue is entitlement as Krauthammer noted. Lack of qualifications is secondary.
Still it's amusing, I suppose, to have Parker harp on Gov. Palin's inexperience. What about the guy who won the election? Right now President-elect Obama is learning that it's easy to run against an unpopular president, but that it might not be so easy to govern much differently from the way the incumbent does.

After the interventions of the trigger-happy Reagan and Bush Sr., feel-your-pain Bill Clinton was convinced that his charisma could achieve through diplomacy what his predecessors had failed at through their clumsy use of force. But after 1993, President Clinton ended up bombing or shooting Afghans, Iraqis, Serbians, Somalis and Sudanese -- without consulting either Congress or the United Nations.

Realist George W. Bush ran on ending Bill Clinton's nation-building -- and ended up spending hundreds of billions of dollars on war and fostering democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Parker also harps on Gov. Palin's like of Washington savvy. Given the way the government's been pushing for bigger and bigger bailout packages for more and more industries, is it possible that what we really need is an outsider? At first I believed that the financial industry needed a bailout, but then when that didn't work the administration and Congress wanted an even bigger package. And then the auto makers asked for their cut. Maybe too much familiarity with the ways of Washington causes one to overestimate what can do. It's a problem with political incestuousness.

Which brings us back to the idea of appointing political relatives to senate seats. Krauthammer argues against it. So what to do? Jennifer Rubin says, pay attention to the 17th amendment!

So what to do? All the open seats should be filled by special election. And if the money is tight in states, that's one bailout of federal money I'd favor. Spending money on democratic elections seems about the best use of the taxpayers money one can imagine. As we see, the alternative is an embarrassment.

Joshua Spivak thinks it's good to have governors appoint senators, or at least that special elections aren't that great.

The main alternative under consideration is the special election, because it passes two basic tests -- the fairness test (by including any candidate who can get on the ballot) and the democracy test (by letting voters do the selecting). But dig a little deeper, and it becomes apparent that special elections have problems of their own.

Two of these are procedural. The first is that, done right, a special election would take months to carry out, leaving the state without a key legislative representative. By contrast, a governor can fill a Senate seat in almost no time. The second problem is the expense. Statewide special elections cost tens of millions of dollars, a considerable concern at times -- such as now -- when state budgets are under strain.

But there are hidden, and more fundamental, problems, too. Turnout for special elections is dramatically lower than it is for general elections. This shouldn't be a surprise -- voters have to care enough to come out for just one race, while on Election Day the presidency or a governorship may also be on the line.

While I understand the procedural problems, the idea that fewer people vote in special elections doesn't work against special elections. There were still be many more than one person determining who will represent. And even if an appointed senator usually loses, why should this decision be decided by fiat?

Betsy's Page concludes:

Whatever the drawbacks of a special election, it's better to let the people vote than to have the smarmy sort of politics that we witness now.

In short, our political system would benefit from some new blood. Sarah Palin, to Kathleen Parker's chagrin, represented a fresh approach to politics. Overall the best way to encourage diversity and new ways of thinking into the political system is with more elections, not less.

Related thoughts:

Deja Vu links to a great letter (last one) in the New York Times:

It is amusing that Andrew M. Cuomo, who owes his whole career to his dad, may not get the Senate seat of Hillary Rodham Clinton (who owes her whole career to her husband) because David A. Paterson (who owes his whole career to his dad) may give it to Caroline Kennedy (who owes her whole career to her dad).

Carl Cannon thinks that Caroline Kennedy can fly an X-wing fighter.

Fausta rebuts Kathleen Parker's cattiness.

Al Jazeera: "Palestinian groups admitted that they had been using the truce to train and better arm themselves"

The end of the, ahem, ceasefire means that Hamas is unambiguously at war with Israel. Israel has every right, if somehow it didn't previously, to do whatever it takes to win the war. It bought into this ceasefire, of course, so the chances that the Zionist entity will snap out of it are not promising.

Palestinian group Hamas has declared that the six-month ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza Strip is over.

The ceasefire officially ended at daybreak in Gaza on Friday and came after armed Palestinian groups admitted that they had been using the truce to train and better arm themselves.

The Izz-al-din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, blamed Israel for the failure of the truce.

"The ceasefire is over and there won't be a renewal because the Zionist enemy has not respected its conditions," the group said on its website.

The announcement followed talks between various Palestinian factions within the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel after Hamas made its announcement of the ceasefire, the Israeli military has said. [...]

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Gaza, said some of the armed Palestinian factions had used the calm to better train and equip themselves, saying not only had their resolve grown stronger, but their weapons had as well.

Mohyeldin said longer range rockets, heavier machine guns and more accurate firing systems have all been acquired, according to the armed groups . . .

Abu Ahmed, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad's military wing, the al-Quds Brigades, said: "During the calm we trained and prepared ourselves for the period after the calm. We will deploy to the front lines along the border and reinforce our positions there with new weapons that we have brought." [...]

Think of it as the alarm going off yet again after the latest press of the snooze-button.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Exhibit 2009 - the legacy of the land

The High School of the Bais Yaakov of Baltimore currently has its exhibition. This year's theme are the Shvatim or Twelve Tribes. Each display within the exhibit is devoted to the qualities of each Shevet (tribe.)

Using different media, the young ladies put together a very impressive display showing their knowledge of T'nach and Midrashiim with great creativity using many different media.

This is a display of the seven levels of the heavens.

A picture of the Lishchas Hagazis - the hewn chamber - where the Sanhredrin met, made with tile.

In a display about the wars fought in modern Israel was this tank mock-up. The screen in the side showed a film about the reuniting of Jerusalem in 1967.

The corridors were devoted to the tribe of Levi. So there was a section that included the vessels from the Bais Hamikdash (Holy Temple).

The outer Mizbeach (altar).

The Shulchan (Table) with the inner/golden Mizbeach in the foreground.

The Menorah.

The Aron (Ark).

The Kohen Gadol (high priest) in his special clothing. (I thought this was especially impressive.)

Some very impressive art.

The splitting of the kingdom.

The chain of the Mesora. Close-up (top) and from a short distance (bottom).

A beaded curtain with a picture of a pair of Tefilin.

The dreams of Yosef (Joseph).

The K'sones Pasim (coat of many colors).

Yosef's descendants

A mosaic floor with a picture of a wolf, that corresponds to the tribe of Binyamin (Benjamin).

A mockup of the Kotel (Western Wall).

This is just a sampling of the fantastic work done by the Bais Yaakov High School. The exhibit is running until Sunday Dec. 21.

Shoe-throwers proliferate

This is sort of like reinventing the pet rock:

When President Bush ducked an Iraqi reporter's footwear, a man in Queens got an idea. The transit rider wanted to grab the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's attention.

He did, but he got more than he bargained for.

"And one more thing, where is Elliot Sanders?" Stephen Millies said during an MTA public hearing on Wednesday.

Then, just as he said, "Mr. Sanders, this is for you," Millies was tackled.

Millies said he was just trying to show the MTA his shoe -- when he got the boot. The 54-year-old was hauled away in handcuffs and cited for intending to cause "public annoyance."

"What's the point of having one of these public hearings unless you can annoy some of these $300,000 bureaucrats? Annoyance is not a crime," Millies said.

Whether or not it's a crime, he appears to be facing an unexpected punishment.

Millie's protest got him thrown out of the meeting. It got him into the headlines. But when he showed up for work the next day at Sunnyside Yard in Queens, his employer, Amtrak, told him to go home.

"I have no idea why because I was just exercising my first amendment rights of freedom of speech," Millies said.

The NY Times reports concerning Millies' denial that he meant to throw the shoe:

Bill Morange, the authority's security director, was standing beside the speaker's podium and was one of the first to grab Mr. Millies. He said it appeared Mr. Millies was going to throw the shoe. "You can say anything you want," Mr. Morange said. "Just don't throw your shoes."

Reached later by telephone, Mr. Millies said he had no intention of doing that.

"I wanted to show the sole of the shoe as a sign of contempt for someone who makes so much money and yet wants to raise fares on the disabled," he said.

Millie's explained, according to the Times, "I was very much inspired by that courageous Iraqi journalist who was protesting the occupation of his country by the American and British oil companies and their governments." Well, the "courageous Iraqi journalist" actually threw his shoe. I'd consider that an admission of criminal intent having nothing to do with free speech. It wasn't the most momentous crime of all time and he was thwarted before he got to commit it, but I don't see why it shouldn't lose him his job. Employing morons can't be good for business. (Hat Tip: VosIzNeias)

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Alaska Could Have Been The Palestine Of The US

Rafael Medoff, director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, writes that in 1938, following Kristallnacht, Secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickes came up with an idea:

At a press conference on Thanksgiving eve, two weeks after Kristallnacht, Secretary Ickes proposed Alaska as "a haven for Jewish refugees from Germany and other areas in Europe where the Jews are subjected to oppressive restrictions." Alaska was "the one possession of the United States that is not fully developed," Ickes pointed out...and predicted their pioneering efforts would "open up opportunities in the industrial and professional fields now closed to the Jews in Germany."

Keep in mind that Alaska did not become a state until 1959--until then it remained a possession, meaning that Alaska would not be subject to the then current limits on immigration.

Nevertheless, there was general opposition. Tom Kizzia of The Anchorage Daily News writes:

Many Americans resented what they saw as competition for jobs from foreigners during the Great Depression. It would be worse still if the new immigrants were Jews, at a time when shrill alarms about "international Jewish conspiracies" were heard openly across the land from right-wing politicians and radio personalities.

But there were other issues as well--issues and opposition reminiscent of the problems Jews were facing in Palestine. For example, there was a question whether Jewish immigrants had what it took to tame the land:

"They are not the type of hardy Scandinavians who have had so much to do with development of Alaska on their own initiative," said postmaster Robert E. Sheldon, president of the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce.

"Alaska wants no misfits and is unprepared to care for discards," concluded an editorial in Cap Lathrop's News-Miner.

In addition, Medoff notes that there was another issue that would be faced in Palestine--fear of Jewish settlers:

American Jewish leaders, however, hesitated to support the plan. American Jewish Congress head Rabbi Stephen Wise warned that the Alaska plan "makes a wrong and hurtful impression ... that Jews are taking over some part of the country for settlement." He argued that "just because small numbers of Jews might settle there" was not sufficient reason to support it. [emphasis added]

Then of course there was a similar reaction to Jewish immigration into Alaska when President Roosevelt introduced his own White Paper:

Strong leadership by President Franklin Roosevelt might have made a difference. But at a private meeting with FDR, Ickes found the president supported allowing only 10,000 settlers per year for five years, and of that number "not more than 10 percent would be Jews [so] we would be able to avoid the undoubted criticism that we would be subjected to if there were an undue proportion of Jews." In the end, Roosevelt was not willing to call for even that many immigrants...

n the end, the plan failed because Jews were never given a chance. Jews had no historical or cultural connection to Alaska, unlike Palestine. Also, Jews had no presence in Alaska, unlike in Palestine where there was a continued presence from the destruction of the Second Temple through the conquest and occupation of Palestine by the Muslims.

All that the Jews wanted was a safe haven--and they were denied.

Not America's greatest hour.

Years later, the history of Alaska and Israel would cross paths when Alaskan pilots aided in Operation Magic Carpet.

Wikipedia lists other plans to save Jewish refugees during that time:

• Fugu Plan, a Japanese plan to bring Jewish refugees to Manchukuo.
• Madagascar Plan, a Nazi proposal to deport European Jews to Madagascar.
• Jewish Autonomous Oblast [Birobidzhan], a Soviet territory intended as a Yiddish-speaking Jewish homeland in Siberia.
• Kimberley Plan, an Australian proposal to bring Jewish refugees to Kimberley.

There is also a short interview on NPR, where Richard Breitman, a professor of history at American University, talks to Scott Simon about the Alaskan resettlement plan and why it didn't work.

by Daled Amos

Will 'The American Taliban' Be Released Before Jonathan Pollard?

