Where Hugo’s huge

Posted on 06/02/2009 by Soccerdad

A surprisingly astute Washington Post editorial two month ago observed:

FOR DECADES, summit meetings of the Arab League have resounded with rhetoric about the alleged “double standards” of the West in enforcing U.N. resolutions or respecting international law. No communique of the group — including the one issued from its summit this week in Doha, Qatar — has been complete without a demand that conflicts be resolved “within the framework of international legitimacy.”

So it was interesting to see what else was in the latest statement issued by the kings, princes and authoritarian presidents of the Middle East and North Africa. First there was a call on “the international community to prosecute those responsible” for alleged “war crimes” committed by Israel in its recent offensive in Gaza. Then came an ardent defense of Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir — who was welcomed to the Doha summit despite an outstanding arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on multiple war crimes charges.

“We stress our solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the decision” of the ICC, said the communique, which Mr. Bashir welcomed in a bombastic address to the summit plenary. Leader after leader declared fealty. “We must also take a decisive stance of solidarity alongside fraternal Sudan and President Omar al-Bashir,” said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas is hoping that the Obama administration will pressure Israel to stop building “illegal” settlements in the West Bank; the next time he utters the phrase “double standard” in the presence of a U.S. diplomat, we suggest a query about Mr. Bashir.

It seems that tyrants and terrorists are the toast the Arab world. So it really isn’t that surprising to learn that Arab world’s favorite ruler is Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

And when Arabs are asked to name the world leader they most admire, the new American president with “Hussein” for a middle name does not even figure on their list, according to a second poll. By contrast, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a renowned anti-American iconoclast, sits atop that list.

Arabs “are listening, they are hopeful – [but] they are not in love,” says Shibley Telhami, a professor of Mideast affairs at the University of Maryland and principal investigator for one of the polls, the annual Arab Public Opinion Survey.

While Obama’s negatives are considerably lower among Arabs than Mr. Bush’s were, his positives are generally low. This sets the Arab world, roughly defined as the Middle East and norther Africa, decidedly apart from other regions of the world. Western Europe, for example, has enthusiastically embraced Obama.

There’s no word if Chavez’s persecution of Jews is a significant reason for his support in the Arab world, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is.

Why this survey is useful isn’t entirely clear. As opposed to surveys of open societies, where the results tell what the electorate is thinking, this survey shows what the populations are allowed to think and consequently what the regimes are thinking.

Of course many foreign policy experts find this survey useful because it confirms all their deeply held beliefs. Note the relish with which Marc Lynch writes gratuitously:

George Bush still did quite well in the “worst world leaders” category, though

But pay attention to the details that Lynch emphasizes: Iraq is the most important concern of the Arab world; President Obama offers hope of change (if he exerts enough pressure on Israel); Iran is not seen as much of a threat; Hamas is preferred to Fatah and Bashar Assad is the most popular Arab leader. With a few tweaks, these views are not all that different from much of America’s “realist” foreign policy establishment.

I find it odd that foreign policy experts who pride themselves on their sophistication hold roughly the same views of masses who largely accept the propaganda they’re fed by their governments. I’m not sure that these polls reflect much more than the priorities of the ruling classes in the Arab world.

These views ought to be challenged, not validated. Shibley Telhami and his accomplice James Zogby do all they can to validate the extremism of the Arab world and pass it off as the legitimate voice of the people. This is polling in service of tyranny.

Please read Meryl for related thoughts.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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The media’s anti-bibi brigades

Posted on 06/01/2009 by Soccerdad

One aspect of reporting on ties between Israel and the United States is to look for exaggerations in the extent of the rift between the two countries. We will see a lot of this in the coming years as journalists do all they can to fan the flames of discontent with Israel. It won’t matter if there are more serious crises going on, there will be journalistic push to magnify the divisions between the two allies.

AFP reports, Israel’s Barak visits US in bid to heal rift

Barak’s visit comes just two weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his first meeting with Obama in Washington, revealing deep divisions over ways to move forwards towards Middle East peace.

How does Minister of Defense, Barak’s trip so soon after Netanyahu’s show “deep division?” I suspect that if Barak hadn’t followed up so quickly after Netanyahu’s visit, no doubt that also would have been reported as a sign of a “deep division.”

The hawkish premier sparked international criticism over his repeated refusal to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, a bedrock principle of international peacemaking efforts over the past two decades.

And if Netanyahu did, or did not, so what? Mahmoud Abbas has refused to acknowledge a few things too.

