1) I anxiously await the New York Times editorial bemoaning the decline of democracy in EcuadorTechnorati Tag: Israel and Middle East.
President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, an ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, just won a criminal libel judgment against a newspaper editor.
A judge in Ecuador ruled Wednesday that the directors and former opinion editor of El Universo newspaper must each serve three years in prison for an opinion article about President Rafael Correa, state media reported. The judge also ruled that the accused must pay $30 million, and the newspaper must pay $10 million, to Correa, the state-run El Ciudadano government information website reported.He seems to have learned from Chavez.
(h/t to Eugene Volokh who has interesting observations about when such prosecutions have occurred in the United States!)
2) Good neighbors?
In August, 2001, during the "Aqsa Intifada" Charles Krauthammer wrote a column suggesting what Israel do:
Aaron Lerner critiqued (and objected to) the plan.There is only one way this war will stop. The scenario would go like this:A lightning and massive Israeli attack on every element of Arafat's police state infrastructure--the headquarters and commanders of his eight (!) security services, his police stations, weapons depots, training camps, communications and propaganda facilities (radio, TV, government-controlled newspapers)--with a simultaneous attack on the headquarters and leadership of Arafat's Hamas and Islamic Jihad allies.Arafat has given Israel war; he will now receive it. He either flees (as he did Jordan when trying to overthrow King Hussein in 1970) or is deported back to Tunis (as he was from Lebanon in 1982).
Israel does not reoccupy Palestinian cities. Israeli troops stay only the few days necessary to (1) begin building a wall of separation between Palestinian and Israeli territory and (2) evacuate the more far-flung Israeli settlements.With a new border consolidated, Israel withdraws.In the current bloodshed, not a single suicide bomber has come from Gaza. Why? Because there already is a wall separating Gaza from Israel. Palestinians have lobbed mortars over it, but it is difficult to send suicide bombers through it. Such a wall built between the rest of Palestine and Israel is the only way to ensure the reduction of violence that everyone says they want.
I quote the column because it is rare for a columnist (or anyone) to predict future events so accurately. Israel has fought the war, built the fence and experienced a drastic drop in terror attacks. And yet here's a recent description of the fence in a "news" story:
Israel began building the West Bank barrier in 2002, amid a violent Palestinian uprising, stating that it was essential to prevent suicide bombers from reaching Israel.But most of the barrier runs inside the West Bank, deviating from the pre-1967 boundary, leading the Palestinians to accuse Israel of a land grab. The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in 2004 that the construction of the barrier inside occupied Palestinian territory was contrary to international law.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Mideast Media Sampler 07/21/2011
From DG:
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