by Laryn

How about that “peace” process?
Just last week Barack Obama held sham peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian West Bank President Mahmoud Abbas.

While Obama was holding his “peace” talks, the Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, Karake, honored the mother of 4 terrorists with Palestinian Authority Shield. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 28, 2010- PMW]

But this weekend Mahmoud Abbas made clear that the Palestinians will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
The Jerusalem Post reported:

In interview with ‘Al-Quds’, PA president says Palestinians won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state, accuses Netanyahu of trying to “strip” Israeli-Arabs of their rights.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s talk about an “historic compromise” and said there would be no compromises on core issues such as Jerusalem and borders.

Abbas also reiterated his rejection of Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “We’re not talking about a Jewish state and we won’t talk about one,” Abbas said in an interview with the semi-official Al-Quds newspaper. “For us, there is the state of Israel and we won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state.”

Abbas said that in recent meetings with leaders of the Jewish community in the US, he made it clear that the Palestinians would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “I told them that this is their business and that they are free to call themselves whatever they want,” Abbas said. “But [I told them] you can’t expect us to accept this.”

also:

Union Boss Admits He’s “Distorting the Political System…”

also:

Does Israel Want Peace At the Expense of Terrorism?

By-Regina Sztajer

The U.S. spent millions on a media blitz to convince Israelis to accept the Palestinians as partners in peace leading up to the peace talks held on Wednesday in Washington. A pro-Palestinian group launched a massive on line promotion urging Israelis to join its Facebook page and only 634 people joined. Bad idea and a waste of money US taxpayer money. The US -funded ads giving senior Fatah propagandists there opportunity to tell Israelis they could trust them failed! Why because they can’t be trusted when the day before the so called peace talks in Washington terrorists killed innocent civilians near Hebron in Israel. A public opinion poll was taken in Israel and when asked if they felt Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas was serious about making peace with Israel, two thirds of Israelis said no. Twenty three percent said he was serious and 17 percent said they didn’t know.

The Palestinians want peace based on Israeli concessions of land and national rights in exchange for Palestinian terror and political warfare. Sixty three percent of Israelis don’t want a prohibition on Jewish Construction in Judea and Samaria and only 21 percent believe Israel should agree to a US demands that Jews continue to be denied their property rights in Judea and Samaria. These are ancient lands that Jews owned before anyone else was there. If Prime Minister Bejiman Netanyahu wants to make a deal with Abbas he’ll have a hard time convincing his people.

The Israeli people are tired of anti-Jewish butchery as payment for a promise of peace. When the people were murdered in Hebron it was decided not to retaliate because it may upset the delicate balance of the peace talks. Israel’s defense should be considered first because the terrorists will kill when they have the opportunity no matter the consequences for them.

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By Barry Rubin

We have entered into a new period of U.S. policy toward Israel for the Obama Administration. Basically, President Barack Obama needs Israel, requires its cooperation, and is eager to get along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How long this will last is unclear but it should characterize, barring unforeseen events, at least for the next year.

What is the basis of this new era? When it came to office, the Obama Administration was in radical mode, determined to distance itself from Israel as a key to winning over Arabs and Muslims, assuming that peace could be achieved with sufficient pressure on Israel as the only requirement, and hostile to Israel’s current government.

A measure of reality eventually set in, involving a large number of factors ranging from the lack of Arab cooperation, to Iran’s intransigence, the lack of progress in engaging Syria, and the tasks of dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration’s head-on charge over demanding a freeze of construction on settlements only produced a one-year-plus delay on Israel-Palestinian negotiations. The Palestinian Authority (PA) was uncooperative. American public opinion was unhappy with the policy toward Israel.

This is not to say that the situation is simple but by September 2010 things are very different. The Obama Administration is desperate for diplomatic successes, or at least the appearance of having them. What’s happening regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons’ drive cannot be concealed or ignored.

The U.S. government is also is aware of falling public support–including a sharp decline in Jewish backing though pro-Israel forces extend far more widely throughout American society—on the eve of American elections. In addition, it’s clear that Netanyahu’s government isn’t going away and there is no “dovish” alternative that will give Obama everything he wants for little or nothing in exchange.

So now Obama needs Netanyahu. He needs to keep the new peace talks going and looking good. The president also requires that Netanyahu keep things quiet on the Israel-Palestinian front so as—so he thinks—to make it easier to get Arab and Muslim support for other U.S. policies. And since Obama’s orientation is mainly domestic and his world view is horrified by power politics, he wants to avoid international crises generally. Anti-Israel officials in the administration are being ignored.
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Ethan Bronner of The New York Times has a classic piece on the opening of a luxury mall in Gaza.

How does one balance the endless propaganda that Gaza is a concentration camp and that Israelis are committing genocide, with the reality that Gaza exceeds most of its Arab members (and even Turkey) in key health measurements?

How does one balance the endless propaganda of mass starvation in Gaza with the reality that there is plenty of food available, and there was plenty of food available long before Israel eased the restriction on civilian imports?

