FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

This guy gets it from all sides. He’s Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, specialist in internal medicine and nuclear cardiology from Phoenix Az., former naval officer, critic of CAIR and the Flying Imams, and a real-life moderate Muslim. He’s Chairman of the Board and founding member of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), which supports

…the expression of Islam which is in synergy with American democracy, the U.S. Constitution, and the clear separation of religion and state. AIFD was formed on the basis that the development of this ideology at the core of the American and global Muslim consciousness is the central mission necessary in order to ultimately defeat the threat of Islamism and jihadism.

Dr. Jasser interprets the “Flying Imams” lawsuit — you will recall that several Imams behaved in ways calculated to draw attention to themselves on a US Airways flight, got themselves kicked off, and then sued the airline, the Minneapolis Airports Commission and even the anonymous passengers who complained about them — as part of a campaign by the Islamist, Saudi-funded Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to establish itself as the voice of American Muslims in opposition to moderate groups like his own. He writes,

While the press may focus on the flying imams case, for American Muslims, the battle is broader. On one side are the imams represented by CAIR, the Islamic Society for North America, and the North American Imams Federation, all of which lean toward an Islamist view supporting greater interplay between religion and politics and the primacy of sectarian identity. On the other side are Muslims embracing Western secular democracy. The two are mutually exclusive in their interpretation of religious hierarchy, the interplay between theology and contemporary politics, individuality, and tolerance.

Responsibility for the victory of traditional, tolerant, and pluralistic interpretations of Islam lies with Muslims and Muslims alone. The intellectual marginalization of Islamists is the duty of Muslims who value the principles upon which the United States was built and now stands. This requires recognizing the primacy of the Constitution in political life, even if Muslims turn to the Qur’an in their spiritual life. Islamists, though, insist that regardless of temporal government, the Qur’an should be the central guiding document for legislation and interpretation. Islamists believe the Qur’an is the only source of law while non-Islamists believe it is just one source.

Perhaps this was the reason why the Prophet Muhammad and his companions sought to avoid creation of the same religious intermediary class that today CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Imams Federation presume to fill. — M. Z. Jasser, Exposing the ‘Flying Imams’

Dr. Jasser has been attacked from the American Right for saying that the correct interpretation of the Quran is one of tolerance and peace, and by Islamists for…lots of things. Here’s one Islamist’s response to Dr. Jasser:

Arizona Muslim Voice cartoon showing Dr. Jasser as a dog

I’m certain that Dr. Jasser’s views on the Arab-Israeli conflict aren’t anything like mine. But I think that our basic approach to concepts like truth, fairness, and above all the proper roles for religion and state are probably pretty close. This is a guy I could talk to.

Which made me wonder why, when Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union for Reform Judaism decided to reach out to American Muslims, he chose the Saudi-connected, highly controversial Islamic Society for North America (ISNA) as a partner, rather than Dr. Jasser’s AIFD.

Technorati Tags: Jasser, American Muslims, moderate Islam, CAIR, ISNA, Yoffie

The rules of the game regarding anti-Semitic expression have changed. Here is a cartoon chosen by the editors of the Los Angeles Times to illustrate a violently anti-Israel article written by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, the authors of the book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, a book which many have argued is itself anti-Semitic.

Anti-Semitic cartoon from LA Times, January 6, 2008

CAMERA has written a response to the Mearsheimer-Walt article, and has even purchased a full-page advertisement in (other) LA-area newspapers criticizing the Times for its distorted coverage and incidentally pointing out the similarity of the cartoon to one in a German newspaper of the Nazi era.

Last July, I called for a boycott of the Times after they ran a op-ed by Hamas mouthpiece Moussa Abu-Marzouk, in which he asserts that murder of civilians within Israel is justified as ‘resistance to occupation’.

But the Times is just one example of a more widespread phenomenon. The fact is that extreme anti-Israeli expression (which I have argued is often actually anti-Semitic) as well as outright Jew hatred are becoming more and more commonplace. The recent case of Ms. Magazine refusing to print a completely innocuous advertisement that was pro-Israel illustrates the degree of animosity toward Israel in some circles.

