Israel « Yourish.com

11/20/2009

The problem with pundits

Filed under: Israel, Media Bias — Tags: Israel, Media Bias, Terrorism — Meryl Yourish @ 9:15 am

One thing nearly all [anti-]Israel pundits have in common is the sheer inability to access reality. The only villain in the inability to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians is Israel, generally due to settlements, and as a result of the security fence. Just ask Roger Cohen, for instance.

But the deeper error was strategic: Obama’s assumption that he could resume where Clinton left off in 2000 and pursue the land-for-peace idea at the heart of the two-state solution.

This approach ignored the deep scars inflicted in the past decade: the killing of 992 Israelis and 3,399 Palestinians between the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 and 2006; the Israeli Army’s harsh reoccupation of most of the West Bank; Hamas’ violent rise to power in Gaza and the accompanying resurgence of annihilationist ideology; the spectacular spread of Jewish settlements in the West Bank; and the Israeli construction of over 250 miles of a separation barrier that has protected Israel from suicide bombers even as it has shattered Palestinian lives, grabbed land and become, in the words of Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer, “an integral part of the West Bank settlement plan.”

That’s a pretty awesome list of what went wrong. Think Roger will devote any space in the rest of his column to the Palestinian terror attacks? The rockets from Gaza? Hamas’ constant warring with Israel?

Of course not. The rest of the article is about the fence, and about how Israelis are psychologically scarred and can only see themselves as “victims” of the Palestinians. Victims. Really? I thought they saw the Palestinians for what they are—a people who celebrate the mass murder of Israeli schoolchildren, killed while they were studying Torah in the heart of Jerusalem.

Gaza’s streets filled with joyous crowds of thousands on Thursday evening following the terror attack at a Jerusalem rabbinical seminary in which eight people were killed.

In mosques in Gaza City and northern Gaza, many residents went to perform the prayers of thanksgiving.

Armed men fired in the air in celebration and others passed out sweets to passersby.

But it’s the settlements. And the fence. Oh, and racism.

As Ron Nachman, the founder of the sprawling Ariel settlement, comments in René Backmann’s superb new book, “A Wall in Palestine,” the wave of Palestinian suicide attacks before work on the barrier began in mid-2002 meant that: “Israelis wanted separation. They did not want to be mixed with the Arabs. They didn’t even want to see them. This may be seen as racist, but that’s how it is.”

Really? Because I’m pretty sure there are well over a million Arab Israelis within Israel’s borders. But those “Palestinians” don’t count in any census except for the one where the rest of the world warns Israel that if they don’t negotiate a peace soon, the one-state solution will be forced upon them because Jews will make up a minority in the land formerly known as Palestine. Oh, and they mention them when they accuse Israelis of racism.

There’s one more bit of fantasy that all [anti-]Israel pundits like to promote. The fantasy that Mahmoud Abbas truly wants peace. (Plus, please… touting the Nobel given for nothing? We really are in Fantasyland here.)

Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions.

It’s not what Abbas wants but he’s powerless. Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist, told me, “A nonviolent status quo is far from satisfactory but it’s not bad. Cyprus is not bad.”

Mahmoud Abbas pays lip service, in English to peace. But when he speaks to his fellow terrorists at the Fatah convention, it’s a whole different story.

“Although peace is our choice, we reserve the right to resistance, legitimate under international law,” Abbas said in a policy speech, using a term that encompasses armed confrontation with Israel and non-violent protests.

“Resistance” also encompasses suicide attacks. And when he’s not talking about “resistance,” he’s sending condolences to the family of dead Hizbullah fighters, and congratulating mass murderers like Samir Kuntar.

But these things never pop up on the radar of the anti-[Israel] pundits. They don’t exist. There is no Palestinian intransigence, only Israeli intransigence, and Palestinian intransigence caused by Israeli settlements—which is Israel’s fault, of course. The [anti-]Israel pundits simply refuse to acknowledge the facts of the matter, unless those facts damn Israel and praise Palestinians.

But if you’re a regular reader of this, or any other pro-Israel blog, well, you’re aware of that. Preaching to the choir here. But sometimes, someone else reads my posts and starts thinking.

I seriously doubt the Roger Cohens of the world will. But hey, he’s great post fodder.

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The perverse equivalence

Filed under: Hamas, Iran, Israel — Tags: Gilo — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

In a paper on how the term “apartheid” is being used to deny Israel’s right to exist, Robbie Sabel concluces:

The Apartheid campaign against Israel has another revealing feature. It rarely deals with the massive abuse of human rights or cases of real Apartheid elsewhere in the world. In other words, it singles out Israel with a false accusation. For example, President Carter
has spoken about Israeli Apartheid but is careful about how he describes the conflict in Darfur, where Sudan’s Arab regime has been slaughtering black Muslims with the backing of many Arab states.68 The campaign against Israel is not based on a concern with the universal application of human rights, but on something else. This treatment of Israel is nothing less than an effort to delegitimize the Jewish state, by attributing to it the most heinous crimes. Michael Ignatieff, the head of Canada’s Liberal Party who served as a professor of human rights policy at Harvard University in previous years, made this very point in March 2009:

“International law defines ‘Apartheid’ as a crime against humanity. Labeling Israel as an ’Apartheid’ state is a deliberate attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state itself.”69

Perhaps the most chilling indication of the real purpose behind the “Israel is Apartheid”
campaign is revealed in one of the most active websites behind the campaign. They write
that among the goals of “prosecution for the crime of Apartheid is to force Israel to –
(4) Enable the true majority to return to power over their own lands, while protecting
the rights of ethnic minorities.”70

In other words, the real goal behind the Apartheid campaign is the denial of the
legitimacy of the State of Israel and the determination that the only status the Jewish
population in Israel can hope for is that of a “protected” ethnic minority in an Arab
Palestinian state.

At the same time there is this effort to deny Israel’s right to exist, Iran has been supporting Israel’s enemies with shipments of arms – most recently emphasized by Israel’s capture of the Francop. Matthew Levitt argues that greater scrutiny must be paid to ships that are carrying shipments from Iran.

Given Iran’s history of deceptive financial and trade activity, extra scrutiny should be given to any ship that has recently paid a call to an Iranian port. Countries should be encouraged to require ports and/or authorities to collect detailed, accurate, and complete data regarding all cargo being shipped to or through their countries (especially from risk-prone jurisdictions like Iran), to conduct rigorous risk assessments, and to proceed with actual inspections as necessary. According to press reports, the Francop docked in Egypt before it was boarded some 180 kilometers of the coast of Cyprus.

Recent events show that even as the Obama administration seeks to engage Tehran, the Islamic Republic has continued to work to undermine Western interests and to support anti-Western elements around the world, as demonstrated by its ongoing efforts to resupply Hamas and Hezbollah and assist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Disrupting Iran’s ability to arm allies and surrogates hostile to the interests of the United States and its allies would enhance Washington’s leverage in possible negotiations with Tehran, contain Iran should such diplomatic efforts fail, and prevent Iran from contributing to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and beyond.

Of course the continued shipments to Hamas (and Hezbollah) has improved Hamas’s military capability

As a result of Hamas’s development of a long-range rocket force, future military conflicts with Israel will almost certainly be more intense, cover a broader geographic area, and produce more destruction in both Israel and Gaza as the IDF acts to destroy the rockets. Hamas’s new rocket capabilities must also be seen in the context of Hizballah’s acquisition of rockets with a 300-km range. In a possible two-front war, this means that most of Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, would be within the range of Hamas or Hizballah rockets.

Through its growing rocket capabilities, Hamas is weakening the measure of deterrence established by Israel through Operation Cast Lead. And while Hamas has been careful since Cast Lead to avoid actions that would lead to renewed hostilities, its growing military capabilities may generate internal pressure to use its rockets or undertake other destabilizing actions. In December 2008, Hamas miscalculated gravely with respect to Israeli intentions and its own capabilities, sparking an intense conflict. There is no guarantee this will not happen again.

The creation of a long-range rocket force reinforces Hamas politically by enhancing its image as a “resistance” movement and its role as a spoiler and competitor to Fatah. Expanded military capacity also lends greater weight to the organization’s hard-line “military wing.”

From Israel’s standpoint, the potential political effects of threats to large population centers will likely make the government more willing to deal decisively with a revamped threat from Hamas. This would probably mean a comprehensive air and ground offensive throughout Gaza — one that would far exceed the scope of Cast Lead.

Showing that it has priorities in order, the administration this week, condemned an Israeli plan to build new housing in the Gilo section of Jerusalem. Howard Schneider of the Washington Post reported:

City officials moved forward Tuesday with a plan to build 900 homes in a disputed neighborhood of Jerusalem, prompting sharp criticism from the White House, the Palestinians and others who feel it will further undermine the chance of renewing peace talks.

The new units will expand the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, one of several built on land taken by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed to the city in a step not recognized by the international community.

What does the international community recognize? The right of Iran to arm Hamas? And what of the American administration? Does it believe that construction in Gilo is really the most pressing issue to resolve in order to restart peace talks? Or as Barry Rubin observes:

Obama said that the Gilo construction complicates administration efforts to relaunch peace talks, makes it harder to achieve peace and embitters the Palestinians.

Funny, he never said this about: PA incitement to terrorism; failure to punish terrorists; negotiations with Hamas despite its hardline positions, genocidal goals, antisemitic views, and terrorist acts; refusal to return to talks with Israel despite Obama’s express request to do so; breaking its promise on not to be a sponsor of using the Goldstone report to punish Israel; and other such actions. Each of these individually is more dangerous than the Gilo construction.

(A related point:

Yesterday Daled Amos noted that the State Department was boasting that it had done more to promote peace in the Middle East than the Bush administration did in eight years. Barry Rubin also noted:

Having sabotaged negotiations by escalating the construction-on-settlements issue, the Administration has now escalated even higher: no construction in Jerusalem is the minimum demand. Of course, Arab states and the PA will echo this, refusing all talks unless that happens. And since Israel won’t stop building in Jerusalem and the Arab side won’t—unlike the Administration—back down—Obama has just guaranteed a dead peace process for his entire four-year term in office. In fact, he’s probably ensured no comprehensive negotiations will take place, much less succeed.

Talk about painting yourself into a corner, and the Administration keeps making that corner smaller!

The administration’s mis-steps continue to discourage peace making.)

By highlighting the proposed construction in Gilo, the administration is giving further ammunition to those who would deny Israel’s right to exist by perverting international law. This, in turn, emboldens Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. It’s astonishing that to some people construction by Jews is an element that reduces Israel’s legitimacy, but that terror by Arabs continues to make their grievances worthy of being addressed. It is this perverse equivalence that the administration is encouraging.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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11/19/2009

SNB

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel, News Briefs, palestinian politics — Tags: Israel — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

Someone explain to China the meaning of “chutzpah”: China, the current occupier of Tibet, is telling Israel that adding new apartments to Gilo is an obstacle to peace. Because it’s not like they’re not occupying an entire nation that was really a nation before China took it over. Unlike the fictional nation of “Palestine.”

Erekat: Israel is not a partner for peace. Meryl: The record’s stuck. The record’s stuck. The record’s stuck.