Consider for a moment that two of Abbas’s three no’s – his refusal to amend the Arab peace plan and vocal opposition to Israel’s Jewish character – can be collapsed into one: an insistence on Palestinians’ “right of return” to Israel proper. This is a stipulation that no Israeli government would ever accept, while Obama rejected the “right of return” explicitly as “not an option” during his presidential campaign.

Why Netanyahu’s failure to adhere to the peace processors playbook is any more inimical than Abbas’s is unclear. I would point out that even by the peace processors reckoning Netanyahu has done more to support the peace process than Abbas.

Helene Cooper of the New York Times – whose idea of an expert is Chas Freeman or Ali Abunimah weighs in today with U.S. Weighs Tactics on Israeli Settlement:

Still, talk of even symbolic actions that would publicly show the United States’ ire with Israel, its longtime ally, would be a sharp departure from the previous administration, which limited its distaste with Israel’s settlement expansions to carefully worded diplomatic statements that called them “unhelpful.”

Mr. Obama is to give a much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world from Egypt on Thursday. “There are things that could get the attention of the Israeli public,” a senior administration official said, touching on the widespread belief within the administration that any Israeli prime minister risks political peril if the Israeli electorate views him as endangering the country’s relationship with the United States.

But, the official added, “Israel is a critical United States ally, and no one in this administration expects that not to continue.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

Understand what’s going on here. Any sort of rebuke of Israel, is something that Cooper is rooting for. I believe that her anonymous official who feeds her the quote that she seeks, is misreading Israel’s electorate. This isn’t a right wing government by any stretch of the imagination. (I don’t believe that Netanyahu’s government from 1996 – 1999 was far to the right either, but this one is even less so.) My guess is that the Israeli electorate feels that the Obama administration is unfairly pressuring Israel while more serious crises are brewing, that the electorate will support the government. Additionally, the peace process is not new anymore,. Israelis know that the peace process has netted them Hamastan in Gaza, a mostly ineffective and corrupt Fatah government in the cities of Judea and Samaria and a strengthened Hezbollah. Assuming as Abbas apparently does, that the Palestinians need not deal with Netanyahu because his conflict with the Obama administration will lead to his defeat in a future election seems wishful thinking. Yet it seems that that is exactly what Cooper is wishing for.

I’m not going to argue that the Obama-Netanyahu relationship will be as close as the Bush-Sharon relationship. I’m not going to argue that the U.S. Israel relationship will be as strong during President Obama’s term in office, because it won’t. (Even if Livni were PM, this would be true.) However I’m not convinced that the conflict will be as severe as Netanyahu’s many critics in the media want it to be.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Media Bias | Tagged | Comments Off on The media’s anti-bibi brigades

The pro-Palestinian media

Posted on 06/01/2009 by Meryl Yourish

A few headlines about the latest red-on-red infighting.

The New York Times:

6 Die as Palestinian Authority Forces Clash With Hamas

Note the passive voice in the headline. Six were killed, and yet, in the headline, they “die” in a clash. You can’t blame the author for this one, only the Times headline writer:

Palestinian Authority forces clashed with Hamas militants in the West Bank early on Sunday, leaving six dead in the bloodiest such encounter in two years.

Oh, wait. “Leaving six dead”, also from a “clash,” instead of using the active verb “killed.” Funny how that verb only seems to get much use when discussing Palestinians killed by the IDF. Dave caught an example of differing photo captions in similar circumstances. (By the way, Dave, your format sucks for linking to a specific item. Go back to individual posts instead of daily updates.)

The AP spin is even worse. Using, I presume, his own opinion, the author writes:

Abbas has backed Washington’s peace efforts, and the raid underscored his determination to rein in militants as part of his obligations under the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan. Last week, Abbas met at the White House with President Barack Obama and renewed a pledge to crack down on militants and honor other commitments under the road map.

Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said going after militants is key to one day setting up a Palestinian state.

That’s not reporting fact. That’s reporting the writer’s point of view about why the fight occurred. Perhaps if he had paid attention to the quote he reported, he might have gotten the real reason:

Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said going after militants is key to one day setting up a Palestinian state.

“To build our country and our state, we need to have one authority, one gun, one law,” he said.

There it is, in plain English: It’s all about defeating Hamas, and nothing about the Road Map. But the AP narrative must be passed on, regardless of whether or not it’s true.

Posted in AP Media Bias, Media Bias, palestinian politics | Comments Off on The pro-Palestinian media

Carnival Time

Posted on 06/01/2009 by Jack

Sunday was action packed and as a result I forgot to let you know that the latest edition of Haveil Havalim, the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere weekly blog carnival is up.

This is the 219th edition which makes it one of the longest running blog carnivals around.

 Go check it out here.

