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Deja vu — Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Dr. Judith Apter Klinghoffer taught history and International relations at Rowan University, Rutgers University, the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing as well as at Aarhus University in Denmark where she was a senior Fulbright professor. She is an affiliate professor at Haifa University. Her books include Israel and the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Jews and the Middle East: Unintended Consequences and , International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights

Friday, March 12, 2010

TRUTH IS TRUTH

1978 cartoon

Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 at 6:11 PM | Comments (0) | Top

NYT & TERRORISM; PICASSO EXHIBIT & THE HOLOCAUST

We are in the world George Orwell and Ayn Rand saw coming. It is a world where words no longer have meaning and A is not A. Consider the following two examples:

A NYT headline - Palestinians Honor a Figure Reviled in Israel as a Terrorist. The clear implication of the headline is that the action of the "figure" is difficult to define. It may be considered terrorism and it may not be so considered. Here is how the paper describes those actions (the men in the picture are gathering body parts):

The woman being honored, Dalal Mughrabi, was the 19-year-old leader of a Palestinian squad that sailed from Lebanon and landed on a beach between Haifa and Tel Aviv. They killed an American photojournalist, hijacked a bus and commandeered another, embarking on a bloody rampage that left 38 Israeli civilians dead, 13 of them children, according to official Israeli figures. Ms. Mughrabi and several other attackers were killed.

How can the hijacking of a civilian bus and the cold blooded murder of those riding in it considered anything but terrorism?! The reporter's response is simple. The Palestinians say it is not.

To Israelis, hailing Ms. Mughrabi as a heroine and a martyr is an act that glorifies terrorism.
But, underscoring the chasm between Israeli and Palestinian perceptions, the Fatah representatives described Ms. Mughrabi as a courageous fighter who held a proud place in Palestinian history. Defiant, they insisted that they would not let Israel dictate the names of Palestinian streets and squares.
“We are all Dalal Mughrabi,” declared Tawfiq Tirawi, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, the party’s main decision-making body, who came to join the students. “For us she is not a terrorist,” he said, but rather “a fighter who fought for the liberation of her own land.”

Yara Daik, 22, said she did not come to the square to support terrorism. Rather, she said, “Dalal sacrificed for her country and is a symbol for every Palestinian girl.”

At no point does the reporter point out the sophistry of the position. There is nothing mysterious in the notion. It is an action designed to frighten a population. Hijacking a random public bus and murdering the passengers can have no other motivation but spreading fear, i.e., terror.

A judicious reporter would have asked the Palestinians she interviews to provide their definition of terrorism. She did not. Nor did she point out that after 9/11 the Palestinian leadership understood that continued US support mandates ending their terrorist advocacy, if not practice. So, they stopped arguing that their terrorist acts are justified. Instead, they renamed those acts. She simply cooperated with them by accepting that renaming as legitimate.

It was at a recent visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art that I was confronted with the full force of such linguistic corruption.

I was listening to a taped discussion of Picasso and the Avant Garde exhibit I heard the narrator discussing Jacque Lipchitz' Prayer say that Lipchitz wished the 1943 piece to reflect his prayer for the Jews whom " he considered to be innocent victims" of the Holocaust.

All I could think about was the phrasing "he considered" as opposed to whom? Hitler? Ahmadinejad? Michael Taylor?

Am I being unfair. Perhaps, Michael Taylor, probably a NYT reader, thought it the appropriate phrasing. I tried to find out. I asked the museum's newly appointed leader, Timothy Rub. I had thought he was the narrator. Rub said that he only narrated the introduction and Michael Taylor is the man to ask and promised to do so. He took my name, email address and telephone number and said he will talk to Taylor and one of them will get back to me. I am still waiting.

In the process of writing this blog I discovered that there was no such similar ambivalence to be found on the museum website.

1943's The Prayer shows an aged, broken man draped in a prayer shawl, holding a rooster (reminiscent of the ancient Jewish atonement ritual known as kapparot) and a flame-engulfed book inscribed with the Kol Nidre, a Jewish prayer of atonement. The artist later recalled that he had cried throughout the making of this emotional work, which was his heartfelt prayer for the innocent victims of Hitler's atrocities.

Something must have led Taylor to believe equivocation was in order. I know the NYT reporter does not wish to offend supporters of Palestinian terrorists. Is it possible that Taylor worries about offending those who believe the Jews deserved to be burned in extermination camps?! Be that as it may, more and more I find myself living in the modern equivalent of the Tower of Babel. It is not a multitude of languages that makes communication impossible but "contested" meanings of simple nouns.

Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 at 5:54 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Thursday, March 11, 2010

WORTH READING ABOUT ISRAEL

Barry Rubin, Announcing Construction of East Jerusalem Apartments: Stupid, Yes; Proof of Disinterest in Peace, No

Would it be better for Israel's international position if the announcement had not been made? Yes. Because it allows the United States-which needs excuses for the failure to succeed at peacemaking-and the PA and Arab states-which need some rationale for their own policies to blame Israel
But does it really do any material harm to a peace process which is going nowhere due to Palestinian positions? Or does it make the PA and Arab states, which are supposedly salivating for a peace deal, change their mind? In both cases, no.
So, stupid yes. But deliberate sabotage or proof of warmongering? No.

Avi Issacharoff ,'Barbie's here!' Bedouin children welcome visiting Second Lady

Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, clearly made an impression on the children of Lakiya during her visit. "Barbie's here!" cried one. In her bright pink dress, Biden stood out against the desert landscape of this Bedouin town. She would probably have been flattered to hear the women, clad in traditional robes, asking each other where she bought it.

