I saw Sweeney Todd this afternoon, in a theater that had a decent-sized crowd. I can see why Steven Sondheim gave the movie his blessings. It’s quite good. It has its flaws, but overall, I enjoyed it immensely.

Flaw number one is that Helena Bonham Carter is a great actor, but she can’t sing for squat. Tim Burton really needed to give the role of Mrs. Lovett to someone who can actually sing. Johnny Depp isn’t a great singer, but his voice was good enough for the film.

Flaw number two was that I was immensely peeved that the introduction and finale were both skipped. The film ended too abruptly, and I really, really missed the finale.

Other minor quibbles: I thought most of the songs were sung too slowly. The comedic songs, especially, weren’t as quick and funny as they could have been. And Helena Bonham Carter either doesn’t do comedy well, or didn’t get that Mrs. Lovett wasn’t a dark, tired, sad woman all the time. I guess I really can’t compare her to the Angela Lansbury version, since Angela won the Tony for her role. But she could have been a little funnier.

Really, though, I did like the film. I’ll probably see it again, or maybe even buy it, spurting blood from throats and all. Tim Burton might not have wanted to make it so bloody, though. I’ll bet a PG would have gotten him legions of Johnny Depp tween fans. It’s rated R. Sorena couldn’t get in to get us seats early; she had to come get me to get her past the ticket-taker.

Overall, today was a very good day. And I got some cash in the karma bank because we discovered someone had left his keys hanging out of the door of his Toyota convertible, so I left a note on the windshield and the keys at the box office. I imagine someone got a nice little present when they got out of their movie.

In his year end assessment of the changes in the Middle East over 2007, “The year of acting dangerously” Barry Rubin observes (among other things)

U.S. policy returns to traditional stance. Whatever innovations, for better or worse, President George Bush introduced into American regional policy have vanished in 2007. He is largely back to the traditional approach as carried out by both his father and predecessor. The administration has given up on reform or backing democracy. In 2008, a new president will be chosen but real policy shifts will take until the following year of course.

One of the symptoms of that change was the Annapolis conference, about which Daniel Pipes writes:

Before the Annapolis meeting took place in late November, I warned of the danger that a joint U.S.-Palestinian position might emerge that the Israelis would resist, thereby leading to “a possible crisis in U.S.-Israel relations of unprecedented proportions.” Here is the first installment to follow up on that worry

Pipes quotes from an article in Ha’aretz

Another senior government official involved in the talks also warned of expected crises with the Palestinians and the Americans. “Israel has created a series of far-reaching expectations in the international arena,” this official said, referring to the implementation of the first part of the road map, “but this is not going to happen.” “There is no political capability either to evacuate settlements or freeze construction in the settlements,” the second official added. According to this official, the problem will be even greater when negotiations begin on the core issues. “There are detailed files that include Israel’s position on the day negotiations came to a halt in 2001,” he said. “What will happen when they open the Jerusalem file, for example? They’ll find that Israel’s final position at Taba is light-years away from Israel’s opening position today.”

In the meantime the New York Times reports that Israel is about to budge on another “red line”

Also Monday, a committee of Israeli ministers led by Vice Premier Haim Ramon began examining the government’s criteria for early release of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli officials said. 

Loosening those rules could facilitate the return of captured Israeli soldiers who are believed to be held by the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah; it could also open up the possibility of larger prisoner releases to bolster Mr. Abbas, the officials said, speaking anonymously because the issue is still being debated.

The current government policy, set in July 2003, bars the release of prisoners with “blood on their hands,” defined as those who participated in attacks in which Israeli or foreign nationals were killed or wounded; their dispatchers; and would-be suicide bombers who were captured before carrying out an attack. Rafi Eitan, a cabinet minister, told Israel Radio on Monday that the current restrictions made it nearly impossible to negotiate for the release of captured soldiers.

Given all the conditionals in the Times report it’s little wonder that Daled Amos is skeptical that changing the definition will help.

And while they are at it, they will continue to bend over backwards to make sure to release as many terrorists as possible without gaining the release of Gilad Shalit.

The problem isn’t just the ineffectiveness of the concessions, but once Israel concedes ground in one area, it makes it that much harder to hold the line in others.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

via memeorandum

Martin Peretz (or perhaps Josh Patashnik) writes in review of a book “Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948″

What we learn about the three decades after General Allenby conquered Jerusalem from the Ottomans was that the nationalist impulse among the local Arabs was not one impulse at all, but fissured and, in any case, intrinsically weak. The elites of the Arab Higher Commission sold their lands to the Zionists; many Arab professionals worked with the Zionists; many ordinary Arabs found deeper sympathy among the Jews than among their own effendi. So they did not much view their routine cooperation with Jews and Jewish associations as disloyal. Palestine Arab nationalism was a minority sentiment. It did not cohere and its cement, such as it was, was fear.

