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03/19/2010

Tony Blair, the bought and paid for envoy

Filed under: Politics, World, palestinian politics — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 8:00 am

Tony Blair was appointed the Quartet’s Middle East envoy in 2007. Since then, he has amassed millions of dollars working for the governments of Kuwait and Iraq, has formed a consultancy firm that works for Arab governments, and is rumored to have deals with the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

And he is supposed to be the man who is supposed to be helping the Palestinians and Israelis move towards peace. Why, he was just in Israel a couple of weeks ago. I wonder if, while he was there, he built up his consulting business with the Palestinians?

Can you say, “Conflict of interest?” I knew you could. Oh, and the best part of all of this? He’s been trying to keep it secret for years.

Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq.

The former Prime Minister tried to keep the public in the dark over his dealings with South Korean oil firm UI Energy Corporation.

Mr Blair – who has made at least £20million since leaving Downing Street in June 2007 – also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq’s neighbour Kuwait.

As I emailed to Lair Simon, who sent me the link to this article: And we thought Bill Clinton was a whore.

Looks like Blair is joining the Jimmy Carter school of mediation—the one bought and paid for by the Arabs (cf: Saudi Arabian donations to the Carter Center).

03/18/2010

A slogan for the Obamacare debacle

Filed under: American Scene, Politics — Meryl Yourish @ 3:00 pm

Whether or not the House uses the Slaughter rule to “deem and pass” a bill that they will then have the president sign into law without it having been voted on by both houses of Cognress, here’s a slogan for those of us who don’t want a government takeover of America’s healthcare business:

      We’ll remember in November

They think the American public is stupid. They think we’re forgetful. They think we won’t notice our taxes going up, our employment going down, and the crushing debt burden that this administration and Congress want to leave our heirs.

They’re wrong.

We’ll remember in November.

I’m terrified they’re going to pass this monstrosity. If they do, I’ll be remembering several Novembers from now. My senators both voted for it. Let’s not forget that there are 60 Democratic and independent senators that will be responsible for this as well as the members of the House.

Perhaps it should be “We’ll remember EVERY November” until we clear them out.

Blood on Obama’s hands

Filed under: Gaza, Terrorism, The One, United Nations — Tags: , , , — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

The Palestinians used last week’s hissy fit by the Obama administration to implement a “day of rage.” Hamas has allowed kassam rockets to start firing out of Gaza again. The first attack only terrified a little girl. The second one killed a foreign worker in Israel.

His blood is on Obama’s hands. The Obama administrations confrontation with Israel encouraged the Palestinians to think that they could strike without fear of world reaction. Of course, they’re right. Notice the condemnation issued by the EU’s representative currently trying to find starving Gazans for their “end the seige” propaganda campaign:

Thursday’s attack came on the same day as a visit to Gaza by Europe’s top diplomat, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who had just crossed into the territory when the rocket was fired.

“I condemn any kind of violence. We have got to find a peaceful solution to the issues and problems,” she said.

Wow. She condemns “any kind of violence.” So if I accidentally step on my cat’s tail, Ashton condemns that act of violence. Yeah, that’s a relevant statement. It’s not like she could, say, “We of the EU wholeheartedly condemn the death of this innocent farm worker at the hands of Palestinian terrorists launching rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas.” Because then she’d have to admit that it was a terrorist act, and there are no terrorists in “Palestine,” right?

Ban Ki-Moon had a better statement. Kudos to him.

The Secretary-General condemns today’s rocket attack from Gaza which killed a civilian in Israel. All such acts of terror and violence against civilians are totally unacceptable and contrary to international law.

By the way, since Obama told Fox News that he condemned the Palestinian riots “in the same way” that he condemned the announcement of 1600 new apartments in Ramat Shlomo, I searched the State Department website for an immediate condemnation of the two latest rocket attacks from Gaza. I found—nothing.

“Yesterday, when there were riots by the Palestinians against a synagogue that had been reopened we condemned them in the same way because what we need right now is both sides to recognize that it is in their interests to move this peace process forward,” Obama told Fox.

Really, the man lies every time he opens his mouth. There were no such condemnations. The best they had was this:

I would say that we also have some concerns today about the tensions regarding the rededication of a synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. And we are urging all parties to act responsibly and do whatever is necessary to remain calm. We’re deeply disturbed by statements made by several Palestinian officials mischaracterizing the event in question, which can only serve to heighten the tensions that we see. And we call upon Palestinian officials to put an end to such incitement.

Not even the word “condemn.” Just “concerns.” Over riots. That were influenced by the Obama administration’s pounding of Israel last week.

Way to go, Smart Power.

With friends like these …

Filed under: Israel, The One — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

Robert Kagan argues that Israel shouldn’t feel like it’s been singled out.

Israelis shouldn’t feel that they have been singled out. In Britain, people are talking about the end of the “special relationship” with America and worrying that Obama has no great regard for the British, despite their ongoing sacrifices in Afghanistan. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy has openly criticized Obama for months (and is finally being rewarded with a private dinner, presumably to mend fences). In Eastern and Central Europe, there has been fear since the administration canceled long-planned missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic that the United States may no longer be a reliable guarantor of security. Among top E.U. officials there is consternation that neither the president nor even his Cabinet seems to have time for the European Union’s new president, Herman Van Rompuy, who, while less than scintillating, is nevertheless the chosen representative of the post-Lisbon Treaty continent. Europeans in general, while still fond of Obama, have concluded that he is not so fond of them — despite his six trips to Europe — and is more of an Asian president.

The Asians, however, are not so sure. Relations with Japan are rocky, mostly because of the actions of the new government in Tokyo but partly because of a perception that the United States can’t be counted on for the long term. In India, there are worries that the burgeoning strategic partnership forged in the Bush years has been demoted in the interest of better relations with China. Although the Obama administration promised to demonstrate that the United States “is back” in Asia after the alleged neglect of the Bush years, it has not yet convinced allies that they are the focus of American attention.

(Note to the NJDC, instead of arguing that the current crisis between Israel and the United States isn’t the worst between the allies in 35 years – there is clearly a crisis – just argue that this how President Obama treats all his friends. Thanks to the Hashmonean for the pointer)

That’s because, as David Harsanyi points out the President has new friends he needs to cultivate.

Not long after President Barack Obama gave his conciliatory speeches to the Islamic world, he chose not to meddle in the sham election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In fact, he offered not a word of support for the men and women who took to the streets against that totalitarian regime.

Then, as “manmade disasters” continued to erupt spontaneously around the world — including at a United States military base — the administration held steadfast in using non-offensive euphemisms, lest anyone be slighted by our jingoist need to use words that mean something.

And when the president was given a chance to fulfill a campaign promise and acknowledge the genocide of 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Turks during World War I, he instead did everything he could to block the resolution.

These days, as Christian farmers are being slaughtered by Muslim machetes in Nigeria, outrage from the White House is difficult to find — though it made sure to instruct our Libyan ambassador to apologize to “Colonel” Moammar Gadhafi after he offered some mildly critical comments about the dictator’s call for jihad against Switzerland (true story).

I guess that alienating friends and forgiving enemies is the “smart diplomacy” we’ve heard so much about.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

03/17/2010

A public service announcement

Filed under: Holidays — Meryl Yourish @ 4:00 pm

Just to let you know that I am not now, nor will I ever be, Irish. No matter what day today is.

And I don’t really care for green.

Carry on with your regularly scheduled programming (and pub-hopping).