State-sponsored British anti-Semitism: Britain’s Channel 4 just ran an “expose” on the influence of The Israel Lobby (da-da-DUM!). Wow, what state moneys can buy in Jew-hatred. They were charged with racial hate (or whatever that charge is in Britain) when they ran an expose on terrorists recruiting in British mosques. Any guesses on whether they’ll get charged with inciting racial hatred on this one? Shyeah.

Oh, no way this goes wrong: The CIA is launching a campaign to recruit Arab-Americans. If their screening is as strenuous as the FBI and the Army, we can expect a lot more Major Hasan incidents.

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11/18/2009

Wednesday SNB

Filed under: Iran, Israel, News Briefs — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

Ship with armed security team prevents hijacking: Wow, having armed security agents on board to fight off armed pirates stopped the pirates cold. Armed guards prevent piracy? Who woulda thunk it? And the pirates may very well be lost at sea or killed. World’s smallest violin orchestra queuing up now.

WTF kind of headline is this? Okay, you figure out what “post-election turmoil” means. The AP headline is “Iran sentences 5 to death in postelection turmoil.” The Iranian government sentenced five people to death whose only crime, apparently, was protesting the fraudulent election in June. So what’s the “postelection turmoil”? The fact that there was “turmoil” after the election (if you can call hundreds of thousands marching on the streets and shouting from the rooftops)? Were they sentenced for causing “turmoil”? Is the sentencing taking place in “turmoil”? Howsabout we change it to “Iran sentences 5 to death for protesting June election”? That would make it a hell of a lot clearer, and more truthful. Who writes these stupid headlines, anyway? Get someone better, AP.

Fight global warming with condoms. Seriously. The UN Population Fund says we can stop global warming by giving out free condoms and free family planning advice. See, if only there weren’t so many damned people, the world would not be suffering nearly as many ills. I propose eliminating only international bureaucrats. That’d fix the global warming problem in a hurry, since nobody else would really care about it.

Dogpile on Israelis! Dogpile on Israelis! The Gilo dogpile is on. Let’s see, the U.S., France, the UN and Britain–anyone else? Yeah, well, the suburb of Jerusalem will be building 900 new housing units. Deal with it.

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Passively described aggression

Filed under: Israel, Media Bias, palestinian politics — Tags: Jerusalem, Temple Mount — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

In some ways there’s little to quibble with in Howard Schneider’s To two faiths, a holy patch of land; to the world, a powder keg in the Washington Post. It begins:

It is one of the most watched pieces of real estate in the world, 35 acres where an under-the-breath prayer or a whiff of a rumor can rouse warnings of war.

In both Judaism and Islam, the area known respectively as the Temple Mount and the Noble Sanctuary is considered a formative location. Jews believe it to be the site of Solomon’s Temple and key biblical events. Muslims regard it as the spot where Muhammad was brought by the angel Gabriel before embarking on a trip to heaven to visit the other prophets.

It also remains a flash point, and a series of disturbances there this fall showed just how difficult it will be for Israelis and Palestinians to reach agreement on an area over which they negotiate not just as political entities but also as representatives of two faiths with an often-troubled relationship.

I wish he were stronger in terms of the Jewish claim. Archaeology has confirmed the Temple. It’s more than just a Jewish “belief.”

However later on there are a few things that bother me.

If the Palestinians “want to let go of an area in the West Bank, no one from the outside is going to say anything,” said Abdul Fattah Salah, Jordan’s minister of religious affairs. “But when it comes to Jerusalem, they can’t. It is tied to all Muslims.” The Jordanian ministry employs 500 people who staff the Jerusalem compound.
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Salah said the hope is that if part of Jerusalem becomes the capital of a Palestinian state, Muslims from any country will be able to begin visiting a site where it is considered a special blessing to pray — access that he said Israel is unlikely to grant if it maintains sole sovereignty over the city.

First of all, Schneider lets stand the exaggerated claim of the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem. Yes Jerusalem is holy to Muslims, but for much of Islamic history Jerusalem was ignored. Even the Crusades aroused little interest at first. This leads Daniel Pipes to conclude:

First, Jerusalem will never be more than a secondary city for Muslims; “belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem,” Sivan rightly concludes, “cannot be said to have been widely diffused nor deeply rooted in Islam.” Second, the Muslim interest lies not so much in controlling Jerusalem as it does in denying control over the city to anyone else. Third, the Islamic connection to the city is weaker than the Jewish one because it arises as much from transitory and mundane considerations as from the immutable claims of faith.

The other point Schneider should have challenged Salah on was his claim that until Jerusalem becomes part of a Palestinian state, Muslims from around the world won’t be able to visit it. I expect that Muslims from Arab countries that are hostile to Israel won’t be able to visit Jerusalem easily. So there is a solution. Make peace with Israel. (And of course the Jordanian doesn’t acknowledge that when his country ruled the Old City, Jews were forbidden from visiting their holy site!)

And then at the end of the article Schneider writes:

Given recent history, the fall riots were viewed by some here as a cause for optimism. They were on a comparatively small scale, led to no deaths on either side and, after a tense period from Yom Kippur through late October, appear to have dissipated without consequence.

Far worse has happened: Dozens of people died in 1996 in clashes that erupted after access was opened for tourists to a tunnel that ran on an ancient street alongside the wall. And a visit to the area by former prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2000 helped trigger the multi-year uprising known as the al-Aqsa Intifada.

Let’s give a little more detail as to what happened in 1996 and 2000. Barry Rubin recently recalled:

In 1996, the Israeli government opened a tunnel which tourists could walk through and see certain features of the ancient wall and Jerusalem. Rumors that the Jews were trying to destroy the mosques were orchestrated by the Palestinian leadership with many lives lost and the peace process placed in jeopardy. As a result, too, 85 Palestinians and 16 Israelis were killed, and more than 1,300 people–mostly Palestinians–were wounded, a terrible bloodshed for no rational reason whatsoever.

In 2000, a brief tour of the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon—he merely walked through for about an hour, looked around, and then left—was the rationale used to set off an intifada that lasted for about five years and cost several thousand lives.

Afterward, Marwan Barghouti, leader of Fatah on the West Bank, described in detail how he used this as an excuse to set off the uprising. This violence took place about the time that President Bill Clinton, with Israeli agreement, proposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state which would, among other things, control most of east Jerusalem.

Schneider uses “erupted” and “triggered” to describe how the violence started in those circumstances. But in both cases as Prof. Rubin observed, the violence was incited. Worse in 2000, the Arafat-PA orchestrated violence came after rejecting a peace offer that would have given the Palestinians significant control over the Temple Mount.

Left unsaid by Schneider and unfortunately not even implicit in his article is that there’s no peace in the Middle East, because the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically, refuse to make peace with Israel. Jerusalem might well be a sticking point, but it’s because the Arab world has chosen to make it one, rejecting any compromises with Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Palin on “settlements”

Filed under: Israel — Tags: Sarah Palin — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

Israel Matzav observes about a recent American criticism of Jewish construction in Gilo – that’s part of Jerusalem.

Obama’s not going to let up on this, but given the broad consensus within Israel, I doubt Israelis are going to yield to Obama on it either. A year from now, if election results favor the Republicans, maybe Obama will be forced to let up, but for now, we Israelis are going to have to live with this criticism without getting all hysterical about it. While Obama may want to make a radical change in US relations with Israel, it’s doubtful that he has the support in Congress or in American public opinion to make it.

He’s right. If Congress changes hands it will probably make a difference. Republicans, in general, are more sympathetic towards Israel. Sarah Palin, in her interview with Barbara Walters, demonstrated that difference. (via memeorandum)

“I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” Palin told Walters. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”

It’s true that Palin’s expressed beliefs are quite a bit more supportive of Israel than those of the average American and I doubt that she’d be able to act on those beliefs even she achieved higher office. Still it’s a refreshing contrast to an administration run by someone who used to be close with Rashid Khalidi.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

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11/17/2009

Of drones and doctrines

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

Given the acknowledgment in Sunday’s Washington Post editorial that the guidelines for asymmetrical warfare are lacking, there are two recent stories of note.

The first is from the National that describes the American efforts against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The Predator attacks are controversial, but they are getting increasingly close to the senior leadership of both the Taliban and al Qa’eda. Commander Faqir can have no doubt by now that he is in the sights of the US drones.

The Predator MQ9, with its deadly armoury of two Hellfire anti-tank missiles, is known as the Reaper, for good reason. The use of the Reaper is an extension of a well-tried US special operations technique known to its proponents as “taking down the mountain”, used to hunt such figures as Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drugs baron, and the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

It combines the collection of extensive intelligence with an operation to hunt the target’s associates, removing them one by one, forcing the main target on the run and out into the open, where he can be targeted. It has already been used against one senior al Qa’eda leader, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of al Qa’eda in Iraq, killed by the US in June 2006.

However, the reporter notes:

There are problems with these attacks. The first concerns the number of civilian deaths. The most authoritative assessment of the attacks, by the New America Foundation, estimates that about one third of more than 1,000 people killed were civilians, fuelling anti-western feeling inside Pakistan.

The second is the dubious legality of the attacks under international law. To justify killing an enemy in a military operation, it is necessary to be under threat from that enemy. Critics say the US airman operating the Predator remotely from an operations room in the Nevada desert is scarcely under threat from the Taliban or al Qa’eda.

The second objection is nonsense. Even if the Predator is operated from Nevada, there are still American troops nearby. Still it does indicate a problem: it is a tactic that its critics are trying to undermine. The Goldstone Report was an effort to prevent Israel from defending itself against its enemies. America’s enemies are no doubt looking as to how to apply Goldstone or similarly selective legal reasoning to restrain the American military.

And has Goldstone constrained Israel? After reporting on the improved military capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah, Amos Harel claims, that yes, Israel’s military doctrine is being constrained by fears of future legal actions.

According to a report by Nahum Barnea in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily, Netanyahu has already drawn his conclusions from the Goldstone report: Israel must fight only short wars, which will end before the international community wakes up. This is a systematic doctrine whose chief advocate in the General Staff is the head of the Planning Branch (and a former fighter pilot), Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel. “Short” is almost code for “aerial.” It takes far longer to mount a meaningful ground maneuver than to bomb Beirut from the air. At the moment of truth, Israel will face a serious dilemma: Should it initiate a massive blow to remove the danger, despite the major international damage this would cause?

I have no idea how accurate Barnea’s report is, but I suspect that he’s at least identified one of the considerations Israel will take into account in future military campaigns against terrorists. It would seem that Goldstone has accomplished his goal: he’s constrained Israel’s military options. Hopefully we’ll never have to find out how severely.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Tuesday SNB

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Iran, Israel — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

Israeli Double Standard Time: The AP kept using qualifiers like “Israel says” when covering the 500 tons of weapons discovered on a ship headed for Hezbullah. But there’s no problem whatsoever quoting Iranian newspapers as truthful sources when it comes to discussing the whereabouts of a missing Iranian general. He’s in Israel, of course, being held in “Zionist prison.” Go read both the articles, and tell me which nation the AP thinks is more trustworthy.

Toldja so: No way the U.S. goes along with the Palestinians going to unilaterally declaring a state. On the other hand, how the hell is it going to be contiguous when Israel lies between the West Bank and Gaza?

