June 2009 Archives
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
During last week's demonstration across the street from the inauguration ceremony for the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Roxbury, Michael Felsen, Director of the local Workmen's Circle, crossed the street from the mosque to engage some of the protesters in discussion. There were approximately 40 protesters holding up signs that read, "Prayer, Yes, Extremism, No" in response to the long association the ISB has had with troubling anti-semites like Walid Fitaihi and the suicide bombing proponent and gay-hating sheikh, Yusuf al Qaradawi.
Mr. Felsen was one of a few Jewish enthusiasts at the mosque festivities. A longtime supporter of the ISB mosque, he appeared at a press conference there in 2007 in solidarity with Mahdi Bray, a leading official of the Muslim American Society, a branch of the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt. Mr. Bray once appeared at a rally cheering Hamas and Hezbollah. Alongside David Gordis, President Emeritus of the Hebrew College and Sanford Seltzer also of The Hebrew College, Mr. Felsen attended the event to lend his support.
He expressed the need to talk with leaders of the mosque in order to "find out what they were up to."
I admit I was shocked to hear these words from someone who ostensibly is enthusiastic about the opening of the mosque. By implying that the ISB might be "up to something," Mr. Felsen appeared to cast doubt on the sincerity of the ecumenical pronouncements of that group's leadership. Given the group's open record of associations with extremists, it shouldn't take much research to find out "what they are up to."
A word of warning that the political action/cultural dance troop Al-Rowwad is on its way back to the New England area. Their schedule is at their web page, here. You might question why I would give them air by linking the schedule, but the fact is you need to be aware that these groups always try to wangle their way in to the local schools and such to deliver their message. Be aware and be warned. I wrote about this group previously here: Beware of Cambridge Peaceniks Bearing Gifts. You can follow links in that post to stories of the trouble they caused on a previous trip through Connecticut. The donor list, until recently on the site, now removed, was basically a laundry list of anti-Zionist Cambridge peaceniks and JVP-types. Many familiar names.
One of the performances this time is being sponsored by the Workmen's Circle, an ostensibly "secular Jewish" organization that is also nominally pro-Israel, but whose President, Michael Felsen, has been one of the biggest supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood's Boston Mosque, appearing at press conferences with the Muslim American Society and basically as a volunteer to give the group "Jewish" cover. Confronted on the day of the Mosque opening, Felson was asked what actual pro-Israel activism his group had done. Fumbling for a response, he finally blubbered something about signing a petition against "the settlements!" Of course. Why this secular group has any more credibility within the organized, mainstream Jewish community than say, Jews for Jesus, is a mystery. Both seek to pull Jews away to the worship of false idols (no offense to my Christian friends, but that ought to be along the lines of the logical Jewish response).
Of course, there is no huge mystery, as a huge number of people who call themselves Jews today are really agnostics (raises hand) or atheists, suspicious (at best) of actual practicing religious people and taking Marx or his derivatives in place of Torah.
I digress. The point is to keep an eye out around you. As long as Al-Rowwad is in town, you should know where your children are.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
I'm now finally getting around to writing up a few impressions from last Thursday the 18th's CJP-sponsored event, "A Community Discussion -- Obama and Netanyahu: Hopes for America and Israel." (See: Why is CJP Giving Oxygen to J-Street? and Jeremy Ben-Ami Thinks HE Was Elected President)
A view across the street before the event: Good guys left, bad guys right.
You'll recall that the original event created an outcry in the community over the fact that CJP was sponsoring an event that gave a place at the mainstream table to the radical left J-Street, and further, gave the other seat to Steve Grossman, who, though a former AIPAC official, is also a Democratic Party activist, thus opening CJP up to having it pointed out that their community discussion took in all viewpoints -- left and far-left. Ken Levin was added as a last minute appeasement in an effort to avoid a pitch-forking.
It now appears we have a name to answer the question of how this happened in the first place, as the evening was put together by young CJP worker-drone and intern for Campus Progress, Celia Segel (Quote of note: "Ayers, who has now shed his role as a member of the radical 1960s group the Weather Underground, is now part of a growing movement of social justice leaders, public school faculty, journalists, politicians, and parents that aim to bring education reform to the forefront of Barack Obama's agenda."), whose daddy, Arthur I. Segel is faculty at Harvard Business School, a CJP co-chair and a big Democrat money-man.
I think we can begin to see how the night started out so skewed left -- acorn/tree and all... Oh, the youth. I've heard rumors that the event and the way it came to be caused quite a controversy within CJP itself. Good.
Controversy or no, the night was a win for Jeremy Ben-Ami and his J-Street. Just getting a seat at the table was all he needed to give his group some sort of credibility. The Israeli far-left has been a dying beast electorally for a number of election cycles. The Israeli public has been mugged by the reality of Oslo and subsequent events which has left their domestic leftist political parties reeling. That's an inconvenience for our own American left, who can keep pushing their own delusions while Israelis cash the checks American Jewish mouths write. Reality hasn't come home to enough American Jews yet, so they can go on playing at being the good Progressive and sending the bill to the Israelis they purport to support.
Continue reading "Jeremy's Big Night Out"Friday, June 26, 2009
I've heard there was quite a group gathered outside today's opening of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center today. Some pretty good coverage from NECN:
Here's some raw video of Charles Jacobs talking to Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, courtesy of Hillel Stavis. They start talking about Jamal Badawi, go on to talk about Yousef Qaradhawi's thoughts on homosexuality (the Imam thinks he's entitled to his opinion), won't talk to Ahmed Mansour (a man who has been jailed and threatened with death, and whose followers have been jailed and tortured)...he does say Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish State, but doesn't seem to have much of an opinion of Hamas as a terrorist group. A young man with some interesting opinions comes in toward the end before being shuffled off:
Finally, WBUR (the local NPR affiliate) demonstrates a little Freudian slip in Bianca Vazquez Toness' report on yesterday's press conference: New England's Largest Mosque Opens, After Years Of Controversy
BOSTON -- The Islamist Society of Boston Cultural Center was designed to fit into the landscape of Roxbury. Standing about 100 yards away and looking at the mosque, it's the same color -- brick and tan tilework -- as most of the other buildings, including Roxbury Community College...
Doh!
Miss Kelly comments on the day's events, here.
Update: A good picture accompanies this Globe article: Dissent greets mosque opening - Hundreds attend afternoon service, as a few protest
Update2: Globe reporter Michael Paulson has blog posts on the day's events: Roxbury mosque to open today, Interfaith breakfast for Roxbury mosque, and Muslims greet protesters outside mosque.
Expands government, is regressive, hurts the economy, is not based on reason, is a worthless power grab...government is currently absolutely out of control.
In full, from Palestinian Media Watch:
Fatah boasts about lynch murder of two Israeli soldiers in 2000
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
As PMW reported earlier this week, PA (Fatah) TV marked the second anniversary of the Hamas takeover of Gaza by broadcasting a public Fatah event that focuses on vilifying Hamas. One part of this performance features a graphic video of Hamas members brutally beating a Fatah member in Gaza.
Another part criticizes and mocks Hamas for the decrease in its terror operations against Israel, glorifies Fatah terror, and ends with Fatah boasting that they "arrested two soldiers in Ramallah," a reference to the October 2000 lynching of two Israeli reservists.
In this scene actors portray a Hamas teacher and student supporters of Fatah and Hamas, debating which movement is greater. Significantly, the competition between Fatah and Hamas supporters is based not on who has built more Palestinian infrastructures, nor on who has promoted peace, but rather on who can take credit for more terror.
The debate ends when a Fatah student trumps Hamas's boast of having kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by mentioning the "arrest of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah" by the PA-Fatah. This alludes to the lynching and gruesome murder of two Israeli reservist soldiers who accidentally entered the Palestinian Authority-controlled city in October 2000. While the picture of a Palestinian celebrating the killing by waving his bloody hands to the mob horrified the world, the murder remains a source of pride for Fatah.
[Note: Seated in the front row at the event are Fatah leaders, including Muhammad Dahlan, former head of PA security; Kadura Faras, head of the PA Prisoners' Association; Nasser Al-Qidwa, former PA Minister of Foreign Affairs; Samir Al-Mashharawi, senior Fatah official; and others.]
The following is a transcript of the act:
This appeared in Hebrew in Maariv. This translation (in full) has been circulating:
Tell us, where is everyone? Where did all the people who demonstrated against Israel's brutality in Operation Cast Lead, in the Second Lebanon War, in Operation Defensive Shield, or even in The Hague, when we were dragged there unwillingly after daring to build a separation barrier between us and the suicide bombers, disappear to? We see demonstrations here and there, but these are mainly Iranian exiles. Europe, in principle, is peaceful and calm. So is the United States. Here and there a few dozens, here and there a few hundreds. Have they evaporated because it is Tehran and not here?
All the peace-loving and justice-loving Europeans, British professors in search of freedom and equality, the friends filling the newspapers, magazines and various academic journals with various demands for boycotting Israel, defaming Zionism and blaming us and it for all the ills and woes of the world -- could it be that they have taken a long summer vacation? Now of all times, when the Basij hooligans have begun to slaughter innocent civilians in the city squares of Tehran? Aren't they connected to the Internet? Don't they have YouTube? Has a terrible virus struck down their computers? Have their justice glands been removed in a complicated surgical procedure (to be re-implanted successfully for the next confrontation in Gaza)? How can it be that when a Jew kills a Muslim, the entire world boils, and when extremist Islam slaughters its citizens, whose sole sin is the aspiration to freedom, the world is silent?
Imagine that this were not happening now in Tehran, but rather here. Let's say in Nablus. Spontaneous demonstrations of Palestinians turning into an ongoing bloodbath. Border Policemen armed with knives, on motorcycles, butchering demonstrators. A young woman downed by a sniper in midday, dying before the cameras. Actually, why imagine? We can just recall what happened with the child Mohammed a-Dura. How the affair (which was very harsh, admittedly) swept the world from one end to another. The fact that a later independent investigative report raised tough questions as to the identity of the weapon from which a-Dura was shot, did not make a difference to anyone. The Zionists were to blame, and that was that.
And where are the world's leaders? Where is the wondrous rhetorical ability of Barack Obama? Where has his sublime vocabulary gone? Where is the desire, that is supposed to be built into all American presidents, to defend and act on behalf of freedom seekers around the globe? What is this stammering?
A source who is connected to the Iranian and security situation, said yesterday that if Obama had shown on the Iranian matter a quarter of the determination with which he assaulted the settlements in the territories, everything would have looked different. "The demonstrators in Iran are desperate for help," said the man, who served in very senior positions for many years, "they need to know that they have backing, that there is an entire world that supports them, but instead they see indifference. And this is happening at such a critical stage of this battle for the soul of Iran and the freedom of the Iranian people. It's sad."
Or the European Union, for example. The organization that speaks of justice and peace all year round. Why should its leaders not declare clearly that the world wants to see a democratic and free Iran, and support it unreservedly? Could it be that the tongue of too many Europeans is still connected to dark places? The pathetic excuse that such support would give Khamenei and Ahmadinejad an excuse to call the demonstrators "Western agents," does not hold water. They call them "Western agents" in any case, so what difference does it make?
To think that just six months ago, when Europe was flooded with demonstrations against Israel, leftists and Islamists raised pictures of Nasrallah, the protégé of the ayatollah regime. The fact that this was a benighted regime did not trouble them. This is madness, but it is sinking in and influencing the weary West. If there is a truly free world here, let it appear immediately! And impose sanctions, for example, on those who slaughter the members of their own people. Just as it imposed them on North Korea, or on the military regime in Burma. It is only a question of will, not of ability.
Apparently, something happens to the global adherence to justice and equality, when it comes to Iran. The oppression is overt and known. The Internet era broadcasts everything live, and it is all for the better. Hooligans acting on behalf of the regime shoot and stab masses of demonstrators, who cry out for freedom.
Is anything more needed? Apparently it is. Because it is to no avail. The West remains indifferent. Obama is polite. Why shouldn't he be, after all, he aspires to a dialogue with the ayatollahs. And that is very fine and good, the problem is that at this stage there is no dialogue, but there is death and murder on the streets. At this stage, one must forget the rules of etiquette for a moment. The voices being heard from Obama elicit concern that we are actually dealing with a new version of Chamberlain. Being conciliatory is a positive trait, particularly when it follows the clumsy bellicosity of George Bush, but when conciliation becomes blindness,
we have a problem.
The courageous voice of Angela Merkel, who issued yesterday a firm statement of support for the Iranian people and its right to freedom, is in the meantime a lone voice in the Western wilderness. It is only a shame that she has not announced an economic boycott, in light of the fact that this is the European country that is most invested in building infrastructure in Iran. She was joined by British Foreign Secretary Miliband. It is little, it is late, it is not enough. Millions of freedom seekers have taken to the streets in Iran, and the West is straddling the fence, one leg here, the other leg there.
There is a different Islam. This is already clear today. Even in Iran. There are millions of Muslims who support freedom, human rights, equality for women. These millions loathe Khamenei, Chavez and Nasrallah too. But part of the global left wing prefers the ayatollah regime over them. The main thing is for them to raise flags against Israel and America. The question is why the democrats, the liberals, and Obama, Blair and Sarkozy, are continuing to sit on the fence. This is not a fence of separation, it is a fence of shame.
Here is video from yesterday's press conference held by Americans for Peace and Tolerance regarding today's opening of the MAS-run Boston Mosque:
On June 26, Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will be honored guests at the grand opening of the Islamic Society of Boston's Cultural Center in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Americans for Peace and Tolerance wish the Boston Muslim community well in their new cultural and religious center, and we celebrate the growing religious diversity it represents. We are deeply concerned, however, about the extremist leadership of this new institution. This video is from a press conference held to discuss our concerns.
The Globe reports on the Mosque opening as well as the controversy: A call to prayer, a long quest fulfilled, and notes that the Governor will not be attending: Governor to miss mosque dedication.
There was a demonstration outside the Mosque ceremony this morning. I've heard some interesting things happened. Hope to have more later.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Some stray, couscous-induced thoughts from www.divestthis.com:
My ten-year-old decided he wanted to raise chickens. (Hang in there for a paragraph or two when relevance to the subject of BDS will start to increase.)
With my wife and I in firm agreement that said chickens should not live in our backyard, we found a local 4H for our boy to join and since then we've gone Dutch on a chicken order from Murray McMurray Hatchery with another 4H family and volunteered to help out at a farm where my kid's Japanese Bantams are living. In fact, the title of this post describes my unsuccessful attempt this morning to convince a one-thousand pound bovine to move back into his pasture (something my ten-year-old figured out when my attempts flopped).
Last night, the 4H parents gathered to make plans for an ambitious set of summer and fall activities including petting zoos at several schools and retirement homes, parades, and - of course - the fall agricultural shows. One parent volunteered his home for Fun Day, another offered to help raise funds to buy a new pair of sheep shears, and the old timers walked us "newbies" through the process of entering our livestock into competitions (contests which can also include "statics," ranging from biggest radishes to best colored eggs).
As I sat in the meeting, my thoughts turned to the fact that we were all participating in a civic organization with a hundred years of history, making decisions and sharing experiences that would be familiar to people living in my parents and grandparents eras (although probably not to my actual parents and grandparents who would have suffered a heart attack if asked to touch a living - vs. barbecued - cow).
Not far from where we met, I suspect a Boy Scout troop was also gathering like they've done for a century while some Knights of Columbus were sharing a drink and talking about the Kiwanis Club meeting they attended earlier that day. And did I mention our meeting was held in a church with its own decades of history and two millennia long legacy?
These civic groups weave into larger tapestries. My 800-family synagogue is really made up of dozens of tinier civic units (Brotherhood, kids classes, choruses, study groups, Havurahs); my 20,000 person town is a pre-Web social network of hundreds of neighborhoods, clubs and institutions; the university I attended a complex of dormitories, classrooms, departments, clubs and teams. Far from being trivial, the thousands of decisions and conversations going on in meeting halls, living rooms, basements and backyards make us who we are. They define us as a community, a nation and a civilization.
And yet civic society is also fragile. How many small towns fractured due to feuds which spanned generations? How many churches fell apart because internal conflict drove off members needed to keep the institution going? How many campuses were torn apart due to political conflict which broke along communal lines?
Into this fragile ecosystem step the sirens of divestment. For them, the church or school or town or union is not a living thing that needs to be supported and nurtured. For they only see the reputation these organizations have earned due to decades or centuries of contributions of people like those at the 4H meeting last night. If only that reputation can be exploited, the BDSers think, then it won't just be us decrying Israel as an "Apartheid State," it will be the voice of the Presbyterian Church or Hampshire College or some other valuable "brand."