...lawyers argue that the 'American Taliban' should have his sentence commuted after 7 years in prison:

So-called "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh's family and attorneys again are urging President George W. Bush to release the Marin County man from federal prison.

Lindh, now 27, converted to Islam as a teenager and studied the Koran in Yemen and Pakistan before going to Afghanistan, where he fought for the Taliban before and after Sept. 11, 2001, until his unit surrendered to Northern Alliance forces that November.

He had faced charges that could have sent him to prison for life, including conspiring to kill Americans abroad, but pleaded guilty in July 2002 to one count of providing services to the Taliban and one count of carrying explosives during a felony -- all terrorism-related charges against him were dropped. [emphasis added]

This is the part that I found particularly jaw dropping:

Raj Chatterjee, another of Lindh's attorneys, said others detained and/or charged in the "War on Terror" under similar or more serious circumstances have been released after serving less time.

"There's a fundamental principle of U.S. jurisprudence, and that is that prison sentences must be fair and similar cases should be treated similarly," he said. "It has become abundantly clear that John has been treated differently."

Allahpundit clarifies what Lindh's activities for the Taliban actually were:

He fought with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance after the U.S. entered the war; he claimed that he trained at an AQ camp in the summer of 2001 and was asked to carry out attacks against America and Israel (but declined); he didn't warn anyone in the United States about anything, least of all Mike Spann even though he allegedly knew that the prison uprising in which Spann was killed was in the works; and rather than challenge the supposedly coercive circumstances of his interrogation in court, hecopped a plea that reduced his potential sentence from life to 17 years with good behavior. By his own admission he's a sworn jihadist, albeit one who's supposedly expressed remorse for 9/11 (but not, according to his own father, for the U.S.S. Cole bombing).

Even putting aside Chatterjee's implicit comparison between war crimes and criminal law-- if what Chatterjee says is true, and others with even more serious charges have been treated more leniently, then there is something very wrong in general, and with the way that Jonathan Pollard continues to be treated in particular.

There can be no comparison between what Lindh and Pollard have done.
And there can be no further reason for keeping Pollard in prison after serving 24 years.

by Daled Amos

Submitted 12/18/08

This week's Watcher's Council submissions are UP!

The Irony of Me, Barack Obama,Regulations, and Loan Modifications - The Provocateur examines how allowing loan modifications will likely cause even more havoc in the mortgage market and how the regulation imposed by the government will likely have a negative effect of the industry.
Sense At Daily Kos? - Rhymes With Right gives a Kos contributor credit for identifying what was wrong with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's case to the Illinois Supreme Court to subvert the state's constitution. The case was tossed. (via memeorandum)
Selfish is as selfish does - Bookworm Room investigates whether her children's generation is more selfish than her own. It's something that we often wonder about. For some reason the post reminded me of these lines from Pleasant Valley Sunday

Mothers complain about how hard life is
And the kids just dont understand

Actually the Monkees song is claiming that it's the parents who are spoiled!
Newsweak Shills For Same Sex Marriage - In It's Religion Section! - Joshuapundit exposes the intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy demonstrated by Newsweek's religion writer when she argues that the Bible does not oppose gay marriage.
Bush's Automaker Bailout - The Razor shows what's wrong with the bailout of the Big 3 automakers and why it differs from the bank bailout, which, even though he opposes, at least had some merit.
How dumb was this? - The Colossus of Rhodey tells of a teacher who did something stupid to give her students an appreciation of history. Though the teacher should have showed better judgment, the reaction, he feels, is overblown.
Dubai's Lobbyist As Climate Czar? - Cheat-Seeking Missiles wonders how Carol Browner can promote the use of less energy, when she's been in the employ of an oil producing nation.
The Ministry of Silly Suggestions - The Glittering Eye heaps scorn upon Nicholas Kristof of the NYT. Does it make a difference why?
Death With Dignity - Right Truth takes a position that goes against my religious beliefs,
Obama: Since We All Know That Engagement With Iran Won't Work, How About A US Nuclear Umbrella For Israel? - Mere Rhetoric demonstates why President-elect Obama's declaration is problematic for Israel.
Falk - moonbattery a feature not a bug - I wrote about how Richard Falk a Special Rapporteur for the UN is not only anti-Israel, which is a requirement for his job, but also a 9/11 truther.

On the non-council side, I submitted Some points worth making by Treppenwitz that argues that demanding that Israel accept a two-state solution does nothing to create peace in the Middle East.

Colossus of Rhodey submitted Meryl's Euphemism of the year: Suicide bombings are "Violent, politically motivated attacks", another example of the linguistic gymnastics the media uses to obfuscate terror.

The Gilttering Eye submitted To the man who threw his shoes at President Bush and missed, by Pundita, a short but pointed rebuke directed at the Iraqi shoe thrower who's "bravery" was made possible by the war he claims offended him.

The Watcher submitted Wizbang's We're Mad As Hell, And We're Not Gonna Take It Anymore!, an argument for term limits.

In other Watcher's council news, The Glittering Eye is engaged in a debate over American involvement in the Middle East. Here are a few related arguments.

JoshuaPundit has now taken over editorship of Webloggin' from the Watcher.

Read. Enjoy. Be informed.

watcher's council.

Oh yes they will, oh no they won't

A sampling of headlines about the status of the truce between Israel and Hamas, from Yahoo! News.

Hamas Threatens to End Truce Unless Israel Eases Restrictions
Bloomberg - Wed Dec 17, 2:06 am EST
Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Hamas is threatening to end a six- month cease-fire if Israel doesn't let more food, fuel and other goods into the Gaza Strip, a leader of the militant Islamic group said.

Hamas hinting it might extend truce with Israel
San Diego Union-Tribune - Mon Dec 15, 6:03 am EST
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas leaders in Gaza yesterday left open the possibility of renewing a tenuous truce with Israel that is scheduled to expire Friday, putting themselves at odds with a statement by the exiled political leader of the group in Damascus, Syria.

Hamas leaders say Israel wrecking Gaza truce
Reuters via Yahoo! News - Sun Dec 14, 3:02 pm EST
Hamas leaders warned Israel on Sunday that it was wrecking a truce in the Gaza Strip, but left open the possibility of a last-minute deal to extend the six-month ceasefire.

Israel, Hamas up rhetoric as truce nears expiry
AFP via Yahoo! News - Mon Dec 15, 11:45 am EST
Israel and Hamas ratcheted up the rhetoric on Monday ahead of the expiry of a six-month Gaza truce which the Islamist rulers of the Palestinian enclave say they are unlikely to renew.

Hamas leader warns Israel of end of Gaza truce
Reuters via Yahoo! News - Sun Dec 14, 11:34 am EST
Hamas's leader in exile was quoted as saying Sunday it would not renew a six-month-old truce with Israel in Gaza when it expires this week, raising the prospect of increased cross-border fighting.

Hamas will let Israel truce expire
The Washington Times - Mon Dec 15, 6:11 am EST
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip | The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls Gaza, said Sunday that a troubled Cairo-brokered truce with Israel will not be renewed when it runs out later this week.

Hamas says will not renew truce with Israel
Reuters via Yahoo! News - Sun Dec 14, 9:00 am EST
The Palestinian group Hamas will not renew a truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip that expires later this month, said a statement issued by the group in the Syrian capital on Sunday.

Hamas plays hardball with Israeli ceasefire
WorldNet Daily - Sun Dec 14, 5:48 pm EST
JAFFA, Israel - Hamas is willing to renew an expiring six-month "truce" with Israel but is delaying in hopes of extracting more concessions from the Jewish state, according to sources close to Hamas in the Gaza Strip speaking to WND.

Hamas may extend its truce with Israel
Seattle Times - Mon Dec 15, 5:21 am EST
Hamas leaders in Gaza on Sunday left open the possibility of renewing a tenuous truce with Israel that is due to expire Friday, putting themselves at odds with a statement by the exiled political leader of the group in Damascus, Syria.

Hamas: Truce with Israel will not be renewed
KRON 4 Bay Area - Sun Dec 14, 1:36 pm EST
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The exiled leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas says a truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip will not be renewed once it expires.

Hamas leaders say will not extend Gaza truce
Reuters via Yahoo! News - Mon Dec 15, 3:24 am EST

I guess the consensus is ... who knows?

The Spine though notices something:

11 Kassams hit Negev, 48 hours before truce set to end

and asks, What's wrong with this headline?

It seems that continued rocket fire into Israel doesn't constitute a breach of the ceasefire. Apparently "ceasefire" has taken on an especially elastic meaning.

UPDATE: For just how elastic that meaning is please see Elder of Ziyon who has quantified it and concluded:

The cause and effect is clear and consistent: when rockets aren't being shot, Gazans get aid. It is as simple as that, and these facts are documented. Those "peace activists" who pretend to care about Gazans and yet stay silent about the rockets care neither about Gazan lives nor about peace.

Meryl has more and adds this observation on the reporting:

Note how the AP compares shortages of, say, cooking oil with rockets landing in Sderot shopping center parking lots. Like they're interchangeable.

Batya adds:

There is only one way to stop terrorists, and there's only once way to have true peace, not the rhinestone variety. We must totally and completely and unembarrassedly defeat our enemies without apologizing, without trying to make them happy, without compensating them for their losses.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Gideon's babble

Why would someone who's self described as "left of Meretz" support Netanyahu for Prime Minister of Israel? Here's what the Economist's former Israel correspondent, Gideon Lichfield writes:

So if we're talking about economic policy, he has a more ambitious and intelligent one than his rivals. And a Likud government will be more stable than either a Kadima or Labour one, and more able to make reforms happen. For Israel, this is better.

Of course, it's hard to take his support for Netanyahu seriously, because immediately he becomes cynical.

For the Palestinians, of course, Likud is a different story.

Bibi says he doesn't want to reach even a vague final-status agreement with Abbas now, as Olmert has been trying to for the past year. He talks instead about something called "economic peace". This translates as: we'll try to boost the West Bank economy enough so that they stop wanting to bomb us, and then, once they're nice and quiet, we'll think about talking about negotiating about working towards possible moves that might, in the fullness of time, when the moment is ripe, and without prejudice to Israel's right to bomb the hell out of anyone it thinks is a threat, lead, eventually and in the long run, to Palestinian independence. Oh, and let's not even mention Gaza.

You can guess what I think of that.

Israel has been a lot better at identifying threats than Lichfield admits. But there's another point that he misses. Netanyahu did promote "economic peace." Towards the end of his term in office, the government released data on the Palestinian economic situation and it was the best it had been since 1992. Furthermore, terror fatalities that had risen since the signing of Oslo and Israel's handing over security obligations to the Palestinians were at their lowest level in years. So under Netanyahu, Palestinians had more prosperity and Israel had more security. Yet because Netanyahu insisted that Arafat abide the agreements he signed, he was undercut by the Clinton administration and pilloried in the press. By 1999, Israelis felt secure enough to elect the more accommodating Ehud Barak as their Prime Minister and by the end of 2000 they were shown how uncommitted to peace the Palestinians were.

Lichfield later makes this odd observation:

(I don't, by the way, set much store by the argument, typical of certain hopeful leftists, that Israel's biggest peace concessions have been made by Likud leaders. Netanyahu handed over most of Hebron to Palestinian control when he was prime minister in 1988, but under duress, not because, like Ariel Sharon with Gaza or Menachem Begin with the Sinai, he suddenly woke up and decided that it was the right thing to do.)

I'm not sure what he's talking about. Netanyahu did hand over most of Chevron, but that was in 1997. He also signed onto the Wye accords - clearly under duress - in 1998. Netanyahu wasn't even on the political radar in 1988. And it's odd that he considers the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza "the right thing to do" given that Hamas has used the opportunity handed it by ramping up its war against Israel. So apparently Lichfield approves of Hamas's war against the civilians in Sderot and Ashkelon.

He continues.

The other main thing to give one pause is that Bibi, to whom we owe the immortal fear-mongering line "It is 1938, and Iran is Nazi Germany", is the man most likely to send Israeli fighters to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities and possibly start another war to bring the entire Middle East down in even more flames than are engulfing it already. But I think if Israel had any window for bombing Iran, it ends when Barack Obama is sworn in. Without at least tacit support from the United States, he can't do it.

