Matthew M. Hausman
Recent news reports suggest that the Obama administration intends to solicit the help of American Jewish leaders to sell its prescription for Middle East peace to their constituents. The strategy is to shore up Jewish support in order to lend credibility to President Obama’s foreign policy, regardless of how ill-advised or detrimental for Israel. That this White House is seen in the Arab world as either weak or willing to undercut Israeli sovereignty and security is of no moment. Most of the putative leaders who will be courted are already slaves to a political confederation known as much for what it rejects as what it promotes and leaves little room for original thought or dissent. Moreover, they are committed to political consorts who expect Israel to bow, bend and break to accommodate enemies who deny her history and are committed to maintaining the state of conflict. Unfortunately, these figureheads tend to ignore left-wing or liberal antipathy for Israel in the mistaken belief that antisemitism is the exclusive province of the political right.
Antisemitism has indeed been a political force in right-wing politics, particularly when associated with reactionary governments and churches, radical groups and demagogues, but it historically has been no less potent in leftist or liberal circles. As the ghetto walls came down in 19th Century Europe, many Jews flocked to the nascent liberal movements in the belief that anything opposing the forces that had oppressed them was good. Yet, they were so enamored of their apparent enfranchisement, and so eager to assimilate into a new European society, they could not fathom that the movements that seemingly afforded these opportunities were no more tolerant of Jews and Judaism than the old regimes had been. And this false affinity carried over to New World shores where it persists to this day.
Many American Jews truly believe that antisemitism does not exist in leftist circles because of the idealized history they associate with the birth and growth of European liberalism. But this history has been sanitized of its sordid reality and of the Faustian bargain required of Jews seeking membership. Most Jewish liberals are unaware that some of their most cherished philosophical icons were as virulently antisemitic as the systems of government they were rejecting. Voltaire, for example, was well-known for his hatred of Jews as were Diderot, Holbach and the later fathers of European socialism. Georg Ritter von Schonerer led the vocal left-wing antisemitic movement in Austria, while Wilhelm Marr, a German socialist, actually coined the term “antisemitism” in two pamphlets published in 1873 and 1880, in which he promoted hatred of Jews on political, economic and racial grounds.
Perhaps most famous was the hatred and self-loathing of Karl Marx who, with Friedrich Engels, wrote the Communist Manifesto. Most left-leaning Jews are unfamiliar with early socialist history and are unaware that Marx and Engels learned the theory of dialectical materialism and Hegelian philosophy from Moses Hess, a traditionally educated Jew who had become radicalized in his youth. Hess was considered one of the early pillars of European socialist thought and was highly regarded as such until Marx and Engels determined that all nationality was evil and that the Jews represented the most pernicious of all national spirits. It was then that Hess realized that the Jews’ salvation lay not with socialism but rather with Jewish nationalism and self-determination. His epiphany prompted him to write “Rome and Jerusalem,” which presaged Herzl’s “Der Judenstaat” by more than a quarter century.
Unfortunately, Hess’s national stirrings did not similarly move his political brethren, and the sad reality was that Jews could be accepted into leftist society only if they were willing to cease identifying religiously, nationally and intellectually as Jews. The requisite disaffiliation was often expressed by outright rejection of traditional values. And this rejection was a common thread binding Jews who rose to prominence on the left, whether those of the old Komintern who bowed without question to Soviet authority, or the radical leftists of our day, epitomized by the likes of George Soros, Noam Chomsky, and Norman Finkelstein, who disingenuously advocate for enemies of Israel and the Jewish people. These modern demagogues engage in pathological conduct rivaling the calumny of those medieval Jews who joined the Dominicans and instigated the burning of the Talmud and other holy writ.
Now clearly, not all liberals today are ardent, self-rejecting leftists, and in fact most consider themselves part of the non-extremist mainstream. And for the most part that’s probably a fair assessment. Where they go wrong, however, is in their failure to view their political bedfellows critically and hold them accountable for moral inconsistency or to condemn behavior that is clearly antisemitic. If liberal criticism is leveled at Israel for her response to terrorist aggression but not at those who foment the aggression that sparks the response, if the United Nations condemns Israel’s right to defend herself, or if Human Rights Watch falsely accuses Israel perpetrating “massacres” that never occurred and then refuses to retract, these Jews become complicit by their silence. In extreme ideological circles, such silence implies agreement with the accusations no matter how absurd.
Where left-leaning Jews also go wrong is in their willingness to abandon the religious, cultural and philosophical precepts that kept the Jewish people intact during two millennia of exile, and to replace them with secular ideals that are not necessarily or automatically compatible with the Jewish historical experience. Those who knowingly reject their values are only slightly worse than those who are completely ignorant of their heritage and who, because of their ignorance, cannot honestly distinguish transient political concerns from authentic Jewish priorities. The knowing rejectionists are like the wicked child spoken of at the Seder table who rebels despite his knowledge, while the benignly ignorant are like the child who does not know how to ask and risks moral darkness and spiritual decline.
The risk in being the child who does not know how to ask is that it renders one susceptible to the blandishments of those who misrepresent history for the sake of political agenda. Those lacking in Jewish self-awareness can be manipulated into believing that support for Israel is not an absolute and is antithetical to humanist values. Supporting Israel, however, should not be a conservative versus liberal issue. Rather, objective knowledge of world history should a priori engender support for Israel despite political affiliation.
The late Ronald Reagan is a case in point. During his first administration, his relationship with Israel had a rocky start under the guiding influence of James Baker, George Schultz and Caspar Weinberger, none of whom were friends of Israel and all of whom had ties to the Arab world. Shortly after Israel’s annexation of Golan in 1981, the administration secretly negotiated with the Arab countries a “peace plan” calling for a ceding of the Heights and a retreat to indefensible borders. Israel was not informed of these talks, but was presented with the “final plan” as a fait accompli, which Israel nonetheless rejected. That same year, the administration also condemned Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor and weapons plant.
Menachem Begin rose to these challenges, publicly rebuking the administration through its ambassador and endeavoring to educate President Reagan regarding Jewish and Israeli history and Middle East politics. Although they would not always agree, President Reagan thereafter became for the most part a trusted friend. The point is that the Republican administration in the 1980s was neither inherently supportive nor opposed to Israel based on philosophy or doctrine. The relationship between the two countries eased only after the president’s education about the realities of the Middle East and Israel’s historic rights.
If President Obama now wishes to call upon his Jewish political allies to promote his Middle East policy in order to lend it credence, it is up to the constituents of those allies to say “enough” and to reject their stewardship. Their support for a toxic foreign policy that first spawned Oslo and now presumes an unworkable two-state solution must be met with vocal resistance, grounded in history and informed by the knowledge that left-wing antipathy and liberal discomfort for Israel is often tinged with antisemitism. Although Menachem Begin is no longer with us, we need to channel his resolve and character in the hope that the current administration can be similarly educated. The effort may not succeed, but silence will be taken as acquiescence.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
"The Good and the Bad"
Arlene Kushner
Livni will not be sitting in the government. What is also good, is that the reason she won't is because she "saw no sign of Bibi's commitment to the issues." Which means he refused to commit to a "two-state solution." Baruch Hashem.
Now we'll watch as the coalition takes shape. The bad is that Chas Freeman's appointment is official. I was waiting for official word and it has come. Found it in The Washington Times: an announcement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“Ambassador Freeman is a distinguished public servant who brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in defense, diplomacy and intelligence that are absolutely critical to understanding today’s threats and how to address them,” said the director, Dennis Blair. “The country is fortunate that Ambassador Freeman has agreed to return to public service and contribute his remarkable skills toward further strengthening the Intelligence Community’s analytical process.”
If his expertise is critical for the US, the US is now going down a very different road and the world is a different place. There is no way, here and now, for me to say all I wish to say on this subject. But it's time for the supporters of Israel in the US to wake up and realize they have a government that is going to work against us -- and to stand strong against those efforts.
We cannot rest for a moment (except on Shabbat).
~~~~~~~~~~
Another blessing, among the many that are ours: It is pouring torrentially. How we need this!
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
Livni will not be sitting in the government. What is also good, is that the reason she won't is because she "saw no sign of Bibi's commitment to the issues." Which means he refused to commit to a "two-state solution." Baruch Hashem.
Now we'll watch as the coalition takes shape. The bad is that Chas Freeman's appointment is official. I was waiting for official word and it has come. Found it in The Washington Times: an announcement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“Ambassador Freeman is a distinguished public servant who brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in defense, diplomacy and intelligence that are absolutely critical to understanding today’s threats and how to address them,” said the director, Dennis Blair. “The country is fortunate that Ambassador Freeman has agreed to return to public service and contribute his remarkable skills toward further strengthening the Intelligence Community’s analytical process.”
If his expertise is critical for the US, the US is now going down a very different road and the world is a different place. There is no way, here and now, for me to say all I wish to say on this subject. But it's time for the supporters of Israel in the US to wake up and realize they have a government that is going to work against us -- and to stand strong against those efforts.
We cannot rest for a moment (except on Shabbat).
~~~~~~~~~~
Another blessing, among the many that are ours: It is pouring torrentially. How we need this!
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
40 days after war, Hamas rule of Gaza gaining legitimacy
Aluf Benn, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
Three rockets fell Thursday in the area around the Gaza Strip, one in the yard of a Sderot home - just a few reminders that Israel is still far from its declared goal in Operation Cast Lead. Discussion about the military operation's outcome revolves around the term "deterrence."If Israel can enshrine Cast Lead in a long-term agreement, the war will be remembered as a success. But fears are mounting that the operation's military achievements are dissipating. If so, the operation will go down in history as a less-than-successful round in a long war in the Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces left Gaza with the feeling that it had proven itself, after its debacle in Lebanon in 2006. But it seems that the bottom line will have to wait. In Lebanon, too, it took several months before it could be concluded that although the IDF made mistakes, enough deterrence against Hezbollah was achieved to prevent renewed fighting.
Barak, who was quick to criticize what went wrong in Lebanon, followed Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's lead in withdrawing from Gaza without a real agreement. But like in Lebanon, faced with only an aerial attack or one followed by a ground operation, Israel chose the middle ground and acted slowly and partially. Because in Gaza the enemy was less determined than in Lebanon, the move first appeared to be a victory. Only when the IDF left could the results of the war be seen as limited, with almost daily attacks near the fence, a continuing "drizzle" of rockets and information on renewed arms smuggling.
The blow Hamas was dealt has only led to increased admiration for the group, according to opinion polls in the territories. Hamas is still waiting for another crowning achievement: if abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is released for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
However, the army is currently reviewing its performance during the war and an encouraging picture is emerging in terms of its professionalism, control over units, aerial assistance to ground forces, quality of intelligence and logistics compared to the Second Lebanon War.
Diplomatic lessons
Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government made three major moves during its term: the Second Lebanon War, the bombing of the Syrian nuclear facility and Operation Cast Lead. The same lesson can be learned from all: The international community will back Israel's military operations as long as they are short, focused, conducted from the air and do not result in major civilian casualties.
Cast Lead raised international hackles, because Israel lost few people to the rockets fired from Gaza, but its response caused widespread death and destruction. What's more, in Gaza the victims were Palestinians, who already bear the brunt of the tragedy of 1948; the world is much more sympathetic to them than to Syria's Bashar Assad or Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah.
The major damage Cast Lead did was in legitimizing Hamas as the ruler of the Gaza Strip, with increasing calls for "reconciliation talks" that will return the organization to the Palestinian leadership.
The operation was planned to coincide with the end of the term of the Israel-friendly President George W. Bush, before President Barack Obama entered office. But now, instead of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coming to talk to Israel about the Iranian threat, her first visit in office will focus on the problems of the Palestinians in Gaza. That might be the greatest damage of all.
Reservists' two cents
Forty days after the end of the war in Gaza, reserve paratroop sergeant, Keren Hagigi, whose unit fought north of Gaza City, said that when the cabinet announced the end of the operation, "of course I was glad to get home to my wife and little boy, but I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that even when we were sitting in a house in Beit Lahiya, we could still see Katyushas being launched, right next to us."
But Sgt. 1st Class Amitai Ahiman added: "I think that except for getting [kidnapped soldier] Gilad Shalit back, we did the most we could. From what I saw inside [the Strip], we did attain deterrence."
Another reservist, Amir Marmor, a gunner, said he left the war ashamed. "The IDF used disproportionate power, in a kind of punishment operation."
Same old in Sderot
The Color Red alert was followed Thursday by the muffled sound of a falling rocket, seemingly not too close to the center of town. Only later, people found out a rocket had hit a house and a few people were suffering from shock. In Sderot, it's business as usual.
To their credit, people in Sderot are amazingly tolerant of their sometimes diametrically opposed positions about the war, a tolerance that allowed the city to continue functioning during the war, despite the exhaustion, the bedwetting children and the anxiety attacks.
After two weeks in front of the cameras, Sderot is back on the margins it knows so well: failing businesses, a desperate school system. But who has the strength to talk about it?
Healthcare struggles
Out of 500 injured people during Operation Cast Lead - soldiers and civilians - and 548 victims of shock and trauma, 18 soldiers are still hospitalized at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon is still struggling to build its rocket-proof emergency room.
Psychological trauma is still visible. Dr. Ronny Berger, head of the Natal community services for trauma victims, says, "these are people who have lost their sense of security, and because rockets are still 'drizzling,' it's hard to persuade them that it's all over." Natal is still responding to the serious psychological needs of people, who contact the organization through its hot line or whom its staff locates during home visits, a model Berger says Natal developed and finds very effective, since some people are afraid to leave their homes to get treated.
Cities take stock
After many sleepless nights, 40 days later, mayors are taking stock of how their cities functioned during the war, and most importantly, they say, how to get ready for the next round. Be'er Sheva Mayor Rubik Danilovich ordered all his department heads to submit reports on problems and lessons learned. "I asked the Defense Ministry to install shelters as quickly as possible throughout the city," he said. The head of the Eshkol Regional Council, Haim Yellin, said his area has still not returned to normal, even after all the repairs, "physical and organizational" have been made. Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council head Alon Shuster says, "security directives have changed; everything has changed; except for one thing - they're still firing at us."
Damage to farms
Cultivated fields were dealt a mortal blow by Operation Cast Lead, after the army prohibited farmers from spraying, irrigating and harvesting. Forty days on, the government has still not paid farmers compensation. Out of 140,000 dunams (35,000 acres), 3,000 were hit. "Another problem is that the army took over land and damaged it," Lior Katari, coordinator of the Agricultural Council of the Eshkol region, says, adding that he estimates the damage to farmers at NIS 150 million.
/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=1067318
Three rockets fell Thursday in the area around the Gaza Strip, one in the yard of a Sderot home - just a few reminders that Israel is still far from its declared goal in Operation Cast Lead. Discussion about the military operation's outcome revolves around the term "deterrence."If Israel can enshrine Cast Lead in a long-term agreement, the war will be remembered as a success. But fears are mounting that the operation's military achievements are dissipating. If so, the operation will go down in history as a less-than-successful round in a long war in the Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces left Gaza with the feeling that it had proven itself, after its debacle in Lebanon in 2006. But it seems that the bottom line will have to wait. In Lebanon, too, it took several months before it could be concluded that although the IDF made mistakes, enough deterrence against Hezbollah was achieved to prevent renewed fighting.
Barak, who was quick to criticize what went wrong in Lebanon, followed Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's lead in withdrawing from Gaza without a real agreement. But like in Lebanon, faced with only an aerial attack or one followed by a ground operation, Israel chose the middle ground and acted slowly and partially. Because in Gaza the enemy was less determined than in Lebanon, the move first appeared to be a victory. Only when the IDF left could the results of the war be seen as limited, with almost daily attacks near the fence, a continuing "drizzle" of rockets and information on renewed arms smuggling.
The blow Hamas was dealt has only led to increased admiration for the group, according to opinion polls in the territories. Hamas is still waiting for another crowning achievement: if abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is released for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
However, the army is currently reviewing its performance during the war and an encouraging picture is emerging in terms of its professionalism, control over units, aerial assistance to ground forces, quality of intelligence and logistics compared to the Second Lebanon War.
Diplomatic lessons
Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government made three major moves during its term: the Second Lebanon War, the bombing of the Syrian nuclear facility and Operation Cast Lead. The same lesson can be learned from all: The international community will back Israel's military operations as long as they are short, focused, conducted from the air and do not result in major civilian casualties.
Cast Lead raised international hackles, because Israel lost few people to the rockets fired from Gaza, but its response caused widespread death and destruction. What's more, in Gaza the victims were Palestinians, who already bear the brunt of the tragedy of 1948; the world is much more sympathetic to them than to Syria's Bashar Assad or Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah.
The major damage Cast Lead did was in legitimizing Hamas as the ruler of the Gaza Strip, with increasing calls for "reconciliation talks" that will return the organization to the Palestinian leadership.
The operation was planned to coincide with the end of the term of the Israel-friendly President George W. Bush, before President Barack Obama entered office. But now, instead of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coming to talk to Israel about the Iranian threat, her first visit in office will focus on the problems of the Palestinians in Gaza. That might be the greatest damage of all.
Reservists' two cents
Forty days after the end of the war in Gaza, reserve paratroop sergeant, Keren Hagigi, whose unit fought north of Gaza City, said that when the cabinet announced the end of the operation, "of course I was glad to get home to my wife and little boy, but I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that even when we were sitting in a house in Beit Lahiya, we could still see Katyushas being launched, right next to us."
But Sgt. 1st Class Amitai Ahiman added: "I think that except for getting [kidnapped soldier] Gilad Shalit back, we did the most we could. From what I saw inside [the Strip], we did attain deterrence."
Another reservist, Amir Marmor, a gunner, said he left the war ashamed. "The IDF used disproportionate power, in a kind of punishment operation."
Same old in Sderot
The Color Red alert was followed Thursday by the muffled sound of a falling rocket, seemingly not too close to the center of town. Only later, people found out a rocket had hit a house and a few people were suffering from shock. In Sderot, it's business as usual.
To their credit, people in Sderot are amazingly tolerant of their sometimes diametrically opposed positions about the war, a tolerance that allowed the city to continue functioning during the war, despite the exhaustion, the bedwetting children and the anxiety attacks.
