Friday briefs

Posted on 05/10/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Because we’re Jews: When have you ever read of any other country raising money for its enemies? This is Judaism.

Jerusalem native Moti Kahana heads a group of Israeli businessmen and American Jews who travel to the Syrian refugee camps to provide humanitarian aid to victims of one of the era’s bloodiest conflicts. “We are Jews and Israelis and we can’t sit still as women and children are being butchered nearby,” he told Ynet.

Yeah, good luck with that: Hassan Nasrallah is making threats from his undisclosed location again. Wait, what’s that noise? Run, Hassan run!

Shocker: I know you’ll find this shocking, but another UN report has condemned Israel, this time claiming that Israel is causing the Palestinians in east Jerusalem to live in poverty. Uh-huh. Sure. That’s why, when the separation barrier was built, many Israeli Arabs on the wrong side of the barrier bought property and moved to the other side so as not to get stuck in “Palestine”. Right. Oppression, yadayada, income inequality, yadayada, talking points, yadayada.

[Faints] A balanced AP piece on Israel: This article on The Women of the Wall praying at the Kotel today is–OMG–quite balanced and not anti-Israel. It doesn’t even seem to be anti-ultra-Orthodox. Or maybe I’m just too tired this morning. Of course, the photo illustrating the article is bizarre. Maybe that’s their little anti-Israel touch.

Well, they’re right: The Guardian is running an article noting that people critical of Stephen Hawking’s shitty decision to boycott an Israeli academic conference is a hypocrite, because the tool he uses to communicate with the world (he suffers from ALS and is completely paralyzed) was developed in Israel. For once, the Guardian published a completely true news article.

“Hawking’s decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his whole intellectual accomplishment. His whole computer-based communications system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Shurat HaDin.

Have I mentioned how much I love Shurat HaDin? Donate to them if you can. They are an Israeli group that is fighting Israel’s enemies in courts–and winning.

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Lebanon, Middle East, Religion, Syria | Comments Off on Friday briefs

The Al Gore al-Qaradawi connection

Posted on 05/09/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Yusuf al-Qaradawi is visiting Hamas, thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover of Egypt. Al-Qaradawi is a vicious anti-Semite who is lying about the 3,000-plus-year-old ties of Jews to the land of Israel.

A prominent Islamic scholar who is making a landmark visit to the Gaza Strip has declared that Israel has no right to exist.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi said Thursday that “this land has never once been a Jewish land. Palestine is for the Arab Islamic nation.” The Qatar-based cleric was made famous by his popular TV show and is widely respected in the Muslim world.

The fact that he was hosted by Hamas should twig you to the reality of their wanting to make peace with Israel. What do you say now, Jimmy Carter, about talking to “moderating” Hamas?

By agreeing to accept a state in the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas is demonstrating de facto recognition of Israel.

Yeah, I think not.

But back to the Al Gore connection. Remember the sale of Currents TV to al-Jazeera? Well, who do you think is that network’s number one Islamic cleric? That’s right, it’s al-Qaradawi. And Al Gore thinks that al-Jazeera is an honest-to-goodness news network. I guess a $500 million payoff makes you pretty loose in your definitions if they don’t fit what you want everyone to believe.

“Okay, I knew when I made that decision with my partners—I had obligations to my investors, but that didn’t drive the decision,” Gore said. “I knew that my principle obligation was to do business in a way that makes the world a better place.”

“You have heard me be very critical of American television journalism,” Gore said.

“I think that the addition of a very high-quality, 24-7, honest-to-goodness news channel that covers international news as well as national — that covers climate, that covers poverty, that cover issues that are ignored today — has the potential to be disruptive in a creative and positive way, and raise the game for television journalism here in the United State of America,” he said.

And yay! Al-Jazeera is coming to America, opening 12 “news” bureaus. So even more people can hear this detestable man praise Hitler and call the Holocaust divine punishment on Jews. He says he won’t participate in any interfaith forum that includes Jews. And his religious institute uses the anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

This is the cleric that is featured prominently on al-Jazeera, and, like the mythical “military wing” and “political wing” of terrorist organizations, al-Jazeera’s cheerleaders like to pretend that the Arabic version of the channel won’t influence the American version.

But Al Jazeera English, the spinoff channel launched in 2006, doesn’t have the same reputation. In fact, no less a figure than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has praised it as “real news,” and the channel has won journalism awards for its reporting on the Arab Spring and other global events.

To be sure, the main Al Jazeera network gives a platform to such figures as Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He’s the Muslim cleric in Egypt who, The Washington Post gas reported, frequently appears on air to castigate Jews and America and has praised suicide bombings. But when I went to the home page of Al Jazeera English the other day, there was video of David Frost, the acclaimed British journalist who now works for the main network, interviewing Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Why Gore sold Current to Al Jazeera

That’s not to say Al Jazeera America, the working name for the new channel, won’t have its own biases. Al Jazeera English is sometimes determined to paint the U.S. in a negative light.

Keep telling yourself that, guys. In the meantime, it’s pretty clear that al-Qaradawi is a Jew-hater. And any network that gives prominence to a Jew-hater is guilty by association.

Think I’ll go write to Verizon and tell them I’m dumping them if they keep al-Jazeera.

Posted in American Scene, Anti-Semitism, Hamas | Comments Off on The Al Gore al-Qaradawi connection

This is why U.S. healthcare costs so much

Posted on 05/09/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Everyone shops using price comparisons. If you know that milk was $10 a gallon in Ripoff Mart and $3 a gallon in the supermarket, you’d never shop at Ripoff Mart. But look at how prices vary in hospitals.

For joint replacements, which are the most common hospital procedure for Medicare patients, prices ranged from a low of $5,304 in Ada, Okla., to $223,373 in Monterey, Calif. The average charge across the 427,207 Medicare patients’ joint replacements was $52,063.

Similar variation showed up for hospitals that treated particularly complicated cases of heart failure. At the high end, a hospital in Newark charged Medicare $173,250. At the low end, a hospital in western Tennessee submitted a bill for $7,304.

Hospital administrators are trying to tell us that the “chargemaster” prices don’t affect the average person, because those prices aren’t what insurers pay.

“The chargemaster can be confusing because it’s highly variable and generally not what a consumer would pay,” said Carol Steinberg, vice president at the American Hospital Association. “Even an uninsured person isn’t always paying the chargemaster rate.”

Bullshit. If nobody ever pays the chargemaster rate, why does the list exist? Note the word “generally”: That means, “We get to charge anyone stupid enough to fall for these bloated charges. You want to lower healthcare costs? Make insurance what it’s supposed to be, used only for the big charges like hospital stays, and force people to learn how to shop around for medical procedures. I already do that when I need to get an ultrasound or something similar. I have to pay x percent of the price, so I want to know what I’m paying before I go there.

And by the way, fellow Richmonders, if you lose a limb, don’t get it replaced in Richmond. At least, not without an investigation as to why it costs so much more here.

Virginia’s highest average rate for a lower limb replacement was at CJW Medical Center in Richmond, more than $117,000, compared with Winchester Medical Center charging $25,600 per procedure. CJW charged more than $38,000 for esophagitis and gastrointestinal conditions, while Carilion Tazewell Community Hospital averaged $8,100 in those cases.

