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07/31/2008

Homebuying jitters

Filed under: Life — Tags: homeownership, Life — Meryl Yourish @ 9:37 pm

Wow, buyer’s remorse hit me big-time last night, and I haven’t even had the home inspection yet. (Next Thursday.)

I was making a budget and, well, I don’t think I plugged the numbers in exactly right, because I scared the hell out of myself and thought I had no money left over after paying the bills. Today, I’ve come to realize that I probably don’t spend $400 a month on food (I’m single and I cook most of my meals), even factoring in the kosher requirements. And not every month will have a gas bill like last month. In fact, I save money on every Monday holiday, because I don’t have to drive up to NorVA if there’s no staff meeting. There are a few Monday holidays coming up soon, thankfully.

I was also thinking it’s time to sell my Jeep. I love it, but I bought it when gas was a buck and a quarter a gallon. Or maybe even less. For the twenty years prior, I had Ford Escorts and a Datsun 310, all cars that got about 25/30 mpg. Now, instead of dumping my Jeep in a panic, I think I’m going to wait until I’m in my new home and the new budget kicks in. If I have to, my plan is to possibly trade in the Jeep for a car with better mileage, but one that still makes me feel safe driving on the highway every week, like a Rav4. Or maybe buy a cheap used high-mileage vehicle for the trips up to NorVA and keep my Jeep for tooling around Richmond. I really do love my Jeep. I also like the sturdiness factor. It’s pretty solid, and if I do (God forbid) get into a crash, it will protect me far better than one of those little 40 mpg tin cans.

Anyway, there are a ton of things I can do to cut costs. Now that I have more storage space, I can buy those bulk items from Costco. I can make a regular pasta night (I tend to be more carnivorous and like meat for dinner most nights). I already usually bring lunch to work on Mondays instead of ordering out. There are a ton of things you can do to cut costs. There’s also more income: I might finally get ads for my weblog, though I’ve been reluctant to go that way so far. I’m thinking I might get back into freelance proofreading. That’s pretty easy work that I can do at home, and the pay is decent. I wonder if I still have contacts at Tor.

The other thing I realized is that everyone cuts costs for their first home. Most of them do it with two incomes, but hey—I’ve been on my own for a long time now. I think I can handle this, too.

Five weeks left. Only five more weeks of annoying noise, kids who ride their bikes in the middle of the street and get annoyed with you when you beep at them to move over. Five more weeks of maintenance workers ignoring your calls. Five more weeks of hiding my laptop every time I go out for fear of a break-in while I’m gone.

I can’t wait.

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Olmert odds and ends

Filed under: Israel, Politics — Tags: Ehud Olmert — Soccerdad @ 11:30 am

With the end of his political career at hand (or perhaps in a half year) it’s hard to remember that there was a time when Ehud Olmert was considered an up and comer in the Likud party. (He did rise to the top, of course. But as Prime Minister he never electrified.)

Back in April 1988 he participated in Nightline’s famous “townhall meeting” between Palestinians and Israelis. The New York Times reviewed the meeting. It recounts perhaps the most dramatic point in the event:

What was inescapable, though, was that on some matters they seemed as united as the Palestinians. After Mr. Erakat’s impassioned speech, Mr. Zucker attacked him. He said, equally impassioned, that Syrians and Jordanians had killed more Palestinians than had Israelis.

The audience of Arabs and Jews in the theater – getting the audience together may have been the act of a sovereign power, too – responded with murmurs and applause. Some of the Jews, obviously, wanted to back up Mr. Zucker.

”I don’t need your applause,” he said curtly to the audience. He also said the Palestinians ”won’t recognize my right to live.” The Palestinians didn’t look at him, although all four Israelis stared intently at them.

In Erakat’s “impassioned” speech he explicitly compared Israel to Nazi Germany. That was too much even for Peace Now advocate Zucker, who said that he might be able to make peace with the others but not with Erakat.

(Previously I blogged about this townhall here. I was a bit premature.)

If there’s been a feeling that Olmert might hold on indefinitely in the face of this investigation, it’s been because we’ve been here before.

In 1996 after Binyamin Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister, he was stymied in his attempt to form a government as 3 men he had wanted in his cabinet were in legal jeopardy. The NYT reported:

Adding yet another complication to Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu’s tangled efforts to form a coalition, the Attorney General has advised him that two candidates for senior Cabinet positions face legal problems.

The notices coincided with reports that Mr. Netanyahu wanted to replace Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair, who was appointed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. But Mr. Netanyahu denied the reports, and it was unclear whether the legal actions or the leaks came first.

The affected candidates were Jerusalem’s Mayor, Ehud Olmert, one of the most popular members of Mr. Netanyahu’s party, the Likud, and Rafael Eitan, a right-wing former general who allied his small Tsomet Party with the Likud on the promise of a senior Cabinet post.

The other cabinet member whose appointment was stopped by Ben Yair was Yaacov Ne’eman who was eventually acquitted and was appointed Finance Minister later. The charges against Gen. Eitan, if I remember correctly, didn’t even make it to court. And Ehud Olmert was acquitted.

Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert has charged that former attorney-general Michael Ben-Yair indicted him “because he [Ben-Yair] is a wicked person.”

“I am convinced that Ben-Yair had premeditated ulterior motives, because that is the kind of person he is. Everyone who knows Ben-Yair knows that he acted out of evil intent, to settle personal accounts and pave his own way to political options,” Olmert was quoted telling the Bar Association’s journal, Halishka.

Olmert was acquitted on September 28 by Tel Aviv District Court on charges of campaign finance fraud in connection with the 1988 Knesset election and the 1989 local council elections, when he was the …

I think that Ben-Yair’s efforts were politically, not legally motivated, but given the similarity in his outrage now, to his outrage then, I wonder if maybe Olmert was lucky the first time. Maybe he figured that if he was innocent the first time, he’s innocent now.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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American reaction to Olmert’s announcement

Filed under: Israel, Politics — Tags: Ehud Olmert — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

Not surprisingly the Washington Post’s coverage of Olmert’s announcement that he would step down after the Kadima primaries, focuses on the peace process.

Palestinian officials reacted cautiously, with Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki saying that Olmert’s decision would not change much, the Associated Press reported. “It’s true that Olmert was enthusiastic about the peace process and he spoke about this process with great attention, but it has not achieved any progress or breakthrough,” Maliki said.

Israel and the Palestinian Authority, whose influence is limited to the West Bank, renewed peace talks at a U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis, Md., in November, after a seven-year hiatus. More recently, Israel has renewed indirect peace talks with Syria, with the latest round, mediated by Turkey, concluding Thursday.

Olmert said he would continue to push for peace as long as he is in office, but it appears unlikely that Israel will make any major decisions on concessions to either Syria or the Palestinians until a new government is formed.

Surprisingly though, the reporter failed to mention that Shaul Mofaz is also contending to succeed Olmert as head of Kadima, and mentions only Tzipi Livni as the frontrunner.

At the end of the article Kadima’s viability was questioned:

Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, said the most likely scenario was that Israel would go to new elections. That would pit Livni against former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud Party. Polls show Netanyahu with a 10-point lead over Livni if the elections were held today.

“She will have a hard time convincing voters that she has the necessary security experience,” Steinberg said. “We’re talking about issues like a possible war with Iran or Hamas in Gaza. These are difficult situations.”

Thursday’s announcement could also bode ill for Kadima. The party was founded by former prime minister Ariel Sharon in November 2005 to advocate for a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Olmert was thrust into the leadership of Kadima in January 2006 after Sharon suffered a massive stroke.

“Kadima is a very fragile structure that Sharon put together, and it could well shatter after the primary,” Steinberg said.

Daniel Pipes said the same thing, two years ago.

I was skeptical of Kadima from the very start, dismissing it just one week after it came into existence as an escapist venture that “will (1) fall about as abruptly as it has arisen and (2) leave behind a meager legacy.” If Sharon’s career is now over, so is Kadima’s. He created it, he ran it, he decided its policies, and none else can now control its fissiparous elements. Without Sharon, Kadima’s constituent elements will drift back to their old homes in Labour, Likud, and elsewhere. With a thud, Israeli politics return to normal.

Well that didn’t happen as Olmert proved to be able to keep Kadima afloat. However, I suspect that that’s because he’s an excellent political operator. Losing a half to two thirds of the party’s Knesset representation will likely turn it into a circular firing squad.

