Yes, that’s Australia, not Austria. The one with kangaroos, not Nazis. Australia now joins Europe in the “Who wants to be the biggest Jew-hater?” contest.

Attacks on the Jewish community are at a high, following 638 reports covering assault, vandalism, intimidation and harassment in the year to the end of September.

This is twice the previous annual average and 8 per cent higher than the previous record year, 2002.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry meeting in Melbourne this week heard that the attacks mainly occurred in Sydney and Melbourne, the home of the country’s largest Jewish communities.

“In other cities, you are not going to have large groups of people walking to and from synagogues on the weekend,” said former council member Jeremy Jones, who compiled the annual audit.

It was not clear what caused the jump in reporting, he said.

Yeah, isn’t that funny. Nobody ever knows why attacks against Jews go up. They just do.

Imagine that.

via memeorandum

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

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

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

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

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

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

A blog for All observes

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

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

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

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

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

Israel Matzav provides a bit more background

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

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

And Meryl emphasizes

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

They don’t want peace. They want Israel.

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

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I’ll go you one better, Elder, than just writing about the reappearance of armed “militants” in Nablus, which is supposed to be fully under PA police control. Here are two incidents that occurred in and near Nablus:

Smuggled bombs:

Two Palestinian youths were arrested at the Hawarah checkpoint south of Nablus on Friday after troops on duty discovered they were carrying three bombs.

Attacks on civilians:

An Israeli car was damaged Friday when it was hit by stones and a Molotov cocktail in the Nablus area.

No one was wounded.

And that, of course, is only today. These things happen every single day. And not just in Nablus.

Which is why Olmert is an absolute fool for even thinking of ceding control of Nablus to the Palestinians.

The news item about the death of Former KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov - one of the instigators and leaders of the failed putsch against Gorbachev in 1991 - didn’t occupy a central place in the media. However, there is some symbolism in this death. Kryuchkov has joined the ghosts, but the ghosts seem to be more and more active in the gray fog that is surrounding the internal Russian politics.

If “politics” is the right word for that unique mix of mafia style ruling structure, corruption of gargantuan proportion, permanent infighting for the place closer to the trough.

A person grown up in relatively innocent and sheltered Western Europe or North American environment is usually unable to grasp the bewildering country, where:

• One percent of population is living in luxury hitherto unseen in many developed countries and normally thought of in connection to Saudi prince or other oil dignitary.
• A cup of coffee in the capital costs about the same as the daily income of many citizens.
• Democratic constitution hasn’t prevented the government moves to take over most of the mass media, including all TV channels.
• A policeman during the day turns into a blackmailer at night (”werewolf” in local lingo), if he wants his family to have a semblance of normal income.
• Soldiers are growing vegetables near their barracks to survive, while new weaponry of highest sophistication and destruction power is being developed and produced with enormous expense.
• Corruption has become so integrated in the daily life that the funny mention by Douglas Adams of “rival police gangs” came true with vengeance, when rival FSB (the KGB child) departments shamelessly fight their turf wars for the rights of collecting graft.
• Scientists are arrested on false charges of selling the secrets of Motherland to a foreign power.
• Alcoholism is killing off the men so early that the average life span for men dropped to 56-58 years (depending on the source). Poor diet and health care contribute their fair share too, of course.
• The negative growth of population, on the other hand, is contributing to the growing problem of taking care of old and disabled…
• Democratic institutions are reduced to sock puppet of the president.
• And people clamor for the man who is overseeing all this, looking at him as a savior and begging him to stay more at his post, that by now looks more and more as just a job for an aspiring tyrant…

So what it is that makes this strange mechanism tick? The “sovereign democracy” - does this perverted idea work? And what will happen when (and if) Putin, the “leader of the nation” leaves his post next year? For how long will the huge natural resources of the largest country in the world keep its people at a minimum level above poverty?

To understand better the powers that be in Russia, it is worth to look for the motivating force.

It is not ideology: the main political party, created by the oligarchs initially to support their interests and now used by Putin and his circle of trust, is far from being ideological. Aside of few vague patriotic slogans and the overwhelming parliamentary majority (that is going become even more overwhelming after the coming elections), the party does not have any ideology to speak of.

