A sweet and healthy new year to my fellow Jews.
Posting will be light for the next 24 hours.
In a few hours, I’ll be at the G. household, with apple cake in hand. It’s the one and only baked good I make from scratch. Then we’ll all go to their synagogue tonight. I’m going to visit my old synagogue tomorrow and see how the new rabbi does. She’s a she. I’ve had women cantors before, but not rabbis. (I think it’s the year of the woman or something.)
A kassam rocket was fired towards Israel today, but didn’t quite make it.
A Qassam rocket was fired Monday afternoon from the northern Gaza Strip towards Israel, but landed on the Palestinian side of the border.
There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Two weeks ago, a rocket landed in Sderot. As always, the “cease-fire” isn’t a cease-fire. It’s a “Let’s fire rockets when we think we can get away with it”-fire.
In other news, although the AP wrote a condescending little piece about Israel implementing a full closure on the terrortories[sic] for the holiday—because terror attack attempts spike during holidays—there does seem to be a need for it.
A young Palestinian was arrested Monday morning on suspicion of planning to carry out a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Border Guard officers patrolling the area detained the 19-year-old man and found a knife and two suicide notes in his possession. In the notes, the man declared that he plans to be a shahid (martyrs). He was taken in for questioning by the Jerusalem Police.
Why the shutdown?
Ten specific warnings and dozens of general warnings regarding possible attempts by terror groups to carry out attacks over the holiday.
The most concrete threat, according to the security establishment, is a kidnapping attempt by Palestinian organizations in Gaza and the West Bank. The closure is expected to be lifted Wednesday night following a security assessment. During the holiday Palestinians will be permitted to pass through IDF checkpoints only in humanitarian cases and medical emergencies.
From the AP:
Such closures during Jewish holidays are routine, explained as necessary to prevent Palestinian attacks.
“Explained” as necessary. They are necessary. Last year:
A Palestinian terrorist broke into a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Friday and opened fire in a home where a family was marking the Jewish New Year, murdering a man and a toddler and shattering Israel’s peace and security efforts to maintain calm over the holiday.
The Netanya suidice bombing was named the Passover Massacre because it occurred at a Passover Seder, killing 30 and wounding 140. The Yom Kippur War is known as the Ramadan War in Muslim circles. This is the time of year that Palestinian terrorists try their hardest to murder Jews. It’s not just symbolism, although that’s part of it. It’s Ramadan. Ramadan is the month of jihad.
It’s no surprise that a kassam rocket was fired at Israel today. What’s surprising is that there weren’t more.
This week’s Shire Network News is up and ready for your listening pleasure. Dr. Rusty Shackleford of the Jawa Report is our feature interview. My segment is a little longer than usual. It’s on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s mirroring Hitler, only the new term for “Jews” is “Zionists.”
I’ve also updated the On Second Thought page, where you can listen to my segments if you don’t have time to listen to the whole podcast. But you’re missing out if you’re not listening to all of it.
*Please see disclaimer below*
Last week Syria built up its forces along the Lebanese border. Assad apologist Andrew Lee Butters wrote:
In recent days, anti-Syrian politicians in Beirut have been crying wolf about an increase in Syrian soldiers on the border with northern Lebanon. They worry that the buildup is a prelude to Syrian incursions on the pretext of stamping out radical Islamist fighters there, but really aimed at reasserting Syrian hegemony. On the other hand, the Syrians say that the buildup is part of an attempt to clamp down on smuggling, and there is reason to believe them.
Michael Young didn’t see it in such innocuous terms:
An imminent Syrian invasion of Lebanon is not in the cards. But Assad will continue to see how far he can push the envelope in Lebanon, both politically and militarily. And when he realizes he can push it very far, his confidence will rise, and with it the risk that Syria will use its army in more substantial ways. That’s not good news, and it’s not good news especially when foreign governments seem so utterly without conviction in preventing Syria from reimposing its hegemony over Lebanon.
However the news about yesterday’s car bomb attack in Damascus makes me wonder if the smuggling explanation might be closer to the truth. Now the Jersualem Post is reporting:
A mysterious explosion near Damascus on Saturday claimed the lives of at least 17 people, including a brigadier-general, further destabilizing the Syrian regime.
The article speculates about the identity of the general, but that’s less important than the fact that this attack took place so close to the time that Syria reinforced its troops on the Lebanese border. Is it possible that the redeployment was in reaction to intelligence that there had recently been an infiltration? Or perhaps against a threat of further infiltrations?
Last December a Lebanese Gen. Hajj was killed, presumably by Syria.
Anti-Syrian politicians, however, were quick to blame Damascus, accusing the Syrian regime of seeking to cause instability in Lebanon. “I point an accusing finger directly at the Syrian regime as the scheme has been carried out since three years until today with no one to deter this regime,” said Antoine Andraous, a member of the March 14 bloc.
Then in August a Syrian general with ties to Assad was killed in Lebanon.
General Mohammed Suleiman, one of Mr Assad’s closest confidantes, was shot dead on Friday at his chalet in the prestigious Rimal al-Zahabieh, Arabic for “Golden Sands”, seafront resort, 9 miles north of Tartous on the Mediterranean coast. A sniper, apparently located out at sea, shot him in the head, neck and stomach and he was pronounced dead at a hospital in Tartous.
Even leaving out the death of Imad Mughniyeh, it seems that generals have become targets in the Syria Lebanon war. I’ve been skeptical of the claims that Israel killed Mughniyeh, and nothing I’ve seen so far suggests that Israel was involved in any of these other deaths. Is there, perhaps, a lethal group fighting for Lebanon’s independence operating beneath the radar?
UPDATE: I asked an expert and was told that there’s no basis for this speculation. Please ignore.
Crossposted on Yourish.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Haveil Havalim is up at A Barbaric Yawp, one of the best-named blogs, ever. Go read the many different bloggers writing about Israel and Jewish issues.
And forgive me, I forgot to link last week’s. It was at Jack’s, who works very hard for the money. Except we don’t pay him, so he just works hard. So you have a plethora of posts for your morning (and afternoon and evening) read. And that’s a good thing on this eve of Erev Rosh Hashanah.
Some quick picks:
I could never live in Israel. Israelis are so…
Imshin finds a great Selichot tune. And then there’s Bush Lied, Bees Died. Good research, Imshin.
The Atheist Jew finds that the world is full of nuts. Yeah, we already knew that.
Wait for the punchline on this one.
Now go surf the rest yourselves.
In an interview with Neil MacFarqhar of the NYT, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had the following exchange:
NYT: On another subject, you are a Persian; you are not an Arab. Your country has never directly at least fought a war with Israel, and yet you seem obsessed by the Jews. Why?
President Ahmadinejad: We have nothing to do with their business at all. Jewish people live in Iran; they have lived there historically. They have a representative in our Parliament. Although there are only 20,000 people, they still have one representative in Parliament. Whereas for the rest of the population you have a minimum requirement of 150,000 people to have one representative. So the Jewish people are treated just like everyone else, like the Christians and the Muslims and the Zoroastrians. They are respected. Everyone is respected.
