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.

In his J-Street primer for American audiences (an op-ed in the Washington Post), J-Street’s founder, Jeremy Ben Ami wrote:

Grateful as I am for decades of U.S. friendship with Israel, I have to wonder, as the state my father helped found turns 60, just who is defining what it means to be pro-Israel in the United States these days.

In other words he’s asking, who gives others the right to claim that I’m not pro-Israel?

So now, guess what? Mr. Ben Ami has defined who can be pro-Israel.

But as Noah Pollak observed last week, that’s exactly what J-Street was doing with Sarah Palin. They declared - with absolute certainty - since Gov. Palin did not represent the views of most Jews, she couldn’t speak out against Iran!

So apparently, according to J-Street, you can define who is pro-Israel, if you have the correct political beliefs.

We see a similar hypocrisy with the NDJC - yes, for them Democratic comes before Jewish. During the past few years they took shots at Lincoln Chafee. I’m not saying they were undeserved. He was and is anti-Israel. But let’s look at one:

The New Republic’s blog notes the unprecedented nature of Republican rallying around anti-Israel Chafee:

So when the Republicans supported Chafee in a vain effort to hold onto the Senate, the NDJC saw fit to use this action as an indictment of Republicans. Fair enough.

So when the Obama campaign welcomed the endorsements of Republicans for Obama, led by one ex-Senator Lincoln Chafee what did we hear from the NDJC?

*crickets*

And when J-Street joined the NDJC from allowing Gov Palin to speak, did the NDJC distance itself from an organization one of whose advisory council members is the same, ex-Senator Lincoln Chafee? Did we hear a peep of protest? Again …

*crickets*

So for J-Street being pro-Israel is a privilege reserved for those who believe the same things they do. And for NDJC being anti-Israel is a disqualification - if you’re a Republican.

(I’m not going to try to square NDJC’s identification of Lincoln Chafee as anti-Israel with the apparent J-Street belief that he is pro-Israel. My head would explode.)

Speaking out against Ahmadinejad is as bi-partisan an issue as there could be. These two organizations pretending to be pro-Israel instead chose to make the even partisan and disqualified Gov. Palin from speaking at the event. But their hypocrisy regarding Israel is more proof that partisan politics for them came before confronting tyranny.

Regardless, at least one protest will go. An Iranian exile protest which will be protesting:

Ahmadinejad’s trip coincides with an appalling rise in public executions in Iran - victimizing juveniles in particular. In late July, in one day alone, 29 people were executed. His government continues to arrest and kill dissidents in prisons and crush anti-government protests. It is also conspiring to massacre nearly 3,500 Iranian dissident refugees at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Ahmadinejad, isolated and despised by the majority of Iranians at home, is pushing Iran and the region toward war and crisis by fomenting terrorism in Iraq and developing nuclear weapons.

Not everyone is ill-disposed toward Ahmadinejad:

But for Quakers and Mennonites who’ll be at the table, breaking bread with this controversial dignitary means drawing deeply on the same spiritual roots that sustained their embattled ancestors long ago.

“Jesus ate with lepers and with tax collectors, and in the United States right now, Iran would be in that category,” said Arli Klassen, the executive director of the Mennonite Central Committee, an outreach arm for Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches in the United States and Canada.

“The criticisms levied at Jesus were that he ate with … people of ill repute, and we’re getting similar criticisms.”

I wonder if these folks would ask Ahmadinejad about the increase of executions or what treatment a citizen of his country could expect if he converted to one of their religions. If last year’s dinner is any indication, that will not be the case.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s smile at times turned to a grimace as the panelists prodded him, politely, about his record on the Holocaust, human rights abuses, Israel and nuclear weapons development. Also politely, he conceded nothing, and often deflected the inquiries by turning the spotlight on the policies of the United States and Israel.

“Who are the ones that are filling their arsenals with nuclear weapons?” he said. “In the United States they have tested the fifth generation of atomic bunker bombs, missiles that go as far as 12,000 kilometers. Who is the real danger here?”

The Times of course was impressed with the “friendly, even warm, exchange,” regardless of whether it accomplished anything positive.

That’s why these phony pacifist religions get criticized. They’re going to the dinner to commiserate with a tyrant, giving him the cover of ecumenicism, when, in fact, he is intolerant.

And we can also see how successful talking with Ahmadinejad has been. Not at all.

And that’s similar to the problem with J-Street and NDJC. They’re now congratulating themselves for getting Palin’s speech canceled. But they have not one word of criticism for the Iranian tyrant. They have no words of criticism for the so-called pacifists who’ll shake Ahmadinejad’s blood soaked hands.

I have a hard time believing that having Gov. Palin speak at a protest of a tyrant is worse than those who receive him warmly. But J-Street and the NDJC can’t work up any outrage over a true outrage. Not only are J-Street and NDJC hypocritical, they have no sense of priorities.

Meryl has more on the Ahmadinejad protests.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

“On the eve of Israel’s 60th Independence Day, the country’s population stands at 7,282,000″, says this site. Without arguing about this number - 7,281,999 of the citizens do not have a slightest idea what their minister of defense is doing lately. This quote summarizes how it looks from outside his feverish brain:

Senior Labor Party figures said Barak understands that he has to prevent Livni from consolidating her popularity from the prime minister’s chair, but does not want to be criticized for provoking elections. Barak is said to believe that Netanyahu will not join a Livni government, and this could be his pretext to call for elections. Livni’s associates said it was strange that Barak met with the opposition leader before finding time to meet with Livni, despite her attempts since Thursday to schedule such a meeting.

Oh well, hopefully he will understand eventually that after the elections he is pushing for he will not have a pot to piss in, politically speaking…

The other intriguing question is whether Barak knows what Ehud does… or vice versa?

More guesswork here. But no psychiatrists on the case so far.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.