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11/30/2009

The president who fell to earth

Filed under: Israel, The One, World — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

The last week seems to have been a week that the articles critical of Barack Obama have really gained a foothold. On top of the blistering (and truly funny) skit about Obama’s trip to China, we have editorials in such mega-fan sites as The New York Times pointing out that Obama is, well, human after all.

Peacemaking takes strategic skill. But we see no sign that President Obama and Mr. Mitchell were thinking more than one move down the board. The president went public with his demand for a full freeze on settlements before securing Israel’s commitment. And he and his aides apparently had no plan for what they would do if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no.

Most important, they allowed the controversy to obscure the real goal: nudging Israel and the Palestinians into peace talks. (We don’t know exactly what happened but we are told that Mr. Obama relied more on the judgment of his political advisers — specifically his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel — than of his Mideast specialists.)

The Washington Post editorial board came to this conclusion in July. But suddenly, pundits who were solidly behind Obama are noticing that the emperor is not as fully clothed as they described him to be:

The peace-process bubble burst two months ago at the United Nations, when Obama’s poorly executed attempt to launch final-settlement talks between Israelis and Palestinians collapsed. Arabs who were led by Obama’s rhetoric to believe that the United States would force Israel to make unprecedented unilateral concessions — like a complete end to all construction in Jerusalem — were bitterly disappointed.

But they are not the only victims of post-Cairo letdown. Arab reformers, who for most of this decade have been trying to break down the barriers to social and political modernization in the Middle East, have also begun to conclude that the Obama administration is more likely to harm than to help them.

“All Arab countries are craving change — and many of us believed Obama was a tool for change,” says Aseel al- Awadhi, a Kuwaiti member of parliament. “Now we are losing that hope.”

Fouad Ajami, writing in the Wall Street Journal, sums it up:

Mr. Obama’s election has not drained the swamps of anti-Americanism. That anti-Americanism is endemic to this region, an alibi and a scapegoat for nations, and their rulers, unwilling to break out of the grip of political autocracy and economic failure. It predated the presidency of George W. Bush and rages on during the Obama presidency.

And he backs it up with figures.

It was the norm for American liberalism during the Bush years to brandish the Pew Global Attitudes survey that told of America’s decline in the eyes of foreign nations. Foreigners were saying what the liberals wanted said.

Now those surveys of 2009 bring findings from the world of Islam that confirm that the animus toward America has not been radically changed by the ascendancy of Mr. Obama. In the Palestinian territories, 15% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 82% have an unfavorable view. The Obama speech in Ankara didn’t seem to help in Turkey, where the favorables are 14% and those unreconciled, 69%. In Egypt, a country that’s reaped nearly 40 years of American aid, things stayed roughly the same: 27% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 70% do not. In Pakistan, a place of great consequence for American power, our standing has deteriorated: The unfavorables rose from 63% in 2008 to 68% this year.

Even Chris Matthews is losing the thrill up his leg regarding the president:

Regarding President Obama’s controversial bow to the Emperor of Japan, Matthews asked, “I have never seen a bow that low. . . . God did he have to bow that low?”

It looks like the bloom is off the rose. Certainly, with his approval ratings below fifty percent, Americans have caught on to the fact that they elected the most liberal president in history, something that pundits insisted he wouldn’t be, because he ran on a centrist platform. But the moment he was elected, the man who is one of the most liberal senators in Congress immediately took a sharp left turn. Gee, who could have seen that coming? Oh. Wait. That would be me, and everyone else who voted for his opponents.

I’ll leave you with the SNL skit from last week. Obama has become mock-worthy, and that’s the biggest sign of all that our president is now considered just another politician.

The deflated New York Times hopes for Obama

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

It’s not just the Arab/Muslim world that’s disappointed with President Obama, the New York Times is too.

The Times has come to the belated acknowledgment – the Washington Post noticed this back in July – that the administration hasn’t been very successful in the Middle East as expressed in Diplomacy 101.

Peacemaking takes strategic skill. But we see no sign that President Obama and Mr. Mitchell were thinking more than one move down the board. The president went public with his demand for a full freeze on settlements before securing Israel’s commitment. And he and his aides apparently had no plan for what they would do if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no.

Most important, they allowed the controversy to obscure the real goal: nudging Israel and the Palestinians into peace talks. (We don’t know exactly what happened but we are told that Mr. Obama relied more on the judgment of his political advisers — specifically his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel — than of his Mideast specialists.)

The idea made sense: have each side do something tangible to prove it was serious about peace and then start negotiations. But when Mr. Netanyahu refused the total freeze, President Obama backed down.

And I love this paragraph:

Washington isn’t the only one to blow it. After pushing President Obama to lead the peace effort, Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, refused to make any concessions until settlements were halted. Mr. Mitchell was asking them to allow Israel to fly commercial planes through Arab airspace or open a trade office. They have also done far too little to strengthen Mr. Abbas, who is a weak leader but is still the best hope for negotiating a peace deal. Ditto for Washington and Israel.

Saudi Arabia blew it? Give me a break. Saudi Arabia has never done more than play lip service to the peace process. Expecting help from the Saudis is another failure of the Obama administration. And has Israel really done too little to help Abbas? PM Netanyahu has boasted of removing hundreds of checkpoints and it has shown according to the Globe and Mail.

Driving through the towns of the West Bank, one can see and feel the difference from conditions that existed only a few months ago. The cities of Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron all display new-found vitality.

Jenin has become a shopping destination for Israeli Arabs. Nablus’s historic market is packed with Palestinians from all over the West Bank.

Ramallah and Hebron are bustling cities where people enjoy normal lives.

The reason is the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers in recent months and the elimination of many of the checkpoints between Palestinian communities.

On the other side Ethan Bronner of the New York Times reports:

As for the Palestinians’ claim to have successfully ended violence, the Israeli military begs to differ. Yes, its officers say, the Palestinian forces are better trained than in the past, and yes, they have worked seriously in their new roles. But without nightly Israeli raids into Palestinian cities, the violence would never have stopped.

“Last night we carried out between 15 and 20 actions,” a top Israeli commander said of the West Bank raids, in a recent interview under military rules of anonymity. “That was a fairly typical night. It’s like throwing a blanket on a fire. If we stop for a minute, we will go backwards very quickly. We call it cutting the grass.”

Israel has been mostly cooperating with the Americans; cooperation from the Arab world – including the Palestinians – has been non-existent.

The Times concludes its editorial:

The president has no choice but to keep trying. At some point extremists will try to provoke another war. and the absence of a dialogue will only make things worse. Advancing his own final-status plan for a two-state solution is one high-risk way forward that we think is worth the gamble. Stalemate is unsustainable.

It’s funny. Despite the fear the Times expresses for “extremists” trying to “provoke another war,” it leaves out any mention of Iran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons. But the Times is wrong. Extremists don’t seek to “provoke another war,” they seek to exploit opportunities that are given to them and extend their reach. Violence is a means to that end not an end to itself. This is something that the Times fails to understand.

The Times criticized the President for failing to consider what would happen if PM Netanyahu wouldn’t respond to his call for a total freeze on settlements. But the paper’s myopia is clear: why doesn’t it ask the same of the administration’s response to Arab non-cooperation. Barry Rubin addresses this:

In principle, the PA should be eager for talks. Obama believes that the Palestinians situation is “intolerable,” so aren’t they eager for progress? And also the PA owes Obama big-time. The United States pressures Israel on its behalf; gives it military training; diplomatic support; and lots of money. Obama has made speech after speech promoting their cause and exalting the Palestinians without any real criticism.

He could ask for concessions. He could demand concessions. He could pressure them for concessions.

And what’s the big concession? Come negotiate and get your state, which would be the same size as all the pre-1967 West Bank and Gaza Strip, plus billions of dollars in compensation payments, pretty please?

Yet it is hard to see this happening. Why? The traditional reason for not wanting to pressure the Palestinians is that US. governments thinks it must prove itself champion of their cause in order to gain backing from the Arab and Muslim world.

With the Obama Administration, however, there is something more. First, it hates to pressure anyone (or at least anyone except Israel). Second, it is less fond of Israel. Third, it sees itself as progressive and Third World in its orientation and thus has a horror of pushing anyone perceived to be on the “left” by the strange definitions prevailing today.