I can understand charging higher prices if the quality of care is higher. But without customers able to see those charges and compare them with other healthcare providers, it’s a little difficult to verify that claim.

But don’t worry. Obamacare is coming to make things cheaper. Oh. Wait.

Posted in American Scene, Life | 2 Comments

Jerusalem Day

Posted on 05/08/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Today is Yom Yerushalayim in Israel, the day that Jerusalem was reunited under Jewish rule for the first time in two milennia. I wrote about it six years ago. Take a look back, and take a look at Ofra Haza singing Naomi Shemer’s “Jerusalem of Gold”.

As long as there is a state of Israel, I do not believe the Temple Mount will be given up ever again. Nor should it be.

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Anti-Israel bias on Jerusalem Day? Yeah, we’ve got that.

Posted on 05/08/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Israeli police detained the mufti of Jerusalem to interrogate him about a riot by Palestinians on the Temple Mount the day before. Western press is breathlessly reporting every moment; I could barely find the story in the Israeli papers. But take note of the subtle anti-Israel bias that flows through every Western media report. Here’s the thrust of most of the AP reports. Note that the AP takes pains to make sure you know that the al-Aqsa mosque (all caps) is considered the third holiest site in Islam, and says why. Does it mention that the Temple Mount contains the holiest site in Judaism? Nope. “built agove the ruins” is a very subtle way of making it appear that the Temples are nothing but rubble, whereas the mosques are whole and used by Muslims.

Hussein was detained for questioning over an incident on Tuesday in which Muslim worshippers threw rocks and chairs at tourists visiting the hilltop compound that houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. He wouldn’t elaborate on the mufti’s alleged involvement and said the cleric could be released later. Senior clerics are rarely detained in Jerusalem.

The hilltop compound is one of the region’s most sensitive sites. It is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, built above the ruins of the two biblical Jewish Temples. The Al Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest site in Islam, from which Muslims believe their Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

The conflicting claims to the site lie at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and any acts seen as upsetting the delicate status quo risk setting off violence. Palestinians see visits by Israelis at the site as a provocation. Israeli steps to quell Palestinian disturbances there have led to riots in the past.

See what they did with that last bolded line? Israeli steps to put down rioting causes rioting. Got it? Riot control measures equals rioting.

There’s one more thing the AP does throughout its reporting. They lie.

The incident occurred as Israelis marked Jerusalem Day, which commemorates the anniversary of Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem. The city’s eastern sector is home to the Old City, where key Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites are located.

Many Jews celebrate the day for “reunifying” the city they yearned and prayed for. Thousands flock to the city to wave flags and dance outside the Old City. For Palestinians it’s a somber day.

Jerusalem was split in two in 1949. This is a fact. Jordan stole the eastern half, annexed it, and proceeded to destroy all of the synagogues and Jewish sites like cemeteries. They used headstones as paving stones and destroyed 58 synagogues. When Israel captured Jerusalem in 1967, the city was reunified after 18 years split in two. By using scare quotes, the AP suggests that it was never “reunified”. This is patently untrue.

Now here’s the WaPo muddying the facts as well. They don’t even begin to explain the Jewish history of the Temple Mount until they’ve fully informed you of the Muslim mosque connection. And they imply that Muslims think of the Temple Mount as holy with this ill-written sentence.

The mosque is on the Temple Mount, a holy site for both Muslins and Jews, and the scene of frequent clashes.

A few paragraphs later, their explanation. Note that the Muslim claim to the Temple Mount is mentioned first and explained more in-depth. And the WaPo capitalizes the Muslim religious shrines, but not the Jewish ones. Interesting, that.

According to Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, the incident began Tuesday when police detained an Israeli Arab who refused to present his identification card when entering the walled plaza that Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary and Jews call the Temple Mount.

After his arrest, Rosenfeld said, a group of young men began to throw plastic chairs at Israeli tourists who were visiting the plaza around the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque, considered the third-most holy site in Islam. Two police officers were slightly injured.

Rosenfeld said the tourists were on a routine visit and were not violating the regulations that non-Muslims refrain from praying, wearing religious symbols or carrying flags at the site, which is also venerated by Jews as the site of the first and second temples.

By the way did you catch that last paragraph? Jews are not allowed to worship on the Temple Mount. There are laws against it. So when Mahmoud Abbas says that Israel is suppressing the freedom of religion, he’s right. But he’s talking about the wrong religion. Jews are regularly arrested for trying to pray on the Temple Mount.

The Reuters article is the worst offender. The first three paragraphs refer only to “al-Aqsa Mosque,” not even mentioning the Temple Mount. This is the fourth paragraph:

Hussein’s arrest came the same day Israel celebrated the anniversary of its capture of East Jerusalem, where al-Aqsa is located, from Jordanian control in the 1967 Middle East war.

Not until the fifth paragraph–which is often two more than your average “World News” section of your local paper prints–does Reuters mention the Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Hussein was arrested to answer questions about what he called the “public disturbance” near al-Aqsa, which overlooks Judaism’s Western Wall. Rosenfeld said no charges were filed after Hussein was questioned for six hours.

And again, when they finally deign to describe the Jewish connections to the Temple Mount, they first emphasize the Muslim ones.

Al-Aqsa mosque is one of the most sensitive sites in the city. Muslims see it as one of their holiest places along with Mecca and Medina, believing the Prophet Mohammad ascended into heaven from the spot during a night journey to Jerusalem.

It is also the most sacred site in Judaism, with Jews revering it as the place where biblical King Solomon built the first temple 3,000 years ago. A second temple there was razed by the Romans in 70 AD.

Note the denigration of the Second Temple and the deletion of any Jewish references, like some random person built some random second temple over the first one, as if it wasn’t also a Temple for Jewish worship. Funny how they do that. I mean, it’s not like the Christian Bible mentions the Second Temple and Jesus being there at all, right? Oh. Wait.

Minimize, minimize, minimize Jewish history. That is the goal of the Palestinians, and journalists appear to have wholeheartedly accepted that goal in their stories. Just once, I’d like to see them reverse the order of the descriptions, pointing out first that the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, and then adding that it’s the third-holiest in Islam. But of course, that would break the narrative of Palestinian as victim.

You know what the media never do when they mention “East Jerusalem” or the Old City? They never mention that the Temple is in what was known as the Jewish Quarter of the city. Check out the map. 100,000 Jews lived in Jerusalem in 1948. That never manages to make it into any discussion in Western media. Because, again, it goes against the narrative to point out that Jews lived in East Jerusalem in 1949 when Jordan took it over and threw them all out.

Of course, they can’t. Because it goes against the narrative. Jews can’t have rights to the land, because they’re no longer victims, or something.

Your daily dose of anti-Israel media bias, Jerusalem Day version.

Posted in Israel, Media Bias | Comments Off on Anti-Israel bias on Jerusalem Day? Yeah, we’ve got that.

Mideast Media Sampler – 05/08/2013

Posted on 05/08/2013 by Soccerdad

1) Guess the source

A) In its efforts to stop amateur rockets from nagging the residents of some of its southern cities, Israel appears to have given new life to the fledging Islamic movement in Palestine.