This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside: The IAEA, the one that couldn’t find the secret Iranian nuclear enrichment plant, says that it’s all set to be up and running within a year or so. Great news! Another plant Iran can use to cheat and retreat and build a nuclear bomb, and what’s the UN doing about it? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Warm and fuzzy, part 2: Gee. The IAEA seems to have noticed that Syria is, indeed, looking to make a nuke, too. Go figure. Iran’s their patron, they hate Israel—who knew?

Bow wow wow: You know, we have such an amateur as president, he never got the memo that the U.S. President bends the knee only to God. Seriously, has any other American president been so obsequious? But hey. He’s the president of the world, right? Uh, except that even the Europeans are losing their affection for The One. So soon?

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11/16/2009

Three cheers for the Washington Post

Filed under: Israel — Tags: Goldstone Commission, washington post — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Yesterday the Washington Post editorialized in War Unchecked (h/t Prof Avi Bell):

IN ORDER to eliminate the Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, the United States launched at least 15 missile strikes in Pakistan this year and killed, besides Mr. Mehsud, somewhere between 200 and 300 people, according to a study by the New America Foundation. At least a quarter of those who died were civilians.

Was that toll “disproportionate” to the threat posed by a single terrorist and therefore a war crime? How about the recent NATO bombing of hijacked fuel tankers in northern Afghanistan, in which a mix of 80 to 120 Taliban militants and civilians died? Justified strike, accident or war crime?

These observations give some background for what comes next: a harsh repudiation of the Goldstone report.

A commission appointed by the Human Rights Council to investigate Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza last winter could have set an example of serious treatment of such issues. Headed by the respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone, the panel altered the one-sided mandate it received, so as to examine abuses by both Israel and Hamas during the three-week conflict.

But Israel refused to cooperate — and the Goldstone commission proceeded to make a mockery of impartiality with its judgment of facts. It concluded, on scant evidence, that “disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy” by Israel. At the same time it pronounced itself unable to confirm that Hamas hid its fighters among civilians, used human shields, fired mortars and rockets from outside schools, stored weapons in mosques, and used a hospital for its headquarters, despite abundant available evidence.

The contrast between the events described in the opening two paragraphs and the reaction to Israel’s war against Hamas could not be clearer. The editorial correctly infers that Israel is being held to an impossible standard.

I could quibble with the editorial. How could the Post’s editors describe Judge Goldstone as “respected” at this point, even as they show his absolute disregard for any legal standards? And did the Post’s editors really expect anything else? After all if the investigation was about establishing international standards shouldn’t the commission have investigated NATO’s war against the Taliban or even the war against Serbia from a decade ago? Clearly the commission was convened specifically to hamstring Israel’s efforts to defend itself.

Still this shouldn’t take away from the importance of the editorial. The editorial should also serve as a rebuke to put upon NGO’s like Human Rights Watch. If they were true to their mission they wouldn’t have uncritically endorsed Goldstone. Rather Goldstone was doing their work for them; giving the imprimatur of the UN on a condemnation of Israel. What matters to HRW, is not the methods but the conclusion. If the conclusion damns Israel, it must be correct. Fortunately the editors of the Washington Post are more discerning.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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11/13/2009

I am not a schnook

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: Richard Goldstone — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

In Context observed about Judge Goldstone:

There’s something horrifying about the amount of damage that a slight to one man’s ego can do. I’m well aware that there was more to the Goldstone report than that, but nevertheless it appears to me to be a factor that can’t be ignored. The fact is that, his protestations notwithstanding, it’s Goldstone who has made the controversy over this report all about him.

Well that ego has bruised again, this time by Israeli President Shimon Peres (h/t My Right Word):

Richard Goldstone, who authored the United Nations report accusing Israel of perpetrating war crimes in its Gaza offensive earlier the year, is a man devoid of any real sense of justice and is intent on harming Israel, President Shimon Peres told Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during their meeting in Brasilia on Wednesday.

“Goldstone is a small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence,” Peres told his Brazilian counterpart, adding that the South African jurist “was on a one-sided mission to hurt Israel.”

Goldstone didn’t try to hide his bruised ego:

South African jurist Richard Goldstone lambasted President Shimon Peres on Thursday for a personal attack on him, which the president launched in response to a damning report he compiled on Israel’s winter offensive in Gaza.

“I would say that the President’s comments are specious and ill-befitting the Head of the State of Israel,” Goldstone said in an interview with Haaretz.

“I am content to be judged by my actions over the course of my career both in terms of my professional judicial career and my voluntary service.”

Meryl observes:

His report’s “message” has been addressed, many times, by many sources—factually—and Goldstone’s response, over and over again, is that people can’t attack him on the facts so they attack him personally. He sticks to this defense even in when he is confronted with evidence that directly contradicts his report, seeming shocked that such evidence exists. So Goldstone is either utterly disingenuous, if not outright lying—and he’s been doing this dance since the beginning. The martyr role is getting tiresome.

Since he asked for it, let’s judge the judge.

One of his most damning assessments was the commission’s account of the attack on the Maqadameh mosque.

Col. Jonathan Dahoah Halevi recently reviewed some aspects of the incident. (h/t Elder of Ziyon)

The Goldstone Committee also failed by thoroughly examining the data. If Committee members had examined the names of the Palestinians killed at the Maqadmah mosque, they would have discovered that their identities and the membership of many of them in terrorist organizations contradicted the “eyewitness” claims that there were no terrorist operatives in the area, and contradicted as well the conclusions of the Report in that respect.

Seven of the 15 Palestinians killed at the mosque were members of terrorist organizations who had participated in fighting the IDF, most of them members of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military-terrorist wing, and a few of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Regarding one of them (Ahmed Abu Ita of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades), it was reported that he had gone to the Maqadmah mosque to meet “friends,” i.e., other armed terrorist operatives.

(This isn’t some sort of post facto analysis. Elder of Ziyon discovered that one of those killed was a Hamas operative prior to the release of the Goldstone report by using publicly available sources.)

Halevi notes elsewhwere that a number of the witnesses the commission to this strike were from the Silawi family, who had an agenda. (Halevi also notes there, that the questions asked of the witnesses were hardly comprehensive.) Yet the commission accepted their testimony uncritically.

The Goldstone Commission’s report is based on many omissions and distortions as shown in this case. Yet Goldstone feels:

Goldstone emphasized that his conclusion that war crimes had been committed was always intended as conditional. He still hopes that independent investigations carried out by Israel and the Palestinians will use the allegations as, he said, “a useful road map.”
…
“We couldn’t use that report as evidence at all,” Goldstone said. “But it was a useful roadmap for our investigators, for me as chief prosecutor, to decide where we should investigate. And that’s the purpose of this sort of report. If there was an independent investigation in Israel, then I think the facts and allegations referred to in our report would be a useful road map.”

Nevertheless, the report itself is replete with bold and declarative legal conclusions seemingly at odds with the cautious and conditional explanations of its author. The report repeatedly refers, without qualification, to specific violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention committed by Israel and other breaches of international law. Citing particular cases, the report determines unequivocally that Israel “violated the prohibition under customary international law” against targeting civilians. These violations, it declares, “constitute a grave breach” of the convention.

That first paragraph should be chilling. Goldstone feels that Israel is now guilty of war crimes until proven innocent. Is it any wonder that Israel’s president would attack him? Golddstone has declared Israel a pariah, Peres should not have been silent.

Goldstone’s commission – effectively accepting a mandate from the OIC – has set out impossible standards for a democracy, specifically Israel, from defending itself against terror. All of Israel’s efforts to protect civilians were arbitrarily deemed insufficient.

So according to Goldstone, how would Israeli defend itself? And why does he fear debating Alan Dershowitz?

Like another Richard he seems unable to take criticism. Unfortunately he’s so convinced of his own righteousness that he won’t just go away for a few years.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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The wilful blindness of Richard Goldstone

Filed under: Gaza, Israel — Meryl Yourish @ 8:00 am

Richard Goldstone has responded to Shimon Peres’ criticism in typical fashion—by insisting that no matter what people say, his report was fair and balanced.

Peres was quoted Wednesday as calling Goldstone “a small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence,” who was “on a one-sided mission to hurt Israel.”

Goldstone’s response:

Goldstone also said he had anticipated that the report would engender considerable criticism. “After all, no one likes to be accused of committing serious war crimes. However, I was surprised at the many nasty attacks made against me personally. In my view, it was a classic case of attacking the messenger rather than addressing the message.”

His report’s “message” has been addressed, many times, by many sources—factually—and Goldstone’s response, over and over again, is that people can’t attack him on the facts so they attack him personally. He sticks to this defense even in when he is confronted with evidence that directly contradicts his report, seeming shocked that such evidence exists. So Goldstone is either utterly disingenuous, if not outright lying—and he’s been doing this dance since the beginning. The martyr role is getting tiresome.

Goldstone also rejected the claim that the fact that he is Jewish was exploited to make it more difficult for Israelis to challenge his conclusions. “I was approached because of my experience with regard to the investigation of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.”

Let’s take a look at the AP boilerplate that ran with every article on the Goldstone Commission, shall we?

However, Goldstone’s strong credentials as a respected South African jurist, his Jewish faith and past support for Israeli causes have made it hard for Israel to dismiss the claims.

It’s there. And here. Oh, and here’s another media outlet touting Goldstone’s Jewish faith as a great reason for the report’s accountability. And while I haven’t heard back from the AP regarding my letter (I never do), let’s face it—they don’t have to point out that Goldstone’s Jewish faith make it any harder for Israel to dismiss his report. It’s what people do when they set Jews to investigate Jews. The intent of the UNHRC, by choosing Goldstone, was to count on exactly the response they’ve got—with the extra added bonus that Goldstone is actually not a very good friend to Israel, else why would he continue to insist that his report is fair and evenhanded, ignoring all evidence to the contrary?

And now, Goldstone goes on his world breast-beating tour, blithely ignoring real criticism, and pretending that no one can disprove his report, anymore than they can show evidence that his Jewish faith has been used all along to try to muffle Israel’s understandable reaction to an anti-Israel report. Let’s see. It worked for Walt & Mearsheimer. It worked for Jimmy Carter. And now it’s working for Goldstone.

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11/12/2009

The audacity of nope

Filed under: Israel, palestinian politics — Tags: Obama administration — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

In an excellent op-ed, Steve Huntley gives a synopsis of how the Obama administration botched the Middle East.

Enter Obama. Rather than adopting a go-slow, build-on-the-past approach to a fragile situation, he did it his way — with a speech. Inadvertently, he exploded two grenades amid the process.

First, he declared the “aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied” — a reference to the Holocaust. By not combining that with an affirmation of the 3Â½ millennia of Jewish history in the Holy Land, he fed the Arab fantasy that a guilt-ridden West imposed Israel on the Middle East.

Second, he elevated Israeli settlements into a make-or-break issue for peace talks. “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” he said. Yes, past administrations opposed settlement expansion, but it wasn’t a first-tier issue. And every realistic plan for a resolution to the conflict recognizes that Israeli communities comprising 80 percent of the settlers and located near the 1967 borders (actually cease-fire boundaries from the Arabs’ 1948 war of extermination) would be included in Israel in a land swap.