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Obama, Muslims, and the AP narrative

Posted on 06/01/2009 by Meryl Yourish

In an article about how Obama must kowtow to Muslims, several things leap out at me, but this paragraph most of all:

If Obama wants to rally Muslim support to rein in Iran, analysts say, he will have to prove his good intentions elsewhere. In particular, he needs to move to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands the Palestinians want for a state.

The Gaza Strip has had no Israeli residents in it for nearly four years. How long will it take to get AP’s writers and editors to stop writing that it is occupied?

The other graf:

After the Bush years, one of the darkest periods in U.S.-Muslim relations, there is now a chance for reconciliation, said Shibley Telhami, a Mideast scholar at the University of Maryland who conducts annual public opinion surveys around the Middle East.

Huh. One of the darkest periods in U.S.-Muslim relations? Darker, even, than the Iranian hostage crisis in the 70s? Than the murder of hundreds of Marines in Lebanon in the 80s? The first WTC terror attack on American soil in the 90s?

And why exactly would the Bush years be a “dark” period for U.S.-Muslim relations? Could it be, perhaps, the thousands murdered on 9/11 by Muslim terrorists that may have made us think that Muslims had a problem with the U.S.?

What I tire of in all of these analyses is that explicit angle that somehow, the U.S. is at fault for Muslims that hate us, instead of radical Islam raising these people to believe that they can get their way through murder and jihad. And of course, there is always the Israel angle. They hate us, you see, because we favor the lone democracy in the Middle East.

And there is doubt the U.S. president can change entrenched foreign policy, particularly what is perceived in the Muslim world as Washington’s pro-Israeli bias. What Muslims see as America’s repeated failure to hold Israel to its international obligations is a sore point. A construction freeze in Israeli West Bank settlements – Obama wants it, Israel rejects it – is shaping up as a major test.

Not to worry. The pro-Israel bias of the administration seems to be lessening daily. Obama will not be visiting Israel on this trip. Egypt, yes. Saudi Arabia, yes. But not Israel.

And the AP is also following the media narrative:

The president’s initial actions have earned him good will. He’s reached out to Muslims in an interview with an Arab satellite TV station, in video message to Iranians on the Persian new year and in a speech to the Turkish parliament. He ordered Guantanamo prison closed within a year and said the U.S. would not engage in torture, reversing two Bush policies seen here as having targeted Muslims.

He’s not closing Guantanamo, and he’s reserved the right to use tactics like waterboarding if the situation demands it. But let’s pretend he reversed the Bush policies and just not use our objective reporting skills, shall we?

The article is titled “Muslims want tangible change on Mideast from Obama”. You know what? I want to see tangible change from Muslims. I want to see an end to the kleptocracies. I want to see an end to “honor” killings. I want to see women granted equal rights in all Islamic nations. I want to see religions other than Islam allowed the same freedoms in Muslim nations as Islam is allowed here in the U.S. I want to see Muslims own up to the terrorists in their religion and stop excusing them as justified. And I want to see an end to Muslim nations calling for Sharia all over the world.

Think I’ll get even a fraction of those demands?

Of course not.

Think Obama will kowtow to Muslim demands?

He is already.

Posted in AP Media Bias, Religion | 1 Comment

9 years later, still covering for Arafat

Posted on 05/31/2009 by Soccerdad

Commenter Sassinfras claims that Yasser Arafat begged Ehud Barak when they met at Barak’s apartment, not to allow Ariel Sharon to visit the Temple Mount in late September 2000. This is a dubious claim.

Deborah Sontag initially reported on the meeting:

It was just a little suburban dinner party, nothing fancy. The host and his guest of honor cracked jokes. They strolled in the garden for an intimate chat. And then the host kissed his guest goodbye, walked him to a waiting Israeli military helicopter and waved as the guest, wearing his trademark kaffiyeh, flew back to Gaza City.

A senior adviser to Yasir Arafat said the late-night supper, at Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s private home in Kochav Yair on Monday, was the single best meeting ever between the Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

The adviser, Nabil Shaath, said today that it had been ”very cordial,” even congenial. He noted that the two men had walked together to the balcony twice — ”and both came back.”

A week later, Sontag started her article like this:

Last week, Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, were having a garden party, breaking pita bread and trading jokes in the yard of Mr. Barak’s private suburban home in Israel.

Only when she was leaving the Jerusalem desk, did Sontag write this:

All this behind-the-scenes movement was reflected in the atmosphere at that dinner party at Mr. Barak’s home. The prime minister, who had refused to talk directly to the Palestinian leader at Camp David, now courted him. Mr. Ben-Ami, then foreign minister, said he left the dinner and told his wife that Mr. Barak — whom he describes as ”deaf to cultural nuance” — was so intent on forging a peace agreement that he was willing to change ”not only his policies but his personality.”