The question is really over Zionism. Zionism is not Judaism. It is a political party. It is a very secretive political party, which is the root cause of insecurity and wars. For 60 years in our region people have been killed, they have been threatened for 60 years, they have been aggressed upon for 60 years. Several large wars have occurred. A large number of territories there are occupied. More than five million people have been displaced and become refugees. Women and children are attacked in their own homes. They demolish homes over the heads of women and children with bulldozer, in their own house, in their own homeland. These are not crimes that one can shut ones eyes to. We disagree with these criminal acts and we announce it loud and clear. The anger of the U.S. government does not prevent us from saying loud and clear what we think about these acts. As long as these crimes are not rooted out we will continue voicing our concern.
I thought the interview was rather good. MacFarqhar did not follow up, but let Ahmadinejad talk. Many of his answers ranged from denial to non-responsiveness. MacFarqhar did not have to follow up because the responses spoke volumes. Or as MacFarqhar put it in a companion piece:
He was distinctly less forthcoming about domestic problems in Iran. At one point when he started to grow testy while being pressed about economic problems under his administration, an aide sitting at his elbow advised him in Persian to stay calm while answering.
I’m reasonably certain that MacFarqhar speaks Arabic, this little observation suggests that he understand Persian too. “Less forthcoming” is a bit of an understatement. And of course Friday’s Qud’s Day celebrations gave lie to Ahmadinejad’s claim that it is Zionists not Jews he opposes.
Presumably on Friday, the world’s news photographers had no other purpose than to photograph Quds day demonstrations.
Iran however had its own way of celebrating - by denying the Holocaust.
Iranian students have released a book containing cartoons of the Holocaust, including some depicting hospitalized Jews on respiratory machines attached to canisters of Zyklon B, the gas used to exterminate Jews during World War II.
The students, members of a state militia, unveiled “Holocaust” in Tehran’s Palestine Square on Friday in the presence of Education Minister Ali Reza Ali-Ahmadi, during annual demonstrations calling for the retreat of “Zionists” from “occupied Palestine.”
The Post’s article first notes that Ahmadinejad spoke last week against Zionists but observes:
The book, however, talks explicitly of the history of the Jews “before, during and after the Holocaust.” The cartoons show caricatured Jews with large, hooked noses trying to fabricate evidence for the Holocaust, while the text states that the Nazi massacre has been highly exaggerated, makes fun of testimonials from survivors and accuses present-day Jews of trying to make money from the Holocaust.
The article ends with a quote from the sole Jewish member of the Iranian parliament saying saying that anti-Zionism, not antisemitism is the policy of the Iranian government. Of course he’s in an unenviable position. He may be in the Majlis, but he better say whatever the regime tells him. It’s true that on the surface he parroted Ahmadinejad’s lie, but anything else and he would have experienced the true “freedom” that Mad Mahmoud boasts about. Overall the Post’s report makes the case that Zionist means Jew to Ahmadinejad and the mullahcracy in Iran.
Related thoughts here and here.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
There is now a permanent American presence in Israel dedicated to keeping an eye on Iranian missile launches.
The U.S. Army’s European Command deployed an early-warning radar system in Israel last week along with a 120-member support team, the weekly Defense News reported.
The move marks the first permanent presence in Israel of American military personnel. The high-powered radar system is meant to augment Israel’s defenses against Iranian ground-to-ground missiles.
According to Defense News, more than a dozen transport aircraft delivered the radar, its ancillary systems, equipment and technicians, as well as maintenance and security specialists to the Nevatim Air Force Base in the Negev. It has not yet been made operational.
There are wheels within wheels within wheels in this decision.
The new radar will give Israel added minutes to respond to a missile launch, compared with the systems it currently uses. Assisted by data sent from American satellites, the system can detect Iranian missiles shortly after they are launched.
A link with the Arrow missile system makes it possible to launch a defensive missile, and increases the chance of intercepting the incoming missile while giving the home front more time to respond.
The deployment of the radar system may be understood in two contradictory ways. One is that it prevents Israel from taking independent action against Iran, which the United States has made clear in recent months it opposes. The radar system, and Americans stationed here, will restrain Israel, which would be wary about launching an attack that would endanger U.S. personnel.
On the other hand, the deployment of the radar system strengthens Israel’s defense against missiles if Israel and/or the United States attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities. The defense system could reduce casualties and damage to the home front from a response by Iran and its allies.
This would give decision-makers more freedom to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Defense officials said they had made arrangements to receive the equipment and personnel in “record time” - two months from the July talks.
Given that the military never truly tips its hands, and that I don’t believe the Guardian piece from last week that said that George W. Bush denied a request by Israel to attack Iran, this is an important piece of the puzzle to determining the American/Israeli response to Tehran’s threats to destroy Israel. If I were a military pundit, I’d have something to tell you. But I’m not.
I thought that America and Israel were going to attack the nuclear plants together, or even have U.S. jets painted Israeli blue and white (go look at some of my much older posts). I do believe I’m wrong about that. I can’t begin to make a guess any more. I’m going to learn how it plays out like most of the rest of the world—as it happens.
But I do feel better knowing that there are American soldiers with sophisticated radar and missile defense systems in Israel, keeping an eye on Iran (and probably other nations as well). Just wait until the Buchananites and the other Jew-haters get a load of this.
Two Bedouin would-be thugs found out the hard way that Israeli pilots are prepared for combat.
Around 8:30 am, while the pilot was traveling to the Nevatim army base near the town of Arad, two cars driven by two Bedouins approached the pilot’s car. One Bedouin drove passed the pilot at high speed and then stopped abruptly. Later, the two Bedouins attempted to force the pilot’s car to the side of the road. During this entire incident, the pilot was signaling to the other drivers that they were behaving dangerously and that he would not take part in this game.
At one point the Bedouins managed to forced the pilot to stop the car at the side of the road. They subsequently approached his car with bats.
When the pilot got out of his car, one of the Bedouins attempted to slap him. Unfortunately for the attackers, it turned out that the pilot is not only proficient in flying aircraft, but also in hand-to-hand combat. After a short struggle, both Bedouins were on the ground, moaning in pain.
The moral of the story: Don’t mess with Israeli pilots. Especially ones proficient in Krav Maga.
This is why actors should stick to writing scripts.
I keep trying to figure out why Obama — who I so admire, seems to underwhelm in these debates. All I can come up with is that while everyone else aims up for these events — they aim to score, to excite, to appeal — Obama, who is so brilliant, has such understanding of the issues at play, such insight in how to re-shape where we are and how to proceed where we need to go… it seems like all his energy is spent pushing down: containing his thoughts. Suppressing the 20 sub-thoughts that follow each main thought. Speaking in measured tones lest he be perceived elitist or too academic. Keeping in check his healthy sense of the absurd — like when he kept trying to get a word in with McCain plowing away - - actually saying , “John…? Uh John…? Like a guy who’s lost the connection then just smiles and hangs up without re-dialing.