Whereas the Palestinians once conducted talks while settlement construction continued, Obama gave them an excuse to just say no.

This puts a lot of the blame for the currently stalled “peace talks” on President Obama’s miscalculations. Still there’s a more basic miscalculation that all administrations are guilty of. Barry Rubin writes:

The same thing applies to Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas. Even after the United States and Israel announce that Israeli construction will be frozen, Abbas must insist that he can’t even talk to Israel unless not a single cinder block is laid atop another one. He also says that he will hold new elections next January but won’t run in them.

First of all, there won’t be new elections because his Fatah movement will never get a deal with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and maybe also because Fatah’s afraid it won’t win.

Second, Abbas is trying to use this threat as leverage on the United States to get more. Let’s remember the situation: President Barack Obama wants direct Israel-PA talks and Abbas refuses. Obama made a deal with Israel on freezing construction on settlements, Abbas rejects it.

Once again, this is the farce played out in which everyone pretends Abbas is serious, while Washington pretends that it can get some real cooperation from the PA

But what is triggering Abbas’s action most immediately is the cries of betrayal when he agreed with Obama’s request that the PA not take the lead in pushing the Goldstone report in the UN. Everyone knew that it would pass and that all the Arab and Muslim-majority regimes would support it. Yet Washington wanted to avoid the embarrassment of having one of the two parties it is trying to get to the negotiating table call the other one a bestial war criminal that should be lynched.

Abbas went along for about 48 hours but there was an uproar in Fatah. Why? Because everyone was scoring points by proving they were more militant than Abbas. So Abbas did a turnaround. That wasn’t enough so then he helped provoke riots on the Temple Mount and now is doing this resignation farce.

The President’s audacity got him “nope” from Abbas.

This dynamic is independent of who’s in the White House. In the West, we value moderation; but in the Arab world intransigence s valued. So when the U.S. someone a moderate it has the effect of enhancing his reputation in the West, but damaging it in the Arab world. Until this changes, there isn’t hope for a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Comments (1)

11/11/2009

Wednesday SNB

Filed under: Iran, Israel — Meryl Yourish @ 9:00 am

DC Sniper snipes no more: Funny how no one manages to mention the words “Muslim,” “jihad,” or “Islamic” in all the news stories about Muhammed’s execution. And let us all say: Buh-bye!

Wake me when they issue a UNSC resolution: The US accused, and Britain brought up “concerns” that Iran was involved in the smuggling of 500 tons of weapons to Hezbullah. In other words, nothing will happen in the world theater, because Israel didn’t kill any Palestinians while stopping the arms shipment.

Ahmedinejad to Obama: It’s Israel or Iran. Um. We choose Israel. Of course, it’s getting a little hard to tell with the Obama administration, but I’m pretty sure they’re not going to throw Israel under the bus. Yet. And oh yeah—he says capitalism sucks, too. So that’s why the mullahs are all gazillionaires? Because they hate the capitalist system, right?

Israel opens West Bank crossing, world ignores sign of progress. What’s that? One of the dreaded Palestinian roadblocks has been alleviated? Who cares, Israel is still building “settlements.” At least, that’s the attitude out there.

The blame game begins: So, let me get this straight. The FBI knew that the Fort Hood Jihadi was a jihadi. The CIA knew he was a jihadi. And the army knew he was a jihadi. But none of them did anything other than close the file and declare he wasn’t dangerous? Wow. I’m so happy that America is being protected by people who are really onto what terrorism is and isn’t. Because otherwise, we’d have terrorist attacks on our own soil, killing and wounding dozens. Oh. Wait.

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French FM is shocked, shocked that Israeli left is no longer gullible

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

As always, instead of blaming the arms-smuggling, terror-attacking, missile-launching Palestinians for the lack of peace in Israel, the French foreign minister is putting the blame squarely on—the Israelis. And what bothers him the most? The Israeli left finally wised up and refuses to be fooled by the murderers masquerading as peacemakers, and is demanding, gee, real actions from the Palestinians instead of the same old words and terror.

Speaking on France Inter radio, Kouchner made clear he was not expecting any swift break through in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

“What really hurts me, and this shocks us, is that before there used to be a great peace movement in Israel. There was a left that made itself heard and a real desire for peace,” Kouchner said.

“It seems to me, and I hope that I am completely wrong, that this desire has completely vanished, as though people no longer believe in it,” he added.

Huh. You’d almost think that Israel withdrew from Gaza and was then subjected to a constant barrage of rockets and mortars into her territory. Or that Hamas would have taken over in a bloody coup from Fatah and started turning Gaza into an Islamic terror state. Or that Mahmoud Abbas would refuse to negotiate seriously, calls for the end of the “Judaization” of Jerusalem, and refuses to compromise one whit on Palestinian demands. Or that the security fence actually helped stop terror attacks on Israel.

Say, Bernard? Fu vous.

Comments (5)

11/10/2009

“Disproportionate force”

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: Goldstone Commission — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

The Goldstone Commission uses the term “disproportionate force” five times in describing the Israeli war against Hamas. It uses the term “proportional” or “proportionality,” 22 times. Let’s check out the use of “disproportionate force.”

62. The tactics used by Israeli military armed forces in the Gaza offensive are consistent with previous practices, most recently during the Lebanon war in 2006. A concept known as the Dahiya doctrine emerged then, involving the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to
civilian populations. The Mission concludes from a review of the facts on the ground that it
witnessed for itself that what was prescribed as the best strategy appears to have been precisely
what was put into practice.
63. In the framing of Israeli military objectives with regard to the Gaza operations, the concept of Hamas’ “supporting infrastructure” is particularly worrying as it appears to transform civilians and civilian objects into legitimate targets. Statements by Israeli political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza indicate that the Israeli military conception of what was necessary in a war with Hamas viewed disproportionate destruction and creating the maximum disruption in the lives of many people as a legitimate means to achieve not only military but also political goals.
64. Statements by Israeli leaders to the effect that the destruction of civilian objects would be justified as a response to rocket attacks (”destroy 100 homes for every rocket fired”), indicate the
possibility of resort to reprisals. The Mission is of the view that reprisals against civilians in armed hostilities are contrary to international humanitarian law.

More here:

1191. In its operations in southern Lebanon in 2006, there emerged from Israeli military thinking a concept known as the Dahiya doctrine, as a result of the approach taken to the Beirut neighbourhood of that name.578 Major General Gadi Eisenkot, the Israeli Northern Command chief, expressed the premise of the doctrine:
What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every
village from which Israel is fired on. [...] We will apply disproportionate force on it
and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not
civilian villages, they are military bases. [...] This is not a recommendation. This is a
plan. And it has been approved.579

Here:

1683. In this respect, the Mission recognizes that not all deaths constitute violations of international humanitarian law. The principle of proportionality acknowledges that under certain strict conditions, actions resulting in the loss of civilian life may not be unlawful. What makes the application and assessment of proportionality difficult in respect of many of the events investigated by the Mission is that deeds by Israeli forces and words of military and political leaders prior to and during the operations indicate that as a whole they were premised on a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed not at the enemy but at the “supporting
infrastructure.” In practice, this appears to have meant the civilian population.

And here:

1691. The Mission has noted with concern public statements by Israeli officials, including senior military officials, to the effect that the use of disproportionate force, attacks on civilian population and destruction of civilian property are legitimate means to achieve Israel’s military and political objectives. The Mission believes that such statements not only undermine the entire regime of international law, they are inconsistent with the spirit of the United Nations Charter and, therefore, deserve to be categorically denounced.
1692. Whatever violations of international humanitarian and human rights law may have been
committed, the systematic and deliberate nature of the activities described in this report leave the Mission in no doubt that responsibility lies in the first place with those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations.

The above paragraphs contain four of the five mentions of “disproportionate force” mentioned by the Goldstone commission. (The fifth was a footnote.)

Note a few things. I’ve faulted the Goldstone commission for cherry picking evidence. In these paragraphs we see something else. There’s an effort here to define a term of international law, that is nowhere nearly as clear as the Commission presumes and uses it to condemn Israel.

Furthermore, the commission engages in a huge reversal. Look at the final section of paragraph 1683:

What makes the application and assessment of proportionality difficult in respect of many of the events investigated by the Mission is that deeds by Israeli forces and words of military and political leaders prior to and during the operations indicate that as a whole they were premised on a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed not at the enemy but at the “supporting infrastructure.” In practice, this appears to have meant the civilian population.

One of Israel’s defenses for the collateral damage inflicted upon civilians is that Hamas hid among civilians and used civilian facilities for military purposes. With the two sentences above, the Goldstone commission takes away that justification.

Yet it is part of the Commissions lead-up to 1692:

1692. Whatever violations of international humanitarian and human rights law may have been committed, the systematic and deliberate nature of the activities described in this report leave the Mission in no doubt that responsibility lies in the first place with those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations.

In other words, the commission’s personal opinion has now been substituted for settled law and it draws the conclusion that Israel’s military planners are responsible.

This conclusion of the Goldstone report appears to be the opinion of the commission, not a legal conclusion in any way. Worse by substituting their judgment for sound legal reasoning, the commission stacked the deck against any independent Israeli investigation. If an Israel investigation would consider Israel’s military doctrine sound and in accordance with international law, Goldstone (and those who support and rely on him) would say that the Israeli conclusions were dishonest. In other words, the Goldstone commission is ensuring that any Israeli investigation would find Israel’s military leaders guilty of war crimes or that Israel was protecting its military brass.

In a paper for the U.S. Army, Jonathan Keiler argues that proportionality is a concept that really had been defined but rarely used – before the Israel war against Hezbollah in 2006.

The 2006 Israel-Lebanon war generated the first large-scale and systemic references to a heretofore mostly ignored law of war concept, the doctrine of proportionality. Occasional references to proportionality are found in accounts of the Iraq War and in histories or scholarly works of the last century. In general, prior to Israel’s 2006 campaign the proportionality
doctrine received little scholarly interest and even less attention among the governing classes and international media.1 In all likelihood, critics of American action in Iraq or Afghanistan would have more thoroughly employed this doctrine in their efforts to end or limit US military involvement had they simply thought of it. But by 2006, when the doctrine was widely known, the major battles in Iraq and Afghanistan were finished.

One important point that Keiler makes is:

A year before the Gaza offensive, in February 2008, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declined a reporter’s invitation to label Israeli retaliatory action as “disproportionate.”3

This is a sound policy that the Obama Administration would be well advised to follow. Though American military action in Afghanistan or Iraq has not yet received comparable condemnation (at least on grounds of “disproportion”), it is only a matter of time before this occurs, as soon as a fight is significant enough to warrant it. There is little difference in the operational
practices used by the Israeli and American militaries, which not only share many weapon systems but also elements of tactics and training.4

In other words the idea of declaring a war “disproportionate” is an attack on a country’s ability to defend itself by nullifying part of its military doctrine. If this standard is applied to Israel, it’s only a matter of time before it’s applied to the United States.

