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09/30/2009

Gilad Shalit video to be released

Filed under: Hamas, Israel — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 11:30 am

This is huge, if true:

The names of the 20 Palestinian prisoners slated to be released in exchange for a video providing proof captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is alive, have been released.

The exchange is meant to serve as the first step in a deal to secure the soldier’s release. None of the women on the list have been convicted of murder and the majority of them were slated to be released within a year’s time, regardless of the deal.

I admit, I didn’t think he was still alive. I’ll be very happy to be proven wrong.

The Polanski case: It’s the consent, stupid

Filed under: Movies, Pop Culture — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

It’s really not difficult. The Polanski case comes down to one thing: Consent.

A 13-year-old girl cannot consent to having sex with a 44-year-old man. In fact, a 13-year-old girl is not old enough to consent to having sex with a 30-year-old, a 20-year-old, a 14-year-old, or even another 13-year-old. It doesn’t matter that Polanski plied the girl with alcohol and drugs. It doesn’t matter that he claims he didn’t know how old she was.

It’s the fact that a 13-year-old child cannot consent to having sex, for the obvious reason that the child is thirteen years old.

It’s reprehensible that Whoopi Goldberg said “not necessarily” to the question “Would I want my 14-year-old daughter having sex with somebody?” The answer should be a plain, simple: No. Absolutely not.

When Anne Applebaum says that the child asked permission to be photographed in the jacuzzi, she implies that that was asking permission for whatever happened next. What happened next was rape. It frankly wouldn’t matter if the child’s mother had been right there and given explicit permission for Polanski to have sex with her daughter—the fact that the child cannot consent still applies.

There is no defense of this case whatsoever. There is no, “Yes, he did a bad thing, BUT” leading into a long-winded treatise on how the poor man has suffered all these years by not being able to come back to America, and is forced to live a life of luxury in Europe.

My heart bleeds.

It’s the consent. A thirteen-year-old child cannot consent to sex. Period.

Goldstone impeaches self

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

Stephanie Guttman noted who Judge Goldstone listened to.

I wrote the other day about the ludicrously biased Goldstone Report issued by the UN’s Human Rights Council, which accuses Israel of war crimes in last winter’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. As details about the backgrounds of Goldstone’s witnesses (many of them Hamas operatives, as it turns out) roll in, Tom Gross has noticed that one of them is Islam Shahwan, the same Hamas spokesman who appeared in the Israeli press (as well as the Telegraph) last summer trumpeting the news that Israeli intelligence was in the Strip distributing chewing gum to make their youth horny.

Then she goes in for the kill:

You’d think the UN would have learned a thing or two about the credibility of Hamas and Al Fatah spokesmen since its experiences in 2002. That year it launched an investigation into rumours that Israel had perpetrated a massacre in the the Jenin refugee camp during a military incursion undertaken after sustaining nearly year of suicide bombings believed to have been dispatched from towns like Jenin in the West Bank. The “massacre” charges had been spread by official spokesmen and amplified by reporters like Phil Reeves of the Independent, who famously started a front page story with the sentence, “A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed.” After weeks of work, the UN ended up backing the IDF’s contention that about 45 people had died, most of them men of draftable age. Reeves ended up acknowledging that it has “long been obvious that [a massacre] did not occur” in an article titled “Even Journalists Have to Admit They’re Wrong Sometimes.”

Actually I do think that they’ve learned since Jenin. They’ve decided not to restrict charges against Israel to the field but adopt a commission approach so as to pretend that a process was followed rather than just making reckless charges.

And who did Goldstone ignore? As noted elsewhere, he ignored Dr. Mirela Siderer. A video or her statement is here.

Here is Goldstone’s response.

UN Watch transcribed his response to Dr. Siderer:

With regard to the statement made by Dr. Siderer, I’m clearly upset that she feels humiliated by the report. She was treated in the report in no way different to that of other victims who spoke to us. She was referred to in the report as one of the people who was injured as a result of a rocket attack on a shopping center in Southern Israel. The report also refers to the fact that the evidence of the people who gave evidence to us are available on the website of the OHCHR. It is there for anybody to see.

If you can watch the video. Judge Goldstone addresses Dr. Siderer at about 1:45 into the video. (Before that he’s dismissing calls for Israel to be charged with genocide.) The equanimity with which he addresses her is chilling. He claims that he’s upset by her charges, but there’s no trace of emotion in his voice. Goldstone’s performance ought to impeach his credibility.

UN Watch provided this helpful rebuttal to Goldstone’s prepared remarks.

UN Watch Note: Dr. Siderer posed 8 simple questions. Goldstone avoided all except one, and on this was non-responsive and misleading. Dr. Siderer never said that she wasn’t “referred to,” but rather complained that her story was ignored, and that her name was mentioned only “in passing, in brackets, in a technical context;” and that this underscored how he overlooked 8 years of suffering of the rocket victims. Here is Dr. Siderer’s original testimony; here is Goldstone’s report. Search her name — it turns up but once, in passing, in par. 1640. Goldstone’ s claim that other witnesses were given similar treatment is manifestly false: see, e.g., the report’s repeated and in-depth discussion of witness Abu Askar. What is clear is that the report gives short shrift to Israeli suffering by its selective focus on the period of Israel’s response to the rocket attacks (Dec. 2008 and Jan. 2009), instead of to the attacks themselves (2001-2009).

In the video, Goldstone addresses Anne Bayefsky too (after dismissing Dr. Siderer)

During another NGO statement, Anne Bayefsky of the Hudson Institute slammed the mission, the report and the HRC, ending with a stunning attack on Goldstone: “There is only one question to put to you, Richard: How does it feel to have used your Jewishness to jeopardize the safety and security of the people of Israel, and to find yourself in the company of human rights abusers everywhere?”

Bayefsky was scolded by the council president, and Goldstone called her remarks “unfortunate.”

“It should not be regarded as a matter for criticism that a member of the Jewish people should criticize the government of Israel or the Israeli Defense Forces for what are seen to be violations of international law,” Goldstone said.

“The history of the Jewish people, a very sad history of persecution over two millennia, I would have thought should be an absolutely compelling reason for all Jews to speak out against injustice and the violations of human rights.”

But what Judge Goldstone doesn’t acknowledge is that much of that persecution has been justified by false claims of crimes committed by Jews – individually or collectively. He is now participating in a stacked tribunal whose job it is to declare Israel guilty. He is not honoring Jewish history; he is debasing it. (A full transcript of Goldstone’s remarks is here.)

If you need one more example of the absurdity of the proceedings it’s this:

The representatives of Libya and Iran both accused Israel of “genocide,” prompting Sweden’s envoy, speaking on behalf of the European Union, to intervene on a “point of order,” asking the council president to ensure speakers did not make “gross and baseless allegations.”

Cuban envoy Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez in turn complained about the Swedish intervention, saying points of order should not be misused to curb freedom of expression.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

09/29/2009

Hooray for chicken soup

Filed under: Life — Meryl Yourish @ 6:40 pm

If you have to have a cold, it’s good to have supplies for chicken soup on hand. I had a quart of frozen chicken broth from the last soup I made (I save it to add to stuffing, and haven’t made stuffing in ages). I had a can of Manischewitz condensed chicken soup. I had a package of matzo ball mix, and a bag of carrots. And I also had one and a half boneless chicken breasts that I put in the fridge instead of the freezer on Sunday, and had to cook or throw away.

