Yourish.com

05/31/2009

9 years later, still covering for Arafat

Filed under: Israel, palestinian politics — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 9:00 pm

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

Deborah Sontag initially reported on the meeting:

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

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

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

A week later, Sontag started her article like this:

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

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

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

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

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

There are three other data points to keep in mind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

AP on mortgage foreclosures: Hurricane victims hardest hit

Filed under: AP Media Bias — Meryl Yourish @ 4:54 pm

You have got to be kidding me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh. Wait.

The horde invades

Filed under: Life — Meryl Yourish @ 11:07 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, palestinian politics — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

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

Diehl seems to get it too as he writes:

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

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

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

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

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

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

05/30/2009

Saturday funny

Filed under: Humor, Music — Meryl Yourish @ 4:51 pm

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

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

A partiality test

Filed under: Hamas, Israeli Double Standard Time, Media Bias — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 9:38 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

05/29/2009

UN launching “independent” probe of Gaza war

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Israel Derangement Syndrome, United Nations — Meryl Yourish @ 6:38 pm

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

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

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

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

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

Oh. Wait.

05/28/2009

Unsettling

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jonathan Tobin asks:

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

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

But here’s the rub:

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

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

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

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

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

Just like Hamas does.

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

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

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

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

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

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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

Filed under: Israeli Double Standard Time, The One, palestinian politics — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 8:00 am

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

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

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

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

Ah. Pressure Israel. I see.

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

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

05/27/2009

The debate about armed struggle

Filed under: Israel, palestinian politics — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Testing Obama’s mettle

Filed under: The One, World — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

A quote from October:

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Yen Falls as North Korea Holds Nuclear Test, Launches Missiles

North Korea Launches More Missiles

Russia fears Korea conflict could go nuclear

Iran Sends 6 Warships to International Waters in ‘Saber Rattling’ Move

Analysis: US looking for Russians, Chinese to lead

North Korea Threatens South, Armistice Off

It’s a pass/fail test. So far, it’s not looking good for Obama. Or the world.

Bolstering the unelected kleptocrat

Filed under: Israel, palestinian politics — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

The Washington Post emphasizes what a slender reed the United States is depending on as a key to peace, Abbas’s credibility problem. Unfortunately the article skims over various reasons why Abbas shouldn’t have any credibility to Israel.

Abbas, 74, a longtime aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, took over after Arafat’s death in 2004 and won election on his own the following year. Trained as a lawyer and historian, Abbas came to power from a career spent burrowing into the fine points of peace talks.

Calling Abbas a historian, is glossing over the fact that he is a doctor of Holocaust denial. Also for years he was Arafat’s number two. Arafat may have talked “peace” to the West, but until his death he was a terrorist. His second in command never condemned his superior’s perfidy. And in the case of the Munich terror attack actually secured the funding for the operation. Another way to describe Abbas is “bag man.”

Of course the article isn’t focused on explaining why Israel might be hesitant to deal with Abbas. It’s given that Israel has to deal. The article explains why Abbas may be unfit to lead from the Palestinian side.

Hamas, which won 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, clashed with Abbas’s Fatah movement and seized full control of the Gaza Strip. That division remains, with the Palestinian Authority in charge of the occupied West Bank. Talks over a joint government have been held but with no obvious progress.

Fatah is seen by many Palestinians as faltering under a legacy of corruption. It has not held a general convention in 20 years, frustrating younger activists and reformers. Hamas remains popular, earning sympathy for a recent three-week war with Israel and fighting Israel’s ongoing economic blockade of Gaza.

In addition, Abbas’s four-year term ended in January. Although his office contends that the law allows him another year, it still has given Palestinian governance a sense of uncertainty at a time when the United States is hoping for solid results.

Hamas argues that Abbas’s presidency is now illegitimate, as are the ministers he recently appointed to keep the government functioning. Hamas’s organization in the West Bank has been under heavy pressure from Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces. Many of its elected parliamentarians from the area are in prison.

Daled Amos shows that Hamas might well be correct about Abbas’s power grab. Still no one complained when Arafat overstayed his term in office without standing for re-election. And Daled Amos also previously pointed out that Hamas is in power illegally too.

And, of course, the Washington Post takes the view that Abbas is constrained by Israel’s unreasonableness.

From a U.S. perspective, helping Abbas show results is the goal, said Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), member of a congressional delegation touring the region this week and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.

“Both Netanyahu and Obama need to create in Abu Mazen a clear feeling that he can provide,” said Ackerman, using the common nickname for Abbas.

Husseini, the chief of staff, argues that the help is deserved — particularly from the Israeli side. Although Palestinian politics are in disarray, Abbas’s government has been given broad credit for cleaning up the Palestinian Authority’s finances and improving security in the West Bank.