For two years, the Islamic Resistance Movement (known by its Arabic acronym, Hamas) has been losing support internally and externally. This wasn’t the case in the days after the party came to power democratically in early 2006; despite being unjustly ostracized by the international community for its anti-Israeli stance, Hamas enjoyed the backing of Palestinians and other Arabs. Having won a decisive parliamentary majority on an anti-corruption platform promising change and reform, Hamas worked hard to govern better than had Fatah, its rival and predecessor.

B) America’s policy toward Hamas also sent the wrong message; rather than promoting peace, it only created incentives for the use of arms. Sanctions imposed after Hamas’s 2006 electoral victory told the party that Israel and the United States would marginalize it unless it accepted the same principles put forth by the so-called quartet of Middle East peacemakers that Fatah accepted — namely, recognizing Israel’s right to exist and renouncing violence. Having seen what that path yielded for Fatah — nothing but continued Israeli colonization — Hamas was not persuaded and chose instead to reject those principles. In return, the Gaza Strip was put under a brutal siege.

Hamas has used armed struggle to achieve certain objectives, albeit at significant cost. Its leaders saw the removal of Israeli settlers from Gaza in 2005 as a victory for their methods, as well as the return of thousands of prisoners last year, in exchange for a single captured Israeli soldier. The returns may be limited and the costs significant, but when the other options are either subjugation or the path their compatriots in Fatah face, Hamas is likely to make the same calculation — and choose violence every time.

C)Fortunately for Mr Nasrallah, he has another option. Every so often, an incident lifts the veil on Hizbollah’s covert campaign against Israeli interests worldwide. In March, one operative was convicted in Cyprus for scouting out Israeli targets on the island.

As a middle way between doing nothing and firing off his arsenal, Mr Nasrallah could escalate his movement’s efforts to attack Israeli tourists and diplomats.

That is hardly a rerun of the glory days of 2006, when he claimed to have taken on Israel and won. In his current predicament, however, Mr Nasrallah may have little choice.

D) Lebanon’s Hezbollah has cemented the image that some of its supporters in the Islamic world have tried so hard to deny, namely that of Hezbollah as Khomeinist Iran’s iron fist. We are talking about the image of Hezbollah as the obedient lap-dog of velayat-e faqih Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rather than the symbol of Lebanese “resistance.” This is no longer the party that would cross swords with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Arab nationalists, particularly the Nasserites, from the Red Sea to the Arab Gulf.

A) The Washington Post – Has Israel Revived Hamas? – Daoud Kuttab – December 30, 2008
B) The New York Times – America’s failed Palestinian policy – Yousef Munayyer – November 23, 2012
C) The Daily Telegraph – Analysis: Hizbollah’s quandary over Israel retaliation in Syria – David Blair – May 6, 2013 (h/t Meryl Yourish)
D) Asharq Alawsat – Opinion: Hezbollah’s True Colors Revealed – Mshari Al-Zaydi – April 27, 2013

2) Israeli pride

Shmue Rosner uses the death of an author who was part of his youth to reflect on The Youths of Zion of today.

We Dvora Omer readers are in our 30s and 40s today, and by now many of us have grown cynical. Where are the heroes among Israel’s current leaders? Does Zionism still matter? My peers and I can occasionally seem bitter, contemptuous or blasé about the miracle that is modern Israel. But when Omer died late last week, the mask fell off. I, for one, had to let go of the cynicism when I realized how vividly I remember her stories and profoundly I feel about her — no, our — heroes: Sarah and Zohara, Itamar and Tabul.

Not so, though, for Israel’s Harry-Potter-cum-reality-TV generation. Omer’s naïve stories can compete neither with the super fantasies nor with the TV celebrities and pop stars of the day. This worries me, and not only because Israeli children today are missing out on some wonderful stories. It worries me because they are also missing out on the foundational tales that undergird a strong collective memory, which a country like ours needs in order to survive.

Rosner calls Israel a miracle, still I’m a bit bothered by his ambivalence. There is no such ambivalence in Nadav Shragai’s The Jewish Nation’s DNA.

The acceptable discourse and language are appropriate for days when we’re not celebrating. But on a day like this, remembering from where we came and where we’re headed, we need to talk about our right, our birthright, to this city of ours. Our connection to it is rooted in our religious faith, in our history and in two thousand years of recollection and longing. The Jewish presence in Jerusalem never ended. As former Prime Minister Menachem Begin said, “More than Israel watches over Jerusalem, Jerusalem watches over Israel.”

Oh, how right he was: Jerusalem is and has been the DNA that runs through the veins of Jewish people all over the world. Jerusalem was a magnet to us, a compass, a glue, the weave forming the Jewish people’s most characteristic memory, in which our justice and inherent right were embodied and are embodied until today. Without Jerusalem, our right to the land of Israel is eroded.

On this day, we need to retell again and again the Jewish story of Jerusalem, a story that is unparalleled. Without it our nation would never have been resurrected here, in Israel. Every day, Jews in the Diaspora reminded themselves of the holiness of the city: during the morning, afternoon and evening prayer services, at funerals, circumcisions and bar mitzvahs, in the blessing over food, at weddings, and on holidays. The Jewish people swore and swear to this day, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither.”

3) Water and other deficits

In his Postcard from Yemen, Thomas Friedman writes:

“Yemen suffered from two drugs: qat and easy oil money,” says Eryani. Qat drank all the water, and the easy oil money seduced the rural manpower into leaving for unskilled jobs. But now that most of the Yemeni workers have been sent home from Saudi Arabia, they are finding a country running out of water, with few jobs, and a broken public school system that teaches more religion than science. As a result, what Yemen needs most — an educated class not tied to an increasingly water-deprived agriculture — it cannot get, not without much better leadership and a new political consensus.

There is a ray of hope, though. Yemenis are engaged in a unique and peaceful national dialogue — very different from Syria and Egypt and with about a third of the input coming from women — to produce a new leadership. They may be starting at the bottom. But, of all the Arab awakening states, they do have the best chance to start over — now — if they seize it.

Friedman sees women participating in the political process as a good thing. As he’s written a number of times:

Some will say: “I told you so. You never should have hoped for this Arab Spring.” Nonsense. The corrupt autocracies that gave us the previous 50 years of “stability” were just slow-motion disasters. Read the U.N.’s 2002 Arab Human Development Report about what deficits of freedom, women’s empowerment and knowledge did to Arab peoples over the last 50 years. Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Syria are not falling apart today because their leaders were toppled. Their leaders were toppled because for too many years they failed too many of their people. Half the women in Egypt still can’t read. That’s what the stability of the last 50 years bought.

(Ignore Friedman’s silly straw man argument. Does he really think that Islamists will empower the people?) Note how Friedman decries the deficits in the Arab world of “freedom, women’s empowerment and knowledge.” But there’s another deficit in the Arab world that he doesn’t mention. That’s a deficit in dealing with Israel.

Israel would be uniquely qualified to help Yemen improve and conserve its water resources. A month ago Ed Rettig wrote in Water management: Turning a problem into a solution:

These four reports, all published within the last few months, provide a grim reminder that as we focus on daily crises, seeds of future disaster sprout. The demand for water is no respecter of political boundaries, and the challenge of meeting it must eventually throw friends and enemies together if disaster is to be avoided. Israel has enormous potential to help the international community.