Then there’s still another problem. No matter what the Obama Administration does the PA will say, “No.” And then what will the White House do? Provoke an open rift; heated criticism; cutting off aid? Not a chance. PA leader Mahmoud Abbas might even, gasp!, threaten again for a week or two that he’s going to resign.

The funny thing is that the Times is wondering where Obama went wrong, but the President seems to be following the Times’s worldview. The editors just can’t bring themselves to admit that they were wrong too.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

11/29/2009

Arab boycott: It’s working for Israel

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 12:25 pm

You simply cannot read this article without laughing. The Arab boycott has actually protected most Israelis from losing any money over Dubai’s credit implosion.

Thanks to the Arab boycott of Israel, which partially included Dubai, few Israelis have been exposed to the country’s financial crisis. Few Israelis export to Dubai, and it seems very few have business connections with the government’s Dubai World development arm, which has asked for a six-month moratorium on interest payments on its $59 billion in debt.

That does not mean that many Israelis did not try to do business in Dubai. Many made all sorts of connections and investment plans, but almost none of these joint ventures worked out.

There are a few Israelis who have significant financial stakes in Dubai, but for the most part, Israel’s economy continues to grow, even in the current worldwide recession.

And you can thank the Arab boycott for the minor impact on Israel. Proof, indeed, that G-d has a sense of humor.

11/28/2009

World’s stupidest programming award to ABC

Filed under: Television — Meryl Yourish @ 7:51 pm

Let’s recap a few things before moving on with this post. Lost, one of the hottest new shows of the season the year it debuted, and a still fairly popular show in its second season, began to lose its audience when ABC started running a zillion reruns instead of new episodes. In response to the annoyance of fans, ABC then decided to put Lost on a big, long hiatus instead of showing reruns. The result? People forgot about it. It bled even more viewers.

Now, these same programming geniuses at this same network give us the remake of V, which is actually a pretty good remake. Their game plan? To show four episodes during November sweeps. Then to wait three months and show the next four during March sweeps. Because a three-month gap isn’t going to affect viewership in any way, shape, or form, right?

So, instead of the moment where I got to shout, “Yes! Lizard baby!” at the scene where the human who is unknowingly engaged to a V first hears the news that the stick is blue (and let us avert our eyes to the successful interbreeding of lizard and human species; after all, this is television science fiction, emphasis on fiction, and nobody really expects it to be, you know, scientific), um, I lost my train of thought. Oh. Right. Next March, I may actually be one of only six or seven hundred people who will tune in to see how the series picks up, because I desperately want to see the modern retelling of this classic, classic scene from Bad Science Fiction of the 1980s (skip ahead to about 1:50 for the full effect):

Yes! Lizard baby! The scene that brought peals of laughter when my friends and I watched in in the 80s. I want to see that lizard baby, brought up to date, but I gotta tell you—I’m probably going to forget to set my DVR unless ABC plugs the hell out of it on my soap operas again.

Really. What genius thought it would help the show by going on hiatus?

Why, yes, it’s a holiday weekend.

Filed under: Holidays — Meryl Yourish @ 2:39 pm

Why do you ask?

11/27/2009

Black Friday Snark News Briefs

Filed under: Gaza, Israel, News Briefs, Terrorism, The One — Meryl Yourish @ 10:15 am

And Nero fiddled while Rome burned: This is just funny. The Dorktator’s senior advisor (what the hell is a “senior advisor” anyway? Is that like “the guy I inherited from Dad that I can’t fire because he has too many friends who could kill me”?), er, senior advisor says that the Arabs should stop fussing over soccer and concentrate on the oppression of the Palesitinians instead. Translation: Don’t let the cause of the Palestinians hit the back burner, or you’ll find that people will notice you’re all dictatorial, thuggish regimes that steal their money and keep them living in misery and poverty. The fussing over soccer, by the way, would be the riots that Egyptians are currently having in retaliation for supposed ill-treatment of Egyptians after an Egypt-Algeria World Cup match. Say. What happened to that vaunted pan-Arab nationalism? What? They really hate each other after all? Who knew?

The real threats to peace: A terror attack from Egypt was thwarted a few days ago. Five mortars fired from Gaza hit the Negev region. Two Israelis were stabbed in the West Bank. Chavez calls Israel a “murderous agent” of the U.S. Iran refuses to cooperate with the IEAE at all. And what’s the biggest obstacle to peace in the world today? Israel’s refusal to freeze all building in Jerusalem.

How long before Pat Buchanan calls this one mistaken identity? A former Nazi SS murderer tells the court that he’s proud of his service in the Waffen SS. Five bucks says that the Buchanan-Duke axis still manage to find a way to excuse sentencing the 88-year-old murderer.

State dinner gate-crashers are crashing bores: Or maybe it’s just this article. It’s about some of the lawsuits against them. Ooh, they overcharged people who held their wedding at their venue. Yawn. It carries a do-not-read recommendation. See, I read this crap, so you don’t have to.

Lebanon’s descent

Filed under: Israel, Lebanon, United Nations — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

In Lebanon, the raidicals keep on strengthening their positions. Peter Berkowitz writes (via memeorandum):

Six days later, on March 14, a Sunni, Christian, and Druze crowd of more than 1 million–a quarter of Lebanon’s population–shook their nation by gathering in downtown Beirut to outdo the pro-Syria demonstrators and show their devotion to a sovereign Lebanon. The stunning upsurge of pro-liberty and pro-democracy sentiment in what became known as the Cedar Revolution combined with international indignation over the Hariri assassination compelled Syria, which had occupied the country for 29 years, to withdraw its forces by the end of April. The forces of freedom exulted.

Three years later, on May 7, 2008, however, the March 14 coalition suffered a huge blow. Hezbollah forces, carrying little more than light arms but backed by a formidable guerrilla machine in the south and the threat of far more devastating force, rolled into Beirut and took over the city in a matter of hours. Lebanon’s liberals and democrats were devastated by the failure of the United States and Europe to come to Lebanon’s aid even as its cosmopolitan capital was overrun by ragtag fighters equipped by, and loyal to, Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries. Hezbollah lifted the siege at the end of the month with the signing of the Doha Agreement, which, most importantly, gave it, a minority party, a veto over government action in a new national unity government.

Specifically, Lebanon, at Hezbollah’s behest has just passed a law effectively defying UN Security Council resolution 1701.

Lebanon’s new cabinet has agreed on a policy statement that acknowledges Hezbollah’s right to use its weapons against Israel, despite disagreement by some members of the ruling majority.


Elder of Ziyon observes:

Not only does this give official Lebanese status to an independent army that doesn’t answer to the government, it also is clearly against UN resolution 1701, which called for “no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon; and it also implicltly contradicts the paragraph that calls for “strong support for full respect for the Blue Line.”

It is effectively the continuing surrender of Lebanon to Hezbollah.

Meryl adds:

It’s Israel’s casus belli, and it will be ignored by the screamers. But it won’t be ignored by Israel, and it shouldn’t be ignored by the UN. (Yes, I know it will. But it shouldn’t.) I see the UN is moving along quickly to censure Hizbullah for the arms depot explosion last month. What? They’re not? No!

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

11/26/2009

… and creating a nuisance

Filed under: Lebanon, Pop Culture — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 12:00 pm

Investment scandal damages Hezbollah

And now, his life’s fortune is gone, too, lost along with the money of thousands of other Lebanese who put their faith in a billionaire financier with close ties to Hezbollah.

The investment scheme, which is being called the Lebanese version of the Bernie Madoff scandal, threatens to tarnish the Shiite group’s carefully cultivated image as a pious defender of the masses that is above the corruption endemic in many of Lebanon’s political parties.

How do you tarnish the image of a terrorist group? When they target innocent men, women and children how does embezzlement hurt their image? Isn’t that kind of like, I dunno, littering?

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?” I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.” He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?” And I said, “Littering.” And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin’ about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Happy Thanksgiving

Filed under: Cats, Holidays — Meryl Yourish @ 10:33 am

I’m done posting for the day, so I give you a post of cats and dogs, old and new.

This was one of my favorite shots of Tig.

Tig the regal

Gorgeous Gracie.

Gorgeous Gracie in the sun

Another favorite shot of Tig.

Tigger in Haunch Position

Fluffy white kitty belly!

Gracie's beautiful white belly

Boy and New Tig

Nate and Tig

Baby Tig 3.0 in my bookcase.