Israel has gone down this path before and found that removing checkpoints has led to increases in terror. One of the first victims of Arafat’s “Aqsa intifada” was Yossi Tabaja, who was shot by the Palestinian who was with him on a joint patrol. By now the Palestinians have to show a sustained commitment to coexistence in word and deed.

Barry Rubin presents the problem more generally:

Anyone who wants to deal with the conflict today must acknowledge and deal with this experience but we find that it is not happening. In the statements of Western leaders and in the media, what we usually discover is that such matters are either not mentioned at all or only passed over in ritualistic fashion. There is much talk about Israeli concessions and responsibilities, virtually none about Palestinian ones.

Thus, the two-state solution (TSS) or stopping settlement construction or removing roadblocks are spoken about as if these things alone will bring peace. There is little about a Palestinian Authority (PA) end to incitement to murder Israelis and denial of Israel’s right to exist (which goes on daily) or better security efforts, or agreement to end the conflict or to resettle refugees within a Palestinian state. There is little acknowledgement that Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip is not just an inconvenience but an almost total roadblock for any hope of peace.

So while the poltical, diplomatic, academic and journalistic worlds wait for PM Netanyahu to say “two state solution,” Mahmoud Abbas the moderate leader of the PA can’t even bring himself to say that Israel is a Jewish state. With those around Abbas refusing to compromise, it’s a bit absurd to attribute Abbas’s weak standing on his inability to deliver a better life for the Palestinians because Israel is recalcitrant. Despite some cosmetic changes – that in no way came from him – he is still the same Holocaust denying, terror supporter he always was. Israel has no reason to trust him any more than it trusted his mentor and predecessor.

Regardless, Daled Amos in comments succinctly describes Israel’s choices:

“Dealing with an unelected kleptocrat or an elected terrorist.”

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Der Spiegel, Zionist tool

Filed under: Lebanon — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

In case you’re wondering why Nasrallah’s response to the charge in Der Spiegel that Hezbollah was responsible for Rafiq Hariri’s murder, is that Der Spiegel is a Zionist tool, read Michael Totten’s take.

“[I]f (the majority) uses the report against Hezbollah,” said former Carnegie Endowment scholar and Hezbollah expert Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, “then of course we’re going to see instability in Lebanon, and that’s putting it mildly.” “One word,” said Fadia Kiwan at Saint Joseph University, “could set the streets on fire.” “If the Special Tribunal for Lebanon comes out and confirms the report,” Carnegie Middle East Center Director Paul Salem said, “we could be facing an all-out civil war.” “If these rumors are true,” my own source in Lebanon added, “expect some extremely dark times ahead in Lebanon. After all, the Sunni street hates Hezbollah enough to begin with. Once Hezbollah is officially accused of assassinating Hariri, all bets are off.”

All this raises the question: if Lebanon could plunge into war should “March 14” cite an unsourced report prematurely, what might happen if the UN officially indicts Hezbollah later?

Totten doesn’t seem convinced that the rumors are true. There does seem to be an element of whitewashing Syria’s role in the assassination attached to the rumor. (Of course, given that both Hezbollah and Syria are clients of Iran, would proof of Hezbollah’s involvement necessarily exonerate Syria?)

It does seem that Hezbollah is scared. That’s why Der Spiegel’s credibility must be undermined.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Wily Jews outsmart Missouri neo-Nazis

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Juvenile Scorn — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 8:00 am

A perfect response to a neo-Nazi group sponsoring a highway in order to get their group publicity:

Lawmakers renamed a section of highway in Springfield that a neo-Nazi group adopted to keep litter-free after a Jewish civil rights leader.

Rep. Sara Lampe, D-Springfield, got an amendment added to a transportation bill to rename a portion of West Bypass from Farm Road 142 to West Sunshine the “Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway.” Heschel marched with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Selma, Ala., Civil Rights march in 1965.

Lampe said she asked Jewish groups to nominate a religious figure to counter the Springfield unit of the National Socialist Movement, which adopted the section of road.

“It’s a counter to hate,” Lampe said.

Click on the link to see a picture of Rep. Lampe smiling, no doubt grinning about the reaction the Nazis will have to sponsoring a highway named not just for a Jew, but for a Jew who marched in support of civil rights.

For this act, I hereby nominate Rep. Lampe as an honorary Master of Juvenile Scorn™.

H/T: Eric J.

05/26/2009

Palestinian intransigence

Filed under: Israel, palestinian politics — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

There is no peace process. There are only Palestinian demands. Witness the latest interview with Ahmed Qureia:

Qureia: “The Right of Return is one of the Palestinians’ rights. The question of how to relate to this right is up for negotiations. We have to find a balanced formula. Do not believe anyone who presents you with any position on this matter before we see the agreement’s bottom line. This is one of the rights along with self-determination, the establishment of an independent state with its capital in Jerusalem. All these are elements of a comprehensive arrangement and it would be wrong to select one element and discuss it. You’ve got to see the whole package that includes, also, normalization and security.”