But what if dragging (or, even worse, tricking) an organization to embrace the divestment position creates the very poisons that can damage or even kill the institution into whose mouth the divest-from-Israel position has been stuffed? That's irrelevant to BDS advocates who only see in our civic space a set of props to be manipulated in their own political psychodrama, consequences be damned.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a group of parents deciding how they'll afford a set of shears, a set of girl scouts learning to carve neckerchief slides, a church committee planning a summer picnic, all of them are infinitely more important than the causes touted by cynical political activists who hope to manipulate the church, the campus, the town, the union with their campaigns of moral blackmail and intimidation. If their causes are so just and important, let them stand on their own, or let them create their own civic space that creates something of value and does not simply attach itself, parasite-like, onto an organization whose reputation may outstrip its ability to avoid divestment's lures.
Oy.
Andrew Sullivan claims there is a "Neocon War Against Roger Cohen," here, and he cites as proof this piece from Commentary, which does in fact list some of Roger Cohen's "inconsistencies" on the Iranian regime.
Now, Commentary is not a "neocon" magazine, but it is advertised as a "General but Jewish" magazine so I wonder if Mr. Sullivan is trying to tell us something?
I have no idea whether Emanuele Ottolenghi is a "neocon" or not (he is a general maybe?) but it is a safe bet that he is a "Jew" and at the very least he is obviously published by a "Jewish" magazine.
Now, Mr. Sullivan claims that said "neocons" would, were Roger Cohen not "Jewish," be calling Mr. Cohen an "anti-Semite."
Wait a second.
Maybe Roger Cohen is actually a "neocon"? I mean if a Commentary author is by default a "neocon" maybe Mr. Cohen is one too?
I must be a "neocon" also since my mother was a "neocon" and I am a Reform "neocon" myself.
As a matter of fact I am a Left Wing Reform "neocon" although I admit I don't go to Temple very often.
In fact usually go only at the High Holidays to hear the cantors, though not at the Temple I usually don't attend because the cantors are better at the other one, so ok that's sort of on the Left Wing Secular side of the spectrum, in fact some would say "Bad Neocon" though I have excellent taste in "neocon" music, but I digress.
More importantly, I am a Democrat who voted for Obama and many, many others like me have been pretty mad at Roger Cohen for some of his preaching about Iran, which has demonstrably been proved false.
Can we all agree that the mere presence of 25,000 "neocons" in Iran has clearly not shown said state to be a Thriving Democracy in the immortal words of Zbig The Realist, Friend of The Neocons and The Neocon State, now has it.
Personally, I feel strongly that states which force women to veil and which "don't have any gays" and which oppress religious minorities and stone people for adultery and which choose the political candidates who may run for office are by definition NOT DEMOCRACIES thriving or otherwise but being a mere "neocon," even a Left Wing Reform FEMINIST "neocon" who voted for Obama, what do I know right?
Left?
Now, to his credit Mr. Cohen, the "neocon," has been writing brilliant pieces from Iran since the election, pieces of real journalism and not propaganda or apologetics for the regime, nor has he been declaring that "Israel Is Crying Wolf" lately nor lecturing expatriot Iranian "neocons" about The Glories of the Revolution, and he deserves credit where credit is due.
So he's getting it. Credit I mean.
At least from this particular "neocon." Who by the way has no problem calling antisemitic Jews antisemites, regardless of whether they are neocons or not.
Mr. Sullivan, on the other hand...
Dude. Come on over and tell us why YOU are not an antisemite. Or should I say, "anti-neocon"?
PS: an article by you is a war?
This just in from someone described as "an FBI insider":
Friends,
Today, FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Tom Harrington is meeting at FBIHQ with Imam Majid of the ADAMS Center in Sterling,VA. Imam Majid is also the Vice-President of the Islamic Society of North America - a known Muslim Brotherhood entity and un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Trial in Dallas in which all defendants were found guilty of leading the Hamas front group. This was the largest terrorism financing trial in the history of the United States.
This meeting today follows yesterday's official decision by FBIHQ to use ISNA as their official point of contact with the American Muslim community. ISNA is one of the largest and most prominent Muslim Brotherhood entities in the US. The Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 with two objectives (which are their same two objectives today): impliment Islamic Law and re-establish the global Islamic Caliphate. Their creed, which is stil their creed today, includes "...martrydom in the way of Allah is our highest inspiration."
Agents and attorneys aware of this decision believe it obligates them to violate US law by forcing them to work with a front group for a designated terrorist group (Hamas). It is worth reminding you all that the Hamas Covenant states Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood entity, and that Hamas is a designated terrorist organziation by the US government.
I strongly encourage you all to notify your state and federal elected officials and push them to call for the strongest possible action against the FBI, to include the removal of all senior FBI officials who approved this decision. I also encourage the maximum release of this information to the American public.
Please do not use my name in conjunction with this information at this time. Thanks.
I wonder if he'll be down the street from the Hamas and Hizballah reps: U.S. to send ambassador back to Syria
President Obama has decided to send a U.S. ambassador back to Syria, a dramatic sign of reconciliation between the two countries, senior administration officials tell CNN. The announcement is expected to be made this week.
"It's in our interests to have an ambassador in Syria, a senior administration official told CNN Tuesday night. "We have been having more and more discussions, and we need to have someone there to engage."
The official said that the decision was not in any way related to the election crisis in Iran, although the Obama administration has maintained engaging the Syrian regime could weaken Syria's strategic alliance with Iran...
... The senior administration officials say Obama has not chosen an individual to serve as ambassador. Once he does, the name must go through an informal vetting process with the Syrians before the president's choice is nominated and confirmed.
The United States withdrew its ambassador from Syria four years ago in protest at the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Washington accuses Syria of being behind the killing of the popular statesman in a massive bombing that also left 22 others dead. Syria denies it, but an ongoing United Nations investigation has found indications of Syrian involvement.
A charge d'affaires has been the highest-level American diplomat in Damascus since 2005...
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
I just got off the phone with a friend, a highly intelligent and principled person I've known since college, who's been living overseas for several years.
She is shocked to learn that Ahmadijenad might not be a nice anti-imperialist populist, as he is seen by many around the world.
I asked her how on earth anybody could have formed that opinion of him.
She replied, "People overseas see America as such a bully that anybody standing in opposition to us is highly regarded."
If this is true it explains much about the hate fest at Durban as well as reflecting real hatred of America. If Ahmadijenad is good then Israel must be the very devil, America an even greater one.
It scares me to think how many billions of people might perceive the world this way. It scares me even more given the outrageous antisemitism that is common even in places where there are no Jews.
Maybe the images streaming out of Iran, and the ominous warnings from the regime, will open some minds?
[Please welcome our newest poster, straight our of the comments and my email, Sophia. I frankly got tired of reading her long comments and emails and said, "So why don't you post some of this on the front page instead?" Sophia's a "lefty" on many subjects, but we have a lot of common ground when it comes to Zionism and anti-Semitism today, and she will be posting primarily on those subjects when the feeling strikes. She's done a good job reading around the other stuff I post about that we probably don't agree as much on, and I look forward to her contributions. It's a sign of fanaticism when you can't look past disagreements to come together on the things you agree on... So, without further ado... -MS]
I'm struck by the contrast between our reaction to events in Iran and the administration's unrelenting harshness toward Israel. Some pundits are similarly conflicted and "progressive" organizations and leaders find themselves having to confront their own hypocrisy regarding human rights.
Harry's has several pieces reflecting this dichotomy. Here's Galloway, who visits Hamas and accuses Israel of apartheid, defending the Iranian system.
Andrew Sullivan, who has done excellent work collecting and posting tweets and other information from Iran for The Atlantic, revises fact about Roger Cohen's earlier columns about Iran and flies into full (and bigoted) hissy fit about "neocons" and "AIPAC". He's ably confronted by Jeffrey Goldberg in the same publication, here and here.
Why is that people theoretically in favor of human rights have a problem with Jewish human rights?
And why is it smart and cool to desist even from making strong statements supporting the Iranians struggling for basic rights, yet continue attacking Israel (a democracy) and also demonize groups in America which support said democracy?
The Mearscheimer/Walt thesis has played into all the old anti-Jewish canards about dual loyalty, undue influence, conspiracy and control - meanwhile the "realists" appear to be supporting autocratic Middle Eastern regimes and Jimmy Carter is visibly "meddling" by embracing the Hamas - according to some reports on behalf of the Administration.
Only after great pressure from the American people, opposition figures, the example of European leaders, and perhaps even powerful people within the Administration did our president issue strong words in support of the people of Iran. As pointed out on this blog, regardless of the brutality of the regime, we've invited them to "engage" the regime's diplomats on the anniversary of our own struggle for freedom.
Meanwhile, the administration refuses to compromise on the settlement issue.
Even Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are considered "settlements" and included in the demands to "freeze". This is regardless of Jerusalem's history let alone the impact on people living in those neighborhoods. Biased articles continue to be published - apparently Cohen's brilliant new pieces from Iran are relegated to the blogosphere whereas precious paper is given over to Tony Judt in the NYT.
Here's a comment on Judt's editorial in the NYT, accurately entitled "Memo to the Times: The Whole Country is Illegal to Tony":
Here's a problem: facts and history are running smack into ideology and prejudice. The contretemps in Iran is revealing this most starkly. So does the inability of People Who Should Know Better And Who Are Ostensibly Fighting For Human Rights in Iran to see when they've stepped into a bigoted swamp regarding Israel.
Finally, here's an article by Jonathan Chait entitled "The Obama Method", in which he defends "small acts of intellectual dishonesty in the pursuit of common ground."
So. There is meddling, and there is meddling - and apparently there are facts and there are facts.
Where is this leading?
Two U.S. Navy F/A-18C Hornet aircraft assigned to an aircraft carrier strike group deployed to Southwest Asia fly in formation over Afghanistan June 21, 2009. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Robertson, U.S. Air Force/Released)
A curious exchange from today's presser while discussing Iran:
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
Following up on Major's question, some Republicans on Capitol Hill, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, for example, have said that up to this point your response on Iran has been timid and weak.
Today it sounded a lot stronger. It sounded like the kind of speech John McCain has been urging you to give, saying that those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history, referring to an iron fist in Iran, deplore, appalled, outraged.
Were you influenced at all by John McCain and Lindsey Graham accusing you of being timid and weak?
OBAMA: What do you think?
(LAUGHTER)
Look, the -- you know, I think John McCain has genuine passion about many of these international issues. And, you know, I think that all of us share a belief that we want justice to prevail.
But only I'm the president of the United States. And I've got responsibilities in making certain that we are continually advancing our national security interests and that we are not used as a tool to be exploited by other countries.
I mean, you guys must have seen the reports. They've got some of the comments that I've made being mistranslated in Iran, suggesting that I'm telling rioters to go out and riot some more. There are reports suggesting that the CIA is behind all this. All of which patently false. But it gives you a sense of the narrative that the Iranian government would love to play into.
So the -- you know, members of Congress, they've got their constitutional duties, and I'm sure they will carry them out in the way that they think is appropriate. I'm president of the United States, and I'll carry out my duties as I think are appropriate...
The bold part is interesting. When he follows it by talking about Iran, it doesn't quite seem to follow smoothly. Was he referring to Iran at first? I'm not so sure. What country do you think he really had in mind when he said, "...I've got responsibilities in making certain that we are continually advancing our national security interests and that we are not used as a tool to be exploited by other countries..." in response to the idea that his initial reaction had been too timid? It doesn't seem to follow that he was thinking of Iran there. There are, on the other hand, a lot of people who think standing up to Iran is really in Israel's best interest (a neo-con plot and all that), and not ours. Did that concern feed into Obama's weak initial reaction, and his somewhat confused explanation later on, as he didn't want to come right out and say that? Reading too much in, or is this just a manifestation of a new alignment...and the way in which it's already leading to American mistakes and sacrificing American moral standing?
On another point:
I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.
That's awfully passive. Is the word "murder" so difficult to work in somewhere?
Priorities. From Eye on the UN (in full):
The UN's "reformed" Human Rights Council Abandons Human Rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
On June 18th, 2009 the Human Rights Council President announced that the Council "has decided in a closed meeting to discontinue consideration of the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo." This marks the first time in 15 years that the UN's lead human rights body has wiped the horrific range of human rights abuses in the DRC off its investigative agenda.
Consideration of human rights abuses in the DRC had been taking place under a behind-closed-doors procedure which permits the Council to consider "consistent patterns of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights."
After announcing the abandonment of DRC human rights victims, the Council President also imposed a gag order and required all Council members not "to make any reference in public to the confidential decision and material concerning the DRC."
A press release from Americans for Peace and Tolerance:
WHAT: Press Conference to Caution about Extremist Leadership of the Boston Islamic Center.
WHEN: Thursday, June 25th, 10:30 AM
WHERE: Sheraton Crowne Plaza Hotel Newton, 320 Washington Street, Newton, MA 02158. (617)969-3010.
WHY: Gov. Patrick and Mayor Menino are about to embrace extremist leaders of an Islamic cultural center linked to the radical Muslim Brotherhood organization.
Background:
On Friday, June 26th, city and state officials will participate in the opening of the Islamic Society of Boston's Cultural Center (ISBCC) in Roxbury, MA.
But at the June 25th Press Conference, Americans for Peace and Tolerance will release new documentation and information about:
- The real ownership and funding of the ISBCC
- The ISBCC leaders' radical organizational connections and hateful ideology, and
- Anti-Christian and anti-Jewish sermons
The ISBCC is now controlled by the Muslim American Society (MAS). U.S. Federal prosecutors have identified the MAS as, "The overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America."
It is essential to distinguish between the moderate Muslim community of Boston and the extremist and well-funded leadership of the ISBCC.
We call upon Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino to reject the extremist leadership of the ISBCC while continuing to reach out to the moderate Muslim community in Boston.
Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) is a Boston-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting peaceful coexistence in an ethnically diverse America.. We are concerned citizens, academics, and community activists. As Christians, Jews, and Muslims, we believe peaceful coexistence among diverse ethnic populations is only possible if we all promote a climate of tolerance and civil society.
For more information, contact Dr. Charles Jacobs at 617-869-1202.
Here is a downloadable version of the announcement.
We've covered the many controversies involving the leadership behind Boston's most infamous mosque, now run overtly by the Muslim Brotherhood-connected Muslim American Society. For the long and short of it, see the piece I wrote before the ISB dropped its lawsuit: The Silencing. There will be some new and interesting material released at the press conference.
Would you let this man treat your child?
This is rich. There is an effort afoot to have Yoram Blachar, president of the World Medical Association, removed from his post for no other reason than he happens to be Israeli: Doctors without limits
Hundreds of doctors belonging to World Medical Association are demanding its Israeli president, Dr. Yoram Blachar, be dismissed as Israeli physicians 'form part of a system in which detainees are tortured'
A petition demanding the dismissal of Dr. Yoram Blachar as head of the World Medical Association asserts that Israeli doctors turn a blind eye to the involvement of physicians in torture.
According to a report published in British newspaper The Guardian, more than 700 doctors from 43 countries have signed the letter in question, which bases the demand on an Amnesty International decision from 1996 which determined that Israeli doctors working with security forces "form part of a system in which detainees are tortured, ill-treated and humiliated in ways that place prison medical practice in conflict with medical ethics."
The signatories further assert that Dr. Blachar, who was appointed head of the WMA in 2008, has failed to respond to the allegation that some Israeli doctors condone or collaborate with a regime that uses torture against detainees.
Blachar has served as the head of the Israeli Medical Association since 1995. The WMA currently has 9 million members from over 80 countries.
Leading the charge is Dr. Alan Meyers, an assistant professor at Boston University's Department of Pediatrics. Meyers, who the Guardian identifies as Jewish, is quoted as saying Blachar's presidency "makes a mockery of the principles on which the WMA was founded in 1947, which was as a response to egregious abuses by German and Japanese doctors (in World War II)."...
It's no surprise that there are hundreds of physicians anxious to ostracize an Israeli colleague, there are idiots in every profession, but what's interesting is just who Alan Meyers is. We know a little about Meyers around here, as he's been a fixture of the self-loathing anti-Zionist scene for years as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for a Just Peace (or whatever it is they're calling themselves these days). If there's a demonstration being held against Israel somewhere, you're likely to find Meyers there. He was there when two border guards were injured at the "non-violent" protests in Bil'in, and he was active in the staged barring of "health professionals" from Gaza back in August.
But what makes his involvement truly tragicomic, is his other obsession: The assassination of John Lennon: Yes, Alan Meyers has an entire blog dedicated to the thesis that the CIA killed John Lennon: CIA killed Lennon
This is a forum for discussing the CIA's assassination of John Lennon and what we collectively might do about it. Think that's nuts? Read Fenton Bresler's "Who Killed John Lennon?" and John Marks' "The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: the CIA and Mind Control". The motive? Reagan's "transition team" was clearing the decks for slaughter in Central America...so, at the very least, let's set the record straight...
