Gaza-bag

Posted on 08/23/2010 by Soccerdad

Today Ethan Bronner of the New York Times reports on his trip into Gaza. You see in recent months embarrassing reports have come out that have suggested that perhaps poverty in Gaza was not nearly as bad as advertised by the likes of Lauren Booth.

Bronner reports:

But the broader point many of these advocates are making — that the poverty of Gaza is often misconstrued, willfully or inadvertently — is correct. The despair here is not that of Haiti or Somalia. It is a misery of dependence, immobility and hopelessness, not of grinding want. The flotilla movement is not about material aid; it is about Palestinian freedom and defiance of Israeli power.

Actually, that’s not reporting that’s advocating.

If the reports of poverty in Gaza were refuted by only the instance of this mall, maybe the Times and Bronner would have a point. But numerous pictures from Gaza have shown markets full of products for sale.

My Right Word observes the degree to which blogging forced this article.

But Israel Matzav notes that there’s a false narrative that Bronner doesn’t address.

If you go to Turkey or most of the Arab countries you will be told that Gazans are starving to death, an image that the Hamas leadership has promoted. Maybe if they told the truth – that no one is starving and that the Israeli blockade is aimed at stopping weapons and not food and at obtaining the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit – it might be possible to talk about ways to ease the blockade.

Daled Amos points out the missing element to the story:

Why does Bronner, who bewails the modesty of the Gaza Mall, make no mention of the malls in the West Bank? The answer is: the same reason that he makes no mention of the Kassam rockets still being fired at Israel from Gaza. The West Bank is not firing rockets at Israel, but Gaza is. The situation in Gaza is the result of the terrorist government of Hamas, not the defensive measures of Israel.

Brian of London (at Israelly Cool!) mocks the Times’s newfound focus:

The New York Times has, finally, figured out how to respond to the scenes of abject and desperate non-poverty in Gaza as Dave has ably documented and discussed (a Taste of “Concentration Camp” Gaza series and Gaza mall posts, for example).

So they’ve switched tack… it’s all about humiliation. It reads like a PR piece written by a foreign lobbyist firm. I thought you needed a license in the US to be a foreign lobbyist?

Elder of Ziyon is outlines the hypocrisy involved:

However, the fact is that both the media and the anti-Israel activists have used the “starvation” meme as a convenient fiction to focus the world on demonizing Israel. Their current re-framing to change it instead to “dependence, immobility and hopelessness” is nothing more than an attempt to not look like fools and not admit that they have been lying to the world for years.

If they cared about Palestinian Arab “hopelessness” they would be spending much more time in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. They would be interviewing Mahmoud Abbas about why he has yet to dismantle a single “refugee” camp in the West Bank – all of which are under Palestinian Arab control.

No, these hypocritical reporters are not interested in revealing truths about how Gazans live. They have been dining in fine restaurants in Gaza and staying in fancy hotels – they knew the truth for years. They are equally not interested in Palestinian Arab suffering and deprivation – because by any measure, the Arabs in camps in Lebanon envy the Gazans. These hypocrites hammer away at Gaza for years because they want to blame Israel for Gaza’s problems, nothing more. They’ll occasionally leaven their prodigious Gaza output with an article about Hamas abuses of Gazans, but their focus has been unrelentingly on Israel.

The unraveling of the “humanitarian crisis” meme just shows how deeply the mainstream media has been in bed with NGOs and anti-Israel activists and how easily they parrot false statistics and claims.

Any way you look at it, the media has been lying to you about Gaza for years. Why should you believe them now?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Monday briefs

Posted on 08/23/2010 by Meryl Yourish

You give up the money, idiot: It’s not heroic to fight off armed robbers, it’s stupid. Especially when you’re only carrying $5. It’s stupid. And now a rabbinic student is hospitalized for his stupidity. There’s a Talmudic lesson in here somewhere.

That’s why we call him “Mad” Mahmoud: Neener neener neener, Israel is a cow-ard… that’s what Mad Mahmoud is telling Al Jazeera, anyway. Sure. Because Israel is the nation that hides behind two proxy armies, and Israel is the one that’s helping Al Qaeda murder Americans in two other countries. But hey, Israel is too weak to attack Iran. You know what? I hope he never finds out the truth, because that would mean the Iranians took care of their mad mullahs and didn’t leave it to the rest of the world to take out their garbage.