The world leader in recycling gray water, a country that will soon supply 70% of its drinking water from desalination, and a champion at coaxing crops from a water-deprived environment, Israel has the technology and the skilled personnel to confront one of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Why doesn’t Friedman suggest that Yemen ought to forget about its boycott of Israel and seek help from the regional (if not the world) expert on water management?

Elliott Green recently quoted an observation by Australian journalist Brendan O’Neill:

This reveals something important about the Palestine issue. … [It] has become less important for Arabs and of the utmost symbolic importance for Western radicals at exactly the same time.

Is the Palestinian issue so important to Friedman that he won’t tell Arab nations to help themselves by turning to Israel?

Posted in Media Bias | Tagged | Comments Off on Mideast Media Sampler – 05/08/2013

An utterly despicable analysis of Hezbollah’s choices

Posted on 05/07/2013 by Meryl Yourish

My jaw dropped when I read the following conclusion to an analysis by a Telegraph journalist.

Fortunately for Mr Nasrallah, he has another option. Every so often, an incident lifts the veil on Hizbollah’s covert campaign against Israeli interests worldwide. In March, one operative was convicted in Cyprus for scouting out Israeli targets on the island.

As a middle way between doing nothing and firing off his arsenal, Mr Nasrallah could escalate his movement’s efforts to attack Israeli tourists and diplomats.

That is hardly a rerun of the glory days of 2006, when he claimed to have taken on Israel and won. In his current predicament, however, Mr Nasrallah may have little choice.

The tone of these paragraphs is utterly despicable. It is disgusting. “Gee, Hezbollah’s in a bad place right now, because Israel got one over on them by destroying accurate, long-range missiles meant for Hezbollah. But that’s okay, because they can kick Israel’s ass by launching terrorist attacks against civilians on vacation in other nations.”

Un-freaking-believable, the amount of anti-Israel journalism out there. This is the chief foreign correspondent of the Telegraph. Eff you, David Blair, and eff your despicable analysis.

Posted in Israel Derangement Syndrome, Lebanon | Comments Off on An utterly despicable analysis of Hezbollah’s choices

Another Goodreads Giveaway

Posted on 05/07/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Ending tonight. (And awesome: The javascript in the widget conflicts with my theme. Oh, well.)

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Darkness Rising by Meryl Yourish

Darkness Rising

by Meryl Yourish

Giveaway ends May 08, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

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Mideast Media Sampler – 05/07/2013

Posted on 05/07/2013 by Soccerdad

1) Bill Keller’s truism

Former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller states the obvious, “Syria is not Iraq.” In short, Keller argues that he trusts President Obama’s instincts. However since he offered a mea culpa for having once supported the Iraq war, his arguments leave some skeptics unconvinced.

Keller begins:

IN the search for an American response to the civil war in Syria, the favorite guidebook seems to be our ill-fated adventure in Iraq. We have another brutal Middle East autocrat holding power on behalf of a sectarian minority. We have another dubious cast of opposition factions competing for foreign patronage. We hear some of the same hawks — John McCain, Paul Wolfowitz — exhorting us to intervene, countered by familiar warnings of “quagmire.” We even have murky intelligence claims that the regime has used weapons of mass destruction.

This time, though, we have a president who, having opposed the costly blunder of Iraq and been vindicated, is holding back. The theme song at the National Security Council is “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

As a rule, I admire President Obama’s cool calculation in foreign policy; it is certainly an improvement over the activist hubris of his predecessor. And frankly I’ve shared his hesitation about Syria, in part because, during an earlier column-writing interlude at the outset of the Iraq invasion, I found myself a reluctant hawk. That turned out to be a humbling error of judgment, and it left me gun-shy.

Keller’s column effectively endorses any increased involvement in Syria simply because he trusts President Obama. Obama (as a state senator) opposed the war in Iraq. But at that level did he have the knowledge to make an informed judgment on the issue, or did Obama simply adopt a position that conformed to his politics at the time? Furthermore. left unsaid by Keller, is that Senator Obama opposed the surge that restored order to Iraq and, as President, concluded a disadvantageous troop withdrawal agreement with Iraq, possibly giving away the gains achieved by the surge. (Nor does Keller give President Bush – or himself – enough credit, as Fouad Ajami recalls the beginning of the war.)

While Keller draws on the views of former administration officials who advocated early involvement in Syria and concedes that there may be no happy ending in Syria, he seems to be saying we should intervene (without troops) because we have to and because he trusts President Obama. But Obama’s record shouldn’t inspire trust. In the end, Keller, rather than appearing thoughtful, comes across as unconvincing.

The point Keller refuses to address is what if there are no good choices left in Syria?

Barry Rubin writes in Syria’s Civil War: The Empire Strikes Back:

This is the mess faced by the Obama administration. It could have been avoided if the president had understood from the start that he should have supported moderate, not Islamist forces, using covert operations and even helping local warlords and pious Syrian traditionalist forces. Instead, before the civil war broke out he first backed the radical regime in Syria — America’s enemy and Iran’s client state — and then only when the revolt made that stance impossible did he switch to the rebels, empowering the opposition Islamists every step of the way.

But then he didn’t want to do what his predecessors would have done. Curiously, Obama believed that Islamist rule is good because it would moderate the radicals, deter terrorists from attacking America, and make enemies into friends.

In Syria today there is no good choice. No matter which side wins — the Syrian regime as part of the Iranian bloc of Shia Islamists or the rebels as part of the Muslim Brotherhood bloc of Sunni Islamists — the winners will be radical Islamists. In fact, if Assad creates a fortress in the Alawite region of the northwest stretching down to Damascus, it will be both varieties of Islamists simultaneously.

Keller supports intervention in Syria because Barack Obama is president, even though the situation has deteriorated largely because of President Obama’s early inaction.

2) The Thomas Principle

As for Bibi, his Tahrir lesson is obvious: Sir, you are well on your way to becoming the Hosni Mubarak of the peace process. The time to make big decisions in life is when you have all the leverage on your side. For 30 years, Mubarak had all the leverage on his side to gradually move Egypt toward democracy — and he never used it. Then, when Mubarak’s people rose up, he tried to do it all in six days. But it was too late. No one believed him. So his tenure ended in ruin.
Thomas Friedman – Lessons from Tahrir Square – May 24, 2011

Radical regimes now exist in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey, though Obama doesn’t see this. Obama is going to be supportive for these governments except for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Even there, Hamas benefits from U.S. help and tolerance for its allied regime in Egypt.
Barry Rubin – Israel’s situation and strategy in Obama’s second term – November 9, 2012

The Tower reports Leaked Phone Transcripts Allege Hamas Role in Triggering Egypt Violence:

Egyptian media outlets are again linking Hamas to violence in the country stretching back to the 2011 Egyptian Arab Spring. Earlier this week Egypt’s former interior minister floated the suggestion that Hamas had a hand in fomenting unrest during the revolution, which saw the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and the subsequent election of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked government. Mansour al-Essawy’s somewhat vague insinuations were met with skepticism, inasmuch as he had a motive to blame the increasingly-unpopular Iran-backed terror group for violence that he has since been criticized for seeking to put down.

Now what looked like a one-off conspiracy theory is beginning to seem like an initial shot across the bow. The daily Al-Masry Al-Youm has has published details of telephone transcripts between Muslim Brotherhood figures and Hamas officials, in which the two groups collaborated on pressuring security forces working to bolster the regime.

