I have to believe that the ratios from the Gulf States are not due to natural variances. It’s funny that for all the talk about women’s rights in the Gulf, it’s usually about being restricted from going out alone or not being allowed to drive. No one protests that large numbers of (baby) girls in these countries are being deprived of their right to life.

I bring this up because Phyllis Chesler has written about a recent study in the (once respected) medical journal, Lancet. (via memeorandum)

Their study is titled: “Association between exposure to political violence and intimate-partner violence in the occupied Palestinian territory: a cross-sectional study.” And yes, they have found that Palestinian husbands are more violent towards Palestinian wives as a function of the Israeli “occupation”– and that the violence increases significantly when the husbands are “directly” as opposed to “indirectly” exposed to political violence.

The gender ratios in Syria, Egypt, “Occupied Palestinian Territories” and even Iran are all reasonable.

I guess when you don’t have a real grievance it’s always easier to make one up and blame the Jews.

UPDATE: As commenter Eric J observed and as Elder of Ziyon pointed out in an e-mail, male guest workers probably account for the excessive number of men found in the oil rich Gulf States.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Jilani frowned slightly and wrote Ali’s answer up on the white board behind him. He read it out to the class before turning back to Ali. “All right, Ali,” the sheik said. “Why do we answer calls for jihad? Is it because all Muslim leaders want to make God’s word highest? Do we kill if these leaders tell us to kill?”

Ali looked confused, but whispered, “Yes.”

“No — wrong!” Jilani cried as Ali blushed. “Of course we want to make God’s word highest, but not every Muslim leader has this as his goal. There are right jihads and wrong jihads, and we must examine the situation for ourselves. For example, if a person wants to go to hajj now, is it right?”

The class chuckled obligingly at Jilani’s little joke. The month for performing hajj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca that observant Muslims hope to complete at least once in their lives, had ended five weeks earlier, and the suggestion was as preposterous as throwing a Fourth of July barbecue in November.

“Well, just as there is a proper time for hajj, there is also a proper time for jihad,” Jilani explained.

Jilani’s students, who range in age from 18 to 36, are part of a generation brought up on heroic tales of Saudi fighters who left home to fight alongside the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the 1980s and who helped to force the Soviets to withdraw from the country. The Saudi state was essentially built on the concept of jihad, which King Abdul Aziz al-Saud used to knit disparate tribal groups into a single nation. The word means “struggle” and in Islamic law usually refers to armed conflict with non-Muslims in defense of the global Islamic community. Saudi schools teach a version of world history that emphasizes repeated battles between Muslims and nonbelieving enemies. Whether to Afghanistan in the 1980s or present-day Iraq, Saudi Arabia has exported more jihadist volunteers than any other country; 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudis.

The article mostly reports on the current programs and what leads young men to become jihadis, but adds this cautionary note towards the end.

The government maintains that no graduates of the Munasaha program have returned to violence. But the program is still relatively new, and there are unanswered questions. Is the government dealing with captured militants while really failing to address the root causes of extremism? Will released extremists, now counted as successes, eventually return to jihad?

This report (.pdf) suggests that the Saudi efforts may indeed pay off.

The Saudi program has not yet proven its long-term success. Nevertheless, it represents a creative way of countering terrorist ideological support. It is unlikely to have a significant impact on dedicated, experienced terrorists, and should find its greatest success among younger terrorists and loosely affiliated wannabes. In many ways, this may in fact be more important in reducing the next generation of militants. If combined with other efforts to reduce sympathies for militants and jihadists, modifications of the Saudi counseling system could prove to be a useful tool.

(via The Lede)

However the revelation that a couple of rehab “graduates” were involved in the planning of the recent terror attack has led some to quesiton the effectiveness of the programs. (via memeorandum)

A cushy Saudi Arabian “rehab” center where terrorists are encouraged to express themselves through crayon drawings, water sports and video games is under scrutiny after one of its graduates re-emerged as a leader in the al Qaeda branch claiming responsibility for trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas.

Said Ali al Shihri — a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who now heads the terror group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — obviously didn’t get to the bottom of his America-hating issues while undergoing the controversial rehab for jihadists.

Inmates like Shihri are supposed to while away the days playing ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer in hopes that the peaceful environment will help them cope with their jihadist rages.