Keiler writes further:

The problem with the proportionality rule is its frequent and remarkable misinterpretation. The extent of this confusion is so great as to severely limit the utility of this law of war concept as presently structured. As both the Lebanon and Gaza campaigns illustrate, the doctrine is subject to distortion to the degree that applying it is actually harmful to the conduct of lawful and legitimate military campaigns.7 As a practical matter, invoking the doctrine confuses important issues and undermines respect for the law of war. Michael Walzer, one of the most prominent ethicists of war and its consequences, notes that false claims of disproportion typically have the effect of justifying excessive violence, which he characterizes as a “dangerous idea.”8 This article will propose the elimination of proportionality as a law of war concept, at least by the American military. Existing doctrine, standards, proscriptions, and ethical guidelines are more than sufficient to govern proper conduct in combat without descending into the semantic, legal, and ethical miasma of proportionality.

Ive read someplace that a group of South Africans have recommended that Israel carry out an investigation of its military operations in response to the Goldstone report. But the nature of this investigation would be to compare Israeli actions in Gaza to American and NATO actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The point would be to show how Goldstone manufactured a standard and then applied it only to Israel. There may be some wisdom in that suggestion.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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11/09/2009

Degrees of cluelessness

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: Goldstone — Soccerdad @ 2:00 pm

JudeoPundit excerpts a bit of Moshe Halberthal’s critique of the Goldstone report:

In addressing this vexing issue, the Goldstone Report uses a rather strange formulation: “While reports reviewed by the Mission credibly indicate that members of the Palestinian armed groups were not always dressed in a way that distinguished them from the civilians, the Mission found no evidence that Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from the attack.” The reader of such a sentence might well wonder what its author means. Did Hamas militants not wear their uniforms because they were inconveniently at the laundry? What other reasons for wearing civilian clothes could they have had, if not for deliberately sheltering themselves among the civilians? [...]

But how does it work in the field? How, for example, can you know intent? Col. Ben Zion Gruber, (who recently talked to Mona Charen) gave an example at a recent talk (h/t Media Backspin) :

Further evidence of the IDF’s combat dilemma was revealed in what Gruber said was rarely seen news footage.

As the camera focuses on a wounded Arab man with a Kalashnikov rifle lying by his side, an arm is suddenly seen removing the smoking weapon. This, said Gruber, is a media-savvy tactic that, if the camera had not captured the gun being removed, makes it appear as though the IDF has injured a civilian.

The cluelessness repeatedly demonstrated by Goldstone in focusing on the effects of Israel’s war against Hamas, while failing to acknowledge the causes or context of that war inevitably taint the report. I think that Goldstone’s cherry picking of what he would consider and what he wouldn’t means that even had Israel participated, the outcome would have been no different. I think that criticisms of Israel on this count are misplaced.

What was misplaced was the American choice to get involved with the tarnished UN Human Rights Council. As Barry Rubin writes:

President Barack Obama made a controversial decision in deciding to have the United States participate in the radical-run UN Human Rights Council, reversing Bush administration policy of boycotting the group. Moreover, the president has gone out of his way to talk about how useful the UN is as a force, sometimes it seems to be in his eyes the most important force, to keeping the world peaceful and making it more so.

The new administration argued that by participating it could moderate the course of a body that never defends human rights in a long list of dictatorships (many of which are members and even leaders of it) but just focuses on bashing Israel.

But now that the point about the Council’s function as a propaganda organ for extremist dictatorships is proven, what does the United States do? Its ambassador isn’t going to the discussion in the General Assembly that’s discussing using the ludicrous Goldstone report as a basis for punishing Israel.

If you need to know just one thing about the Goldstone report, here it is: the commission did not investigate anything. It heard a lot of Palestinian and some other anti-Israel witnesses; wrote down what they said; and put it into the report without verifying anything.

Now, having implicitly given the American imprimatur of legitimacy to a corrupt organization, the Obama administration will now have to veto the results of the council’s labors. Goldstone is .clueless about his own role in this venal project, will the Obama administration come to terms with the results of its own cluelessness?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Monday Snark News Briefs

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Terrorism — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

I do not think that word means what you think it means: The Turkish Prime Minister says he’d be more comfortable talking to the Sudanese president responsible for the genocide in Darfur than he would be talking to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Why? Because “A Muslim could not commit genocide.” Yes, really. The Turkey-Israel relationship, she is over. And good riddance to bad rubbish, if that’s the way the Turks think. Of course, it is. Because they never committed genocide against the Armenians. Oh, no. It was a civil war, you see, that wound up murdering a million and a half Armenians.

The frequent kassam attacks return: I guess there’s going to be a Goldstone 2, because if the terrorists keep this up, Netanyahu will likely send in the troops again. The constant drip-drip-drip of rocket fire can only be taken for so long.

Make peace with us or we’ll kill you: It’s the Arab way. The Palestinians threaten it, the Syrians threaten it—it’s only a matter of time before more countries jump on the bandwagon. It’s good to see that the Obama outreach to Syria is also paying dividends—this was in Assad’s speech to the OIC.

Jordan’s “moderate” king: The time for peace is now or never. That is starting to be an absolutely familiar refrain these days. Except I’ve heard it a whole bunch of times. “If we don’t make peace soon, there will not be peace for decades! Or forever!” But here is the most hypocritical piece of garbage uttered by the man whose father destroyed Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem:

“The Israelis must understand Jerusalem’s standing among the Arabs, the Muslims and the Christians, and should not play with fire.”

Like he gives a damn about Christians. Notice what’s missing from that statement, though? A man truly bent on peace and understanding would say something along the lines that Jerusalem is holy to all three faiths and must be adminstered accordingly.

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Tom Friedman urges Bush policy on Israel

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

Looks like even Tom Friedman has discovered that the secret to Middle East peacemaking isn’t the Obama Way:

This peace process movie is not going to end differently just because we keep playing the same reel. It is time for a radically new approach. And I mean radical. I mean something no U.S. administration has ever dared to do: Take down our “Peace-Processing-Is-Us” sign and just go home.

[...] Let’s just get out of the picture. Let all these leaders stand in front of their own people and tell them the truth: “My fellow citizens: Nothing is happening; nothing is going to happen. It’s just you and me and the problem we own.”

Indeed, it’s time for us to dust off James Baker’s line: “When you’re serious, give us a call: 202-456-1414. Ask for Barack. Otherwise, stay out of our lives. We have our own country to fix.”

That sounds to me like an endorsement of George W. Bush’s refusal to repeat the Clinton administration’s mistakes. And coming from the guy who threw the Saudi peace plan on the world and pushed it for years as the only real move forward in negotiations—well, let’s just say I’m having a major schadenfreude moment.

Sorry, but I simply have to laugh at this guy. How many times did he swear that the Palestinians really, truly, utterly wanted peace, and that all Israel had to do was give up a lot of land and figure out some way to resettle the “refugees” in order for that to happen? And now? Well, the stardust appears to have fallen from his eyes.

It is obvious that this Israeli government believes it can have peace with the Palestinians and keep the West Bank, this Palestinian Authority still can’t decide whether to reconcile with the Jewish state or criminalize it and this Hamas leadership would rather let Palestinians live forever in the hellish squalor that is Gaza than give up its crazy fantasy of an Islamic Republic in Palestine.

He’s wrong on Israel keeping the West Bank. Israel will give back nearly all of the land to the Palestinians in return for a true peace and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. But he’s right on the others.

Tom Friedman, a realist at last. And not in the political sense of the word—in the dictionary sense.

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11/08/2009

When you’re serious about the Middle East, stop living in the past

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Media Bias — Tags: Thomas Friedman — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

Thomas Freidman, today relives one of his greatest hits on Israel. In an op-ed entitled “Call White House, Ask for Barack,” Friedman writes:

Today, the Arabs, Israel and the Palestinians are clearly not feeling enough pain to do anything hard for peace with each other — a mood best summed up by a phrase making the rounds at the State Department: The Palestinian leadership “wants a deal with Israel without any negotiations” and Israel’s leadership “wants negotiations with the Palestinians without any deal.”

It is obvious that this Israeli government believes it can have peace with the Palestinians and keep the West Bank, this Palestinian Authority still can’t decide whether to reconcile with the Jewish state or criminalize it and this Hamas leadership would rather let Palestinians live forever in the hellish squalor that is Gaza than give up its crazy fantasy of an Islamic Republic in Palestine.

Don’t get me wrong. I agree with Friedman’s central premise that peace isn’t just around the corner. And he is also correct that the United States ought not to be making the peace process its central focus in the Middle East.

What I object to, is his characterization of Israel as being uninterested in peace. Israel, near as I can tell doesn’t possess the complete “West Bank,” as he calls it, having ceded the major cities there to the Palestinians during the 1990’s. Israel has taken quite a few significant steps for peace since 1993. But let’s go back to the scene of Friedman’s crime. (i.e. what the “Call Barack” line refers to.)

In 1990 then Secretary of State, James Baker expressed his frustration with the Israeli government. His pique was dutifully reported by the then New York Times diplomatic correspondent, Thomas Friedman.

If such new thinking is not forthcoming ”quickly” from Israel, Mr. Baker cautioned, then the Bush Administration is simply going to disengage from Middle East diplomacy. Washington, he suggested, will adopt the attitude that could be summed up as ”call us when you are serious about peace.”

To drive home that point to the Israelis, the Secretary of State gave them President Bush’s White House telephone number.

”I have to tell you that everybody over there should know that the telephone number is 1-202-456-1414,” Mr. Baker said. ”When you’re serious about peace, call us.”

(I believe that I’ve read the Friedman fed Baker the line about calling the White House, but have found no documentation of the charge.)

But continue reading the article.

In its coalition agreement, the new Israeli Government stipulated that Israel would not negotiate directly or indirectly with anyone affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization. It also excluded from the negotiations any Palestinians who are residents of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

Washington, as well as Israel’s Labor Party, has argued that to get Palestinians to accept negotiations, those Palestinians who are residents of both Jerusalem and the occupied territories should be allowed to take part, as well as those who might identify with the P.L.O. but have no formal affiliation with the organization.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir added an additional condition: that Palestinian negotiators must formally embrace Israel’s idea that negotiations would be about autonomy for the occupied territories and nothing more, before talks could begin. The American position is that the talks should open with a discussion about autonomy, but then eventually move on to issues of final status.

Understand some things. In 1990, the only people in Israel who were advocating for a Palestinian state were those on the far left. Now even the supposedly “hawkish” Israeli Prime Ministers, Binyamin Netanyahu is working from that premise. In 1990, the discussion as to whether or not to negotiate with Palestinians affiliated with the PLO – there was virtually no one in Israel who, nineteen years ago, approved of negotiating with the PLO itself.

But these taboos have fallen by the wayside. The PLO is in charges of Palestinians living in “the West Bank.” The more extreme Hamas rules Gaza. And Israel is no closer to peace than it was back in 1990. In the name of peace, Israel has given the PLO land, money and even weapons. In the name of peace of the PLO has taken them, but made neither reciprocal nor concrete contributions to the “peace process.”

As Israel ceded territory to the PLO, the PLO under Yasser Arafat used its newfound freedom to create a “suicide factory” in the territories he controlled.

