Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 03:07:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

The Latest In Reuters Fauxtography--A Whole Lotta Crop
What obama has wrought
The unmentioned rachels
What was so offensive about helen thomas's remarks?
Other than *that* president obama, how was the irony?

The Latest In Reuters Fauxtography--A Whole Lotta Crop

Posted: 07 Jun 2010 09:25 AM PDT

A testimony in journalistic integrity!

Here is the Reuters original photo

But that is after Reuters got done with it. Here is what the original photo looked like:

Notice the hand on the left with the knife in its hand. We can't go around showing that those 'peace activists' aboard the Mavi Marmara were armed now--can we? Context be damned. This original photo is from the IHH website, where they are proud of their work and not ashamed of showing it off.

But in addition, if you lighten that area by the hand with the knife--guess what else you find hidden from view in the Reuters photo: a second injured Israeli soldier.

Hat tip: Killgore Trout on Little Green Footballs

But that is not the only example. Here is a photo taken off the website of a Turkish newspaper.

But again, Reuters doesn't give the whole picture.

Yeah, that's much better--depending on your agenda.

Hat tip: Kilgore Trout on Little Green Footballs, who notes that in 2006, Reuters provided more of the same.

See also: HonestReporting: Special Analysis: Fauxtography - Reuters Caught Again

UPDATE: Elder Of Ziyon blows up the image of the knife Reuters crops out of the picture:

Could it be that someone didn't want anyone to notice that on board the Mavi Marmara there were 'humanitarian activists' walking around carrying commando knives?

by Daled Amos

What obama has wrought

Posted: 07 Jun 2010 04:30 AM PDT

William Shawcross writing in the Washington Examiner observes:

What Obama does not seem to understand is that his lack of support for Israel not only saps Israel -- it emboldens Israel's enemies. The Middle East and the world is now a much more dangerous place as "the sons [and daughters] of apes and pigs" are delegitimized once again -- on their way back to Auschwitz, if their enemies succeed.

William Jacobson takes this one step further:

Obama administration oratory and actions have rekindled hope for the destruction of Israel, and thereby unleashed the beast.
The damage done so far may not be irreparable, but we are on an incredibly destructive trajectory.

I really wonder whether Israel can survive a second Obama term.

The unmentioned rachels

Posted: 07 Jun 2010 04:09 AM PDT

Carl compares Rachel Corrie to a real victim.

Powerline (via instapundit) remembers other Rachels.

But if Jewish terror victims are often invisible when compared to Rache Corrie, Bret Stephens, a few years ago, wrote about a case where a terror victim was found wanting as compared to the terrorist who murdered her!

Take New York Times correspondent Joel Greenberg's April 5 dispatch, "2 Girls, Divided by War, Joined in Carnage." The story, about the parallel lives and entwined fates of supermarket suicide bomber Ayat al-Akhras and suicide bomber victim Rachel Levy, is a model of objectivity and balance. The high school seniors, a year apart in age, looked "strikingly similar." Both had black hair; both wore blue jeans. Akhras was a "top student with superior grades"; Levy had an interest in photography.
The similarities don't end there. Levy "wasn't afraid" of the terror, according to her mother. Akhras "saw the scars left by Israeli shellings and military incursions, but there were never any indications that she was slipping into despair or plotting an act of revenge." The Palestinian girl pursued a diligent routine of school, homework and housework, all with the aim of studying journalism in college. "She was quite normal," according to her father. The Jewish girl, raised in California, was obsessed with fitness, worked out to a Jane Fonda video, "tended to get stressed out." Quite normal, too. Akhras left a farewell video in which she called herself a "living martyr." Levy left behind a notebook of adolescent ruminations on love, and death.

All this is undoubtedly accurate as far as the particulars are concerned: NYT reporters are good at that. Greenberg makes no moral judgements, so the piece is "objective." And it is balanced - mathematically balanced - insofar as there are nine paragraphs devoted to each girl.

But who's kidding whom? There's a hero to this story. She's a quiet, studious, beautiful Palestinian girl, with a rich and mysterious inner life, who one day bids a nonchalant farewell to her classmates, leaves a "grim warren of alleys and tightly packed dwellings," and commits something perfectly abrupt and terrible, in the stylized manner of ritual Japanese suicide or a French art-house film. The Rachel Levy of Greenberg's telling is, by contrast, just another transplanted JAP.

What was so offensive about helen thomas's remarks?

Posted: 06 Jun 2010 11:30 PM PDT

I was unaware of the story behind Helen Thomas's outburst against Jews.

But I wonder what was wrong about what she said. My co-blogger JudeoPundit writes:

Israelis constitute a unique nationality and for the most part they are natives to their land. (A "native" is someone who was born in a certain place.) There is a country called Germany, but the "home" for Israel's Jews called "Germany" is a chimera, a myth. Calling on someone to return to an imaginary home is akin to calling for him to breath imaginary air. It is a polite way of regarding him as having no legitimate interests, no humanity. Helen Thomas has not renounced her belief in such murderous fairy-tales. Why should she? She is at home in a vast and respectable mob.

I don't disagree, but still what's so offensive about her comments. True Hamas praised her. And the Hamas groupies who sailed in the flotilla expressed a somewhat more offensive version of her statement.

After years of pretending that Yasser Arafat was a moderate, the Clinton administration was surprised at the Camp David summit in July 2000:

The main sticking point remained the Temple Mount, known to Arabs as Haram al-Sharif.
Mr. Arafat has been saying since the Camp David talks, when the question of sovereignty over the site was raised, that the Temple does not exist, a senior administration official said. By insisting that what the Jews consider to be the most sacred of their holy sites was not even a Jewish place, Mr. Arafat was denying a basic respect to his main negotiating partner, the official said.

''This can't be solved by denying the beliefs of one of the great religions,'' the official said.

For Jews, the Temple Mount is the most sacred of all places, the site of the First and Second Temples destroyed by the Babylonians and the Romans. Among the Muslims, the site and its two Muslim shrines, the Dome of the Rock and Al Aksa Mosque, are among the holiest of all sites.

Even at that, this was not generally seen as proof that Yasser Arafat held extremist beliefs but rather a quaint quirk or perhaps a tragic flaw in an otherwise noble character.

Yesterday, Thomas Friedman told us that the really important stuff happening in the Middle East is the institution building done by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, for they were creating the necessary institutions for Palestinian statehood. Never mind that for the first 15 or so post-Oslo years, Friedman's only necessary condition for a Palestinian state was Israeli concessions. Now the Palestinian national project is in the hands of "moderates."

But last year we learned that "moderate" Abbas did not believe in the idea of a Jewish State:

The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Monday dismissed a demand by Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, underscoring the considerable gaps between the sides.
"I do not accept it," Mr. Abbas said in a speech in Ramallah, in the West Bank. "It is not my job to give a description of the state. Name yourself the Hebrew Socialist Republic -- it is none of my business," he added, according to Reuters.

And as I pointed out to Daniel Pipes, neither man has presided over a new Palestinian Charter that accepts the history of Israel as a Jewish state. Yet both are referred to as "moderates."

Helen Thomas, then, didn't say anything offensive. The belief she espoused isn't the problem, it's that she's a Westerner who did. For some arbitrary reason, denying Jewish history is offensive for her to do; had she been a Palestinian politician there'd have been nothing wrong with her statement.

Joe Klein, (via memeorandum) who now tells Helen Thomas to go to the back of the room, regularly vilifies Israel and those defenders of Israel, who - for good reason - are skeptical about the intents of the Palestinians.

The question isn't really what was offensive about Helen Thomas's remarks, but what's innocuous about similar remarks made by Palestinian leadership? If it's wrong for an individual to say that Jews don't belong in Israel, aren't you courting disaster by creating a neighboring state founded on that very principle?

Finally, Helen Thomas is 89 years old. I can't believe this is the first time she's made her feelings about Israel clear. For years everyone in the media deferred to her for her wit and wisdom. And now all of a sudden she's a pariah? Puh-lease! Our MSM has been covering for this woman for years, it's only now that she's been caught that they're keeping their distance.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Other than *that* president obama, how was the irony?

Posted: 06 Jun 2010 10:53 PM PDT

Yesterday, President Obama observed D-Day by going to the theatre. Ford's Theatre, to be exact. (via memeorandum) The bestowing of the Lincoln medal upon two anti-apartheid activists. To Don Surber it's a sign of the President's increasing detachment.

I wish it were so benign.

One of those being honored was Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

What happens when you Google "Desmond Tutu" and "Israel"?

From 2002:

Apartheid in the Holy Land | World news | The Guardian Apr 29, 2002
... Desmond Tutu: In our struggle against apartheid, ... Israel has three options: revert to the previous stalemated situation; exterminate all ...

From 2003:

Israel: Time to Divest by Desmond Tutu
Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls for international campaigners to treat Israel as they treated apartheid South Africa. ...

From 2009:

Tutu to Haaretz: Arabs paying the price of the Holocaust - Haaretz ...Aug 28, 2009 ... Nobel Prize laureate says Israel must learn it will never get security ... Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa told Haaretz Thursday. ...

And to be perfectly up to date:

Tutu condemns Israel aid-boat attack - Times LIVEMay 31, 2010 ...
Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and a group of retired global leaders have joined international leaders in condemning the Israeli ...

Archbishop Tutu, did find time to meet with terrorist leader Ismail Haniyeh and to blame 9/11 on American trade policies.

President Obama said of Archbishop Tutu and his fellow honoree, South African Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs...

"There are few people so deserving of the Lincoln Medal," Obama said of the two honorees.

Somehow I wouldn't imagine that President Lincoln would condemn the only democracy in a hostile region, meet with terrorists and espouse crackpot theories. Perhaps President Obama knows better. But I doubt it.

Finally, why Archbishop Tutu? Was Judge Richard Goldstone unavailable?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 03:33:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

Time for a post about summer camp
On L'Affaire Thomas
Some sense from the washington post
Persepctive, daoud, perspective

Time for a post about summer camp

Posted: 06 Jun 2010 07:58 PM PDT

It's getting to be time for camp. The Judeokinderlach have been getting ready: clothes, luggage, cameras, seforim. And meanwhile, in the Gt. Jamahriya, Summer Camp Youth have sent a cable to the Leader of the Revolution:

Youth Summer Camps for this Year expressed their pride of the big achievements realized by the leader of the Revolution and put Libya on the political, economic and social world map.

The participating youth in these summer camps underlined their firm adherence to science and technology in order to realize a better and brighter future for beloved Jamahiriya.

In a cable sent to the leader of the Revolution, Chairman of the Arab Summit, the youth said:

"We, Libyan youth of tomorrow and hope of the future , declare our adherence to your historical leadership of the Green Revolution, the Revolution of progress and its national principles, raising the banner of the homeland pride and welfare . inspired by your brilliant thoughts towards the salvation of humanity ... Highly commending the honor you gave us by charging Dr. "Saief al-Islam" to directly supervise and take care of the developmental program for Libya of tomorrow and Libya Youth of tomorrow.

Once again, we reiterate our sincere sentiments of love and loyalty to the leader of our Revolution".

In another current offering from JANA we learn that "Thousands of Palestinian Supporters of Palestinian People Took to the Streets in Central London Against Israeli Piracy Crime Against Freedom Ships":

Demonstration of anger continued worldwide organized by supporters of the Palestinian people in Gaza, who belong to different nationality in condemnation 0f the tight blockade imposed by Zionists and against the raids on Freedom Ships.

In this context, around ( 30.000 ) British protestors took to the streets of Central London demanding lift of the siege imposed by Zionists on the people of Gaza and voicing their condemnation of shameful Zionist Piracy operations against ships carrying humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.

The protestors raised Palestinian flags and posters calling for freedom for Palestinian people reading : "We Sail for Palestine" ... "Justice will Prevail" and "End blockade on Gaza".

Several British Activists spoke at this demonstration in front of 10 Downing Street-- among the speakers was the former British Minister and former MP "Tony Benn" who stressed that masses will always come out victorious.

On the other hand, British Activist, "George Galloway" former MP has announced that two big caravans are to be organized and head for Gaza, one by land and the other by sea after the next blessed month of Ramadan.

Some British protestors said in statements to JANA reporter in London that they strongly condemn the outrageous piracy crime the Zionist Terrorist Army Organization had committed against innocent unarmed civilian activists on board Freedom Fleet . British nurse named, "Tania Adams said: "I wanted to join Freedom Fleet and to stay in Gaza".

She added: "What happened on board the ship "Marmara" was unbelivable where Israelis were intending to market this matter as being a mere incident, but they could not market these lies".

I cleaned up the strange punctuation and spacing, but not completely. I like seeing George Galloway with quotation marks around his name.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

On L'Affaire Thomas

Posted: 06 Jun 2010 05:07 PM PDT

Helen Thomas has now apologized for her remarks that Israelis should just "go home" to Germany or to Poland or to the United States. She has apologized for contradicting a bunch of platitudes about "respect and tolerance," but she has not corrected the basic distortion that makes her remarks so outrageous.

The great majority of Israeli Jews were born in Israel and conduct their daily lives speaking Hebrew. For them, Israel is the only place which is "home" in any meaningful sense. (And by the way, more Israeli Jews had ancestors who came from Morocco than from all the countries Thomas mentioned put together.)

Israelis constitute a unique nationality and for the most part they are natives to their land. (A "native" is someone who was born in a certain place.) There is a country called Germany, but the "home" for Israel's Jews called "Germany" is a chimera, a myth. Calling on someone to return to an imaginary home is akin to calling for him to breath imaginary air. It is a polite way of regarding him as having no legitimate interests, no humanity. Helen Thomas has not renounced her belief in such murderous fairy-tales. Why should she? She is at home in a vast and respectable mob.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Some sense from the washington post

Posted: 06 Jun 2010 03:32 AM PDT

The editors of the Washington Post weigh in today with, Turkey's Erdogan bears responsibility in flotilla fiasco. While still not absolving Israel from responsiblity it makes a number of valuable points about Turkey's disruptive role.

Mr. Erdogan's crude attempt to exploit the incident comes only a couple of weeks after he joined Brazil's president in linking arms with Mr. Ahmadinejad, whom he is assisting in an effort to block new U.N. sanctions. What's remarkable about his turn toward extremism is that it comes after more than a year of assiduous courting by the Obama administration, which, among other things, has overlooked his antidemocratic behavior at home, helped him combat the Kurdish PKK and catered to Turkish sensitivities about the Armenian genocide. Israel is suffering the consequences of its misjudgments and disregard of U.S. interests. Will Mr. Erdogan's behavior be without cost?

At a time when the administration and its allies are blaming Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East (via memeorandum) this is an important reminder that the administration's outreach to the Muslim world has not been reciprocated.

Persepctive, daoud, perspective

Posted: 06 Jun 2010 03:27 AM PDT

During Israel's justified response to repeated Hamas attacks against it southern citizens, Daoud Kuttab, a prominent Palestinian "moderate" described the rocket attacks:

In its efforts to stop amateur rockets from nagging the residents of some of its southern cities, Israel appears to have given new life to the fledging Islamic movement in Palestine.

I dunno, Daoud, but does this look like "nagging" to you?

Yesterday Kuttab wrote:

The Unites States cannot continue to be all but silent on an attack in international waters on civilians representing most Western countries, including the United States. It cannot hide behind the facade of waiting for an inquiry when basic facts such as the location of the attack, the perpetrators of the killings and the absence of violent intent or goods on board the ships are so obvious.

Does this picture look like the "absence of violent intent?"

Remember, this violence took place before the Israeli commandos shot anyone. Clearly, then, the Israeli soldiers were acting in self-defense.

Someone else lacking in perspective is Turkey's ambassador to the United States, Namik Tan, who writes:

Whatever the aid carriers may have chanted in opposition to Israel, this was a humanitarian initiative. In any democratic country, people have freedom of expression so long as they avoid violence.

But incitement to violence is not tolerated.

And it appears that the flotilla participants were doing more than chanting "in opposition to Israel." MEMRI reports:

The father of Kuwaiti activist Abd Al-Rahman Al-Filkawi told the Kuwaiti Al-Watan daily that his son had told him that the flotilla participants' morale was high, and that they "would sacrifice themselves for the sake of Allah. He added that his son had "told them before embarking that he would be a martyr for the sake of Allah."[31] The next day, the father told a press conference: "My son Abd Al-Rahman came to me and said: 'Reckon my sacrifice [of my life] in anticipation of the reward of Allah' and I did so. Then he went to his mother and she reckoned his sacrifice in anticipation of the reward of Allah. If he dies there [with the flotilla], he dies as a martyr [with the predetermined aim of becoming one]."

And the chants were in "opposition to Israel" in a way that Nazis are in opposition to Jews.

On board one of the ships, according to Al-Jazeera, the "humanitarian" Palestinians sang "Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return" -- a reference to the 628 massacre of Jews in Arabia at the hands of Muhammad.

So yes, a little perspective would be nice. Unfortunately we've gotten precious little of it regarding Israel's self-defense.

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 08:13:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

Violating history
I'm too sexy for my job
The poisoned fruit of ga resolution 2708
Now, mr. president, there is only one question I want to ask you ... and you better have the answer, man ...
Submitted 06/04/10

Violating history

Posted: 04 Jun 2010 02:10 AM PDT

Robert Mackey of the New York Times, Lede Blog, wrote in Echoes of Raid on 'Exodus' Ship in 1947:

To some Israeli observers, it was impossible to miss the parallels between Monday's killing of pro-Palestinian activists by Israel's military in international waters, as commandos intercepted a flotilla of ships trying to break the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza, and a seminal event in the Jewish struggle for an independent homeland.