I don't understand why it's fear mongering for Netanyahu to express that a madman who has declared that he wishes to wipe the Jewish state off the map and is poised to build nuclear weapons is inclined toward a Holocaust like slaughter of Jews. Isn't Ahmadinejad - the one making the direct threats - the fear mongerer?

Finally the cynicism reaches its climax.

So I say Bibi for prime minister. And by as many seats as possible. The Israeli left needs a total defeat if it's to rise as a serious political force again.

He doesn't really want Netanyahu. He wants Netanyahu to fail.

I just outlined this reasoning to one of my Meretz-voting Israeli friends. He said, "Wow. You're thinking like an Israeli."

Given Lichfield's views, he shouldn't take that as a compliment.

Crossposted on Yourish.

2 more from nasa

A Tectonic Feast

On Oct. 5, 2008, just after coming within about 15 miles of the surface of Enceladus, NASA's Cassini captured this stunning mosaic as the spacecraft sped away from this geologically active moon of Saturn. Craters and cratered terrains are rare in this view of the southern region of the moon's Saturn-facing hemisphere. Instead, the surface is replete with fractures, folds, and ridges--all hallmarks of remarkable tectonic activity for a relatively small world. In this enhanced-color view, regions that appear blue-green are thought to be coated with larger grains than those that appear white or gray.

Near the top, the conspicuous ridges are Ebony and Cufa Dorsae. This false-color mosaic was created from 28 images obtained at seven footprints, or pointing positions, by Cassini's narrow-angle camera. At each footprint, four images using filters sensitive to ultraviolet, visible and infrared light (spanning wavelengths from 338 to 930 nanometers) were combined to create the individual frames. The view was acquired at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 73 degrees.

Portions of the tiger stripe fractures, or sulci, are visible throughout the image. The icy moon's famed jets emanate from at least eight distinct source regions, which lie on or near the tiger stripes. However, in this view, the most prominent feature is Labtayt Sulci, the approximately .6 mile-deep northward-trending chasm.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Earlier we got a look of Endeavor getting ready to return to the Kennedy Space Center, now we get to see it en-route.

The Journey Home

Fresh from the STS-126 mission space shuttle Endeavour, mounted atop its modified Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, flew over California's Mojave Desert on its way back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Dec. 10, 2008.

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Thomas

In addition to the Astronomy Picture of the Day, that LGF mentions, NASA also has its Image of the Day plus links to several other image galleries. It's really great stuff.

Crossposted on Yourish.

"I'm sorry dave, i'm afraid i can't do that"

The Jared ad channels 2001.

The UN Security Council Speaks Out: And Says Nothing

From UN News Centre:

SECURITY COUNCIL CALLS ON ISRAEL, PALESTINIANS TO FULFIL OBLIGATIONS FOR TWO-STATE PEACE

New York, Dec 16 2008  4:10PM
The United Nations Security Council today called on Israel and the Palestinians to fulfil their obligations under the so-called Roadmap peace plan seeking a two-State solution to the Middle East conflict, and to refrain from any steps that could undermine confidence or prejudice the outcome of negotiations.

"Lasting peace can only be based on an enduring commitment to mutual recognition, freedom from violence, incitement, and terror, and the two-State solution, building upon previous agreements and obligations," according to the joint Russian-United States resolution, <"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2008/sc9539.doc.htm">adopted by 14 of the Council's 15 members with only Libya abstaining.

Mutual recognition is a good thing. It's clear that Israel recognizes the PA--is the converse true? Apparently not. Joel Mowbray noted back in March in an article about the many troubling statements made by Abbas:

Most concerning to Congress, however, was a statement that at first blush might seem relatively innocuous. Discussing the question of whether or not Hamas must recognize Israel, Mr. Abbas explained, I don't demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. I only demanded of the [Palestinian] national unity government that would work opposite Israel in recognition of it.

This comment raised eyebrows because it shifted the common understanding of what it means to recognize the Jewish state. Most understand recognition to be fairly straightforward: The acknowledgement of the right of Israel to exist peacefully as a Jewish state neighboring a Palestinian one. Mr. Abbas, however, now defines recognition as acknowledging in a literal sense that an entity named Israel is the country at the other end of the negotiating table.

Does the UN know about this?
Do they care?

Freedom from violence is another good thing. Before Abbas was kicked out of Gaza, he was not doing such a good job preventing those very same Kassam rockets being fired daily at Israel. I guess it's a good thing he was kicked out. But what about if he gets a state without the IDF to prop him up? While we're at it, what happens when Abbas leaves office?

It called on all States and international organizations to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to negotiations and "to support the Palestinian government that is committed to the Quartet principles and the Arab Peace Initiative and respects the commitments of the Palestinian Liberation Organization."

The Quartet - the UN, European Union, Russia and US - is championing the Roadmap, which calls for two States, Israel and Palestine, to live side by side in peace. The Arab Peace Initiative, adopted in March 2002 on the principle of land for peace, calls for Israel to withdraw from all Arab lands occupied since 1967, recognize an independent Palestinian State and provide a just solution for Palestinian refugees, in return for which Arab countries would recognize Israel, end their conflict and normalize relations.

The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority is committed to the Quartet principles while Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2006, does not recognize Israel's right to exist.

Today's resolution noted the importance of the 2002 Initiative and urged "an intensification of diplomatic efforts to foster in parallel with progress in the bilateral process mutual recognition and peaceful coexistence between all States in the region in the context of achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."

It also called on all States and international organizations to assist in the development of the Palestinian economy, to maximize the resources available to the Palestinian Authority, and to contribute to the Palestinian institution-building programme in preparation for statehood.

"We know we still face many hurdles," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon <"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=3619">told the Council at the start of today's session, voicing regret that the two sides had not reached agreement by the hoped-for target of the end of this year. "But a serious process is underway. We must ensure that what has been started is seen all the way through to its conclusion."

Yesterday Mr. Ban hosted a high-level Quartet meeting in which the four partners called for an intensification of the negotiations, urging both sides to take the necessary steps to reach peace.

Then there is incitement. Back to Mowbray:

In an interview with Jordanian newspaper Al-Dastur last week, Mr. Abbas spoke with pride of violence he had waged in his past, suggested that terrorism could start anew in the future, and essentially backed away from repeated statements that he recognizes Israel's right to exist. A top congressional appropriator, Foreign Operations Chairman Nita Lowey, said flatly, President Abbas' recent statements cast doubt on his willingness to take the steps necessary for peace with Israel.

How about when terrorist leader George Habash died and Abbas ordered all flags at half-mast and 3 days of mourning?

And about that freedom from terror? From last year:

A wing of the Fatah organization, headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, stated Thursday that it has begun an escalation in attacks on Israeli towns in the Negev. The terrorist group already claimed it was behind a barrage of rockets from Gaza that struck Sderot and its environs earlier in the day.

Brigades spokesmen called upon the residents of the city of Sderot to leave their homes.

Fatah, through its Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades arm, said that the Thursday rocket fire was part of an planned series of hundreds of rocket attacks the group has dubbed "Gaza Autumn." In their announcement of the operation, Brigades spokesmen called upon the residents of the city of Sderot to leave their homes and warned that Fatah will continue to bombard Israeli communities in the Negev.

The UN has also apparently gone beyond the Quartet:

It called on all States and international organizations to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to negotiations and "to support the Palestinian government that is committed to the Quartet principles and the Arab Peace Initiative and respects the commitments of the Palestinian Liberation Organization."

The Arab Peace Initiative, suggested and pushed by Saudi Arabia, insists on going back to the 1967 borders and a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees--which means they expectsomething.. Why is the UN glomming the Initiative onto The Roadmap? Or need I ask. There was no mention of the Arab Peace Initiative in yesterday's meeting of the Quartet, but then again, they did meet with the Arab League afterwards. Nice to see they saw eye to eye.

The UN Security Council went further:

It also called on all States and international organizations to assist in the development of the Palestinian economy, to maximize the resources available to the Palestinian Authority, and to contribute to the Palestinian institution-building programme in preparation for statehood.

Wouldn't it be something if the UN would call for funds for Israel? You know, for technology to protect Sderot or maybe for rebuilding buildings destroyed by Palestinian terrorism or simply for the Israeli victims and their families. 

But the key statement comes from Ban-Ki Moon:

"But a serious process is underway. We must ensure that what has been started is seen all the way through to its conclusion."

This parallels the statement made by the Quartet the day before:

A quartet statement said the US-brokered bilateral process launched a year ago in Annapolis, Maryland "is irreversible and these negotiations should be intensified in order to put an end to the conflict and to establish as soon as possible the state of Israel, living side by side in peace and security with Israel."

Like I wrote yesterday, Looks Like Olmert Wins In The End

by Daled Amos

Coulda, woulda, shoulda

Fouad Ajami expressed his regret that President Bush is leaving office.

One thing is sure to go with Mr. Bush when he departs to Crawford, Texas: his "diplomacy of freedom." That diplomacy -- which propelled the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which drove the Syrians out of Lebanon after they had all but destroyed the sovereignty of that country, and had challenged pro-American allies in Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula -- is gone for good.

It was an odd spectacle, the time behind us: a conservative American president preaching the gospel of liberty for lands beyond, his liberal detractors at home giving voice to a deep skepticism about liberty's chances in inhospitable settings. No one was more revealing of the liberal temper -- and of things to come -- than Vice President-elect Joe Biden (then the point man for foreign policy among the Democrats) speaking in December 2006 about the hazards of believing in liberty's appeal to Muslim lands. Of President Bush, he said: "He has this wholesome but naive view that Westerners' notions of liberty are easily transported to that area of the world." Mr. Biden knew better: He warned the president, he said, that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's view of liberty differed from "our view of liberty . . . I think the president thinks there's a Thomas Jefferson or Madison behind every sand dune waiting to jump up. And there are none."

In an op-ed yesterday, Max Boot lamented how President Bush fell short in the area of foreign policy. He summarized his argument here.

You can defend Bush by saying that it is appropriate to use presidential speeches to set ambitious goals; even if they are not met, they can nudge lower-level officials in the right direction. The problem is that Bush seems to have done so little to turn his goals into actions, especially in the second term, that he has created a damaging credibility gap. Iran is a case in point. Bush has long talked of holding states to account for their support of terrorism and attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction. But there is not much evidence that he is doing much to hold Iran to account. Or Pakistan. Or Syria. That breeds contempt for American power-and lack of fear is far more dangerous for a superpower than lack of love (the problem that Obama et al. always complain about).

Here's an example of that failure to follow through. Natan Sharansky and Bassam Eid gave a fuller treatment of President Bush's' failure to follow through regarding his calls for freedom.

Both Ajami and Boot supported President Bush's freedom agenda. Ajami, I think, feels President Bush successfully advance the cause of freedom but that he did not effectively consolidate his gains. Boot is less generous in his assessment of the president.

Crossposted on Yourish.

The shoe hits the fan

The media's been having a field day with the outpouring of contempt expressed towards President Bush across the Arab world in the wake of the shoe throwing incident the other day. Abe Greenwald noted something the other day though. It seems that the media is letting the Arab world speak for them. The saturation of coverage of shoe throwing shows what the gatekeepers' priority is. After all how much mention is made of this?

WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH traveled to sub-Sahara Africa in February he was greeted by large and tumultuous crowds of admirers - which mystified many of his critics, who believe that the animosity toward his administration abroad is universal. But polling data from the Pew Foundation shows something different: Approval ratings for the United States exceed 80 percent in many African countries, some with large Muslim populations. In Darfur, many families name their newborn sons George Bush.

The media are letting their reports speak for them. The absurdity of the media's fascination with shoe throwing was underlined by the awarding of the Libyan medal of courage to the show throwing Iraqi. Most of the folks who were shown to be expressing their contempt for President Bush wouldn't do it without their government's permission (or encouragement). And of course what would happen to any citizen of Libya who'd demonstrate such courage towards Qaddafi? And doesn't it say something that an Iraqi could attack a visiting dignitary without being fed feet first into a shredder?