Baby Tig

Tig 2 getting ready to write a letter.

Tig with pen

Worf, with my sneaker, begging me to chase him.

Worf with my sneaker

And last, but not least, my current two kitties, in a fairly recent shot:

Gracie and Tig in the office

Happy Thanksgiving! Eat as much as you like, you can diet tomorrow. (That’s what I’m doing.)

To be overlooked in the next Lebanon war

Filed under: Israel, Lebanon — Meryl Yourish @ 10:18 am

When Hizbullah attacks Israel, and Israel retaliates by bombing strategic points in the whole of Lebanon, and the world reaction is shock and disgust that Israel attacked the state of Lebanon instead of “just” Hizbullah, kindly refer back to this article:

Lebanon agrees Hezbollah right to use arms against Israel
Lebanon’s new cabinet has agreed on a policy statement that acknowledges Hezbollah’s right to use its weapons against Israel, despite disagreement by some members of the ruling majority.

Information Minister Tarek Mitri said late Wednesday after a cabinet committee set up to draft the statement met for the ninth time that an agreement had been reached.

He said the new statement will retain the same clause approved by the previous cabinet as concerns the arsenal of Hezbollah, which fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006 and is considered a terrorist organisation by Washington.

The clause states the right of “Lebanon, its government, its people, its army and its resistance” to liberate all Lebanese territory.

Hezbollah is commonly referred to as the resistance in Lebanon.

It’s Israel’s casus belli, and it will be ignored by the screamers. But it won’t be ignored by Israel, and it shouldn’t be ignored by the UN. (Yes, I know it will. But it shouldn’t.) I see the UN is moving along quickly to censure Hizbullah for the arms depot explosion last month. What? They’re not? No!

It’s a good thing Israel is developing new anti-rocket weapons to meet the threat from Gaza and Lebanon. They’ll be needed.

How to have an Israeli champion and not play Hatikvah

Filed under: Anti-Semitism — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

First get an Israeli champion.

Then when they ask you to play Hatikvah, say, “I fo-o-o-rgot.”

It has happened twice recently.

In Turkey:

Of especial interest is the Girls Under 14 group. On the one hand it was won by an old friend, WFM Marsel Efroimski, whom we encountered in our report on Israel Schoolmates and Champions. There was a protest launched when the Israeli National Anthem was not played at the closing ceremony (see below).

(via Jihad Watch, via Israel Matzav)

In Austria:

The two Israelis won gold and bronze medals at the European Cup fencing tournament for under 17s. Dana Stralinkov, 14, won gold and Alona Komarov, 13 won bronze.

But the Austrian official in charge of arranging the national anthems played when the winners went on the podium said he could not locate the recording of ‘Hatikvah’.

(via Mere Rhetoric)

Instapundit has a facetious suggestion (in regard to a related but not identical incident)

Obviously, Jews should have been setting off truck bombs and sawing off heads, which induces an entirely different set of behaviors.

Crossposted on Yourish.

11/25/2009

Pre-Thanksgiving open thread

Filed under: Holidays — Meryl Yourish @ 3:51 pm

So not in the mood to write the usual stuff here.

So, tell me what you’re thankful for, or tell me an elephant joke (or some other joke) in the comments.

It’s the start of a glorious four-day weekend, and tomorrow, I am joining Sarah’s family for the feast. The chocolate course has been aquired (went to For the Love of Chocolate yesterday), the fresh kosher turkey is in Sarah’s fridge (big, BIG yay! to Trader Joe’s for the supply of fresh kosher turkeys), and tomorrow is eagerly anticipated.

Thanksgiving is just the best holiday. It’s a non-denominational holiday. If you’re an atheist, you can still give thanks. If you’re a Marxist anti-American who blames the early Americans for the destruction of the American Indian population, you can still give thanks. If you’re not an American, you can still give thanks.

I am thankful for my friends, first and foremost. Then my health. And my job. And my (still new to me) condo. And, as I am a person of faith, I do thank God for my good fortune. He definitely helped. But I did most of the work myself.

Your turn.

A pillar of moderation

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

Yesterday, writing about the speculation surrounding a possible prisoner release to gain the freedom of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, Backspin quoted, Dan Meridor:

“Those who don’t know can talk,” Dan Meridor, Israel’s intelligence minister, said Monday on state radio. “Those who know should keep silent.”

Now the NY Times reports that PM Netanyahu is playing down talks of an imminent deal.

Seeking to lower expectations of an imminent deal with the Islamic group Hamas to exchange a captured Israeli soldier for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Tuesday that no agreement had yet been reached.

“There is still no deal, and I do not know if there will be one,” Mr. Netanyahu said as he toured the national police headquarters here.

What’s very interesting about this article though are the statements of Salam Fayyad, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.

Reflecting the awkwardness that a deal for Sergeant Shalit might pose for the Abbas government, Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister and a political independent, made no direct mention of it in a speech on Tuesday at an international conference in the West Bank town of Jericho on the rights of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Yet he called for the “immediate release” of “pillars” of the prisoner population like Mr. Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat, a leader of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was convicted of ordering the assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister in 2001. And repeating a point often made by Mr. Abbas, Mr. Fayyad said there would be no final agreement with Israel until all Palestinian prisoners were freed.

First of all the so-called sensitivity of the prisoner issue for the Palestinians (referenced elsewhere in the article) is bogus. Prisoner releases were part of Oslo as a way of acknowledging the changed nature of the PLO. People who were jailed for political activities in support of the PLO were to be released because since the PLO was presumed to have given up terrorism (not true, but the charade was maintained) Israel declared that it was no longer an illegal organization. How could Israel keep people working for a legal organization in jail?

But now most Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are there not merely for political activity, but terrorism or aiding and abetting terrorism. These are people who by their actions rejected the idea of coexistence with Israel. For the PA to make an issue of their release shows the official rejection of the basic elements of coexistence by even the “moderate” Palestinian leadership.

Fayyad made this worse in two ways. It’s one thing to tell his own constituents that all prisoners must be released, but he told this to an international conference. I doubt that anyone at the conference raised an objection.

Worse yet, is that he called Barghouti and Saadat “pillars.” These guys are murderers. And the moderate Western educated Prime Minister of the Palestinians lauds them. What a pillar of moderation.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

When smuggling arms is political

Filed under: Lebanon — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

There’s an interesting tidbit in a report of the indictment of Lebanese men for smuggling arms to Hezbollah.

Harb, Moussa Ali Hamdan of Brooklyn and Hasan Antar Karaki of Beirut were also charged with seeking to funnel to Hezbollah counterfeit money and stolen cash generated by the sale of phony passports, with Hamdan acting as a U.S.-based conduit to a confidential government witness based in Philadelphia.

Hodroj was identified in court documents as a member of Hezbollah’s political council and has been identified in news reports as spokesman and head of its Palestinian issues portfolio. None of the four is in U.S. custody and all are believed to be overseas, said Patricia Hartman, spokeswoman for Levy.

So he’s a member of Hezbollah’s “political council” and he was smuggling arms to Hezbollah. So that would mean that there’s not much difference between the “military” and “political” wings of Hezbollah. Wouldn’t it?

Can you find the error? Ok, I’ll tell you: the words “military wing of Hezbollah.” This is a gimmick used by Hizballah [my transliteration] and Hamas, too, to fool people in the West. It is used by advocates of engagement with these radical Islamist terrorist groups in places like Britain.

Sure, they say, there is a military wing and a political wing. The latter is moderate or becoming so and thus you can negotiate with them separately. This is rubbish. There is no such differentiation except for normal administrative purposes. The same leadership and doctrine runs both.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

11/24/2009

An early holiday treat

Filed under: Humor, Pop Culture — Meryl Yourish @ 10:42 pm

Via Allahpundit.

The ransom of gilad schalit

Filed under: Gaza, Hamas, Israel — Soccerdad @ 2:09 pm

In an article about the negotiations between Israel and Hamas over the deal to release Gild Schalit, Ethan Bronner of the New York Times quotes a former Israeli official.

Yaakov Perry, former head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, told Israel Radio that while a real risk existed, “the past has shown that some of the prisoners do not return to terror and some portion are integrated in various operative positions.”

I would be encouraged if he said that none of the prisoners return to terror, but, in fact, if some “do not return,” others do return.

Nadav Shragai has documented the damage that’s been done by previous prisoner releases.