Q: WHO KILLED JOHN LENNON? A: THE CIA
...It doesn't even matter whether or not Lennon had any intention of getting involved at the time of his murder; it was only necessary that the Forces of Darkness felt it was possible Lennon might take up the cause. Why not? If they did it right, Chapman himself would never realize he was being manipulated, so what did they have to lose?
So it's my contention that the bad guys got away with it, free and clear, and I'd like to see that corrected, if nowhere else then in the popular imagination. Even if there's not going to be justice, at least it might be possible to put the notion that some agency of our government was responsible for John Lennon's death on a comparable footing to that of the JFK matter...
Interested? Anyone out there know Oliver Stone - or Sean Lennon?
As usual, Israel picks only the finest enemies, enemies who succeed in discrediting themselves without the Israelis needing to lift a finger.
It's so perfect one might even think it was some sort of...conspiracy.
Richard Landes continues to expose French journalist Charles Enderlin as the fool he is with a massive fisking of an Enderlin blog post (since removed in shame) here: Enderlin answers Bourret: Fisking Enderlin's Blog's Response (later removed). Enderlin's flailing on the matter is pathetic and, considering the damage he's done, rather disgusting. Richard also has a piece up at Pajamas Media that gives a bit more background, and takes note of a Financial Times article that recycles the Al Dura myth by making the obvious connection to Iran's Neda: Revisiting 'Al Durah' in Time of Iranian Media Control.
There is of course one major difference between the two images -- the events documented in the video of Neda Soltan actually occurred.
According to the description, it was considered too grisly for viewing by the public and never quite finished:
[h/t: Banafsheh]
And on the flip side, here is that famous BBC audio recorded at the same Bergen Belsen camp of prisoners singing HaTikva.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Speechless: US says hot dog diplomacy still on with Iran
The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.
President Barack Obama's administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.
"We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran," Kelly said. "We tried many years of isolation, and we're pursuing a different path now."
But he said it was not clear if Iranian diplomats had accepted the invitations...
No, no thought whatsoever. Hope for me but not for thee. Change? In the wrong direction. They say George Bush sacrificed America's moral standing? He couldn't hold a candle to this administration's self inflicted wounds. Engagement taken to absurd heights. Mind the needle.
And mind the blood on the grill.
[via Weasel Zippers and Allahpundit on Twitter]
France as a bastion of the West? Strange but true... Nicolas Sarkozy: burqa not welcome in France
In a speech at the Palace of Versailles, Mr Sarkozy said that the head-to-toe Islamic garment for women was not a symbol of religion but a sign of subservience for women.
"The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience," he told members of both parliamentary houses gathered for his speech.
He added: "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic."
His comments follow an appeal last week by 65 French MPs for a parliamentary commission to examine whether Muslim women who cover themselves fully in public undermine the secular tradition in France as well as women's rights.
The MPs represent parties ranging from the Communists to Mr Sarkozy's UMP.
The call won instant support from members of Mr Sarkozy's centre-Right government but was opposed by the Socialists, the main opposition party.
The French parliament is expected to consider both the burqa, where the eyes are covered by a fabric mesh, and the niqab, which has an eye slit.
France's Muslim Council said last week that the proposal "stigmatised" Islam...
Funny, I thought that was the burqa itself.
This is pretty funny (from back in November, but I hadn't seen it -- I usually look past this kind of thing):
[via the LGF link thing]
Engagement. Here's an alert from Eye on the UN (in full -- couldn't find it on their site):
Obama Administration Apologetic for Non-Attendance at Durban II
The 11th session of the Human Rights Council, which ended on Friday, included two apologies from the Obama administration for missing Durban II. Obama officials also lauded countries and UN officials for working to improve the Durban II outcome and re-focusing the conference on fighting racism. No effort was made to distance itself from the actual conference - which sported an antisemite as opening speaker - or its outcome which singled out and demonized Israel as racist.
The administration is pursuing actively its new policy of engagement at the Council and ingratiating itself with the human rights abusers who count as Council members and biggest supporters of the Durban process and its outcome. So in the context of the first Council discussion since the conclusion of the conference of Durban and the UN "anti-racism" agenda, two U.S. officials declared on June 16th: "It was with regret that we did not join the recent Durban Review Conference."
Gateway Pundit has an interesting phone interview with one of the most recognizable faces of the Iranian Freedom Movement: Iranian Hero & Leading Activist Ahmad Batebi On Obama: "His Lack of Response Will Not Be Regarded Kindly" (Audio-Video)
Or this one:
I guess it's good to have friends. Al Jazeera: Carter: Grief and despair for Gaza
Jimmy Carter has spoken of his "grief and despair" at seeing the destruction in the Gaza Strip carried out by Israel's 22-day offensive on the territory six months ago.
"This is holy land for us all and my hope is that we can have peace ... all of us are children of Abraham," the former US president said during a joint news conference with Ismail Haniya, the deposed Hamas Palestinian prime minister, in Gaza City.
Following a tour of the area to see the effects of Israel's offensive, Carter said: "My primary feeling today is one of grief and despair and an element of anger when I see the destruction perpetrated against innocent people in January."
He said the Palestinians had been treated "like animals" and the deprivations faced by them in Gaza were unique in history...
Sunday, June 21, 2009
From Palestinian Media Watch, in full (not online yet):
PA: Hamas uses "women and the sick" as smugglers
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
The Palestinian Authority has announced that Hamas is using "women and the sick" to illegally smuggle money to purchase military equipment.
This announcement in the official PA newspaper is additional justification for Israel's policy of checking civilians at roadblocks.
For years, Israel has blamed the suffering of civilians at roadblocks on terror infrastructures of both Hamas and Fatah, who have used civilians to transport bombs, weapons and money to finance terror.
Following is the translation of the announcement:
"Hamas uses women and the sick to transfer money illegally. The [Palestinian Authority] security services arrested six Hamas members and confiscated more than a million Euros that was in their possession... Nablus Governor Jamal Muhaysin clarified that the security forces [of the Palestinian Authority] confiscated documents dealing with the transfer of 38,000 Jordanian Dinars from abroad that were used for acquisition of arms for Hamas. He said that 'Hamas is using women and the sick to transfer money illegally.'" [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 14, 2009]
I've heard Trader Joe's has been running low on Israel product owing to boycott backlash. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up expanding their product offerings. If I were the conspiracy-theory type, I might think that TJ's was behind the entire thing in the first place. Cui bono I ask, cui bono!?
Jon Haber has some after-action at Divest This!: The Battle of Couscous. Speaking of couscous, At the back of the hill blog has an excellent post explaining that there's absolutely nothing nefarious about the term Israeli couscous.
Reading this Jewish Journal article, Anti-Israel Group Boycotts Trader Joe's, one gets the feeling that the boycotters have declared victory and departed the field.
It certainly adds credence to Abbas's statement that "in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life." Sort of puts all that "brutal occupation" stuff in perspective doesn't it? If the police and civil authorities do their jobs, life goes on. If the terror groups flex again, it's all over: Luxury Palestinian mall signals transformation of 'terror capital'
The skies lit up over Jenin last month, and it wasn't tracer bullets or flash bombs but celebratory fireworks, set off to mark the occasion of the opening of Hirbawi Home Center, a new luxury establishment on the city's outskirts.
The five-story building near the Jalame checkpoint cost $5 million to build, says its owner, and it is filled with deluxe, foreign-made products seen mostly in the pages of newspaper supplements.
This shopping opportunity is intended to interest the upper crust of Jenin, and while some might think the proposition suggests financial suicide, the profit forecasts for the project have been so favorable the owner plans to open four more shops in the West Bank and one in Jordan.
The next city to enjoy a Hirbawi Home Center is Ramallah, where one is already in partial operation; then Hebron, Tul Karem and Nablus.
"It may sound mad to outsiders," says the chain's CEO, Ziad Turabi, "but to us it makes perfect sense. We believe we can make a very handsome profit. Many people in the occupied territories have money but they have nowhere to spend it if they're after quality. We offer them the best quality there is."...
Better be careful. Someone may decide to take a torch to the place in the name of the cause.
Michael Ledeen has A Letter from Mousavi's Office. Mousavi is, unsurprisingly, not thrilled at being told he's no better than Ahmadinejad. While there probably isn't much more than a nickel's worth of difference between the two from our perspective, there's a huge difference between the dictatorship of the Mullahs and the street movement that has errupted.
Victor Davis Hanson has some of the reasons our president should be speaking out: "This Is the Moment"?
Caution is one thing, neutrality another. The United States should never be ashamed of a failure to remain neutral between people yearning for freedom and their fanatic oppressors.
Via Instapundit, good advice from Jeffrey Goldberg, "The overarching goal is to see the birth of a democratic Iran, not to make ourselves feel good, or get in the way." As an aside, what the hell happened to Andrew Sullivan? I haven't read him in years, since he first started going off the rails, but yeesh...has he drunk the Walt & Mearsheimer KoolAid or what?
Patterico has contrasts in text.
Most importantly: Her name was Neda, and she was 16.
Update: Or was she 27? Allahpundit is tracking things down.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
The following, in full from Charles Jacobs, appears in this week's Jewish Advocate:
"Throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality." -- President Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009
Critics complain that Obama's description of Islamic history in Cairo was an historically erroneous pander, but the President's defenders have an answer: the speech was not meant to describe actual truths but to create future possibilities. It was about pushing the "re-set button" on US/Islamic relations.
The President believes that if the West changes its posture toward "the Islamic world" then our two civilizations can come closer. I imagine this implies that there will be movement on both sides - he did after all allude to Islam's women problem. So as the West, in Obama's words "unclenches its fist" it is hoped that Muslim regimes too will reform their practices most at odds with Western civilization, namely the orthodox Islamic treatment of women, gays, and apostates, and religious and racial minorities.
It was with just such a hope for change that John Eibner, just back from the borderlands of Southern Sudan and Darfur, wrote to the President about Sudan's black slaves held by Muslim masters. Eibner, head of Christian Solidarity International's US branch, explained that slavery still persists in Sudan, the result of a decades-old Islamic "holy war" waged by Khartoum's Islamist regime against the mostly Christian South Sudanese. Eibner wrote to ask President Obama to unblock the stalled US effort to free the slaves.
Eibner rehearsed US diplomatic history: He explained that in 2000, Susan Rice, then Assistant Sec., currently Obama's Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice - was so moved by the stories of freed slaves she met in Sudan that she initiated a US policy to eradicate slavery there. Six months later, Special Envoy, Senator John Danforth established an American mission to report to President Bush on slavery in Sudan. An "eminent persons" group was to establish a Sudanese institute for locating, liberating and repatriating slaves.
Sudan resisted and this never materialized, but in 2007 a bi-partisan Congressional group (including our own Barney Frank) proposed legislation to establish a US "Commission to Monitor Slavery and its Eradication in Sudan," but this failed to advance to Committee.
There are, according to Sudan's own Committee to Eradicate Abduction of Women and Children, over 35,000 Black Africans from the Dinka tribe enslaved today. Most are held by Muslim masters in Darfur and close-by Kordofan. Eibner's group continues its decades' long work of freeing slaves in Sudan. In his letter he included photos and brief bios of some of the freed slaves, all forcibly converted to Islam.
Achan Guat, a pregnant 17 year old -- enslaved, raped, circumcised. Mary Atak Baak - 18 years old, enslaved, abused. Peter Dut Hol, 19 years old, enslaved, mutilated. Majik Ko, 17 years old, enslaved and blinded in one eye.
Let us hope that President Obama acts to help free the slaves. It would mean promoting universal standards of human rights in the Muslim realm, and would help create a truly meaningful "re-set button."
NGO Monitor reports: HRW raises funds in Saudi Arabia by demonizing Israel. How low can they go?
In May 2009, leaders of Human Rights Watch (HRW) visited Saudi Arabia - one of the major violators of the norms that HRW claims to promote - to raise funds for the organization. Arab news reported that "senior members" of HRW - including Middle East Division director Sarah Leah Whitson, and Hassan Elmasry, a member of the International Board of Directors and the ME Division's Advisory Committee - attended a "welcoming dinner" and encouraged "prominent members of Saudi society" to finance their work. HRW's anti-Israel obsession was stated as the major reason for holding this Saudi fundraiser: "The group is facing a shortage of funds because of the global financial crisis and the work on Israel and Gaza, which depleted HRW's budget for the region."
Whitson's appeal for Saudi support and money acknowledged and cited HRW's anti-Israel focus extensively, claiming that "Human Rights Watch provided the international community with evidence of Israel using white phosphorus and launching systematic destructive attacks on civilian targets." As NGO Monitor's systematical analysis demonstrated, HRW's allegations were based on false and unsupported claims. But in pitching HRW to the Saudis, Whitson invoked the canard of "pro-Israel pressure groups," which, she declared, "strongly resisted the report and tried to discredit it."
Similarly, Whitson told the Saudi leaders about HRW's role in anti-Israel activities in the US Congress and the United Nations, boasting that this propaganda campaign was instrumental in the UN's "fact-finding mission to investigate the allegations of serious Israeli violations during the war on Gaza," to be headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, who was also a member of HRW's board at the time. (He resigned after the investigation began; as NGO Monitor noted, his membership on HRW's board was a conflict of interest.)..
Human Rights: It's all a matter of marketing.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is displaying to the world once again what it has been exporting for decades, only this time it's directed against its own people with no intervening proxy to provide cover for regime outrages.
Omnia21 has video of one of the latest, graphic video of a young woman shot down on the street in cold blood by the Basij (she was not even involved in a protest): IRANIAN THUGS KILL UNARMED YOUNG FEMALE PROTEST BYSTANDER. A tragedy, an outrage, a murder.
Power Line has a useful post: Following Events in Iran. They have video of the same scene from a different camera and are hosting it themselves in case it disappears from YouTube.
Video evidence from the Axis of Evil.
Update: Hot Air has a running update here.
Mark Steyn: Neutrality Isn't an Option - You always have a dog in the fight, whether you know it or not.
Events are developing so quickly, it's hard to keep up with good analysis (because there's so little), but this MESH roundtable from a few days ago is still interesting: Iranian turmoil, U.S. options
Also, Martin Kramer says, Obama's Middle East map in shreds
There is nothing at all surprising about Barack Obama's reluctance to embrace the surge for freedom in Iran. As I've shown, he received his primer on the Middle East from Rashid Khalidi, who facilitated Obama's formation as a Palestine-centric Third Worldist. In this view of things, only the situation of the Palestinians deserves to be described as "intolerable" --the word Obama used in Cairo--and action is promised only to them. Iranians are defrauded and assaulted by the bizarre dictatorship of the "Supreme Leader" and his Basiji minions? America, Obama says, is "watching." Why? Obama's master plan for the Middle East is supposed to commence with his entry to Jerusalem as the messiah of peace, godfather of the Palestinian state. Everything is supposed to follow from that.
Well, the Middle East doesn't revolve around the Palestinians, and young Iranians don't intend to wait for Mahmoud Abbas (emir of Ramallah, where there is a "good reality") to get off his derrière before demanding their freedom. Iranians rightly think they're no less worthy of the world's sympathy than the Palestinians. (One of the chants of Iran's protesters: Mardom chera neshastin, Iran shode Felestin! "People, why are you sitting down? Iran has become Palestine!") Events in Iran have left Obama's simplistic mental map of the Middle East, first learned from a few Palestinian activists and an old Hyde Park rabbi, in shreds...
Here's an excellent floor speech by Democrat Senator Bob Menendez that's been making the rounds:
[Via Chas Newkey-Burden and various emails]
Chas Newkey-Burden alerts [correction: Jonathan Hoffman, a participant on the panel, emailed.] that traditional-style British anti-Semite Alan Hart (previous) now has his own home, appropriately, on Iran's British organ, Press TV, and Chas was invited on as a guest: The trouble with Alan... Follow up: Hart, Haredim & Hope.
I hope Hart is having a lovely time watching his patrons shooting down innocent people on the streets today.
The hits just keep coming for Connecticut's Senator: Dodd's Irish Luck
Irish property prices have plummeted since 2002. But a "cottage" in County Galway owned by Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has tripled in value during the same period, according to a financial disclosure form filed by the Senator this month.
There are two possible explanations for this remarkable turn of fortune. Maybe Mr. Dodd is luckier than a leprechaun. Or could it be that he paid well below the market price when he bought out a co-owner in 2002 and had undervalued the property accordingly? If it's the latter, then Mr. Dodd received a "gift," in IRS parlance, and should have declared it on his financial disclosure form that year. He did not. Oh, and by the way, the seller at that low, low price has been the business partner of a man for whom Mr. Dodd lobbied to receive a Presidential pardon.
