Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Fouad Ajami: The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama - WSJ.com

Fouad Ajami: The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama - WSJ.com: "The crowd may have applauded the cavalier way the new steward of American power referred to his predecessor, but in the privacy of their own language they doubtless wondered about his character and his fidelity. 'My brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I against the stranger,' goes one of the Arab world's most honored maxims. The stranger who came into their midst and spoke badly of his own was destined to become an object of suspicion."

Saturday, November 14, 2009

YouTube - MIR: The Saudi-Iranian Neo Cold War

Very important report to watch on YouTube. The beginnings of a hot war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, as the Saudis start to tire of Iran's endless proxy wars. Could the Saudis provide Israel overflight privileges in an Israeli air attack on Iran? Stranger things have happened.

YouTube - MIR: The Saudi-Iranian Neo Cold War

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Discrimination Against Arab Israelis cuts both ways | Columnists | Jerusalem Post

Seth Frantzman: Discrimination cuts both ways | Columnists | Jerusalem Post: "Israeli Arab municipalities do face financial discrimination, but in large part it is a discrimination of their own making. Israeli Arab municipalities barely collect taxes, many are on the verge of bankruptcy, there is a complete lack of enforcement of building codes and residents do not invest in their own infrastructure."

Friday, October 16, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist - An Ordinary Israel - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - An Ordinary Israel - NYTimes.com
In this Op-ed Mr. Cohen demonstrates his usual mixture of naivete mixed with left wing prejudices and moral relativism, always seeking to see matters from the other side instead of from the Western aligned target of his criticism.
Israeli "exceptionalism" is a survival instinct in a world where this little country has, from the very first day, been subjected to the most vile of double standards in its treatment by international insitutions, which reinforce millenia old self survival instincts in the Jewish people that lead to the conclusion that the world IS out to either scapegoat or destroy them, whether for reasons of old fashioned Christian anti-Semitism,Nazism, Islamic exceptionalism (yes, by the "diverse", peace-loving people surrounding Israel and outnumbering it by many, many times), and Western-intellectual anti-Zionism that often looks like anti-Semitism (Mr. Cohen, check out the signs held by protesters at your next local college anti-Israel rally and you tell me if there is some anti-Semitism being publicly displayed under the cover of the Left).
The amount of time the UN spends on Israel versus the world's other problems defines the term "scapegoat" and reflects cynical deflective politics at its worst, and Mr. Cohen's not-so-artful obfuscations can't change that. The US, using Predator drones firing missiles in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eastern Africa at anonymous groups of people at wedding ceremonies and elsewhere, has inadvertently killed many more civilians than Israel did in Gaza, several times over -- this is the cost of war, no matter how carefully it is undertaken. The extreme horrors that Russia exacted on the people of Chechnya are very well documented -- yet neither produced a Goldstone report.
Most every disputed territorial conflict in the world in the 20th Century was resolved with some form of population swap. The Czechs are currently battling the applicability of EU law on human rights because of the small fact surrounding 3 million ethnic Germans chased out of Czech territory after WWII -- this is what happens in war). The UN cannot hide from its own reports indicating a larger number of Arab Jews (800,000-900,000) were forced to run for their lives from Arab countries in connection with Israel's birth, than Palestinians from Israel (600,000), yet Israel bears the specter of giving Palestinians the "right of return to Israel", where a population exchange already occurred, de facto. With the complete removal of Israeli towns ("settlements", a dehumanizing term) from Palestinian territories, Israel is expected to make Palestine Judenrein, yet it is OK for 1 Million Arab Israelis to continue to live peacefully within Israeli borders -- even when the settlements represent but a small portion of Palestinian territories (less than 4%, to be more exact). The world is awash with "Islamic republics", recognized as states where Islamic law and believers hold special sway, including democracies like Pakistan, and non-Islamics suffer from various forms of discrimination in these states, yet when Israel asks to be recognized as a Jewish state, this is racist and apartheid.
Israeli exceptionalism, and paranoia about the intent of the rest of the world, no less its enemies, is born from some very real conditions in the world around it. The inconsistency in these matters have to be honestly addressed and remedied before Israel can be expected to become "unexceptional", give up its nuclear shield against a hostile world around it, and be expected to possess a less alarmed approach to the intentions and expanding capabilities of an Iranian government that has called for its elimination and refutes the Holocaust.
Mr. Cohen, you live in your own world. You are either really dumb, or really evil.

Monday, October 12, 2009

R. James Woolsey: The Ugly Premise of 'Settlement' Opponents - WSJ.com

Great point. If Arabs make up 20% of Israel's population, why is it so unacceptable for Jews (the settlements) to make up 10% of Palestine's population? Answer, because the Palestinians can be expected to kill the Jews living on this land, while the Israeli's have not killed the Arab's living in Israel, where despite petty discrimination, they have flourished in an environment they could only hope to achieve in an Arab country. Judenrein Palestine "defines deviancy down" -- Moynihan's phrase.