The precondition is now a postcondition: The Palestinians will be pulling out of the peace talks at the first opportunity. Hell, they’re telegraphing it: Saab Erekat says the Israelis can have “settlements or peace,” which of course is a false choice. But that is what the media line will be. Just wait for it. In fact, Erekat has already informed Barack Obama that if Israel doesn’t extend the settlement building freeze, the Palestinians will walk out of the talks. All of this, of course, will be spun as Israeli intransigence, when it will be the Palestinians who walk away from the peace talks. Because, as the conventional wisdom goes, settlements are an “obstacle to peace.” (770 hits on Google News alone with that search phrase.) What biased media?

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The evolution of the AP Israel bias: Updates

Posted on 08/23/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Sunday morning, the AP released an article about the upcoming peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and updated it throughout the day. The first version bore a timestamp at My Way News of 6:49 a.m. Eastern Time. The second was 9:29 a.m. The final version was released with a 4:05 p.m. timestamp. The first two articles had identical headlines and first grafs. The changes begin in the second paragraph. In the second version, the word “outright” was removed.

Israeli PM: Peace ‘difficult but possible’

By MATTI FRIEDMAN
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s prime minister spelled out his opening position for the new round of Mideast peace talks set to begin next week, insisting Sunday on key security conditions and saying an agreement would be “difficult but possible.”

Netanyahu said a future Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized, recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and respect Israel’s vital security interests. Some of his demands have already been rejected outright by the Palestinians.

The second version also increases the demonizing of the Israeli side and pushes the pro-Palestinian bias. The first version:

In addition, he said, the Palestinians must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people just as Israel would recognize the Palestinian state as that of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinians have balked at that demand, saying it could prejudice the rights of Israel’s Arab minority and compromise the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes vacated in the fighting around Israel’s establishment in 1948.

The comments indicated just how much work lies ahead for President Barack Obama, who hopes to resolve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts within a year.

In the 9:49 update, note how the AP has added that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a state, something that I’d like to see on paper. As far as I know, the original PLO charter that calls for the end to Israel is still in effect. Note also that there are extensive quotes by Saab Erekat.

In addition, he said, the Palestinians must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people just as Israel would recognize the Palestinian state as that of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist, but refuse to take a stand on the nature of the country. They say that recognizing Israel as the Jewish state could prejudice the rights of Israel’s Arab minority and compromise the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes vacated in the fighting around Israel’s establishment in 1948.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Netanyahu’s comments were “dictation, not negotiation.”

“If he wants negotiations, he knows that these conditions won’t stand,” Erekat said.

The comments indicated just how much work lies ahead for President Barack Obama, who hopes to resolve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts within a year.

Some other notes on the article: The words “hard-line” are used three times to describe the Israelis. It’s mentioned only once in the final version, but look how it is used:

Something close to the Olmert proposal – including a Palestinian presence in east Jerusalem and a near-complete withdrawal from the West Bank – is widely seen as the basis for a future settlement. But Netanyahu, who leads a coalition dominated by hard-line nationalistic and religious parties, has signaled he is not willing to go that far.

The bias is the same throughout all three versions. The final update changes the headline, the lead, and the author. Note the change in the tone of both the headline and the lead. It’s no longer about Netanyahu saying that peace is “difficult but possible.” Now, it’s about Netanyahu and Israeli “demands.” The AP takes the Palestinian line and insists that Netanyahu is calling for “conditions.” These aren’t conditions. They are goals, and in fact, Netanyahu stated these goals plainly months ago when he called for a Palestinian state, partly in answer to the critics who said he didn’t want to work towards Palestinian statehood.

Israeli PM stakes out positions for peace talks

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s prime minister demanded Sunday that any future Palestinian state be demilitarized and recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, as he staked out his starting position for new Mideast peace talks.

Benjamin Netanyahu said reaching a deal will be difficult but possible. The conditions he laid down, coupled with a swift Palestinian rejection, illustrated just how difficult the task will be for the U.S. to meet its goal of brokering peace within a year. Talks are set to begin in Washington next week.

