Michael S. Doran and Salman Shaikh: Getting Serious in Syria
Ely Karmon: The Flotillas to Gaza – New Actors in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Stern, Gilad, Yogev, Einav, and Schweitzer, Yoram: Egypt-Sinai-Gaza: The Triangular Threat to Israel
Arlene Kushner: UNRWA's Anti-Israel Bias
Theodore Dalrymple:Austerity in the U.K.
Matthew Levitt: Hezbollah: Party of Fraud
Michael Singh: 'Restoration' Is Not an Option: Why America Can't Afford to Lead from Behind
Hossein Askari: Slaying the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah Hydra
Michael Rubin: Whitewashing Richard Falk
Elliot Jager: The State of the Arab State
JOSHUAPUNDIT: Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 07/26/11
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Sunday, July 31, 2011
Comments on Reads and News 7/31
Erekat Chickens Out of Duel with Ayalon
LittleGreenFootballs: Atheists receive death threats over opposition to 9/11 Cross memorial
Elder of Ziyon: Should Israel's policies be dictated by fears of becoming a "pariah"?
Israel Matzav: TSA to use Israeli methods?
Obama says US appalled by Syria brutality
Palestinian Authority to pay full wages after strike threat
"I am more than a little surprised that Erekat rejected my offer of an open and public debate, especially considering he was concerned enough about our video to release a two page official press release," Ayalon said.
"Erekat is used to telling the world that Israel's policies are illegal and against international law and I offered him the chance to back up his own statements and he is proving unable or unwilling to do so. Like its diplomatic policies, it appears that the Palestinian Authority is only able to debate unilaterally."
The video, released under two weeks ago, has already garnered a quarter of a million views worldwide and is encouraging a debate on the rarely heard Israeli position on Judea, Samaria, Jewish communities and international law.
"Erekat was very quick to react to the video when it was released but now his evasion speaks volumes of a Palestinian Authority political leadership which has hijacked the public debate for too long," Ayalon added. "It demonstrates that their rhetoric is just empty words and slogans and folds like a house of cards once it is tested."
FP: The video is correct so Israel should have never even considered Oslo. When it did, it essentially validated the Palestinian narrative lie, which has turned the world against it. Erekat is shrewd not to debate—when the world already accepts his lies, why bother with debates?"Erekat is used to telling the world that Israel's policies are illegal and against international law and I offered him the chance to back up his own statements and he is proving unable or unwilling to do so. Like its diplomatic policies, it appears that the Palestinian Authority is only able to debate unilaterally."
The video, released under two weeks ago, has already garnered a quarter of a million views worldwide and is encouraging a debate on the rarely heard Israeli position on Judea, Samaria, Jewish communities and international law.
"Erekat was very quick to react to the video when it was released but now his evasion speaks volumes of a Palestinian Authority political leadership which has hijacked the public debate for too long," Ayalon added. "It demonstrates that their rhetoric is just empty words and slogans and folds like a house of cards once it is tested."
LittleGreenFootballs: Atheists receive death threats over opposition to 9/11 Cross memorial
Atheists Sue to Block Display of Cross-Shaped Beam in 9/11 Museum …The Rev. Brian J. Jordan, a Franciscan priest who began holding Mass by the cross in September 2001, described the lawsuit as 'the bizarre ramblings of angry minds.'
One of the Atheists involved in the lawsuit appeared on Fox News awhile back. The response was predictable. Here are some of the replies received on the Fox Facebook page after his appearance:
One of the Atheists involved in the lawsuit appeared on Fox News awhile back. The response was predictable. Here are some of the replies received on the Fox Facebook page after his appearance:
Nail them to that cross then display it
I think we should hang the leader of that group on the cross with nails through their hands and feet, place a crown of thorns upon their head, RAM a spear through their side all after being whipped and beaten publicly! Just so they can endure what Christ did so they understand the sacrifice behind what that cross symbolizes.
(Note: The above comment got 19 "likes")
Shoot 'em. At least we know where they are going.FP: Don’t you love that Christian spirit? Just let them hold public mass on more government land and you can enjoy more of that morality across the country.
Stupid atheists. I hope God kills them all.
Any court or lawyer who takes this case should be hung!!!!!! If you look at some of the people who are atheists they are all miserable looking because they don't have any faith in anything. You all should go live in another country, you have taken enough of my rights away.
Elder of Ziyon: Should Israel's policies be dictated by fears of becoming a "pariah"?
But underneath the zig-zag chart of world opinion of Israel there is a longer trend against Israel, a trend that is relentlessly downward. We now live in a world where people who seem otherwise intelligent have no problem singling out Israel for perceived crimes that she is far less guilty of that even other Western nations under remotely similar circumstances. (One only has to look at the hysterical reaction to the admittedly problematic "BDS law" while comparing it to the criminal restrictions on freedom of speech in most European countries today, for a recent example.)
What is behind this continuous downtrend of world opinion?
What is behind this continuous downtrend of world opinion?
There is, and always will be, a large and hard core set of people who are against Israel's very existence. They hated the idea of a Jewish state before it was born, they hated Israel when it was a tiny struggling nation, they hated it when it won and they hated it when it lost. This core consists of Arabs and the radical hard-Left.
Any reasonable observer can identify that the source of this irrational, seething hate is good old-fashioned anti-semitism. There is no other explanation for the double standards and disproportionate focus on only the Jewish state.
But anti-semitism is declasse. So this hate has been redefined in terms of human rights, of Arab rights, of Israeli aggression, of fairness and justice, of a tiny oppressed underdog against a huge Zionist war machine.
FP: It’s been my argument for years that there is nothing Israel can do, short of suicide, to appease the West, the Arabs and Islamists like Turkey and Iran. If Israel refuses to accept this it is doomed.Any reasonable observer can identify that the source of this irrational, seething hate is good old-fashioned anti-semitism. There is no other explanation for the double standards and disproportionate focus on only the Jewish state.
But anti-semitism is declasse. So this hate has been redefined in terms of human rights, of Arab rights, of Israeli aggression, of fairness and justice, of a tiny oppressed underdog against a huge Zionist war machine.
Israel Matzav: TSA to use Israeli methods?
Will the Transport Safety Administration in the US drop grope or strip in favor of using Israeli profiling methods? Well, .
"There's a lot—under that Israeli model—a lot that is done that is obviously very effective," he said. However, critics have said the Israeli program is too time consuming to use consistently at U.S. airports and may involve a degree of religious and racial profiling that would draw controversy in the U.S.
FP: TSA bureaucracy and quality of personnel does not have the ability to implement the Israeli methods effectively. Even if it tries—and I doubt it will—it will not succeed much better than the current approach, which inconveniences the public no end without ensuring security."There's a lot—under that Israeli model—a lot that is done that is obviously very effective," he said. However, critics have said the Israeli program is too time consuming to use consistently at U.S. airports and may involve a degree of religious and racial profiling that would draw controversy in the U.S.
Obama says US appalled by Syria brutality
US president says Assad "unwilling to respond to the legitimate grievances of Syrian people," has proven brutality of his regime.
FP: Noooooo! Really?????? Wow, we did not know that until Obama pointed it out. Pathetic.Palestinian Authority to pay full wages after strike threat
After paying halved salaries in July, PA says it still faces financial crisis; union to meet to make decision on possible strike.
FP: They’re ready. Let’s give them a state.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Comments on Reads 7/30
Mark Steyn:A Post-American Planet (MUST READ!)
Islamist Show of Strength Shows Egypt's Liberals What They're Up Against
JOSHUAPUNDIT:
Deadly Attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula Kill at Least 6
Ely Karmon:The Flotillas to Gaza – New Actors in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Israeli latest SATMA Satire Video
FP: I normally don’t post these videos because much of them involve Israeli humor that may not translate well outside of Israel, particularly since they used to be in Hebrew. But they added English translation and in this particular episode I liked, like JOSHUAPUNDIT: “especially the joke about the $2 million that fell into the hands of the Taliban, the meme about Israel apologizing to the world for existing and the deeply ironic comment about how the Left 'really cares about people.'”
If the IMF is correct (a big if), China will be the planet’s No.1 economy by 2016. That means whoever’s elected in November next year will be the last president of the United States to preside over the world’s dominant economic power. As I point out in my rollicking new book, which will be hitting what’s left of the post-Borders bookstore business any day now, this will mark the end of two centuries of Anglophone dominance — first by London, then its greatest if prodigal son. The world’s economic superpower will not only be a Communist dictatorship with a largely peasant population and legal, political, and cultural traditions as alien to its predecessors as possible, but, even more civilizationally startling, it will be, unlike the U.S., Britain, and the Dutch and Italians before them, a country that doesn’t even use the Roman alphabet.
…
For dominant powers in decline, it starts with the money, for Washington as for London and Rome before it. But it never stops there. The horizons shrivel. Two-bit provocateurs across the map pick off remnants of the old order with ever greater ease.
America has had two roles in a so-called “globalized” world: America’s government was the guarantor of global order; America’s economy was the engine of global prosperity. Right now, both roles are up for grabs. And there are no takers for the former. Pace Nancy Pelosi, “life on this planet as we know it today” is going to change, and very fast.
FP: Emphasis mine.…
For dominant powers in decline, it starts with the money, for Washington as for London and Rome before it. But it never stops there. The horizons shrivel. Two-bit provocateurs across the map pick off remnants of the old order with ever greater ease.
America has had two roles in a so-called “globalized” world: America’s government was the guarantor of global order; America’s economy was the engine of global prosperity. Right now, both roles are up for grabs. And there are no takers for the former. Pace Nancy Pelosi, “life on this planet as we know it today” is going to change, and very fast.
Islamist Show of Strength Shows Egypt's Liberals What They're Up Against
Thousands of fresh faces poured into Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday, July 29, packing the hot concrete plaza all the way to its metal barriers, as speeches and chants echoed into nearby neighborhoods. The demonstration was more than three times the size of the crowds in recent weeks, when youth activists had maintained a sit-in. But the event — ostensibly a rally for national unity — may have thrown a wrench into the plans and dampened the pride of the young liberals who have steadfastly clung to the square demanding …
Thousands of fresh faces poured into Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday, July 29, packing the hot concrete plaza all the way to its metal barriers, as speeches and chants echoed into nearby neighborhoods. The demonstration was more than three times the size of the crowds in recent weeks, when youth activists had maintained a sit-in. But the event — ostensibly a rally for national unity — may have thrown a wrench into the plans and dampened the pride of the young liberals who have steadfastly clung to the square demanding fulfillment of their "revolutionary demands." That's because most of Friday's protesters weren't liberals.
…
Many of the young liberals were peeved; some were outraged. Dozens clustered throughout the day inside the tents they have occupied for weeks. More than a dozen non-Islamist parties were represented in the demonstration, but many nonetheless expressed a feeling of being outnumbered. "Welcome to the infidel section," shouted Rania Rifaat sarcastically to visitors. "I'm upset," she added, looking past the tents into the crowd. "We, the youth, did the revolution. We didn't say that it should be Islamic or whatever. And people felt good. They felt relaxed here. And then suddenly these Islamic liars came, and they want us to go back 300 years."
FP: Validation of all predictions for the Egyptian uprising that I and a few others who are not clueless reiterated more than once (1) the “liberal youth” have no constituency in society (2) poor upper peasant Egypt, the majority, is religious and highly manipulable by the Brotherhood and Salafist (3) society is intensely anti-semitic and this will erupt fast as the it becomes clear that the economic problems are insurmountable and only God can be allowed to rule without solving them (4) Arab strongmen rule over Arab states because without them the states would either disintegrate or impose the alternative dictatorship of Sharia. And yet, as JOSHUAPUNDIT points out: …believe it or not, the president still wants to sell Egypt millions of dollars worth of advanced US weaponry, and help them build facilities to build it in Egypt. On the other hand, given the president's hostility towards Israel, it's not so surprising at all. Western death wish.Thousands of fresh faces poured into Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday, July 29, packing the hot concrete plaza all the way to its metal barriers, as speeches and chants echoed into nearby neighborhoods. The demonstration was more than three times the size of the crowds in recent weeks, when youth activists had maintained a sit-in. But the event — ostensibly a rally for national unity — may have thrown a wrench into the plans and dampened the pride of the young liberals who have steadfastly clung to the square demanding fulfillment of their "revolutionary demands." That's because most of Friday's protesters weren't liberals.
…
Many of the young liberals were peeved; some were outraged. Dozens clustered throughout the day inside the tents they have occupied for weeks. More than a dozen non-Islamist parties were represented in the demonstration, but many nonetheless expressed a feeling of being outnumbered. "Welcome to the infidel section," shouted Rania Rifaat sarcastically to visitors. "I'm upset," she added, looking past the tents into the crowd. "We, the youth, did the revolution. We didn't say that it should be Islamic or whatever. And people felt good. They felt relaxed here. And then suddenly these Islamic liars came, and they want us to go back 300 years."
JOSHUAPUNDIT:
Elder of Ziyon writes about his Twitter exchange with Jeffrey Goldberg … I was bothered by Goldberg's use of the term "pariah." It seems to be a self-fulfilling judgment. Israel is doing something I disagree with therefore it will become a pariah. What's going on?Normally if we were asked what we thought of throwing a bomb into a crowd or building a house we would choose the latter as being something productive if not admirable. But if you change the terms and say the house is being built in Shiloh then some people empathize with or rationalize the bomb attack and condemn the house building. Worse, many of those who condemn the house building in Shiloh not only condemn in on its own terms but say that it threatens Israel's legitimacy. On the other side the terrorism is treated as a reaction to injustice.
FP: Just like the Norwegian ambassador said: terror in Norway is not acceptable, but in Israel it is. And given the upside down, backwards nature of the PostWest one must conclude that Israel cannot do anything right as long as it exists, which is pure anti-semitism, now internalized and replicated by the US liberal Jews, particularly those in the media e.g. Goldberg and Friedman. This has been the classic Jewish reaction to anti-semitism. It has not saved 6 millions in the 30’s and it won’t now.Deadly Attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula Kill at Least 6
Egyptian state media say clashes in the Sinai region have killed at least six people and wounded 21 more. The state-run MENA news agency reported Saturday that the dead include a policeman and a military officer.