It is pure greed. The river of money, generated by the country’s seemingly inexhaustible natural resources, is channeled to few small distinctive groups: Putin’s clique of oligarchs that have replaced the ones that were too unruly for his taste, the bankers, the so called “siloviky” - the power structures, such as FSB, the army, the police and, of course, the various shades of mafia type groups - not always easily distinguished from the oligarchs. Not to forget the politicians of different ranks that toe the party (Putin’s) line. And of course, the masses, the great unwashed are kept in their places by the “siloviky”.

To make it all happen without complications expected in any really democratic country with free press and independent judiciary, the oxymoron of “sovereign democracy“, that perversion of evolution of human society and human values, was invented. It is mistakenly called “managed democracy” in the West, to help the ready and willing fellow travelers to swallow the pill. Interestingly, there is an entry in Wikipedia on the sovereign democracy, but only in Russian.

Sovereign democracy is the term originally imposed by Kuomintang government of Taiwan to describe their current political system.

This term was, in the Taiwan rulers way of thinking, supposed to stress, on the one hand, Taiwan’s sovereignty, its independence from the central Chinese government, but on the other hand, formally democratic, multiparty nature of the Taiwanese political system, as opposed to mainland China, tightly managed by the CPC.

In the early XXI century, the term got a new meaning in the political rhetoric of official Russian Federation. Originally, the term was used on February 22, 2006 in the program speech by Vladimir Surkov before the activists of the United Russia party.

According to the ideological paradigm “sovereign democracy”, Russia as a sovereign state reserves the right to determine the timing, form and methods of the movement towards democracy. Building on the concept of managed movement to democracy allows to classify sovereign democracy as a form of simulated democracy.

It could be interesting to sidestep into the fascinating life story of the inventor of the “sovereign democracy”, one Vladimir Surkov, but it can wait for another opportunity. Now, after reading the above, you can see how far he and his boss took the Taiwanese definition of sovereign democracy from its origin and how far is this “idea” from the “managed democracy” that some fellow travelers will try to sell you. Precisely like the Soviet version of “mature Socialism” was a harbinger of the future shining peak of the coming communism, the “sovereign democracy” is a precursor of the (here it is, see it?, it is coming!) real democracy to come.

It is necessary to notice that, like in any pyramid structure built around one man, the upcoming retirement of Putin is already causing tremors and “dog eats dog” squabbles for succession of various cushy positions. But these are only the first temblors, and the real bloodletting is still to come, when Putin leaves and his heirs and enemies start the war for inheritance.

Now, of course, the big question is whether Putin will indeed leave. For two years he repeated his promise to retire. For the last several months his buddies are feverishly seeking a way to get him another term, however there clearly is no legal way to do so, Putin’s promises notwithstanding. He may try to get “elected” to the PM post and to gradually acquire, via his pet party, the necessary powers that currently belong to the president, but it is a long and difficult way and his ex-friends and enemies will do their best to tear him apart while unprotected - as hyenas do.

So another possibility - that of inventing new, meanwhile vaguely defined, post of a “leader of a nation” is being broached in some circles. The necessary background, such as “spontaneous” mass demonstrations begging Vladimir Vladimirovich to stay put, anti-Western hysteria which Putin was very careful to nurture for the last year or two, clumping down on the pro-democracy leaders and the (already weak and dispersed) opposition parties, the very worst of nationalist demagoguery - in short, every weapon in the arsenal of the good old KGB is being drawn from the warehouses and getting used.

Still, it seems that Putin will go, at least for a while. He will try to promote his chosen successor, of course, he is already putting forward claims to the leadership of his party (a new one, since up till now, the United Russia was only a compliant vehicle for his moves), and he increases the volume of anti-Western and especially anti-US rhetorics. Just look at Pravda:

United Police States of America grows mad because of strong Russia
Putin: Russia not to tolerate foreign meddling
US advised OSCE not to send observers to monitor Russian elections

There is hardly any need to go deeper than these headlines. For me, the most worrying is the language of the incendiary articles, so reminiscent of the worst examples of Soviet propaganda hacks. It all looks so painfully familiar…

And the economic outlook does not bear any good news. Even the rivers of money that are accumulating today in the oligarchs’ coffers and trickling down to the great unwashed will become insufficient to cope with the nearing housing crisis, with the growing percentage of the pensioners and crumbling health care system, with the outdated and insufficient infrastructure, with the moribund industry and with ever growing imperial pretensions. Coupled with the trend to nationalize the big businesses and corruption that makes these same businesses to crash, the outlook is really bleak. Whoever will be at the helm of Russia, in a few years he will have to cope with a real economic disaster.