The AP is absolutely carrying water for the Palestinians in this reporting. Take this paragraph from the last version, making the insistence on having no preconditions for peace talks seem like an unreasonable demand by the “hard-line” Netanyahu:

He pointedly insisted that there be no preconditions for him to rejoin the peace talks, and his aides have given no details about what concessions he is prepared to make, saying that is a matter for negotiations.

And not until the fourth paragraph from the end does the report get around to the fact that the Palestinian Authority is not negotiating for all the Palestinians. You would think that would be an important part of the lead. You would be wrong. The world is pretending that Hamas is still the democratically elected government of Hamas, in spite of the murderous coup that rid them of Fatah politicians in Gaza, and in spite of the fact that for both the PA and Hamas, the election deadline is long past, and no one has pretended that it’s time for another one. That, too, might seem important to point out in the story. But the media have never seemed to think that standards apply to the Palestinians.

Which is why we get three hit pieces in a row, each of them nastier and more anti-Israel than the preceding.

The AP updates: They keep on spinning the news more pro-Palestinian with each version, and I’ll keep on pointing it it out to my readers. Somebody has to.

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Hamas says Abbas Cannot Represent the Palestinians

Posted on 08/22/2010 by Rabbi Kaufman

Isn’t it exciting that the Israelis and Palestinians are meeting in direct talks to tell each other the same thing that they have been saying for the months now indirectly? Direct talks certainly hold more possibilities for progress, but also amplify any failure that may result from them. The Palestinians are clearly appeasing the Obama Administration in coming to the table, something resulting in significant political damage for the Abbas government. Many Palestinians see these direct talks as an appeasement of both the US and worse of Israel as well. Israel has far less to lose than does the Palestinian leadership and direct negotiations are seen as a victory for Netanyahu. Today, Hamas called Abbas’ decision a “capitulation” and has withdrawn from reconciliation efforts. Some according to Khaled Abu Toameh’s article in the J Post go so far as point out the well-ignored fact that:

Abbas does not have a mandate to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians since his term in office had expired in January.

Nothing like forcing Abbas to negotiate against his will on behalf of a people whom he does not legitimately represent! There is a slight problem here, I think.

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Did I write three …

Posted on 08/22/2010 by Soccerdad

… articles by George Will.

I mean 4.

Today in Many possible Israeli concessions would be suicidal George Will writes:

Twenty-one Israeli settlements were dismantled; even the bodies of Israelis buried in Gaza were removed. After a deeply flawed 2006 election encouraged by the United States, there was in 2007 essentially a coup in Gaza by the terrorist organization Hamas. So now Israel has on its western border, 44 miles from Tel Aviv, an entity dedicated to Israel’s destruction, collaborative with Iran and possessing a huge arsenal of rockets.

Rocket attacks from Gaza increased dramatically after Israel withdrew. The number of U.N. resolutions deploring this? Zero.

The closest precedent for that bombardment was the Nazi rocket attacks on London, which were answered by the destruction of Hamburg, Dresden and other German cities. When Israel struck back at Hamas, the “international community” was theatrically appalled.

Of course there’s much more in the op-ed.

Richard Kemp also makes a return appearance. He makes similar arguments to those employed by Will, even if his primary example is different. Here’s what he writes (and says) in Will an IDF Withdrawal from the West Bank Mean a Safe Haven for Extremist Groups?

To stand any real chance of success, every insurgent or terrorist movement needs a safe haven to operate from – one that is outside the control of the state being targeted and preferably in a land that is free from interference by the target state or its allies, whether due to geography, the protection of a friendly regime, or operating within a failed state. The Vietnam conflict was a classic example of the use of a safe haven. More recently, in the Iraq campaign, Sunni extremists had a safe haven in Syria which was their main logistic support base and a pipeline for suicide bombers flowing into Iraq. They also used extensive support networks in Iran, which also provided a safe haven for Shi’ite insurgents attacking coalition forces, as well as through the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hizbullah, which provided training, organization, munitions, and direction.

Today the Afghan Taliban’s safe haven and support base is in Pakistan, although the second largest extremist group engaged in Afghanistan, Hizb-i-Islami, has its main base in Iran itself. In March, General Petraeus, the Head of U.S. Central Command, in testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, revealed that Tehran is letting al-Qaeda leaders travel freely between Pakistan and Afghanistan, effectively using Iranian territory as a safe haven, while permitting them also to hold meetings in Iran to plan terrorist attacks against U.S. and other Western targets.