While focusing largely on the peace process, the NY Times’s report is a lot more comprehensive than the Washington Post (and doesn’t ignore Mofaz. It also brought this quote:

Mr. Olmert’s drive for diplomatic achievements “might frighten some,” said Abraham Diskin, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There are Israelis who do not believe in agreements, and others who support the peace effort but do not feel comfortable having their leader negotiate desperately with an eye on the clock. “I belong to that second category,” Mr. Diskin said.

While the NY Times mentions that the PA claims that the announcement is an internal Israeli matter, the doctor of Holocaust denial has thrown an tantrum and declared that he will go home if no one pays attention to him. No one noticed.

Still neither the Times nor the Post seem much concerned with the threats Israel faces from Iran and its proxies, just the peace process, which I suppose is reflective of the American view.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

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AP on anti-fence protest: What rocks? What violence?

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Israel — Tags: World — Meryl Yourish @ 10:00 am

The AP covered the Palestinian protests against the security barrier in an in-depth story. But there’s something pretty huge missing from this story. In fact, it’s missing from the lead, and from any real description of the protests, until way, way down in the article.

A Palestinian teen tracks Israeli troops with a video camera to document abuse of demonstrators.

A community organizer tours West Bank villages with a PowerPoint presentation teaching the art of creative protest.

These are just two examples of the increasingly savvy methods Palestinians are using to fight Israel’s West Bank separation barrier – a campaign whose danger was driven home this week by the death of a 10-year-old Palestinian boy.

Six years after Israel began building the barrier, Palestinian villagers march almost daily in an attempt to halt construction work that threatens to swallow up thousands more acres of West Bank land. Many protests turn into confrontations between youths hurling rocks and Israeli troops responding with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and at times live fire.

The aim is to slow construction, draw media attention and ensure that Israeli high court judges hearing challenges to the barrier’s route “will think twice before deciding such a high-profile case,” said Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer representing Palestinian villages.

The art of creative protest—is that what they’re calling stoning these days? Oh, the stoning? You have to read down twenty paragraphs before you find any notice of it whatsoever, or any of the other violent tactics used every single day at the Naalin protests. The AP likes to pretend that the violence doesn’t exist, or is in response to the soldiers responding to the protesters.

“They taught us how to tie ourselves to a tree and blind soldiers with mirrors,” said Abdullah, adding he also learned to surprise soldiers by holding protests in different places to confuse them.

Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, a Bilin activist who worked with Bedouin tribesmen who complain of harassment by Jewish settlers, said he begins by discussing resistance.

“I then show them a documentary of Bilin and I pause at the different strategies we have, like stuffing ourselves in barrels and rolling in front of bulldozers,” Abu Rahmeh said.

At one Naalin protest, Palestinian youths rushed down sloping olive groves, whooping as they climbed onto a bulldozer clearing land for the barrier. The startled driver was quickly chased away while other Palestinians lobbed rocks to divert the soldiers, who hurled back sound bombs and tear gas, leaving plumes of acrid smoke.

The bulldozer’s work was held up for a couple of hours – a successful outcome, Palestinians said.

Although Bilin activists say they teach nonviolent forms of protest, they are reluctant to tell other Palestinians not to hurl rocks, saying it’s a matter left for individual villages to decide.

The rocks that they hurl are generally not pebbles. Soldiers are regularly injured by the rocks and protesters. And protesters regularly lie and fake injuries for the camera.

The AP once again presents an extremely biased article. Notice that there are no quotes from Israeli officials at all. There is no other side presented, something that you’d never see in any kind of article about Israel. And the de-emphasis on the fact that these protests turn violent every single time is a huge omission by the AP. These are not peaceful protests. They are calculated, violent protests, and they unfortunately turned deadly several days ago. The IDF is investigating the soldiers’ use of live fire. Who is investigating the protesters’ use of violence day after day after day?

Certainly not the AP. They end their story with some good advice for protesters:

In the meantime, Palestinians are honing their strategies.

“Now I tell the protesters, take a camera, take a camera,” Kanaan said, holding her own.

That’s a great idea. But I have a better one. Israel should impound the cameras and distribute video of the rock-throwing and violence by Palestinians and “internationals” (you just know the ISM creeps are in this up to their ears). Not that it would change the AP anti-Israel bias. But the facts would be out there for the rest of us.

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Don’t let the door hit you, OK?

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

Judging from many of the reactions to PM Olmert’s announcement that he would not run again to lead his party, Kadima, it would possible to say that he’d envy President Bush’s level of popularity.

Yossi Klein Halevi writes (h/t Shalem Center):

Olmert is the embodiment of what has been, for Israel, the year of scandal: a president accused of rape, a finance minister accused of massive embezzlement, a deputy prime minister found guilty of forcing his tongue into the mouth of a young woman soldier. Olmert, two years after assuming office and promising to make Israel a more “fun” place to live, leaves us a nation in shame. He went to war in Lebanon to restore our military deterrence and destroy Hezbollah’s military capacity. Instead, he shattered Israeli self-confidence in our ability to defend ourselves, and empowered Hezbollah as the strongest force in Lebanese politics, with an arsenal three times larger than it possessed before Olmert’s war.

Olmert is the first Israeli leader–perhaps the first democratic leader anywhere –to threaten his own country with destruction if it rejected his policies. Israel, he warned, is “finished” if it didn’t withdraw from the West Bank. Yet in failing to defeat Hamas, he has insured the impossibility of a two-state solution for the foreseeable future, leaving us without a political or military option.

Perhaps Olmert’s greatest offense was in debasing our public discourse with terms like “Talansky’s envelopes” and “Olmert Tours,” diverting our attention from the imminent nuclearization of Iran and the growing power of Hezbollah and Hamas. Instead of focusing on Israel’s survival, we have been preoccupied with the melodrama of Olmert’s survival.

Clearly from his address to the nation Olmert didn’t get how out of touch he was.

In the area of security, we strengthened the IDF – we bolstered its strength and allocated enormous resources it had not received in the past. The North is quiet and does not face an immediate threat. Israel’s deterrent capability has been incomparably bolstered.

Jewish Current Issues though cites an expert who presents a much different view of things:

Also, the Iranians have very cleverly created two proxy armies on Israel’s border, one in the north called Hezbollah, and one in the south called Hamas. It is now estimated that Hezbollah has about 42,000 short-range missiles in rockets. Remember a couple of years ago when Israel went to war briefly with Hezbollah. Maybe the estimate then was about 15,000. They have re-armed, they are armed to the teeth, and Israel knows that if it strikes at Iran’s nuclear facilities, that Hezbollah is going to be able to launch an extraordinarily violent retaliatory strike that will probably depopulate the north of Israel. So regardless of who does it under these scenarios, whether it’s the United States or Israel, Israel is going to be the one that’s going to pay the short term price.

But what does Olmert’s announcement mean? Nothing. At least nothing yet. Ynet describes what will eventually take place. Once the Kadima primary takes place and a new leader is chosen for the party:

Olmert’s resignation will entail the resignation of the government in its entirety. The responsibility for the next move will be on President Shimon Peres. After holding consultations with representatives from the various political factions in the Knesset, Peres will be required to task one of the MKs with establishing a new government.

Most chances are that individual will be the chairman-elect of Kadima, if only because it remains parliament’s largest political party.

In any event, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is also chairman of the Labor party and Olmert’s key coalition ally, cannot be called upon to form a government because he is not an elected member of the Knesset.

Israel Matzav points out that Olmert could hypothetically remain in power (of a caretaker government) until March.

Hashmonean (very fortunately) emerged from hibernation to show what things might be like until new elections are called:

Now, in the running for Kadima Foreign Minister Livni, and former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. Each will try to seize the leadership of the Kadima party and then the unenviable task of trying to construct a coalition for governing. The likelihood of Livni accomplishing this appears to me slim should she be elected leader of Kadima, as she will be forced to rely on the existing coalition partners and as exhibited today, that partnership is a farce in name only. Insane amounts of social legislation, benefits packages & assorted goodies & gimmes totalling billions were put to votes today in the Knesset despite official coalition positions not in support, what resulted was wide passing of these proposals (some in only initial first reads) and the dissolution of the coalition members from official position, in effect the largest non-confidence vote imaginable.

Israelly Cool! notes one more insult.

Meryl comments:

Ever the gentleman, he’s leaving office the same way he stayed: Without taking personal responsibility for any of his actions.

(While the Jerusalem Post praised the announcement and speech, A dignified end, I saw it more the way Meryl did.)

And we’ll give the last word to someone who hasn’t posted in a while, Mere Rhetoric:

You know what’s really awesome? An Israeli political crisis just as the window on stopping Iranian nuclearization is closing.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Syria and Iran, BFF

Filed under: Israel, Syria — Tags: World — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

Yeah, they’re going so well, those indirect talks, that Ahmadinejad has the Syrian Foreign Minister in town and is talking about being BFF. Like, omigawd!