Elder of Ziyon projects a straight line to the current situation

It is interesting that the same fear that Palestinian Arabs had in the 1930s against publicly opposing the Mufti exists today in a more institutionalized form: the death penalty for selling land to Jews, the threats against anyone wanting to co-exist with Israel, and the underlying fear that stops would-be critics from saying anything out loud, even extending to journalists who work in the territories.

Israel Matzav draws a reasonable conclusion from this

His second sentence needs to be pointed out again and again to those who believe that the ‘Palestinians’ are going to wake up one morning and suddenly decide to co-exist with us. They’ve had more than a hundred years to change their tune and have given no indication of doing so.

If the nationalistic impulse among the Palestinians wasn’t strong what factor or factors helped it coalesce into a more cohesive ideology.

Clearly the Six Day War played a role. Once the issue could be attributed to “Israel’s occupatoin” rather “Israel’s existence” it conferred a(n international) legitimacy to the movement.

Another possible factor is Israeli public opinion. The degree to which elite opinion in Israel advocates finding a solution to the Palestinian problem has also helped develop a more unified sense of Palestinian nationalism.

In other words Palestine Arab nationalism is a movement that derives some measure of its strength from external sources not internal ones.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Follow some excerpts from a unique manuscript that was intercepted by our agents. Its state was extremely poor - our lab* reported later that it was thoroughly chewed by a dog of indeterminate breed who destroyed more than half of it and left a good part of the rest unreadable. Besides, the little that could be deciphered is obviously written under strong stress in a state close to a nervous meltdown. Nevertheless, the author was clearly under heavy pressure from a third party (further in the text you shall see mentions of a mysterious group named “Agents of the State Department”).

It is a sunny da.. in 1956 in LA [Latin America?]. I, a three ..r old little girl, am sitting with my Mo… in a playgrou… Jimmy Bohunk, our neighborhood bull… is beating up little Moshe Schneider, the son of our local rab… “Why, mommy?”, I am asking, “Why is it that Moshe cannot be like all other boys and not stand out with his funny glasses, his big no… and his little pee…?” Mommy doesn’t answer, dragging me away to change my nap…

My Mom and Dad are very progre… They want everyone to love everyone and are members of everyt… And everyone loves them, even the Cold Wa… Russians. But they are Zionists and keep a frightening picture of an old scary lady named Golda Me… on the mantelp… When I ask my mommy “Why, Mommy, do we have to have this scary pi..”, mommy sa… “Shh, meidaleh, do not ask, or the bad Uncle from AIPAC will co… and take you awa…”.

And then Mom and Dad took me to Israe… A guide shows us the spanking new tennis courts in Kiriat Shmona donated to reward the brave Joo… and I ask Mommy “Why, Mommy, do these Joo… perpetrate such acts of vio…? Why couldn’t they be like every… around, like all these nice Ara… peop… from Syria, from Egyp…, from Ira…?” “Sha, meida..”, my Mom answers, “Do not ask such ques…, or the Agents from State Department** will ta… you away”.

And while we stroll around Kiriat Shmo…, a scary air raid siren goes off, and we rocket out of there in a jiffy, and Dad curses these darn Zion… all the way to the airp… And I ask “Why, Mom, why do these Israe… sound that sca… siren, cannot they just die quie…?” And Mom starts yakking again about the Agents from Sta.. Dep… And when we come back hom.. Dad takes the picture of Gold… and throws it away into the tras…

And now I understand that these bad J… just don’t want to be like everyone and die qui… And I talk about it to a Senat… Wax.., but he says, just like Mo… “Shhh, meidaleh, don’t say it or these bad Sta.. D… agen…” And indeed, since then I see the Agents follow… …where I am… It is very scary and my Mommy doesn’t wa… to hel… I think she is afraid of the Age…

Then Mom and Dad bought me a dog, they call it Watchdog Spark… and it comes with a muzzle. And they bo… a muzzl… for me too, Mom says it is to make the scary Ag.. of S… go away and leave me alo… and I should wear it all the time not to say anything stu…

But as I am writ… these words I swea.. that the day will co… when I shall throw aw… that muzzle that they put on my mo… And I want to call upon all of you peop… with muzzl… on your mou… - tear them away! Speak out! Tell all th… viole… Isra… to go away some… for example to LA [Latin America?] where they will not bother anyon… and be a part of the domina… culture and, like me, just hang little red and green lights on plastic Chri… trees…

(At this point our Chief of Signals was taken away with a nervous breakdown, so we have decided to go ahead with this fragment, seeing as to add anything will be simply redundant).

More on the same delicate investigation here.

(*) The lab report also states that any similarity of the manuscript to the one that could be found on the Internet under URL inpursuitofjustice.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/jews-who-dare-to-speak-out/ is purely coincidental

(**) The Mom’s expression “Agents of State Department” has naturally attracted our attention, since being in the spying business from times immemorial we have never heard it before. It appears again and again in the text we have received, and we are investigating. Most probably, though, the subject’s Mom used it too frequently to impress some rules of behavior on the girl… Just a childhood trauma, like everything else…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.