And after rejected Ehud Barak’s peace offer in 2000 at Camp David, Arafat launched a new war against Israel, that killed thousands until Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield to destroy the terror infrastructure Arafat built even whill being hailed as a “peace partner.” But how did Friedman react to the terror war that Arafat launched in 2000? This is what he wrote in “Arafat’s War.”

Mr. Arafat had a dilemma: make some compromises, build on Mr. Barak’s opening bid and try to get it closer to 100 percent ? and regain the moral high ground that way ? or provoke the Israelis into brutalizing Palestinians again, and regain the moral high ground that way. Mr. Arafat chose the latter. So instead of responding to Mr. Barak’s peacemaking overture, he and his boys responded to Ariel Sharon’s peace- destroying provocation. In short, the Palestinians could not deal with Barak, so they had to turn him into Sharon. And they did.

Of course, the Palestinians couldn’t explain it in those terms, so instead they unfurled all the old complaints about the brutality of the continued Israeli occupation and settlement- building. Frankly, the Israeli checkpoints and continued settlement- building are oppressive. But what the Palestinians and Arabs refuse to acknowledge is that today’s Israeli prime minister was offering them a dignified exit. It was far from perfect for Palestinians, but it was a proposal that, with the right approach, could have been built upon and widened. Imagine if when Mr. Sharon visited the Temple Mount, Mr. Arafat had ordered his people to welcome him with open arms and say, “When this area is under Palestinian sovereignty, every Jew will be welcome, even you, Mr. Sharon.” Imagine the impact that would have had on Israelis.

But that would have been an act of statesmanship and real peaceful intentions, and Mr. Arafat, it’s now clear, possesses neither. He prefers to play the victim rather than the statesman. This explosion of violence would be totally understandable if the Palestinians had no alternative. But that was not the case. What’s new here is not the violence, but the context. It came in the context of a serious Israeli peace overture, which Mr. Arafat has chosen to spurn. That’s why this is Arafat’s war. That’s its real name.

Not everything here is wrong or outrageous, but Charles Krauthammer identifies the underlying problem with Friedman’s observation.

We are now at Phase Two. This is the war Arafat has coveted all his life: the war against Israel from within Palestine. He tried first to make war from Jordan and was expelled in 1970. He then tried to make war from Lebanon and was expelled in 1982. And then in 1993, the miracle: Israel itself, in a fit of reckless high-mindedness unparalleled in the annals of diplomacy, brought him back to Palestine, gave him control of 98 percent of the Palestinian population, armed his 40,000 “police” (i.e. army), and granted him international legitimacy, foreign aid, and the territorial base of every city in the West Bank and Gaza.

Yet there are still observers in the West who remain puzzled by Arafat’s war. Taken in by Oslo for the entire eight years, the New York Times’ Tom Friedman, for example, now rationalizes the collapse of his illusions by characterizing Arafat’s war as senseless and self-defeating, “a grievous error” and an “idiotic uprising.”

This analysis is sheer nonsense. The war is the war Arafat always wanted. He has just seen Israel, facing guerrilla war in Lebanon, abjectly surrender and withdraw unilaterally. And now, after a year of his own guerrilla war within Palestine, the balance of forces with Israel has shifted dramatically in his favor.

Why was Friedman surprised? Had he not been paying to attention to Arafat’s perfidies over the previous 7 years? And yet Friedman thought it was conceivable that Arafat would see Barak’s proposal and make a counteroffer. Friedman refused to believe what happened since Oslo. He always figured that if Israel made enough concessions it would achieve peace. He accepted no evidence to the contrary.

Still even after that point, now nine years later, he still argues that Israel isn’t serious in peace. I notice that he didn’t write a column earlier this year after lame duck Israeli Prime Minister Olmert made an offer even more generous Camp David to “moderate” PA President Abbaas that was summarily rejected! Friedman who invested so much ink, pixels and prestige to (then) Crown Prince Abdullah’s peace ultimatum saying that it was significant (though the Saudi was vague about Arab commitments to Israel) refused to acknowledge a concrete Israeli peace offer that still didn’t bring peace.

That’s because no amount of land will satisfy the Palestinians, as long as Israel still exists. That has not changed in the sixteen years since Arafat and Rabin signed the Oslo Accords. Rather than acknowledge the sea change in Israeli politics that has occurred since then, Friedman chooses to retreat into his comfortable “plague on both their houses” approach. Sorry but all Friedman is doing, is validating the continued Palestinian rejection of Israel, ensuring that peace will remain remote.

Maybe one day Friedman will come to his senses. But for now he remains stuck in the glorious past when he was the Secretary of State’s favorite stenographer.

Related: see Meryl tomorrow (11/09/09).

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Comments (2)

11/06/2009

Goldstone’s telling remark

Filed under: Israel — Tags: Dore Gold, Richard Goldstone — Soccerdad @ 9:30 am

In his debate with Dr. Dore Gold last night, Judge Richard Goldstone made a very telling remark.

Goldstone also revealed a personal aspect. “I was afraid to enter Gaza. I had nightmares that Hamas would kidnap me and that the Israelis would rejoice,” he said.

Judge Goldstone has been maintaining that he saw no sign of pressure exerted by Hamas on any of his witnesses. And yet he felt menaced? Goldstone was in Gaza under UN auspices and presumably there temporarily. What of the people who wouldn’t have the freedom to leave? Wouldn’t they fear kidnapping or worse, especially if they didn’t give Goldstone the responses that Hamas wanted them to?

But the second part of the remark is telling too. If he thought he was being fair why would Israelis rejoice at his kidnapping? I think that he’s strongly suggesting that he knew the verdict before the investigation. My Right Word noticed the same thing.

The Boston Globe also covered the debate.

Goldstone said the forum allowed him a chance to explain the substance of his findings “and avoid the personal and ad hominem attacks that have marked the debate on the report to date.” Goldstone, a former South African constitutional court justice who is himself a Jew, said much of the criticism of the report was based on false premises.

For example, he pointed out that many complaints say the UN Human Rights Council’s mandate to Goldstone was biased because it called only for an investigation of illegal Israeli acts. But Goldstone said he had refused to accept that mandate precisely because of its bias, and he had agreed to take part only when he was given the chance to rewrite the terms of the investigation.

He said the revised language called for a probe into the conduct by both sides in the three-week war, which raged from late December last year to mid-January and took 13 Israeli lives and those of more than 1,300 Palestinians.

Yes, I know he was hurt by the ad hominem attacks, But in order to argue that his opponents failed to critique the substance of his report, starting off with a distortion like that, wasn’t a good idea. Yes, Goldstone purported to change the mandate of his mission. But as Rep. Howard Berman’s revised resolution condemning Goldstone points out, the changes Goldstone “insisted” upon had no legal force.

Whereas Justice Richard Goldstone, who chaired the `United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,’ told the then-President of the UNHRC, Nigerian Ambassador Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, that he intended to broaden the mandate of the Mission to include “all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after,” a phrase that, according to Justice Goldstone, was intended to allow him to investigate Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians;

Whereas Ambassador Uhomoibhi issued a statement on April 3, 2009, that endorsed part of Justice Goldstone’s proposed broadened mandate but deleted the phrase “before, during, and after,” and added inflammatory anti-Israeli language;

Whereas a so-called broadened mandate was never officially endorsed by a plenary meeting of the UNHRC, neither in the form proposed by Justice Goldstone nor in the form proposed by Ambassador Uhomoibhi;

And then Goldstone got off into his “collective punishment” argument. Funny, but having 1 million Israelis in missile range didn’t qualify.

The Globe also synopsizes Dr. Gold’s repsonse:

Gold – who has three degrees from Columbia University, including a doctorate, and now runs the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs – answered that while the report did criticize Hamas, it concentrated more intensively on alleged Israeli wrongdoing, when it was Hamas units that hid among civilians and all but ensured they would end up in the crossfire.

“There’s no question there was enormous damage in Gaza,” he said. “But why doesn’t Hamas appear as a responsible party for what happened? Who booby-trapped the buildings in Gaza? Who launched an eight-year war against Israel? Who built tunnels under people’s homes? The Hamas political leadership, which seems to get off the hook.”

Israel Matzav was there and blogged the event. He notes that Dr. Gold rebutted the report’s finding that Israel didn’t make sufficient efforts to alert civilians of impending attacks.

They said that they would hit any house that stored rockets, but sent multiple warnings to the civilian population. They entered into radio transmissions, leaflets were dropped, and then there was an attempt to directly contact families through cell phones or home phones. He put up a message in Arabic with an English translation.

How do we know that they received those warnings? Here’s a Hamas TV clip and how Hamas tried to keep the civilians among the military. (I haven’t seen these before – this is impressive). He said that the Goldstone Report wanted proof that the Palestinians were forced to be human shields – that’s an impossible standard to meet. He shows the famous video that I have of Fathi Hamad telling a rally that they must act as human shields and how they desire death. There’s no separation between Hamas and the ‘armed elements’ that fight Israel. He talked about Israel redirecting missiles while putting up a slide about the Palestinian police station strike.

How did Judge Goldstone respond to such presentations? Elsewhere, Israel Matzav observes:

Overall, I really felt that Dore Gold won the debate. That assessment is based on the audience reaction and on the comprehensiveness of his presentation. Goldstone seemed dumbfounded at the slides and video that Gold produced.

That’s pretty incredible. In this day and age, to learn anything of what Dr. Gold presented would have required a computer, an internet connection and a browser. But Judge Goldstone and his confederates couldn’t be bothered. If it didn’t fit their conclusions, they wouldn’t seek it out.

Courtesy of One Jerusalem here is Goldstone:

and here is Gold

In the end it’s impossible to escape the impression that Goldstone relishes playing the put upon prophet who only tells the truth, no matter the cost. However looking at his commission’s work and his smug self-righteousness you can only conclude that he cynically cherry picked his information in order to support his belief in Israel’s guilt rather than attempting to determine the truth. Impartiality was not a quality that Goldstone’s commission possessed.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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11/05/2009

Gold vs. Goldstone

Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

Thursday at five. This is my reminder post. You can watch a webcast from Brandeis, live, at the link.

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The Francop affair aftermath

Filed under: Israel — SnoopyTheGoon @ 10:26 am

The considerable quantity of weaponry fished recently by our navy in Mediterranean is resting on dry land in the port of Ashdod, but the waves made by it are still churning. Our media is milking the story for what it is worth and then some. So does our foreign office, including a compulsory travel to the Ashdod exposition by the accredited diplomats. Cocktail hour amid hand grenades and rockets… It’s quite impossible these days to switch on an electric appliance here without getting some Francop-related news. Relax, folks, we miss many more shipments than we catch, I bet. Anyway, I love our Shayetet (naval commando) boys as much as the next geezer, but let’s be a bit less provincial, shall we?

But this is all in a day’s work, so move on, there are better things to watch. Which is, to start with, the hilarious responses from our neighbors and cousins.

First of all, there were no weapons on Francop, this is all a Zionist-staged provocation.
Besides (the same source says) the act of interception of the non-existing weapons is piracy…
The weapons are not related to Iran in any way (radio). Well, the fact that the goods were carried in containers from the Iranian merchant fleet and the accompanying cargo manifest shows their Iranian provenance is an accident, of couse.
And of course, Hezbollah claim that they have nothing to do with the shipment that never was and blame the “pirates” as well. The fact that the ship was destined for Beirut is a pure coincidence. And them Jooz are doing this because of Goldstone anyhow…
And so it goes.

