FP: A personal note on the events in my native Romania. Be wary of any Western media reports and analysis (e.g. CNN, the Economist). They are clueless about the reality of life and politics in Romania and project from Western societies.
Romania has had for the last decade or more utterly corrupt, incompetent, kleptocratic governments and has been essentially a nonfunctioning, anarchic, failed state. It lacks any leadership and has had a thoroughly apathetic public. The latter seems to have snapped, but because of the former it is not clear that improvements are possible. These are all effects of decades of utter destruction by the communist regime of Ceausescu and if Romania ever emerges from these circumstances, it may take several more decades.
Israel Matzav: Barak asked for exercise cancellation?
According to 'Pentagon sources' cited by Jeffrey Goldberg, it was Israel's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, and not the United States, that asked for the postponement of Operation Austere Challenge 12, the joint anti-missile exercise that was to have taken place in Israel in April.
One of the senior defense officials told me this: "Minister Barak called Secretary Panetta and asked if we could take the exercise off the calendar. The Israelis were concerned that they did not have the resources in place to carry it out effectively." The exercise, which was to begin with a live-fire drill, would have involved several thousand Israelis as well as several thousand American military personnel, and Barak told Panetta, according to these officials, that Israel could not pull together the resources necessary to stage the exercise successfully. "Our military is much bigger than theirs and this exercise was going to consume a much larger portion of their resources," the official said.
FP: Allow me to be skeptical of Goldberg and his senior defense official sources, but knowing Barak, it’s entirely possible. However, the important point here is why would US defence officials or even Goldberg publish that “Israel could not pull the resources for an exercise”, which is much less expensive than the real thing, if it comes? Not only does the US makes it clear to the Iranians that they have nothing to fear, but they also alert them that Israel does not have the resources to defend itself? Knowing Obama, that’s not surprising.
On the other hand, there were references in the media to and Israeli concern to have that size of an American contingent for an extended (indefinite?) time in Israel. If so, it may have not been a bad idea to cancel, which the Americans may not have liked, hence the American leak.
Matt Taibbi: The Best Politicians Money Can Buy
Courtesy of the peerless Tyler Durden over at Zero Hedge, a hilarious graphic presentation:
A few days ago we presented a roster of the top contributors to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign as reported by OpenSecrets. Today we have done the same for two other candidates, representing two previous election cycles: 2008 and 2004. The first table shows Romney's key contributors to date. The other two are the blacklined candidates. We are confident everyone can guess who they are, but just in case they are presented unredacted below the chart. It is ironic that nothing really changes at the end of the day in terms of whose bidding is ultimately performed by the president, whoever it may be. We have highlighted those Romney donors who are identical to previous campaign cycles.
Click here to see ZH's awesomely depressing charts.
FP: The kleptocratic mechanism revealed.
84 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing, poll finds
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows a new high — 84 percent of Americans — disapproving of the job Congress is doing, with almost two-thirds saying they “disapprove strongly.” Just 13 percent of Americans approve of how things are going after the 112th Congress’s first year of action, solidifying an unprecedented level of public disgust that has both sides worried about their positions less than 10 months before voters decide their fates.
FP: Can you figure out the implications for a re-elected Obama without any electoral constraints and the tendency to disregard constitutional constraints and congressional prerogatives?
Daniel Pipes: Egyptian Nuclear Power Plant Ransacked
Egypt Independent reports on vandalizing, looting, and fighting at the nuclear power plant being built at El-Dabaa, a town in the desert to the west of Alexandria.…
L'Institut d'Égypte, a nuclear power plant site … the situation has degenerated in Egypt to the point that nothing is safe.
The Islamists lack real power but they appear to be in charge; so as Egypt heads into economic decay and social anarchy, they will receive the blame. Could this be what the crafty military tyrants want, so they can swoop in and "save" the country?
FP: I doubt that the army is that sophisticated, but perhaps the old geezers on top might have that illusion. And events may initially develop that way. But as I wrote in the past, I believe that the lower to mid ranks in the miltary are either Islamist or can be readily Islamized. And given enough time and control of social nd education institutions, a process similar to that in Turkey may well occur, with much much more effectiveness and speed, because Egypt starts from a much more Islamized culture.
Elder of Ziyon: Hamas forces beat 20 Shi'ites in Gaza (updated)
UPDATE: Avi Issacharoff in Ha'aretz adds:
The Hamas-run government is convinced that Iran is expanding its influence in Gaza by means of Islamic Jihad.
Gazan sources told Haaretz that Islamic Jihad now contains a group of converts to Shia Islam. The group is led by Iyad al-Hosni, also a convert, who was ousted from Islamic Jihad but recently reinstated, probably under Iranian pressure: Islamic Jihad's leadership visited Iran two months ago, and afterward, al-Hosni was appointed a senior officer in its military wing.
Some of the men arrested on Friday issued a statement on Sunday urging Iran to stop funding Hamas due to its persecution of Shi'ites.
