Yourish.com

Now I know what I’ve been missing.

Maureen Dowd observes today(“Rudy roughs up the Arabs“) that candidate Rudy Giuliani is pro-Israel. And she makes it sound like that’s a bad thing.

Rudy would probably only take the hand of an Arab leader to throw him down a ravine, or a wadi.

It’s really hard to knock the column because she’s correct. Rudy, at least on the face of it, is a pro-Israel candidate. Leave out verbs like “rant” and “preened” and I’d read the column as an endorsement.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The recent deal between Israel and Hezbollah and statements by both Olmert and Nasrallah seem to strongly indicate that any prisoner swap will include Samir Kuntar, one of the most loathsome terrorists in history (despite Israeli denials.)

Kuntar, it will be remembered, murdered a father in front of his four-year old daughter before smashing her skull, among other atrocities. (And this sickening piece of human garbage is also considered a hero to Palestinian Arabs, with the “moderates” demanding his release.)

I am not wise enough to know whether it is worth trading him for Goldwasser and Regev today. I just want to point out that Nasrallah planned the kidnapping of Israelis specifically to get Kuntar in a swap, by his own statements. A prisoner swap would, as always, encourage more kidnappings in the future.

And if Israel would have had the death penalty for uberterrorists like Kuntar back in 1979, the incentive for kidnapping the two Israelis would have not existed – and the Lebanon war may never have occurred.

American efforts to bridge the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians to culminate in a summit at the end of November are being met by skepticism in the Arab and Muslim worlds according to Jeffrey Fleishman of the LA Times.

Posturing and recrimination often characterize such negotiations, but Arab nations, including Washington’s closest allies, are criticizing the November conference as a miscalculated photo op by a Bush administration desperate to repair its image in the Middle East.

“This is not an effort to save the Palestinians, it’s an attempt to prop up the administration’s very low standing in the Arab world,” said Mustafa Alani, an analyst with the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. “Saudi Arabia and other Washington allies will lose a lot of credibility if this is just to take part in an American show.”Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice plans a visit to the region this week aimed at persuading Arab countries to send at least ministry-level officials to the meeting in Annapolis, Md. But analysts and media in the Middle East complain that the U.S. has not done the diplomatic legwork needed to advance peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Preliminary talks between the two sides are at an impasse.

The article emphasizes the Arab weakness and parrots the line that the failure of the summit would only “embolden the extremists.” (It seems that every “successful” Israeli peace effort – such as withdrawing from Lebanon or from Gaza, or allowing Fatah into Gaza and Jericho – has “emboldened the extremists” too, so how failure would differ from success is unclear.)

The New York Times reports

With time running out on his tenure, President Bush has called for an international conference to be held in the United States this fall as part of a renewed push to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, trying to leave a legacy that has enticed and eluded his predecessors.In Ramallah, Ms. Rice, on her seventh trip to the region this year, described Mr. Bush’s initiative as “the most serious effort to end this conflict in many, many years.” In some of her strongest language yet, she said, “Frankly, it’s time for the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

The Times also includes this gratuitous bit:

Appearing with Ms. Rice at the Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah — which Israeli forces battered in 2002 as his predecessor, Yasir Arafat, was holed up inside, and which has been partly rebuilt — Mr. Abbas reiterated that even the initial document must address the most contentious issues.

Israel did not simply batter the “muqata.” It was fighting a war that was instigated by Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.

The Washington Post reports

Rice arrived this week facing deep skepticism among Arabs and Israelis about such lofty statements, especially given what many here regard as the administration’s past disengagement from the issue — a position Rice flatly rejected today. With great interest by both sides in her visit, Rice and senior American officials are trying to tamp down expectations about what can be accomplished in the near term, nervous that a conspicuous failure to pull off the peace conference could spark new violence in the Palestinian territories or have other unforeseen consequences.

The fear that a summit’s failure would spark violence, again, is indicative of what’s wrong with all these “peace efforts.” If these “peace efforts” were to be successful, violence would not be a problem in the event of failure, as, officially, the Palestinians have abjured violence and committed themselves to the political process. Of course that never happened. While it’s certainly not unreasonable to fear Hamas now, it was Arafat of the “moderate” PA who decided to keep violence as an option despite his signed commitment to the contrary.

The other reason that “peace efforts” fail, is that they’re not synonymous with coming to an acceptable resolution between the two parties, but with America pressuring Israel into concessions. The Palestinians (and the Arab and Muslim worlds supporting them) want to avoid negotiation. They will claim that they are too weak for concessions and demand that Israel accede to all their demands. In fact, they (and especially the Palestinians) are too weak for anything, as Deja Vu notes:

Worried Israelis listening to their hapless prime minister announce that Jerusalem is on the table cannot but join Barry Rubin in asking: And what do we get? “After all,” as he points out, “Israel is negotiating with people who have no control over much of the territory or people on whose behalf they speak.” So how can it give Israel what it wants, security, i.e., peace? It cannot even if it wanted and it is doubtful it wants.

And that’s because the “peace process” is never about Israel. It’s defined solely by the creation of a Palestinian according Palestinian specifications. So why doesn’t the State Department take a step and ask what the United States gains from a Palestinian state that is handed to the PA on a silver platter? Why are Palestinian demands sacrosanct and Israeli concerns dismissed? Why is nothing of substance required of the Palestinians?

Four years ago 3 State Department employees were killed in Gaza. To date nothing has been done to bring their murderers to justice. Wouldn’t this be a good time for the American government to insist on justice?

