Preventing the next Holocaust

Posted on 04/14/2008 by Soccerdad

The other day I wrote about Charles Krauthammer’s most recent column. He argued that since it’s clear that negotiation and sandtions have failed to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb, the United States had to expressly state its support for defending Israel. I had thought that the column wasn’t the greatest I read. On the other hand, Krauthammer didn’t seem to be operating with the luxury of alternatives.At Contentions, Gordon Chang thinks that American deterrence is still possible. Noah Pollak thinks that such a declaration will have the exact opposite effect.

David Hazony, though, takes a different tack. He links to a Ze’ev Chafets column arguing that the Iranian bomb is out of American hands, however:

What’s more, it is fair to say that Israel is not a weak country. It has developed a powerful set of strategic options. In the best case, it would be able to act on its own to degrade and retard the Iranian nuclear program as it did in Iraq (and, more recently, Syria). In a worse case, if the Iranians do get the bomb, Iranian leaders might be deterred by rational considerations. If so, Israel’s own arsenal — and its manifest willingness to respond to a nuclear attack — ought to suffice.If, on the other hand, the Iranian leadership simply can’t resist the itch to “wipe Israel off the map” — or to make such a thing appear imminent — then it would be up to Israel to make its own calculations. What is the price of 100,000 dead in Tel Aviv? Or twice that? The cost to Iran would certainly be ghastly. It would be wrong for Israel to expect other nations to shoulder this moral and geopolitical responsibility.

Note that this isn’t just a discussion of an Osirak like strike, but of first use of nuclear weapons if necessary. I don’t believe that an Osirak like strike is possible: Iran is farther away than Iraq and the surprise factor can’t be as great anymore.

I would add that if it comes to that, and I hope it doesn’t, it’s not just the failure of the United States. There are many nations and world bodies who have been quite happy to humor Tehran and pretend that its extremism was just for public consumption. Sometimes it pays to take fanatics to heart.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel | 6 Comments

Israel policy failure

Posted on 04/14/2008 by Soccerdad

Sometimes organizations do what you expect them too. CAIR, for example, has no issue with Jimmy Carter shaking the blood soaked hands of Khaled Meshal.Sometimes the organization that does the advocating is surprising. For example two leaders of the Israeli Policy Forum are advocating outreach to Hamas. Why is this surprising? Well the IPF writes on it website that one of its goals is:

IPF sponsors exceptional educational programs and publications, which produce a unique cadre of effective advocates for a two state solution. (emphasis mine)

So now Geoffry Lewis and Seymour Reich write that we should be Finding a way to bring Hamas In. That’s Hamas the organization dedicated in word and deed to a one state solution – one without Israel.

Lewis and Reich write:

IT’S BECOMING increasingly clearer that reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement requires finding a way to bring Hamas into the process. This must be done without compromising Israeli or American interests.Many respected Israeli security officials, including two former heads of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, arrived at that conclusion some time ago. So have 64 percent of Israelis, who said, according to a Haaretz-Dialog poll taken in February, that they would negotiate directly with Hamas to end the rocket attacks from Gaza, controlled by Hamas since June 2007, and to secure the release of the captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

As noted before the Israeli poll approving talks with Hamas only gave respondents one choice. A different poll giving Israelis the choice between talking and fighting, showed that Israelis much preferred fighting their enemies than coddling them.

Lewis and Reich praise Sec. Rice for her decision to engage Hamas indirectly.

Rice appears to recognize these realities. During her previous visit to the Middle East early last month she used Egypt as an intermediary to open a channel between Israel and Hamas to mediate a cease-fire. This is a significant and commendable development. It could facilitate reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of the year, the goal of the Bush administration, or during the next administration.

And since then what? Well Hamas manufactured a fuel crisis, using as cover for an attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot. So would you say that bringing Hamas in has been helpful, or has it emboldened them?

Back at the beginning of the peace process, advocates like Lewis and Reich claimed that it was necessary to talk to Arafat and Fatah and to isolate Hamas. In the past 15 years, Fatah has shown itself to be uninterested in peace (or more precisely: uninterested in any commitments to helping peace but plenty interested in receiving the land, guns and money in exchange for those phantom commitments) and Hamas has gotten even stronger.

Now after Fatah has proved itself uninterested in making peace, Hamas is left with power, so Lewis and Reich propose that Israel now talk to Hamas. Have they been paying attention to the past 15 years? Why would talking with Hamas work any better now than talking with Fatah did in 1993?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Hamas, Israel | 1 Comment

Carter defends the indefensible

Posted on 04/13/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Jimmy Carter took to the talk show circuit to try to defend meeting with murderers.

“It’s very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the Palestinians,” Carter said in an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.”

“There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process,” Carter added. “I think someone should be meeting with Hamas to see what we can do to encourage them to be cooperative and to find out what their attitude.”

Hm. Wonder if this will help find out their attitude:

“Hamas will not back down. We will not give up on a single metre of our homeland,” Meshaal said to thunderous applause.

“We will and we must continue in the path of resistance,” he added.

Or this:

In an anniversary message to Hamas TV, the group’s top leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, said Hamas will not abandon violence. “This is our real choice, our trump card, which causes the enemy to succumb to us,” he said.

He said moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who controls the West Bank, does not have the mandate to negotiate with Israel. “Our people are able to launch a third and fourth uprising until the dawn of victory arrives,” he warned.