An investigation by the Almagor Terror Victims Association in Israel revealed that at least 30 of the terrorist attacks perpetrated since 2000 were committed by terrorists freed in deals with terror organizations. Many were freed in the framework of goodwill gestures because they were defined by Israel as “without blood on their hands.” The bloody swath cut by these terrorists claimed the life of 177 persons, with many others wounded and made invalids.

There is a real cost to prisoner releases. And the damage is exacerbated by the treatment accorded the worst of the prisoners. The unrepentant Samir Kuntar is a celebrity in Lebanon because of the brutal murders he committed.

Arnold and Frimet Roth write about another monster, who is rumored to be in the deal.

Tamimi has declared unequivocally that she has no regrets about what she did. In one of her media interviews, permitted by the Israel Prison Service, she is quoted saying: “I am not sorry for what I did. I will get out of prison and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence… Discussions will only take place after Israel recognizes that this is Islamic land”.

Israel Matzav adds:

I have talked about Sbarro (from which my own daughter was half a block away when the attack took place) and its victims many times on this blog, usually on the anniversary of the attack. A cousin of the Schijveschuurder family has been in touch with me and reads this blog from time to time. The pregnant woman who was an only child had purchased the home of one of our closest friends in New Jersey together with her husband. And the lady who is in a coma is a friend of a friend (who has a husband and young daughter who was a toddler at the time of the attack) and continues to be on my prayer list daily.

This is a small country. Releasing Ahlam Tamimi would be a kick in the gut for most of us. And it would be devastating for Arnold and Frimet and the family members of the other victims. It cannot be allowed to happen.

Bronner can write all he wants about the dynamics of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and how they will be affected by a possible exchange for Gilad Schalit. But, in the end, what kind of peace can Israel have with a society that reveres conscienceless murderers like Kuntar, Tamimi or Marwan Bargouti (reportedly part of a deal for Schalit.)?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Iranian web: Mullahs ascendant

Filed under: Iran, The One — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 10:30 am

Iran’s president is on a South American tour, hoping to expand Iranian influence.

Ahmadinejad’s good relations with Venezuela’s openly anti-American regime are well-known. As well as President Hugo Chavez, the Iranian leader has already nurtured relations with Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa. But this is the first time an Iranian leader has visited Brazil, a country with major international aspirations.

The one-day visit is the first leg of a Latin American and African tour that will also take in Venezuela, Bolivia, Gambia and Senegal, and is being seen as part of a concerted Iranian campaign to win influence in parts of the western hemisphere.

And it’s working.

Iran’s leader got a welcoming bear hug from the Brazilian president, who urged Western nations to drop threats of punishment over the Iranian nuclear program and instead negotiate a fair solution.

Hezbullah cells are well ensconced in South America—with America’s enemies, of course.

The commander of U.S. forces in Latin America says the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is involved in drug trafficking in Colombia. The admiral is worried about increased Iranian and Hezbollah activities throughout the region.

Meanwhile, back at home, the Iranian leadership is making sure of two things. First, that the opposition is decapitated.

A former Iranian Vice-President and leading reformist has been sentenced to six years in prison for fomenting unrest after President Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in June.

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who “confessed” to his alleged crimes at a trial widely denounced as a charade, is the most senior of hundreds of dissidents who have been locked up over the past five months.

Next, setting up education camps for the young, controlling communications, and effectively creating a police state (though the scaries element has to be the Basij centers in elementary schools).

In recent weeks, the government has announced a variety of new ideological offensives.

It is implanting 6,000 Basij militia centers in elementary schools across Iran to promote the ideals of the Islamic Revolution, and it has created a new police unit to sweep the Internet for dissident voices. A company affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards acquired a majority share in the nation’s telecommunications monopoly this year, giving the Guards de facto control of Iran’s land lines, Internet providers and two cellphone companies. And in the spring, the Revolutionary Guards plan to open a news agency with print, photo and television elements.

These actions, and Iran’s other aggressive actions, are triggering an arms race in the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia, long the major arms-buyer in the region, is now being overtaken by relative minnows such as the United Arab Emirates as they share their neighbour’s fear of the growing military strength of their Shia neighbour.

And of course, the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran haunts Israel as well as the Arab nations.

Most Israelis believe the key to enduring peace in the Middle East is convincing Israel’s adversaries that ejecting Israel through force is an impossible task not worth pursuing. As the Palestinian-American political scientist Hilal Khashan’s work on Arab attitudes toward peace has shown, the willingness of Arabs to make peace with Israel is a direct function of their perception of Israel’s invincibility. The Iranian nuclear program threatens this perception.

An additional threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program is its potential to unleash a cascade of proliferation in the Middle East, beginning with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The development of nuclear weapons by these countries would pose a grave danger to the Jewish state, despite the fact that Egypt has signed a peace treaty with Israel. This is because leaders who have reconciled themselves to Israel’s existence have done so because they believed Israel was strong but unlikely to endure in the long term.

Just as an Iranian nuclear capability would imply a nuclear guarantee for anti-Zionist proxies, an Egyptian or Saudi nuclear capability would reduce incentives for other Arab states to make peace with Israel because, shielded under an Arab nuclear umbrella, they would no longer fear catastrophic defeat or further loss of territory.

So what can we do to stop Iran’s aggression? Well, the opposition is reaching out to the United States.

After more than five months of going it alone, Iran’s opposition Green Movement is reaching out to the United States for help. Via public and private channels, the Obama Administration has received several appeals in recent weeks to take a stronger stand against human-rights abuses in Iran, avoid military action and impose more aggressive and rapid-fire sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards and its vast business interests.

It’s time for President Obama to stop tsk-tsking about Iran’s behavior, and begin actively supporting the Iranian opposition. Iran’s aims are to become a regional hegemon, to spread its Islamism over the world, and to subjugate any and all who seek something different for Iran. The Iranian aims are quite clear. While it may be an exaggeration to say they want world domination, at least for now, it is their ultimate goal. The United Nations might want to take a look at the elephant in the room for a change, instead of focusing so strongly on Israel. Israel does not seek world domination, and not even hegemony in the Middle East. You cannot say the same for Iran, which is currently arming the Yemeni opposition, trying to build nuclear weapons plants in Syria, controlling Lebanon through Hizbullah, working for the destruction of Israel, setting up Hezbullah cells in South America, and fomenting unrest wherever and whenever it benefits Iran.

Sanctions should be the least of our actions.

11/23/2009

Monday SNB

Filed under: Gaza, Hamas, Israel — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

Dershowitz turns up the volume on Goldstone: Alan Dershowitz is calling Goldstone a liar and demanding that he show the data on which he based his accusations that the IDF deliberately targeted civilians. I predict that His Narcissist will ignore Dershowitz completely and whine about personal attacks again. He’s refusing to debate Dershowitz, so I’m sure he won’t step into this fray.

Egyptian Kabuki Theatre: Egyptian border police found one whole ton of explosives on its way to being smuggled into Gaza. How big was the shipment from Iran again? Oh, yeah. 500 tons of weapons and explosives. And since Hamas is testing missiles that can reach major Israeli cities, one would have to think that Egypt isn’t really doing a whole lot to prevent the arming of Hamas.

Gilad Shalit: Home soon? There’s a lot of chatter about whether or not the Shalit deal is near a close. Palestinian murderers are talking about coming home soon. Barghouti’s family says he’s coming home soon. Netanyahu says there’s no deal yet. Meryl says: This will only encourage the kidnapping of more Israeli soldiers, and the swapping of dead Israeli soldiers for live Palestinian prisoners.

Passive aggressive Abbas

Filed under: Israel — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

In a perfectly bewildering column Jim Hoagland blames President Obama and Judge Goldstone for undermining Mahmoud Abbas. In It’s up to Netanyahu he writes:

No one could accuse President Obama or Judge Richard Goldstone of South Africa of harboring ill will toward the president of the Palestinian Authority. But their separate worthy initiatives have resulted in pushing Abbas into a political dead end that complicates the chances for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

In the first case:

But the Arab mood has darkened significantly in the interim. The Arabs say that the encouraging rhetoric of Obama’s Cairo speech in June has been washed away by his failure to deliver a total settlement freeze that includes East Jerusalem — a condition that the new Israeli offer will not meet. A total freeze has become an Arab precondition for resuming negotiations with Israel.