An hour later, a very hearty chicken soup. And very tasty. Two containers of soup left over, plus a couple of matzo balls to put in the freezer for later.

Well, at least it isn’t the flu. A cold is annoying, but the flu would require someone else to cook for me.

The wrong accounting

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time — Soccerdad @ 10:30 am

In an affront to Jews worldwide, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed essay by Rabbi Brant Rosen, before Yom Kippur, “A call to moral accounting.” Rosen uses the Hebrew term “cheshbon hanefesh” to give a religious patina to his blatantly political argument.

I don’t mean to suggest that the report is perfect. No human endeavor is. Evidence of bias in the commission’s make-up is important, and should be honestly addressed, as the White House has suggested. But to categorically reject the Goldstone findings — which echo the work of highly respected Israeli and international human rights groups such as B’tselem and Human Rights Watch — is to thrust our heads into the sand. In the end, the report’s most critical recommendation is that Israel and Hamas thoroughly and credibly investigate themselves, and hold accountable any combatants or commanders who violated the law.

True, no human endeavor is perfect – certainly not Rosen’s op-ed – but this underplays the Goldstone Commission’s report’s faults. The makeup of the Commission isn’t a cosmetic problem, but one that goes to the purpose of the report. Including Christine Chinkin on the commission was problematic for she signed a letter arguing that Israel has no right of self-defense. So the commission’s biased charge – to focus on Israeli violations – was reinforced by the personnel. Goldstone’s claim that he sought to change the focus of his commission’s mandate is undermined by the fact that he paid only cursory attention to Hamas’s terror gererally and its campaign against Israel civilians that necessitated the Israel invasion.

The actions of the Jewish State ultimately reflect upon the Jewish people throughout the world. We in the Diaspora Jewish community have long taken pride in the accomplishments of the Jewish State. As with any family, the success of some reflects a warm light on us all. But pride cannot blind us to the capacity for error on the part of the country we hold so dear. We cannot identify with the successes, but refuse to see the failures.

As we approach Yom Kippur, I call on America’s Jews to examine the Goldstone findings, and consider their implications. In the spirit of the season, we must consider the painful truth of Israel’s behavior in Gaza, and understand that we must work, together, to discover the truth — and then urge on all relevant parties in the search for peace.

On the other hand I would consider the Israeli effort to avoid civilian casualties to be a success.

I have, by the way, examined some of Goldstone’s findings and found that they showed a lack of curiosity and a predisposition to find Israel guilty. The implications are that Goldstone deliberately ignored exculpatory evidence that would favor Israel and accepted at face value any charge against Israel.

Take for example the testimony of Gaza police spokesman Islam Shahwan. In at least 3 cases, the Goldstone commission accepted his testimony at face value. Yet as bloggers Elder of Ziyon and Israel Matzav note, Shahwan recently promulgated the rehashed fiction that Israel was flooding Gaza with gum laced with aphrodisiacs in order to corrupt Palestinian youth. Isn’t this someone whose testimony should be treated with at least a grain of skepticism.

On the other hand take the testimony of Dr. Mirela Siderer.

On May 14, 2008, my life was changed forever. I was working in my clinic. Suddenly, the building was hit by a missile, fired from Gaza. I was terribly wounded. Blood was everywhere. My patient was also wounded, and more than 100 others. Next month will be my eighth operation.

Judge Goldstone, I told you all of this, in detail. I testified in good faith. You sent me this letter, saying, “Your testimony is an essential part of the Mission’s fact-finding activities.”

And how essential was Dr. Siderer’s to Judge Goldstone’s report?

But now I see your report. I have to tell you: I am shocked.

Judge Goldstone, in a 500-page report, why did you completely ignore my story? My name appears only in passing, in brackets, in a technical context. I feel humiliated.

Why are there only two pages about Israeli victims like me, who suffered thousands of rockets over eight years? Why did you choose to focus on the period of my country’s response, but not on that of the attacks that caused it? Why did you not tell me that this council judged Israel guilty in advance, in its meeting of last January? Why did you not tell me that members of your panel signed public letters judging Israel guilty in advance?

Got that, Rabbi Rosen? The Goldstone Commission took the testimony of a confirmed propagandist in order to make its case against Israel and rejected the testimony of a doctor who treats both Arabs and Jews. This kind of discrepancy could not occur by accident. It can only be the result of a deliberate attempt to condemn Israel.

Rabbi Rosen asks American Jews to accept the findings of the Goldstone report in order to effect a “moral accounting.” Rabbi Rosen is the one who ought to be doing the accounting as he supports the slander of Israel. But before he does he could use an introductory course on debit and credits.

Thanks to Daled Amos for the sources for this post.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Arab refugees the UN doesn’t care about

Filed under: Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

While Karen AbuZayd goes begging for more millions for the Palestinians, thousands of Yemen refugees aren’t even getting relief supplies allowed through Saudi Arabia. But the UN isn’t issuing resolutions demanding that the world take care of these refugees. There are not headlines throughout the world media decrying the horrid conditions these civilians are forced to live in. There are no claims of starvation, disease, lack of shelter or medical care—because once again, these are not people being “oppressed” by Israel. It’s Arab-on-Arab fighting, and thus, easy to ignore.

Fighting has dramatically escalated since August between government forces and the rebels, causing turmoil in a nearly 160-mile (260-kilometer), mountainous stretch between Yemen’s capital San’a and the Saudi border. Even before the current escalation, the fighting had displaced some 150,000 people since it began in 2004.

Since August, tens of thousands more have been forced to flee their homes, but exact numbers are unclear, a reflection of the chaos. Government officials put the number at around 60,000, while the international aid agency OXFAM estimates them at 100,000.

The U.N. refugee agency and International Red Cross say they have about 37,000 newly displaced people who have been registered and are receiving assistance, many in camps around the north.

Thousands more are stranded around the area, some living along roadsides, some trapped in Saada – the home of the rebels, which has been at the center of fighting. Two cease-fires declared by the government in the past month fell apart within hours.

Up to 30,000 are trapped north of Saada near the Saudi border, said Laure Chedraoui, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency said. The UNHCR has appealed to Saudi Arabia and Yemen to let relief supplies across its border to reach them but has yet to get permission, she said.

Furthermore, old camps that were holding those who fled earlier fighting have filled with a new influx and are inaccessible because of the turmoil, she said.

I’m not hearing about how the Saudis are refusing to let in humanitarian aid to refugees, but we do read about that just about every day regarding Gaza—where Palestinians live in actual buildings, with utilities, grocery stores, automobiles, and the ubuquitous smuggling tunnels to bring in luxury items that Israel forbds.

Once more, we have evidence of the world’s double standard on Israel.

09/28/2009

A new (to me) guy blog

Filed under: Bloggers — Meryl Yourish @ 8:51 pm

This one is pretty funny, and also informative. I blogrolled them. Reader Mike S. sent me a link to this funny post, I looked around, and it’s worth checking out.