Friedman and others saw the Arab Spring as a great opportunity for Israel to do all it could to make peace with the Palestinians. Friedman also was appalled that Israel wasn’t more vocal in its support of Arab democracy. Two years later, all that hope seems distant. Non-democratic Islamists continue to gain power, Netanyahu was re-elected Prime Minister of Israel and Thomas Friedman is still writing columns. One of the latter two appears to be competent at his job.

3) You won’t have Salam Fayyad to kick around

Recently resigned Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad gave an interview to Roger Cohen of the New York Times last week. In his column, Fayyad Steps Down, Not Out, Cohen writes:

Fatah, the major political movement in the West Bank, is a revolutionary party that has exhausted itself; ossified and murky, lacking a popular mandate or a strategy to deliver statehood, headed by a 78-year-old man, Abbas, who did not have the courage to embrace the political program of an outsider, Fayyad, even though that program delivered growth, accountability and security.

Abbas, Moscow-educated, and Fayyad, Texas-educated, never overcame the cultural gulf those educations bequeathed. The can-do approach did not figure in the Soviet curriculum. Abbas declined to leverage Fayyad’s achievements. He refused to use Fayyad’s probity and work ethic as transformative examples. Theirs was a rocky marriage of convenience. Fayyad reckons the party spent more time worrying about what he was doing than solving anything.

“This party, Fatah, is going to break down, there is so much disenchantment,” Fayyad predicts. “Students have lost 35 days this year through strikes. We are broke. The status quo is not sustainable.” He looks at me with a fierce conviction: “In the end it did not matter what any foreign power told me about things changing for the better because I am living it. I have gone through hell before. But it’s enough. This much poison is bound to cause something catastrophic. The system is not taking, the country is suffering. They are not going to change their ways and therefore I must go.”

This isn’t about Fatah being “ossified” or Abbas lacking “courage.” The idea of a “cultural gap” has a certain literary appeal. The truth is a lot less romantic. Fatah was elevated to being essential for peace. Its leaders were promoted as moderates and funds flowed freely to those leaders as a reward for their feigned moderation. Naturally, Abbas, one of those lucky winners, wasn’t happy about having accountability imposed upon his efforts to ensure a fortune for himself and his family.

Of course the biggest problem according to Fayyad and Cohen is the “occupation,” but this was quite a brave thing for Fayyad to say.

So brave in fact, that he retracted.

Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad on Saturday denied statements attributed to him by The New York Times that criticized the Palestinian leadership and Fatah.

Fayyad said that he did not grant an interview to the Times or any other other newspaper or news agency since he submitted his resignation to PA President Mahmoud Abbas last month.

CAMERA observes:

…if Fayyad gave an interview which provoked Fatah’s wrath, resulting in the prime minister’s subsequent denial, then this is yet another reminder about sources and journalists self-censoring when it comes to unflattering information about the Palestinian Authority.

More generally, Evelyn Gordon writes in What the West Should Learn from the Fayyad-Cohen Spat:

But this incident ought to give pause to anyone who is quick to believe every Palestinian atrocity story about Israel. Fayyad has bodyguards; he enjoys the protection of being in the international spotlight; and international credibility is his essential stock-in-trade. Thus, if even he feels threatened enough to risk his credibility by telling bald-faced lies to protect himself, that’s all the more true of ordinary Palestinians, who lack Fayyad’s protections and don’t care about their overseas credibility.

For a Palestinian, it’s always safest to accuse Israel of brutality and abuse, even if the accusations are completely false, because Israeli soldiers won’t kill him for such libels–whereas Palestinian gunmen very well might murder him as a “collaborator” if he went on record as saying, for instance, that Israeli soldiers treated him decently.

So perhaps next time, Westerners should stop and think before uncritically accepting Palestinian atrocity tales as truth. For if Fayyad could so brazenly lie about Cohen, then other Palestinians could just as easily be lying about Israel.

Posted in Israel | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Mideast Media Sampler – 05/07/2013

Mideast Media Sampler – 05/06/2013

Posted on 05/06/2013 by Soccerdad


1) The Israeli “message”

Why is it that threats against Israel are regularly downplayed by the media?

Typical of this phenomenon is the headline Airstrikes Tied to Israel May Be Message to Iranians reported in the New York Times. The title is awful. By reducing Israel’s apparent attack to a “message,” it trivializes what Israel did. However the article contains some useful information in a brief statement from Jonathan Spyer:

Analysts said they did not see the airstrikes as the opening of a new war front, or as an attempt to prop up the Syrian rebels against the Syrian government of Mr. Assad. Rather, they tended to see it more as an extension of the long-running “shadow war” against Iran and Hezbollah, a tit-for-tat of terror attacks and assassinations that has stretched over decades and around the world.

“This shouldn’t be seen as Israel intervening on behalf of the rebels or against Bashar,” said Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya. “This is an escalation in a conflict we know about, and that is the conflict between Israel and Iran.”

Israeli officials contacted in the prime minister’s office, military command and defense and foreign ministries refused to discuss the strikes on Sunday, strictly following a protocol designed to give adversaries face-saving room to avoid a response. But wire services cited anonymous Israeli sources who confirmed Israel’s responsibility.

Spyer is right. Of course, his statement was used to support an assertion that Israel’s war against Iran is simply a “tit for tat.” Again the way the New York Times presents Israel’s war against Iran trivializes the nature of the threat against Israel.

2) Who used the CW?

Overnight, it’s been reported that UN investigators believe that it’s the rebels, not the government who have been using chemical weapons in Syria. (h/t memeorandum). The Hill reports:

The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons and initially invited UN inspectors to probe a March attack in the village of Khan al-Asal near Aleppo, saying rebels used chemical weapons in that incident. The regime has refused to allow the inspectors to enter the country, however, after France and Britain demanded that they be allowed to investigate other reported sites of chemical weapons use, notably in the village of Ataybah near Damascus on March 19 and in Homs last December.

It is curious, to say the least, that the Syrian government would only consider allowing inspectors into one area to test for use of chemical weapons.

The Hill report states further:

Calls for a greater U.S. role – such as arming vetted rebels and operating a no-fly zone – grew over the weekend after airstrikes, apparently by Israeli warplanes, revealed weaknesses in Syria’s vaunted air-defense system. Some lawmakers, however, have long cautioned that the opposition is heavily influenced by Islamists and have cautioned that any government that replaces Assad may be antipathetic to both Israel and the United States.

This report seems awfully convenient for the administration. Antipathy for the United States and Israel was rarely cited by the MSM as a reason to be cautious of the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite reasons for skepticism, that doesn’t mean that the charges against the rebels are wrong. But according to another report:

Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general who also served as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, gave no details as to when or where sarin may have been used.

Right now there’s way too little information to bolster the U.N.’s claim.

The New York Times reports Attacks Fuel Debate Over U.S.-Led Effort:

But President Obama has been reluctant to follow the course he took in that case, aides say, partly because of concerns about the strength of air defenses in Syria and partly because the opposition forces include so many jihadist elements.

So far, Mr. Obama has said he would intervene only if it turned out that Syria had used chemical weapons — the current investigation into the use of sarin gas focuses on Aleppo and Damascus, the capital, in March — or if such use was imminent. Now, one adviser to Mr. Obama said, “it’s become pretty clear to everyone that Assad is calculating whether those weapons might save him.”