The Clinton replay

Filed under: Israel, The One — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

Meryl writes:

Here’s why I think the Obama administration is ratcheting up the pressure over 1,600 new housing units in a Jewish neighborhood of northeastern Jerusalem that will almost certainly remain Israeli in any future agreement with the Palestinians: The Obama administration is trying to topple the Netanyahu government. The Clinton administration did its level best to prevent Bibi from being elected in 1996, and worked very hard to get him thrown out as soon as possible thereafter. The Obama administration has found a stick, and they’re using it to beat the Netanyahu administration in the eyes of the world. The Chicago Machine lies and smears have gone out to the appropriate media outlets. The hyperbole is rising as the Machine cogs hit the media trail. It’s an all-out assault on Bibi and his administration.

Noah Pollak, in a similar vein:

It should be obvious, at this point, that Obama is trying to manufacture an immense political dilemma for Netanyahu by forcing him to choose between two crises — one with the United States should he accept the demands, the other with his coalition partners and the Israeli public should he reject them. For Netanyahu, this is a no-win situation. The only choice is between less damaging options.

Netanyahu should reject the new demands, because they are not made in good faith, they are a reversal of previous Obama commitments, and, most important, the proximity talks themselves are a trap.

And finally, Jeffrey Goldberg (via memeorandum):

I’ve been on the phone with many of the usual suspects (White House and otherwise), and I think it’s fair to say that Obama is not trying to destroy America’s relations with Israel; he’s trying to organize Tzipi Livni’s campaign for prime minister, or at least for her inclusion in a broad-based centrist government. I’m not actually suggesting that the White House is directly meddling in internal Israeli politics, but it’s clear to everyone — at the White House, at the State Department, at Goldblog — that no progress will be made on any front if Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right party, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Eli Yishai’s fundamentalist Shas Party, remain in Netanyahu’s surpassingly fragile coalition.

So what is the goal? The goal is force a rupture in the governing coalition that will make it necessary for Netanyahu to take into his government Livni’s centrist Kadima Party (he has already tried to do this, but too much on his terms) and form a broad, 68-seat majority in Knesset that does not have to rely on gangsters, messianists and medievalists for votes. It’s up to Livni, of course, to recognize that it is in Israel’s best interests to join a government with Netanyahu and Barak, and I, for one, hope she puts the interests of Israel ahead of her own ambitions.

Obama knows that this sort of stable, centrist coalition is the key to success. He would rather, I understand, not have to deal with Netanyahu at all — people near the President say that, for one thing, Obama doesn’t think that Netanyahu is very bright, and there is no chemistry at all between the two men — but he’d rather have a Netanyahu who is being pressured from his left than a Netanyahu who is being pressured from the right.

Goldberg, I think, is right about what’s going on, but his view of Israeli politics is skewed. Shas, for example, has been known to support the peace process, much to the chagrin of other religious parties. Eli Yishai wasn’t announcing a plan for a new community on a remote hilltop, but rather expanding the housing stock in an established neighborhood in Jerusalem.

And to call Avigdor Lieberman’s party “far right” when the party at least believes in territorial compromise is a woeful misnomer. Lieberman holds some views that are characterized as such, but his party, overall, is part of Israel’s mainstream.

Goldberg’s promiscuous use of “right” to describe Netanyahu and the current Israeli government, ignores what’s really happened. Robert Satloff writes:

At the same time, it is also true that a quiet revolution has been going on inside Israel on the peace issue. What has been lost amid the histrionics about construction permits in Jerusalem and Israel’s habit of delivering concessions to Washington weeks after the Obama administration wanted them is that Binyamin Netanyahu has led the Likud-led government into totally uncharted waters. With his Bar-Ilan speech, he became the third “revisionist” prime minister in a row to adopt the “two states for two peoples” paradigm, effectively consigning Greater Israel advocates to the margins of Israeli politics, where they have no national champion. Moreover, with his decision on a West Bank settlement moratorium, Netanyahu made a commitment that no Israeli prime minister since Oslo — Rabin, Sharon, Peres, or Barak — ever made, and in the process tacitly rolled back forty years of Israeli policy that rejected the idea of settlements as an obstacle to peacemaking. The result is that mainstream Israeli debate on the peace process now centers on the fitness of the PA as a negotiating partner and the extent of Israeli territorial demands — 2 percent of the West Bank? 4 percent? 6 percent? — and not on the more basic question of a repartition of Palestine that would leave the other side with the vast majority of West Bank territory in an independent and more-or-less sovereign state. Over time, these developments will be recognized as seismic.

Goldberg’s also wrong when he writes, “this sort of stable, centrist coalition is the key to success” (i.e. a coaltion with Kadima instead of Yisrael Beiteinu). Israel had such a coaltion in 2000 and Arafat rejected Ehud Barak’s offer at Camp David. It had such a coaltion in 2008 and Abbas rejected Ehud Olmert’s offer as the coalition was unraveling.

The problem hasn’t been Israel. The problem has been the Palestinians.

And Meryl’s correct to recall the machinations of the Clinton administration. Netanyahu got his cabinet to approve the Hebron Accords given the assurances of Dennis Ross that Israel would be allowed to determine the future extents of its withdrawals. But though Arafat never kept any of the terms he agreed to back then, the administration spent the next year and a half (until Wye) battering Netanyahu politically and working to undermine his political support. Here’s Charles Krauthammer:

But even more significant than the absurd arbitrariness of this number is its very existence. Under the Oslo Accords, these interim “further redeployments” are left to Israel’s discretion (unlike the “final status” talks, at which Israel and the Palestinians will together negotiate their final borders).

Indeed, just 16 months ago the Clinton administration reaffirmed this principle. At 11 p.m. on the night of Jan. 15, 1997, as Netanyahu’s cabinet was agonizing over the proposed withdrawal from Hebron, it received an urgent memo from then-ambassador Martin Indyk stating the official US position that “further redeployment phases are issues for implementation by Israel rather than issues for negotiation with the Palestinians. The letters of assurance which secretary Christopher intends to provide to both parties also refer to the process of further redeployments as an Israeli responsibility.”

Sixteen months later in London, Albright tells Israel that its 9 percent is no good. The withdrawal must be 13.1 percent – or else she walks away. She gives Netanyahu three days to give his answer. He tells her: “I don’t need three days. The answer is no.”

So now we have a crisis. And though it was manufactured by State to put pressure on Netanyahu, it reveals instead a crisis of credibility for this administration: How can Israel make ever more dangerous concessions to the Palestinians when the American assurances it receives to offset those concessions are so perishable?

LAST week at the National Press Club, Albright gave a hastily arranged speech to explain her position. Its essential, tendentious theme was that all of the problems in the peace process are traceable to Netanyahu. Everything has gone to pieces, she averred, “in just two years.” You don’t need to be a CIA codebreaker to understand what that means: Netanyahu was elected prime minister two years ago this month.

The historic Hebron withdrawal, in which Netanyahu single-handedly brought Likud and the Israeli Right into the land-for-peace Oslo process, received nary a word. That’s because the only praise offered in her speech was reserved for Arafat.

Albright credits him for making “substantial changes in {his} negotiating position.” He had wanted a 30 percent Israeli withdrawal but was willing to accept 13.1.

How generous.