The unrest began Friday when at least 100 armed men rode into the Sinai town of el-Arish and tried to storm a police station. Authorities have not identified the attackers but witnesses say some waved flags with Islamic slogans as they fired shots into the air. A state media report said security forces have arrested at least four suspects.
On Saturday, gunmen attacked a pipeline once used to supply gas to Israel - the fifth pipeline assault in the Sinai region since February. A state media report says masked men launched rocket-propelled grenades at the al-Shulaq natural gas terminal. The report says the pipe was hit but the line contained no gas and had not been operating for some time.
In a separate development, an Egyptian appeals court said the August 3rd trial of former President Hosni Mubarak will be held at the Cairo Police Academy, instead of the city's Convention Center.
FP: The country is disintegrating and the masses focus on killing an octogenar with terminal cancer, anti-semitism and Sharia. Highly promising. Let’s engage them, pump billions and sell them advanced weaponry.The unrest began Friday when at least 100 armed men rode into the Sinai town of el-Arish and tried to storm a police station. Authorities have not identified the attackers but witnesses say some waved flags with Islamic slogans as they fired shots into the air. A state media report said security forces have arrested at least four suspects.
On Saturday, gunmen attacked a pipeline once used to supply gas to Israel - the fifth pipeline assault in the Sinai region since February. A state media report says masked men launched rocket-propelled grenades at the al-Shulaq natural gas terminal. The report says the pipe was hit but the line contained no gas and had not been operating for some time.
In a separate development, an Egyptian appeals court said the August 3rd trial of former President Hosni Mubarak will be held at the Cairo Police Academy, instead of the city's Convention Center.
Ely Karmon:The Flotillas to Gaza – New Actors in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
In my presentations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I often explain that this is not merely a national or ethnic conflict between two beleaguered peoples on this tiny historical territory so often tainted with blood, but one in which from its inception a multitude of international actors with opposed strategic, political and economic motivations were deeply involved, a very complex international geopolitical issue. This is probably one of the main reasons this conflict has not been solved yet.
…
It seems nevertheless that the new actors, the radical European and international NGOs and the Turkish present government will continue to intervene in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict according to their political interests, without taking in consideration the real interests of the local peoples and the peace prospects.
The NGOs’ promise to organize new flotillas and “operations” and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan plans to visit Gaza, probably to try ‘breaking” the Israeli embargo.
What’s new in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? More disturbing actors and no prospects of peace.
FP: The fundamental cause for the persistence of the conflict.…
It seems nevertheless that the new actors, the radical European and international NGOs and the Turkish present government will continue to intervene in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict according to their political interests, without taking in consideration the real interests of the local peoples and the peace prospects.
The NGOs’ promise to organize new flotillas and “operations” and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan plans to visit Gaza, probably to try ‘breaking” the Israeli embargo.
What’s new in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? More disturbing actors and no prospects of peace.
Israeli latest SATMA Satire Video
FP: I normally don’t post these videos because much of them involve Israeli humor that may not translate well outside of Israel, particularly since they used to be in Hebrew. But they added English translation and in this particular episode I liked, like JOSHUAPUNDIT: “especially the joke about the $2 million that fell into the hands of the Taliban, the meme about Israel apologizing to the world for existing and the deeply ironic comment about how the Left 'really cares about people.'”
Daphne Anson on Norwegian anti-semitism
The Sad Song Of Norway: Its Antisemitic Refrain
Oslo, 2006. Miriam Shomrat, Israel's Ambassador to Norway, was incensed. And with good reason.
In September that year, a month after Oslo's Jewish cemetery was vandalised, and just before Rosh Hashanah, three individuals in a passing car (later identified as two Islamists and an accomplice called Kristiansen), fired a volley of 13 shots at the synagogue. The building's facade was damaged, although luckily no one was hurt.
The attack came shortly after the government of Jens Stoltenberg (who of course has been very much in the public eye this past week, and has visited a mosque to show his solidarity with his country's Muslims) ruled that security cameras monitoring the approaches to the synagogue in Oslo must be removed.
Likening the attack on the synagogue to terrorism (a court verdict disagreed, by the way, finding merely that "serious vandalism" had occurred), Miriam Shomrat observed, before the perpetrators (who had, it would transpire, planned to bomb the Israeli and American embassies and to kidnap and decapitate her) were discovered:
"We don't know who's doing this, whether it's Norwegians or foreigners. But the fact that there's been an increase [in attacks] and that it's happening in Oslo must be taken very seriously by the political community."
Diplomatic or not, in a television interview she made some pointed remarks about the fact that not a single message of sympathy had been forthcoming from the country's Royal Family, and blamed a former prime minister, Kåre Willoch (wrongly identified in the following video as "Kurk Witnak") for contributing to the climate of antisemitism in Norway, and also criticised bestselling author Jostein Gaarder.
Willoch, a Conservative, and a fierce critic of Israeli policy towads the Palestinian Arabs, had in May 2006 invited Hamas official Atef Adwan to a private lucheon; Willoch would subsequently be accused of antisemitism by the Wall Street Journal for observing of President Obama's appointment of Rahm Emanuel: "It does not look too promising, he has chosen a chief of staff who is Jewish," a remark also condemned by Alan Dershowitz.
Gaarder, during Israel's operations against Hizbollah in southern Lebanon, had in an op-ed in the newspaper Aftenposten entitled "God's Chosen People" described Judaism as "an archaic national and warlike religion" and noted that Christianity promotes "compassion and forgiveness". He claimed that many Israelis rejoiced at the deaths of Lebanese children, just as the biblical Israelites celebrated the plagues a wrathful Deity inflicted upon Egypt.
"We laugh at this people's whims, and cry over its misdeeds. To act as God's chosen people is not only foolish and arrogant, it is a crime against humanity. We call it racism.... We laugh with embarrassment at those who still believe that the god of the flora, fauna and galaxies has chosen one particular people as his favorite, and given them amusing stone tablets, burning bushes and a license to kill...
.
We no longer recognize the State of Israel. We could not recognize the apartheid regime of South Africa, nor did we recognize the Afghani Taliban regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or the Serbs’ ethnic cleansing. We need to get used to the idea: The State of Israel, in its current form, is history.
The State of Israel has raped the recognition of the world and shall have no peace until it lays down its arms."
FP: Ah, the good old Christianity instinct reasserting itself. If there were no Joos, the Norwegians would have to invent them to explain evil.
Oslo, 2006. Miriam Shomrat, Israel's Ambassador to Norway, was incensed. And with good reason.
In September that year, a month after Oslo's Jewish cemetery was vandalised, and just before Rosh Hashanah, three individuals in a passing car (later identified as two Islamists and an accomplice called Kristiansen), fired a volley of 13 shots at the synagogue. The building's facade was damaged, although luckily no one was hurt.
The attack came shortly after the government of Jens Stoltenberg (who of course has been very much in the public eye this past week, and has visited a mosque to show his solidarity with his country's Muslims) ruled that security cameras monitoring the approaches to the synagogue in Oslo must be removed.
Likening the attack on the synagogue to terrorism (a court verdict disagreed, by the way, finding merely that "serious vandalism" had occurred), Miriam Shomrat observed, before the perpetrators (who had, it would transpire, planned to bomb the Israeli and American embassies and to kidnap and decapitate her) were discovered:
"We don't know who's doing this, whether it's Norwegians or foreigners. But the fact that there's been an increase [in attacks] and that it's happening in Oslo must be taken very seriously by the political community."
Diplomatic or not, in a television interview she made some pointed remarks about the fact that not a single message of sympathy had been forthcoming from the country's Royal Family, and blamed a former prime minister, Kåre Willoch (wrongly identified in the following video as "Kurk Witnak") for contributing to the climate of antisemitism in Norway, and also criticised bestselling author Jostein Gaarder.
Willoch, a Conservative, and a fierce critic of Israeli policy towads the Palestinian Arabs, had in May 2006 invited Hamas official Atef Adwan to a private lucheon; Willoch would subsequently be accused of antisemitism by the Wall Street Journal for observing of President Obama's appointment of Rahm Emanuel: "It does not look too promising, he has chosen a chief of staff who is Jewish," a remark also condemned by Alan Dershowitz.
Gaarder, during Israel's operations against Hizbollah in southern Lebanon, had in an op-ed in the newspaper Aftenposten entitled "God's Chosen People" described Judaism as "an archaic national and warlike religion" and noted that Christianity promotes "compassion and forgiveness". He claimed that many Israelis rejoiced at the deaths of Lebanese children, just as the biblical Israelites celebrated the plagues a wrathful Deity inflicted upon Egypt.
"We laugh at this people's whims, and cry over its misdeeds. To act as God's chosen people is not only foolish and arrogant, it is a crime against humanity. We call it racism.... We laugh with embarrassment at those who still believe that the god of the flora, fauna and galaxies has chosen one particular people as his favorite, and given them amusing stone tablets, burning bushes and a license to kill...
.
We no longer recognize the State of Israel. We could not recognize the apartheid regime of South Africa, nor did we recognize the Afghani Taliban regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or the Serbs’ ethnic cleansing. We need to get used to the idea: The State of Israel, in its current form, is history.
The State of Israel has raped the recognition of the world and shall have no peace until it lays down its arms."
FP: Ah, the good old Christianity instinct reasserting itself. If there were no Joos, the Norwegians would have to invent them to explain evil.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Comments on Reads 7/29 II
Via Martin Kramer:
Caroline Glick: Breivik and totalitarian democrats
Mudar Zahran: Is It Time Israel Ends Oslo?
House Committee passes bill requiring your ISP to spy on every click and keystroke you make online and retain for 12 months
IbnLarry: Now a group of Islamists have arrived with a train of niqab wearing women chanting Islamiyya at the seculars #Tahrir
LeilaFadel: Chants for an Islamic state resounding through Cairo's #Tahrir Square. Many liberals and secularists withdrew from the protests today.
ner_iconoclast: In Tahrir Square, The Salafists Strut Their Stuff: Is this Egypt’s “Iran Moment”
hadeelalsh: Little boy injured in #Sinai as salafi protesters fire RPGs and other weapons into air during #july29 protests #egypt
NadiaE: An #Egypt ruled by #Tahrir occupants of today or past 2 weeks is an Egypt I'd leave immediately. God save us.
Abuaardvark: Most popular chants at Tahrir: demanding sharia, free Omar Abd al Rahman, hang Mubarak, Muslim-Christian unity, reject US aid, anti-Israel.
Abuaardvark: Huge chant goes up. The people want to implement sharia.
FP: Arab democracy. Let’s engage the Muslim Brotherhood and pump some more billions into Egypt. The West refuses to learn and gets what it deserves. LeilaFadel: Chants for an Islamic state resounding through Cairo's #Tahrir Square. Many liberals and secularists withdrew from the protests today.
ner_iconoclast: In Tahrir Square, The Salafists Strut Their Stuff: Is this Egypt’s “Iran Moment”
hadeelalsh: Little boy injured in #Sinai as salafi protesters fire RPGs and other weapons into air during #july29 protests #egypt
NadiaE: An #Egypt ruled by #Tahrir occupants of today or past 2 weeks is an Egypt I'd leave immediately. God save us.
Abuaardvark: Most popular chants at Tahrir: demanding sharia, free Omar Abd al Rahman, hang Mubarak, Muslim-Christian unity, reject US aid, anti-Israel.
Abuaardvark: Huge chant goes up. The people want to implement sharia.
Caroline Glick: Breivik and totalitarian democrats
Before considering the veracity of Sageman's claim, it is worth noting that no similar allegations were leveled by the media or their favored terror experts against Gore in the wake of Lee's hostage taking last year, or in the aftermath of Kaczynski's arrest in 1996. Moreover, Noam Chomsky, Michael Scheuer, Stephen Walt and John Mearshimer, whose writings were endorsed by Osama Bin Laden, have not been accused of responsibility for al Qaeda terrorism.
That is, leftist writers whose works have been admired by terrorists have not been held accountable for the acts of terrorism conducted by their readers. Nor should they have been.
…
Liberal democracies are always works in progress. Their citizens do not expect for a day to come when the debaters fall silent because everyone agrees with one another as all are convinced of the rightness of one side. This is because liberal democracies are not founded on messianic aspirations to create a perfect society.
In contrast, totalitarian democracies - and totalitarian democrats -- do have a messianic temperament and a utopian mission to create a perfect society. And so its members do have hopes of ending debate and argument once and for all.
As Talmon explained in his 1952 classic, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, the totalitarian democratic model was envisioned by Jean Jacques Rousseau the philosophical godfather of the French Revolution. Rousseau believed that a group of anointed leaders could push a society towards perfection by essentially coercing the people to accept their view of right and wrong. Talmon drew a direct line between Rousseau and the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century - Nazism, fascism and communism.
Today, those who seek to silence conservative thinkers by making a criminal connection between our writings and the acts of a terrorist are doing so in pursuit of patently illiberal ends to say the least. If they can convince the public that our ideas cause the mass murder of children, then our voices will be silenced.
…
There is only one point at which political philosophy merges into terrorism. That point is when political thinkers call on their followers to carry out acts of terrorism in the name of their political philosophy and they make this call with the reasonable expectation that their followers will fulfill their wishes. Political thinkers who fit this description include the likes of Muslim Brotherhood "spiritual" leader Yousef Qaradawi, Osama Bin Laden, Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin, al Qaeda in Yemen leader Anwar Awlaki and other jihadist leaders.
FP: Utopians are inherently non-democratic. Totalitarian democrats do mostly by indoctrination what fascists do mostly by force. That is, leftist writers whose works have been admired by terrorists have not been held accountable for the acts of terrorism conducted by their readers. Nor should they have been.
…
Liberal democracies are always works in progress. Their citizens do not expect for a day to come when the debaters fall silent because everyone agrees with one another as all are convinced of the rightness of one side. This is because liberal democracies are not founded on messianic aspirations to create a perfect society.
In contrast, totalitarian democracies - and totalitarian democrats -- do have a messianic temperament and a utopian mission to create a perfect society. And so its members do have hopes of ending debate and argument once and for all.
As Talmon explained in his 1952 classic, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, the totalitarian democratic model was envisioned by Jean Jacques Rousseau the philosophical godfather of the French Revolution. Rousseau believed that a group of anointed leaders could push a society towards perfection by essentially coercing the people to accept their view of right and wrong. Talmon drew a direct line between Rousseau and the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century - Nazism, fascism and communism.