More specifcally:

“The Saudis talk about a success rate of 80 to 90 percent, but when you look at what those numbers mean in reality, it all falls down. There is no criteria for evaluation,” John Horgan, a Department of Homeland Security consultant, told the New York Post.

In 2009, Horgan visited several of the Saudi terrorism rehab centers to report on the programs for Homeland Security.

“These guys are not being de-radicalized. They are being encouraged to disassociate from terrorism, but that doesn’t mean their fundamental views changed,” said Horgan, director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State.

(Horgan was interviewed in the first article cited here and he seemed less skeptical then.)

Jammie Wearing Fool thinks that a new activity should be added to the art therapy.

Wonderful. Why don’t we just give them Play-Doh and they can pretend it’s plastic explosives?

UPDATE: If the failure of the Saudi rehab program as evidenced by the attempt on flight 253 is causing a rethinking of its effectiveness, the failure of releasing Guantanamo inmates to Yemen hasn’t led the administration to rethink that strategy. (h/t Instapundit)

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Brennan explained that, “Of the recent batch that we sent back, about six, many of them are in custody within the Yemeni system right now.” He did not elaborate on the meaning of “many.” “We will decide and determine when, when we should send additional people back,” Brennan continued. “But we’re going to do it in the right way, because Guantanamo should be closed. It was used as a propaganda tool by al-Qaeda, and the president is still committed to it.” The message was clear: Guantanamo inmates are going back to Yemen.

On the bipartisan opposition to transfers to Yemen, Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman said on ABC today that “One thing we better learn from [the Detroit terrorism incident] is it would be irresponsible to take any of the Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo and send them back to Yemen.” Also on ABC, Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, chairman of the intelligence subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, said, “I think it is a bad time to send the 90 or so Yemenis back to Yemen.”

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Am Yisrael Chai: The Jewish people live. That’s what the Benjamin Netanyahu said in Wannsee yesterday. That’s the place where the Nazis planned the destruction of the world’s Jews.

Ew! Jew cooties! Hamas is denying having participated in European workshops with Israelis. Because, you know, Jew cooties.

Note to self: No more putting purse on the back of chairs in restaurants. Ben Bernanke’s wife’s purse was stolen from the back of her chair at a Starbuck’s, begging the question: Didn’t she feel the thief take it? The media’s making this out to be a major ID theft case, but the details being given out make it seem like, uh, the thief stole her checkbook and tried to cash a check. Unless there’s more to the story, it’s typical media overhype.

Um, what’s the point of an Israeli suing a Swedish paper in a New York court? An Israeli lawyer (not one of the brighter ones if you ask me) is suing the Aftonbladet for libel in a New York court. Why not in Sweden? Am I the only one that thinks this is moronic?

The New York Times tells us:

Khalid bin Mahfouz, a billionaire Saudi banker who paid $225 million to settle charges of bank fraud in 1993 and later won a string of lawsuits in Britain against writers who had accused him of supporting terrorism, died Sunday at his home in Jidda. He was 60.

Bin Mahfouz’s business dealings came under scrutiny by a number of scholars, and he fought back by suing them in English courts where libel laws are more favorable to plaintiffs. The Times notes:

But Sheik Mahfouz’s criticisms were sometimes irrefutable. He was widely referred to as the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, which he was not. Many newspapers published corrections.

What’s the point of this observation. There’s no indication that Rachel Ehrenfeld (one of his legal targets, who was mentioned by the Times) made this false charge. Are we to infer that all of his defenses were equally valid? It would appear that the Times is going out of its way to defend Bin Mahfouz.

Though Ehrenfeld and Millard Burr – two of his legal targets – won’t miss him, they list a number of people who will.

Many will miss him. In Riyadh, he will be missed by the ruling members of the royal family who once used his National Commercial Bank as their own piggy bank, and often used him and his family members as fronts for their business and to fund their favorite organizations and terrorist groups. Likewise, those shady characters who run the Saudi-funded Muslim World League, the International Islamic Relief Agency, and the Rabita Trust of Pakistan will miss him.

Georgetown alum (1968) Prince Turki bin Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the U.K. and the U.S. and director of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Department from 1977 until ten days before 9/11, and overseer of Saudi financial aid to the jihad in Afghanistan, will have lost an old friend.