One of the great illusions of the peace process is that every few years, Israelis elect a right wing prime minister whose intransigence halts or reverses the success of the “peace process.” But as Satloff and Krauthammer observed, Israel’s “right wing” prime ministers since Oslo have all moved the “peace process” forward, though their concessions are pocketed by the Palestinians and ignored by the rest of the world. It is, I guess, easier to blame an Israeli Prime Minister who is subject to political pressure, but that hardly moves the “peace process” when the Palestinian leader refuses to make the smallest concession to Israel or even to peace.

Meryl, Noah Pollak and Jeffrey Goldberg are all correct in their reading of President Obama’s motives. It’s happened before. Goldberg, however, is wrong in his reading of the Israeli government and offers support to ongoing Palestinian intransigence.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

03/16/2010

When the Washington Post notices

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

There are three recent Washington Post editorials abour the Middle East worth mentioning.

Last July the Washington Post ran an editorial Tough on Israel which observed:

But the administration also is guilty of missteps. Rather than pocketing Mr. Netanyahu’s initial concessions — he gave a speech on Palestinian statehood and suggested parameters for curtailing settlements accepted by previous U.S. administrations — Mr. Obama chose to insist on an absolutist demand for a settlement “freeze.” Palestinian and Arab leaders who had accepted previous compromises immediately hardened their positions; they also balked at delivering the “confidence-building” concessions to Israel that the administration seeks. Israeli public opinion, which normally leans against the settler movement, has rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu. And Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which were active during the Bush administration’s final year, have yet to resume.

U.S. and Israeli officials are working on a compromise that would allow Israel to complete some housing now under construction while freezing new starts for a defined period. Arab states would be expected to take steps in return. Such a deal will expose Mr. Obama to criticism in the Arab world — a public relations hit that he could have avoided had he not escalated the settlements dispute in the first place. At worst, the president may find himself diminished among both Israelis and Arabs before discussions even begin on the issues on which U.S. clout is most needed. If he is to be effective in brokering a peace deal, Mr. Obama will need to show both sides that they can trust him — and he must be tough on more than one country.

A month ago the Post’s editors warned, Don’t expect progress from talking to Syria:

Not a few have come away hopeful, at first. Ms. Pelosi memorably declared that “the road to Damascus is a road to peace.” Yet none so far has produced the slightest change in Mr. Assad’s behavior or in his unacceptable ambitions. Having carried out a campaign of political murder in Lebanon, including the killing of a prime minister for which he has yet to be held accountable, Mr. Assad continues to insist on a veto over the Lebanese government. He continues to facilitate massive illegal shipments of Iranian arms to Hezbollah, dangerously setting the stage for another war with Israel, and to host the most hard-line elements of the Hamas leadership. He continues to harbor exiled leaders of Saddam Hussein’s regime and to allow suicide bombers to flow into Iraq for use by al-Qaeda.

Now the Post’s editors are once again focused on Israel, The U.S. Quarrel with Israel:

But Mr. Obama risks repeating his previous error. American chastising of Israel invariably prompts still harsher rhetoric, and elevated demands, from Palestinian and other Arab leaders. Rather than join peace talks, Palestinians will now wait to see what unilateral Israeli steps Washington forces. Mr. Netanyahu already has made a couple of concessions in the past year, including declaring a partial moratorium on settlements. But on the question of Jerusalem, he is likely to dig in his heels — as would any other Israeli government. If the White House insists on a reversal of the settlement decision, or allows Palestinians to do so, it might land in the same corner from which it just extricated itself.

A larger question concerns Mr. Obama’s quickness to bludgeon the Israeli government. He is not the first president to do so; in fact, he is not even the first to be hard on Mr. Netanyahu. But tough tactics don’t always work: Last year Israelis rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu, while Mr. Obama’s poll ratings in Israel plunged to the single digits. The president is perceived by many Israelis as making unprecedented demands on their government while overlooking the intransigence of Palestinian and Arab leaders. If this episode reinforces that image, Mr. Obama will accomplish the opposite of what he intends.

A few observations:
1) The administration’s outreach to Syria was answered with a mocking response from Syria, causing not the slightest reaction from the administration.
2) This is in sharp contrast to the administration’s response to Israel, over plans for Israel to build in an established neighborhood in Jerusalem.
3) The disparate responses of the admininstration to these two incidents are so severe that even a paper like the Washington Post – which is not what anyone would call “pro-Israel” notices.
RELATED: Richard Cohen writes:

To my knowledge, there is no square in Israel named for the mass murderers of civilians. Palestinian society, in contrast, honors all sorts of terrorists.

This is not a minor point. The veneration of terrorists says something unsettling about Palestinian society. An Israeli can recognize the legitimacy of Palestinian aspiration and appreciate the depth of the calamity that befell the Palestinians in 1948. The Palestinian intellectual Constantine Zurayk coined the term “al-Nakba” (the disaster) for their 1948 debacle — and there is no doubt it was. But for Palestinians, that disaster has only been compounded by an Arab intransigence and belligerence that has played into Israel’s territorial ambitions, particularly the annexation of East Jerusalem. The reliance on terrorism has had cinematic charms and given the Palestinians a certain cachet among the West’s kaffiyeh set, but it has caused Israelis to dig in their heels. The adulation of Dalal Mughrabi and other terrorists is bound to give your average Israeli parent a certain pause: Is this the state we want next to us? Didn’t pulling out of Gaza produce a steady drizzle of rockets and, in due course, another war?

His perspective is skewed. Palestinian belligerence doesn’t play into anyone’s hands, it shows a mindset that is hostile to Israel and the idea of peace with Israel. But the central point is correct.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Obama-Clinton Israel rerun

Filed under: Israel, The One — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 8:00 am

The pundits are working overtime trying to figure out why the Obama administration went into all-out attack mode over an announcement of building in Jerusalem that blindsided Bibi Netanyahu during Joe Biden’s trip to Israel.

I think they’re all off-track. I think the Obama administration is trying to repeat the Clinton administration’s efforts of the late 1990s. Rahm Emanuel was in the Clinton administration. Rahm Emanuel is in the Obama administration. Bill Clinton loathed Bibi Netanyahu. Rahm Emanuel loathes Bibi Netanyahu. One of Emanuel’s greatest achievements (according to him) was the signing of the Oslo acccords. Barack Obama wants a Palestinian state to be his administration’s crowing achievement. Rahm Emanuel is of the opinion that Israeli settlements are the main obstacle to obtaining that state. Barack Obama is of the opinion that Israeli settlements are the main obstacle to obtaining that state.

Here’s why I think the Obama administration is ratcheting up the pressure over 1,600 new housing units in a Jewish neighborhood of northeastern Jerusalem that will almost certainly remain Israeli in any future agreement with the Palestinians: The Obama administration is trying to topple the Netanyahu government. The Clinton administration did its level best to prevent Bibi from being elected in 1996, and worked very hard to get him thrown out as soon as possible thereafter. The Obama administration has found a stick, and they’re using it to beat the Netanyahu administration in the eyes of the world. The Chicago Machine lies and smears have gone out to the appropriate media outlets. The hyperbole is rising as the Machine cogs hit the media trail. It’s an all-out assault on Bibi and his administration.

But will it work?

I don’t think so. Because the action is starting to backfire. When both AIPAC and the ADL release statements urging the Obama administration to back off Israel, you can chalk it up to Jewish organizations defending Israel. Except those Jewish organizations are filled with Jewish Democrats who open their purse strings for candidates like Obama. And perhaps Obama should remember the Gallup survey that says support for Israel is at near-record highs.

The Israel-haters in the U.S. are vastly outnumbered by Israel’s supporters, something that makes their tiny little heads explode.