Still, it is not the Arab press that takes the cake in this case. The honors go to the UN-believable dorks:

UN report finds no evidence of arms smuggling to Lebanon

Two days before Israel’s capture of a ship that was apparently ferrying arms to Hezbollah, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a report to the UN Security Council in which he said the United Nations took the Israeli allegations about weapons smuggling to Hezbollah seriously, but lacked the ability to independently verify the information.

And how do we know this (pay attention, please):

In the report, Ban wrote that the Lebanese government had not informed the UN of a single incident of weapons smuggling to its territory, whether by land, sea or air.

Lebanese government hadn’t informed… I will be… how is it for a… what the…

To relax – here goes a related blooper courtesy of Ynet:

Our defense minister is getting so large lately that he already deserves a zip code of his own, not to mention perimeter patrols. Well, the Ynet folks meant “tours”, of course….

My power nap time is nigh anyhow.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

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No evidence

Filed under: Iran, Israel — Tags: Israel — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

In regards to whether UN has proof that Iran is smuggling arms to Hezbollah, after the Israeli capture of an Iranian ship bound for Lebanon, Yaacov Lozowick makes the mischievous observation:

Try to imagine what the world would be like if anyone trusted the important things to the United Nations.

But of course, it’s not just the UN that ignores proof. Consider Israel’s capture of the Karine A in 2002. Initially the New York Times reported:

The Israeli Army said today that it had seized a ship carrying 50 tons of rockets, mines, antitank missiles and other munitions meant for Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, even as the Bush administration’s envoy met with Mr. Arafat in the hope of strengthening his declared cease-fire with Israel.

Palestinian officials denied any link to the ship, the Karine A, and dismissed the announcement a day after the seizure as propaganda timed to undermine Mr. Arafat.

This was followed three days later with an admission from the captain of the ship.

The interviews with the captain were rationed to selected news organizations by Israeli military officials frustrated that the smuggling has not gotten more international attention. They bolstered the Israeli contention that the weapons were intended for Palestinians for use against Israel.

As Captain Akawi did not draw a direct line between the shipment and Mr. Arafat. He said he did not know if Palestinian officials senior to the man he called Awadallah had been aware of the operation.

The captain also did not directly implicate the Iranian government in the smuggling, as the Israelis have, but he did describe a link to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group backed by Iran.

Note how careful the reporter is not to implicate Yasser Arafat (or even) Iran explicitly. Also, note that this huge news was largely ignored “frustrating” Israeli officials.

A couple of months later this was reported:

American officials said that Israeli intelligence reports about the Moscow meeting were at the heart of secret briefings that Israel provided to the Bush administration after the arms shipment was intercepted.

”There’s plenty of evidence to show that it wasn’t a rogue operation,” a senior State Department official said of the ship that Israel seized in early January.

Palestinian Authority officials dismissed the charges of any Iranian involvement in their struggle against Israel and denied that Mr. Arafat knew of the arms shipment. They said the allegations were an attempt by Israel to discredit the Palestinians and to justify Israel’s military operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

”This is a factory of lies,” Yasir Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian minister of information, said. ”Israel is like any colonial power. When they get in trouble, they try to blame outsiders. There has not been a single Iranian here since the 14th century.”

Iran also has denied any involvement with the Palestinians or the arms shipments. Ali Shamkhani, the Iranian minister of defense, told the state news agency, ”The Islamic Republic of Iran has had no military relations with Arafat, and no steps have been taken by any Iranian organization for the shipment of arms to the mentioned lands.”

And of course, note the denial. So let’s to this week’s capture of Iranian arm shipment to Hezbollah.

Here’s the Washington Post:

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, speaking from Tehran, denied that Iranian arms were bound for Syria and said “pirates” had disrupted legitimate trade between Syria and Iran, news services reported.

The incident comes as Israeli political officials defend their country in the U.N. General Assembly against allegations that Israeli forces committed war crimes during last winter’s three-week war with the Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
…
Israeli officials offered no direct evidence that the supplies were bound for Hezbollah. They noted, however, that Iran is forbidden under a U.N. embargo to export arms. Iran is widely considered a major weapons supplier for Hezbollah and Hamas.

The New York Times:

News reports quoted the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, and other officials saying the ship had been carrying the arms from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, but officials released no evidence to support those claims.

The capture of the ship came hours before the United Nations General Assembly began deliberations on the Goldstone report on the Gaza war last January, which asserts that both Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters committed war crimes.

Note how both articles claim that Israel offered “no evidence” of the charges and that it came at the same time that Israel’s responsibility of “war crimes” is being discussed in the UN. Both articles are effectively suggesting that Israel’s making a claim to deflect attention from its (unproven) guilt. Just like Yaser Abad Rabbo did in 2002.

AP (via memeorandum) too:

But hours after the seizure, Israel had not provided proof that the arms were meant for the Lebanese guerrillas.

At least AP doesn’t mention the irrelevant (to this story) UN activity.

Media Backspin observes that there is proof that the ship is Iranian in origin.

But what more proof does Israel need?

The Syiran and Iranian foreign ministers issued denials:

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem on Wednesday, dismissed the allegations out of hand.

His remarks were backed by Muallem, who asserted that contrary to Israeli claims, “the ship was not carrying Iranian-made weaponry for Syria or Lebanon,” but was in fact carrying Syrian-made items for consumption in Iran.

“Unfortunately a number of pirates disrupt business activities and frequenting of the ships, these pirates sometimes act in the name of [Iranians],” said the Syrian Foreign Minister.

Well as far as consumer good being transported, Israel provided visual proof that it’s not Syrian made toasters on the ship.

As Noah Pollak observes:

Moallem says there were no arms on board. The IDF has released a video of the ship’s weapons being unloaded in the port of Ashdod. There are rows and rows of mortar shells, rockets, and crates filled with grenades

Power Line notes:

Our enemies don’t stop scheming against us when we’re not paying attention to them. Or when we’re negotiating with them, either.

But there will be plenty who will cover for them aren’t there?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Comments (1)

11/04/2009

Snarkly, briefly, Israeli

Filed under: Gaza, Iran, Israel, Syria — Tags: Goldstone Report, Iran, Israel — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

Leftist Jewish group nobody ever heard of to Israel: Stop demanding that the Goldstone Report include actual, unbiased facts! Oh, this one’s rich. Hundreds of Jews have signed a letter telling Israel and the worldwide Jewish community to stop “vilifying” the Goldstone Report. Signers include Tony “I’m Jewish but Israel really sucks” Judt, Howard “I’m Jewish too and Israel really, really sucks” Zinn, and then a bunch of tiny Israel-hating Jewish groups that use the word “peace” in their titles so you know they really mean it. Switching to something actually interesting now.

Iran to Syria: Give us back the uranium we illegally sold you. And oh yeah—do it on your own damned dime. Wow, this one’s just awesome. Iran wants Syria to return the uranium it was supposed to use in the nuclear plant that Israel bombed so that, well, Syria couldn’t make a nuclear bomb. I hope they do try it. And the IDF intercepts the ship. That would be fun.

No Security Council resolution on Goldstone: Israel and the White House have apparently reached a “silent understanding” on not letting Goldstone reach the Security Council. How long before the Palestinians and the OIC get noisy about the silence? I figure a day or two.

The Palestinian Lobby trumps the Israel lobby. Hillary Clinton has now been spanked by just about all the major players in the Middle East for daring to suggest that a total settlement freeze should not be a precondition to peace talks. And she has been properly repentant:

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington does not accept the legitimacy of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and wants to see their construction halted “forever.”

That’s funny. I thought it was the Israel lobby that was powerful enough to force the U.S. President to dance to its tune, and yet, here she is, slamming Israel only days after saying that Netanyahu made “unprecedented” steps toward freezing settlement construction. Huh. Go figure. That Walt & Mearsheimer—boy, they really pulled one over on the world, hey?

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IDF commandos thwart Iranian arms shipment to Syria

Filed under: Israel, Lebanon — Tags: Israel, Lebanon — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

The IDF is showing Iran that Israel has a very long reach. Commandos took control of a ship carrying weapons for Syria and Hezbollah.

An Israeli Navy commando force seized control over a suspicious vessel in the early hours of Wednesday morning, which was found to be carrying weapons.

The ship is believed to have come for Iran, destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon and meant to dock in Syria.

The incident took place some 150 kilometers off the coast, near Cyprus. A fleet of smaller ships approached the vessel, sailing under the Antiguan flag, and boarded it.

The crew members showed no resistance. The ship was found to be carrying at least five containers of ammunition and weapons, under the guise of a civilian delivery.

The cargo included rockets, grenades, mortar shells and missiles. “This could be bigger than Karin-A,” a military source said.

The firm running the ship says it had no idea it was being used for weapons smuggling.

“We did not know there were weapons on the ship. We knew that we were delivering containers, but we are not legally permitted to check what is inside them. This is the responsibility of the customs authorities at the ports where we anchor. We do not know what happened on the ship. We are waiting, just like you are, for answers.”

How did the arms get on the ship? That is a very good question. Will we get answers? I think we will.

He added, “This is the first time something like this happens to us. I hope this will not damage the relations between Cyprus and Israel, because it is just business for us.”

Will we get UN condemnation? I think we won’t. But all in all: An awesome operation from IDF commandos. Something to give Iran pause, one would think.

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Goldstone commission report is not flawed

Filed under: Israel — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

Judge Richard Goldstone has repeatedly referred to his commission’s finding 36 incidents during Israel’s war against Hamas to investigate. Augean Stables has studied the report and identified the 36 incidents. The Augean Stables observes:

In other words, we didn’t look specifically into incidents of Hamas using human shields, didn’t listen to witnesses who, taking that information into account, found the IDF took remarkable risks to avoid hitting civilians. Instead, they chose 36 incidents to investigate which “appear to represent situations where there was little or no military justification for what happened,” and nonethess, found Israel guilty of targeting civilians. If Moyers had done his homework, he’d have noticed the absurdity of Goldstone’s claim.

Indeed, the FFM, even as it only tangentially considered evidence of Hamas’ military strategy of human shields, consistently dismissed any evidence to the contrary. The trope “The Mission found no evidence… did not find any evidence… for illegitimate behavior by Hamas and other Palestinian combatants runs through the report like a scarlet thread:

In other words the Goldstone commission chose the incidents to investigate, specifically because it determined that those incidents would demonstrate that Israel committed war crimes. And of course any incidents that would show that Hamas committed war crimes was ignored.

Yaacov Lozowick comments at the end:

One of the strangest things about the report, to my mind, is that the fact finders never made even the slightest attempt to figure out what the Palestinian fighters – Hamas or Islamic Jihad – were doing. At least in the case of Israel, they repeatedly asked; when Israel didn’t respond they invented what they thought might be reasonable answers (they weren’t). When it comes to the other side, however: nothing. They were in Gaza! They could have sought all sorts of facts. But no: for all the report has to say, there were evil Israelis, there were lots of poor civilians, and here and there, rarely, there were unidentified people shooting rockets. Was their any Gazan semi-military force facing the Israelis? Taking action? Planning attacks or fending off Israeli ones?