Irwin J. Mansdorf,Is Israel a Colonial State? The Political Psychology of Palestinian Nomenclature

Lest there be any confusion about what a "settler" is, those who use the terminology "settler-colonialist" against Israel clearly mean the entire Zionist enterprise, including the original territory of the State of Israel in 1948. The "colonial Israel" charge is thus rooted in an ideological denial of any Jewish connection to the ancient Land of Israel.

James Traub,Fearful Asymmetry: Reading the Goldstone Report

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, President Obama said, “And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight.” Among democratic states committed to upholding human rights standards, the United States is in the unique position of fighting two wars in which those standards are perpetually at risk. The only state similarly vulnerable to reproach is Israel.
But while the United States is protected by its superpower status, so that it may kill large numbers of civilians in pursuit of its military objectives with no fear of international tribunals, Israel is not. Israel will be accused of wrongdoing no matter how conscientiously it observes the rules of war. This is Israel’s political predicament, from which it can be released only by a larger political solution. But that predicament, and that injustice, cannot serve as a pretext for going wild.

Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 8:14 PM | Comments (0) | Top

WILDERS CAUSES SWEDISH MEDIA TO DEVELOP SPINE?/correction

This may be a fluke or a new trend. Time will tell. If the former, Europe may yet escape both Dhimitude and xenophobe rule. When the Danish cartoonists and their paper were threatened by Islamists for their Muhammad cartoons, the danish media did not unite behind them. But when axe wielding Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks is similarly threatened, the Swedish media pushed back. This time Islamists failed to divide and conquer:

Following alleged plot to murder artist who drew cartoon depicting Prophet Muhammad with body of a dog, Swedish newspapers publish it to take stance for freedom of speech. 'A threat against him is, in the long term, also a threat against all Swedes,' one paper says

Why?

I believe the recent electoral success of Geert Wilders may have something to do with the Swedish media developing a sudden spine. The liberal/leftist power elite may be looking at what is happening in traditionally very liberal Netherlands and realizing that if they fail to stand up to Islamists intimidation, the people will replace them with extremists who would. And, yes, I call a person who compares the Koran to Mein Kampf, an extremist.

If, indeed, Dutch far-right breakthrough has been met with Muslim disbelief, then Muslims, too, may finally switch from protecting Islamists to demanding that they stop endangering them. What repeated pleas from Western moderates or the election of Barack Hussein Obama failed to do Dutch willingness to vote for Geert Wilders may have succeeded doing. There is no rule that says that history must repeat itself and Wilders may end doing what Der Spiegel speculates morph into a moderate in search of additional voters. After all, he has gotten all the attention he may have wished for and no longer has the need to be provocative to get it.

CORRECTION: Baron Bodissey wrote me to point out that the Danish newspapers took similar action in response to the recent attempt on cartoonist Kurt Westergaard life. Five of Denmark's major papers, Jyllands-Posten, Politiken, Berlingske Tidende, BT and Ekstra Bladet republished the Westergaard's cartoon, the one which shows Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

Does that mean that my hypothesis is wrong? Not necessarily. The Swedish media failed to stand up when Al Qaeda Iraq offered a $100,000 dollar bounty for Lars Vilks' head and $50,000 for that of Ulf Johansson, the editor-in-chief of Nerikes Allehanda.

In other words, only the future will tell if the Swedish media act of solidarity is a singular event or a new trend. The same goes for the rest of the global MSM.

Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 4:10 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

AMERICANS ARE RIGHT; OBAMA'S US LESS RESPECTED/updates

A recent survey is sending shock waves through the power elite. A new poll reveals that Americans believe that Barack obama failed to deliver on his campaign promise to restore America's good name in the world:

The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released Monday finds that by a 10-point margin -- 51 percent to 41 percent -- Americans think the standing of the U.S. dropped during the first 13 months of Mr. Obama's presidency.
"This is surprising, given the global acclaim and Nobel peace prize that flowed to the new president after he took office," said pollsters for the liberal-leaning organizations.

It is surprising only to American soft/smart power advocates who delight in reset buttons. American citizens get know better. They understand that Barack Obama's treatment of America's allies, most specifically, Eastern Europe, does not inspire confidence as they no longer know what American stands for. It certainly does not encourage leaders to expend political or strategic capital on the US. They read about Brazil taking side with Iran. They see the shoes Indonesians are hurling at a man they should celebrate as one of their own. And they intuit just how costly all this may be to American strategic posture as described by John feller Okinawa and the new domino effect:

During the Cold War, the Pentagon worried that countries would fall like dominoes before a relentless communist advance. Today, the Pentagon worries about a different kind of domino effect. In Europe, North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries are refusing to throw their full support behind the US war in Afghanistan. In Africa, no country has stepped forward to host the headquarters of the Pentagon's new Africa Command. In Latin America, little Ecuador has kicked the US out of its air base in Manta.
All of these are undoubtedly symptoms of the decline in respect for American power that the US military is experiencing globally. But the current pushback in Japan is the surest sign yet that the American empire of overseas military bases has reached its high-water mark and will soon recede.