IOf course America's enemies in Gaza joined in the festivities. Their children too. Of course they've had practice.

See more at Meryl, Snapped Shot and LGF.

Crossposted on Yourish.

"He is for a while keeping to say that he would not shake hand or hold talks with those who say the Zionist regime should be disappeared."

Ahmadinejad compares Sarkozy to Pharaoh. What does that make Ahmadinejad? Moses? And, of course, another variation of the "wiped off the map" meme:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that Iran will never recognize Israel and is ready to hold talks with those urging an end to Israeli crimes, occupation, aggression, ideology and Zionism.

"Whoever who is to talk with the Iranian nation should know that Iranians would never recognize the Zionist regime," the president said addressing a large crowd in the city of Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan province.

He arrived in the province with his cabinet members on the second round of his provincial tours to follow up implementation of the projects that had been approved during the first round of his visit.

Addressing "those who are to hold talk with Iran," the president stressed, "Iranian nation is neither in favor of suppression, nor in favor of hegemony and it would never give up its absolute rights." Commenting on the recent remarks made by one of the European leaders, the president said, "This respectful man who tries to mimic superpowers, speaks like Pharaoh when he stands behind the podium.

"He is for a while keeping to say that he would not shake hand or hold talks with those who say the Zionist regime should be disappeared.

"I would tell this man that you are making conditions for talks while no Iranian has ever asked or will ever ask to shake hand or hold talks with you.

"All who are to talk with Iranian nation should notice that Iranians would never recognize Israel.

"They should also notice that they would talk to a people who call for an end to Israeli crimes, aggression, occupation, ideology and the basic of Zionism."

Referring to the current global financial crisis, the president said the crisis would soon "turn into a great political and social problem and would collapse their palace of tyranny."

Crossposted on Judeopundit

The Colemen-Franken Ballot Debate Was Preceded By Torricelli In New Jersey (Updated)

Powerline quotes John Fund on the law regarding whether absentee ballots that were rejected during the regular Minnesota election can be counted during the recount between Norm Coleman and Al Franken:

The problem with adding absentee ballots is state law. According to an advisory opinion issued last week by the office of Democratic state Attorney General Lori Swanson, "Only the ballots cast in the election and the summary statements certified by the election judges may be considered in the recount process." A recount manual prepared this year by the office of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, also a Democrat, makes clear that the canvassing board only supervises "an administrative recount" that is "not to determine if absentee ballots were properly accepted."

The Canvassing Board's role is purely supervisory, seeing that the relevant statutes are followed. Yet in the face of what Minnesota law dictates, Senate leader Harry Reid came out and intoned:

Today's decision by the Minnesota Canvassing Board not to count certain absentee ballots is cause for great concern. [emphasis added]

Concern over counting every vote apparently trumps the law pertaining to rejected ballots. 

Of course, this is not the first time that the laws regarding a Senate race have been ignored in the face of preserving 'the right to vote'.

During the Senate race in New Jersey in 2000:

In the middle of an increasingly competitive race against Republican Doug Forrester, Torricelli decided not to run for reelection after disclosure of illegal contributions to his campaign by David Chang, a businessman connected to North Korea. In a speech, Torricelli stated that despite his leaving public office in a different way than he planned, he was proud of his service. Late in the election season in 2002, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Democratic Party could legally replace Torricelli's name on the ballot with that of former U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, ironically a longtime Torricelli nemesis, with whom he had often publicly feuded. New Jersey Republicans had contested the Torricelli-Lautenberg swap on the grounds that the deadline for ballot changes had passed. Some claimed that Torricelli had only made his decision after local polls showed, for the first time, that the scandal had damaged Torricelli's re-election chances beyond repair. [emphasis added]

The claim by NJ Republicans was based on NJ Statute 19:13-20:

In the event of a vacancy, howsoever caused, among candidates nominated at primaries, which vacancy shall occur not later than the 51st day before the general election...

Torricelli dropped out 36 days before the election--past the deadline. Dave Kopel wrote at the time:

While the actions of the governor and his political minions appear to be a brazen campaign to get the New Jersey courts to nullify the state's election statutes, it is not impossible that a New Jersey court might acquiesce. In the spring of 2001, the legislature rewrote the election law in the middle of the primary election, in order to attempt to stop Bret Schundler from winning the nomination, and to allow Bob Franks to be substituted as Schundler's opponent, replacing Donald DiFrancesco. This act was upheld by New Jersey's intermediate court of appeals in Schundler v. Paulsen, 774 A.2d 585 ( N.J. Superior Court, Appellate Division, May 9, 2001). But even there, the court was upholding a statute against a constitutional challenge, rather than deciding to ignore a statute in order to benefit a political party.

It is difficult to see how an honest court could possibly agree to the Democrats' request. [emphasis added]

And yet the court did agree with the Democrats [PDF]--allowing Torricelli to be replaced with Frank Lautenberg:

...the Court having concluded that the central question before it is whether the dual interests of full voter choice and the orderly administration of an election can be effectuated if the relief requested by plaintiffs were to be granted;

And the Court being of the view that [it] is in the public interest and the general intent of the election laws to preserve the two-party system and to submit to the electorate a ballot bearing the names of candidates of both major political parties as well as of all other qualifying parties and groups.

And the Court remaining of the view that the election statutes should be liberally construed to allow the greatest scope for public participation in the electoral process, to allow candidates to get on the ballot, to allow parties to put their candidates on the ballot, and most importantly, to allow the voters a choice on Election Day. [emphasis added]

Apparently then, as now, it is somehow not in the public interest to uphold the law.

Update: Along other lines, J.G. Thayer writes When All Else Fails, Rewrite The Rules, about the attempt to get Governor Blagojevich out of office:

One of the proposed plans, though, might even be worse than the possibility of him remaining in office a little longer. It's the proposal put forth by the state's Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, who wants the state's Supreme Court to declare the governor "unfit" and have him removed from office.

This would be done through a law intended to cover a governor who has become disabled or impaired, and can not or will not remove himself from office. It's similar in spirit to Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, passed after the assassination of President Kennedy, which deals with presidential disability.

The problem here is that, by the intent of the law as passed, Governor Blagojevich is not "disabled." His predicament is not physical or mental or medical, but political. He is fully capable of carrying out his duties, and is doing so.

Further, there is already a mechanism for removing a sitting governor in Illinois. It's called "impeachment," and it is a power reserved to the Legislature, not to the Attorney General (a part of the Executive Branch) with the collusion of the Legislative.

And from there, Thayer goes on to compare that to...Torricelli.

The lesson apparently is: in politics, when the law gets in the way, get rid of it!

by Daled Amos

Falk - moonbattery a feature not a bug

Israel kicked Richard Falk, the "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967," who is an anti-Israel crackpot who believes 9/11 conspiracy theories.

McClatchy's Dion Nissenbaum calls Falk "contentious" and his views "provocative." Actually, Falk is morally obtuse and his views are offensive. There is no sugarcoating his outlandish and offensive views. Falk isn't much different from David Irving and deserves the same scorn.

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch says (h/t Daled Amos)

"The very credibility of the UN mission to preserve international peace and security is at stake," said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. "The UN can't claim to oppose Al Qaeda terrorists while its officials seek to deny their most ghastly crimes.

"Dominated by Arab states, the 47-nation UN rights council appointed Falk to the only mandate that is immune from regular review, with Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and other member states voicing strong support for his work.

"How tragic that in the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN's representative figures have gone from luminaries like Eleanor Roosevelt to loonies like Richard Falk." said Neuer.

Here's what Arnold Roth wrote about Falk's predecessor John Dugard:

He's erudite and talks well and smoothly, no doubt about it. In the course of about an hour of conversation, I learned some interesting things about how he does his job. Then we came to the end of our meeting, and he thanked me for making the time to meet. He very politely expressed appreciation that I had decided to share some views with him. And then, with no evident sign of realizing the impact on me, he said he had never met an Israeli victim of terror before. And our meeting was over.

As Roth observes:

Dugard's role, in simple terms, involves looking exclusively at one side of a multi-sided conflict.

So for the person who's the Special Rapporteur..., being viciously anti-Israel is part of the job description, not a disqualification. (A feature not a bug, if you prefer that terminology.)

The job of the Special Rapporteur ... is to perpetuate the Arab grievances against Israel and keep the Palestinian refugee industry going. When Falk's term is up, I would nominate Cindy Sheehan for the job. She has all the requisite qualifications.

Also blogging Falk (about this and other aspects of his record) Israel Matzav, CAMERA Snapshots, Moment Magazine blog, Simply Jews, Mere Rhetoric, Solomonia.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Saving palestinian advertising dollars

So Mahmoud Abbas and co. are appealing to the Israeli people directly.

Along Route 2, which follows the Mediterranean coastline, motorists are seeing an unusual sight: a Palestinian flag next to an Israeli one.

Below the image appearing on billboards is a message in Hebrew: There's a viable peace initiative on offer from Arab states. Reach a land-for-peace deal with Palestinians, and we will recognize you. The signature? The flags of 57 Arab and Muslim states - all except Iran.

The unprecedented ad campaign is the initiative of none other than the Palestinian Authority (PA). Late last month, the PA also ran full-page ads with the same message in Israeli papers.

The reporter notes the irony:

The campaign represents an interesting role reversal. A decade ago, it was the Israeli government that was trying to sell its own skeptical electorate on peace, while the late Yasser Arafat had trouble getting Hamas and other rejectionist groups to sign on to the Oslo deal that he had reached with Israel five years earlier.

The truth is, I don't know how ironic it really is. When the Israeli government was trying to sell the peace process, the Palestinians, under Yasser Arafat were actively engaged in terror against Israel. Things have changed a little and Yasser Arafat is dead, but his successor Mahmoud Abbas doesn't advocate terror the way his mentor did. However that hardly means that his actions are those of someone who is promoting peace and reconciliation.

Abbas, for example, made a point of meeting with and honoring terrorist, Samir Kuntar on his release from prison.

So what did Abbas do in Beirut? Well, we know one thing he did. He met with the demonic Samir Kuntar, one of the terrorists released to Hezbollah in exchange for the bones of kidnapped Eldad Regev and Ehud Godlwasser. Recall only one of his crimes: Kuntar is the luminary who smashed the skull of a 4-year-old girl while also murdering her father. He was welcomed by hundreds of thousands of cheering Beirutis, not an inaccurate picture of the gruesome politics now overwhelming the Arab world.

In a number of ways Abbas's PA still denies Israel's right to exist in its media

The denial of Israel's right to exist has been repeated unabatedly in the PA - Abbas controlled - media, even since the Annapolis Conference one year ago. In contrast to Abbas' pledge at Annapolis to promote co-existence, the message emanating from the PA to its public on educational documentaries, children's programs and music videos is that all of Israel is "Palestine".

It is unlikely that children who are brought up with this conceptual framework will ever recognize Israel as a legitimate state and neighbor.

and in its maps

Once again, we see that the definition of "Palestine", according to "Palestinians," is whatever territory Israel happens to control at that point in time. It has nothing to do with age-old conflict nor does it have anything to do with historical facts - the desire for a Palestinian Arab state is simply the desire to destroy the Jewish state. Otherwise, they would be pining for much of Jordan.

The Palestinian Arabs have not the least compunction about publicly declaring their desire to see Israel destroyed, using huge signs, in full view of tens of thousands of people. (This is not even mentioning the Fatah logo, the maps shown in schools, and so on, which all echo the same desire to annihilate Israel.)

In reality little has changed. The Palestinian leadership will make noises about wanting peace but its actions will show its true intent. It used to be that the Palestinians would tell the world how much they wanted peace, now they've changed their audience. Even though Netanyahu ceded Chevron when he was Prime Minister last time, Abbas and company have portray him as being "anti-peace." The one thing Netanyahu did was to insist - though the Clinton administration regularly undercut him - that the Palestinians abide by their signed agreements. Apparently though that's the equivalent of being against "peace."