Today, those who seek to silence conservative thinkers by making a criminal connection between our writings and the acts of a terrorist are doing so in pursuit of patently illiberal ends to say the least. If they can convince the public that our ideas cause the mass murder of children, then our voices will be silenced.
…
There is only one point at which political philosophy merges into terrorism. That point is when political thinkers call on their followers to carry out acts of terrorism in the name of their political philosophy and they make this call with the reasonable expectation that their followers will fulfill their wishes. Political thinkers who fit this description include the likes of Muslim Brotherhood "spiritual" leader Yousef Qaradawi, Osama Bin Laden, Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin, al Qaeda in Yemen leader Anwar Awlaki and other jihadist leaders.
Mudar Zahran: Is It Time Israel Ends Oslo?
For the past several decades, the PLO leadership seem to have been trying to grab whatever it could get in negotiations, using the "ceiling of the last negotiation as the floor of the next," and pocketing whatever concessions it could acquire while waiting for more. This approach is consistent with the Palestinian "Phased Plan" laid out by Arafat in 1974, which "adopted the political solution of establishing a National Authority over any territory from which the occupation withdraws" -- leading it to be referred to as the "Piece Plan" -- and which, as Arafat reaffirmed on September 1, 1993, still is incorporated into the Oslo Accords. This approach is also consistent with the PLO's charter, never rescinded, which calls for the annihilation of the "Zionist Entity."
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Abbas doubtless realizes all of this. He probably realizes that Israel would never accept a UN vote for Palestinian statehood, nor would Israel's close allies necessarily be able to continue supporting the Palestinian Authority if such a vote took place. Abbas also knows that Hamas is his sworn enemy, with ambitions of an Islamic Palestine "from the river to the sea," as is stated in the second article of the Hamas charter,and at the same time, with no tolerance for the PLO, which Hamas forced out of the Gaza strip within weeks of taking it over. Members of the PLO in Gaza were from the top floors of buildings. So why is Abbas doing this?
What Hamas has done, and what the Palestinian Authority is pursuing today, are not random acts of irresponsibility, but -- among other hoped-for outcomes, such as being able more easily to tangle Israel up diplomatically and economically in international courts and the like – are rather carefully measured political bullying that results in prosperity to the leadership.
Khattab Abu Sittah, a former officer in Hamas's Ministry of Interior, who then left Hamas, and is now being persecuted by it, told this author that when Hamas took over Gaza, Hamas commanders became more able to control the needy Gazans, who spent most of their time trying to provide the basics for their families, while Hamas took control of the economic life of the Gaza strip. Hamas became the main importer of food through its tunnels with Egypt; got involved in smuggling not only household products but also whole cars -- in addition to weaponry -- and eventually Hamas leaders became rich landlords who had close-to-no suffering. Those men who were able to ease the grip on the Gazans a little for their own benefit are the ones opening businesses there today,, and even terrorizing anyone who tries to compete with them. Abu Sittah said: "I was with them at the beginning because I thought they were better than the nasty (Palestinian) Authority; they have proven to be worse and they are enjoying the current situation and want it to continue."
The model described by Abu Sittah was confirmed earlier in a report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, entitled: "Gaza's Economy: How Hamas Stays in Power," which asserts that Hamas has overseen the formation of a wealthy Palestinian class -- associated with Hamas.
FP: The only thing wrong with Zahran’s title is the question mark. Only an ignorant or an idiot could not see that the Palestinian played a strategic game of blackmailer paradox, supported by the West, while Israel had no strategy, only wishful thinking. There is no such thing as Oslo anymore. Israel and the West hang on to it because they refuse to accept Palestinian reality and its implications. Those who deny of reality do not usually survive.…
Abbas doubtless realizes all of this. He probably realizes that Israel would never accept a UN vote for Palestinian statehood, nor would Israel's close allies necessarily be able to continue supporting the Palestinian Authority if such a vote took place. Abbas also knows that Hamas is his sworn enemy, with ambitions of an Islamic Palestine "from the river to the sea," as is stated in the second article of the Hamas charter,and at the same time, with no tolerance for the PLO, which Hamas forced out of the Gaza strip within weeks of taking it over. Members of the PLO in Gaza were from the top floors of buildings. So why is Abbas doing this?
What Hamas has done, and what the Palestinian Authority is pursuing today, are not random acts of irresponsibility, but -- among other hoped-for outcomes, such as being able more easily to tangle Israel up diplomatically and economically in international courts and the like – are rather carefully measured political bullying that results in prosperity to the leadership.
Khattab Abu Sittah, a former officer in Hamas's Ministry of Interior, who then left Hamas, and is now being persecuted by it, told this author that when Hamas took over Gaza, Hamas commanders became more able to control the needy Gazans, who spent most of their time trying to provide the basics for their families, while Hamas took control of the economic life of the Gaza strip. Hamas became the main importer of food through its tunnels with Egypt; got involved in smuggling not only household products but also whole cars -- in addition to weaponry -- and eventually Hamas leaders became rich landlords who had close-to-no suffering. Those men who were able to ease the grip on the Gazans a little for their own benefit are the ones opening businesses there today,, and even terrorizing anyone who tries to compete with them. Abu Sittah said: "I was with them at the beginning because I thought they were better than the nasty (Palestinian) Authority; they have proven to be worse and they are enjoying the current situation and want it to continue."
The model described by Abu Sittah was confirmed earlier in a report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, entitled: "Gaza's Economy: How Hamas Stays in Power," which asserts that Hamas has overseen the formation of a wealthy Palestinian class -- associated with Hamas.
House Committee passes bill requiring your ISP to spy on every click and keystroke you make online and retain for 12 months
Instead of working on the debt ceiling... Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee voted 19-10 for H.R. 1981, a data-retention bill that will require your ISP to spy on everything you do online and save records of it for 12 months. California Rep Zoe Lofgren, one of the Democrats who opposed the bill, called it a 'data bank of every digital act by every American' that would 'let us find out where every single American visited Web sites.'
FP: Another sign of American decline at home.
'Israel will mull apologizing for Marmara raid problems'
Alan M. Dershowitz: Is Terrorism Against Israel Really More Justified Than Terrorism Against Norway?
Libyan Rebel Commander Assassinated
Following meetings in Washington with Clinton, Panetta, defense minister says J'lem must "come to an understanding with Turkey" in order to prevent publication of UN report that is "problematic for Israel."
Barak Caves, Says Israel Should Apologize to TurkeyAfter US pressure, Defense Minister Ehud Barak says Israel must consider apologizing to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara.
FP: Since that is not true—the UN report is not problematic for Israel (and if it is, it’s an abomination)—it should be clear to everybody that both the US and Israel are now operating based on wishful thinking and delusions against their own interests: the US deludes itself about Turkey, Israel about Turkey and the US. This is a lethal lost cause. Don’t expect others to respect you if you don’t respect yourself. (BTW, a right government with a left defense minister who represents nobody but himself is not a well-functioning government).Alan M. Dershowitz: Is Terrorism Against Israel Really More Justified Than Terrorism Against Norway?
In a recent interview, Norway's Ambassador to Israel has suggested that Hamas terrorism against Israel is more justified than the recent terrorist attack against Norway. His reasoning is that, "We Norwegians consider the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel." In other words terrorism against Israeli citizens is the fault of Israel. The terrorism against Norway, on the other hand, was based on "an ideology that said that Norway, particularly the Labor Party, is foregoing Norwegian culture." It is hard to imagine that he would make such a provocative statement without express approval from the Norwegian government.
I can't remember many other examples of so much nonsense compressed in such short an interview. First of all, terrorism against Israel began well before there was any "occupation". The first major terrorist attack against Jews who had long lived in Jerusalem and Hebron began in 1929, when the leader of the Palestinian people, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, ordered a religiously-motivated terrorist attack that killed hundreds of religious Jews—many old, some quite young. Terrorism against Jews continued through the 1930s. Once Israel was established as a state, but well before it captured the West Bank, terrorism became the primary means of attacking Israel across the Jordanian, Egyptian and Lebanese borders. If the occupation is the cause of the terror against Israel, what was the cause of all the terror that preceded any occupation?
I was not surprised to hear such ahistorical bigotry from a Norwegian Ambassador. Norway is the most anti-Semitic and anti-Israel country in Europe today. I know, because I experienced both personally during a recent visit and tour of universities. No university would invite me to lecture, unless I promised not to discuss Israel. Norway forbids Jewish ritual slaughter, but not Islamic ritual slaughter. Its political and academic leaders openly make statements that cross the line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism, such as when Norway's Foreign Minister condemned Barak Obama for appointing a Jew as his Chief of Staff. No other European leader would make such a statement and get away with it. In Norway, this bigoted statement was praised, as were similar statements made by a leading academic.
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The world must unite in condemning and punishing all terrorist attacks against innocent civilians, regardless of the motive or purported cause of the terrorism. Norway, as a nation, has failed to do this. It wants us all to condemn the terrorist attack on its civilians, and we should all do that, but it refuses to live by a single standard.
Nothing good ever comes from terrorism, so don't expect the Norwegians to learn any lessons from its own victimization. As the Ambassador made clear in his benighted interview, "those of us who believe [the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel] will not change their minds because of the attack in Oslo." In other words, they will persist in their bigoted view that Israel is the cause of the terrorism directed at it, and that if only Israel were to end the occupation (as it offered to do in 2000-2001 and again in 2007), the terrorism will end. Even Hamas, which Norway supports in many ways, has made clear that it will not end its terrorism as long as Israel continues to exist. Hamas believes that Israel's very existence is the cause of the terrorism against it. That sounds a lot like the ranting of the man who engaged in the act of terrorism against Norway.
The time is long overdue for Norwegians to do some deep soul searching about their sordid history of complicity with all forms of bigotry ranging from the anti-Semitic Nazis to the anti-Semitic Hamas. There seems to be a common thread.
FP: Couldn’t have happened to nicer people.I can't remember many other examples of so much nonsense compressed in such short an interview. First of all, terrorism against Israel began well before there was any "occupation". The first major terrorist attack against Jews who had long lived in Jerusalem and Hebron began in 1929, when the leader of the Palestinian people, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, ordered a religiously-motivated terrorist attack that killed hundreds of religious Jews—many old, some quite young. Terrorism against Jews continued through the 1930s. Once Israel was established as a state, but well before it captured the West Bank, terrorism became the primary means of attacking Israel across the Jordanian, Egyptian and Lebanese borders. If the occupation is the cause of the terror against Israel, what was the cause of all the terror that preceded any occupation?
I was not surprised to hear such ahistorical bigotry from a Norwegian Ambassador. Norway is the most anti-Semitic and anti-Israel country in Europe today. I know, because I experienced both personally during a recent visit and tour of universities. No university would invite me to lecture, unless I promised not to discuss Israel. Norway forbids Jewish ritual slaughter, but not Islamic ritual slaughter. Its political and academic leaders openly make statements that cross the line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism, such as when Norway's Foreign Minister condemned Barak Obama for appointing a Jew as his Chief of Staff. No other European leader would make such a statement and get away with it. In Norway, this bigoted statement was praised, as were similar statements made by a leading academic.
…
The world must unite in condemning and punishing all terrorist attacks against innocent civilians, regardless of the motive or purported cause of the terrorism. Norway, as a nation, has failed to do this. It wants us all to condemn the terrorist attack on its civilians, and we should all do that, but it refuses to live by a single standard.
Nothing good ever comes from terrorism, so don't expect the Norwegians to learn any lessons from its own victimization. As the Ambassador made clear in his benighted interview, "those of us who believe [the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel] will not change their minds because of the attack in Oslo." In other words, they will persist in their bigoted view that Israel is the cause of the terrorism directed at it, and that if only Israel were to end the occupation (as it offered to do in 2000-2001 and again in 2007), the terrorism will end. Even Hamas, which Norway supports in many ways, has made clear that it will not end its terrorism as long as Israel continues to exist. Hamas believes that Israel's very existence is the cause of the terrorism against it. That sounds a lot like the ranting of the man who engaged in the act of terrorism against Norway.
The time is long overdue for Norwegians to do some deep soul searching about their sordid history of complicity with all forms of bigotry ranging from the anti-Semitic Nazis to the anti-Semitic Hamas. There seems to be a common thread.
Libyan Rebel Commander Assassinated
The head of Libya's rebel forces was shot and killed Thursday just before being brought for questioning by rebel authorities, the head if the rebel political leadership said in a tersely worded statement, the Associated Press reports.
Adding to the intrigue, rebel sources had revealed they had already detained the commander, Abdul-Fatah Younis, on suspicion his family might still have ties to the regime of strongman Muamarr Qaddafi, leading some to believe he may have been assassinated by his own side.
If so, Younis' murder would represent a troubling split within the rebel movement at a time when their forces have failed to make battlefield gains despite nearly four months of NATO airstrikes on Qaddafi forces.
It could also shake the confidence of the NATO powers and several dozen other nations that have recognized the rebel council as Libya's legitimate leaders.
FP: More evidence that the West should never get sucked into conflicts in the Middle East except for preventive/defensive purposes directly related to its interests and not in almost complete ignorance of the circumstances.
Adding to the intrigue, rebel sources had revealed they had already detained the commander, Abdul-Fatah Younis, on suspicion his family might still have ties to the regime of strongman Muamarr Qaddafi, leading some to believe he may have been assassinated by his own side.
If so, Younis' murder would represent a troubling split within the rebel movement at a time when their forces have failed to make battlefield gains despite nearly four months of NATO airstrikes on Qaddafi forces.
It could also shake the confidence of the NATO powers and several dozen other nations that have recognized the rebel council as Libya's legitimate leaders.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Comments on Reads 7/28 III
Israel considers 'watered-down' apology to Turkey
Zalman Shoval: The US continues to blunder
IAEA pushing for conference on nuclear-free Middle East
David Pryce-Jones: The Wagner Taboo
Elliott Abrams: Aid Grants Reveal Saudi Priorities
Defense Minister Ehud Barak is in Washington and New York for official three-day visit • Stresses strategic importance of Israel-Turkey relations • "Forum of Eight" senior ministers compromises on apology to Ankara.