Do you insist on Palestinian sovereignty over Haram al-Sharif?

Qureia: “Of course. It’s the second most important place for the Muslim world.”

And there’s this:

Do you insist on rejecting Netanyahu’s demand that you recognize Israel as a Jewish state?

Qureia: “Livni raised that as well and we said it was not our business. Call your state whatever you wish – democratic or non-democratic, Jewish or non-Jewish. It’s not fair to demand that we recognize you as the state of the Jewish people because that means an evacuation of the Arabs from Israel and a predetermination of refugees’ future, before the negotiations are over. Our refusal is adamant.”

Five years ago Arafat said, in an interview with Haaretz, that he understands Israel is a Jewish state.

Qureia: “But he did not provide it [in writing].”

In the interview, Qureia says that Israelis can become citizens of the Palestinian state. Now that’s a first, and evidently, this is the tack they’re going to take with Obama. Because yeah, that’ll fly.

Qureia: “Negotiating the annexation of Ariel to Israel is a waste of time. Ma’aleh Adumim and Givat Ze’ev must also be part of Palestine. Any agreement must guarantee our territorial contiguity; leave historical sites in our hands, especially Jerusalem, as well as natural resources, especially water.”

Do you believe Israel would agree to evacuate Ma’aleh Adumim’s 35,000 residents?

Qureia: “[Former U.S. secretary of state] Condoleezza Rice told me she understood our position about Ariel but that Ma’aleh Adumim was a different matter. I told her, and Livni, that those residents of Ma’aleh Adumim or Ariel who would rather stay in their homes could live under Palestinian rule and law, just like the Israeli Arabs who live among you. They could hold Palestinian and Israeli nationalities. If they want it – welcome. Israeli settlements in the heart of the territories would be a recipe for problems. Israel evacuated all the settlements in Yamit and in the Gaza Strip. All the prime ministers who negotiated with Syria, including Netanyahu, agreed to evacuate all the settlements from [the Golan] Heights. So why is it so difficult for you to evacuate the settlements in the West Bank?

Note that they’re claiming, of course, Jewish sites in Jerusalem as part of the Palestinian capital. They’re refusing any Jewish claim to the Temple Mount, and apparently inflating the value of the mosque. In the interview, Qureia calls it the second-holiest Islamic site. Funny, I thought that was Medina.

There will not be peace in my lifetime. I’m thinking there will not be peace until the moshiach arrives.

Hugo helps with Iranian nukes?

Filed under: Iran, Israel — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

According the AP, Israel has prepared a “secret” report claiming that Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program.

The two South American countries are known to have close ties with Iran, but this is the first allegation that they are involved in the development of Iran’s nuclear program, considered a strategic threat by Israel.

“There are reports that Venezuela supplies Iran with uranium for its nuclear program,” the Foreign Ministry document states, referring to previous Israeli intelligence conclusions.

It added, “Bolivia also supplies uranium to Iran.”

The Jerusalem Post has a bit more:

According to a Foreign Ministry document that was published on Ynet on Monday, Iran and Hizbullah are indeed making deep inroads into South America. According to the document, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela was not only helping Iran bypass UN Security Council economic sanctions, but also, along with Bolivia, was providing the Iranians with uranium.

But the JPost presents the news about the uranium as only one part of the report. In general the report is focused on the inroads Iran has made in South America.

According to the document, Iran moved into Latin America in 1982, through Cuba, and eventually opened a number of embassies in the region, in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Uruguay. Teheran developed extensive economic ties with these countries that continue to this day.

Chavez was also responsible for Iran’s developing ties with the leftist, anti-American bloc in Latin America made up of Bolivia, Nicaragua and – increasingly – Ecuador, according to the document.

(More here, for a non-secret report.)

Need I tell you that Press TV sounds skeptical.

Iran says it pursues only the peaceful applications of nuclear technology via fuel it generates using its own uranium mines.

Israel, however, accuses the country of making efforts to develop nuclear weaponry. Under the allegation, officials in Tel Aviv have repeatedly threatened to launch military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
…
Israel goes even further with its new document and links Bolivia — whose relations with the White House are also strained — to the issue, adding the Latin American country to its list of alleged uranium suppliers to Iran.

You gotta love this though:

The document also takes a shot at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — whose image in the United States has been marred by years of propaganda –, claiming that he played a key role in boosting relations between Iran and Bolivia.

“[M]arred by .. propaganda!” Just your average benevolent power grabbing dictator who’s a victim of bad press.