Israelis, on the other hand, are newly confident of U.S. support, which rattles the Arabs even more. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu got a cold shower from Obama and congressional leaders when he visited Washington in May. He was told that he should accept the principle of a Palestinian state, which he grudgingly did last summer.

In the latter:

Whatever the Goldstone report’s merits — and they are lessened by its deliberate demonization of Israel’s motives and milquetoast exculpations of Hamas’s actions — it seems to have been written with no feel for the political consequences it would bring for the peace process. The report also ignored the concern that it would create at the Pentagon and in other Western military headquarters with forces fighting guerrillas who use civilian populations and infrastructure as shields in modern asymmetrical warfare.

On Capitol Hill, misgivings about Netanyahu were buried in a reflexive gathering around Israel under U.N.-inspired attack. The Goldstone fracas also helped push the politically sensitive Obama White House back toward a more supportive, traditional U.S. attitude toward Israel. Abbas — not glimpsing the quagmire he was lurching toward — went along with Washington’s request to ask the United Nations to delay taking up Goldstone’s report, only to back down when Jordan and Egypt joined Hamas in unleashing ferocious criticism of Abbas in their media.

Hoagland is giving way too much credit to Goldstone. As I’ve written, the whole report was conceived in sin. Of course it didn’t take political consequences into account, it was meant to demonize Israel – as even Hoagland recognizes. And it was supported by even such moderates as Egypt and Jordan. The point of Goldstone was to aid those who wish to isolate Israel.

Abbas continues to be passive aggressive. This has been the hallmark of his career. Being Arafat’s #2, he really had to be careful not to be too ambitious. With Arafat gone, he believes the way to get ahead is to do nothing and let others pressure Israel.

But what’s really odd about the column is the way that it treats Abbas – not the peace process- as sacrosanct. If Abbas was interested in peace wouldn’t he have accepted Olmert’s offer last year? Would his PA still be publishing anti-Israel (if not antisemitic) propaganda if he were interested in peace?

Barry Rubin looked at much the same information back in October anc concluded that the Palestinians were not much interested in peace. Hoagland concludes that it’s up to Netanyahu to make concessions to keep Abbas in power.

Israel’s long occupation of Palestinian territory has helped produce the cynicism and weak leadership on both sides that confound would-be international shapers of peace and moral rectitude. Outsiders cannot resolve this conflict: Only an Israeli decision to end that occupation in fast order can lead to the security Israelis need and deserve, and to the dignity that Palestinians seek through a state of their own. That is the broader, more vital decision that Netanyahu needs to make.

If the Palestinians want a state of their own they need to build. It’s 16 years past the point where anyone should still be maining the illusiong that a Palestinian state is the responbility of others.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

11/22/2009

The French think that Jerry Lewis is a genius

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

Yossi Beilin the head of a party Israel that couldn’t garner more than three seats in Knesset, is nonetheless loved in France. He just received the French Legion of Honour. So a failure in his own country, Beilin can now tell himself how great he is because people who haven’t suffered as a result of his policies have given him an award.

But it’s not enough for Beilin to tell himself how great he is, he needs to remind everyone what a visionary he is compared to that unmentionable who actually managed to get elected Prime Minister two more times than Beilin did.

“Netanyahu is set to announce in the coming days that he will accept a construction freeze in the West Bank settlements for 10 months but will exclude (Arab east) Jerusalem,” said Yossi Beilin, who now leads the left-wing Meretz party.

“The Palestinians will reject the offer and this move will in effect mark a backwards step that will lead to a political vacuum and the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority,” he said.

And who’s fault is that? Would it churlish to point out that the head of the Palestinian Authority whose existence is foremost in Beilin’s mind actually rejected a peace offer made by Netanyahu’s predecessor?

Erekat acknowledged that Israel had presented the Palestinians with a proposal in November 2008 which “talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank,” and he noted that Mahmoud Abbas could have accepted this proposal, just as the “Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000.” Intriguingly, Erekat then proceeded to reveal what he considered a “secret”: he explained why the Palestinians had rejected the recent proposals just like the ones offered in 2000/01 during the negotiations in Camp David and Taba. What prevented an agreement every time – at least according to Erekat – was the Israeli request that the Palestinians acknowledge the central importance of the Temple Mount for Jewish history and religion.

It is worthwhile to quote Erekat’s description of a scene at Camp David, when Bill Clinton tried to convince Yassir Arafat to come to an agreement: “You will be the first president of a Palestinian state, within the 1967 borders – give or take, considering the land swap – and East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state, but we want you, as a religious man, to acknowledge that the Temple of Solomon is located underneath the Haram Al-Sharif.” According to Erekat, Arafat responded “defiantly” to Clinton: “I will not be a traitor. Someone will come to liberate it after 10, 50, or 100 years. Jerusalem will be nothing but the capital of the Palestinian state, and there is nothing underneath or above the Haram Al-Sharif except for Allah.”

The Middle at Jewlicious expounds:

Okay, so when Abbas says cryptically that “the gaps were too wide,” what he means is that if the Palestinians don’t get to be sovereign over the Temple Mount, they are not going to sign a deal.

This is called “lying.”

Lying, for those of you who forget, is what a person does when he denies a Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. Lying is what a person does when he claims the Jews do not have historical, religious or cultural ties to Jerusalem or to the Land of Israel. Of course, these ideas can be found in the Hamas and Fatah charters, and of course they are lies.

Where is the lie here? Well, there is more than one but the big one is that the Palestinians seek a two state solution.

If they sought one, they would already have their own state. As both Camp David and Taba already showed, and now we have the Olmert offer to prove that the first two were not accidental rejections of Israel’s offers, the Palestinians are willing to forego peace in order to make impossible demands. One of the impossible demands is the Right of Return. Yet it appears that Olmert actually signed off on that. My guess is that he offered something similar to the Taba offer Israel made where original refugees (‘1948 refugees”) are permitted to return to Israel.

Let’s emphasize: the lack of any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is not due to any Israeli Prime Minister since 1993; for Beilin to claim otherwise is disingenuous.

Back in 1996 I heard Beilin mention that he foresaw three “fingers” of “settlements” – see the Beilin Abu Mazen agreement and map – in any sort of final agreement. Apparently he’s now backed off from even that. In other words Beilin believes that the Palestinians ought to be rewarded for sixteen years of bad faith and terrorism.

For Beilin to bash Netanyahu gratuitously shows that the his self image is exceeded only by his self delusion. Beilin demonstrates once again that he is a legend in his own mind.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Sunday Snark News Briefs

Filed under: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, News Briefs — Tags: , , , — Meryl Yourish @ 10:16 am

The Protocols of the Mullahs of Islam: Iran is buying UN votes against Israel. So I guess Walt & Mearsheimer will write a sequal called The Muslim Lobby, right? The Protocols of the Elders of Islam? No? What? Iran’s expanding influence in South America doesn’t count?

It’s the baby milk factory excuse: Oh, Iran needs enriched uranium for hospitals. So that must be why they keep on putting new nuke plants inside mountains, to make sure that the purity levels get to the right percentage. At least, that’s their story and they’re sticking to it. I just love the way Reuters and the AP are eating this bullshit up with a spoon and passing it along.

Translating Hamas’ rocket deal: You have to read between the lines in Hamas’ announcement that they’ve stopped “militant groups” from firing rockets into Israel. Here’s what they’re really saying: We’ll only fire rockets at you if you kill our terrorists in Gaza who are trying to kill you from inside Gaza. But it’s probably moot. Elder says the terrorists are denying an agreement was made. And oops, the IAF hit Gaza after the so-called agreement was announced. Strike three.

Mubarak’s sense of humor: The Egyptian president is a stand-up comic, and he doesn’t even know it. He says “Israel will anger all Muslims if it does not resolve Jerusalem’s disputed status.” And this differs from Israel angering all Muslims for merely existing, how?

You will not be assimilated; resistance is vital

Filed under: Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

Occasionally, a little inconvenient truth slips out in a news report. In the case of School dropout high among Palestinian refugees: UN, it’s this:

Lebanese law prevents Palestinian refugees from practising most professions or owning property.

Clearly the article was meant to convey the impression that the world must do something to solve the plight of the Palestinians. But we learn that fellow Arabs – in this case Lebanese – have cut the Palestinians off from their society.

So then why is Sheikh Nasrallah so proud of resistance against Israel?