FP: What did I tell you? Another strategic blunder.Zalman Shoval: The US continues to blunder
In two separate articles published last week in The Washington Post, U.S. President Barack Obama was subjected to some rare criticism from the newspaper. The first article chastised Obama for his inconsistency regarding Syria while the second condemned his indecisiveness on Iran, which continues to gallop apace in its acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Much has been written over the years about the United States' actions or oversights in the Middle East, and historians and pundits will continue to analyze the issues. At this stage, however, two conclusions are clear: The decline of U.S. global power has rendered many of its efforts in the region ineffective; if current trends don't change, what remains of the U.S.'s Middle Eastern influence will erode, damaging not only its own interests but also those of its long-standing allies in the Arab and Muslim world.
FP: Stating the obvious.Much has been written over the years about the United States' actions or oversights in the Middle East, and historians and pundits will continue to analyze the issues. At this stage, however, two conclusions are clear: The decline of U.S. global power has rendered many of its efforts in the region ineffective; if current trends don't change, what remains of the U.S.'s Middle Eastern influence will erode, damaging not only its own interests but also those of its long-standing allies in the Arab and Muslim world.
IAEA pushing for conference on nuclear-free Middle East
Yukiya Amano, director general of the IAEA, says he hopes there will be a forum on the matter this year • Israel: Genuine arms control arrangements in the Middle East can only result from comprehensive and durable peace in the region.
FP: Syria, Iran violate and North Korea violate the rules and the UN is pushing for a nuclear-free Middle East to disarm Israel just about when the Islamists are on the verge of gaining power everywhere. Why am I not surprised? The world does as is its wont.David Pryce-Jones: The Wagner Taboo
There’s been a general but unwritten agreement in Israel that Wagner was such a rabid and stereotypical anti-Semite that his music should not be played there … Self-respect came into it.
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Wagner’s music is played everywhere, of course, and so it should be — except in Israel or by Israeli orchestras. More than a taboo, the Wagner boycott in that country is by consent a standing reproach to the fantasies about Jews common to him and to Hitler. That’s not a taboo at all, but a way of saying that some things are so evil that they can’t be normalized.
FP: In the context of Israel’s strategy of appeasing an increasingly anti-semitic West and even a humiliating Turkey, it’s not hard to understand the breaking of this taboo: loss of self-respect.…
Wagner’s music is played everywhere, of course, and so it should be — except in Israel or by Israeli orchestras. More than a taboo, the Wagner boycott in that country is by consent a standing reproach to the fantasies about Jews common to him and to Hitler. That’s not a taboo at all, but a way of saying that some things are so evil that they can’t be normalized.
Elliott Abrams: Aid Grants Reveal Saudi Priorities
In June, Saudi Arabia granted Jordan $400 million in aid. This week, the Saudis added a billion dollars more, and this $1.4 billion is cash—not loans, not investments, but budget support. This amount almost entirely covers Jordan’s projected budget deficit for 2011 of $1.5 billion, and of course the country will receive additional aid from other governments.
By contrast, the Saudis have given $30 million to the Palestinian Authority in 2011. And partly as a result, the PA is broke, has a billion dollars in debt, and has now put its public employees on half salary.
These figures provide a far better insight into Saudi priorities than speeches or UN votes.
FP: Yes, but: (1) the Saudis have conditioned more aid on unity with Hamas (2) aid to Palestinians come mainly from the West anyway—it is the most gullible (3) even with the aid Jordan still has a good chance to fall to Islamists.
By contrast, the Saudis have given $30 million to the Palestinian Authority in 2011. And partly as a result, the PA is broke, has a billion dollars in debt, and has now put its public employees on half salary.
These figures provide a far better insight into Saudi priorities than speeches or UN votes.
Comments on Reads 7/28 II
Before a Diplomatic Showdown, a Budget Crisis Saps Palestinians’ Confidence
Jonathan S. Tobin: Liberal Civility Watch: Tea Party Likened to Hezbollah
MEMRI: Nabil Shaath: We'll Never Accept 'Two-States for Two Peoples' Solution (h/t LittleGreenFootballs, Elder of Ziyon)
FP: Peace partners. If only Israel did not refuse to negotiate, there would be peace. Let’s give them a state.
Vicious Babushka: Prison Resort Where Breivik Will Vacation (h/t LittleGreenFootballs)
M K Bhadrakumar: Israel inherits the Arab Spring
More than 150,000 state employees, whose salaries support a million people, had their wages cut in half this month. Palestinian banks have lent the government more than $1 billion and do not want to lend more. Some ministries have temporarily lost electricity because they have not paid their bills. Last week, the government ordered a reduction in the price of bread, leading to bakery strikes. Garbage is piling up.
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Without enough money to pay salaries, a big concern is the loyalty of the Palestinian security forces, which have brought law and order and created conditions for stability and economic growth in the past three years.
“They need their pay, and they need to know their work is leading to the building of a state,” a top Israeli general said, speaking under military rules of anonymity. “Both of those are at risk.”
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In the past year, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations have issued reports saying that the Palestinian Authority under Mr. Fayyad was fully prepared for statehood because of institution building and fiscal discipline.
That view is coming under scrutiny. Last month, in the journal Foreign Policy, Nathan J. Brown of George Washington University wrote: “Fayyad’s main achievement has not been to build the structures of a Palestinian state, but to stave off the collapse of those structures that did exist. An equally important achievement was his ability to persuade Western observers that he was doing much more. In the process, however, he raised expectations far beyond his ability to deliver.”
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Now the Palestinians feel squeezed between both sides. “We are at a serious impasse,” said Mohammad Shtayyeh, the president of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction. “We are stuck over reconciliation with Hamas, negotiations with Israel and relations with Washington. All are interrelated, and in all cases we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. If we are not united, we are called no good; and if we are united, we are threatened.”
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Some argue that the talk of a solvent state was illusory.
A top Israeli military official complained that the Palestinian Authority had chosen politics over development in recent decisions, notably in its handling of West Bank projects to be financed by Turkey, France and Japan. All have failed to materialize, he said, because of disagreements between the Authority and Israel over who would control the land on which the projects would rise.
The Palestinians reply that the main problem is Israel, which controls 60 percent of the West Bank.
FP: You can count on the New York Times to blame Israel for what is essentially a fundamental Palestinian problem: they have never been and are not a nation—that they are one is a lie bought by a world hostile to Israel--and about the only thing that unites them is their hatred of Jews and their aspiration to destroy Israel. For 6+ decades this has not been sufficient for building a nation and the chickens are now coming home to roost. They (and the conflict) would not have survived without constant jizziya from the West (nobody else is gullible enough to waste money on them) and Israel’s strategic blunders; they produce nothing and, as the NYT states, 25% of the West Bank population of 4 million is on the public (aid) trough, mostly security personnel. The waning Western powers are about to declare another failed state and blame the Jews for its failure. What else is new?…
Without enough money to pay salaries, a big concern is the loyalty of the Palestinian security forces, which have brought law and order and created conditions for stability and economic growth in the past three years.
“They need their pay, and they need to know their work is leading to the building of a state,” a top Israeli general said, speaking under military rules of anonymity. “Both of those are at risk.”
…
In the past year, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations have issued reports saying that the Palestinian Authority under Mr. Fayyad was fully prepared for statehood because of institution building and fiscal discipline.
That view is coming under scrutiny. Last month, in the journal Foreign Policy, Nathan J. Brown of George Washington University wrote: “Fayyad’s main achievement has not been to build the structures of a Palestinian state, but to stave off the collapse of those structures that did exist. An equally important achievement was his ability to persuade Western observers that he was doing much more. In the process, however, he raised expectations far beyond his ability to deliver.”
…
Now the Palestinians feel squeezed between both sides. “We are at a serious impasse,” said Mohammad Shtayyeh, the president of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction. “We are stuck over reconciliation with Hamas, negotiations with Israel and relations with Washington. All are interrelated, and in all cases we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. If we are not united, we are called no good; and if we are united, we are threatened.”
…
Some argue that the talk of a solvent state was illusory.
A top Israeli military official complained that the Palestinian Authority had chosen politics over development in recent decisions, notably in its handling of West Bank projects to be financed by Turkey, France and Japan. All have failed to materialize, he said, because of disagreements between the Authority and Israel over who would control the land on which the projects would rise.
The Palestinians reply that the main problem is Israel, which controls 60 percent of the West Bank.
Jonathan S. Tobin: Liberal Civility Watch: Tea Party Likened to Hezbollah
The Tea Party has taken a number of hits this week. Some of those associated with this movement have assumed an absolutist position on the debt ceiling debate that could make it difficult if not impossible to resolve the crisis on terms even most Republicans could accept. But while it is one thing to call them obstructionist, has the tone of public discourse in this country sunk so low that it is acceptable to call them terrorists?
Apparently the New York Times and its Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman think so. In his column today, Friedman sticks up for President Obama's position on raising taxes more than Senate Democrats have done. But it isn’t enough for him to rant about Tea Partiers being “ignorant” and having no notion of “national greatness.” He has to call them the “Hezbollah faction” of the Republican Party.
FP: Friedman is a hypocrite and idiot and in his latest rants he has exposed the undemocratic core of today’s liberalism, particularly that of the rich. He has married enough riches to have little concern for increased taxes and while living in a huge mansion and jetsetting around the world he exhorts everybody else to reduce their carbon footprint. Like most liberal US Jews he does not like Israel's efforts to survive that inconvenience him by association in his high society liberal salons—another way of saying that he internalizes rather than combats anti-semitism. For how pathetic he is I strongly recommend Matt Taibbi devastating articles on him.Apparently the New York Times and its Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman think so. In his column today, Friedman sticks up for President Obama's position on raising taxes more than Senate Democrats have done. But it isn’t enough for him to rant about Tea Partiers being “ignorant” and having no notion of “national greatness.” He has to call them the “Hezbollah faction” of the Republican Party.
MEMRI: Nabil Shaath: We'll Never Accept 'Two-States for Two Peoples' Solution (h/t LittleGreenFootballs, Elder of Ziyon)
Nabil Shaath, Head of Foreign Relations in Fatah: We Will Never Accept the "Two-States for Two Peoples" Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict - ANB TV (Lebanon/London) - July 13, 2011
"...[The French initiative] reshaped the issue of the "Jewish state" into a formula that is also unacceptable to us – two states for two peoples. They can describe Israel itself as a state for two peoples, but we will be a state for one people. The story of "two states for two peoples" means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this – not as part of the French initiative and not as part of the American initiative. We will not sacrifice the 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live within the 1948 borders, and we will never agree to a clause preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their country. We will not accept this, whether the initiative is French, American, or Czechoslovakian."
FP: Peace partners. If only Israel did not refuse to negotiate, there would be peace. Let’s give them a state.
Vicious Babushka: Prison Resort Where Breivik Will Vacation (h/t LittleGreenFootballs)
Seriously, this place is a luxury resort!
[Link: www.time.com...]
To ease the psychological burdens of imprisonment, the planners at Halden spent roughly $1 million on paintings, photography and light installations. According to a prison informational pamphlet, this mural by Norwegian graffiti artist Dolk "brings a touch of humor to a rather controlled space." Officials hope the art — along with creative outlets like drawing classes and wood workshops — will give inmates "a sense of being taken seriously."
Read more: [Link: www.time.com...]
The maximum sentence in Norway, even for murder, is 21 years. Since most inmates will eventually return to society, prisons mimic the outside world as much as possible to prepare them for freedom. At Halden, rooms include en-suite bathrooms with ceramic tiles, mini-fridges and flat-screen TVs. Officials say sleeker televisions afford inmates less space to hide drugs and other contraband.
FP: Any wonder why they are clueless about terrorism and support Muslim immigration and the Palestinians? They live in a dream world and they won’t survive this way.[Link: www.time.com...]
To ease the psychological burdens of imprisonment, the planners at Halden spent roughly $1 million on paintings, photography and light installations. According to a prison informational pamphlet, this mural by Norwegian graffiti artist Dolk "brings a touch of humor to a rather controlled space." Officials hope the art — along with creative outlets like drawing classes and wood workshops — will give inmates "a sense of being taken seriously."
Read more: [Link: www.time.com...]
The maximum sentence in Norway, even for murder, is 21 years. Since most inmates will eventually return to society, prisons mimic the outside world as much as possible to prepare them for freedom. At Halden, rooms include en-suite bathrooms with ceramic tiles, mini-fridges and flat-screen TVs. Officials say sleeker televisions afford inmates less space to hide drugs and other contraband.
M K Bhadrakumar: Israel inherits the Arab Spring
Ankara would know these are humiliating demands, which even if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might want to ponder over in a spirit of realpolitik or pragmatism, Israeli public opinion won't allow it. It is possible to discern that the Turks may just be deliberately making things very difficult for Israel to patch up the broken ties. The Turks seem to have suddenly lost the ardor for a "normalization" with Israel at the present juncture, which the Americans have been encouraging.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Turkey 10 days ago and made flattering remarks about the country's larger destiny as the leader of the Middle East. The new head of the US Central Intelligence Agency, David Petraeus, made Istanbul his first port of call after leaving his command in Afghanistan. It all but seemed Turkey would bite the tantalizing proposition to act as the beachhead for a concerted intervention in Syria.
But, Ankara carefully weighed the advantages of becoming the instigator of regime change in Damascus and seems to have arrived at the conclusion that the dangers to its own territorial integrity far outweigh whatever geopolitical advantages Washington promises. Simply put, it doesn't suit Turkey to be seen holding the Israeli hand right now. Thus, Israeli hopes of breaking out of regional isolation by reinventing an axis with Turkey over Syria are dissipating.
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Ankara is winding down anti-Syria rhetoric and is gradually reviving its old platform of "zero problems" with its tough neighbors.
The irony is that Ankara is also compelled to revive the bonhomie with Iran and launch a concerted military offensive against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq following the killing of 13 Turkish troops on July 14 in Diyarbakir province in eastern Turkey.
In a masterly move with impeccable timing, the Iranian army began operations on July 16 against Kurdish rebels in the Kandil mountains in northern Iraq. In a parallel move, the Turkish military also since began an operation in the Iraqi territory bordering Hakkari province in eastern Turkey.