If Abbas really wants to convince Israelis of his commitment to peace here are some low cost actions he could take:
1) Petition the International Committee of the Red Cross to allow the Magen David Adom to be an internationally recognized symbol.
2) Prevail on the Arab League to stop condemning Israel in the UN and other international fora.
3) Push to cancel the Durban II conference or at least to have it focus on real racism instead of Zionism.
4) Actually change the Palestinian Charter to come into compliance with the terms of Oslo - and publish the new Charter.
5) Change the textbooks to include Israel and acknowledge Israel's existence.
6) Do the same in the publicly supported art.
7) Stop trying to reconcile with Hamas.
8) Stop demanding the release of violent terrorists.

I figure I've probably left off a few other. I'm open to suggestions. But if Abbas did all these things, I suspect he'd convince a lot more Israelis of his good intentions than by some lame advertising campaign.

Of course he won't. Palestinian nationalism isn't about reconciliation with Israel, but about perpetuating a grievance.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Safe or clean

When I first heard that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 plotters were planning to plead guilty for their crimes, I thought it was a good thing. I figured that they'd end up getting a well deserved death penalty. It reminded me of David Bernstein's comment about Sheikh Yassin after Israel killed him.

"The day in which I will die as a shahid [martyr] will be the happiest day of my life." So I guess it's win-win.

However Walid Phares warns of a danger.

First, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his comrades will use the so-called confessions deal to build a psychological environment for a martyrdom case: "istishaad." They aren't interested in saving their lives (at first, although they think they could) but in providing a maximum damage to their enemy through the tribunal proceedings. They will claim the court is not legitimate, the entire Guantanamo process as illegal and that they are ready to die as Jihadis in the path to Allah. Their first target is to grant themselves, in the eyes of millions of militants around the world the status of "Shuhada," martyrs, even though they could survive it.

The "confessions" turned declaration of victory will be picked up by Al Qaeda and other jihadi groups and transformed into vital material for propaganda: videos, audio and texts. The "show" inside court will be used for indoctrination purpose around the world. A myth will be set in motion and emotional reactions to the "story" will be mutated into future revenge operations.

From there on, leave it to the architects of jihadi propaganda: statements made by the defendants will be used by operatives online, in the chat rooms but also on Al Jazeera (by callers and guests), and in other medium to widen the radicalization of youth in the Arab and Muslim world and within the West as well. An Al Qaeda "control room" will use the feed from the Guantanamo trials to produce a victory in their war of ideas against democracies. The fate of the 9/11 detainees isn't the issue to Al Qaeda. By pledging loyalty to the "mission" through the so-called "confessions" or statements they have already sacrificed themselves ideologically. What KSM and his comrades are offering to their "brothers" around the world is an unbeatable series of images, footage and audio -- pure gold for Al Qaeda propagandists and ideologues.

Phares does not offer any alternatives or saying (explicitly) that they ought not to be tried. However the Washington Post clearly will offer to help. In its editorial on the topic, the editors of the Post write:

The world is watching, which must please Mr. Mohammed. And he must know that the United States is as much on trial as he is.

The editorial is a laundry list of complaints against how the Bush administration conducted itself regarding Guantanamo.

However William McGurn, points out that the imperfections in the system that bother the editors of the Washington Post so much are the results of circumstances, not bad faith.

What the American people need today is a sensible policy that recognizes three facts: that terrorists present a unique challenge to our rules of war; that capturing and holding terrorists is different from capturing and holding criminals or prisoners of war; and that the men and women who set up Guantanamo did so not because they were out to shred the Constitution but because, faced with some very imperfect choices, this was thought to be the best way to protect the American people.

It's true that Mr. Obama repeated his pledge to close Guantanamo during his recent "60 Minutes" interview. But he also declined to set a date. No doubt he is now realizing a hard truth. While senators can say what they please and go to sleep untroubled, presidents cannot escape the consequences of their decisions.

Reuel Marc Gerecht goes even further. He points out that the problems with the system of handling terrorists apprehended abroad, aren't the result of the Bush administration's evil intent, but of bi-partisan consensus. Consider the much maligned rendition program, for example.

Which brings us back to rendition, which, properly understood, is what Americans do when they realize that active counterterrorism against jihadists prepared to use mass-casualty weapons is an ethical, juridical and operational tar pit. It isn't an ideal solution -- American intelligence officers have no control of the questioning, and Washington can become beholden to foreign security services -- but it's a satisfactory compromise. Just ask Samuel R. Berger, the national-security adviser for President Bill Clinton, who no doubt worked through all the pitfalls when he first approved extrajudicial rendition.

Earlier Gerecht points out:

And the internal-security services of our allies in Europe are, on the whole, vastly better today than they were in 2001. Thanks to intrusive surveillance methods (many of which are outlawed in the United States), they are much more efficient in pre-empting the plots of holy warriors traversing their borders.

The enlightened Europeans are more intrusive than us knuckle dragging Americans! Who knew?

I don't know how to prevent KSM and his co-conspirators from using the legal proceedings against them as propaganda. It would be nice if our media and political class stopped using those proceedings to judge us and instead worried whether the procedures were keeping us safe.

Crossposted on Yourish.

A spider in space

Drama in the Heart of the Tarantula

Enormous stars in the Tarantula Nebula, one of the largest massive star-forming regions close to the Milky Way, are producing intense radiation and searing winds of multimillion-degree gas that carve out gigantic bubbles in the surrounding cooler gas and dust. Other massive stars in the nebula have raced through their evolution and exploded catastrophically as supernovae, expanding these bubbles into x-ray-brightened superbubbles.

Image Credit: NASA/CXC/Penn State/L.Townsley, et al.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Richard Falk: Representative of the U.N. Human Rights Council, And Conspiracy Theorist

Not everyone thinks that the full explanation of what happened on 9/11 has yet been given:

9/11: More than meets the eye

Discussion of the very real doubts over the World Trade Center attacks was conspicuously absent from the US presidential race. But America's international image will always be tainted as long as the uncertainty remains

Every so often attention is called anew to the doubts surrounding the true character of the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. Recently, the report of the collapse of Building 7 represented such an occasion. Any close student of 9/11 is aware of the many serious discrepancies between the official version of what took place and the actual happenings on that fateful day in 2001. David Ray Griffin and others have analyzed and assessed these discrepancies in such an objective and compelling fashion that only wilful ignorance can maintain that the 9/11 narrative should be treated as a closed book, and that the public should move on to address the problems of the day.

But this article is not written by some unknown crackpot--it is an article written by Richard Falk, special representative of the U.N. Human Rights Council, who is charged with investigating Israeli abuses against Palestinian Arabs.

And that is where the problem lies...or gets worse.

UN Watch came out with a press release about Falk, noting in part that

"The very credibility of the UN mission to preserve international peace and security is at stake," said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. "The UN can't claim to oppose Al Qaeda terrorists while its officials seek to deny their most ghastly crimes.

"Dominated by Arab states, the 47-nation UN rights council appointed Falk to the only mandate that is immune from regular review, with Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and other member states voicing strong support for his work.

"How tragic that in the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN's representative figures have gone from luminaries like Eleanor Roosevelt to loonies like Richard Falk." said Neuer.

"Falk's biased mandate, radical politics, and crackpot views are a microcosm of what has become of the UN's highest human rights body, where the world's worst abusers divert attention from their crimes, attacking Israel in 80 percent of the resolutions," said Neuer. "Innocent victims are being slaughtered in Congo, yet the council just eliminated its scrutiny of that country, saying it wasn't needed."

Joel Brinkley looked into the issue:

I talked with Neuer, and with Falk. In any conversation about Falk, Neuer's fundamental concern is on a different plane. The Human Rights Council, he notes, has fired its special representatives for Cuba, Liberia, Uzbekistan - even Congo. But one state has a permanent monitor not subject to debate or renewal. That is Israel, and Falk holds that position. "He has a very serious mandate," Neuer said. "People who question whether 9/11 happened are not serious people. No one in the United States or the West could be in positions of authority if they engaged 9/11 conspiracy talk."

Falk, of course, disagrees. He notes that his position is part-time - and unpaid. "I've been trying to balance different agendas and roles. I am an academic and a citizen. And I don't think those roles reflect on my position as special rapporteur."

Falk apparently is not willing to admit that evidence of his poor judgement and overall frame of mind cuts across all positions of authority he may occupy.

Brinkley compares this conspiracy theory with the one that claims that Neil Armstrong never walked on the moon--the whole thing was filmed in a water tank:

It's a free country; you're entitled to think whatever you like. But this is fringe stuff. Would we ever have appointed an advocate of the water-tank theory to a senior position in government? The Human Rights Council is already an embarrassment to the United Nations. Certainly reasonable people can criticize Israel, just as they can find fault with the Palestinians. But the council's pathological obsession with Israel is its defining characteristic, and Falk is its embodiment.

...I do care that the man whose job now is to help the Islamic states pursue their vendetta against Israel also believes that the U.S. government is capable of such unspeakable evil. What does that tell you about his frame of mind for his United Nations job?

Some would say that it shows he fits right in.

Note: Today Falk was turned away from entering Israel because of his comments legitimizing Hamas terrorism and comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. Based on his 9/11 conspiracy beliefs, maybe the US should follow suit.

by Daled Amos

Commiserating with kadi

The New York Times uses a celebrity profile to highlight a Saudi "businessman" who is under international sanctions for being a financier of Al Qaeda, Yassin Qadi.

YASSIN KADI, a multimillionaire businessman with investments and charities that span the globe, does not get out much these days. Once a man of the world, Mr. Kadi is confined to Saudi Arabia and spends most of his time in his sun-drenched compound in this bustling commercial capital of the country. His travel is limited mainly to the short drive from his home in Jidda to the office where he manages his shrunken business affairs.

Instead of investigating the charges against him, the profile is an opportunity for the Times to question the charges against him, and, more generally, the war on terror.

As is customary in such cases, Washington has presented no direct evidence linking Mr. Kadi to terrorism. But it has made public a dense labyrinth of associations and business and personal ties that it says establishes Mr. Kadi's relationship with Mr. bin Laden and his allies.

For a man who has repeatedly claimed his innocence, Mr. Kadi is caught in a legal limbo with no end in sight. The accusations against him are in the form of a government order. But because he has never been charged with a crime, he has not had the opportunity to stand before a jury or a judge to plead his case.

"We have not found Mr. Kadi guilty of anything," said Adam J. Szubin, the director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. "But we have found that he is a supporter of terror."

Washington's broad freedom to place sanctions on people suspected of financing terrorists has gone mostly unchallenged since the Sept. 11 attacks. Few have rushed to defend wealthy foreigners, in contrast to how civil rights lawyers and others have sought to publicize the plight of the prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Yes the U.S. Treasury has designating as a financier of terror. People who know something about such things find that Qadi's "charitable" foundations were used to fund terror.

Previous suits filed in foreign courts, including in Britain, Turkey and Switzerland have had more success -- certainly more than they deserve. Fellow Saudi Financier Yasin Al Qadi (aka al Kadi), who headed the Saudi-based Muwafaq charity foundation implicated in the Al Qaeda US Embassy Bombings, for example, sought and received supposed vindication in Turkish courts earlier this year. Turkey's Chief Public Prosecutor ruled in March 2005 that there was no evidence to suggest that al-Qadi has been involved in any funding for Al Qaeda and no grounds for the Turkish authorities to bring further proceedings against him( See my earlier Blog on the Al Qadi Case).

The Times could just as well have laid out the case of how many Islamic charitable organizations provide cover for terror financing and explain the difficulty in making such cases. Instead its reporter decided to write a sympathetic portrayal of a man who is suspected of funding the 1998 embassy bombings.

It's also interesting to note that the law that allows the Treasury Department to make such designations is a pre-9/11 law, passed during the Clinton Administration.

President Clinton's January, 1995 executive order designed to curb money flows to 12 groups (10 Arab and two Jewish) that threatened the use of violence against the Middle East process was followed up by more detailed legislation that Congress eventually enacted as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. (Public Law No. 104-132, 110 Stat.)