The result is that the narrow goal of preventing the use of chemical weapons is beginning to merge with the broader goals of toppling Mr. Assad and seeking an end to a carnage that is already far greater than what took place in Libya, when Mr. Obama justified American intervention on humanitarian grounds.

Sen. McCain has been pushing for a more active American role against Assad. Now that Israel apparently has successfully breached Syria’s air defenses, it appears that the risks of such intervention are lower.

The New York Times is continuing its effort to provide cover for President Obama’s failure to act decisively in Syria. Yesterday the paper reported Off-the-Cuff Obama Line Put U.S. in Bind on Syria:

The origins of this dilemma can be traced in large part to a weekend last August, when alarming intelligence reports suggested the besieged Syrian government might be preparing to use chemical weapons. After months of keeping a distance from the conflict, Mr. Obama felt he had to become more directly engaged.

In a frenetic series of meetings, the White House devised a 48-hour plan to deter President Bashar al-Assad of Syria by using intermediaries like Russia and Iran to send a message that one official summarized as, “Are you crazy?” But when Mr. Obama emerged to issue the public version of the warning, he went further than many aides realized he would.

The effect of the article appeared to be to give the President some room to go back on his red line statement. As Tom Maguire wrote (h/t memeorandum):

Obama lost the nuance? The deepest thinker and shiniest star on the Presidential Christmas tree? C’mon, he knows more than his advisors. They should be listening to him, and clearly they have missed the nuance.

It’s interesting, not to say unnerving, that today (if not back when he said it) the Times can find senior officials distancing themselves from the president. Who wants to board a ship the rats are abandoning?

Unnamed presidential advisers are claiming that the President strayed from his talking points. It suggests that the President’s advisers are either distancing themselves from him, or giving him the opportunity to back down from his threat.

The problem isn’t that President Obama plans or doesn’t plan to act against Syria. The problem is that he very clearly set a red line, quite possibly thinking that it would never be reached. Now he’s (or at least his supporters in and out of the administration are) looking to distance himself from that ultimatum. This makes him look rash and feckless.



3) Does the “U” in UN stannd for useless?

I noted that Colum Lynch reported:

and responded:

Lynch tweeted back:

I don’t know if Lynch is in agreement with the Secretary General or not. Does Moon really believe implicitly referring to Security Council resolutions makes them, somehow, effective?

After the first Israeli strikes, the New York Times reported Israel Targeted Iranian Missiles in Syria Attack:

Hezbollah is now believed to have more missiles and fighters than it had before its 2006 battle with Israel, when Hezbollah missiles forced a third of Israel’s population into shelters and hit as far south as Haifa. A Pentagon official said in 2010 that Hezbollah’s arsenal was believed to include a small number of Fateh-110s, and additional shipments would add to Hezbollah’s striking power.

A security council resolution has been violated with impunity over the last seven years and all the Secretary General can do is ask for restraint all around? If the resolution was obeyed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, Israel would not now be acting. Moon, asking for restraint, is admitting his organization’s impotence! Shouldn’t he be thanking Israel for enforcing the resolution?

Posted in Syria | Tagged | Comments Off on Mideast Media Sampler – 05/06/2013

But let’s concentrate on Israel’s attack on Syria

Posted on 05/06/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Sunni Muslims are fleeing Alawite death squads in Syria, which are targeting entire cities.

Sunni Muslims sought safety after a second village in two days was destroyed by death squads apparently bent on ethnic cleansing.

Relatives of the dead in the Sunni Muslim villages of Bayda and Ras al-Nabaah told The Sunday Telegraph that scores, possibly hundreds of men, women and children had been killed by Alawite militias that attacked the villages on Thursday and Friday. Pictures posted online showed piles of disfigured bodies, including women and young children.

But let’s concentrate on Israel’s attack on Syria.

They are massacring men, women, and children.

As the first details of what happened in Bayda on Thursday began to emerge, one Syrian woman with family in the village told The Daily Telegraph: “My aunt and uncle were stabbed to death in the stomach and their necks were slashed. Their three children were slaughtered in the neck.”

Government troops backed by local Alawite militiamen shelled the village on Thursday morning before overpowering rebel fighters and storming into its streets.

But let’s concentrate on Israel’s attack on Syria.

Israeli PM visits China after Syria strikes
Israeli raids in Syria highlight Arab conundrum
Israeli PM leaves for China after Syria strikes
Israeli strike kills 42 Syrian soldiers: monitor
A look at reasons for Israeli airstrikes in Syria
Israeli airstrikes on Syria prompt threats, anger

Because that’s the problem in Syria. Israel.

The death toll in Syria is likely approaching 70,000 – up almost 10,000 from the start of the year – and civilians are paying the price for the U.N. Security Council’s lack of action to end the conflict, the U.N. human rights chief said on Tuesday.

So let’s concentrate on Israel’s attack on Syria.

Posted in Israeli Double Standard Time, Lebanon, Media Bias, Syria | 1 Comment

Mideast Media Sampler – 05/05/2013

Posted on 05/05/2013 by Soccerdad

Syria Explodes

Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection (and others) has previously reported on two Israeli strikes: one against Hezbollah and one against Syria.

What’s going on?

After the first attack Israel was insistent that it had not entered Syrian airspace. Whatever considerations were in play then, were, apparently, no longer operational by Sunday.

The Washington Post reports Syrian report: Israel bombs outskirts of Damascus for second time in recent days:

The official Syrian Arab News Agency said that a scientific research facility had been struck by an Israeli missile, and a banner displayed on state television said the attack was intended to relieve pressure on rebel forces in the embattled eastern suburbs. The banner was accompanied by martial music and footage of Syrian soldiers marching, descending from helicopters and firing rockets, indicating that Syria may not shrug off the assault, as it has with some Israeli strikes in the past.

“The Israeli aggression comes at a time when our armed forces are scoring victories against terrorism and al-Qaeda gangs,” state television said.

A subsequent video suggested further strikes were taking place in the same location, although the number was unclear.

The New York Times reports Israel Targeted Iranian Missiles In Syria Attack:

If true, it would be the second Israeli airstrike in Syria in two days and the third this year.

The airstrike that Israeli warplanes carried out in Syria overnight on Thursday was directed at a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah, American officials said Saturday. That strike was aimed at disrupting the arms pipeline that runs from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese organization, and it highlighted the mounting stakes for Hezbollah and Israel as Syria becomes more chaotic.

Iran and Hezbollah have both backed President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, now in its third year. But as fighting in Syria escalates, they also have a powerful interest in expediting the delivery of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in case Mr. Assad loses his grip on power and Syria ceases to be an effective channel for funneling weapons from Iran.

Israel has apparently been silent officially except to talk about the strikes in the most general terms.

Back in February, Tony Badran reported on the contours of a secret war that Israel was carrying out against Iran.