Most of all, how does The New York Times show balance on a subject which almost never is treated with balance by the mainstream media, much less the Islamist-Leftist Anti-Israel Coalition and its blogospheric sympathizers?

Bronner achieves balance through an ingenious slight of argument: The luxury Gaza mall is mostly an act of defiance!

As reported by Bronner (emphasis mine):

Gaza, famous for its misery, has a shopping mall. It opened a month ago to considerable fanfare, with Palestinian television cameras trailing Hamas government officials meandering proudly around the bright new stores filled with imported goods.

For Hamas, and for the Hamas-linked group of local investors behind the enterprise, the two-story mall, with its central air-conditioning and underground parking, has deep symbolic value. It is proof, they say, that despite the Israeli and Egyptian effort to isolate this Palestinian coastal strip, it can develop and thrive. Let the message go out: We will not be defeated….

But the broader point many of these advocates are making — that the poverty of Gaza is often misconstrued, willfully or inadvertently — is correct. The despair here is not that of Haiti or Somalia. It is a misery of dependence, immobility and hopelessness, not of grinding want. The flotilla movement is not about material aid; it is about Palestinian freedom and defiance of Israeli power.

Why not just admit that for years the media has painted a false picture of Gaza?

Compared to Europe, the United States, and Israel, the living standards in Gaza are not high. Gaza suffers for many of the same reasons that neighboring Arab countries suffer: Political corruption, tyranny, Islamist rule, and a host of other factors which have nothing to do with Israel.

The Gaza mall does proves a point, but it is not that Israel is to blame for whatever misery exists outside the walls of the mall.

Rather, the Gaza mall proves what would be possible if the Palestinian political leadership, be it Hamas or Fatah, focused more on improving the living standards of its people rather than the endless war against the Jews.

There is a profound cognitive dissonance in the media when it comes to Gaza. Reality does not jive with the narrative, but the narrative lives on anyway.

Let the Mideast nuclear arms race begin.

The news this week that Iran started its Bushehr nuclear reactor provoked two other regional powers to make their own public statements. The Sudanese theocracy was the latest regime to announce they will move forward on their peaceful nuclear reactor.
Israel National News reported:

Sudanese media reported Sunday that officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will visit the country this week to discuss Khartoum’s plans to import a “peaceful nuclear reactor.” The announcement followed a breakthrough in Iran’s nuclear program over the weekend, as engineers began loading fuel rods into the Bushehr reactor.

Sudanese leaders established a nuclear program in early 2010, according to state news agency SUNA, and they plan to build the country’s first nuclear power station in 2020. They say the program is necessary in order to provide electricity to all of the country’s citizens, many of whom live in areas with no electric grid.

Iran’s senior leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in April that Iran is prepared to help Sudan create a nuclear program by sharing both knowledge and technology. The two countries share close economic and political ties; both are Islamic theocratic states.

Likewise, Egyptian president Mubarak announced this week that his country will announce plans for their own nuclear plant.
UPI reported:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is preparing to announce plans to construct the country’s first nuclear power plant, an official said.

An unnamed source told the Egyptian newspaper Al Masry-al-Youm Mubarak is likely to name Dabaa as the site for the country’s first nuclear power plant Monday.

and:

Constitution is Islamic? Really?

The rhetoric from the left and the Muslims continues to heat up over the Victory Mosque — how Osama bin laden will view the 13-story community center planned for a site two blocks from Ground Zero.

We have Frank Rich at the New York Times saying dissent undermines General Petraeus, who was called “General Betray Us” in an ad that the New York Times ran at a great discount in 2007 when liberals said dissent was patriotic.
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From Powerline

Late last week, Hillary Clinton announced that direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians will resume in early September. I continue to believe (1) that such talks are unlikely to result in an agreement and (2) that it would be a mistake for Israel to enter into agreement with Abbas, who presides over a crumbling political appartus and faces deadly opposition from Hamas. Neither members of the deadly opposition nor most members of the crumbling apparatus are interested in a stable arrangement that guarantees Israel’s safety or even its continued existence.

The prospects for successful talks seem so dim that Meyrav Wurmser, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Middle East Policy, wonders whether the talks are really about reaching an agreement. He suggests that, instead, the Obama administration’s goal is to prevent violence from erupting in late September, when Israel’s temporary freeze on building new settlements expires.

Key members of Netanyahu’s coalition, including foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, have said there is no chance the freeze will be extended. Without Lieberman’s hard-line party, Netanyahu would lack a parliamentary majority. But, says Wurmser, if settlement building resumes, a third intifada could erupt, and it’s unlikely that the current Palestinian leadership would be able to stop it. Moreover, because the region as a whole is so volatile, a new intifada could lead to a broader regional conflict.

Wurmser believes that the September face-to-face talks might at least serve to avoid that bloody scenario.