A material support provision, 18 U.S.C. 2339B, makes it a criminal offense for American citizens or residents to knowingly provide funds or other forms of material support that the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General and Secretary of Treasury, designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The legislation covers such forms of support as funding, weapons, and training as well as the provision of financial services and has been used in dozens of cases.

In other words, the actions taken against Kadi aren't some part of some post-9/11 witch hunt, but the result of applying a law that was passed earlier and applied to the tangled web of terror financing.

Juggling carnivals 12/15/08

Incoming Carnivals

Jack's Shack is re-designed and re-titled and back hosting Haveil Havalim. Frankly, I preferred the "Random thoughts" title, to the new "Idiot" title as Jack is no one's idiot. Still the re-design is very pleasant. May I recommend a short profile of the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and grappling with what's the first thing to teach a Jewish child.

Council speak 12/15/2008

The council has spoken.

The winning entry this week was JoshuaPundit's The message of Mumbai about the need for India to confront its potential internal threat. The runners up were Bookworm Room's Ayers' life was just a joyous, misunderstood frolic and The Razor's The Obama Enigma. The former is a fisking of Ayers' claims of innocent fun, the latter grapples with the President-elect's seeming drift to the right. Perhaps Krauthammer's Friday column resolved the enigma a bit.

On the non-council side the winning entry was the American Thinker's It's time to speak out about the Mormon boycott, about the post proposition 8 nastiness directed towards Mormons for holding their beliefs. The non-council runner up was ZenPundit's the Elite as a tribe.

For more council reading, check out the latest National Journal poll about what President-elect Obama ought to try and do during his first year in office, that includes input from fellow Council members Colossus of Rhodey, Bookworm Room and JoshuaPundit among others.

Congratulations to all the winners!

watcher's council.

A sur-really happy anniversary

I'm not sure what's more surreal. Is it that Palestinians in impoverished Gaza have sufficient funds to deck everything out in Hamas Green or is it that there's a faction of Hamas that is offering Israel an extension of a truce.

Khaled Mashal, the exiled leader, told Hamas's satellite television station Al Quds in an interview broadcast Sunday that "the truce was limited to six months and ends on Dec. 19."

But Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, said the group had not made its position final. The local Hamas leadership was to meet with representatives of the other Palestinian armed groups on Sunday night and afterward formulate an official policy, Mr. Zahar said by telephone.

Let's say Zahar's "hint" as the Times puts it in its headline that he will "extend" the truce. Will it be a truce that involves nearly daily rocket fire into Israel? Or as Meryl put it:

Why should Hamas even bother with an informal "truce" when the rockets and mortars have been coming nearly every day during the "truce" for the past few months, just as they were when there was no "truce"? Why should Hamas bother when Israel refuses to stop sending in supplies, cash, and fuel? Why should Hamas bother when the world continues to pressure Israel to lift the blockade, feed, clothe, and presumably diaper Gazans? Why, when the UN is about to pressure Israel again and when the UN does absolutely nothing to pressure the Palestinians to end terror?

In other words Hamas has everything to gain by agreeing to - or even merely hinting at a truce - it gets portrayed as "moderating" its stance and can continue firing rockets at innocent Israelis, while Israel gets blamed for fighting back.

Mere Rhetoric notes - in reaction to Meshaal's statements - in somewhat more detail:

Whatever. It was already clear that Hamas wasn't going to accept the status quo. And why should they? They're about to take over the Palestinian Authority and gain international recognition. Europeans have been comparing them favorably to Israel's next Prime Minister. US diplomats are leaning heavily on Israel not to undertake a Gaza operation. And in the meantime they've got hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians within their range and they're firing nearly daily barrages - and Israel and Fatah are floating them financially:

With its headline:

Hamas, Showing Split, Hints It May Extend Truce

The Times simply emphasizes the microscopic bit of moderation that exists in Hamas. You have to look really closely to discern it, but the Times trumpets it in a headline.

The Times reports that Hamas maintains its popularity in Gaza - though it may not be so popular with the general Palestinian population.

In Gaza, though, Hamas seems to have maintained a certain level of popularity. An estimated 200,000 Palestinians turned out for the anniversary rally on Sunday, despite some expectations that the Israeli-imposed embargo and its resulting hardship for the 1.5 million residents might keep people at home.

That's a big "despite." The accompanying picture suggests that Hamas has plenty of funds to celebrate. So while Gaza celebrates the terrorist thugs who rule them, what of their victims.

Though the recent rocket fire has not killed anyone, life in the Israeli towns and villages around Gaza has become intolerable, Mr. Dror said. As a result, Israel has tightened its blockade of Gaza.

Nice of the Times to get a couple of sentences in. But maybe it ought to be paying a bit more attention to the Israelis living under the threat from Hamas and less time trying to find moderation among the terrorists.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Military monday 14 - the wi-fi army

It's been awhile, but I'd like to do a bit about the army. I saw this article in the National Journal about the difficulties of setting up wi-fi capabilities on the battlefield.

"The kids here in the United States think it's their God-given right to have a cellphone that can take pictures," said Rickey Smith, a retired colonel now working on the FCS for the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. "But the line soldier today does not have a cellphone capability. I can't take a picture and send it to my buddy."

It may seem strange that American soldiers lack the kind of mobile networks that American civilians with their iPhones and BlackBerrys increasingly take for granted. But all of our on-the-go conveniences depend on a multibillion-dollar infrastructure that is very much fixed in place. The only reason your cellphone is small enough to slip into your pocket is that its low-power transmissions are relayed by a system of repeaters and cell towers all over the country. The only reason your laptop can go online from your table at Starbucks is that its wireless signal has to carry only a few yards to the Wi-Fi access portal built into the wall.

In a war zone, that kind of fixed infrastructure is unavailable. The military equivalents of cell towers and wireless hubs have to be compact enough for soldiers to haul across the battlefield, which drastically limits the amount of data they can transmit and receive. As a result, a soldier's radio "must radiate 10 to 20 times the amount of power as a normal cellphone," said Chris Brady, a vice president in the military communications division of General Dynamics, which is developing the handheld version of what the military calls its new "Joint Tactical Radio System." Moreover, Brady said, the radios "don't have the benefit of a strong transmitter on a tower, so the 'receive' side of the radio must have a significant amount of processing power to interpret signals off a small antenna."

Here's one of the successes:

By the time Riley went back to Iraq for his second war, however, a revolution in military communications had taken place. On the eve of the 2003 invasion, select Army and Marine Corps units were issued a new mobile network called "Blue Force Tracker." Linked to GPS satellites, Blue Force Tracker gave each user a computerized map display that showed not only his own current location -- in itself a huge help in navigating across unfamiliar and unfriendly territory -- but also the position of every other friendly unit ("blue forces," in Army jargon) that was equipped with the system. Troops could even use the network and its satellite uplink to send text messages when conventional radio communications were blocked.

"You went from a paper map to a computer map that moved with you down the road," said Maj. Bill Venable, who fought in Iraq in 2004 and now works as a liaison between the FCS program and Fort Benning. "My higher headquarters was able to track where all of my vehicles were, and rather than having to take time out of the operation to ask each of the platoon leaders, 'Where are you?' I could see that at a glance." With Blue Force Tracker, Venable said, "I was able to conduct operations 40 to 50 miles away from my headquarters and still stay in contact."

Blue Force Tracker and a more sophisticated cousin called FBCB2 became high-demand items in Afghanistan and Iraq. Originally reserved for commanders' vehicles, the systems are now commonplace in Humvees on routine patrols. Troops use the network to see which roads go where and which are relatively safe from roadside bombs. "Intel is constantly updating," said Petty Officer 2nd Class Elizabeth Lopez, a seabee in the Navy Reserve who served as a Humvee gunner escorting convoys in Iraq. "Sometimes you're on a road that's 'green,' and five minutes later it's 'red' because somebody got hit."

In the end one of the biggest problems facing is coordinating the current programs into a single one:

Ultimately, military leaders envision a network that will connect command posts to foot soldiers and vehicles in the field. But the Army has complicated this technological challenge with a largely self-imposed organizational muddle. The service has four different programs developing equipment critical to making this networking vision a reality--and each operates under its own management and on its own schedule. At some point, the Army must synchronize all four.

The first of the four is the Future Combat System program itself, which is by far the largest single chunk of the Army's modernization budget. But the FCS office is developing the network kits for vehicles only. Extending the network to troops on foot is up to the Ground Soldier Ensemble office, which remains an independent entity.

Both the FCS and the Ground Soldier Ensemble, in turn, rely on a third independent program, the Joint Tactical Radio System, to produce the radios that soldiers will use. Inauspiciously pronounced jitters, the JTRS program has been repeatedly delayed, restructured, and scaled down since its inception in 1997. The Fort Bliss task force currently is working with a set of proto-prototypes, literally hand-built, that fall far short of what the FCS requires in range and encryption. Yet without the high-bandwidth, all-digital radios that JTRS is meant to produce, there is simply no way to transmit the vast amount of data that the new networks will require.

Finally, the independent Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T, is developing the connections between the FCS-equipped brigades in the field and higher Army headquarters. An early, ad hoc version of WIN-T built from commercially available equipment is already in service in Iraq, but these systems are in such demand that the Fort Bliss task force does not yet have one to experiment with.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Dr. Nasrallah!

That diploma will look just grand hanging in Nasrallah's office. And how apt it is that Nasrallah's doctorate is in political science. He'll be Norman Finkelstein's colleague! From Fars News:

Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyed Hassan Nasrallah received an honorary doctorate in the field of political science from an Iranian university in Isfahan, as part of the events to mark the university's 300th birthday.

Sheikh Hassan Hamda accepted the degree on behalf of Nasrallah.

In a statement from Nasrallah read at the ceremony, he thanked Iran for its support of Hezbollah's fight against Israel and expressed the hope that one day the Shiite group would change the face of the Middle East.

Nasrallah also thanked the Iranians for "25 years of support and aid for the Hezbollah organization and its warriors in southern Lebanon."

He also mentioned Israel, and said his group had won "two big triumphs" against "the most equipped armed forces in the region".

"The Israeli army", Nasrallah wrote, "is considered an undefeatable army, but thanks to the Lebanese resistance it became a worldwide model of failure."

He also stressed that "Iran's support was always the main factor in the victories and it always will be."

Nasrallah also heaped praise on the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, and said that with his support "the victories of 2000 and 2006 were achieved." [...]

Good thing the Supreme Leader is so humble. He won't let all that praise go to his head.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

The slippery slope of terrorism

Media Backspin points to a discussion of the NYT's use of the word "terror."

Elder of Ziyon, though, finds the standard of former Israel correspondent, James Bennett

The memo said he settled on a rough rule: He would use the words, when they fit, to describe attacks within Israel's 1948 borders but not in the occupied West Bank or Gaza, which Israel and the Palestinians have been contending over since Israel took them in 1967. When a gunman infiltrated a settlement and killed a 5-year-old girl in her bed, Bennet did not call it terrorism. "All I could do was default to my first approach and describe the attack and the victims as vividly as I could."

troubling.

In this way, the New York Times didn't even meet the standards of Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, two organizations that decry terror, but find every Israeli response to be too much. Amnesty International writes:

Palestinians are also prohibited from targeting Israeli civilians, including settlers who are not bearing arms, and civilian objects.

Human Rights Watch is even clearer (.pdf)

Finally, Palestinian groups have argued that Israeli settlers in the West Bank, by virtue of their presence in an occupied territory, are not civilians, and that because many Israeli adults are members of the military reserve, they, too, are legitimate military targets. These claims also run counter to international humanitarian law. Even though Israel's policy of maintaining and expanding civilian settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is illegal under international humanitarian law, a person who resides in an illegal settlement continues to be a civilian unless he or she directly participates in hostilities. Except in those circumstances of direct participation in armed conflict, these residents are entitled to full protection as civilians. Similarly, international humanitarian law leaves no doubt that reserve members of military or security forces, while not on active duty, are not combatants and thus benefit from protection as civilians.