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met on Tuesday evening with visiting Syrian Foreign Affairs Minister, Walid al-Muallem, and pledged he would work to strengthen the relationship between the two countries, to the discontentment of Israel and the United States.

Hosting his guest in Tehran, Ahmadinejad emphasized that he had no intention of letting any outside factor impact the strategic alliance between Iran and Syria.

“The deeper our regional cooperation is, the more beneficial this will be to the nations in the area and the more this will impair our enemies,” he said.

Gee, what enemies could those be?

“All of the US’ plans against Lebanon and Syria have failed,” said Ahmadinejad, adding that America “is in the worst situation it has ever been in.

“Fortunately, Iran and Syria see things as they are and stand by each other, invoking much disappointment from the enemies.”

Ahmadinejad warned that “the Zionist regime and America are interested in making concessions when they are already retreating, therefore we must be alert to the enemies’ ploys.”

And what did the Syrian FM have to say about all of this?

Earlier in the day the Syrian foreign minister declared in his address at the conference that there would never be peace until Israel “returned the occupied territories.”

Uh-huh. He’s got the talking points down. So what is Israel going to do?

Why, keep talking to Syria, of course.

A Turkish official said delegations from Syria and Israel have agreed to hold more indirect peace talks in Turkey.

The official said the delegations ended their fourth round of Turkish-mediated talks in Istanbul on Wednesday and agreed to hold more in the coming months. The Turkish mediators travel between negotiators from both side who stay in separate hotels.

Because they’re working so well so far. Way to go there, Olmert. There’s another pretend feather in your cap you can brag about when you tell Israelis they won’t have Ehud Olmert to kick around anymore.

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07/30/2008

Gas money

Filed under: Life — Tags: Add new tag — Meryl Yourish @ 11:02 pm

Well, that’s depressing.

I used a single credit card to pay for all my gas expenses from June 30 to July 28. The total, counting tolls: $376.64.

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Chico

Filed under: Cats — Tags: Cats — Meryl Yourish @ 6:33 pm

Herschel is one of my longtime regulars. Chico was his.

Chico
Chico

Jan. 8, 1988-July 30, 2008

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Breaking: Israel will have a new leader

Filed under: Israel — Tags: World — Meryl Yourish @ 1:58 pm

Olmert is resigning.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held a special press conference on Wednesday at 8 p.m. where he announced he will not run in the Kadima primary scheduled to take place in September.

Olmert said he would resign from office upon selection of a successor, and would allow his successor to attempt to form a coalition.

Ever the gentleman, he’s leaving office the same way he stayed: Without taking personal responsibility for any of his actions.

The premier lashed out at his political adversaries without naming any of them – either from Kadima or other parties – personally.

Olmert opened his speech by expressing his pride to be a citizen of Israel: “As a citizen in a democracy I have always believed that when a person is elected prime minister in Israel, even those who opposed him in the ballot want him to succeed.

“But instead I found myself subjected to constant investigations and criticism. Almost from day one, I had to repel personal attacks and postpone decisions that are pertinent to the security of the State.”

And then he proceeded to show how blind he truly is:

Olmert then proceeded to recount the successes of his premiership: “And yet, Israel’s position has improved.

“The North enjoys tranquility; Israel’s deterrence has immeasurably improved. I am proud of these achievements,” he said.

On his watch, Hamas took over Gaza, Samir Kuntar was freed in a deal for two soldiers’ bodies, the Lebanon War debacle occurred, and Israel was ready to give up the Golan Heights. Yeah, that’s improved, all right.

No, wait. Israel’s deterrence will be immeasurably improved. Olmert is leaving office. That improves Israel’s standing immediately.

Now, the race is on for his replacement in Kadima. It isn’t Livni’s to lose. Mofaz appears to be coming on strong. And there is still Benjamin Netanyahu in the wings. But I leave the political posts to Snoopy. He’s the Israeli among the three of us co-bloggers.

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Values of classical journalism

Filed under: Media, Politics — Tags: Maariv — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

via memeorandum

I wanted to believe the worst of the Obama campaign. I wanted to believe that they had released the note that the candidate had place in the Kotel (Western Wall) to two newspapers.

There was some indication that the paper making the claim, Ma’ariv was being honest.

Not anymore.

The New Republic’s blog that had previously accepted Ma’ariv’s story, has dug a little deeper and found:

I just got off the phone with a Ma’ariv spokesman who says that the accusation is “completely false,” and that he has no idea who these papers were quoting from Ma’ariv. “No official spokesman for Ma’ariv told this to any of the papers.” I’ve got some calls in to these papers to find out where they got the quote. (I’ll update here when I hear back.) He told me definitively that “the Obama campaign did not give us a copy of the letter or approve it for printing.”

Hot Air writes:

Something’s fishy with Ma’ariv, though. TNR notes that unnamed “spokesmen” pushing the “Obama approved it” line were quoted by three different Israeli papers last night. And today?

Last October Ehud Asheri wrote in Haaretz:

Ofer Nimrodi, owner of the mass-circulation daily newspaper Ma’ariv, has been experiencing something unfamiliar these days: rare esteem and praise is greeting the appointment of the editors-in-chief Doron Galezer and Ruthie Yuval, the likes of which the battered publisher has never enjoyed.

Fifteen years after he bought the newspaper, there appears at long last the possibility that he will be extricated from his outsider position in print journalism and will earn equal status in the exclusive club of the veteran publishers who, unlike him, were born into the industry.

The change in the way the wind is blowing can be attributed first of all to what Galezer and Yuval represent: traditional, independent, investigative journalism that is not linked by umbilical cord to wealth, does not habitually hobnob socially with politicians in the places they frequent, and is not tainted by obsequious populism.

Both of them grew up in the solid school of the Haaretz group, and both have proven that it is possible to maintain the values of classical journalism even in the commercial environment of the mass circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth, and television’s Channel 2.

Those “values of classical journalism” were on full display during the recent controversy over Sen. Obama’s note in the wall.

I’m sorry I fell for it.

A passive aggressive national ethos

Filed under: Israel, palestinian politics — Tags: Palestinian Authority — Soccerdad @ 9:30 am

The other day I commented on a story from the Washington Post that Arab states were failing to fulfill their commitments to fund the Palestinian Authority.

Since then a few other bloggers have written about the story as well as a related story in the Jerusalem Post.

Boker Tov Boulder points out that by focusing on what wasn’t paid to the PA, the story misses the bigger picture: what’s been paid to the PA and gone for naught. In fact 3 weeks ago, we learned that $1 billion in international aid had been disbursed to the PA in 6 months. (This is something that Boker Tov Boulder followed up on.)

The international community has paid out nearly a billion dollars in direct aid to the Palestinians in six months, officials of the International Donors’ Conference for the Palestinian State said here late Monday, while hitting out at Israeli restrictions on movement by Palestinians.

Commenting on the Jerusalem Post story Israel Matzav offers some advice to the PA:

I know one place they could cut back – they could stop paying ’salaries’ for all their ‘employees’ in Gaza who haven’t come to work in over a year. At least 40% of the ‘Palestinian Authority’s ‘budget’ is spent in Gaza, which they do not even control.

That’s right, a significant amount of foreign aid sent to bolster the “moderate” Fatah government gets funneled to the “militant” Hamas government. The claims that we must fund the PA in order to bolster the moderates is undermined by the very moderates we’re supposedly helping.

Elder of Ziyon boils it down to:

The rich Arab oil barons do not consider the PA to be a good investment.

(There’s a lot more to his argument, but that’s the bottom line. So read the whole thing.)

If there was a Zionist ethos, it could be summed up as “making the desert bloom.” While the reality was not necessarily so romantic, it underscores a devotion to being independent. Palestinian nationalism, if it has an ethos it’s “let’s be wards of the international community.” Palestinian statehood has become everyone’s responsibility but the Palestinians.

The nations of the world must give them money. Israel must give them land and free terrorists.

Palestinians nationalism could be described as a passive-aggressive national movement. Why is there an International Donor’s conference to mark the progress towards creating a Palestinian state? Why isn’t Abbas or Fayyad presenting a state of the state message to their many donors explaining how they’ve promoted an industrial infrastructure, instituted government accountability, implemented a legal system that observes high standards of human rights or an educational system that promotes liberal thought? The Palestinians have no responsibilities and nothing is demanded of them.

Everyone everywhere (including numerous Israeli politicians) claim that Israel’s very legitimacy rests on the creation of a Palestinian state. But how can that be when the Palestinians don’t take the necessary steps to create such a state? Why should Israel’s legitimacy be dependent on the behavior of the Palestinians?