Even this outcome is hardly assured. Wurmser himself points out that key portions of Netanyahu’s governing coalition are determined to end the building freeze. And, as the editors of the Jerusalem Post note, “to stop building in established, bustling Jewish neighborhoods such as Ramat Eshkol, East Talpiot or Ramat Shlomo, with the implication that this might signal their future evacuation, is incomprehensible from an Israeli perspective.”

But the prospect of an intifada, coupled with pressure from the Obama administration, might be enough to overcome these obstacles. Overcoming the obstacles to any sort of comprehensive settlement is another matter.

also:

The geezer vote — are the Democrats barking up the wrong tree?

Last week, the Washington Post reported that the Democrats, in their desperation to avoid a crushing defeat in November, are making a new run at the votes of senior citizens. I doubt that this portion of the electorate holds much promise for the Dems in this cycle. Seniors are at least as appalled as the electorate as a whole by the failure of the economy to stage a decent recovery — a failure that dims both their retirement prospects and the job prospects of their children.
(more…)

By Barry Rubin*

August 21, 2010

The U.S. announcement inviting Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) for direct talks shows quite clearly, though unintentionally, why the talks will fail.

Special Envoy George Mitchell explains:

“We are all well aware that there remains mistrust between the parties, a residue of hostility developed over many decades of conflict, many previous efforts that have been made to resolve the conflict that had not succeeded, all of which takes a very heavy toll on both societies and their leaders. In addition, we all know that, as with all societies, there are differences of opinion on both sides on how best to proceed, and as a result, this conflict has remained unresolved over many decades and through many efforts. We don’t expect all of those differences to disappear when talks begin. Indeed, we expect that they will be presented, debated, discussed, and that differences are not going to be resolved immediately.”

This is a good explanation that the administration knows how hard it is to bring peace, though it does not jibe well with his saying a few minutes later: “We believe that if those negotiations are conducted seriously and in good faith, they can produce such an agreement within 12 months. And that is our objective.”
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from the Jerusalem Post

WASHINGTON – Israel has only mere days to launch an attack on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor if Russia makes good on its plan to deliver fuel there this weekend, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton warned Tuesday.

He said that once Russia has loaded the fuel into the reactor — slated for Saturday – Israel would no longer be willing to strike for fear of triggering widespread radiation in an attack.

“This is a very, very big victory for Iran,” Bolton told The Jerusalem Post. “This is a huge threshold.”

Bolton, who also once oversaw US non-proliferation policy, said that when Russia announced the plans to load the fuel last Friday, “the element of surprise was essentially taken away” from Israeli calculations.

Bolton noted that he doesn’t “have a clue” as to whether Israel would actually attack, but he said, “If Israel was right to destroy the Osiraq reactor, is it right to allow this one to continue? You can’t have it both ways.”

Israel took out Iraq’s Osiraq reactor during a stealth mission in 1981. It is also believed to have conducted a similar strike on an alleged Syria nuclear site in 2007.

Russia signed a contract with Iran to construct the Bushehr reactor in 1995, but has several times delayed completion. In announcing the long-overdue fuel installation, which should make Bushehr operational in September, Russia did not indicate why it was going ahead with the final stages now.

In addition to Bushehr — for which Russia says it has guarantees it will receive back the spent fuel, the material needed to make a nuclear bomb — Iran has its own uranium enrichment facilities.

Iran expert Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council said that the uranium enrichment plants are the real backbone of Iranian efforts and expenditures to get a nuclear weapons capability, and he suspected that they, rather than Bushehr, would be Israel’s primary targets in any attack.

He suggested that Bolton was setting up a “straw man” by focusing on the fuel delivery to the Bushehr reactor.

“It’s not at all clear that Bushehr would be a high value target because it’s only tangentially related to any conceivable Iranian nuclear weapons program,” he said. “My suspicion is this isn’t a game changer. This isn’t going to give Iran enough fissile material for a bomb overnight.”

Berman added that since Bushehr is the most public Iranian nuclear facility, and therefore well monitored by international inspectors, it was also a less likely candidate for use by Iran to construct a bomb, though he nevertheless said if it became operational it would be “an enormous PR coup for the Iranians.”

Bolton dismissed the idea that international inspectors would contain the threat from the Bushehr reactor, pointing to instances inspectors had been kicked out.

He also said it was unlikely that Israel would attack Bushehr now and make another sortie against the enrichment facilities in later months because that would be a much more challenging task. For one thing, he point out that an attack on Bushehr would likely spur the Russians to transfer to Iran advanced missile defense systems it has agreed to sell Tehran but refrained from actually delivering.

and:

Radical Pelosi Calls For Investigation of Ground Zero Victory Mosque Opposition (Audio)

also;

Hugh Hewitt: Clip and save until November 2

By: Hugh Hewitt

November’s elections are undeniably party elections, as the two major parties clearly have split in profound, undeniable ways.