Or perhaps this part of the Hamas charter:

Article Six:
The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine […].

In the meantime, Carter is perfectly okay with the policies of countries like China. He’s against a boycott, apparently because China hasn’t killed enough people yet. And it was a popular cause, too.

“That was a totally different experience in 1980, when the Soviet Union had brutally invaded and killed thousands and thousands of people, who — in Afghanistan then,” he said. “They were threatening to go further south and take over other countries. Fifty-four nations in the world decided to boycott the Olympics. Two-thirds of the U.S. Olympic Committee, a relatively independent group, decided not to go. The Congress voted overwhelmingly not to go.”

Jimmy Carter—ever the hero. He’s going to be the subject of my podcast this week. I had the feeling if I only waited until Sunday to write it, he’d say even more stupid things.

Posted in Hamas, Politics | 9 Comments

Why read the NYT or Ha’aretz …

Posted on 04/13/2008 by Soccerdad

when you could have gotten the scoop from Elder of Ziyon.

via memeorandum

Ha’aretz reports:

Hamas seizes half the fuel Israel sends to the Gaza Strip and uses it in part for its military wing’s vehicles, Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials said Thursday. 

Israel cut off the only source of fuel for Gaza’s 1.4 million people Thursday after Wednesday’s deadly attack on the only fuel transfer point into the territory.

But Israeli defense officials indicated that the cutoff would not last past the weekend.

Nir Press, commander of the military liaison unit for Gaza, said Hamas takes about half the fuel transferred to the Gaza Strip.

Hussein al-Sheikh, a PA official, told Haaretz that Hamas seizes some 400,000 of the 800,000 liters of diesel transferred to Gaza weekly and intended for uses such as generators, hospitals, water pumps and sewage pumps.

 

Israel Matzav reacts

That fits right in with the attack on Nahal Oz, doesn’t it? And soon, we will see televised pictures of Gazans sitting in darkened rooms with their curtains drawn in the middle of the day, won’t we?

 

The New York Times reports about another consequence of last week’s terror attack:

The Israeli incursion came after militants from Gaza broke through the fence on Wednesday and attacked the Nahal Oz fuel depot, the transfer point from which all fuel is piped from Israel into Gaza. Two Israeli civilians employed by the company that supplies the fuel were killed in the attack. Fuel deliveries into Gaza were temporarily halted, but were expected to resume after the weekend. 

Israel holds Hamas responsible for the attack, since it controls Gaza, although three smaller groups claimed joint responsibility. Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told a gathering of his supporters on Thursday that Hamas “will not be able to continue to act against Israel’s citizens as it acts today.” He would not elaborate on the cryptic threat but added, “The state of Israel will stand behind the things that I said.”

 

Again reading Elder of Ziyon would have clued Isabel Kershner in that it wasn’t just Israel that holds Hamas responsible, but Hamas claims credit for “softening” Nahal Oz with mortars. (Even if they didn’t claim credit, mortars are very loud. The authorities, such as they are in Gaza, had to be aware of them being fired and didn’t stop them. As such, at the very least, Hamas was at least implicitly complicit. But as EoZ observed, the complicity was explicit.)

The Spine wonders what Israel’s thinking by absorbing the terror attack, publicizing the information about Hamas stealing the fuel and nonetheless planning to resume fuel shipments early this week! Maybe Israel Matzav needn’t worry about those darkened rooms.

As I noted last week, the protests over gas seemed a bit convenient prior to the attack on Nahal Oz. So does Solomonia

Very clever. Keep the fuel, blame it on the Jews, increase resentment, stage strikes for a compliant international press. It’s a sales job at home and an export all at once.

 

This is one more example of how the media distorts things in ways to make war more likely.

Hamas stealing fuel for its own purposes, isn’t so novel. When Fatah was in charge of Gaza, its henchmen were capable of using fuel for their own purposes at the expense of the citizenry. Eleven years ago Ha’aretz reported:

The fuel sector is an excellent example of a particularly profitable monopoly. Residents of the territories consumer 40 million liters of fuel per month. Under Israel’s administration, by far the largest share of the market was dominated by Pedasco, jointly owned by Israel’s large fuel companies (Paz, Delek, and Sonol). The company sold gasoline and oil to 65 private stations throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The stations’ Palestinian owners leased their equipment from Pedasco.Pedasco had contracts for supply with the station owners through beyond the year 2000. Under the economic agreement between the Authority and Israel, the Authority pledged not to interfere with contracts between Israeli suppliers and Palestinian customers that had been signed before the signing of the Paris protocol. Promises are promises, and reality is reality. On October 18, 1994, the underlings of Jibril Rajoub, chief of the Authority’s preventive security forces, informed all service station owners that they may not accept fuel from anyone except Dor Energy. Two days later, armed emissaries of Rajoub blocked the entry of Pedasco tankers into the territories of the Authority.

The service station owners sent a letter to the Authority requesting that they be permitted to continue working with Pedasco. Rajoub turned down the request. Eli Halahmi, former CEO of Pedasco: “After the Authority consolidated power in the territories, Rajoub took over and announced that henceforth service station owners would be required to pay an additional tax, at a rate based on their daily sales. Preventive security’s `fuel patrol’ takes daily measurements at the service stations and checks the differences in the balances of the black gold between the morning and the evening.”