After two weeks in front of the cameras, Sderot is back on the margins it knows so well: failing businesses, a desperate school system. But who has the strength to talk about it?
Healthcare struggles
Out of 500 injured people during Operation Cast Lead - soldiers and civilians - and 548 victims of shock and trauma, 18 soldiers are still hospitalized at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon is still struggling to build its rocket-proof emergency room.
Psychological trauma is still visible. Dr. Ronny Berger, head of the Natal community services for trauma victims, says, "these are people who have lost their sense of security, and because rockets are still 'drizzling,' it's hard to persuade them that it's all over." Natal is still responding to the serious psychological needs of people, who contact the organization through its hot line or whom its staff locates during home visits, a model Berger says Natal developed and finds very effective, since some people are afraid to leave their homes to get treated.
Cities take stock
After many sleepless nights, 40 days later, mayors are taking stock of how their cities functioned during the war, and most importantly, they say, how to get ready for the next round. Be'er Sheva Mayor Rubik Danilovich ordered all his department heads to submit reports on problems and lessons learned. "I asked the Defense Ministry to install shelters as quickly as possible throughout the city," he said. The head of the Eshkol Regional Council, Haim Yellin, said his area has still not returned to normal, even after all the repairs, "physical and organizational" have been made. Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council head Alon Shuster says, "security directives have changed; everything has changed; except for one thing - they're still firing at us."
Damage to farms
Cultivated fields were dealt a mortal blow by Operation Cast Lead, after the army prohibited farmers from spraying, irrigating and harvesting. Forty days on, the government has still not paid farmers compensation. Out of 140,000 dunams (35,000 acres), 3,000 were hit. "Another problem is that the army took over land and damaged it," Lior Katari, coordinator of the Agricultural Council of the Eshkol region, says, adding that he estimates the damage to farmers at NIS 150 million.
/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=1067318
Clinton says too soon to say if thaw in Syria ties
WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday it was too soon to say whether there would be a thaw in ties with Damascus, as a senior U.S. diplomat met with Syria's ambassador at the State Department."We have regular interactions with the Syrians as a part of our normal diplomatic efforts," said Clinton of a rare meeting at the State Department between Syrian ambassador Imad Mustafa and acting head of the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, Jeffrey Feltman.
"It is too soon to say what the future holds," she added when asked whether the summoning of Syria's ambassador indicated a thaw in frosty ties.
The meeting between Mustafa and Feltman, which took place as Clinton spoke, was the highest-level encounter between the two sides since the Obama administration took office last month and is part of the new team's bid to reach out to its enemies.
The Obama administration is reviewing its relations with Syria as part of its overall policy overhaul.
The U.S. ambassador was pulled out of Syria after the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and a decision is expected soon over whether to send one back.
Clinton said she was working hard, as was the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to engage with Israel, the Palestinians and all of its neighbors in the region, including Syria.
"We are going to pursue the commitment that we stated when we appointed our special envoy to try to bring parties together for peace and stability in the Middle East," said Clinton.
Mitchell was in Turkey on Thursday as part of his efforts to jump-start the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process which President Barack Obama has said will be a foreign policy priority of his administration.
Turkey has played a major role in bringing Israel and Syria to indirect negotiations but those talks have been stalled since Israel launched its invasion into Gaza in December.
Clinton is set to embark on her own trip to the Middle East this weekend, including stops in Egypt, Israel and the West Bank. Turkish officials said she would also visit Ankara where the Syria-Israeli negotiations will likely be high on the agenda. (Reporting by Sue Pleming; editing by David Wiessler)
"It is too soon to say what the future holds," she added when asked whether the summoning of Syria's ambassador indicated a thaw in frosty ties.
The meeting between Mustafa and Feltman, which took place as Clinton spoke, was the highest-level encounter between the two sides since the Obama administration took office last month and is part of the new team's bid to reach out to its enemies.
The Obama administration is reviewing its relations with Syria as part of its overall policy overhaul.
The U.S. ambassador was pulled out of Syria after the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and a decision is expected soon over whether to send one back.
Clinton said she was working hard, as was the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to engage with Israel, the Palestinians and all of its neighbors in the region, including Syria.
"We are going to pursue the commitment that we stated when we appointed our special envoy to try to bring parties together for peace and stability in the Middle East," said Clinton.
Mitchell was in Turkey on Thursday as part of his efforts to jump-start the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process which President Barack Obama has said will be a foreign policy priority of his administration.
Turkey has played a major role in bringing Israel and Syria to indirect negotiations but those talks have been stalled since Israel launched its invasion into Gaza in December.
Clinton is set to embark on her own trip to the Middle East this weekend, including stops in Egypt, Israel and the West Bank. Turkish officials said she would also visit Ankara where the Syria-Israeli negotiations will likely be high on the agenda. (Reporting by Sue Pleming; editing by David Wiessler)
Clinton says too soon to say if thaw in Syria ties
WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday it was too soon to say whether there would be a thaw in ties with Damascus, as a senior U.S. diplomat met with Syria's ambassador at the State Department."We have regular interactions with the Syrians as a part of our normal diplomatic efforts," said Clinton of a rare meeting at the State Department between Syrian ambassador Imad Mustafa and acting head of the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, Jeffrey Feltman.
"It is too soon to say what the future holds," she added when asked whether the summoning of Syria's ambassador indicated a thaw in frosty ties.
The meeting between Mustafa and Feltman, which took place as Clinton spoke, was the highest-level encounter between the two sides since the Obama administration took office last month and is part of the new team's bid to reach out to its enemies.
The Obama administration is reviewing its relations with Syria as part of its overall policy overhaul.
The U.S. ambassador was pulled out of Syria after the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and a decision is expected soon over whether to send one back.
Clinton said she was working hard, as was the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to engage with Israel, the Palestinians and all of its neighbors in the region, including Syria.
"We are going to pursue the commitment that we stated when we appointed our special envoy to try to bring parties together for peace and stability in the Middle East," said Clinton.
Mitchell was in Turkey on Thursday as part of his efforts to jump-start the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process which President Barack Obama has said will be a foreign policy priority of his administration.
Turkey has played a major role in bringing Israel and Syria to indirect negotiations but those talks have been stalled since Israel launched its invasion into Gaza in December.
Clinton is set to embark on her own trip to the Middle East this weekend, including stops in Egypt, Israel and the West Bank. Turkish officials said she would also visit Ankara where the Syria-Israeli negotiations will likely be high on the agenda. (Reporting by Sue Pleming; editing by David Wiessler)
"It is too soon to say what the future holds," she added when asked whether the summoning of Syria's ambassador indicated a thaw in frosty ties.
The meeting between Mustafa and Feltman, which took place as Clinton spoke, was the highest-level encounter between the two sides since the Obama administration took office last month and is part of the new team's bid to reach out to its enemies.
The Obama administration is reviewing its relations with Syria as part of its overall policy overhaul.
The U.S. ambassador was pulled out of Syria after the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and a decision is expected soon over whether to send one back.
Clinton said she was working hard, as was the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to engage with Israel, the Palestinians and all of its neighbors in the region, including Syria.
"We are going to pursue the commitment that we stated when we appointed our special envoy to try to bring parties together for peace and stability in the Middle East," said Clinton.
Mitchell was in Turkey on Thursday as part of his efforts to jump-start the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process which President Barack Obama has said will be a foreign policy priority of his administration.
Turkey has played a major role in bringing Israel and Syria to indirect negotiations but those talks have been stalled since Israel launched its invasion into Gaza in December.
Clinton is set to embark on her own trip to the Middle East this weekend, including stops in Egypt, Israel and the West Bank. Turkish officials said she would also visit Ankara where the Syria-Israeli negotiations will likely be high on the agenda. (Reporting by Sue Pleming; editing by David Wiessler)
Thursday, February 26, 2009
"Still Time?"
It appears that the appointment of Chas Freeman to the chair of the National Intelligence Council is not yet final. This according to Ron Kampeas of the JTA, today.
Kampeas cites Steve Rosen, formerly with AIPAC, who has written in his blog that:
"Freeman is a strident critic of Israel, and a textbook case of the old-line Arabism that afflicted American diplomacy at the time the State of Israel was born...[Freeman's] views of the region are what you would expect of the Saudi Foreign Ministry, with which he maintains an extremely close relationship, and not the top CIA position for analytic products going to the president of the United States."And so, my friends in the US, I urge you to make your voice heard.
You can register your protest to President Obama, at:
Phone: 202-456-1111 Fax; 202-456-2461 Via e-mail form at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
To locate your representatives in Congress, see:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
To locate your senators:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
At the bottom of this posting I will include the members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence again.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Likud negotiating team continues to meet with the right wing/religious parties that are expected to be part of the governing coalition. Lots of rumors regarding who will get what, nothing definitive yet.
Tomorrow is the final time that Netanyahu will be meeting with Livni, in order to coax her to form a unity government. I will not rest altogether easy until after that meeting and her final rejection.
Many theories have been advanced as to why he is pursuing her so vigorously -- including the notion that he is really courting the "rebels" of Kadima, who will be annoyed at her refusal and break away to return to Likud. But today I picked up what might be some inside information that tends to indicate that he really means it. Why? So she cannot undermine from the opposition -- she will be, in essence, co-opted. My thought is that she'd do more undermining from within.
~~~~~~~~~~
Netanyahu has said that he would make concessions to bring Livni in, including some commitment to negotiate with the Palestinians. He stopped short, however, of being ready to commit to a "two-state solution." This is the essence of her position.
Netanyahu also plans to try to convince Secretary of State Clinton -- who will be here next week -- that a Palestinian unity government is a bad idea, and that the US should isolate Hamas.
~~~~~~~~~~
US Envoy Mitchell -- after a meeting with Livni -- had a talk with Netanyahu. It went surprisingly well, according to reports. There was no pressure brought to bear at this point regarding settlements or any other matter.
~~~~~~~~~~
Laugh of the day: PM Olmert said in a statement in Ashkelon today that he was "within a whisker" of making an agreement with the Palestinians, but political realities intervened. This strikes me like being a little bit pregnant. If "political realities" intervened, he wasn't that close. I, for one, am convinced the PA would never settle under any terms, and certainly not on the terms that even Olmert might have offered.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chair of the Committee
Phone: (202) 224-3841 Fax: (202) 228-3954
For e-mail form: http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe
Christopher (Kit) Bond (R-MO) Vice Chair (important to reach)
Phone: (202) 224-5721
For e-mail form: http://bond.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.ContactForm
Others who are friends, and should hear from us:
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Phone: (202) 224-5251 Fax: (202) 224-6331
For e-mail form: http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Offices.Contact
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Phone: 202-224-3521 Fax: 202-224-0103
For e-mail form: http://chambliss.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.ContactForm&CFID=6992675&CFTOKEN=44678780
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Phone: 202-224-5754 Fax: 202-224-6008
For e-mail form: http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorCoburn.Home
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Phone: (202) 224-5623 Fax: (202) 228-1377
For e-mail form: http://bayh.senate.gov/contact/email/
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Phone: (202) 224-4654 Fax: (202) 224-8858
For e-mail form: http://mikulski.senate.gov/Contact/contact.cfm
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
Phone: (202) 224-5344 Fax: (202) 224-1946
For e-mail form: http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
Kampeas cites Steve Rosen, formerly with AIPAC, who has written in his blog that:
"Freeman is a strident critic of Israel, and a textbook case of the old-line Arabism that afflicted American diplomacy at the time the State of Israel was born...[Freeman's] views of the region are what you would expect of the Saudi Foreign Ministry, with which he maintains an extremely close relationship, and not the top CIA position for analytic products going to the president of the United States."And so, my friends in the US, I urge you to make your voice heard.
You can register your protest to President Obama, at:
Phone: 202-456-1111 Fax; 202-456-2461 Via e-mail form at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
To locate your representatives in Congress, see:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
To locate your senators:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
At the bottom of this posting I will include the members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence again.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Likud negotiating team continues to meet with the right wing/religious parties that are expected to be part of the governing coalition. Lots of rumors regarding who will get what, nothing definitive yet.
Tomorrow is the final time that Netanyahu will be meeting with Livni, in order to coax her to form a unity government. I will not rest altogether easy until after that meeting and her final rejection.
Many theories have been advanced as to why he is pursuing her so vigorously -- including the notion that he is really courting the "rebels" of Kadima, who will be annoyed at her refusal and break away to return to Likud. But today I picked up what might be some inside information that tends to indicate that he really means it. Why? So she cannot undermine from the opposition -- she will be, in essence, co-opted. My thought is that she'd do more undermining from within.
~~~~~~~~~~
Netanyahu has said that he would make concessions to bring Livni in, including some commitment to negotiate with the Palestinians. He stopped short, however, of being ready to commit to a "two-state solution." This is the essence of her position.
Netanyahu also plans to try to convince Secretary of State Clinton -- who will be here next week -- that a Palestinian unity government is a bad idea, and that the US should isolate Hamas.
~~~~~~~~~~
US Envoy Mitchell -- after a meeting with Livni -- had a talk with Netanyahu. It went surprisingly well, according to reports. There was no pressure brought to bear at this point regarding settlements or any other matter.
~~~~~~~~~~
Laugh of the day: PM Olmert said in a statement in Ashkelon today that he was "within a whisker" of making an agreement with the Palestinians, but political realities intervened. This strikes me like being a little bit pregnant. If "political realities" intervened, he wasn't that close. I, for one, am convinced the PA would never settle under any terms, and certainly not on the terms that even Olmert might have offered.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chair of the Committee
Phone: (202) 224-3841 Fax: (202) 228-3954
For e-mail form: http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe
Christopher (Kit) Bond (R-MO) Vice Chair (important to reach)
Phone: (202) 224-5721
For e-mail form: http://bond.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.ContactForm
Others who are friends, and should hear from us:
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Phone: (202) 224-5251 Fax: (202) 224-6331
For e-mail form: http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Offices.Contact
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Phone: 202-224-3521 Fax: 202-224-0103
For e-mail form: http://chambliss.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.ContactForm&CFID=6992675&CFTOKEN=44678780
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Phone: 202-224-5754 Fax: 202-224-6008
For e-mail form: http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorCoburn.Home
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Phone: (202) 224-5623 Fax: (202) 228-1377
For e-mail form: http://bayh.senate.gov/contact/email/
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Phone: (202) 224-4654 Fax: (202) 224-8858
For e-mail form: http://mikulski.senate.gov/Contact/contact.cfm
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
Phone: (202) 224-5344 Fax: (202) 224-1946
For e-mail form: http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
PA Leads in Hate for USA
Maayana Miskin Poll: PA Leads in Hate for USA
A poll released this week by the World Public Opinion polling group showed the Palestinian Authority leading several other Arab and Muslim countries in hatred for the United States, belief that the United States is battling Islam and support for attacks on American civilians.
The poll was conducted in 2007 and 2008 among residents of Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco and Pakistan, and in 2008 among residents of Azerbaijan, Iran, Jordan, Turkey and Palestinian Authority-controlled areas in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Nigerian Muslims were polled as well.
The survey also showed a slight increase in support for terrorism and attacks on US civilians in countries where the poll was conducted in both 2007 and 2008.A total of 638 PA Arabs were questioned for the poll, and the margin of error regarding their responses was four percent.
Among the findings:
A full 88 percent of PA Arabs said spreading Christianity in the Middle East was “definitely” or “probably” one of the United States' foreign policy goals, with PA residents the most likely to support this claim. Muslims in Turkey, Jordan and Pakistan were also likely to hold this belief, with between 70-80 percent of respondents in those countries answering that the spread of Christianity was “definitely” or “probably” a US goal.
Eighty-nine percent of PA respondents said the US was “definitely” or “probably” trying to control Middle East oil resources, a percent similar to that in other Muslim countries. Seventy percent said the US was “definitely” hoping to divide and weaken the Muslim world.
Over 50 percent said the US was “definitely” or “probably” interested in creating “an independent and economically viable” PA state. However, 90 percent said the US was also planning to expand Israel's borders.
Forty-nine percent said the US “purposely tries to humiliate the Islamic world.”
When asked about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, 42 percent of PA respondents said they believed Al Qaeda or another Muslim terrorist group was behind the attacks, while 27 percent blamed the American government.
PA Arabs were the least likely to say they disapproved of all terrorist groups that attack Americans and were the most likely to express full or mixed approval for such groups. Fourteen percent of those PA Arabs surveyed fell into the former category, while 53 percent said they supported some terrorist groups that attack US citizens and 30 percent said they approve of “most or all” such groups.
Jordan was in second place in support of anti-US terror, with 20 percent of respondents saying they approve “most or all” groups that attack the US and 42 percent saying they approve of some such groups.
Sixty-seven percent of PA Arabs said they strongly approve of attacks on US troops in Iraq, and 23 percent said they somewhat approve. Only five percent reported that they “somewhat” or “strongly” disapprove. Sixty-one percent expressed strong support for attacks on US troops in the Persian Gulf; six percent disapproved.
While a much lower percentage expressed support for attacks on US civilians inside the United States, PA Muslims still led other respondents by a wide margin, with 10 percent expressing “strong approval” of such attacks, 14 percent “somewhat” approving, and 15 percent with mixed feelings. .
Hamas: We'll Keep Smuggling Arms
Hillel Fendel Hamas: We'll Keep Smuggling Arms
A top Hamas official has declared that his Palestinian terrorist group will continue to smuggle weapons into Gaza, despite international protests.
"It's our right to bring in everything money and arms," Mahmoud Zahar told Reuters on Tuesday. "We will not give anyone any commitment on this subject." The promise to smuggle in war materiel comes as the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby group states that Iran is redoubling its efforts to smuggle advanced weaponry to Hamas terrorists.In addition, not only is Hamas continuing to fire rockets at Israeli civilian areas – over 100 have slammed into Israel over the past several weeks – but Hamas also continues efforts to expand its military capabilities. The terrorist rulers of the Gaza Strip recently fired a rocket into the Mediterranean, measuring its distance as part of a military assessment of its weapons capabilities.
Gaza, ruled by Hamas since it overthrew Fatah in 2007, borders Israeli cities and areas such as Sderot, the Negev and the southern coastal plane.