Ironically, Japan, the country that focused attention on the America's strategic decline, is ruled currently run by an Obama wannbe. His name is Yukio Hatoyama and he shares his model's unenviable fate. Gideon Rachaman describes Hatoyama and his travails thus. See if he does not remind you of Barack Obama and his troubles:

China is about to overtake Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. The country’s national debt has hit an awesome 180 per cent of gross domestic product, (un)comfortably the highest in the world among rich countries – and there is no credible plan in place to hack it back. Toyota, a company that used to embody Japan’s reputation for quality, is enmeshed in a safety and public relations nightmare. Last year, the Japanese economy shrank by more than 5 per cent. And the high hopes that surrounded the reformist government of Yukio Hatoyama, the prime minister who was elected last summer, have quickly dissipated. Mr Hatoyama’s approval ratings are sinking and the Japanese business and civil service establishment seem eager to dismiss him as an ineffectual clown. . .
When Mr Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan took power last August, it broke more than 50 years of almost continuous administration by the Liberal Democratic Party. The DPJ is keen to differentiate itself from the LDP in almost every respect, and foreign policy is no exception. In an interview last week, Katsuya Okada, Japan’s foreign minister, said that the LDP followed US foreign policy “too closely”. “From now onwards,” says Mr Okada, “this will be the age of Asia.” The foreign minister adds that talk of Japan choosing between China and the US is meaningless, and that Japan’s friendship with America will remain “qualitatively different” from its relations with China. But some DPJ party members have called for a policy of “equidistance” between China and the US. . . .
So what is Mr Hatoyama up to? The uneasy suspicion in Tokyo is that even the prime minister himself may not really know. Mr Hatoyama, it is said, often proposes grand- sounding schemes – whether on climate change or Okinawa – without really thinking them through.

Luckily, Democratic elites have to put up with periodic elections. Citizens may take a chance on articulate novices especially when entrenched rascals need to be taught a lesson but they also know enough to use the next round of elections to throw the new incompetents out. Hence, an Ahmadinejad does not get reelected where elections are not stolen and the damage such a hot head can cause is limited by the division of power mechanisms. Those here and abroad who look at autocratic China with envy better remember it and stop counting America and democracy out.

Two related items:

Grovelling With Gadhafi The apology tour hits a new low.

Putin seeks to bolster links with New Delhi Putin knows and opportunity when he sees one. Obama has been dissing India by not selling it high tech. As a good neo Capitalist he is going to make them pay.

Alexander Kadakin, Moscow’s ambassador to New Delhi, said Russia had given India’s military the technological edge to defend itself from terror attacks and hostile neighbours, such as nuclear-armed Pakistan.
“No country in the world has offered India the technological deals as my country has done. We have shared the most sensitive and newest [technological] developments,” he said.

Posted on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Sunday, March 7, 2010

PETRAEUS: CONTAINMENT OF A NUCLEAR IRAN UNACCEPTABLE EVEN TO ARAB STATES

"Sophisticated" foreign policy analysts agree with Ahmadinejad that a nuclear Iran is a fait accompli and containment is the only viable response to it. It would mean bringing the Middle East, including Israel, under the American nuclear umbrella. Former Secretary of state James Baker advocated just such a policy on Fareed Zakaria GPS a couple of weeks ago.

But when Fareed Zakaria put the question to David Patraeus (a sophisticated Princeton Ph.D. in International Relations), he discovered to his surprise that Arab states are not only unhappy with the prospect of living with a nuclear Iran but may prefer the military option. Here is the pertinent exchange (the italics are mine):

ZAKARIA: Don't you have the beginning of a very robust containment strategy, though, and you would be the one actually who would probably be principally charged with the military operationalization of this. You have the moderate -- the Gulf states, the Sunni states, Egypt, Israel, the major European countries, perhaps even Russia, all arrayed, you know, along this common interest that Iran not -- not become a nuclear power.
Wouldn't it be possible to contain it?

PETRAEUS: Well, I think, first of all, you have to ask a country that is most directly concerned about this, and that would be Israel. And, at the end of the day, what we might want with a slightly detached perspective than the other western countries. What the Gulf states and others might be willing to accept --
And by -- by the way, there is no uniform or universal acceptance of what you had just laid out. In fact, it's quite the contrary in many of the countries, and there's quite a --

Unable to believe his ears Zakaria repeatedly interrupts in the hope of eliciting a Petraeus denial. It does not.

ZAKARIA: Meaning what? They -- they want the United States to strike?
PETRAEUS: Well, there are some that are very, very, very, very concerned about the developments in Iran and they find that very --
(CROSS TALK).
PETRAEUS: -- difficult.
ZAKARIA: What does that mean? They want -- they want the United States to strike?
PETRAEUS: Well, it's interesting. I think there -- there is almost a slight degree of bipolarity there at times. On the one hand, there are countries that would like to see a strike, us or perhaps Israel, even. And then there's the worry that someone will strike, and then there's also the worry that someone will not strike. And, again, reconciling that is -- is one of the challenges of operating in the region right now.
Our job right now is to ensure that we're prepared for any contingencies, that we can support indeed, with the diplomatic efforts, to transition now to the pressure track and so forth. And that's indeed what we're endeavoring to do with our partners who, by the way, find that President Ahmadinejad is often our best recruiting officer, because his actions, his rhetoric and his other -- the other activities of Iran, in many cases, are causing much more embrace of CENTCOM and -- and other activities than otherwise would be the case. (END VIDEOTAPE)

Why? Because those living next to Iran are scared stiff of living next door to the butchers of Tehran. Those who have no qualms about murdering and raping their own daughter cannot be trusted to have mercy on Jewish or Muslim infidels especially if they believe that so doing will bring back the 12th Imam.