To which Seth Lipsky replied (in the not permanently dormant NY Sun) and challenged the NYTimes as an institution:

The one thing the Times failed to credit then was the idea that the real source of hope for the Jews was the prospect of Israel itself. That hope was made clear in the months and years after the voyage of the Exodus in 1947, if it had not been made so clear, at least to some, in the millennia before. So what has the Times learned since then? Is it still blind to the Zionist idea? Will it back the desire of those aboard the Turkish-backed flotilla to get to Gaza 60-some years after it failed to back the Jews who sought to get to Israel? Or will it finally see that there is no parallel between the voyage of the Exodus, which was filled with refugees with no home, and the voyage of the Turkish flotilla, which is part of a war to destroy the home that was finally built to accommodate the exodus from Europe of those Jews who survived the Holocaust and made it to the land they'd been promised?

(Unfortunately, Mackey isn't the only one making such offensive comparisons.)

Stephanie Guttmann, quoting her father, tells us what those running a real blockade endured.

These refugee ships were not elegant cruisers - they were tiny rust-buckets. The human cargo was not made up of Swedish Nobel Laureates or American legislators or activists with time on their hands; they were Holocaust survivors -- thousands of them orphaned children who had been promised homes on Zionist kibbutzes. Often these children didn't know much about Palestine, except that there they would find food, shelter, and a measure of stability, in a world that had turned its back on them.
The Royal Navy would intercept these ships at sea, swarm over the sides, and send most passengers to a detainee camp on the island of Cyprus, which held tens of thousands of people. And because the refugees were not prisoners of war, the camp did not have to meet Geneva Convention standards, so they were housed in tents whose floors were often awash with mud.

I'm too sexy for my job

Posted: 04 Jun 2010 01:40 AM PDT

No. Not me. Her.

A Latina lovely says her bosses at Citigroup canned her for flaunting her ample assets at a midtown bank.
Dangerously curvy Debrahlee Lorenzana contends her ex-bosses at Citibank in the Chrysler Building banned her from wearing sexy outfits or heels deemed "too distracting" for male coworkers.

You can tell that this isn't the New York Times. "Dangerously curvy?"

via memeorandum

Would that make "Right said fired?"

The poisoned fruit of ga resolution 2708

Posted: 04 Jun 2010 01:07 AM PDT

After becoming the 1137th pundit to declare (against all evidence) that Turkey is an ally of the United States, David Ignatius reverts to blaming Israel first in The U.S. needs to keep nudging Israel on a Gaza fix:

The Obama team recognizes that Israel will act in its interests, but it wants Jerusalem to consider U.S. interests, as well. The administration has communicated at a senior level its fear that the Israelis sometimes "care about their equities, but not about ours."
This cautionary message -- that Israel must act as a more reliable and responsible partner -- may be the most important one conveyed this week.

The absurdity of this line of "reasoning" is that when Israel withdrew from Gaza, it was supposed to become a mini-Dubai (as Thomas Friedman put it the other day), instead Israel got a mini-terror state that threatened its southern population. Then Israel watched as the world stood by and refused to allowed Hezbollah, Syria and Iran violate Security Council Resolution 1701 with impunity allowing Hezbollah to stockpile three times the number of missiles at had before the 2006 war with Israel. Given that Israel sees that it can't rely on others for its security, it's not unreasonable for Israel to rely on itself.

And Ignatius shouldn't worry his little head about this. Figthing Hamas - a proxy of Iran - serves America's interests too.

Leon Wieseltier also gets things wrong (via memeorandum)

It is also the inevitable consequence of Benjamin Netanyahu's cunning pronouncement last year that Israel is now endangered by "the Iran threat, the missile threat, and the threat I call the Goldstone threat." The equivalence was morally misleading, and therefore dangerous. Ideological warfare is not military warfare. I have studied the entirety of the Goldstone Report, and whereas I do not doubt (and wrote in this magazine in the days before Goldstone) that Operation Cast Lead caused the unjustifiable death of non-combatants, I also do not doubt that the Goldstone Report, which was nastily indifferent to Israel's security predicament and to the ethical challenges of Israeli self-defense, was an instrument in a broad campaign of delegitimation against Israel--and yet the threat of delegitimation is not like the threat of destruction. It is different in kind. A commando operation is not an appropriate response to an idea. "This was no Love Boat," Netanyahu said yesterday. "It was a hate boat." He is right, but so what? The threat of delegitimation is not a military problem and it does not have a military solution. And the attempt to give it a military solution has now had the awful consequence of making the threat still greater. The assault on the Mavi Marmara was a stupid gift to the delegitimators.

Wieseltier likes to project an image that he's smarter than everyone else. But here he's just being obtuse.

Charles Krauthammer, an astute observer of the situation, writes why delegitimization of Israel is a threat to its existence, concluding Those Troublesome Jews with:

What's left? Nothing. The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense. Why, just last week, the Obama administration joined the jackals, and reversed four decades of U.S. practice, by signing onto a consensus document that singles out Israel's possession of nuclear weapons -- thus de-legitimizing Israel's very last line of defense: deterrence.
The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again -- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.

The campaign to undermine Israel's legitimacy has been going on for some time. The late Jeane Kirkpatrick noted in 1989 in How the PLO was legitimized:

NOT long after Khrushchev articulated these distinctions, the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted them. Where the Charter permitted force by member states only to defend themselves against attack, GA Resolution 2708 XX (1970) created a new category of "legitimate" force which could be used against member states. This new right was confirmed in subsequent resolutions approving the struggle of "liberation" groups against "colonialism" by "all necessary means at their disposal." Step by step the new doctrine was codified in the General Assembly. In 1970, with U.S. and Western support, the General Assembly adopted the "Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Nations" which further expanded the rights of "peoples" and restricted those of states by providing, inter alia, that "all peoples have the right freely to determine without external influences their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development, and every state has the duty to respect this right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter."
Moreover: "Every state has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peopIe ... of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence. In their actions against resistance to such forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and receive support, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter" (emphasis added).
With this declaration, the General Assembly, more clearly and unambiguously than ever, took the position not only that "peoples" had rights superior to those of member states, but that states resisting the rights of "peoples" could themselves become a "threat to peace." The General Assembly thus subordinated the principle of the "sovereign inviolability" of states to the struggle of "peoples" against "colonialism" and put important new restrictions on the right of states to selfdefense.

In 1969 it was the Soviets attempting to delegitimize Israel along with their Arab allies. Now, the Soviet Union is gone but the seeds it planted is bearing poisoned fruits.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Now, mr. president, there is only one question I want to ask you ... and you better have the answer, man ...

Posted: 04 Jun 2010 12:06 AM PDT

Remember this?

Garrett Morris: [dignified, dripping with snooty condescension] Now, I'd like to speak about the subject of a certain Mick Jagger - of the Rolling Stones. ... And I'm going to talk about the song he sang -- a song in which he sings these very words: "Black girls - just want to have sex - all night long." ...
Now, Mr. Jagger, there is only one question I want to ask you -- Jaggs. ... And you better have the answer, man, you better have the answer, since you have besmirched the character of black women. Therefore, here is my question, Jaggs. [pause, takes off eyeglasses, suddenly drops the pose, pleading] Where are all of these black broads, man? ... [huge cheers and applause] Hey, like, where ARE they, baby? You got any phone numbers for me, baby? ... Please send 'em to me. [puts glasses back on, dignified again] Thank you. ... [enthusiastic applause]

The headline, White House, N.Y. Dems: No job offers made in Senate race, made me thing of that. (via memeorandum)

The White House and New York Democrats said Wednesday they didn't play let's make a deal to avoid a contentious Senate primary.

New York Reps. Steve Israel, Carolyn Maloney and Carolyn McCarthy along with former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Tenn.) said the White House didn't offer them positions in exchange for forgoing a run against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

Hmmm.

Top of the ticket (via Instapundit).

Already we know that Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak was offered an administration job if he'd self-destruct his primary challenge of Sen. Arlen "Remind Me Again, What Party Am I In Today?" Specter.
Surprisingly, a thorough White House probe of itself found no improprieties in what it called several unpaid-job discussions between Sestak and a secret emissary we'll call Bill Clinton.

Alas, they didn't get their stories straight because Sestak says one conversation occurred with....
...the famous spouse of a federal employee and Obama's minions say several chats were had.

But in the one-party world of Chicago politics that produced the Obama-Emanuel-Jarrett-Axelrod Oval Office cabal, these are meant to be overlooked as the kind of routine, midweek political arrangements that they are back home on Dearborn Street. Seriously, who wouldn't take care of their faux friends in this rough-and-tumble world? It's only taxpayer money.
...
Colorado's Bennet like numerous doomed Democrats this year voted to pass Obama's healthcare bill, which only 61% of Colorado voters now want repealed.

The defiant Romanoff -- hey, it worked for Sestak -- says he had three possible jobs dangled before him if he quit the Bennet challenge courtesy of Jim Messina, who already has an Obama job as Emanuel's deputy.

A trio of suggested, possible, maybe, who-knows, it-might-be-arranged jobs for Romanoff may not actually matter much because Romanoff turned them down and right now former Lieut. Gov. Jane Norton, a Republican, is beating either of them in recent Rasmussen Reports polls.

After hearing all this do you think that maybe one of Sen. Gillibrand's erstwhile challengers might say:

"Hey Mr. President, where are all those government jobs?"

In a related op-ed, A failing grade for the Sestak report, William A Burke and David B. Rivkin Jr. write:

Given that the U.S. Code explicitly proscribes "promises [of] any employment, position, [or] appointment . . . to any person as consideration, favor or reward for," among other things, staying out of any political primary, this standard has been amply met. Indeed, Bauer's own conclusions establish that there is a factual basis to believe Sestak may have been offered a position as an illegal quid pro quo. Nonetheless, Bauer clearly does not believe that anyone violated the law. And he may well be right. Perhaps the position was offered unconditionally. Perhaps Sestak misunderstood. Perhaps even if it was a quid pro quo, the offer does not satisfy the law's requirements for criminal liability. But in the face of doubt on these questions, it is not the counsel's role to make such determinations, particularly when he is opining on the conduct of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, to whom he reports, and a negative conclusion could damage the president for whom he works.
This conflict of interest makes Bauer's numerous lapses in normal investigatory procedure all the more troubling. His report is silent concerning similar job-related discussions last year between Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina and Romanoff, who is mounting a primary challenge against Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado. Any credible investigation would have inevitably focused on whether the alleged job-for-withdrawal scenario was exclusive to Sestak or part of a broader pattern of conduct.

That's something we really ought to know. How many jobs were offered?

Submitted 06/04/10

Posted: 03 Jun 2010 11:58 PM PDT

This week's Watcher's council submissions are UP.

Council Submissions

Mere Rhetoric - Israel Publishes Gaza Travel Guidebook For Pro-Hamas Freedom Flotilla
Bookworm Room - Memorial Day Post : The Warriors Among Us
The Colossus of Rhodey - The White House and Joe Sestak -- so what?
The Razor - If You Want to a Degree in Religious and Women's Studies...
Rhymes With Right - Michael Berry Speaks Stupidly
Wolf Howling - Obama, Turkey and Israel
The Provocateur - Word Games in the GWOT
Joshuapundit - Israel And The West's Dilemma - The Storm Before The Dawn
Right Truth - A Time to Betray - A review

Non Council Submissions

Elder of Ziyon - Syrian newspaper: Hezbollah has a 300 km missile Submitted by Mere Rhetoric
Contentions/Max Boot - Israel can win every battle but still lose the war Submitted by Bookworm Room
The Weekly Standard Blog - The Terror Finance Flotilla Submitted by the Colossus of Rhodey
Katie, The Pirate King - What do you do When Your Church Leaves You? Submitted by The Razor
The Anchoress - Pray for Nancy Pelosi Submitted by Rhymes with Right
EU Referendum - Deliberately Provocative Submitted by Wolf Howling
Dick Morris - Issue Trifecta Driving Obama Down Submitted by The Provocateur
American Digest - Small Flags Submitted by JoshuaPundit
Zenpundit - Israel Does Not Understand 4GW Submitted on behalf of Right Truth
Rubin Reports - Sympathy for the Devil and the Gaza Sea Confrontation: How Can Helping a Repressive Fascist, Genocide-Intending Hamas Regime be Innocent? Submitted by The Watcher

Read. Enjoy. Be informed.

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:30:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

National jewish democratic cluelessness

Posted: 03 Jun 2010 04:03 AM PDT

Commentary magazine asked thirty one prominent American Jews their opinions on the relationship between Jews and President Obama. While the results of the symposium are generally not available, behind Commentary's subscription wall, some of the participants have posted their thoughts on line at their own websites.

Specifically Commentary asked:

The open conflict between the Obama administration and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has created tensions between the United States and Israel of a kind not seen since the days of the administration of the first President Bush. And those tensions are placing unique pressure on American Jews, who voted for Barack Obama by a margin of nearly 4-to-1 in 2008 after being assured by Obama himself and by his supporters in the Jewish community that he was a friend and an ally of the State of Israel despite his long association with, among others, the unabashedly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

We argue that American Jews are facing an unprecedented political challenge, and at a crucial moment, with the need to address the existential threat to Israel--and by extension to the future of the Jewish people as a whole--from a potentially nuclear Iran. How will American Jews handle this challenge? Can Obama's Jewish supporters act in a way that will change the unmistakable direction of current American policy emanating from the White House? Will American Jews accept Barack Obama's view that the state of Israel bears some responsibility for the loss of American "blood and treasure" in the Middle East? Will they continue to extend their support to the Obama administration and to Barack Obama's political party?

Martin Kramer, Daniel Pipes and Jeff Jacoby have all published their responses. Commentary also asked Ira Forman of the National Democratic Jewish Council his opinion.

Given an opportunity to respond in a politically unsympathetic forum, Forman would try to be persuasive. Instead his response both combative, puerile and offputting. I'm sure there are places where people make real efforts to defend President Obama's relationship with Israel. Forman's response is not one of them:

You lost me at "Rev. Jeremiah Wright"...
The Editors at Commentary could have decided to conduct a substantive debate about the merits of the Obama Administration's policy toward Israel. Instead they decided to frame the "discussion" by positing that in Israel's hour of need we have a Rev. Wright-worshiping president who is blaming Israel for the loss of American "blood and treasure" and what are liberal Jews going to do to make up for the error of their ways ... in other words by asking the equivalent of "when did you stop beating your wife."

I understand why the question bothered Forman. However given President Obama's long relationship with Rev. Wright, I find it hard to believe that the congregant didn't (at least at some point) share the same views as his clergyman. This is hardly unfair.

Furthermore as someone who follows the news, I am well aware of how Gen. Petraeus's remarks were spun, not just in the media, but by some in the administration. To deny this so flippantly shows more that Forman doesn't wish to discuss.

After Chas Freeman withdrew his nomination for a high level administration post, he blasted supporters of Israel for the controversy that sunk his appointment. The NJDC properly struck back against Freeman. What was missing though, was an acknowledgement of how frightening it was that the administration thought of appointing Freeman in the first place. Freeman was a known quantity when the nomination was submitted. There's no way to criticize Freeman without criticizing the administration for nominating him, but the NJDC did just that. They only criticized Freeman's vicious remarks after his nomination was scuttled and wrote not a word of concern about the decision to offer him a job in the first place.

But Jeff Jacoby points to a bigger problem:

There is no reason to think so. American Jews have been stalwart Democrats for nearly a century, and their partisan affiliation shows no sign of weakening -- not even as the Democratic Party's support for Israel grows steadily weaker. When Gallup earlier this year surveyed Americans on their sympathies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 85 percent of Republicans expressed support for Israel -- but only 48 percent of Democrats did so. Reams of data confirm that solidarity with Israel is now far stronger among Republicans and conservatives than among Democrats and liberals.

Democrats are not supporting Israel in the number they once did. No doubt that played a role in nominating a President whose commitment to Israel is minimal. Instead of using his position to advocate for Israel in his political party, Forman is content to blast those who point out that Democratic support for Israel is down. His tactics may have the effect of keeping Jews loyal to the Democratic party, but they will, in no way, increase support for Israel in his party.

Instead of directing his anger at those who point out the administration's hostility towards Israel, perhaps Forman should be challenging people like Peter Beinart and demonstrate that being pro-Israel is consistent with being liberal and Democratic. Unfortunately, Forman doesn't care enough about Israel to make that effort.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Turkish flight

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 10:59 PM PDT

Yesterday, Thomas Friedman had a silly column asking the United States to mediate between Israel and Turkey.

Today Robert Pollock explains why American mediation will accomplish nothing.

To follow Turkish discourse in recent years has been to follow a national decline into madness. Imagine 80 million or so people sitting at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. They don't speak an Indo-European language and perhaps hundreds of thousands of them have meaningful access to any outside media. What information most of them get is filtered through a secular press that makes Italian communists look right wing by comparison and an increasing number of state (i.e., Islamist) influenced outfits. Topics A and B (or B and A, it doesn't really matter) have been the malign influence on the world of Israel and the United States.
For example, while there was much hand-wringing in our own media about "Who lost Turkey?" when U.S. forces were denied entry to Iraq from the north in 2003, no such introspection was evident in Ankara and Istanbul. Instead, Turks were fed a steady diet of imagined atrocities perpetrated by U.S. forces in Iraq, often with the implication that they were acting as muscle for the Jews. The newspaper Yeni Safak, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's daily read, claimed that Americans were tossing so many Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates that local mullahs had issued a fatwa ordering residents not to eat the fish. The same paper repeatedly claimed that the U.S. used chemical weapons in Fallujah. And it reported that Israeli soldiers had been deployed alongside U.S. forces in Iraq and that U.S. forces were harvesting the innards of dead Iraqis for sale on the U.S. "organ market."