If you favor all or most of Obamacare, you should vote for every Democrat in every election, as Obamacare represents a victory for the entire Democratic Party organization, one it has been seeking since 1993.

If, on the other hand, you oppose all or most of Obamacare, or even just the unconstitutional individual mandate that requires every American to buy health insurance, then vote for every Republican at every level of government, so as to fully repudiate the Democratic Party that has foisted this job-killing and economy-chilling disaster on us all.

Many Democrats will try to flee their party’s legacy in this area, just as they will want to distance themselves from the failed $850 billion “stimulus” and the seizure of General Motors by the government.

Many Democrats will also want to try to avoid the president’s endorsement of the mosque at ground zero, the left’s war against marriage, and the Democrat-applauded actions of an activist, manipulative federal judge’s bizarre show trial and tortured opinion in the Proposition 8 case, as well as his post-decision effort to deny an appeal to defenders of California’s state constitution.

Democrats want to avoid their party leadership’s absolute commitment to ruinous and massive tax increases at the start of 2011, just as many Democrats want to shed responsibility for the president’s decision to sue Arizona over that state’s rather modest attempt to help plug the porous border.

But the president’s Department of Justice can only be overseen by congressional committees, which are all governed by Democratic congressmen who hold their jobs by the favor of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. So a vote for any Democrat at any level is an endorsement of a party that refuses to act with resolve on the border fence that is the outward and effective manifestation of an inner resolve to secure the border against the growing chaos of the evolving Somalia to our south.

The Democratic Party as a whole is also responsible for the fanaticism of the global warming cultists who are now operating through the unelected and unsupervised bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency to impose a massive federal regulatory scheme on businesses across the land, a naked power grab necessitated because 41 Republicans refused to be bullied into any version of cap and tax in the Senate. That’s the Democratic way — seize by administrative diktat or court order what you cannot gain via legitimate legislative victory.

If you favor keeping what remains of the free-enterprise system and you embrace the belief that Congress, not bureaucrats, ought to decide when that system is to be burdened with regulatory controls, then vote for every Republican at every level.

The same chasm separates Democrats from Republicans on a host of other issues, from defense spending Iran policy, the support of Israel and the so-called “card check” law that would end secret balloting in union elections.
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William R. Hawkins

Attempts by the Obama administration to “reset” relations with Russia have included the unilateral suspension of near-term plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe; the signing of the bilateral START arms control agreement; and U.S. support for Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization. Moscow rewarded these efforts by announcing last Friday (Aug. 13) that Russian and Iranian specialists will begin installing uranium fuel rods into the Bushehr nuclear reactor on August 21. Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the state-run Rosatom organization, will personally attend the opening ceremony.

Washington has opposed this action, but to no avail. Once operational, the reactor will produce plutonium than can be used for weapons. Given the rogue nature of the Tehran regime, its claims that the Bushehr plant is a “peaceful” facility separate from its military program is not credible.

It should be remembered that the missile defense system planned by the Bush administration for Poland and the Czech Republic was designed as a shield against the Iranian threat. When Russia objected, it was identifying its security interests with Iran’s, both being based on the ability to attack Europe.

China has also identified its interests with those of Iran. It was likely not a coincidence that on the same day the Russians made their announced about Bushehr, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times ran an editorial in support of Tehran and against the U.S. for “building its case against Iran by overstating the threat Iran poses to regional peace and stability” and for “dragging the entire region into dangerous uncertainty.” The voice of Beijing’s ruling party argued,

As a country with a long history and profound religious background, Iran deserves the right to keep its dignity and choose its own path of development. China respects its rights and sticks to the principle of solving the Iranian nuclear issue by using diplomatic means, a longtime policy it holds in solving international conflicts.

This long-standing policy makes clashes with the US more likely and is harder to avoid.

The US is not only casting the shadow of war on to the world, but it is also harming China’s interests.

The US and its coalition have been trying to press China to change its mind by isolating it, a tactic that is not working out. The US is learning the limitations of its policies and hearing more from China.

The editorial claimed that “China is against Iran acquiring nuclear weapons” but that “China has to secure its strategic interests in Iran.” Beijing has the leverage to stop Tehran’s nuclear program, just as it does with North Korea. It has not done so in either case because its strategic interests dictate otherwise. A small nuclear capability is thought to be a guarantee against “regime change.” China is aligning with Iran as the dominant power in the oil-rich Middle East.

The Global Times sees sanctions against Iran failing as Russia, China and unspecified “European countries” pursue business deals with the Tehran regime. Thus the diplomatic track will continue to be a futile effort to stem Iran’s ambitions, just as China and Russia have intended. This leaves only a military response or the acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran. The Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis is betting on the latter outcome.

The Real Problem Is Not the Mosque but the Nukes

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By Barry Rubin*

Forget about The Onion, The National Lampoon, Mad Magazine, and Saturday Night Live (sorry for all those American cultural references). When it comes to satire nobody can beat a New York Times editorial!