I think it's safe to call both AI and HRW anti-Israel, yet even they acknowledge that targeting Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria is illegal (and by definition - whether they say it or not - is terrorism.) Yet at least one reporter for the New York Times is of the opinion that if Jews living in Judea or Samaria are attacked, they have it coming to them.

Clark Hoyt, deserves credit for his understanding of the word "terror." Alas, all too often, those who write for his paper don't.

Crossposted on Yourish.

February 24th: Special Commemoration Of Merkaz HaRav Massacre

From an email:

Last Rosh Chodesh Adar, a terrorist entered the grounds of a Jerusalem yeshiva and killed eight young men and boys. This coming Rosh Chodesh Adar, February 24th, on the first anniversary of their death, eight sifrei Torah will be dedicated in memory of the eight young men and boys who were killed. Jews all over the world will unite to commemorate and celebrate these students and the Torah to which they were so committed. Be an active part of this unprecedented  celebration of unity by watching the event live, participating in a global learning initiative, and joining our mitzvah campaign.

For more information, to volunteer, or to sign up your school, yeshiva, or institution for this event, please visit www.BlevEchad.com.

Together, let's spread the word around the world by forwarding this e-mail.

by Daled Amos

Edgar allen tex?

The Baltimore Sun reported last week:

The Orioles have apparently made it to the final four of the Mark Teixeira sweepstakes, though it remains to be seen whether they'll be able to offer enough money to lure the free-agent slugging first baseman back home.

However, the club has made a strong bid, offering a seven-year contract for between $140 million and $150 million, one industry source said.

But maybe there's something more going on:

Free agent first baseman and Severna Park native Mark Teixeira will be a guest of Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos at today's Ravens-Steelers game, according to ESPN.

Orioles fans have been desperate for any sign of hope with the organization, and it seems like they have been looking to land Teixeira for several seasons now. The O's have been mentioned as one of four teams that are in the Teixeira sweepstakes, although most sports news outlets have been reporting that the contest is down to the Los Angeles Angels and Boston Red Sox.

According to one of the contributors to the Baltimore Orioles e-mail list, the Orioles Hangout is reporting that the Orioles are now raising their offer to 9 or 10 years for $200 million.

Peter Schmuck is skeptical.

UPDATE: Bury the rumor. Bummer. Someone from the Orioles mailing list suggested that it's a Boras ploy to start rumors and drive up his players' prices.

Crossposted on OTB Sports.

The deafening silence

A number of bloggers are making a big deal about President-elect Obama's denial of contacts between his office and Gov. Blagojevich, even as those denials seem less and less plausible as well as the silence of Chief-of-Staff designate Rahm Emanuel on the topic.

Here's Hot Air:

Amateurishness isn't the first quality that springs to mind when I think of someone like Axelrod. Nor does the infamously combative Rahm Emanuel strike me as the type to be cowed into silence by death threats.

and again:

However, Barack Obama and his team chose not to give that honest and common-sense explanation. Instead, they issued categorical denials that Obama and his staff had contacted Blagojevich or his staff about the succession. It's a mystifying claim, and one that will apparently get proven false fairly easily. Now, instead of just saying that contact existed but that no one had tried making deals, they have thrown away their credibility on a very foolish point -- which will lead to the conclusion that Team Obama has something very significant to hide.

Just One Minute:

My guess - Rahm didn't play ball but he didn't call the coppers, either, which leaves him in an ethically gray area and exposes him to possible howls of "Geez, if the President's projected chief of staff didn't think that was illegal, what would it take to get this Administration's attention?"

Awkward, even if legal.

Q and O:

If, in fact, we find that there were discussions, no matter how brief, innocent and above-board, then why this immediate and seeming adamant denial?

As they always say, it isn't the activity that gets you in trouble, it's the attempt to cover it up. Are we in the middle of a knee-jerk cover up which will end up doing much more harm than if the Obama camp had just admitted contact and spun it positively as supported by the charges?

Powerline:

President-elect Obama's designgated chief of staff is Ilinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel. The otherwise conspicuous Emanuel has dropped from sight over the past few days. Among those with intriguing reports that bear on Emanuel's absence from public view are John Kass, Andrew Malcolm and Jim Hoft.

I'll admit that I'm not happy with the result of the election. And I believe that Barack Obama received way too little scrutiny for his campaign that would have set off alarm bells in the media had he not been the agent of hope and change. However, isn't there a reasonable explanation for these denials and silence?

James Taranto on Thursday.

Since all indications are that the Obama camp rejected any corrupt deal, they would seem to be legally in the clear. In their refusal to make a deal, it would appear their instinct for self-preservation served them well. It would be more impressive, though, if it turns out they did the public-spirited thing and reported Blagojevich's conduct to the authorities.

Obama's "ongoing investigation" dodge has drawn criticism from both right and left (the latter has likened it to President Bush's refusal to comment during the investigation of the Valerie Plame kerfuffle). Yet prosecutors generally do not like prospective witnesses to talk about a case publicly, and surely we want Obama and his aides to cooperate with prosecutors. It does put Obama in a politically awkward position, though, especially if the facts he is constrained from discussing publicly reflect well on him and his advisers.

and again on Friday:

Emanuel's refusal to answer reporters' questions about the Blagojevich scandal should not be construed as incriminating him. If you were a potential witness in a criminal case and Patrick Fitzgerald told you not to discuss it publicly, chances are you'd do as you were told.

Yet the scandal is, if we may borrow the president-elect's favorite word, an enormous distraction--not to mention a reminder that Obama is a product of a corrupt political culture, even if he has managed to remain untainted.

There is an ongoing investigation. In all likelihood Rahm Emanuel was the contact between the Pesident-elect and the governor. At worst, it appears he turned down an obviously corrupt deal and didn't relate it to the authorities. At best he did relate it to the authorities. In either case, he is a witness to the corruption and almost certainly been ordered not to speak about the case. I think Taranto's correct. The implausible denials and deafening silence were forced on the campaign. I don't think that we've seen enough to assume that anyone in the campaign is legally exposed in this scandal.

Shiny happy dhimmi - #5

Blogs to read while watching the crocodiles eat.*

1) Mearsheimer thinks that too many references to the Holocaust hurt the chances for Middle East peace. I agree 100%.

2) The worlds smallest violin time. For Ahmadinejad. For Jimmuh.

3) The Europeans did it, why should the Palestinians suffer?

4) I don't know how we'd do, but I think that despots might miss it. The worlds most aptly named organization.

5) Darlin' you give peace a bad name. And you give human rights a bad name.

6) Whose fault was it again?

7) Is this another case of a win-win?

8) Silence = Acceptance. When Jews were popular.

9) Good sense from Saudi Arabia. Or maybe it ends in Saudi Arabia.

10) Demography as destiny. Pre-emptive surrender can help things along. When fear of terror is Islamophobia. Well maybe someone's paying attention. Turnabout is fair play.

11) I was wondering about him.

12) How will a two-state solution bring peace when the other side rejects that very premise?

13) Moderation in deference to terrorism is a deadly vice.

14) Was that Death to America or Debt to America. Did the Congressman join in the cheers? The devil was stoned, but no one else was injured.

15) What's changed in 67 years? Narcissism and solipsism is a deadly combination.

* Winston Churchill
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last"

Previous editions:
4, #3,#2, #1.

Penalty shot

The Las Vegas Wranglers are planning a Rod Blagojevich night, Jan 30, 2009.

The hockey club is holding Blagojevich night on Friday, January 30th.

The team will wear vintage prison uniforms, the kind with the stripes.

Their jerseys will feature prison numbers, and a seat between the two benches will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

After the game, those prison uniforms will be signed and auctioned for charity.

(h/t LA Times, Sean and Frank Show)

The Wranglers seem to be bi-partisan in taking shots at politicians.

In 2006, the team attracted national attention by hosting Dick Cheney Hunting Vest Night to mock the vice president's aiming skills while hunting.

Crossposted on OTB Sports

What About The Iranian Threat To Arabs?

In Muslims vs. Iran, Inestors Business Daily notes:

It is widely assumed that the biggest victim of a nuclear Iran would be Israel. In fact, freedom-loving Muslims in neighboring countries know they have at least as much to fear.

Let's put aside the question of whether freedom-loving Muslims have a monopoly on fear of Islam.

It is not only Jews in the Middle East who will tell you that Iran is a burgeoning monster. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak spoke for many Arabs and Muslims when he told members of the ruling National Democratic Party this week that "the Persians are trying to devour the Arab states."

In spite of limited political freedoms and continuous martial law since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981, citizens of this most populous of Arab nations know they have a lot to lose. Mubarak has implemented privatization and abolished capital gains taxes, and the Egyptian stock market -- shut for a quarter-century until Mubarak reopened it in 1986 -- was outperforming all other emerging markets not too long ago.

Moreover, after a meeting between U.S. and European officials and Arab foreign ministers in Egypt last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly discerned worry among the Arabs that Western countries, especially Europe, did not appreciate Iran's regional ambitions.

But fear of Iran is not something new. Back in October 2006, The Chicago Tribune carried an article with the headline Arab leaders sweat Iran: Sunnis start to see Shiite state as a bigger threat than Israel:

In a recent opinion piece titled "For These Reasons We Fear Iran" in the pan-Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, the director of Al-Arabiya TV, Abdal-Rahman al-Rashed, argued that the most likely target of Iran's nuclear weapons is the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf.

"It is incomprehensible that Iran will bomb Israel, which has a shield of missiles, tremendous firepower and nuclear weapons artillery sufficient to eradicate every city in Iran," he wrote. "This means that if this destructive weapon is used, the only option for a target is the Arab Gulf."

At the Dayan Center, Bengio said she wouldn't be surprised if Arab countries at this moment are trying to persuade Washington to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

If that is true, then the pressure the Bush Administration has been under must have been tremendous--as will be the pressure Obama will be under to extend the nuclear umbrella he has offered Israel to encompass not a few Arab countries as well.

And it is not just the Arab countries outside of Iran who have something to fear. The Arab minority within are living in fear as well. The Times Online, also in October 2006 reported about Tehran's secret war against its own people: The persecution of Ahwazi Arabs and the takeover of their land has led to accusations of 'ethnic cleansing':

"NEVER AGAIN" is, I fear, a phrase that we may hear again all too soon -- but too late to warn people, let alone save lives. Under the cover of secrecy the fundamentalist regime in Tehran is waging a sustained, bloody campaign of intimidation and persecution against its Arab minority. These Arabs believe that they are victims of "ethnic cleansing" by Iran's Persian majority.

Sixteen Arab rights activists have been sentenced to death, according to reports in the Iranian media. They were found guilty of insurgency in secret trials before revolutionary courts. But most of the defendants were convicted solely on the basis of confessions extracted under torture. Ten are expected to be hanged in a couple of weeks, after the end of Ramadan. Amnesty International says that two of those sentenced to die, Abdolreza Nawaseri and Nazem Bureihi, were in prison when they were alleged to have been involved in bomb attacks. Three others -- Hamza Sawa- eri, Jafar Sawari and Reisan Sawari -- say that they were nowhere near the Zergan oilfield the day it was bombed.

...Tehran's latest tactic is to hold Ahwazi children as hostages. According to Amnesty International, children as young as 2 have been jailed with their mothers to force their fugitive, political-activist fathers to surrender to the police.

Read the whole thing.

This is a topic that has had little coverage. It was addressed this past April by Daniel Brett, Chairman of the British Ahwazi Friendship Society, in an article on Pajamas Media-- Iran's Occupied Territories

The Iranian regime's claim to represent the interests of Arabs better than the Arab League is belied by the brutal persecution of indigenous Ahwazi Arabs living within its own territory, which have been under direct rule from Tehran since the end of self-government in 1925.

This week Iran cut off drinking water supply to Arab villages along the left bank of the Shatt al-Arab, causing social unrest and fears of an outbreak of disease in the indigenous population. Ahwazi Arabs are the  most deprived and persecuted ethnic group in the Middle East, with human development indicators at an African level and far below those of the Palestinians. This ethno-national group has been subjected to forced relocation,  land confiscation,  cultural repression, state terrorism, mass executions and  economic disadvantage, despite their land being one of the most oil-rich regions in the world. In all, at least 300,000 hectares of Arab land have been stolen by Tehran since 1979.