I just love the beard contest. My money’s on the girlfriends/wives winning this one. I mean, it’s bad enough that so many men out there are utterly unaware of the fact that their facial hair is fugly, but to deliberately create fugly facial hair and see who can make it last the longest? Well, if I drank beer, I’d raise a beer to this one.

Reading that blog almost makes me want to post a girly post. Ooh, maybe I’ll start talking about my perimenopause again. I’m sure they’d be interested in hearing about HulkMS.

Breaking the fast

Filed under: Life — Meryl Yourish @ 8:04 pm

Boy, between Sarah’s family and me, we have three separate bacterial tracks going. Jake has H1N1. Nate has strep. And I picked up whatever took out the rabbi on Friday and Saturday (he was recovered enough for Yom Kippur, thankfully).

I had one container of home-made chicken soup left in my freezer. If I still feel crummy tomorrow, it’s out to the store for supplies, and fresh chicken soup for dinner.

09/27/2009

G’mar hatima tova

Filed under: Holidays, Religion — Meryl Yourish @ 1:30 pm

An easy fast to my Jewish readers. May we be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for a good and peaceful year.

This will be the last blog post until tomorrow night, after I break my fast. I am as crabby as a three-year-old when I get really hungry. You don’t want to be around me until I’ve eaten. Trust me on that one.

If I have offended or wronged anyone in the last year, I apologize, and ask your forgiveness.

The AP: Nothing can’t be spun anti-Israel

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Iran, Israel — Meryl Yourish @ 1:22 pm

You would think that the AP would give us a break on Yom Kippur.

You would be wrong.

Israel shuts down for Day of Atonement amid fears

Alternate headline:

Israel shuts down for Yom Kippur, amid fears of perceived Iranian nuclear threat

Ohmigod! Israelis are terrified! What, what could possibly be the reason for this headline?

The start of the Jewish Day of Atonement at sundown Sunday marked the beginning of a day like no other in Israel, on which even Israelis with no connection to religion tend to put their normal lives on hold.

This year Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, comes at a particularly somber time following revelations of a previously hidden Iranian nuclear facility and more missile tests by the Revolutionary Guard.

Holy cow! The Iranians are trying to build a nuclear weapon? Did you know that? Did we know that? Did anyone know that? No wonder Israelis are terrified on Yom Kippur! Iran is trying to build a nuke!

“That proves to whoever was still in doubt that Iran is the most serious threat today on the peace of the world and its security,” said Israeli Deputy Foreign Ministry Danny Ayalon, speaking to Israeli Channel 10.

Um… and this is newly scary because…?

When Yom Kippur began at around 5 p.m. local time, TV and radio stations blinked off the air, flights in and out of Israel’s international airport ceased, and nearly all businesses closed. The streets emptied of cars and cities and highways were eerily quiet.

[...] But the holiday’s apparent calm conflicted with many Israelis’ fears about the perceived Iranian threat.

This fearmongering story quotes exactly zero Israelis who say they are scared. Really. Not a single quote. Not one. So I have to ask: What exactly is the point of this article? To being the narrative that a fearful Israel is going to lash out at Iran? Or is it just plain lousy journalism?

I’m thinking the latter.

So, all my fearful Israelis, I hope you have an easy fast, and may you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good year. Maybe even a less fearful one.

Anti-Semite blames Jews for his UNESCO loss

Filed under: Anti-Semitism — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 6:00 am

So, gee, ya think maybe there wasn’t a conspiracy to take this Jew-hater down if he, well, hates Jews?

Several days after having lost the vote for UNESCO’s leadership, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni declared Saturday his intention to “launch a culture war against Israel.”

In an interview with Egyptian newspaper al-Masri al-Yaum, Hosni charged that he lost the UN vote because of “radicalism, racism, and the Jews,” who he claied attacked him over his harsh views against cultural normalization vis-à-vis Israel.

That’s funny. I thought he swore up and down that he didn’t have a problem with Jews, that he only had a problem with, uh, well—not Jews. He never did say what the problem was. Oh, that’s right. We misunderstood what he said.

Um, no. We didn’t.

Schmuck.

09/26/2009

Just a post before I go

Filed under: Life — Meryl Yourish @ 11:51 pm

I was going to post something earlier, but then I decided to save it for later. And then I got in my car and turned the key in the ignition, heard a very loud crack, like you hear when a fuse blows in your house, and my car went, very softly, “Rrr, rrr, rrr.” So I called Triple-A and told them to send me the battery truck. Yep. It was the battery.

All I can say is, better now than this morning after shul. And better tonight than tomorrow, 45 minutes before shul. And definitely better now than on the way home from the Outer Banks last week.

Bought the battery from Triple-A, guy who came to check mine installed it, we chatted about the two gun tattoos on his arm and Yom Kippur (I told him that I really needed the car tomorrow, and he asked about the holiday).

That, and the dog ate my homework, is why no Caturday post today. I’ll try to find time tomorrow.

Oh, wait. Tig came out of the garage after Battery Guy left, and was cleaning his paws. Sure enough, he’d stepped in the white powder that got knocked off my battery. I swept up the rest and locked him out of the garage. Yeesh. Acid powder. That stuff can’t be good for him.

09/25/2009

Iran letter to the IAEA revealed!

Filed under: Humor, Iran — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 12:30 pm

I have received a copy of Iran’s letter to the IAEA, revealing the existence of a heretofore undisclosed (don’t you love the word “heretofore”?) nuclear plant that is only a year away from operation. Just remember, even Drudge doesn’t have this scoop!

Dear suckers esteemed inspectors of the IAEA,

Like, we forgot to tell you something on your last visit here. Remember when you asked us if we had anything more to declare, and, we were like, “No way!” and you were like, “Way!” and we were like, “Dudes, no way, and if you don’t stop messin’ with us we’re gonna call the Basij dudes on their bikes and they’re really pissed today ’cause all the hot protest babes are on the other side,” and you were like, “Whoa, Basij, not necessary, bro,” and then you, like, ran to the airport and forgot to give us going-away presents?

Well, like, we kinda forgot to tell you that, uh, yeah, there’s this one more little nuke plant, and it’s, like, near Qom, and it’s like, about a year away from being able to make a bomb, uh, I mean, to power up the holy dudes’ mosques so they can get their mad on at the Zionist Entity every Friday like always. Oh, wait—my buddy Mahmoud just told me to tell you to tell them that it’s just a pilot enrichment program, and it’s barely big enough to make a single—uh, pilot. And anyway, like, we’re only going to enrich it to five percent, and everyone knows that you need to enrich it more to make bombs, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is peaceful, and we don’t want to hurt anyone, except for all you infidels and Zionists and idolators and atheists. And dogs. We really hate dogs, dude.

So, like, this is to let you know that we, like, uh, forgot to tell you—oh, wait, I already said that. Dude. Um, okay, well, then, that’s about it, except, like, death to America and death to Israel, dudes. And we hope you’re not mad that we, like, forgot.

InSincerely,

The dudes in Iran who are going to nuke your asses, uh, I mean, be your best friends.