Tehran has already reduced its support for Hamas, among other things because Hamas has refused to support embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Becoming Shi'ite is a growing trend in the Gaza Strip: Hundreds of Sunnis, both Islamic Jihad activists and ordinary people, are known to have converted.
FP: The more they fight among Israel, the better for Israel. But they have the hatred of Jews to unite them, no matter what. But hey, you know that when such things occur, it is a sign of unity, Arab style:
Hamas really wants unity - with Islamic Jihad
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh today called for in-depth talks between Hamas and Islamic Jihad with an eye towards unifying the two terrorist movements.
Daoud Shihab, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, confirmed that Hamas and Islamic Jihad actually begun in-depth dialogue at home and abroad, in order to achieve unity.
He said, "The unity of our movement with Hamas will form the nucleus of the unity of the Islamic movement in the world", indicating that the meetings "are at home and abroad, in Israeli prisons and are also conducted at the highest levels of leadership" of the two groups.
No doubt this is more evidence of Hamas' peace-loving and pragmatic ways that so many Western experts believe in.
Fatah is moving towards the positions of Hamas, and Hamas is embracing Islamic Jihad. All this is being studiously ignored by the wishful thinkers of the mainstream media who love to hang onto their memes of a pragmatic, compromising Hamas and a moderate, peace loving Palestinian Authority.
Israel Matzav: The invention of the 'Palestinians'
There's a new book out there and it supports the claim that the 'Palestinians' were invented. Here's a blurb about it.
Who are the “Palestinians”? When did they come into being? Why? And how so? What theological, political, historical, and ethical significance does their invention have? How should we understand the historical and religious significance of the recent invention of the “Palestinian people” and the possible invention of a new country called ‘Palestine’? In this groundbreaking text, 27 myth-shattering theses are put forth and argued in detail using the resources of Psychoanalysis, Talmud and Torah, Philosophy, and History. The author engages in criticisms of key thinkers (Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernesto Laclau, Edward Said, etc.) and relies on the work of writers as diverse as Joan Peters, Shlomo Sand, and Rashid Khalidi. Radical views are put forth on various topics including Judaism, the Middle East, and Theology. The Invention of the “Palestinians” is unlike any book you have read.You can read more about it here. Yes, of course they were invented.
FP: It looks like the book overintellectualizing a basic simple fact: there was no such thing as the Palestinian nation or state. They were invented shortly before the 1967 war as an Arab weapon against Israel.
CAMERA: Carnegie Mellon's Prize for Bigotry
It's a cliché of the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic repertoire: The trusting young Jew who once believed in Israel's righteousness, but learns the "facts," wakes up to the reality that, actually, the nation is a criminal entity and then (heroically) speaks out. Young Jesse Lieberfeld not only produced a lurid screed on the theme, but won a prize for it sponsored by the Carnegie Mellon English department, Student Affairs, and the Office of the President.
Jesse laments that:
I was forever reminded ... to be proud of all the suffering our people had overcome in order to finally achieve their dream in the perfect society of Israel.This last mandatory belief was one which I never fully understood, but I always kept the doubts I had about Israel's spotless reputation to the back of my mind. "Our people" were fighting a war, one I did not fully comprehend, but I naturally assumed that it must be justified...
Yet as I came to learn more about our so-called "conflict" with the Palestinians, I grew more concerned. I routinely heard about unexplained mass killings, attacks on medical bases and other alarmingly violent actions for which I could see no possible reason. "Genocide" almost seemed the more appropriate term, yet no one I knew would have ever dreamed of portraying the war in that manner; they always described the situation in shockingly neutral terms.
No one he knew would dream of portraying Israel harshly? How about Daniel Lieberfeld, his father, who signed an anti-Israel petition at the height of the terror war against Israel in August 2001?
Why is Jesse reminded of Martin Luther King in all this? When friends on his school bus are impervious to "a fresh round of killings" and urge him simply to "defend our race" Jesse recalls the civil rights leader:
Where had I heard that before? Wasn't it the same excuse our own country had used to justify its abuses of African-Americans 60 years ago?
Hence the essay and the accolades. Jesse explains that speaking out against Israel is like King speaking out against white supremacists.
Jesse's prize, part of a 2012 Martin Luther King Writing Award and brainchild of Jim Daniels, the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English, is described in a university press release.
Among many questions is why and how poet Jim Daniels came to hold anti-Israel views so extreme that he apparently believes the country is perpetrating a "genocide" (against a population that has been growing at a healthy clip for 60 years) and disregarded Martin Luther King's own strong support for the Jewish state.
FP: An excellent example of how anti-Semitic indoctrination has become part of the mainstream, even ivi-league Western academic system. Elder of Ziyon has more on how, sadly, these views were induced into Lieberfeld by his American Jewish environment, particularly his Rabbi. His letter to Lieberfeld is a recommended read. This is validation of my argument that most American Jews internalize rather than combat anti_semitism, a classic reaction by assimilating Jews.
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