 

Hamas isn’t really less corrupt than Fatah. It might not be that the leaders of Hamas seek to enrich themselves as much as the leaders of Fatah did (and probably still do) but they do divert resources at the exepnse of those they purport to govern. Maybe the fact that they use those resources to attack Israel instead of enriching themselves makes them selfish, but not less corrupt.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas, Israel | 1 Comment

Lazy Saturday

Posted on 04/12/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Well, not really. There was a bar mitzvah (one of my third-year students; only one more left from that class, and he did a wonderful job), and I’m working to make up the hours from Monday and Tuesday, and, well, there’s little desire left to write.

I got to carry the Torah today. I’ve only done it about twice before. It’s a wonderful feeling.

Today was also a unique experience: A thunderstorm struck during the Torah reading. I thought it added to the event. And the rain mostly stopped before the service ended, so no drenchings for the crowd. There was a point where we wondered if the power would stay on, however. It did.

Posted in Life, Religion | Comments Off on Lazy Saturday

Not just motive

Posted on 04/11/2008 by Soccerdad

Elder of Ziyon made an important point yesterday about the atttacks at Nahal Oz. On the surface it seemed illogical for an attack against the entry point for gas to Gaza. He points out the terror attack with the complicity and active involvement of Hamas took advantage of an opportunity. The terrorists could strike, so they did.

The terrorists hit wherever they can. Certainly they might try to abduct rather than kill Israelis, but for the most part they will kill any Israeli in the Middle East that they can. Thanks to Israeli defenses, they don’t have the luxury of choosing targets based on perceived symbolic value; they will choose the weakest point they can find and kill whomever they can, not caring if the victims are women, children, Arabs or Jews, and cause all the damage and panic they can.

Whether it’s the buildup of weaponry and infrastructure in Gaza by Hamas that’s accelerated after “disengagement” or Hezbollah’s buildup in the wake of Israel’s retreat from Lebanon, these terror organizations are more about acquiring means and exploiting opportunities. (I would add that the terror directed against Israel by Hamas with the complicity of Fatah in early 1996 was the result of Israel’s withdrawal from Ramallah, Kalkilye, Jenin, Nablus and Bethlehem in late 1995. This effectively transferred responsibility for maintaining order to the PLO, which had no interest in doing so. Hamas was thus able to build a terror infrastructure that was able to carry out the series of bus bombings and other terror attacks in February and March of 1996.) These organizations are dedicated to destroying Israel and killing Jews.

Of Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah the one that’s least effective now is Fatah. That’s because it was largely the target of operation Defensive Shield. It’s not the corruption that dooms Fatah, but weakness. There is, you see, a military solution to terror: destroy the organizations who perpetrate it.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Terrorism | 1 Comment

Endgame

Posted on 04/11/2008 by Soccerdad

Remember how smug, insufferable, know-it-all David Ignatius informed us that the NIE showed that our policies towards Iran were all wrong? Here’s how he put it in a Post-Global forum:

Sometimes events create space for diplomacy where none existed before. I want to think that this might be the case with the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. What matters about the NIE is less the details than the atmospherics. The details themselves are hard to parse: Yes, we now believe that in 2003 Iran halted a previously unknown covert military program to build a bomb; but no, that doesn’t mean Iran has stopped its threatening nuclear activity or that it has given up its ambition to be a nuclear power. When you boil it all down, the United States has aimed its intelligence rifle at Tehran–and shot itself in the foot. It has undercut its old policy and embarrassed itself and its allies. So what’s the advantage in that, you ask? Simply this: The NIE creates a way for both parties to come to the negotiating table without losing face. Both sides can start a new narrative, in place of the old one that led to an impasse. It is this serendipitous aspect–this unexpected reversal of the parameters of the game–that interests me most.

Shortly after its release my Watcher’s Council colleague Wolf Howling wrote:

Our intelligence agencies have done our nation a tremendous disservice. It will, inn the long run, likely cost us bitterly since it puts off any reckoning with the single most destabilizing force in this world. Every day that reckoning is put off will increase the cost we will pay and gold and blood. And if Iran achieves a nuclear arsenal, that cost we will pay will rise exponentially.

Charles Krauthammer points out in today’s column, the Holocaust Declaration (or here) that this week’s announcement that Iran was installing 6000 new centrifuges demonstrates that we have reached a point of no return.

It is time to admit the truth: The Bush administration’s attempt to halt Iran’s nuclear program has failed. Utterly. The latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions, which took a year to achieve, is comically weak. It represents the end of the sanctions road.At home, the president’s efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program were irreparably undermined by November’s National Intelligence Estimate, whose “moderate confidence” that Iran has not restarted nuclear weaponization — the least important of three elements of any nuclear program — has promoted the illusion that Iran has given up the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yet uranium enrichment, the most difficult step, proceeds apace, as does the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

The president is going to hand over to his successor an Iran on the verge of going nuclear. This will deeply destabilize the Middle East, threaten the moderate Arabs with Iranian hegemony and leave Israel on hair-trigger alert.

This failure can, however, be mitigated. Since there will apparently be no disarming of Iran by pre-emption or by sanctions, we shall have to rely on deterrence to prevent the mullahs, some of whom are apocalyptic and messianic, from using nuclear weapons.

(Keep in mind the second paragraph when you read Ignatius’s praise for Thomas Fingar from a couple of years ago. What Fingar and those involved in the NIE exercised was not caution. It was recklessness to create an illusion of complacency.)