Where Does the U.S. Stand?
The U.S. does not officially recognize Hamas, but has made some gestures towards Gaza. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will officially announce next week that the Obama administration intends to provide some $900 million to help rebuild the Gaza Strip. Clinton will be taking part in a donors’ conference in Cairo.
The funds, which must first be approved by Congress, will not go directly to Hamas, but will rather be disbursed to non-governmental agencies and the United Nations.
Two U.S. Congressmen and a Senator have recently visited Gaza, with the former two taking an overtly anti-Israel tone. Rep. Brian Baird (D.-Wash) even said that Israel had “apparently willfully destroyed any capacity of the Palestinians to rebuild their own infrastructure.”
Hamas Provocations
Hamas has openly displayed its efforts to rebuild the arm-and-explosives smuggling tunnel network under the Gaza-Egypt border, even as it continues to use the tunnels that were not destroyed to bolster its arsenal.
In a Beirut rally on Jan. 25, Hamas Lebanese representative Osama Hamdan declared that Hamas will continue its violence. “It is our right to have weapons,” he said, “and we shall continue to enter arms into Gaza and the West Bank. Let no one think that we shall surrender.”
The Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) terrorist organizations of Gaza do not even pretend to be beholden to a ceasefire. The former said, “The resistance will continue its battle as long as occupation forces are on the land of Gaza and as long as the siege and the blockade continue,” while a PRC spokesman said, “A unilateral cease-fire is nothing to do with us... and we will continue to bear arms.”
Humanitarian Aid Provided by Israel
At the same time, since Israel’s anti-terrorism military operation in Gaza ended on Jan. 18, Israel has dramatically increased the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza. There has been an average of more than 150 trucks a day, representing a five-fold increase from December and a six-fold increase from November.
Hana Levi Julian Livni-US Envoy: Help Moderates
Livni met with Mitchell at her office in Tel Aviv following his arrival from Turkey, where he met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
After speaking with Erdogan on Wednesday, Mitchell said, “As an important democratic nation with strong relations with Israel, [Turke has a unique role to play and can have significant influence on our efforts to promote comprehensive peace in the Middle East."
Turkey has mediated backdoor talks between Israel and Syria, which do not have diplomatic ties.
Tensions rose between Turkey and Israel, which formerly enjoyed close relations, during the counterterrorist Operation Cast Lead in Gaza last month. Erdogan in particular made a number of virulent remarks about the operation, at one point even accusing Israel of committing “war crimes” in Gaza.
During a panel discussion last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Erdogan walked out after President Shimon Peres pointed out that Turkey would have responded if rockets had hit Istanbul. “Do you understand the meaning of a situation where hundreds of rockets are falling on women and children who cannot sleep quietly, who need to sleep in shelters? You don’t understand, and I am not prepared for lies,” he told Erdogan, to the applause of the audience.
Mitchell is also expected to meet with Likud party chairman and Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu, as well as outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. On Friday he will travel to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and other officials.
He is expected to return to Jerusalem with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton next week. And here is the rest of it.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
"Forging, Forging"
At the moment it looks as if, please G-d, we will have a right wing coalition government. In theory, Netanyahu is still supposed to meet with Livni one more time on Friday, but coalition negotiations -- which will determine ministry assignments and platform details -- have begun, starting with Shas, Yisrael Beitenu and United Torah Judaism.
The assumption, then, is that Netanyahu has no further expectations of Kadima in the government. He is expected to build a sizeable cabinet of some 22 ministers.
Negotiations are being handling by a committee headed by MK Gideon Sa'ar, Likud faction chair; he says he intends to build a strong coalition that will last until 2013, when the next elections are scheduled by law (barring collapse of a gov't). A prime reason Netanyahu gave for wanting Livni in the coalition is to show solidarity with regard to Iran. But she has assured him that from the opposition she will totally support him on this issue and lend whatever assistance is necessary.
~~~~~~~~~~
The 18th Knesset was sworn in yesterday, and includes 31 new MKs.
~~~~~~~~~~
I have learned that appointment to the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council can be done automatically by the president. And so, Chas W. Freeman Jr. apparently would not have to be confirmed by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. However, I have picked up no word that the appointment is final, and as long as that is the case, I encourage communication with the Senators of the Committee any way. It is all together appropriate to express your outrage as an American citizen and request that all possible leverage be brought to bear to prevent this appointment from taking place.
~~~~~~~~~~
Fatah and Hamas have held some preliminary meetings -- mediated by Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman -- prior to major negotiations aimed at forging a unity government.
The animosity between the two groups is enormous and there are deep ideological differences. But there is also motivation now to come together for purely pragmatic reasons: they need to present a united front to arrange the authority for rebuilding in Gaza, and to attempt to secure the opening of the crossings.
I will note here, and will continue to note, that there is no demand being placed on Hamas with regard to relinquishing terrorism or recognizing Israel's right to exist. And yet, as far as the international community is concerned, this unity government, which also would provide one address for negotiations, is seen as a necessary precursor to advancing the "peace process."
Don't look for logic.
Yesterday, Hamas strongman Mahmoud Zahar told Reuters that, "It's our right to bring in everything - money and arms. We will not give anyone any commitment on this subject."
~~~~~~~~~~
Recently the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar Ilan University released a study, that had been headed by Prof. Ephraim Inbar, that indicates that a "two state solution" is not viable: Says Inbar, the Palestinians have too many internal rifts; neither Fatah nor Hamas really wants peace with Israel (many continue to assume Fatah, which pretends it does, really wants peace); and neither the PA nor Hamas would be capable of governing a state.
Who's listening?
~~~~~~~~~~
And just a month ago, Khaled Mashaal, political chief of Hamas in Damascus, announced a campaign against the PLO, which is dominated by Fatah. Declaring that it was Hamas's goal to replace the PLO with a new organization that would serve an agenda of "resistance," Mashaal said:
"At this moment, the PLO is no longer a unifying point of reference, but has become impotent and a tool for deepening Palestinian divisions."
What this means is Hamas wishes to be in charge, and to change the rules by which the PLO represents Palestinians world-wide.
~~~~~~~~~~
Obama has committed $900 million for reconstruction in Gaza, to be channeled primarily through UNRWA. This is presumably to keep it out of the hands of Hamas, but anyone who know how UNRWA conducted itself during the recent war in Gaza knows what a joke this is. UNRWA persistently echoed Hamas's fallacious charges of "war crimes" against Israel. Most blatant was the UNRWA charge that we had hit one of its schools and killed 40 civilians, when it turned out we hadn't hit the school at all and only 12 people were killed, none of them terrorists.
Yesterday a senior Israeli government official charged that UNRWA provides political cover for Hamas: UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd passed a letter, on behalf of Hamas, to Senator John Kerry, Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, when he was in Gaza last week. Said the official:
Unfortunately, there is a pattern here. "That no one finds it strange that UNRWA, whose mandate is humanitarian, is the vehicle through which Hamas passes messages on to the US, just shows where UNRWA is at."
For insight into how UNRWA functions, see my report at: http://israelbehindthenews.com/pdf/UNRWAOverviewAndCritique.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~
Barry Rubin's new piece, "American, look behind you! Turn around! Turn around!" merits a serious read:
"America: A freight train is heading your way and you're standing right on the tracks, looking in the wrong direction.
"Or perhaps it is like a horror film in which the killer sneaks up behind the hapless victim while the movie audience yells: "Turn around! Turn around!" And then blood spatters the screen.
"Unfortunately, in this case, it might be our blood, and it won't be produced by a special effects department.
"Today, US policy and the dominant thinking are not based on realpolitik but on international affairs as a popularity contest. Its motto might be, 'The nice will inherit the Earth,' as the Obama administration tries to prove that it's not like that mean old Bush."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410694225&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The assumption, then, is that Netanyahu has no further expectations of Kadima in the government. He is expected to build a sizeable cabinet of some 22 ministers.
Negotiations are being handling by a committee headed by MK Gideon Sa'ar, Likud faction chair; he says he intends to build a strong coalition that will last until 2013, when the next elections are scheduled by law (barring collapse of a gov't). A prime reason Netanyahu gave for wanting Livni in the coalition is to show solidarity with regard to Iran. But she has assured him that from the opposition she will totally support him on this issue and lend whatever assistance is necessary.
~~~~~~~~~~
The 18th Knesset was sworn in yesterday, and includes 31 new MKs.
~~~~~~~~~~
I have learned that appointment to the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council can be done automatically by the president. And so, Chas W. Freeman Jr. apparently would not have to be confirmed by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. However, I have picked up no word that the appointment is final, and as long as that is the case, I encourage communication with the Senators of the Committee any way. It is all together appropriate to express your outrage as an American citizen and request that all possible leverage be brought to bear to prevent this appointment from taking place.
~~~~~~~~~~
Fatah and Hamas have held some preliminary meetings -- mediated by Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman -- prior to major negotiations aimed at forging a unity government.
The animosity between the two groups is enormous and there are deep ideological differences. But there is also motivation now to come together for purely pragmatic reasons: they need to present a united front to arrange the authority for rebuilding in Gaza, and to attempt to secure the opening of the crossings.
I will note here, and will continue to note, that there is no demand being placed on Hamas with regard to relinquishing terrorism or recognizing Israel's right to exist. And yet, as far as the international community is concerned, this unity government, which also would provide one address for negotiations, is seen as a necessary precursor to advancing the "peace process."
Don't look for logic.
Yesterday, Hamas strongman Mahmoud Zahar told Reuters that, "It's our right to bring in everything - money and arms. We will not give anyone any commitment on this subject."
~~~~~~~~~~
Recently the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar Ilan University released a study, that had been headed by Prof. Ephraim Inbar, that indicates that a "two state solution" is not viable: Says Inbar, the Palestinians have too many internal rifts; neither Fatah nor Hamas really wants peace with Israel (many continue to assume Fatah, which pretends it does, really wants peace); and neither the PA nor Hamas would be capable of governing a state.
Who's listening?
~~~~~~~~~~
And just a month ago, Khaled Mashaal, political chief of Hamas in Damascus, announced a campaign against the PLO, which is dominated by Fatah. Declaring that it was Hamas's goal to replace the PLO with a new organization that would serve an agenda of "resistance," Mashaal said:
"At this moment, the PLO is no longer a unifying point of reference, but has become impotent and a tool for deepening Palestinian divisions."
What this means is Hamas wishes to be in charge, and to change the rules by which the PLO represents Palestinians world-wide.
~~~~~~~~~~
Obama has committed $900 million for reconstruction in Gaza, to be channeled primarily through UNRWA. This is presumably to keep it out of the hands of Hamas, but anyone who know how UNRWA conducted itself during the recent war in Gaza knows what a joke this is. UNRWA persistently echoed Hamas's fallacious charges of "war crimes" against Israel. Most blatant was the UNRWA charge that we had hit one of its schools and killed 40 civilians, when it turned out we hadn't hit the school at all and only 12 people were killed, none of them terrorists.
Yesterday a senior Israeli government official charged that UNRWA provides political cover for Hamas: UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd passed a letter, on behalf of Hamas, to Senator John Kerry, Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, when he was in Gaza last week. Said the official:
Unfortunately, there is a pattern here. "That no one finds it strange that UNRWA, whose mandate is humanitarian, is the vehicle through which Hamas passes messages on to the US, just shows where UNRWA is at."
For insight into how UNRWA functions, see my report at: http://israelbehindthenews.com/pdf/UNRWAOverviewAndCritique.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~
Barry Rubin's new piece, "American, look behind you! Turn around! Turn around!" merits a serious read:
"America: A freight train is heading your way and you're standing right on the tracks, looking in the wrong direction.
"Or perhaps it is like a horror film in which the killer sneaks up behind the hapless victim while the movie audience yells: "Turn around! Turn around!" And then blood spatters the screen.
"Unfortunately, in this case, it might be our blood, and it won't be produced by a special effects department.
"Today, US policy and the dominant thinking are not based on realpolitik but on international affairs as a popularity contest. Its motto might be, 'The nice will inherit the Earth,' as the Obama administration tries to prove that it's not like that mean old Bush."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410694225&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Defense study: Barghouti's release won't unify Palestinians
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
Marwan Barghouti will not succeed in uniting Palestinian factions if he is released from Israeli prison, a document prepared by the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has concluded.
The document was prepared by a team of IDF officers who are experts on the Palestinian Authority and was submitted several months ago to Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The report states that the release of Barghouti - who was sentenced in an Israeli court to five life sentences in 2004 - would not have a dramatic impact on the Palestinian Authority.
On Monday, the London-based Al Hayat newspaper cited Palestinian sources as saying that Israel was seriously considering releasing Barghouti in the coming two weeks as a goodwill gesture to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. The paper said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wanted to release Barghouti before he leaves office.
The report prepared by COGAT analyzed Barghouti's political strength within the PA and reached the conclusion that his influence was mainly on field commanders in Ramallah, but not in other parts of the West Bank, such as Nablus and Jenin, which are considered Hamas and Islamic Jihad strongholds.
In addition, it concluded that Barghouti would encounter fierce opposition from the "old guard" in the PA such as Abbas, as well as from Hussein a-Sheikh, the current Palestinian minister for civil affairs.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410694788&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Bahrain crown prince: UK too pro-Israel
Prince al-Khalifa says Arab-Israeli conflict can only be solved if both sides are approached objectively
Reuters
Published: 02.23.09, 23:59 / Israel News
The crown prince of Bahrain said on Monday Britain was too pro-Israel in its outlook, but its contribution to the Middle East peace process was still needed "If we are to solve the Arab-Israeli issue then you cannot approach it as a friend of one side at the expense of another," Sheikh Salman Bin Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa told Sky television.
When asked if he felt Britain had been too pro-Israeli he replied: "I think we all feel that."
"But that doesn't mean we don't want Britain's involvement, we need Britain's involvement and we need Britain to be more impartial, sure," he added.
Solving the Arab-Israeli issue was "challenging but imperative" if extremists were to be deterred, he said.
The crown prince said Britain should work with moderates in the region and avoid adding fuel to extremists' fire.
"Work with the moderates in this part of the world, to work for peace, prosperity and stability," he said.
To settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "you give up land for peace," he said. "Land that you haven't already built on. It can't be simpler."
The crown prince said a solution rested with the United States. The new president, Barack Obama, had given out more positive messages than his predecessor, George W. Bush, but it was too early to be optimistic.
"We will judge by actions," he added.
Comment: This is Arab code speak for "get on board" the anti-Israel train-Obama is preparing the ground, all you have to do is follow! Yes, it also means do not use logic, only emotion. Ignore the facts, accept the revisionist history-we all know the motivation-does anyone in the West care or are they brave enough to stay the course?
Netanyahu's three-headed nemesis
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
Who can recall the olden days when Kadima was young and proudly proclaimed its identity as the one Israeli political party that stands for nothing? Two days before the 2006 elections, Kadima's Meir Sheetrit grandly announced that his party was the only party in Israel that "has disengaged from ideology."
But look at Kadima now. As far as its leader Tzipi Livni is concerned, ideology is all that matters. Never mind that her ideology - of surrendering land to the Palestinians - was completely discredited by Hamas's electoral victory and subsequent seizure of power in Gaza. Never mind that Kadima's assertion that establishing a Palestinian state is the key to solving all of Israel's problems has been overtaken by Iran's rise as a regional hegemon and aspiring nuclear power dedicated to the eradication of Israel. As Livni put it Sunday as she rejected Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu's request that Kadima join his government as a full partner, "If we compromise and concede our ideology by joining a government with a path that is not ours, it would violate the trust of our voters."
To try to coddle Kadima into setting aside its newfound ideological fervor, Netanyahu harkened back to its past as party that in Sheetrit's words was "unburdened by ideological baggage" and "looking only to the future." Netanyahu argued that since today there is no chance of establishing a Palestinian state that will live at peace with Israel, Kadima can set aside its differences with Likud and cooperate on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, overthrowing Hamas's regime in Gaza and protecting Israel's economy from the global economic meltdown. But Livni would have none of it.
SINCE LIVNI has been a post-Zionist radical ever since she underwent her ideological conversion from Right to Left in 2004, her position is understandable. Less understandable is her opportunistic party members' willingness to back her up. What accounts for their readiness to leave their cushy ministries for the Knesset's back benches?
Since the election, Kadima's leaders, their fellow leftists in Labor and Meretz and the media have all proclaimed that Netanyahu's rightist coalition is unsustainable. Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik even suggested that Kadima shouldn't discard its campaign literature since new elections will be declared within a year.
On their face these assertions make little sense. A rightist coalition will be comprised of 65 members of Knesset who have nowhere else to go. What possible reason would they have to agree to new elections?
But Livni and her colleagues have three formidable assets giving credence to their claim: The Obama administration, President Shimon Peres, and the IDF General Staff under Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. If these forces act in concert to oppose Netanyahu, his ability to govern and remain in office will indeed be significantly diminished.
Over the past week, the Obama administration has taken a series of steps that show that it plans to push the traditional US policy of pressuring Israel to make unreciprocated concessions to its Arab neighbors to an entirely new level. Whereas the Bush administration rejected the legitimacy of the Iranian-supported Hamas terror group, the Obama administration gave three signs this week that it is willing to recognize a Hamas-led Palestinian regime. First, its surrogate, Senator John Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Hamas-controlled Gaza and so effectively accepted Hamas protection. While there, he accepted a letter from Hamas to President Barack Obama and duly delivered it to the US consulate in Jerusalem.
Second, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that she will participate in next month's Egyptian-sponsored conference which aims to raise money to rebuild Hamas-controlled Gaza in the aftermath of its unprovoked missile war against Israel. This is the first time that the US has willingly participated in raising money for Gaza since Hamas seized power in June 2007.
Finally, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas has decided to participate in negotiations aimed at reestablishing the Hamas-Fatah unity government. Abbas claims that the US now supports such a government that would again render Fatah Hamas's junior partner. US recognition of such a government would constitute US recognition of Hamas as a legitimate actor.
Then there was Kerry's visit to Syria. Not only did Kerry indirectly praise Syria for its support for Hamas by extolling its willingness to support a Palestinian government in which Hamas plays a leading role, he called for the abandonment of the Bush administration's decision to withdraw the US ambassador from Damascus after the Syrians oversaw the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005.