R. James Woolsey: The Ugly Premise of 'Settlement' Opponents - WSJ.com

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Sarkozy Presses for Tougher Actions Against Iran - WSJ.com

Its encouraging to know that the Western world has at least one president who has an ounce of common sense.
Sarkozy Presses for Tougher Actions Against Iran - WSJ.com

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Naïve or Not? - The Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

Naïve or Not? - The Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

“It was a very naïve, Wilsonian speech, and very revealing of Obama’s foreign policy,” says Bolton. “Overall, it was so apologetic for the actions of prior administrations, in an effort to distance Obama from them, that it became yet another symbol of American weakness in the wake of the president’s decision to abandon missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, and his recent manifest hesitation over what to do in Afghanistan.”

“The most significant point of the speech was how the president put Israel on the chopping block in a variety of references, from calling Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegitimate to talking about ending ‘the occupation that began in 1967.’ That implies that he supports going back to 1967 borders,” says Bolton. “Obama has a very tough road ahead. He is frequently taking the side of the Palestinians, who don’t have a competent leader who can make hard decisions and compromises in the future.”

Also noteworthy, Bolton says, was how Obama highlighted “just how much of American foreign policy that he wants to run through the U.N.”

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Gaza Report Shows Anti-Israel Bias - WSJ.com

Gaza Report Shows Anti-Israel Bias - WSJ.com: "The argument seems to be that Hamas can surround its combatants with civilians, and for Israel to strike back is a war crime. The report holds Israel culpable for pursuing a strategy essential in war, which is to break the enemy's will to fight. By this logic, FDR and Churchill could have been charged because the bombing of German industries and cities killed civilians in World War II.

The U.N. also holds Israel accountable as Gaza's 'occupying power,' never mind that former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted all of Gaza's Jewish settlements in 2005. As for the 'blockade' it accuses Israel of inflicting on the Strip, one wonders why Egypt, which has also sealed its border with Gaza, doesn't come in for similar condemnation."

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist - Three Cheers for Irving - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Three Cheers for Irving - NYTimes.com: "“There are no benefits without costs in human affairs,” he once wrote. And so there is no idea so true and no movement so pure that it doesn’t require scrutiny. There was no position in this fallen world without flaws."

Thursday, September 17, 2009

U.S. Shelves Nuclear-Missile Shield - WSJ.com

U.S. Shelves Nuclear-Missile Shield - WSJ.com

This is ground shaking on a lot of levels. If the Russians do not give us what we need on Iranian sanctions within the next 30 days or so, view this as another nail in the coffin towards Israel's attacking Iran -- US long term commitment to its allies is never something that is worth much to the Arab nations, Eastern Europe and other allies, and even worse in Israel, where Obama has a 4% approval rating (seriously) for confidence that he is dedicated to the "special relationship" we have with Israel. The world, and Obama, doesn't adequately understand how Jewish history, with the Holocaust as an exclamation mark, imparts on the Israeli psyche that at the end, it cannot trust the words of others and must take care of itself because it is surrounded by those who wish it dead. The Iranians may be bluffing, but against that background, an Israeli leader,with a military background and a strong a sense of history (Netanyahu), will act unless strong action is taken by the world.

Let's pray Obama didn't get snookered and double crossed by the Russians on this, not only for the immediate result in Iran and among our Eastern European allies, but also because it will show a dangerous lack of respect by the Kremlin for Obama, which could lead to tragic miscalculation (a march into the Ukraine, for example). History tends to repeat itself -- The Soviet's low opinion for Carter led to its feeling of confidence that it could invade Afghanistan.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

Fascinating article, with some analysis I haven't seen elsewhere. Won't make a difference, but that's politics.

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs: "Adjusting for the Begin-Sadat Center population count and adding in foreign aid, GDP per capita in the West Bank and Gaza comes to $3,380, much higher than in Egypt and significantly higher than in Syria or Jordan. Why should any Palestinian refugee resettle in a neighboring Arab country?"

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Op-Ed Contributors - The Two-State Solution Doesn’t Solve Anything - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributors - The Two-State Solution Doesn’t Solve Anything - NYTimes.com: "That so many attempts to resolve the conflict have failed is reason to be wary. It is almost as if the parties, whenever they inch toward an artful compromise over the realities of the present, are inexorably drawn back to the ghosts of the past. It is hard today to imagine a resolution that does not entail two states. But two states may not be a true resolution if the roots of this clash are ignored. The ultimate territorial outcome almost certainly will be found within the borders of 1967. To be sustainable, it will need to grapple with matters left over since 1948. The first step will be to recognize that in the hearts and minds of Israelis and Palestinians, the fundamental question is not about the details of an apparently practical solution. It is an existential struggle between two worldviews.