Ankara is putting on a brave face and claiming that the Iranian and Turkish operations are not coordinated. That may be so in a formal sense. Tehran is not disputing the Turkish claim, either. But the Israelis are a smart lot and can sense perfectly well what is going on - that someone is jogging Turkey's memory that it still has an unfinished Kurdish problem of its own to prioritize, where it has a commonality of interests with Syria, Iraq and Iran.
FP: That America is clueless about the Middle East explains why it has a faulty strategy and keeps losing. What is Israel’s excuse in still hoping that by humiliating itself it can normalize relations with Turkey.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Turkey 10 days ago and made flattering remarks about the country's larger destiny as the leader of the Middle East. The new head of the US Central Intelligence Agency, David Petraeus, made Istanbul his first port of call after leaving his command in Afghanistan. It all but seemed Turkey would bite the tantalizing proposition to act as the beachhead for a concerted intervention in Syria.
But, Ankara carefully weighed the advantages of becoming the instigator of regime change in Damascus and seems to have arrived at the conclusion that the dangers to its own territorial integrity far outweigh whatever geopolitical advantages Washington promises. Simply put, it doesn't suit Turkey to be seen holding the Israeli hand right now. Thus, Israeli hopes of breaking out of regional isolation by reinventing an axis with Turkey over Syria are dissipating.
…
Ankara is winding down anti-Syria rhetoric and is gradually reviving its old platform of "zero problems" with its tough neighbors.
The irony is that Ankara is also compelled to revive the bonhomie with Iran and launch a concerted military offensive against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq following the killing of 13 Turkish troops on July 14 in Diyarbakir province in eastern Turkey.
In a masterly move with impeccable timing, the Iranian army began operations on July 16 against Kurdish rebels in the Kandil mountains in northern Iraq. In a parallel move, the Turkish military also since began an operation in the Iraqi territory bordering Hakkari province in eastern Turkey.
Ankara is putting on a brave face and claiming that the Iranian and Turkish operations are not coordinated. That may be so in a formal sense. Tehran is not disputing the Turkish claim, either. But the Israelis are a smart lot and can sense perfectly well what is going on - that someone is jogging Turkey's memory that it still has an unfinished Kurdish problem of its own to prioritize, where it has a commonality of interests with Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Comments on Reads 7/28
PA Elections: Only in Judea and Samaria
An independent Palestine couldn't pay its own bills
David Tompson: Collected Links
Palestinian Authority local elections in October will only be held in Judea and Samaria because Hamas is preventing election preparations in Gaza, an official PA statement issued in Ramallah said on Wednesday.
The statement means that the talk of unity between twin terror groups Hamas and Fatah is little more than a joke right now, as the two cannot even agree about local elections, much less so elections to select a unifying leader.
FP: They’re ready. Let’s give them a state (see next).The statement means that the talk of unity between twin terror groups Hamas and Fatah is little more than a joke right now, as the two cannot even agree about local elections, much less so elections to select a unifying leader.
An independent Palestine couldn't pay its own bills
Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, the five countries whose financial obligations burden the European Union, may soon be joined by another that the EU may unwittingly be taking on - Palestine. If Palestine declares statehood this September, as many of its EU underwriters are encouraging it to do, the EU would be implicitly assuming an open-ended financial burden for a country of over four million, or almost the size of Ireland.
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Almost two-thirds of Palestinian government net income - about $1.5-billion per year - comes from tax collected on the Palestinians' behalf and remitted to them by Israel. The IMF projects that this revenue stream will not only continue but grow - a prospect that depends on good relations between a sovereign Palestine and Israel. Yet after terrorist Hamas took over Gaza in 2006, Israel understandably suspended the tax payments. With Hamas forming part of any new Palestinian government, the EU can expect continued hostilities and an Israeli reluctance to finance its newly sovereign enemy.
Eighty seven percent of Palestinian exports now go to Israel, making the broad Palestinian economy dependent on good relations with its neighbour. Should relations with Israel deteriorate, Palestine's exports would sharply contract. A sharp contraction in exports is precisely what happened to Gaza's economy after the Hamas takeover.
Israelis remain major employers of West Bank Palestinians, both in Israel proper and in the West Bank settlements. The tens of thousands of Palestinian employees of the Israeli settlements will be barred from this work by 2012 because the Palestinian government considers the work illegal. These settlement jobs not only constitute one-seventh of the total Palestinian workforce, they constitute one-quarter of the total Palestinian payroll because Israeli employers pay two to three times that paid by their Palestinian counterparts, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
As for the jobs that Palestinians commute to in Israel - 20,000 West Bankers have work permits and as many work in Israel illegally - these too would be in jeopardy should Palestine declare independence. Before Palestinians turned to suicide bombings in the late 1980s, a staggering 110,000 - almost 40% of all employed Palestinians - commuted to Israel for higher-paying Israeli jobs. Once Palestinians became a security threat, Israel replaced most of the Palestinians with migrant workers from Asia and Eastern Europe, and would have replaced more of them still had the U.S. and Europe not pressured Israel to maintain employment for Palestinians.
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Palestine without Israel has no viable economy, and the Americans don't seem particularly eager to meet any shortfall (and have troubles enough with their own balance books). If Europe, through its encouragement of a premature Palestine, breaks the Palestinian economy, it could own it.
FP: The EU won’t care about the lack of viability of a Palestinian state until after it is declared and they realize that they are saddled with a huge aid bill forever (Palestinians are addicted to aid and in Gaza they errup in violence when it is reduced). At that point EU will, as usual, blame Israel for it and start forcing it to support the so-called state even while it is in a state of war with Israel – just like it happened with Hamastan in Gaza.…
Almost two-thirds of Palestinian government net income - about $1.5-billion per year - comes from tax collected on the Palestinians' behalf and remitted to them by Israel. The IMF projects that this revenue stream will not only continue but grow - a prospect that depends on good relations between a sovereign Palestine and Israel. Yet after terrorist Hamas took over Gaza in 2006, Israel understandably suspended the tax payments. With Hamas forming part of any new Palestinian government, the EU can expect continued hostilities and an Israeli reluctance to finance its newly sovereign enemy.
Eighty seven percent of Palestinian exports now go to Israel, making the broad Palestinian economy dependent on good relations with its neighbour. Should relations with Israel deteriorate, Palestine's exports would sharply contract. A sharp contraction in exports is precisely what happened to Gaza's economy after the Hamas takeover.
Israelis remain major employers of West Bank Palestinians, both in Israel proper and in the West Bank settlements. The tens of thousands of Palestinian employees of the Israeli settlements will be barred from this work by 2012 because the Palestinian government considers the work illegal. These settlement jobs not only constitute one-seventh of the total Palestinian workforce, they constitute one-quarter of the total Palestinian payroll because Israeli employers pay two to three times that paid by their Palestinian counterparts, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
As for the jobs that Palestinians commute to in Israel - 20,000 West Bankers have work permits and as many work in Israel illegally - these too would be in jeopardy should Palestine declare independence. Before Palestinians turned to suicide bombings in the late 1980s, a staggering 110,000 - almost 40% of all employed Palestinians - commuted to Israel for higher-paying Israeli jobs. Once Palestinians became a security threat, Israel replaced most of the Palestinians with migrant workers from Asia and Eastern Europe, and would have replaced more of them still had the U.S. and Europe not pressured Israel to maintain employment for Palestinians.
…
Palestine without Israel has no viable economy, and the Americans don't seem particularly eager to meet any shortfall (and have troubles enough with their own balance books). If Europe, through its encouragement of a premature Palestine, breaks the Palestinian economy, it could own it.
David Tompson: Collected Links
Theodore Dalrymple on austerity in the UK and the swelling of the state:
For some politicians, running up deficits is not a problem but a benefit, since doing so creates a population permanently in thrall to them for the favours by which it lives. The politicians are thus like drug dealers, profiting from their clientele’s dependence, yet on a scale incomparably larger. The Swedish Social Democrats understood long ago that if more than half of the population became economically dependent on government, either directly or indirectly, no government of any party could easily change the arrangement. It was not a crude one-party system that the Social Democrats sought but a one-policy system, and they almost succeeded. […]
During [Gordon] Brown’s years in office… three-quarters of Britain’s new employment was in the public sector, a fifth of it in the National Health Service alone. Educational and health-care spending skyrocketed. The economy of many areas of the country grew so dependent on public expenditure that they became like the Soviet Union with supermarkets.
As usual with Dalrymple, it’s worth reading in full. There’s plenty to chew on. Not least his comments on the NHS, on what student protesters took care not to complain about – a subject discussed here - and the image of people taking to the streets “in solidarity with themselves.”
Related to the above, Mark Bauerlein on pathological grade inflation
The most common grade given to students, by far, is the highest one - an A. […] What used to be a distinctive honour is now the most frequent result. Anything less than a B has become a humiliation. When you have a scale with five measures and the top two scores are nine times more common than the bottom two scores, that scale isn’t working. Without a bell-curve range, grades don’t do what they’re supposed to do, which is distinguish students by their performance and certify to others (such as employers) that students have or have not learned the course material.
Heather Mac Donald on the remarkable imperviousness of academic “diversity” programmes:
California’s budget crisis has reduced the University of California to near-penury, claim its spokesmen. “Our campuses and the UC Office of the President already have cut to the bone,” the university system’s vice president for budget and capital resources warned earlier this month... Well, not exactly to the bone. Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine.
Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing. The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time “vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion.” This position would augment UC San Diego’s already massive diversity apparatus, which includes the Chancellor’s Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Centre, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Centre, and the Women’s Centre.
And William Briggs ponders research on a matter of enormous, throbbing import:
Tatu Westling, a doctoral student in economics from the University of Helsinki, has written Male Organ and Economic Growth: Does Size Matter?, a paper meant, in his own words, “to fill [a] scholarly gap with the male organ.” Westling’s paper joins the comedy trend started by the Korean team of Choi, Kim, Jung, Yoon, Kim, & Kim — sounds more like a law firm than a collective of scientists — in their masterwork, Second to fourth digit ratio: a predictor of adult penile length.
FP: All causes and properties of the PostWest. Incidentally, bankrupt California has just approved payment of tuition for students who are illegally in America. If you like what Europe did to itself, you’ll love what America is doing to itself.
For some politicians, running up deficits is not a problem but a benefit, since doing so creates a population permanently in thrall to them for the favours by which it lives. The politicians are thus like drug dealers, profiting from their clientele’s dependence, yet on a scale incomparably larger. The Swedish Social Democrats understood long ago that if more than half of the population became economically dependent on government, either directly or indirectly, no government of any party could easily change the arrangement. It was not a crude one-party system that the Social Democrats sought but a one-policy system, and they almost succeeded. […]
During [Gordon] Brown’s years in office… three-quarters of Britain’s new employment was in the public sector, a fifth of it in the National Health Service alone. Educational and health-care spending skyrocketed. The economy of many areas of the country grew so dependent on public expenditure that they became like the Soviet Union with supermarkets.
As usual with Dalrymple, it’s worth reading in full. There’s plenty to chew on. Not least his comments on the NHS, on what student protesters took care not to complain about – a subject discussed here - and the image of people taking to the streets “in solidarity with themselves.”
Related to the above, Mark Bauerlein on pathological grade inflation
The most common grade given to students, by far, is the highest one - an A. […] What used to be a distinctive honour is now the most frequent result. Anything less than a B has become a humiliation. When you have a scale with five measures and the top two scores are nine times more common than the bottom two scores, that scale isn’t working. Without a bell-curve range, grades don’t do what they’re supposed to do, which is distinguish students by their performance and certify to others (such as employers) that students have or have not learned the course material.
Heather Mac Donald on the remarkable imperviousness of academic “diversity” programmes:
California’s budget crisis has reduced the University of California to near-penury, claim its spokesmen. “Our campuses and the UC Office of the President already have cut to the bone,” the university system’s vice president for budget and capital resources warned earlier this month... Well, not exactly to the bone. Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine.
Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing. The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time “vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion.” This position would augment UC San Diego’s already massive diversity apparatus, which includes the Chancellor’s Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Centre, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Centre, and the Women’s Centre.
And William Briggs ponders research on a matter of enormous, throbbing import:
Tatu Westling, a doctoral student in economics from the University of Helsinki, has written Male Organ and Economic Growth: Does Size Matter?, a paper meant, in his own words, “to fill [a] scholarly gap with the male organ.” Westling’s paper joins the comedy trend started by the Korean team of Choi, Kim, Jung, Yoon, Kim, & Kim — sounds more like a law firm than a collective of scientists — in their masterwork, Second to fourth digit ratio: a predictor of adult penile length.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Comments on Reads 7/27 II
Hossein Askari: Slaying the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah Hydra
Lee Smith: Gas Pains
Daniel Pipes: Norway's Terrorism in Context
Alexander Joffe, Asaf RomirowskyArabs rewriting history
Caroline Glick: No Prizes for Erdogan
Although the longstanding links between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah are indisputable, U.S. policy makers are singularly inept at connecting the dots and putting simultaneous pressure on all sides. If the Tehran regime were to fall, Assad would be isolated and forced to compromise with his Arab brethren and as well as with the United States; if Assad were to fall, the mullahs would face insurmountable hurdles in supporting Hezbollah; and with the fall of either the mullahs or Assad, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s days would be numbered (and with the fall of both his days would be almost over). Has Washington seized the opportunity to get the ball rolling, by simultaneously pressuring all three adversaries wherever it can? No.
FP: The US in general and the Obama administration in particular is clueless and cowardly about such things. It lacks what the Arabs and Iranians have plenty of: cunning and the skills to play the gullible, waning West like a violin.Lee Smith: Gas Pains
Recently discovered gas and oil fields could make Israel one of the world’s largest energy producers. That threatens Iran’s power, which is why its agents in Lebanon are manufacturing a border dispute.
Now that Israel has discovered what appear to be huge gas and oil fields off its Mediterranean coast, Hezbollah general secretary Hassan Nasrallah and Beirut’s Hezbollah-allied ministers are labeling the Jewish state’s internationally recognized maritime borders as an “aggression” against Lebanon—even though it seems that the Arab country may have plenty of gas and oil off its coast, too. Lebanon’s real problem is that few investors want to take a chance spending billions of dollars exploring for energy in a country run by a terrorist organization. As a result, Hezbollah, cut off from normal sources of global capital, wants to do its best to keep investors away from Israel, too—by threatening war. And American policymakers are concerned that if Hezbollah’s newly invented sea-border dispute between Lebanon and Israel isn’t solved, the oil and gas fields will turn into an underwater Shebaa Farms—the piece of real estate that has served as Hezbollah’s casus belli since Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon.