And when President Bush says that a stable Middle East depends on having a Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, why does it matter more to him than to the Arab states who won’t put their money where their mouth is? (Remember that one of the complaints that the Arab world has against the United States – repeated ad nauseum – is that it doesn’t do enough for the Palestinians. But how can the United States do enough, if the Palestinians don’t take the basic steps to create a state themselves? And why doesn’t the United States turn to the Arabs and say, why should we support Palestinians nationalism if you won’t?)

The current trends in diplomacy only encourage Palestinian dependency. At what point will this be recognized and the onus of independence be placed on the ones who claim they want it?

UPDATE: Writing about a trend of Arab countries to invest directly in the Palestinian people and not the government, Daled Amos observed (similar to Elder of Ziyon):

I blogged earlier this week about how contrary to the West that insisted on pouring more millions into the Palestinian Authority to no effect, the Arab countries knew better and have resisted giving money to the PA that they have previously promised. Now it seems that the Arab countries are even smarter than that–they have approached the situation as capitalists, investing in the people instead of squandering it on the leaders.

And from the Arab side of things, Zohir Andreus writes in Killing the Dream:

It is difficult for me to be a Palestinian-Arab these days, because I’m simply ashamed. The conduct of my people in the “liberated” Gaza Strip and in the occupied West Bank does not leave room for any doubt: The dream of establishing a democratic and secular Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel is dissipating. My people is the only one in the world that has no state and, thank God, two governments.

So perhaps it is the governments of the Palestinians who are passive aggressive in seeking nationhood.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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AP – stoking the fire of anti-Israeli sentiment

Filed under: AP Media Bias — SnoopyTheGoon @ 8:00 am

The AP falsely reported that Israel is building a new settlement on the West Bank and linked this to a wrong-headed spin on an important national leader visiting Israel.

No, not Obama! He’s still just a candidate. I’m referring to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Curiously, Brown’s visit was highlighted for its criticism of Israel by the AP though his trip was seen in Israel as incredibly supportive.

While I realize that AP is a fairly loose association and is rather a gathering of all kinds, the frequency of anti-Israeli reports it produces is way above normal. And it’s not only loose, but allows its contributors to play loose with facts to score a cheap propaganda point.

More in this article by professor Barry Rubin of GLORIA Center.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

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07/29/2008

I miss Ilyka

Filed under: Bloggers, Feminism — Meryl Yourish @ 11:03 pm

Come back, Ilyka. Come back.

I have no one else to hang with while tweaking the boys on feminist issues.

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Ready for a rumble

Filed under: palestinian politics — Tags: Fatah, Hamas — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

Yesterday I expressed skepticism that Fatah and Hamas were headed for a civil war. Maybe I was too quick. There are indications that things have indeed heated up. Whether they’ve reached a plateau or will continue to escalate remains to be seen.

Elder of Ziyon was on top of the escalation. (And I missed it before I posted.)

The NYT reports that Arrests Increase Tensions Between Palestinian Factions. Again I wonder if the arrests increase the tensions or reflect the tensions.

Tensions between the main rival Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah, spread from Gaza to the West Bank on Monday with reports of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority security forces detaining more than 50 activists and academics associated with Hamas.

The timing of the detentions, which were focused in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, smacked of retaliation for a broad Hamas sweep against Fatah members and institutions in Gaza over the weekend.

(more links at yesterday’s Daily Alert.)

I think it’s safe to assume that those arrested won’t be getting married, allowed conjugal visits and given university educations. ABC News reports:

Two human rights groups on Monday decried widespread torture of political opponents by bitter Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah, and Associated Press interviews with three victims and a doctor backed the reports of abuse.

The findings emerged as the two sides carried out fresh arrest sweeps in the West Bank and Gaza — highlighting deep tensions in the Palestinian territories after a flare-up in violence over the weekend.

The ongoing conflict between Hamas and Fatah hasn’t escaped the notice of Lebanon’s Daily Star, which observes in an editorial:

Over the past few years, the rivalry between Hamas and Fatah has rapidly made its way up the list of threats to the Palestinians’ existence. In some circles, it is still fashionable to blame Israel for all of the Palestinians’ troubles, but in this instance, the leaders of Hamas and Fatah have committed crimes of equal magnitude against their own constituents. Not only have scores of people died at the hands of their armed forces, the fighting has also served to greatly undermine the Palestinian cause. It has become increasingly difficult for the international community to feel sympathy for the Palestinian people when their own leaders provide so much media ammunition to distract the world from their plight. The image of lawlessness and internecine warfare conveys the image of a people who are simply not ready for self-governance or an independent state.

Or as Lee Stevens puts it, a bit more generally:

But here’s another way to look at it: The Palestinian Authority is neither a nascent state nor a failed state project. Rather, it is a clan system of frequently competing interests that no Palestinian leader in his right mind would try to turn into a state, regardless of how much financial incentive the international community makes available. The problem is not that the Arab state system is breaking down, but rather that it never existed. And the proof is unfolding before us in, among other places, Hamas’ Islamic Republic of Gaza, the autonomous Hezbollah regions of Hezbollah Lebanon, and perhaps even someday soon in Iraq, as the Arabs redraw the borders of the region to their own taste with little concern for the international state system.

(h/t Instapundit)

I still doubt that Abbas was responsible for that blast on Friday. Hamas has strength in Judea and Samaria too, so it would be foolish of him to order something so brazen.

Even without further escalation, Hamastan will continue to be a source of instability for the foreseeable future.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Gaza economics 101

Filed under: Gaza, World — Tags: World — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

The UN is really, really worried about the economy of the Gaza Strip. UNRWA workers claim poverty is at “unprecedented” highs.

The number of households in the Gaza Strip below the poverty line has reached an unprecedented high of nearly 52 percent, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said in a report published recently.

“The number of households in Gaza below the consumption poverty line continued to grow, reaching 51.8% in 2007, despite significant amounts of emergency and humanitarian assistance,” UNRWA said in a statement late last week. Meanwhile, poverty rates in the West Bank fell to just over 19%.

The report, based on figures provided by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), said that “the real average unemployment rate in the occupied Palestinian territory (as a whole) remained amongst the highest in the world at 29.5%,” with Gaza reaching “an unprecedented high of 45.3%” during the second half of last year.

Phew. Those are some pretty bad statistics. Why, you’d think the Gaza economy was on the verge of collapse or something. Well, you might—except it was declared just that a year ago:

Gaza’s already weak economy could collapse unless the main commercial crossing between Gaza and Israel is reopened, Gaza businessmen and United Nations officials said today.

The Karni crossing has been shut since June 12 because the Fatah-affiliated Palestinians who operated it fled after Hamas took over Gaza in bloody fighting. But both Israel and the Fatah leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, have been in no hurry to help Hamas by working to regularize Gaza’s economic life.

Karen AbuZayd, who is the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which deals with Palestinian refugees, said in an interview: “Without Karni the Gaza economy will collapse unless it is opened for exports and not just for imports, so we don’t punish this whole people.”

Huh. Imagine that. The economy was on the verge of collapse a year ago, and yet, it survived. So the Chicken Littles at the UN are declaring it at the height of poverty, instead.

Say. Why is it, exactly, that the Gaza economy is so crappy, do you think? Let’s take a trip back through time to 2005, after the disengagement, to see what happened.

Amid the rubble of the former Jewish settlements, Palestinians have sown the first seeds of a modest economic revival.

Less than three months after the Israelis departed, Palestinians have repaired scores of greenhouses left by the settlers, planted an autumn crop and are preparing to harvest an estimated $20 million worth of strawberries, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and an array of herbs and spices. The produce is intended mostly for export to Europe, but some will also be headed to Israel, Arab countries and the United States.

So. Whatever happened to those greenhouses that they needed repair in the first place, I wonder?

Palestinian police on Tuesday blocked off abandoned Jewish settlements and chased after scavengers in a first attempt to impose law and order after chaotic celebrations of Israel’s pullout from Gaza, but the overwhelmed forces were unable to halt looting of the area’s prized greenhouses.

Egyptian guards, meanwhile, failed for a second straight day to control a rush across the Gaza-Egypt border, which was a formidable barrier when still patrolled by Israel. With the Israelis gone, Gazans dug under walls and climbed over barriers to get to Egypt where they stocked up on cheap cigarettes, medication and cheese.

Oh, yeah. That happened.