Or take this hyperbole:

"Psychologically, this attack is like 9/11 for Turkey," Davutoglu told reporters over breakfast before his meeting with Clinton, an analogy that reflected the heated nature of the Turkish rhetoric. "We will not be silent about this," he said. "We expect the United States to show solidarity with us. . . . I am not very happy with the statements from the United States yesterday."

Turkey sounds (and acts) like a country that has no interest in behaving rationally towards Israel, and not even have the termperment to listen to the United States on any topic. Given this reality why do media types continually assert that Israel's raid on the Mavi Marmara hurt Israel's relationship with Turkey? The Turkish march to Islamism ruptured the relationship way before any boats set sail last week.

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 02:48:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

See no (hamas) evil
Muddying the legal waters
Friedman: imaginary friend
"... working to understand ..."
I do not wish to find it

See no (hamas) evil

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 04:30 AM PDT

Predictably the editors of the New York Times find fault with Israel:

There is a bigger question that Israel -- and the United States -- must be asking: Is the blockade working? Is it weakening Hamas? Or just punishing Gaza's 1.4 million residents -- and diverting attention away from abuses by Hamas, including its shelling of Israeli cities and its refusal to accept Israel's right to exist?
At this point, it should be clear that the blockade is unjust and against Israel's long-term security.

After Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel -- with Egypt's help -- imposed a blockade on many goods and most people going into and out of the territory. The goal was to quickly turn residents against their new government. Three years later, Hamas is still in charge -- and the blockade has become an excuse for any and all of the government's failures.

The situation in Gaza is grim. Eight out of 10 people depend on international aid agencies to survive. Basic foodstuffs are available, but medical supplies and construction materials are severely lacking. The desperation could be seen on Tuesday when Egypt lifted the blockade and several thousand Gazans rushed the border but were later sent home after police officers said they did not know when the crossing would be opened.

It is ironic that like their star columnist the editors of the Times seem to have forgotten that Israel withdrew from Gaza only to have it turned into a mini terrror state. For some reason the liberal editors of the New York Times think that it's good for Israel to keep Hamas in power.

But Barry Rubin recently wrote:

Hamas has oppressed the people of the Gaza Strip, murdered Palestinian Authority supporters in hospitals and thrown them off roofs; driven the Christians out; taken relief supplies for its own soldiers; launched a war on Israel in December 2008 that caused avoidable death and destruction; used civilians as human shields and mosques for ammunition dumps; indoctrinated children to be suicide bombers; are putting women into a Taliban-like situation; and repeatedly announces its antisemitic views and intention to wipe out Israel and massacre its people.
For some, none of this makes any difference though--to be fair--the media they get information from may not have presented these facts. For those on the left, Hamas should be considered as a fascist organization which they passionately oppose. For those sympathetic to human rights or women's rights, or many other good causes, Hamas should be anathema.

What should be paramount, then, is an international determination to overthrow the Hamas regime. After all, while it had earlier come in first in elections, it staged a coup and overthrew what was perceived as the rightful government of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority. To do such a thing would--to paraphrase the Carnegie report--reduce regional tensions and aid the peace process lead to an independent Palestinian state. Yet this rather obvious idea simply does not seem to have occurred to any Western government or elite.

So instead there is a policy, albeit an eroding one, of isolating Hamas and denying it at least some supplies and money, demanding that it accept the idea of real peace with Israel and cease the use of terrorism. Even this seems too much for many people and, increasingly, for some governments.

The editors of the Times pretend that it's only Israeli actions and shortsightedness that prevent peace and cause the people of Gaza to suffer. They (and many other likeminded people) don't acknowledge the evil of Hamas.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Muddying the legal waters

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 04:30 AM PDT

In an article Israel's flotilla raid revives questions of international law, reporter Colum Lynch asked Anthony D'Amato a professor of international law whether Israel's blockade violated international law:

Anthony D'Amato, a professor of international law at Northwestern University School of Law is among those who believes the raid was illegal. "That's what freedom of the seas are all about. This is very clear, for a change. I know a lot of prominent Israeli attorneys and I'd be flabbergasted if any of them disagreed with me on this," he said. ... Regev cited a provision in the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflict at Sea, which states that merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral states outside neutral waters can be intercepted if they "are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture."
But D'Amato said the document applies to a situation in which the laws of war between states are in force. He said the laws of war do not apply in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which isn't even a state. He said the law of the Geneva Conventions would apply.

I asked Prof Avi Bell about D'Amato's claim and this is what he e-mailed:

D'Amato's claim is mysterious and completely wrong.
There is nothing in the Geneva Conventions overruling customary rules of maritime boycotts as expressed in the San Remo Manual. And there is nothing in the San Remo Manual itself limiting itself to cases of international conflicts.

To the degree that Gaza is not a state, D'Amato's claims are even further undermined. The distinction between international and non-international conflicts makes non-international conflicts less regulated, giving parties more freedom of action, not less. Common paragraph 2 of the Geneva Conventions explicitly limits states that the Conventions do not apply (except for common article 3) to non-international conflicts. In other words, if Gaza is not a state, that rules out application of the Geneva Conventions in almost their entirety.

Moreover, San Remo refers to sea actions, while Geneva refers almost exclusively (with the exception of some provisions of Geneva Convention II) to land.

The bottom line is that customary law expressed in San Remo applies in its entirety, while, arguably, almost none of the Geneva Conventions apply. And, incidentally, nothing in the Geneva Conventions limits or alters the customary rights presented in the San Remo Manual, meaning that nothing in the Geneva Conventions limits Israel's rights to enforce a maritime boycott.

In other words, it isn't Israel's actions that revived questions of international law, but a reporter's effort to find a legal expert to question the legality of Israel's raid. Reporting should explain issues, not obfuscate.

Later, the reporter Lynch writes:

Human rights organizations, governments and U.N. officials have criticized Israel's enforcement of the blockade as cruel, if not necessarily illegal.

The influential rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch says that Israel is within its right to "control the content and delivery of humanitarian aid, such as to ensure that consignments do not include weapons." But the group said "Israel's continuing blockade of the Gaza Strip, a measure that is depriving its population of food, fuel, and basic services, constitutes a form of collective punishment in violation of article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention."

The idea that Israel is guilty of "collective punishment" on these grounds is dubious when the price of luxury goods is dropping in Gaza.

And this is just plain nonsense:

Pro-Palestinian advocates have portrayed Israel's activities as illegal, comparing them to President George W. Bush's preemption doctrine. "Israel is now claiming a new international law, invented just for this purpose: the preventive 'right' to capture any naval vessel in international waters if the ship was about to violate a blockade," Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. "That one just about matches George Bush's claim of a preventive 'right' to attack Iraq in 2003 because Baghdad might someday create weapons the U.S. might not like and might use them to threaten some country the U.S. does like."

San Remo applies and address this very situation as Daled Amos pointed out.

I criticized the editors of the Post yesterday for blaming Israel for damaging its cause by its boarding of the Mavi Marmara. But many of the accusations aimed at Israel are false. Perhaps the Washington Post's editors ought to exhort their reporters not to raise dishonest questions. That would go a long way towards making sure that Israel is treated fairly.

Friedman: imaginary friend

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 03:56 AM PDT

Thomas Friedman is apparently vexed, by the recent conflict between Israel and Turkey in When America's friends fall out:

As a friend of both Turkey and Israel, it has been agonizing to watch the disastrous clash between Israeli naval commandos and a flotilla of "humanitarian" activists seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Personally, I think both Israel and Turkey have gotten out of balance lately, and it is America's job to help both get back to the center -- urgently.

Except, as Shiloh Musings points out:

Turkey has betrayed Israel by supporting the terrorists in Gaza. No whitewashing or urging of by the United States can repair the relationship.

The rift that so bothers Friedman consisted of Turkey moving away from Israel and embracing Israel's enemies.

Friedman again:

Therefore, it has been painful to hear the same Prime Minister Erdogan in recent years publicly lash out with ever-greater vehemence at Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza. Many see this as Turkey looking to ingratiate itself with the Muslim world after having been rebuffed by the European Union. I have no problem with Turkey or humanitarian groups loudly criticizing Israel. But I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel's actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria's involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon, by the Iranian regime's killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted, by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it wouldn't force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children.
That concern for Gaza and Israel's blockade is so out balance with these other horrific cases in the region that it is not surprising Israelis dismiss it as motivated by hatred -- not the advice of friends. Turkey has a unique role to play linking the East and West. If Turkey lurches too far East, it may become more popular on some Arab streets, but it would lose a lot of its strategic relevance and, more importantly, its historic role as a country that can be Muslim, modern, democratic -- and with good relations with both Israel and the Arabs. Once this crisis passes, it needs to get back in balance.

He considers it "not surprising" that Israelis dismiss Erdogan as motivated by hatred. How condescending. It's as if there's a misunderstanding here. But there's no misunderstanding the actions of the Turkey's Islamist government. They hate Israel. They hate Jews. They are allied with Iran.

But it's not just Friedman's whitewashing of Turkey that's frustrating. Towards the end he writes:

But I sure know this: It is overwhelmingly in Israel's interest to bring more diplomatic imagination and energy to ending this Gaza siege. How long is this going to go on? Are we going to have a whole new generation grow up in Gaza with Israel counting how many calories they each get? That surely can't be in Israel's interest. Israel has gotten so good at controlling the Palestinians that it could get comfortable with an arrangement that will not only erode its own moral fabric but increase its international isolation. It may be that Hamas will give Israel no other choice, but Israel could show a lot more initiative in determining if that is really so.

Let's go back five years to a column of Friedman's from February 2005, The Tipping Point.

The Israel-Palestine drama has gone from how Ariel Sharon will use any means possible to sustain Israel's hold on Gaza, which he once said was indispensable for the security of the Jewish state, to being about how Mr. Sharon will use any means possible to evacuate Gaza - with its huge Palestinian population - which he now says is necessary for saving Israel as a Jewish state. The issue for the Palestinians is no longer about how they resist the Israeli occupation in Gaza, but whether they build a decent mini-state there - a Dubai on the Mediterranean. Because if they do, it will fundamentally reshape the Israeli debate about whether the Palestinians can be handed most of the West Bank.

Got that? Not even five years ago he wrote that evacuating every single Jew from Gaza would place the onus on the Palestinians. They would have to show their commitment to peace by building a "decent mini-state" in Gaza. They didn't. They built a launching area from which to shoot rockets into Israel. Israel's "siege" was a foreseeable consequence of Israel following a policy that he advocated. (That Gaza would be turned into a terror staging area was something that, I think, was reasonably predictable. It wasn't obvious to Friedman though.) Now he's blaming Israel for lacking imagination!

Given that the Palestinian did not "reshape the debate" it's more than a little hypocritical of Friedman to blame Israel for not responding "creatively" to unchanged circumstances.

Friedman concludes:

This is a critical moment. Two of America's best friends are out of balance and infuriatingly at each other's throats. We have got to move quickly to get them both back to the center before this spins out of control.

But this isn't about some silly fight that the United States to mediate. One of those friends, has abandoned the United States too. Turkey, as Barry Rubin writes is Marching towards Islamism. The more important question is will the United States recognize this change and treat Turkey accordingly.

Friedman clearly hasn't.

Crossposted on Yourish.

"... working to understand ..."

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 12:18 AM PDT

Political punch
"The United States deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained and is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy," said deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton in Chicago, where the President Obama and his family have been spending the holiday weekend.

The Washington Post reported the other day, U.S. commander says some Taliban fighters are training in Iran:

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal told reporters in Kabul that Iran -- Afghanistan's western neighbor -- has generally assisted the Afghan government in fighting the insurgent group.

Is President Obama working to understand why a putative friend of the United States has aligned itself with a regime that is fighting against the United States? Is he working to understand why Turkey sent terrorists to attack Israel?

And the New York Times reported, Tehran Moves to Thwart Protests on Election Anniversary:

Moving to thwart any protests on the anniversary of a disputed election, the authorities in Iran have ordered at least two million paramilitary members into Tehran, re-arrested dissident activists furloughed from prison and aggressively enforced public bans on mingling of the sexes and un-Islamic women's clothing.

Is President Obama working to understand why his outreach to Iran hasn't resulted in the regime's moderation?

Or does President Obama only have to work to understand why soldiers who were brutally attacked would fight back?

From the Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Captain R. said that every commando who entered the ship was met by a number of activists who charged at the soldiers and attacked them. At least 75 percent of the activists took part in what the soldiers later described as a "lynch."
"I was the second to be lowered in by rope," said Captain R. "My comrade who had already been dropped in was surrounded by a bunch of people. It started off as a one-on-one fight, but then more and more people started jumping us. I had to fight against quite a few terrorists who were armed with knives and batons."

The captain said that he was first forced to cock his gun and shoot once when one of the activists came toward him with a knife.

Why is it "work" to understand that?

I do not wish to find it

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 12:01 AM PDT

This lost poster was outside the Pikesville (Baltimore County) library this evening. Other than finding a lost pet snake, I can't think of a pet I'd rather not find.

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 02:29:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

More On The Legality Of Israel's Blockade Of Gaza
Wapo: even though israel's right it's still wrong
The security council condemns "acts"
Accounts of the attack
Who strengthened hamas?

More On The Legality Of Israel's Blockade Of Gaza

Posted: 01 Jun 2010 01:58 PM PDT

Earlier, I posted about The San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994 which showed that Israel was within its right in confronting the Gaza Flotilla.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, director of IMRA asked Hebrew University international law expert Dr. Robbie Sabel about the legality of the IDF action in international waters:

Dr. Sabel explained that a state, in a time of conflict, can impose an embargo, and while it cannot carry out embargo activities in the territorial waters of a third party, it can carry out embargo activities in international waters.

Within this framework it is legal to detain a civilian vessel trying to break an embargo and if in the course of detaining the vessel, force is used against the forces carrying out the detention then that force has every right to act in self defense.

Dr. Sabel noted that there is a long history of embargo activities in international waters.

There is more information about that issue from the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

A maritime blockade is in effect off the coast of Gaza. It has been imposed, as Israel is currently in a state of armed conflict with the Hamas regime that controls Gaza.
1. A maritime blockade is in effect off the coast of Gaza. Such blockade has been imposed, as Israel is currently in a state of armed conflict with the Hamas regime that controls Gaza, which has repeatedly bombed civilian targets in Israel with weapons that have been smuggled into Gaza via the sea.

2. Maritime blockades are a legitimate and recognized measure under international law that may be implemented as part of an armed conflict at sea.

3. A blockade may be imposed at sea, including in international waters, so long as it does not bar access to the ports and coasts of neutral states.

4. The naval manuals of several western countries, including the US and England recognize the maritime blockade as an effective naval measure and set forth the various criteria that make a blockade valid, including the requirement of give due notice of the existence of the blockade.

5. In this vein, it should be noted that Israel publicized the existence of the blockade and the precise coordinates of such by means of the accepted international professional maritime channels. Israel also provided appropriate notification to the affected governments and to the organizers of the Gaza protest flotilla. Moreover, in real time, the ships participating in the protest flotilla were warned repeatedly that a maritime blockade is in effect.

6. Here, it should be noted that under customary law, knowledge of the blockade may be presumed once a blockade has been declared and appropriate notification has been granted, as above.

7. Under international maritime law, when a maritime blockade is in effect, no boats can enter the blockaded area. That includes both civilian and enemy vessels.

8. A state may take action to enforce a blockade. Any vessel that violates or attempts to violate a maritime blockade may be captured or even attacked under international law. The US Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations sets forth that a vessel is considered to be in attempt to breach a blockade from the time the vessel leaves its port with the intention of evading the blockade.

9. Here we should note that the protesters indicated their clear intention to violate the blockade by means of written and oral statements. Moreover, the route of these vessels indicated their clear intention to violate the blockade in violation of international law.

10. Given the protesters explicit intention to violate the naval blockade, Israel exercised its right under international law to enforce the blockade. It should be noted that prior to undertaking enforcement measures, explicit warnings were relayed directly to the captains of the vessels, expressing Israel's intent to exercise its right to enforce the blockade.

11. Israel had attempted to take control of the vessels participating in the flotilla by peaceful means and in an orderly fashion in order to enforce the blockade. Given the large number of vessels participating in the flotilla, an operational decision was made to undertake measures to enforce the blockade a certain distance from the area of the blockade.

12. Israeli personnel attempting to enforce the blockade were met with violence by the protesters and acted in self defense to fend off such attacks.

Of course, this will not stop the apologists from blindly insisting that Israel had no right to stop the Gaza Flotilla while it was in international waters.

But those people are wrong.

by Daled Amos

Wapo: even though israel's right it's still wrong

Posted: 01 Jun 2010 05:48 AM PDT

It would appear that the editors of the Washington Post accept many of Israel's premises, but still argue that Israel is wrong in The Flotilla Fiasco.