Mahmoud Ahmdinejad let North Korea have it for its temerity to explode a nuclear device. So if anything was untoward about the South American help for the Iranian nuclear program, obviously he’d have nothing to do with it. Iran would never do something so retarded.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

05/25/2009

Note to AP: Debate is not dialogue

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Iran — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 4:30 pm

A dialogue is a conversation between two people. A debate is an exercise in rhetoric between opposing viewpoints. But the AP apparently does not have writers or editors knowledgeable enough to tell the difference between the two, nor between a publicity stunt by the Mad Mullahs’ mouthpiece. Witness the cognitive dissonance:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed on Monday a face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama at the United Nations if he is re-elected next month as Iran’s president.

But he balanced the offer with a sharp rebuke to Washington and its allies over Iran’s nuclear program. He reiterated that Iran would never abandon its advances in uranium enrichment in exchange for offers of easing sanctions or other economic incentives.

The nuclear issue “is closed,” he told a news conference.

Got that? Issue closed, end of discussion. But wait—here’s the fig leaf for the western media which, of course, is all too happy to use as a cover for Iran:

His offer of to debate Obama could also be campaign posturing before the June 12 vote. But it does put Ahmadinejad on record as supporting a potentially groundbreaking encounter following Obama’s offer for dialogue.

Dialogue, AP. Not debate. And as we have seen in the past, Ahmadinejad simply turns the hard questions aside and reverts to his anti-Israel, anti-Western rhetoric, over and over again.

There is nothing groundbreaking here. Ahmadinejad offered to debate Bush three years ago, as you can see by clicking on the link to the AP story. Apparently, AP news writers don’t even know what’s in their own archives.

Score another one for the feckless media.

Time for a kitty timeout

Filed under: Cats — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 3:25 pm

Still not doing much blogging this weekend.

So we have cat pictures.

Tigger on deck
Tigger on deck.

Gracie napping
Gracie napping.

Believe me when I tell you that Tig is not nearly as fat as he looks. He has about twice as much fur as Tig the Second had.

Although, he is a chubbo.

The Pet Club in my area went out of business, and as I drove by today I saw a liquidation sign. I just bought about 60 lbs. of Felidae for about $60. I won’t have to be heading over to the West End for cat foood for a while. Even Tig will take a while to go through that much cat food. Not for lack of trying, of course.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu – the alternative version

Filed under: Israel, Media Bias — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

There’s a really great editorial at the New York Times that I missed the other day:

We’d call this week’s White House meeting between President Obama and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a draw. Mr. Netanyahu promised to promote Palestinian independence as a basis for a state. Whether or not he mentioned “two state solution” is really irrelevant as even the moderate leaders of Fatah, can’t bring themselves to acknowledge the right of a Jewish state to exist in the Middle East. Mr. Obama promised that his patience with Iran, and its nuclear ambitions, was limited, but aside from promising harsh sanctions if Iran doesn’t restrain its ambitions promised no teeth to prevent Iran from developing these dangerous weapons.

A draw was probably the best that could be hoped for — and far less than is needed. But it is unserious to classify the meeting as a draw. It reflects narrow thinking, which believes that diplomacy is simply a matter of who scored the most points, rather than who presented the best way forward. It’s not clear that the President has done that.

Mr. Obama has concluded that to succeed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the United States must repair its relations with the Muslim world. This is putting the cart before the horse. For too long the Muslim world has used the Arab-Israeli conflict as an excuse for acting against American interests and as a cover for its own failings.

The Israeli leader is not likely to make that easy. His coalition government — which reflects a broad consensus of Israeli society — must be respected. If the Muslim world refuses to acknowledge our democratic ally we must stand by Israel.That will not be politically popular in the Muslim world, but it is in its best interest.

Mr. Obama also needs to rally Arab states to treat Israel appropriately. We don’t agree with every Israeli policy and don’t expect them to. However, whatever mistakes Israel makes, do not render it illegitimate. The Arab world must normalize relations with Israel, and rejecting those who refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist. It’s hypocritical to hold Israel responsible for the Palestinian failure to build the institutions of governance, while denying the right to vote their own populations. Palestinians must do more to prove that they are capable of self-government.

Mr. Netanyahu is, not surprisingly, uncomfortable with Mr. Obama’s decision to test Tehran with an offer of negotiations. The Israelis are right that time is clearly on Iran’s side.

The current plan is for the United States to join the Europeans and Russia in talks with Iran, right after Iran’s June presidential elections. There is the possibility of bilateral talks to follow. Mr. Obama said he would assess progress by year’s end. If diplomacy is moving forward, he should resist pressure to shut it down prematurely. We hope he is using the time now to prepare Europe and Russia for the necessity of military action if this effort fails.