So. Why is it, do you think, the Gaza Strip is suffering from unrelenting poverty? Oh, that’s right. It’s Israel’s fault. Blockade, yadayada, etc., etc. Never blame the actions of the residents of the strip. Don’t blame Hamas. Don’t blame the Gazans support for terrorism. Blame Israel’s blockade.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, I’m not buying it.

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07/28/2008

Fragrance

Filed under: Cats — Tags: Cats — Meryl Yourish @ 10:57 pm

When last we mentioned Tig’s particular, ah, ailment, it was under control. The antibiotic ear goop that the vet prescribed had cleared up his gastrointestinal upsets, and the kitty flatulence was conquered.

Or so we thought.

Tig started getting more fragrant towards the end of Mom’s visit. It became particularly noticeable when he was playing, and moreso when it was time to clean the litterboxes. So I called the vet, and the vet prescribed the pill form of the antibiotic this time. He thinks it’s a parasite. I think it’s extraordinarily annoying. Tig can’t be happy about it, either, as he is the one who had to deal with the aftermath. But oh. my. gosh, he stinks. He reeks. It’s horrible. And the worst part about it is, Tig simply loves to cuddle, thus reducing the nose-to-fart ratio.

He has been given many nicknames since this started, including: Fartster, Fartman, My Little Stinker, Stinkbomb, and tonight, Chris suggested His Imperial Fartness (or His Royal Fartness, as Tig is really not the imperial type). Then Chris suggested you all pitch in and help me out with more nicknames.

Go to town, folks.

He’s only been on the antibiotics since Thursday, so (sigh) it’s going to be a bit longer before they kick in effectively. And he’s on them for about three weeks. The vet is trying to knock those little parasites out completely. Oy. I really need this to happen. My sense of smell is most acute in the morning, and that’s when Tig climbs into bed to cuddle. And then farts.

Really. It’s just a bit much. I have never had a flatulent cat before, and I never want to have it again.

His Imperial Fartness, looking like he’s about to toot. (In reality, he’s about to leap on a string.)

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The shallow Egypt-Israel peace

Filed under: Israel Derangement Syndrome, World — Tags: World — Meryl Yourish @ 7:17 pm

One of the shining examples of peacemaking in the Middle East always comes back to the 1978 Camp David Accords. Peace between Israel and Egypt is held up as the prize package, even though no other Arab country has waged war on Israel in the intervening years, in spite of not having a signed peace treaty.

But the peace between Egypt and Israel is full of stories like these reported by Commentary’s Eric Trager:

For the most part, tourism between Israel and Egypt has long been a one-way affair. In this vein, Israeli tourism to Egypt peaked in 1999 at 415,000 visitors, whereas Egyptian tourism to Israeli reached a high of merely 28,000 visitors in 1995.

[...] But even for those Egyptians who are financially able to visit Israel and ideologically undeterred, the Egyptian government has done its fair share to build additional barriers to Egyptian-Israeli contact. According to an Egyptian evangelical pastor who asked that his name be withheld, Egyptians who wish to travel to Israel must apply for special single-use passports – a process that automatically places them on an official government register. Upon returning to Egypt, they are frequently questioned by state security officials and closely monitored. Egyptian friends who have expressed their desire to visit Israel have confirmed this account.

Moreover, even when Egyptians seek to interact with Israelis without visiting the Jewish state, Egyptian security services may intervene. One Egyptian academic, who asked that his name be withheld, shared the following story. Recently, he had been invited to an event sponsored by the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, and intended to attend. Shortly before the event, however, Egyptian security services contacted him, “advising” him not to attend – the implication being that there would be retribution if he did otherwise. Apparently, Egyptian security had learned of his intention to attend the event by monitoring his mail.

If there were truly peace between Egypt and Israel, the Egyptian government wouldn’t be preventing its people from so much as attending an event at the Israeli Embassy.

And it is stories like these that are completely ignored by Jimmy Carter and the rest of the Camp David cheerleaders.

I might point out that there has also been this sort of peace between most other Arab nations and Israel since Camp David. And we’re not paying the other countries the $2 billion a year we pay Egypt in aid.

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Israeli columnist: Hamastan is a good thing!

Filed under: Gaza, Hamas, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Soccerdad @ 10:30 am

When I saw the following link at Ha’aretz – Aluf Benn: ‘Hamastan’ is prototyope for future Palestinian state, I was surprised. Benn is a committed leftist, and I was surprised that he was acknowledging the danger of strengthening Hamas. Then I read it.

Three years after the disengagement, 15 years after Oslo, Israel faces an independent Palestinian entity with full security and civilian responsibilities for a contiguous area in which there are no Israeli soldiers or settlers. Finally there is someone prepared and able to manage Gaza “with no High Court and no B’Tselem,” as Yitzhak Rabin hoped. Finally there is an authentic Palestinian leadership that rose from the grassroots and demonstrates discipline and enforcement abilities. Finally the buds of mutual deterrence are emerging that may bring calm to the border.

For better or worse, “Hamastan” is the pilot program of the Palestinian state – the laboratory for a permanent-status agreement.

This column isn’t one of despair. Benn really thinks it’s a good idea. In fact he sees it as following another success:

The model for the tahadiyeh is based on the arrangement developed by Ehud Barak and Hassan Nasrallah, who created it around the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from Lebanon in 2000. At its heart is Hezbollah’s willingness to enforce quiet on the Lebanese side of the border without giving up its hostile ideology and bellicose rhetoric. Hamas insisted it would not be the “policeman of the occupation,” and refused to restrain other groups until it gave in to the weapons of hunger and closure and to the temptation of receiving indirect recognition of its rule in exchange for enforcing quiet.

Hamas and Hezbollah are not only Iran’s proxies on Israel borders; every time Israel reaches an agreement with either, they are gearing up for the next conflict. The failure of Israel to insist on the disarming of Hezbollah after 2000 is the cause of the 2006 war. The kidnapping of Regev and Goldwasser wasn’t an isolated incident. It was one more breach of the international border by Hezbollah. Each violation was more brazen, threatening Israel to respond.

Aluf Benn lives in a fantasy world where enemies don’t mean what they say, where Iran isn’t spoiling to control more and more of the Middle East and where there is an acceptable level of terrorism.

Coincidentally, when I saw the Benn article there was another article about a failure to confront evil at an early date, when taking appropriate action might have prevented greater destruction later.
“

Hitler vor Gericht” (Hitler on Trial) explores the 1924 trial of Adolf Hitler in Munich for his part in an abortive coup d’etat that could have earned him the death penalty.

Instead, he served just nine months in prison and was able to rebuild the shattered Nazi party soon after his release.

Had Hitler been given a long sentence, the history of Europe might have been very different, said Ian Kershaw from the University of Sheffield in England.

Living with Hamas and Hezbollah is no prescription for peace and calm. The longer these malignant groups are allowed to thrive, the more damage they will cause. Aluf Benn is an arrogant and blind fool to believe that it’s good thing that Israel’s borders are controlled by these terrorist organizations.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Arab states don’t fulfill their commitments to the Palestinians

Filed under: Hamas, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Arab world — Soccerdad @ 9:30 am

The Washington Post reports Arab Aid to Palestinians Often Doesn’t Fulfill Pledges.

In 2002, when oil prices were hovering around $21 a barrel, nearly two dozen Arab nations joined to pledge yearly contributions of $660 million to support the Palestinian Authority’s annual budget. Now, even with oil prices more than six times higher and the Palestinian Authority bordering on financial ruin, only a handful of Arab countries are sending even a small portion of the money they promised, according to data examined

Out of 22 Arab nations that made pledges, only three — Algeria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — have contributed funds this year, while oil-rich countries such as Libya, Kuwait and Qatar have sent nothing and still owe the Palestinian government more than $700 million in past-due pledges.

The Palestinian Authority uses the contributions to help pay salaries for civil servants, health-care specialists and other workers in the Palestinian territories. European governments, the World Bank and the United States have provided more than three times as much money as Arab countries this year to keep the government afloat, but officials said the Europeans and the World Bank have virtually depleted their resources, leaving a funding gap of about $800 million for the rest of 2008.

First of all, it’s questionable whether this aid even helps the Palestinians. Or does it have the effect of making their government less accountable to its citizens – leading to massive corruption.

Corruption seems to the number one answer why Arab states have not contributed more.

Arab diplomats, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there is little trust that the Palestinian Authority will use their contributions wisely, even though Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is a veteran of the International Monetary Fund and, during his time as finance minister, introduced new standards of accountability and financial management. Arab diplomats said they also resent the tight grip that Israel has maintained on the Palestinian territories during the peace talks.

And of course no explanation would do without some gratuitous Israel bashing.