Israel has had more than a flavor of what it can mean to leave hostile groups in control of lands adjacent to its own borders in southern Lebanon and in Gaza. Any similar move to totally cede control to the Palestinians of the West Bank or a part of Jerusalem may have considerable attraction for any peace process, and that is certainly the view of many in the international community. But both prospects would carry immense risk from the perspective of asymmetrical activities against Israel.

Barry Rubin, in a comprehensive critique of George Mitchell’s (and, apparently, the administration’s) misconceptions, Competing World Views Tear A “Peace Process” to Pieces, similary observes:

Again, Mitchell says what he needs to say, but of course he omits the Hamas violent coup against the PA. Indeed, his statement jibes with the false history of Hamas and its supporters and is rather a mess factually. Abbas’s turn came to an end almost two years ago and Hamas could easily argue—and it sure will do so–that he is in office illegally and thus that any agreement he reached with Israel was not valid. By the way, Mitchell states that Hamas does “acknowledge the continued executive authority of President Abbas and his team.” I believe that this is false.

In short, Mitchell lays the basis in theory for an Israel-Palestinian treaty leading to a Palestinian state, then Hamas overthrowing the regime to seize control of that state, tossing out the treaty and calling in Iranian and Syrian troops to “protect” Palestine. True, this is leaping ahead in time but this is the kind of thing negotiators need to take into account.

In different ways, Will, Col. Kemp and Prof. Rubin all raise the specter of an eventual terrorist takeover of any territory that Israel cedes. Finally we have a Washington Post editorial, What Israelis and Palestinians must concede if they want a lasting peace:

But the welcoming of good news shouldn’t morph into naive celebration. Ms. Clinton was amply justified in warning of obstacles ahead.

The most obvious of those, as she said, will come from the unambiguous “enemies of peace.” Hamas, which controls a good chunk of what would become a Palestinian state, might well respond to progress in the talks with increased attempts at violence, and terrorism from other quarters is also likely. Israeli settlers and their supporters who oppose not peace but any ceding of territory may engineer provocations of their own.

There are also potential obstacles within the talks. Is Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu truly committed to a two-state solution? Many Arabs have their doubts. It will be important for him not to allow next month’s scheduled end of a settlement moratorium to abort the negotiations.

Is Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas truly willing to accept, once and for all, Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state? Given his inability to say yes to past reasonable offers, many Israelis have their doubts. It will be important for him to engage substantively and not wait for the United States to impose terms. And even if both leaders are willing to compromise, are they also capable of bringing their polities along?

It’s frustrating that even after PM Netanyahu withdrew Israel from Hevron, “sophisticates” are still questioning his commitment to a “two state solution.” The editorial rightly points out the danger that Hamas poses for peace but doesn’t acknowledge that Hamas would still be a threat to Israel even after any hypothetical peace agreement was agreed upon and implemented. And “settlers” as the Post calls them haven’t managed to scuttle Oslo or the withdrawal from Gaza, so that reference is gratuitous and unfair.

Still at the end, the Post acknowledges:

Israelis once again will be asked to cede control over territory for intangible and reversible promises of peace and recognition. No one should underestimate the risks of that, especially given the unwillingness of Arab states to offer to Israel even the minor concessions of goodwill that Mr. Obama asked for.

Limiting that concern to two sentences though, fails to acknowledge the unfortunate history of previous Israeli withdrawals (1995, 2000, 2005) all of which led to strengthening terrorists and subsequent terror wars against Israel is disappointing. This is a significant risk, and the Post ought to be giving it more attention than an afterthought.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Your Sunday morning briefs

Posted on 08/22/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Are they different from your weekly briefs? Not really.

So, what’s the pool on when Israel’s going to bomb it? The Russians are loading nuclear fuel rods into the Bushehr reactor. Oh, no way anything can go wrong with that, even if the Russians are promising that they’re going to get the spent fuel and take it back to Russia. Sure. Because, like, there’s no such thing as the Russian black market, pr greed, and Russia is such a big supporter of Israel.