And then the country will be really at the edge of an abyss. And the ghosts of the past, aided by the ready and willing wannabe tyrants of the present, will have a real field day. It is impossible to know what monster will come out of the fog. But it’s easy to see what is in stock for the nation that has had only a brief glimpse of democracy for a few years, and decided that it is not what it needs.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

The Nuremberg laws of Nazi Germany decreed that if you had at least one grandparent who was Jewish, you were Jewish, and off to the camps you went. Apparently, if it was good enough for the Nazis, it’s good enough for the Algerians.

France’s Foreign Ministry expressed surprise Wednesday about an Algerian government minister’s remarks about a “Jewish lobby” being behind French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The flap comes as Sarkozy is preparing to visit Algeria next week.

Mohamed Cherif Abbas, Algeria’s minister for veterans, was quoted Monday in the daily El Khabar as saying that Sarkozy was brought to power by a “Jewish lobby that has a monopoly on French industry.” Abbas also mentioned Sarkozy’s “roots,” an apparent reference to the French president’s maternal grandfather, who was Jewish.

Gee, what religion is that minister? Could it be—the Religion of Peace™? But remember, it isn’t anti-Semitism. It’s anti-Zionism. Well, in any case, the minister was at least embarrassed at what he said, right?

Wrong.

On Wednesday, Abbas told the Algerian state news agency APS that he “never had the intention …. of attacking the image of a foreign head of state.” He did not deny making the comments.

Even halachically (by Jewish law) non-Jewish heads of state are not immune to anti-Semitism. But that Nuremberg thing? Well, we pretty much knew about that even before it was codified into law. So we note this incident without surprise. The anti-Semitism of the Arab and Muslim world is extremely well-documented.

Update: Judeosphere has more.

Barbara Kay reports on an initiative underway on Canadian college campuses to take back Canada’s colleges from the virulent anti-Semitism that has dominated so many campuses for the past six years.

The coming milestone of Israel’s 60th anniversary next spring is ratcheting up anti-Zionist organizations’ zeal for greater impact during the 2007-08 academic year. Like most such initiatives — Israeli Apartheid Week is an American import — their new projects will soon make their way to Canadian campuses.

Look for an “Apartheid Bus Tour,” featuring a Palestinian Arab, an Israeli Jew and a South African black, who will travel between campuses, teaching students that Israel is morally and socially equivalent to South Africa’s formerly racist regime. There will also be reinvigorated divestment drives, led or supported by faculty, pressuring universities to pull funds from Israel, such as the “Hang Up on Motorola” drive to discourage Motorola from providing services to the Israeli military.

[...] Campus Zionists are becoming pro-active: A number of groups have emerged over the past few years. Hasbara, for example, an Israel-sponsored leadership training program, has shown canniness and courage at York University in pushing back against intimidation, last week holding their own against a “pack of wolves,” as one Israel defender described a mob surrounding his anti-Ahmadinejad display table.

I’m personally following with great interest a pilot program offered to university and cegep students here in Montreal: Student Israel Advocacy Seminars (SIAS), sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research. The endeavour correctly identifies the battle against Israel hate as the front line in combatting the greater malaise of our universities’ alarming decline in moral and intellectual integrity.

Barbara is on the board of advisors to Montreal’s Canadian Institute of Jewish Research, the organization behind this wonderful movement. Kol hakavod, Barbara, and to the students putting themselves out there to fight the lies and the professional “activists” that the Muslim world has been sending to discredit Jews.

Yesterday, Hamas made quite clear exactly what they think of the nation of Israel:

Hamas on Thursday called on the UN to rescind the 1947 decision to partition Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs.

The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that “Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem… there is no room in it for the Jews.”

Regarding the partition decision, Hamas said that “correcting mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of, but prolonging it is exploitation.”

This is the same organization that Jimmy Carter has been urging Israel to deal with for years. Because he’s really, really sure that Hamas wants peace with Israel. He said so in February of 2006:

When I met with one of the Hamas leaders after the election, whom I had also met with ten years ago and hadn’t seen him since, he told me what the Hamas people want is a peaceful unity government. Whether he’s telling the truth, I have no way of knowing.

But my belief is that Hamas now wants a stable, domestically oriented policies in their government to deal with the problems of the Palestinian people. And in my belief is if they’re treated fairly, they might very well be less likely to resort to violence than if a Palestinian people are mistreated.