US college campuses are presently awash in anti-Semitic expression and have been for some time, as documented in a 2005 hearing before the US Commission on Civil Rights:

The excessive fascination with Israel and the tendency to hold it up to disproportionate scrutiny has turned over into attitudes and acts of hatred and anti-Semitism on many of the nation’s college campuses. There have been a number of examples. For instance, in 2002, at San Francisco State University, Jewish students held an Israeli-Palestinian sit-in hoping to engage the pro-Palestinian students on campus in a dialogue. What ensued as the rally was closing was a hate-fest in which pro-Palestinian students surrounded the 30 remaining Jewish students, screaming “Hitler didn’t finish the job” and “Die racist pigs.” In April, a flyer advertising a pro-Palestinian rally featured a picture of a dead baby with the words, “Canned Palestinian Children Meat – Slaughtered According to Jewish Rites under American License,” thereby reinvigorating the 900-year-old blood libel that Jews eat Gentile children.

During Passover of that year, a brick cinderblock was thrown through the glass doors of the University of California at Berkeley’s Hillel Building. A week after that, two Orthodox Jews were attacked and severely beaten one block from Berkeley’s campus, with anti-Zionist graffiti on blocks and buildings near the school. During a vigil for Holocaust Day, Jewish students who were saying the mourner’s kaddish, the prayer for the dead, were shouted down by protesting students saying a prayer in memory of the suicide bombers. Northwestern University’s Norris University Center was marked with a three-foot swastika in 2003, accompanied by the words “Die Jews.”

However, I doubt that even three years ago we would have seen the kind of mainstream presentation of extreme anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic views as appear today. One of the precipitating events was the 2006 Second Lebanon War, in which much of the media presented an image — almost entirely false — of a diabolical Israel, wantonly killing Lebanese civilians. In addition to made-up incidents, fake casualties, faked news footage and Photoshopped pictures, the war was presented as Israeli aggression, ignoring the fact that Israel responded to an invasion of her territory and the killing and capture of her soldiers. The fact that Hezbollah operated from civilian areas, using residents as human shields was also deemphasized.

There were two major reasons for this: one was the academic bias against Israel which has come to be widespread in the college-educated media as well, and the highly effective media management strategy employed by Hezbollah, which tightly controlled access by the foreign media and assured, sometimes by means of simple intimidation, that they reported what Hezbollah wanted in the way that they wanted.

In any event, the reporting of the war fed anti-Israel sentiment (already strong in Europe) in the US, and interestingly — but not really surprisingly — it seems to spill over into anti-Semitism.

Another factor has been the opposition of some left-wing elements to the Bush Administration, in which it’s become useful to blame “neo-cons” — many of whom are Jewish — for the invasion of Iraq, etc. And the fact that the US economy seems presently to be on a downward trend will certainly give rise to the usual scapegoating.

Anti-Semitism has a viral nature, in which it spreads and intensifies in proportion to its prevalence. So once started, it seems to take on a life of its own.

Technorati Tags: anti-Semitism, antisemitism, LA Times, Israel

Attention Islamic terrorists everywhere! A new version of Mujahideen Secrets, Jihadware for secure communication over the Internet will soon be available.

The first version, which was released a year ago, was described as “the first Islamic computer program for secure exchange [of information] on the Internet,” providing users with “the five best encryption algorithms, and with symmetrical encryption keys (256 bit), asymmetrical encryption keys (2048 bit) and data compression [tools].” — MEMRI

MEMRI notes that the Al-Ekhlas Islamist forum on which it was announced — http://ek-ls.org — is hosted by NOC4Hosts Inc. in Florida. Just business, I guess.

Technorati Tags: Mujahideen Secrets, terrorism, jihadware

One of the big questions about the US plan to create a Palestinian state controlled by Fatah is, of course, “what about Hamas?” Fatah is not strong enough militarily or politically to take on Hamas, and Hamas is not going away by itself.

I’ve argued that the apparent contradiction implies that the plan isn’t serious. But what if I’m wrong, and it is for real? How would such a plan deal with Hamas?

DEBKAfile has an idea, and it isn’t pretty. But it accounts for a lot of things that have been said by PM Olmert, President Bush, and others, and it fits the the way that the US has tried to accomplish similar goals in other places.

The suggestion is that the IDF will be permitted to invade Gaza — but only to a limited extent. Of course, DEBKA presents it as inside knowledge, and maybe it’s just a guess. But I hope they’re wrong:

1. Israeli forces must limit their invasion to two or three strips abutting the Gaza-Israeli border of the 365 sq. km square Hamas-ruled territory on Israel’s southwestern border…

2. The IDF must operate only in sparsely-populated areas and desist from actions that may cause extensive Palestinian civilian casualties.