Mr. Obama is scheduled to meet with Mr. Abbas at the White House next week and to give a major speech in Cairo on June 4. Aides are discouraging rumors that he will use that speech to lay out an American peace plan. With so many watching, he must speak honestly and bluntly with the Muslim world, and encourage it to embrace freedom and reject antisemitism as official state ideologies.

George W. Bush, the first president to outline the responsibilities the Palestinians and the Arab world had for creating a state of Palestine never followed through sufficiently. Mr. Obama must do better.

Well, no. That wasn’t the editorial. I kept some of the same words, but this is what they really wrote.

NOTE: I’ve made a few changes to correct the grammar and improve clarity from the original.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

05/24/2009

Night at the Museum 2: A fun flick

Filed under: Movies — Meryl Yourish @ 10:32 pm

If you like cute, funny, family-oriented films, you will like Night at the Museum 2. Sarah and the twins and I went this afternoon, while Larry took the older boys to see Star Trek. (She and I will see that movie ourselves later.) It was amusing, and fun, and cute, and better than the original. I think it’s a perfect example of what a family film should be like—there’s really almost nothing in it to scare younger children, and enough in it to keep the rest of us entertained (including a few jokes that only the parents are going to get, since all the teenagers were evidently watching Terminator: Salvation).

Max apparently likes to repeat the lines that make him laugh. I can put up with his behavior for another year or so, but after that, he gets the “Max, Aunt Meryl likes quiet when she watches a movie” talk. Even for the silly ones like this one, I prefer to watch movies without chatting. When I used to go to the movies with a group of friends, I’d always make sure I didn’t sit next to the one who could never shut up during a movie. (It was for his own personal safety. I’d have killed him, eventually.) But we were in a theater with parents and small children, so indulgences were made.

If you’re looking for sheer mindless fun, this is the movie for you. Hank Azaria is utterly hilarious, and so are the cast of figures from the Smithsonian that come to life.

Yeah, it’s a slow weekend for me. Feel free to read the news yourselves.

Blog Carnival Time: The Best of The Jewish/Israeli Blogosphere

Filed under: Israel — Jack @ 1:01 pm

It is blog carnival time again. Time to go read Haveil Havalim, the weekly blog carnival of the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere.

This week you it is at What War Zone, entitled: “Haveil Charles Havelim, Please Report to the Front Desk”

Go check it out.

Lebanese spy stories

Filed under: Israel — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

I’ve previously been skeptical of the Lebanese claims that Israel has an extensive spy network in Lebanon. The NY Times today, has a more extensive report on the story.

Mr. Homsi, 61, was the deputy mayor of Saadnayel, a town in the Bekaa Valley. According to a report in the Lebanese newspaper Al Safir, which has links to Hezbollah, Mr. Homsi had told interrogators he was assigned to meet Mr. Nasrallah, which he apparently failed to do. Israeli monitors planned to track his movements as he went to meet the Hezbollah leader.

Mr. Homsi, who was arrested on May 16, said that he had started working for Israel because he needed the money, the newspaper reported, and that he had been paid $100,000.

Many friends and relatives of those accused of being spies say they cannot believe the accusations. “He’s been a friend for more than 18 years,” Issam Rouhaymi, the mayor of Saadnayel, said about Mr. Homsi. “Nobodycould believe such a thing.”

Mr. Homsi was active in the Future Movement, the pro-American political party that is opposed to Hezbollah. Mr. Homsi’s brother said the charges had been manufactured to damage the party’s chances in the elections.

Mr. Homsi sounds like a convenient target. His arrest discredits a pro-American political party. It’s possible, of course, that that’s why he was recruited. But I’m skeptical. And how likely is it that someone with his political leanings would meet with Nasrallah?

The Times gives two more cases:

Some contrived elaborate schemes to avoid detection. Ali al-Jarrah, who was arrested last year and accused of spying for Israel for 25 years, had two homes and two wives who did not know of each other. Adib al-Alam, a retired general arrested in April, had established a domestic maid service at the behest of his Israeli spymasters, officials have said. He used it to disguise his telephone calls and trips abroad to meet with Israeli officers.

Ali al-Jarrrah sounds like a possibility. After all, if he has two wives, he is susceptible to blackmail. However Gen. al-Alam, the little information provided here makes the case against him sound contrived.

Perhaps most infuriating of all, for Lebanese investigators, was what happened this week. On Sunday and Monday, two people accused of being spies escaped across the southern border into Israel, one of them bringing his family with him, according to a Lebanese government complaint submitted to the United Nations. The Israeli military helped them escape, the report states. Another man staged a similar escape this month.

These sound the most likely to have been spies, as the NYT article concludes:

It must have been a daring and risky escape, passing through Hezbollah’s home terrain and across a fenced and guarded border. But it is not impossible.