[...] By the way, let me add that eventually, Wolf, they are going to have to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and resolve to their problems with Israel in a peaceful way. There’s no doubt about that. They cannot escape that international mandate which they have to fulfill.

There’s no doubt at all. Except the lack of doubt would be on the part of Hamas, whose charter states:

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.

If someone can find a word in the charter signifying anything other than the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state, I’ll give you my Jeep.

Say, about those “stable, domestically oriented policies”—I wonder if this is what he had in mind?

The nights in Gaza belong to the Izzedine al-Qassam brigades. On potholed streets in the border city of Rafah last week, disciplined rows of fighters bristling with guns and rocket launchers listened to a midnight pep talk from their commander before melting into the darkness.

The militia that was once the underground military wing of Hamas, the Islamic extremist organisation, has become a feared unofficial army controlling this isolated strip of Palestinian territory.

I have been stating on this weblog for years that the terrorist groups do not want peace with Israel—they want the destruction of the Jewish state, and its replacement with an Islamic state. I have also come to the conclusion that that is what most Palestinians want. It is what Yasser Arafat wanted. It is what Mahmoud Abbas wants. It is what the overwhelming majority of Palestinians want. Poll after poll after poll has proven that most Palestinians approve of suicide bombings. They approve of “resistance” against Israel (code for armed attacks on all Israelis). They have been raised on decades of hatred, incitement, and the idea that if they only wait long enough, or get the right leadership. or maybe ally themselves with the right Arab nation, they can destroy Israel from without and within.

And don’t think this is limited to Hamas. The Palestinian Authority believes exactly as Hamas.

Just a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Annapolis peace conference pledged to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to paint a picture for its people of a world without Israel.

An information clip produced by the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics and rebroadcast today on Abbas-controlled Palestinian television, shows a map in which Israel is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, symbolizing Israel turned into a Palestinian state.

This is the picture shown on Palestinian TV:

The Palestinians don’t want peace. They want Israel. And in case there was any doubt of that, I give you this exclusive from one of the Jerusalem Post’s most trusted reporters:

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

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

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

They don’t want peace. They want Israel.

Which one of these leaders said the following?

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

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

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

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

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

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

G) None of the above.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

This is why Dan Gillerman is the man I’m going to marry (once I steal him from his wife of umpteen years):

“The 29th of November is a reason for celebration,” said Gillerman, who spent the last few days at the conference in Annapolis. “On this date, the world got a gift: a state which contributes to humanity more than all the countries in the UN that mourn on this day.”

The date in question is the anniversary of UN Resolution 181, which partitioned the British Mandate of Palestine into two countries, one for Jews, and one for Arabs.

For Palestinians, November 29 is a day of regret. Since 1977, this day is earmarked at the UN as an annual day of “Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” and is typically commemorated as a day of mourning. Part of the discussion in Thursday’s General Assembly meeting was reserved for the “Question of Palestine,” an annual ushering-in of several anti-Israel resolutions.

“Israel recognized two states for two peoples already 60 years ago,” Gillerman said. “If the Arabs would have agreed to the historic partition plan, the Palestinians would have had a state for 60 years. What would a 60-year-old Palestinian state look like? Look at what Israel has accomplished in 60 years, where we are and where those who tried to destroy us and who continue to try to destroy us are today.”

Of course, they never wanted a state. And they don’t today. There are some Palestinians who pretend otherwise (more on that tomorrow), but there’s a reason the UN refuses to stop holding commemorations on November 29th. They don’t really want the Jewish state, either.

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

Infolive.tv sums it up nicely

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

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

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

Israel Matzav concludes

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

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

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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

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

“America can’t impose our vision on the two parties,” Bush said.”If that happens, then there’s not going to be a deal that will last.”

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

President Bush on Wednesday told CNN he would personally “facilitate” peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, saying the formation of a democratic Palestinian state was the best way to bring peace to the region.”A democracy on Israel’s border is important for Israel’s security and that very democracy is important for the Palestinians to have a hopeful life,” Bush said. “It is also important for the broader Middle East.”

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

Then, at the end of the article, we read Palestinian negotiator

Saeb Erakat said the two sides can “absolutely” fashion a peace deal by the end of next year.However, he said, the deal must come in the form of a package that resolves at least six points: Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel, Jerusalem as the shared capital of a future Palestinian state, settling on borders, security and water supply.