...The intention behind the action is two-fold: to punish and intimidate the restive Arab population and to drive them off their traditional lands in order to strengthen the regime's military presence in the region and bolster the economic interests of a predatory religious elite.

...Arabs living on Minoo Island, south of Abadan, have already  faced state intimidation and expulsion. Most Ahwazi Arabs believe this is in line with the government's ethnic cleansing program, which was outlined in a  letter written by the then vice-president Ali Abtahi and leaked to the press in April 2005.

So when President Obama has those talks with Iran that he talked about during the campaign, will he find time to address the Persian threat that Arabs--both inside and outside of Iran--feel they face from Iran?

For all the talk in the media about pressure from the Israel Lobby on the US to address the threat of Iraq and Iran, apparently the Arab community in the US has been silent. Will that continue? Does CAIR feel beholden to Iran--after all they did defend Ahmadinejad's 2007 visit to the UN--or will they speak out on behalf of Arabs in the face of the Arab threat.

The Iranian threat against the Arabs is likely to increase, just as it grows vis-a-vis Israel. How will the Arabs, and Obama, react?

by Daled Amos

Details, details, details

Two different perspectives. The first is from the AP, in a caption showing Israeli security guards supervising a cash transfer.

It was the first time Israel has let money enter Gaza since October. It suspended the cash transfers after Gaza militants renewed their rocket and mortar attacks on Israel, in violation of a truce.

(emphasis mine)

That's pretty straightforward.

On the other side, there's Reuters:

Israel allowed trucks carrying 100 million shekels ($25 million) into the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday to ease a shortage of banknotes in the Israeli-blockaded territory, Palestinian bank officials said.

That's nice and loaded. And incomplete.

Here's another incomplete caption:

Palestinian youths wait for relatives as part of the destroyed industrial zone is seen at Israel's Erez Crossing, in the northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008.

How was the industrial zone destroyed?

Scores of Palestinians remain caught at the Erez crossing, which has been almost entirely destroyed by looters since Hamas's takeover.

The details lacking in both these cases are part of a pattern, that is prevalent in the media, to whitewash any evidence that the Palestinians are responsible for their own plight. I give credit to the AP (!) and the Washington Post for providing necessary information.

I ought to give the Post credit for acknowledging one other "inconvenient truth." That is that many Palestinians would prefer to live in Israel.

Many of the 250,000 Palestinians who are residents of East Jerusalem, but who are not Israeli citizens, are equally concerned about losing access to Israeli services such as medical care and social security if their neighborhoods became part of a Palestinian state. A growing number are moving into predominantly Jewish neighborhoods such as French Hill or Pisgat Zeev -- areas that Palestinian officials consider to be illegal Israeli settlements . . . .

Natshe said many of these families would prefer to move to predominantly Arab neighborhoods such as Beit Hanina, with 26,000 residents, or Shuafat, with 36,000, both of which are on the Israeli side of the barrier, except for a portion of Shuafat. But there is virtually no housing available in these areas. Prices have become so high that it is cheaper to rent or buy in neighboring Pisgat Zeev, where a three-bedroom apartment can be rented for about $1,000 a month. A similar apartment in Beit Hanina is at least $1,400.

(h/t Backspin)

This isn't really a new story, but it is very under-reported. See Daniel Pipes for a roundup and especially this for more.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Brother david ignatius explained it all for you

Two and a half years ago, nothing troubled David Ignatius more than a repeat of Iraq. In "Avoiding another 'Slam Dunk'" he wrote:

Amid all the debate about intelligence, there has been surprisingly little focus on the question the average citizen (and average policymaker, too) would probably have at the top of the list: Will these guys get it wrong again? Will they tell the world that something is a "slam-dunk," only to discover later that it didn't exist?

Of course, in our post 9/11 world, it's odd that the other side of the question didn't occur to him. What happens if our intelligence services get surprised again after raising no alarms of a very real threat?

Ignatius, of course, was relieved that his favorite bureaucrat, Thomas Fingar, would be in charge of handling intelligence.

The issue here is analysis, the least sexy but arguably most important part of the spy world. In trying to fix what was so obviously broken, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte did a smart thing. He went to the agency that came closest to getting it right on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction -- the State Department's tiny Bureau of Intelligence and Research -- and picked its chief, Thomas Fingar, as his deputy for analysis. INR, as it is known, had antagonized many in the Bush administration in 2002 and 2003 by refusing to endorse their case that Iraq was trying to reconstitute its nuclear program -- dismissing the claim about Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger as "highly dubious."

No word if the INR had predicted 9/11 and was ignored.

And then last year, when the NIE was released and claimed that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons research, Ignatius claimed vindication in "The myth of the mad mullahs."

To break the lock-step culture that allowed the disastrous mistake on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Deputy Director of National Intelligence Thomas Fingar ordered that analysts be given more information about sources and, rather than trying to fit information into preexisting boxes to prove a case, they should simply explain what it meant.

All these strands converged in the bombshell National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that was released Monday. That document was as close to a U-turn as one sees in the intelligence world. The community dropped its 2005 judgment that Iran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons" and instead said, "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program" because of international pressure.

The secret intelligence that produced this reversal came from multiple channels -- human sources as well as intercepted communications -- that arrived in June and July. At that time, a quite different draft of the Iran NIE was nearly finished. But the "volume and character" of the new information was so striking, says a senior official, that "we decided we've got to go back." It was this combination of data from different sources that gave the analysts "high confidence" the covert weapons program had been stopped in 2003. This led them to reject an alternative scenario (one of six) pitched by a "red team" of counterintelligence specialists that the new information was a deliberate Iranian deception.

But more importantly, according to Ignatius:

For the past several years, U.S. intelligence analysts have doubted hawkish U.S. and Israeli rhetoric that Iran is dominated by "mad mullahs" -- clerics whose fanatical religious views might lead to irrational decisions. In the new NIE, the analysts forcefully posit an alternative view of an Iran that is rational, susceptible to diplomatic pressure and, in that sense, can be "deterred."

"Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs," states the NIE. Asked if this meant the Iranian regime would be "deterrable" if it did obtain a weapon, a senior official responded, "That is the implication." He added: "Diplomacy works. That's the message."

Yes it has. A year of diplomacy and some mild arm twisting and Tehran continues to move forward with its nuclear program.

But, it's worse than that. Edward Jay Epstein writes that this new and improved intelligence assessment was wrong.

(h/t Deja Vu, The Spine)

Three pieces of the puzzle uncovered by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency cast a surprising light on how Iran has advanced its capabilities independently of Project 11-1. First, there is the digital blueprint circulated by the network of A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. IAEA investigators decoding and analyzing the massive computer files of this network found that it had clandestinely provided clients with a detailed design of a nuclear warhead of the version used by first China then Pakistan.

Since the IAEA knew that Iran had been dealing with the Khan network since at least 2003, and features of that digital blueprint matched those described in the Project 11-1 documents, it was suspected that Iran acquired the digital blueprint, along with other components, from the Khan network. If so, it shortened the task of Project 1-11.

Then, in late 2007, IAEA investigators uncovered a detailed Iranian narrative, written in Farsi, that described how a Russian scientist helped the Iranians conduct experiments to help Iranian scientists solve a complex design problem: Configuring high-tension electric bridge wire to detonate at different points less than a fraction of a nanosecond apart. In an implosion-type bomb, this is crucial for properly compressing the nuclear core. As Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's chief inspector explained at a closed-door briefing in February 2008, these Russian-led experiments were "not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon."

Finally, there is the Polonium 210 experiments that Iran conducted prior to 2004. Since Polonium 210 is used to initiate the chain reaction in early-generation nuclear bombs (and used in the Pakistan design), IAEA inspectors attempted up until 2008 to get access to the facility, or "box," in which the Polonium 210 was extracted from radioactive Bismuth.

In other words, the NIE was correct. One of the Iranian programs for developing a nuclear weapon was shuttered. The problem was that they had a parallel program running that the NIE didn't report. It accounted for the possibility that a second program did exist though.

According to the IAEA, which monitors Natanz, by 2008 Iran had 3,800 centrifuges in operation and is adding another 3,000. It has also upgraded many of the older centrifuges, giving it about quadruple the capacity it had in 2003. To date, it has produced and stockpiled 1,380 pounds of low-enriched uranium, which is enough, if further enriched to weapons grade, to build a nuclear bomb.

The 2007 NIE deftly ducked this escalation with a footnote stating it was excluding from its assessment "Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment," which meant Natanz. However, in light of all the developments in the past year, America's new president will have to confront the reality that Iran now has the capability to change the balance of power in the Gulf, if it so elects to do so, by building a nuclear weapon.

So the NIE focused on a program that no longer operated but ignored the possibility that "civilian" nuclear research was being used to produce nuclear material for a weapon. Of course that means that the point of the NIE was not to get things correct as Ignatius claims but to serve the political purpose of undermining any effective measures to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Ignatius is even more blatantly political than he accuses the Bush administration of being.

It would appear that Mere Rhetoric analyzed things correctly last year - and he's paid a fraction of what David Ignatius is for his opinions -

This is still woefully stupid analysis: the new conclusions are based on a grumpy Iranian military officer complaining that Iran's nuclear program was suspended in 2003. Which is totally true - except for how after the suspension they went ahead and restarted it. Printing things that are technically true but crucially incomplete as part of an effort to mislead Americans into underestimating the threat of political Islam - it's like the LA Times editorial board took over the US intelligence apparatus. Which they might as well because US intelligence about Iran sucks - ergo the spectacle of political machinations completely reversing the NIE in the span of four months.

and as JoshuaPundit wrote at the time: Israel's assessment of Iran was correct.

My guess is that Thomas Fingar was a very good source for David Ignatius when the latter needed material to blast the Bush administration. But Fingar told Ignatius exactly what he wanted to hear. Happy that his pre-conceived notions were "confirmed," Ignatius didn't think too hard and once again seen only what he wanted to see.

Crossposted on Yourish.

The gruelling, drug-scandal ridden world of chess competition

Unless someone can figure out how to put good positional judgment and sparkling combinational play into a pill, I don't think this should be an issue:

Who knows what was going through [Grandmaster Vassily] Ivanchuk's head when, on Nov. 25 in Dresden, the last day of the Chess Olympiad, he lost to Gata Kamsky? What we do know, however, is that when the game against the American ended, a judge asked Ivanchuk to submit to a drug test. Instead, he stormed out of the room in the conference center, kicked a concrete pillar in the lobby, pounded a countertop in the cafeteria with his fists and then vanished into the coatroom. Throughout this performance, he was followed by a handful of officials.

No one could convince Ivanchuk to provide a small amount of urine for the test. And because refusal is treated as a positive test result, he is now considered guilty of doping and could be barred from professional chess for two years.

The incident in Dresden and the possibility of a professional ban for Ivanchuk has caused outrage in the chess world. The players, who fraternize with one another, say that accusing one of them of doping is an insult to their honor and intelligence. Letters of protest were issued, and players are accusing bureaucrats in the world of championship chess of destroying the game, because, as they insist everyone should know, doping provides no benefits in chess. [...]

The author is not sure and thinks "Ritalin or Modafinil" might help with concentration. Unless there is some big danger of overdosing on this stuff, however, I still don't think this warrants drug-testing.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Krauthammer: centrism with a purpose

Back in August, Sarcastipundit wrote:

If Obama wins and the expected Democrat gains in the House and Senate materialize, the party will finally be on board with the War on Terror. Why? Because Democrats would finally have to leave the children's table and come eat with the adults.

There would no longer be any Bush and/or Republican majority to blame for any potential attack on the US; when you have to...you know...govern, it's a whole new ballgame. Suddenly a domestic attack would not only be bad for the country, it would be bad for the party.

Confirming that prediction, this week the Opinionator noted that leftists were unhappy with the President-elect's foreign policy choices.

And