For years, virtually all attention has been focused on the question of a future Palestinian state, its borders and powers. As Israelis make plain by talking about the imperative of a Jewish state, and as Palestinians highlight when they evoke the refugees’ rights, the heart of the matter is not necessarily how to define a state of Palestine. It is, as in a sense it always has been, how to define the state of Israel."

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Fouad Ajami: New U.N. Report Says Autocracy Has Led to the Decline of the Arab World - WSJ.com

Fouad Ajami: New U.N. Report Says Autocracy Has Led to the Decline of the Arab World - WSJ.com: "For decades, it was the standard argument of the Arabs that America had cast its power in the region on the side of the autocrats. In Iraq in 2003, and then in Lebanon, an American president bet on the freedom of the Arabs. George W. Bush’s freedom agenda broke with a long history and insisted that the Arabs did not have tyranny in their DNA. A despotism in Baghdad was toppled, a Syrian regime that had all but erased its border with Lebanon was pushed out of its smaller neighbor, bringing an end to three decades of brutal occupation. The “Cedar Revolution” that erupted in the streets of Beirut was but a child of Bush’s diplomacy of freedom.

Arabs know this history even as they say otherwise, even as they tell the pollsters the obligatory things about America the pollsters expect them to say. True, Mr. Bush’s wager on elections in the Palestinian territories rebounded to the benefit of Hamas. But the ballot is not infallible, and the verdict of that election was a statement on the malignancies of Palestinian politics. It was no fault of American diplomacy that the Palestinians, who needed to break with a history of maximalist demands, gave in yet again to radical temptations.

Now the Arabs are face to face with their own"

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist - Green Shoots in Palestine - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Green Shoots in Palestine - NYTimes.com
...and Netanyahu's strategy of trying to encourage Palestinian economic development, for the sake of Israeli security, is a significant contributor to this success, according to Tony Blair.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Book Review: “In Praise of Doubt” - WSJ.com

Book Review: “In Praise of Doubt” - WSJ.com: "In “In Praise of Doubt,” Mr. Berger has teamed up with the Dutch philosopher Anton Zijderveld to argue that it is possible to maintain moral certainty about liberal democratic values without succumbing to either of these extremes."

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Has Ahmadinejad lost his global following? | csmonitor.com

Has Ahmadinejad lost his global following? | csmonitor.com: "But will fiery rhetoric be enough? For Arabs, Mr. Abdel Fattah says Ahmadinejad's words may not carry the punch they used to because the public reaction to Iran's crackdown has 'generally not been positive.'

'People can see now that Iran has the same authoritarian political systems as the Arab world,' he says. 'Ahmadinejad is not a hero.'"

ME: While I would be lying to say that I think Iraq was fought to bring democracy to the Middle East, there is no doubt that the forging of a fledgling democracy in Iraq has led to the desire for more in places like Lebanon and Iran -- if the Iraqis can have free choice, democracy and the semblance of personal liberty, why shouldn't the Iranians. And when the Iranians deny it to their people by force, they lose their international legitimacy.
Was Iraq worth it? That is a fair thing to debate, but the international press and pundits should be discussing Iran in this light. Instead, the demonization of Bush and the US has foreclosed this debate.

Traditional Blood Libel Antisemitism Under Another Guise: Greek telethon for Gaza hospital a scam | JTA - Jewish & Israel News

Greek telethon for Gaza hospital a scam | JTA - Jewish & Israel News

Monday, June 15, 2009

Mehdi Khalaji - Khamenei's Military Coup in Iran - washingtonpost.com

Mehdi Khalaji - Khamenei's Military Coup in Iran - washingtonpost.com: "This military coup is a turning point in Iran's domestic and foreign policies that the West cannot ignore. The U.S. reaction in particular is meaningful not only for Iran's democratic movement but for all democrats in Islamic countries who suffer under autocratic governments. In coordination with European and other nations, the United States should respond to the message being sent by Iran's supreme leader by condemning the election and backing the Iranian people's demand for a free and fair revote under the supervision of international observers.

Iran's people have a living memory of U.S. involvement in the 1950s coup against the government of Mohammed Mossadegh. They expect the Obama administration not to make the same mistake at this crucial time in U.S.-Iranian relations by recognizing the coup carried out under the cover of this election.

It will be easier to bring an end to Iran's controversial nuclear program and defiant foreign policy working with a democratic Iran rather than the military government that is in power. Iranian society will not forget this historic moment and is watching to see how the free world reacts."

Friday, June 05, 2009

RealClearPolitics - The Settlements Myth

RealClearPolitics - The Settlements Myth: "Blaming Israel and picking a fight over 'natural growth' may curry favor with the Muslim 'street.' But it will only induce the Arab states to do like Abbas: sit and wait for America to deliver Israel on a platter. Which makes the Obama strategy not just dishonorable but self-defeating."