We have no sympathy for the motives of the participants in the flotilla -- a motley collection that included European sympathizers with the Palestinian cause, Israeli Arab leaders and Turkish Islamic activists. Israel says that some of the organizers have ties to Hamas and al-Qaeda. What's plain is that the group's nominal purpose, delivering "humanitarian" supplies to Gaza, was secondary to the aim of provoking a confrontation. The flotilla turned down an Israeli offer to unload the six boats and deliver the goods to Gaza by truck; it ignored repeated warnings that it would not be allowed to reach Gaza. Its spokesmen said they would insist on "breaking Israel's siege," as one of them put it.

It's not just Israel, of course, that ties the organizers with al Qaeda. (via Daled Amos).

But ...

Yet the threat to Israel was political rather than military. So far there's been no indication the boats carried missiles or other arms for Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu's aim should have been to prevent the militants from creating the incident they were hoping for. Allowing the boats to dock in Gaza, as Israel had done before, would have been better than sending military commandos to intercept them. The fact that the soldiers who roped down from helicopters to the lead Turkish ferry were unprepared to subdue its passengers without using lethal force only compounded the error.

This is wrong. The point of breaking the blockade is military. Once Israel gives in, Israel would have a much harder time turning back other boats carrying military payloads. Though it's interesting that the Post is condemning Israel for not using lethal force. (Noah Pollak made a similar point, via memeorandum)

So what should Israel do?

As for Mr. Netanyahu, the only road to recovery from this disaster lies in embracing, once and for all, credible steps to create conditions for a Palestinian state. A good start would be easing restrictions on both Gaza and the West Bank, once the reactions to Monday's events subside. Mr. Netanyahu also needs to broaden his government to include pro-peace parties; one of his main problems is cabinet hawks who have made Israeli diplomacy an oxymoron. The prime minister is in a deepening hole; his only way out is to move to the center.

Here the Post's editors can't break out of the intellectual shackles that bind them. The Israeli government is a centrist government. The only "pro-peace" party not in the government that has any real support is Kadimah.

But what's troubling is the double standard. Israel's blockade is an effort to isolate and weaken Hamas. Defeating Hamas is a prerequisite for peace. Hamas is far more extreme than any "cabinet hawks" in Israel's government now. So the message of the Washington Post is: give Hamas a break and you'll have peace. That is as absurd as it is offensive.

The security council condemns "acts"

Posted: 01 Jun 2010 03:46 AM PDT

No surprise. The United States tried for some ambiguity, but didn't really get it.

In a formal statement that seemed less forceful than what had been demanded by Palestinians, Arabs and Turkey the council also demanded an impartial investigation into the incident on Monday.

The statement also urged that aid ships seized in the raid be released along with civilians held by Israel.

"The Security Council deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries resulting form the use of force during the Israeli military operation in international waters against the convoy sailing to Gaza," the statement said, adding that the 15-member body "in this context, condemns those acts which resulted in the loss" of lives.

The wording seemed designed to dilute demands for condemnation exclusively of Israel, which argues that its soldiers acted in self-defense in response to violent resistance to their interception of the vessels from passengers on board. After the incident, Israel seized hundreds of activists as well as the ships.

"The Security Council requests the immediate release of the ships as well as the civilians held by Israel," the United Nations statement said on Tuesday , calling for "a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards."

Read through the article and there are a few bits of conventional wisdom.

Israel used excessive force. For example the French ambassador in a display of hypocrisy is quoted:

Gerard Araud, the French ambassador, said the death toll indicated "there was disproportionate use of force and a level of violence which nothing justifies and which we condemn."

Barry Rubin writes:

Why were people killed in the sea off of Gaza? The Islamist-led forces there. Because--as was shown with five of the six ships--if they didn't fight nobody would be hurt but if they assaulted Israeli soldiers, the latter would defend themselves.

Another theme from the article is that Israel's blockade of Gaza is "unsustainable."

But he also described the situation in Gaza as "unsustainable" and called on Israel to undertake a credible investigation.

Barry Rubin again:

The blockade has definitely had a downward effect on living standards in the Gaza Strip. And of course there are two blockades since Egypt's government, which doesn't want Hamas's close associates, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to seize power and execute is leaders, also maintains an embargo.
But there is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. That can be easily proven. Israel allows a great deal of supplies to cross over. That can be proven. Hamas destroyed the border economic zone's facilities thus denying Gazans jobs. That can be proven. And there is a lot of smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border which makes up for a good part of the deficit. There is even a humorous angle to all of this, like the way Israel supplied electricity to the Gaza Strip for years even when the bills weren't paid and Hamas was firing rockets at it.

Repeatedly the article cites that Israel in violation of international law. Daled Amos quotes the relevant section of International law:

According to The San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994
SECTION V : NEUTRAL MERCHANT VESSELS AND CIVIL AIRCRAFT

Neutral merchant vessels

67. Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they:

(a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture;

The article also persists in describing the mission as strictly humanitarian.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, whose country's once close relations with Israel have deteriorated markedly since Israel's invasion of Gaza in 2008, called the attack "tantamount to banditry and piracy; it is murder conducted by a state."

Noting that the ships were carrying items such as a playground, cancer medicine and milk powder, he said that given the history of the Jews the Israelis should be more conscious than others of "the dangers and inhumanity of ghettoes as the one we currently witness in occupied Gaza."

The IDF has an inventory and photographs of the arms seized on the ship, Mavi Marmara:
The activists on board had planned an assault on the soldiers boarding the ship, and a battle ensued. Soldiers reported that the passengers used knives, metal rods, firebombs, and other weapons to attack the forces as soon as they boarded the ship.

Finally the article makes a point of emphasizing claims that Israel's actions have harmed its relations with Turkey. But Turkey, under its current Islamist government and embrace of Israel's enemies has made a mockery of any friendship that existed between the two countries. Claudia Rosett writes (via Daled Amos):

But one of the main players appears to be Turkey. It was a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, which after a big sendoff from Turkey apparently took the lead in the flotilla, its passengers professing nonviolence while waiting with knives and metal cudgels to start a fight. And in Turkey, a lead player in this bloody exercise has been a Turkish foundation, the radical Islamist IHH, or Foundation for Human Rights, Liberties, and Humanitarian Relief. The IHH enjoys consultative status with the UN as a non-governmental organization, or NGO, has an office in Gaza, and has apparently been taking part in this Gaza stunt with the blessing of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. Far from serving as a seal of good housekeeping for the IHH, such ties ought to call into question the judgment of both the UN and Erdogan.

While the Times quotes Israel's ambassador towards the end, the bulk of the article amplifies phony charges made by Israel's enemies. Instead of illuminating the issue, it simply serves as a clearinghouse for condemnations of Israel.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Accounts of the attack

Posted: 01 Jun 2010 03:46 AM PDT

Instead of simply quoting Israel's enemies, the New York Post gives an Israeli soldier's account ot the assault on the Mavi Marmara.

"I saw a soldier on the ground with two people beating the hell out of him. I pushed them off of him, and they moved on to me and started to beat me up with the poles. This is how I broke my hand apparently," he said.
"At the time, I was not holding a weapon, just like everyone who came down from the rope barehanded and with our paintball guns on our backs."

"They came at me and assaulted me. I took them down to the ground. I took a few steps back and pulled out my paintball gun. They charged me while I fired at their legs," he said.

The Washington Post acknowledges the attack on the Israeli soldiers, but most of the Washington Post's account is filled with criticisms of Israel. For example:

Israel said it is allowed under international law to enforce a maritime blockade on international seas. "A state may take action to enforce a blockade. Any vessel that violates or attempts to violate a maritime blockade may be captured or even attacked under international law,'' the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.
In a statement to the United Nations, Turkey characterized Israel's action as a "clear violation of international law" and asked U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to "determine how this bloodshed took place and to ensure that those responsible would be held accountable."

Turkey is given the right of response, but it wasn't just Israel's claim that its attack on the flotilla was in accord with international law - that's what international law says! Turkey's response is pure propaganda, not balance! To add a qualification here, is to question Israel's claim, when the text of the law is quite clear.

Why can't more newspapers be like the New York Post?

Who strengthened hamas?

Posted: 01 Jun 2010 03:40 AM PDT

A month ago, Elder of Ziyon had strung together a number of reports from different sources (and different levels of credibility) that suggested that Hamas was losing its grip on Gaza.

The items listed by Elder of Ziyon, with Hamas's increased oppression of Gaza through executions, house demolitions and general thuggery, have lead to a decline in Hamas's popularity.

(Another indication that Hamas's popularity had been declining is that we've stopped seeing stories in the media claiming that the blockade was counterproductive because it was boosting Hamas's popularity.)

Given indications that Hamas is losing the support of its citizens, it's disappointing that it's apparently getting support elsewhere.

I know that Elder of Ziyon got to this first, but Khaled Abu Toameh quotes Moussa Abu Marzuk in the Jerusalem Post:

A number of Hamas leaders have hinted over the past few days that the US administration has begun talking to the Islamist movement through both official and non-official channels.
Musa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, was quoted on Sunday as saying that Washington was talking to the movement despite its declared policy of boycotting it.

"Their official policy states that there are no contacts with Hamas," Abu Marzouk said during a visit to Algeria. "However, they are engaging Hamas for objective reasons."

He added: "There are several open channels [between Hamas and the US]. Some are official and some are unofficial. All those who are talking to us receive permission from the US State Department and the White House. The US administration tells them to talk to Hamas but without causing a big fuss."

Abu Marzouk claimed that the US administration had reached the conclusion that Hamas is a factor that can't be ignored.

So is it any surprise that Hamas felt it had nothing to lose with this effort to break the blockade? In the end Hamas is convinced that the United States recognizes its importance, and wouldn't pay a political price for challenging Israel. (Or having its stooges challenge Israel.)

This is the complete opposite of the Glenn Kessler's presentation, Israeli assault complicates efforts to improve relationship with U.S. in the Washington Post (via memeorandum):

The worldwide condemnation of the deadly Israeli assault on the Gaza aid flotilla will complicate the Obama administration's efforts to improve its tense relations with Jerusalem and likely will distract from the push to sanction Iran over its nuclear program.

This "analysis" is from the school of "I don't understand why Israel defends itself" thought, carefully taking only statements that reinforce the idea that Israel must not upset the Muslim world. Were the Israeli soldiers supposed to have courteously surrendered themselves to be beaten and thrown to the water?

And to suggest that Israel's actions alienate Turkey are absurd. Turkey organized this stunt. Turkey, that has recently publicly snubbed the Obama administration and declared its fealty to Iran and Syria, is the problem. But not a single one of Kessler's sources point this out. I guess for balance, he included a comment from Daniel Levy, who is Israeli, but not a single one of his sources could be considered pro-Israel.

By his choice of sources, Kessler demonstrated that this was a blatantly anti-Israel hit piece rather than any sort of objective analysis. If it belonged anyplace, it belonged as an op-ed, not in the news section.

The Obama administration, while seemingly criticized by Kessler for not being more forceful in its condemnation of Israel, could manage only to say that it is "working to understand" Israel's reasons for fighting back. It is this sort of equivocation along with its fruitless outreach to our enemies that emboldens them.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 02:42:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

France's chutzpah
The Israeli Foreign Ministry on the Flotilla skirmish
Passion and instinct vs. reason and wisdom
More Video Of The Gaza Flotilla Ambush
Meet One Of Those Peace Activists From The Gaza Flotilla
Video: Can Anyone Explain Why 'Human Rights Activists' Are Rushing To Help Terrorists?
Fact: International Law Supports Israel Against Gaza Flotilla
Video Shows Gaza Flotilla Spokesperson Lies
Musical monday #143
10 Deaths Aboard Gaza Flotilla--Is It Because Of Their Terrorist Connections?
Flotilla boarded: Some number killed

France's chutzpah

Posted: 31 May 2010 05:09 PM PDT

From NRO:

France's President Sarkozy termed Israel's conduct "disproportionate"; Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration noted that Israel's actions did not conform to proportionality; the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, demanded that Israel end its blockade of the terrorist entity Hamas, which controls Gaza, without any preconditions such as the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit and the cessation of Hamas rocket attacks on Israel.

I don't know how many of you recall France's greatest military adventure of the past generation:

The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior has been blown up in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand.
One of the 11 crew members on board has been killed. He has been named as Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira, 33.

Two explosions, 60 seconds apart, ripped through the stern at 2345 local time (1245 BST) and the environmentalists' boat sank in four minutes.

Captain Peter Willcox said he had no idea what caused the blast, but strongly suspected sabotage since there were no explosives on board and only a small engine was operating at the time.

I generally don't have much sympathy for Greenpeace. But Greenpeace, however misguided, did not challenge France's right to exist and was not aiding terrorists intending to threaten French nationals. Nor were its members videotaped shouting "Death to France."

Sarkozy, alas, is starting to mimic his pathetic predecessor.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry on the Flotilla skirmish

Posted: 31 May 2010 02:51 PM PDT

The following is the proper reply to all the current ranting about the Flotilla skirmish. My source is IMRA, but it is not their original content, so I am going to reproduce the whole thing. I assume the Israeli Foreign Ministry wanted it distributed:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs 31 May 2010 - distributed May 31, 2010 5:18 PM

A maritime blockade is in effect off the coast of Gaza. It has been imposed, as Israel is currently in a state of armed conflict with the Hamas regime that controls Gaza.

1. A maritime blockade is in effect off the coast of Gaza. Such blockade has been imposed, as Israel is currently in a state of armed conflict with the Hamas regime that controls Gaza, which has repeatedly bombed civilian targets in Israel with weapons that have been smuggled into Gaza via the sea.

2. Maritime blockades are a legitimate and recognized measure under international law that may be implemented as part of an armed conflict at sea.

3. A blockade may be imposed at sea, including in international waters, so long as it does not bar access to the ports and coasts of neutral states.

4. The naval manuals of several western countries, including the US and England recognize the maritime blockade as an effective naval measure and set forth the various criteria that make a blockade valid, including the requirement of give due notice of the existence of the blockade.

5. In this vein, it should be noted that Israel publicized the existence of the blockade and the precise coordinates of such by means of the accepted international professional maritime channels. Israel also provided appropriate notification to the affected governments and to the organizers of the Gaza protest flotilla. Moreover, in real time, the ships participating in the protest flotilla were warned repeatedly that a maritime blockade is in effect.

6. Here, it should be noted that under customary law, knowledge of the blockade may be presumed once a blockade has been declared and appropriate notification has been granted, as above.

7. Under international maritime law, when a maritime blockade is in effect, no boats can enter the blockaded area. That includes both civilian and enemy vessels.

8. A state may take action to enforce a blockade. Any vessel that violates or attempts to violate a maritime blockade may be captured or even attacked under international law. The US Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations sets forth that a vessel is considered to be in attempt to breach a blockade from the time the vessel leaves its port with the intention of evading the blockade.

9. Here we should note that the protesters indicated their clear intention to violate the blockade by means of written and oral statements. Moreover, the route of these vessels indicated their clear intention to violate the blockade in violation of international law.

10. Given the protesters explicit intention to violate the naval blockade, Israel exercised its right under international law to enforce the blockade. It should be noted that prior to undertaking enforcement measures, explicit warnings were relayed directly to the captains of the vessels, expressing Israel's intent to exercise its right to enforce the blockade.

11. Israel had attempted to take control of the vessels participating in the flotilla by peaceful means and in an orderly fashion in order to enforce the blockade. Given the large number of vessels participating in the flotilla, an operational decision was made to undertake measures to enforce the blockade a certain distance from the area of the blockade.

12. Israeli personnel attempting to enforce the blockade were met with violence by the protesters and acted in self defense to fend off such attacks.

The morality of Israel's actions in this incident is the same as that of Israel's Gaza blockade.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Passion and instinct vs. reason and wisdom

Posted: 31 May 2010 02:04 PM PDT

I gotta say that "passion and instinct" should win every time. (Besides, "passion and instinct" always gets the girl.)

I also think that the "reason and wisdom" is overrated. I mean in middle of battle Capt. Reason and Wisdom shouts, "Fire at Will." Huh? Why'd he take out his first officer at critical moments?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Mon, 31 May 2010 02:35:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

The annals of smart diplomacy - npt edition
Carnival of maryland begins again
Why should I believe you when you say there's nothing there?
Council speak 05/30/10

The annals of smart diplomacy - npt edition

Posted: 30 May 2010 11:43 AM PDT

President Obama has done much to distance himself and his administration from the Bush administration. However In some ways he has persisted. And when he has chosen a different path, it hasn't always been successful. President Obama summarizes his approach to international relations like this:

Obama acknowledged that the U.S. is "clear-eyed" about the shortcoming of the international system, but he said America had not ever been successful by "stepping out of the currents of cooperation."
"We have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice, so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities and face the consequences when they don't," the president said.

Surely President Obama considers the recent conclusion of discussions of the NPT as an example of his approach. The New York Times reports:

While rejecting a deadline, for the first time the main five nuclear weapons states accepted vague language referring to a new, stronger international convention on eliminating nuclear weapons, and the idea of a "timeline" was introduced.
Despite differences over the pace of disarmament and proliferation concerns, the document breathes new life into a treaty seen as under threat, analysts said. "That is the positive, there is much more attention on future action and new benchmarks," said Prof. William C. Potter, the director of the center for nonproliferation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

The Washington Post offers a few more details in its conclusion:

The U.S. delegation at the NPT review in New York had fought to excise all mentions of Israel in the final document. But on Thursday evening, as delegations prepared for a last round of talks, the conference president informed them that the latest draft of the text was a take-it-or-leave-it document, officials said. Final NPT documents require a consensus.
Many diplomats had expected U.S. officials to withhold approval of the final document because of the mention of Israel. But the U.S. government was apparently reluctant to be viewed as the spoiler at a conference that focused on one of Obama's priorities.