Really. The fact that he can put this on Huffington Post and not feel the least bit embarrassed just boggles my mind.
Jim Treacher pointed it out to me.
In fact, Jim Treacher has been posting quite a lot of funny things about the election. You should read them.
Well, I think McCain did all right, but he could have done better.
But one thing that utterly set my teeth on edge was Obama’s continually calling Senator McCain, “John.” You know, show some respect and give the man his title. He gave you yours.
Overall, though, I loved the format. I want to see a knockdown, drag-out like that. More and better next time.
Update: See, I wasn’t alone in being annoyed.
More than one person noticed that Obama repeatedly referred to McCain as “John.” It seems that Obama has picked up this bad habit from his running mate.
During the primaries the RNC did research and found that Hillary gained sympathy from listeners when her opponent called her by her first name instead of “Senator Clinton.” They heard it a sign of disrespect. Biden regularly refers to McCain as “John” often following the words, “my friend.” (With friends like these…)
It’s a small, but noticeable, tick and it sounds patronizing when Biden does it. “Folks” (to use another favorite politician’s tick) noticed that Obama now does it, too.
via Solomonia.
CAIR is fighting the distribution of Obsession by filing a complaint with the FEC, which leads Robert Spencer to observe:
This is a very revealing action for CAIR to take. It reveals in particular two key aspects of CAIR’s mindset:
1. It shows that CAIR is fully aware that the jihad against Israel is an integral part of the global jihad, and is not just a struggle to recover Palestinian “stolen land.” Thus a film that reveals the nature and goals of that global jihad — Obsession — benefits Israel.
2. It also shows that CAIR believes that John McCain will fight against the global jihad in a way that Barack Obama will not — and that it believes therefore the distribution of an anti-jihad film, which in a sane world would be welcomed by both the Left and the Right since the global jihad wishes to destroy and remake the West utterly, must be some partisan plot.
CAIR’s complaint echoed here is that the video is encouraging people to support McCain. (via memeorandum)
If it does, it’s clearly not doing it openly. However Seth Leibsohn makes a point about the bipartisanship shown on “Obsession.”
But not all newspapers are accepting the advertisement. And in the quest to keep the DVD out of the hands of too many Americans, some journalists are betraying their own ignorance. Take Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. Olbermann recently said Obsession is “neocon pornography.” I can only imagine what Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz must have thought of this comment, he being one of the most prominently featured experts in the documentary. Professor Alan Dershowitz, a supporter of Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama, and an opponent of the Iraq war, would be just about the last person to think of himself as a neoconservative.
Maybe ask Dershowitz if he thinks this is campaigning? My guess is that if he thought it was, he’d have objected up front.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Mad Mahmoud told his dinner of religious fools leaders yesterday that Zionism—the establishment and maintenance of a state for the Jewish people—has nothing to do with the Jewish people.
Ahmadinejad rejected accusations he was anti-Semitic, saying his criticism was aimed at the “Zionist regime” for its oppression of the Palestinians rather than at Jews.
“As soon as anyone objects to the behavior of the Zionist regime, they’re accused of being anti-Semitic, whereas the Jewish people are not Zionists,” Ahmadinejad said. “Zionism is a political party that has nothing to do with Jewish people.”
This would be a surprise to Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, who said that the establishment of a Jewish state was necessary for the survival of the Jewish people.
This would be a surprise to all Jews but the ones who repudiate Israel’s ties to Judaism.
But that’s getting sidetracked. Ahmadinejad is trying to get the world to agree with him that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. If he can accomplish that goal, then he has accomplished his goal of utterly separating Jews from the State of Israel, thereby achieving his goal—the “de-Judaization” of Israel. And if he achieves that goal, then Israel cannot exist in the eyes of Mad Mahmoud and his allies. And his allies are legion. They are the ones who sat through his anti-Semitic speech to the UN on Tuesday, and who applauded the man who blamed “Zionists” for all the evils of the world. Even Reuters can’t stomach the naked anti-Semitism, and has come up with this boilerplate for his speech:
On Tuesday the Iranian leader railed against “Zionist murderers” in a speech at the UN General Assembly, dwelling on what he described as Zionist control of international finance, echoing the libel that blamed a world Jewish conspiracy for all the world’s troubles.
But of course, that isn’t enough to get Reuters to, say, quote a Jewish leader in response to Mad Mahmoud’s anti-Semitism.
And the Iranian mission continues. Did the religious leaders object to his trying to separate Jews from Zionism?
I’m betting not.
Pamela requested kitty pictures. Gee, twist my arm. I can’t put the p-word into the title. But check out some of these poses by Mr. Tig. First, the view from my office chair earlier this week. Or was it last week? I can’t remember.
Next, Miss Gracie, on the bathroom vanity, which is where she goes to be petted. Often. She’s talking to me again. She meows a lot, usually, but she stopped for a while after we moved here. She’s getting more comfortable.
Now, for something different: Janet and Chris’s cat Kes (at least, I hope it’s Kes) in one of the only pictures where she did not have weird, glowing eyes.
And last, Mr. Tig’s tail in all its glory. He’s over nine pounds now, and I’m starting to think a whole pound of him is his tail. Oh, and he likes my tub. And the shower stall downstairs. He nearly slipped into it the other day, which would have been funny for me, but I think not for him. I was taking a shower in it at the time. He reared up on his hind legs and the door started sliding open. I stopped it that time. Next time, we’ll just have to see. He doesn’t seem to mind water much. But he sure likes sitting in a dry tub.
There you go. Early Caturday pictures.
I’ve been reading Megan McArdle a lot lately in an attempt to understand the current financial crisis. In one of her posts, I’m trying to decide if I’m a bad, bad person, or if I just happened to buy my condo at just the right moment and lucked out on price and interest rates.
It’s hard to tell.
I feel bad for the homeowners, and outraged that so many people got gigantic sums of money for screwing up the financial system. But that money’s gone. The mortgage bankers have already mostly lost their jobs, because their market (and often their firm) collapsed. Much of the outrageous compensation was in now worthless (or nearly worthless) company stock. And even if we dun, say, the top executives at Bear, Lehman, and AIG (I’m not opposed to doing so if it’s legal), we will get only a trivial fraction of the money lost in these markets. You know who made most of the money on the subprime bubble? Anyone who bought a house in the last ten years. Yes, that’s right, you, with your low fixed interest rate on a reasonably sized house. You’re the profiteer who laughed all the way to the bank.
I’m laughing all the way to the bank? I’m a profiteer? But—but—I saved my money, I paid down my debt, I waited until I found a mortgage I could afford, and I bought my house.