OBAMA'S WILLINGNESS to treat with Hamas and Syria is part and parcel of his apparent belief that the principal reason that the Arab and Islamic worlds are hostile towards the US is because the US supports Israel. The notion that Obama blames Israel for the Arab and Islamic hatred of the US gained credence this week when it was reported that Obama intends to appoint former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman to serve as the director of the highly influential National Intelligence Council.
Freeman is known for his virulent animus towards Israel. In numerous public statements he has placed all the blame for Arab and Islamic hostility towards the US on Israel and argued that the US's conflicts with the Arabs will disappear the minute the US abandons Israel.
In one such statement in 2007, Freeman, who extols Hamas as "democratically elected," said, "Those in the region and beyond it who detest Israeli behavior, which is to say almost everyone, now naturally extend their loathing to Americans. This has had the effect of universalizing anti-Americanism, legitimizing radical Islamism, and gaining Iran a foothold among Sunni as well as Shiite Arabs."
By refusing to submit to its Arab enemies, Freeman argues that Israel has earned their wrathful retaliation, which Freeman claims, also places Americans in danger. In his words, "Such retaliation - whatever form it takes - will have the support or at least the sympathy of most people in the region and many outside it. This makes the long-term escalation of terrorism against the United States a certainty, not a matter of conjecture."
President Shimon Peres for his part doesn't share Washington's enthusiasm for Syria or its animus towards Israel. But he does believe that Israel can and must do more to establish a Palestinian state. As the uncontested leader of the Israeli Left, on Friday Peres came out in favor of the so-called "Saudi peace plan." In an indirect, fawning interview with Ma'ariv's political commentator Shalom Yerushalmi, Peres embraced the Saudi initiative, which calls for an Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and acceptance of millions of hostile foreign Arabs as part of the so-called "right of return."
Both in the interview and in his remarks in the lead-up and the aftermath of the elections, Peres has established himself as the bulwark against a non-leftist government that hopes to place the issue of Palestinian statehood on the back burner. Like Livni, in spite of the fact that there is no Palestinian leader willing to live at peace with Israel, Peres insists that Israel's most pressing challenge is to establish a Palestinian state.
IN THEIR BID to discredit the Netanyahu government, Peres and Obama will apparently enjoy the support of the IDF General Staff. According to a report in Ma'ariv on Friday, IDF Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has embraced defeatism as a national strategy. Ma'ariv's diplomatic commentator Ben Caspit reported that Ashkenazi claims that while it is true that Israel has military capacity to set back Iran's nuclear program significantly, there is no point in doing so.
According to Caspit, as far as Ashkenazi is concerned, rather than removing the immediate threat to its survival, Israel should appease Iran's Arab puppet - Assad. Ashkenazi reportedly believes that Israel should leave Iran alone, and beg Obama to convince Assad to accept the Golan Heights from Israel. Once Assad has the Golan, Ashkenazi argues that he will stop pointing his missiles armed with chemical and biological warheads at Israel, stop supporting Hamas and Hizbullah and generally become a member in good standing of the Western alliance. Why Syria would do such a thing, when it would owe an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights to its alliance with Iran, is a question that Ashkenazi hasn't seen fit to consider.
Ashkenazi is extolled by the leftist media as non-political, but this is untrue. The Chief of General Staff is exceedingly close to former IDF chief of General Staff Amnon Shahak, who signed the post-Zionist Geneva Initiative in 2004 and has established business partnerships with Fatah leaders.
As chief of General Staff during Netanyahu's first term as prime minister, Shahak openly rebelled against the government by refusing to meet with the prime minister or attend cabinet meetings. Shahak announced a failed bid to unseat Netanyahu as prime minister shortly after retiring from military service in 1998.
Ashkenazi, who brought Shahak on as his "professional coach" after replacing Dan Halutz as Chief of General Staff in 2007, clearly shares his political views. He opposed fighting Hamas until missiles began raining down on Ashdod, supports signing a new ceasefire with Hamas today that will give Israeli legitimacy to the terror group, and supported ending Operation Cast Lead without first toppling or even significantly degrading Hamas's ability to control Gaza.
Ashkenazi is also extremely close to former IDF OC Military Intelligence Uri Saguy. Since the mid-1990s, Saguy, who owns large tracts of land in the Galilee, has been one of the greatest champions of an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights. Like Shahak, Saguy serves in the unofficial role of Ashkenazi's professional mentor.
Caspit claimed that right after Netanyahu forms his government, Ashkenazi intends to tell him that the IDF rejects the notion of attacking Iran. That is, according to Caspit, upon entering office, Netanyahu will find the IDF General Staff standing arm and arm with Obama and Peres in a bid to overthrow him.
No wonder Kadima has now found ideology.
IF NETANYAHU wishes to survive in office and actually accomplish the clear aims he has set for his government, he must begin aggressively selling his agenda to the public. By doing so, he will build the kind of public credibility he will need to prevent Ashkenazi from rebelling against him. With Ashkenazi sidelined, Peres and Obama will have less direct ability to prevent Israel from attacking Iran.
During the campaign, Netanyahu chose to keep a low profile in the hopes of neutralizing the media's criticisms by denying them headlines. At the time, there was some justification for that policy. But now that he is forming the next government, the public must know why he wants to do what he plans to do and why we must support him. Otherwise, Kadima is right. There is no reason to join his government.
caroline@carolineglick.com
Who can recall the olden days when Kadima was young and proudly proclaimed its identity as the one Israeli political party that stands for nothing? Two days before the 2006 elections, Kadima's Meir Sheetrit grandly announced that his party was the only party in Israel that "has disengaged from ideology."
But look at Kadima now. As far as its leader Tzipi Livni is concerned, ideology is all that matters. Never mind that her ideology - of surrendering land to the Palestinians - was completely discredited by Hamas's electoral victory and subsequent seizure of power in Gaza. Never mind that Kadima's assertion that establishing a Palestinian state is the key to solving all of Israel's problems has been overtaken by Iran's rise as a regional hegemon and aspiring nuclear power dedicated to the eradication of Israel. As Livni put it Sunday as she rejected Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu's request that Kadima join his government as a full partner, "If we compromise and concede our ideology by joining a government with a path that is not ours, it would violate the trust of our voters."
To try to coddle Kadima into setting aside its newfound ideological fervor, Netanyahu harkened back to its past as party that in Sheetrit's words was "unburdened by ideological baggage" and "looking only to the future." Netanyahu argued that since today there is no chance of establishing a Palestinian state that will live at peace with Israel, Kadima can set aside its differences with Likud and cooperate on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, overthrowing Hamas's regime in Gaza and protecting Israel's economy from the global economic meltdown. But Livni would have none of it.
SINCE LIVNI has been a post-Zionist radical ever since she underwent her ideological conversion from Right to Left in 2004, her position is understandable. Less understandable is her opportunistic party members' willingness to back her up. What accounts for their readiness to leave their cushy ministries for the Knesset's back benches?
Since the election, Kadima's leaders, their fellow leftists in Labor and Meretz and the media have all proclaimed that Netanyahu's rightist coalition is unsustainable. Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik even suggested that Kadima shouldn't discard its campaign literature since new elections will be declared within a year.
On their face these assertions make little sense. A rightist coalition will be comprised of 65 members of Knesset who have nowhere else to go. What possible reason would they have to agree to new elections?
But Livni and her colleagues have three formidable assets giving credence to their claim: The Obama administration, President Shimon Peres, and the IDF General Staff under Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. If these forces act in concert to oppose Netanyahu, his ability to govern and remain in office will indeed be significantly diminished.
Over the past week, the Obama administration has taken a series of steps that show that it plans to push the traditional US policy of pressuring Israel to make unreciprocated concessions to its Arab neighbors to an entirely new level. Whereas the Bush administration rejected the legitimacy of the Iranian-supported Hamas terror group, the Obama administration gave three signs this week that it is willing to recognize a Hamas-led Palestinian regime. First, its surrogate, Senator John Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Hamas-controlled Gaza and so effectively accepted Hamas protection. While there, he accepted a letter from Hamas to President Barack Obama and duly delivered it to the US consulate in Jerusalem.
Second, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that she will participate in next month's Egyptian-sponsored conference which aims to raise money to rebuild Hamas-controlled Gaza in the aftermath of its unprovoked missile war against Israel. This is the first time that the US has willingly participated in raising money for Gaza since Hamas seized power in June 2007.
Finally, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas has decided to participate in negotiations aimed at reestablishing the Hamas-Fatah unity government. Abbas claims that the US now supports such a government that would again render Fatah Hamas's junior partner. US recognition of such a government would constitute US recognition of Hamas as a legitimate actor.
Then there was Kerry's visit to Syria. Not only did Kerry indirectly praise Syria for its support for Hamas by extolling its willingness to support a Palestinian government in which Hamas plays a leading role, he called for the abandonment of the Bush administration's decision to withdraw the US ambassador from Damascus after the Syrians oversaw the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005.
OBAMA'S WILLINGNESS to treat with Hamas and Syria is part and parcel of his apparent belief that the principal reason that the Arab and Islamic worlds are hostile towards the US is because the US supports Israel. The notion that Obama blames Israel for the Arab and Islamic hatred of the US gained credence this week when it was reported that Obama intends to appoint former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman to serve as the director of the highly influential National Intelligence Council.
Freeman is known for his virulent animus towards Israel. In numerous public statements he has placed all the blame for Arab and Islamic hostility towards the US on Israel and argued that the US's conflicts with the Arabs will disappear the minute the US abandons Israel.
In one such statement in 2007, Freeman, who extols Hamas as "democratically elected," said, "Those in the region and beyond it who detest Israeli behavior, which is to say almost everyone, now naturally extend their loathing to Americans. This has had the effect of universalizing anti-Americanism, legitimizing radical Islamism, and gaining Iran a foothold among Sunni as well as Shiite Arabs."
By refusing to submit to its Arab enemies, Freeman argues that Israel has earned their wrathful retaliation, which Freeman claims, also places Americans in danger. In his words, "Such retaliation - whatever form it takes - will have the support or at least the sympathy of most people in the region and many outside it. This makes the long-term escalation of terrorism against the United States a certainty, not a matter of conjecture."
President Shimon Peres for his part doesn't share Washington's enthusiasm for Syria or its animus towards Israel. But he does believe that Israel can and must do more to establish a Palestinian state. As the uncontested leader of the Israeli Left, on Friday Peres came out in favor of the so-called "Saudi peace plan." In an indirect, fawning interview with Ma'ariv's political commentator Shalom Yerushalmi, Peres embraced the Saudi initiative, which calls for an Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and acceptance of millions of hostile foreign Arabs as part of the so-called "right of return."
Both in the interview and in his remarks in the lead-up and the aftermath of the elections, Peres has established himself as the bulwark against a non-leftist government that hopes to place the issue of Palestinian statehood on the back burner. Like Livni, in spite of the fact that there is no Palestinian leader willing to live at peace with Israel, Peres insists that Israel's most pressing challenge is to establish a Palestinian state.
IN THEIR BID to discredit the Netanyahu government, Peres and Obama will apparently enjoy the support of the IDF General Staff. According to a report in Ma'ariv on Friday, IDF Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has embraced defeatism as a national strategy. Ma'ariv's diplomatic commentator Ben Caspit reported that Ashkenazi claims that while it is true that Israel has military capacity to set back Iran's nuclear program significantly, there is no point in doing so.
According to Caspit, as far as Ashkenazi is concerned, rather than removing the immediate threat to its survival, Israel should appease Iran's Arab puppet - Assad. Ashkenazi reportedly believes that Israel should leave Iran alone, and beg Obama to convince Assad to accept the Golan Heights from Israel. Once Assad has the Golan, Ashkenazi argues that he will stop pointing his missiles armed with chemical and biological warheads at Israel, stop supporting Hamas and Hizbullah and generally become a member in good standing of the Western alliance. Why Syria would do such a thing, when it would owe an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights to its alliance with Iran, is a question that Ashkenazi hasn't seen fit to consider.
Ashkenazi is extolled by the leftist media as non-political, but this is untrue. The Chief of General Staff is exceedingly close to former IDF chief of General Staff Amnon Shahak, who signed the post-Zionist Geneva Initiative in 2004 and has established business partnerships with Fatah leaders.
As chief of General Staff during Netanyahu's first term as prime minister, Shahak openly rebelled against the government by refusing to meet with the prime minister or attend cabinet meetings. Shahak announced a failed bid to unseat Netanyahu as prime minister shortly after retiring from military service in 1998.
Ashkenazi, who brought Shahak on as his "professional coach" after replacing Dan Halutz as Chief of General Staff in 2007, clearly shares his political views. He opposed fighting Hamas until missiles began raining down on Ashdod, supports signing a new ceasefire with Hamas today that will give Israeli legitimacy to the terror group, and supported ending Operation Cast Lead without first toppling or even significantly degrading Hamas's ability to control Gaza.
Ashkenazi is also extremely close to former IDF OC Military Intelligence Uri Saguy. Since the mid-1990s, Saguy, who owns large tracts of land in the Galilee, has been one of the greatest champions of an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights. Like Shahak, Saguy serves in the unofficial role of Ashkenazi's professional mentor.
Caspit claimed that right after Netanyahu forms his government, Ashkenazi intends to tell him that the IDF rejects the notion of attacking Iran. That is, according to Caspit, upon entering office, Netanyahu will find the IDF General Staff standing arm and arm with Obama and Peres in a bid to overthrow him.
No wonder Kadima has now found ideology.
IF NETANYAHU wishes to survive in office and actually accomplish the clear aims he has set for his government, he must begin aggressively selling his agenda to the public. By doing so, he will build the kind of public credibility he will need to prevent Ashkenazi from rebelling against him. With Ashkenazi sidelined, Peres and Obama will have less direct ability to prevent Israel from attacking Iran.
During the campaign, Netanyahu chose to keep a low profile in the hopes of neutralizing the media's criticisms by denying them headlines. At the time, there was some justification for that policy. But now that he is forming the next government, the public must know why he wants to do what he plans to do and why we must support him. Otherwise, Kadima is right. There is no reason to join his government.
caroline@carolineglick.com
Monday, February 23, 2009
"In a Bad Way"
Arlene Kushner
The state of the world, that is. Events have been so overwhelming and deeply distressing that it is difficult to know what to deal with first. (And without question some issues will have to be tabled for another day.)
But what I would like to start with today is the visitation of two Congressmen -- Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Brian Baird (D-WA) -- to this part of the world. They visited Gaza the end of last week, and yesterday made their inimitable statement regarding Israel's decision not to open crossings except for humanitarian supplies until Shalit is released. Their position: Banning lentils and pasta from Gaza does not help the cause of peace.
"When have lentil bombs been going off lately?" asked Congressman Baird. "Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?"
Cute, huh? Is he simply foolish and lacking basic knowledge, or is he being exceedingly coy and disingenuous here?
Opined Ellison, "Israel's policy is not designed for success or to win the release of Gilad Shalit." He knows this?
~~~~~~~~~~
It's disturbing when US elected legislators are as clueless or off-base as these guys are. Disturbing, but not surprising.
Some time ago, Congressman Ellison (Congress's only Muslim representative) was part of a Democratic Congressional mission to this area. When the group called a press conference, I attended. And so was present when a journalist asked Ellison what his take was on the (very old and very serious) Shi'ite-Sunni rift in the Muslim world -- a rift that, for example, puts Egypt and Iran at odds.
Well, he intoned, everyone wants the same things: good education for their kids, decent housing, and pensions for their old age. And if we can see that they have these things, we won't have to sweat the rest of it.
My jaw dropped, and I knew we were in a lot of trouble.
~~~~~~~~~~
We should, therefore, never miss an opportunity to do education of such Congresspersons. Either we will truly be alerting them to information they were lacking and giving them a broader perspective, or we will be letting them know that their nonsense doesn't play with us. Either way, a good thing.
In a word: I cannot speak for pasta and lentils in particular, but food -- as part of the humanitarian supplies -- goes into Gaza. The people are fed. This is not remotely the issue. Hamas wants the crossings opened for commercial reasons (to bring in furniture and machinery and whatever else) to promote their economic viability, and to bring in supplies that can be used for making weapons and building terrorist infrastructure. That includes fertilizer -- ostensibly for farming but which becomes an ingredient in manufacturing explosives, and concrete -- ostensibly for building homes and schools but which is used in making bunkers for weapons.
And so, keeping the crossings closed hurts Hamas and has a great deal to do with what is going on.
More to the point is why these two Congressmen didn't vociferously and publicly criticize Hamas for holding Shalit and not even allowing the Red Cross to see him, as mandated by international law. Why is the focus on what Israel is doing "wrong" and not what Hamas could do to bring the entire issue to closure?
~~~~~~~~~~
You might want to communicate with these two Congresspersons -- or, more accurately, their offices. If so:
Congressman Keith Ellison Phone: 202-225-4755 Fax: 202-225-4886
His staffer for ME affairs is Walaya Jariyadham, and her e-mail is walaya.jariyadham@mail.house.org
Congressman Brian Baird Phone: 202- 225-3536 Fax: 202-225-3478
His staffer for Middle East Affairs (offered here without comment) is Jamal Abdi, and his e-mail is jamal.abdi@mail.house.org
~~~~~~~~~~
Returning just briefly to the Durban 2 issue:
According to Roni Leshno Yaar, the Israel Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva (where the Durban meetings are being held), the draft document is problematic for not only Israel but for Western democracies in general. Besides dealing with Israel (the only nation criticized by name), it also deals with issues of free speech (which it would inhibit), discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and defamation of religion.
He does not see any opportunity for the American presence to improve the document. "In fact," said Leshno Yaar, "I expect the text to get only worse on all issues that are important for Western democracy."
~~~~~~~~~~
Amos Herman, head of the Jewish Agency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, says, "As far as we believe, Durban II is going to be the anti-Semitic event of 2009. It looks worse than we expected, even though it's not clear what the end results will be...
"Operation Cast Lead [in Gaza] is going to take center state at Durban II and we have to be ready for that."
The Task Force members are doubtful that the US presence will change the conference's direction, and some are dubious, as well, as to whether the US delegation will walk out, no matter what transpires.