At a conference in Jerusalem on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear that Israel would not allow “chemical and strategic” weapons from Syria to reach Hezbollah. Netanyahu’s concern over strategic weapons in the hands of Israel’s enemies is well-founded. Since the 2006 war, Iran has aggressively moved to bolster the capabilities of Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as those of its allies in Gaza. This effort has centered primarily, though by no means exclusively, around supplying Tehran’s assets with long-range rockets and ballistic missiles. The deployment of these weapons in Lebanon and Gaza would enable Iran, through Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to strike at any city in Israel, not to mention its infrastructure and sensitive facilities, including offshore gas platforms.
…
According to Hezbollah lore, senior Iranian, Syrian, and Hezbollah leaders made a decision following the 2006 war to focus on developing their missile and long-range rocket capabilities. They also decided to implement these measures in Gaza. As Qassem Qassir chronicled in a story last year, Hezbollah’s military commander, Imad Mughniyeh was at the heart of this effort, in partnership with Syrian and Palestinian military officials. Behind it all, of course, stood Iran.

Once this strategy became apparent to Israeli intelligence, it began targeting this Iranian network of strategic weapons transfers, assembly and distribution centers, and the top people running the operation. The spate of assassinated Iranian, Syrian, Hezbollah, and Hamas commanders since 2008 were directly involved in the Iranian network supplying strategic weapons to Tehran’s assets in the Levant.

Simon Shapira argues that there’s more going on here than a growing threat to Israel. Rather it reflects Iran’s Plans to Take Over Syria. (This article was published May 2, before the Israeli strikes.):

It appears that Hizbullah’s ongoing involvement in Syria, and the extent of this involvement, formed the main issue on the agenda during Nasrallah’s visit to Tehran. The more time passes, the more Iran appears to regard Syria as a lynchpin of its Middle Eastern policy, in general, and of leading the jihad and the Islamic resistance to Israel, in particular. Hizbullah’s inclusion in the armed struggle in Syria is intended first and foremost to serve the Iranian strategy, which has been setting new goals apart from military assistance to the Syrian regime. Iran already seems to be looking beyond the regime’s survivability and preparing for a reality where it will have to operate in Syria even if Assad falls. Even before recent events in Syria, observers in the Arab world have been warning for years about growing evidence of “Iranian expansionism.”5

An important expression of Syria’s centrality in Iranian strategy was voiced by Mehdi Taaib, who heads Khamenei’s think tank. He recently stated that “Syria is the 35th district of Iran and it has greater strategic importance for Iran than Khuzestan [an Arab-populated district inside Iran]. By preserving Syria we will be able to get back Khuzestan, but if we lose Syria we will not even be able to keep Tehran.”6 Significantly, Taaib was drawing a comparison between Syria and a district that is under full Iranian sovereignty. What was also clear from his remarks was that Iran cannot afford to lose Syria.

The Tower has a similar take.

As noted Iranian missiles have been the targets of the Israeli attacks. Also of concern to Israel are chemical weapons. Apparently Syrian chemical weapons are of concern too. Eli Lake reports:

The judgment comes from top U.S. military commanders and is supported by recent intelligence community assessments, according to three U.S. officials who work closely on Syrian intelligence matters. At the heart of the concern is that the Syrian military has transferred more and more of its stock of sarin and mustard gas from storage sites to trucks where they are being moved around the country. While U.S. intelligence agencies first saw reports that Syria was moving the weapons last year, the process has accelerated since December, according to these officials. Also worrisome, said two of the officials, is intelligence from late last year that says the Syrian Scientific Research Center—an entity responsible for Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpile—has begun to train irregular militias loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in how to use the chemical munitions.

The assessment that Syria is moving large amounts of its chemical weapons around the country on trucks means that if Obama wanted to send in U.S. soldiers to secure Syria’s stockpiles, his top generals and intelligence analysts doubt such a mission would have much success, according to the three officials. “We’ve lost track of lots of this stuff,” one U.S. official told The Daily Beast. “We just don’t know where a lot of it is.”

The large-scale movement of weapons, if it is in fact occurring, would violate one of Obama’s earliest declared red lines concerning Syria. Last August he said, “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is, we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilized.”

It appears more and more that Syria has crossed President Obama’s red lines without an American response. After the first Israeli strikes, the New York Times reported in Off-the-Cuff Obama Line Put U.S. in Bind on Syria:

The evolution of the “red line” and the nine months that followed underscore the improvisational nature of Mr. Obama’s approach to one of the most vexing crises in the world, all the more striking for a president who relishes precision. Palpably reluctant to become entangled in another war in the Middle East, and well aware that most Americans oppose military action, the president has deliberately not explained what his “red line” actually is or how it would change his calculus.

“I’m not convinced it was thought through,” said Barry Pavel, a former defense policy adviser to Mr. Obama who is now at the Atlantic Council. “I’m worried about the broader damage to U.S. credibility if we make a statement and then come back with lawyerly language to get around it.”

While Mr. Pavel favors a more active response to the killings in Syria, others worry that Mr. Obama may have trapped himself into going too far. Zbigniew Brzezinski, a national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter, told Bloomberg Television that military involvement in Syria would risk “a large-scale disaster for the United States.”

Still President Obama supported Israel’s right to defend itself. The Tower notes:

President Barack Obama today reiterated support for actions that Israel is taking to maintain its long-established red line against the transfer of Syrian advanced weapons to terrorist groups. His statements were in reference to reports that Israel on Friday struck a Syrian missile shipment. They come amid reports that Jerusalem on Sunday conducted additional strikes against Syrian military infrastructure.

The Sunday strikes reportedly targeted Iranian weapons bound for the Iran-backed, Lebanese-based terror group Hezbollah. An American official told the New York Times that the weapons were Iranian-made surface-to-surface Fateh-110 missiles. Fateh-110?s are mobile, highly accurate, solid-fuel missiles that have sufficient range to strike deep into Israel from southern Lebanon, including into Tel Aviv.

The Israelis have long maintained that Jerusalem would act to prevent either the transfer of advanced weapons to allies of the embattled Bashar al-Assad regime or the seizure of those weapons by opposition groups seeking the regime’s overthrow.

Without commenting on the credibility of reports linking Israel to Friday’s strikes, Obama emphasized that such strikes are justified.

By the way, there’s still a civil war going on in Syria.

Posted in Israel | Tagged | Comments Off on Mideast Media Sampler – 05/05/2013

Attack on Syria

Posted on 05/05/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Israel bombed Syria twice in the last few days. The last time took out a huge weapons depot, reportedly long-range missiles that were going to be transferred to Hezbollah. There are many videos on YouTube of the secondary explosions.J.E. Dyer has one of the best explanations I’ve found. Ynet has the best collection of videos. The Iron Dome has been deployed on the border with Syria. And in a display of chutzpah, the country that is breaking UNSC resolution 1701 on a daily basis is going to complain to the UN that Israel is breaking something or other. That’s gall: Complaining that by destroying weapons that violate UNSCR 1701, Israel is breaking UNSCR 1701.

Lebanese Daily Star website quoted caretaker FM Adnan Mansour as saying “such aggression which represents a blatant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and international resolution including UNSCR 1701.”

Yes, UNIFIL is doing such an awesome job. Let’s let them administer Jerusalem! (/sarc)

Of course the AP has its usual schizophrenic reporting. Here’s one paragraph early on in a story about the bombing:

Israel believes Hezbollah has restocked its arsenal with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated the Jewish state would be prepared to take military action to prevent the Islamic militant group from obtaining new weapons that could upset the balance of power.

Note that bolded part. Now, later on in the same article.