People were gambling on the housing market–nice, middle class people who would never carry a gigantic credit card balance or declare bankruptcy. In the face of the housing bubble, they took out ARMs they knew they couldn’t afford to pay when the teaser reset, in the hope that rising home equity would let them refinance. (A fair number of them got away with it, too.) When pressed on this behavior, they claimed they had to because otherwise they couldn’t afford a house–as if renting were a physical or moral impossibility.
Borrowers were not brought down by predatory lending. The terms that are causing trouble were clearly laid out in their loan term sheets, right on the top of their mortgage package. Borrowers were brought down by a willingness to gamble on rising home prices–exactly the same thing that knocked out Lehman Brothers. At least Lehman Brothers had the excuse that ten years of rising prices had completely screwed up their default models.
Bailing out home gamblers by freezing their mortgage rates, extending their loan terms, or otherwise forcing the banks to give them free money, will teach them the same thing we are trying hard not to teach Wall Street: if you gamble big enough, Uncle Sam will pick up your losses. Moreover, it’s not exactly the cleverest idea to levy a huge regulatory taking on an industry that’s already really shaky, and threatening to take the rest of us down with it in the event of a collapse.
Any bailout should not aim to help either homeowners or lenders for their own sake–we are helping them because if we don’t, the rest of us will suffer more than the cost of the bailout. The health of the Fort Meyer housing market is not the proper province of the federal government, no matter how distressing the locals may find it.
Okay, well, I don’t have an ARM, I didn’t buy a house too big for my pocketbook (though to be honest, I could have gotten a smaller condo and been happy enough in it, but hey, it was in my price range, and I really do love the extra room), and I didn’t gamble on home prices going up. So I guess she’s not talking about me after all. But that surely is an odd way of calling out the villains in this piece: People who took advantage of lower interest rates to buy a home, or refinance their higher mortgage, and had the finances to keep it. I don’t think that’s quite right. There are executives out there who have pocketed millions of dollars that are not in worthless stock options. They’re the bad guys. Not my friends who built a new home six years ago and refinanced it during the falling interest rates period.
I’m not going to need bailing out, but I will be one of the ones paying for it, I’m sure.
Apparently, all I have to do is hold out until the new Jeep hybrids hit the market.
When they get to the 2-door Wrangler, I am so there.
The MSM and world have been rather silent about Ahmadinejad’s anti-semitism. Some tools even thought to take a picture with him, as if he were some cuddly celebrity, not a madman with designs on genocide. Or even really bad on human rights.
Fortunately On Faith columnists actually showed intolerance for intolerance (for a change):
Thursday’s dinner is framed as an “international dialogue” on the topic, “Has Not One God Created Us? The Significance of Religious Contributions to Peace.” President Ahmadinejad has manipulated such dialogues repeatedly into a platform for spreading intolerance, and there is no reason to think that this event will be any different.
It is disturbing enough that a leader who has worked so ruthlessly to close off channels for free expression at home should be given an opening to expound his views here. But the invitation to President Ahmadinejad comes amid a rapidly accelerating deterioration of religious freedom and other human rights in Iran, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions often based on the religion of the accused.
The Iranian Parliament currently is finalizing a new Penal Code that for the first time would legally enshrine the death penalty for so-called apostasy, putting the members of many religious minority communities at grave risk. More than 20 Baha’is currently are in prison in Iran on account of their religious identity, and two Christian men were charged with apostasy earlier this month.
However unlike the columnists who are correct in this case, I see now reason to ascribe good intentions to the religious groups who will sup with Ahmadinejad tonight. They aren’t misguided. They’re evil.
Anne Bayefsky had some harsh but fitting words for the tolerance shown Ahmadinejad:
In its entire history, the United Nations General Assembly has never adopted a resolution dedicated to denouncing and combating the scourge of antisemitism in all its forms. Now we know why. Less than half of U.N. members are fully free democracies and among them there is no consensus that discrimination and demonization of Jews and the Jewish state is wrong.
On the contrary, at the U.N. vicious antisemitism is met by a round of applause.
The tolerance of tyranny was even too much for Ha’aretz:
Ahmadinejad’s fourth visit to New York was held against the backdrop of the disintegration of the international effort to impose sanctions on his country in an attempt to curb its nuclear program. According to an assessment by Military Intelligence presented to the cabinet this week, Iran is “galloping toward a nuclear bomb” and mastering the technology for enriching uranium, while the diplomatic and economic battle against it is ineffective.
Israel is justifiably concerned about the naivete with which Ahmadinejad was received by the American media, as well as the world’s growing tendency to view him as a legitimate leader and cease efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear program. The calls by the Iranian president to destroy Israel deserve the strongest condemnation, and we must continue the diplomatic struggle against them.
Where’s were the editors of NYT and Washington Post? Did I miss something?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
The other day Eli Lake reported:
Call it Osama bin Laden’s “October surprise.” In late August, during the weekend between the Democratic and Republican conventions, America’s military and intelligence agencies intercepted a series of messages from Al Qaeda’s leadership to intermediate members of the organization asking local cells to be prepared for imminent instructions.
An official familiar with the new intelligence said the message was picked up in multiple settings, from couriers to encrypted electronic communications to other means. “These are generic orders,” the source said — a distinction from the more specific intelligence about the location, time, and method of an attack. “It was, ‘Be on notice. We may call upon you soon.’ It was sent out on many channels.”
The article also recalls:
In the week before the 2004 American presidential election, Mr. bin Laden recorded a video message to the American people promising repercussions if President Bush were re-elected. In later messages, Al Qaeda’s leader claimed credit for helping elect Mr. Bush in 2004.
If they made that claim that was an admission of failure because Bin Laden threatened to retaliate against all states that voted for Bush. The voters were not cowed.
Last year in Pakistan, Qaeda assassins claimed the life of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister who returned to her native country in a bid for re-election.
“There is an expectation that Al Qaeda will try to influence the November elections by attempting attacks globally,” a former Bush and Clinton White House counterterrorism official, Roger Cressey, said yesterday.
Mr. Cressey said Al Qaeda lacks the capability to pull off an attack in the continental United States, however. “It would likely be a higher Al Qaeda tempo of attacks against U.S. and allied targets abroad,” he said.
This is interesting. Apparently America’s counterterrorism efforts have been successful.
Q & O has a related poll.
Having to think about it my guess is that Al Qaeda attacks would benefit McCain and that Al Qaeda knows it, so it will refrain from attacking. This noise is just to keep in the news.
The Wonk Room thinks that Al Qaeda wants McCain to win also, because it will help its recruiting efforts.
But as Michael Totten points out:
Bin Laden’s lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri explicitly spelled out Al Qaeda’s strategy in Iraq on July 9, 2005. “The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq,” he said. “The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate—over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq.”
The war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq can plausibly be described as a distraction from the war against Al Qaeda. But the war against Al Qaeda in Iraq cannot possibly be accurately described as a distraction from the war against Al Qaeda.