It's also been nearly a year since a former loan officer at Countrywide Financial charged that the mortgage lender had classified Mr. Dodd as a "very important person" (a.k.a., a "friend of Angelo" Mozilo, Countrywide's then-CEO). As such, Robert Feinberg said, Mr. Dodd received -- and knew he'd received -- preferential rates and fees on two mortgages he and his wife refinanced in 2003. As a power on the Senate Banking Committee, he also knew this was a conflict of interest. This was the era when Countrywide originated and then sold to Fannie Mae high volumes of subprime loans.
The SEC charged Mr. Mozilo with fraud and insider trading earlier this month, and the Los Angeles Times reported in May that there is an FBI investigation which "includes a probe of [Countrywide's] role in an influence-peddling scandal involving" Mr. Dodd. The Senate Ethics Committee won't comment on its own investigation of almost a year.
Mr. Dodd denies receiving any special treatment, and nearly a year ago he promised to release the Countrywide mortgage documents and clear up the matter. We are still waiting, though he did attempt to placate the Connecticut press with a peek-a-boo release of a few select documents and a review by his own lawyers in February...
Real estate: The smart politician's version of cash down the pants.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Excellent piece by Marty Peretz at The New Republic I meant to link to the other day. Still well worth your time: Narrative Dissonance
...I suppose that President Obama thinks that in Cairo he bridged many narratives. He certainly appeared to try: on the one hand, on the other, us and them, more or less equal in our stories. But real history is the telling and interpretation of actual happenings. It is specific, concrete, particular; it eats analogies and commonalities for breakfast; and it requires what used to be called knowledge--correct facts and warranted interpretations of them. From the standpoint of knowledge, not every assertion has equal weight, even if it is deeply felt...
There's a day of vandalism and annoyance called for tomorrow by the usual groups of losers called for tomorrow at your local Trader Joe's (see this group's tactics at work in France: C'est Vichy Encore. To Trader Joe's credit, they have already stated that they have no intention of de-shelving Israeli products, but it would be a nice effort to get out there and de-shelve the stuff ourselves in the traditional manner -- by buying it. From the local JCRC:
Israeli products carried at Trader Joe's include: Dorot Crushed Garlic, Dorot Chopped Cilantro, Holyland Matzos, Pastures of Eden Feta Imported, Trader Joe's Israeli Couscous and Trader Joe's Harvest Grains Blend.
This is like Sesame Street for douche-bags. What's most interesting here is that this is conspiracy theory so embedded (previous here and here) that it's perpetuating from generation to generation. This guy's kid is the one keeping him up on this stuff. Click the picture above for video, here's the transcript: MEMRI TV: Egyptian Cleric Hazem Abu Ismail Calls to Boycott PEPSI: Name Stands for "Pay Every Penny to Save Israel"
Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric Hazem Abu Ismail, which aired on Al-Nas TV on February 16, 2009.
Hazem Abu Ismail: Do you know what the word "Pepsi" means? Pepsi as in P-E-P-S-I. The first P stands for "Pay." E stands for "Every." The third letter stands for "Penny." A penny means any small coin you receive and don't know what to do with. Pay it to "Saving" I - "Israel." In other words, pay every small coin you receive in order to save Israel. They don't want money from you - they want your small change, your pennies. If I'm not mistaken, in American economics, a penny is one-thousandth of the dollar. It's not even worth a piaster. It's only a millime. At least I think it's worth a millime, not even a piaster.
They say: "Donate the small change you don't need, but give it to the right cause. If you collect small change, you can buy this drink." They took the first letter of each word - "Pay Every Penny Saving Israel" - and they formed the word "Pepsi." When you pay [to buy Pepsi], you are saving Israel. I am not talking about Pepsi, but about Coca Cola and all of them. I don't want to specify the products. See for yourselves. You are Muslims. You can tell me. I don't know. My little son knows more about the boycott than me. When we go shopping, he says to me: "Buy this, don't buy that." He knows them by heart. He has become an expert in this.
Krauthammer is great as always: Hope and Change - But Not for Iran
Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.
And what do they hear from the president of the United States? Silence. Then, worse. Three days in, the president makes clear his policy: continued "dialogue" with their clerical masters.
Dialogue with a regime that is breaking heads, shooting demonstrators, expelling journalists, arresting activists. Engagement with -- which inevitably confers legitimacy upon -- leaders elected in a process that begins as a sham (only four handpicked candidates permitted out of 476) and ends in overt rigging.
Then, after treating this popular revolution as an inconvenience to the real business of Obama-Khamanei negotiations, the president speaks favorably of "some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election."
Where to begin? "Supreme Leader"? Note the abject solicitousness with which the American president confers this honorific on a clerical dictator who, even as his minions attack demonstrators, offers to examine some returns in some electoral districts -- a farcical fix that will do nothing to alter the fraudulence of the election.
Moreover, this incipient revolution is no longer about the election. Obama totally misses the point. The election allowed the political space and provided the spark for the eruption of anti-regime fervor that has been simmering for years and awaiting its moment. But people aren't dying in the street because they want a recount of hanging chads in suburban Isfahan. They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding goons that today attack the demonstrators.
This started out about election fraud. But like all revolutions, it has far outgrown its origins. What's at stake now is the very legitimacy of this regime -- and the future of the entire Middle East...
Yes! Read the rest. Bernard-Henri Levy was eloquent the other day with the important reminder that, as far as the election itself goes, the Iranian people had a choice between Jesse James and John Dillinger: What We Can Do In Iran
...this election had, in every way, only the appearance of democracy. Mir Hossein Moussavi, Ahmadinejad's main rival, was no less a player than those in the political system. On the key subject of Iran's "right" to nuclear arms, he had positions that were hardly different from those of Ahmadinejad. And, when questioned on his rival's negationist views on the Holocaust, he didn't hesitate to declare: "Even if there was a holocaust in Germany [we can appreciate the subtlety of the phrase "even if..."], what does that have anything to do with the oppressed people of Palestine, victims of a holocaust in Gaza [nothing more need be said)]?" The Iranian Gorbachev, in other words, is unfortunately still not on center stage. The man who would be bold enough to advocate a true Perestroika remains inconceivable and un-conceived in an Islamist republic that is, for the moment, sealed shut. And the observers who rambled on about the "alternative" presented by Moussavi, formerly Khomeini's prime minister as well as the all-powerful director of the Iranian equivalent of Pravda, were overly naive--a little like those who, during the ascendancy of the Soviet Union, talked about the otherwise imperceptible conflicts of factions within the master structure, and thereby further orchestrated the charade. This is a fact...
The mullahs made a classical miscalculation. In their zeal to select their favorite thug, they let the genie out of the bottle. Once the mob is unleashed, it's difficult to control it. The Chinese discovered this a few years back while stirring up street trouble against the Japanese. The Chinese freedom movement soon took advantage of the chaos and the authorities were forced to squelch, quickly, the "spontaneous" protests they themselves created.
Michael Ledeen holds the same sort of hopes: So NOW What's Going on in Iran? Roger Simon notes that the liberals have become reactionaries: Obama, Iran and the ongoing saga of the liberal reactionary
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is warning of a crackdown and blaming Zionists for the trouble. If he fails, and I doubt he will, Michael Totten says it could have the effect of Cutting the Persian Gordian Knot.
Update: Another must-read: Ralph Peters: GREEN LIGHT FOR A CRACKDOWN
An over-sensitive caricature of a hyper-sensitive feminist who doesn't understand the military she's supposed to be overseeing:
Passive-aggressive.
As the video, and Chuck DeVore at Big Hollywood point out (Barbara Boxer: A Bad Actor), General Walsh was simply following protocol by using the female form of "sir":
...According to the U.S. Army's own guide to protocol, Members of the U.S. Senate should be verbally addressed as "Sir," "Ma'am" or "Senator." So, General Walsh was simply following longstanding tradition.
When addressing senior officers, with the exception of generals whom most junior officers and enlisted personnel usually call "General" more than "Sir" the most respectful form of address is "Sir" or "Ma'am." Ironically, use of the actual rank in address is oftentimes used in situations when the senior officer has not yet earned respect from an enlisted person, as in "Yes, Lieutenant!" as opposed to "Yes, Ma'am!"
Of course, this wasn't Barbara Boxer's first confrontation with the U.S. military - not by a long shot...
At least in Massachusetts we occasionally elect a Senator who actually serves in the military before denigrating it.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Khaled Abu Toameh explains why the PA reaction to Netanyahu speech came out as it did: Why was PA reaction to Netanyahu's speech so harsh?
The Palestinian Authority leadership's hysterical, hasty and clearly miscalculated response to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech at Bar-Ilan University on Sunday night is likely to boomerang because it makes the Palestinians appear as "peace rejectionists."...
...Even before he completed his speech, several PA officials and spokesmen used every available platform to declare their total rejection of Netanyahu's ideas, especially with regards to the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
Some went as far as hurling personal insults at Netanyahu, branding him a liar, a fraud and a swindler. Others hinted at the possibility that, in the wake of his strategy, the Palestinians would now have to resort to another intifada.
PA representatives are now saying that Netanyahu "cannot even dream of finding one Palestinian to talk to."
One senior official in Ramallah announced shortly after the prime minister finished his address that the Palestinians won't resume peace talks with Israel for at least a thousand years.
The harsh response of the PA is the direct result of high hopes that its leaders have pinned on the administration of US President Barack Obama.
Reports about a looming crisis between the administration and Netanyahu over the future of the Middle East peace process, combined with Obama's conciliatory approach toward the Arab and Muslim worlds, created the impression in Ramallah that the Israeli government had no choice but to accept all the Palestinian demands...
Of course. It's the typical miscalculation that weakness on the part of America breeds.
She wanted it:
Glenn McDuffie is the so called "kissing Sailor" from the famous picture taken on V-day in Times Square. He took some time to talk about his experiences during that day.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
I've often heard that the Iranian security forces use a lot of Palestinian Arabs. Sounds like it's really showing at the moment: 'Hamas helping Iran crush dissent'
Palestinian Hamas members are helping the Iranian authorities crush street protests in support of reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, two protesters told The Jerusalem Post On Tuesday...
...Hamas formally welcomed incumbent Ahmadinejad's ostensible reelection victory on Saturday. The Palestinian Islamist movement receives arms and funding from Iran, and its members have often received training there, including in terror tactics and weapons manufacture...
..."The most important thing that I believe people outside of Iran should be aware of," the young man went on, "is the participation of Palestinian forces in these riots."
Another protester, who spoke as he carried a kitchen knife in one hand and a stone in the other, also cited the presence of Hamas in Teheran.
On Monday, he said, "my brother had his ribs beaten in by those Palestinian animals. Taking our people's money is not enough, they are thirsty for our blood too."
It was ironic, this man said, that the victorious Ahmadinejad "tells us to pray for the young Palestinians, suffering at the hands of Israel." His hope, he added, was that Israel would "come to its senses" and ruthlessly deal with the Palestinians.
When asked if these militia fighters could have been mistaken for Lebanese Shi'ites, sent by Hizbullah, he rejected the idea. "Ask anyone, they will tell you the same thing. They [Palestinian extremists] are out beating Iranians in the streets... The more we gave this arrogant race, the more they want... [But] we will not let them push us around in our own country."...
The coming storm: Obama and American Jewry
There's a storm coming. It will pit a well-organized community of substantial resources but also substantial insecurity - particularly when it comes to charges of dual loyalty - against a popular president of considerable eloquence but misguided policies that identify Israeli settlements as the main obstacle to Middle East peace. The inevitable clash will separate sunshine Jewish patriots who back Israel when convenient against those who stand with Israel even when it means losing their invitation to the White House Hanukka party.
The bogus issue of settlements is already being swallowed whole by many well-meaning Jews. Last week Dan Fleshler, a leader of Americans for Peace Now, wrote in the New Jersey Jewish Standard that Obama has no choice but to pressure Israel because "it is fruitless for a well-armed, occupying power to negotiate the terms of a viable settlement with an almost defenseless occupied people unless a third party mediates and presses both sides."
In reading Fleshler one wonders whether he has been himself occupied with building a settlement on the moon with no knowledge of events on Earth. Is he seriously suggesting that the thousands of Katyusha rockets and nonstop suicide bombers that have killed more than a thousand Israelis (the equivalent of 30,000 dead Americans) have come from a "defenseless" foe? Would Fleshler likewise argue that the US ought to have pressure from, say, Russia or China to make peace with the terrorists in Afghanistan, seeing that America now represents a "well-armed, occupying power" against the comparatively defenseless Taliban? Or is it only Israel that is forbidden from defending itself.
Sorry Mr. Fleshler, but Jewish values do not dictate that the only moral Jew is a dead one who refuses to fight in the face of a 60-year terror onslaught...
Who will be true, and who will be a suck-up? Come see some of the kings of the suck-ups, J-Street, tomorrow in Newton.
90% right on: Where Anti-Semitism Is Mainstream
To far more people than we would like to admit, the mystery of James W. von Brunn, the alleged shooter at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, is not that he held such weird and depraved views about Jews and the Holocaust, but that those views are considered weird and depraved. In vast parts of the Islamic world, too many people not only deny the Holocaust but embrace the thinking that made it possible.
In his remarkable speech at Cairo University, President Obama only inferentially mentioned this aspect of what has become an ugly part of the Middle East: a tolerance for and advocacy of old-style anti-Semitism. There is, in fact, nothing that von Brunn professed that is not commonly heard or published in the Middle East. Do Jews control world finance, media, international organizations and the United States itself? Of course. Are they capable of the most foul deeds, including the infamous "blood libel," which means using the blood of non-Jewish children in the preparation of traditional foods? Again, of course.
This is troubling stuff. But one only has to read the reports of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) to see that such views are often expressed and popularly held...
But in the end, oh, you choke, Richard, you choke!
...Obama was right to demand that Israel cease expanding or thickening its West Bank settlements. He is right, too, in acknowledging Palestinian aspirations and the wound that was opened in the Arab world by the creation of Israel -- the nakba, or catastrophe. But the toleration of the vilest kind of anti-Semitism is not a precondition for peace, only a warning to Israelis that the past can be prologue. If Arab leaders do not attempt to rebut and eliminate the hatred of Jews that is poisoning their societies, they will find that the peace that most of them undoubtedly want will not be possible...
Alright, half a paragraph out of the entire thing to make it palatable for the Washington Post mindset ain't bad. The positive aspect is that Obama's speech has opened the world of MEMRI to a larger audience.
If you're not following the growing scandal involving the firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin, apparently for doing his job too well and dinging an Obama crony, you should be. The latest round involves local boy Alan Solomont. Power Line has the short story: Walpin: The Plot Thickens. A longer version from Byron York is here: Gerald Walpin speaks: The inside story of the AmeriCorps firing. This is developing into a corruption scandal worth keeping an eye on.
An update on the news of the 15 year old Arab hung by his family for "collaborating"...The boy's father said he simply beat him and locked him in the basement. It was dad's mentally deranged brother who actually killed the kid. Well alrighty, then: Family of murdered boy says 15-year-old wasn't a spy
...Meanwhile, Wa'el Sawalha, Ra'ad's father, said, "These allegations made by the perpetrator, who is my brother, are baseless. He said that he murdered my son for collaborating with the [Israeli] occupation. My son is dead because of excessive violence carried out against him by his uncle."
However, the boy's father did admit to police that he punished the boy after "receiving a misleading tip that my son was connected with Israeli border guards."
"I hit him and sent him to a locked room under the house," he said, noting he planned to speak with him further after returning home from work.
"Since I am working as a taxi driver, I gave my brother the keys and a few hours later I was informed of the murder of my son," he said, noting that the boy was "apparently harshly beaten by my brother, who suffers from mental problems."
Regardless, Sawalha called on the Palestinian Authority to complete their investigation into the murder of his son allegedly at the hands of his brother, and to reject unfounded claims that the boy was working with Israel...
More: Khaled Abu Toameh: Relatives of boy slain as 'collaborator' seek death penalty for family members who killed him
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
So word gets out before Saturday... (from www.divestthis.com):
I've reported in the past how divest-from-Israel advocates have been attempting to import some of the excesses of their European equivalents into the US, including both an academic boycott movement and campus building takeovers started in the UK. The fact that both imports have flopped has not seemed to discourage boycotters from bringing to our shores a tactic even more likely to turn the public against their cause: attacking the shelves and assaulting customers at Trader Joes.