But Palestinians drove away from that dinner with something else on their minds — Mr. Sharon’s coming visit to what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary and Jews know as the Temple Mount. Mr. Arafat said in an interview that he huddled on the balcony with Mr. Barak and implored him to block Mr. Sharon’s plans. But Mr. Barak’s government perceived the planned visit by Mr. Sharon, then the opposition leader, as solely an internal Israeli political matter, specifically as an attempt to divert attention from the expected return to political life by a right-wing rival — Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister.

Does that sound like “joking” and “cordial?” No, Sontag willfully committed fraud here. This claim of Arafat’s that he begged Barak to prevent Ariel Sharon from visiting the Temple Mount did not comport with her contemporaneous reporting. As she was preparing to leave her prestigious post, she needed a “nuanced” report that showed her sophistication that challenged assumptions that Arafat was the bad guy who rejected peace. More accurately it demonstrated sophistry. She was party to rewriting history in order to absolve a terrorist from blame he so richly deserved. That’s not journalism.

There are three other data points to keep in mind.

1) Ha’aretz reported in mid-August 2000 (via IMRA) that Arafat was granting “extended vacations” to leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Over the past several weeks, the Palestinian Authority has granted extended
vacation leaves to dozens of jailed Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists, among
them militants who were involved in serious terror attacks against Israel.

Israeli military authorities view the return of the Palestinian “revolving
door” with mounting concern.

2) The first fatality of the Aqsa intifada David Biri was killed prior to Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount.

3) Dennis Ross reported the following (via It’s Almost Supernatural)

I bid good-bye to the Palestinians at about 4pm. Two hours later Dani Yatom called me and said Israel had hard evidence that the PA were planning massive, violent demonstrations throughout the West Bank the next morning, ostensibly a response to the Sharon visit.

Dani was very clear: This would be a disaster.[…] Through their own channels the Israelis had sent messages to Arafat about the planned violence and there had been no response; it was up to us to persuade Arafat to prevent the violence.

Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount did not spark spontaneous violence. The violence orechstrated by Arafat took off the next day.There were plenty of credulous reporters and peace processors who chose to gloss over the evidence that Arafat had instigated the violence. But there’s no getting around this reality.

Sassinfras can continue to make his counter factual claims because much of the media was negligent in reporting what really happened. The media were aided and abetted by professional peace processors who generally are unwilling to admit that their fundamental assumptions about peace – starting with their belief that Arafat had changed – were dead wrong.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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AP on mortgage foreclosures: Hurricane victims hardest hit

Posted on 05/31/2009 by Meryl Yourish

You have got to be kidding me.

AP IMPACT: Foreclosures add to hurricane hazards
Mike Manikchand points toward his neighbors – a half-dozen empty, foreclosed-upon homes, sitting on weed-strewn yards – and he wonders: What will happen if a hurricane slams into southwest Florida this year?

His simple answer: “A lot of these places will get destroyed.”

Unoccupied, these homes would be defenseless in a storm; there will be no one to put up shutters, batten down garage doors and otherwise secure homes. But that’s not all. Nearby homes and their residents would also be at risk from wind-propelled debris.

Lehigh Acres and other communities at the epicenter of the nation’s housing crisis are coming to realize that this year’s hurricane season, beginning June 1, represents yet another pitfall. Hurricanes could make hazards of thousands of foreclosed-upon houses, and their diminished value could decrease even more.

The article then goes on to mournfully detail the poor, hardworking schlubs of Hurricane Coast Land who haven’t lost their homes, but who will be affected by the flying swingsets of the left behind. And then it defeats its own purpose with facts like these:

In Galveston, Texas, where more than 17,000 home were damaged by Hurricane Ike last year, there are still many empty homes – but not because of foreclosures. The properties were damaged during the storm and owners don’t have the money to rebuild.

“These homeowners have the biggest hurdles as far as getting back into their homes,” City spokeswoman Alicia Cahill said. “A lot of the homes that were affected were lower income to moderate income families who didn’t have a huge insurance policy or a lot of extra cash lying around to make repairs.”

Um—which is it? Foreclosures or lack of insurance or the stupidity of buying a coastal home in a hurricane zone?

Some banks say that they have a plan for hurricanes; JP Morgan Chase says it will use property management companies and bank field employees to make sure properties are storm-ready. And if the homes are damaged or destroyed during a storm, said Michael Fusco, a spokesman for JP Morgan Chase, the bank “acts just like a homeowner” and will file an insurance claim.