Bin Mahfouz will certainly be missed by a circle of notorious Saudi plutocrats who make an appearance in the annual Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest citizens, many as defendants in the lawsuits filed by the victims of the 9/11 attacks. There are the Rajis, the Bin Ladens, Al Amoudi, and such other disreputable individuals as designated terrorist Yassin al Qadi, who ran some of Mahfouz’s businesses and charities – the Muwafaq foundation, that funded al-Qaeda, Hamas and Abu-Sayyaf, to name but a few.

Al Qaeda, Hamas and Taliban leaders must be grief stricken and worried; will his sons be as generous as he was?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

A few days ago the Washington Post concluded in Self-Muzzled at Yale:

In effect, Yale University Press is allowing violent extremists to set the terms of free speech. As an academic press that embraces the university’s motto of “Lux et Veritas,” it should be ashamed.

Would it be that the truth were so benign.

Last week in response to Roger Kimball’s column about Yale’s decision not to publish the cartoons, InstaPundit quipped:

I suspect that they were mostly afraid of scaring away Saudi money.

Martin Kramer fleshes out the further:

Imagine, then–and we’re just imagining–that someone in the Yale administration, perhaps in President Levin’s office, gets wind of the fact that Yale University Press is about to publish a book on the Danish cartoons–The Cartoons That Shook the World. The book is going to include the Danish cartoons, plus earlier depictions of the Prophet Muhammad tormented in Dante’s Inferno, and who-knows-what-else. Whooah! Good luck explaining to people like Prince Alwaleed that Yale University and Yale University Press are two different shops. The university can’t interfere in editorial matters, so what’s to be done? Summon some “experts,” who’ll be smart enough to know just what to say. Yale will be accused of surrendering to an imagined threat by extremists. So be it: self-censorship to spare bloodshed in Nigeria or Indonesia still sounds a lot nobler than self-censorship to keep a Saudi prince on the line for $20 million.

Now Prince Alwaleed’s gift was not the first Saudi gift to Yale, back in 2002, the Yale Herald wrote about a gift from (then) Crown Prince Abdullah.

… Abdullah’s comes with several stipulations. Five million dollars will fund a named professorship in the international relations department dedicated to United States-Middle East relations; $2 million will be earmarked for the burgeoning Near Eastern languages and civilizations department, with an emphasis on courses in Arabic language instruction. Smaller, as-yet-unspecifed amounts will be funneled to the Yale University Art Gallery, the Religious Studies department, and a future DeVane Lecture. A large portion of the remaining sum, roughly $350 million, will enable the construction of a 13th residential college–a project previously postponed by the Yale Corporation, which thought it was years away from execution for fiscal reasons.

Now think about it, given these “stipulations,” what would be the orientation of that professor of international relations? Is he likely to harbor any sympathy for Israel? I think we know the answer to that one. And yet the Yale PR machine compares King Abdullah’s stipulations, to those of Paul Mellon.

Perhaps you remember that Yale once returned a $20 million endowment for the teaching of Western civilization. The stated reason was that the donor, Lee Bass, had stipulated that he wished to have veto power over professorial appointments. Perhaps Saudi royalty makes no such explicit demands, but the episode with the book about the Danish cartoons shows that it had no need to. The Yale administration knows its limits.

Perhaps, then, Yale President Levin’s recollection about meeting (then) Crown Prince Abdullah should raise some concern.

THE ENTIRE TRANSACTION WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL BUT IMPOSsible were it not for a whispered conversation held in a United Nations (U.N.) elevator at the end of the summer of 1998. Along with a delegation of Saudi Arabian diplomats, the Crown Prince was attending a conference on the global integration of educational networks and the nation-derived economic determination of such processes, with a focus on the Middle Eastern states. One of the panel’s speakers was none other than Levin himself. After the conference, Levin found himself next to Abdullah in a crowded elevator in the U.N.’s Secretariat office building. “We had talked only formally during the conference,” Levin said, “though I felt we had an unspoken affinity with each other. He showed a pointed interest in the American university system… I don’t know exactly why–perhaps out of habit–but I invited him to campus.” Abdullah accepted, and a week later he became the first member of the royal family to visit an institution of higher education in the United States.

(emphasis mine)
Got that? The (present) King has a strong interest in the American university system. And as Martin Kramer showed, that interest is not altruistic but strategic.