National security adviser James L. Jones said Friday that the U.S. government "deplores" the decision to single out Israel and would "not permit a conference or actions that could jeopardize Israel's national security."

And this mention of Israel, of course, is why the NPT was controversial.

A good merchant - unlike Gen. Jones - knows the value of what he's trying to sell and what he's trying to get in exchange. As the Post observes, a final version of the NPT document was the highest priority of the administration. It's ridiculous for Jones to "deplore" the singling out of Israel. That was the cost of getting what the administration wanted. If it had placed a greater value on protecting Israel, the administration wouldn't have minded seeing the conference end without an agreement. The merchants who offered the administration the "take it or leave it deal" correctly read the values both of what the administration wanted and what it was willing to agree to, to achieve its goal.

How did Iran, currently seeking to join the nuclear club, view this?

The final statement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference has called for the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.
The 28-page document, which was agreed upon on Friday by all 189 NPT signatories after a month-long round of talks at UN Headquarters in New York, called for a conference to be held in 2012 "to be attended by all states of the Middle East, leading to the establishment" of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.

Western diplomats said the United States finally agreed to a deal at the UN that would pressure Israel to join the NPT, Al Jazeera.net reported.

In this case the administration didn't steer anything, it was steered. Here's how Meryl put it:

The Obama administration threw Israel under the bus again. The NPT conference ended with all 189 countries--the U.S. included--issuing a statement that names Israel, and only Israel, when calling for a nuclear-free Middle East. It does not name Iran or Syria, two nations that were on the nuclear weapons track. It calls on Israel, and only Israel, to join the NPT, which Israel has never signed. Iran is a signatory. The document does not call on Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons.

Meryl emphasizes that if the United States reallly opposed the language singling out Israel, it had an option: not to sign.

Henry Sokolski concludes:

Bottom line: With the possible exception of Iran, it is difficult to see how Obama or anyone got anything out of this exercise but regret.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Carnival of maryland begins again

Posted: 30 May 2010 04:59 AM PDT

Clark's brought back the Carnival of Maryland. I have two weeks now to come up with a Maryland related post.

The Carnival of Maryland was originally founded by my friend Pillage Idiot who is now retired.

If you want, check out another of Clark's sites, Clark's Picks. I found his post on Tom Dooley fascinating.

Why should I believe you when you say there's nothing there?

Posted: 30 May 2010 04:23 AM PDT

Andrew Alexander shows us what an ombudsman is supposed to do:

There was quite a noisy scene in a peaceful Chevy Chase neighborhood two Sundays ago. The midafternoon calm was shattered when 14 buses showed up without warning and about 700 protesters descended on the home of Gregory Baer, a deputy general counsel for Bank of America.
They chanted and jeered as speakers, using a bullhorn from Baer's front porch, railed against the bank's policies and its role in home foreclosures. Baer, away when the protests began, was booed when he returned and edged through the crowd before entering his home, where his teenage son was alone and frightened. Neighbors complained about the disturbance, organized by a grass-roots group called National People's Action and the huge Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Montgomery County police officers appeared as participants returned to their buses, which whisked them to another protest at the Chevy Chase home of a lobbyist for J.P. Morgan Chase.

There was no mention of the protests in the next day's Post, prompting calls from perplexed readers. Several had read a full account on HuffingtonPost.com and wondered why The Post had nothing. Journalists for The Nation and Mother Jones also reported from the scene.

Bank demonstrations continued downtown that Monday and The Post ran an online-only story. But it made only passing reference to Sunday's Chevy Chase protests and offered no details.

Though he isn't harsh, Alexander makes clear that his paper missed the story. The one sour note was this:

In fairness to The Post, all local media seemed unaware. George Goehl, executive director of the Chicago-based National People's Action that spearheaded the protests, said, "We didn't call any media in advance."
But HuffingtonPost reporter Arthur Delaney said he learned of the protests from SEIU sources, which raises the question of whether The Post is sufficiently plugged into the nation's most politically active labor organization.

A few months ago, the Post hired David Weigel to report on conservatives. In the past week this was one of the big political stories in the political blogosphere. Weigel, however, last week did what liberal critics of conservatives do: blasted Sarah Palin. He seems less like a serious reporter than an anthropologist.

It didn't require being plugged into a union to be aware of the story. It required being concious and watching Fox News. At the end of his column Alexander makes some good observations:

Beyond that, there were numerous ways The Post could have gotten back in the game on the story. For example, how did Chevy Chase neighbors react? Did protesters break trespass laws? When does First Amendment expression infringe on residential privacy? Does President Obama, who enjoyed SEIU electoral support, sanction these types of protests? And is a blitz on private residences a new protest tactic?
To survive, The Post needs to own its local audience. Readers lose faith when there's news in their backyard but not a word in their newspaper. And not writing about raucous liberal protests feeds the perception that The Post is overly eager to write about raucous Tea Party protests.

The Post's negligence here is important given its coverage of the Sestak scandal. Notably there's yesterday's editorial which opens:

OKAY, if all the facts are out, then we would agree: Nothing inappropriate happened. On the basis of the memorandum issued Friday by White House Counsel Robert F. Bauer, the Joe Sestak job-for-dropping-out-of-Senate-race scandal is a non-scandal -- except for the White House's bungling of the episode. The unnecessary coverup, it turns out, is always worse than the non-crime.

So when a protest by a union that supported the President is ignored, how can we accept your assurance that in the Sestak matter nothing untoward happened?

JoshuaPundit, for one, isn't convinced by the administration's account.

Ummm...I seem to remember that Sestak originslly said back in February that "somebody in the White House" contacted him about the post. And when asked about the job ( not a term customarily used to describe a post on an 'advisory council) in response reiterated that yes, it was a high position.
Bill Clinton is not "somebody in the White House" the last time I looked, and a place on an advidsory board is not a 'high position'. So was Sestak lying then...or is he lying now?

If Sestak was exaggerating all this time, why didn't the White House expose him months ago when it would have embarrassed him and perhaps helped drag Specter to a primary win?

And why get Clinton involved just to offer an advisory board position? And how is that still not a bribe, as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 211? What was Sestak going to be, a freaking intern?

And if this was all it was, why couldn't it have been detailed by Sestak weeks ago? Why wait? Why did the White House call Sestak's brother? Why time it all together? Why wouldn't Obama or Gibbs answer questions about this simply and directly?

The answer,of course, is that it took weeks to tie everybody's story together and figure out who was going to get what in exchange for engaging in this coverup.

Well, the lack of transparency makes it look exactly that way. And when the details don't add up, it makes things look a whole lot worse. The Post's incuriousness in this story is pretty amazing.

Don Surber points out that adding Bill Clinton to the story doesn't help the administration:

Guess what? This does not let the White House off the hook. In fact, it helps sink the hook deeper in the lip of the administration. Bill Clinton spoke for the White House oat the request of the White House. He is their agent. At some point, the White House asked Clinton how it went and he told them.

The Provocateur makes an excellent point too:

What is without question is that this looks awful. The best defense for this White House is the claim that this is done all the time. That may be true but in fact, Obama promised to rise above all of this. Even if no laws were violated, this goes against every bit of the soaring rhetoric that Obama made in the campaign. There's nothing inspiring or transparent about any of this. At best, there was no direct quid pro quo but just an implied one. That wouldn't be illegal, just scummy. That said, this first broke in February and now it's almost June and we still don't know much. No one will explain exactly what was said and why this isn't illegal. The reality is that this is politics as usual. Obama had no accomplishments coming into the presidency. He won largely on his soaring rhetoric, and this episode is another example that the soaring rhetoric is NOT backed up by action.

So even if there's no scandal as the Post concludes, doesn't it at least make the administration look overly cynical and political? That the Post won't even entertain this thought is even more damning.

The fact that a protest that could have been politically damaging to the President was ignored by the paper, makes me less willing to believe the Post when it tells me that there's nothing to the Sestak scandal.

Council speak 05/30/10

Posted: 30 May 2010 02:37 AM PDT

The council has spoken:

Council Submissions

First place with 2 1/3 votes - Bookworm Room - Everybody draw Mohamed Day -- or, you're not the boss of me
Second place *t* with 2 votes - Rhymes With Right - Why Rand Paul Is, In A Sense, Both Right And More Principled Than Those Disagreeing With Him
Second place *t* with 2 votes - The Provocateur - Emery Joe Yost: In the Eye of the Storm

Non Council Submissions

First place with 2 1/3 votes - Althouse - If you're going to criticize the new social studies curriculum adopted by the Texas Board of Education, you'd better quote it. Submitted by Rhymes with Right and the Glittering Eye
Second place with 2 votes - NRO/Andrew McCarthy - The House Divided Submitted by Bookworm Room

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Sat, 29 May 2010 02:43:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

Bad week for eniviromental craziness
"Worsen conditions"
Submitted 05/28/10
The poverty of gaza
MPAC.ie: making MPAC-UK look moderate

Bad week for eniviromental craziness

Posted: 28 May 2010 04:06 AM PDT

Earlier this week, James Taranto had fun with a New York Times report that the public was becoming skeptical of global warming claims by scientists.

First he observed:

We're old enough to remember the "greenhouse effect," which became "global warming," which became "climate change," which now apparently has become "climate science."

(Some of us actually remember when scientists told us that we were headed into a new ice age.)

then:

Skepticism, the Times implies, is a sign that people are foolish and easily misled. But the opposite interpretation is closer to the truth: Those who refuse to accept outlandish claims based merely on an appeal to authority are exercising intelligence and common sense.

Charles Krauthammer today, observes that one of the causes of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, was due to ill-considered environmental fears:

Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama's tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.) And of course, in the safest of all places, on land, we've had a 30-year ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
So we go deep, ultra deep -- to such a technological frontier that no precedent exists for the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

There will always be catastrophic oil spills. You make them as rare as humanly possible, but where would you rather have one: in the Gulf of Mexico, upon which thousands depend for their livelihood, or in the Arctic, where there are practically no people? All spills seriously damage wildlife. That's a given. But why have we pushed the drilling from the barren to the populated, from the remote wilderness to a center of fishing, shipping, tourism and recreation?

"Worsen conditions"

Posted: 28 May 2010 03:59 AM PDT

China's Xinhau news service has this misleading headline:

Israel to worsen condition of Hamas prisoners

Read the article and this tells you how bad Hamas prisoners would have it:

According to the bills, prisoners in Israeli jails who were convicted for joining terrorist organizations will be barred from meeting family and receiving newspapers.

What is really going on:

In an attempt to put pressure on the Hamas leadership in Gaza to release Gilad Schalit, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation this week approved a bill that, if ratified, would take away some of the amenities enjoyed by Hamas terrorists currently incarcerated in Israeli prisons, including many captured by the IDF during December 2008-January 2009's Operation Cast Lead. No longer would these inmates be allowed to enjoy the cultural edification of multi-channel cable TV. Nor would they be permitted to pursue a higher education through Israel's Open University. Access to books and visits by relatives might be curtailed. Prolonged isolation of prisoners is also being considered.
Obviously, the Geneva Convention governing the proper treatment of prisoners would not be compromised. Prisoners would continue to have access to lawyers and medical treatment.

And as long as the International committed of Red Cross doesn't insist on visiting Gilad Schalit as should be dictated by international law, it's hard to see where the international community could object to Israel curtailing some extras to Hamas prisoners.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Submitted 05/28/10

Posted: 28 May 2010 03:58 AM PDT

This week's Watcher's council submissions are up.

Council Submissions

The Colossus of Rhodey - Don't know much 'bout history
Rhymes With Right - Why Rand Paul Is, In A Sense, Both Right And More Principled Than Those Disagreeing With Him
Mere Rhetoric - Arizona Democratic Rep: Yes To Boycotting Arizona, No To Boycotting Gaza
Bookworm Room - Everybody draw Mohamed Day -- or, you're not the boss of me
Right Truth - Expanding Clandestine Military Activity in Midddle East
The Glittering Eye - Conspiracy Is a Serious Charge
Joshuapundit - The Palestinian 'Demographic Bomb' Myth
The Provocateur - Emery Joe Yost: In the Eye of the Storm

Non Council Submissions

Cato@Liberty - A Legal Analysis of the New Arizona Immigration Law submitted by Colossus of Rhodey
Althouse - If you're going to criticize the new social studies curriculum adopted by the Texas Board of Education, you'd better quote it. Submitted by Rhymes with Right and the Glittering Eye
Arms Control Wonk - Avner Cohen on Israel and South Africa Submitted by Mere Rhetoric
NRO/Andrew McCarthy - The House Divided Submitted by Bookworm Room
Phyllis Chesler - Do Clothes Make the Muslim? Buddhists Don't Wear Burqas Sumitted by Right Truth
Doug Ross@Journal - Now is the time on Sprockets vhen ve juxtapose headlines! Submitted by JoshuaPundit
WCSX - The 24 Blog - 24: the Finale Submitted by the Provocateur
Maryland Conservatarian - The Quintessential Tom Friedman - Submitted by the Watcher
The Volokh Conspiracy - Taking the Washington Post to School Submitted by the Watcher

The poverty of gaza

Posted: 28 May 2010 01:00 AM PDT

In Defying Blockade, Cargo and Passenger Vessels Head for Gaza, Isabel Kershner of the New York Times reports:

In a sarcastic e-mail message to reporters this week, Israel's Government Press Office recommended a high-end restaurant in Gaza, the Roots Club, attaching the menu and a link to its Web site. "We have been told the beef stroganoff and cream of spinach soup are highly recommended," the office said. The restaurant would, of course, be out of reach for most of Gaza's 1.5 million residents. Israeli military officials put unemployment there at almost 40 percent.
International organizations active in Gaza paint a bleaker picture. A United Nations Development Program report published on Sunday determined that about three-quarters of the damage caused by Israel's military offensive in Gaza in the winter of 2008-9 had not yet been repaired. And a report by the United Nations humanitarian coordinator blamed the blockade for "suffocating" the agricultural sector in Gaza and said that insufficient food was now a problem in more than 60 percent of households.

Yes, international organizations in Gaza paint a bleaker picture. But is it a more accurate picture. The other day I noted a Financial Times report that mentioned that there's such a glut of luxury items in Gaza - smuggled through tunnels - that prices are falling! If Gazans are thriving without the relief organizations, the organizations have reason to deny that; they don't want to lose their or perceived usefulness.

Additionally, it's dishonest and unfar to portray Israel as being cruel for preventing building materials into Gaza, when Hamas would use construction materials to reinforce its military infrastructure:

With regard to the military networks: Hamas is rebuilding and strives to upgrade its military-terrorist wing (the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades). That includes replacing the weapons lost with new ones (including advanced weapons) by smuggling them in through the tunnels (despite Egypt's intensive counter-activities). So far Hamas has smuggled in dozens of standard rockets, hundreds of mortar shells, dozens of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, and tens of tons of standard explosives and raw materials for the manufacture of homemade weapons. The smuggling allows Hamas to extend the range of its rockets and to improve its anti-tank and anti-aircraft capabilities. In addition, the tunnel system in the Rafah region is in use again and is a vital channel for smuggling weapons (as well as food, equipment and fuel). Weapons are being manufactured again, and military training and instruction have been renewed (although for the time being theIzz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades are keeping a lower profile than they did before Operation Cast Lead).
With regard to security systems: Hamas is particularly concerned about restoring its internal security forces, which were severely damaged by the fighting, and to strengthen its control over the Gaza Strip. Five months after the end of Operation Cast Lead, Hamas succeeded in restoring the forces' daily functioning, as can be seen by their increased deployment and visibility. The oppression of Hamas opponents (primarily Fatah) has been renewed to ensure that they do not try to regroup. In addition, new operatives are being recruited and an emergency exercise was being held to simulate emergency deployment and dealing with an Israel attack (a lesson learned from the blow delivered by the IDF at the beginning of Operation Cast Lead). Headquarters have been assigned temporary quarters, most of them in civilian locations, to find solutions, even temporary, for the problems involved in restoring the apparatuses which were attacked.

Kershner also fails to acknowledge that Hamas, by now, is partly responsible for the housing crisis in Gaza.

Nidal Eid was praised by Hamas officials as an example of anti-Zionist resistance when he managed to build a house here last year despite an Israeli blockade that barred the import of any building materials. But earlier this week, his house was the first to be demolished by the Hamas government, which said it had been illegally built on public land.
Bulldozers, accompanied by Hamas forces and police officers who beat residents with sticks, razed at least 25 houses, including some concrete structures here in Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza.

Even as Kershner reports on the poverty in Gaza, tthere is plenty of evidnece that goods are getting through. And there's good reason for Israel to prohibit the importing of construction materials. This reminds me of Tony Blair's sister-in-law, Lauren Booth. Two years ago she went to Gaza claiming that it was a "concentration camp." Of course photographs of her in a fully stocked grocery store.

But Lauren Booth was an anti-Israel activist. Isn't Isabel Kershner supposed to be reporting the news? Even the information that contradicts the popular impression that Israel is starving the residents of Gaza.

Crossposted on Yourish.