Sorry Fareed and fellow "sophisticates!"

Posted on Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 2:48 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Friday, March 5, 2010

DISCO DUBAI

Here is my translation:

No one told me there's a party there
Had I known I also would have come
From moment to moment it is clearer
Everybody was there except me
That is how it looks.

You thought you could it secret from me
But Dahi "the Innocent" has a big mouth and camerals
The entire world and their wives saw how
you flew there without me to that crazy masked ball in Dubai

Only I wasn't invited to the Al Mabhouh party
Wallach, If I was there
I'd have placed him on a lower chair
Dahi the innocent was there, picked up the bullets
Since then from morning to night he eats film
From party to party to journalists he reports
Dhilak, Dahi its impossible to see the fire from the smoke

"I got you, you killed Mahmoud
Dahi is in the groove and whoever does not jump is suspicious
Straighten out the glasses, the wig is a bit crooked
Arrange the mustache and smile to the camera
Put on the tennis hat and ring the elevator
Mabhouh is coming and we will put on him a pillow.

Written by Golan Chen.

Posted on Friday, March 5, 2010 at 6:03 PM | Comments (0) | Top

2010 CENSUS HIRING DOUBLES TO RESCUE DEMOCRATS

BLS reports that while an additional 36,000 Americans lost their job in February, the unemployment rate remain the same. Here are the BLS reported facts:

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.0 per- cent), adult women (8.0 percent), whites (8.8 percent), blacks (15.8 percent), Hispanics (12.4 percent), and teenagers (25.0 percent) showed little to no change in February. The jobless rate for Asians was 8.4 percent, not season- ally adjusted. . . .
The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls declined by 0.1 hour to 33.8 hours in February. The manufacturing workweek for all employees dropped by 0.4 hour to 39.5 hours, and factory overtime decreased by 0.2 hour over the month.

As LEX notes in the FT, "Nervous Democrats must wish all 14.9m unemployed Americans could be hired to help with this year’s census. They are desperate for the US economy to add jobs."

So, it is the Census to the rescue. 600,000 workers were hired to count Americans in 2000. 1,200,000 million are being hired this in 2010 and they are well paid. They are to receive $20 an hour.

FT calls them Foot soldiers for Census Bureau to ease jobless rate:

“With the unemployment rate expected to be well above those witnessed during the previous census,” says the commerce department, “the effect of large changes in temporary 2010 census employment on the unemployment rate may be more noticeable in 2010.”
The hiring spree has recently elicited accusations of waste.
An audit last month from the commerce department’s inspector-general noted that thousands of workers hired last year for temporary posts by the Census Bureau were trained and paid but never worked for the agency. “
We believe this was due to the economic downturn and have adjusted our recruitment and retention projections,” said Malkia McLeod, spokeswoman.
Some say the unprecedented census mobilization is politically motivated – designed to maximize the count of Democratic-leaning poor and minority citizens and to create voting districts that artificially lean to the left. This perception was reinforced last year when the Obama administration announced that the Census Bureau would work directly with the White House.
Republicans quickly responded by calling the move a “political land grab”, contributing to the decision by Judd Gregg, a Republican senator, to withdraw his nomination as commerce secretary last February.
Mr Simore has just passed a 28-question exam, bringing him closer to what would be the best paid job he has ever had.
“For us, these jobs are like gold. Twenty dollars an hour guaranteed, it couldn’t come at a better time,” he says.

In short, these temporary "good paying" jobs are all the Democrats can do after continuing to create a level of economic uncertainty that is leading investors to horde their money instead of using it to create jobs.

Posted on Friday, March 5, 2010 at 5:35 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Thursday, March 4, 2010

TIGER WOODS IS SON OF RELIGIOUS THAILAND

My mouth dropped open when I first heard Fox News commentator Brit Hume urge Tiger Woods to solve his marital and image problems by turning to Christianity:

"Tiger, turn your faith -- turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

I was even more surprised when Hume refused to back down when reminded that Woods is a Buddhist. "I don't think that faith (Buddhism) offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith," he said. As a Jew, whose people have been burned at the stakes for refusing to convert for many generation, I found Hume's argument most offensive. But I was not sure whether Tiger Woods would. My sojourn in China and India taught me that Polytheistic religions tent towards Syncretism. My refusal to celebrate Christmas never made any sense to my Chinese or Indian friends and I had no reason to assume Thais would be different.

Indeed, it took me sometime to fully appreciate the deep religiosity of the Thais. Indeed, it seems impossible to separate small wheel Buddhism and Thai culture. Signs of reverence were everywhere and I do not mean only the number of temples but the fact that they are overflowing with worshipers acquiring merit by offering food,incense sticks, lotus flowers,

gold leaves

or money.

Most young Thai males spend at least a month being monks. They are found everywhere and Thais lovingly provide them with beautifully packaged provisions.

Then, there are the spirit houses. Every building has one be it a private home a mall or a factory.

Even honorable trees are honored with ribbons.

In short, I was not surprised when Tiger Woods took umbrage at Hume's suggestion that he turn to Christianity. Doing so would have meant turning his back on his mother and his Thai identity. My religion is more than adequate, thank you very much, he said:

Part of this for me is Buddhism. It teaches that craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security, it teaches me to stop following every impulse and practice restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught.