3. The IDF will not capture the main cities, e.g. Gaza City, Rafah and Khan Younes.

4. After clearing captured areas of Hamas, Jihad Islami and other Palestinian terrorists, the Israeli army must pull out and hand the cleansed territory to the forces of the Palestinian Authority [PA] chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel must enable the passage of those forces from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip and allow them to establish military bases for launching their offensives to recapture the entire Gaza Strip, thereby reversing Hamas’ success in forcing their retreat six months ago…

It was … proposed in Bush’s talks in Ramallah and Jerusalem that the Israeli Air Force and artillery provide support for the Palestinian takeover of the Gaza Strip, a tactic the US army employs for local forces in Iraq.

— DEBKA, ‘Israeli Military up in Arms over Bush-Olmert Plan for Major Operation in Gaza on Behalf of… Palestinian Authority’

DEBKA suggests that PM Olmert has agreed to this plan. But it would be a disaster of the first order if it were to be carried out.

First, from a tactical point of view, it will not work. The IDF will “break its teeth” against the elaborate fortifications built by Hamas in Gaza since the takeover, and will suffer significant casualties until they are overcome. But they will not be able to pursue and destroy the Hamas forces, who will simply escape to the West or lose themselves in the cities! So what will Israel have bought at a high price?

Second, the PA forces are not any more likely to fight effectively against the highly motivated Hamas than they were last year. Many of them are sympathetic to Hamas, most if not all are former (or present) members of terrorist militias such as the al-Aqsa Brigades, and all of them consider Israel a greater enemy than Hamas. Many of their US and Israeli-supplied weapons will end up in Hamas hands.

Third, the plan places the IDF in a role of fighting for one side in a Palestinian civil conflict, instead of defending Israel against her enemies.

Finally, if the PA does not defeat Hamas (which it won’t), then what? DEBKA writes,

If a military campaign succeeds in gaining control of parts of Gaza on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, peace talks will resume with Abbas’ standing much enhanced. But if the results are mixed, like in the 2006 Lebanon War under Olmert’s direction, the Palestinian leader will drop Israel and the United States like hot coals, turn coat and seek an understanding with Hamas for a re-united front against Israel.

We must also keep in mind that an Israeli invasion of Gaza, even a limited one, is likely to provoke Hezbollah to heat up the northern border. It will not be advantageous for the IDF to be tied down to supporting a protracted struggle between the PA and Hamas when this occurs.

All this and more is obvious to the IDF’s officer corps. I cannot imagine but that many officers would resign before they would carry out orders to, in effect, send their men to die for the PA. The result could be a crisis for the Israeli government and the IDF.

Technorati Tags: Israel, IDF, Gaza invasion, Bush, Hamas, Palestinian Authority

Last week, Barry Rubin wrote about the distortions of news perpetrated by an Arab Reuters stringer (see “Do you trust the wire services? You shouldn’t.“). This week it’s AP’s turn, with yet another biased Arab reporter.

Empowering Lies

By Barry Rubin

What if a major news story is completely made up? What if it is basically Hamas propaganda without any basis in truth? And what if this story is repeated around the world?

Of course, nowadays it is not hard to imagine such things happening on debatable issues. When one gets to specific statistics, however, it should not be too easy to lie and get away with it.

But it is.

The story in question here is by Ibrahim Barzak, “Israel cuts fuel, electricity to Gaza,” January 7, 2008. Like all individual articles it might be of limited importance by itself but it is an example of a phenomenon which has grown to be almost daily.

In the version run by the Philadelphia Inquirer it carries the following subheadline: “People have only a third of winter needs, said an official. The intent is to halt rocket attacks.”

It is important to emphasize–do a computer search if you like–that this article has been published and broadcast around the world by huge media outlets, not to mention websites.

And the main point–and impact–of the story is a fabrication.

Here is the lead:

With winter deepening, Gazans will be forced to live without lights and electric heaters for eight hours a day because Israel has cut fuel supplies to the territory’s only electric plant in half, Gaza’s top energy official warned yesterday….

Yesterday, Kanan Obeid, chairman of Gaza’s Hamas-run energy authority, said Gaza now has only 35 percent of the power its 1.5 million residents need. [my emphasis - ed.]

Well, perhaps Gaza’s top energy official said that but it is a lie. AP and the media that depend on AP–fell for this lie. Or perhaps the author and institution are not so innocent because there is no Israeli source provided for the main issues at stake. When I investigated the story it took me five minutes to get an official who totally denied the claims made by it.

Here is the true story, so obscured by the AP article that one can only believe the distortion was deliberate.