And make no mistake: Al Qaeda’s manpower and resources have been thoroughly degraded from its disastrous fight with Americans and Iraqis, especially in Anbar Province which was briefly established as Al Qaeda’s “capital” of the so-called “Islamic State in Iraq.”
So maybe having a Republican in office is good for recruiting, but not for the continued success of Al Qaeda.
My guess, as stated above, is that Al Qaeda would rather have President Obama than President McCain, so I don’t expect any major attacks against American interests before the election. Al Qaeda couldn’t make good on its threat against America four years ago. With its organization further degraded, I can’t imagine that they’ll be any more successful this year. Assuming that they even want to try.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
The president of Iran stands in front of the world body whose charter calls for peace among nations and blames Jews for causing wars, working against world peace, worshipping only money, having no god—and the silence of the response is deafening. Not a single world leader outside Israel or the U.S. condemned the speech.
There’s a laughable piece in Ynet that says they did:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic address to the United Nations General Assembly has incurred the wrath of many public figures worldwide.
Really? Name six. Israelis and Jews don’t count. The only non-American, non-Israeli I can find condemning the speech is the French foreign minister. Who is frowning heavily in Iran’s direction.
Talking to reporters at the UN headquarters, Kouchner said, “We are tired of condemning the Iranian president’s speeches.”
Yeah, so am I. But besides Kouchner, there’s no one else. And his words are hollow. Russia isn’t going to allow the UNSC to vote for more sanctions. Have France and Germany pulled their business out of Iran yet? The EU? Is there a true boycott of Iran ongoing?
Not so much that Iran is backing off on building its nuclear reactor as fast as possible.
Juan Cole, the left’s leading apologist for Ahmadinejad, managed to write an entire article without mentioning the naked anti-Semitism in the UN speech. He condemned Obama—for condemning Ahmadinejad. He writes of Obama’s rejection of Ahmadinejad’s words:
He also fell into the trap of declining to make a distinction between anti-Zionist views and anti-Semitic ones.
I suppose the learned professor doesn’t think that this is anti-Semitism:
This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will.
Why? Because Mad Mahmoud used the word “Zionist” instead of “Jewish”?
Reuters managed to cover Mahmoud’s meeting with the nutcase Neturei Karta, his pet anti-Zionist Jews. And managed to find the anti-Semitism in Mahmoud’s speech. Perhaps Juan Cole should read Reuters instead of the AP.
Ahmadinejad railed against “Zionist murderers” in his speech at the UN General Assembly, dwelling on what he described as Zionist control of international finance, echoing the libel that blamed a world Jewish conspiracy for all the world’s troubles.
But I still see no major condemnations from world leaders. The EU? Britain? The UN? No, wait. There was applause for the speech.
I checked the websites of the WCC, the Quakers, and the Mennonites, the groups that broke bread with Ahmadinejad last night. There was not a word objecting to his speech. As usual, we Jews are pretty much on our own.
People like to think we exaggerate the danger of this representative of the Iranian Mullahcracy. He says nothing that has not been approved by the Ayatollahs. He smiles and lies to reporters and fools like the Mennonites and Quakers who break bread with him. But Iran is the nation that sponsored a conference specifically to “disprove” the Holocaust. Iran is the nation that held “A World Without Zionism” conference, at which Mahmoud also said how great it would be to have a world without America (picture at the link).
He’s following the same plan Hitler followed. First, dehumanize your enemy. Get everyone to think of them as less than you. Demonize them, their actions, everything they do. Condemn them in world forums. Speak lie after lie after lie, until the lies you speak are passed along as truth (cf.: Juan Cole). Then, when you start killing them, the world won’t care. Because it will be the fault of the “acquisitive and invasive people” who are preventing world peace. Not the fault of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who supplied weapons and training to jihadists in Iraq and are now doing the same in Afghanistan. Not the fault of the Iranians, who sponsor Hamas, Hezbullah, Islamic Jihad, and who knows how many other terrorist groups worldwide. It will be done with the willing help of morons like Larry King, who repeat the Iranian lies during an interview where he tells Ahmadinejad “You don’t want to see Israelis die,” in spite of the fact that Iran does want to see Israelis die, and has killed Israelis, via its proxy armies (cf.: Lebanon, 2006, Hamas, PIJ).
This is the fourth year in a row we’ve had to suffer from the Iranian propaganda front. You’d think they’d learn.
You would be mistaken.
Looks like the Palestinians are trying to create a new weapon: The automobile and its relatives.
IDF forces thwarted an attempt by Palestinians to run over a group of soldiers on Wednesday, near the West Bank village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah. No injuries or damage were reported in the incident.
Four Palestinians traveling in three vehicles, including a bulldozer, broke through an army roadblock at around 3 pm and attempted to plow the vehicles into the soldiers.
The troops responded in accordance with military suspect apprehension protocol and proceeded to open fire.
The good news is that no soldiers were hurt, and the terrorists were captured.
Expect more of these, as the Palestinians seem to think they’re the new “It” weapon. Thankfully, no one was killed in the last attack, either. But seventeen were wounded. And the media, of course, play down the seriousness and effect of the terror attacks.
Cars may work as a weapon in a crowded street, but not so much at a checkpoint with armed and ready soldiers.
Noah Pollak notes that now a majority of Palestinians object to a two-state solution and observes:
If a poll found that the majority of Israelis rejected the two-state solution, it would make headlines around the world. Yet when repeated polls of Palestinians find solid majority support for terrorism against Israel and rejection of peace with Israel, nobody even has the chance to bat an eye, because nobody hears about it.
Actually I’ve read news articles lately that mention that Palestinians are despairing of the two state solution. But the media doesn’t see this as outrageous because they - blame Israel. So I’m not sure the fact that it’s bad that this news hasn’t been widely reported.
Take a look, for example, at this opinion piece by Sari Nusseibeh:
Israelis have long described their West Bank settlements–long fingers of territory that stretch along the north-south and east-west axes, serviced by highways, electrical networks, etc.–as organic extensions of the Israeli community. But Israeli construction has (again according to Peace Now) increased by 550 percent in the past year. This building, combined with that of the nearly complete separation wall or barrier, and reports that Israel wishes to maintain security control along the eastern edge of the Jordan Valley, sends another message: that Israel plans to hold onto the land for good. Combine this with the still unaddressed refugee problem, and it’s no wonder many former two-staters are giving up hope.
It is important to remember that the Palestinian national movement only began to endorse the idea of a two-state solution 20 or 30 years ago, as a practical compromise. Realizing that Israel wasn’t going anywhere, moderates decided that their best hope for a state was one alongside Israel, not one that sought to replace it. Yet the 15 years of negotiations that have followed have produced little, and thus it’s no surprise that faith in this supposedly pragmatic option is waning. The lack of progress, as well as the unmistakably expansionist reality on the ground and the growth in popularity of Hamas, have left little room for anyone seeking a positive future for Palestine. Except, that is, to rejuvenate the old idea of one binational, secular and democratic state where Jewish and Arab citizens live side by side in equality.