He sure did and all of Thailand is ashamed. That said, Brit Hume should be more careful before dismissing other people's faith. (For more of my Thai photos which I am in the process of posting click here)

Posted on Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 4:21 PM | Comments (0) | Top

AMERICANS ARE JUSTIFIED IN MISTRUSTING OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

56% Americans believe that the Obama administration is threatening their liberty. But do not expect a member of the Democratic power elite such as William Galston (a former adviser to Bill Clinton and a senior fellow at Brookings) to call for administration soul searching. That would imply that his fellow Democrats did wrong.

Who does Galston blame for the American people's declining trust in their government? The American people, of course.

More ironic is the fact that Galson agrees with the American people that "the current fiscal course is unsustainable." But, instead of blaming Obama for presenting a budget which fails makes matters worse, he argues that the American people must trust Obama to solve their fiscal problems.

And he wonders why experts like are not trusted?

Posted on Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 3:14 PM | Comments (0) | Top

YES! THEY MISS HIM AND NOT ONLY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The Arabs were so elated with the election of Barack Hussein Obama that they were careful not to mention that a son of a Muslim father is a Muslim. He reciprocated with a "balanced speech" in Cairo, a studious avoidance of any criticism of their autocratic Islamic ways and humbly apologizing for past American "transgressions." Little may have understood that Barack Obama had no real interest in foreign policy. In their book Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin reveal that when Barack Obama asked Hillary Clinton to accept the role of Secretary of State, he told her that he intends to focus on domestic policy for the first two years of his administration and therefore he needs her to run his foreign policy.

I am not sure that awareness of his intended benign neglect would have made a difference to the Middle East autocratic leadership so "rudely" challenged by the Bush administration. Like the Nobel committee that awarded Obama their usually prestigious prize, they delighted in the kinder, gentler American leadership and may have trusted Clinton's tougher image. Now they feel menaced by an aggressive Shia Iran and cowboy Bush is no longer there to protect them. Writing from Lebanon for Lebanese, Michael Young ends his sad analysis of Obama's ME policy thus:

That kinder, friendlier face was shown two weeks ago, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly declared that the US would not use force against Iran. An attack on Iran would doubtless be a terrible idea, but for Clinton to rule out such an action so bluntly was not the best use she could have made of American military superiority. Indeed, it clarified a situation that the Obama administration should not have clarified, and the statement may ensure that the hardest of the hardliners in Tehran will win all future domestic debates on the best way to deal with international efforts to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. . . .
The reality is that the Obama administration these days provokes little confidence in its allies and even less fear in its adversaries. The US remains the dominant actor in the Middle East, but to what end? If Obama’s ultimate goal is to be different than George W. Bush, he hasn’t even managed that. As setback follows setback, he is increasingly finding himself constrained by the same dynamics that Bush faced. But at least Bush knew what he was supposed to be about. Obama just seems lost.

And no one wishes to face an aggressive fanatic armed with a nuclear weapon protected by a lost leader. I do not know whether the fact that other troubled parts of the world share their troubles, as do a rapidly increasing number of Americans, would comfort the Arabs but they certainly do.

Who, except "evil neo-cons," would have thunk?!

Posted on Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 12:16 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Human Rights Treaties Are Worthless And Unacceptable If They Violate Islamic Law!

Posted on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | Top

ISRAEL NO MORE ROGUE THAN NATO; ILLEGITIMATE THAN BRITAIN, FRANCE, RUSSIA OR NORTH KOREA

It has been a long while since I have read such a pointed retort to the facetious a-historical accusations carelessly and callously hurled at Israel by self righteous ignoramuses as the one written by the eminent historian Andrew Roberts and published in the less than objective Financial Times under the heading Israel is no more rogue than America . Indeed, if Benjamin Netanyahu did order al-Mabhouh's assassination, his order would not differ from those issued by Winston Churchill or Barack Obama and are currently carried out by NATO.

His argument goes further than that and takes on the ugly falsehood inherent in the notion that Israel is an apartheid state being promoted this week on campuses around the world. Israeli Jews and Arabs are not treated differently. Those who do not believe so should visit my home town, the mixed city of Haifa, and her university Israel's Muslim (over 20%) and Jewish citizens study peacefully together. Like all states, Israel distinguishes between citizens and non citizens and seeks to defend herself from those seeking to terrorize her. The critics simply seek to promote the racist notion that Jews and the Jewish state should be treated differently:

Is state-sanctioned assassination justifiable, or does it somehow de-legitimise the state that undertakes it? Two articles in this newspaper last week, by Henry Siegman and David Gardner, have been violently critical of Israel in the wake of the assassination of the Hamas arms smuggler Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on 19 January.
Mr Siegman wrote of how “Israel’s colonial ambitions” and “checkpoints, barbed wire and separation walls” were “turning Israel from a democracy into an apartheid state”, thereby creating a “looming global threat to the country’s legitimacy”. Two days later Mr Gardner wrote of how Israel’s “militarist extroversion” over the Dubai murder demonstrated an “Israeli preference for instantly satisfying executive solutions to complex political and geopolitical problems” which would “widen the international battle-space for tit-for-tat attacks” and “encourage the perception that [Israel] is a rogue state”.
Both commentators are completely wrong. All that the Dubai operation will do is remind the world that the security services of states at war – and Israel’s struggle with Hamas, Fatah and Hizbollah certainly constitutes that – occasionally employ targeted assassination as one of the weapons in their armoury, and that this in no way weakens their legitimacy. As for the “separation walls” and checkpoints that one sees in Israel, the 99 per cent drop in the number of suicide bombings since their erection justifies the policy.