At this point then, what does Krauthammer counsel?

How to create deterrence? The way John Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis. President Bush’s greatest contribution to nuclear peace would be to issue the following declaration, adopting Kennedy’s language while changing the names of the miscreants:“It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran.”

This should be followed with a simple explanation: “As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people.”

This policy — the Holocaust Declaration — would establish a firm benchmark that would outlive this administration. Every future president — and every serious presidential candidate — would have to publicly state whether or not he supports the Holocaust Declaration.

Krauthammer then acknowledges that such a policy may not deter the likes of Ahmadinejad, but it would likely (or maybe just hopefully) spur rational actors in Iran to take charge and restrain or depose him.

Krauthammer further argues that such a policy isn’t just necessary to save the Jews of the world (see his 10 year old essay At Last Zion for a fuller treatment of this topic), but to confirm America’s role in the world as a beacon of freedom.

For the first time since the time of Jesus, Israel is the home of the world’s largest Jewish community. An implacable enemy has openly declared genocidal intentions against it — in clear violation of the U.N. charter — and is pursuing the means to carry out that intent. The world does nothing. Some, like the Russians, are literally providing fuel for the fire.For those who believe that America stands for something in the world — that the nation that has liberated more peoples than any other has even the most minimal moral vocation — there can be no more pressing cause than preventing the nuclear annihilation of an allied democracy, the last refuge and hope of an ancient people openly threatened with the final Final Solution.

UPDATE: If this report in the Times of London is accurate, the recklessness of the NIE is even more apparent.

A previously unknown missile location, the site, about 230km southeast of Tehran, and the link with Iran’s long-range programme, was revealed by Jane’s Intelligence Review after a study of the imagery by a former Iraq weapons inspector. A close examination of the photographs has indicated that the Iranians are following the same path as North Korea, pursuing a space programme that enables Tehran to acquire expertise in long-range missile technology.Geoffrey Forden, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there was a recently constructed building on the site, about 40 metres in length, which was similar in form and size to the Taepodong long-range missile assembly facility in North Korea.

Avital Johanan, the editor of Jane’s Proliferation, said that the analysis of the Iranian site indicated that Tehran may be about five years away from developing a 6,000km ballistic missile. This would tie in with American intelligence estimates and underlines why President Bush wants the Polish and Czech components of the US missile defence system to be up and running by 2013.

So as Tehran reaches the point of completing its quest for the requisite fuel, it is working on a delivery system too. Not exactly the pause that the NIE proclaimed in its summary.

Jihad Watch mentions that this isn’t just about “filthy bacteria,” it’s also about “corrupt powers.”

Note the resonance that this kind of talk will have with the American Left, which sees the U.S. as the chief of the “corrupt powers.” And remember: this man was applauded at Columbia University.”Iran: President wants to ‘annihilate corrupt powers,'” from AKI (thanks to Insubria).

Israel Matzav cautions:

Will this wake the world up to the fact that Iran’s nuclear aspirations are not just Israel’s problem? Don’t hold your breath. In the meantime, expect countries like Germany to continue to undermine sanctions in the pursuit of the Almighty Euro.

Gina Cobb reminds us that this emphasizes the importance of missile defense, a position that I imagine with which Poligazette wholeheartedly agrees.(via memeorandum)
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Holocaust, Iran, Israel, Jews | 1 Comment

Hamas: Israel digging tunnels to kidnaps Hamas leaders

Posted on 04/11/2008 by SnoopyTheGoon

That was an interesting turn of speach. Or turn of spin, whatever you make of it.

“Israel has dug tunnels under the Gaza Strip in order to kidnap senior Hamas leaders,” Hamas Interior Minister Said Siam told the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat. In an interview published Thursday, Siam claimed that the Shin Bet has been acting through local agents across the Strip to purchase apartments that could be used as bases of operations for such kidnappings.

Yes, it could be so: now we know at least why many people in Israeli call Olmert dirty – it’s from all that digging.

I can offer another sinister detail: Shin Bet uses the tunnels to provoke Israeli army. Like these 6 Shin Bet provocateurs that came from Gaza recently to the fuel terminal, killed two Israeli civilians and run back for the tunnels. Only to be killed by the Air Force who, most probably, just were not in on the joke…

The Shin Bet provocateurs are also digging tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, smuggle more and more weapons and distribute the weapons to the other Shin Bet provocateurs, who use the weapons to shoot and bombard Israel over the border to create more provocations.

The Shin Bet provocateurs also dress up like this:

Militant

This to create an impression that not all citizens of Gaza are peaceful.

The Shin Bet provocateurs…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Posted in Gaza, Israel, Terrorism | 1 Comment

Adventures in babysitting

Posted on 04/10/2008 by Meryl Yourish

I got a call from Sarah yesterday asking “Do you have plans for tonight?”

That’s usually followed by a request to help shepherd children around to their various schedules, often caused by her husband being out of town or extremely busy with work, or even with Sarah heading out for a dog show. Well, I had no plans, except I was going to work a few extra hours tonight to make up for the sick time earlier this week, but hey—the kids come first. And I have until April 15th to make up the time.

The conflict was T-ball and baseball. The twins had a T-ball game early, and Jake had a game that started around 7:30, which ends way too late for six-year-olds. Sarah had kept the kids up late the previous night, and figured she’d ask me to choose between staying with Jake and bringing him home, or babysitting the twins and Nate. It’s allergy season. I chose the latter.