1. About 70 percent of Gaza’s electricity comes  from Israel (the article says 60 percent though this changes nothing about the analysis that follows), 5 percent from Egypt, and 20 percent from Gaza itself.
2. There has been very little cutback in the electricity provided directly by Israel.
3. The only reduction is in supplying diesel fuel, some of which is used in the Gaza generating plant, though more is used by trucks.
4. Thus if the diesel fuel supply was cut back by half, the Gaza generator would lose less than half of its supply, even less if the Hamas government made it a priority. At most, the electricity supply would be cut no more than 10 percent–not 65 percent.
5. Note also that while it sounds rather horrible not to have electricity eight hours a day, this merely would mean that you don’t use electricity when you are sleeping. It should also be added that winter in Gaza is not exactly like Maine.
6. In addition, Barzak tries, and no doubt succeeds, in fooling readers by stating in passing: “The power outages, which will rotate across Gaza….” In other words, at worst each sector would only have temporary power reductions, taking turns, rather than–as the article states earlier–everyone having eight hours without electricity.

After trying to convince readers that people in Gaza are suffering greatly from existing cuts, the article slips into making its case by talking about things that have not happened yet. The Israeli government wants small cutbacks in the electricity directly applied to the Gaza Strip. Even if these cuts were made–and this may not happen–the result would still fall very far short of the claims made about huge reductions and tremendous suffering.

The article continues:

Israel said the purpose of the cutback was to nudge Palestinians to call on extremists to stop their daily rocket attacks on southern Israel. But Gazans contended they have become targets of unfair punishment, and 10 human-rights groups took that argument to the Israeli Supreme Court.

Note that while, technically, Israel’s motive is presented–so the AP can claim to be balanced–we are quickly told that this claim is untrue. Israel’s statements are questioned; Hamas’s statements are accepted as fact.

The point here is to avoid telling readers three other things as well:

1. Israel is a remarkable democracy where even wartime actions against an enemy openly declaring an intention to kill all its people and daily attempting terror attacks are fairly adjudicated in court.
2. Israel is still supplying directly and indirectly the vast majority of Gaza’s power despite the war being waged against it by a regime there which sponsors cross-border attacks, holds an Israeli soldier as hostage, and proclaims that it will never accept Israel’s existence.
3. If the Hamas regime were to change its policy there would be no sanctions at all.

The article’s goal, therefore, is to muster support for Hamas within the Gaza Strip and to mobilize forces throughout the world against sanctions. That may be the job of Hamas but is it the task for the world news media and Associated Press? Instead, this article is not reporting news but attempting to indoctrinate readers in the belief that Palestinians are suffering, Israel is responsible, and Israel’s explanations of its actions are false.

But it is this article that is false by claiming that Israeli activities have reduced Gaza’s electricity by two-thirds.

Oh, by the way, on January 11, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that even the restrictions on diesel fuel oil would be lifted. So residents of the Gaza Strip will get everything necessary for 100 percent of their usual electricity production.

While rocket attacks, attempted terrorist operations, and incitement continue, Israel will provide power for Hamas’s offices, broadcasts calling for the killing of all Israelis, and arms’ workshops. This, we are told by too much of the media, is the way things are supposed to be according to morality and international law.

. . .

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA). His latest books are The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan) and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).

Technorati Tags: Barry Rubin, AP, Media bias, Israel, Hamas, Gaza, Ibrahim Barzak

Israel is certainly one of the few nations of which it can be said that there is no “glass ceiling” for women. In addition to having had a woman Prime Minister, Israel has women in some of the top positions in government today.

So the American Jewish Congress produced a simple ad, showing three of them, and submitted it to feminist flagship Ms. Magazine (slogan: “More than a magazine — a movement”) .

American Jewish Congress ad rejected by Ms. Magazine

From an AJ Congress press release, here is what happened:

When Director of AJCongress’ Commission for Women’s Empowerment Harriet Kurlander tried to place the ad, she was told that publishing the ad “will set off a firestorm” and that “there are very strong opinions” on the subject − the subject presumably being whether or not one can say anything positive about Israel. Ms. Magazine publisher Eleanor Smeal failed to respond to a signed-for certified letter with a copy of the ad as well as numerous calls by [AJ Congress President Richard] Gordon over a period of weeks.