Well, this one is funny because the Times is–sort of–trying to praise the Israeli government and criticize the Palestinian Authority (PA) but you can’t help but laugh at the contortions they go through.

Here’s the first one:

“After three months of American-mediated proximity talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has agreed to direct negotiations on a two-state solution; the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is stubbornly resisting. It is time for him to talk.”

Now is this dishonest or what? The implication is that finally, just now, at the very last minute, and after three months (12 weeks, about 90 days) the U.S. negotiators can wipe the sweat from their brow and say that Netanyahu has agreed to direct negotiations.

But guess what? He publicly agreed to direct negotiations during a visit to Washington about 16 months (64 weeks, about 480 days) ago! So to avoid giving Netanyahu credit for being ready to talk all along the Times pretends that thanks only to a tremendous battle has the Obama Administration landed the big fish.

Ok, though, but at least they have praised Netanyahu and pointed out that Abbas is the barrier to progress? Not exactly. Keep reading:

“There are understandable reasons for Mr. Abbas’s reluctance. We also don’t know whether Mr. Netanyahu, a master manipulator, really wants a deal or whether his hard-line governing coalition would ever let him make one.”

Yeah, Abbas, that Netanyahu is one evil dude! We can hardly blame you for refusing to make peace. I can imagine Abbas saying: “Sorry, I cannot negotiate because Netanyahu is untrustworthy. I read it in the New York Times so it must be true.”
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By Barry Rubin*

This is one of those stories about the Middle East that is totally amazing but not the least bit surprising. What, you ask, do I mean? From the standpoint of the way the region is portrayed in the West this information is incredible but if you understand the area it is exactly what you’d expect.

I’m referring here to the recent 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll conducted by Zogby International and the University of Maryland for the Brookings Institution. Note that this poll was only done in relatively moderate countries: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates,

Here are some of the main findings:

–Arab views “hopeful” about the Obama Administration policy in the Middle East declined from 51 to 16 percent between 2009 and 2010, while those “discouraged” rose from 15 to 63 percent. Why? Because while the Obama Administration tried to flatter Arabs and Muslims, go all-out to support the Palestinians, distanced themselves from Israel, and took other steps it was not deemed sufficient.
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By Barry Rubin*

There is a great deal of heat and passion about the difference between “left” and “right” views in Israel. Yet these gaps, at least during this era, are far less significant than people think. I’m going to tell an anecdote that illustrates this point even as it seems to contradict it.

First, though, let me quickly add that these debates have been very important in the past. After the 1967 war, Israeli society conducted a quarter-century-long argument that, in the end, had no material application. The question was: Should Israel trade territory (the lands captured in the 1967 war) for peace or should it keep most of them on the twin assumptions that Israel had a claim and that the Arabs would never make full peace.

This debate was at first an abstraction since the Arab and Palestinian side did not seek peace for a long time. Then it was disrupted by the peace agreement with Egypt (a right-wing government returned the Sinai). Finally, in a sense, the two sides agreed to test the assumptions of the debate in the 1990s’ Oslo process. (The peace with Jordan also involved some territorial concessions by Israel.)

The majority of Israelis overwhelmingly agreed that the Oslo experiment was a failure from the point of view of thinking that giving up land would bring full and final peace to the conflict. Some hold that the experiment was worth making, others not. What is important, though, is that the effort was made and the result showed that neither the Palestinians nor Syria was ready to make full peace in 2000. Nothing has changed in this regard during the last decade.

Thus, a new Israeli consensus was made:

–In exchange for full peace, Israel would give up all of the Gaza Strip and almost all of the West Bank, with either border adjustments or land swaps to adjust the borders by about three percent (for incorporating some Jewish towns just across the new border into Israel and secure the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway).

–There was a big doubt that the Palestinians were ready for a full peace and Israel should be more skeptical than it had been with the Oslo experiment, which cost the lives of thousands of Israelis and actually made the West more hostile in the end.

–True, there is no consensus about precisely how east Jerusalem should be handled. What is basically accepted is the highest priority is incorporating into Israel the Jewish Quarter of the Old City (captured by Jordan in the 1948 war and with all of its Jewish inhabitants deliberately expelled), access to it through the tiny Armenian Quarter (about one city block), and the Western Wall, with the Temple Mount next. The Arab-inhabited areas are likely to be traded away to Palestinian state in exchange as long as there is no significant security threat to the Israeli portion of the city.
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By Barry Rubin*

In one of his out-of-control anti-Israel rants, Andrew Sullivan included in his list of alleged evils that Israel had repeatedly “defied” the United States. That point stuck in my mind and made me reflect how demonstrably untrue is that charge contrary to what people might think.

Certainly, there have been incidents of friction and disagreement–though always fairly short-lived–and at times Israel has either convinced U.S. policymakers of its position or the two sides agreed. Yet consider on all the key issues of the last twenty years how Israel did heed every major U.S. request.