The kids were really excited about riding in the Jeep. It was very tempting to take the windows out, what with it being in the high seventies here yesterday, but the prospect of putting them back in the following day because it’s supposed to rain made me hesitate. The onset of Green Dust Season tipped the scales. Even so, the kids were thrilled. Max told me that he never rode in my Jeep, ever. “Yes you did,” I told him. “A few times.” “Oh.” That’s one of my favorite responses from a child. They live in the present, always. The past? What’s that? It happens with my students all the time, too, and when I remind them of something that happened, oh, half an hour before, their response is always, “Oh.”

So we got the carseats and put them in the back, and I turned off the airbag in the front passenger seat so Nate could ride in it without fear of exploding balloons crushing his head. (Mind you, I didn’t explain it like that. Just turned it off. Jeeps have a key switch for that, which is great.) But he made sure I had turned it off before I started the car. I notice both he and his brother want absolute assurance that the airbag is not going to leap out of the dashboard and attack them.

We drove home with the radio playing. Nate knew the first three artists and songs. Conversation went something like this, “Do you know the Foo Fighters?” “Yes, I do.” “Do you like this song?” “Yes, I do.” “Oh, I love this song. Do you like this song?” “Yes, I do.” I tried to blast the music, but Max is a very particular young man. He has his rules and regulations, and music can only be so loud before it disturbs his world. So instead, I taught Nate how to headbang on the way home. He liked it. Did it really well, especially as his hair’s rather moptopped right now. And the final song of the day was unrecognizable to Nate. “I don’t know this one.” “Give me a minute… wait… Oh, that’s Metallica. Unforgiven.” “I like this song. Do you like it?” “Yes.” “They’re a hard rock band.” “They’re a metal band, Nate.”

(And by the way, nine-year-olds like to notice exactly how fast you are going, and tell you so. Then they like to tell you what the speed limit is. And repeat how fast you are going. I could not, of course, mutter imprecations or even assure him that 50 mph on a 45 mph road is not a big deal. I could only slow down to the stated speed limit, after which he stopped pointing out how fast I was going, until we got to the 50 mph section of the road, when I pointed out to him that I was doing the legal limit.)

Home, snack, a little TV before bedtime, then vitamins, brush teeth, get into jammies, go to bed. Not too much struggle, for a change. Except while Nate and I were doing his spelling homework, Rebecca came out of her room. “Aunt Meryl,” she said,” there’s a bug in my room.” We go and look. She points to the light on the ceiling. There is an enormous brown wasp on it. “Holy crap!” I said, “Rebecca, come out of the room.” On the phone to Sarah, ask for bug spray. None in the house. Put Rebecca in Mommy and Daddy’s bed and Sarah will take care of it when she gets home. Works for me. I am not good with flying, stinging insects. Sarah told me it was one of the wasps that don’t sting you unless you piss it off, but I was just fine waiting for her to take care of it. (She wrapped it up in a paper towel when she got home, and then released it outside. Showoff.)

I put Rebecca on the phone with Sarah, as she was just about in tears over the Horrible Bug Event. Then, I had to put Max on, because he always needs to know what’s going on. Settled them back down, finished working on Nate’s homework, and he and I spent a few minutes chatting before I sent him off to bed. They are much, much easier to watch now than the first time I sat for the kids, some years ago. I’m not exactly sure when, but I know it was post-diapers for the twins. I don’t generally babysit children in diapers. It’s a rule of mine, broken so far only for my nephew, who is now seventeen. And what a patient child he was, fifteen years ago, waiting for Aunt Meryl to figure out which part of the diaper was the front, and which was the back. I got it wrong. Had to turn it around. He was patient about that, too.

Ah, well. I had a pleasant evening. Jake stayed up talking with Sarah and me for about a half hour after they got home, and we woke Nate up laughing at the Best! Game! Ever! video over at Teeny Manolo. (It’s Improv Everywhere showing up at a Little League game and playing it up like it’s a major league broadcast, go watch and laugh.) Then it was time for Aunt Meryl to go home. Until the next request, anyway.

Posted in Life | 3 Comments

Really helpful UN moment of the day

Posted on 04/10/2008 by Meryl Yourish

The UN peacekeepers along the Israel-Lebanon border have hit upon the perfect plan to stop border infiltration by terrorists.

They’re laying barbed wire.

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon began on Friday erecting a barbed-wire fence along the border with Israel to prevent breaches of the “Blue Line” aimed at keeping peace between the two neighbours.

“UNIFIL soldiers began laying the barbed-wire fence in the area north of the (border) village of Ghajar,” Yasmina Bouziane, spokeswoman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, said.

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Yeah, barbed wire. That’ll stop Hezbullah from ever invading Israel again. Uh-huh. Sure.

Next up: “Danger! Keep Out!” signs.

Posted in Israel, Juvenile Scorn, Lebanon | 1 Comment

Evangelicals in Sderot: A gift for Israelis

Posted on 04/10/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Get out the hankies for this one.

Gift from America: Eight-year-old Osher Twito, who sustained serious wounds and lost his leg two months ago after being hit by a Qassam rocket, will be able to move around more easily now that he received a surprise gift from an evangelical group.