This all began in France where a gang of Palestinian supporters took it upon themselves to enter a French supermarket where they pulled Israeli goods off the shelves in protest of the quality of couscous (whoops! I mean as a glorious and courageous "raid" into the very heart of enemy territory). This trespass and destruction of property was apparently not punished, possibly giving US-based BDS-niks the idea that they could pull off the same stunt with impunity (ignoring the fact that the French supermarket in question was in a neighborhood that had seen violent clashes between armed gangs and the police, which might have made supermarket managers a little gun shy).
Given that the threat of local armed violence over the Arab-Israeli dispute is not yet a feature of US retail (yet), the divestment crew chose to start by sending Trader Joe's a form letter (versions of which seem to be cropping up around the divestment community lately) asking them to live up to their lofty corporate principles by refusing to sell Israeli products (including the aforementioned couscous). Ironically, the incident allowed the funky food retailer to actually live up to its principles by telling boycott advocates (and here I paraphrase) to go fuck themselves.
Bold and courageous activists in Pittsburg then turned ugly on the company they had previously tried to cajole (sound familiar?) and walked into a Trader Joe's shop where they proceeded to pull Israeli goods and/or shove their usual misinformation into the hands of customers before being tossed out of the store for trespassing.
Undeterred, the BDS community throughout the land called for a national day of de-shelving Israeli products on June 20 (this coming Saturday). One hopes that before they get started they realize the two ways of performing such de-shelving (other than buying all the couscous for themselves) would involve (1) shoplifting, a locally prosecutable criminal offense or (2) defacing said Israeli products to make them unsellable, which turns out to be a prosecutable federal offense under the US Product Packaging Protection Act of 2002. Then again, perhaps it would be best if they didn't realize this, but that store managers did.
Once mmore we have an example of what I've referred to in the past as "fantasy politics," whereby people make political choices not because it will have an impact on the public or advance a particular cause, but in order to make themselves feel as though they are uniquely righteous or part of some kind of global vanguard.
By any stretch of the imagination, bothering strangers while they buy frozen dumplings in Pittsburg is not going to move the needle on American support for Israel one angstrom. It's not going to change company policy at Trader Joe's or anywhere else. But presuming they don't get thrown behind bars, it will leave the boycotters able to brag to their buddies how they took on the overwhelming power of imperial Zionism at the Battle of Couscous and allow them to go to bed at night (in their parent's basements) thinking about their unquestioned bravery and wondefulness. Never mind that all they accomplished was annoying food shoppers and getting thrown out of a store like a bunch of rowdy teens.
As an aside, I've always through Trader Joe's to be a bit overrated, but last weekend I bought a box of Israeli couscous (having confused the Day of Couscous Rage by a week) along with some of their veggie sticks (to eat while watching the truly overrated Music Man on DVD with my kids). And damn if I didn't get change (over $1 worth) from my $5 for those two items! That combined with their way-cool response to the whole boycott idiocy left me firmly in the Trader Joe's camp. So go Joe! And by Israeli! (Especially next Saturday.)
Monday, June 15, 2009
Bruce Bawer pens an ode to Howard Stern: Howard Stern, Man's Best Friend. I used to love Stern, and watched his cable show, his E! show, read his books...even paid for his New Year's Rotten Eve pay per view special. Eventually I got bored with Stern and stopped listening, then his move to satellite made any return of mine unlikely at best.
But that's not why I'm posting this. I'm actually posting in regard to David Letterman. I remembered from my days as a listener (and a watcher of the E! show -- I think this was simulcast) an appearance of David Letterman on Stern's show and one brief exchange they had on it -- just one of those quirks of memory that this little exchange from back in 1996 stuck with me. Letterman's classless joke (and his even less classy defense) regarding Sarah Palin's kid made me remember it, and Bawer's piece gave me the nudge to see if I could find it. Bingo:
Listen at about 1:05. They are discussing what was going on during a Stern appearance on the Letterman show during the commercial break. Here's an approximate, cleaned-up, transcript (there's a lot of cross talk, mumbling and sentence fragments):
Howard Stern: OK talk about your personal life. So, you could have any girl...You once got mad at me cause I talked about your personal life...I read an article in the Enquirer...you yelled at me during the commercials...
David Letterman: It was upsetting to me because your comments had made my, my, they were upsetting to me and to my girlfriend...
HS: Right.
DL: And so when you're in a relationship you, if you don't stand up for, uh, something that's unpleasant or making your girlfriend unhappy then you're a weasel [Crosstalk: DL: ...unintelligible...You're a skunk? HS: Yeah, but meanwhile...] I had to take you down a peg, pal! [Crosstalk: HS: Yeah, cause you did!] I had to knock the wind out of you buddy!
HS: What's weird about that incident, I was in the middle of trying to be funny on your show...listen to me...stay with me on this [Crosstalk: DL: Howard...Howard (repeating...)]
Robin Quivers: Yeah, cause I'm trying to figure out how she would know he stood up for her.
[Crosstalk: DL: In the middle of trying... HS: He told her. He went home...]
RQ: Yeah, but the whole idea is to do it in public so everybody knows...
HS: You shoulda told me off on the show...
RQ: Yeah.
DL: I was graceful...I was gracious enough, I did the gentlemanly...[Crosstalk]
HS: I went home that night, I was all shook up. I started to write Dave a letter to say Hey, I sit there...[Crosstalk...DL: ...letter from Howard...] Yeah but I never sent it and I'll tell you why. I was sittin' there and I was sayin' well what did I do wrong? I goof around on the radio all the time...it was...you're girlfriend's probably a beautiful woman, but it was a bad picture of her in the Enquirer, they had her jogging with her hair back...
DL: I understand that, you understand that, she doesn't understand that. She's unaccustomed to having people say unpleasant things about her on the radio. I had to react to that. That's all that was...
HS: Well wasn't I in the middle of trying to be funny? You don't yell at me when I...
DL: You're still trying to be funny...
HS: I see... [Laughter] So you still with the same girlfriend?
DL: Yeah.
HS: You are? You stick to the one girl...
The Palins aren't just politicians, they're parents, and they're probably GD sick of their kids being used as political targets. Letterman wears his liberal politics on his sleeve, but when he gets called on it, back he slinks into a "You can't criticize me, I'm just a comedian stance," trying to turn the criticisms back on those who are making them. Well too bad. When the shoe was on the other foot, and Letterman's adult girlfriend was being made fun of, his attitude was a little bit different. The Palins wouldn't be much ("weasels" to use Letterman's own term) if they sat back and didn't defend their own teen children from classless jerks like Letterman. He should be on notice (and take his own advice), and stick to making fun of the grownups.
He doesn't get it, not just because he's a celebrity surrounded by yes-men, but because these are the kinds of jokes he's hearing being told around him so, he figures, why shouldn't he get in on the act? And what's the big deal? After all, everyone in his New York liberal circles talks like this. There's no one to tell him to lay off the kids. Telling.
Update: CBS loses advertiser. [via Ace]
Wuh? Well, that's nice:
Former US President Jimmy Carter, generally known for being sympathetic to Israel's rivals, made some surprising statements to settlers on Sunday, during a visit to Gush Etzion.
"I never imagined that Gush Etzion would be transferred to Palestinian hands," Carter said following a meeting with local council leader Shaul Goldstein. He explained that the area is very close to the 1967 armistice line and will likely stay part of Israel forever.
The meeting with Goldstein took place at the latter's home, at Carter's request, and included several prominent members of the Gush Etzion community.
Among the participants were religious leaders Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and Har Zion yeshiva director Yehoshua Altman. Also there were two women from bereaved families, Ruthi Gillis who lost her husband in the Karmei Tzur terror attack and Sherry Mandel, whose 13-year-old son Koby was killed by terrorists near their home in Tekoa.
The group was joined by a young couple that recently wed, who were there to explain to Carter that restrictions on natural growth in the settlements meant there was no room for them to raise a family in their own community...
Gush Etzion was purchased with Jewish blood and Jewish money. "By law of nature and of nations" it belongs to those who are living in it now. The Etzion block figures in a number of places in John Roy Carlson's Cairo to Damascus. See: Cairo to Damascus: The Bedouin Who Grew Rich Selling Land to the Jews, and the Battle for the Roads, British-trained, British-armed, British-led and Last Days of the Jewish Quarter.
Links...
The Telegraph has a good page of Iran news here.
AP: US rejects victory claim by Iran's Ahmadinejad
Judith Apter Klinghoff: IRANIANS ASKING FOR MORAL SUPPORT/waiting for Obama
The Weekly Standard has a round-up here: Thousands Show at Tehran Rally. Also Stephen Hayes comments: Mr. President, Another Speech Please
LA Times: Riots erupt in Tehran as Iranian President Ahmadinejad declares victory
Andrew Sullivan has been putting up a constant stream of posts. Samples: Tehran University's Faculty Resigns En Masse, Live-Tweeting The Revolution.
Barry Rubin: Iran: Yes, Stealing an Election and Imposing Ahmadinejad Is Rather Significant
Michael Totten: Insurrection: Day 2, An Enemy of the World.
Roger Cohen is getting schooled. Will it have a long-term wake up impact? I doubt it, nevertheless, his latest is a must-read: Iran's Day of Anguish. Video report here. Roger Simon is not impressed.
Amir Taheri: Iran's Clarifying Election, No longer can anyone pretend theocracy and democracy are compatible.
PJM has a running update: Iranians Protest, Government Cracks Down.
Judith Apter Klinghoffer: IRANIAN DIASPORA JOINS THE FIGHT (Video)
Not directly election related, but Martin Peretz asks: Dennis Ross, Out As Special Envoy To Iran; Was He Ousted Because He's A Jew Or A Bit Hawkish On Nukes?
Sandmonkey is posting and linking: On Iran.
The Big Picture has a great collection of photos.
It was a very good speech. Very peace-oriented that shows the Israeli desire to move forward and work with sincere partners. Netanyahu put the onus back on the Arabs to accept Israel's existence and move forward as good neighbors.
JPost has some excerpts and reaction: Netanyahu wants demilitarized PA state. Of course the reaction from the PA is utter horror and a threat of a new Intifida:
...Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah expressed outrage and shock over Netanyahu's call for a demilitarized Palestinian state and his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
The officials said the speech was much worse than they had expected. They also warned that Netanyahu's policies would trigger a new intifada...
Barry Rubin comments: Prime Minister Netanyahu's Speech
...I think it is accurate to say that this speech expressed the most profound consensus in Israel on these issues and that the country will fully back up its prime minister on this policy. It is also a view of the region and the conflict far more accurate than that usually purveyed by others, both those who claim to have Israel's "best interests" at heart, and those who would "wipe it off the map."
Daniel Pipes: Assessing Binyamin Netanyahu's Speech at Bar-Ilan University
Khaled Abu Toameh: PA: Netanyahu has buried peace process
Full text of the prepared remarks below...
Continue reading "Netanyahu's Speech"Saturday, June 13, 2009
In line with my post below, I'm breaking with my usual format and reposting this excellent JPost column by Isi Leibler in full: Candidly Speaking: Bogus 'Zionist' Israel-bashers
It is ironic that many of the disconcerting themes relating to Israel in US President Barack Obama's Cairo speech replicated those widely promoted for months by a noisy minority of radical American Jews. These "Israel bashers" now proudly proclaim that the new language being employed by Obama "echoes the vocabulary we use."
On the eve of Binyamin Netanyahu's arrival in Washington, a full page advertisement inserted by the Israel Policy Forum (IPF) appeared in The New York Times. Instead of the customary welcome message to a visiting prime minister or expressions of solidarity, it urged Obama to press Israel to make further unilateral concessions to the Palestinians, assuring him that in the event of a confrontation, he would enjoy the backing of most American Jews because "they are not Israelis living in exile." IPF's Washington director, M.J Rosenberg, issued a call to neutralize "the minority of Jews falsely" purporting to present the Jewish community as "blind supporters" of the Israeli government.
ISRAEL POLICY FORUM is only one of a cluster of radical left-wing organizations that have the chutzpa to describe themselves as lovers of Israel and even "Zionists," while actively lobbying the Obama administration to pressure Israel. They deviously sugarcoat their anti-Israeli campaigns by comparing themselves to parents whose children are drug addicts requiring "tough love" to force them to change their dangerous habits.These sentiments were effectively replicated in Obama's Cairo speech.
They were joined in April last year by J Street, a new group initially funded by the Jewish tycoon George Soros who had achieved notoriety for demonizing successive Israeli governments irrespective of their political leanings.
J Street and another radical group, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, proudly announced that they had succeeded in persuading 11,000 of their members to bombard the White House with e-mails urging Obama to stand firm against Netanyahu.
During the Gaza offensive, J Street condemned the action against Hamas as "disproportionate." Refusing to "pick a side" and identify "who was right and who was wrong," it applied moral equivalency to both parties proclaiming that "we recognize that neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a monopoly on right and wrong... While there is nothing 'right' in raining rockets on Israeli families or dispatching suicide bombers, there is nothing 'right' in punishing a million and a half already suffering Gazans for the actions of the extremists amongst them."
J Street also opposes Israel's efforts to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Despite the fact that Israelis of all political opinions are united on this issue, J Street members were e-mailed and urged to actively lobby against a bipartisan congressional resolution calling for tougher sanctions to be applied against Iran.
The radical groups also resurrected the bogus anti-Semitic charge of "dual loyalties," warning Jews that by continued "blind" support of Israel, they risked alienating the American public and would be condemned for displaying greater loyalty toward Israel than the US. They were almost hysterical in their condemnation of Jews who exercised their rights to protest against the proposed appointment of the fiercely anti-Israel Charles Freeman to head the National Security Agency. IPF spokesmen went so far as to explicitly state that being an anti-Israeli fanatic was insufficient grounds for barring a person from assuming a senior administration role.
If there was any doubt about J Street, its endorsement of the British anti-Semitic play Seven Jewish Children, effectively a contemporary blood libel, placed it squarely in the camp of those seeking to demonize the Jewish state. It justified its support on the grounds that the play would promote "rigorous intellectual engagement and civil debate on which our community prides itself."
As we've pointed out, CJP will be hosting a discussion next Thursday featuring J-Street's Jeremy Ben-Ami: Why is CJP Giving Oxygen to J-Street? The event has produced an outcry within the community, not only for giving a seat to J-Street, but for "balancing" him with Democrat party activist Steve Grossman. Grossman will likely do a good job with Ben-Ami, since Grossman is a former AIPAC official and thus a natural enemy of Ben-Ami, but the event was still viewed as the left vs. the far-left. In a damage control measure, the event has since been further balanced by adding Ken Levin, author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege
Nevertheless, there's still the Ben-Ami issue, a man whose constituency in the community is constituted more by money (a budget and wealthy donors) than by people. J-Street is relying on behind the scenes palm greasing and young people too wet to understand the lessons of Oslo and why the Israeli electorate has shifted to the "right." Ben-Ami and friends are basically anti-democrats pushing utterly discredited ideas. They want the US to force Israel to do what was rejected by Israelis. Our friend and co-blogger Hillel Stavis had a piece in last week's Jewish Advocate taking on the appearance of Ben-Ami. Here is the piece, in only slightly edited form from how it appeared in print:
Continue reading "Jeremy Ben-Ami Thinks HE Was Elected President"A landslide: Ahmadinejad Declared Winner of Iran Election
Clashes erupt in Iran over disputed election
Roger Simon has some interesting observations from the scene of the voting in LA: Voting for Ahmadinejad in LA (part two) - how fraudulent was the Iranian election?
Update: Think he's still excited? Obama "excited" by Iran's robust election debate
Is Britain becoming a Reich, a Caliphate, or a Worker's Paradise? Or is it some sort of Dr. Moreau-style mish-mash? Union blocks Friends of Israel stall
The trade union Unison has rejected a request by Trade Union Friends of Israel (Tufi) to run a stall during its annual conference in Brighton next week.
However, the union gave different reasons for the ban. Tufi has been told that the rejection was because of Israel's action in Gaza and complaints by regional members. But a Unison member who spoke to deputy general secretary Keith Sonnet was told that as the union was having three Palestinian-run stalls, there was no room for Tufi...
...Tufi has manned a stall at the Unison conference for the past four years. But this year the union's executive told Tufi director Steve Scott that it had decided not to allow the stall because of Gaza "and, they said, for our own safety". Mr Scott said: "At first they made excuses, then they said it was an executive decision after they had complaints from members in the regions about Gaza. We issued a statement about Gaza but obviously we didn't condemn Israel's actions, so they said we should not be exhibiting this year...
Comment at Harry's Place: Antisemitism Out of Control in Unison
...I think I understand this correctly.
Unison fears that its members will carry out antisemitic attacks on Jews, if TUFI is permitted its customary stall.
Isn't this precisely the sort of thing that Nick Griffin's BNP says to ethnic and cultural minorities - "You better not turn up - for your own safety"?...