OMG! I agree with the Dorktator! Just kidding. Just that the Israel/Palestinian peace talks will be useless, not because the U.S. won’t pressure Israel into giving in to all the Palestinian demands. We are, after all, talking about the same area that still says Israel is occupying Lebanon even after the U.N. certified that it is not. (Although, of course, now the U.N. is saying that maybe they were too hasty in certifying the Israeli withdrawal.) There will be no peace until the Arabs finally accept Israel as a Jewish state in the midst of a sea of Muslims. Fat chance of that happening. Oh, wait—it’ll happen when the Messiah comes. See? There’s hope!

Peaceful president on any attack on Bushehr: We’ll kill you all over the world. Yep. That Iran, it’s such a peaceful country. Mad Mahmoud says he’ll unleash global attacks on any nation that dares attack Iran. Those Hezbollah sleeper cells? They’re smiling in their sleep these days, waiting for the order.

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Saturday take-your-mind-off-things post

Posted on 08/21/2010 by Meryl Yourish

VERY funny, and VERY raunchy video.

You may have trouble viewing it. I definitely would not view it from work. NSFW, and NSF kids.

Apparently, Ray Bradbury has seen and enjoyed the video.

Posted in Humor | 4 Comments

The mystery of the missing mew

Posted on 08/20/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Gracie recoveringA few weeks ago, I started wondering if Gracie was coming down with something again. About a year and a half ago, I took her to the vet’s on the strength of the fact that she no longer mewed or meowed or chirruped or made much noise at all. Gracie is the most talkative cat I’ve ever had. We have conversations. She mews or meows in answer to all manner of questions and comments. So when her mew became hoarse and cracked, I started thinking she might have something again. But she showed no symptoms until after she got her vaccinations last week. Then, well, she just slept. All day. All night. Barely moving out of her chosen sleeping place. Didn’t come downstairs in the evenings for her regular “Let’s annoy Mom while she’s watching TV” petting time. Didn’t come downstairs to wait for me while preparing the canned food she and Tig get in the morning. Didn’t, in fact, do the things that she always does. So I took her to the vet yesterday. She has a lighter touch of the bronchitis she had last January, but I was right: The missing mew means malady.

She actually started getting better yesterday. I was up at 5:30 due to the fun side of perimenopause (I’m talking to YOU, hot flashes), so I was thrilled to see her out of her cat bed, and happier to see her eat the quarter-can of food I gave each of them. Last night, she came downstairs and slept by my chair while I watched TV. Today, Miss Gracie is in fine form. She’s talking again, following me around, waiting for me on the bathroom vanity to be petted, sitting behind my chair while I work (in the square of sun, naturally) mewing for me to pet her from time to time—yep, I’ve got my old Gracie back. Unfortunately, I have eight more pills to shove down her throat over the next eight days, but at least I’ll know that by then the hoarseness will be gone and Gracie will be her usual chatty self. She won’t be the lump sleeping in the cat bed 23 hours a day. And may I say: Yay.

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Ho hum, another condemnation of Israel by the UN

Posted on 08/20/2010 by Soccerdad

Not content to have blown a single incident up out of all proportion, the New York Times is now acting as a press agency for the United Nations. In Report Criticizes Gaza Restrictions, Ethan Bronner reported:

A United Nations report issued on Thursday says the Sweleims are part of 12 percent of the population of Gaza — 178,000 people out of 1.5 million — who have lost livelihoods or have otherwise been severely affected by Israeli security policies along the border, both land and sea, in recent years. These include the establishment of no-go zones and frequent incursions and attacks.
The report estimates that the restricted land comprises 17 percent of Gaza’s total land mass and 35 percent of its agricultural land. Israel also restricts Gazan fishing to three nautical miles. Catches are greatly reduced, leading some fishermen to take a long, risky sail into Egyptian waters to buy the fish from Egyptian fishermen and return home to sell it.

Aside from the dubious claim about agricultural land, that makes it sound like Israel is arbitrarily instituting policies designed to make life for the Palestinians uncomfortable. But then we get to the next paragraph:

The study, issued by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, says that anti-Israeli militants operate from the border areas in question, planting explosive devices, firing at Israeli military vehicles across the border fence and shooting rockets and mortars at civilians.