Debora Blume, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo Bank, said her company hires local real estate agents who have been assigned to market bank-owned properties to secure homes against hurricane damage.

But one real estate agent in the Fort Myers area said the process of putting the maintenance work out to bid and then getting approval from the bank that owns the property might not be workable as a storm bears down.

Oh, so it’s really just another load of crap. Because if the companies that own the homes have already taken precautions for hurricanes, then there’s no sensationalistic article to be written.

Oh. Wait.

Posted in AP Media Bias | 1 Comment

The horde invades

Posted on 05/31/2009 by Meryl Yourish

The horde (as Sarah calls them) invaded my home yesterday afternoon, and just left. I’m pretty sure this is the first Sunday in my entire life that I started cooking breakfast for four children before seven a.m. That’s because I gave up trying to sleep around 6:45, when three of the four were downstairs conversing, and the fourth, Rebecca, was snoozing in my office. She sleeps like a log. Which is a good trait to have, what with there being three brothers who get up at godawful hours of the morning.

I’m starting to see why mothers of young children are tired all of the time.

Breakfast was pretty funny, or more to the point, the before-breakfast drama. Max declared that he was dying of starvation and proceeded to illustrate that by lying on the floor and sighing. Then he got up to see how I was progressing with breakfast and said, “Ooh! Bananas!” as he spied the fruit on my counter. Suddenly, he was no longer dying of starvation. Miss Rebecca, meantime, was hanging around seeing if I was going to let her help. Of course I was. She stirred the batter while I got the waffle iron started and set the table. The older boys helped by playing The Simpsons on the Wii and shouting for me to look every time something new came on the screen, as this was a set of new levels none of us had ever seen. (You can insert an eye-roll here.)

Breakfast was very rewarding, though. You take a simple box of mix and create waffles with it, and you get to hear “Yay! Waffles!” from all four kids, and then get told that these are simply the best waffles they ever ate in their lives. The first time I made them French toast, that was the best French toast they ever ate in their lives. Superlatives and children: Perfect together.

Yesterday, I picked Jake up from synagogue and we spent a few hours together without his siblings. We had lunch, worked on his haftorah prayers (his bar mitzvah is in two weeks), and then went shopping for a few things before the invasion. I am a very smart woman. I bought bananas and watermelon to supplement the pineapple in my fridge, because I knew full well that I would be approached by seven-year-olds telling me they were starving and had to eat something. The bananas are gone, and the watermelon came in handy just before dinner. (Pizza. Easy. Fast.) And since I don’t care for pizza, after the children finished, I sat down to have some cold roast chicken. So did Max and Rebecca. Now that, I wasn’t expecting. Kids can really put the food away.

Many hours of Wii and a couple of videos later, I wound up putting Rebecca in my office, which caused Gracie to sleep in my room for the first time in weeks, and even got her to remember that she likes jumping into bed for some attention from time to time. Which almost made up for being awakened before six by three boys conversing in the Great Room. That brought Grumpy Aunt Meryl out of bed. They were quiet for about forty minutes, and now we’ve reached full circle.

And I am going back to bed. Five hours sleep is not enough—it wasn’t all the kids’ fault; I had sinus issues last night. But the rain finally came (chasing Rebecca out of bed) and my headache’s gone, and so is the invading horde. Quiet reigns again.

Posted in Life | 6 Comments

Stall. Wait for pressure. Get concessions. Add some violence. Repeat.

Posted on 05/31/2009 by Soccerdad

Noah Pollak describes Mahmoud Abbas’s negotiating strategy as described in an interview with Jackson Diehl, as a “Princess Bride strategy.”

Diehl seems to get it too as he writes:

Abbas and his team fully expect that Netanyahu will never agree to the full settlement freeze — if he did, his center-right coalition would almost certainly collapse. So they plan to sit back and watch while U.S. pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office. “It will take a couple of years,” one official breezily predicted. Abbas rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession — such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.

There’s no reason to expect otherwise. That’s what happened, of course, during the 90’s. President Clinton wasn’t happy with Netanyahu’s approach to the peace process. So Clinton did everything in his power to undermine Netanyahu. He even reneged on an agreement he made with Netanyahu when Arafat objected to it. Netanyahu’s standing at home crumbled and Ehud Barak was elected prime minister in his place.

That, of course, allowed Clnton to make his attempt to bring peace to the Middle East an earn a Nobel Peace Prize. But as well know, Arafat rejected Barak’s offer and started the “Aqsa intifada.”

Diehl points out that Olmert offered Abbas even more than Barak had (offered Arafat) and it still wasn’t enough.

But by now we have a pattern. The Palestinian refuse to negotiate. They expect American pressure on Israel. (And the Obama administration seems willing to provide that pressure.) When they get the American pressure and Israel capitulates they claim it’s still not enough and refuse to budge. (Jack explains why it will never be enough.) All the while the Palestinian refuse to take the basic steps to build an economy (something Netanyahu wants to encourage – and did encourage when he was PM in the 90’s) or accountable political institutions or take any steps you’d expect if their goal was an independent state.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, palestinian politics | Tagged | 2 Comments

Saturday funny

Posted on 05/30/2009 by Meryl Yourish

Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was one of my absolute favorite songs from the eighties. The video is one of the all-time worst. And it’s just been hosed, big-time. H/T: Allah.

If you remember the video, this is your spit-monitor warning. If you never saw it, this is your spit-monitor warning. This is effing hilarious.

Posted in Humor, Music | 4 Comments

A partiality test

Posted on 05/30/2009 by Meryl Yourish

See if you can figure out where, and whom, these quotes come from:

Palestinians watched with hope this week as President Barack Obama called for an Israeli settlement freeze and spoke about the need to move quickly toward statehood alongside President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House.

But despite the clear signal of a shift, there is caution in the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinians judge whether the administration has the mettle to make good on promises which have become all too familiar.

“Obama has new speech, but not yet a strategy,” says Mohammed Khirresh, a Palestinian economist and political analyst, speaking on the sidelines of a Ramallah policy conference sponsored by the Palestinian Center for Media and Research. “The criterion for Obama’s new strategy is whether I can see it on the ground and touch it. Otherwise, it’s empty words.”

Despite his charm and message of change, Obama must still overcome a deficit from decades of failed US policy on mediating an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Palestinians are weary of a peace process that has been long on talk and short on dividends, and that has eroded the credibility of the president’s diplomatic pulpit. There are also questions whether one president has the political ability to buck decades of US partiality toward Israel.

What do you think? Al Jazeera? The Arab News? Al-Ahram? Reuters?

Nope. The Christian Science Monitor. And the author: Joshua Mitnick. And there’s even more Palestinian propaganda to come:

Still, conditions are less than ideal, because Israel’s right-wing government won’t endorse a two-state solution and because of the ongoing rift with Hamas, a long-time critic of negotiations with Israel.

Because Mr. Abbas is a proponent of diplomacy instead of violence, his political fortune is in large degree tied to Obama’s ability to push Israel to ease restrictions on movement in the West Bank, allow goods into the Gaza Strip, and restart a credible negotiations process.

But wait. There’s even more propaganda: The taming of Hamas.

Even Hamas is sounding politely upbeat. An aide to Hamas’s Gaza leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said that the Islamic militants seek to foster good relations with the West, including the US, which lists the group as a terrorist organization.

“We have no other choice,” said the aide, Ahmed Yousef, addressing the Ramallah gathering by video link. “We hope that the new administration will take a more balanced approach in solving the conflict.”

Funny, that’s not what Hamas’ spokesman is telling the rest of the media:

Meanwhile, Islamic Hamas movement, bitter rival of Abbas, said the meeting between Abbas and Obama was disappointing and did not bring any new thing.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said his movement saw Abbas’s commitment to the Road Map as “an uprooting of the resistance and a liquidation of Hamas” as the plan calls on the PNA to dismantle the armed Palestinian groups.

“All the Palestinian factions rejected the Road Map except Abbas,” Barhoum said, adding that Obama’s statements were “insufficient wishes that are no longer useful under the Zionist increasing military escalation.”

Hamas wants Abbas to halt peace negotiations with Israel, and to adopt armed resistance against Israel to pressurize the Jewish state into giving the Palestinians their legitimate rights back.

It makes you wonder how blind these so-called Mideast experts truly are, that they can’t even keep up with other news organizations’ reporting of the same topic. But of course, it isn’t blindness. It’s deliberate obfuscation because the above quote doesn’t fit Mitnick’s—and the Christian Science Monitor’s—narrative. That narrative, of course, is that it’s not Palestinian terrorism, anti-Israel (and anti-Jewish) incitement, and the refusal to compromise that is responsible for the lack of peace. No. It’s Israel in general, and settlements in particular.

You really have to wonder what the CSM’s problem is. As for Josh Mitnick, well—I’m guessing he’s one of Snoopy’s AssaJews.

Posted in Hamas, Israeli Double Standard Time, Media Bias | Tagged , , | Comments Off on A partiality test

UN launching “independent” probe of Gaza war

Posted on 05/29/2009 by Meryl Yourish

You have to love the AP. They sure do give us many laughs.