Nusseibeh, a leading “moderate,” says that advocates of the bi-national state have come to their conclusion as a result of frustration that they’ve gained nothing in the past 15 years.
It’s a common refrain, and if the media picked up the results of the poll, that’s exactly how they’d frame it.
But what Nusseibeh ignores is that in 15 years Israel’s come quite far where what’s now considered mainstream was, back then, the view of the far left. (Rabin never endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state.)
And where are the Palestinian after 15 years. Here’s Shmuel Rosner explaining a recent article by Mahmoud Abbas:
A guide to the perplexed:
Enormous historic compromise: We already did our share, and we’re done compromising. It’s now Israel’s turn.
further erodes this tiny territory: No 93%, no 96%, not even 99%. Abbas wants 100% of the West Bank.
repackages the occupation: No settlement blocks should remain in Judea and Samaria.
sovereign, independent and viable: We will not accept an agreement that will limit our sovereignty. Thus, the Palestinians will reject Israel’s demands to have a demilitarized Palestinian state and will refuse to give Israel security rights along the border with Jordan. Security arrangements are the least debated part of the Israeli-Palestinian future agreement– most commentators tend to focus on the more sexy problems of territory, refugees and Jerusalem. However, reaching an agreement on security matters will be crucial to any future agreement, and it seems as if Abbas has just raised the bar.
Understand that first one. The historic compromise was accepting Israel’s right to exist. In other words the Palestinians as represented by their “moderate” political leader, considers that a compromise. But in any other set of international negotiations the legitimacy of your partner is an assumption of those negotiations. But to the Palestinians, that is a compromise.
Thus anything that fails to meet Palestinian demands justifies violence.
And there are those who continually equate the building of “settlements” with terrorism, as if the former justifies the latter. These people, of course, aren’t helping the cause of peace but the cause of Palestinian irredentism.
The peace process since 1993 has always been subject to the Palestinian veto. The premise in most of the diplomatic, academic and journalistic worlds is that Israel’s legitimacy depends on remedying all Palestinian grievances, thus all concessions from Israel are good for Israel, never mind the cost. Of course without making any serious demands on the Palestinians, all this has done is to cause the Palestinians to treat the peace process as a one-sided giveaway.
The poll showing the lack of Palestinian interest in a two state solutiono will be treated the same way as all those polls showing Palestinian support for terror: as proof that Israel has failed to make the necessary “sacrifices for peace.”
Maybe there hasn’t been much about it so far, but more will be reported. And when it is reported it will be used to show that Israel hasn’t done enough. Any suggestion that this poll just reflects the deeply held Palestinian belief that Jews have no right to the land of Israel or never have been interested in peace won’t be reported.
It’s just the state of mendacity of the Palestinians and their allies.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
He seems to really enjoy the SEAL training.
Whoops, that’s “seal” not “SEAL.”
Soccer? Not going so well.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
It will be short but sweet: Independent reports on the terror attack in Jerusalem (September 22):
Police said the incident was a “terror attack”…A rescue worker said the group of pedestrians was about to cross a road near the so-called Green Line separating the Arab and Jewish areas of Jerusalem when a black BMW struck them just before 11pm.
That’s it, nothing more to see or to add. Comments will be unnecessary.
Cross-posted on SimplyJews.
Yesterday, the President of Iran gave a speech to the United Nations that was, of course, widely quoted in the wire services and mainstream media. However, the words below were not widely quoted by the wire services, particularly not the words in bold. Reuters featured some of the language—in a story headlined “Iran vows to resist U.S. ‘bullying’,” then updated to “Ahmadinejad rails against Zionists, US bullying.” The first story features almost none of the quotes. The second story is barely making the rounds, and was updated after many newspapers that carry Reuters have already had their world news pages designed. The Associated Press barely noted the naked anti-Semitism displayed by Mad Mahmoud.
The lives, properties and rights of the people of Georgia and Ossetia and Abkhazia are victims of the tendencies and provocations of NATO and certain western powers, military agreements, and the underhanded actions of the Zionists.
[...] The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support.
This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will.
[...] The thoughts and deeds of those who think they are superior to others and consider others as second-class and inferior; who intend to remain out of the divine circle, to be the absolute slaves of their materialistic and selfish desires, who intend to expand their aggressive and domineering natures, constitute the roots of today’s problems in human societies. They are the great hindrances to the actualization of material and spiritual prosperity and to security, peace and brotherhood among nations.
There is no air whatsoever between Ahmadinejad’s words, and the words of Adolf Hitler and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. No, wait. There is one major difference. The one word missing from his speech is “Jew,” and it is missing deliberately—because then the Iranians can pretend that when they say “Zionists,” they don’t mean “Jews.” They can say that they’re not against the Jewish people. Only the “Zionists.” And yet, the use of classic anti-Semitic phrasing and imagery is near-letter-perfect. Let’s take a quick recount:
And last, but not least on the checklist: Not published in any major media report on the speech?
Check and mate.
When all else fails, PETA is using boobies to draw attention to themselves.
Burlington, Vt. - This morning, PETA dispatched a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of ice cream icon Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., urging them to replace the cow’s milk in their products with human breast milk. PETA’s request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow’s milk in the food he serves. PETA points out to Cohen and Greenfield that such a move on their part would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health at the same time.
“The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn’t make sense,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Everyone knows that ‘the breast is best,’ so Ben & Jerry’s could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk.”
I predict a torrent of shuddering, followed by a deluge of laughter, ending in udder failure. (Why, yes, I did have to make that pun. Why do you ask?)
Loved the BBC headline from yesterday’s terror attack in Jerusalem:
Jerusalem car ‘attack’ hurts 15
Here’s how the story starts:
At least 15 people have been injured in an apparent attack in Jerusalem, Israeli police say.
They say a man drove his car into a group of people at a busy intersection, before being shot and killed by an armed bystander.
Rescue services took the injured to local hospitals. Police described the incident as a “terror attack”.
Here’s how Batya remembers a similar attack:
I remember noticing a badly driven car approaching, but I didn’t think he’d mount the sidewalk and run over us. I turned my back on it and planned on telling a neighbor that “Even if he’s going to Shiloh, we’re not getting in.” She looked up and then saw him ram into me and I was knocked down. She was unharmed, as he had turned sharp left on my foot and mowed down people the length of the sidewalk. I was still on the ground when I suddenly heard shooting.
Even then news reports tried to play down the terror angle. But the people at the receiving end of the attack knew what it was.
Here’s another classic of the genre:
Four hurt in ‘acid attack’ at West Bank checkpoint
Look, if the reporters were unconvinced of the substance, put “acid” in quotes, but it was a clear attack. But this was serious in that the soldier attacked has lost sight in one eye.