“There are crossing points,” said Timur Goksel, a former senior adviser of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon. “But I don’t think the Israelis would help just anyone cross over. It would have to be someone they saw as important.”

There is another aspect of this story that’s disconcerting. Early on the Times reported:

The arrests appear to reflect a newly energized and coordinated effort by the Lebanese security agencies, which now cooperate far more effectively among themselves and with Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group based here, than they did in the past.

“New technologies have helped in catching them,” said Gen. Ashraf Rifi, the director of the Internal Security Forces. “But we have also had better cooperation with the army than we had before.”

So assuming that the spy network is real – I have to assume that it is, though perhaps not as extensive as Lebanese officials or Hezbollah claim – apparently American aid to bolster the Lebanese government has been used to thwart the Israeli espionage network. Another lesson unlearned. And if the Americans are inadvertently helping Hezbollah might they want to reconsider given the latest accusation about Hezbollah’s involvement with the Hariri assassination? (I don’t believe this gets Syria off the hook, but Syria and Hezbollah are doing Iran’s bidding in Lebanon. In the meantime, Hezbollah and Iran seem to be acting a bit paranoid.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

05/23/2009

Oh wow, man

Filed under: Blasts from the past, Television — Meryl Yourish @ 11:36 pm

Cheech and Chong are on Mad TV, and, well, I have something to confess: Stoner humor is apparently just as funny today as it was when I was fourteen years old.

Either that, or Mad TV’s writers got way better.

Sorry. But it was really funny. Who is that Bobby Lee guy? High-larious.

U.S. arming Hezbullah for next war with Israel

Filed under: Lebanon — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 10:46 am

America has apparently learned nothing since training and arming the PLO, which then used that training and those weapons to murder Israelis. Now, we’re going to send some pretty intense weaponry that will end up in the hands of Hezbullah.

US Vice President Joe Biden promised that Washington will provide the Lebanese army with 42 fighter jets, helicopters, UAVs and tanks, Arab media outlets reported on Saturday.

On Friday Biden concluded a brief one-day visit to Lebanon, during which he met mostly with leaders affiliated with the anti-Syrian camp, including Defense Minister Elias Murr.

Murr said tat the American vice president pledged to have the said weapons delivered to Lebanon, and that the aid package would be given to the country unconditionally, although Biden on Friday said that the aid hinges on the outcome of the upcoming general elections.

How do we know this will end up in Hezbullah’s hands? This is how:

The sources attribute the recent arrests to improved cooperation between Lebanon’s many security agencies, saying that with the help of better-trained personnel and access to more sophisticated equipment, the Internal Security Forces have been intensifying their efforts to uncover espionage networks as part of an attempt to develop a pan-Lebanese image.

[...] The United States has provided $1 billion in aid since 2006, including $410 million in security assistance to the Lebanese military and police.

So yes, great idea, let’s give Lebanon advanced tanks, fighter jets, and military equipment. Because it’s not like they’re going to go to war with Israel again, or are a pawn of the Iranians and Syrians.

Words fail.

05/22/2009

Working together

Filed under: Iran, Israel — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 12:00 pm

While some folks thought it was fun to tally up the points Bibi and Barack scored against one another, it appears that they actually did some things of substance.

For one thing it appears that apart from Secretary of State Clinton’s highly inappropriate remarks an Al Jazeera, PM Netanyahu is discussing what is meant by “settlement freeze” with the administration.

For instance, Israel has been working on the assumption that, with tacit agreement from the US, it may build inside the lines of existing settlements in the large settlement blocs that it believes it will retain under any future diplomatic agreement….The settlement issue was expected to be one of the top ones dealt with in working groups that have been set up between the US and Israel to discuss a wide range of topics. Israeli sources said work in these groups had already started.”

This, of course, will never be enough for the Arab world and their cheerleaders. But more importantly, it appears that there will be a joint Israeli-American monitoring group to judge how successful the administration’s outreach to Iran has been. Perhaps the concern most Americans have regarding Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is the reason the administration is apparently taking Israel’s concerns seriously.

It would appear, according to these reports that despite their differences, President Obama and PM Netanyahu have decided to work together.

Also see here.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Nasrallah blames Israel for all the ills of the region

Filed under: Israel, Lebanon — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

These are the words of the man who, in the coming months, you can expect the EU, UN, and left-leaning US crowd to call for Israel to negotiate with. Because Hezbollah, they will say, is moderating. Or because Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government, and it can no longer be ignored.

These are his words:

In a speech on occasion of the 61st anniversary of the occupation of Palestine broadcast on Monday, Secretary General of Hezbollah Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said the Israeli entity which is based on usurpation, massacres, displacement and occupation isn’t a legitimate entity and cannot be legitimate in any way.