There is simply no parallel between apartheid South Africa – where the white minority wielded power over the black majority – and the occupied territories, taken by Israel only after it was invaded by its neighbours. To make such a link is not only inaccurate, but offensive. If Arab Israelis were deprived of civil and franchise rights, that would justify such hyperbole, but of course they have the same rights as every Jewish Israeli.
Far from having any colonial ambitions, Israel wants nothing more than to live peaceably within defensible borders. But equally it demands nothing less.
Furthermore, rather than some kind of knee-jerk “preference for instantly satisfying executive solutions”, the decision to kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh – assuming it was sanctioned, planned and carried out by Mossad alone, which is anything but clear at this stage – would have been minutely examined from every political and operational angle. Yet sometimes complex political and geopolitical problems do require the cutting of the Gordian knot, and this was one such.

When Britain was at war, Winston Churchill sanctioned the assassination by its Special Operations Executive of the SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the capture (and killing if necessary) of General Heinrich Kreipe on Crete; ditto Erwin Rommel. Just as with some Mossad operations, such as the disaster in Amman in 1997 when agents were captured after failing to kill Khaled Meshal of Hamas, not all Churchill’s hits were successful. But the British state was not de-legitimised in any way as a result.
The intelligence agents of states – sometimes operating with direct authority, sometimes not – have carried out many assassinations and assassination attempts in peacetime without the legitimacy of those states being called into question, or their being described as “rogue”. In 1985 the French Deuxième Bureau sank Greenpeace’s Rainbow warior trawler, killing photographer Fernando Pereira, without anyone denouncing France as a rogue state. Similarly, in 2006, polonium 210 was used to murder Alexander Litvinenko without Putin’s Russia being described as “illegitimate”. That kind of language is only reserved for Israel, even though neither Pereira nor Litvinenko posed the danger to French and Russian citizens that was posed to Israelis by the activities of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
The reason that such double standards still apply – more than six decades after the foundation of the state of Israel – is not because of the nature of that doughty, brave, embattled, tiny, surrounded, yet proudly defiant country, but because of the nature of its foes. Even though one has to be in one’s seventies to remember a time when Israel didn’t exist, nevertheless there are still those who call the country’s legitimacy into question, employing anything that happens to be in the news at the time – such as this latest assassination – to try to argue that Israel is not a real country, and therefore doesn’t really deserve to exist. Real rogue states such as North Korea might be loathed and criticised, but even they do not have their very legitimacy as a state called into question because of their actions.
Those who wish to understand Israel’s actions and put them in their proper historical context should read Michael Burleigh’s cultural history of terrorism, Blood and Rage. Burleigh quotes a senior Mossad agent saying after the Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes: “If there was intelligence information, the target was reachable and if there was an opportunity, we took it. As far as we were concerned we were creating a deterrence, forcing them to crawl into a defensive shell and not plan offensive attacks against us.”
Is that attitude so very different from the pre-emptive targeted assassination of Taliban leaders that Nato carries out by flying drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan today? Yet are Messrs Siegman and Gardner going to call into question America’s legitimacy? No, that insult is reserved for only one country: Israel.

Posted on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

CRY AMERICAN MOTHERS

Marjah Mysteries Revealed

Two weeks of fighting in Marjah (southern Afghanistan) have left over a hundred Taliban dead, and more than sixty captured. NATO forces have suffered 15 dead, partly because the ROE (Rules of Engagement) limit the use of smart bombs and missiles to deal with Taliban gunmen in buildings that might contain civilians. Troops often have to work their way into the buildings, to make sure they get the Taliban shooting at them, and not the civilians being used as human shields.

Juan Williams

I think the difficulty here, imagine if it was your son or mine or daughter out there, the difficulty is that we put them in a situation where it's not a traditional war, where it's not just go kill the bad guys and they are in the other uniform.
Now we have people who are dressed in civilian clothes, people who may be hiding or being hidden by village elders. It's not exactly clear.

Actually, it is clear. We playing into the hands of those who are using women and children as human shield. Moreover, we are sacrificing our own best, most committed children (that it how I think of young soldiers) in the process. It is a small wonder that more and more NATO members are saying no. They have had enough of this self sacrificial fighting.

Posted on Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 11:20 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, March 1, 2010

WORTH READING

Robert Higgs, Anatomy of the Current Recession

Worst of all, the investors’ famine and the government’s feast are not merely coincidental, but causally connected. The explosion of the federal government’s size, scope, and power since the middle of 2008 has created enormous uncertainties in the minds of investors. New taxes and higher rates of old taxes; potentially large burdens of compliance with new energy regulations and mandatory health-care expenses; new, intrinsically arbitrary government oversight of so-called systemic risks associated with any type of business—all of these unsettling possibilities and others of substantial significance must give pause to anyone considering a long-term investment, because any one of them has the potential to turn what seems to be a profitable investment into a big loser. In short, investors now face regime uncertainty to an extent that few have experienced in this country—to find anything comparable, one must go back to the 1930s and 1940s, when the menacing clouds of the New Deal and World War II darkened the economic horizon.

Matthias Kuntzel, The Berlin-Dubai-Tehran Axis

Although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the increase of uranium enrichment to 20%—bringing Tehran much closer to weapons-grade nuclear material—China still opposes new United Nations sanctions. The responsibility for stopping the Iranian bomb thus rests with a “coalition of the willing.” The attitude of Germany—Iran’s most important Western trading partner—will be critical to the success of such a coalition. But while the recent announcement by Siemens and Munich Re to exit the Iranian market have garnered headlines, hundreds of German manufacturers remain determined to continue doing business as usual with Tehran.