Among the things anticipated in Geneva at the Durban 2 conference: use of Holocaust imagery with regard to Israel's military actions in Gaza, the possibility of demonstrations, and an all-out "hate-fest" on the part of NGOs present. (It was the NGO Forum that was the most vociferously anti-Israel last time.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Please! Raise your voice on this issue.
Contact info. is provided again at the bottom of this posting.
~~~~~~~~~~
A tiny ray of light. According to The Jewish Chronicle of Britain, Britain and Italy are considering withdrawing from participation in Durban 2.
"Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said on Tuesday: 'If we can’t go forward now, we will withdraw. I was at the first conference. I have never seen such a disgraceful event in quite a long international life.'
"Later, he said: 'There are red lines that need to be made for us to participate...We are not going to stand idly by and allow this racist stuff to get through and be seen as acceptable. We are not going to have it.'
"...Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said: 'We will not send an Italian delegation [if it is the same as Durban 2001], but we will try to harmonies our position with other countries who are the friends of Jews. But we will leave a decision until the last minute.'"
And there we have the rub, and the reason why the ray of light is so tiny: These nations are looking to the US to take the lead.
~~~~~~~~~~
Relevant to the issue of the delegitimization of Israel, please see the piece by Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice of Canada and professor of law with considerable human rights expertise.
"Making the world 'Judestaatrein' [i.e., devoid of a Jewish state]"
Writes Cotler:
"...The new anti-Jewishness overlaps with classical anti-Semitism but is distinguishable from it. It found early juridical, and even institutional, expression in the UN's 'Zionism is racism' resolution - which the late US senator Daniel Moynihan said 'gave the abomination of anti-Semitism the appearance of international legal sanction' - but has gone dramatically beyond it. This new anti-Semitism almost needs a new vocabulary to define it; however, it can best be identified using a rights-based juridical perspective.
"In a word, classical or traditional anti-Semitism is the discrimination against, denial of or assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of whatever host society they inhabit. The new anti-Semitism involves the discrimination against the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations - the denial of and assault upon the Jewish people's right even to live - with Israel as the 'collective Jew among the nations.'"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304849224&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
~~~~~~~~~~
And on Iran (the greatest worry of all):
A report unveiled in Vienna last week by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency suggests that the 1,010 kg. of low-enriched uranium already produced by Iran is sufficient for building a bomb.
The low-enriched uranium would have to undergo additional enrichment before it could be used for a nuclear weapon. But a US Iranian analyst suggests that Iran my be "one step before the nuclear stage" and is operating a shadow nuclear program in tandem with its public program.
Additionally there has been a report from Teheran that the preliminary phase of operations for the first Iranian nuclear power plant -- a 1,000 megawatt light-water reactor in the southern port city of Busehr -- will begin this week.
~~~~~~~~~~
Be that as it may, the Obama administration is said to be at least two months away from establishing policies on the issue of a nuclear Iran.
There is widespread speculation that Obama is waiting until after the Iranian presidential election, scheduled for June 12, in which former president Mohammad Khatami -- who is considered somewhat more Western oriented -- will be challenging Ahmadinejad.
But that would be a long time for the US to go without a firm and coherent Iranian policy. And if Khatami wins, that is still no guarantee that Iran won't go nuclear or that it's not the mullahs who will insist on this.
And so, there is also troublesome speculation that the Obama administration may be resigned to a nuclear Iran.
~~~~~~~~~~
The International Atomic Energy Agency has just released a report indicating that new traces of uranium have been found at the site -- presumed to be a nuclear reactor -- where Israel bombed in September 2007.
The particles "are of a type not included in Syria's declared inventory of nuclear material" and that "there is a low probability that the uranium was introduced by the use of missiles."
According to the IAEA report, Syria must provide additional information and documentation about "the use and nature" of the building that was bombed. And Syria "needs to be transparent by providing access to other locations alleged to be related" to the site.
Right...
~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, recently Obama decided to appoint the first US ambassador to Syria since 2005, when Bush without drew the American ambassador after the assassination of Harari in Lebanon.
Obama's choice, Frederic Hof, a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Middle East Policy Council, is said to be a close to George Mitchell.
Obama is also preparing to lift sanctions against Syria, in particular the Syrian Accountability Act. Syria has been listed as a State Sponsor of Terrorism since 1979.
The US has now agreed to sell Syria spare parts for two Boeing 747 jets.
~~~~~~~~~~
It is the issue of security, more than any other, that seems to be driving Binyamin Netanyahu right now as he pushes to put together a broad-based coalition.
After meeting with Tzipi Livni again last night, she walked away echoing the same refrain: Her voters expect her to honor the principles she ran on -- principles of a "two-state solution." She said the differences between Kadima and Likud were just too great.
And yet Netanyahu is persisting, and says there can be a means of achieving conciliation for cooperation in a coalition. Livni has agreed to meet again.
~~~~~~~~~~
Do I understand Netanyahu's persistence? I most certainly do not. His partners-in-the-making to the right, most notably National Union, will not sit still for a coalition with Kadima that makes compromises on the issue of negotiating with the Palestinians.
The NU had sought assurances from Netanyahu that there would be no mention of a Palestinian state in the coalition guidelines, and, according to MK Aryeh Eldad, "he replied that we will be able to live with the coalition guidelines." From the perspective of NU, Netanyahu has given his word on this.
The principles of Kadima and the nationalist parties are simply too far apart to reconcile. Even Likud and Kadima are far apart, as Likud ran on a platform of no dividing Jerusalem, and certainly Livni would hope to do so. A coalition that encompasses everything stands for nothing.
Will Netanyahu turn out to be a purely political animal devoid of all principles (which is how many see him), who tilted right and courted the right, for his purposes, and then will move left because it gives him more numbers in a coalition?
In a way, this is a time of reckoning for him. But in the end, it may be the persistence of Livni and her party, in refusing to join, that wins the day for the nation. Right now the majority of Kadima is said to agree with her.
It is the presence of the nationalist parties at the right flank of his coalition that would keep Netanyahu honest. Absent that, who knows.
~~~~~~~~~~
As to needing a broad-based coalition for security reasons, it is possible to assemble one for a brief time. When there is serious action to be taken, or confronted, a temporary unity government can be formed so the world understands that there is no division where acting for Israel's sake is concerned.
I do not minimize in the slightest the need to stand strong for Israel's security -- most especially with regard to Iran. It is here that Netanyahu has maximum credibility, as he has been raising the issue of confronting Iran for a long time.
~~~~~~~~~~
Typo correction: Ron Prosper is the ambassador to the UK, not the UN. (Thanks Ora and Barbara.)
~~~~~~~~~~
President Barack Obama:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ (for email contact form)
Fax: 202-456-2461
White House Comment line: 202-456-1111
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
Public Communication Division
Phone: 202-647-6575
Fax: 202-647-2283
e-mail: secretary@state.gov
To locate your representatives in Congress, see:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
To locate your senator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
You can often secure best contact info. by logging on to the website of the representative or senator.
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
The state of the world, that is. Events have been so overwhelming and deeply distressing that it is difficult to know what to deal with first. (And without question some issues will have to be tabled for another day.)
But what I would like to start with today is the visitation of two Congressmen -- Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Brian Baird (D-WA) -- to this part of the world. They visited Gaza the end of last week, and yesterday made their inimitable statement regarding Israel's decision not to open crossings except for humanitarian supplies until Shalit is released. Their position: Banning lentils and pasta from Gaza does not help the cause of peace.
"When have lentil bombs been going off lately?" asked Congressman Baird. "Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?"
Cute, huh? Is he simply foolish and lacking basic knowledge, or is he being exceedingly coy and disingenuous here?
Opined Ellison, "Israel's policy is not designed for success or to win the release of Gilad Shalit." He knows this?
~~~~~~~~~~
It's disturbing when US elected legislators are as clueless or off-base as these guys are. Disturbing, but not surprising.
Some time ago, Congressman Ellison (Congress's only Muslim representative) was part of a Democratic Congressional mission to this area. When the group called a press conference, I attended. And so was present when a journalist asked Ellison what his take was on the (very old and very serious) Shi'ite-Sunni rift in the Muslim world -- a rift that, for example, puts Egypt and Iran at odds.
Well, he intoned, everyone wants the same things: good education for their kids, decent housing, and pensions for their old age. And if we can see that they have these things, we won't have to sweat the rest of it.
My jaw dropped, and I knew we were in a lot of trouble.
~~~~~~~~~~
We should, therefore, never miss an opportunity to do education of such Congresspersons. Either we will truly be alerting them to information they were lacking and giving them a broader perspective, or we will be letting them know that their nonsense doesn't play with us. Either way, a good thing.
In a word: I cannot speak for pasta and lentils in particular, but food -- as part of the humanitarian supplies -- goes into Gaza. The people are fed. This is not remotely the issue. Hamas wants the crossings opened for commercial reasons (to bring in furniture and machinery and whatever else) to promote their economic viability, and to bring in supplies that can be used for making weapons and building terrorist infrastructure. That includes fertilizer -- ostensibly for farming but which becomes an ingredient in manufacturing explosives, and concrete -- ostensibly for building homes and schools but which is used in making bunkers for weapons.
And so, keeping the crossings closed hurts Hamas and has a great deal to do with what is going on.
More to the point is why these two Congressmen didn't vociferously and publicly criticize Hamas for holding Shalit and not even allowing the Red Cross to see him, as mandated by international law. Why is the focus on what Israel is doing "wrong" and not what Hamas could do to bring the entire issue to closure?
~~~~~~~~~~
You might want to communicate with these two Congresspersons -- or, more accurately, their offices. If so:
Congressman Keith Ellison Phone: 202-225-4755 Fax: 202-225-4886
His staffer for ME affairs is Walaya Jariyadham, and her e-mail is walaya.jariyadham@mail.house.org
Congressman Brian Baird Phone: 202- 225-3536 Fax: 202-225-3478
His staffer for Middle East Affairs (offered here without comment) is Jamal Abdi, and his e-mail is jamal.abdi@mail.house.org
~~~~~~~~~~
Returning just briefly to the Durban 2 issue:
According to Roni Leshno Yaar, the Israel Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva (where the Durban meetings are being held), the draft document is problematic for not only Israel but for Western democracies in general. Besides dealing with Israel (the only nation criticized by name), it also deals with issues of free speech (which it would inhibit), discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and defamation of religion.
He does not see any opportunity for the American presence to improve the document. "In fact," said Leshno Yaar, "I expect the text to get only worse on all issues that are important for Western democracy."
~~~~~~~~~~
Amos Herman, head of the Jewish Agency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, says, "As far as we believe, Durban II is going to be the anti-Semitic event of 2009. It looks worse than we expected, even though it's not clear what the end results will be...
"Operation Cast Lead [in Gaza] is going to take center state at Durban II and we have to be ready for that."
The Task Force members are doubtful that the US presence will change the conference's direction, and some are dubious, as well, as to whether the US delegation will walk out, no matter what transpires.
Among the things anticipated in Geneva at the Durban 2 conference: use of Holocaust imagery with regard to Israel's military actions in Gaza, the possibility of demonstrations, and an all-out "hate-fest" on the part of NGOs present. (It was the NGO Forum that was the most vociferously anti-Israel last time.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Please! Raise your voice on this issue.
Contact info. is provided again at the bottom of this posting.
~~~~~~~~~~
A tiny ray of light. According to The Jewish Chronicle of Britain, Britain and Italy are considering withdrawing from participation in Durban 2.
"Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said on Tuesday: 'If we can’t go forward now, we will withdraw. I was at the first conference. I have never seen such a disgraceful event in quite a long international life.'
"Later, he said: 'There are red lines that need to be made for us to participate...We are not going to stand idly by and allow this racist stuff to get through and be seen as acceptable. We are not going to have it.'
"...Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said: 'We will not send an Italian delegation [if it is the same as Durban 2001], but we will try to harmonies our position with other countries who are the friends of Jews. But we will leave a decision until the last minute.'"
And there we have the rub, and the reason why the ray of light is so tiny: These nations are looking to the US to take the lead.
~~~~~~~~~~
Relevant to the issue of the delegitimization of Israel, please see the piece by Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice of Canada and professor of law with considerable human rights expertise.
"Making the world 'Judestaatrein' [i.e., devoid of a Jewish state]"
Writes Cotler:
"...The new anti-Jewishness overlaps with classical anti-Semitism but is distinguishable from it. It found early juridical, and even institutional, expression in the UN's 'Zionism is racism' resolution - which the late US senator Daniel Moynihan said 'gave the abomination of anti-Semitism the appearance of international legal sanction' - but has gone dramatically beyond it. This new anti-Semitism almost needs a new vocabulary to define it; however, it can best be identified using a rights-based juridical perspective.
"In a word, classical or traditional anti-Semitism is the discrimination against, denial of or assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of whatever host society they inhabit. The new anti-Semitism involves the discrimination against the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations - the denial of and assault upon the Jewish people's right even to live - with Israel as the 'collective Jew among the nations.'"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304849224&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
~~~~~~~~~~
And on Iran (the greatest worry of all):
A report unveiled in Vienna last week by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency suggests that the 1,010 kg. of low-enriched uranium already produced by Iran is sufficient for building a bomb.
The low-enriched uranium would have to undergo additional enrichment before it could be used for a nuclear weapon. But a US Iranian analyst suggests that Iran my be "one step before the nuclear stage" and is operating a shadow nuclear program in tandem with its public program.
Additionally there has been a report from Teheran that the preliminary phase of operations for the first Iranian nuclear power plant -- a 1,000 megawatt light-water reactor in the southern port city of Busehr -- will begin this week.
~~~~~~~~~~
Be that as it may, the Obama administration is said to be at least two months away from establishing policies on the issue of a nuclear Iran.
There is widespread speculation that Obama is waiting until after the Iranian presidential election, scheduled for June 12, in which former president Mohammad Khatami -- who is considered somewhat more Western oriented -- will be challenging Ahmadinejad.
But that would be a long time for the US to go without a firm and coherent Iranian policy. And if Khatami wins, that is still no guarantee that Iran won't go nuclear or that it's not the mullahs who will insist on this.
And so, there is also troublesome speculation that the Obama administration may be resigned to a nuclear Iran.
~~~~~~~~~~
The International Atomic Energy Agency has just released a report indicating that new traces of uranium have been found at the site -- presumed to be a nuclear reactor -- where Israel bombed in September 2007.
The particles "are of a type not included in Syria's declared inventory of nuclear material" and that "there is a low probability that the uranium was introduced by the use of missiles."
According to the IAEA report, Syria must provide additional information and documentation about "the use and nature" of the building that was bombed. And Syria "needs to be transparent by providing access to other locations alleged to be related" to the site.
Right...
~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, recently Obama decided to appoint the first US ambassador to Syria since 2005, when Bush without drew the American ambassador after the assassination of Harari in Lebanon.
Obama's choice, Frederic Hof, a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Middle East Policy Council, is said to be a close to George Mitchell.
Obama is also preparing to lift sanctions against Syria, in particular the Syrian Accountability Act. Syria has been listed as a State Sponsor of Terrorism since 1979.
The US has now agreed to sell Syria spare parts for two Boeing 747 jets.
~~~~~~~~~~
It is the issue of security, more than any other, that seems to be driving Binyamin Netanyahu right now as he pushes to put together a broad-based coalition.
After meeting with Tzipi Livni again last night, she walked away echoing the same refrain: Her voters expect her to honor the principles she ran on -- principles of a "two-state solution." She said the differences between Kadima and Likud were just too great.
And yet Netanyahu is persisting, and says there can be a means of achieving conciliation for cooperation in a coalition. Livni has agreed to meet again.
~~~~~~~~~~
Do I understand Netanyahu's persistence? I most certainly do not. His partners-in-the-making to the right, most notably National Union, will not sit still for a coalition with Kadima that makes compromises on the issue of negotiating with the Palestinians.
The NU had sought assurances from Netanyahu that there would be no mention of a Palestinian state in the coalition guidelines, and, according to MK Aryeh Eldad, "he replied that we will be able to live with the coalition guidelines." From the perspective of NU, Netanyahu has given his word on this.
The principles of Kadima and the nationalist parties are simply too far apart to reconcile. Even Likud and Kadima are far apart, as Likud ran on a platform of no dividing Jerusalem, and certainly Livni would hope to do so. A coalition that encompasses everything stands for nothing.
Will Netanyahu turn out to be a purely political animal devoid of all principles (which is how many see him), who tilted right and courted the right, for his purposes, and then will move left because it gives him more numbers in a coalition?
In a way, this is a time of reckoning for him. But in the end, it may be the persistence of Livni and her party, in refusing to join, that wins the day for the nation. Right now the majority of Kadima is said to agree with her.
It is the presence of the nationalist parties at the right flank of his coalition that would keep Netanyahu honest. Absent that, who knows.
~~~~~~~~~~
As to needing a broad-based coalition for security reasons, it is possible to assemble one for a brief time. When there is serious action to be taken, or confronted, a temporary unity government can be formed so the world understands that there is no division where acting for Israel's sake is concerned.
I do not minimize in the slightest the need to stand strong for Israel's security -- most especially with regard to Iran. It is here that Netanyahu has maximum credibility, as he has been raising the issue of confronting Iran for a long time.
~~~~~~~~~~
Typo correction: Ron Prosper is the ambassador to the UK, not the UN. (Thanks Ora and Barbara.)
~~~~~~~~~~
President Barack Obama:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ (for email contact form)
Fax: 202-456-2461
White House Comment line: 202-456-1111
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
Public Communication Division
Phone: 202-647-6575
Fax: 202-647-2283
e-mail: secretary@state.gov
To locate your representatives in Congress, see:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
To locate your senator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
You can often secure best contact info. by logging on to the website of the representative or senator.
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
"In a Bad Way"
Arlene Kushner
The state of the world, that is. Events have been so overwhelming and deeply distressing that it is difficult to know what to deal with first. (And without question some issues will have to be tabled for another day.)
But what I would like to start with today is the visitation of two Congressmen -- Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Brian Baird (D-WA) -- to this part of the world. They visited Gaza the end of last week, and yesterday made their inimitable statement regarding Israel's decision not to open crossings except for humanitarian supplies until Shalit is released. Their position: Banning lentils and pasta from Gaza does not help the cause of peace.
"When have lentil bombs been going off lately?" asked Congressman Baird. "Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?"
Cute, huh? Is he simply foolish and lacking basic knowledge, or is he being exceedingly coy and disingenuous here?
Opined Ellison, "Israel's policy is not designed for success or to win the release of Gilad Shalit." He knows this?
~~~~~~~~~~
It's disturbing when US elected legislators are as clueless or off-base as these guys are. Disturbing, but not surprising.
Some time ago, Congressman Ellison (Congress's only Muslim representative) was part of a Democratic Congressional mission to this area. When the group called a press conference, I attended. And so was present when a journalist asked Ellison what his take was on the (very old and very serious) Shi'ite-Sunni rift in the Muslim world -- a rift that, for example, puts Egypt and Iran at odds.
Well, he intoned, everyone wants the same things: good education for their kids, decent housing, and pensions for their old age. And if we can see that they have these things, we won't have to sweat the rest of it.
My jaw dropped, and I knew we were in a lot of trouble.
~~~~~~~~~~
We should, therefore, never miss an opportunity to do education of such Congresspersons. Either we will truly be alerting them to information they were lacking and giving them a broader perspective, or we will be letting them know that their nonsense doesn't play with us. Either way, a good thing.
In a word: I cannot speak for pasta and lentils in particular, but food -- as part of the humanitarian supplies -- goes into Gaza. The people are fed. This is not remotely the issue. Hamas wants the crossings opened for commercial reasons (to bring in furniture and machinery and whatever else) to promote their economic viability, and to bring in supplies that can be used for making weapons and building terrorist infrastructure. That includes fertilizer -- ostensibly for farming but which becomes an ingredient in manufacturing explosives, and concrete -- ostensibly for building homes and schools but which is used in making bunkers for weapons.
And so, keeping the crossings closed hurts Hamas and has a great deal to do with what is going on.
More to the point is why these two Congressmen didn't vociferously and publicly criticize Hamas for holding Shalit and not even allowing the Red Cross to see him, as mandated by international law. Why is the focus on what Israel is doing "wrong" and not what Hamas could do to bring the entire issue to closure?
~~~~~~~~~~
You might want to communicate with these two Congresspersons -- or, more accurately, their offices. If so:
Congressman Keith Ellison Phone: 202-225-4755 Fax: 202-225-4886
His staffer for ME affairs is Walaya Jariyadham, and her e-mail is walaya.jariyadham@mail.house.org
Congressman Brian Baird Phone: 202- 225-3536 Fax: 202-225-3478
His staffer for Middle East Affairs (offered here without comment) is Jamal Abdi, and his e-mail is jamal.abdi@mail.house.org
~~~~~~~~~~
Returning just briefly to the Durban 2 issue:
According to Roni Leshno Yaar, the Israel Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva (where the Durban meetings are being held), the draft document is problematic for not only Israel but for Western democracies in general. Besides dealing with Israel (the only nation criticized by name), it also deals with issues of free speech (which it would inhibit), discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and defamation of religion.
He does not see any opportunity for the American presence to improve the document. "In fact," said Leshno Yaar, "I expect the text to get only worse on all issues that are important for Western democracy."
~~~~~~~~~~
Amos Herman, head of the Jewish Agency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, says, "As far as we believe, Durban II is going to be the anti-Semitic event of 2009. It looks worse than we expected, even though it's not clear what the end results will be...
"Operation Cast Lead [in Gaza] is going to take center state at Durban II and we have to be ready for that."
The Task Force members are doubtful that the US presence will change the conference's direction, and some are dubious, as well, as to whether the US delegation will walk out, no matter what transpires.
Among the things anticipated in Geneva at the Durban 2 conference: use of Holocaust imagery with regard to Israel's military actions in Gaza, the possibility of demonstrations, and an all-out "hate-fest" on the part of NGOs present. (It was the NGO Forum that was the most vociferously anti-Israel last time.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Please! Raise your voice on this issue.
Contact info. is provided again at the bottom of this posting.
~~~~~~~~~~
A tiny ray of light. According to The Jewish Chronicle of Britain, Britain and Italy are considering withdrawing from participation in Durban 2.
"Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said on Tuesday: 'If we can’t go forward now, we will withdraw. I was at the first conference. I have never seen such a disgraceful event in quite a long international life.'
"Later, he said: 'There are red lines that need to be made for us to participate...We are not going to stand idly by and allow this racist stuff to get through and be seen as acceptable. We are not going to have it.'
"...Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said: 'We will not send an Italian delegation [if it is the same as Durban 2001], but we will try to harmonies our position with other countries who are the friends of Jews. But we will leave a decision until the last minute.'"
And there we have the rub, and the reason why the ray of light is so tiny: These nations are looking to the US to take the lead.
~~~~~~~~~~
Relevant to the issue of the delegitimization of Israel, please see the piece by Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice of Canada and professor of law with considerable human rights expertise.
"Making the world 'Judestaatrein' [i.e., devoid of a Jewish state]"
Writes Cotler:
"...The new anti-Jewishness overlaps with classical anti-Semitism but is distinguishable from it. It found early juridical, and even institutional, expression in the UN's 'Zionism is racism' resolution - which the late US senator Daniel Moynihan said 'gave the abomination of anti-Semitism the appearance of international legal sanction' - but has gone dramatically beyond it. This new anti-Semitism almost needs a new vocabulary to define it; however, it can best be identified using a rights-based juridical perspective.
"In a word, classical or traditional anti-Semitism is the discrimination against, denial of or assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of whatever host society they inhabit. The new anti-Semitism involves the discrimination against the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations - the denial of and assault upon the Jewish people's right even to live - with Israel as the 'collective Jew among the nations.'"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304849224&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
~~~~~~~~~~
And on Iran (the greatest worry of all):
A report unveiled in Vienna last week by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency suggests that the 1,010 kg. of low-enriched uranium already produced by Iran is sufficient for building a bomb.
The low-enriched uranium would have to undergo additional enrichment before it could be used for a nuclear weapon. But a US Iranian analyst suggests that Iran my be "one step before the nuclear stage" and is operating a shadow nuclear program in tandem with its public program.
Additionally there has been a report from Teheran that the preliminary phase of operations for the first Iranian nuclear power plant -- a 1,000 megawatt light-water reactor in the southern port city of Busehr -- will begin this week.
~~~~~~~~~~
Be that as it may, the Obama administration is said to be at least two months away from establishing policies on the issue of a nuclear Iran.
There is widespread speculation that Obama is waiting until after the Iranian presidential election, scheduled for June 12, in which former president Mohammad Khatami -- who is considered somewhat more Western oriented -- will be challenging Ahmadinejad.
But that would be a long time for the US to go without a firm and coherent Iranian policy. And if Khatami wins, that is still no guarantee that Iran won't go nuclear or that it's not the mullahs who will insist on this.
And so, there is also troublesome speculation that the Obama administration may be resigned to a nuclear Iran.
~~~~~~~~~~
The International Atomic Energy Agency has just released a report indicating that new traces of uranium have been found at the site -- presumed to be a nuclear reactor -- where Israel bombed in September 2007.
The particles "are of a type not included in Syria's declared inventory of nuclear material" and that "there is a low probability that the uranium was introduced by the use of missiles."
According to the IAEA report, Syria must provide additional information and documentation about "the use and nature" of the building that was bombed. And Syria "needs to be transparent by providing access to other locations alleged to be related" to the site.
Right...
~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, recently Obama decided to appoint the first US ambassador to Syria since 2005, when Bush without drew the American ambassador after the assassination of Harari in Lebanon.
Obama's choice, Frederic Hof, a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Middle East Policy Council, is said to be a close to George Mitchell.
Obama is also preparing to lift sanctions against Syria, in particular the Syrian Accountability Act. Syria has been listed as a State Sponsor of Terrorism since 1979.
The US has now agreed to sell Syria spare parts for two Boeing 747 jets.
~~~~~~~~~~
It is the issue of security, more than any other, that seems to be driving Binyamin Netanyahu right now as he pushes to put together a broad-based coalition.
After meeting with Tzipi Livni again last night, she walked away echoing the same refrain: Her voters expect her to honor the principles she ran on -- principles of a "two-state solution." She said the differences between Kadima and Likud were just too great.
And yet Netanyahu is persisting, and says there can be a means of achieving conciliation for cooperation in a coalition. Livni has agreed to meet again.
~~~~~~~~~~
Do I understand Netanyahu's persistence? I most certainly do not. His partners-in-the-making to the right, most notably National Union, will not sit still for a coalition with Kadima that makes compromises on the issue of negotiating with the Palestinians.
The NU had sought assurances from Netanyahu that there would be no mention of a Palestinian state in the coalition guidelines, and, according to MK Aryeh Eldad, "he replied that we will be able to live with the coalition guidelines." From the perspective of NU, Netanyahu has given his word on this.
The principles of Kadima and the nationalist parties are simply too far apart to reconcile. Even Likud and Kadima are far apart, as Likud ran on a platform of no dividing Jerusalem, and certainly Livni would hope to do so. A coalition that encompasses everything stands for nothing.
Will Netanyahu turn out to be a purely political animal devoid of all principles (which is how many see him), who tilted right and courted the right, for his purposes, and then will move left because it gives him more numbers in a coalition?
In a way, this is a time of reckoning for him. But in the end, it may be the persistence of Livni and her party, in refusing to join, that wins the day for the nation. Right now the majority of Kadima is said to agree with her.
It is the presence of the nationalist parties at the right flank of his coalition that would keep Netanyahu honest. Absent that, who knows.
~~~~~~~~~~
As to needing a broad-based coalition for security reasons, it is possible to assemble one for a brief time. When there is serious action to be taken, or confronted, a temporary unity government can be formed so the world understands that there is no division where acting for Israel's sake is concerned.
I do not minimize in the slightest the need to stand strong for Israel's security -- most especially with regard to Iran. It is here that Netanyahu has maximum credibility, as he has been raising the issue of confronting Iran for a long time.
~~~~~~~~~~
Typo correction: Ron Prosper is the ambassador to the UK, not the UN. (Thanks Ora and Barbara.)
~~~~~~~~~~
President Barack Obama:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ (for email contact form)
Fax: 202-456-2461
White House Comment line: 202-456-1111
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
Public Communication Division
Phone: 202-647-6575
Fax: 202-647-2283
e-mail: secretary@state.gov
To locate your representatives in Congress, see:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
To locate your senator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
You can often secure best contact info. by logging on to the website of the representative or senator.
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
The state of the world, that is. Events have been so overwhelming and deeply distressing that it is difficult to know what to deal with first. (And without question some issues will have to be tabled for another day.)
But what I would like to start with today is the visitation of two Congressmen -- Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Brian Baird (D-WA) -- to this part of the world. They visited Gaza the end of last week, and yesterday made their inimitable statement regarding Israel's decision not to open crossings except for humanitarian supplies until Shalit is released. Their position: Banning lentils and pasta from Gaza does not help the cause of peace.
"When have lentil bombs been going off lately?" asked Congressman Baird. "Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?"
Cute, huh? Is he simply foolish and lacking basic knowledge, or is he being exceedingly coy and disingenuous here?
Opined Ellison, "Israel's policy is not designed for success or to win the release of Gilad Shalit." He knows this?
~~~~~~~~~~
It's disturbing when US elected legislators are as clueless or off-base as these guys are. Disturbing, but not surprising.
Some time ago, Congressman Ellison (Congress's only Muslim representative) was part of a Democratic Congressional mission to this area. When the group called a press conference, I attended. And so was present when a journalist asked Ellison what his take was on the (very old and very serious) Shi'ite-Sunni rift in the Muslim world -- a rift that, for example, puts Egypt and Iran at odds.
Well, he intoned, everyone wants the same things: good education for their kids, decent housing, and pensions for their old age. And if we can see that they have these things, we won't have to sweat the rest of it.
My jaw dropped, and I knew we were in a lot of trouble.
~~~~~~~~~~
We should, therefore, never miss an opportunity to do education of such Congresspersons. Either we will truly be alerting them to information they were lacking and giving them a broader perspective, or we will be letting them know that their nonsense doesn't play with us. Either way, a good thing.
In a word: I cannot speak for pasta and lentils in particular, but food -- as part of the humanitarian supplies -- goes into Gaza. The people are fed. This is not remotely the issue. Hamas wants the crossings opened for commercial reasons (to bring in furniture and machinery and whatever else) to promote their economic viability, and to bring in supplies that can be used for making weapons and building terrorist infrastructure. That includes fertilizer -- ostensibly for farming but which becomes an ingredient in manufacturing explosives, and concrete -- ostensibly for building homes and schools but which is used in making bunkers for weapons.
And so, keeping the crossings closed hurts Hamas and has a great deal to do with what is going on.
More to the point is why these two Congressmen didn't vociferously and publicly criticize Hamas for holding Shalit and not even allowing the Red Cross to see him, as mandated by international law. Why is the focus on what Israel is doing "wrong" and not what Hamas could do to bring the entire issue to closure?
~~~~~~~~~~
You might want to communicate with these two Congresspersons -- or, more accurately, their offices. If so:
Congressman Keith Ellison Phone: 202-225-4755 Fax: 202-225-4886
His staffer for ME affairs is Walaya Jariyadham, and her e-mail is walaya.jariyadham@mail.house.org
Congressman Brian Baird Phone: 202- 225-3536 Fax: 202-225-3478
His staffer for Middle East Affairs (offered here without comment) is Jamal Abdi, and his e-mail is jamal.abdi@mail.house.org
~~~~~~~~~~
Returning just briefly to the Durban 2 issue:
According to Roni Leshno Yaar, the Israel Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva (where the Durban meetings are being held), the draft document is problematic for not only Israel but for Western democracies in general. Besides dealing with Israel (the only nation criticized by name), it also deals with issues of free speech (which it would inhibit), discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and defamation of religion.
He does not see any opportunity for the American presence to improve the document. "In fact," said Leshno Yaar, "I expect the text to get only worse on all issues that are important for Western democracy."
~~~~~~~~~~
Amos Herman, head of the Jewish Agency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, says, "As far as we believe, Durban II is going to be the anti-Semitic event of 2009. It looks worse than we expected, even though it's not clear what the end results will be...
"Operation Cast Lead [in Gaza] is going to take center state at Durban II and we have to be ready for that."
The Task Force members are doubtful that the US presence will change the conference's direction, and some are dubious, as well, as to whether the US delegation will walk out, no matter what transpires.
Among the things anticipated in Geneva at the Durban 2 conference: use of Holocaust imagery with regard to Israel's military actions in Gaza, the possibility of demonstrations, and an all-out "hate-fest" on the part of NGOs present. (It was the NGO Forum that was the most vociferously anti-Israel last time.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Please! Raise your voice on this issue.
Contact info. is provided again at the bottom of this posting.
~~~~~~~~~~
A tiny ray of light. According to The Jewish Chronicle of Britain, Britain and Italy are considering withdrawing from participation in Durban 2.
"Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said on Tuesday: 'If we can’t go forward now, we will withdraw. I was at the first conference. I have never seen such a disgraceful event in quite a long international life.'
"Later, he said: 'There are red lines that need to be made for us to participate...We are not going to stand idly by and allow this racist stuff to get through and be seen as acceptable. We are not going to have it.'
"...Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said: 'We will not send an Italian delegation [if it is the same as Durban 2001], but we will try to harmonies our position with other countries who are the friends of Jews. But we will leave a decision until the last minute.'"
And there we have the rub, and the reason why the ray of light is so tiny: These nations are looking to the US to take the lead.
~~~~~~~~~~
Relevant to the issue of the delegitimization of Israel, please see the piece by Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice of Canada and professor of law with considerable human rights expertise.
"Making the world 'Judestaatrein' [i.e., devoid of a Jewish state]"
Writes Cotler:
"...The new anti-Jewishness overlaps with classical anti-Semitism but is distinguishable from it. It found early juridical, and even institutional, expression in the UN's 'Zionism is racism' resolution - which the late US senator Daniel Moynihan said 'gave the abomination of anti-Semitism the appearance of international legal sanction' - but has gone dramatically beyond it. This new anti-Semitism almost needs a new vocabulary to define it; however, it can best be identified using a rights-based juridical perspective.
"In a word, classical or traditional anti-Semitism is the discrimination against, denial of or assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of whatever host society they inhabit. The new anti-Semitism involves the discrimination against the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations - the denial of and assault upon the Jewish people's right even to live - with Israel as the 'collective Jew among the nations.'"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304849224&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
~~~~~~~~~~
And on Iran (the greatest worry of all):
A report unveiled in Vienna last week by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency suggests that the 1,010 kg. of low-enriched uranium already produced by Iran is sufficient for building a bomb.
The low-enriched uranium would have to undergo additional enrichment before it could be used for a nuclear weapon. But a US Iranian analyst suggests that Iran my be "one step before the nuclear stage" and is operating a shadow nuclear program in tandem with its public program.
Additionally there has been a report from Teheran that the preliminary phase of operations for the first Iranian nuclear power plant -- a 1,000 megawatt light-water reactor in the southern port city of Busehr -- will begin this week.
~~~~~~~~~~
Be that as it may, the Obama administration is said to be at least two months away from establishing policies on the issue of a nuclear Iran.
There is widespread speculation that Obama is waiting until after the Iranian presidential election, scheduled for June 12, in which former president Mohammad Khatami -- who is considered somewhat more Western oriented -- will be challenging Ahmadinejad.
But that would be a long time for the US to go without a firm and coherent Iranian policy. And if Khatami wins, that is still no guarantee that Iran won't go nuclear or that it's not the mullahs who will insist on this.
And so, there is also troublesome speculation that the Obama administration may be resigned to a nuclear Iran.
~~~~~~~~~~
The International Atomic Energy Agency has just released a report indicating that new traces of uranium have been found at the site -- presumed to be a nuclear reactor -- where Israel bombed in September 2007.
The particles "are of a type not included in Syria's declared inventory of nuclear material" and that "there is a low probability that the uranium was introduced by the use of missiles."