In 1991, President George Bush asked Israel not to respond to Iraqi attacks. This was a huge request for any country whose civilians were being targeted by missiles and especially for Israel which has always believed that retaliation is essential to maintain its credibility. I can speak from personal experience here, with the nearest hit about ten blocks away from my home. The country not only faced the terror of sudden missile attacks, with the possibility of bacteriological or chemical warheads, but was also largely shut down economically for weeks. Yet Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir agreed, and Israelis stood by passive while the United States fought Iraq in Kuwait and Baghdad shot missiles onto its soil.

The Oslo agreements were an Israeli initiative yet during the nine years of negotiations that followed, Israel and the United States cooperated closely. Israel made a very forthcoming offer in 2000 supported by the United States that was rejected by the Palestinian leadership. There were no major incidents of conflict during the Clinton Administration.

The George W. Bush years were ones of relative amity. Ironically, the greatest disagreement, contrary to mythology, was Israel’s lack of enthusiasm for the Iraq war. The concern was that Israel would be asked to pay the political bill afterward, that Saddam might again fire missiles, and that the project of making Iraq into a democracy seemed ill-fated. But Israel supported its ally once the decision to attack Iraq was made. (more…)

By Barry Rubin*

Along Israel’s border with Lebanon, east of Metulla, some bushes were pushing in on the border fence. The fence is set in slightly from the border precisely so that Israeli soldiers can work on it. The IDF called UNIFIL and informed the UN that this work was going to be done today so that they could tell the Lebanese army that there was no aggression going on but just routine maintenance. Soldiers from UNIFIL came to observe and can be seen standing next to Israeli soldiers in the photos. Photographers were also standing by to film the operation.

But Lebanese soldiers opened fire on the Israelis who were working and in no way acting aggressively. The fact that journalists were standing next to the Lebanese soldiers shows that they knew Israel was going to do this maintenance and were observing. After the Israeli soldiers were ambushed, they returned fire. One Israeli officer was killed, another seriously wounded; three Lebanese soldiers, and a Lebanese (?) journalist were killed.

So how did Reuters and Yahoo report this? By saying that Israeli soldiers had crossed into Lebanon and been fired on, thus implying the Lebanese army was acting in self-defense! Other news agencies merely reported: Israel says the soldiers were inside Israel; Lebanon says they were on Lebanese territory.

Reuters: “An Israeli soldier is seen on a crane on the Lebanese side of the Lebanese-Israeli border near Adaisseh village, southern Lebanon August 3, 2010. Israeli artillery shelled the Lebanese village on Tuesday, wounding two people, after Lebanese Army troops fired warning shots at Israeli soldiers.”

Yahoo: “A Lebanese officer spoke on condition of anonymity under military guidelines, said the clash occurred as Israeli troops tried to remove a tree from the Lebanese side of the border.” No Israeli is quoted.

AP also missed explaining the story properly: “The violence apparently erupted over a move by Israeli soldiers to cut down a tree along the border, a sign of the high level of tensions at the frontier where Israel fought in 2006 with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah….There was no sign of any extensive Israeli preparations for a large-scale operation – an early indication the clash might not trigger a wider conflict.”

By the way, AP was so “accurate” as to correct the name of their photographer but not the biased inaccuracy of its facts!

The New York Times also takes a “neutral” approach: “Each side blamed the other for the flare-up, trading accusations of violating the United Nations Security Council resolution that underpins the four-year cease-fire.” But what is most amazing is the additional information that tells us more about contemporary journalism than almost anything you can read:

“Israel said that its forces were engaged in routine maintenance work in a gap between the so-called Blue Line, the internationally recognized border, and its security fence, and that it had coordinated in advance with the United Nations peacekeeping force in South Lebanon, UNIFIL.”
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By Barry Rubin*

Once upon a time in an intellectual galaxy now seemingly far away, liberals and conservatives shared a common view. There were the forces of democracy and the forces of totalitarianism (or, if you prefer, authoritarianism) that threatened the world, took away freedom, and held back both economic and social development. The goal of Western foreign policy was to help those favoring liberty against the tyrants and would-be tyrants.

Naturally, there were different views about how to do this, for example should some dictatorships be backed against those deemed worse, but the basic template was the same.

Then came a turning point which can be symbolized by a line in Walt Kelly’s comic-strip “Pogo.” A dialogue balloon destined to shake the world: “We have met the enemy,” said either Pogo the possum or Albert the alligator, “and he is us.” Kelly later wrote that he originated this line in 1953 in an essay opposing McCarthyism but it really took off in a 1972 cartoon, perfectly timed for the “1960s,” the era whose ideas rule us today in much of the West.

The sentence was a parody of Oliver Hazard Perry’s message-”We have met the enemy and they are ours”-describing his naval victory during the War of 1812. So what had once been a triumphant shout of American victory was transmuted in a post-Pogo world to symbolize a vitriolic yell of self-induced anti-Americanism.