My money is on Bibi outlasting Obama. Iran is the far greater danger, and Israelis don’t take kindly to the Obama administration interfering in their internal affairs.

03/15/2010

Drunk on his own eloquence

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 1:00 pm

In Driving Drunk in Jerusalem Thomas Friedman warns PM Netanayahu:

In sum, there may be a real opportunity here — if Netanyahu chooses to seize it. The Israeli leader needs to make up his mind whether he wants to make history or once again be a footnote to it.

What opportunity?

This whole fracas also distracts us from the potential of this moment: Only a right-wing prime minister, like Netanyahu, can make a deal over the West Bank; Netanyahu’s actual policies on the ground there have helped Palestinians grow their economy and put in place their own rebuilt security force, which is working with the Israeli Army to prevent terrorism; Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad are as genuine and serious about working toward a solution as any Israel can hope to find; Hamas has halted its attacks on Israel from Gaza; with the Sunni Arabs obsessed over the Iran threat, their willingness to work with Israel has never been higher, and the best way to isolate Iran is to take the Palestinian conflict card out of Tehran’s hand.

His description of Abbas and Fayyad as “genuine and serious about working toward a solution as any Israel can hope to find” underscores a problem. I don’t think that guys who are burning Israeli products are that serious about a solution. But more importantly, they’re about as moderate as the PA comes and thus have no real power. Hamas has halted its attacks, but that’s been due to Cast Lead. But finally we get to Friedman’s analysis of the Sunni Arabs. Well if Iran is so important to them, why don’t they become more concilliatory towards Israel? (In fact, what’s going on in Israel may be of less importance to them than Friedman thinks.)

When you read Friedman’s recommendations for the Middle East, recall that he predicted that once Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Hezbollah would lay down its arms as it would no longer have any grievance against Israel. That worked out really well didn’t it?

As for Friedman’s contention:

Biden — a real friend of Israel’s — was quoted as telling his Israeli interlocutors: “What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and endangers regional peace.”

Mere Rhetoric has the particulars about Biden’s pro-Israel credentials.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Happy EATAPETA Day!

Filed under: EATAPETA — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

Mmmmm.... Meat.It’s the eighth annual International Eat A Tasty Animal for PETA (EATAPETA) Day.

Today, as uber-commenter Alex Bensky likes to say, if it didn’t have a mother, don’t eat it. However, as I like to say: Eat meat. It pisses off PETA like nothing else.

Click the category for the reasons why we still do this.

A history of the Obama Administration’s Israel policy (whiplash warning)

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

In their own words, the Obama Administration’s changing position on Israel, particularly “settlement” building in Jerusalem:

Obama to AIPAC, March 2007:

“We should never seek to dictate what is best for the Israelis and their security interests. No Israeli prime minister should ever feel dragged to or blocked from the negotiating table by the United States.”

Obama to AIPAC, June 2008:

“I want you to know that today I’ll be speaking from my heart, and as a true friend of Israel.”

Obama to AIPAC, June 2008:

And then there are those who would lay all of the problems of the Middle East at the doorstep of Israel and its supporters, as if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the root of all trouble in the region. These voices blame the Middle East’s only democracy for the region’s extremism. They offer the false promise that abandoning a stalwart ally is somehow the path to strength. It is not, it never has been, and it never will be.

Obama to AIPAC, June 2008:

Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.

Obama to CNN, one day after the AIPAC speech:

“Well, obviously, it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations.”

Obama’s Cairo speech, June 2009:

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.

Hillary Clinton on Israel halting settlement building except in east Jerusalem, Oct. 31, 2009:

What the Prime Minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements which he has just described – no new starts for example, is unprecedented in the context of prior-to negotiations.

Hillary Clinton on the same subject, Nov. 25, 2009:

Today’s announcement by the Government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.

Hillary Clinton, on the same subject, March 12, 2010:

It was insulting. And– it was insulting not just to the vice president, who– certainly didn’t deserve that. He was there with a very clear message of– commitment to the peace process solidarity with– the Israeli people. But it was an insult to the United States.

David Axelrod, speaking for the Obama administration on NBC, March 14, 2010:

This was an affront, it was an insult, but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region.

Barry Rubin on the hypocrisy of the Obama administration’s ever-changing position on Israel settlements as the “obstacle to peace”:

Meanwhile, even though the Palestinian Authority has refused to negotiate for 14 months; made President Brack Obama look very foolish after destroying his publicly announced September plan to have negotiations in two months; broke its promise not to sponsor the Goldstone report in the UN; and rejected direct negotiations after months of pleading by the Obama White House, not a single word of criticism has ever been offered by any administration official regarding the PA’s continuous and very public sabotage of peace process efforts.

Israeli Double Standard Time is in effect. As always, it only occurs on days that end with a “y.”

03/14/2010

Of grievances and perceptions

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Media Bias — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

Last week in an article about the eviction of two Arab families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, Isabel Kershner of the New York Times summed it up:

For those who want to see a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the eviction of the Ghawis has touched on two sensitive nerves: the fate of East Jerusalem, where Israel and the Palestinians vie for control, and the abiding grievances of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war.

She mentioned two things: both sides are competing and the Palestinians have a grievance. In fact most of the article centers around the Palestinian claims and how even some Israelis support the Palestinian case. The history leaves out inconvenient details such as:

On April 13, 1948, a convoy of ambulances, armored buses, trucks loaded with food and medical equipment, and 105 doctors, nurses, medical students, Hebrew University personnel, and guards headed for Mt. Scopus. The convoy was ambushed in the middle of Sheikh Jarrah, the lead vehicle hit a mine, and gangs of armed Arabs attacked. Seventy-eight Jews were murdered, among them 20 women and Dr. Haim Yaski, the hospital director. In the following months the hospital and university ceased to function. After the Six-Day War, when the area was returned to Israel, a memorial was built in their honor in Sheikh Jarrah on the road leading to Mt. Scopus.

Compare Kershner’s care in preserving the Palestinian narrative in the Sheikh Jarrah story to the way she handled the Israeli narrative in the case of honoring Dalal Mughrabi:

The woman being honored, Dalal Mughrabi, was the 19-year-old leader of a Palestinian squad that sailed from Lebanon and landed on a beach between Haifa and Tel Aviv. They killed an American photojournalist, hijacked a bus and commandeered another, embarking on a bloody rampage that left 38 Israeli civilians dead, 13 of them children, according to official Israeli figures. Ms. Mughrabi and several other attackers were killed.

To Israelis, hailing Ms. Mughrabi as a heroine and a martyr is an act that glorifies terrorism.

But, underscoring the chasm between Israeli and Palestinian perceptions, the Fatah representatives described Ms. Mughrabi as a courageous fighter who held a proud place in Palestinian history. Defiant, they insisted that they would not let Israel dictate the names of Palestinian streets and squares.

Note that here the dispute is reduced to a matter of perceptions, as if a “bloody rampage” that claims the lives of “38 Israeli civilians” isn’t the very definition of terrorism.

As Judith Apter Klinghoffer writes:

At no point does the reporter point out the sophistry of the position. There is nothing mysterious in the notion. It is an action designed to frighten a population. Hijacking a random public bus and murdering the passengers can have no other motivation but spreading fear, i.e., terror.

Kershner actually compounds her felony.

“We are all Dalal Mughrabi,” declared Tawfiq Tirawi, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, the party’s main decision-making body, who came to join the students. “For us she is not a terrorist,” he said, but rather “a fighter who fought for the liberation of her own land.”