On the occasion of Hezbollah’s Martyr Day, Nasrallah said Wednesday that while 18 years of Palestinian negotiations with Israelis failed to bring about a free Palestine, the 18 years of Lebanese resistance freed southern Lebanon from the Israeli occupation.

If he’s so concerned about the Palestinians why isn’t Hezbollah making legislative efforts to change Lebanese laws to permit Palestinians to integrate into Lebanese society? But then his own statements aren’t that different from those of a noted “moderate.”

Might I also point out this blatant discrimination doesn’t bother the UN Human Rights Council nearly as much as Israel’s self-defense?

Crossposted on Yourish.

11/21/2009

Saturday funnies

Filed under: American Scene, Humor — Meryl Yourish @ 5:46 pm

First, we start with a 101-year-old man who bought a brand-new yellow Camaro.

Bob Lamb, a nephew who accompanied Mr. Coffman on his visit, said the sales staff at Miles Chevrolet was a bit skeptical of a 101-year-old man who came in looking for the $38,000 Camaro but more than happy to make the deal when they realized he was serious. “He told me, ‘If I keep that 10 or 12 years, it will be worth about $100,000,’” Mr. Lamb said. “He’s very optimistic.”

God bless him. I hope he does keep it ten or twelve years.

Next, we have the 911 call from a woman reporting that a cow fell into her pool (audio at the link).

911 Telecommunicator: “Anderson County 911.”
Kathy Wydareny: “I’m home alone and a cow is in my pool and I don’t have any clue what to do.”
911 Telecommunicator: “The cow is in your pool?”
Wydareny: “Yes, it fell in my pool.”

911 Telecommunicator: “Is it a small cow or a big cow?”
Wydareny: “No, it’s a big cow. It’s a really big cow.”

I’m sorry, what? The woman is calling to tell you that a cow fell in her pool, and you’re asking her if it was a small cow or a big cow? Seriously? What, is there a script somewhere in 911 Training School labeled “Cow in Pool” that directs the 911 operator to ask how big the cow is? Because, like, it matters?

In any case, the good news is that Bessie did not drown, and no one was hurt.

11/20/2009

The problem with pundits

Filed under: Israel, Media Bias — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 9:15 am

One thing nearly all [anti-]Israel pundits have in common is the sheer inability to access reality. The only villain in the inability to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians is Israel, generally due to settlements, and as a result of the security fence. Just ask Roger Cohen, for instance.

But the deeper error was strategic: Obama’s assumption that he could resume where Clinton left off in 2000 and pursue the land-for-peace idea at the heart of the two-state solution.

This approach ignored the deep scars inflicted in the past decade: the killing of 992 Israelis and 3,399 Palestinians between the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 and 2006; the Israeli Army’s harsh reoccupation of most of the West Bank; Hamas’ violent rise to power in Gaza and the accompanying resurgence of annihilationist ideology; the spectacular spread of Jewish settlements in the West Bank; and the Israeli construction of over 250 miles of a separation barrier that has protected Israel from suicide bombers even as it has shattered Palestinian lives, grabbed land and become, in the words of Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer, “an integral part of the West Bank settlement plan.”

That’s a pretty awesome list of what went wrong. Think Roger will devote any space in the rest of his column to the Palestinian terror attacks? The rockets from Gaza? Hamas’ constant warring with Israel?

Of course not. The rest of the article is about the fence, and about how Israelis are psychologically scarred and can only see themselves as “victims” of the Palestinians. Victims. Really? I thought they saw the Palestinians for what they are—a people who celebrate the mass murder of Israeli schoolchildren, killed while they were studying Torah in the heart of Jerusalem.

Gaza’s streets filled with joyous crowds of thousands on Thursday evening following the terror attack at a Jerusalem rabbinical seminary in which eight people were killed.

In mosques in Gaza City and northern Gaza, many residents went to perform the prayers of thanksgiving.

Armed men fired in the air in celebration and others passed out sweets to passersby.

But it’s the settlements. And the fence. Oh, and racism.

As Ron Nachman, the founder of the sprawling Ariel settlement, comments in René Backmann’s superb new book, “A Wall in Palestine,” the wave of Palestinian suicide attacks before work on the barrier began in mid-2002 meant that: “Israelis wanted separation. They did not want to be mixed with the Arabs. They didn’t even want to see them. This may be seen as racist, but that’s how it is.”

Really? Because I’m pretty sure there are well over a million Arab Israelis within Israel’s borders. But those “Palestinians” don’t count in any census except for the one where the rest of the world warns Israel that if they don’t negotiate a peace soon, the one-state solution will be forced upon them because Jews will make up a minority in the land formerly known as Palestine. Oh, and they mention them when they accuse Israelis of racism.

There’s one more bit of fantasy that all [anti-]Israel pundits like to promote. The fantasy that Mahmoud Abbas truly wants peace. (Plus, please… touting the Nobel given for nothing? We really are in Fantasyland here.)

Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions.

It’s not what Abbas wants but he’s powerless. Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist, told me, “A nonviolent status quo is far from satisfactory but it’s not bad. Cyprus is not bad.”

Mahmoud Abbas pays lip service, in English to peace. But when he speaks to his fellow terrorists at the Fatah convention, it’s a whole different story.

“Although peace is our choice, we reserve the right to resistance, legitimate under international law,” Abbas said in a policy speech, using a term that encompasses armed confrontation with Israel and non-violent protests.

“Resistance” also encompasses suicide attacks. And when he’s not talking about “resistance,” he’s sending condolences to the family of dead Hizbullah fighters, and congratulating mass murderers like Samir Kuntar.

But these things never pop up on the radar of the anti-[Israel] pundits. They don’t exist. There is no Palestinian intransigence, only Israeli intransigence, and Palestinian intransigence caused by Israeli settlements—which is Israel’s fault, of course. The [anti-]Israel pundits simply refuse to acknowledge the facts of the matter, unless those facts damn Israel and praise Palestinians.

But if you’re a regular reader of this, or any other pro-Israel blog, well, you’re aware of that. Preaching to the choir here. But sometimes, someone else reads my posts and starts thinking.

I seriously doubt the Roger Cohens of the world will. But hey, he’s great post fodder.

The perverse equivalence

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

In a paper on how the term “apartheid” is being used to deny Israel’s right to exist, Robbie Sabel concluces:

The Apartheid campaign against Israel has another revealing feature. It rarely deals with the massive abuse of human rights or cases of real Apartheid elsewhere in the world. In other words, it singles out Israel with a false accusation. For example, President Carter
has spoken about Israeli Apartheid but is careful about how he describes the conflict in Darfur, where Sudan’s Arab regime has been slaughtering black Muslims with the backing of many Arab states.68 The campaign against Israel is not based on a concern with the universal application of human rights, but on something else. This treatment of Israel is nothing less than an effort to delegitimize the Jewish state, by attributing to it the most heinous crimes. Michael Ignatieff, the head of Canada’s Liberal Party who served as a professor of human rights policy at Harvard University in previous years, made this very point in March 2009:

“International law defines ‘Apartheid’ as a crime against humanity. Labeling Israel as an ’Apartheid’ state is a deliberate attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state itself.”69

Perhaps the most chilling indication of the real purpose behind the “Israel is Apartheid”
campaign is revealed in one of the most active websites behind the campaign. They write
that among the goals of “prosecution for the crime of Apartheid is to force Israel to –
(4) Enable the true majority to return to power over their own lands, while protecting
the rights of ethnic minorities.”70

In other words, the real goal behind the Apartheid campaign is the denial of the
legitimacy of the State of Israel and the determination that the only status the Jewish
population in Israel can hope for is that of a “protected” ethnic minority in an Arab
Palestinian state.

At the same time there is this effort to deny Israel’s right to exist, Iran has been supporting Israel’s enemies with shipments of arms – most recently emphasized by Israel’s capture of the Francop. Matthew Levitt argues that greater scrutiny must be paid to ships that are carrying shipments from Iran.

Given Iran’s history of deceptive financial and trade activity, extra scrutiny should be given to any ship that has recently paid a call to an Iranian port. Countries should be encouraged to require ports and/or authorities to collect detailed, accurate, and complete data regarding all cargo being shipped to or through their countries (especially from risk-prone jurisdictions like Iran), to conduct rigorous risk assessments, and to proceed with actual inspections as necessary. According to press reports, the Francop docked in Egypt before it was boarded some 180 kilometers of the coast of Cyprus.