MPAC.ie: making MPAC-UK look moderate

Posted: 27 May 2010 11:30 PM PDT

I've taken a keen interest in recent months in comparing the two Muslim Public Affairs Committees: MPAC.ie and MPAC-UK (MPAC.ie is actually a "Council.") Both have blog-like websites, and it happens to be an interesting moment for comparing the two. Both have posts, for instance, about the new Muslim Miss USA. MPAC.ie declares "Miss USA is NO MODEL for Muslim Women":

Of course Fakih's no representative for anyone but her pitiable deluded self, but the hullabaloo and the mad rush by the kuffar to hail her as the 'example' Muslim woman speaks volumes, at least now they have revealed why they want to ban the hijab and other modest clothing options that cover Muslim women.

In contrast, the MPAC-UK article doesn't once use the word "kuffar," and it is even accompanied by a large picture of her smiling face. Their title: "Miss USA Targeted by Zio-Nazis." Isn't moderation grand?

A constant theme at MPAC-UK is that Muslims should get involved in the political process, and they are sometimes scathing against Muslims who think that "democracy is kuffar," as MPAC.ie puts it. MPAC.ie admits to once coming out in favor of voting, but they seem rather penitent in a recent article:

While accepting that democracy is kufr, we considered the act of voting as a lesser of two evils and considering the experiences of our brothers across Europe we felt that some participation might forestall anti-Muslim legislation . . .

Having witnessed the ineffectual and futile attempts of Muslims to influence the politics of kufr, in fact quite the opposite happened - the kufr of democracy unduly affected Muslims, led to compromises in the religion and with some even denunciation of the Divine Shariah, we have come to the conviction that political participation in democracy is not in the Muslims best interests.

MPAC-UK loves leftists who make common cause with Muslims. Perhaps the more conservative MPAC.ie might at least espouse something that we would consider conservative economic principles? No such luck. Another recent post is entitled "Beware the evils of Capitalism." Let us end with the most jaw-dropping current post at the MPAC.ie site: "In Praise of the Mutawwa":

There are few jobs in life that can be as rewarding as that of the Hai'ah (religious police), those tasked with enjoining the good and forbidding the evil. One can only look upon such individuals who risk life and limb with admiration as they work tirelessly to ensure that the insidious kufr of the west does not infiltrate the blessed land of the haramain.

And it's a constant battle, as those desirous of introducing evil choose ever more clever methods. For example the Harry Potter books were rightfully banned in bookstores across the Kingdom, and the covers were instantly recognizable even to those Hai'ah who could not speak or read English. However some stores would import similar books that were not as 'famous' in the hope that they would go undetected and that is where Muslims from the west helped play a role in keeping the Kingdom kufr free.

The article is accompanied by three YouTube videos showing the admirable efforts of the Mutawwa. The titles: "DESTROYING AN ILLICIT KUFFAR ALCOHOL FACTORY," "ARRESTING SORCERERS," and "DEALING WITH FREE MIXING." I don't have the patience to watch. Feel free to watch and tell me what they're like in the comments section.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Fri, 28 May 2010 02:49:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

Strong but empty words
Not "really excellent" but "really hypocritical"
5 reasons not to support "son of stimulus"
Robbing peter doesn't pay paul
When the Great Leader met the Supreme Leader

Strong but empty words

Posted: 27 May 2010 01:00 AM PDT

Jennifer Rubin observed last week:

At a signing ceremony for the Freedom of Press Act, it is ironic and shameful that Obama could not bring himself to identify the killers who beheaded the man who fearlessly reported on the jihadist terrorists.

Here are a few data points.

Heather Robinson recalls the plight of Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury.

However Choudhury, via e-mail from Dhaka, tells me that the government of Bangladesh continues to harass him, using tactics such as summoning him to trial and making him stand for entire days in rooms without air conditioning, only to dismiss him when no "witnesses" show up for the trial.
Most troubling, Choudhury says that, since the election of President Obama, the U.S. Embassy has stopped monitoring his case.

"Though there is a statement in the State Department's report...the U.S. Embassy has stopped monitoring my case since Mr. Obama became the President," he writes.

Such an absence of monitoring is especially significant and troubling in a case such as this, because in the past, the Bangladeshi government has arrested, incarcerated, and even tortured Choudhury when the powers that be felt they could get away with it, according to Dr. Richard Benkin, an American human rights activist who helped to secure Choudhury's release from prison in 2004.

Barry Rubin catches the State Department somewhat less than enthusiastic about fighting Pakistani censorship.

In addition, it's farcical for Crowley to characterize what is occurring in Pakistan "dialogue and debate" over such matters. This is a country where Christians are persecuted and murdered (with no Western protest, members of the Ahmadis sect are discriminated against, and is a world center of antisemitism. Often, Christians are beaten or murdered for allegedly having done something "offensive" regarding Islam. Unfortunately, in the Muslim-majority world when governments do "outreach to minority religious groups" it's for the purpose of strangling them.
This question came within a few hours of the president signing a bill claiming to champion freedom of the press against foreign enemies of media liberty. Oh, by the way, has anyone else noticed that in signing a media freedom bill in honor of Daniel Pearl, President Obama never once mentioned that the reporter was murdered by radical Islamists in Pakistan? Here's a good example of trying not to cause offense curtailing free speech (and the recognition of reality).

Of course, Crowley is right in saying governments should safeguard free speech. But all the meaning is drained out of this since "robust legal protections against...hate crimes" includes in most countries steps that do punish free speech. That goes for Canada, the Netherlands, and many other places. So how can you deal with this very real contradiction unless you acknowledge that the mere act of speech--unless it involves a direct threat of violence or other regular crime--is never a hate crime. By the way, isn't that what was taken for granted in American law until a few years ago.

Finally there's the case of Khaled abu Toameh:

The former PLO "ambassador" to Australia, Ali Kazak, believes that an Arab journalist who writes about financial corruption and theft in the Palestinian Authority is a "traitor" who should be murdered the same way as collaborators were killed by the French Resistance.
Kazak told the newspaper, The Australian: "Khaled Abu Toameh is a traitor. Traitors were also murdered by the French Resistance, in Europe; this happens everywhere."

Asked why he calls the journalist a traitor, the former PLO representative, who lives in Australia, explained: "Palestinians are the victims. He shouldn't write about them, he should write about the crimes of the Israelis."

Kazak's threat does not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the methods used by Arab dictatorships to silence anyone who dares to demand reforms and transparency.

I don't expect the administration to do much on this count either.

President Obama said at the ceremony mentioned by Jennifer Rubin:

All around the world there are enormously courageous journalists and bloggers who, at great risk to themselves, are trying to shine a light on the critical issues that the people of their country face; who are the frontlines against tyranny and oppression.

Those are good strong words. But the President's inaction in the face of specific threats to freedom of speech render these words empty and meaningless.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Not "really excellent" but "really hypocritical"

Posted: 27 May 2010 01:00 AM PDT

Future of Capitalism calls Thomas Friedman's As Ugly as it Gets, (via memeorandum) "really excellent." I would not be so generous.

It's correct that Friedman points out the dangers of Iran.

But Fausta notes one element of hypocrisy.

Friedman says he wants Iran to be a democracy. Good. But he also says, hey, let's have the USA be China for a day!
Which one is it, Tom?

I have a bigger problem.

Take for example his Israel's goals in Gaza, which he wrote in middle of Operation Cast Lead:

I have only one question about Israel's military operation in Gaza: What is the goal? Is it the education of Hamas or the eradication of Hamas? I hope that it's the education of Hamas. Let me explain why.

Yesterday he was bemoaning the actions of Brazil and Turkey to allow Iran to skirt sanctions for its nuclear weapons program. But Israel, last year, was fighting one of Iran's proxies. Destroying it should have been a goal that Friedman would endorse. But because it was Israel involved, he comes up with one of his cockamamie ideas that Israel needs to give Hamas a stern talking to.

Here's the beginning of Friedman's explanation.

There have always been two camps in Israel when it comes to the logic of peace, notes Gidi Grinstein, president of the Israeli think tank, the Reut Institute: One camp says that all the problems Israel faces from the Palestinians or Lebanese emanate from occupying their territories. "Therefore, the fundamental problem is staying -- and the fundamental remedy is leaving," says Grinstein.
The other camp argues that Israel's Arab foes are implacably hostile and leaving would only invite more hostility. Therefore, at least when it comes to the Palestinians, Israel needs to control their territories indefinitely. Since the mid-1990s, the first camp has dominated Israeli thinking. This led to the negotiated and unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank, Lebanon and Gaza.

Hezbollah's unprovoked attack from Lebanon into Israel in 2006 both undermined the argument that withdrawal led to security and presented Israel with a much more vexing military strategy aimed at neutralizing Israel's military superiority. Hezbollah created a very "flat" military network, built on small teams of guerrillas and mobile missile-batteries, deeply embedded in the local towns and villages.

Note that there were those who predicted that withdrawing from Gaza and, earlier, from Lebanon would only spur Hamas and Hezbollah to press their illegitimate fights against Israel. He can't simply say that his own view was wrong.

Then Friedman recalls an earlier column of his:

Israel's military was not focused on the morning after the war in Lebanon -- when Hezbollah declared victory and the Israeli press declared defeat. It was focused on the morning after the morning after, when all the real business happens in the Middle East. That's when Lebanese civilians, in anguish, said to Hezbollah: "What were you thinking? Look what destruction you have visited on your own community! For what? For whom?"

Here's what Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, said the morning after the morning after about his decision to start that war by abducting two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006: "We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not."

That was the education of Hezbollah. Has Israel seen its last conflict with Hezbollah? I doubt it. But Hezbollah, which has done nothing for Hamas, will think three times next time. That is probably all Israel can achieve with a nonstate actor.

The assumption behind Friedman's "morning after the morning after" "reasoning" is that Hezbollah is an independent entity. It is not. It is the a proxy of Iran and not at all concerned about Lebanon. Since 2006 Iran and Syria have gone about re-arming Hezbollah. Already possessing 3 times the weaponry it had 4 years ago, Hezbollah's making it clear that it is spoiling for another fight, better armed than before.

So the conclusion he drew was:

In Gaza, I still can't tell if Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to "educate" Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population. If it is out to destroy Hamas, casualties will be horrific and the aftermath could be Somalia-like chaos. If it is out to educate Hamas, Israel may have achieved its aims. Now its focus, and the Obama team's focus, should be on creating a clear choice for Hamas for the world to see: Are you about destroying Israel or building Gaza?

After 2 1/2 years that Hamas was in charge of Gaza and failed to build a functioning statelet, it was still unclear to Friedman what Hamas's goals were. Like with Hezbollah he failed to acknowledge that the terror group was a proxy of Iran projecting its force against Israel.

So yes, I guess it's good that Friedman now is horrified that Iran is about to go nuclear. But he should have been cheering on Israel to destroy Iran's proxies, instead of pretending that they were harmless mischief makers. More significant defeats - prevented by diplomacy - would have set back Iran's agenda. Instead Friedman supported giving Iran's proxies more chances.

So Friedman yesterday was not "really excellent" but "really hyprocritical."

5 reasons not to support "son of stimulus"

Posted: 27 May 2010 12:59 AM PDT

We just wrote about a paper from Harvard that demonstrated that federal spending did not spur corporate spending. So what about the so-called "son of stimulus" bill currently being considered?

James Pethokoukis gives 5 reasons to oppose the bill. Here's #1 (via memeorandum):

For instance, the bill includes a one-year, $6.7 billion extension of the federal research and development tax credit. By not making it permanent, the credit is less likely to foster long-term investment. The bill also extends tax breaks for NASCAR and Hollywood, ensuring both Red and Blue state residents get fed their respective helpings of pork.

Matthew Hoy explains why Pethokoukis's reason #2 makes no economic sense.

Instead? (h/t Future of Capitalism)

"If government leaders in the U.S. or Europe announced meaningful cuts in government spending or even a credible process to reduce the rate of increase--not a commission or a legislative rule, but concrete executive action--markets would celebrate and public applause would encourage more decisive action,"

Robbing peter doesn't pay paul

Posted: 27 May 2010 12:21 AM PDT

I was kind of surprised by this (via memeorandum)

Q: Perhaps the most intriguing finding, at least for me, was the degree and consistency to which federal spending at the state level seemed to be connected with a decrease in corporate spending and employment. Did you suspect this was the case when you started the study?
A: We began by examining how the average firm in a chairman's state was impacted by his ascension. The idea was that this would provide a lower bound on the benefits from being politically connected. It was an enormous surprise, at least to us, to learn that the average firm in the chairman's state did not benefit at all from the increase in spending. Indeed, the firms significantly cut physical and R&D spending, reduce employment, and experience lower sales.

The results show up throughout the past 40 years, in large and small states, in large and small firms, and are most pronounced in geographically concentrated firms and within the industries that are the target of the spending.

In other words, robbing Peter to pay Paul (or, to be more precise, taxing Peter to provide pork for Paul) ends up not benefiting Peter.

Remember that the next time your senator or representative boasts about bringing a project to your state.

The Watcher's Council discusses this here.

When the Great Leader met the Supreme Leader

Posted: 26 May 2010 09:20 PM PDT

Oh, to have been there! I mean the original meeting, but these round-table talks were probably swell as well:

A photo exhibition, a film show and round-table talks were held at the Iran-Korea Friendship Magsal Agro-Stock Farm on May 19 to mark the 21st anniversary of President Kim Il Sung's meeting with Seyed Ali Khamenei, leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.

On display in the venue of the events were photos showing the revolutionary histories of Kim Il Sung and General Secretary Kim Jong Il and their immortal exploits.

Attending the events were personages of the farm and the Islamic Revolutionary Proletarian Organization of Iran. Staff members of the DPRK embassy in Teheran were present on invitation.

The participants of the events looked round photos on display and watched a Korean film.

The manager of the farm said in a speech at the round-table talks that Kim Il Sung helped Iran both materially and morally when it was undergoing difficulties, thus greatly encouraging its people.

The Iranian people will always remember the immortal exploits performed by the President for the development of the friendly relations between Iran and the DPRK, he added.

I hate to bring everybody down after that exhilarating article, but the DPRK is not happy about this business with the torpedoed South Korean ship:

. . .the "story about the north's torpedo attack" is a whopping lie cooked up by the group of traitors to weather its crisis in a bid to kick off "north wind" and that the investigation into the cause of the sinking of the ship was not conducted on a scientific basis but unilaterally done to serve its purpose and it was not objective but was based on bias and arbitrariness. [...]

The group of traitors employed all control means, persistently brushing aside various conjectures and opinions not serving the purpose of the scenario worked out by it and threatening and blackmailing people in the whole period of investigation. [...]

The puppet group is working with bloodshot eyes to peddle story about "north wind" defying scientific evidence and objective procedures after cooking up such mean and clumsy charade in a bid to tide over the present crisis. [...]

All facts prove that the "story about the north's torpedo attack" is, indeed, a poor anti-DPRK farce orchestrated by the group of traitors to harm and stifle fellow countrymen and an undisguised burlesque for confrontation in a bid to realize its despicable ambition and black-hearted intention.

Its brigandish farce is a hideous crime to be recorded in the history of inter-Korean relations as it is an open negation and total rejection of the June 15 era of reunification.

The army and people of the DPRK are sharply watching the moves of the group of traitors, which seeks to stifle fellow countrymen while linking the cause of the sinking of the warship with the DPRK, and keeping themselves ready to take decisive counteractions.

If the south Korean puppet forces show any sign of the slightest provocation, political, military and economic, against the DPRK, backed by the U.S. imperialists, we will immediately react to them by the just tactics of wiping out one by one, eliminate all rubbish of the nation from the Korean Peninsula and build on it rich and powerful reunified Korea where all Koreans enjoy prosperity. [...]

Ah, so the South Koreans will get wiped out "one by one" and then live happily ever after in the bosom of the brilliant Songun Commander?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Thu, 27 May 2010 02:08:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

Lies my fatah told me
Council speak 05/26/10
Younger brothers more likely to steal
Juan Cole post title: "Israel offered Nukes to Racist South Africa for Use on Black Neighbors"

Lies my fatah told me

Posted: 26 May 2010 04:10 AM PDT

The headline reads Abbas: Second intifada was one of our worst mistakes
The first paragraph reads:

"The second intifada was one of our worst mistakes," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told an Egyptian television station on Wednesday. "[Late Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat didn't want the intifada to erupt, but he couldn't stop it," he added.

Which is, of course, a lie.

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.

A few paragraphs later we read:

On Wednesday, Abbas said that "peace can be achieved in no more than one week, but only if Israel is willing." He added that the establishment of a Palestinian state has been delayed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. "They must understand that peace is in their interest," he declared.

Again, this is a lie.

"In November 2008... Let me finish... [Israeli prime minister Ehud] Olmert, who talked today about his proposal to Abu Mazen, offered the 1967 borders, but said: 'We will take 6.5% of the West Bank, and give in return 5.8% from the 1948 lands, and the 0.7% will constitute the safe passage, and East Jerusalem will be the capital, but there is a problem with the Haram and with what they called the Holy Basin.' Abu Mazen too answered with defiance, saying: 'I am not in a marketplace or a bazaar. I came to demarcate the borders of Palestine - the June 4, 1967 borders - without detracting a single inch, and without detracting a single stone from Jerusalem, or from the holy Christian and Muslim places.' This is why the Palestinian negotiators did not sign..."

Shocker! The Palestinian leader is a serial liar. Unfortunately, lies have been a big part of the Palestinian narrative that is so accepted internationally, even in the West. That acceptances allows the Palestinians to lie with impunity. Abbas is so caught up in a fantasy world, he would not know the truth if it introduced itself by name and shook his hand.