After Hezbollah’s military infrastructure was badly hit during the 2006 war, the group was rearmed by Iran and Syria — with Tehran sending the weapons and Damascus providing the overland supply route to Lebanon.

You see what they do? They make the reader doubt the facts early on in the story, and then affirm them far down in the article. And then bolster the facts with quotes from experts.

“This is a very sophisticated network of Iranian arms, Syrian collection, storage, distribution and transportation to Hezbollah,” said Salman Shaikh, director of The Brookings Doha Center and in 2007 involved in U.N. weapons monitoring in Lebanon.

Shaikh said Israel had detailed knowledge of weapons shipments to Hezbollah at the time and most likely has good intelligence now. “The Israelis are watching like hawks to see what happens to these weapons,” he said.

What the hell, AP? What the hell?

In the meantime, Reuters goes into detail about what weapons were bombed and how.

A shipment of Fateh 110 missiles manufactured by Iran and meant for the Hezbollah was the target of the Israeli Air Force in an attack on Damascus International Airport on Friday, and a later attack at a military research facility north of the capital city, said Western intelligence sources Sunday morning, following the second strike.

That puts Tel Aviv and points south at risk of a warhead that can carry half a ton of explosives.

President Obama said that Israel has the right to make sure weapons don’t fall into terrorists’ hands.

“What I have said in the past and I continue to believe is that the Israelis justifiably have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.

So much for the assholes with the “We are all Hezbollah” signs during the Lebanon war seven years ago. Also, you know, I think the president has figured out who is true friends in the Middle East are.

Posted in Israel, Lebanon, Media Bias, Middle East, Syria, The One, United Nations | Comments Off on Attack on Syria

Back on track

Posted on 05/04/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Did a lot of writing this week, culminating with finishing up the early chapters today. I’m shooting for finishing this summer and releasing book 2 in early autumn, hopefully no later than September (which may technically be summer, but we’ll see).

I’ll be back to writing as often as possible, and when it comes to a choice between the blog and the book, well, the book always wins.

But don’t worry, Soccer Dad isn’t going anywhere, so there will still be frequent updates even if I get too busy. He’s such a great co-blogger, even when he’s not co-blogging anymore.

Posted in Writing | 1 Comment

Mideast Media Sampler – 05/03/2013

Posted on 05/03/2013 by Soccerdad

1) The innocence of the Obama administration

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on September 14, 2012:

This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.

Mr. Romney’s rhetoric on embassy attacks is a discredit to his campaign – Washington Post editorial – September 12, 2012

At a news conference, Mr. Romney claimed that the administration had delivered “an apology for America’s values.” In fact, it had done no such thing: Religious tolerance, as much as freedom of speech, is a core American value. The movie that provoked the protests, which mocks the prophet Muhammad and portrays Muslims as immoral and violent, is a despicable piece of bigotry; it was striking that Mr. Romney had nothing to say about such hatred directed at a major religious faith.

What’s striking is how incurious the Washington Post was about what really happened.

As Barry Rubin noted a day later:

What happened in Libya has nothing to do with an obscure video from California, it has everything to do with the question of which side rules Libya. And the relationship between the attacks and the September 11 anniversary was meant to show that the Libyan terrorists supported September 11 and wanted to continue that battle.

The date of the embassy attacks, including Benghazi, should have told anyone with a modicum of understanding that the attacks were premeditated and not the result of some uncontrollable rage against a video.

There a few news stories out about Benghazi that ask and answer and analyze the question of what the administration knew and when did it know it.

Stephen Hayes writes about The Benghazi Talking Points in the Weekly Standard:

The White House provided the emails to members of the House and Senate intelligence committees for a limited time and with the stipulation that the documents were available for review only and would not be turned over to the committees. The White House and committee leadership agreed to that arrangement as part of a deal that would keep Republican senators from blocking the confirmation of John Brennan, the president’s choice to run the CIA. If the House report provides an accurate and complete depiction of the emails, it is clear that senior administration officials engaged in a wholesale rewriting of intelligence assessments about Benghazi in order to mislead the public. The Weekly Standard sought comment from officials at the White House, the State Department, and the CIA, but received none by press time. Within hours of the initial attack on the U.S. facility, the State Department Operations Center sent out two alerts. The first, at 4:05 p.m. (all times are Eastern Standard Time), indicated that the compound was under attack; the second, at 6:08 p.m., indicated that Ansar al Sharia, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating in Libya, had claimed credit for the attack. According to the House report, these alerts were circulated widely inside the government, including at the highest levels. The fighting in Benghazi continued for another several hours, so top Obama administration officials were told even as the fighting was taking place that U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives were likely being attacked by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists. A cable sent the following day, September 12, by the CIA station chief in Libya, reported that eyewitnesses confirmed the participation of Islamic militants and made clear that U.S. facilities in Benghazi had come under terrorist attack. It was this fact, along with several others, that top Obama officials would work so hard to obscure.

CNN is reporting:

On September 10 — at least 18 hours before the attack — al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a video timed for the anniversary of 9/11, called for attacks on Americans in Libya to avenge the death of al-Libi.

In March, Libyan authorities detained a man called Faraj al-Shibli in Libya on suspicion of links to the attack, according to several officials. The FBI was able to interview him in the presence of Libyan officials, according to one Libyan source. It appears al-Shibli was detained after returning from a trip to Pakistan, sources said.

It remains unclear exactly whether al-Shibli was present at the U.S. compound at the time of the attack. It’s also unclear whether his detention is likely to lead to charges in connection with the attack. Investigators have learned that al-Shibli has had contact with the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as well as al Qaeda members in Pakistan, sources said.

This doesn’t make any charges, as Hayes does, about what the administration knew at the time. Still it shows that this wasn’t a spontaneous demonstration.

Finally, Secretary Clinton was exonerated by a State Department review. Now that report is coming under scrutiny.

The IG’s office notified the department of the “special review” on March 28, according to Doug Welty, the congressional and public affairs officer of the IG’s office.

This disclosure marks a significant turn in the ongoing Benghazi case, as it calls into question the reliability of the blue-ribbon panel that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton convened to review the entire matter. Until the report was concluded, she and all other senior Obama administration officials regularly refused to answer questions about what happened in Benghazi.

But State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell disputed the characterization of the review, saying it is “simply false” to assert the panel is being investigated.

At some point you have to ask when will a tipping point be reached with Hillary Clinton’s reputation?

2) The world’s most incompetent ethnic cleansing

AP reports Abandoned by parents, disabled Gaza baby lives with grandfather in Israeli hospital (h/t GS):

Born in Gaza with a rare genetic disease, Mohammed’s hands and feet were amputated because of complications from his condition, and the 3 ½-year-old carts about in a tiny red wheelchair. His parents abandoned him, and the Palestinian government won’t pay for his care, so he lives at the hospital with his grandfather.

“There’s no care for this child in Gaza, there’s no home in Gaza where he can live,” said the grandfather, Hamouda al-Farra.

“He can’t open anything by himself, he can’t eat or take down his pants. His life is zero without help,” he said at the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital, part of the Tel Hashomer complex in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan.

The article focuses on the problem of the handicapped among the Palestinians and, how, in some way their treatment is improving. The story of Mohammed, though, is the focus of the article.

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