And so if there are evil forces in the world, they are said either not to be evil at all (mislabeled as so by false Western propaganda) or were only made to behave that way by our (Western, American, democratic, capitalist, etc) sins. In other words, the guilty party is the democratic victim whose bad behavior created the monsters. In this spirit, a supposedly great American intellectual claimed America was the cancer of the world. Formerly, it had been known as the last, best hope of humanity.

How often do we see this worldview evinced nowadays? After September 11, America was said to be the cause of the terrorism that struck it. After the bloody July 7 attacks on British mass transport, a top British intelligence official said the terrorism happened due to Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war. President Barack Obama has made this a constant theme, most recently putting the Turkish trend toward Islamism (without admitting it exists) on the shoulders of European states that didn’t admit Turkey into the EU.
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By Barry Rubin*

A reader asks why Egypt insists on tying restrictions on the Iran’s nuclear program with putting restrictions on Israel’s program, including demanding Israel join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), that the doors to Israel’s Dimona reactor be opened to international inspectors, and that Israel must declare that it has nuclear weapons.

The reader adds that he knows Israel won’t do this so what’s the point of Egypt making a demand which makes it more likely Iran will get nuclear weapons and thus endanger Egypt and its interests? On one level, then, Egyptian policy doesn’t make sense.

For those who don’t know, by joining the NPT Treaty countries (like Iran) have received certain benefits. In exchange, they have to submit to inspections and basically promise not to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has broken these commitments. Israel never made them in the first place so Israel’s actions are quite in accord with international law.

At any rate, I responded by explaining that it was easy to understand the Egyptian government position: The regime wants everything without making any concessions itself. That isn’t just a goal; that’s its negotiating position. In addition, by putting the emphasis on Israel’s arsenal-which doesn’t threaten the current regime-Cairo looks good in Arab and Muslim terms. Will it actually work? Hey, that isn’t important! It works in other ways: strengthening the regime’s credentials at home and in the region. And that’s what’s important!

He responded: These despots don’t seem cunning to me at all.

But that’s flat wrong. They are very cunning and if you understand why and how then you can understand the Middle East. Conversely, those who don’t get it understand nothing.
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By Barry Rubin*

Doesn’t the West ever learn?

Step 1: Al-Hayat reports that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas offers to give Israel the Jewish Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem and the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple to Israel in a peace agreement.

Step 2: Media covers this extensively as great concession and proof that the Palestinian Authority wants peace.

Step 3: PA spokesman denies it.

And I happen to know for a fact that this story wasn’t true.

Over and over and over and over and over again.

PA prime minister Salam Fayad says Jewish settlers welcome to stay in Palestinian state. This contradicted every statement the PA and its leaders ever made. Media coverage. Denial.

A lone Palestinian whom nobody knows claims Israel committed massacre in Jenin. Media goes wild though there’s no proof. UN disproves allegation. (Some still believe it.)

PA parliament stages hoax, holding a session during broad daylight with curtains closed to “prove” Israel has shut off power. Shown to be false.

Multiple examples of altered photographs, false atrocity stories, etc.

Would it be beneficial if I listed a hundred such examples? Many of these are deliberately engineered, usually to claim falsely Israel has commited some crime, more rarely to exaggerate Arab or Palestinian moderation.
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Posted by Ben Domenech

The White House’s announcement today that they will bypass the nomination process of the United States Senate to recess appoint Donald Berwick as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is an act of unconscionable hubris.

The White House claims this act is in response to “Washington game-playing”, accusing Republicans of planning to “stall the nomination” as long as possible. This is nothing more than a baldfaced lie. Republicans cannot stall this nomination — it is impossible for them to do so under Senate rules — as not one hearing has been called or scheduled. Even the New York Times doesn’t buy the White House’s explanation, reporting: “The recess appointment was somewhat unusual because the Senate is in recess for less than two weeks and senators were still waiting for Dr. Berwick to submit responses to some of their requests for information.”

In truth, it is the White House that is playing games with the health policy of the nation and the welfare of the American people. In bypassing the traditional process through which the Senate advises and consents to nominees, President Obama is preventing Senators and the people they represent from obtaining any answers from Mr. Berwick, who has repeatedly made claims and statements that raise numerous questions about his suitability for this critical position.

Such questions would have concerned his remarks attacking private-sector solutions to health care problems, in support of “rationing with our eyes open,” and speaking of his affection for the United Kingdom’s National Health Service as “romantic.” In footage discovered and highlighted by the Heartland Institute in May, Mr. Berwick made this audacious statement: “Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional.”

Senators have expressed concerns about statements like these, as well as Mr. Berwick’s background. He is a nominee with little management experience poised to head the second largest insurer on the planet, an agency with more funding to disperse than all but the top 15 economies in the world. In fact, the White House’s decision to make this recess appointment is as much a demonstration of their unwillingness to have any debate about Mr. Berwick’s views occur in the public eye as it is of their concern that some in their own party have privately questioned whether he is outside the mainstream.