These lies go back to the very beginning:

The disputed territories, together with the territories that are now Israel and Jordan, were originally (in Biblical and post-Biblical times) Jewish kingdoms, and for most of the last seven centuries part of the Ottoman Empire. After the defeat and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the First World War, the League of Nations divided most of its former possessions in the 1922 peace conference. The Arabs were granted rights to most of the formerly Turkish-controlled lands, to an area that was 500 times larger in size than the small area reserved for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The British received an international mandate over Palestine because they undertook to establish a Jewish national home there, which the League considered as an act of "restoration" of ancient Jewish rights to the land -- rights that outweighed any Arab claims based on later conquest and residence.
At first, the Arab representatives to the Versailles conference gladly accepted this division. It gave them control over vast areas lost centuries ago, without requiring them to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of soldiers, as the Allies had, to liberate these lands from Turkish dominion. They did not then consider the tiny sliver of South Syrian wasteland, known to Jews as Judea and Samaria and to the Europeans as the Holy Land, of any significance, politically or religiously, and were happy to give it up in exchange for what they so surprisingly gained. The Emir Faisal, who represented the Arabs, signed a draft agreement with the Zionist movement, welcoming the Jews back to their homeland and pledging cooperation.

So the disputed territories of the West Bank and the Gaza strip were never "Palestinian lands" -- neither as national patrimony nor as private property. In fact, until the institution of the British mandate, the Holy Land never had a separate political identity or a distinct people inhabiting it. It was a neglected province of South Syria, whose few and destitute Arab inhabitants considered themselves South Syrians. As Bernard Lewis notes, "From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries... within a larger entity" of Syria.

Indeed, to date, 93 percent of the land in what was the British Mandate -- including the lands of the West Bank -- are still government-owned. They were so despoiled, malaria-infected, and sparsely populated that no private owners evinced any interest in owning them, so they were kept by the sultan and then inherited by the British mandate in safekeeping for the Jews.

Some are gross exaggerations:

Jibril Rajoub (March 30, on MAHAD TV, a local television station in Ramallah) accused Israel of carrying out a "massacre," executing 30 Palestinians in Ramallah. The announcement was also broadcast on Al Jazeera and other stations.
The reality, of course, is different: in battles which took place on that day in Ramallah, 9 Palestinians were killed - all of them armed.

and echoed even to this day in different contexts.

Some are used to undermine Israel's legitimacy.

The big, compelling reason people who claim to be 'friends' of Israel are pressuring them to give up the country's heartland to the Arabs is the so-called demographic bomb..the idea that the Arab birthrate is rapidly overtaking the Jewish one and that Israel had better do this now or face being a minority in the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.
It's a myth, as I've discussed before and anyone who looks at the actual numbers ought to realize it out of hand.

Barry Shaw is correct:

A fiction has been allowed to take hold. This fiction is known as the Palestinian narrative. It is the creation of a myth that has been told repeatedly so many times that it has been accepted as fact.
The falsehoods have been regurgitated endlessly in the media as to become the standard mantra. The message has become the rallying cry around which support groups are formed. Immense budgets are given to forward part of the agenda that is contained in the narrative. Activists take to the podium, the media, the unviersities, and to the streets. Any voice that challenges the veracity of the campaign is muted, ignored, suppressed, and even impeded with violence.

The accepted narrative is used to criticise, condemn, delegitimise, and even question the validity of the other side.

I represent the other side. I now say enough! Enough of the lies! It is time to fight back! It is time to expose the lies. It is time to expose the truth. Let's rip the narrative to pieces, bit by bit.

And rip it to pieces, is exactly what Mr. Shaw does. Read it.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Council speak 05/26/10

Posted: 26 May 2010 04:10 AM PDT

The Council has spoken.

Council Submissions

First Place with 4 votes! - Joshuapundit - Update On UCSD MSA Member Who Admitted She Wants A Second Holocaust
Second Place with 2 1/3 votes - Rhymes With Right - A Tale Of Two Controversies -- UPDATED & BUMPED

Non-Council Submissions

First Place with 2 votes! - Iowahawk - Invisible Assholes Submitted by Bookworm Room
Second Place with 1 2/3 votes - Doug Ross @ Journal - Illinois Melts Down: the Inevitable Result of Unchecked Democrat Rule Submitted by Rhymes with Right

And while I don't usually do this, had I been voting I am sure I would have included a vote for The Razor's Have You Mugged Your Kid Today?

Younger brothers more likely to steal

Posted: 26 May 2010 03:36 AM PDT

...bases, that is.

A study of baseball playing brother's concluded (via Instapundit):

In the current issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review, Frank J. Sulloway and Richard L. Zweigenhaft went digging for evidence of siblings behaving differently in the vast database of baseball statistics. Given how younger siblings have been shown to take more risks than their older counterparts -- perhaps originally to fight for food, now for parental attention -- Drs. Sulloway and Zweigenhaft examined whether the phenomenon might persist to the point that baseball-playing brothers would try to steal bases at significantly different rates.
In fact they did: For more than 90 percent of sibling pairs who had played in the major leagues throughout baseball's long recorded history, including Joe and Dom DiMaggio and Cal and Billy Ripken, the younger brother (regardless of overall talent) tried to steal more often than his older brother.

However that doesn't mean that they are (or were) better players:

But according to a Wall Street Journal analysis, that doesn't mean they're better. An analysis of over 300 sets of brothers who've played in the majors found that--by a fairly wide margin--older brothers were superior.
Nearly 58% of the elder brothers compiled better career statistics than their younger siblings, based on "wins above replacement," a statistic that measures how valuable a player is to his team. Among them were former home-run king Hank Aaron, who had 755 homers to Tommie Aaron's 13; Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean, who had 150 wins to Paul Dean's 50; and Graig Nettles, who played in 2,700 career games (younger brother Jim played in 240). This trend continues, though some younger brothers such as Justin Upton and Yadier Molina could surpass their elders.

Juan Cole post title: "Israel offered Nukes to Racist South Africa for Use on Black Neighbors"

Posted: 25 May 2010 11:51 PM PDT

This story is all over the place, but this offering by Juan Cole has the most apocalyptic-sounding title I've seen so far. In the body of the post he refers to "potential use against Black African neighbors." Are "use" and "potential use" the same thing? They weren't going to just load and fire the minute they had those nukes?

He also refers to "Iran's peaceful nuclear enrichment program" and states that "Iran appears not to have a nuclear weapons program, according to US intelligence . . . " That appears to be a reference to the controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. According to a February CNN article, "A soon-to-be completed U.S. assessment of Iran's nuclear program is expected to conclude that the government has resumed limited work on a nuclear weapon, according to a U.S. official."

Juan also informs us that the argument that Iran might proliferate to terrorists has been "demolished," but I'm not so reassured. Terrorist groups continue to pursue innovative delivery systems, and we wouldn't want to face the prospect of a nuke-laden donkey.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Wed, 26 May 2010 02:09:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

Hamas Economic Crisis Reveals Gaza As A Just Terrorist Group Surrounded By Human Shields
Gaza: you can never have too many snickers bars
Peter's perverse principle
Fortunately they weren't violent tea party types

Hamas Economic Crisis Reveals Gaza As A Just Terrorist Group Surrounded By Human Shields

Posted: 25 May 2010 09:02 AM PDT

The Daily Alert in its May 24th edition yesterday quoted the Financial Times that

Gaza Faces Supply Glut as Smuggled Goods Flood In Through Tunnels (registration required).

But despite that, Hamas is facing a major financial crisis:

Hamas faces financial crisis after three-year Israeli blockade
Laboring under an Israel blockade supported by Egypt, Hamas hasn't paid government employees full salaries for two months. It's also had to raise taxes, an unpopular move in the impoverished Gaza Strip.

Hamas has failed to pay in full the monthly salaries of its roughly 30,000 civilian and security employees in the past two months, signaling that the Islamist organization may be in the throes of its first financial crisis since it seized control of Gaza in 2007.

"The government is facing a crisis," said Hamas lawmaker Jamal Nassar last month. "The siege on the [Hamas-run] Palestinian government has been tightened recently and because of this it has been unable to bring in funds from abroad."

In response, Gaza's Hamas-run government has imposed new taxes in recent weeks. Cigarette packs cost a dollar more than they did last month, and the price of fuel is up 3 percent. Building materials are in short supply under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, and scavengers now pay hefty fines even on the rubble they salvage.

The duties have sown popular discontent across an already impoverished Gaza.

More interestingly, it seems that it is finally beginning to dawn on Gazans just how they got into this situation--and they are not necessarily blaming Israel:

"I run my generator because the electricity is cut, and I cannot do business," says Ahmed, a shop owner who was taxed for putting his generator on the street outside his store.

"Why is the electricity cut?" he asks. "Because Hamas is in power, and the borders are closed. So now, Hamas, you will charge me for my steadfastness under your siege?"

Such sentiments are widely shared in Gaza, where unemployment stands at roughly 40 percent, and 4 in 5 residents are dependent on food aid.

Apparently, no matter how successful the tunnels are in bringing in goods, there is still a problem when you have to actually pay for them.

Tunnel Economics does have a downside--especially when there is a crackdown. Besides Egypt cracking down on financial transactions, on May 10 Arab Bank announced it was going to close its three branches in Gaza , which would cut off one of Hamas's last financial lifelines from the outside world.

The fact of the matter is that the economic viability of Gaza since the bloody Hamas coup has always been a mirage:

Hamas needs approximately $16 million monthly for salaries, says Deputy Finance Minister Ismail Mahfouz.

The Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in the West Bank foots the bill for most of the government services in Gaza. But Hamas is believed to also be financed by Syria, Iran, and Islamic charities abroad, with just 10 percent of revenue generated locally.

Gaza may finally be revealed as nothing more than a terrorist enclave surrounding by human shields.

by Daled Amos

Gaza: you can never have too many snickers bars

Posted: 25 May 2010 04:26 AM PDT

The BBC reports:

A fleet of nine ships from Europe and Arab states is making another attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The Daily Alert blog excerpts a Financial Times article:

The prices of many smuggled goods have fallen in recent months, thanks to a supply glut. Tunnels have become so efficient that shops all over Gaza are bursting with goods.
Coca-Cola, Nescafe, Snickers and Heinz ketchup are both cheap and widely available. Tunnel operators have also flooded Gaza with Korean refrigerators, German food mixers and Chinese air conditioning units. "Everything I demand, I can get," says Abu Amar al-Kahlout, who sells household goods out of a warehouse big enough to accommodate a passenger jet.

Apparently, despite the bounty, Ismail Haniyeh just doesn't have quite enough Snickers bars. Somehow I doubt anyone would consider his lack of snackfoods a humanitarian crisis.

Peter's perverse principle

Posted: 25 May 2010 04:06 AM PDT

I haven't weighed in on Peter Beinart's silly essay in the New York Review of Books. Shmuel Rosner though, asked Beinart a few questions. Beinart's answers show that he's ignorant of what Israel is. In particular, Beinart, in one of his responses says:

I don't think they're irrelevant. You're obviously right that the failure of the Oslo process moved Israeli politics to the right. (Although it always bugs me when people who clearly opposed Barak's willingness to give back most of the West Bank turn around and use Arafat's rejection of that offer as a reason to oppose land for peace, when they were palpably against it in the first place). But Arafat hasn't been around for a while now (thank goodness). Instead, you have in Abbas, and particularly Fayyad, far better Palestinian leaders in the West Bank. And yet settlement growth continues essentially unabated (even this year, despite the supposed partial "ban") and this Israeli government is clearly hostile to the notion of a Palestinian state (despite Netanyahu's mouthing of the words under US pressure, which Tzipi Livni rightly declared a sham). I can understand the disillusionment in Israel after Camp David and Taba, but it seems wildly counterproductive to use that disillusionment as a reason to foreclose the possibility that a new, better, Palestinian leadership might accept the kind of parameters that Arafat rejected.

Maybe Israel moved a little to the right in the last election. But, as I've written many times, Israel's political landscape is significantly to the left of where it was even 15 years ago. The Palestinians despite the territory and legitimacy they've been granted still deny the right for Israel to be a Jewish state. And yes, that's true even of the so-called moderates whom Beinart lauds.

Gil Troy had an excellent response to Beinart:

Increasingly, championing Israel was deemed "conservative." The timing was particularly ironic, amid Israel's Gaza withdrawal, then Ehud Olmert's centrist government offering the Palestinians generous concessions. Clearly, as a modern capitalist consumerist society Israel is not the socialist workers' paradise David Ben-Gurion imagined. Israel remains vexed - and tarred - by the continuing Palestinian conflict. Israel's current governing right-wing coalition includes some parties that have taken appalling anti-democratic positions. And Israel occasionally does stupid things, such as banning Noam Chomsky from the West Bank (then rescinding the ban).
Still, this wave of articles paints Israel not as leaning rightward but as abandoning democracy. These shrill attacks ignore the many counter-balancing forces - and Netanyahu's own centrist shifts. Avigdor Lieberman is an unpopular, straitjacketed foreign minister, often bypassed. Still, he attracts more attention than moderates like the urbane, cosmopolitan Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor.

In neo-conning Israel critics overlook Arab illiberalism. Peter Beinart correctly notes that many young Jews resent hearing about Palestinian terrorism, incitement and intransigence. Casting the Arabs as the victims and Israel as the aggressor constitutes one of the greatest con jobs in modern politics.

Beinart confuses liberalism with virtue. Beinart refuses to credit to Israel for any concessions Israel made - often with devastating results. These results were often at odds with what Beinart and his ilk predicted. If in 1990 you had said "Over the next 20 years Israel will withdraw from major Palestinian population areas, including all of Gaza and after all of these withdrawals the Palestinians will still promote terror and deny Jewish statehood and the world will still blame Israel for failing to make peace" the likely response even from someone like Beinart would have been, "If Israel would do all that, terrorism would stop and if it didn't stop the world would be sympathetic to Israel."

Instead Beinart decided that no concession is ever enough unless it makes the Palestinians happy giving the irredentists veto power over peace. The irony with Beinart's view is that it is decidedly illiberal.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Fortunately they weren't violent tea party types

Posted: 25 May 2010 04:02 AM PDT

A group of angry protester descended on the house of a bank executive the other day. From what was described the protesters trapped a teenager in the house. Fortunately, they weren't tea party protesters, or it would have been really bad. They were members of the SEIU union. I'm sure the young man who couldn't leave the house was comforted to know that.

I took a quick look for any MSM coverage of this. I found this, in the blog section of the Atlanta Journal Constitution but it wasn't in the regular news pages. (This should have been front page of the Washington Post.)

Just imagine what kind of coverage and commentary would ensue if a tea-party protest were to unfold this way. Forget the police; Janet Napolitano's federal homeland security personnel would have come and arrested the "right-wing extremists."

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Tue, 25 May 2010 02:11:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

It Takes Burning Down A Summer Camp For UNRWA To Notice
What's the difference between "disgraced" and a "higher ethical standard?"
The messaging or the strategy
The first prejudice
What if obamacare applied to state lotteries?

It Takes Burning Down A Summer Camp For UNRWA To Notice

Posted: 24 May 2010 09:23 AM PDT

Maybe it was the bug juice?Masked gunmen from an Islamist group torched a UN-run summer camp for children and teens in Gaza on Sunday, Army Radio reported, the top UN aid official in Gaza said.John Ging says the assailants tied up the guard early Sunday, burned tents and vandalized bathrooms. UN officials say the attackers left behind three bullets and a note threatening to kill Ging and others unless the UN cancels its activities for some 250,000 Gaza children.Two days before the incident, the previously unknown "The Free of the Homeland" group issued a statement criticizing the camp's organizer, the...

What's the difference between "disgraced" and a "higher ethical standard?"

Posted: 24 May 2010 03:30 AM PDT

To recap: The ultimately fatal blow to his tenure came early on Dec. 9 when Blagojevich was arrested on federal corruption charges following a massive investigation in which authorities say he was caught on federal wiretaps scheming to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama, among other crimes. Even before his arrest, Blagojevich was trying to govern as scandal swirled. Questions arose about Blagojevich's practice of appointing political contributors to state boards or giving them state jobs. Federal investigators also examined real estate commissions his wife, Patricia, received from people doing state business and a curious $1,500...

The messaging or the strategy

Posted: 24 May 2010 01:43 AM PDT

In a meeting with fifteen Rabbis last week, White House shief of staff Rahm Emanuel said that the administration "screwed up the messaging." Part of me wants to buy that, but I'm very skeptical. I'd have been a lot more reassured had Emanual said, "we screwed up our strategy." For one thing as Jennifer Rubin notes, the Rabbis chosen to meet with the President were known for being favorably disposed towards him. As to the build-up, Moline lets on that no one predisposed to say nasty things about Obama was invited, nor was anyone who didn't vote for him. ("We...

The first prejudice

Posted: 24 May 2010 01:31 AM PDT

For years I thought that my sons were best suited for playing second base. Like me. Like me they tended to be short, had some quickness and did not hit for power. My two older sons mostly played second base. But a few years ago a coach suggested that my youngest play first base. I didn't object, but I didn't think it was a good idea. He's too short. But the coach put him at first and he played well. He was at least as sure handed as other boys at the position. This year, another coach put him...

What if obamacare applied to state lotteries?