But really, it’s worse than that. It’s not just the Goldstone & co. cherry picked the incidents they investigated, they even cherry picked within those incidents.

This is from the famous Forward Goldstone article:

Some have challenged the report’s version. These critics raise questions as to whether the Samounis’ neighborhood was fully pacified when the Israeli Army shelled the house, as the report contends. Jonathan Halevi, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Israel army, submitted material to the commission citing accounts of combat by Palestinian armed groups that he argued disproved many assertions made in the report.

The Goldstone report made use of Halevi’s material, finding that they actually supported Goldstone’s own findings. But Halevi faulted Goldstone for failing to look into similar material freely available elsewhere on-line.

In the material Halevi sent to the commission about the Samouni incident, he focused exclusively on the military activity of Hamas in the area at the time in question. He found there was none and Goldstone cited this in the report as evidence that fighting had ended. But Halevi said that other information–specifically, the Web sites of other militant groups–would have made it clear that another militia, Islamic Jihad, was operating in the area on the morning in question.

In fact here’s some of the information that Halevi gathered:

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 RGP 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.

This means that the Goldstone commission used Halevi’s information and
1) ignored his evidence of terror activity in the area – used it to confirm that Hamas was not operating in the area but ignoring that Islamic Jihad was -
and
2) accepted testimony from compromised witnesses as factual.

So when Goldstone told the Forward that his commission’s report would not prove anything in a court of law, he was being modest. In a court of law, as opposed to a kangaroo court such as the UNHRC, he would be guilty of suborning perjury and tampering with evidence.

It would be wrong to say that the Goldstone commission’s report is flawed. If it were flawed, it would suggest an element of good faith. But the conclusions of the report are exactly the ones its originators’ intended. The Goldstone commission was convened not to uncover the truth, but to convict Israel. The way that the commission operated by cherry picking the incidents it investigated and the evidence it accepted ensured that result.

Congress was correct in repudiating it.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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The Arab Lobby: Stronger than the Israel Lobby

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

So, if the Israel lobby is so strong, how is it that the Arabs got Hillary Clinton to back off her praise for Israel not once, but twice? Why did she soften her praise of Netanyahu’s efforts to reach a compromise agreement with the Obama administration on halting construction?

During her meeting with the Israeli leader, Clinton praised his offer on settlements, which would freeze new construction but allow already started projects to continue, as “unprecedented.” She did not, however, push him to adhere to the complete freeze she had insisted upon in the past, causing many in the region to question whether the US had dropped the demand.

Since then Clinton has sought to reassure Arab leaders, repeating the praise for Netanyahu’s offer yesterday but stating clearly that it falls short of US goals. In interviews today with al Jazeera and al Hurra, Clinton has reiterated that message.

Today Clinton tacked on an extra stop to her trip. She’s now in Egypt, a country who, along with Jordan, issued a statement on Sunday in defense of Palestinian efforts after Clinton’s remarks with Netanyahu.

She’s kissing up to all of the Arabs for having the temerity to say that Netanyahu is being reasonable. Conversely, the Palestinians are being unreasonable—but heaven forfend that anyone should actually be truthful about the real obstruction to peace in the Middle East.

Here’s a hint: It ain’t settlements.

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11/03/2009

“The terrorists’ Magna Carta”

Filed under: Israel — Soccerdad @ 10:30 am

Israel’s former Justice Minister, Daniel Friedmann, in an op-ed calls the Goldstone report – “the terrorists’ Magna Carta.”

Friedmann makes note of the inherent conflict between Goldstone’s defensive claims and his actual report:

Moreover, Goldstone’s claim that he was leading “a fact-finding mission” is refuted by the report, which is highly judicial, replete with purported legal analysis of international law, detailed legal findings and reaching judicial determinations on “war crimes.”

As Goldstone told the Forward:

“If I was advising Israel, I would say have open investigations,” he told the Forward. “In that way, you can put an end to this. It’s in the interest of all the people of Israel that if any of our allegations are established and if they’re criminal, there should be prosecutions. And if they’re false, that should be established. And I wouldn’t consider it in any way embarrassing if many of the allegations turn out to be disproved.”

According to Goldstone, nothing is proven, but Israel must investigate, else be judge guilty.

Still, Friedmann gets to the most insulting aspect of the Goldstone report here:

I shall not elaborate upon the mission’s biased recommendations which are not devoid of a ludicrous aspect. “The mission recommends that Palestinian armed groups undertake forthwith to respect international humanitarian law, in particular by renouncing attacks on Israeli civilians” (p. 1770). This recommendation is a plea to fundamentalist terrorists for whom terror against civilians is their raison d’être, who regard suicide bombers and murderers as heroes. Is this recommendation, which seems like recommending to the Mafia to respect the law, a lip service to objectivity, naiveté, or evidence of complete detachment from reality?

I really can’t add anything else, but I will. Here’s how Hamas views its role:

The following were the main points quoted by the Hamas-affiliated Safa News Agency, October 28, 2009:1

i) The [Hamas] interior ministry “coordinates with all the factions of the resistance in [the] Gaza [Strip]” [i.e., the terrorist organizations].

ii) The ministry makes every effort “to protect them and make it easier for them to carry out every aspect of their jihadist missions.”

iii) There is routine coordination between the interior ministry and the various organizations: “We routinely meet with the commanders of the factions [i.e., the terrorist organizations] to remove obstacles between us. We have ended the security coordination with the occupation [i.e., the Palestinian Authority’s security coordination with Israel] and have replaced it with jihadist coordination” [i.e., operational coordination to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel].

I could be wrong but this doesn’t suggest that adherence to international law is one of the primary focuses of Hamas. Judge Goldstone will be so disappointed.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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“Slap in the face”

Filed under: American Scene, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Hillary Clinton — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

Meryl noticed this yesterday. (See the end of the post.)

Barry Rubin summarized the administration’s efforts in the Middle East like this:

The president of the United States has said that he wants talks resumed immediately and believes it possible to make a breakthrough. The Palestinian leadership is thwarting him on both points. In other words, they are responsible for the failure of a major U.S. policy.

So when the administration, specifically, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton points this out and it brings howls of protest from the Arab world what is the administration’s response?

The New York Times:

Arab officials expressed alarm that the United States seemed to be easing pressure on Israel after Mrs. Clinton said in Jerusalem on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal of restrained settlement building was better than anything previous Israeli governments had offered.

Mrs. Clinton said the administration would not stop pushing Mr. Netanyahu to do more. But she said that in trying to revive a stalled peace process, she wanted to offer Israel encouragement for moving in the right direction, even if that movement fell short of what the United States wanted.

“I will offer positive reinforcement to the parties when I believe they are taking steps that support the objective of reaching a two-state solution,” she said here, on the eve of a conference of Arab and Western countries. “I will also push them as I have in public and private to do even more.”

The Washington Post:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to soothe Arab uneasiness Monday over weekend statements she made praising the Israeli government’s offer to “restrain” growth in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying it “falls far short” of the Obama administration’s hopes and is “not enough.”

Reflecting her concern over the Arab reaction, Clinton decided to extend her week-long trip to the region, scheduled to end Tuesday, with a previously unplanned stop in Cairo on Wednesday to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On Sunday, Egypt backed the Palestinian stance that negotiations cannot resume until Israel stops all settlement construction.

Clinton insisted that the administration still considers settlement activity on disputed territory “illegitimate” and advocates a freeze. But she repeated at a news conference here that Israel’s offer was “unprecedented” and that it “holds the promise of moving a step closer to a two-state solution.”

So faced with Arab displeasure, the administration backtracked. But the Washington Post observed:

Clinton’s comments represented a shift in the dynamics since Obama took office, with initial pressure on Israel giving way over the past several weeks to apparent impatience over the refusal of Palestinian officials to resume peace talks in the absence of a settlement freeze.

And the NYT quoted Arab League Secretary General, Amr Moussa:

Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, urged the administration not to accept what he called a “slap in the face” by Israel. He said he hoped the Americans would “try hard and in a firmer way.”

And how would you characterize the official Palestinian response to Secretary of State Clinton’s remarks in Israel?

“Why, Mrs. Hillary? How much did the Zionists pay you as a bribe?” taunted an article in today’s edition of Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which is controlled by the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

That’s the “moderate” Palestinian response. And check out the cartoon. The Arab world actually slapped the administration in the face and the administration meekly backs down. The Palestinians, supported by the Arab world, show that they’re uninterested in peace and the administration simply tolerates it.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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11/02/2009

The Palestinians turn on Obama

Filed under: Israel, The One, palestinian politics — Meryl Yourish @ 10:00 am

This is perfect. You really can’t get much better than this. The Palestinians are blaming Obama for the lack of a peace agreement, instead of, say, their utter refusal to come to the table and discuss things.

Palestinian officials on Sunday criticized the United States for what one called “backpedaling” on demands that Israel stop settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, saying the Obama administration’s change of approach on the issue damaged the likelihood of a peace agreement.

“If America cannot get Israel to implement a settlement freeze, what chance do the Palestinians have of reaching agreement” on the even more complex set of issues involved in final peace talks, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a written statement.

The thing I like best about all this is that they’re actually correct. It is Obama’s fault, and you can trace it to these exact words from the Cairo speech:

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. (Applause.) This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop. (Applause.)

There’s a lesson in unintended consequences there. Barry Rubin says that Netanyahu has given Hillary Clinton more than Israel has ever offered regarding the cessation of settlements, but it’s still not enough for the Palestinians—and now Egypt and Jordan have climbed aboard the “absolutely no building, anywhere!” wagon and declared that the Palestinians are right not to negotiate without a complete freeze. But, as Barry Rubin points out:

In fact, at the time it signed the original peace process agreement—often called the Oslo accord—in 1993, that’s 16 years ago—Israel put forward its interpretation of the agreement. It said that there would be no new Jewish settlements and no geographical expansion of existing settlements. But Israel made it clear that it would continue to build apartments on existing settlements. That position was not challenged by the Palestinians at the time and it has never held up talks before now.

In effect, then, Obama has totally effed up the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, by giving the Palestinians a demand that they could latch onto and use as an excuse to refuse so much as talking with Israel. Even the WaPo has noticed:

The comments represent what has been a shift in the dynamics since President Obama took office, with initial pressure on Israel giving way to apparent impatience over the refusal of Palestinian officials to resume peace talks in the absence of a settlement freeze.

The first months of Obama’s administration were marked by sharply worded demands that Israel stop building in both the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians consider the areas part of a future Palestinian state and say that a halt to settlements on Israel’s part would simply be fulfilling promises already made under previous international agreements.

You know, I think I may start taking back all the bad things I thought about Obama and the Cairo speech. Because clearly, it has shown the Palestinians’ duplicity to all and sundry, and exposed the so-called “moderate” states of Egypt and Jordan for the enablers of the rejectionist philosophy of Fatah and the PA. Even Barack Obama can’t keep ignoring who is truly at fault for lack of progress in the Middle East. Well, okay, he can—but people are going to start laughing at him when he blames Bush for the current impasse.

Update: And on cue, Clinton moderates her statement to please the outraged Palestinians and Arabs.

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