The American government missed the opportunity to threaten the closure of the PLO office for not fighting terror. But the American government ought to use the failure of the PLO (the “moderates”) to hold the murderers accountable as leverage.

The government can argue that a Palestinian state is in American interests. But that rings hollow when American aid workers are killed by Palestinians with impunity. It can argue that a Palestinian state will lead to peace. But that argument doesn’t withstand the fact that the Palestinians allow immunity to terrorists. And it can argue that a Palestinian state is good for the Palestinians. But that also doesn’t stand up if the Palestinian can’t govern themselves.

Making the satisfactory resolution of this case a basis for any further diplomatic recognition of the PA would be a necessary step in the right direction. More than anything else it would show that the American government is serious about peace and a Palestinian state. It would add the element of Palestinian responsibility to the list of requirement necessary for mid-East peace.

Unfortunately, it looks like the American government is more interested in pacifying the Arab palaces than in creating the conditions necessary for peace in the Middle East.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

From AP:

Secretary of State Condoleezza said Monday it was “time for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” and described Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts as the most serious in years.

Let’s see. In the seven years since the last great lame-duck presidential push to create a Palestinian Arab state, what have the Palestinian Arabs done to make them more deserving of a state?

Have they decided to compromise on land? No.
Have they decided to give up on their demands to destroy Israel demographically? No.
Have they done any concrete moves to stop terror attacks against Israel? No.
Have they stopped terrorists from taking over Gaza? No.

In fact, since 2000, they launched a major terror war against Israel, they’ve launched hundreds of rockets and thousands of mortars, they’ve killed thousands of Israelis and each other, they’ve freely elected a terrorist government, they’ve cheered Israeli and American deaths, they showed allegiance to Saddam Hussein, they’ve smuggled thousands of weapons into Gaza, and they’ve increased their anti-Israel rhetoric. They’ve watched their justice system collapse, they’ve hired thousands of terrorists to be their “security forces,” they’ve fought each other, they’ve circumvented democracy, they’ve threatened and kidnapped journalists. The relative peace that Israel enjoys now is entirely because of Israeli actions, and not at all because of the PA. Hamas still has great influence in much of the West Bank outside Ramallah. Fatah still exists as a terrorist organization behind many terror and rocket attacks, despite being part of the “government.” Palestinian Arab heroes are those who managed to kill the most Jews. Their universities churn out terrorists; their imams broadcast incitement against Israel and America on TV, every official from the President on down continues to extol the “resistance”.

So, Condoleeza, why exactly is now the time for them to get their own state? I’d love to know what they’ve done to impress you so much since 2000. Installing (probably illegally) a well-respected prime minister who is too scared to speak against terror publicly seems to be their greatest accomplishment from your perspective.

From their own perspective, however, their greatest accomplishment had been to get the Secretary of State to respond to all of their 7 years of terror and incitement with a statement that now is the time to establish a Palestinian Arab state.

How else can this be perceived besides being a reward for terror and hate? If there is another way to interpret this, please enlighten us, Condi. I must be too dense to figure it out.

(crossposted on Elder of Ziyon)

Steven Edwards in the National Post writes an opinion piece saying that sometimes it is best to ignore racist and bigoted acts because publicizing them plays into the hands of the haters. The example that he brings, of a Jewish/Israeli colleague brushing off such an incident, seems to imply that someone at the UN made a threat against a Jew there:

A Jewish colleague recently returned to his desk at the United Nations to discover someone had anonymously dropped off a full-colour map showing Nazi-controlled Europe in 1942. An Israeli, he had days earlier been among journalists Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the anti-Israel Iranian President, had approached after giving a press conference.

Ahmadinejad had no idea who any of the journalists were as he sought to charm them with a handshake, and quickly withdrew his hand when my colleague announced he was a “proud Zionist.”

The colleague could have made all sorts of fuss about the appearance of the Nazi map, suggesting there had been a connection between that occurrence and the handshake with Ahmadinejad, or even other anti-Israel sentiment at the UN, of which there is much.

To my surprise, he did not dwell on the incident, saying only he wouldn’t mind knowing who exactly left the map and why.

It seems likely the map depositor was trying to make some sort of negative — even threatening — point. My colleague’s reaction disempowered that person.

With all due respect to Mr. Edwards and his friend, an explicit anti-semitic act at the United Nations should be exposed. This is not the same as a random swastika in a public place, which is bad enough, but this implies that an employee or associate of the organization that is supposed to be a major upholder of peace is guilty not only of misoziony but also of naked Jew-hatred. That is, by definition, newsworthy.

It is arguable whether the Jewish victim disempowered his attacker by ignoring him, or it is entirely possible that his ignoring it could empower that person to do something worse later, but what cannot be denied is that this event is something that should have been exposed.

For that matter, so should the handshake incident between this Israeli and Ahmadinejad. I could find no record of this, from any of the hundreds of journalists that covered the Iranian thug’s visit, just as they ignored Karnit Goldwasser’s encounter with Ahmadinejad – witnessed by dozens of reporters and academics.

What the hell is wrong with journalists when they argue that they should be reporting less, or when they accept invitations from a dictator for dinner and refuse to report it, as Brian Williams and Christiane Amanpour evidently did?

Journalistic bias should be towards more news, not less, especially in an era of unlimited Internet bandwidth. Imagine the outcry from journalists if a politician would argue that they shouldn’t have covered the Columbia bias cases last week.

These stories not being reported seem to indicate that the mainstream media is an old-boys club as opposed to a group of people dedicated to exposing real news.

(cross-posted at Elder of Ziyon)