Posted: 23 May 2010 07:47 AM PDT

Two months ago I received an e-mail from my Senator, Ben Cardin extolling the many benefits that will accrue to his constituents due to the recently signed health care bill. I read through them all and my reaction was the same for most of them. Nice, but that will raise premiums. Then I got to the last one and it really scared me. Requires plans in the individual and small group market to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services, and plans in the large group market to spend 85%. Insurers that do not meet these thresholds must...

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Mon, 24 May 2010 02:01:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

A treasure trove of terror
My connection to today's nyt crossword puzzle
How to doubt thomas
Is "intelligence" the right word for it?
Recent jewish blogging

A treasure trove of terror

Posted: 23 May 2010 08:10 AM PDT

A few weeks after the Sbarro terror attack, the students at Hamas hotbed Al Najah University prepared a sick tribute to the attack. According to reports in the Israeli media and The Associated Press, the exhibition was comprised of a series of rooms. The Sbarro section of the exhibit was replete with body parts and pizza slices strewn across the room. The walls were painted red to represent spattered blood. Another part of the exhibit glorified the "martyrs" who carry out suicide operations shown with a Koran and Kalishnikov in hand. A third section depicted a Palestinian behind a rock...

My connection to today's nyt crossword puzzle

Posted: 23 May 2010 07:24 AM PDT

Today's New York Times crossword puzzle was authored by Yaakov Ben David. He is my nephew's future father in law. (When I say future, I mean that the chassanah/wedding is this week.) If you live in Baltimore (and perhaps) other American cities, it will probably be in next Sunday's paper. The Baltimore Sun carries the Times crossword puzzle a week later. The Jerusalem Post also carries it....

How to doubt thomas

Posted: 23 May 2010 04:44 AM PDT

Usually, when I critique Thomas Friedman, I don't have fun doing it. I'm frustrated that someone so intellectually lazy has a column. Maryland Conservatarian shows how to do it. Have fun when you slice and dice Friedman! Let's say you think the world needs a parody Tom Friedman column. Dutifully, then, you set out to create one. At a minimum you know you need to throw in the following elements: • A display of a man-crush on Barack Obama, • A gratuitous slap at George W. Bush, • An example of just why the Chinese are awesome, • A painful...

Is "intelligence" the right word for it?

Posted: 23 May 2010 03:44 AM PDT

While written about the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I was thinking that the following could also have been written about another incident in the news last week. (via memeorandum) Joseph Tainter, author of The Collapse of Complex Societies, the seminal work on the fall of entire civilizations, explains that increases in complexity in a society are natural responses to challenges to survival. For a time, sometimes a long time, increased complexity succeeds in aiding the expansion and success of a society. The primary manifestations are the ever greater division of labor (often in the form of...

Recent jewish blogging

Posted: 23 May 2010 02:54 AM PDT

I've fallen way behind on updating links to Haveil Havalim and other Jewish blogging carnivals. First what's current. Here in Highland Park hosted the 54th edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival. And The Rebbetzin's husband hosts today's Haveil Havalim. Last week's, #267, was hosted by Dan Ilouz and featured (at least) two great posts. One was Yaacov Lozowick's on the history of the Rambam's (Maimonides) Torah scroll. The other was another thing that Treppenwitz loves about living in Israel. HH #266 was hosted by Ima on the Bima, appropriately, on Mother's Day. Lady Light has a cute post about some...

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Sat, 22 May 2010 02:11:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

The Obama Administration And Hezbollah: Looking For Moderates In All The Wrong Places (Again)
Whod've thunk it? an eu delegation is too anti-israel?
Submitted 05/21/10
What's the point of sanctions it there's no way to enforce them?
Decline an answer

The Obama Administration And Hezbollah: Looking For Moderates In All The Wrong Places (Again)

Posted: 21 May 2010 02:26 PM PDT

Who can forget the last time the Obama Administration had decided to root out the moderates of an otherwise radical organization? Last year in March we read:Biden: Taliban negotiations likelyVice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Tuesday that 70 percent of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan are essentially mercenaries who possibly could be negotiated with instead of fought, and said the United States likely will try this approach....President Obama on Friday left open the door to negotiating with elements of the Taliban as part of a counterinsurgency strategy first conceived and carried out in Iraq by Gen. David Petraeus, the...

Whod've thunk it? an eu delegation is too anti-israel?

Posted: 21 May 2010 05:30 AM PDT

It's nice to know that some Europeans have principles. The delegation of 25 parliamentarians from the foreign affairs, development and humanitarian aid committees, is due to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories next week. In their statement, Italian Fiorello Provera, vice-chairman of the foreign affairs committee and Dutch Bastiaan Belder, chairman of the European Parliament delegation with Israel said: "We think that the delegation's program is too one-sided, and for this reason it is extremely unhelpful to the cause we all wish to promote, at a crucial moment, when the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority are restarting indirect...

Submitted 05/21/10

Posted: 21 May 2010 05:27 AM PDT

This week's Watcher's council submissions are up! Council Submissions Joshuapundit - Update On UCSD MSA Member Who Admitted She Wants A Second Holocaust The Colossus of Rhodey - The U.N. continues to prove itself a sorry joke Rhymes With Right - A Tale Of Two Controversies -- UPDATED & BUMPED Bookworm Room - The "Howling Mob" theory of liberal politics Right Truth - The older you are, the less stress and worry you have, says survey The Razor - Have You Mugged Your Kid Today? Mere Rhetoric - BBC Middle East Editor: Watching Obama Slap Around Israel Is "Enjoyable New...

What's the point of sanctions it there's no way to enforce them?

Posted: 21 May 2010 02:36 AM PDT

The title, Sanctions Effort May Open Door to Press Iran Central Bank, looked promising. The particulars, not so much. American and European officials said Wednesday that the reference, passing though it is, could give them a legal basis in the future for choking off financial transactions between Iran and banking centers in Europe and elsewhere. Previous sanctions have taken aim at specific banks suspected of financing proscribed nuclear activity, but never anything as pivotal as dealings with the central bank itself. What is notably absent from the draft resolution, however, is any binding restriction on transactions with Iran's central bank....

Decline an answer

Posted: 20 May 2010 10:20 PM PDT

Last October Charles Krauthammer identified the premises of President Obama's foreign policy: Henry Kissinger once said that the only way to achieve peace is through hegemony or balance of power. Well, hegemony is out. As Obama said in his General Assembly address, "No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation." (The "can" in that declaration is priceless.) And if hegemony is out, so is balance of power: "No balance of power among nations will hold." The president then denounced the idea of elevating any group of nations above others--which takes care, I suppose, of the Security Council,...

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:02:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

Allen konigsberg channels his inner friedman
What's the difference between comedy central and al aqsa tv?
If You Think Eric Holder Has Trouble Talking About Radical Islam--Listen To His Boss!
Hiding a tank

Allen konigsberg channels his inner friedman

Posted: 18 May 2010 01:26 AM PDT

Matt Welch: The next time anyone tries to tell you that Thomas L. Friedman is a serious thinker, or a tribune for global democracy, or even a good columnist, or basically someone who isn't worth sending on the next slow boat to Shanghai, please refer him to this despicable column from today, then ask: Do you, too, prefer Chinese governance to American democracy? Woody Allen says President Obama should be granted dictatorial powers (seriously) Woody Allen has a strange take on the democracy that allowed him to become rich and famous. The "Scoop" director said it would be a cool...

What's the difference between comedy central and al aqsa tv?

Posted: 18 May 2010 12:32 AM PDT

Comedy Central publishes anti-Semitic, anti-Israel game The Comedy Central website has published an anti-semitic game called "I.S.R.A.E.L. Attacks," in which a murderous robot called Israel is called upon to wipe out every cartoon character on the show. The short animated movie that introduces the premise of the game portrays a "Jew Producer" being "busted" for stealing cartoon characters. "I.S.R.A.E.L" is then sent out to destroy them all. (see also Daled Amos, Fiery Spirited Zionist, Seraphic Secret, Honest Reporting) Martyrdom Indoctrination on Hamas TV Children's Show: Children all Over the World Will Become Martyrs Nassur the Teddy Bear: "Dear children, when...

If You Think Eric Holder Has Trouble Talking About Radical Islam--Listen To His Boss!

Posted: 17 May 2010 11:59 PM PDT

If we were wondering why Attorney General Eric Holder wouldn't--couldn't--bring himself to talk about Radical Islam, the answer has just become clearer.Jennifer Rubin writes:Obama Won't Say Who Killed Daniel PearlAt a signing ceremony for the Freedom of Press Act, it is ironic and shameful that Obama could not bring himself to identify the killers who beheaded the man who fearlessly reported on the jihadist terrorists. Obama had this to say:All around the world there are enormously courageous journalists and bloggers who, at great risk to themselves, are trying to shine a light on the critical issues that the people of their country face;...

Hiding a tank

Posted: 17 May 2010 11:45 PM PDT

h/t Snapped Shot New Israeli Technology Makes Tanks Disappear Thermal imaging technology in night vision devices operate by capturing the upper portion of the infrared light spectrum, the heat emitted by objects. Eltics Ltd., an Israeli start-up that develops electronic warfare systems, says it has developed a system that can make tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopter gunships and even naval vessels invisible to night vision systems and heat-seeking missiles. The Black Fox Active Adaptive IR Stealth System, revealed for the first time on Sunday by Israeli TV Channel 10, photographs the surroundings, analyzes the area's thermal signature, and then screens...

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:02:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

Date-seekers phased out
Arafat Not Only Created Myths--He Was A Myth
The PA's Policy Of Naming Schools, Summer Camps, Sporting Events, Streets And Ceremonies After Terrorists
I suppose it's better than shooting jews
Musical monday #141
Juan Cole's little Nakba narrative

Date-seekers phased out

Posted: 17 May 2010 06:56 PM PDT

What's the deal with Iranian military and security types and stubbly beards?The Tehran police plans to start implementing a new phase of the Social Security Plan next week. In this phase, the police will deal with people who drive down the street looking for dates, Tehran Police Chief Hossein Sajedi told the Mehr News Agency on Sunday. These people will be taken to court and their cars will be impounded for two months, Sajedi said. [...]Then they'll have to walk down the street? Crossposted on Judeopundit...

Arafat Not Only Created Myths--He Was A Myth

Posted: 17 May 2010 10:51 AM PDT

Hat tip to Soccer Dad, from whom I found this article by Daniel Pipes, written in September 1999. Like Edward Said and George Antonius--Yasir Arafat falsely claimed to be Palestinian Arabs when in fact they were born in Egypt:On countless occasions, Yasir Arafat has regaled listeners about his Jerusalem birth and childhood. He fondly recalls his birthplace in a stone house abutting the Western Wall, then how he lived with his Uncle Sa'ud in Jerusalem. Like Said, Arafat presents himself as a victim of Zionism - someone who lost his wordly belongings and his place in the world due to Israel's coming into...

The PA's Policy Of Naming Schools, Summer Camps, Sporting Events, Streets And Ceremonies After Terrorists

Posted: 17 May 2010 10:30 AM PDT

The following report was presented to Congress on May 6 Below is the summary.The entire report is available online.From Terrorists to Role Models:The Palestinian Authority'sInstitutionalization of IncitementThe PA's policy of naming schools, summer camps,sporting events, streets and ceremonies after terroristsfundamentally undermines the chance for peaceby Itamar Marcus, Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Barbara Crook and PMW staffExecutive SummaryThe Palestinian Authority has named numerous locations and events after Palestinian terrorists responsible for killing Israeli civilians. In this special report, Palestinian Media Watch investigates the breadth of this phenomenon and to what extent it continues in 2010. Furthermore, PMW will assess whether this represents activities of a...

I suppose it's better than shooting jews

Posted: 17 May 2010 03:57 AM PDT

The Washington Post today has an article Palestinians turn to boycott of Israel in West Bank. Apparently it's been somewhat successful. In Mishor Adumim, a bougainvillea-lined industrial zone inside this West Bank Jewish settlement, at least 17 businesses have closed since Palestinians began boycotting its products several months ago. There are two problems. The strategy originated at the grass-roots level but has increasingly been embraced by the Palestinian leadership. Top officials have shown up at anti-settlement demonstrations led by local activists trying to isolate Israel globally in a campaign roughly modeled on the South African anti-apartheid struggle. If this is...

Musical monday #141

Posted: 17 May 2010 03:52 AM PDT

Every week Elie and I switch off testing your musical trivia. Here are the lyrics, guess the songs and the theme connecting all the songs. Enjoy. There are still some songs left from Musical Monday #140 that haven't been identified. We plan over the the next two weeks to have a very special two part 3rd anniversary special! So stay tuned. 1) Well the Maximum Lawmen run down Flamingo 2) That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive 3) You know the night is fallin', and the music's callin' 4) Just listen to the music of the traffic...

Juan Cole's little Nakba narrative

Posted: 16 May 2010 10:46 PM PDT

This is just one paragraph from a longish post, but it stands on its own, a little bauble of bias:Thousands of Palestinians rallied in Gaza on Saturday to commemorate the Nakbah or national catastrophe of 1948, when European Jewish settlers brought into the Mandate of Palestine by imperial British policy expelled 700,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel and then sealed the border, confiscating all their property without compensation. These actions turned the bulk of the Palestinians into poverty-stricken camp dwellers and/or stateless persons living under the rule of others, and prevented the rise of an independent Palestinian state such...

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Mon, 17 May 2010 02:02:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

History for arabs but not for jews

Posted: 16 May 2010 04:32 AM PDT

In his famous speech in Cairo last year President Obama said: For decades then, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It's easy to point fingers -- for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: The only resolution is for the...

Anti-semantic

Posted: 15 May 2010 10:37 PM PDT

The NYT's public editor Clark Hoyt, today navigates "Semantic minefields." I had little doubt that at least one of those "minefields" would involve the Middle East, and I wasn't disappointed. No subject arouses reader passion more consistently than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and The Times navigates a semantic minefield with almost every story on the subject. When Cooper wrote this month about a lunch that Obama had with Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, she said the president was trying to mend fences with American Jews upset at the administration's stance against construction of "Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem."...

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Sat, 15 May 2010 02:03:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

This really won't help anyone born in 1911
I have no idea what transhumanism is ...
Is obama carter, but without the good fortune?
Submitted 05/14/10

This really won't help anyone born in 1911

Posted: 14 May 2010 03:21 PM PDT

Drugs to help us live to 100 may be available from 2012 h/t Instapundit...

I have no idea what transhumanism is ...

Posted: 14 May 2010 04:19 AM PDT

But it's still a good article. (via Instapundit) Imagine this sci-fi scenario: A small tribe with unique literature, customs and myths believes they've been "chosen" for a glorious destiny. But they're driven out of their native land, forced to wander the globe for aeons, persecuted and annihilated, until they're impelled by a utopian novel to return to their homeland. They name their new city after the inspirational book and their country becomes a technological powerhouse... but still, they're surrounded by enemies. They wage eternal war, they hover between hope and apocalypse... their contributions to humanity are astounding but they continue...

Is obama carter, but without the good fortune?

Posted: 14 May 2010 12:59 AM PDT

In his devastating critique of ex-President Jimmy Carter, Our Worse Ex-President, Joshua Muravchik wrote: Carter's interest in the conflict is in one sense natural: the agreement he mediated between Israel and Egypt at Camp David in 1978 stands as one of the few solid achievements of his presidency. Yet the intensity of his rhetoric suggests that his absorption with this issue derives from something deeper than the pleasure of returning to the scene of past triumphs. Generally, the Camp David treaty is considered the major accomplishment of Carter's term in office. Yet, as Jason Maoz recounts, the impetus for Sadat...

Submitted 05/14/10

Posted: 13 May 2010 11:11 PM PDT

This weeks' Watcher's Concil submissions are up! Council Submissions Rhymes With Right - Didn't These Administrators Read Tinker v. Des Moines? Bookworm Room - Harvard law professor's defense of Kagan doesn't hide her anti-military animus Right Truth - One Day The Bomb Will Explode The Colossus of Rhodey - Lies about the Arizona immigration law The Razor - Doctors Work For Free Too Often The Glittering Eye - The Imaginary Politics of Tom Friedman The Provocateur - Ken Hodges, Dr. John Bagnato, the Media,and Georgia Elections Mere Rhetoric - Payoff: Obama Hands Unions "Most Significant" Victory So Far, Opens Door...

Soccer Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Soccer Dad) — Fri, 14 May 2010 02:16:00 +0000

Soccer Dad

Hope and change with israel's neighbors

Posted: 13 May 2010 04:19 AM PDT

The Washington Post criticizes the administration's silence over Egypt's extension of its emergency laws for another two years. Last but not least, Mr. Mubarak took advantage of the policy of the Obama administration, which has chosen to soft-pedal the cause of democracy and human rights in Egypt and across the Middle East. Even as it has publicly demanded that Israel freeze Jewish settlements and that Mr. Karzai reform his government, the administration has gently stroked Egypt's strongman, on the theory that the U.S.-Egyptian relationship needed mending after the Bush administration. The result is that Mr. Mubarak, despite his failing health,...

The wal-mart of drug companies

Posted: 13 May 2010 03:42 AM PDT

I haven't commented much on Israel's acceptance into the OECD, but I should have. I would think that one indication of Israel's economic success is the success of Teva, the world's largest generic drug manufacturer. Teva's success is nicely described in a NYT article, that pill you took? It may well be Teva's. Here's a taste: "We're kibbutzniks," says Mr. Marth, 55, an Irish Catholic who grew up in Chicago and not on a citrus grove in the Negev. "Frugality doesn't mean doing less. It means doing as much or more with less." Teva, in fact, does quite a bit....