Two years ago, in what read like a press release from the Saudi government the New York Times reported that Saudi King Tries to Grow Modern Ideas in Desert.

On a marshy peninsula 50 miles from this Red Sea port, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is staking $12.5 billion on a gargantuan bid to catch up with the West in science and technology.

Between an oil refinery and the sea, the monarch is building from scratch a graduate research institution that will have one of the 10 largest endowments in the world, worth more than $10 billion.

Its planners say men and women will study side by side in an enclave walled off from the rest of Saudi society, the country’s notorious religious police will be barred and all religious and ethnic groups will be welcome in a push for academic freedom and international collaboration sure to test the kingdom’s cultural and religious limits.

The report goes on to portray this as the enlightened monarch attempting to bring his country into the modern world. But at the end of the article we learn that there limits to that enlightenment.

But the kingdom’s laws will still apply: Israelis, barred by law from visiting Saudi Arabia, will not be able to collaborate with the university. And one staple of campus life worldwide will be missing: alcohol.

So even though some of the top scientists in many disciplines are from Israel, the Saudis won’t bend their rules to enhance science. And I love the juxtaposition: No Jews and no beer, as if these restrictions are of equal import.

This makes a mockery of the claim made by another academic about its partnership with the Saudis.

“We are working with a university that has guaranteed nondiscrimination on the basis of race, religion or gender,” said Peter Glynn, director of the Stanford institute. “We recognize that this university operates in Saudi Arabia. Having said that, this university recognizes that if it wants to be world-class, it has to be able to freely attract the best students and faculty from around the world.”

If the Yale scandal was simply a matter of bowing pre-emptively to fears of extremism, the damage to intellectual inquiry would be discrete. But if, as it appears, the calculation was to avoid offending a benefactor – whose generosity Yale (and other universities) seeks, then its an ongoing problem. It is a corruption of academia.

There seem to be many who feel it is necessary to question their assumptions about Israel, who are diffident about challenging bogus charges of undue Jewish influence in the world. But when it comes to oil money, they are noticeably incurious. That money would seem to buy both influence and silence.

Saudi money speaks louder than ideas.

UPDATE: One reason I like blogging is because it involves linking to my sources. Readers can check out my sources and determine if I read them correctly.

I quoted from a Yale Daily Herald article from 2002. It was a perfect example of the deference academic institutions showed towards the Saudis.

It was in fact, too perfect. It was an April Fool’s satire. I think that my basic contention that the Saudi investment in academia corrupts the institutions that take the money. However one of the bases of my contention was mistaken. I should have been more careful.

In fact the tone of the satire matched the tone of at least one of the New York Times articles I used. Still, I should have been more careful.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

George Mitchell to the Times: Jew just don’t understand. (OK, I made up that last line, but it really worked, so go with it.) The Obama administration, having realized that everyone thinks their new policy on Israel sucks, is trying a PR offensive that goes like this: “You just don’t understand what we’re really doing.” Yeah, that always works. Tell people they’re too stupid to understand your master plan. It will definitely get them to like you. Hey, an offensive PR offensive! Double snark for the price of one! And oh, yeah: Mitchell says that when the Saudis say no-no, there’s yes-yes in their eyes. Oh, go read the whole thing. It’s a hoot.

Before you start hyperventilating about this, remember it’s the Times of London. I have yet to read an article about Israel, Iraq, or Iran in the Times that breathlessly hypes something like this that wasn’t absolutely wrong. So ignore it. The Times, remember, is the sponsor of Uzi Mahnaimi. I’m not buying that Iran can make a bomb yet.

Shocking news story of the day: Tanning beds cause cancer. Wow, whoda thunk that overexposure to UV rays would cause skin cancer? Did you know that could happen? I mean, really—who knew?

The end of the honeymoon for Obama: Well, it is on the CBS News website, which apparently publishes articles from The Weekly Standard. Huh. Conservative magazine writers on CBS News, Michelle Malkin in the roundtable on ABC’s This Week—what’s wrong with the MSM? Have they finally decided to actually present both sides of the issues to us?

Saudi Arabia on Friday sharply rejected American calls for gestures towards Israel, a central component of US efforts to pave the way for peace talks.

“Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach has not and – we believe – will not achieve peace. Temporary security, confidence-building measures will also not bring peace,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said at a State Department press conference. “What is required is a comprehensive approach that defines the final outcome at the outset and launches into negotiations over final status issues: borders, Jerusalem, water, refugees and security.”

Let me translate for you: “We’re not doing a damned thing until Israel gives in to all of our demands. Then we’ll think about maybe doing something besides forcing Israel to accept all of our demands.”

And here’s the laughable response by Hillary Clinton.

Yet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who appeared alongside Saud following their meeting Friday afternoon, downplayed his comments and the extent to which the attitude damages the US’s Arab-Israeli peace program.

Asked repeatedly whether Saud’s comments made America’s efforts more difficult, Clinton responded, “No, I don’t think so at all.”

Let me translate for you again: “Yes, they pwned us, and no, I’m not going to admit it.”

Obama’s Cairo speech has accomplished absolutely nothing other than getting the Arab world to decide that since Obama was going to pressure Israel, all they had to do was sit back and watch the fireworks. As Barry Rubin points out:

Indeed, the administration itself helped sabotage its own policy. By coming out of the starting-gate so critical of Israel, the administration unintentionally signaled Arabs to sit back and enjoy a U.S.-Israel confrontation And since the new U.S. government made its desire to avoid friction with Arabs or Muslims clear, they knew there would be no cost for defying Obama.

Professor Rubin thinks that the Obama administration is now switching gears on mideast policy. It seems that they would have to, since their private outreach to the Arabs has been utterly refuted (sometimes in a most public, humiliating way, as above).

So much for the smartest administration ever. This ship is foundering on the Scylla and Charybdis of the Persian Gulf. (Ooh, cool. I remembered how to spell them even all these years out of college.) ((See, this is why I never get linked by the big guys. I simply can’t be serious and harumphing like the rest of them. The snark will always out.))

Appealing to a powerful Saudi prince, an 8-year-old girl asked why she was not allowed to play sports in school like boys. She got an unexpected response: The prince said he hoped government schools for girls would allow playing fields.

And how cool is this? The AP is taking this mealy-mouthed, patronizing anti-feminist pap and pushing it like it’s the equivalent of America’s Title IX.

The stand taken by Prince Khaled al-Faisal, governor of the holy city of Mecca and one of the most senior second-generation members of the royal family, on the controversial issue is the strongest official endorsement so far of women’s sports and a sign the government may be tilting toward opening up on that front.

And exactly why is it such obvious bullshit? Because in the next breath, the AP reports this:

Physical education classes are banned in state-run girls schools in conservative Saudi Arabia. Saudi female athletes are not allowed to participate in the Olympics. Women’s games and marathons have been canceled when the powerful clergy get wind of them. And some clerics even argue that running and jumping can damage a woman’s hymen and ruin her chances of getting married.

“Conservative”? Ronald Reagan was a conservative. A better description of Saudi Arabia would be “feudal.” Except I’m pretty sure that women had more rights in feudal Europe than they have in modern Saudi Arabia. And lest you think that the prince was suggesting any form of equality for women, think again:

According to local newspapers, the 8-year-old girl told Khaled: “I ask myself why is it that only boys can play sports and have courts while we girls don’t have anything?”

“I hope to see sports courts for girls inside girls’ schools,” the prince responded, according to Al-Hayat newspaper.

He said if this were to happen, it will be in coordination with the Education Ministry and “according to certain mechanisms that take into consideration women’s privacy in this country.”

Yes, the fabled privacy excuse. Because given half the chance, women in Muslim lands won’t throw off the shackles of repression and try to live normal lives. Oh, wait. Yes, they will (cf: Afghanistan, Iraq).

But when you live with medieval freaks like these, well, your choices are limited:

A statement issued by three senior clerics last month lashed out at Saudis who demand the opening of more gyms for women, saying such a move would “open the doors wide for spreading decadence.”

“It is well-known that only women with no shame will go to these clubs,” said the statement signed by clerics Abdul-Rahman al-Barrack, Abdul-Aziz al-Rajihi and Abdullah bin Jibrin.

In a recent column in Al-Watan newspaper, Sheik Abdullah al-Mani, an adviser at the royal court, said virgins should think twice before engaging in sports.