An IDF soldier has lost sight in one of his eyes after a Palestinian woman attacked him with acid at the Hawara checkpoint on Monday afternoon. The checkpoint is located south of the West Bank city of Nablus.
It’s also worth pointing out to those who wish Israel to remove checkpoints, that the assailant took advantage of the humanitarian lanes for quick passage through the checkpoint.
However this story remarkably had absolutely no scare quotes:
The cash-strapped Palestinian government on Monday received pledges of nearly $300 million in new aid on top of more than $7 billion promised last year, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said.
So let me rewrite that paragraph with some appropriate scare quotes:
The “cash-strapped” Palestinian “government” on Monday received “pledges” of nearly $300 million in new aid on top of more than $7 billion promised last year, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said.
The Palestinians likely have more cash than they admit. They receive the highest amount of foreign aid per capita in the world. They’ve received plenty and they’ve squandered it.
They ought to first turn to the estate of Yasser Arafat instead of to the international community. Then they ought to start turning to their top official who have been embezzling foreign aid for years. And the PA ought to stop paying the salaries of the Hamas thugs in Gaza.
Except for some limited areas there is no effective Palestinian government. About the only thing Fayyad does well is ask for handouts.
And finally, most of those pledges (often from Arab countries who care so much for their Palestinians brothers) are not fulfilled. The article later on notes:
At a Paris conference last December, donors pledged $7.7 billion in aid over the next three years, but the Palestinians say only a fraction of that money has been paid.
It’s remarkable the way the media will use scare quotes when dealing with terror against Israel, but when it comes to the phony (or at least self-inflicted) Palestinian financial crisis, they solemnly in pronouncing a crisis without the least bit of skepticism.
When will the media get serious about covering the Middle East instead of covering up for the Palestinians?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
*This post is now complete*
Clyde Haberman starts off well:
Once a year, the Israel-threatening, Holocaust-denying, nuke-building and child-hanging president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, comes to New York for the opening ceremonies of the United Nations General Assembly.
Many New Yorkers don’t like having him around. But they have no choice. Foreign leaders must be allowed to attend these sessions, no matter how Israel-threatening, Holocaust-denying, nuke-building and child-hanging they may be.
Glad he recognizes what Ahmadinejad is.
However, the article goes down from there. Haberman leaves out the part that the organizers did invite Biden who was otherwise occupied. And it’s nice of him dismiss that the whole episode angered “some Jews on the right.” Nice way to disparage those you disagree with. But of course he doesn’t mention the organized effort by Democrats to sink the Palin speech. And then he offers this observation:
But people on the left saw no equivalence between the Democratic senator and the Republican governor. Only one of them is a candidate. Inviting Ms. Palin, they charged, tilted the rally toward the Republican national ticket — an impression not likely to be dispelled by the many signs on Monday supporting Senator John McCain and none backing Senator Barack Obama.
Game. Set. Match to the Left.
Not so fast. In reaction to the partisan tactics of the left, many on the right stayed away. That’s an observation that Atlas made. So if the right wing groups stayed away, how was it that there were more McCain signs than Obama signs?
1) As a reaction to the partisan maneuvering of those allied with the Obama campaign, quite a few protesters of Ahmadinejad registered their dissatisfaction with the campaign that politicized the event.
2) The left wing groups had little interest in attending if Sen. Clinton wasn’t speaking.
Overall Haberman’s observation is based on a false assumption that because there were more McCain signs after the flap, it meant that the protest was partisan in its planning.
Gateway Pundit has more.
Caroline Glick distilled things with doesn’t pull her punches when assigning blame to the likes of the NDJC and J-Street.
LIBERAL AMERICAN Jews, like liberal Americans in general, and indeed like their fellow leftists in Israel and throughout the West, uphold themselves as champions of human rights. They claim that they care about the underdog, the wretched of the earth. They care about the environment. They care about securing American women’s unfettered access to abortions. They care about keeping Christianity and God out of the public sphere. They care about offering peace to those who are actively seeking their destruction so that they can applaud themselves for their open-mindedness and tell themselves how much better they are than savage conservatives.
Those horrible, war-mongering, Bambi killing, unborn baby defending, God-believing conservatives, who think that there are things worth going to war to protect, must be defeated at all costs. They must intimidate, attack, demonize and defeat those conservatives who think that the free women of the West should be standing shoulder to shoulder not with Planned Parenthood, but with the women of the Islamic world who are enslaved by a misogynist Shari’a legal code that treats them as slaves and deprives them of control not simply of their wombs, but of their faces, their hair, their arms, their legs, their minds and their hearts.
The lives of 6 million Jews in Israel are today tied to the fortunes of those women, to the fortunes of American forces in Iraq, to the willingness of Americans across the political and ideological spectrum to recognize that there is more that unifies them than divides them and to act on that knowledge to defeat the forces of genocide, oppression, hatred and destruction that are led today by the Iranian regime and personified in the brutal personality of Ahmadinejad. But Jewish Democrats chose to ignore this basic truth in order to silence Palin.
Solomonia writes somewhat more generally, but in the same vein.
And when it comes down to it, it’s not Jews in Israel that motivates Democrats, and it’s not Jews in America that motivates them either. It’s their own power. It’s their own little dinners, and board memberships, and their silly narcissistic college freshman platitudes…that’s what motivates them. And when they finally get around to looking out the window, their bogeyman isn’t an Iran armed with nuclear weapons led by a Holocaust-denying antisemitic America-hater…it’s “conservatives.” Ahmadinejad is, after all, an ocean away, but it’s conservatives here at home that prevent them from inflicting their peculiar vision of the worker’s paradise on all of the rest of us.
That may put an end to the gloating from J Street, anyway
That would be a good result from all of this.
Given that they claim to speak for American Jewry (and that was the pretext they used for opposing Palin’s speech, this result doesn’t look too good for them, does it? Too many more victories like this and that poll of Jewish New Yorkers may not be an outlier much longer.
Daled Amos links to an interview of Malcolm Hoenlein.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
First his two sons were murdered. Now he faces prosecution. The reason for Mithal al-Alusi’s troubles? Visiting Israel and advocating peace with the Jewish state - something Iraq’s leaders refuse to consider.
The Iraqi is at the center of a political storm after his fellow lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strip him of his immunity and allow his prosecution for visiting Israel - a crime punishable by death under a 1950s-era law. Such a fate is unlikely for al-Alusi, though he may lose his party’s sole seat in parliament.
Because he had visited Israel, many Iraqis assume the maverick legislator was the real target of the assassins who killed his sons in 2005 while he escaped unharmed.
The State Department in its infinite fecklessness refuses to get involved, claiming that this is an internal Iraq matter.
Israel Matzav covered this first, so let’s quote him:
Is this what hundreds of American troops died for in Iraq? To create yet another Arab country that lives in the 8th century in eternal hatred of Jews (and rest assured that Christians will be next on the list).