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By reading the border dispute as an exercise in Iranian power politics, the weirdness of the map that the Lebanese submitted to the United Nations actually starts to make sense. Iran’s interests are clear: Hold the Israelis down while also crippling the independence of the Lebanese state. If Lebanon were to develop its own natural gas fields that might encourage the country to free itself from Iranian and Syrian tutelage.
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Iran, however, would be brought to its knees. The country has no economy outside of the energy sector, which is one reason why it must guard its access to vulnerable markets, like Europe. And if Israel were capable of fulfilling Europe’s energy needs for even a decade (though some estimates suggest more like 20 years), that would change Europe’s diplomatic and political position. European intellectuals can scream about Israeli checkpoints as much as they want, but no European leader whose poll numbers might someday depend on affordable energy coming from Israel will be likely to cross Jerusalem. Iran will not only have less leverage over Europe if and when Israel can develop its field, but the Islamic republic will even lose the little advantage it has over Israel.
FP: Hostility to Israel may end up preventing Israel from reaching the point of benefiting from its newly found resources. I'm pretty sure its enemies understand the importance of that.Now that Israel has discovered what appear to be huge gas and oil fields off its Mediterranean coast, Hezbollah general secretary Hassan Nasrallah and Beirut’s Hezbollah-allied ministers are labeling the Jewish state’s internationally recognized maritime borders as an “aggression” against Lebanon—even though it seems that the Arab country may have plenty of gas and oil off its coast, too. Lebanon’s real problem is that few investors want to take a chance spending billions of dollars exploring for energy in a country run by a terrorist organization. As a result, Hezbollah, cut off from normal sources of global capital, wants to do its best to keep investors away from Israel, too—by threatening war. And American policymakers are concerned that if Hezbollah’s newly invented sea-border dispute between Lebanon and Israel isn’t solved, the oil and gas fields will turn into an underwater Shebaa Farms—the piece of real estate that has served as Hezbollah’s casus belli since Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon.
…
By reading the border dispute as an exercise in Iranian power politics, the weirdness of the map that the Lebanese submitted to the United Nations actually starts to make sense. Iran’s interests are clear: Hold the Israelis down while also crippling the independence of the Lebanese state. If Lebanon were to develop its own natural gas fields that might encourage the country to free itself from Iranian and Syrian tutelage.
…
Iran, however, would be brought to its knees. The country has no economy outside of the energy sector, which is one reason why it must guard its access to vulnerable markets, like Europe. And if Israel were capable of fulfilling Europe’s energy needs for even a decade (though some estimates suggest more like 20 years), that would change Europe’s diplomatic and political position. European intellectuals can scream about Israeli checkpoints as much as they want, but no European leader whose poll numbers might someday depend on affordable energy coming from Israel will be likely to cross Jerusalem. Iran will not only have less leverage over Europe if and when Israel can develop its field, but the Islamic republic will even lose the little advantage it has over Israel.
Daniel Pipes: Norway's Terrorism in Context
In this way, Behring Breivik resembles the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, who engaged in violence as a means to market his 1995 manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future. Indeed, the tie between these two is very close: Hans Rustad documents how extensively Behring Breivik plagiarized from Kaczynski, changing only some key words.
Add to these two Timothy McVeigh (the 1995 Oklahoma City bomber) and Baruch Goldstein (the 1994 Hebron mass killer) and one has the four outstanding exceptions to the dominant rule of Islamist mass murder. One website, TheReligionOfPeace.com, counts 17,500 terrorist incidents on behalf of Islam in the past ten years; extrapolating, that comes to some 25,000 since 1994. We are dealing with two very different orders of magnitude. As David P. Goldman notes, "there is a world of difference between the organized use of horror by terrorist movements and the depraved actions of individuals." Yes, we must worry about non-Islamist violence too, but the Islamist variety prevails and, being a vital extremist movement, will continue to do so.
Ravi Shankar, executive editor of the New Indian Express, writes that "What happened in Oslo Friday may be the early beginning of a new civil war — Europeans fighting each other, both Muslim and Christian." He could well be right. As I argued in a 2007 analysis, "Europe's Stark Options," the continent's future is likely to consist of either Islamization or protracted civil conflict. I sketched the possibility of "indigenous Europeans — who do still constitute 95 percent of the continent's population — waking up one day and asserting themselves. 'Basta!' they will say, and reclaim their historic order. This is not so remote; a chafing among Europeans, less among elites than the masses, loudly protests changes already underway."
FP: Based on the trends in Europe, my bet is on Islamization, although there may be some strife, but if there is, it’ll be short. Add to these two Timothy McVeigh (the 1995 Oklahoma City bomber) and Baruch Goldstein (the 1994 Hebron mass killer) and one has the four outstanding exceptions to the dominant rule of Islamist mass murder. One website, TheReligionOfPeace.com, counts 17,500 terrorist incidents on behalf of Islam in the past ten years; extrapolating, that comes to some 25,000 since 1994. We are dealing with two very different orders of magnitude. As David P. Goldman notes, "there is a world of difference between the organized use of horror by terrorist movements and the depraved actions of individuals." Yes, we must worry about non-Islamist violence too, but the Islamist variety prevails and, being a vital extremist movement, will continue to do so.
Ravi Shankar, executive editor of the New Indian Express, writes that "What happened in Oslo Friday may be the early beginning of a new civil war — Europeans fighting each other, both Muslim and Christian." He could well be right. As I argued in a 2007 analysis, "Europe's Stark Options," the continent's future is likely to consist of either Islamization or protracted civil conflict. I sketched the possibility of "indigenous Europeans — who do still constitute 95 percent of the continent's population — waking up one day and asserting themselves. 'Basta!' they will say, and reclaim their historic order. This is not so remote; a chafing among Europeans, less among elites than the masses, loudly protests changes already underway."
Alexander Joffe, Asaf RomirowskyArabs rewriting history
The late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said called Palestinians “the victims of the victims.” As the September deadline for the Palestinian “Unilateral Declaration of Independence” approaches, and the certain endorsement by the United Nations General Assembly, it is worth asking again who originally victimized the Palestinians. Today, of course, the unanimous consensus among Palestinians, and the Arab and Muslim worlds, is that it was Israel that, in 1948, attacked and expelled Palestinians. But who did Palestinians blame for their fate in 1949?
The two largest Palestinian communities in the US are located in Dearborn Michigan and Jacksonville Florida. On December 15th, 1949 the Michigan Arab newspaper As Sabah (literally the Morning Tribune) published an editorial on the question of the Palestine Arab refugees:
The two largest Palestinian communities in the US are located in Dearborn Michigan and Jacksonville Florida. On December 15th, 1949 the Michigan Arab newspaper As Sabah (literally the Morning Tribune) published an editorial on the question of the Palestine Arab refugees:
“What is the crime of the refugees in the eyes of the lords of Arabia who stand by and watch the misery of the refugees, and who suck the blood of the poor and needy-without shame before God and the world? Yes the poor refugees committed the crime of listening to those deceivers, they believed the liars, and went to the extreme foolishness of leaving their homes, counting on their deceitful leaders to bring them back! And because of what is happening to the Palestine refugees, Arab public opinion is changing little by little to support the Jews in Israel where not a single Arab dies from starvation and cold! And if there should be another war, it should be against the Arab leaders, the princes and kings who brought this catastrophe upon the poor people of Palestine.”FP: They’ve been doing it systematically, constantly and blatantly since 1948. Israel has, for all practical purposes, conceded it via Oslo. Today nobody cares about the truth.
Caroline Glick: No Prizes for Erdogan
As far as Erdogan is concerned, if he gets the U.S. to force Israel to apologize, it will be a massive public relations coup in his bid to convince the Arabs to accept his leadership. After all, Israel would be apologizing for having had the temerity to oppose the aggression of IHH terrorists engaged in an act of war against Israel. An Israeli apology would serve as proof that his double game of remaining a NATO member and carrying out aggression against Israel is the winning formula. If Israel apologizes for defending itself against Turkish aggression, Erdogan will have succeeded where the Arabs have failed.
Obviously, on the merits, Israel has no reason to apologize. And Turkish promises not to file lawsuits and war crimes complaints against Israel will have no legal weight. The Turkish pledge will not bind the relatives of the dead. And an Israeli apology and compensation will provide them with a prima facie claim that Israel admits culpability.
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That motivation gives lie to the notion that Erdogan has any interest in reinstating Turkey's strategic alliance with Israel. The man who is cultivating Hamas in the PA, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, is not going to permit the Israeli Air Force to renew its training flights over Turkish airspace. Erdogan is not going to share intelligence with Israel on Iran. He will not cooperate with Mossad agents along Turkey's border with Iran or Syria.
Instead he will use his ability to humiliate Israel and curb its military operations to demonstrate to the Muslim Brotherhood that it should accept Turkey's role as regional hegemon and operate under its wings
Moreover, Israel can fully expect that under Erdogan, Turkey will share any intelligence information Israel provides with the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that any intelligence information Turkey transfers to Israel to be of limited value.
FP: I have expressed my position on this subject more than once. The failure that is Ehud Barak is pressing for an apology and Netanyahu’s record on concessions after talking a great deal is not inspiring confidence. If he caves in Israel will live to regret it, if it lives.
Obviously, on the merits, Israel has no reason to apologize. And Turkish promises not to file lawsuits and war crimes complaints against Israel will have no legal weight. The Turkish pledge will not bind the relatives of the dead. And an Israeli apology and compensation will provide them with a prima facie claim that Israel admits culpability.
…
That motivation gives lie to the notion that Erdogan has any interest in reinstating Turkey's strategic alliance with Israel. The man who is cultivating Hamas in the PA, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, is not going to permit the Israeli Air Force to renew its training flights over Turkish airspace. Erdogan is not going to share intelligence with Israel on Iran. He will not cooperate with Mossad agents along Turkey's border with Iran or Syria.
Instead he will use his ability to humiliate Israel and curb its military operations to demonstrate to the Muslim Brotherhood that it should accept Turkey's role as regional hegemon and operate under its wings
Moreover, Israel can fully expect that under Erdogan, Turkey will share any intelligence information Israel provides with the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that any intelligence information Turkey transfers to Israel to be of limited value.
Comments on News and Reads 7/27
Teachers in a bind: Tests don’t measure critical thinking
'PA hasn't heard clear US rejection of UN statehood bid'
Elliott Abrams: Will The Arab League Pay For Palestine?
'US paying salaries for jailed Palestinian terrorists'
Elder of Ziyon: 10 Unknown West Bank facts (VIDEO)
FP: If only the world cared for the truth the Palestinians would have no legs to stand on.
Egypt Hosts Terror Axis Meeting
Claire Berlinski: A Small Warning
Israel ‘Solves” Missile Attacks by Building ‘Hidden Highway’
Israel: Turkey has not issued an ultimatum, talks continuing
Educator Marion Brady offers us some words to chew over:
“Kids can’t be taught to think better using tests that can’t measure how well they think.
The logic should be obvious. What gets tested gets taught. Complex thinking skills -- skills essential to survival--can’t be tested, so they don’t get taught. That failure doesn’t simply rise to the level of a problem. It’s unethical.”
Test-based accountability has taken our schools and made it their central mission to increase test scores. No Child Left Behind did this through labeling of entire schools as failures, and the Obama administration has doubled down, having states tie teacher pay and evaluations to test scores.
Teachers are in an inescapable ethical bind. We know that the tests do not measure critical thinking.
As a science teacher, I believe that the essence of science is the exploration of the natural world. It is all about inquiry: asking good questions, and then using all the tools we can muster to investigate and answer those questions.
To get a student to behave as a scientist, the key is to put them in the role of a scientist. Challenge them with open-ended questions. Find out what THEY are curious about and inspire them to wrestle with that so they can truly understand it.
FP: Critical thinking is critical not only for being a scientist, but for a properly functioning democracy. Those who are familiar with my writings know that I ascribe the decline of the West to the destruction of education and its replacement with indoctrination, including for tests. We end up with a gullible public uninformed, unable to reason critically and independently, manipulated by the political and economic class. But that is precisely what the kleptocratic corporate welfare state needs.Teachers are in an inescapable ethical bind. We know that the tests do not measure critical thinking.
As a science teacher, I believe that the essence of science is the exploration of the natural world. It is all about inquiry: asking good questions, and then using all the tools we can muster to investigate and answer those questions.
To get a student to behave as a scientist, the key is to put them in the role of a scientist. Challenge them with open-ended questions. Find out what THEY are curious about and inspire them to wrestle with that so they can truly understand it.
'PA hasn't heard clear US rejection of UN statehood bid'
US opposition has only been delivered through mediators, Abbas says, adding Palestinian Authority doesn't want a clash with America; urges “popular and unarmed resistance against occupation."
FP: The PA is playing the Obama administration like a violin. I warned when the PA first raised the UN option to be skeptical about the US veto. Just don’t be surprised if Obama works something out with the PA and EU at Israel’s expense. Don’t rely on Congress to prevent it. It is too busy with America’s own problems and the election.Elliott Abrams: Will The Arab League Pay For Palestine?
Will the Arab League pay up?
Because donors are not meeting their pledges, the Palestinian Authority is nearly broke and cannot meet its payroll. The PA told a specially convened session of the Arab League today that it needs an immediate injection of $300 million. Already, PA employees are on half salary.
This is not because the United States or the EU is failing to support the PA financially, nor because Israel is failing to pass on withheld tax revenues it collects on behalf of the PA; the US, EU, and Israel are meeting their commitments. It is solely because Arab states are not paying up, as PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has candidly pointed out.
And yesterday PA foreign minister Riad al-Maliki said the same thing: “The importance of the meeting is that it has become urgent that the Arab countries meet their financial obligations, particularly given the looming possibility that the Palestinian Authority will be unable to pay salaries for this current month and the next one, which is Ramadan.”
This is a simple and quick test of the oil-rich Gulf states, and especially Saudi Arabia. With crude oil in the area of $100 a barrel, it is not a measure of their financial ability; they have the money. And that being the case, this is a far better test than speeches and UN votes of just how committed to Palestinian progress they really are.