According to the IAEA report, Syria must provide additional information and documentation about "the use and nature" of the building that was bombed. And Syria "needs to be transparent by providing access to other locations alleged to be related" to the site.
Right...
~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, recently Obama decided to appoint the first US ambassador to Syria since 2005, when Bush without drew the American ambassador after the assassination of Harari in Lebanon.
Obama's choice, Frederic Hof, a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Middle East Policy Council, is said to be a close to George Mitchell.
Obama is also preparing to lift sanctions against Syria, in particular the Syrian Accountability Act. Syria has been listed as a State Sponsor of Terrorism since 1979.
The US has now agreed to sell Syria spare parts for two Boeing 747 jets.
~~~~~~~~~~
It is the issue of security, more than any other, that seems to be driving Binyamin Netanyahu right now as he pushes to put together a broad-based coalition.
After meeting with Tzipi Livni again last night, she walked away echoing the same refrain: Her voters expect her to honor the principles she ran on -- principles of a "two-state solution." She said the differences between Kadima and Likud were just too great.
And yet Netanyahu is persisting, and says there can be a means of achieving conciliation for cooperation in a coalition. Livni has agreed to meet again.
~~~~~~~~~~
Do I understand Netanyahu's persistence? I most certainly do not. His partners-in-the-making to the right, most notably National Union, will not sit still for a coalition with Kadima that makes compromises on the issue of negotiating with the Palestinians.
The NU had sought assurances from Netanyahu that there would be no mention of a Palestinian state in the coalition guidelines, and, according to MK Aryeh Eldad, "he replied that we will be able to live with the coalition guidelines." From the perspective of NU, Netanyahu has given his word on this.
The principles of Kadima and the nationalist parties are simply too far apart to reconcile. Even Likud and Kadima are far apart, as Likud ran on a platform of no dividing Jerusalem, and certainly Livni would hope to do so. A coalition that encompasses everything stands for nothing.
Will Netanyahu turn out to be a purely political animal devoid of all principles (which is how many see him), who tilted right and courted the right, for his purposes, and then will move left because it gives him more numbers in a coalition?
In a way, this is a time of reckoning for him. But in the end, it may be the persistence of Livni and her party, in refusing to join, that wins the day for the nation. Right now the majority of Kadima is said to agree with her.
It is the presence of the nationalist parties at the right flank of his coalition that would keep Netanyahu honest. Absent that, who knows.
~~~~~~~~~~
As to needing a broad-based coalition for security reasons, it is possible to assemble one for a brief time. When there is serious action to be taken, or confronted, a temporary unity government can be formed so the world understands that there is no division where acting for Israel's sake is concerned.
I do not minimize in the slightest the need to stand strong for Israel's security -- most especially with regard to Iran. It is here that Netanyahu has maximum credibility, as he has been raising the issue of confronting Iran for a long time.
~~~~~~~~~~
Typo correction: Ron Prosper is the ambassador to the UK, not the UN. (Thanks Ora and Barbara.)
~~~~~~~~~~
President Barack Obama:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ (for email contact form)
Fax: 202-456-2461
White House Comment line: 202-456-1111
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
Public Communication Division
Phone: 202-647-6575
Fax: 202-647-2283
e-mail: secretary@state.gov
To locate your representatives in Congress, see:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
To locate your senator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
You can often secure best contact info. by logging on to the website of the representative or senator.
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
Going wobbly in the West
Mark Steyn
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | 'It is hard to understand this deal," said Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's special envoy. And, if the special envoy of the so-called smartest and most impressive administration in living memory can't understand it, what chance do the rest of us have? Mark Steyn
Nevertheless, let's try. In the Swat Valley, where a young Winston Churchill once served with the Malakand Field Force battling Muslim insurgents, his successors have concluded the game isn't worth the candle. In return for a temporary ceasefire, the Pakistani government agreed to let the local franchise of the Taliban impose its industrial strength version of sharia across the whole of Malakand Region. If "region" sounds a bit of an imprecise term, Malakand has over five million people, all of whom are now living under a murderous theocracy. Still, peace rallies have broken out all over the Swat Valley, and, at a Swat peace rally, it helps to stand well back: As one headline put it, "Journalist Killed While Covering Peace Rally."
But don't worry about Pakistani nukes falling into the hands of "extremists": The Swat Valley is a good hundred miles from the "nation"'s capital, Islamabad — or about as far as Northern Vermont is from Southern Vermont. And, of course, Islamabad is safely under the control of the famously moderate Ali Zardari. A few days before the Swat deal, Mr. Zardari marked the dawn of the Obama era by releasing from house arrest A. Q. Khan, the celebrated scientist and one-stop shop for all your Islamic nuclear needs, for whose generosity North Korea and Iran are especially grateful.
From Islamabad, let us zip a world away to London. Actually, it's nearer than you think. The flight routes between Pakistan and the United Kingdom are some of the busiest in the world. Can you get a direct flight from your local airport to, say, Bradford?
Where?
Bradford, Yorkshire. There are four flights a week from Islamabad to Bradford, a town where 75 percent of Pakistani Britons are married to their first cousins. But don't worry, in the country as a whole, only 57 percent of Pakistani Britons are married to first cousins.
Among that growing population of Yorkshire Pakistanis is a fellow called Lord Ahmed, a Muslim member of Parliament. He was in the news the other day for threatening (as the columnist Melanie Phillips put it) "to bring a force of 10,000 Muslims to lay siege to the House of Lords" if it went ahead with an event at which the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders would have introduced a screening of his controversial film Fitna. Britain's Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, reacted to this by declaring Minheer Wilders persona non grata and having him arrested at Heathrow and returned to the Netherlands.
The Home Secretary is best known for an inspired change of terminology: Last year she announced that henceforth Muslim terrorism (an unhelpful phrase) would be reclassified as "anti-Islamic activity." Seriously. The logic being that Muslims blowing stuff up tends not to do much for Islam's reputation — i.e., it's an "anti-Islamic activity" in the same sense that Pearl Harbor was an anti-Japanese activity.
Anyway, Geert Wilders's short film is basically a compilation video of footage from various recent Muslim terrorist atrocities — whoops, sorry, "anti-Islamic activities" — accompanied by the relevant chapter and verse from the Koran. Jacqui Smith banned the filmmaker on "public order" grounds — in other words, the government's fear that Lord Ahmed meant what he said about a 10,000-strong mob besieging the Palace of Westminster. You might conceivably get the impression from Wilders's movie that many Muslims are irrational and violent types it's best to steer well clear of. But, if you didn't, Jacqui Smith pretty much confirmed it: We can't have chaps walking around saying Muslims are violent because they'll go bananas and smash the place up.
So, confronted by blackmail, the British government caved. So did the Pakistani government in Swat. But, in fairness to Islamabad, they waited until the shooting was well underway before throwing in the towel. In London, you no longer have to go that far. You just give the impression your more excitable chums might not be able to restrain themselves. "Nice little G7 advanced western democracy you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it." Twenty years ago this month, Margaret Thatcher's Conservative ministry defended the right of a left-wing author Salman Rushdie to publish a book in the face of Muslim riots and the Ayatollah Khomeini's attempted mob hit. Two decades on, a supposedly progressive government surrenders to the mob before it's even taken to the streets.
In his first TV interview as president, Barack Obama told viewers of al-Arabiya TV that he wanted to restore the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago." I'm not sure quite what golden age he's looking back to there — the Beirut barracks slaughter? the embassy hostages? — but the point is, it's very hard to turn back the clock. Because the facts on the ground change, and change remorselessly.
Even in 30 years. Between 1970 and 2000, the developed world declined from just under 30 percent of the global population to just over 20 percent, while the Muslim world increased from 15 percent to 20 percent. And in 2030, it won't even be possible to re-take that survey, because by that point half the "developed world " will itself be Muslim: In Bradford — as in London, Amsterdam, Brussels, and almost every other western European city from Malmo to Marseilles — the principal population growth comes from Islam.
Thirty years ago, in the Obama golden age, a British documentary-maker was so horrified by the "honor killing" of a teenage member of the House of Saud at the behest of her father, the king's brother, that he made a famous TV film about it, Death Of A Princess. The furious Saudis threatened a trade boycott with Britain over this unwanted exposure.
Today, we have honor killings not just in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, but in Germany, Scandinavia, Britain, Toronto, Dallas, and Buffalo. And they barely raise an eyebrow.
Along with the demographic growth has come radicalization: It's not just that there are more Muslims, but that, within that growing population, moderate Islam is on the decline — in Singapore, in the Balkans, in northern England — and radicalized, Arabized, Wahhabized Islam is on the rise. So we have degrees of accommodation: surrender in Islamabad, appeasement in London, acceptance in Toronto and Buffalo.
According to ABC News, a team of UCLA professors have used biogeographic theories to locate Osama bin Laden's hideout as one of three possible houses in the small town of Parachinar, and have suggested to the Pentagon they keep an eye on these buildings. But the problem isn't confined to three buildings. It ripples ever outwards, to the new hardcore sharia state in Malakand, up the road to nuclear Islamabad, over to Bradford on that jet-speed conveyor-belt of child brides, down to the House of Lords and beyond.
Meanwhile, President Obama has removed Winston Churchill's bust from the Oval Office and returned it to the British. Given what Sir Winston had to say about Islam in his book on the Sudanese campaign, the bust will almost certainly be arrested at Heathrow and deported as a threat to public order.
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | 'It is hard to understand this deal," said Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's special envoy. And, if the special envoy of the so-called smartest and most impressive administration in living memory can't understand it, what chance do the rest of us have? Mark Steyn
Nevertheless, let's try. In the Swat Valley, where a young Winston Churchill once served with the Malakand Field Force battling Muslim insurgents, his successors have concluded the game isn't worth the candle. In return for a temporary ceasefire, the Pakistani government agreed to let the local franchise of the Taliban impose its industrial strength version of sharia across the whole of Malakand Region. If "region" sounds a bit of an imprecise term, Malakand has over five million people, all of whom are now living under a murderous theocracy. Still, peace rallies have broken out all over the Swat Valley, and, at a Swat peace rally, it helps to stand well back: As one headline put it, "Journalist Killed While Covering Peace Rally."
But don't worry about Pakistani nukes falling into the hands of "extremists": The Swat Valley is a good hundred miles from the "nation"'s capital, Islamabad — or about as far as Northern Vermont is from Southern Vermont. And, of course, Islamabad is safely under the control of the famously moderate Ali Zardari. A few days before the Swat deal, Mr. Zardari marked the dawn of the Obama era by releasing from house arrest A. Q. Khan, the celebrated scientist and one-stop shop for all your Islamic nuclear needs, for whose generosity North Korea and Iran are especially grateful.
From Islamabad, let us zip a world away to London. Actually, it's nearer than you think. The flight routes between Pakistan and the United Kingdom are some of the busiest in the world. Can you get a direct flight from your local airport to, say, Bradford?
Where?
Bradford, Yorkshire. There are four flights a week from Islamabad to Bradford, a town where 75 percent of Pakistani Britons are married to their first cousins. But don't worry, in the country as a whole, only 57 percent of Pakistani Britons are married to first cousins.
Among that growing population of Yorkshire Pakistanis is a fellow called Lord Ahmed, a Muslim member of Parliament. He was in the news the other day for threatening (as the columnist Melanie Phillips put it) "to bring a force of 10,000 Muslims to lay siege to the House of Lords" if it went ahead with an event at which the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders would have introduced a screening of his controversial film Fitna. Britain's Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, reacted to this by declaring Minheer Wilders persona non grata and having him arrested at Heathrow and returned to the Netherlands.
The Home Secretary is best known for an inspired change of terminology: Last year she announced that henceforth Muslim terrorism (an unhelpful phrase) would be reclassified as "anti-Islamic activity." Seriously. The logic being that Muslims blowing stuff up tends not to do much for Islam's reputation — i.e., it's an "anti-Islamic activity" in the same sense that Pearl Harbor was an anti-Japanese activity.
Anyway, Geert Wilders's short film is basically a compilation video of footage from various recent Muslim terrorist atrocities — whoops, sorry, "anti-Islamic activities" — accompanied by the relevant chapter and verse from the Koran. Jacqui Smith banned the filmmaker on "public order" grounds — in other words, the government's fear that Lord Ahmed meant what he said about a 10,000-strong mob besieging the Palace of Westminster. You might conceivably get the impression from Wilders's movie that many Muslims are irrational and violent types it's best to steer well clear of. But, if you didn't, Jacqui Smith pretty much confirmed it: We can't have chaps walking around saying Muslims are violent because they'll go bananas and smash the place up.
So, confronted by blackmail, the British government caved. So did the Pakistani government in Swat. But, in fairness to Islamabad, they waited until the shooting was well underway before throwing in the towel. In London, you no longer have to go that far. You just give the impression your more excitable chums might not be able to restrain themselves. "Nice little G7 advanced western democracy you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it." Twenty years ago this month, Margaret Thatcher's Conservative ministry defended the right of a left-wing author Salman Rushdie to publish a book in the face of Muslim riots and the Ayatollah Khomeini's attempted mob hit. Two decades on, a supposedly progressive government surrenders to the mob before it's even taken to the streets.
In his first TV interview as president, Barack Obama told viewers of al-Arabiya TV that he wanted to restore the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago." I'm not sure quite what golden age he's looking back to there — the Beirut barracks slaughter? the embassy hostages? — but the point is, it's very hard to turn back the clock. Because the facts on the ground change, and change remorselessly.
Even in 30 years. Between 1970 and 2000, the developed world declined from just under 30 percent of the global population to just over 20 percent, while the Muslim world increased from 15 percent to 20 percent. And in 2030, it won't even be possible to re-take that survey, because by that point half the "developed world " will itself be Muslim: In Bradford — as in London, Amsterdam, Brussels, and almost every other western European city from Malmo to Marseilles — the principal population growth comes from Islam.
Thirty years ago, in the Obama golden age, a British documentary-maker was so horrified by the "honor killing" of a teenage member of the House of Saud at the behest of her father, the king's brother, that he made a famous TV film about it, Death Of A Princess. The furious Saudis threatened a trade boycott with Britain over this unwanted exposure.
Today, we have honor killings not just in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, but in Germany, Scandinavia, Britain, Toronto, Dallas, and Buffalo. And they barely raise an eyebrow.
Along with the demographic growth has come radicalization: It's not just that there are more Muslims, but that, within that growing population, moderate Islam is on the decline — in Singapore, in the Balkans, in northern England — and radicalized, Arabized, Wahhabized Islam is on the rise. So we have degrees of accommodation: surrender in Islamabad, appeasement in London, acceptance in Toronto and Buffalo.
According to ABC News, a team of UCLA professors have used biogeographic theories to locate Osama bin Laden's hideout as one of three possible houses in the small town of Parachinar, and have suggested to the Pentagon they keep an eye on these buildings. But the problem isn't confined to three buildings. It ripples ever outwards, to the new hardcore sharia state in Malakand, up the road to nuclear Islamabad, over to Bradford on that jet-speed conveyor-belt of child brides, down to the House of Lords and beyond.
Meanwhile, President Obama has removed Winston Churchill's bust from the Oval Office and returned it to the British. Given what Sir Winston had to say about Islam in his book on the Sudanese campaign, the bust will almost certainly be arrested at Heathrow and deported as a threat to public order.
"Sounding the Alarm"
Arlene Kushner
My postings go out to many people in the US, and it is to all of you in particular that I speak now.
That Israel has friends in the US is incontrovertible. This is the case notably within right wing segments of the Jewish community, and within certain segments of the Christian community.
But there is the sense here in Jerusalem today that as a nation we stand alone among the nations of the world as perhaps never before. (The one exception at the moment being Canada, which I note with gratitude.) This is how Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz puts it:
"Israel is the only sovereign state whose destruction international society will excuse."
Horovitz wrote this in the context of talking about the state of politics in Britain today, where, according to British journalist Nick Cohen, the modern Left, "succors and indulges...the clerical fascists of radical Islam":
"From the broadcasters, through the liberal press, the Civil Service, the Metropolitan Police, the bench of bishops and the judiciary, anti-Semitism is no longer an unthinkable mental deformation. As long as the conspiracy theories of the counter-enlightenment come from the ideologues with the dark rather than white skins, nominally liberal men and women will not speak out."
~~~~~~~~~~
Why do I address this to you, in America? Because Horovitz also tells us that Israel's Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor warned, during a talk at the recent Herzliya Conference, that:
"...where Britain is today, America will be in a few years time."
Exaggeration? I think not. I am watching as a president with Muslim identifications and connections actively courts the Muslim world, while a good portion of the American populace still thinks he's great and deigns not to criticize him.
As I face this truth, an icy chill grips my heart.
~~~~~~~~~~
I know that there is precious little that I can do to stop Obama, except to sound alarms such as this one via my writing, and to consistently provide pertinent information. And that is why I address each of you.
I hope you won't find the picture of the finger pointing, below, offensive. I most certainly don't mean it to be: I intend it, rather, to emphasize the significance of having each of you take this message personally.
For the unvarnished truth, the painful reality, is that the future of Western society, with the US at its core, depends on people like you. And it's time for each of you to take this charge seriously. A simple silent agreement with what I write won't cut it. "Tch tch" or "Oy!" is useless, even if most sincerely intended -- useless, unless it is accompanied by action.
How does that saying go? "All that is required for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing."
~~~~~~~~~~
Action:
Work hard to convince others -- relatives and friends -- of the dangers the US faces. Write (brief, unemotional, fact-filled) letters to the editor. Contact foreign desk editors, registering complaints (nicely --nasty doesn't work) when the news reflects an anti-Israel bias.
Of great significance, contact elected and appointed officials and register protests, clearly and frequently. The White House, the State Department, and members of both Houses of Congress must hear what you have to say. I will follow with specific names of greatest import.
Garner groups of local activists to do all of these things with you. Get out contact information of Congresspeople (information on this follows below), and provide talking points for important issues (which I will always help with). Be a catalyst. Be brave and determined. Form a list.
If you are a member of a major Jewish establishment organization -- American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Hadassah, Emunah, ORT, B'nai B'rith, AMIT, etc. etc. raise your voice within those circles and insist that they be involved officially in making protest. The majority of these organizations have been all too quiet, and they need to hear from their members and financial supporters on this issues.