“Most of them make the pledges reluctantly, on the basis that the United States wanted them to do it,” said Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland. “There is frustration that nothing is happening in the peace process, and so they would be throwing good money after bad.”

Telhami professes all kinds of excuses for Arab intransigence against Israel. He does not profess peace, so his title is really deceptive. He doesn’t even consider Palestinian responsibility for the lack of contributions.

The Post provides an interesting graphic accompanying the article. It notes that a number of the countries that pledged support for the Palestinians actually accelerated payment of the aid between 2006 and 2007 after Hamas won the legislative elections. So if they were comfortable making payments that would strengthen Hamas, that undermines their claim that the lack of progress on the peace process is a reason that they’re withholding funds. Clearly they had no problem funding a party opposed to the peace process dedicated to the destruction of Israel. (Aside from that, Fatah funds Hamas.)

According to this table, Arab commitments to the Palestinians since 1999 have just as good a chance of still being commitments as being fully paid. This isn’t really new. (You can go to the ReliefWeb website and put together your own table.)

One of the specific commitments of Saudi Arabia from 2001 was for:
“…supporting the Jerusalem uprising fund.” In other words this aid was designated for funding the so-called “Aqsa intifada.” (It does not indicate if this pledge was fulfilled.) This is one more indication that funding for the Palestinians is often not about nation building or peacemaking but about continuing the fight against Israel.

But if the idea that funding the Palestinian Authority would bring peace suffers from scrutiny of what’s actually given by the Arab world to the Palestinians, another myth is also undermined.

We regularly hear about how the United States is not sufficiently committed to the Palestinian cause; but the United States contributes huge amounts to the Palestinians. It is, of course, a bad investment. But the Americans are backing up their words about supporting a Palestinian state with money. Which is more than what the Arab world is doing.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Is there a civil war brewing?

Filed under: Gaza, Hamas — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

Elder of Ziyon was likely one of the first bloggers to note Friday’s bombing in Gaza, which brought the death toll of Palestinians killed by Palestinians this year up to 122.

Israel Matzav wondered if there’s a harbinger of civil war in Gaza. LGF makes a similar observation. Meryl noticed a double standard.

But the NYT headline had me wondering.

Blasts in Gaza Stoke Tensions Between Factions

Did the blasts stoke tensions, or reveal them?

Hamas, the Islamic militant organization, blamed the mainstream Fatah for the deadly blast that followed two smaller explosions in Gaza on Friday, issuing a statement accusing the Fatah leadership in the West Bank, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, of concealing “a conspiracy to kill and assassinate and terrorize” Hamas security forces.

In other words, Fatah’s terrorists and assassins are being accused of targeting Hamas’s terrorists and assassins. To me this looks less like a crisis than a win-win situation.

I find it interesting in that the Times’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief was in Gaza last week reporting on a museum, and apparently was unaware of any simmering tensions between Fatah and Hamas. It’s possible that he wasn’t looking for a story on those tensions. Or it’s possible that the tensions weren’t there.

Other than the arrests and threats against Fatah there doesn’t appear to be much movement on this since Friday. For now, I’ll assume that it was an isolated incident and not the start of a bigger conflict between Fatah and Hamas.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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The definition of chutzpah

Filed under: Israel, Terrorism — Tags: World — Meryl Yourish @ 7:30 am

A terrorist’s family sued the government of Israel for damages—for killing the terrorist when he drew a knife and tried to murder a Border Guard. The judges determined that the family are deluded. And they have to pay court costs.

The Haifa District Court ruled Monday against a damages suit filed by the family of a Palestinian who was killed five years ago, while trying to stab a Border Guard officer near city of Umm al-Fahem.

The court ruled that the Border Guard officers present at the time of the incident acted according to procedures when they shot the man, saying there was negligence or wrongdoing on their part; further ruling that the man’s family will pay the State NIS 15,000 (approx. $4,300).

The police investigation determined that the terrrorist was determined to die a “martyr’s” death.

The officers instructed Samudi to lift his shirt, in order to make sure he was not carrying any explosives. When one of the officers approached him – with another providing cover – Samudi drew a knife, yelled “Allahu Akbar,” and began stabbing the officer standing next to him.

An officer sitting in the patrol jeep fired a warning shot in midair, but since Samudi kept stabbing the officer, he than shot and killed him. One of the shots hit the wounded officers, causing him moderate injuries.

Samudi’s family, however, claimed he was shot despite not provoking the officers, adding that once he was shot, the officers proceeded to “confirm the kill.”

The incident was investigated by the Police Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB), which determined the officers were following procedures and ordered the case closed.

A warning shot? When he was stabbing another officer with a knife? You’ve got to be kidding me. He’d be shot dead immediately in America. And deservedly so. I’m surprised they didn’t punish the officer’s partner.

In any case: The definition of chutzpha, indeed.

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07/27/2008

Haveil Havalim is up

Filed under: Bloggers, Jews — Meryl Yourish @ 8:12 pm

The Carnival of the Jews is ready for you, Mr. DeMille.

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A moment of apartment zen

Filed under: Life — Meryl Yourish @ 1:40 pm

Every time something annoying happens in my crappy apartment complex now, I say to myself: Six weeks. I’ll be out of here in six weeks.

Right now, the annoying ice cream truck is out there with its annoying “Pop Goes the Weasel” music. And I repeat my mantra: Six weeks. Especially because I am going to a community that probably has hidden cannon mounted to take out ice cream trucks.

Yesterday, I came home and my neighbor was parked on an angle guaranteed to see another car squeeze me in if parked in the remaining space. Six weeks.

The air conditioning kicked out again last night, even though it was fixed last week and I’ll have to call the guy again: Six weeks.

In six weeks, I will be where I belong: A neighborhood where the cars empty out during the day, because people have to work to pay for their pretty condo. A neighborhood where the management company doesn’t run “Summer Specials,” discounting the rent so that crap moves in, and moves out again under cover of night when the discount goes off and they can’t afford the regular rent. A neighborhood that hasn’t seen the crime rate jump so high that the city police are working overtime to drive out the criminals.

Six weeks.

I can feel my blood pressure lowering already.

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A tale of two headlines

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Hamas, Israel, Terrorism — Tags: World — Meryl Yourish @ 12:45 pm

The AP never disappoints. Nine people have been killed and 42 wounded in Lebanon in the past two days, yet all you find is a brief story in the AP, whitewashed and vague. On the other hand, Israeli troops found and killed a wanted terrorist who was responsible for a suicide bombing. The story is in-depth, and covers several different Israel-related topics on top of the dead Hamasnik.

Let’s take a look at the news out of Lebanon, where we have sectarian fighting going on. The headline:

Clashes continue in northern Lebanon, 3 die

Now let’s take a look at Hebron, where the IDF found (and destroyed) a wanted terrorist:

Israeli troops kill Hamas militant

Hm. You’d think that the Lebanese died due to natural causes or something, judging from that headline. And yet, there is absolutely no doubt why the Hamas terrorist died. It was lead poisoning to the body delivered from the barrels of IDF weapons.

Now let us compare the leads.

Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant in the West Bank town of Hebron early Sunday, surrounding a house and exchanging gunfire with the man before bulldozing the structure.

A Hamas statement said the 25-year-old man was a group member who fought troops for 12 hours before he was killed. The statement threatened retaliation “at the time and place we choose.”

The Israeli military said during the gunfight, troops heard explosions from inside the house, presumably from bombs stored inside. The militant’s mangled body was seen being removed from the rubble.

Ooh, that’s exciting! A 12-hour gun battle, retaliation threats, and explosions! I wonder if the Lebanese civil war “clash” is half as exciting.

Lebanese security officials say three people have been killed in the second day of sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon.

The clashes in Tripoli are between Sunnis and Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The officials say the three were killed and 27 were wounded on Saturday. A total of nine people have been killed and 42 wounded in two days of fighting. The officials spoke condition of anonymity because they weren’t allowed to talk to the media.

Nope. There’s not a word of description of the battle, other than the vague “clash.” There have been two full days of fighting in northern Lebanon, leading to what the media would call “scores” of casualties if Israel or America were doing the fighting—but you don’t get details here. Because the victims aren’t victims of Israel or the U.S.

Now, the AP explanations of the “violence”:

Israel and Hamas are observing a cease-fire in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. But the agreement does not apply in the West Bank, ruled by moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israeli troops continue to target militants in the territory, despite objections from Abbas that such actions embarrass him and undermine his control.

According to Israeli defense officials, the militant helped to plan a February suicide bombing in the Israeli town of Dimona that killed a 73-year-old woman and wounded 11.