FP: It is also one of the tests of the readiness of the Palestinians for a state, which it blatantly fails, like all others. But why should the Arabs pay when the West is pumping jizziya and bankrupts itself in the process? It’s better than Jihad.Because donors are not meeting their pledges, the Palestinian Authority is nearly broke and cannot meet its payroll. The PA told a specially convened session of the Arab League today that it needs an immediate injection of $300 million. Already, PA employees are on half salary.
This is not because the United States or the EU is failing to support the PA financially, nor because Israel is failing to pass on withheld tax revenues it collects on behalf of the PA; the US, EU, and Israel are meeting their commitments. It is solely because Arab states are not paying up, as PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has candidly pointed out.
And yesterday PA foreign minister Riad al-Maliki said the same thing: “The importance of the meeting is that it has become urgent that the Arab countries meet their financial obligations, particularly given the looming possibility that the Palestinian Authority will be unable to pay salaries for this current month and the next one, which is Ramadan.”
This is a simple and quick test of the oil-rich Gulf states, and especially Saudi Arabia. With crude oil in the area of $100 a barrel, it is not a measure of their financial ability; they have the money. And that being the case, this is a far better test than speeches and UN votes of just how committed to Palestinian progress they really are.
'US paying salaries for jailed Palestinian terrorists'
Media watchdog tells congressmen PA spends over $5 million a month from US-provided budget in salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons.
FP: Intentionally or not, the US funds Palestinian genocidal war on Israel. And it does it while bankrupting itself.Elder of Ziyon: 10 Unknown West Bank facts (VIDEO)
FP: If only the world cared for the truth the Palestinians would have no legs to stand on.
Egypt Hosts Terror Axis Meeting
Egypt this week hosted a “resistance” conference attended by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah and Palestinian Authority terrorist groups.
FP: Shocker: The axis of terror has gained another member. Couldn't have been predicted at all. Has nothing to do with US decline and appeasement of Islamists.Claire Berlinski: A Small Warning
So: Two PLA Sukhoi-27s cross the centerline chasing one of our U2s. Everyone downplays it--must have been an accident, nothing to see here. That's sort-of normal: These kinds of things do happen periodically in the Taiwan strait and have for decades and responsible politicians express displeasure but basically try to downplay them because what else are you going to do.
Then China starts demanding that the United States stop flying U2s near its coast. Note the asymmetry: They're not saying, "Well, that's sort of normal, these kinds of things do happen and have for decades and responsible politicians express displeasure but basically try to downplay them because what else are you going to do."
Roger Cliff, a specialist on the Chinese air force at the Project 2049 Institute--I don't know much about them--believes that last month's incident was more provocative than Taipei let on. He then says:
Then China starts demanding that the United States stop flying U2s near its coast. Note the asymmetry: They're not saying, "Well, that's sort of normal, these kinds of things do happen and have for decades and responsible politicians express displeasure but basically try to downplay them because what else are you going to do."
Roger Cliff, a specialist on the Chinese air force at the Project 2049 Institute--I don't know much about them--believes that last month's incident was more provocative than Taipei let on. He then says:
Unless China has frequently done so in the past, which I doubt, crossing the centerline to shadow a U-2 is rather provocative,” he said. “I can’t think of any reason why China would start to do that at this particular time ... "
Really? He can't? A bit lacking in imagination there, I'd say.
FP: Would you say the Chinese have discerned the US decline? Now the consequences.Israel ‘Solves” Missile Attacks by Building ‘Hidden Highway’
Israel has expelled Jews from Gaza, built bomb shelters and invented anti-Kassam missiles to defend the Negev. Now it has built a “hidden highway” to escape rockets.
…
The new road cost 4.5 million shekels ($1.3million) and was built in three months with the help of the Jewish National Fund (KNF) and the Engineering Corps of the IDF.
The route was built between trees, keeping it out of sight from Gaza’s sand dunes, and Vilnai said he ordered its construction after Hamas terrorists last April attacked a school bus with a laser-guided anti-tank rocket.
…
The new road “will give a feeling of security to Gaza Belt residents and will help them live normal lives,” said Vilnai.
Another ‘counterterrorist” measure carried out by the IDF and the JNF is to plant trees along the Gaza border so that terrorists will not be able to see their targets.
FP: What a great idea. Let’s hide. In fact, let's hide Israel as a whole…
The new road cost 4.5 million shekels ($1.3million) and was built in three months with the help of the Jewish National Fund (KNF) and the Engineering Corps of the IDF.
The route was built between trees, keeping it out of sight from Gaza’s sand dunes, and Vilnai said he ordered its construction after Hamas terrorists last April attacked a school bus with a laser-guided anti-tank rocket.
…
The new road “will give a feeling of security to Gaza Belt residents and will help them live normal lives,” said Vilnai.
Another ‘counterterrorist” measure carried out by the IDF and the JNF is to plant trees along the Gaza border so that terrorists will not be able to see their targets.
Israel: Turkey has not issued an ultimatum, talks continuing
Normalization talks between two countries continue • Release of U.N.'s Palmer report, probing the raid on the first Gaza flotilla, postponed • U.S. is involved in mediation efforts between Jerusalem and Ankara.
FP: Read: Turkey pees on Israel and she still pretends it’s raining. The US is pressuring Israel to apologize. I predict a cave in with no benefits whatsoever, just signaling of weakness.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Comments on Reads 7/26 IV
Thomas Sowell: Debt-Ceiling Chicken
Hamas Official: Resistance Will Continue Until We Liberate Palestine From the River to the Sea
Students illegally in California to get increased access to higher education
Jordanians rally in support of Hamas in Gaza
Michelle Goldberg: Christian Wrong
The big news, as far as the media are concerned, is the political game of debt-ceiling chicken that is being played by Democrats and Republicans in Washington. But, however much the media are focused on what is happening inside the Beltway, there is a whole country outside the Beltway -- and the time is long overdue to start thinking about what is best for the rest of the country, not just for right now but for the long haul.
…
Too many policies, programs and institutions are judged by what they are supposed to do, rather than by what they actually do and the consequences of their actions. The United Nations, for example, survives as a glorious idea, despite how corrupt, counterproductive and even dangerous its actions are.
The national debt-ceiling law should be judged by what it actually does, not by how good an idea it seems to be. The one thing that the national debt-ceiling has never done is to put a ceiling on the rising national debt. Time and time again, for years on end, the national debt-ceiling has been raised whenever the national debt gets near whatever the current ceiling might be.
Regardless of what it is supposed to do, what the national debt-ceiling actually does is enable any administration to get all the political benefits of runaway spending for the benefit of their favorite constituencies -- and then invite the opposition party to share the blame, by either raising the national debt ceiling, or by voting for unpopular cutbacks in spending or increases in taxes.
FP: The consequences of an uneducated, uninformed, gullible public.…
Too many policies, programs and institutions are judged by what they are supposed to do, rather than by what they actually do and the consequences of their actions. The United Nations, for example, survives as a glorious idea, despite how corrupt, counterproductive and even dangerous its actions are.
The national debt-ceiling law should be judged by what it actually does, not by how good an idea it seems to be. The one thing that the national debt-ceiling has never done is to put a ceiling on the rising national debt. Time and time again, for years on end, the national debt-ceiling has been raised whenever the national debt gets near whatever the current ceiling might be.
Regardless of what it is supposed to do, what the national debt-ceiling actually does is enable any administration to get all the political benefits of runaway spending for the benefit of their favorite constituencies -- and then invite the opposition party to share the blame, by either raising the national debt ceiling, or by voting for unpopular cutbacks in spending or increases in taxes.
Hamas Official: Resistance Will Continue Until We Liberate Palestine From the River to the Sea
A press release issued by Hamas International Relations Department head Osama Hamdan states that Hamas believes that resistance will overcome the Zionist entity, and will continue until Palestine is liberated from the river to the sea.
The press release further states that Hamas will never recognize the occupation, that Israel does not exist in Hamas' political dictionary, and that the Palestinian prisoners will be released in a prisoner exchange, even if it requires capturing more soldiers.
According to the press release, the purpose of Palestinian reconciliation is to restore the enterprise of liberation and the Right of Return on the basis of resistance and the strategic depth of Arabs and Muslims. It further states that the important thing is not the prime ministry or the ministers in the future government, but rather liberating the people and restoring Jerusalem.
Source: Palestine-info.info, July 25, 2011.
FP: A comment at LittleGreenFootballs: “Jimmy Carter was unavailable for comment.”The press release further states that Hamas will never recognize the occupation, that Israel does not exist in Hamas' political dictionary, and that the Palestinian prisoners will be released in a prisoner exchange, even if it requires capturing more soldiers.
According to the press release, the purpose of Palestinian reconciliation is to restore the enterprise of liberation and the Right of Return on the basis of resistance and the strategic depth of Arabs and Muslims. It further states that the important thing is not the prime ministry or the ministers in the future government, but rather liberating the people and restoring Jerusalem.
Source: Palestine-info.info, July 25, 2011.
Students illegally in California to get increased access to higher education
Undocumented students’ access to higher education increased Monday as Gov. Jerry Brown signed part of the California DREAM Act into legislation.
Brown signed AB130, which allows college students that illegally entered the U.S. to receive privately funded scholarships/financial aid. DREAM is an acronym for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors.
Bill author Assemblyman Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angles, was in attendance at the signing during a DREAM Act Town Hall at Los Angeles City College. “Public education is the lifeblood of our democracy,” Cedillo said. “Public education in this great state and this great nation is the equalizer of our society.”
The legislation primarily applies to AB540 students who are from out of the state or country, graduated from a California high school and attended it for at least three years.
Brown cited California’s rising population and that 50 percent of babies born in California are born into low-income situations as reasons to invest in more educational opportunities. “Today, signing this DREAM Act is another piece of investment in people, because people are what drive the culture, the economy, the state and our country,” Brown said.
FP: California is bankrupt and losing business and population. Funding illegals’ education is exactly what it needs. Now let’s guess: will this increase or decrease the flow of illegals into California, which is already considerable? The state is replacing its native population with illegals. Collapse.Brown signed AB130, which allows college students that illegally entered the U.S. to receive privately funded scholarships/financial aid. DREAM is an acronym for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors.
Bill author Assemblyman Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angles, was in attendance at the signing during a DREAM Act Town Hall at Los Angeles City College. “Public education is the lifeblood of our democracy,” Cedillo said. “Public education in this great state and this great nation is the equalizer of our society.”
The legislation primarily applies to AB540 students who are from out of the state or country, graduated from a California high school and attended it for at least three years.
Brown cited California’s rising population and that 50 percent of babies born in California are born into low-income situations as reasons to invest in more educational opportunities. “Today, signing this DREAM Act is another piece of investment in people, because people are what drive the culture, the economy, the state and our country,” Brown said.
Jordanians rally in support of Hamas in Gaza
Chanting slogans urging Islamist Hamas militants to resume suicide bombings against Israel, thousands of Jordanians marched in the capital on Friday to protest against Israel's blockade of Gaza.
About 8,000 activists from Jordan's mainstream Muslim Brotherhood took to the streets to support their ideological allies, the Palestinian Hamas group, and hail militants' success in breaching the Gaza border in defiance of an Israeli blockade.
"The people of Jordan are with Hamas," chanted the crowds who called on the Islamist group to resume a campaign of suicide bombings and intensify rocket attacks against Israel.
""Oh Hamas hit them with al-Qassam rockets ... bring the suicide bombers to Tel Aviv ," they chanted, waving the green flags of Jordan's opposition Muslim Brotherhood.
Israel said it had tightened its Gaza blockade last week to counter cross-border rocket fire, but after an international outcry, fuel and aid supplies were partially restored.
FP: If you want to know what’s wrong with the world, here is all you need to know. The PostWest. If Israel cannot trust the peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt, can it trust a Palestinian state which includes Hamas?About 8,000 activists from Jordan's mainstream Muslim Brotherhood took to the streets to support their ideological allies, the Palestinian Hamas group, and hail militants' success in breaching the Gaza border in defiance of an Israeli blockade.
"The people of Jordan are with Hamas," chanted the crowds who called on the Islamist group to resume a campaign of suicide bombings and intensify rocket attacks against Israel.
""Oh Hamas hit them with al-Qassam rockets ... bring the suicide bombers to Tel Aviv ," they chanted, waving the green flags of Jordan's opposition Muslim Brotherhood.
Israel said it had tightened its Gaza blockade last week to counter cross-border rocket fire, but after an international outcry, fuel and aid supplies were partially restored.
Michelle Goldberg: Christian Wrong
Yet this chiliastic theology is only a small part of the reason that Jews will likely remain wary of the Christian right. In the end, American Jews care most about America. They are unwilling to assume a role in their own country that’s in any way analogous to that of Arab citizens of Israel—a people with legal equality who are nonetheless excluded from their nation’s raison d’être. Jews know they can never be full citizens of a Christian nation.
And Republican politics have never been so fully Christianized. The Tea Party was initially mischaracterized as a libertarian movement, but it is deeply imbued with religious fundamentalism, and polls show that a majority of its members believe that the United States is a Christian nation. It’s no accident that, upon taking over statehouses nationwide, Republicans elected with Tea Party support enacted a record number of abortion restrictions—80 in the first six months of 2011, compared to 23 for all of 2010.
Of the serious Republican presidential candidates, the only one who is not entirely aligned with the Christian right is Mitt Romney. Indeed, his campaign has gone out of its way to point out how, as a fellow member of a religious minority, he understands Jewish concerns. Yet he is running for the nomination of a party dominated by religious literalists; the majority of Republicans, for example, don’t believe in evolution, and more than half of them believe that humans were created in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. In his desire to appeal to the GOP base, he has already forsworn his earlier pro-choice position and now opposes not just legal abortion but also stem-cell research. Should he win the nomination, he will almost certainly do what McCain did and choose a running mate meant to energize the Republican base. Some consultants are already speculating about a Romney-Bachmann ticket.
FP: The price that both Jews and Christians are paying for the latter’s anti-semitic history. That’s Obama’s gain and he’s no friend of Jews either. But it validates my claim that Israel is not the salient electoral issue for US Jews. And, unfortunately, if the US demise accelerated by Obama ends up with Israel in peril, the US Jews will also pay a heavy price, one that they don’t imagine yet.