So wait a second, the Israeli incursions are in response to “militants operat[ing] from the border areas! That would mean that rather than being arbitrary, Israel’s military activities have been in response to terror attacks. But instead of acknowledging that, the UN and the uncritical report in the Times make it sound that Israel’s goal is to disrupt the lives of Gazans rather than protect its own citizens. In a sense this isn’t much different from the Goldstone report that insisted on impossible rules of engagement and then condemned Israel for disobeying them.

I actually took a look at the report (via BBC) and it has an interesting claim:

Over the past ten years, the Israeli military has gradually expanded restrictions on access to farmland on the Gaza side of the 1949 ‘Green Line’, and to fishing areas along the Gaza Strip coast, with the stated intention of preventing attacks on Israel by Palestinian armed factions, including firing projectiles.

Ten years? Israel has been defending against Qassams for nearly ten years. I’m guessing though, that Israel didn’t start the policy of restricting access near the border areas until after “disengagement” five years ago. In other words, I’m reasonably certain that the UN just pulled a number out of hat. As it did regarding agricultural lands.

The New York Times and the BBC (and no doubt other media outlets) don’t see their job as investigating the veracity of UN charges against Israel, but rather to act as megaphones.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

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Friday morning news, briefly

Posted on 08/20/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Ew, Jew cooties: Greece had to reassure its Arab allies that just because it’s getting friendlier with Israel doesn’t mean that it’s deserting them. Of course not. Greece leftists are among the most anti-Israel in the world.

Ew, India cooties: India offered Pakistan $5 million in aid for the devastating floods, but Pakistan was reluctant to accept—until strongly urged to do so by the U.S. and others. Unbelievable. Meantime, of course, Jewish groups are raising money for the victims. Not that the Islamists in Pakistan will care.

And this solves the Hezbollah problem how? The Lebanese Forces party chief (no idea what that title means; armies have political parties in Lebanon? No wonder they’re effed up) suggested that Hezbollah be integrated into the Lebanese army. Of course Hezbollah said NFW, but how would that make Lebanon any less under the Iranian proxy’s control? Any way you look at it, if Lebanon/Hezbollah attacks Israel, Lebanon is going to be in for a world of hurt. My suggestion: Dump the proxy army.

Awesome. Mavi Marmara “activists” are calling the BBC pro-Israel: Say, remember that documentary on the Gaza flotilla that I told you about? The “activists” are going to stage a protest in front of the BBC on Sunday, because—get this—the documentary was pro-Israel. In other words, since it didn’t demonize Israel, it sucked. The truth hurts, children. The truth hurts.

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Thursday briefs

Posted on 08/19/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Saudi Medieval Punishment Watch: If you think Islamic “justice” can’t get much more disgusting than stoning a person to death, you’re wrong. A Saudi judge wrote to several hospitals asking them if they would sever a criminal’s spinal cord in punishment for his paralyzing his victim with a cleaver. Wow, what a great idea. Makes you just want to—run like hell in the other direction.

Good riddance to a bad scold: Dr. Laura, who converted to Judaism and then back again after she got pissed off at Jews, has left radio because people are upset that she used the n-word on her show. See, here’s the thing I really never understood. Who wants to call up a “therapist” who will yell at you, scold you, and tell you what a jerk you are? I’m so glad she gave up Judaism. She was giving us a bad name.

Cyprus comes through again: Cyprus refused to allow a Lebanese ship to use its waters to head to Gaza. Good for you, Cyprus. Time to start looking for Cypriot products and buying them. By the way, this is the all-female ship. It’s going to be stopped in Cyprus’ waters. This should be interesting.

Arab Deadbeats for Palestine: The Arab states aren’t ponying up to help their poor, poor, oppressed “brothers,” the Palestinians. And so it has ever been. The Palestinian cause is a club to beat Israel with, and a way to keep their peasants from revolting. Paying to relieve their “suffering”? What, are you crazy?

Only 56%? A Peace Index survey shows that 56% of Jewish Israelis think the world is against them. See title.

France expels Roma; UN doesn’t care: Only America and Israel can get in trouble for wanting to crack down on illegal immigrants. Say, kids, what time is it? That’s right. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time! But don’t worry—it only occurs on days that end with a “y”!