Such questions are of course appropriate. Thanks to the White House’s decision, they will not be answered. Understand: Mr. Berwick’s position as head of CMS will give him unprecedented power to apply his views on health care policy under President Obama’s new health care regime. Yet thanks to the White House’s game playing, he will not answer one question, not one, before he is ensconced in a position where his radical policy views will ultimately effect the lives and health care of every American.

As we saw in the process of Obamacare’s passage, there is nothing – not precedent, not tradition, not even the most basic expectations of fairness or responsible governance – that will stop President Obama and his allies in their quest to remake American social policy in their image.

also:

West Says: We’ve Helped Poor Gazans! Hamas Says: You’ve Given Us Gaza, Now on to More Wars, Seizing the West Bank, and Wiping Out Israel

By Barry Rubin*

Here is what President Barack H. Obama said after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

“We believe that there is a way to make sure that the people of Gaza are able to prosper economically, while Israel is able to maintain its legitimate security needs in not allowing missiles and weapons to get to Hamas.”

Now compare this with what the leader of the regime ruling the Gaza Strip says in explaining his broad strategy. See if there is any possible intersection between reality and Obama’s priority on mking the Gza Strip prosperous.

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahhar doesn’t want anyone to accuse him of hiding his plans and views. Perhaps he is trying to tip off the writers of all those Hamas-is-moderate articles.

Nope, they won’t listen. They’ll just keep writing about how Hamas is already moderate or about to be made so with more concessions.

Zahhar is also telling everyone the consequences of what the West has just done: accepted on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea a revolutionary Islamist, anti-American, anti-Western, repressive, Iranian client, terrorist regime that oppresses women, drives out Christians, and abuses children’s lives by turning them into future suicide bombers.

Or, what in the Western dialogue is referred to as resolving the “humanitarian crisis.” This is the regime whose domain Obama proposes to make prosperous. It makes me think of a cub scout meeting a serial murderer.
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By Barry Rubin*

Why was the meeting this time between President Barack H. Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a success? The answer is simple though not all the reasons are publicly known. So I’ll tell you about them.

The president couldn’t have been more effusive. They had an “excellent” discussion, Netanyahu’s sttement was “wonderful” and the U.S.-Israel relationship is “extraordinary.” Hard to believe this is the Obama we’ve seen before.

Obama wants to improve relations with Israel for several reasons. Obviously, he doesn’t want to be bashing Israel in the period leading up to the November elections is an important incentive. Polls show that for Americans his administration’s relative hostility toward Israel is its least popular policy. But there is more to this trend than just that point.

What Obama wants is to be able to claim a diplomatic success in advancing the Israel-Palestinian “peace process,” perhaps the only one he can so spin. Keeping indirect talks going and even better, moving them up to direct talks is his goal. So he wants Netanyahu’s cooperation for that.

The same point holds regarding the Gaza Strip, where Obama wants to claim he has defused a crisis he has called “unsustainable.”

(I hate that word. When you hear something is “unsustainable” immediately become suspicious. This has everything to do with perceptions and little to do with realities where quite a lot of things are quite sustainable. Pretty much every single Middle East problem has been sustained for decades.)

And he also wants to keep the Israel-Arab front calm while he deals with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, seeking above all to avoid crises and confrontations and to keep up his (bogus) bargain of trading flattery for popularity.

So here’s the deal. Give Israel some U.S. support in exchange for modest steps that the administration hopes accomplishes its goals. Israel will give some things that don’t appreciably hurt its interests in order to maintain good relations with the United States.
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By Elie Elhadj *

In December 2009, Abu Dhabi awarded South Korean companies a four-reactor BOT contract to generate 5,600 MW of electricity. In two contradictions, the emirate announced in February 2008 the plan to build Masdar City, a zero carbon, zero waste, and 100 percent renewable energy powered town; and in July 2009, it became the secretariat headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). This article argues that Abu Dhabi’s non-representative, non-participatory governance enables a poorly informed ruling elite enjoying rentier economic circumstances to reach such decisions. It concludes that the Masdar spirit and IRENA’s principles require Abu Dhabi to abandon nuclear energy for safe solar and wind power.

THE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

On December 28, 2009, Abu Dhabi awarded a contract [1] to build, operate, and transfer a 5,600 MW nuclear power plant composed of four reactors of 1,400 megawatt (MW) each to a consortium of South Korean firms.[2] The firms are led by Korea Electric Power Corporation and include Hyundai Engineering and Construction as well as Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Company. The project is to be completed in three phases between 2017 and 2020. Its estimated cost is reported between $20 and $40 billion.

In contradiction, Abu Dhabi has been simultaneously involved in two projects that are the antithesis of nuclear energy in terms of safety, environmental protection, and the promotion of renewable energy alternatives. The first is construction of the futuristic Masdar project. The second is becoming the secretariat headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). In what follows is a description of the two projects.

CONTRADICTION I: THE MASDAR PROJECT

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