N.M. Guariglia,Why does the American left fear the rise of India?

The American relationship with the republic of India is heading in the wrong direction. Given recent history, where strong and positive U.S.-Indo relations were in full bloom, this is especially disconcerting. President George W. Bush’s administration, long maligned as arrogantly unilateralist, solidified a close bilateral partnership — friendship, even — with the rising South Asian power. Bush saw India as a natural ally: the world’s largest multiethnic democracy, looking at its place in the world at the turn of this century through much the same prism our own ancestors looked through in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As Harvard historian Sugata Bose observed, the strengthening of ties between India and the United States “may turn out to be the most significant foreign policy achievement of the Bush administration.”
Under President Barack Obama, however, those ties are in moderate though steady and not insignificant decline. Since Obama’s inauguration, our relationship with India has begun to erode. To its credit, the Obama administration authorized a $2.1 billion arms sale with New Delhi last year. But there is more — there should be more — to the American-Indian friendship than signing off on a Boeing contract with the Indian defense ministry.

The real irony is that the Indian elite is at least as leftist as Obama and has been delighted with his rise to power. Prior to the election, an Indian think tank asked me to write an article analyzing the consequences of the elections for American Indian relations. I explained that Indians should hope McCain wins. They failed to publish the piece.

Dieter Farwick,Historian Walter Laqueur: A full Life of Political Education in Germany, Israel and the U.S.

Dieter Farwick: What is going wrong in the fight against terrorists?
Walter Laqueur: I am always surprised how little use is made of the great weakness of the terrorists, especially the Islamists. They deeply believe in all kind of conspiracy theories, the stranger and more fantastic, the more plausible they appear to them, they frequently cannot differentiate between truth and falsehood, they are mostly paranoiacs-or at least paranoids. They spread fantastic stories-and they are willing to believe fantasies. They are easily misled by their propensity to believe in cock-and-bull stories. This is where an anti-terrorist campaign should come in-but the West (and especially Western bureaucracies) have never been good at this sort of things.
A bureaucracy must not spread lies-except in extremis. In a famous essay on Machiavelli in 1859 the great British historian Macaulay wrote " qui nescit dissimulare. Nescit regnare "which, freely translated, means that he who does not know how to dissimulate has no business to be in politics. This principle is now "unacceptable" (a fashionable term today) but I doubt whether any other will work.facing an antagonist who does not believe in Kant and the Geneva conventions. . . .
Dieter Farwick: You wrote: "Warning in democratic societies will usually come late, and sometimes too late." Why is there no effective symbiosis between think tanks and political leaders to overcome this?
Walter Laqueur: Warnings in democratic societies usually come late and sometimes too late. To be precise-there are usually warnings, but they are not believed. The tendency in such societies (today perhaps more often than at any time in the past) is to live in peace and calm and to suppress anything that does not confirm this desire. Unfortunately, as Trotsky once wrote, anyone wishing to live in peace should not have chosen the 20th century. And I fear-neither the 21th. And Spengler said-trying to opt out of world politics does not protect one against the consequences. I am not a great believer in Trotsky and Spengler but in this case the were quite right.

Posted on Monday, March 1, 2010 at 10:56 PM | Comments (0) | Top

DUBAI TO IRAN AS SWITZERLAND TO NAZI GERMANY

Dubai is getting nervous. The royal family worries that their goal of becoming ( even replacing) Switzerland is being undermined by Iran's enemies. Switzerland helped the Nazi regime survive and flourish economically and got handsomely paid for her "efforts." For many decades it even avoided censure for so doing.

Dubai has been doing the same for Iran, has also been paid well for her services and has hoped to enjoy similar benign neglect. Now she fears there is a movement a foot to prevent her from continuing to eat her forbidden fruit. If the FT editors reflect Dubai's thinking and as I believe they do, Dubai places the assassination of the Hamas operative within that context. Hit Squat has hit Dubai as well argue these editors. The FT editors ignore exculpatory evidence such as the arrest in Jordan and extradition to Dubai of two Palestinians as well as the fact that 3 of the hit squad absconded to Iran. Nor do they mention the obvious attempt to defame Israel by using passports of Israeli dual citizens. They do, however, point to additional puzzlements:

Important though all that is, there is something unexplained about the Dubai operation. It was captured on security cameras in a way its perpetrators surely knew it would be – almost as though they wanted the world to know.
Odder still, the idea that murdering one, not especially significant figure in Hamas required the mobilisation of 26 agents – not so much a hit squad as a swarm – does not quite stack up. Mossad used about half that number to take on the entire Black September network after the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.

What reason would the Mossad have to act in such an weird way? To let Dubai know that it would not be able to continue to get away with helping Iran in the manner Switzerland helped Nazi Germany.

Hamas, of course, gets support from Iran. But Iran depends greatly on Dubai, which, with its large numbers of Iranian citizens, companies and institutions, serves almost as an extra lung for a regime already withering under sanctions, with more to come.
Dubai has been a free-wheeling entrepôt of such value to all the players in the Middle East that it has been almost totally incident-free. January’s assassination in the emirate looks like a statement that this immunity is now moot.

In an "unrelated" news article, the FT seeks to delegitimize bi-partisan Congressional legislation seeking to punish foreign companies that continue to deal with Iran by blaming the passage of the bill on Lobbyists and Obama administration opponents. It is true that Congressional attempts always annoy the executive branch. It is particularly true in this administration as Obama has repaid the Iran lobby for its overwhelming support during the elections by including many of its members within his administration including a board member of the National Iranian American Council, John Limbert, who is officially responsible for US policy towards Iran though it is possible that he, too, can no longer abide the bloody Mullahs.