Posted in Gaza, Media, Saudi Arabia | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Third in a series by George Will

Posted on 08/19/2010 by Soccerdad

In recent weeks, George Will has written two excellent columns about Israel and the Middle East:
Netanyahu, the anti-Obama and
Netanyahu’s warning.

Today, he presents Skip the lecture on Israel’s “risks for peace”:

The intifada was launched by the late Yasser Arafat — terrorist and Nobel Peace Prize winner — after the July 2000 Camp David meeting, during which then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to cede control of all of Gaza and more than 90 percent of the West Bank, with small swaps of land to accommodate the growth of Jerusalem suburbs just across the 1949 armistice line.

Israelis are famously fractious, but the intifada produced among them a consensus that the most any government of theirs could offer without forfeiting domestic support is less than any Palestinian interlocutor would demand. Furthermore, the intifada was part of a pattern. As in 1936 and 1947, talk about partition prompted Arab violence.

Those two paragraphs are loaded, and there’s a lot more packed into the op-ed. It’s a really an excellent capsule of everything that’s happened since Oslo (and more!)

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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A balanced report on the Mavi Marmari incident

Posted on 08/18/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Kudos to the British television programme (spelled this way in honor of their objectivity) for a balanced report on the Mavi Marmara incident. Via Goldblog. The producer of Panorama? The BBC. Whoa. That’s TWO balanced BBC pieces in one week, albeit on the same subject.

Part one:

Part two:

And you have to love that since this show did not demonize Israel, people around the world complained that the BBC has a pro-Israel bias. Shyeah. That’s why to this day they refuse to release a report that proved they have an anti-Israel bias.

Posted in Gaza, Israel, Media Bias, Turkey | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Disparate columnists notice the anti-Israel trend

Posted on 08/18/2010 by Soccerdad

Though I already wrote about this, a week and a half ago Thomas Friedman, in Steal this movie wrote:

I write about this now because there is something foul in the air. It is a trend, both deliberate and inadvertent, to delegitimize Israel — to turn it into a pariah state, particularly in the wake of the Gaza war. You hear the director Oliver Stone saying crazy things about how Hitler killed more Russians than Jews, but the Jews got all the attention because they dominate the news media and their lobby controls Washington. You hear Britain’s prime minister describing Gaza as a big Israeli “prison camp” and Turkey’s prime minister telling Israel’s president, “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill.” You see singers canceling concerts in Tel Aviv. If you just landed from Mars, you might think that Israel is the only country that has killed civilians in war — never Hamas, never Hezbollah, never Turkey, never Iran, never Syria, never America.

Friedman, in his regular criticism of Israel has at least been an enabler of this phenomenon. And while he recognizes the problem, he, in no way, demonstrated no self-knowledge or regret for the role he plays in delegitimizing Israel. I think he was stung by some of the criticism he received for his vicious column comparing Israel’s recent wars with Syria’s destruction of the city of Hama. Still at least he sees the problem.

Richard Cohen too, in a column criticizing the Economist for soft-pedaling Sayyid Qutb’s antisemitism, wrote:

Yet I cannot quite suppress the feeling that the need to demonize Israel is so great that the immense moral failings of some of its enemies have to be swept under the carpet. As Jacob Weisberg pointed out recently in Slate, the “boycott Israel” movement is oddly unbalanced — so much fury directed at Israel, so little at countries like China or Venezuela. Can it be that the French philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch was prescient when he suggested years ago that anti-Zionism “gives us the permission and even the right and even the duty to be anti-Semitic in the name of democracy”? The line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, a demarcation I have always acknowledged, is becoming increasingly blurred.

George Will in a column about Netanyahu similarly observed:

From 1948 through 1973, he says, enemies tried to “eliminate Israel by conventional warfare.” Having failed, they tried to demoralize and paralyze Israel with suicide bombers and other terrorism. “We put up a fence,” Netanyahu says. “Now they have rockets that go over the fence.” Israel’s military, which has stressed offense as a solution to the nation’s lack of strategic depth, now stresses missile defense.

That, however, cannot cope with Hamas’s tens of thousands of rockets in Gaza and Hezbollah’s up to 60,000 in southern Lebanon. There, U.N. Resolution 1701, promulgated after the 2006 war, has been predictably farcical. This was supposed to inhibit the arming of Hezbollah and prevent its operations south of the Litani River. Since 2006, Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal has tripled and its operations mock Resolution 1701. Hezbollah, learning from Hamas, now places rockets near schools and hospitals, certain that Israel’s next response to indiscriminate aggression will turn the world media into a force multiplier for the aggressors.