Reviewing a few new shows

Filed under: Pop Culture, Television — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

Flash Forward: You know how when Lost premiered, the pilot was so well done, so incredibly gripping, that you knew immediately that ABC had a hit on its hands and that you couldn’t wait for Wednesday to come around?

Yeah, it’s not like that.

Good idea. Lousy execution. I may watch a couple more episodes, but I am not impressed. They’re repeating it tonight if you missed it.

The Good Wife: Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, Josh Charles, and the obnoxious kid from Gilmore Girls playing an obnoxious kid on this show—what’s not to like? Actually, this was a very good pilot. Sure, it’s a lawyer show, but it’s a very different twist. This is a woman re-entering the workforce because her husband is in jail on corruption charges, struggling for her job against a kid fresh out of law school and ready to cutthroat his way to the top. And it’s from Ridley Scott! No wonder it’s so good.

Modern Family: The critics are hailing it as the best new comedy of the year. I watched it. Eh. Watched it some more. Okay, that was funny. Watched to the end. Yeah, it’s funny. I think I’ll keep watching.

Cougar Town: Eh. I laughed a bit. It might get funnier. Boy, you can’t watch this show with young kids around, though. When did primetime TV get so adult at 8 p.m.?

And this is the difference between me, and a Judith Warner from the NY Times. I watched the show in the hopes of finding a comedy that would make me laugh. Here’s why she watched it:

I’d watched “Cougar Town” on Wednesday night not because I thought I would like it, not because I was genuinely interested in seeing it, but because I thought I, too, would be able to derive messages from it about the zeitgeist — the pop-culture zeitgeist now permeated with talk of cougars, women over 40 who take up with younger men.

Darn it! I’m just not up on the current pop-culture zeitgeist! How is it that I was cool when I was young, and now I’m so unhip as to be unable to keep up with the New York City zeitgeist-seeking crowd?

Then again, I’ve lived in the ‘burbs most of my life. Uncool. Uncool. (And they wonder why we call them “the media elite.”)

Vampire Diaries: Okay, I admit it. I was bored. It was on. I watched it twice. I did not watch the third episode. Seen all I needed to see to know that it’s basically another vampire romance teen saga, and, well, ew. Vampires must be staked. No exceptions. Wait. Angel. He’s the only exception, because he has a soul. Everyone else (including Spike), boom.

Castle: Yay, it’s back, and it’s still good. It’s the only crime show I’m interested in, and that’s because they don’t generally cut up bodies and try to figure out how they died.

Looking forward to: V. The new series looks excellent. Dollhouse: Premiere tonight. My DVR’s been set since last season ended. Which is a good thing, because it’s on while I’m in synagogue. Bummer that Terminator didn’t make it.

Goldstone’s double standard’s double standard

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:30 am

Ehud Barak in an excellent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal recalls:

While such logic eluded Mr. Goldstone and his team, it was crystal clear to the thousands of Israeli children living in southern Israel who had to study, play, eat and sleep while being preoccupied about the distance to the nearest bomb shelter. When I accompanied then-presidential candidate Barack Obama on his visit to the shelled city of Sderot, he said “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.” Too bad the Human Rights Council wasn’t listening.

It’s not just that any country would have the right to defend its citizens, it’s also that no other country would be subject to this kind of scrutiny.

As long as Judge Richard Goldstone doesn’t probe the United States, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka or Turkey, just as he probed Israel, he is not a moral figure. A law is a law only when it applies to everyone and does not discriminate, as Goldstone did.

The message of the Goldstone report is that Israel must not defend itself, and if it dares to do what any other country is allowed, it must be condemned. The double standard has a double standard.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Jews did it

Filed under: Israel — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

A few weeks ago the Washington Post reported on the intrigue behind the nomination of Farouk Hosni to head UNESCO.

Over his career, Hosni has accumulated a long record of opposing exchanges with Israel, repeatedly saying normalization must await resolution of the Palestinian issue and warning that opening up to Jewish culture would be dangerous for Egypt. But his most notorious sally came in May last year, when he told an Islamist member of the Egyptian parliament that he would personally burn any Israeli books found in Egyptian libraries.

Hosni apologized for the remark three months ago, as his campaign for the UNESCO post gathered speed. In a statement published in Paris, he attributed it to a hot temper and an Arabic-language metaphor that sounded worse than it was. But for his opponents, particularly Jewish activists and intellectuals, the evocative image of book-burning would not go away, and they said it disqualified him for the job.

Note the way the reporter Edward Cody frames the opposition as “Jewish activists,” as if no one else ought to be offended about such declarations.

(At least on the op-ed page the Post published an essay opposing his appointment, even though it minimizes Hosni’s antisemitism.

About the same time the New York Times featured an op-ed by Roger Cohen telling us:

Hosny stands at the crux of the cultural challenges confronting us. Let’s get him inside the tent rather than stoke the old anti-Western, anti-imperialist flames — reminiscent of what led the United States to abandon Unesco between 1984 and 2002 — by rejecting him.

And then, with the big U.S. contribution to the Unesco budget as leverage, let’s press him relentlessly to fight the anti-Semitic bigotry poisoning young Arab psyches; favor dialogue; open Arab minds to science and education; and embrace the peace that Unesco was set up to foster by draining the poisonous well from which his own now-regretted venom was drawn.

In both the case of the report by Edward Cody and the op-ed by Roger Cohen there are disconcerting efforts to play down Hosni’s antisemitism: either its something that only bothers Jews or it’s something that can be overcome with a little leverage. The fact that Hosni’s antisemitism is a reflection of his society’s feelings 30 years after making peace with Israel, doesn’t register with either.

Anyway, as you now know Hosni didn’t get the job. And, of course, who did he blame? Do you have to ask? The real scandal is that the antisemitism of the Arab world continues to be underplayed, rationalized or dismissed rather than taken seriously. And it shouldn’t just be “Jewish activists” who are concerned. And Mr. Cohen, if he’d gotten the job, he’d have used his new perch to promote antisemitism, he would have resisted an pressure to change his world as unwanted interference from New York Jews.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Friday snarkly

Filed under: Israel, The One, United Nations, palestinian politics — Tags: , , , — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

NObama: Looks like the Palestinians aren’t going to take Obama’s suggestion and get back to the negotiating table anytime soon. I like how they no longer insist that all settlement activity be frozen first—they don’t dare add a precondition for talks after Obama said they had to stop putting preconditions on the talks. Now they’re saying that there are “fundamental disagreements” about the agenda of the talks. Brilliant. The onus is now on them, not on Netanyahu, to start negotiations. (That’ll last about a week, then the world will blame Israel once again.)

No room at the inn for Mad Mahmoud: Awesome. Another New York hotel canceled the banquet after finding out it was for the proud Holocaust denier. Unfortunately, he still spoke to a mostly full house at the UN.

UNRWA: We want money. That’s what we want. UNRWA is begging for more money to keep the victim class of the Palestinians going into the next generation, because hey, 61 years isn’t nearly long enough to keep paying “refugees.” Why, the UN has also been paying the millions of descendants of Jewish refugees from Arab lands, too. Oh, wait. No they’re not.