Still, Dubai's aid to Iran is not only distasteful to Israel and the US but also to it's Arab neighbors. Thus when Dubai's sovereign wealth fund needed a bail out last year, the issue of her Iran ties came up. John Carney explained the Geopolitics of the Dubai debt crisis thus:

Abu Dhabi has been trying to put pressure on Dubai to cut ties to Iran. The split between Abu Dhabi and Iran is in part rooted in an older territorial dispute, fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, religious differences between Shiites and Sunnis, and—importantly—Abu Dhabi’s close ties to Washington, DC. . . .
More importantly, Dubai is a major exporter to Iran and a major re-exporter of Iranian goods. The trade between Iran and Dubai is one of the principal sources of Tehran's confidence that it can survive US-led sanctions. Iranian investment in Dubai amounts to about US $14 billion each year. US intelligence officials have long suspected that the Iranian government uses Dubai based front companies to get around sanctions.
Some of the banks said to have the largest exposure to Dubai debt have in the past been linked to Iran. Notably, HSBC, BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered came under investigation and pressure from US authorities in recent years to cut ties to Iran. Some US officials have quietly protested that these banks just shifted to doing business with Iran through Dubai. The US may want to see these creditors take losses from their Dubai exposure.

I do not know if all the pressure or perceived pressure will lead to behavior change. I do know that the pressure is beginning to be felt and not a moment too soon.

Posted on Monday, March 1, 2010 at 6:53 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Saturday, February 27, 2010

IN THOSE DAYS - AT THIS TIME

Purim - 2010 Starring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Today, there's another Persian ruler, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with a similar plan in mind - to wipe the State of Israel and its people off the world's map. Like Haman, Ahmadinejad speaks openly of his distain for this peculiar people.
Anti-Semitic rhetoric and attacks on Jewish people are increasing dramatically in almost every nation in the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa to name a few.
That's why this year, perhaps more than ever, the story of Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai will help Israelis and Jews worldwide to trust in God's unseen hand to protect them against those seeking to hurt them.

A perplexing Purim

One place the media can reach – unlike the average Israeli – is Iran, where we definitely have an image problem. Lots of questions about Persia’s current rulers pop up around Purim.
For example: In the post-Mabhouh world – a better place – one wonders what would happen were the Purim story to unfold today. Just who would be considered the victim: the Jewish community which managed at the last moment to avert Persian plans to annihilate it or Haman and sons who were strung up on their own gallows when their dastardly scheme was discovered?

Modern-Day Ending?

Let's just hope that this story ends differently. For while we rejoice in Queen Esther's courage to confront the king and save her people, that's not the whole Megillah.
Unable to annul the decree that called for the Jews' annihilation, Esther and Mordechai, with the king's blessing, issue a second edict, enabling the Jews to engage in their own defense. As a result, they fend off their enemies and kill tens of thousands in the process.
It's not a pretty picture. Nor will it be if Israel -- with or without Western assistance -- is forced to take defensive action on its own to once again confront an existential threat from Persia.

Posted on Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 10:15 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Friday, February 26, 2010

I AM IN THE MOOD FOR PURIM

I cannot remember a year when remembering the close call that we celebrate in Purim seemed more on the mark. Indeed, given modern Haman/Ahmadinejad's unremitting efforts to start trouble, all we can hope for is another similar good fortune. Menashe Amir asks; Is the Iranian Regime Collapsing? Let's dare hope so.

In the meantime, let's try to smile. I thought this photos from the famous Thai "Cabbages & Condoms" restaurant and gift shop somewhere on the road to Chiang Mai may help:

Finally, piece de resistance . . .

Posted on Friday, February 26, 2010 at 2:22 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Thursday, February 25, 2010

SOLOMON FORTIFICATIONS?

Nothing can be more political in Israel than archeology. The BBC goes so far as to insinuate that it is wrong for Israel to try to unearth ancient Israel as it would undermine Palestinian claim to the land. Indeed, many archeologists prefer to posit the notion that the Kingdoms of David and Solomon have never existed. They are not happy with this new report:

JERUSALEM (AP) - An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era.
If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.
That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time.

Posted on Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 4:04 PM | Comments (0) | Top

GALLUP: DEMOCRATS SUPPORT ISRAEL MUCH LESS

A recent Gallup poll finds a substantial rise in the American people's support for Israel. Indeed, it is very close to the high it reached during the first Gulf War when Israel was subjected to Iraqi Scuds.

Clearly, you cannot fool the American people all the time. Americans also know who their allies are and hope that Israel will take care of Iran.

BUT Gallup also reports that Democrats are far less sympathetic to Israel than are Republicans or even independents. Personally, I blame the unrelenting efforts by the media and academia (see, The Intifada comes to campus )to blacken the name of the much too successful Democratic Jewish state as an apartheid state. Democrats only seem to love hapless victims ruled by ruthless tyrants.

Over the last five years, support for Israel has increased slightly among Republicans (rising from about 77% for each of the past several years to 85% today) and independents, but has stayed roughly the same among Democrats. Since 2001, however, there has been a more dramatic shift in partisan attitudes: a 25-point increase in sympathy for Israel among Republicans and an 18-point increase among independents. Even on this longer-term basis, support for Israel among Democrats has been relatively flat.