The Christian group, Hugs for Israel, provided Twito with an electric all-terrain vehicle. Group members wanted Osher to feel that he is one of the strongest kids in his neighborhood andshow others that he is moving on with his life, the group’s founder and president, Brenda Giles, told Ynet Thursday.

Giles, who lives both in Israel and in the United States, said that she turned to various Israel supporters after hearing about the injuries sustained by Osher and his older brother Rami. One of the people approached provided a donation that allowed the group to purchase the gift for Osher, she said.

You can wonder (and to be honest, I do) whether some Evangelicals support Israel only in the hopes of the end times. But you can’t deny that this was a wonderful gift to a boy in need, brought by a woman with a loving heart. I’m thinking the only thing on her mind was the needs of a boy who lost his leg.

There’s a picture at the link.

Posted in Israel, Religion | 5 Comments

Don’t cry to me

Posted on 04/10/2008 by Soccerdad

via memeorandum

AFP reports on yesterday’s violence on the border with Gaza.

Two Israeli civilians and seven Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in an explosion of violence on the Gaza Strip border after Palestinian commandos stormed into Israel.The attack came after early morning fighting left an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian gunman dead, shattering a month-long lull that followed a bloody Israeli blitz on Gaza aimed at halting rocket fire.

The Israeli army said Palestinian fighters, under cover of mortar fire, breached the border near the Nahal Oz terminal that provides Gaza with its fuel supplies, and moved into Israel.

The militants shot dead two Israelis working at the terminal in what the army called a “failed abduction attempt.”

The report notes that Islamic Jihad and two other groups took “credit” for the attack but that Israel holds Hamas accountable. The logistics necessary to carry out this kind of attack were probably significant enough that the authorities would have to have been aware of the planning. Of course, since the authorities are also terrorists, they had no reason to prevent the attack.

And this would be a breach of the “lull” or “ceasefire” or whatever you want to call it. Unless mortars and qassams are considered breaches. So I guess this qualifies as an escalation, though it’s not one that can be pinned on Israel, unless one blames Israel for responding.

Michael Goldfarb takes the obvious lesson from the continued violence from Gaza and applies it to Iraq:

Israel withdrew unilaterally, ended the occupation of Gaza, and a terrorist group took over the territory. The result is cross-border violence. The same thing happened after the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. So tell me again how unilateral withdrawal from Iraq will lead to a different result? Granted AQI won’t be able to run across the border to kill Americans, but there is no doubt that terrorists can strike from a great distance when they are allowed to plot and train unmolested.

Last week we saw pictures of Gaza with gas stations that were out of fuel and read that Gazans were protesting Israel’s restriction on allowing gas into Gaza.

Taxi drivers queue outside a petrol station in Gaza April 7, 2008, as they wait to fill their cars with fuel. Owners of petrol stations in Gaza said on Monday that they have ran out of fuel as Israel has not allowed fuel to be supplied to Gaza everyday.

Yesterday it was the transfer point of gas into Gaza that was attacked. If Hamas doesn’t care enough about Gaza’s gas supplies to prevent this attack, why should anyone care if Israel chooses to deny Gaza the resource it needs to run and that, in effect, allows terrorist to attack Israel?

UPDATE:
Boker Tov Boulder blasts AFP for grouping all the fatalities together instead of emphasizing that the initial attack killed two Israeli civilians. The picture she mentions of a “militant” going to a funeral shows a guy with a Kalashnikov. Most funeral I’ve attended haven’t had folks show up sporting assault rifles.

Perhaps she should have saved some of her outrage for the Washington Post for it’s disgraceful headline: Gaza Fighters Attack Fuel Depot Inside Israel

Fighters?!?! At least use the somewhat judgmental term “militants.” (Yes, I know that they are terrorists, but no way the Post headline writer would use that term.)

Anyway the reporting here isn’t bad. In particular:

A Hamas spokesman denied the group had been involved in the Nahal Oz attack, but lauded it as courageous and vowed further strikes.Despite the denial, Israel said it blamed Hamas, which has controlled the territory since it seized sole power 10 months ago. The armed Islamist group won Palestinian elections in 2006 but failed to maintain a power-sharing arrangement with the rival Fatah movement, which dominates the Palestinian Authority and has strong support in the West Bank.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Hamas would “bear the consequences” for the attack, which spokesman Arye Mekel said was proof that the group “really doesn’t care for its own people.”

“This is the same group that was complaining we were not sending enough fuel. Now that we’re sending enough, they try to blow the place up,” Mekel said.

This is exactly the way the attack should be viewed.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas, Israel | 1 Comment

Hamas, the ex-president, and the blindness

Posted on 04/10/2008 by Meryl Yourish

The New York Times reports that Hamas is currently engaged in its largest weapons buildup ever, thanks to Iranian arms, money, and training. Hamas’ goal? The bombardment of Israel.

An Israeli study says Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, is engaged in the broadest and most significant military buildup in its history with help from Syria and Iran. It adds that Hamas is restructuring more hierarchically and using more and more powerful weapons, especially longer-range rockets against Israel’s southern communities.

The study, by an independent research group with close ties to the Israeli military establishment, says that though the buildup will take some years to complete, it is in an intensive phase that has already led to better infiltration into Israel and a rise in the breadth and precision of rocket fire.