AP still doesn’t get the significance of the last name: Leonard Cohen performed in Israel, and I have to laugh at the AP headline and angle of the story: “Leonard Cohen performs in Israel, defies boycott.” Really. Just look at the last name one more time, AP. Or listen to Hallelujah again.

Well, I feel safer now: The One has chaired the UN Security Council, and got it to pass a resolution calling for an end to nuclear weapons. The next agenda calls for kittens, butterflies, and unicorns for everyone. Winged unicorns for seven-year-old girls. What Obama did not do, however, was get a resolution calling for sanctions on Iran, which is trying to build a nuclear bomb. So once again, it’s all for show.

09/24/2009

Yes, it’s anti-Semitism

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Iran — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 1:00 pm

Exhibit A: The Egyptian minister of culture lost his bid to become the head of UNESCO, after a campaign that showed his viciously anti-Israel feelings, which he insisted weren’t anti-Semitism. How does he respond? By blaming “New York Jews.”

“There are a group of the world’s Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position,” he said.

The Arab media, of course, carries the party line, and blames Jews and “the Zionist media” for the failure of their candidate.

Exhibit B: The Supreme Leader of Iran calls Israel “the deadly cancer of Zionism” while his hand-picked president denies the Holocaust and then tells the world he is proud of his Holocaust denial. He repeated the same filthy Jewish conspiracy accusations he raised last year in this year’s speech, and although this year a few Western nations walked out, Sweden (among others) felt that the following was not enough Jew-hatred to make their delegates leave:

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 Swedish government also cleared the Aftonbladet of anti-Semitism over their lie-filled article about the IDF killing palestinians for their organs.

Neither am I surprised that the only place you can find the above lines is in articles with the full text of the speech. The media ignored Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitism last year as well.

Exhibit C: Spain disqualified an Israeli college team from an international solar power contest, not because the team broke the rules—but because the college is located in the West Bank. Apparently, global warming is an urgent cause, but the Palestinian cause is more important than even saving the earth from itself. (No, I don’t believe global warming is happening. But these people do. The Exception Clause reigns.) And of course, we heard only a few days ago that anti-Semitism in Spain is on the rise.

What do all these things have in common? They are claimed to be anti-Zionism. And yet, they resemble nothing so much as anti-Semitism.

You can put a wig and a fancy ball-gown on a pig, add earings and make-up, and yet, in the end, you still have a pig.

Yes, it’s anti-Semitism. Let’s stop pretending that it’s not.

2 excellent responses to Goldstone

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

The Wall Street Journal – The U.N.’s Anti-Antiterror Report

After a brilliant opening analogy and laying out the sordid histories of the UN’s Human Rights Council and the Goldstone Commission – as well as some of the commission’s blind spots – the editorial nails the main issue:

The Goldstone report includes some pro forma condemnation of Hamas’s behavior, but Hamas leaders quickly endorsed the findings because they know they have nothing to fear from the International Criminal Court or any other special tribunal. Hamas violates the laws of war as a matter of daily routine, not least in the murder of Palestinian dissenters. The U.N. report can only hurt a Western nation like Israel that cares about world, or at least American, opinion.

In the end the editorial brings up the more universal problem: that which applies to Israel could be applied to the United States in its war on terror.

Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren contributed an op-ed to the Boston Globe that starts with that point (though as a hypothetical). In the middle Oren makes this important point:

Despite Hamas’s cynical use of civilians as human shields, the Israel Defense Forces repeatedly called off operations deemed too dangerous to civilian populations and endangered its own troops by warning Palestinian neighborhoods of impending attacks. Yet even the most moral army can make mistakes, especially in dense urban warfare; for every Serbian soldier killed by NATO in 1999, for example, four civilians died. By comparison, more than half of the Palestinian casualties in Gaza were military. Still, Israel launched investigations into some 100 cases of alleged misconduct by its soldiers, 23 of which continue. If found guilty, as one soldier already has been, the perpetrators will be brought to justice under Israel’s internationally respected legal system.

Finally Oren returns comes to his point:

Ironically, the greatest victim of the UN report is not Israel’s ability to wage a moral war but its willingness to make an historic peace. If asked to take immense risks for peace, Israelis must be convinced of their internationally recognized right to self-defense should that peace be broken. Deprived of that right, even after being subjected to years of murderous rocket attacks, an Israeli electorate will understandably recoil from such risks.

Both are worth reading.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The most anti-Israel president ever

Filed under: Israel, The One, United Nations — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 6:00 am

President Barack Obama didn’t just apologize for the Bush years in his speech to the UN yesterday. He delivered what is probably the most anti-Israel speech ever given by a sitting president.

Once again, he used the argument that there is some kind of moral equivalency between Israeli settlements and Palestinian incitement. If you dig just a little, you find that “incitement” includes the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to have a single map of Israel in its textbooks, its constant Jew-hatred in its official media, statements, and even sermons, its referrals to “Palestine from the river to the sea” (that would be where Israel is currently), and the utter refusal by the Obama administration to note that the PA reinforced its anti-Israel charter and also added more anti-Israel conspiracy theories, such as the one that Israel poisoned Yasser Arafat.

We continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel, and we continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. (Applause.)

But why do they only call on Palestinians to “end incitement”? Because, as the narrative goes, oppressed people cannot be held responsible for the terror attacks that continue every single day, by Palestinians in the West Bank, not Hamas—and so, Obama does not call for attacks on Israelis to end. Because they don’t exist.

Note the language of the next section. It could have been written by Obama’s friend and supporter, Rashid Khalidi:

The time has come — the time has come to re-launch negotiations without preconditions that address the permanent status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians, borders, refugees, and Jerusalem. And the goal is clear: Two states living side by side in peace and security — a Jewish state of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people. (Applause.)

And here’s the most anti-Israel statement ever uttered by a sitting president:

Now, I am not naïve. I know this will be difficult. But all of us — not just the Israelis and the Palestinians, but all of us — must decide whether we are serious about peace, or whether we will only lend it lip service. To break the old patterns, to break the cycle of insecurity and despair, all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private. The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians. (Applause.)

That’s a hat tip to the Stephen Walt School of OHMIGOD, Israel Lobbyists Control the Government!. That’s the implication that people are afraid to speak out against Israel, because we all know what happens to people who do that. They get on the New York Times bestseller list. Just ask Jimmy Carter, and Walt & Mearsheimer. I wonder what their lecture fees are now? Probably even higher since Walt is writing for Foreign Policy. Oh, the horrors of being silenced by The Israel Lobby. Book deals, lecture tours, income level rising—yeah, that scary lobby keeps everyone, even the president of the United States, from speaking out against Israel. Like, say, at a venue of, oh, the United Nations. Saying publicly what “everyone” was only able to say privately before today, apparently.

Note the second half of the bolded quote above: “the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.” Mahmoud Abbas could have written that. Obama doesn’t actually delineate what these rights are, but these words are usually followed with “a return of all refugees,” as well as “an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.” (And as I have noted many times in the past, they don’t say “east Jerusalem.” They say “Jerusalem.” That would be what Obama was talking about when he insisted it’s time to rush ahead to “final status” issues. Only they’ve been renamed.

The time has come — the time has come to re-launch negotiations without preconditions that address the permanent status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians, borders, refugees, and Jerusalem.