A Ms. Magazine representative, Susie Gilligan, whom the Ms. Magazine masthead lists under the publisher’s office, told Ms. Kurlander that the magazine “would love to have an ad from you on women’s empowerment, or reproductive freedom, but not on this.” Ms. Gilligan failed to elaborate what “this” is. [my emphasis]

She doesn’t need to elaborate. We already know that there are some segments of the political spectrum where Israel is anathema. But Ms. Magazine does write about Israeli women from time to time. A search of feminist news briefs comes up with

• Women arrested for praying improperly at the Western Wall
• Israeli women who meet with Palestinian women in peace groups
• Will Israeli women get combat roles in the army?
• A rabbinical court issuing a decree that married women may not stay out past midnight

Palestinian women are covered too. In addition to the articles about peace groups (which usually blame Israel for the violence), there is one about a female Palestinian filmmaker. There is an interview with Queen Noor of Jordan, who disapproves of honor killings (and blames Israel for the violence), but nothing about beatings and murders of ’scandalously’ dressed women by Islamist fanatics in Gaza, or women forced to become suicide bombers. One would think that there is plenty for “the movement” to become outraged about.

Technorati Tags: Ms. Magazine, Israel, American Jewish Congress

After separate meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today, President Bush said the following:

…both sides need to fulfill their commitments under the road map…

I reiterate my appreciation for the Arab League peace initiative. And I call upon the Arab countries to reach out to Israel, a step that is long overdue.

He appreciates it. That is different from approving of it or calling for its implementation. But it is something more than ignoring it and a lot more than rejecting it. Mr. Bush also mentioned the initiative positively in his speech of July 2007.

As you may remember, the Arab League (or Saudi) peace initiative calls for 1) Israel to withdraw from all territories captured in 1967, 2) a ‘just’ settlement of the refugee problem in accordance with UN Resolution 194 and which is agreeable to the refugees’ host countries, and 3) the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories with its capital in East Jerusalem.

In return, Israel will get a peace agreement, the Arabs will “provide for the security of all states in the region”, and Israel will get “normal relations”, whatever they are (they are not ‘recognition’).

The Saudi and Egyptian understanding of the proposal is that Israel will get nothing until all three conditions have been met, and that there is no room to negotiate anything except how it will be implemented.

I’ve analyzed this proposal in detail in my post “The Arab initiative, as it stands, is a document of surrender“, so I won’t go into detail here.

It appears hard to reconcile Mr. Bush’s stated desire for both sides to meet their “roadmap obligations”, which seem to include the Palestinians taking action against terrorism, with a plan that requires the Arab side to do absolutely nothing until Israel has given up everything they want.

Unfortunately the roadmap calls for Israel to do concrete things (dismantle outposts, remove roadblocks, and withdraw from certain areas) and for Palestinians to “undertake” and “commence” to do things. They are not required to actually achieve anything. The requirements will be fulfilled as soon as the State Department, the Quartet, or whomever, decides that they are. So this doesn’t really contradict the Arab League initiative.

Mr. Bush concludes as follows:

No agreement and no Palestinian state will be born of terror…

The establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it. And it will enhance the stability of the region, and it will contribute to the security of the people of Israel.

I should issue a Reality Inversion Alert over this comment! The actions of the leaders and people of Palestine have made it abundantly clear that they do not deserve a state. They have created no functional governing institutions besides clans and gangs, they have taken billions in aid without building any economic infrastructure, they have been consistently dishonest about their goals, and their preferred means of achieving them has been terrorism.

The establishment of the Palestinian state and concomitant withdrawal of the IDF from the territories will be disastrous for the security of Israel and for the stability of the region, because the process is being approached backwards: they are being given arms, money and ultimately sovereignty before they have developed the basic institutions of civil society, and while a powerful and highly disruptive faction — Hamas — is totally ignored.

If Mr. Bush’s actual goal were peace and stability, then he would approach it by taking steps to discourage the Palestinian belief that they can and will reverse the outcome of the 1948 war — rather than embracing the Arab League initiative, which promotes it.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Israel, Palestinians

President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held a joint news conference in Israel yesterday. Here are some excerpts from Mr. Bush’s statements and my comments. You can read the full text, including PM Olmert’s remarks, here.

PM Olmert with Presidents Bush and Peres

PRESIDENT BUSH: It’s essential that people understand America cannot dictate the terms of what a [Palestinian] state will look like. The only way to have lasting peace, the only way for an agreement to mean anything, is for the two parties to come together and make the difficult choices. But we’ll help, and we want to help. If it looks like there needs to be a little pressure, Mr. Prime Minister, you know me well enough to know I’ll be more than willing to provide it. I will say the same thing to President Abbas tomorrow, as well.