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

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

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

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

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

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Tribute to a dog

Max’s first piano recital (cuteness overload)

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

“There is a genuine concern and fear among political classes in the Arab world that the Islamic trend hasn’t reached its plateau,” said Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief for Al Arabiya television. “They worry that Iran and its allies act as if this may be the beginning of the end of America’s moment in the Middle East.”Those concerns are linked in the minds of the region’s leaders to the Palestinian issue, he said. “They want to try for a resolution to an Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has always been the focal point for mobilization of Islamic and radical groups,” he said.

Then the Israeli view

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

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

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

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

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

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

via memeorandum, similar thoughts at A blog for all

Other views:
The NYT - Starting from Annapolis

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

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

Contentions - John Podhoretz - ANNAPOLIS: What It All Means

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

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

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

When Bush first asked Rice to take over the State Department after the 2004 elections, during a weekend at Camp David, she quizzed him on only one policy issue: Was he willing to support the creation of a Palestinian state? The president gave an affirmative answer, which was important to her, according to people familiar with the conversation.”I wouldn’t be doing this if he weren’t deeply committed to it,” Rice told reporters last week. “I am his secretary of state.”

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

Washington Post - David Ignatius - How Annapolis Helps

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

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

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

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

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

The Jerusalem Post - Make Annapolis Work

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

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

Dennis Ross - USA Today - The Day after Annapolis

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

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

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

Dan Diker - Jerusalem Post - Peace Parks and Pipe Dreams

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

Reasons why Rosner’s idea won’t work.

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

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

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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

What happens in the course of Middle East “peace” talks under such circumstances? Whether the American administration is Republican or Democrat, it pressures Israel for concessions - since the Arabs won’t make any. Prisoner releases precede each summit; territorial handovers come under discussion.For their parts, Arab leaders and their representatives assume we’re sufficiently honored if they just show up. We hear no end of nonsense about the great political risks they’re taking, etc. We’re suckers for any fat guy in a white robe with an oil can.

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

Who doesn’t want the problem solved?

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

In Context adds an insight to to Peters’ column

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

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

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

Seraphic Secret praises Peters for not being

seduced by the mass delusions of the State Department

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

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

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

If you’re going to forge money and try to pass it off as legit, you should probably not go for the top dollar. Especially when it doesn’t exist.

Police say a man tried to open an account with a $1 million bill, which does not exist. The teller refused and called police while the man started to curse at bank workers, said Aiken County Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Michael Frank.

Alexander D. Smith, 31, of Augusta, Ga., was charged with disorderly conduct and two counts of forgery, Frank said.

The question here: Is he that stupid, or that daring, that he thought he could get away with it?

I’m voting for stupid.

And so it turns out that Annapolis has achieved just about nothing. Well, except cause more media outlets, pundits, and world leaders to put the lion’s share of the blame for any failure on Israel. Reuters has a roundup of Arab opinion.

Lebanon’s former telecommunications minister Essam Noman, writing in the opposition al-Akhbar newspaper, said the United States had succeeded in “dragging the Arabs to a diplomatic talkfest”.

Notice how the subject of peace is treated as a horrible thing.

Ghassan Charbel, editor of the London-based Al-Hayat daily, said Arab states had gone to Annapolis without illusions.

“They know that Israel wants to negotiate without being ready to pay the price of the solution. And they are aware that the Israeli negotiator will ask the Palestinian Authority for (conditions) it cannot provide,” he wrote in an editorial.

What Israel is looking for is an end to armed attacks on its citizens. These are the “conditions” that the PA can’t provide.

Arabs questioned whether Bush would push Israel hard enough to stop occupying and building settlements on Palestinian lands.

“The Palestinians … want realistic moves on the ground, and that is where the U.S. faces the challenge if it is genuinely interested in salvaging its lost credibility,” said the English-language Gulf Today paper in the United Arab Emirates.

I’m halfway through the article and still waiting to see a single acknowledgement that the Palestinians must end terror attacks against Israel.

The Saudi daily al-Watan urged Washington to exert pressure on its Israeli ally, instead of “pressuring the party that has offered a solution”, referring to a Saudi-inspired Arab plan for peace and full ties with Israel if it returns to 1967 borders.

Olmert’s call for Arab states to forge ties with Israel now, rather than at the end of negotiations, drew negative responses.