Who is Col. Tawfiq Tirawi? He has an interesting record.

The Palestinian Security Organs – such as Preventive Security, as well as the General Intelligence Service and its arm in the West Bank, under Colonel Tawfiq Tirawi – have been involved in other violent actions in breach of the agreements, such as the abduction or unlawful arrest of Israeli citizens (in some cases, Israeli Arabs suspected as “collaborators”), and the murder of Palestinian real estate dealers (suspected of selling land to Jews).

Tirawi’s actions took place after the Oslo Accords were signed. The idea that he would deny that Mughrabi (or anyone attacking Israelis) is a terrorist is rooted in self interest. By any reasonable definition Tirawi, too, is a terrorist. Though I don’t think that’s what he means by “We are all Dalal Mughrabi.”

If there’s anything positive about these two articles it’s that in the first one, Kershner writes about “Israel’s long dormant peace camp.” While I don’t agree with the peace camp’s position here, it’s pretty clear that there is no parallel one among the Palestinians.

Crossposted on Yourish.

03/13/2010

Saturday night open thread

Filed under: Life — Meryl Yourish @ 9:19 pm

I have family over. We’re looking at pictures.

Damn, I was a cute little kid.

Maybe I’ll scan some in.

03/12/2010

Eat an Animal for PETA

Filed under: EATAPETA — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 2:00 pm

I totally forgot about EATAPETA Day until Sabba Hillel reminded me. There have been a lot of things on my mind lately that rather drove it out, but don’t forget to eat lots of tasty animals on March 15th!

Here’s the background.

PETA’s still as offensive as ever. I will be dining with friends on Monday night. I think veal may be on the menu.

Friday briefs

Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, News Briefs, Terrorism — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 9:00 am

Hell hath frozen over: The EU released a statement demanding the immediate release of Gilad Shalit. No, really. Wait, there has to be a catch. Oh, here it is. They’re also calling on Israel to make “substantial release of Palestinian prisoners.” Phew, snowballs are still melting in hell.

Rockets in, missiles out: More kassams in Israel, so the IDF bombed a tunnel and a weapons lab. Watch for the screams from the Israel-haters. Oh, and the AP managed to put this in the last paragraph of its latest article about the 1600 new units in east Jerusalem:

In Gaza, ruled by the Islamic militants of Hamas, Israeli aircraft struck twice early Friday, retaliating for rocket fire into Israel on Thursday. No one was hurt in any of the incidents.

I will reiterate that the last graf of an article is the first to go when a newspaper needs the space.

A store opens in Israel, a protest opens in Europe: Filthy capitalists! Opening a store that was so much desired that Israelis nearly trampled two babies (!) to get in. Of course there will be protests throughout Europe and Canada. Listen to this brilliant protestor’s explanation:

“The Goldstone Report was published recently, and we think that one cannot open a store in Israel until it starts obeying international law.”

That’s what I like about Israel’s foes. They’re so smart, you have to wonder how they manage to dress themselves in the morning. Really, Israel-haters lead pretty pathetic lives. Imagine obsessing about something that really has nothing to do with living your life, to the point of gettting enraged by a store opening thousands of miles away in another country. Or a pro-Israel blog. To paraphrase, the vast majority of Israel haters have lives of pathetic desperation.

Iranians and Turks with fake Israeli passports

Filed under: Iran, World — SnoopyTheGoon @ 8:00 am

I have read first two reports: by Kateland and by colleague Elder of Ziyon, both based on a Maariv article (in Hebrew). The essence of the reports is that:

…three Iranians were caught at an airport in Seychelles trying to use stolen Israeli passports. The Iranians were sent back on a flight to Nairobi, Kenya, from where they came.

Seychelles authorities passed the information to Israeli authorities, who found that the passports were stolen from Israelis who traveled to Thailand last year.

The general concern, which I fully share:

Israeli authorities fear that this was the precursor to a terror attack in the archipelago, which has been advertising heavily to attract Israelis on Passover vacation this year. Charter airlines now go directly to Seychelles from Israel.

Maariv also carries an attractive picture of the island:

I am not sure, though, about its relevance, but why not? In addition, Maariv claims that 15,000 (fifteen thousand) Israeli passports disappear every year. Wow…

Anyhow, I have decided to wait for a while with that story, and indeed, a new article in Ynet (in English this time) looks somewhat better researched.

In the past few weeks, more then 10 Iranian nationals were caught carrying forged Israeli passports, Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Wednesday. The information came from reports relayed to Israeli embassies in Japan, Thailand, and India. In the last several months, Pakistani and Turkish citizens were also caught with fake Israeli passports.

And the reason seems to be not necessarily related to the terrorism business, rather to business business:

The Israeli passport is considered to be one of the easiest passports to forge and can be purchased in Asia, and especially in Thailand’s markets, for anywhere from USD 500 to 2000. The Israeli passport is in great demand because people carrying it can enter Asian countries without a visa.

Of course, the threat of terrorists using same passports for their nefarious purposes shouldn’t be discounted. On the other hand, there is no need to exaggerate the situation, like Maariv had done, since:

In 2004, six hundred Israelis reported their passports stolen in Asia. In 2005, the number increased dramatically.

Still, it’s a far cry from 15,000. Another article, from Sky News Blogs, seems to settle (at least) the issue of the three Iranians caught in Seychelles:

A Israeli government source has told Sky News it understands the incident happened but does not believe there was any terror threat. The Iranians are believed to have been refugees who were using the passports in order to enter the Seychelles with a view to travelling on to a first world destination in search of a better life.

I would say that in a case like this we shouldn’t be too prissy and mind a few forged passports… like some other people I don’t want to mention here. The more the merrier, I would even add.

Now to the comic element of the story. From Ynet:

Another Iranian who was caught in Japan with a fake Israeli passport was caught when the name in his passport belonged to a female. The Iranian replaced the picture, but didn’t bother changing the name.

Beef up on your Hebrew next time, doofus…

And from that Sky News blog – its headline says: Forged Passports: Is It Catching On?

Such naivety from a seasoned journalist… surely forged documents are as old as the first clay tablet… nay, as a first stone tablet… oh well…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

03/11/2010

When honoring terror is “conciliatory”

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Terrorism — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 1:30 pm

The AP has the most fascinating pro-Palestinian spin. The PA cancelled an anniversary ceremony that was supposed to honor a terrorist who helped her people murder 35 Israelis who were traveling on a coastal highway. Here’s the AP spin:

The Palestinian Authority has called off a ceremony honoring a woman involved in the deadly hijacking of an Israeli bus.

The Palestinians had planned on Thursday to name a square in the West Bank city of Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi for her part in the 1978 hijacking on Israel’s coastal highway. Thirty-eight people were killed in the assault.

But they decided Wednesday to put it off. They offered no official explanation and it was not immediately clear if the ceremony would be rescheduled.

And here’s Ynet’s view:

On March 11, 1978, 11 Fatah terrorists infiltrated Israel’s coast using a rubber raft. They murdered photographer Gail Rubin and proceeded to hijack a bus while shooting at passing vehicles. They shot at the passengers and al-Mughrabi blew up the bus.

Altogether, 35 people were killed and 71 injured in the massacre, which to this day remains the deadliest terror attack in the State of Israel’s history.

Thirteen of the dead were children. I wonder why Joe Biden didn’t condemn the anniversary ceremony that was to take place today? He sure condemned Israel quickly for the crime of—building in east Jerusalem.