Any Israeli self-defense anywhere is automatically judged “disproportionate.” Israel knows this as it watches Iran.

While Will’s observation is more nuanced that Cohen’s or Friedman’s it’s still conveys a sense that Israel can do no right.

What’s frustrating is that by any objective measure, Israel should have been past this stage. For years we were told that Israel had to end the occupation. And Israel did. Israel withdrew from most of Judea and Samaria. Israel withdrew from Gaza. Israel pulled its troops out of southern Lebanon. Each of these concrete actions to address the supposed Arab grievances in israel were met with an increase in terrorism. And when Israel finally struck back (Defensive shield, the 2006 war with Hezbollah, Cast Lead) it was condemned for having done so. Meanwhile the terror that was directed against Israel was dismissed. Israel was not to use it as an excuse not to make peace (as if peace would exist if Israel just ignored the terror) and thus give a victory to the terrorists. So Israel has survived the post-Oslo years and thrived in many ways. But there are still legions of academics, politiicians (though not so many in America), diplomats and journalists who insist that Israel must make peace for its own good. It’s as if Oslo never happened. It’s as if Israel made no concesssions over the past 17 years.

Barry Rubin offered this synopsis:

First, before 1993 Israel had total control of the West Bank. Since then it has withdrawn from almost all populated areas and a Palestinian Authority has been created which rules the people there, receives massive foreign aid, and has proportionately huge security forces. In a real sense, Israel doesn’t “occupy” the West Bank. Indeed, if there were not terrorist attacks there would be even less presence.

Second, and this might sound strange at first but is quite true, whatever Israel is doing in the West Bank is not a non-consensual occupation but embodies arrangements accepted by the PLO and PA. They have signed numerous agreements which regulate the situation. True, after they sign agreements they often say they were unfair and demand more. But this is hardly a good omen for their abiding by any future agreements. The fact is, however, that the “occupation” ended in 1994-1996.

Third, as noted above, the PA can end the Israeli presence whenever it wants to do so simply by making a peace agreement.

After all this, Israel still can’t catch a break. Israel’s expected to accept terror and not strike back. Israel’s expected to make concessions without getting anything in return. The failure to make peace is deemed Israel’s (and this is still Thomas Friedman’s belief) and Israel is condemned for its absence.

The peace process was supposed make Israel normal. Instead it has isolated Israel even more. What Friedman, Cohen and Will are observing is that opposition to Israel isn’t based on some rational consideration of the history, but rather it is driven by what can only be described as a pathological hatred of Israel.

Noting all this Jeffrey Robbins recently wrote:

The anti-Israel fashion that is so enthralling to so many in so many places provides a comfortable setting for those who are determined to indict Israel whatever the facts, whatever the circumstances. Those doing the indicting deny that they are biased.

And that is understandable. “Bias” is not the sort of label one wants on his coat lapel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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The AP buries the lede on Hezbollah

Posted on 08/18/2010 by Meryl Yourish

You know your “evidence” is bogus when even the AP is laughing at Hezbollah’s attempt to blame Israel for Hariri’s death. However, they buried the lede in this article. It’s titled “UN gets Hezbollah ‘evidence’ on Israel-Hariri link,” but four paragraphs in—which some newspapers have already cut out of their world news sections—the AP drops these bombs:

Lebanon’s government is an uneasy coalition of a Western-backed bloc and Hezbollah, which in just a few years has gained so much political power it now has a virtual veto over government decisions.

Hezbollah is undoubtedly the country’s most powerful military force, with an arsenal that far outweighs that of the Western-backed national army. The group has drawn praise in the past for standing up to Israel’s powerful military, although its 2006 war with Israel and 2008 sectarian clashes with political rivals raised criticism among some Lebanese that the movement was dragging the country into violent conflicts.

When war breaks out again on Israel’s northern border, I doubt we’ll see such candid assessments of either Hezbollah or the casualties (which will, no doubt, be called civilians even if they’re Hezbollah fighters). But we’ll have something to refer to when writing the AP about their bias.

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