Note that for every explanation, Israel must be slammed. What purpose does it serve to write the words in bold above, other than to prejudice the reader against Israel? I wonder if they’ll do that kind of explaining with the Lebanon story.

Tension has been high along Lebanon’s religious and political fault lines since the militant Shiite Hezbollah group overran parts of Beirut in May in response to government attempts to limit its power.

Since then, Hezbollah and its allies have joined a national unity government.

Nope. It’s a five-paragraph story. No real depth, just a brief “Oh, look, three more people died in the clash.” Looks like everything is hearts and flowers, except for the part where they’re killing each other—which is glossed over. Please note that the victims are not named, aged, nor are there mournful quotes from relatives. Because that only happens when the dead are Palestinian victims of Israel fire, whether deliberate or accidental.

And we close the book on another fine example of the AP anti-Israel media bias. This is one reason why the world hates Israel. The media narrative always pounds the Jewish State, and eases off the real thugs in the Middle East.

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Sen. Obama’s JPost interview

Filed under: Israel, Politics — Tags: Barack Obama — Soccerdad @ 12:00 pm

via memeorandum

The Jerusalem Post interviewed presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama during his trip to Israel. Despite the praise, the editor David Horovitz gives the candidate:

And on Wednesday evening, Obama answered my question about whether Israel has a right to try and maintain a presence in the West Bank, for security, religious, historic or other reasons, with a vigor and detail that also seemed to confirm Olmert’s assessment of where conventional friendly wisdom stands and that expanded significantly on his brief settlement remarks in the AIPAC speech.

In a later editorial, the paper (presumably written by Horovitz and other members of the editorial board) sounded a little less positive:

We asked Obama whether he too could live with the “67-plus” paradigm. His response: “Israel may seek ‘67-plus’ and justify it in terms of the buffer that they need for security purposes. They’ve got to consider whether getting that buffer is worth the antagonism of the other party.”

Without that “buffer,” the strategic ridges of the West Bank that overlook metropolitan Tel Aviv and the country’s main airport would be in Palestinian hands. Eighteen kilometers – or 11 miles – would separate “Palestine” from the Mediterranean, the narrow, vulnerable coastal strip along which much of Israel’s population lives.

Israel Matzav hopes that

… after reading the interview one can only hope that it was done before Obama went on the helicopter trip pictured above. If the interview was after the helicopter trip, Obama is even more hopelessly naive than any of us ever thought.

One may assume that the friendliness demonstrated by Sen. Obama to opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu would not necessarily extend to a future Pres. Obama and PM Netanyahu.

Remember what Sen. Obama once said:

Barack Obama faulted elements in the pro-Israel community that he says equate being pro-Israel with being pro-Likud.

“I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel,” the Illinois senator and contender for the Democratic presidential nominee told a group of Jewish leaders in Cleveland on Sunday. “If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress.”

(The NJDC did not see fit to publish my comment making this point on their blog.)

I think it’s pretty clear that where Sen. Obama stands. One more time (from the interview):

Look, I think that both sides on this equation are going to have to make some calculations. Israel may seek “67-plus” and justify it in terms of the buffer that they need for security purposes. They’ve got to consider whether getting that buffer is worth the antagonism of the other party.

UPDATE: And a relevant cautionary note about Sen. Obama from Shmuel Rosner:

It is true that Obama is an exciting candidate, more interesting than McCain. If elected, he will be our American friend, like most of his predecessors. If he is not elected, McCain will be that friend. Obama’s greatest shortcoming when it comes to Israel is a strongly rooted opposition to the use of force – an unavoidable necessity for a country like Israel. His relative advantage is greater credit in Arab countries, at least at the start. Perhaps that credit will translate into trust, accompanied by a willingness to make progress. But there is room for suspicion that it will translate instead into manipulation of a president known for his naivete.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Diggin’ the digging

Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Media Bias — Tags: archaeology — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

Ethan Bronner reports Museum Offers Gray Gaza a View of Its Dazzling Past

It may sound like the indulgence of a well-fed man fleeing the misery around him. But when Jawdat N. Khoudary opens the first museum of archaeology in Gaza this summer it will be a form of Palestinian patriotism, showing how this increasingly poor and isolated coastal strip ruled by the Islamists of Hamas was once a thriving multicultural crossroad.

Bronner, of course, reports on how Khoudray perseveres and thrives against many obstacles, mostly Israeli.

History offers not only legitimacy, of course, but also a framework for coping with the present. Gaza is under an Israeli and international siege aimed at weakening Hamas, widely viewed in the West as a terrorist group. But this is not the first time Gazans have faced a squeeze.

“Gaza has suffered more than most cities,” Mr. Khoudary noted. “There was the siege of Alexander the Great and of the Persians and of the British. At the end of the day this siege will be a footnote.”

After taking us through the problems with acquiring the necessary artifacts for the museum, Bronner reports on an irony.

Mr. Khoudary said he had visited the Israel Museum and hoped that one day some of the Gaza collection could come back here “after we have a qualified government and the capability to protect the heritage of Gaza.” He said Dr. Dothan “did us a favor because it would all be gone or destroyed today.”

Of course we know from Joseph’s tomb and the Temple Mount how good the Palestinians are at preserving antiquities. Still my suspicion that there are elements of Gaza’s history that Mr Khoudry won’t be publicizing.

The history of Jews in Gaza. (h/t Elder of Ziyon)

For example:

During the first ceasefire of the 1948 War, Egyptian forces regularly sniped at Kfar Darom. Two days before the ceasefire collapses altogether, David Ben Gurion orders Kfar Darom to be abandoned, due to an insufficient number of soldiers and arms, and so the kibbutz is destroyed by the Egyptian army without resistance. Map
The members of Kfar Darom found Bnei Darom, a new kibbutz East of Ashdod.

It serves an another reminder that the principle of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force is applied only when said acquisition is made by Israel, even in the course of defending itself.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

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The answer my friend …

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

Today Thomas Friedman takes from Texas to Tel Aviv.

What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of “Dallas” and Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club? You’d get T. Boone Pickens. What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi. And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens, the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power, and Shai Agassi, the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world’s leader in electric cars?

You’d have the start of an energy revolution.

The only good thing to come from soaring oil prices is that they have spurred innovator/investors, successful in other fields, to move into clean energy with a mad-as-hell, can-do ambition to replace oil with renewable power. Two of the most interesting of these new clean electron wildcatters are Boone and Shai.

I could do without Friedman’s cute characterizations of each. I’m also not impressed by his premise that government ought to be doing more or his characterization of us being “addicted” to oil. (Agassi uses the term too.) In fact rather than looking at alternative energy technology as “the only good thing” to from rising oil prices, look at it as a sign of the entrepreneurial spirit. I realize that the effect is the same, but the vantage is different. Friedman sees this as a sign of a failure of government; I see it as a (possible) triumph of private initiatives.

Still Shai Agassi would likely approve of the comparison to T. Boone Pickens as indicated in his blog.

Electric cars and windmills are the most complementary products in the green world. Windmills generate a lot more energy at night, as wind picks up when the air cools down. Unfortunately, when you get a lot of wind most people are asleep and the electricity needs to be rerouted elsewhere. Cars are parked at night waiting to get electricity into the batteries – which is a perfect match to the electricity profile of wind generation.

Business Week has more on how Project Better Place got rolling:

The high-risk plan came together through an unusual collection of business and government leaders. Former software executive Shai Agassi, chief executive of Better Place, conceived the plan. He was formerly a top executive at German software giant SAP (SAP). Israel President Shimon Peres got behind it. Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert initiated policy and tax changes to favor green vehicles. Carlos Ghosn, chairman of Renault and Nissan, saw it as a stepping stone into alternative-fuel cars. And Idan Ofer, chairman of holding company Israel Corp., the largest oil refiner in Israel, backed the project with more than $100 million of the $200 million in the first round of funding for the project.

Until now, Nissan and Renault had been among the laggards in alternative-fuel research. While rivals Toyota and Honda pioneered hybrid technologies, Nissan and Renault held back. Now, the two companies are placing bets on all-electric technology. In fact, Ghosn says that as a result of this project the Nissan-Renault Alliance has made electric autos its top priority. The companies expect to initially produce electric cars for Israel and other countries by adapting some of their current models, and to eventually introduce new models designed from the ground up to run on batteries. “This is a unique situation,” Ghosn says of the Israel project. “It’s the first mass marketplace for electric cars under conditions that make sense for all the parties.”