As if the application of pressure can be symmetrical! Pressure Mahmoud Abbas all he will, Mr. Bush cannot cause him to control Hamas or give up his demand for right of return. Can he even stop the terrorism his own al-Aqsa brigades and disarm all the gangs associated with Fatah? Maybe that should be a first requirement, before anything else.

In the rest of my trip I will be talking about the opportunity for Middle Eastern peace, and remind people in the neighborhood that if they truly want to see two states living side by side in peace, they have an obligation, Arab leaders have an obligation to recognize Israel’s important contribution to peace and stability in the Middle East, and to encourage and support the Palestinians as they make tough choices.

Why did he use the strange phrase “recognize Israel’s important contribution to peace and stability in the Middle East”? Why not just say recognize Israel as a legitimate state in the Middle East?

We also talked about Iran. Iran is a threat to world peace. There was a recent intelligence report that came out that I think sent the signal to some that said perhaps the United States does not view an Iran with a nuclear weapon as serious — as a serious problem. And I want to remind people, Mr. Prime Minister, what I said at the press conference when I discussed that National Intelligence Estimate. I said then that Iran was a threat, Iran is a threat, and Iran will be a threat if the international community does not come together and prevent that nation from the development of the know-how to build a nuclear weapon.

Mr. Bush no longer says that he will not permit Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Now it’s the job of the “international community”.

A country which once had a secret program can easily restart a secret program. A country which can enrich for civilian purposes can easily transfer that knowledge to a military program. A country which has made statements that it’s made about the security of our friend, Israel, is a country that needs to be taken seriously. And the international community must understand with clarity the threat that Iran provides to world peace.

Quite right, as I wrote in my post, “The NIE: Read past the first line“. So why did the Bush Administration approve of the clear signal sent by the release of the NIE with its deliberately misleading implication that Iran was not a nuclear threat?

And we will continue to work with European countries, Russia and China, as well as nations in this neighborhood, to make it abundantly clear that — the threat that Iran poses for world peace.

But in effect, you already told them the opposite.

Let me remind you what the NIE actually said…So no matter how you might have interpreted the NIE, I interpreted it to mean you better take the Iranians’ threat seriously.

Then why was it released in the form that it was?

…I have always told the American people that I believe it’s incumbent upon the American President to solve problems diplomatically. And that’s exactly what we’re in the process of doing. I believe that pressure — economic pressure, financial sanctions — will cause the people inside of Iran to have to make a considered judgment about whether or not it makes sense for them to continue to enrich or face world isolation.

The US will not attempt to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons by non-diplomatic means.

(more…)

President Bush will be in Israel tomorrow at the start of a Mideast visit that will carry him to several countries, and security precautions are massive. For example, in Jerusalem, where it is normally impossible to park anyway, many streets will be entirely closed to parking for Wednesday through Friday. There will be 10,500 police plus reservists and other security personnel involved in security arrangements. The AP estimates that security for the President will cost Israel $25,000 for each hour he is in the country. And this doesn’t include the cost to the US for hundreds of hotel rooms (including all 237 rooms of the King David, one of most expensive hotels in Israel), as well as the cost of flying several helicopters and armored limousines in from the US. You can read the incredible details here.

He is expected to visit Ramallah on Thursday as well, and that is indeed worrisome, what with elements of many terrorist factions — including al-Qaeda — likely to have a presence in the West Bank.

US helicopter lands at the Muqata in Ramallah

Yesterday, two Katyusha missiles were fired from Lebanon at the northern Israeli town of Shlomi. IDF analysts believe that they were probably fired by a Palestinian terrorist group associated with al-Qaeda, perhaps in honor of Bush’s visit. And Adam Gadahn, al-Qaeda’s American-born spokesidiot has called for Bush’s welcome to be with “bombs and car bombs”.

Given the enormous cost, complexity and danger of the operation, one would think that some highly critical goal is being sought. And maybe there is such a goal, but it cannot be Israeli-Arab peace, because Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas cannot deliver a peace agreement. He does not represent a majority of Palestinians, he does not control a large part of the area in which the US so passionately wants to create a Palestinian state, and he is not free to offer a deal that Israel could accept (one that does not demand a right of return).

All this is known to everyone involved.

It seems to me that the really important part of this visit lies outside of Israel and the territories. For example, Mr. Bush will be visiting Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, next week, and he is expected to tell the Saudis that he has notified the US Congress of a proposed $20 billion arms sale that includes supplying them with “smart bombs” (JDAMs).

He will visit Kuwait, Bahrein, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and finally Egypt before returning home, apparently in an effort to shore up a conservative coalition against the destabilizing policies of Iran and Syria — or maybe to try to explain to them why his administration issued a pass to Iran’s nuclear weapons development with the recent release of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

In the midst of all of this, I hope that Israel does not pay the price in concessions to an impotent PA — concessions which can only damage Israel’s security and make peace even harder to obtain in the future — in order to bolster an American attempt to improve relations with the Arab states.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Middle East, Israel, Jerusalem, Ramallah

Dear Senator Obama,

I’m writing this the day before the New Hampshire primary. It’s looking very good for you, and if I had to bet, I would put money on you being in the White House next year.

Yesterday I wrote in my blog about Zbigniew Brzezinski and why I and other pro-Israel people don’t like him.

I don’t get the feeling that you are quite as absorbed in Mideast politics as some of us, and I don’t blame you. It’s just one of many issues that a president will have to worry about. And I also don’t blame you for resenting Alan Dershowitz for demanding that you disassociate yourself from Brzezinski because of his praise for the Mearsheimer-Walt book. After all, you did say that you disagreed with the contents of the book. Isn’t that enough?

Well, no, and I’ll give you an analogy. Do you remember the outrage in 2002 when Senate Republican leader Trent Lott said that he was proud that Mississippi had voted for Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential candidacy, and that “…if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

Lott was forced to step down because in this day and age a national figure simply can’t approve of frankly racist politics.

To many of us, Mearsheimer-Walt is not just a tendentious anti-Israel book, but a hateful anti-Jewish book. We find in it a rehearsal of many anti-Semitic stereotypes, and a concretely dangerous attempt to smear the Jewish community by, for example, blaming it for the invasion of Iraq.

But Dr. Brzezinski has written that

Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have rendered a public service by initiating a much needed public debate on the role of the “Israel lobby” in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy. — Zbigniew Brzezinski, A Dangerous Exemption

Brzezinski is too polished to give vent to anti-Semitic remarks. But neither would Trent Lott ever say, as Thurmond’s 1948 platform did, “We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race”.

I see approval of Mearsheimer-Walt as code. Just as everyone knew the meaning of “welfare queen”, “forced busing”, or “states rights”, everyone understands “the Israel lobby” and exactly why it is so much more pernicious than, for example, the Saudi lobby.

Dr. Brzezinski is very careful in his public speech, but I and many other Jews have absolutely no doubt about where he is coming from.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Brzezinski, anti-Semitism, Mearsheimer-Walt

Recent events make it clear that a Barack Obama presidency is not a long shot. It is a real possibility. A combination of Republican weakness, Obama’s personal attractiveness, and the fact that many Americans see him as the candidate of change — and nobody doubts that we need that — puts him in a very strong position today.

So it’s very important for those of us who are concerned about US policy in the Mideast, particularly toward Israel and the Palestinians, to understand where he is coming from on this issue, and perhaps to educate him about the history and current facts about it — because he may be the “decider” next year.

Like any good politician, he hasn’t said too much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, except that he favors a two-state solution. He did make a slightly more specific comment which I discussed last week, in which he seems to hold a position much like the Ayalon-Nusseibeh plan: there will be a division ‘based on’ the 1967 borders with land swaps to allow Israel to keep highly populated settlement areas and the Palestinians to get Arab areas within the Green Line in return, and the right of return for Arab refugees will be limited to the Palestinian state.

We can quibble about the details of such an agreement, but the overriding problem today is that a) there isn’t a unitary Palestinian entity that can negotiate such a settlement for all Palestinians, and b) no imaginable Palestinian leadership would (or could) accept it. A solution that is — given the players — unobtainable is not a solution.

So while this might be imaginable as an acceptable outcome (I will not get into that now), simply presenting it as a policy is absurd unless a way of achieving it is specified. Saying “we’ll negotiate with everybody” is a cop-out and possibly dangerous.

And then there’s the Zbig problem.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, was chosen by Obama as a top advisor on foreign policy. I am not going to try to guess what is in Brzezinski’s head or Obama’s, but here are some of Brzezinski’s public statements:

Given that the Middle East is currently the central challenge facing America, Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have rendered a public service by initiating a much needed public debate on the role of the “Israel lobby” in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy. — Zbigniew Brzezinski, A Dangerous Exemption

I hate to say this but I will say it. I think what the Israelis are doing today for example in Lebanon is in effect, in effect–maybe not in intent–the killing of hostages. The killing of hostages. Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you’re killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. — Speech, July 20, 2006

Israel desired or favored the destruction of Iraq by the United States. Now it doesn’t hide its preference for the United States doing something to Iran, even though Israel itself has a powerful nuclear retaliatory capability. — Speech, June 12, 2007

We pressed the Palestinians to have elections in which the Hamas would participate. Hamas did win those elections. We were the ones who made that possible. So I think at some point we have to be prepared to conduct some sort of a dialogue with Hamas, perhaps informal, then increasingly formal.