It is, as always, Israeli Double Standard Time. But not to worry: That only happens on days that end with a “y.”

An unbelievable protest

Filed under: Israel, Media Bias — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

The Lede blog of the New York Times writes in a post, “Palestinians against terror,” that plans to honor terrorist Dalal Mugrabi in Ramallah have been met with opposition from Palestinians who favor the living alongside Israel in peace.

Plans to build a square in honor of Dalal Mugrabi the female terrorist who was involved in the coastal highway terror attack that killed 37 people has been met by protests by Palestinians who find it inappropriate to honor a terrorist while trying to make peace with Israel.

One of the Palestinians at the demonstration against the honor in Ramallah on Saturday, a woman named Fatima, told The Jerusalem Post that “…terror belongs in the past.” She added: “I imagine if the government of Israel was honoring those who deliberately killed Palestinians outside the context of war, that we would be offended.

The demonstration on Saturday followed the notice that the government of the PA including its moderate leaders, Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad were planning to honor the terrorist.

Palestinian writer Daoud Kuttab who was also at the demonstration added, “Some Palestinians protest the declaration of the Tomb of the Patriarchs or Rachel’s Tomb as important Israeli heritage sites. I don’t understand this myopia. If we don’t respect the Jewish heritage of Israel, how can we expect them to respect our heritage?”

Of course the Times didn’t report on such a protest. There wasn’t one. It did find a protest to highlight though.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

03/10/2010

A matter of trust

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

Last week Daled Amos wondered:

It will be interesting to see just what kind of tone Biden takes with Israel this time–and whether Netanyahu is up to dealing with Biden from strength the way Begin did–or like Olmert.

Now we don’t need to wonder anymore. At least about the first part. (via memeorandum)

“I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem,” Biden said. The American vice president added that the “substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I?ve had here in Israel.”

As a side point is there anything that the Palestinians do that doesn’t undermine trust?

Israel Matzav observes:

Ramat Shlomo was never supposed to be an issue with the ‘Palestinians.’ Abu Mazen had agreed with Ehud Olmert in 2008 that it would remain part of Israel in any future settlement.

JoshuaPundit puts it succinctly:

It seems the US cares more about denying Jews their religious sites and the right to build homes than it does about the Palestinians building facilities with our money honoring terrorists who’ve killed Americans.

Funny, but the NJDC doesn’t say a word about the Vice President’s condemnation of Israel. Will they continue to ignore it or spin the condemnation as to how it’s somehow pro-Israel?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Wednesday snarks

Filed under: Israeli Double Standard Time, News Briefs, The One — Tags: , , — Meryl Yourish @ 9:00 am

But Islam is a religion of peace: Jihad Jane, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed American woman who converted to Islam, was arrested for plotting to murder a Swedish cartoonist and enlisting terrorists to the cause. But “jihad” means inner struggle, so that can’t be true.

But the Obama administration is Israel’s friend: Joe Biden strongly condemned the announcement of new buildings in east Jerusalem, an area that the Palestinians had already agreed was going to be Israel’s. No word yet on whether the White House is going to condemn Iran for once again threatening to destroy Israel. Also no condemnation of the Egyptian murders of Sudanese refugees trying to escape to Israel. But boy, can the Obama administration tell it to Israel or what?

But the Palestinians want peace: So, if you’re committed to peace, you should be committed to peace because, well, war is bad, right? Everyone seems to think so. And yet, Mahmoud Abbas said in response to Joe Biden’s statement that the Pals deserve a “viable state” that he was committed to peace for a different reason:

Abbas, for his part, urged Israel to commit to the peace process. “The Palestinians remain committed to peace as a strategic choice,” he said.

What that strategy is, he did not elaborate. You need to read what he says to the Arabic press for that. Here’s a hint: It’s a two-part strategy, and the second part is “from the river to the sea.”

03/09/2010

Instransigence: a single use word

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

The Washington Post reports:

Mitchell, who in January boasted that a peace deal could be done within two years, said he hoped the indirect talks would lead to direct negotiations as soon as possible and encouraged the parties “to refrain from any statements or actions which may inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of these talks.”

Just such a thing happened Monday when Israel announced construction of 112 new housing units in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Ilit. The administration had pushed hard — but unsuccessfully — last year for a complete freeze on settlements, and Israel’s new announcement came as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was meeting with Mitchell.

Now if Beitar Illit will remain part of Israel, why would building 112 houses there “inflame tensions?” I would think that orchestrating riots and honoring a terrorist are more obvious statements of contempt for peace.

In a similar vein we see in a Washington Post editorial:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has resisted direct negotiations partly out of a conviction that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is intransigent. And Mr. Netanyahu regularly offers evidence that this is so. He recently appeared to rule out Israeli withdrawal from the Jordan Valley, which previous Israeli governments have conceded to a future Palestinian state, and he allowed new Jewish settlement construction to proceed in the West Bank despite the “freeze” he announced several months ago. Mr. Abbas, for his part, already rejected a far-reaching peace offer from Mr. Netanyahu’s predecessor.

The New York Times though, clarifies something:

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, supports two states but wants the Palestinian side to be demilitarized and to accept an Israeli military presence on its future eastern border to prevent the import of weapons and rockets that could be aimed at Israel’s population centers.

The Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, then, is a precaution. After being burned time and again by the Palestinians after withdrawing from territory, Netanyahu talks about protecting his country from that happening again. That’s a sign of intransigence?

But more generally that paragraph is disturbing. To defend Abbas claims that Netanyahu is being “intransigent” is dishonest. The editorial itself acknowledges that Abbas “…already rejected a far-reaching peace offer from Mr. Netanyahu’s predecessor.” That, to me, is the definition of intransigence. Yet somehow the adjective, “intransigent” in its various forms somehow only describes Israeli leaders.

The Post’s editors can lament that Netanyahu isn’t as generous as his predecessors. But the reason there is no peace that Abbas and Arafat before him rejected generous offers. If they are demanding that Netanyahu accept deals that were previously rejected by the other side they are in fact rewarding intransigence, not advocating for peace.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Tuesday snarks

Filed under: Iran, Israel, News Briefs, The One — Meryl Yourish @ 9:00 am

The Obama administration is fine with risking Israeli lives: Hey, great! Our vice-president wants Israel to “take risks for peace.” Because it’s not like they, say, gave the PA control over most of the West Bank and Gaza and were answered with terror; withdrew from Lebanon and were answered with war; withdrew from Gaza and were answered with rockets; and eased checkpoints and were answered with terror attacks. So yes, absolutely, Joe, Israel should takes risks for peace. Because it’s worked so well so far!

You have our permission to build on your land: The State Dept. told Israel that an exception will be made to the “settlement” freeze. How kind of them.

Are real Iranian sanctions starting? Three major oil companies cut their ties with Iran. Hm. Double hm. (Here’s hoping!)

Ew! Jew Cooties! Turkey has rejected Israel’s offer of earthquake aid. But Turkey wants to mediate Israeli-Syrian talks, and are bragging that they’ve been chosen. Netanyahu has denied this. Hey, Turkish dudes, here’s a tip: Cozying up to Iran and Syria aren’t going to make you best buds with Israel.

03/08/2010

Back home, tired, and there’s work to do

Filed under: Life, Movies, Pop Culture — Meryl Yourish @ 6:54 pm

I am back in my home sweet home, with my cats yowling for attention in the background. I’m currently cleaning up a mess on the blog. I have a ton of real work to do, and though I had a great weekend, I will be busy the next few days. Posting may be light.