[h/t: Sophia]
Friday, June 12, 2009
Just as expected: Rev. Wright: I meant 'Zionists'
Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Thursday tried to step back from a controversial comment he made earlier in the week, explaining that when he said "them Jews" were keeping him from getting access to President Barack Obama he meant to say "Zionists."
"I misspoke. Let me just say Zionists." Wright told Sirius/XM radio host Mark Thompson on "Make it Plain."
Wright tried to explain that the comment was a reference to Jewish authors and "historical facts."
"I'm not talking about all Jews, all people of the Jewish faith, I'm talking about Zionists," he said. "I'm talking about facts, historical facts. I'm not talking about emotionally charged words."
"They can jump on that phrase if they want to, but they can't undo history and they can't undo the fact of Jewish historians and Jewish theologians who write about what's going on," he added...
Yes, it's just those "uppity" Jews that a problem...you know, the ones who live in Israel, and follow that whole "next year in Jerusalem" thing. They're the ones...controlling...Obama. Yeah, that's the ticket. Predictable.
I like what James Taranto said yesterday:
This is what Groundhog Day would be like if Punxsutawney Phil had rabies...
That's "cool" as in "non-plussed," not cool as in "cool, dude." Judea Pearl explains. For instance:
...Mr. Obama's rationale for Israel's legitimacy began with the Holocaust, not with the birthplace of Jewish history. "The aspiration for a Jewish homeland," he said, "is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied." Who else defines Israel's legitimacy that way? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does. Iran sees Israel as a foreign entity to the region, hastily created to sooth European guilt over the Holocaust. Israelis consider this distortion of history to be an assault on the core of their identity as a nation.
An affirmation of "Israel's historical right to exist," based on a 2,000-year continuous quest to rebuild a national homeland, is what the region needs to hear from Mr. Obama. The magic words "historical right" have the capacity to change the entire equation in the Middle East. They convey a genuine commitment to permanence, and can therefore invigorate the peace process with the openness and goodwill that it has been lacking thus far...
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Good news. At Broadcasting & Cable: House Committee Passes Libel Tourism Bill
The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill Thursday that would block so-called libel tourism, according to its sponsor
Libel tourism is the practice of suing U.S. journalists in foreign courts where there is less press freedom than they are afforded by the First Amendment in the U.S. While it is primarily a print issue, the Islamic Society of Boston sued both the Boston Herald and a local Fox TV station in 2006 for alleging its ties with terrorism. It eventually dropped the case.
"I believe our First Amendment rights to be among the most sacred principles laid out in the Constitution, and I will use all of my powers as a Congressman and member of the Judiciary Committee to ensure that these rights are never undermined by foreign judgments," said bill sponsor Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee Thursday in announcing its passage in the committee.
The bill, HR 2756, prohibits "recognition and enforcement of foreign defamation judgments."
In a speech to the Media Institute last fall, noted First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams talked of the importance of such legislation, saying England has become "a choice venue for libel plaintiffs from around the world, including those who seek to intimidate critics whose works would be protected in the U.S. under the First Amendment but might not in that country. That English libel law has increasingly been used to stifle speech about the subject of international terrorism has raised the stakes still more."
A society ready for peace?... Palestinian family kills 15-yr-old son
In the first incident of its kind, a Palestinian family has killed its 15-year-old son in the West Bank after accusing him of "collaboration" with Israel.
Raed Wael Sawalha's body was discovered in the basement of a house in his village of Hijjah in the Kalkilya area on Wednesday.
The Palestinian Authority security forces announced that they have arrested a number of the boy's family members in connection with the killing.
The suspects confessed, saying they decided to kill Sawalha because of his alleged connections with the Israeli authorities, PA security sources said.
Sawalha is the youngest Palestinian to be killed on suspicion of collaboration.
Hundreds of other suspected collaborators have also been killed by Palestinians over the past few years.
A preliminary investigation launched by PA security forces revealed that Sawalha had been brutally tortured before he was hanged...
The only surprise in this story is that this was a son accused of collaborating, and not a daughter accused of some sexual "sin."
Update: Toward the latter point: Gaza woman found slain in most recent "honor killing" and Hidden corpse of Hebron woman brings murder investigation count to three in 24 hours
I have neglected to congratulate local Boston boy, J-Street funder, Geneva Accord huckster, and Obama mega-fundraiser Alan Solomont on his purchase of the ambassadorship to Spain. Was that on the a la carte or the prix fixe menu with bonus weekend in the Lincoln bedroom? He should feel right at home.
Change.
The Washington Post has a decent but truncated profile here: A Suspect's Long History of Hate, and Signs of Strain
What they leave out is that von Brunn was also a 9/11 truther, and hated George Bush and "the Neo-Cons" as well -- pretty generic stuff to those of his ilk. In this respect he had as much in common with Chris Matthews as he does with anyone on the mainstream right, yet there seems to be some effort to blame conservatives for the existence of this guy. He's certainly what's traditionally referred to as "far right," but that doesn't really have a lot of meaning when talking about a guy like this who you wouldn't be surprised to be seeing at a conference with the likes of Cynthia McKinney. You'd also be far more likely to be reading his ideas repeated in the fever swamps of the Huffington Post than you would in the comments at TownHall, say.
I will say that given recent events, I will agree with Charles that much of the reaction to DHS's recent report about "Right Wing extremism" was overblown.
Edit: The point really is that people out there on the fringe -- left or right -- always have existed and always will exist. They have their own motivations that are completely independent of anything anyone two inches closer to the mainstream does. The only responsibility we have is when we allow what they're talking about to influence us. You can't possibly be responsible for what these nut cases think.
So explains our friend Charles Chuman at PJM: Make no mistake -- Lebanon's future is still an open question
Hezbollah and its allies in the March 8 coalition failed to win a majority of seats in the 2009 Lebanese parliamentary elections, losing to the incumbent March 14 coalition. The elections give the March 14 coalition an invigorated mandate, and are a vote of confidence in March 14's vision for Lebanon's future regional and international relations.
However, the March 8 coalition's strong electoral showing (it controls 45% of parliamentary seats -- 57 seats out of a total of 128), the nature of Lebanon's sectarian political system, and Hezbollah's weapons and previous willingness to violently undermine the government mean that Hezbollah will most likely be included in a national unity government. The debate over the future governance of Lebanon is far from over.
March 14's victory puts to rest myths and theories propagated in the March 8 and Syrian press in the years after 2005 parliamentary elections. There is now no doubt that March 14 enjoys nationwide support across sectarian, regional, and class boundaries. Voters do not appear to believe that the 2005-2008 March 14 government was too extreme, too pro-Western, too pro-Sunni/Saudi, or pro-Israel. It also indicates that voters reject a return of Syrian influence in Lebanon and a rejection of closer relations with Iran.
In a televised speech on Monday, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah conceded the March 8 coalition's defeat, but said that Hezbollah would not tolerate any discussion of disarming it and bringing the Iranian backed party under the rule of the Lebanese government. The soon to be formed March 14 government will likely have to concede Hezbollah's "right" to "defend" the country against Israel, thus placing the Lebanese government in a precarious position in the event of a war with Israel...
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
So says Arutz7. Sounds good to me: Mitchell Offers Swap of Israeli and Arab Population Centers
U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell sounded out the Palestinian Authority on a land swap that would allow Israel to retain large population centers in Judea and Samaria in return for the PA's receiving land that includes Arab cities.
He broached the idea in his meeting Wednesday morning with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, according to the BBC. The PA has not confirmed or denied the report...
...The land swap idea originally was proposed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. Maaleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, Beitar Illit, Ariel and possible the Karnei-Ginot Shomron communities would be under Israeli sovereignty if the proposal were to be accepted.
In return, Israel would surrender to the proposed PA state areas with a concentration of Arabs, most probably the Triangle area between Netanya and Kfar Saba, which is part of the Galilee.
Surveys have shown that Arabs living in eastern Jerusalem, which the PA wants as its capital, are opposed to losing their Israeli citizenship, which provides them with financial benefits and services that the PA so far does not provide.
Arabs with Israeli citizenship in other areas enjoy Knesset representation, and it is also not certain that they will be anxious to become citizens of an unknown PA state instead.
DEBKA confirms the report. Take that as you will.
This can't possibly be true...can it...? U.S. Lawmaker Says Obama Administration Ordered FBI to Read Rights to Detainees
The move is reportedly creating chaos in the field among the CIA, FBI and military personnel, according to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich.
A senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee is accusing the Obama administration of quietly ordering the FBI to start reading Miranda rights to suspected terrorists at U.S. military detention facilities in Afghanistan.
The move is reportedly creating chaos in the field among the CIA, FBI and military personnel, according to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. The soldiers, especially, he says, are frustrated that giving high value detainees Miranda rights -- the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney -- is impeding their ability to pursue intelligence on the battlefield, according to a story first reported by the Weekly Standard.
"What I found was lots of confusion and very frustrated people on the front lines who are trying to, well, make Afghanistan successful for the United States and its allies," said Rogers, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee.
Rogers, a former FBI special agent who served in the U.S. Army, just returned from Afghanistan and a visit to Bagram Air Base, where he said the rights are being read...
Stephen Hayes reports here: Not Right:
...A lawyer who has worked on detainee issues for the U.S. government offers this rationale for the Obama administration's approach. "If the US is mirandizing certain suspects in Afghanistan, they're likely doing it to ensure that the treatment of the suspect and the collection of information is done in a manner that will ensure the suspect can be prosecuted in a US court at some point in the future."
But Republicans on Capitol Hill are not happy. "When they mirandize a suspect, the first thing they do is warn them that they have the 'right to remain silent,'" says Representative Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. "It would seem the last thing we want is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other al-Qaeda terrorist to remain silent. Our focus should be on preventing the next attack, not giving radical jihadists a new tactic to resist interrogation--lawyering up."
According to Mike Rogers, that is precisely what some human rights organizations are advising detainees to do. "The International Red Cross, when they go into these detention facilities, has now started telling people -- 'Take the option. You want a lawyer.'"
Rogers adds: "The problem is you take that guy at three in the morning off of a compound right outside of Kabul where he's building bomb materials to kill US soldiers, and read him his rights by four, and the Red Cross is saying take the lawyer -- you have now created quite a confusion amongst the FBI, the CIA and the United States military. And confusion is the last thing you want in a combat zone."...
You think this is the reason this whole situation is inappropriate for the civilian courts? This is going to become very interesting very quickly.
20 years in this guy's church: Rev. Jeremiah Wright says "Jews" are keeping him from President Obama
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright says he does not feel any regrets over his severed relationship with President Barack Obama, a former member of the Chicago church in which Wright was the longtime pastor.
Wright also said that he had not spoken to his former church member since Obama became president, implying that the White House won't allow Obama to talk to him. He did not indicate whether he had tried to reach Obama.
"Regret for what... that the media went back five, seven, 10 years and spent $4,000 buying 20 years worth of sermons to hear what I've been preaching for 20 years?
"Regret for preaching like I've been preaching for 50 years? Absolutely none," Wright said.
Wright said that when he went to the polls, he did not hold any grudge against Obama.
"Of course I voted for him; he's my son. I'm proud of him," Wright said. "I've got five biological kids. They all make mistakes and bad choices. I haven't stopped loving any of them.
"He made mistakes. He made bad choices. I've got kids who listen to their friends. He listened to those around him. I did not disown him."
Asked if he had spoken to the president, Wright said: "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ...
"They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ... I said from the beginning: He's a politician; I'm a pastor. He's got to do what politicians do."
Wright also said Obama should have sent a U.S. delegation to the World Conference on Racism held recently in Geneva, Switzerland, but that the president did not do so for fear of offending Jews and Israel.
"Ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing (by) the Zionist is a sin and a crime against humanity, and they don't want Barack talking like that because that's anti-Israel," Wright said...
When National Geographic published a feature that blamed the dwindling numbers of Middle Eastern Christians on the Crusades(!) and Israel, they sure opened a can of worms (may they swallow them all!). I received the following in email from our friends Franck Salameh and his wife, of Maronite Christian background. When the boobs at NatGeo start blaming the West for the crash of Middle East Christianity, and whitewash Islam's expansionist tendencies, they must realize that they simultaneously insult those very Christians suffering under Islam's boot that they profess to sympathize with, and who are fighting against the odds to maintain their own traditions and cultural identity in the face of difficult odds. Here's a reminder:
Don Belt's essay's pithy title, "The Forgotten Faithful Arab Christians" [sic.] of the Holy Land, adumbrates a compelling story of dispossession, marginalization, and extinction; yet, the factual errors, omissions, and distortions throughout his narrative disappoint and misinform.
Attributing the dwindling numbers of Near Eastern Christians to the Crusades is not only shoddy history, it is at once hypocritical and dangerous. Whatever happened to the Arab-Muslim conquests of the 7th Century? Did they not precede the Crusades by some 400 years and had already begun Islamizing Near Eastern Christians? Weren't the Crusades delayed defensive Christian wars, waged in an attempt to take back from Muslim conquerors what was taken by force from Christians some five centuries prior? Belt's dubious history doesn't stop with the condemnation of the Crusades and the whitewashing of the 7th Century Arab-Muslim conquests; his unrelenting references to Near Eastern Christians as "Arab Christians" -- wrongly subsuming them en masse under a monistic Arab ethno-national and linguistic label -- is a sinister and cruel expropriation of the history of indigenous, pre-Arab, Near Eastern Christians. Today's Copts, Maronites, and Assyrians, heirs to the ancient Pharaohs, Canaanites, and Aramaeans, would be amazed at Don Belt's assertion that Arabs were "among the first to be persecuted for the new faith, and the first to be called Christians." One wonders, whatever happened to the Jewish Jesus, and to the Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and Greek speaking followers of Jesus? Whatever happened to Levantine Jews, Roman, and Greek Pagans and Pantheists who adopted Christianity some seven centuries prior the Arabs' blood-soaked entry into the Levant?
Aside from a host of other factual errors, Belt puts the onus for the disappearing Christians of the Holy Land squarely on modern Israel and Israeli policies, while 13 centuries of Arab-Muslim persecutions get nary the cursory mention. One wonders what role Israel plays today in the disappearance of the Copts of Egypt, the Maronites of Lebanon, the Chaldaeans and Assyrians of Iraq, and the Syriacs of Syria among others? Is their dispossession of their homelands over the past 13 centuries also the result of "Israeli occupation?" Can someone at the NGM spell anachronism in this narrative?
I commend the National Geographic for attempting to shed some light on the plight of the forgotten Christians of the Near East. But under the guise of telling their story, Don Belt has set out to erase the historical memory of Near Eastern Christians. Subsuming them under a uniform, reductive "Arab" identity, and assuming pre-Muslim Arabs inhabited the Holy Land prior to the 7th Century advent of Islam is not only unscrupulous and misleading reading of Levantine history; it is hypocritical, inaccurate, ideologically motivated, and potentially dangerous. There are already enough misconceptions about the Middle East being intellectualized in the media and the academy; sadly, instead of correcting, illuminating, and informing, Don Belt's essay contributes to further distortions and politicization--not to mention forced "Arabization"--of Near Eastern history.
Thank you,
Franck Salameh
Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies
Coordinator of the Arabic Studies and Hebrew Program
Department of Slavic and Eastern Languages and Literatures
BOSTON COLLEGE
It is profoundly disappointing how broad a brush Mr. Belt has used to paint Middle Eastern Christians (in the June 2009 issue of the National Geographic, pp. 84-97.) Rather than reducing them to the simplistic and inaccurate label "Arab", Mr. Belt should have had the intellectual honesty to recognize the complexity and diversity of these pre-Arab, ancient Near Eastern peoples, not all of whom take kindly to the label "Arab", and most of whom brandish proud histories, languages, and traditions predating the Arabs and Muslims by centuries if not millennia. Besides the obvious contempt Mr. Belt has for these people -- quipping snidely at one point that "candidates for sainthood" don't ordinarily come to mind when speaking of Lebanon's Maronites -- his article was more a reflection of his ideological bias than it was a dispassionate "history" of the Christians of the Holy Land as the NGM's cover page misleadingly announces. His disturbingly inaccurate observation that Arabs were among the first people to adopt Christianity demonstrates either an immodest and unsubstantiated revisionism, or else Mr. Belt's breathtaking ignorance of both the history of Christianity and the history of the pre-Arab Eastern Mediterranean. It is unfortunate that the National Geographic chose to publish such an inaccurate and politically charged treatise -- by the journal's Senior Editor for Foreign Affairs no less; someone for whose past writings I otherwise had the utmost appreciation and respect.