Prime Minister Begin, whom I knew well, he told me personally that he didn’t think there was such a thing as a Palestinian, that there was no Palestinian nation, and that he was adamantly against two states coexisting in the space of the former mandate of Palestine, namely Israel and Palestine.

Yet we continued dealing with that government. We negotiated with it. We gave it a lot of economic assistance. And in the course of years, the Likud government itself came to accept the idea of two states within the territory of the former mandate of Palestine, coexisting with each other. — Interview, Online Newshour, July 18, 2006

The current crisis poses a grave threat to United States interests. One can argue forever as to whether Yasir Arafat or Ariel Sharon is more responsible for its eruption. — NY Times Op-ed, April 7, 2002

There’s a great deal of similar material available. Brzezinski supports the pernicious, even anti-Semitic Mearsheimer and Walt, he accuses Israel of ignoring collateral damage and in effect committing war crimes in Lebanon, he perpetuates the false and dangerous accusation that Israel is in some sense responsible for the US being in Iraq, and — time and again — he declares a moral equivalence between Israel and her terrorist opponents — Hamas and Arafat.

Brzezinski is very smart, and usually includes statements that suggest an understanding of Israel’s need for security. However, there’s no question that the policies that he will advocate will be to Israel’s severe disadvantage.

We don’t need another James A. Baker in a critical position in a future Obama administration. Obama has received criticism from pro-Israel voices like Alan Dershowitz about Brzezinski. The Obama campaign has responded that the criticism is politically motivated and coming from supporters of Hillary Clinton.

Regardless, Brzezinski’s slant is clear from his own words.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Brzezinski, Israel

Everything is backwards!

‘Moderate’ reality inversion from the PA:

Israeli operations in Nablus and in other West Bank territory are destructive to the renewal of the peace process, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad said Friday afternoon.

“The operations ruin the PA’s security efforts which have begun to bear fruit,” said Fayad, adding that the Israeli interference in the area harmed the authority’s defense plans which included the confiscation of weapons and the arrest of suspects in Nablus, Tulkarm and Bethlehem.

Fayad’s comments came into response to joint IDF and Shin Bet operations in Nablus that were still being conducted in the area as late as Friday. On Thursday, troops uncovered a hidden weapons cache in which soldiers found two rockets at an advanced stage of preparation. — Jerusalem Post

OK, so the implication is that rockets are constructive?

How about some more extreme inversion from our friends at Hamas:

GAZA, PIC– Hamas Movement has warned Thursday that the Aqsa Mosque in the occupied city of Jerusalem was facing serious Israeli attempts to destroy it with the aim to build the alleged Third Temple on its ruins. –Palestinian Information Center

Indeed. Olmert himself plans to take the job of kohen gadol.

Here’s a report of a recent IDF atrocity from our friends in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM):

Israeli army invades and occupies Hebron hospital

At approximately 6PM on December 27, Human Rights Workers (HRWs) received notice that the Israeli military had invaded the Al Ahli Hospital in Hebron. The occupation of Al Ahli hospital was part of a number of military actions by the Israeli military in response to the killing of two off-duty soldiers by Palestinian militiamen in the Hebron area midday Friday.

Yes, you can say it was ‘in response’ to the killings. They were looking for one of the terrorists who gunned down two young Israeli hikers in cold blood earlier that day. So the hospital should be a sanctuary for murderers?

And finally, some brilliant analysis from the always perceptive Jewish Voice for Peace:

The obvious fact that Israeli incursions and attacks in Gaza have been going on all this time and the fire at Sderot continues would seem, however, to contradict the Israeli government’s statements that their attacks on Gaza are aimed at preventing the rocket and mortar fire across the border.

So, because Hamas and friends have not stopped firing rockets, Israel’s base motives are revealed! There is some other reason, rather than just trying to end the rocket fire, for the military action! Maybe the Zionists want to distract attention from their construction of the third Temple.

!sdrawkcab si gnihtytevE

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, reality inversion