“If normalisation between the two parties is placed before an agreement on the solutions, this is a sign that failure is coming,” said an editorial in the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister attended the Annapolis talks, but kept his promise to avoid handshakes with Israelis.

Nope. Not a word about the Palestinians’ responsibility for ending attacks on Israel. And when you do find it, you find it in the most idiotic suggestion I have ever read, in what passes for a newsmagazine: Time’s Scott Macleod is perfectly willing to sacrifice Israeli lives to make peace.

One way to defeat the spoilers this time is to ignore any violence they sponsor and persevere toward the goal of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement. Such an approach has merit, given that a majority of Israelis and Arabs desire peace and thus opponents could be scorned for prolonging misery and hopelessness. The problem is that Olmert and Abbas are politically very weak, thanks to past failures in peace and war, and will find it difficult to behave like statesmen in the event of new violence.

You got that? If a Hamas or PIJ terrorist blows himself up in a market, murdering and wounding dozens of Israeli men, women, and children, Israel should just ignore it and push forward with making peace with Fatah. And if it turns out that Al-Aqsa, which is part of the ruling Fatah government, took part in it? That Palestinian police helped effect the attack? Well, ignore that, too. Because it’s far more important that Palestinians have a state than that they stop murdering Jews.

Oh, it gets worse. After Hamas launches the murderous attacks, we are told that Israel should still ignore those attacks and negotiate with the murderers. We won’t be quoting that part of the article, because, well, it’s beyond stupid, and our collective IQ will go down for having read it.

The AP has given us a new boilerplate for the occasion. See if you can pick out the villain in this paragraph:

The Palestinians believe Israel is not ready for total peace and Olmert will face a difficult time politically as any deal takes shape. Meantime, Abbas is seen as reliable, but also weak and a leader who can’t in the end deliver on an agreement.

Notice the language. Israel is “not ready for peace,” and Abbas is “reliable, but also weak.” The problem is that Israel doesn’t want peace. The Palestinians do, but they can’t force it on their people. Get it? It’s not their fault. But Israel? Israel “is not ready for total peace.”

May I ask a question? WTF does that mean? Who says Israel isn’t ready for peace? Why is Israel not ready for peace?

What. Utter. Bullshit.

Israel is literally dying for peace, but the Palestinians are unwilling to make peace. Poll after poll shows that they don’t want two states, they want one. Poll after poll shows that they’re perfectly happy to keep on supporting suicide bombers, and that “resistance” is the best way to achieve their state—because, after all, it was “resistance,” not negotiations, that gave them Gaza. And apparently, the Palestinians don’t care if they live in a repressive theocracy, just as long as they’re not living with Jews.

The only good thing that came out of Annapolis is the fact that Olmert will lose his ruling coalition if he tries to force an agreement that most Israelis don’t want. I think Jerusalem is going to remain undivided for a while longer.

No, wait. There’s more good news that came out of Annapolis. The sky isn’t falling, as some people would have us believe.

Not yet, anyway. Have some faith, people.

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

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, announced even before he got to Annapolis that there would be no handshakes with any Israelis. Too bad. A handshake alone is not going to get Israel to give back the West Bank. But a surprising gesture of humanity, like a simple handshake from a Saudi leader to an Israeli leader, would actually go a long way toward convincing Israelis that there is something new here, that it’s not just about the Arabs being afraid of Iran, but that they’re actually willing to coexist with Israel. Ditto Israel. Why not surprise Palestinians with a generous gesture on prisoners or roadblocks? Has the stingy old way worked so well?The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been so starved of emotional content since the Rabin assassination that it has no connection to average people anymore. It’s just words — a bunch of gobbledygook about “road maps.” The Saudis are experts at telling America that it has to be more serious. Is it too much to ask the Saudis to make our job a little easier by shaking an Israeli leader’s hand?

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

The other surprise we need to see is moderates going all the way. Moderates who are not willing to risk political suicide to achieve their ends are never going to defeat extremists who are willing to commit physical suicide.The reason that Mr. Rabin and Mr. Sadat were so threatening to extremists is because they were moderates ready to go all the way — a rare breed. I understand that no leader today wants to stick his neck out. They have reason to be afraid, but they have no reason to believe they’ll make history any other way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.
The “exploding Palestinians” that he refers to later didn’t start until two months after the Camp David summit. So we’re not out of the woods yet.Crossposted on Soccer Dad.