Recent events show that even as the Obama administration seeks to engage Tehran, the Islamic Republic has continued to work to undermine Western interests and to support anti-Western elements around the world, as demonstrated by its ongoing efforts to resupply Hamas and Hezbollah and assist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Disrupting Iran’s ability to arm allies and surrogates hostile to the interests of the United States and its allies would enhance Washington’s leverage in possible negotiations with Tehran, contain Iran should such diplomatic efforts fail, and prevent Iran from contributing to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and beyond.

Of course the continued shipments to Hamas (and Hezbollah) has improved Hamas’s military capability

As a result of Hamas’s development of a long-range rocket force, future military conflicts with Israel will almost certainly be more intense, cover a broader geographic area, and produce more destruction in both Israel and Gaza as the IDF acts to destroy the rockets. Hamas’s new rocket capabilities must also be seen in the context of Hizballah’s acquisition of rockets with a 300-km range. In a possible two-front war, this means that most of Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, would be within the range of Hamas or Hizballah rockets.

Through its growing rocket capabilities, Hamas is weakening the measure of deterrence established by Israel through Operation Cast Lead. And while Hamas has been careful since Cast Lead to avoid actions that would lead to renewed hostilities, its growing military capabilities may generate internal pressure to use its rockets or undertake other destabilizing actions. In December 2008, Hamas miscalculated gravely with respect to Israeli intentions and its own capabilities, sparking an intense conflict. There is no guarantee this will not happen again.

The creation of a long-range rocket force reinforces Hamas politically by enhancing its image as a “resistance” movement and its role as a spoiler and competitor to Fatah. Expanded military capacity also lends greater weight to the organization’s hard-line “military wing.”

From Israel’s standpoint, the potential political effects of threats to large population centers will likely make the government more willing to deal decisively with a revamped threat from Hamas. This would probably mean a comprehensive air and ground offensive throughout Gaza — one that would far exceed the scope of Cast Lead.

Showing that it has priorities in order, the administration this week, condemned an Israeli plan to build new housing in the Gilo section of Jerusalem. Howard Schneider of the Washington Post reported:

City officials moved forward Tuesday with a plan to build 900 homes in a disputed neighborhood of Jerusalem, prompting sharp criticism from the White House, the Palestinians and others who feel it will further undermine the chance of renewing peace talks.

The new units will expand the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, one of several built on land taken by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed to the city in a step not recognized by the international community.

What does the international community recognize? The right of Iran to arm Hamas? And what of the American administration? Does it believe that construction in Gilo is really the most pressing issue to resolve in order to restart peace talks? Or as Barry Rubin observes:

Obama said that the Gilo construction complicates administration efforts to relaunch peace talks, makes it harder to achieve peace and embitters the Palestinians.

Funny, he never said this about: PA incitement to terrorism; failure to punish terrorists; negotiations with Hamas despite its hardline positions, genocidal goals, antisemitic views, and terrorist acts; refusal to return to talks with Israel despite Obama’s express request to do so; breaking its promise on not to be a sponsor of using the Goldstone report to punish Israel; and other such actions. Each of these individually is more dangerous than the Gilo construction.

(A related point:

Yesterday Daled Amos noted that the State Department was boasting that it had done more to promote peace in the Middle East than the Bush administration did in eight years. Barry Rubin also noted:

Having sabotaged negotiations by escalating the construction-on-settlements issue, the Administration has now escalated even higher: no construction in Jerusalem is the minimum demand. Of course, Arab states and the PA will echo this, refusing all talks unless that happens. And since Israel won’t stop building in Jerusalem and the Arab side won’t—unlike the Administration—back down—Obama has just guaranteed a dead peace process for his entire four-year term in office. In fact, he’s probably ensured no comprehensive negotiations will take place, much less succeed.

Talk about painting yourself into a corner, and the Administration keeps making that corner smaller!

The administration’s mis-steps continue to discourage peace making.)

By highlighting the proposed construction in Gilo, the administration is giving further ammunition to those who would deny Israel’s right to exist by perverting international law. This, in turn, emboldens Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. It’s astonishing that to some people construction by Jews is an element that reduces Israel’s legitimacy, but that terror by Arabs continues to make their grievances worthy of being addressed. It is this perverse equivalence that the administration is encouraging.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

11/19/2009

Arab oil money 1, British Israel Lobby 0

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 4:30 pm

The Channel 4 “documentary” on The Israel Lobby, vigorously defended by its authors as not in any way antisemitic, is yet another example of the Israeli Double Standard. The specter of Jewish control over Britain’s politicians is so hideously scary, that the authors simply had to understand why a British politician, speaking to a group called The Conservative Friends of Israel, did not mention the Gaza War. Hm. Let’s think. “Friends of Israel,” not “Friends of Fictional Place Known as Palestine” might have been the reason. But here, in their own words, is what they found:

Afterwards, we resolved to ask the question: what are the rules of British political behaviour that cause the Tory leader,his mass of MPs and parliamentary candidates to flock to the Friends of Israel lunch in the year of the Gaza invasion? And what are the rules of media discourse that ensure such an event passes without even being noticed?

During an investigation lasting several months, we have been able to reach several important conclusions. We maintain there is indeed a pro-Israel lobby in Britain. It is extremely well-connected and well-funded, and works through all the main political parties.

It’s the British version of Walt & Mearsheimer. But here, in my opinion, is the single action that blows “The Israel Lobby” meme in Britain out of the water:

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

“The Israel Lobby” contributes money to British politicians and supposedly affects the U.K.’s actions toward Israel. Yet the U.K. refused to vote on the Goldstone report, is refusing to sell arms and spare parts to the IDF for certain items, constantly chides Israel regarding the current situation, and British media (particularly the Guardian) regularly excoriates Israel. In the meantime, Muammar Ghaddafi offers BP an oil deal, and the Lockerbie bomber, who murdered 270 people, including 11 people on the ground in the U.K., goes free.

Tell me again how powerful The Israel Lobby is in the U.K., because I could really use a good laugh.

SNB

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel, News Briefs, palestinian politics — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

Someone explain to China the meaning of “chutzpah”: China, the current occupier of Tibet, is telling Israel that adding new apartments to Gilo is an obstacle to peace. Because it’s not like they’re not occupying an entire nation that was really a nation before China took it over. Unlike the fictional nation of “Palestine.”

Erekat: Israel is not a partner for peace. Meryl: The record’s stuck. The record’s stuck. The record’s stuck.

State-sponsored British anti-Semitism: Britain’s Channel 4 just ran an “expose” on the influence of The Israel Lobby (da-da-DUM!). Wow, what state moneys can buy in Jew-hatred. They were charged with racial hate (or whatever that charge is in Britain) when they ran an expose on terrorists recruiting in British mosques. Any guesses on whether they’ll get charged with inciting racial hatred on this one? Shyeah.

Oh, no way this goes wrong: The CIA is launching a campaign to recruit Arab-Americans. If their screening is as strenuous as the FBI and the Army, we can expect a lot more Major Hasan incidents.

Negotiating by tantrum

Filed under: palestinian politics — Soccerdad @ 9:59 am

About two weeks ago when Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said he was quitting, Daled Amos observed that this less a dramatic announcement than standard operating procedure noting 14 times that he has threatened to quit since 2003. This isn’t an ultimatum for Abbas, but standard operating procedure. Knowing that he’s perceived as an irreplaceable “moderate,” when he doesn’t get his way he threatens to quit, hoping to be induced by incentives to stay. Think of it as negotiating by tantrum.

Barry Rubin outlined the elements of Abbas’s strategy:

t’s really funny how the story about Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas supposedly-going-to-call-elections-and-resign story was covered. Everyone in the Middle East knew he wouldn’t resign and he wouldn’t call elections. It was a blatant bid to get something from the Americans and pretend that he was tough. But the Western media reported the story as if it were true.

This technique borrows from Egyptian President (dictator) Gamal Abdel Nasser after he lost the 1967 war. Step 1: Announce your quitting. Step 2: Organize big demonstrations begging you not to quit. Abbas added to this a Step 3: Get Westerners to give you goodies and demand more concessions from Israel so that you’ll stay.

So the media played along and took it seriously. In the process we were given the mainstream view of the Israel-Palestinian conflict within the framework of the Commandment: Thou shalt not criticize the Palestinian side. Well, you can knock Hamas but not the PA. In fact, the more one-sided the reporting, the better.