No more passivity. Act as if the lives of your children and grandchildren will depend on this. For they will.
~~~~~~~~~~
To those on my list already doing these things -- and some of you have been in contact with me -- I say thank you, and please don't stop. (Bunny S., you're great!)
~~~~~~~~~~
There will many issues to be addressed that I will raise over time. Here I want to return once again to the Durban 2 preparatory committee and the issue of US participation. This participation is the single most alarming decision Obama has made yet. It not only has serious repercussions, it points in an exceedingly dangerous direction.
That is why the Obama administration must get the message -- immediate and vociferous -- that this is not acceptable. The US is headed down a very slippery slope.
~~~~~~~~~~
Today I begin with the most recent column of Caroline Glick.
In part she reviews material covered the other day by Anne Bayefsky of Eye on the UN (whom I cited last week).
Ostensibly, the US delegation sent by Obama to participate in the preparatory committee -- along with the likes of Libya, Cuba, Iran and Pakistan -- is only there to try to make things better. The US says it still holds out the option of refusing to attend the actual sessions in Geneva in April if improvements aren't made in the document that will set the agenda of the conference.
But, says Bayefsky, this is exceedingly disingenuous for several reasons:
-- The decision to participate at all represents a major shift in US policy, as the US government, since 2001, has boycotted all Durban proceedings.
-- The stated purpose of Durban 2 is "to foster the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action. This is non-negotiable and cannot be changed by U.S. participation, period."
"...all U.N. states attending these preparatory sessions have already agreed to 'reaffirm the Durban Declaration.'...joining negotiations now means agreeing to its provisions for the first time."
As Glick puts it, as the original Durban Declaration "include[s] the anti-Israel assertion that Israel is a racist state, it is clear that the Durban II conference is inherently, and necessarily, anti-Israel."
~~~~~~~~~~
But Glick now carries this further:
"The second reason that both the State Department and the White House must realize that they are powerless to affect the conference's agenda is because that agenda was already set in previous planning sessions... and that agenda includes multiple assertions of the basic illegitimacy of the Jewish people's right to self-determination.
"Beyond all that, assuming that the Obama administration truly wishes to change the agenda, the fact is that the US is powerless to do so. As was the case in 2001, so too, today, the Islamic bloc, supported by the Third World bloc, has an automatic voting majority."
Writes Glick:
"SINCE IT came into office a month ago, every single Middle East policy the Obama administration has announced has been antithetical to Israel's national security interests. From President Barack Obama's intense desire to appease Iran's mullahs in open discussions; to his stated commitment to establish a Palestinian state as quickly as possible...; to his expressed support for the so-called Saudi peace plan...; to his decision to end US sanctions against Syria and return the US ambassador to Damascus; to his plan to withdraw US forces from Iraq and so give Iran an arc of uninterrupted control extending from Iran to Lebanon, every single concrete policy Obama has enunciated harms Israel.
"At the same time, none of the policies that Obama has adopted can be construed as directed against Israel. In and of themselves, none can be viewed as expressing specific hostility toward Israel. Rather, they are expressions of naiveté, or ignorance, or - at worst - deliberate denial of the nature of the problems of the Arab and Islamic world on the part of Obama and his advisers.
"The same cannot be said of the administration's decision to send its delegation to the Durban II planning session this past week in Geneva. Unlike every other Obama policy, this is a hostile act against Israel. This is true first of all because the decision was announced in the face of repeated Israeli requests that the US join Israel and Canada in boycotting the Durban II conference. (emphasis added)
"...what lies behind Israel's requests for a US boycott is not a partisan agenda, but a clearheaded acknowledgement that the Durban II conference is inherently devoted to the delegitimization and destruction of the Jewish state. And by joining in the planning sessions, the US has become a full participant in legitimizing and so advancing this overtly anti-Jewish agenda. (emphasis added)
~~~~~~~~~~
Glick goes on to describe what happened at a committee session last Thursday, when the Palestinian delegation proposed that a paragraph be added to the conference's agenda, which "calls for implementation of... the advisory opinion of the ICJ [International Court of Justice] on the wall, [i.e., Israel's security fence], and the international protection of Palestinian people throughout the occupied Palestinian territory."
"The American delegation raised no objection to the Palestinian draft. (emphasis added)
"Issued in 2004, the ICJ's advisory opinion on the security fence claimed that Israel has no right to self-defense against Palestinian terrorism. At the time, both the US and Israel rejected the ICJ's authority to issue an opinion on the subject.
"On Thursday, by not objecting to this Palestinian draft, not only did the US effectively accept the ICJ's authority, for practical purposes it granted the anti-Israel claim that Jews may be murdered with impunity."
~~~~~~~~~~
Glick's conclusion: "...through its behavior at the Geneva planning sessions this week, the US has demonstrated that State Department protestations aside, the administration has no interest in changing the agenda in any serious way. The US delegation's decision not to object to the Palestinian draft, as well its silence in the face of Iran's rejection of a clause in the conference declaration that mentioned the Holocaust, show the US did not join the planning session to change the tenor of the conference. The US is participating in the planning sessions because it wishes to participate in the conference. (emphasis added)
"The Durban II conference, like its predecessor, is part and parcel of a campaign to coordinate the diplomatic and legal war against the Jewish state...
"By participating in the conference, the US today is effectively giving American support to the war against the Jewish state.
"The open hostility toward Israel expressed by the Obama administration's decision to participate in the Durban process should be a red flag for both the Israeli government and for Israel's supporters in the US. Both Israel and its Jewish and non-Jewish supporters must openly condemn the administration's move and demand that it reverse its decision immediately. (emphasis added)
http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304831938&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
~~~~~~~~~~
Now, as the alarm gets louder, I add information from one more very recent article by Anne Bayefsky. This is what she says:
"The Feb. 20 State Department press release says the U.S. delegation in Geneva 'outline[d] our concerns with the current outcome document' and in particular 'our strong reservations about the direction of the conference, as the draft document singles out Israel for criticism.' One member of the delegation told The Washington Post: 'The administration is pushing back against efforts to brand Israel as racist in this conference.' In fact, tucked away in a Geneva hall with few observers, the U.S. had done just the opposite. The U.S. delegates had made no objection to a new proposal to nail Israel in an anti-racism manifesto that makes no other country-specific claims. (emphasis added)
It's an Obama administration "cover-up," says Bayefsky. Which means we cannot depend on what is reported on this issue by government sources or journalists tending to support the administration.
The silence of the U.S. delegation is all the more disturbing because Bayefsky reports that it had no trouble raising objections on other issues at the meeting.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/22/obama-israel-holocaust-durban-opinions-contributors_united_nations.html
~~~~~~~~~~
Contact the White House, the State Department, and your elected Senators and Congresspersons on this issue. Be strong and clear in your demand that the US pull out of Durban planning sessions. Use the information provided above to make your case succinctly: The US cannot change the anti-Israel direction of the proceedings and is instead legitimizing the process of undermining Israel.
Phone calls and faxes are most effective. Use e-mail if that is what is possible for you.
An important hint when contacting Senators and Congresspersons: Call their respective offices and ask for the staffer who is responsible for foreign affairs or Middle East affairs. Either speak to that individual directly, fax in care of that individual, or secure an e-mail address for him or her for sending a direct message. Members of Congress do not have the time or energy to read all messages, or consider all facts. They depend upon key staffers to advise them. You reach the members of Congress most effectively by reaching the appropriate high level staffer.
President Barack Obama:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ (for email contact form)
Fax: 202-456-2461
White House Comment line: 202-456-1111
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
Public Communication Division
Phone: 202-647-6575
Fax: 202-647-2283
e-mail: secretary@state.gov
To locate your representatives in Congress, see:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
To locate your senator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
You can often secure best contact info. by logging on to the website of the representative or senator.
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
My postings go out to many people in the US, and it is to all of you in particular that I speak now.
That Israel has friends in the US is incontrovertible. This is the case notably within right wing segments of the Jewish community, and within certain segments of the Christian community.
But there is the sense here in Jerusalem today that as a nation we stand alone among the nations of the world as perhaps never before. (The one exception at the moment being Canada, which I note with gratitude.) This is how Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz puts it:
"Israel is the only sovereign state whose destruction international society will excuse."
Horovitz wrote this in the context of talking about the state of politics in Britain today, where, according to British journalist Nick Cohen, the modern Left, "succors and indulges...the clerical fascists of radical Islam":
"From the broadcasters, through the liberal press, the Civil Service, the Metropolitan Police, the bench of bishops and the judiciary, anti-Semitism is no longer an unthinkable mental deformation. As long as the conspiracy theories of the counter-enlightenment come from the ideologues with the dark rather than white skins, nominally liberal men and women will not speak out."
~~~~~~~~~~
Why do I address this to you, in America? Because Horovitz also tells us that Israel's Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor warned, during a talk at the recent Herzliya Conference, that:
"...where Britain is today, America will be in a few years time."
Exaggeration? I think not. I am watching as a president with Muslim identifications and connections actively courts the Muslim world, while a good portion of the American populace still thinks he's great and deigns not to criticize him.
As I face this truth, an icy chill grips my heart.
~~~~~~~~~~
I know that there is precious little that I can do to stop Obama, except to sound alarms such as this one via my writing, and to consistently provide pertinent information. And that is why I address each of you.
I hope you won't find the picture of the finger pointing, below, offensive. I most certainly don't mean it to be: I intend it, rather, to emphasize the significance of having each of you take this message personally.
For the unvarnished truth, the painful reality, is that the future of Western society, with the US at its core, depends on people like you. And it's time for each of you to take this charge seriously. A simple silent agreement with what I write won't cut it. "Tch tch" or "Oy!" is useless, even if most sincerely intended -- useless, unless it is accompanied by action.
How does that saying go? "All that is required for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing."
~~~~~~~~~~
Action:
Work hard to convince others -- relatives and friends -- of the dangers the US faces. Write (brief, unemotional, fact-filled) letters to the editor. Contact foreign desk editors, registering complaints (nicely --nasty doesn't work) when the news reflects an anti-Israel bias.
Of great significance, contact elected and appointed officials and register protests, clearly and frequently. The White House, the State Department, and members of both Houses of Congress must hear what you have to say. I will follow with specific names of greatest import.
Garner groups of local activists to do all of these things with you. Get out contact information of Congresspeople (information on this follows below), and provide talking points for important issues (which I will always help with). Be a catalyst. Be brave and determined. Form a list.
If you are a member of a major Jewish establishment organization -- American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Hadassah, Emunah, ORT, B'nai B'rith, AMIT, etc. etc. raise your voice within those circles and insist that they be involved officially in making protest. The majority of these organizations have been all too quiet, and they need to hear from their members and financial supporters on this issues.
No more passivity. Act as if the lives of your children and grandchildren will depend on this. For they will.
~~~~~~~~~~
To those on my list already doing these things -- and some of you have been in contact with me -- I say thank you, and please don't stop. (Bunny S., you're great!)
~~~~~~~~~~
There will many issues to be addressed that I will raise over time. Here I want to return once again to the Durban 2 preparatory committee and the issue of US participation. This participation is the single most alarming decision Obama has made yet. It not only has serious repercussions, it points in an exceedingly dangerous direction.
That is why the Obama administration must get the message -- immediate and vociferous -- that this is not acceptable. The US is headed down a very slippery slope.
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Today I begin with the most recent column of Caroline Glick.
In part she reviews material covered the other day by Anne Bayefsky of Eye on the UN (whom I cited last week).
Ostensibly, the US delegation sent by Obama to participate in the preparatory committee -- along with the likes of Libya, Cuba, Iran and Pakistan -- is only there to try to make things better. The US says it still holds out the option of refusing to attend the actual sessions in Geneva in April if improvements aren't made in the document that will set the agenda of the conference.
But, says Bayefsky, this is exceedingly disingenuous for several reasons:
-- The decision to participate at all represents a major shift in US policy, as the US government, since 2001, has boycotted all Durban proceedings.
-- The stated purpose of Durban 2 is "to foster the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action. This is non-negotiable and cannot be changed by U.S. participation, period."
"...all U.N. states attending these preparatory sessions have already agreed to 'reaffirm the Durban Declaration.'...joining negotiations now means agreeing to its provisions for the first time."
As Glick puts it, as the original Durban Declaration "include[s] the anti-Israel assertion that Israel is a racist state, it is clear that the Durban II conference is inherently, and necessarily, anti-Israel."
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But Glick now carries this further:
"The second reason that both the State Department and the White House must realize that they are powerless to affect the conference's agenda is because that agenda was already set in previous planning sessions... and that agenda includes multiple assertions of the basic illegitimacy of the Jewish people's right to self-determination.
"Beyond all that, assuming that the Obama administration truly wishes to change the agenda, the fact is that the US is powerless to do so. As was the case in 2001, so too, today, the Islamic bloc, supported by the Third World bloc, has an automatic voting majority."
Writes Glick:
"SINCE IT came into office a month ago, every single Middle East policy the Obama administration has announced has been antithetical to Israel's national security interests. From President Barack Obama's intense desire to appease Iran's mullahs in open discussions; to his stated commitment to establish a Palestinian state as quickly as possible...; to his expressed support for the so-called Saudi peace plan...; to his decision to end US sanctions against Syria and return the US ambassador to Damascus; to his plan to withdraw US forces from Iraq and so give Iran an arc of uninterrupted control extending from Iran to Lebanon, every single concrete policy Obama has enunciated harms Israel.
"At the same time, none of the policies that Obama has adopted can be construed as directed against Israel. In and of themselves, none can be viewed as expressing specific hostility toward Israel. Rather, they are expressions of naiveté, or ignorance, or - at worst - deliberate denial of the nature of the problems of the Arab and Islamic world on the part of Obama and his advisers.
"The same cannot be said of the administration's decision to send its delegation to the Durban II planning session this past week in Geneva. Unlike every other Obama policy, this is a hostile act against Israel. This is true first of all because the decision was announced in the face of repeated Israeli requests that the US join Israel and Canada in boycotting the Durban II conference. (emphasis added)
"...what lies behind Israel's requests for a US boycott is not a partisan agenda, but a clearheaded acknowledgement that the Durban II conference is inherently devoted to the delegitimization and destruction of the Jewish state. And by joining in the planning sessions, the US has become a full participant in legitimizing and so advancing this overtly anti-Jewish agenda. (emphasis added)
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Glick goes on to describe what happened at a committee session last Thursday, when the Palestinian delegation proposed that a paragraph be added to the conference's agenda, which "calls for implementation of... the advisory opinion of the ICJ [International Court of Justice] on the wall, [i.e., Israel's security fence], and the international protection of Palestinian people throughout the occupied Palestinian territory."
"The American delegation raised no objection to the Palestinian draft. (emphasis added)
"Issued in 2004, the ICJ's advisory opinion on the security fence claimed that Israel has no right to self-defense against Palestinian terrorism. At the time, both the US and Israel rejected the ICJ's authority to issue an opinion on the subject.
"On Thursday, by not objecting to this Palestinian draft, not only did the US effectively accept the ICJ's authority, for practical purposes it granted the anti-Israel claim that Jews may be murdered with impunity."
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Glick's conclusion: "...through its behavior at the Geneva planning sessions this week, the US has demonstrated that State Department protestations aside, the administration has no interest in changing the agenda in any serious way. The US delegation's decision not to object to the Palestinian draft, as well its silence in the face of Iran's rejection of a clause in the conference declaration that mentioned the Holocaust, show the US did not join the planning session to change the tenor of the conference. The US is participating in the planning sessions because it wishes to participate in the conference. (emphasis added)
"The Durban II conference, like its predecessor, is part and parcel of a campaign to coordinate the diplomatic and legal war against the Jewish state...
"By participating in the conference, the US today is effectively giving American support to the war against the Jewish state.
"The open hostility toward Israel expressed by the Obama administration's decision to participate in the Durban process should be a red flag for both the Israeli government and for Israel's supporters in the US. Both Israel and its Jewish and non-Jewish supporters must openly condemn the administration's move and demand that it reverse its decision immediately. (emphasis added)
http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304831938&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
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Now, as the alarm gets louder, I add information from one more very recent article by Anne Bayefsky. This is what she says:
"The Feb. 20 State Department press release says the U.S. delegation in Geneva 'outline[d] our concerns with the current outcome document' and in particular 'our strong reservations about the direction of the conference, as the draft document singles out Israel for criticism.' One member of the delegation told The Washington Post: 'The administration is pushing back against efforts to brand Israel as racist in this conference.' In fact, tucked away in a Geneva hall with few observers, the U.S. had done just the opposite. The U.S. delegates had made no objection to a new proposal to nail Israel in an anti-racism manifesto that makes no other country-specific claims. (emphasis added)
It's an Obama administration "cover-up," says Bayefsky. Which means we cannot depend on what is reported on this issue by government sources or journalists tending to support the administration.
The silence of the U.S. delegation is all the more disturbing because Bayefsky reports that it had no trouble raising objections on other issues at the meeting.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/22/obama-israel-holocaust-durban-opinions-contributors_united_nations.html
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Contact the White House, the State Department, and your elected Senators and Congresspersons on this issue. Be strong and clear in your demand that the US pull out of Durban planning sessions. Use the information provided above to make your case succinctly: The US cannot change the anti-Israel direction of the proceedings and is instead legitimizing the process of undermining Israel.
Phone calls and faxes are most effective. Use e-mail if that is what is possible for you.
An important hint when contacting Senators and Congresspersons: Call their respective offices and ask for the staffer who is responsible for foreign affairs or Middle East affairs. Either speak to that individual directly, fax in care of that individual, or secure an e-mail address for him or her for sending a direct message. Members of Congress do not have the time or energy to read all messages, or consider all facts. They depend upon key staffers to advise them. You reach the members of Congress most effectively by reaching the appropriate high level staffer.
President Barack Obama:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ (for email contact form)
Fax: 202-456-2461
White House Comment line: 202-456-1111
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
Public Communication Division
Phone: 202-647-6575
Fax: 202-647-2283
e-mail: secretary@state.gov
To locate your representatives in Congress, see:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
To locate your senator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
You can often secure best contact info. by logging on to the website of the representative or senator.
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see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
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