I do have some random thoughts though.

Alice in Wonderland was brilliant. If you liked Edward Scissorhands, you will love Tim Burton’s version of Alice. I want to see it again. And again. And again.

The Neil Patrick Harris song opening the Oscars was mean, nasty, stupid, and unfunny. Here’s a suggestion for the Oscar writers: Cut the opening number. And get rid of the dance numbers. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

So glad Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar for Best Director. Ditto Sandra Bullock, because she’s one of my favorites. (Funny speech!)

Now I have four more movies to see: Crazy Heart, Avatar, Hurt Locker, and District 9 (not in that order). Plus, I have to see Alice in Wonderland again. Oh, and reread the books. I didn’t catch enough of the references because it’s been too long since I read them. I got bored. Burton made me interested again. Probably because he wove a narrative that doesn’t exist in the novels, and made it far more interesting and a little less a compilation of bizarre and disparate scenes. I really liked the narrative. It made the story so much better. That, and Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, and a fantastic cast, the special effects—I kept wondering “How did he do that?” every time I saw the red queen’s bulbous head—I highly recommend the film.

Back to the usual stuff later.

When a terrorist is less controversial than a religious shrine

Filed under: Israel — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

via memeorandum

Barak Ravid of Ha’aretz reports on a report apparently circulating among Israel’s diplomats:

“The recent American statements point to the adoption of wording in line, even if partially and cautiously, with Palestinian demands in regard to the framework and structure of negotiations,” the report stated. “Still, the [U.S.] administration is making sure to avoid commenting on its position on core issues.”

U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel last night for what is expected to be a final series of talks before the official announcement of the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, in an indirect format.

Israel Matzav observes:

While Obama will be subject to a lot of restraints from Congress on domestic policy in the second scenario, there is very little Congress can do to prevent Obama from doing things like convening an Annapolis-type conference and trying to shove a ’settlement’ down Israel’s throat. A ‘Palestinian state’ would be a wonderful legacy for Obama, especially if (as is likely) creating one results in a second Nobel Peace Prize that could be used to fund his Presidential library and post-Presidential activities.

And indeed, Vice President Biden will snub Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman:

US Vice President Joe Biden, expected to arrive this afternoon, is scheduled to meet with Israel’s most senior leadership during his three-day visit, with the glaring exception of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

But the Palestinians who just took the provocative action of naming a public square in memory of a terrorist, will suffer no such indignity. This leads Dr. Aaron Lerner to ask:

Where are the comments from American officials – and others – that it is “inappropriate” for the PA to do this the same week that V.P. Biden is visiting. That its the “wrong time” and “counterproductive” to celebrate the murder of civilians the same week that the launching of proximity talks with Israel are being finalized?

You’d think that honoring a terrorist bodes less well for peace than expressing a commitment one’s religious shrines wouldn’t you?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

03/07/2010

Just in case you were still in doubt

Filed under: Israel — Soccerdad @ 12:00 pm

From the Mitchell Report:

The GOI asserts that the immediate catalyst for the violence was the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations on July 25, 2000 and the “widespread appreciation in the international community of Palestinian responsibility for the impasse. In this view, Palestinian violence was planned by the PA leadership, and was aimed at “provoking and incurring Palestinian casualties as a means of regaining the diplomatic initiative.”[8]

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) denies the allegation that the intifada was planned. it claims, however, that “Camp David represented nothing less than an attempt by Israel to extend the force it exercises on the ground to negotiations,”[9] and that “the failure of the summit, and the attempts to allocate blame on the Palestinian side only added to the tension on the ground …[10]

From the “Green Prince” (via Instapundit)

As a spy, Mr. Yousef wasn’t fully activated until the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000. A few months before at Camp David, the late PLO chief Yasser Arafat had turned down the Israeli offer of statehood on 90% of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as the capital. According to Mr. Yousef, Arafat decided he needed another uprising to win back international attention. So he sought out Hamas’s support through Sheikh Yousef, writes his son, who accompanied him to Arafat’s compound. Those meetings took place before the Palestinian authorities found a pretext for the second Intifada. It came when future Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Mr. Yousef’s account helps to set straight the historical record that the uprising was premeditated by Arafat.

Mr. Yousef tells me that he was horrified by the pointless violence unleashed by politicians willing to climb “on the shoulders of poor, religious people.” He says Palestinians who heeded the call “were going like a cow to the slaughterhouse, and they thought they were going to heaven.” So, as he writes in the book, “At the age of twenty-two, I became the Shin Bet’s only Hamas insider who could infiltrate Hamas’s military and political wings, as well as other Palestinian factions.”

UPDATE: Related see memeorandum and Backspin.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Time out for a station break

Filed under: Life — Meryl Yourish @ 11:34 am

I am several hundred miles north, in the wilds of NJ, visiting family and friends (and buying kosher corned beef and Italian bread!). Ergo, the paucity of posting.

Dowd of Saud?

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

It’s often hard to know what to make of a Maureen Dowd column. She’s so interested in sounding snarky, it’s often hard to know when she’s being serious. She’s in Riyadh now, acting as a stenographer for Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

Here’s her setup:

Actually, the president didn’t say all the right words in his speech. He created an obstacle for himself by demanding that Israel stop expanding settlements when it was not going to do so — even though it should — and when that wasn’t the most important condition to Arabs.

Now Obama seems ineffectual, as Israel pushes ahead on 600 more new homes in East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want their capital, despite the White House protest in November about 900 other houses that Israel plans to put up there.

Then she gets the Prince’s comments:

I asked Prince Saud if he thinks America has less influence over Israel than it used to.

“You’re asking me about something that has tickled our imagination,” he replied. “If the settlements are illegitimate, the least you would expect is that the aid the United States gives to Israel would cut that part that is going to build settlements. Israel is getting away without implementing the Geneva Convention as an occupying authority. Now if it were somewhere else, in Burma or somewhere like that, hell would be raised.”

It’s probably a sign of progress that Prince Saud calls it “a border dispute.” Unless it’s just his understated way. He also refers to “the 9/11 incident” and alludes to the Holocaust obliquely as “World War II.”

Now there’s nothing in that comment about a “border dispute,” so it must be from a comment the Prince made that she didn’t transcribe. Dowd doesn’t dispute the Prince’s dubious use of “occupying authority.” In an earlier paragraph it’s clear that she doesn’t approve of Israelis living in any territory that wasn’t part of the country before 1967.

But then Dowd writes:

Despite repeated attacks by Arab states and Arab and Iranian-backed militant groups, and a call for Israel’s destruction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Prince Saud suggested that Israel might be overreacting about security because of “World War II” and that this prevented a peace deal.

“There are no troops arrayed on the border of Israel waiting for the moment to say, ‘Attack Israel,’ ” the prince said. “Nobody is going to fight them and threaten their peace. But they didn’t accept that. So it makes one wonder, what does Israel want?”

If anyone deserves to be paranoid, of course, it’s Israel. But Israel can’t be paranoid because paranoia is the mistaken perception that people are out to get you.

Now, it’s clear that she has a different opinion of Israel than I do, but did she just diss the Saudis in their own home by acknowledging that Israel’s fear of its Arab and Islamic neighbors is well-founded?

Crossposted on Yourish.