Nasrallah affirmed that the Israeli entity is the cause of all wars, disasters and crises in the region, forcing the past, current and future generations to bear the repercussions and effects of this tumor festering in the region.

He stressed that the wars that happened in the region were imposed by this entity, and that the actions of the region’s governments, peoples, armies and resistance movements were reactions to the occupation of Palestine, which is the source of conflict in the Middle East, with the enemy counting on the Palestinian cause being forgotten and on forcing the Palestinian people to despair and abandon their land and rights.

If someone can explain to me how you can reach an agreement with the man who spoke those words, I’d appreciate it. Because from where I’m sitting, the only agreement you can reach with Nasrallah is the business end of a hellfire missile.

Avigdor Lieberman: Cutting straight to the point

Filed under: Israel, palestinian politics — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 10:30 am

I’m starting to really like this guy.

Lieberman further expressed his disappointment with the Palestinian leadership: “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t accept our help on one hand and ask the ICC to charge us with crimes against humanity on the other.

“(Such actions) go against all of the treaties we have signed, in letter and in spirit, and there is no way we will agree to it. We are not looking for confrontations. We support negotiations and we are trying to come up with a solution for coexistence, but we are done groveling.”

Say what you want about the man, but he certainly knows how to speak his mind. That reminds me of someone else who has a tendency to shoot from the hip….

The next few years of Israeli negotiations are going to be very interesting.

If it’s Friday, there must be violent anti-fence protests

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Israel — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 9:30 am

Okay, now I’m starting to wonder what’s going on with all these protesters getting hit by tear gas grenade canisters.

Anti-fence rallies in Ramallah area lead to violent clashes between Palestinians and security forces once again: A 20-year-old Palestinian was seriously injured Friday afternoon after being hit in the head by a tear gas grenade in the West Bank village of Naalin, according to protestors who took part in a demonstration against the separation fence being built in the area.

Of course, the reason they’re being injured is because they’re not “peaceful” protesters, as the wire services (and the Palestinian and ISM propagandists) would have you believe.

According to the army, some 400 Palestinians, left-wing activists and foreign nationals hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at the security forces stationed in the area and set tires on fire.

And let’s hear the propaganda line:

According to the Palestinian version, police and Border Guard officers brutally attacked the protestor before they even began demonstrating. In addition, the Palestinians said, the police and soldiers continued to direct the tear gas canisters straight towards them, as they had done in previous incidents several weeks ago which led to the death of one protestor and to the critical injury of another.

But wait. There’s more.

The Palestinians added that five protestors were hurt by inhaling tear gas.

That’s right. Palestinians, knowing full well that there would be tear gas, as there is just about every Friday when the protests turn violent, are complaining that violent protesters were, gee, “injured” by inhaling tear gas. I have a suggestion for them: Stop protesting violently. And yes, that is exactly what they do:

At the same time, an IDF soldier was lightly injured in an anti-fence demonstration in the nearby village of Bilin. Some 80 Palestinians, left-wing activists and foreign nationals attended the rally. They hurled stones at the security forces, who used crowd dispersal means against them.

And by “stones,” they mean “rocks the size of bricks.” Make no mistake, they’re hurling those things to kill, if possible. Here’s a picture from some time ago, of a soldier who was hit by a “stone”:

IDF soldier hit by stone

Don’t believe the minimization of the stone throwing you read in the non-Israeli media. It’s Palestinian propaganda.

Camp David never happened

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

In Vote Fatah (or Hamas) Khalil Shkaki writes:

Recall how, in 1999, when the interim arrangements of the Oslo agreements expired without an end to the occupation, younger nationalists led by Fatah leaders like Marwan Barghouti, in cooperation with Islamists, were emboldened to challenge the leadership of Yasir Arafat’s old guard. Public demand for violence against Israelis grew considerably, leading to a bloody five-year intifada. Today, the level of Palestinian public support for armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel is higher than it has been since 2005.

What’s missing here? Well for starters, when did the “Aqsa intifada” start (under Arafat’s direction)? Why it started in September 2000. And that was after Arafat turned down an offer for statehood in July, 2000. In other words Arafat refused to create a state and Shkaki blames Israel for not ending the occupation.

And did Barghouti challenge Arafat? Or did he act as Arafat’s proxy by planning terror attacks, for which he is now imprisoned?

Of course there are other questions. Why is support for terror higher now than any time since 2005. In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza. 2005 is a time when, having received a significant concession from Israel, the Palestinians should have been less inclined towards terror. And how does Shkaki explain the terror of early 1996, just weeks after Israel finished handing over 6 cities to the PA? Maybe support for terror against Israel isn’t a function of anything Israel does but of the encouragement that terror gets from the PA government – in violation of their obligations under Oslo – from the PA’s official media, schools and clerics.