Sincerely,
Pascale Cabaret
Dear WBUR Radio:
I am writing to complain about the lack of coverage of a recent major news story. Your station (and for that matter, NPR national) provided virtually no coverage on the murder of Pvt. William Long, 23 of Conway Arkansas last week at an army recruiting center by one Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammed. Mr. Muhammed was in possession of automatic,semi-automatic weapons, grenades and, by his own admission, killed in the name of Islam. Furthermore, information found on his home computer indicated that he was planning to attack Jewish and Christian community centers.
At almost the same time that abortion Doctor George Tiller was killed by Scott Roeder in Kansas, Mr. Muhammed was committing his crime in Arkansas. The disparity in coverage speaks volumes about your station's political agenda.
What is the reason for WBUR, Here&Now and On Point devoting lengthy segments to the murder of Dr. Tiller but completely ignoring this major news story out of Arkansas?
Given the fact that Mr. Muhammed not only killed an innocent recruiting officer, wounded five more and attempted to kill many more, in addition to his intent to carry his "Jihad" further afield, it is inconceivable that WBUR, which has reported at length on "hate" crimes in the past (Eric Rudolph, Matthew Shepherd, James Byrd, Jr., to name just a few), chose to ignore this particular hate crime.
NPR national reported the murder only as an AP feed on June 2nd and on its "Two Way" blog to an audience of virtually no significance compared to its daily 25 million person on-air audience. The network did not assign a single reporter to cover the Arkansas shooting. In contrast, the network assigned Tovia Smith, Frank Morris, Kathy Lohr, and others to cover the story every day from May 31st through June 9th. Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation all devoted major time to covering the Tiller murder, but zero time to the Arkansas slaying.
Please don't insult my intelligence with the fallback platitude:
"There are many newsworthy stories out there; WBUR doesn't have the time or resources to cover all of them."
NPR and its affiliates receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government, reach more listeners on a weekly basis than Rush Limbaugh and receive their FCC broadcast frequencies free of charge. With so many hundreds of reporters, you couldn't spare even one for a story with such obvious national security implications?
Please explain this glaring and obvious "censorship by omission" policy.
Washington Post: 2 People Shot at U.S. Holocaust Museum
A gunman armed with a shotgun walked into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in downtown Washington today and opened fire on a security guard before being shot and seriously wounded by two other guards, authorities said.
The security guard and the gunman were both transported to George Washington University Hospital with serious injuries, police said. A hospital spokesperson declined to release information on the condition of the two.
A third person sustained minor injuries in the shooting, according to police.
A law enforcement source identified the gunman as James W. von Brunn, who is known to authorities as a white supremacist.
Sgt. David Schlosser, a spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, said the security guard and the gunman were the only two persons who were hit by gunshots. Initial reports said at least one other person sustained gunshot wounds...
Telegraph: White supremacist James W Von Brunn opens fire Holocaust museum (with video)
At least two people were shot today at Washington's Holocaust Museum, after an 89-year-old white supremacist entered the building and opened fire "indiscriminately".
Emergency services said that an adult male was taken to hospital suffering from "serious gunshot wounds" after the gunman opened fire in the museum, situated in central Washington, about one mile from the White House.
The gunman, believed to be James W Von Brunn, is in custody. Police said that he was shot by one of the museum's guards, and sources said he was hit in the head...
Update: The Washington Post reports that the guard, 39-year-old Stephen Tyrone Johns, has died.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
This appeared in The New York Times? Stopped clock and all...The Exodus Obama Forgot to Mention
... for all the president's talk of "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world" and shared "principles of justice and progress," neither he nor anyone around him, and certainly no one in the audience, bothered to notice one small detail missing from the speech: he forgot me.
The president never said a word about me. Or, for that matter, about any of the other 800,000 or so Jews born in the Middle East who fled the Arab and Muslim world or who were summarily expelled for being Jewish in the 20th century. With all his references to the history of Islam and to its (questionable) "proud tradition of tolerance" of other faiths, Mr. Obama never said anything about those Jews whose ancestors had been living in Arab lands long before the advent of Islam but were its first victims once rampant nationalism swept over the Arab world.
Nor did he bother to mention that with this flight and expulsion, Jewish assets were -- let's call it by its proper name -- looted. Mr. Obama never mentioned the belongings I still own in Egypt and will never recover. My mother's house, my father's factory, our life in Egypt, our friends, our books, our cars, my bicycle. We are, each one of us, not just defined by the arrangement of protein molecules in our cells, but also by the things we call our own. Take away our things and something in us dies. Losing his wealth, his home, the life he had built, killed my father. He didn't die right away; it took four decades of exile to finish him off...
[h/t: Sophia]
Lovely: Janet Napolitano appointed Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee National Executive Director Kareem Shora to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). The ADC is a sort of anti-ADL. It's ADL with a goatee and the exactly contrary mission.
Remember founder James Abourezk? Or local leader Merrie Najimy?
Great move putting someone from a group whose founder thinks Hizballah are heroic resistance to a Homeland Security anything.
Comforting.
[via Stilettos in the Sand, h/t: Sara]
When confronted with her lies and distortions, Lutheran Bishop Margaret Payne reaffirms her commitment to lying and distorting: Lutheran Bishop Responds Angrily to CAMERA Letter
On March 19, 2009, Rev. Margaret Payne, Bishop of the New England Synod for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), appeared on Interfaith Voices, a radio show broadcast on 62 stations throughout North America. During her appearance in which she recounted impressions of her recent trip to Israel, Bishop Payne offered three misstatements of fact that were detailed in a CAMERA analysis published on May 11, 2009.
First, she asserted that Augusta Victoria Hospital, a facility owned by the Lutheran World Federation (of which ELCA is a part), is "the only hospital in the country" that provides cancer treatment to Palestinians. In fact, Israeli hospitals have routinely provided all sorts of medical care, including cancer treatment, to Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Second, she asserted that Israel's security barrier "completely" surrounded the city of Bethlehem. Numerous maps of the barrier reveal that it is located only to the north and west of the city.
Third, Bishop Payne reported that as a result of the security barrier, "tourists do not have a chance to shop and support the economy." In fact, the Christian Science Monitor reported that 2008 was a record year for tourism in Bethlehem.
These errors are remarkable in that they all serve to portray Israel in a negative light...
Yeah, odd isn't it?
The Bishop responds in part:
...Not only will I not offer a retraction, but I will look for every opportunity that I can find to advocate for the end of Israeli occupation. When the "facts on the ground" are truly known, and not further distorted by organizations such as yours, then I hope that there can be further dialogue about the ultimate security and freedom of both Israelis and Palestinians.
Here's the whole thing. Keep at 'em Dexter!
Not bad, just sad...Prager: Why the Cairo Speech Was So Sad
... It was extremely sad that it was necessary for anyone, let alone an American president, to tell Muslims that the Holocaust occurred, that "6 million Jews were killed," and that "denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful." There is no other audience on earth to whom that would have to be said.
Incidentally, wouldn't one think that an American president feeling the need to condemn Holocaust-denial before a world Muslim audience would be worthy of comment? Yet, such is the soft bigotry of low expectations that dominates world news media views of the Muslim world, that I did not see one mainstream media comment on this extraordinary fact.
I did, however, see Tom Brokaw ask this incredible question of President Obama after the latter's visit to the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald: "What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald and what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians?"
To his credit, President Obama immediately responded: "Well, look, there's no equivalency here."
Talk about sad. What other word can be used to describe one of the most famous journalists in America using the Holocaust to ask about Israeli policy toward Palestinians?
Returning to the president's speech, it was also sad that the president had to condemn Muslim Jew-hatred and threats to annihilate Israel -- "Threatening Israel with destruction or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews is deeply wrong." This, too, needed to be said to a Muslim audience. Nazi-like depictions of Jews, regularly equating Jews with animals and calling for their destruction, are found in much of the Muslim media, many Islamic schools and many mosques.
It was likewise sad that an American president felt he had to go to Cairo and tell Muslims that Islam has a history of tolerance: "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country."
It was as if the president had to persuade his audience that Islam has been or is, in essence, tolerant. Even President Obama's examples were not convincing...
Truly Orwellian? Or is it more Duranty-an? Whichever: Media Takes Whitewashing of Islam to a Whole New Level
In the days since President Obama's highly touted "speech to the Muslim world," a number of commentators have pointed out that Obama, a self-described "student of history," managed to serve up a pastiche of half-truths, exaggerations, and utter nonsense about Islamic history, and that even in his supposedly gutsier moments -- as when he criticized the treatment of women in Muslim societies -- he was hardly as forceful as the circumstances warrant.
It's no coincidence that the commentators who have made these points have done so, almost without exception, not in major media organs but in places like Pajamas Media. For the flattering account of Islam that Obama served up in Cairo -- the celebration of imaginary Islamic achievements in science and culture, the evocation of a golden-age Andalusia where Christians and Jews were treated with respect and equality, and the references to the Koran that made it sound like the Sermon on the Mount -- are of a piece with the fictions about Islam found regularly in the mainstream press. This is certainly true of the New York Times, and it's equally the case with the Washington Post -- a fact that will be obvious to any reader of my new book, Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom
Washington Post, 66, 102, 103, 149-51, 156, 163-64, 238, 262, 263-64, 276
Now, with the single exception of the very last Post reference (the one on page 276, which is a thumbs-up for columnist Anne Applebaum), my mentions of the Post in Surrender all point to the reliability with which the newspaper clings to what one might call a wishful-thinking view of Islam -- as if Islam were, say, nothing more than Episcopalianism with prayer rugs and burkas...
I'm sure that to many members of the press, Episcopalians are of far greater concern.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Too funny. Via Israellycool...I think this is sort of the Saudi version of "BabaBooey BabaBooey BabaBooey BabaBooey..." (Watch till the end.)
JPost: 'Hamas risking Operation Cast Lead II'
If Hamas continues to assist terrorist groups with attacks against IDF soldiers, it will risk facing "Operation Cast Lead II," a top IDF commander warned on Monday.
Lt.-Col. Avinoam Stolevitch's comments came after a group of around 10 Palestinian gunmen armed with "huge amounts of explosives" launched a failed Gaza border assault at the Karni Crossing.
"We are slowly beginning to understand the magnitude of [the threat from the Gaza Strip]," Stolevitch told Army Radio, adding his evaluation that the terrorists had planned a "large explosion... to provide cover for a kidnapping" in Monday morning's attack.
A security source told The Jerusalem Post that the terror cell used the cover of morning fog for their attempt, as well as booby-trapped horses. At least four terrorists were killed in the ensuing exchange of fire with the IDF. No Israeli soldiers were wounded in the incident.
The terror cell belonged to the Janud Ansar Allah (Soldiers Loyal to Allah) organization, a small group which is linked to Iran and Hizbullah, the security source added...
Irony:
...Following the attack, Israel closed the Karni crossing, the main commercial terminal between Israel and Gaza, as well as the Nahal Oz fuel depot.
However, 30,000 vaccine units against foot-and-mouth disease were transferred to Gaza via the Erez crossing, despite the thwarted attack. The IDF said that 125,000 units had been supplied to the Strip in the last three months in three separate transfers, due to the importance of preventing the outbreak of the disease.
In addition, 140 truckloads of humanitarian aid was scheduled to be transferred via the Kerem Shalom crossing.
So asks Raymond Ibrahim in a terrific article in the Middle East Quarterly:
"There is far more violence in the Bible than in the Qur'an; the idea that Islam imposed itself by the sword is a Western fiction, fabricated during the time of the Crusades when, in fact, it was Western Christians who were fighting brutal holy wars against Islam."[1] So announces former nun and self-professed "freelance monotheist," Karen Armstrong. This quote sums up the single most influential argument currently serving to deflect the accusation that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant: All monotheistic religions, proponents of such an argument say, and not just Islam, have their fair share of violent and intolerant scriptures, as well as bloody histories. Thus, whenever Islam's sacred scriptures -- the Qur'an first, followed by the reports on the words and deeds of Muhammad (the Hadith) -- are highlighted as demonstrative of the religion's innate bellicosity, the immediate rejoinder is that other scriptures, specifically those of Judeo-Christianity, are as riddled with violent passages.
More often than not, this argument puts an end to any discussion regarding whether violence and intolerance are unique to Islam. Instead, the default answer becomes that it is not Islam per se but rather Muslim grievance and frustration--ever exacerbated by economic, political, and social factors--that lead to violence. That this view comports perfectly with the secular West's "materialistic" epistemology makes it all the more unquestioned...
He does go on to question it, and does a good job of it, too.
Sounds like good news from the Lebanese elections. Tony Badran reports: Major Victory for March 14
...Results so far (some final, some preliminary) have March 14 winning big in basically all the battle districts: all seven seats in Zahle, all three in Koura, both seats in Batroun, all five in Beirut 1, and it's looking very good in Metn, with only Baabda not looking good.
The big news so far is a very strong showing for the independent-M14 alliance in Keserwen, where Aoun has his seat, but the final results have yet to come out...
More detailed analysis with the results: Mapping Out the Election Results
As a commenter points out, the disappointing thing is that Michel Aoun, allied with Hizballah, continues to get 40% of the Christian vote. Bizarre.
General news article: Pro-Western bloc defeats Hezbollah in crucial poll
Roger Simon notes that Stephen Zunes is an idiot. Duh. The guy is a chair of Mid East studies, after all.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
The spirit of the American Soldier: this beachhead is secure. Fellow Soldiers erected this monument to an American Soldier somewhere on the shell-blasted coast of Normandy.
How Google remembers D-Day:
Just a reminder that even the most powerful and most successful don't necessarily share our values.
"The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain." -Ronald Reagan (From the A Time for Choosing speech.)
Reagan at D-Day at 40:
[The following, posted in full, appears in this week's The Jewish Advocate]
First, there was the foiled plot by four ex-convicts, who converted to Islam in prison, to bomb synagogues in the Bronx. The real news here is that radical Islam has come to America and Jews will be its targets. Yet you had to go to page 26 in the New York Times' report to discover that the culprits were Muslims. In the same article that acknowledged the plot's Islamist motivations, the Times reported that the religion of the plotters "remained uncertain." Huh?
A week later, the Associated Press reported the conviction of five ringleaders of the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim Brotherhood front group gathering funds for Hamas in the U.S. The Brotherhood is the central source of nearly all modern jihadist operations.
Yet the AP headline - "Muslim charity member gets 65 years in prison" - and its description of American agents of Hamas terrorists as "militants" seemed intended to illicit yawns. The real news here is that prosecutors in the trial of the HLF - formerly the largest American Islamic charity - uncovered a network across the U.S. whose goal it is to radicalize the American Muslim community.
A bizarrely neglected news item: In its HLF investigation, the FBI discovered the planning document of the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its authors, top Brotherhood leaders, are not the stereotypical terrorist thugs like the Bronx Bombers, but are engineers, doctors and intellectuals.
These, the real leaders of the Islamist "settlement" in America - ironic that they call it that - are opposed to bombing synagogues ... now. Theirs is a "stealth jihad." They aim to subvert American society slowly, over decades.
This takes us to Boston, where the largest mosque in the Northeast is co-owned by Jamal Badawi - one of the top Brotherhood leaders mentioned in the aforementioned planning document. The Boston Globe, like its NY Times parent, is sensitive on these issues.
Early on, the Globe's decision to kill an investigative piece exposing the connections of the mosque's leadership, the Islamic Society of Boston Trust, to terrorist financing seems to have set its policy on the matter. The Globe felt - as many do - that criticism of any local Muslim leaders might stoke religious bigotry. Let's call this "Islamophobiaphobia."
Hence its silence even when, for example, it emerged that the ISB's Web site featured lessons on wife beating. Unlike the local TV Channel 25 and the Boston Herald, who were sued by the ISB and had to pay out oodles of cash to defense lawyers (after which they ceased their investigative coverage of ISB trustees), the Globe seems motivated purely by ideological considerations.
A few weeks back I wrote to the Globe to respond to its Sunday magazine puff piece on the Roxbury mosque, now run by the Muslim American Society, which federal prosecutors described last year as "the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States." It wasn't published.
So, in the interest of doing what journalists are supposed to do, here's my Globe-censored - but still "sensitive" - letter:
To the Editors:
It is easy to sympathize with the Boston Globe's hope that the Muslim American Society's mosque in Roxbury will be a truly moderate force for intercultural harmony in New England. (Sunday magazine, "Welcome Message," 5/10/09) However, wishful thinking cannot erase the troubling facts that have made this particular mosque controversial from the very start:
The Roxbury mosque, the largest mosque on the Eastern seaboard, is legally owned and controlled by the Islamic Society of Boston Trust, a group of largely foreign residents, several of whom have direct or indirect connections to extremism. For example, ISB Trustee Jamal Badawi, an unindicted co-conspirator in the recent terror fundraising conviction of the Holy Land Foundation, has publicly urged that Muslims replace our constitutional government with an Islamic theocracy.