Powerline seems resigned to the State Department’s refusal to say anything:
Meanwhile, the US Embassy has nothing substantive to say on the subject. This “is an issue for the Iraqi parliament, not the US Mission to Iraq,” said spokesman Armand Cucciniello. That’s not an unreasonable response, I suppose, as long as all we’re talking about is expulsion from parliament.
via memeorandum
But as Max Boot observed last week:
It is hard not to be a little awed by extreme courage like this. Some may say that Alusi is being foolish and counter-productive, and there is perhaps an element of truth to that charge, but every nation needs a few people like him who are willing to risk everything in the name of a higher cause without the slightest regard for self-preservation. In this case, his cause is our cause: He wants Iraq to be a Western liberal state that would be closely allied with the United States against Sunni and Shiite extremists. Although he may be a lonely voice in Iraq, he is hardly alone, as seen from the fact that he did manage to win a parliamentary seat as the only representative of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation which he leads. It is imperative that the U.S. government do what it can to help and protect him.
By assuming that the lesser punishment will be removal from Parliament is what’s being discussed and being quiet, the State Department is doing more damage than it (or Powerline) realizes. As Boot points out, Alusi was elected to a seat in Parliament. What does it say to those who support his party that the United States isn’t willing to speak up for them?
Israel Matzav also refers to the story of an Egyptian boy, who’s being denied medication on account of: that it will have to be imported from Israel, with much the same reaction:
Israel signed a ‘peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, and completed the turnover of every last inch of the Sinai Peninsula in 1982. As a result of that treaty, Egypt is now the third largest recipient of American foreign aid after Iraq and Israel. One has to wonder about the purposes for which the Americans are spending their foreign aid money, and what advantage is to be gained by Israel out of making peace with an Arab country (let alone the ‘Palestinians’) if this is the result.
Nearly 30 years later, Egypt despite the fact that it receives plenty of aid from the United States for making peace with Israel, still, in many ways treats Israel as an enemy. The United States remains quiet, not attaching any conditions to its aid. And this doesn’t even gain the United States goodwill on the Egyptian street.
If the United States really wants to see change in the Arab world, when will it start insisting on a change of attitude towards Israel instead of simply accepting Arab hatred of Israel as the natural order of things?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
A Russian religious group called Union of Russian Orthodox Citizens proposed promoting the Saint Alexander Nevsky to the role of the patron saint of FSB - the Russian federal security service, the main successor of KGB. Here is Alexander:
When you stop laughing at the mere idea of a saint overlooking the essentially dirty business of the (not so) august organ, consider the following:
(more…)
No spoilers in this post. Let me just say: Wow. What a setup for the season. What a bunch of power-packed revelations. And yet, what utterly predictable dialogue. You would think that I would have annoyed my hosts by uttering the lines before the actors did, but no. They were amused. Especially when I picked the major piece of stolen artwork.
Yeah, it comes from years of reading comic books. I could write this stuff. (But I like watching it more.)
Boy, what a lot of questions to ask. But I’ll save that for the comments, which people don’t get in their RSS feeds.
I’m not a big fan of Jackson Diehl. Earlier in his career he was the Israel correspondent for the Washington Post. More recently, he’s been a foreign affairs columnist for the paper. As columnist he has consistently favored Arab “reformers,” even when said reformers are virulently anti-Israel. (He’s advocated talking with the Muslim brotherhood because they’re reformers.) But now he’s listening to someone else in “Peace from the Bottom Up.”
Natan Sharansky and Bassam Eid have been suggesting something different.
The timeline for success would be measured in years, not months. The goal would not be a document that Livni and Abbas could sign but the construction of a healthy and vibrant Palestinian civil society — that is, independent media, courts, political parties and nongovernmental organizations that could stand behind a settlement with Israel.
The former Soviet refusenik and Israeli political gadfly Natan Sharansky has been proposing this course for years — mostly to the irritation of peace-process supporters in both Jerusalem and Washington.
Why are “peace processors” skeptical?
Some suspect Sharansky of touting his strategy because it would indefinitely delay the necessity of Israeli territorial concessions. Others blame him for talking President Bush into a fleeting policy of supporting Palestinian democracy that led to the victory of Hamas in legislative elections.
Well, that’s been the problem. Sharansky was never invested in empowering the likes of Arafat or Abbas, so he was against “peace.”
Diehl even plays up a point that I usually only read about at Elder of Ziyon:
By the count of Eid’s Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, 2,000 Palestinians have been killed by Palestinians in the past eight years, but not one suspected killer has been charged or brought to trial. In August, it says, one Palestinian was killed by Israel and 36 by other Palestinians.
Of course the bottom line is that this means that the peace processors - in governments, in academia and in the media - will have to abandon their very premise. They’ll have to acknowledge that the bet on Arafat and the PLO was a poor one.
But for every peace processor who insists that an agreement must be reached now, Sharansky has an answer:
“People say we don’t have three years,” Sharansky said. “But that same idea caused them to favor Arafat over reform” — and that was 15 years ago. “The same idea continues all the time: ‘We must back the Palestinian leader over building civil society.’ And the result is always the same.” On that broken record, at least, Sharansky is right.
I don’t know if this could work. Recently I blogged about a New York Times report on some efforts near Jenin to form some governing authority on the ground. Of course that was also related to Abbas, so it suffers from the same problem as peace processing has until now.
I’d also argue that this is similar to the approach advocated by Menachem Begin while he was Prime Minister. Begin was against allowing the PLO a foothold into Judea, Samaria and Gaza. After he read an article by a Professor Menachem Milson in Commentary, he asked Milson to be the civilian administrator of the territories. Milson’s plan was to create “village leagues” with whom Israel would deal instead of the elected politicians who were affiliated with the PLO.
The Labor Party during the 70’s had changed its policies allowing the PLO linked politicians to push out Jordanian linked politicians among the Palestinians. Begin sought to empower those who remained free from the PLO. The effort was met with condemnation - after all Begin sought to ignore the “sole legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people.” Those who joined the village leagues were often killed. And in the end Milson quit his position after the 1982 war in Lebanon started.
It’s important to note that the end point for Begin was not a Palestinian state but “autonomy,” presumably meaning that the Palestinians would have control over government services within their own cities, but would not be trusted with any security responsibilities. The idea of a Palestinian state at that time was reserved only for the left wing fringe in Israel. It’s a mark of how far Israel has come (for better or worse) that most of Israel now accepts a Palestinian state. It’s also a strong contrast to the Palestinian “moderates” for whom compromise remains a dirty word.
I’m aware that there are those who claim that Hamas evolved from the village leagues. I’m not sure that this is accurate. It makes a great story to say that Israel is responsible for Hamas, but the people designated for the village leagues were not as far as I know, Islamists.
Still the Sharanasky-Eid approach has the advantage of not following the same failed formula. The big problem is the number of people and institutions whose professional status and success is invested in failure and will, therefore, be unwilling to try something new.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
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