Even if his history were not so inaccurate, Shkaki is arguing that now that the threat for terror against Israel is high, Israel ought to trust the Palestinian Authority even more. Where’s the logic in that?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Roger Cohen – an ominous fellow traveler?

Filed under: Israel Derangement Syndrome, Media Bias — SnoopyTheGoon @ 8:00 am

I warmly recommend an excellent article An Ominous Turn in Elite Opinion by Jonathan S. Tobin in the Commentary magazine. Not because I agree with every conclusion about the article main protagonist – Roger Cohen, I have my doubts about some of them. Rather because it is the first attempt I have seen to understand the phenomenon that Cohen represents as one of the more odious examples.

Some of the ire Cohen causes definitely stems from his consistently anti-Israeli stance. He claims that he supports Israel and only protests occupation, “disproportional” military response etc., but it will take a professional nitpicker to distinguish Cohen’s consistent bashing of Israel from that of, say, Juan Cole (the name mentioned on purpose). The only claim I haven’t detected yet in Cohen’s ever-growing anti-Israeli collection is the one where Israel is guilty in all strife in the world. But it’s not that Israel can’t do with some more creative bashing, is it?

There are many indignant articles and blog posts about Cohen and his “support” for Israel, my recommendation will be to focus on excellent series by Soccer Dad, more could be found by using this Google search (as a side remark: Soccer Dad says here that he is “tempted to say about Roger Cohen that the less said about him that better“, but apparently Cohen is irresistible, and I absolutely understand and share SD’s feelings). Still, Soccer Dad refers mostly to Cohen’s outlandish opinions, and I am currently into anthropology.

The more interesting and revealing chunk of Cohen’s recent body of work, however, relates to his Iranian experiences. This is where the budding fellow traveler eventually flowered to perfection. His lyrical descriptions of the golden days of Jewish community in Iran (periodical arrests on false charges of spying on behalf of Israel and hangings notwithstanding), his acceptance of anything told to him by a “random” selection of Iranian Jews via a government-appointed translator and handler, his praise to the “vibrant democracy” of Iran – all these so painfully reminiscent of similarly inexplicable support for Hitler and for Stalin wholeheartedly provided by Britons, some of whom could have been Cohen’s grandparents.

And Cohen’s Oxbridge pedigree is so reminiscent of a whole range of Britons – from supporters of Hitler to the opposite wing, where the Cambridge Five are immortalized in all their revolting glory, that it is not that easy to get rid of this parallel too. But of course, Oxbridge produced thousands of highly respected scientists, politicians, teachers and of course there is a widest spectrum of political beliefs between Lord Haw Haw and Kim Filby, and it will be a sure proof of a paranoid mind to suspect Cohen of being an agent of this or another foreign power.

A simpler explanation (that Occam’s razor enforces) will be that, like many others before him, Cohen is being a blind slave to his wishful thinking. And, like hundreds of VIPs before him were successfully blinded and enthralled by (firmly guided) tours of hotels built for such occasions in Soviet Russia, of happy Russian farmers unable to say a word in English, of thriving factories, caviar-cum-vodka dinners and insidious “translators”, of burgeoning Hitlerite economy, law and order, clean streets and clockwork precision of Mussolini trains; so was Cohen successfully led through a succession of Iranian Potemkin villages. Cohen has seen what his hosts wanted him to see and heard exactly what his hosts wanted him to hear.

On the other hand, Cohen could not be that stupid, could he? The man with his experience and journalistic background must have seen through this ploy, right? But no, the power and enchantment of wishful thinking could overcome any professional scruples. Even in a journalist of Cohen’s calibre who describes himself as “smart, driven, liberal, Jewish“. So much for smarts then…

Still… imagine that you are Mahmoud the Mad, or, even better, an anonymous clerk in the Iranian propaganda department. What could be more convenient than, on one hand, professor and Farsi expert Juan Cole (this is why that mention above) who adroitly interprets any genocidal declaration of your betters as a peace offering, and on the other hand, a leading journalist in such an august media outfit like NYT, singing praises for your regime? And not just any leading journalist, but smart, driven, liberal and Jewish? I mean, it’s a godsend, isn’t it? Nothing better than these two to turn the elite opinion, whatever “elite” means to you. Throw into the mix Mahmoud’s kissing buddies of Jewish Ultra-Orthodox persuasion, “socialist” Hugo Chavez and a bunch of other hosanna – singing characters all over the world, and the Ayatollahs with their puppet Mahmoud the Mad look more kosher than a kugel.

Yes, it definitely seems that if Mr Cohen didn’t exist, Iranian propaganda ministry must have invented him. Very convenient, almost made to order.

Whose order, I wonder? How does a poisoned fruit like Roger Cohen flourish?

Questions, questions…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

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