ISB Trustee Walid Fitaihi, a wealthy Saudi national, was found to have published anti-Jewish screeds in Arabic newspapers while doing "outreach" with Hub rabbis. The Chairman of the ISB Trust, Osama Kandil, is a former director of an Islamic charity outlawed for funneling money to Al Qaeda; he is also a founder of the Muslim Arab Youth Association, which has hosted speakers who urged the killing of Jews and homosexuals and the beating of wives.
The ISB Trust's donation records reveal that at least $8,630,523 in funds - over half of the building's $15.5 million price tag - was provided by Saudi Arabian and other Gulf sources. The Saudis have spent many billions to establish radical mosques around the globe. (Has anyone ever discovered a moderate Saudi mosque?)
Some of the Gulf donors to the ISB have direct connections to terrorism: the Islamic Call Committee, a banned Islamic charity formerly led by the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, helped fund the mosque.
These facts are sad, unhappy, depressing, worrying.... But they are also documented and true.
Lee Smith has a look at some of the very clever political ads being used in the important Lebanon elections and he explains some of the semiotics behind them: Lebanon's Wild Political Advertising - Rarely does an ad campaign have so much riding on it.
Egypt Bans Marriage to Israelis. The point to take away is that this is a popular decision. The court made a decision that resonates with the people. It's a mistake to think that removing dictators will result in better condition. Sometimes we get the dictators we deserve. There's an interplay there between the attitudes of the people and the pandering of the totalitarian.
After the verdict was read in the Cairo courtroom, Nabih al-Wahsh, an Egyptian attorney, jumped for joy and received an avalanche of telephone calls from friends congratulating him on his latest legal victory.
Al-Wahsh has managed to extract a ruling from Egypt's Administrative Court -- which rules in disputes between citizens and the state -- that would force the Egyptian government to strip Egyptians married to Israelis of their Egyptian citizenship. The May 19 ruling was met with the cheers of millions in this populous Arab country.
"This is an historic ruling," al-Wahsh said to reporters after the ruling. "Egyptians married to Israelis are dangerous to Egypt's national security, acting in ways that contradict the constitution of their country and Islamic laws," he said.
Calls flooded into TV talk shows discussing the verdict and readers posted comments on Web sites of newspapers that wrote about it.
Everyone appeared united in elation at the ruling, as well as in hatred of the Jewish state and everything that related to it...
In Argentina, apparently even attacking Jews as a mob on the street can't be described as other than legitimate criticism of Israeli policies without an argument. At Z-Word: Argentine Left Calls for Open Season on Misbehaving Jews
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, holder of the Nobel Peace Prize, Federico Shuster, Dean of the Social Sciences Faculty of the University of Buenos Aires and Osvaldo Bayer, a writer regarded as something of a guru on human rights, are just three of the pillars of Argentine progressive and left option who have signed a petition calling for the release of detainees being held in connect with an attack on Jews and others celebrating the 61st anniversary of Israel's independence in Buenos Aires on May 17th.
The intellectuals and human rights activists say that those who attacked - with clubs and chains - the crowd celebrating Israel's independence, and their comrades who were later arrested on premises where illegally held firearms were found, are neither violent nor antisemitic and were simply protesting against the war-loving and imperialist Israeli government.
Further comment or analysis would be really, really, superfluous.
Indeed. Adam Holland (from whom, the link) has some more information, as well as pictures from the event these leftists are willing to simply write off: Argentine intellectuals demand release of Israel Day attackers
Still more from www.divestthis.com
A good friend just published a terrific piece in In These Times on Naomi Klein's recent championing of divestment against Israel. While I've never been that interested in the whole Left-Right battle over the Israeli-Palestinian "narrative" (noticing, as I've done over the years, that the conflict often ends up a surrogate for domestic US or Israeli Left-Right partisan clashes), I will admit that it takes courage to take on both divestment and it's political rock-star champion before an audience not inclined to accept such challenges.
I must also admit that the whole Naomi Klein phenomenon has eluded me until she decided to become a political spokesmodel for my BDS obsession. Klein came to prominence during the anti-globalist protests/riots that started in Seattle in 1999, providing an patina of academic respectability to a "movement" that began by throwing garbage cans through the windows of Starbucks and has since degenerated into an incoherent hodge-podge of rage against modernity coupled with flirtations with any totalitarian (preferably bearded) who is ready to stick it to Uncle Sam, rhetorically or otherwise.
Klein's argument, fully culminated in her most recent book The Shock Doctrine, basically boils down to a search over who profits in any given political situation. Thus the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will always be about enriching defense contractors, and even little old Israel (according to Klein) welcomes endless war on all borders (and busses blowing up inside the country) because of the opportunity it provides Israeli companies to export high-tech security equipment around the world.
If such arguments remind you of Marx's economic determinism, there is actually a wider intellectual history Klein is building on (or simply standing on, depending on your attitudes towards her scholarship). For decades, Marxist political thinkers have had a major problem: the continual improvement in the lives of working people. According to Marx (who, to be fair, was making reasonable predictions based on a 19th century perspective), the workers would grow more impoverished and miserable as the capitalist class continued to exploit them for their own gain. Indeed, it was only when the workers became so desperate in their poverty and despair that they would rise up to overthrow their capitalist overlords to usher in a new age built on the rule of the proletariat.
Unfortunately for Marx (but fortunately for the working classes), the fate of the working man continued to improve with each decade (often, in the US at least, though the efforts of labor unions who had rejected radical politics in favor of practical help for their members). Thus, Marx had to be reformulated which it was in the post WWII era with the impoverished Third World standing in for the domestic proletariat. This Global Immiseration Thesis states that it is the Third World that will grow poorer and poorer due to exploitation by the industrialized West and thus Third World radicalism (most recently, its Islamist variation) would provide the foot soldiers for global revolution. While this new approach to Marx requires the Western worker be transformed from the vanguard of progress to members of the oppressive class, the working man as the agent of history could clearly be sacrificed in order to perpetuate hope for a massive historical overturning of society.
Much of this is window dressing for the true reason behind Naomi Klein's stardom: the need for young fresh faces to serve on the front lines of magazines and TV as the intellectual champions of radical politics. After all, reading Noam Chomsky is one thing. But put him in front of a camera and the legendary political demi-God is indistinguishable from an old, petulant, thin-skinned geezer happy to proffer the most wacked-out conspiracy theories from behind the blast shield of tenure. Klein, on the other hand, offers magazines and cable TV a far more appealing Rolodex dial whenever any issue of the day needs to be wrapped into a nice Left-Right easily digestible political package.
So wherein comes Klein's infatuation with divestment? According to her, it is the only non-violent option left to her allegedly Ghandiesque cohort (not noticing the implied threat of what comes next if this prescription fails). Yet it's hard not to notice that Klein has decided to champion a tactic already popular by her adoring fans (whoops! I mean her astute political base), not by providing a new, creative, intellectual framework for her position, but by publishing articles and arguments indistinguishable from the hundreds of undergraduate blog entries supporting BDS.
Klein ends her pandering bid for acceptance (whoops! I mean her cry of the heart) with an anecdote about a British telecom company that refused to do business with Israel not because of a heartfelt political or moral principles, but because they realized they would sacrifice the much more lucrative Arab market by selling to the Jewish one. The fact that her story demonstrates boycott and divestment decisions motivated not by conscience but by Arab economic power seems to have eluded her, a strange lapse for someone who has built her career around finding the money-power "nexus" behind every political decision ever made.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Krauthammer is spot-on as usual: The Settlements Myth
...The entire "natural growth" issue is a concoction. Is the peace process moribund because a teacher in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is making an addition to her house to accommodate new grandchildren? It is perverse to make this the center point of the peace process at a time when Gaza is run by Hamas terrorists dedicated to permanent war with Israel and when Mahmoud Abbas, having turned down every one of Ehud Olmert's peace offers, brazenly declares that he is in a waiting mode -- waiting for Hamas to become moderate and for Israel to cave -- before he'll do anything to advance peace.
In his much-heralded "Muslim world" address in Cairo yesterday, Obama declared that the Palestinian people's "situation" is "intolerable." Indeed it is, the result of 60 years of Palestinian leadership that gave its people corruption, tyranny, religious intolerance and forced militarization; leadership that for three generations rejected every offer of independence and dignity, choosing destitution and despair rather than accept any settlement not accompanied by the extinction of Israel.
That's why Haj Amin al-Husseini chose war rather than a two-state solution in 1947. Why Yasser Arafat turned down a Palestinian state in 2000. And why Abbas rejected Olmert's even more generous December 2008 offer.
In the 16 years since the Oslo accords turned the West Bank and Gaza over to the Palestinians, their leaders built no roads, no courthouses, no hospitals, none of the fundamental state institutions that would relieve their people's suffering. Instead they poured everything into an infrastructure of war and terror, all the while depositing billions (from gullible Western donors) into their Swiss bank accounts.
Obama says he came to Cairo to tell the truth. But he uttered not a word of that. Instead, among all the bromides and lofty sentiments, he issued but one concrete declaration of new American policy: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," thus reinforcing the myth that Palestinian misery and statelessness are the fault of Israel and the settlements.
Blaming Israel and picking a fight over "natural growth" may curry favor with the Muslim "street." But it will only induce the Arab states to do like Abbas: sit and wait for America to deliver Israel on a platter. Which makes the Obama strategy not just dishonorable but self-defeating.
Not surprising, given the usual left of center parties' inability to adapt to the realities the voters are facing. Note the subtle snark even in the conservative Telegraph's story: Europe voters swing to Right, say pollsters
The party of far-right anti-Muslim MP Geert Wilders, who was banned from entering Britain earlier this year for his xenophobic beliefs, has won its first four seats in the European Parliament, according to a Dutch exit poll last night.
The result, which places the Freedom Party second in the Netherlands behind the ruling Christian Democrats and ahead of Labour, suggests that many continental voters will swing behind fringe anti-immigrant parties in the European poll.
An exit poll for the Dutch national broadcaster NOS gave Mr Wilders's party around 15 per cent of votes, with the ruling right-of-centre party on 20.3 per cent. It confirms forecasts that the Right will be the main victors of this week's European Parliament elections, with results set to be declared officially in Sunday night after polls have closed in all 27 EU countries.
Mr Wilders, who will not be among his party's MEPs, lives under police protection after numerous death threats for his outspoken views on closing mosques and blocking immigration in Europe's most densely populated country.
The party's message found a resonance in a backlash against the tolerance of immigrants for which the Netherlands has become known. Mr Wilders, 45, instantly recognisable with his shock of dyed platinum hair, last year made a controversial film which portrayed images of extremist violence against a backdrop of the Koran...
Sense in the comments:
It needs to be asked WHY the Dutch have voted in this way?
Rather than denying it and the sulking name calling of Right-wing politicians, it's time the media and our mainstream politicians acknowledged the deep running feelings and frustrations of people throughout Europe.
Time to take note.
Drew, Nottingham
Bernie Madoff with a shovel? How Gazan cash got buried in tunnels
A major corruption scandal involving the smuggling tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is making waves throughout the Strip.
The affair began shortly before Israel's incursion into Gaza in December, when tunnel owners affiliated with the ruling Hamas party offered Gazans an opportunity to invest in the goods smuggled through the tunnels. It was a good investment, they argued, because goods bought in Egypt can be sold in Gaza for two or three times their purchase price. To market their proposal, they hired salesmen who solicited investments from thousands of Gazans, primarily prominent businessmen.
The owners of the tunnels, which are located in the town of Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border, raised millions of dollars. Because the smuggling operations had the approval of Hamas, they proceeded without hindrance, and the scheme initially paid off handsomely.
The tunnel owners then hired more salesmen to solicit investments, and new investors joined every day. Imams even used their pulpits in the mosques to tell people what a good business proposition this was. Many people ultimately invested all their savings, even borrowing money from friends and relatives in order to invest.
Soon, the smuggling profits proved insufficient to pay off all the investors. At that point, the tunnel owners began operating a classic Ponzi scheme: They used money from new investors to cover the shortfall in the smuggling profits and enable them to pay off the old ones...
The scheme really fell apart when Israel bombed the tunnels in Cast Lead. Oops.
Of course they can. Words and over the top rhetoric have power, and they're the common thread in any number of domestic terrorist attacks over the years that the government and press have repeatedly assured us as being nothing more than the acts of distraught individuals acting along ("sudden Jihad syndrome"). But some on the left show their priorities, because when it comes to abortion, suddenly there's a dangerous conspiracy out there. Michael Graham on Ellen Goodman's Boston Globe piece: Ellen Goodman Does NOT Practice Moral Equivalence
...She goes on to blame, among others, Bill O'Reilly for Tiller's murder, based on her theory that accurately reporting the facts of late-term abortions is a form of violence-inspiring hate crime. Still, I saw a glimmer of hope.Surely if Ms. Goodman is going to hold the more than 50% of Americans who consider themselves pro-life responsible for a half-dozen murders over 20 years, then surely she's written some article since 9/11 linking the current state of Islam to the thousands of terror attacks over that same period--right? Why, less than 24 hours after Tiller's murder, an American soldier was gunned by a fellow American in the name of Islam. I jumped on Google to pull up just one of the dozen columns Ellen must have written about the Muslim world's "murderous cast of lone actors." And...Nothing. I couldn't find one. I may have missed it, but I searched extensively. What I found instead were Goodman's thoughts on how Palestinian "desperation" caused terrorism, not religion, politics, or anti-Semitism. I found numerous Goodman columns claiming that evangelical Christians were morally equivalent to the Taliban (which executes homosexuals and beats disobedient women) for opposing gay rights. And just a week after the 9/11 attacks, Goodman's suspicions had already turned from Islam and toward her fellow Americans...
Thursday, June 4, 2009
David Carradine has been taken from us. The man who got many of us taking Kung Fu lessons has been found dead in his Bangkok hotel room: Actor David Carradine Dead at 72. Very sad if it's true that suicide is the cause.
The Carradine myth has always been an interesting one. They passed over Bruce Lee for that role, yet I doubt Carradine could ever punch his way out of a wet paper bag. Still, heck of a show. The pain involved in carrying that boiling iron pot out into the snow always fascinated me as a kid. And don't tell me you never did the snatch the pebble out of my hand thing as a kid.
RIP
And never forget his classic role as Frankenstein in Death Race 2000:
So I woke up this morning and heard that the President went to Cairo and now this whole clash of civilizations misunderstanding has been all cleared up. Phew. I should sleep well tonight.
I hear we're going to have more student exchange programs or something? Never mind all that terrorism and intolerance, the real problem is Jewish houses.
Salam!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
[h/t: Zvi]
Monday, June 1, 2009
Yesterday I motored in to Brookline to see Walid Shoebat speak at Kehillath Israel Synagogue.
Shoebat's speech was good, and he's certainly an entertaining speaker. If you're interested in some of the controversy surrounding Shoebat's background, he addressed that head on fairly early on.
Here's the video. I've seen some good speakers at KI, but unfortunately, the acoustics in that place are absolutely horrible, so it's almost impossible to get a good recording. Shoebat has a fairly strong accent, and that combined with the echo means you've got to be a trooper to get through this, but let me know how it is if you try:
Part 1:
Part 2:
I missed this on my favorite UK blogs which tend to cover these things, but this seems like big news: JTA: British union votes to boycott Israeli universities, academics
Britain's main academic union voted overwhelmingly to boycott Israeli universities and colleges.
The University and College Union passed the boycott resolution at its annual meeting last week. It is the fourth year in a row that the union has passed a resolution condemning Israel and supporting the boycott of Israeli academics and academic institutions.
The key resolution calls on UCU branches to discuss boycotting Israel, and commits the union to organize a pro-boycott conference for other trade unions to attend.
The vote was then declared invalid after union attorneys said that a boycott of that kind could trigger legal action against the union.
Union General Secretary Sally Hunt said she "formally and personally commended" the union for holding the debate, the Guardian reported...
It looks like the union had a very nice time posing for each other and counting coup (to their minds -- the real thing involved some actual danger) against the Yids. Apparently, the "union" has already decided they have no intention of actually taking action on anything under advice of counsel?
Engage has a number of entries to look at: David Hirsh is blogging live from UCU Congress, UCU Congress and, last but definitely not least: Michael Cushman and the Jew-free UCU Congress
...Jon Pike showed up to argue that Congress should ask the union leadership to find out why Jews are resigning from the union. Congress said it didn't want to find out why Jews are resigning from the union.
Camila Bassi showed up, a member of a small Trotskyist group, she made a brave Trotskyist speech against the boycott. Congress voted her down.
But there were speeches against the boycott available for anyone who wanted them. But there was nobody left to make them.
There were no Jews there to speak against the boycott. "The Zionists barely showed up"...