The United Nations says a team of independent experts mandated to probe alleged war crimes in Israel and Gaza will leave for the Middle East over the weekend.

Really? Independent? And who, by chance, would have chosen them?

Israel has previously described the probe as “intrinsically flawed” because it was ordered by the UN Human Rights Council. The 47-member council has an anti-Israeli track record.

Oh. No way that can go wrong, then. Because it’s not like two successive UN SecGens have noticed the anti-Israel bias of the HRC.

Oh. Wait.

Posted in AP Media Bias, Israel Derangement Syndrome, United Nations | Comments Off on UN launching “independent” probe of Gaza war

Unsettling

Posted on 05/28/2009 by Soccerdad

The Washington Post reported the other day that the United States is pushing Israel to stop all “settlement” activity. And that PM Netanyahu caught flack on the topic from an unexpected source: formerly pro-Israel Congressmen:

During meetings with congressional leaders this week, Netanyahu was stunned by the “harsh and unequivocal statements” with which lawmakers complained about the settlements, according to an account in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The newspaper said that although the prime minister tried to highlight the threat of Iran in his talks, lawmakers instead returned repeatedly to the issue of settlements, leading his entourage to conclude that the message had been coordinated with the Obama administration.

That’s a reasonable conclusion, though I’m surprised it wasn’t reported last week. Regardless, Israel was relying on assurances from the now no-longer-in-power Bush administration:

Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said there are no plans for a full settlement freeze. “The issue of settlements is a final status issue, and until there are final status arrangements, it would not be fair to kill normal life inside existing communities,” he said.

Regev said the Israeli government is relying on “understandings” between former president George W. Bush and former prime minister Ariel Sharon that some of the larger settlements in the occupied West Bank would ultimately become part of Israel, codified in a letter that Bush gave to Sharon in 2004. In an interview with The Washington Post last year, Sharon aide Dov Weissglas said that in 2005, when Sharon was poised to remove settlers from Gaza, the Bush administration arrived at a secret agreement — not disclosed to the Palestinians — that Israel could add homes in settlements it expected to keep, as long as the construction was dictated by market demand, not subsidies.

Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser who negotiated the arrangement with Weissglas, confirmed the deal in an interview last week. “At the time of the Gaza withdrawal, there were lengthy discussions about how settlement activity might be constrained, and in fact it was constrained in the later part of the Sharon years and the Olmert years in accordance with the ideas that were discussed,” he said. “There was something of an understanding realized on these questions, but it was never a written agreement.”

But according to the New York Times it would appear that the Obama administration has no interest in continuing an understanding – albeit and unwritten one – that was extended by the previous administration:

Speaking of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, “He wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions.” Talking to reporters after a meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, she said: “That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly.”

Mrs. Clinton’s remarks, the administration’s strongest to date on the matter, came as an Israeli official said Wednesday that the Israeli government wanted to reach an understanding with the Obama administration that would allow some new construction in West Bank settlements.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is expected to focus on the issue of settlement expansion when he meets with Mr. Obama on Thursday in Washington. Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders have said repeatedly that they see no point in resuming stalled peace negotiations without an absolute settlement freeze.

Jonathan Tobin asks:

Does this leak of a plea by the Netanyahu government show that Jerusalem believes the Obama administration will actually unveil a new peace plan that will explicitly prohibit the construction of a house or add-on anywhere over the green line?

The question of settlement growth has been something of a red herring for years. Israel isn’t building new settlements and hasn’t since the 1990s. But unless the United States is going to adopt a position that every single one of these Jewish communities must be held in a choke hold — the better to ease them out of existence — natural growth must be allowed.

But here’s the rub:

George W. Bush’s June 2004 statement in which he explicitly supported the creation of an independent Palestinian state (albeit one that would not be ruled by supporters of terror and corrupt actors, something that pretty much renders such a state impossible under the existing circumstances) also said that any peace agreement must take into account the changes that have occurred on the ground since 1967. In other words, the large Jewish suburbs on the outskirts of Jerusalem and elsewhere close to the old border were not going to be handed over to the Palestinians under any circumstances. Then, as now, most Israelis would be willing to give up outlying settlements but now the clusters close to the old green line are where most of the “settlers” live. Ariel Sharon paid in hard diplomatic currency for this American statement but his successors soon discovered that the purchase was worthless.

Palestinian officials may claim that they won’t engage in peace talks without a complete “settlement” freeze, but that’s hardly the main obstacle to peace.