03/05/2010

… and israel’s unpopularity among some americans

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

Given Israel’s popularity in America, that popularity is not universal. So those who don’t share pro-Israel views need an explanation. Walter Russell Mead explains:

While I say nothing because I know nothing about the motives of particular people, it’s impossible to understand the popularity of ILS or Israel Lobby Syndrome (the belief that the organized, insistent power of American Jews as deployed through organizations like AIPAC is primarily responsible for American support of the Jewish state) without assigning a role to a lingering whiff of anti-Semitism in the American air.

At a time when most of America’s Jewish leadership was strongly anti-Zionist, American gentiles overwhelmingly supported the Zionist cause. And today American gentiles are generally more hawkish on Israel than American Jews who on this issue, like so many others, tend to skew toward the center-left band of the American political spectrum.

Some ILS victims have a ‘clever’ explanation for this disturbing fact: Jewish media power. The insidious, overwhelming power of those sneaky Jews in the mainstream media feeds a steady stream of pro-Israel propaganda disguised as news to the idiot gentiles out in the boondocks and the dumb hicks and yokels swallow the propaganda hook, line and sinker.

Again, I say nothing about the motives of individuals, but only entrenched, unconscious anti-Semitism could make an opinion this dumb seem so credible to so many otherwise intelligent people.

Let us take, for example, Sarah Palin, who formerly kept an Israeli flag in her office while serving as governor of Alaska. How much influence does the mainstream media have on her thinking about abortion? About global warming? About US relations with Cuba?

The answer, of course, is that whatever the sources of Ms Palin’s opinions on a very wide range of subjects, the mainstream media has not played a major role in her intellectual formation. And what is true for her is true for a great many other Americans who disagree with the mainstream media virtually across the board. They are more likely to disagree with the mainstream media than to mindlessly parrot its views — so why does it seem even remotely credible to assert that Palin and so much of the rest of the country is pro-Israel because of Jewish media power?

Again, a deep and unreasoned belief that powerful Jews control things and that the powerful Jewish media shapes public opinion could lend broad social credibility to ideas with so little support or coherence.

The whole idea of a powerful Israel lobby, then, is a construct designed by people who can’t understand why Israel is so popular in America. Mead demonstrates why this is belief is nonsense.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Israel’s popularity in America

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

The latest Gallup poll on American attitudes shows that by a ratio of 63 – 15, those who have an opinion, favor Israel as opposed to the Palesitnians. The New York Jewish Week opines:

Analysts no doubt will find any number of reasons for the numbers coming out the way they do, but it seems clear that the Palestinian Authority does not instill confidence among Americans, who gave it the lowest approval rate among 20 countries listed.

On the plus side, the poll is a reminder that, despite large doses of paranoia in the Jewish community from time to time, most Americans identify with Israel as a bastion of democracy in a chaotic Middle East.

It should also be noted that for all the criticism of the mainstream press among pro-Israel advocates in this country, most Americans get their news and views about the Mideast from the very same news media so often perceived of as biased against Israel. Somehow a positive message must be getting through.

That last bit is nonsense. There is a cost to the poor media coverage. Nearly one in four Americans have no opinion or favor neither side. If the media were balanced, there’d be many fewer doubters. It’s also important to note that these numbers are somewhat volatile.

For example in 2002, when Israel launched Defensive Shield, the prefer neither/no opinion component of the population was close to the pro-Israel sentiment. Right now with things pretty quiet, Israel’s support is growing. In the past though, during times of crisis poor reporting has diluted American popular support of Israel.

I can’t disagree with the Jewish Week’s conclusion though.

Since these polls have been recorded the ratio of pro-Israel to pro-Palestinian has generally ranged from 3 or 4 to 1. Right now with support for Israel so high, the ratio is now over 4 to 1.

The encouraging survey results do not mean that we should, as a community, ease up on our advocacy for Israel. But we should keep our work in perspective, mindful of and grateful for an American society that appreciates the importance of Israel as a strong and loyal ally in an increasingly dangerous neighborhood.

We are fortunate in that respect.

Barry Rubin explains the implications of Israel’s popularity.

Two fascinating questions arise from this analysis: What does all this matter, since public opinion doesn’t make foreign policy, and why is there such a gap between the most vocal elites and masses on Israel?

The answer to the first question is that it matters to members of Congress who are running for election in November and know that voters don’t want to see them bash Israel or support a president in doing so. Indeed, as President Barack Obama’s popularity has fallen and even the media has become more critical, Congress is reclaiming an independent role on foreign policymaking.

And of course the White House, too, is watching the polls. This is one of the most elections’ conscious, always campaigning presidencies in history—and the standard there is very high—and clearly attacking Israel either isn’t seen as beneficial for its ambitions. This isn’t the only factor affecting its behavior but it is one of them.

As to the second issue, there are many factors but let me try to list them briefly. Those who are unhappy with the status quo—that is, the U.S.-Israel special relationship, are going to be noisier. Another is the concept of “Realism” which is, unfortunately, extraordinarily unrealistic, the idea that all governments think alike, defining interest the same way regardless of all other factors. To assume that type of government, political culture, distinctive history, and ideology plays no rule in Arab politics ensures you don’t understand them. And so much of the Western elite assumes Israel is the only problem preventing Arab rulers and Islamist revolutionaries from loving the West.

Another issue is narrative, with much of the elite believing that the conflict is one of Palestinians and Syria desperately wanting peace but Israel saying no. In the American elite, there is also more of a yearning to be like Europe.

But American public opinion has more common sense to see through these myths. It understands that there are huge differences between democracies and dictatorship. It knows demagoguery and extremist ideology on sight and doesn’t like them. Thus, matters are precisely the opposite of what much of the elite thinks: public opinion, not elite institutions, accurately predicts where policy on these issues will go in future.

To see how Israel polls in the Arab world (and more) see JoshuaPundit.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Muslim ERA watch: Hamastan bans hairdressers

Filed under: Feminism, Gaza, Hamas — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 8:16 am

In 2007, the New York Times happily published a lying op-ed by Ahmed Yousef that said, among other things:

“Palestinians want, on their terms, the same thing Western societies want: self-determination, modernity, access to markets and their own economic power, and freedom for civil society to evolve.”

[...] Our stated aim when we won the election was to effect reform, end corruption and bring economic prosperity to our people. Our sole focus is Palestinian rights and good governance. We now hope to create a climate of peace and tranquillity within our community

This was a blatant lie, but that didn’t stop the Times from continuing to publish Hamas’ lying op-eds. As for the freedom Hamas talk about? Well, if my hairdresser worked in Gaza, he’d be out of a job today.

Gaza’s Islamic Hamas government on Thursday banned men from working in women’s hair salons, the latest step in its campaign to impose strict Islamic customs on Gaza’s 1.5 million people.

And here is the AP twisting itself into knots trying to whitewash the constant stream of Hamas trying to force Islamic law on Gaza:

Since seizing Gaza in 2007, Hamas has taken steps in that direction while avoiding a frontal assault on secularism. The majority of Gaza residents are conservative Muslims, but Hamas is under growing pressure from more radical groups to prove its fundamentalist credentials by imposing ever harsher edicts.

You have to head down nine paragraphs before the AP writes:

Fares said Hamas’s new ruling takes away one of the last remnants of a more liberal lifestyle in Gaza that flourished decades ago, when the territory had cinemas and bars. All cinemas and bars were closed years ago.

Let me just repeat the Hamas spokesliar’s words from 2007:

“Palestinians want, on their terms, the same thing Western societies want: self-determination, modernity, access to markets and their own economic power, and freedom for civil society to evolve.”

Many probably do want that. But Hamas does not.

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