“Without preconditions” appears to be aimed at the Palestinians, who have dug in their heels since Obama’s Cairo speech. As Barry Rubin points out:

As I keep stressing the ONLY reason there have been no negotiations for six months—a point the media never points out—is that Obama introduced the demand that Israel freeze all construction on settlements. This issue had never prevented talks before but once Obama raised the ante, well the Palestinians couldn’t be less militant than America’s president.

It also wouldn’t be an Obama speech if he didn’t try to make his copyrighted approach to evenhandedness. So, in return for the Israel-bashing above, what must the world do? Why, stop bashing Israel. Recognize Israel’s legitimacy. Because it’s not like the UN’s establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 was enough to do such a thing. So the reverse of America doing no favors for Israel by being a staunch ally? Well, it’s obvious:

And — and nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks against Israel over constructive willingness to recognize Israel’s legitimacy and its right to exist in peace and security. (Applause.)

Get it? The flip side of America’s support for Israel is the UN General Assembly, using organizations like the UN Human Rights Council (which Obama has had us join) singling out Israel, and pretty nearly only Israel, for criticism.

Obama uses his compare-and-contrast one last time, by talking about the price paid by Israelis and Palestinians. Note the extreme contrast, which goes hand in hand with what I wrote yesterday about the risk being all on Israel:

It’s paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the middle of the night. It’s paid for by the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own.

The girl in Sderot may be murdered in her sleep by Hamas rockets. Or a shot fired at her car while driving with her family near a Palestinian town. The price paid by Palestinians? Well, kids in Gaza don’t have clean water because Hamas keeps stealing the pipes to make rockets to rain on children in Sderot. Yeah, that’s a pretty equivalent risk situtation for each side.

His claim to evenhandedness is absurd. There is no comparison between having “no country to call his own” and fearing death in your bed at night. One of these things is not like the other.

I didn’t care for the James Baker crew of the Bush 41 White House. I didn’t care for Reagan’s Baker-inspired Israel team, either. But neither Bush nor Reagan seemed willing to abandon one of America’s staunchest allies. Israeli soldiers trained American troops in house-to-house city fighting, to better survive and win in Iraq. Israel shares intel on America’s enemies with us, and gave us invaluable information on Soviet weaponry during the Cold War. If America called, Israel would be there—and yet, Barack Obama is throwing Israel under the bus. The most pro-Palestinian president ever is turning out to be the most anti-Israel president ever.

His friend Rashid Khalidi must be a happy, happy man today. I sure would love to see the tape the LA Times refused to release. I think it would explain a lot of the UN speech.

09/23/2009

Ich bin kein Berliner?

Filed under: American Scene, Politics — SnoopyTheGoon @ 11:10 am

The more assuredly President Barak Obama’s administration settles into its routine and stable mode of operation after a few pretty chaotic months, the more questions about the White House foreign policy are being raised, both by the friends and by the enemies.

I want to be careful, but there is an increasing feeling that the main thread of the foreign policy is favoring extreme caution and even direct “disengagement” steps all over the world where there is a chance of political collision with other major players.

Recently I read an interesting article by a Russian journalist Vladimir Abarinov*, touching on several aspects of Obama’s foreign travails. With the author’s kind permission and with some assistance from Google, I’ve translated the article and am posting it here in its entirety:

It’s unfashionable to recall Barack Obama’s Berlin and Prague speeches today in Washington. Then he needed the sympathy of Europeans and to show Americans aTV picture of the crowd cheering the coming of the messiah. Today it doesn’t matter anymore. In response to the mention of Berlin and Prague’s speeches displeased Obama’s administration officials cringe and blush, as if caught in an unseemly act.
(more…)

The shoals of Middle East peacemaking

Filed under: Israel — Tags: , , — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

The Washington Post, today, faults the Obama administration for its early forays into Middle East peacemaking.

The administration also concluded, wrongly, that obtaining an unconditional Israeli settlement freeze was an essential first step. In fact settlements are no longer a strategic obstacle to peace; as a practical matter, most of the construction is in areas that will not be part of a Palestinian state. The administration’s inflexible stance, unwisely spelled out in public by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, led to an unwinnable confrontation with Mr. Netanyahu, turned Israeli public opinion against Mr. Obama and prompted Palestinians to harden their own position. The compromise now being discussed between Washington and Jerusalem will differ little from past deals.

While I don’t agree with everything in the editorial it’s a far cry from what I’m used to.

Related: check out Steven Rosen’s take, by itself or with commentary by Barry Rubin and Meryl.

Israel Matzav adds (via memeorandum):

It should be obvious to anyone with a passing awareness of the history of the last 16 years that Netanyahu is highly unlikely to offer Abu Mazen any more than Olmert offered Abu Mazen or than Ehud Barak offered Arafat.

And even if he did, there’s little chance that Abu Mazen would accept either. It’s easier to be the wronged party than it is to govern.

UPDATE: The end of the editorial annoyed me.

Officials say the president pressed the Israeli and Palestinian leaders hard to move forward during bilateral meetings Tuesday. That’s good, but Mr. Obama must also do more to convince average Israelis as well as Arab leaders that his diplomacy is worth investing in. We’re told the president reminded Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas Tuesday of an old diplomatic verity: that the United States cannot want peace more than the parties themselves. That’s a reality that this president, like a few before him, will have to live by.

Israel has to show that it wants peace? What’s been happening for the past 16 years as Israel has ceded territory and received terror in return. I think that Yaacov Lozowick is on target here:

On the contrary: us locals, we’ve long since covered all the options that seem so obvious to the novices, and we understand fully why they’re not real. It’s our lives, and we’re not novices.

The cliche about how we’ve forgotten more about the matter than the newcomers may ever know is reality, not platitude.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Risks for peace? Only from the Israelis

Filed under: Israel, The One, palestinian politics — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

President Obama is in a hurry again.

“Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward,” Obama told reporters before a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Um. I do believe that it has been the Palestinians who have refused to sit down and talk with the Israelis, but let’s move on.

Obama told Abbas and Netanyahu that, “The only reason to hold public office is to get things done,” and that everyone “must take risks for peace,” Mitchell said.

Everyone must take risks for peace? What risks, pray tell, will the Palestinians be taking? What risks will America be taking? The only risk for the Obama administration is that once again, peace will not break out in the Middle East, and The Anointed One will not win his coveted Nobel Prize. (I think perhaps he wants to be the first sitting President to win one. Maybe that’s his hurry.)

The risks for the Palestinians? Hm, let’s think. Wait, give me a minute. Um.

Nope. I can’t think of any.

The risks for Israel? Let’s see. Terror attacks, rockets in every town and city in Israel, chemical weapons dropped on her citizens, sniping from the Palestinian side of the border—Israelis will risk life and limb if the peace process does work, but the Palestinians refuse to stop fighting. So you see, it isn’t “everyone” that must take risks for peace. It’s only Israel that will be taking the risks. Funny how it always works out that way.

And there have been pretty much no moves by the Palestinians to hold up their end of the Road Map, although that doesn’t stop the president from pretending the Palestinians are actually doing something.