In spite of evidence like this that Hamas has absolutely no intention of maintaining any kind of real peace with Israel, Jimmy Carter is plowing ahead in his determination to be the first world leader ever to sit down with terrorists who openly and unashamedly admit they want to destroy the Jewish State. The Washington Post spins this decision as a “political bind” for the Democratic candidates, neither of whom are condemning Carter.

Both Clinton and Obama issued statements with milder language, saying they “disagreed” or did “not agree” with Carter’s plans.

The WaPo also points out that Carter has finally noticed Jews are starting to bail on him over his constant anti-Israel drumbeat. As ever, though, Carter is being his usual mendacious self about the issue:

Indeed, a source close to Carter said that the former president favors Obama but that he has decided not to endorse Obama publicly or formally because he fears it would contribute to hostility toward Obama among Jewish Democrats.

And the WaPo carries the party line that isolating Hamas hasn’t accomplished anything, and brings out the tired old guns of the Carter Administration—the ones who blew it on Iran and Russia—to bolster their assertions that these men could be right about anything.

However, Carter’s trip would also come at a time when a growing number of experts in the United States and Israel have argued that isolating Hamas is not productive. A poll published in February in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz found that 64 percent of Israelis favor direct talks with Hamas. Both Efraim Halevy, a former head of the Mossad spy agency, and Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former foreign minister, say Hamas can no longer be ignored.

A bipartisan group of foreign-policy luminaries, including former national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, issued a statement before the Annapolis peace talks sponsored by the administration in November that said “we believe a genuine dialogue with the organization [Hamas] is far preferable to its isolation.”

That poll of Israelis, by the way, was deconstructed by Soccer Dad and found to be rigged. When presented with either talking to Hamas, or defeating them militarily, Israelis choose the latter. Most Israelis do not support talking with a terrorist group sworn to their destruction. Just as most Americans would not support negotiating with Al Qaeda.

And there is, of course, the inevitable result of the “peace” talks: Hamas will use the period of calm to continue its military buildup, just as Hezbollah did in Lebanon, until they feel ready to attack Israel. And on that day, count on at least a three-front attack.

A senior Israeli official in the prime minister’s office, who agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, said that what he took from the report was that when there was relative quiet in Gaza, Israel ran the risk of playing into Hamas’s hands by allowing it to continue its military buildup.

[…] It also says the military buildup is being run largely from Damascus, where Hamas has a base, because there is better access there to Syrian and Iranian money and weapons. Nonetheless, it says, political power within Hamas is increasingly moving to the Gaza Strip.

One focus of the study is the improved nature of the rockets available in Gaza as a result of smuggling through Egypt and dozens of underground tunnels leading from Egypt into Gaza. The report does not accuse Egypt of cooperating in the smuggling, only of ineffectiveness in stopping it.

I wrote weeks ago about the increase in missile strikes and deaths by Hamas rockets. I just didn’t know the extent of the Iranian military training. However, it’s not really hard to find out about the military buildup, not when even the New York Times is running articles about it.

And still, Jimmy Carter is going to sit down and have tea with the man responsible for the mass murder of Jews in Israel and without. Carter’s ego, and his ability to ignore or belittle the negative connotations of recognizing a terror leader such as Mashaal, will allow him to insist that he is right, and the critics are wrong, when it is pointed out that his actions will be a propaganda coup like the terrorist world hasn’t seen since—Bill Clinton got Yasser Arafat to shake hands Yitzhak Rabin. And gee, how well that turned out.

Next on Carter’s agenda: Dinner with Ahmadinejad. Count on it.

Posted in Hamas, Israel, Politics | 5 Comments

Doing the dictator boogie

Posted on 04/10/2008 by Soccerdad

via memeorandum

Lee Smith in TNR argues that talking with the bad guys isn’t a cost free exercise.

So, it was not doctrinaire anti-diplomatic tendencies that led the Bush administration to curtail relations with Syria. The administration’s outreach had done nothing to alter Syria’s behavior, and to keep talking would merely demoralize anxious American allies in Lebanon, which has become one of the U.S.’s most valuable assets. Not only has Lebanon been a key venue for taking on Iran by facing down its proxy, Hezbollah, but the pro-Western government there led by Christians, Druze, and moderate Sunnis represented precisely the sort of Middle East the administration’s democracy advocates had envisioned. An Obama White House may have no interest in “regional transformation,” but the delicate diplomacy required to support Lebanon still represents an almost insurmountable barrier if it chooses the road to Damascus.

The short version at Betsy’s Page:

What Asad wants is not acceptable. So how is Obama going to engage in a helpful dialog with Syria without giving in more than what any thoughtful American foreign policy should find insupportable. To engage Syria, President Obama would have to sacrifice Lebanon to Hezbollah so that Syria could have a base to keep attacking Israel. Is that what Obama’s idea of diplomatic engagement with our enemies?

Meanwhile the Powerline guys got Smith to expand his thoughts regarding Jimmy Carter:

Carter and his White House staff misunderstood the nature of the Khomeini government back in 1978 and it seems that he, like the incorrigible Brzenzinski, have learned little about Iran since then. It is, above all, a revolution and one of its goals is to overthrow the established order by routing the US and drive it from the region. In the Persian Gulf, Iran is bullying Washington’s Sunni allies and, as General Petraeus’s Senate testimony yesterday made plain, waging open war against the US in Iraq. In the Eastern Mediterranean it is fighting US allies in Lebanon and Israel and threatening Egypt, the largest Arab state and still in many ways the most influential.