But it wasn’t long before it was clear he’d stay on as the PA’s head and there won’t be any elections.

If you thought it was over, it isn’t. Today Ethan Bronner of the New York Times writes:

The Israeli security establishment is in a state of alarm over the possible departure of Mr. Abbas, whom it considers a genuine moderate. Some of its top members are urging their government to make far-reaching offers — “not just lifting a few roadblocks,” in the words of one — that would persuade him to stay in power and resume negotiations with Israel on a solution that involves creating an independent Palestinian state.

Palestinian leaders are looking elsewhere for salvation. Aware of their own weakness, but also of rising disillusionment abroad with Israel over West Bank settlement growth and its war in Gaza in January, they are hoping to turn frailty to their advantage by appealing to the international community to come to their rescue.

Note how Abbas’s strategy is stated explicitly. He’s not getting what he wants so he’s using the threat to resign as a cry for help to the international community. The twist here is the “state of alarm” of Israel’s security establishment. Can it be that Israel’s security establishment really fears Abbas’s resignation? One would think like the boy who cried wolf, Abbas doesn’t have much credibility.

Later on Bronner inadvertently touches on the real problem of Palestinian leadership: there’s no real moderation there. Relatively speaking, Abbas is a moderate, but last year he rejected a peace proposal from then PM Ehud Olmert that went beyond Ehud Barak’s proposal to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in 2000. Knowing that Olmert would soon no longer be Prime Minister, Abbas didn’t see the urgency of accepting his proposal. Instead he rejected a peace offer in hopes that the international community would pressure Israel to cede even more!

The problem is that most of the rest of the Palestinian leadership is even more extreme than he is. Here’s more from Bronner:

Mr. Abbas has not groomed a successor. The American and Israeli dream would be Mr. Fayyad, but besides having no political base, he is not a member of Fatah, so Palestinians consider the prospect highly unlikely. More possible, a few say, would be for Mr. Abbas to remain president while allowing Mr. Fayyad to carry out his reform plan.

Two former security chiefs, Muhammad Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub, are also possibilities, although there seems to be no groundswell around them and plenty of opposition. Muhammad Ghneim, a founder of both Fatah and the P.L.O. who came to the West Bank this past summer from exile, is considered a possible place holder if the job suddenly becomes vacant. And Nasser al-Kidwa, a nephew of Mr. Arafat and former Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, is also mentioned by some as a possible future candidate.

But there is no appetite for a succession struggle as everyone waits to see whether the peace process deadlock can be broken.

Those who read Barry Rubin know that the candidate who emerged the strongest from this summer’s Fatah election was Ghneim. Here’s what Prof Rubin wrote about Ghneim (Ghanem):

Ghaneim has a definite appeal for Abbas as ally and successor. He is one of the few remaining original founders of Fatah and has wide contacts throughout the movement.

On the one hand, he possesses Arafat’s seal of approval historically but on the other hand he is so hard-line as to appeal to that powerful tendency in Fatah. In addition, as someone who has been outside the PA politics for 15 years he was seen as a neutral figure in many petty and personal disputes.

But this is not the man to choose if your top priorities were making peace with Israel and maintaining good relations with the West. He is the man you would choose if you intended to reject compromise, rebuild links to Syria and Hamas, and perhaps return to armed struggle in future.

On arrival at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan on July 29, 2009, just before the Fatah Congress, Ghaneim was picked up by Abbas’ personal limousine, taken to his office, and welcomed in a ceremony.

At the reception, Ghaneim stated: “The struggle will continue until victory” and that if political means did not win Palestinian demands the movement would return to armed struggle. (Al-Hayat al-Jadida, July 30, 2009). It is clear how Ghaneim defines victory and it is not a West Bank-Gaza state with its capital in east Jerusalem living alongside Israel in perfect harmony.

That Ghaneim would give up demands that all Palestinian refugees and their offspring must be allowed to live in Israel or that he would make any territorial compromise, or that he would end the conflict permanently in any peace agreement is extremely unlikely. These are things–all necessary for peace–that even the less extreme Abbas has rejected.

So the problem isn’t that the Israel might lose the one “moderate” peace partner, it’s that such a partner doesn’t truly exist. And even if one wants to point to someone such as Salam Fayyad, the problem is that he has no political base. There’s no real constituency for moderation in the PA.

The media and selected members of Israel’s security establishment can take Abbas’s threat to quit seriously, but in the end it really won’t affect things much one way or another. It’s just one more tantrum.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The obstacles to peace

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Hamas, Terrorism — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

Settlements, the conventional wisdom says, are the true obstacles to peace in the Middle East. Not Palestinian intransigence. Not the fact that the Palestinians have been split into two groups—Hamas and the Palestinian Authority—for years. Not the fact that if the Palestinians really wanted to run their own lives, they could easily negotiate some kind of agreement with Israel. But first they’d have to actually sit down and negotiate, something they have refused to do for some time now. But none of this, the world exclaims, is the problem. The problem is settlements.

Not this.

A Gaza charity headed by the interior minister of the terrorist Hamas group on Wednesday offered $1.4 million to any Arab citizen of Israel who abducts a soldier.

The charity is not just Hamas-linked, as the AP headline states. It is part of Hamas, the current governing body of the Gaza Strip.

The Waad group from Gaza offered the bounty for Israeli soldiers in an e-mail sent to Palestinian media. The organization, which supports Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, is headed by Hamas’ Interior Minister Fathi Hamad. The minister did not return messages seeking comment.

The bounty is being offered in the typical Palestinian perversion of Israeli action.

Waad’s director, Usama Kahlout, said the bounty was in response to an Israeli group’s offer to pay Gaza residents for information on the whereabouts of Sgt. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured more than three years ago by Hamas-allied terrorists.

Got that? An Israeli group is trying to rescue Israeli soldiers by offering rewards for information that might help get them released. The Hamas group responds by offering a reward for more kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Their actions are so despicable that words simply fail after a while. And so is the AP’s comparison:

Israel is holding some 7,500 Palestinian prisoners. Schalit is the only Israeli held by Hamas, while four Israelis who disappeared in Lebanon in the 1980s remain unaccounted for.

Why, exactly, are there 7,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails? Hm. Let’s think. It may have something to do with breaking the law. Why is there an Israeli soldier in Gaza? Because he was kidnapped in a raid from Gaza into Israel that killed and wounded other Israeli soldiers. But sure, all that really counts is numbers, not context. Obviously, Israel disproportionately imprisons Palestinians.

This is, remember, the group that Jimmy Carter and others insist will moderate its terrorism and settle down in a state next to Israel.

Sure. Because that’s just what groups that want to live peacefully with their neighbors do—offer rewards to kidnappers.

11/18/2009

Wednesday SNB

Filed under: Iran, Israel, News Briefs — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

Ship with armed security team prevents hijacking: Wow, having armed security agents on board to fight off armed pirates stopped the pirates cold. Armed guards prevent piracy? Who woulda thunk it? And the pirates may very well be lost at sea or killed. World’s smallest violin orchestra queuing up now.

WTF kind of headline is this? Okay, you figure out what “post-election turmoil” means. The AP headline is “Iran sentences 5 to death in postelection turmoil.” The Iranian government sentenced five people to death whose only crime, apparently, was protesting the fraudulent election in June. So what’s the “postelection turmoil”? The fact that there was “turmoil” after the election (if you can call hundreds of thousands marching on the streets and shouting from the rooftops)? Were they sentenced for causing “turmoil”? Is the sentencing taking place in “turmoil”? Howsabout we change it to “Iran sentences 5 to death for protesting June election”? That would make it a hell of a lot clearer, and more truthful. Who writes these stupid headlines, anyway? Get someone better, AP.

Fight global warming with condoms. Seriously. The UN Population Fund says we can stop global warming by giving out free condoms and free family planning advice. See, if only there weren’t so many damned people, the world would not be suffering nearly as many ills. I propose eliminating only international bureaucrats. That’d fix the global warming problem in a hurry, since nobody else would really care about it.

Dogpile on Israelis! Dogpile on Israelis! The Gilo dogpile is on. Let’s see, the U.S., France, the UN and Britain–anyone else? Yeah, well, the suburb of Jerusalem will be building 900 new housing units. Deal with it.

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