And Republican politics have never been so fully Christianized. The Tea Party was initially mischaracterized as a libertarian movement, but it is deeply imbued with religious fundamentalism, and polls show that a majority of its members believe that the United States is a Christian nation. It’s no accident that, upon taking over statehouses nationwide, Republicans elected with Tea Party support enacted a record number of abortion restrictions—80 in the first six months of 2011, compared to 23 for all of 2010.
Of the serious Republican presidential candidates, the only one who is not entirely aligned with the Christian right is Mitt Romney. Indeed, his campaign has gone out of its way to point out how, as a fellow member of a religious minority, he understands Jewish concerns. Yet he is running for the nomination of a party dominated by religious literalists; the majority of Republicans, for example, don’t believe in evolution, and more than half of them believe that humans were created in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. In his desire to appeal to the GOP base, he has already forsworn his earlier pro-choice position and now opposes not just legal abortion but also stem-cell research. Should he win the nomination, he will almost certainly do what McCain did and choose a running mate meant to energize the Republican base. Some consultants are already speculating about a Romney-Bachmann ticket.
Comments on Reads 7/26 III
ARIEL COHEN: Behind the Israeli-Lebanese Gas Row
Jonathan S. Tobin: Ayalon Video Drives Palestinians Nuts
Caroline Glick: Squandering Israel's limited influence
Note also the absurd situation in which the granter of aid is controlled by the grantee.
Dan Margalit:
Bret Stephens: What Is Anders Breivik?
Elliot Jager: The State of the Arab State
Tensions are rising in the eastern Mediterranean between Israel and Lebanon, this time over roughly 430 square miles of contested waters that contain considerable underwater gas reserves. Iran, Hezbollah and Syria are all interested in a war with Israel, each for their own reasons. Tehran and Damascus want to save the embattled regime of Bashar Assad, while Hezbollah seeks to protect its top officials from charges that they were involved in the assassination of late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A new war in the Middle East would aid all these goals—and be a disaster for the U.S., already embroiled in withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq and a military operation in Libya.
Lebanon's Hezbollah-dominated government has called Israel's proposed border an "aggression" and is now threatening to attack any Israeli gas projects—even those in undisputed waters. It wants the U.N. to arbitrate the border dispute under the Law of the Sea Treaty, to which Israel is not even a party. More troubling still, the U.S. State Department has reportedly endorsed Hezbollah's preferred solution of throwing the matter to the U.N.—despite the fact that the U.S. never ratified the treaty either.
The stakes are high for the U.S. and Israel. Hezbollah is armed with Chinese-designed, Iranian-made C-802 anti-ship missiles that could be devastating against future Israeli off-shore gas platforms and tankers. Hezbollah also has sea-born commando units.
FP: Lebanon is a major strategic blunder by both the US and Israel and the chickens are coming home to roost. That’s how lack of strategic vision brings decline and decline, in turn, invites attacks which can only be responded to with appeasement, inviting further attacks. There may well be something in Iran’s declaration that the end of the US power and Israel is near, but if so that's entirely self-caused.Lebanon's Hezbollah-dominated government has called Israel's proposed border an "aggression" and is now threatening to attack any Israeli gas projects—even those in undisputed waters. It wants the U.N. to arbitrate the border dispute under the Law of the Sea Treaty, to which Israel is not even a party. More troubling still, the U.S. State Department has reportedly endorsed Hezbollah's preferred solution of throwing the matter to the U.N.—despite the fact that the U.S. never ratified the treaty either.
The stakes are high for the U.S. and Israel. Hezbollah is armed with Chinese-designed, Iranian-made C-802 anti-ship missiles that could be devastating against future Israeli off-shore gas platforms and tankers. Hezbollah also has sea-born commando units.
Jonathan S. Tobin: Ayalon Video Drives Palestinians Nuts
PA negotiator Saeb Erekat issued a statement last week claiming that by asserting Israel’s historical rights to the West Bank and debunking the conventional wisdom that claims the territory is “illegally occupied,” Israel is pursuing a “pro-conflict agenda.” Erekat went on to assert Ayalon’s video is filled with false information showing Israel is “denying the Palestinian people their inalienable right to self-determination.”
But all Ayalon does is tell the basic truth about the history of the last century. Israel did not capture the West Bank in 1967 from the Palestinians but from Jordan in a war of self-defense. Jordan had illegally occupied the area as well as half of Jerusalem in the course of its participation in a war to destroy the newborn state of Israel in 1948. Ayalon also says something that is indisputably true but almost never mentioned in the mainstream media: Jews were guaranteed the right of settlement in the West Bank by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
To assert the Jewish state’s rights is not the same thing as saying Israel should never retreat from an inch of the West Bank. The borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state can only be determined by negotiations. But for too long, Israel and even most of its defenders in the United States have been so intent on trying to appear reasonable, they have appeared to concede the Palestinians’ false charge the land was stolen from them. That’s the problem for those who worry about the nation’s image and media coverage. If the West Bank is stolen property then it should merely be returned to its owners and not be a subject for talks. By rightly putting forth Israel’s claims, Ayalon is buttressing his country’s negotiating position, not undermining it.
So long as the Palestinians talk of rights and the Israelis speak of security, the Palestinians will win the argument every time. Thus, it’s no surprise Erekat and the Palestinians are so exorcised by Ayalon’s video. If it becomes, as it should, the model for a new Israeli diplomatic offensive, the deputy foreign minister’s mantra that the terms “illegal occupation” and “67 borders” are “simply not politically correct” will become an effective talking point for the country’s defenders.
FP: Another major strategic blunder by Israel, which may prove to be existential. That the Palestinians are so worried about it is reason enough to shift the strategy from security to rights, but I very much doubt that the view of the West Bank as stolen land can be reversed at this stage. Problem is Israel won’t even seriously try—Ayalon’s video is too little too late.But all Ayalon does is tell the basic truth about the history of the last century. Israel did not capture the West Bank in 1967 from the Palestinians but from Jordan in a war of self-defense. Jordan had illegally occupied the area as well as half of Jerusalem in the course of its participation in a war to destroy the newborn state of Israel in 1948. Ayalon also says something that is indisputably true but almost never mentioned in the mainstream media: Jews were guaranteed the right of settlement in the West Bank by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
To assert the Jewish state’s rights is not the same thing as saying Israel should never retreat from an inch of the West Bank. The borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state can only be determined by negotiations. But for too long, Israel and even most of its defenders in the United States have been so intent on trying to appear reasonable, they have appeared to concede the Palestinians’ false charge the land was stolen from them. That’s the problem for those who worry about the nation’s image and media coverage. If the West Bank is stolen property then it should merely be returned to its owners and not be a subject for talks. By rightly putting forth Israel’s claims, Ayalon is buttressing his country’s negotiating position, not undermining it.
So long as the Palestinians talk of rights and the Israelis speak of security, the Palestinians will win the argument every time. Thus, it’s no surprise Erekat and the Palestinians are so exorcised by Ayalon’s video. If it becomes, as it should, the model for a new Israeli diplomatic offensive, the deputy foreign minister’s mantra that the terms “illegal occupation” and “67 borders” are “simply not politically correct” will become an effective talking point for the country’s defenders.
Caroline Glick: Squandering Israel's limited influence
Israel, he claimed, is responsible for all of Gaza's economic woes because of its lawful maritime blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory's coastline. Gunness ignored the fact that despite that lawful blockade, which he falsely labeled "a clear breach of international law," Gaza has experienced overall economic growth in recent years. Its markets are full. It suffers no blockade-induced shortages in basic goods.
As he put it, "From UNRWA's point of view, it would be better for those states and organizations with the power to bring the necessary pressures to bear [on Israel] to end the collective punishment rather than pay UNRWA to deal with its disastrous impact."
THE PALESTINIAN protests against UNRWA demonstrate very clearly that from the Palestinians' perspective, UNRWA's job is to give them cash handouts in order to enable them to continue waging their war for Israel's destruction. And as UNRWA's quick capitulation to their protests against its name change, and its bid to blame their purported suffering on Israel make clear, UNRWA shares their perspective on what its role is in Palestinian society.
…
The US is UNRWA's largest donor. Its contributions to the agency have doubled since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. In 2009, the US contributed $268 million in US taxpayer funds to the agency. The amount accounted for 27% of UNRWA's total budget.
FP: Seems like the US is squandering its resources too. Let no one fool you: the US directly supports the conflict and the genocidal war against Israel via aid to UNRWA and the PA and it does the opposite of what it should do for its own interests—achieve peace. Instead of useless diplomacy, it should terminate the aid to the Palestinians.As he put it, "From UNRWA's point of view, it would be better for those states and organizations with the power to bring the necessary pressures to bear [on Israel] to end the collective punishment rather than pay UNRWA to deal with its disastrous impact."
THE PALESTINIAN protests against UNRWA demonstrate very clearly that from the Palestinians' perspective, UNRWA's job is to give them cash handouts in order to enable them to continue waging their war for Israel's destruction. And as UNRWA's quick capitulation to their protests against its name change, and its bid to blame their purported suffering on Israel make clear, UNRWA shares their perspective on what its role is in Palestinian society.
…
The US is UNRWA's largest donor. Its contributions to the agency have doubled since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. In 2009, the US contributed $268 million in US taxpayer funds to the agency. The amount accounted for 27% of UNRWA's total budget.
Note also the absurd situation in which the granter of aid is controlled by the grantee.
Dan Margalit:
One-third of the Israeli public, mostly from the middle class, carries the weight of the Arabs on the one hand and the ultra-Orthodox on the other. Neither of these groups contributes to our national enterprise, yet both live off the funds of those who do work. Now the middle class has discovered that it is not just charity to these groups that is impoverishing it, but also the tycoons, who take loans from our pension funds and pay them back only in part. Company heads Ilan Ben Dov and Yitzhak Tshuva have been there and done that, but the cash register is still open and other tycoons are sure to follow their lead.
FP: Israel’s “spring”. Israel is in a considerably more precarious situation than the rest of the West, because superimposed on the socioeconomically destructive consequences of the corporate welfare state are the Israeli Arabs and the ultra-orthodox Jews, Israel’s two deep faults.Bret Stephens: What Is Anders Breivik?
Breivik, Mr. Landes says, was of a piece: "Like many active cataclysmic apocalypticists, he believed that the socio-political world is in huge tension, like tectonic plates about to crack, and if he can set off a small explosion in the right place it will unleash far greater forces." In this sense, Mr. Landes adds, "the thing he resembles most is the people he hates."
He's right, and not just in regards to methods. Just as al Qaeda's primary fury has always been directed at Muslims who they view as apostates, traitors or stooges of the West, the main object of Breivik's hatred was what he called the "cultural Marxists" who dominated Norwegian politics. "If they refuse to surrender until 2020," he said of them, "there will be no turning back. We will eventually wipe out every single one of them."
Similarly, the purpose of Breivik's massacre wasn't simply to kill off the Labor party's leadership, current and future. It was to create a spectacle, and in doing so energize a cause. It's no accident that he wants media present at his trial: He has now entered what he calls the propaganda phase of his campaign, in which he imagines he will be given "a stage to the world" through which he can win over "tens of millions of European sympathizers and tens of thousands of brothers and sisters who support us fully and are willing to fight beside us." This was precisely what al Qaeda hoped to achieve (and to an extent did achieve) with 9/11.
FP: Extremes are extremes. What I think is being ignored here. European immigration policies have created serious problems that can bring down civilization. The European leftist, multiculti elites who caused these problems have ignored and failed to resolve them, leaving the field to fanatic extremist who are likely to be deranged nutters like Breivik. There are only two possible outcomes if nothing is done about it: Islamization, or more nutter atrocities.He's right, and not just in regards to methods. Just as al Qaeda's primary fury has always been directed at Muslims who they view as apostates, traitors or stooges of the West, the main object of Breivik's hatred was what he called the "cultural Marxists" who dominated Norwegian politics. "If they refuse to surrender until 2020," he said of them, "there will be no turning back. We will eventually wipe out every single one of them."
Similarly, the purpose of Breivik's massacre wasn't simply to kill off the Labor party's leadership, current and future. It was to create a spectacle, and in doing so energize a cause. It's no accident that he wants media present at his trial: He has now entered what he calls the propaganda phase of his campaign, in which he imagines he will be given "a stage to the world" through which he can win over "tens of millions of European sympathizers and tens of thousands of brothers and sisters who support us fully and are willing to fight beside us." This was precisely what al Qaeda hoped to achieve (and to an extent did achieve) with 9/11.
Elliot Jager: The State of the Arab State
In Trial of a Thousand Years, Charles Hill writes that if the nation-state paradigm in the Arab world were to be supplanted by the pan-Islamist alternative, the challenge to the international order would be immense. Not only do Islamists reject the state system embodied in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia (which resolved that religious differences ought no longer to justify international wars), they reject wholesale the boundaries, responsibilities, and indeed the very premises on which international order is based.
If the thesis is correct that the state model in the Arab world is today facing its most critical test, then Western policymakers can have no higher interest than to ensure that the Arab Spring does lead to democratic reformation, that the Arabs become convinced that the state is compatible with Islam, and that Islam joins other religions in what Hill calls the "debate over how far religion should go beyond private practice to display itself in the public square."
Failure on any one of these fronts would have consequences too devastating to contemplate—not only for the Arab world, but for Western civilization as well.
FP: In fact, the state has never been native to the Arabs. Their states are arbitrary assignments by waning European powers and have no loyalty and legitimacy, hence the need for dictators to impose obeisance by force. The final—and unavoidable—collapse of dictators will revert the Arabs to their native clanism/tribalism/Islamism: “me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin, me and my brother and my cousin against my neighbor”.
If the thesis is correct that the state model in the Arab world is today facing its most critical test, then Western policymakers can have no higher interest than to ensure that the Arab Spring does lead to democratic reformation, that the Arabs become convinced that the state is compatible with Islam, and that Islam joins other religions in what Hill calls the "debate over how far religion should go beyond private practice to display itself in the public square."
Failure on any one of these fronts would have consequences too devastating to contemplate—not only for the Arab world, but for Western civilization as well.
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