Israel sees a shift away from gasoline engines as vital to its economic and security. To encourage the purchase of green vehicles, the country just boosted the sales tax on gasoline-powered cars to as much as 60% and pledged to buy up old gas cars to get them off the road. “I believe Israel should go from oil to solar energy,” says Peres. “Oil is the greatest problem of all time–the great polluter and promoter of terror. We should get rid of it.”

OK, so it’s not all private initiative.

Anyway for more on how Project Better Place views themselves, check out their website and/or promotional video.

For more on how electric cars would work and the technical issues that need to be resolved check this out.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Qantas still hasn’t crashed

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: Qantas — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Qantas airlines had a pretty incredible save the other day The NYT reports:

The jumbo jet, which carried 346 passengers and 19 crew members, landed safely on Friday and those on board left without injury. As a piece of fuselage the size of a sedan ripped from the plane, the jet, Qantas Flight 30, had been forced to descend steeply to 10,000 feet from 29,000 feet.

Passengers described hearing a loud bang and seeing debris fly into the cabin. As the plane depressurized, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling and cabin crew members shouted to passengers to put them on.

Here’s the part that’s particularly incredible:

He said passengers were not in danger from the depressurization because aircraft that fly above 10,000 feet are generally required to carry oxygen systems. The atmosphere is thin above that altitude, and people can function for only a few minutes without oxygen before becoming groggy and losing consciousness.

Pilots are trained to bring a plane down swiftly to 10,000 feet, where passengers and crew can breathe without assistance. Given that the Qantas jet was at 29,000 feet, the plane dropped roughly a mile a minute, “not the kind of descent you would normally subject passengers to,” Mr. Mann said.

The Times also lists other Qantas close calls and a similar incident from 20 years ago.

Qantas has also had some close calls. In 1999, a Qantas jet ran off a runway in Bangkok while landing in heavy rain. There were no reports of serious injuries.

More recently, a Qantas-operated Boeing 717 was damaged in February when it sustained a hard landing at Darwin, Australia. The landing gear, tires and fuselage of the plane, flown by QantasLink, the airline’s regional carrier, were damaged.

In 1988, a gash opened in a Boeing 737 belonging to Aloha Airlines at 24,000 feet on a flight from Hilo to Honolulu, Hawaii. A chunk of the plane’s roof and the cockpit door were blown out. One flight attendant was killed when she was swept out of the plane, and 65 passengers and crew members were hurt.

Federal investigators said the accident was caused by metal fatigue, exacerbated by corrosion caused by salt water.

The Times mentions the famous Qantas claim and the scene in Rain Man that popularized it.

The Times points out that in its early years before it was incorporated as Qantas it did lose some jets. USA Today’s airline blog has more on how the airline has protected that claim.

The Guardian notes Qantas “paid a reported $100 million to repair it, way above the value of the Boeing 747-400, apparently so it could preserve its ‘never lost a jet’ status.” The airline has had several other incidents during the past decade, but — so far — none have resulted in the loss of a jet.

The cynical tone doesn’t seem right. Even if Qantas has to declare a plane a loss, it’s still a pretty incredible safety record. Last week’s heroic piloting should be a reason to emphasize the record, not question it.

(h/t Mrs. Soccer Dad)

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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07/26/2008

Unexplained media bias rips through news outlets

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Gaza, Hamas, palestinian politics — Tags: World — Meryl Yourish @ 9:54 am

It truly is fascinating to watch the AP bias in reporting about Israel and the Palestinians. Let’s go to an old post of mine first to look at an old AP story about Israel:

Israeli Troops Kill 8 Palestinians
Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians, including a 17-year-old girl, in a two-day surge of fighting across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said Sunday.

The dead also included three militants traveling together in a car in the northern West Bank, and a man in Gaza killed in an Israeli airstrike in response to a Palestinian rocket attack.

Now let’s look at the headline that’s been going around since last night about a large, deadly explosion in Gaza:

Unexplained explosions kill 5, wound 20 in Gaza

Isn’t it interesting how the AP is so tentative about assigning blame to this attack? Funny how they’re usually so quick to blame Israel, quoting Palestinian eyewitnesses and terrorist spokesmen, yet here they are, half a day later, and the best they can come up with is “Unexplained explosions” in this headline. Hm. Why is it they would suddenly become so leery of assigning blame?

A powerful explosion ripped through a car on a busy Gaza City beach Friday night, killing a Hamas field commander and three other people, security officials said.

It was the third unexplained blast of the day in this coastal territory after a relatively calm period since Israel and the Islamic militants of Hamas agreed on a cease-fire last month. A total of five people died from the explosions, and 23 suffered injuries.

Wow, it’s the third mystery blast of the day. The crack AP staff can’t figure out who’s behind them. I wonder why that is? (Hint: Because Israel didn’t do it?) And by this time in an AP lead, you generally learn if any children were killed. The “three other people” in this lead are civilians, of course, one of them a child.

No one in Gaza blamed Israel for the violence, indicating it was likely Palestinian infighting.

Oh, how nice of the AP to explain this to us. It’s “likely” that it was Palestinian “infighting.” That’s a cute name for civil war.

The late night blast killed Amar Musubah, a Hamas military field commander, and another Hamas militant, Eyad Al-Hia, medical officials said. A child and a fourth unknown individual also died.

Earlier, unknown assailants set off two bombs in Gaza City, killing one man.

Finally, the child is mentioned, and yet, there is no age given. If this were a story about Israel causing civilian casualties, by now you would know the names and ages of all the victims, soon to be followed by mournful quotes from their relatives, and calls for revenge from terrorists. Funny how the AP writer can’t find this information out when the dead aren’t killed by Israeli fire.

And now, waaaay down in the story, the AP tries to assign blame for the blasts. Guess who they blame first, backhandedly?

Gaza is the scene of regular bloodshed between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants, though the territory has been quiet over the past month because of the truce between Israel and the territory’s Hamas rulers.

Uh-huh. “Regular bloodshed”—what a quaint way of putting the fighting between soldiers and terrorists. Now that we’ve got the blame-Israel-first thing out of the way, we have the real suspect, and note the difference in phrasing:

Gaza is also a common site of internal Palestinian violence between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas fighters defeated Fatah forces during five days of combat in Gaza a year ago, and tensions remain high.

It’s “bloodshed” when Israelis are fighting, but only “violence” when Palestinians fight each other. Now, the AP might tell you that they’re simply trying not to repeat the same word in two paragraphs, but there are many, many words other than “violence” that you can use for the fighting between Hamas and Fatah that resulted in over 100 deaths, including many civilians. Like, “civil war.” But then, when you’re the AP, you have to keep the narrative, and exposing the murderous actions of Palestinian-on-Palestinian “violence” isn’t sticking to the narrative of the peaceful victims of Israeli agression that only want to be left alone to build their state in peace and happiness, forever and ever.

Yet another example of the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel media bias. But don’t worry. Like Israeli Double Standard Time, that only happens on days that end in a “y.”

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07/25/2008

Homeownership

Filed under: Life — Meryl Yourish @ 8:03 pm

Hm. This doesn’t look good.

Sales of existing homes tumbled more sharply than expected in June, pushing activity down to the lowest level in more than a decade.

With an already huge glut of homes on the market, median prices fell compared to a year ago and analysts predicted prices would keep falling until next spring as tighter credit, a slipping job market and rising foreclosures scare potential buyers away.

The National Association of Realtors reported Thursday that sales dropped by 2.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.86 million units, the slowest sales pace since the first quarter of 1998.

Oh, wait. That must be the reason why when I put in an offer for a significant amount under the asking price for a condo, it was accepted. The worst market in ten years is actually good news for me. I’m getting out of these lousy apartments.

Hey, folks. I’m going to be a homeowner before Rosh Hashana. A new home, a new cat, and a new year for me. Life has really picked up these last few years, and I am happy and thankful.

There will be pictures galore come September. There’s a lot more room, and Gracie and Tig are learning how to play with each other. I expect a fair amount of cat-in-sun pictures. And in front of the fireplace, come wintertime.

You know, I haven’t written a lot about my finances, other than to mention my great new job lately, but you folks have no idea how far I’ve come over the past few years. I was beyond broke four years ago. I was struggling under a mountain of debt that accrued from under- and unemployment—not from buying shiny new things—that came close to smothering me. But it didn’t. The wolf had his snout through my door, and I kicked the bastard out and sent him yelping away.

Some of my longtime readers may remember I was working three jobs, seven days a week, and struggling to pay the bills. Well, hard work paid off. My credit score is incredible, and I’m going to own my own home in just a few weeks. I don’t need no stinking government bailout.

I just moved the closing date up a week. The condo is empty, and I want the extra time to move out of my apartment.

I can’t wait.

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