“Soccer or basketball require running and jumping and these could damage (a woman’s) the hymen,” he wrote. “If she marries, her husband will … think that her hymen was destroyed as a result of an (immoral) action.”

“He will either divorce her or lose confidence in her chastity,” he added.

But sure, let’s respect their culture and traditions. Because practices like these simply cry out for respect.

Shyeah.

Arab patience is wearing thin in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz told US President Barack Obama during their meeting in Riyadh last Wednesday. According to a report in Saudi daily al-Hayat, the Saudi leader urged Obama to become actively involved in the process, to the point of “imposing a solution” on the two sides “if necessary.”

Say, what was that about the Arab world having the same ideals and principles as America? That thing about democracy, and all that?

“America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Really? The Saudis are interested in justice?

“We want from you a serious participation to solve the Palestinian issue and impose the solution if necessary,” the paper quoted the Saudi monarch as telling Obama.

Please note that when the Saudis say they want to solve “the Palestinian issue,” they’re not necessarily implying imposing a solution on both sides. Just on one. And they can lie with the best of them:

“We Arabs want to devote our time to building people, building a generation that is capable of handling the future through knowledge and action, we have a genuine desire for peace,” Abdullah said.

Yeah, pull the other leg.

Abdullah said that a solution of the conflict would be the “magic key” to all issues in the Middle East.

Okay, stop! You’re making my ribs hurt!

That “magic key” will fix:

• The dismal human rights issues in Middle East countries
• The religious wars between Sunni and Shia (and Muslims and non-Muslims)
• The lack of suffrage
• The raping and murdering of women who are deemed un-Islamic
• The lack of education of girls in many Middle East nations
• The lack of democracy in most Middle East nations
• The war in Sudan
• Terrorism and the spread of Islamism throughout the Middle East

Yep. A Palestinian state will solve all of the above. In Saudi Arabia LaLa Land. That’s probably the one that insists that Mohammed flew to Jerusalem on a winged horse (thus causing many of the current problems preventing peace in the region).

What I’d really like to know is: Do the Saudis truly intend to give up an Islamic waqf? Because I think not. I think their version of peace includes Jews unable to set foot on the Temple Mount, or near the Western Wall, once again.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said the US should use aid it gives Israel as leverage in order to pressure the state into accepting the US-backed two-state solution.

[...] When asked whether the US should withhold funds until Israel agreed to a peace plan calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state Faisal said, “Why not? If you give aid to someone and they indiscriminately occupy other people’s lands, you bear some responsibility.”

Why not, indeed. And al-Faisal speaks for the rest of the Saudis. Of course, there are no reciprocal demands on Arab nations:

What are Arabs prepared to do now that Obama has come out so firmly against Israeli settlements?
The speech is one stage, but it has yet to be translated into actions. Arab countries have learned through 60 years of experience with Israel that it’s not the agreement you reach with them; it’s the implementation.

No, really. No obligations whatsoever.

I would be very frustrated if I were Obama having this conversation with you. You’ve got Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu saying he won’t budge, and you saying “we made our offer. Take it or leave it.”
What can we do more than that? The land that is occupied is in the hands of Israel. We don’t have anything to offer Israel except normalization, and if we put that before the return of Arab land we are giving away the only chip in the hands of Arab countries.

And about that bow?

Yes, he bowed. But remember, he is also of a culture that respects age. It was not demeaning or servile bowing to somebody. When you see an older person, you respect him. I think those who made a fuss about it would do well to take such good manners to heart.

Really, I didn’t think we could have an administration that was further in bed with the Saudis than the Bushes.

I was wrong.

What remains to be seen now is how Israel’s friends in Congress deal with this new direction. Because the Obama administration is making it clear that they’re not going to honor the Bush Administration’s promises to Ariel Sharon:

“We have the negotiating record, that is the official record that was turned over to the Obama administration by the outgoing Bush administration,” Clinton said Friday at a joint press conference with her Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu.

“There is no memorialization of any informal or oral agreement” concerning the settlements, she said.

That’s a legal distinction. But this is not a court of law. This is the Obama administration choosing to ignore a deal that its predecessor made with another nation, thus diminishing the word of America in international relations.

And by the way, to those of you who voted for Obama insisting he was an Israel supporter: Still think he wasn’t lying?