“Palestinians have strengthened their efforts on security, but they need to do more to stop incitement and to move forward with negotiations,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday. “Israelis have facilitated greater freedom of movement for the Palestinians and have discussed important steps to restrain settlement activity. But they need to translate these discussions into real action on this and other issues.”

End incitement? You mean like amending the Fatah Charter, or not accusing the Israelis of poisoning Yasser Arafat? Or maybe even not calling for the “return” of third- and fourth-generation “refugees” to their ancestral homes?

Obama needs to do more in order to move forward with negotiations. He needs to actually read what the Palestinians are saying. But that would totally screw up the narrative. And the potential Nobel Peace Prize.

09/22/2009

Snark news briefs, good news edition

Filed under: Iran, Israel, The One, United Nations — Tags: , , , , — Meryl Yourish @ 7:21 pm

So many wonderful things, so little time. (Actually, there’s plenty of time; work’s done for the day.)

Sucks to be you, Part 1: The anti-Israel (some might say “anti-Semitic” Egyptian minister of culture lost his bid to become the director of UNESCO. Gee, guess building those synagogues for the six Jews left in Egypt just didn’t convince the west that he’s changed. Or maybe it’s just the year of the woman—a Bulgarian woman won the job. I will point out that Israel did not oppose the Egyptian’s election, at least, not publicly. It was a private election. I’m guessing they didn’t vote for the bastard who said that he only wanted Israeli books burned that “insult Islam.” Oh, that makes it all better, then.

Sucks to be you, Part 2: What’s a dictator to do? First, the Helmsley Hotel chain cancels Mad Mahmoud’s banquet reservations and tells him he’s not welcome in any of their hotels. Then the Libyan mass-murderer-slash-dictator finds himself barred from most hotels in the city (on top of being banned in NJ, and yay, Garden State!). So he’s decided to sleep at the Libyan embassy. And Mad Mahmoud is going to be staying at the Essex House—unless the protests get too overwhelming for the hotel.

Sucks to be you, Part 3: Lowered expectations you said, lowered expectations you got! Obama told Israel that it needed to make “important steps to restrain settlement activity.” I do believe that goes into Netanyahu’s column as a “win.” Poor, poor Stephen Walt. He must be so disappointed today. Then again, he can use this as more proof of that invincible Israel Lobby in his next book. And I’m thinking that Barack Obama’s having a very, very bad day today overall. Not that I think that’s a good thing, because his screwing up international relations is a very bad thing for America. Maybe he’ll use this as a teachable moment, and learn from it.

Naaaaaaaah. Just kidding.

Barack Obama’s Great Adventure

Filed under: Israel, The One, United Nations, World — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 10:30 am

President Obama will be spending most of the day today meeting with world leaders in New York. Even the AP is writing that little will come out of these sessions. But of course, the focus will be on the trilateral talks between Obama, Bibi Netanyahu, and Mahmoud Abbas—who has already said he will not negotiate with Israel without a complete settlement freeze.

No one in the White House, the Israeli government or among Palestinian officials is publicly predicting a breakthrough out of the three-way Mideast meeting that President Barack Obama is hosting here. And yet the session Tuesday is seen as a crucial step for Obama.

Why it’s a crucial step, the AP says:

One reason to have the meeting is the need to get momentum going.

“The U.S. wants to and the U.S. needs to negotiate in public,” said Jon Alterman, a senior fellow in Middle East policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former State Department official in President George W. Bush’s first term. “There’s a perceived need for the U.S. to visibly be involved in making progress on Arab-Israeli issues.”

Ah. Appearances. Well, Obama is great at appearances. But not so great at getting results. In fact, the world has been essentially stiffing him on everything.

But eight months after his inauguration, all that good will so far has translated into limited tangible policy benefits for Mr. Obama. As much as they may prefer to deal with Mr. Obama instead of his predecessor, George W. Bush, foreign leaders have not gone out of their way to give him what he has sought.

European allies still refuse to send significantly more troops to Afghanistan. The Saudis basically ignored Mr. Obama’s request for concessions to Israel, while Israel rebuffed his demand to stop settlement expansion. North Korea defied him by testing a nuclear weapon. Japan elected a party less friendly to the United States. Cuba has done little to liberalize in response to modest relaxation of sanctions. India and China are resisting a climate change deal. And Russia rejected new sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program even as Mr. Obama heads into talks with Tehran.

But hey, the world likes our president again, and that’s the important thing, right? It’s much better to be popular than accomplished.

As for the trilateral meeting, well, nobody’s expecting anything in Israel, either.

Sources in the PM’s entourage said the meeting between Netanyahu, Abbas and Obama would likely be symbolic in nature, adding that they do not foresee any diplomatic achievements during the General Assembly’s session.

But don’t worry. Jimmy Carter, Stephen Walt, and their anti-Israel followers will all be happy to place the blame squarely on Israel’s shoulders. The fact that Hamas said only yesterday that they will not respect any deal made by Abbas during this summit is irrelevant. Hamas rejectionism isn’t a problem, you see. Only Israeli settlement building.

At least Pee-Wee Herman found his bike at the end of his great adventure. Barack Obama will be coming out of this with nothing.

Shimon Peres to schoolkids: Beware of Mad Mahmoud!

Filed under: Iran, Juvenile Scorn — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 9:45 am

This is hilarious, and absolutely true:

President Shimon Peres told schoolchildren in the north that “the prime minister will be demonstratively absent from a meeting with one of the most evil and horrible people of modern history, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who lies through his teeth about the existence of the Holocaust and curses Israel”.

It’s not quite juvenile scorn, but it’s close enough.

The Goldstone Standard Part II

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Media Bias — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

The Goldstone Commission report discusses the case of the al-Samouni family (.pdf page 202).

712. In the morning of 5 January 2009, around 6.30 – 7 a.m., Wa’el al-Samouni, Saleh al-Samouni, Hamdi Maher al-Samouni, Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni and Iyad al-Samouni, stepped outside the house to collect firewood. Rashad Helmi al-Samouni remained standing next to the door of the house. Saleh al-Samouni has pointed out to the Mission that from where the Israeli soldiers were positioned on the roofs of the houses they could see the men clearly. Suddenly, a projectile struck next to the five men, close to the door of Wa’el’s house and killed Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni and, probably, Hamdi Maher al-Samouni.403 The other men managed to retreat to the house. Within about five minutes, two or three more projectiles had struck the house directly. Saleh and Wa’el al-Samouni stated at the public hearing that these were missiles launched from Apache helicopters. The Mission has not been able to determine the type of munition used.

In additions to those killed part of the testimony accepted by the Goldstone commission is that after the fight Israel did not allow rescue workers to the area for two days. Later, in giving its “factual findings”, the Goldstone commission writes:

724. The Mission also reviewed the submission it received from an Israeli researcher, arguing generally that statements from Palestinian residents claiming that no fighting took place in their neighbourhood are disproved by the accounts Palestinian armed groups give of the armed operations. The Mission notes that, as far as the al-Samouni neighbourhood is concerned, this report would appear to support the statements of the witnesses that there was no combat.411

725. Regarding the attack on Ateya al-Samouni’s house, the Mission finds that the account given to it by Faraj al-Samouni is corroborated by the soldiers’ testimonies published by the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence. The assault on Ateya al-Samouni’s house appears to be the procedure of the Israeli armed forces referred to as a “wet entry”. A “wet entry” is, according to the soldier’s explanation, “missiles, tank fire, machine-gun fire into the house, grenades. Shoot
as we enter a room. The idea was that when we enter a house, no one there could fire at us.” his
procedure was, according to the soldier, thoroughly practised during recent Israeli armed forces manoeuvres.412

Paragraph 724 shows that evidence to the contrary was arbitrarily disregarded and 725 shows that “corroboration” came from a highly suspect source. Israel Matzav laid out the case against Breaking the Silence here and Honest Reporting had more here.