The Palestinian factions can’t even put on a unified front – and even if they can, there’s no guarantee that they’ll adopt a “moderate” position – and their moderate leader refuses to endorse a Jewish state (which would be a prerequisite for accepting a “two state solution.”)

And is the United States going to ignore the very real incitement that still comes from the Palestinians on a regular basis?

To see the perfect symbol of the problem with U.S. Middle East policy you need look no further. No one in the region takes America too seriously because it does not follow up and enforce its positions. The PA knows that it can do what it wants and pay no price. There is no–repeat no–real pressure on it to stop incitement, educate its people for peace, make any real compromise or concession. Instead, this “moderate” institution is continuing to teach its children that being a terrorist is the highest calling and due the greatest honor.

Just like Hamas does.

The Western media also has no interest in this issue either despite energetically seeking out any issue on which Israel can be criticized, even often when such things are made up and prove to have no basis in reality.

We have seen, and will see, the administration devote huge efforts to stopping settlers from adding a room onto an existing apartment. Will it devote any effort at all to turning the PA in the direction of peace or even enforcing U.S. law?

So with Iran about to develop nuclear weapons, Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah poised to gain power in Lebanon and North Korea threatening to abrogate its ceasefire with South Korea, the one area of foreign policy where President Obama has chosen to take a stand is where Israel can build. (Tobin pointed out that this would be an issue even if Tzippi Livni had been elected!) I guess I was wrong to dismiss reports of a clash coming between Obama and Netanyahu.

Netanyahu needs to be careful. He cannot allow himself to be bullied. He has a stronger base of support at home than he had thirteen years ago. He must make the case that ceding territory to hostiles is a recipe for disaster not peace and that the United States and the world has much bigger worries than where Jews live. It won’t be easy, but that’s his job.

Related please see I*Consult, Elder of Ziyon, Israel Matzav, Israelly Cool, Daled Amos, My Right Word and The Muqata.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time | Tagged | 6 Comments

The Obama peace plan: Pressure Israel, pressure Israel, pressure Israel

Posted on 05/28/2009 by Meryl Yourish

It looks like the Chicken Littles may have been right. The Obama camp is calling for Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including building in the suburbs of Jerusalem—which is hardly a “settlement.”

Meanwhile Clinton said Obama had “made it very clear” to Netanyahu that he expects a total freeze in the settlements. “He wants to see a stop to settlements. Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions,” Clinton said on Wednesday during a visit by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit.

So the Obama administration’s peace plan is essentially an appease plan: Israel is not going to be allowed to grow the suburbs of Jerusalem (Ma’aleh Adumim). Yeah, that’ll go over well. So, what are the Obama plans for the Palestinians?

“We think it is in the best interest of the effort that we are engaged in, that settlement expansion cease,” she said. “That is our position, that is what we have communicated very clearly not only to the Israelis but to the Palestinians and others. And we intend to press that point,” she said.

Ah. Pressure Israel. I see.

Obama will be meeting with Abbas this week. I’m guessing that the Palestinians are not going to be told that they have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, give up any hope of millions of Palestinians settling in Israel rather than the Palestinian state, and stop teaching their children that there is no Jewish claim to the city of Jerusalem and inciting against Jews.

But hey, the settlements are the real reason there’s no peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Not intransigence. Not “resistance.” Not Palestinian corruption. Settlements.

Posted in Israeli Double Standard Time, palestinian politics, The One | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The debate about armed struggle

Posted on 05/27/2009 by Meryl Yourish

This article strikes me as utterly typical of the rejectionist problem. The Palestinians are battling to compromise, but not in the way you and I understand the word:

The Palestinian Authority “will do everything in its power” to advance peace with Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vowed this week during an official visit to Canada.

The armed struggle against Israel has emerged as one of the key issues being dealt with by Fatah members ahead of the organization’s committee convention.

One side of the movement calls for the removal of militaristic terms from its platform, which was formed during the 1980s. However a rival group, which includes senior members of the organization, demands Fatah be presented not only as a political group but also as a force battling “occupation”.

Everything in its power to advance peace? And yet, Abbas and the PA leadership will not acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish state. And here is what the Palestinians consider a “compromise”:

On the fringes of the debate is a group calling for a compromise, in which Fatah will not abandon its “armed resistance” but also refrain from making it the main tack. These members consider militarism the legitimate right of the Palestinian people where negotiations fail.

Compromise means that the Palestinians won’t give up the option to bomb buses and murder children—but they will put it on the back burner, to be taken out only if they don’t get everything they want. And since the Palestinians have yet to issue one iota of compromise on their demands, well, the “resistance” will continue.

Posted in Israel, palestinian politics | Tagged , | 1 Comment