But in general the issue is that the rogues attach importance to talks and require that the democracy grant them something in return. This means that the democracy either grants the wish or appears to be the unreasonable one. This happened throughout the Oslo process. Preconditions are always a part of dealing with the devil.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, World | Comments Off on Doing the dictator boogie

History (n.), historians (n.)

Posted on 04/10/2008 by SnoopyTheGoon

It should be accepted by now as a given that people schooled in precise sciences tend to laugh at their colleagues that have chosen art, literature, philosophy, history… as their lifelong occupation. Most of the jokes – and responses to these jokes – are good natured and, at the worst, end with salt replacing sugar in someone’s tea or some such thing.

It’s a bit different when a specific science is being made a butt of a cruel joke by a non-scientist. Like the incomparable Ambrose Bierce in The Devil’s Dictionary:

HISTORIAN, n.
A broad-gauge gossip.

HISTORY, n.
An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

Of Roman history, great Niebuhr’s shown
‘Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish ’twere known,
Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,
Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.

Not a kindly view of that science and its scientists. But, being a joke, the definition above carries only a smidgen of truth. Being concerned with rulers and soldiers, this science (notice how manfully I have avoided the use of quotation marks) breeds scandals naturally. Just like fish breathes water. Specifically in Israel, the raise and fall of the so called “new historians” who enjoyed their moment of fame is a good illustration of unscrupulous use of the profession as a springboard to recognition – of sorts. Of this revisionist breed, the outstanding examples would be Ilan Pappe who by now doesn’t even conceal the fact that he is rewriting history to suit what he calls “the Palestinian narrative” and Benny Morris who eventually repented and now does his best to be a good Zionist.

The fame (or, rather, notoriety) of these two had a serious impact on the minds of some of their colleagues who, apparently, wish to get their own place at the trough. And here comes one Shlomo Zand, an Israeli professor of French history and cinema (emphasis mine, of course) and decides to have some of that too. This dude found the shortcut to fame and will not be deterred – but here I pass the microphone to Ami Isseroff:

For 2,000 years, philosophers and historians have tried to understand the Jewish problem, others have tried to solve it by eliminating the Jews. No Jews, no problem! Sometimes it requires a non-expert to find a solution. Shlomo Zand, an Israeli professor of French history and cinema, is the latest contender to offer a final solution to the Jewish problem. His solution has French elegance: Prove that there are no Jews, get everyone to believe it, and then there will be no more Jewish problem. His book, “Matai ve’eych humtza ha’am hayehudi?” (“When and How was the Jewish People Invented?”) was just published in Israel and is a best seller. By September, it will be published in French. By that time, Zand should be well on his way to solving the Jewish problem.

See how simple the way to the top really is? Ami does an excellent job debunking Zand in his article Are the Jews a people? The Zand controversy. Effectively, this would be enough to consider the whole shindig finished. However it is clear that it wouldn’t be finished – too many “activists” want more of the same and too many political forces want to use this “scientific” discovery for their own nefarious purposes.

And this is where I would like to ask a question: what is this all about? Aside of the fact that these and similar examples of bad science and sloppy, politically motivated logic will be eventually swept aside by the clear unequivocal conclusions of genetic research and we all will eventually know quite clearly what specific monkey contributed most to our character, looks and other traits – why should we, the Jooz, care about incessant attempts by the anti-Israeli crowd to prove that we are not who are we saying we are?

And more important: should we be saying anything on the subject, and what does the whole subject has to do with where we reside and what are our relationships with our neighbors – to take one of the aspects of this thorny issue?

My dear reader: I say that the whole issue of real origins of our tribe should be considered (and this is precisely how I consider it) as important as the proverbial number of angels that could gather on the tip of a needle.

First of all – recognition of a Jew. I remember vaguely two or three cases when somebody told me “you know, you don’t look Jewish”. I am not going into details, but experience is the best proof of this simple concept. Neither our friends, nor (especially) our enemies have ever had trouble recognizing a Jew. Never had and never will. There is no need of historic research (especially not as pointless and stupid as the one mentioned here) nor of test tubes, microscopes and whatnot to help an anti-Semite to detect a Jew in a crowd, using his/her finely tuned antennae.

Second, and much more important aspect of the issue is why? Why bother? Even assuming that Jews as a people do not stem from King David, but were formed as a tribe later – is there a difference between 4000 years or so and 1.5 thousand years (which is still more than many modern nations can claim)? Should it really matter to me whether there is a cubic cc of King Solomon’s blood in my 5 or so liters or that, maybe, this cubic cc belongs in reality to Chenghiz Khan? Why, in short, should I care whether I descend from Khazars or Aztecs or survivors of Atlantis, when I look, walk and quack like a Jew and everybody recognizes me as such?

Ladies and gentlemen: I don’t give a flying donut about some half-baked “scientific” scoop proving that I am a descendant of Khazars or of a passer-by alien from a neighborhood galaxy. Nor about the genetic research mentioned above. I am a Jew, I live here in Israel and will do so until I decide otherwise or die. And anyone who is not happy about this fact is welcome to make peace with this fact and with us – or to make war. And we all should better focus our minds on trying to get the former – if we don’t want to get the latter.

And let’s leave the pointless drivel of the expert in French history and cinema to his publisher and to French TV. I assure you we’ll be all much healthier and better of as a result.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Posted in Israel | Comments Off on History (n.), historians (n.)