According to Goldstone then Israelis soldiers arbitrarily attacked civilians and then unconscionably refused to allow help to reach them for two days. Of course, if the accounts of the armed groups, so casually dismissed by Goldstone are true, than the attack on the civilians was, in fact, a battle and the reason no help was allowed for two days was because there were still enemy combatants in the area.

Col. Jonathan D. Halevi summarizes the reports that the Goldstone commission rejected.

The al-Samouni family members firmly adhere to the version that there was no Palestinian military activity near the house and that the nearest military activity was at least a mile away, and that, they claimed, was limited to firing rockets into Israeli territory, not close fighting.

However, the official Palestinian Islamic Jihad version is completely different. In a statement issued on January 5, Palestinian Islamic Jihad said that on the evening of January 4 its fighters had fired an R[PG] from the Zeitun neighborhood at an Israeli tank and had opened fire at IDF soldiers. At 1:20 a.m. on January 5, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad engineering unit detonated a 50-kg. bomb near an Israeli tank not far from the Al-Tawhid mosque near the house of Wail al-Samouni. At 6:30 a.m., the engineering unit detonated a bomb near an IDF infantry unit operating near the Al-Tawhid mosque in the Zeitun neighborhood.23 According to another official Palestinian Islamic Jihad statement, one of its operatives was killed in fighting nearby. His name was Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni.

The significance of the foregoing is that the four men who left the al-Samouni house in the early hours of the morning, among them Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni, did not necessarily do so for the innocent reasons given by their family. They might have gone out for a reason connected to the military activities taking place in the same area between Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist operatives and IDF forces. Palestinian Islamic Jihad reported that operatives of its military-terrorist wing, the Al-Quds Battalions, “surprised the occupation forces and attacked them from behind their lines, and there was a fierce battle in the southern part of the Zeitun neighborhood.” Another report, given “exclusively to the Muslim Brotherhood website,” detailed Palestinian Islamic Jihad activities in the Zeitun neighborhood on January 5: “According to eye-witnesses, the fighters of the resistance waited and barricaded themselves in secure locations, remaining in places inhabited by civilians, from which they left to carry out planned attacks against the forces of the Zionist occupier.”

These accounts have the advantage that the are detailed and contemporaneous. However they show that fighting was going on in the area of the al-Samouni house contrary to the testimony that Goldstone accepted uncritically.

The way this finding was reported was also problematic. Colum Lynch of the Washington Post – without mentioning the claims to the contrary – reported it like this:

The panel’s findings corroborate reports, including a detailed account in The Washington Post, that Israeli forces shelled the crowded home of the Palestinian Wael al-Samuni family in the neighborhood of Zaytoun on Jan. 5, killing 21 civilians, and prevented international relief agencies from tending to the wounded.

Actually the Goldstone commission didn’t corroborate the newspaper reports. It reached the same conclusion as the newspapers after considering the same limited testimony.

Elder of Ziyon concludes

…this doesn’t mean that Goldstone is incorrect concerning the immediate area of the Samouni house, but it does indicate that the commission ignored easily-available data that could indicate that their implication that no fighting was taking place in Al-Zaytoun is wrong.

It’s not just the Goldstone commission. As I observed above the Washington Post didn’t consider contrary evidence either.

After Philip Karsenty prevailed in court over Charles Enderlin, I was disappointed that no major newspaper covered it. (The New York Times covered it in its blog, but not on paper.) But the Karsenty verdict clearly should have raised questions about the way the media reports on the Middle East. Clearly they didn’t care about getting the story right.

Clearly that’s still a problem.

Previously: Goldstone Standard.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

NOTE: I’ve edited the original slightly for clarity.

09/21/2009

Hamas flips Obama the bird

Filed under: Hamas — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 12:30 pm

Jimmy Carter’s bestest Palestinian buds, the ones who told him that sure, they want peace with Israel, and sure, they’d honor agreements with Israel, are saying there’s no way they will honor any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that might come out of the meeting with Obama this week.

In a sermon for the Eid el-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told Gazans congregating in a stadium in Gaza City that “no one has the right to give up on Jerusalem or the [Palestinian] refugees. Not the PLO and no any other factor can sign an agreement hurting the Palestinian people’s principles and rights. Any agreement reached will not be respected by our people.”

So what, exactly, is the point of including Hamas in the talks? Oh, that’s right. Without Hamas, there can be no peace agreement. Except that with Hamas, there can be no peace agreement. Funny how the Carters of the world never seem to hear Hamas leaders say no.

Best of the Jewish/Israeli Blogosphere

Filed under: Israel — Jack @ 11:22 am

Hi gang,

It is Jack. I am here to extend an invitation to read one of the longest running blog carnivails around, Haveil Havalim- The Best of the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere.

This week we present #235 for your review. It contains all sorts of good stuff in an easy to digest format. Check it out!

Your morning snark

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Iran, The One, World — Tags: , , , — Meryl Yourish @ 9:00 am

I know you are, but what am I? Ahmadinejad exhibits the grown-up attitude we’ve come to expect from the Holocaust Denier-in-Chief: He flips the bird to the world in response to the worldwide denunciations of his Holocaust-denying speech on Quds Day. (And “quds” is so not the Arabic word for Jerusalem. It is the Arabic name for the city that everyone else in the world calls Jerusalem. I’m so sick of the media using that narrative.) Expect a doozy of a one-two speech from Ahmadinejad and Ghaddafi next week at the UN.

Hypocrites of the world, unite! So, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the end of Israel, called the Holocaust a “myth,” and uttered myriad statements against Israel and Jews, and the world has basically stood back and tut-tutted in ones and twos, maybe in threes. Suddenly, the whole world is down on Mad Mahmoud? The EU issues a condemnation? Russia too? So, where were they last year when he was issuing the most anti-Semitic speech in the history of the United Nations—at the United Nations? I find this sudden anti-Iran bandwagon extremely suspicious. If they think this is the quid pro quo for settlement freeze, I’m thinking Bibi is laughing his ass off.

Peaceful, peace-seeking Palestinians burn down Israelis’ fields: Yeah, they want to live in peaceful coexistence. Just ask The One. Countdown to lefty NGOs saying that this is payback for Israelis cutting down olive trees in 3, 2….

ACORN? That’s a little nut, isn’t it? Obama is on record denying he knows much about ACORN. Huh. Funny, considering he defended them as a lawyer, steered funds to their coffers, and traded donor lists with them. But he has no idea how much federal money they get. Uh-huh. Sure. Right.

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