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| Eugene Kontorovich, professor of international law. Credit: Legal Insurrection, Photo: mos225 / YouTube |
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| Readers should not be buying what Thomas Friedman is selling. Credit: Legal Insurrection -- Photo: AspenInstitute / YouTube |
1) He’s not here by accident. That is, this Iranian charm offensive is not because Rouhani, unlike his predecessor, went to charm school. Powerful domestic pressures have driven him here. 2) We are finally going to see a serious, face-to-face negotiation between top Iranian and American diplomats over Iran’s nuclear program. 3) I have no clue and would not dare predict whether these negotiations will lead to a peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis. 4) The fact that we’re now going to see serious negotiations raises the stakes considerably. It means that if talks fail, President Obama will face a real choice between military action and permanent sanctions that could help turn Iran into a giant failed state. 5) Pray that option 2 succeeds.While there are no doubt domestic considerations that drove Rouhani to appear conciliatory, there’s one reason that Friedman left out.
Let’s start with a small item in Britain’s Independent newspaper on July 24, which began: “He once sang, ‘You Gotta Get Outta This Place,’ but now Eric Burdon is not even turning up at all having deciding to withdraw from a planned concert in Israel. ... The Animals frontman, whose hits include ‘House of the Rising Sun,’ and ‘San Franciscan Nights,’ had been due to perform alongside local Israeli bands in Binyamina. ... However, in a statement, Mr. Burdon’s management, said: ‘We’ve been receiving mounting pressure, including numerous threatening e-mails, daily. ...’” Burdon was just the latest of a rising number of artists and intellectuals who have started boycotting Israel over the occupation issue.First of all as even Friedman acknowledged, Burdon's cancellation was due to "threatening e-mails." This wasn't an example of protesting Israeli policies. Second of all the stated purpose of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement isn't co-existence; it's no Israel. In one paragraph, while professing his concern for Israel, Friedman accepted threats as an acceptable way to oppose Israeli policies and validated those seeking to destroy Israel as legitimate.
In fact, it’s still not clear what the White House is doing. In a June 13 conference call with reporters ostensibly rolling out the new policy, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications Ben Rhodes failed to provide any details. Reporters asked several times what kind of aid the administration had in mind, and whether Obama was actually going to arm the rebels. “We’re just not going to be able to lay out an inventory of what exactly falls under the scope of that assistance,” said Rhodes. Last week, Obama himself addressed the Syria issue, without providing any more clarity than his point man for strategic communications. In an appearance on the Charlie Rose show, the commander in chief told his host, “I’ve said I’m ramping up support for both the political and military opposition. I’ve not specified exactly what we’re doing, and I won’t do so on this show.” Maybe someone in the White House is advising Obama that obfuscation and ambiguity make a president look presidential.
Ireland is reportedly blocking efforts inside the European Union to formally blacklist Hezbollah as a terror organization. Britain recently initiated procedures to add the Iran-backed terror group to the E.U. blacklist, after Bulgarian officials linked Hezbollah to the July 2012 Burgas bombing that killed six civilians and a Cypriot court convicted a confessed Hezbollah member on terrorism-related charges. The U.S. has repeatedly called upon the E.U. to follow its example and ban the group, which has established deep roots on the Continent.Even as Hezbollah's reach is seen in South America and Syria the European Union refuses to sanction the terror group operating within its borders.
Of late, almost every sector of the electorate has felt unease about one part or another of Erdogan’s agenda. Restrictive new alcohol legislation, rammed through parliament, as usual, with contempt for the minority opposition, has prompted outrage; the so-called peace process with the PKK, which no one understands, has caused great unease. Anxiety is growing as well, not only about press censorship, but also about the prosecution of those who insult government officials or “Islamic values” on social media.
Bill Keller apparently lacks a working irony detector, assures us “Syria Is Not Iraq” nytimes.com/2013/05/06/opi…
— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 6, 2013
I wonder if @nytkeller has studied the lyrics of "Won't Get Fooled Again." nytimes.com/2013/05/06/opi…
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) May 6, 2013
The terrorist group Hezbollah has been seeking operatives with Canadian passports, a senior intelligence official told MPs reviewing a bill Thursday that could strip terrorists of their citizenship. Appearing before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service official said Canadian passport holders were being actively sought by terrorist groups. ... The RCMP is also investigating allegations a Lebanese-Canadian Hezbollah member was behind last July’s bombing of a bus full of Israeli tourists at Sarafovo airport on the Black Sea coast. The suspect, who now lives in Lebanon, had used his Canadian passport to travel to Bulgaria.
In a remarkable and enduring show of unity, non-Islamic opposition parties under the banner of the National Salvation Front are boycotting the regime until their demands – canceling the Islamic constitution and setting up a consensus government until new elections are held – are met.
The Muslim Brotherhood who had won a sweeping victory in the first free parliamentary elections and got their candidate elected president have bitterly disappointed the people who had put their faith in them.
Paul Danahar, the BBC Middle East bureau chief, wrote on his Twitter account that an Israeli shell had come through the roof of the small Gaza home. Mr. Danahar visited his grieving colleague there on Nov. 15 and posted a photograph of a roundish hole in the roof of a burned-out room.
But a March 6 report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eight-day conflict, which ended with a cease-fire, stated that three people in the home — Omar, a woman and an 18-year-old youth — were most likely the victims of “what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short of Israel.”
The circumstances of those deaths are likely to remain in dispute. Israel’s military has not determined whether it hit the house or not, saying it does not have clear information about what happened. The BBC has reported that privately, military officials told journalists at the time that Israel had aimed at a militant who was hiding in the building.There are a few things here.
In the recent interview Mr. Fayyad put most of the blame for the authority’s financial distress on Arab donors who are “not fulfilling their pledge of support” made in Arab League resolutions to make up the money Israel is withholding. This should come as little surprise. Arab leaders have often promised political and economic support for the Palestinians and failed to deliver. Arab foreign ministers are expected to meet Sunday in Cairo to discuss Palestinian issues, including the promised aid. They should affirm their commitment to assist the Palestinian Authority and get the funds flowing.And if the Arab world cared as much about the Palestinian as the New York Times purports to, maybe those foreign ministers would commit to meeting their pledges. But this is a longstanding issue as this article from 2008 shows, I hardly think that a New York Times editorial will change the situation.
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| Credit: Wiki Commons |
The only thing standing between Israel and national suicide any more is America and its willingness to tell Israel the truth.What's the truth?
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| Credit: Wiki Commons |
"If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions."
Abba Eban (h/t Elder of Ziyon)
I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."
Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant
