If everyone shows goodwill and mutual trust, if all international negotiators actively push the sides toward reconciliation, this goal is quite realistic
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, after meeting Abbas
But there is another issue I want to underscore. Unless you have driven from Jerusalem to Efrat to Tekoa, please don't whine about the conditions of the Palestinians, because what you will see on the drive I just mentioned, are fabulous homes all along the Palestinian territories, and the few Israeli outposts in the area have very very modest homes built with their own hands and that of their neighbors.To get an idea of what Cobb is writing about, take a look at Arab Mansions, a post by Shiloh Musings written back in March 2007.
It's very annoying and inaccurate that people who aren't familiar with the facts on the ground here in the Shomron, north of Jerusalem, Israel, have such a totally distorted view of things.Here are the pictures she took:
My neighbors and I live in small, modest homes. Yes, that's the truth. The large, enormous mansions north of Jerusalem all belong to Arabs. For the longest time, I had been thinking of trying to sell a photo-story showing those elegant structures. Then finally during Succot, I mentioned it to a neighbor who said that he'd love to drive around with me, while I took pictures. thanks ms! So we went off one day and were amazed at how many gorgeous mansions were between Shiloh and Jerusalem.
"One major foreign news service reported this week that the Negev area has been "quiet" since the end of Cast Lead."
Gaza terrorists attacked the Western Negev Wednesday morning with a Kassam rocket before workers arrived, but it heavily damaged a packing house that was knocked out of operation. Workers who had not yet arrived at work remained in their homes in the Sdot Negev area, south of Ashkelon.
The Turkish tourism industry has been seriously affected by the recent tension between former allies Turkey and Israel. The Turkish economy has lost at least $400 million due to reservation cancellations from Israeli tourists, according to tourism agencies.
On Iran, however, the Saudi king fears that his country's historically closest ally is naive, and dangerously so, for putting so much faith in diplomacy. The same emotional approach that causes Abdullah to anguish about the Palestinians also explains his distrust and antipathy toward the Iranians, whom he sees as typically untrustworthy Shiite challengers to Sunni, and therefore Saudi, custodianship of the holy places of Islam.According to FP, King Abdullah has been trying to create daylight between Saudi Arabia and the US--the better to be able to position his country in the Sunni-Shiite rivalry. To do that, the perception of being a pawn of the US has got to go.
Some time this fall, an administration headed toward a midterm election with a faltering economy and negative developments in two war zones may confront a genuine Middle East crisis. We can only hope that its contingency plans are in place and that they're better than BP's.Technorati Tag: Israel.
The only way to move forward with any peace process is by insisting that the Palestinians first get their act together and end the infighting between the two Palestinian states. Perhaps before we search for ways to make peace between Jews and Palestinians, we need first need to find a way to achieve peace between Palestinians and Palestinians.Until that time, Obama--in his single-minded push for peace--is ignoring a number of inconvenient truths about the current situation facing Abbas and the PA:
It was only when I came back to this after leaving office [as British prime minister ] that I understood the impact of the [second] intifada and the disengagement from Gaza on the Israeli mindset. The combination of those two things fundamentally changed the way Israelis look at this situation. Their position now is to say, ‘Show us that if we make peace, it’s a genuine, lasting peace with a Palestinian state that we can predict, that is stable, and that is a secure partner for us. Show us that, and we’ll give it a go. But if you can’t show us that, the experience of the last 10 years makes us very doubtful.’The question is: will we have to wait until Obama leaves office before he understands?
The number of people killed in Arab police stations...is much higher than those who were killed in the Israeli-Arab wars
Magdi Khal
Egyptian-American Writer Magdi Khalil Blasts Anti-Israeli Sentiment in the Arab and Islamic World
Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian-American writer Magdi Khalil, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on June 15, 2010:
Magdi Khalil: Whenever there is an incident, Israel does “damage control.” This is part of the Israeli defense tactics. These are successful people, not like Ahmadinejad, who said that Security Council Resolution 1929 should be thrown into the garbage bin. They deal with things seriously. These people know the meaning of world public opinion.
My colleague said that Israel is supported by Western imperialism and by the U.S. If so, Israel will collapse when Western civilization collapses.
Lebanon has marginalized Palestinian refugees for too long. Parliament should seize this opportunity to turn the page and end discrimination against Palestinians."
Human Rights Watch
Several thousand Palestinians and Lebanese civil activists converged on central Beirut on
Sunday, demanding more rights for Palestinians, many of whom live in squalid and over-crowded refugee camps.
Dozens of buses transported demonstrators waving Palestinian flags from refugee camps across the country -- from the southern city of Tyre as well as from the northern city of Tripoli.
"As Palestinians in Lebanon we have no rights. We just want to live with dignity," said Palestinian Imtithal Abu Samra, 29, who lives in the Beddawi refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
Some 425,000 Palestinians are registered as refugees in Lebanon by UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees. Many live in 12 camps across Lebanon in conditions the UN has described as deplorable and appalling.
On August 25, 2005, anonymous radical Islamist clerics published in the Saudi daily newspaper
al-Watan, an anti-soccer fatwa (ruling). This fatwa, as well as other similar anti-soccer fatwas, caused three Saudi players of al-Ta'if region's well-known al-Rashid soccer team, not only to leave the team but also to believe that soccer was forbidden by religious law. One of those three, Majid al-Sawat, was arrested while planning to carry out a suicide bombing in Iraq. The fatwa declared that soccer is permissible to play only when its rules are different from the accepted international rules. The ruling is based on a hadith (prophetic tradition) which forbids Muslims to imitate Christians and Jews.1
Hamas says asked by US to keep silent on talks
Islamist group source says senior American officials request contacts remain secret 'so as not to rouse Jewish lobby'
A senior Hamas figure said Friday that official and unofficial US sources have asked the Islamist group to refrain from making any statements regarding contacts with Washington, this following reports that a senior American official is due to arrive in an Arab country in the coming days to relay a telegram from the Obama Administration.
"Smuggling" is not the correct word to describe the network of tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt. Whereas smuggling connotes illegal activity carried out clandestinely, the Palestinian tunnel network is out in the open and extends the whole length of the border.
there are, first of all, international conventions governing the status of prisoners of war, and the sole fact that this one has been sequestered for four years, the fact that the Red Cross, which regularly visits Palestinians in Israeli prisons, has never been granted access to him is a flagrant violation of the laws of war. But moreover and most of all, we must never tire of repeating this: Shalit was not captured in the fury of a battle but during a raid in Israel, when Israel, having evacuated Gaza, was at peace with its neighbor.Hamas knows exactly what it is doing in kidnapping and holding Gilad Shalit--following in the footsteps of other terrorist groups such as FARC and its terrorist sponsor Iran:
Shalit is not a prisoner of war but a hostage. His fate is comparable to that of, not a Palestinian prisoner, but a kidnap victim being held for ransom. And he must then be defended as we defend the hostages of the FARC or the Libyans or the Iranians -- we must stand up for him with the same energy devoted to the defense of, say, Clotilde Reiss [a French student accused by Iran of being an agent of the French Secret Service] or Ingrid Betancourt [French-Colombian politician, former senator and anti-corruption activist kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and rescued 6 years later].It is time to stop playing the game being played by the Hamas terrorists and their apologists--not to mention the flotillas, whose deceptions are revealed by their refusal to bring aid to or visit Gilad Shalit in Gaza.
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| Ehud Barak and Barack Obama: More in common than a name? |
"I want to plead guilty, and I will plead guilty a hundred times over until the United States pulls its troops out of Afghanistan, stops its drone strikes in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims" Shahzad rambled to a Manhattan federal court judge.Daniel Pipes notes that Shahzad's open admission in court is something of a first:
"We will be attacking [the] US, and I plead guilty to that," Shahzad calmly told Judge Miriam Cedarbaum.
“Ethnic Prejudice” Neither Ethnic Nor Prejudice
Rabbi Avi Shafran
The recent Israeli High Court ruling against parents of students in the Israeli town of Emmanuel and the ensuing massive haredi demonstration on the parents’ behalf present an opportunity to either jump to conclusions or objectively evaluate the facts.
Several Sephardi parents – Israelis of North African and Middle-Eastern backgrounds – in the town brought a lawsuit aimed at preventing other parents of students who had been studying in the local Beit Yaakov girls’ school from maintaining a new school the latter group had established. The court ruled that the new school was born of illegal ethnic discrimination and, later, that the “new school” parents’ subsequent second choice – to send their daughters to a school in another city – was also forbidden them. The court fined those parents for each day they refused to comply with its order to return their children to the Emmanuel Beit Yaakov, threatened them with prison and then made good on the threat. On June 17, the parents, wearing their Sabbath clothes, were held aloft and escorted to the prison by a peaceful crowd of tens of thousands, singing and dancing, in a demonstration of support for the soon-to-be prisoners.
What gives here? Well there are two versions. First, the one presented by most media:
"Palestinian refugees in Lebanon do not enjoy several basic human rights, for example, they do not have the right to work in as many as 20 professions. Palestinian refugees are not formally citizens of another state, so they are not able to claim the same rights as other foreigners living and working in Lebanon."
UNRWA
-----
[S]tate policies and practices in Lebanon discriminate, effectively on grounds of racial and national origin, against Palestinian refugees who reside in Lebanon and that, consequently, Lebanon is failing to comply with its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child with respect to Palestinian children. Particular concerns highlighted include limitations on the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to education, the right to be registered and the right to a name, and the right to social security.
Amnesty International
Now that the Lebanese have boosted their national pride by registering the world's biggest dish of hummus in the Guinness Book of Records, they are bidding for the record in hypocrisy, soon to be seen on television screens everywhere. For it is not humanitarian motives or concern for the Palestinians that are making all these hypocrites restless. All they want is spectacle, footage and headlines. Because as we have already said, the Israeli-Palestinian arena is the most photogenic arena in the world.Just how poorly does Lebanon treat its Palestinians?
If they had any genuine humanitarian concern, the Lebanese would stage protests against the harsh blockade that has been imposed on the Palestinian refugee camps in their country for decades. You have to read Amnesty International's reports on the situation of the Palestinians in Lebanon to comprehend the humanitarian disaster there. This hypocrisy was best described by a European volunteer in those camps, who told the organizers of the new flotilla: "You love the Palestinians in Gaza and hate your own Palestinians."
“AIPAC’s mandate is to support the decisions of the democratically elected government of Israel, be it left, right or center,” he said. “J Street makes its own policy and does not necessarily, to say the least, accept the decisions of the policies of the government of Israel.”It's a matter of emphasis.
“Listen, I represent the democratically elected government, and that government reflects the will of the people of Israel, and what they perceive as the interests of Israel,” he said, adding that J Street was an organization “taking issue with that, and that in itself is a source of disagreement.” [emphasis added]
First, he’s raised the profile of international organizations, conferred on them new prestige, elevated gangs of thugs like the UN Human Rights Council, and made clear that international consensus is near and dear to him, a priority above many other foreign policy goals. This has emboldened Israel’s foes, who now enjoy more respect and more visibility. Because Obama has put such a high price on consensus in these bodies and on internationalizing decisions, he is handing a veto to the more aggressively anti-Israel members.
"Samson Option": choice in absence of choice?
by Alexander Maistrovoy
Showing weakness and stupidity, the West encourages the Middle East predators, promotes the collapse of moderate Arab regimes and throws Israel into a dilemma: the Holocaust or the "Samson option"
"When people speak about human rights, everyone has in mind his own ones", a German scientist and publicist Wilhelm Schwebel wrote. His words perfectly reflect the issue of "breaking" the Gaza blockade. These actions are as related to human rights as Josef Stalin's "fight for peace". Till now not a single person has died of hunger in Gaza . They die in the other parts of the world, in Kirghizia, but nobody cares about it. The rights of Palestinians are above the rights of Uzbek people. As well as the Sudanese Christians, Iraqi Kurds, Boers in Southern Africa, "Ahmadyya" in Pakistan and Baha’is in Iran. Palestinians are the high caste of mankind because fortunately they are up against Israel , and the international community has its own rights and interests in this conflict.
What are they? Interests of all the players are very clear except for the West.
The aid flotilla planned to set sail from Lebanon is supported by Syria and Hezbollah. Its organizer, Yasser Qashlaq, called for “getting rid of the remainder of the garbage of Europe” [the Jews in Israel] and sending them back to their “homelands.”Read the whole thing.
Overview
1. The international media coverage given the last flotilla to the Gaza Strip and the political pressure exerted on Israel as a result led many organizations and one country to proclaim their intention to send more ships. On the agenda is the intention to dispatch two ships which are expected to set sail from Lebanon to the Gaza Strip. The first, the Nagi al-Ali, is expected to carry 100 people, among them 25 European activists (some of the parliamentarians according to the organizers) and 50 correspondents. Another ship, the Maryam, is expected to set sail with 50-60 women aboard and a cargo of humanitarian assistance.
2. So far the organizers are being deliberately vague about the expected date of sailing. The date has been delayed because, among other reasons, of political pressure. However, the organizers still hope to have the ships set sail in the coming days, possibly through an intermediate destination, perhaps Cyprus.
3. In the meantime the organizers and Hezbollah have been exploiting the affair to launch a propaganda campaign against Israel, full of hatred and anti-Israeli anti-Semitic motifs. Yasser Qashlaq, the dominant figure in organizing the flotilla, declared that the ships over which the IDF takes control “will take the remainder of the European garbage” which came to Israel back to their homelands [See videos below]. Hezbollah’s propaganda network has been fully covering the events, trying to reinforce their media effect.
4. Responsible for dispatching the ships are low-ranking Lebanese activists who have no particular standing in Lebanon’s internal politics. Some of them belong to the March 8 Alliance, which supports Hezbollah and Syria. The two groups behind the operation are Journalists without Bounds and the Free Palestine Movement, two fairly minor organizations. In our assessment, purchasing the ships and organizing the flotilla were carried out with Syrian and Hezbollah involvement and support. Neither of them wants to expose its true identity.
Ehud Barak, the defense minister of Israel, said this to Robert Gates, our own defense chief: “A million and a half people are living in Gaza, but only one of them is really in need of humanitarian aid.” He meant Gilad Shalit, held hostage by Hamas for four years.An unquestioning public accepts the protestations of 'humanitarian activists' who glibly claim to be interested in peace, without having to even have to give the appearance of even-handedness.
Hamas does not permit the Red Cross to see Shalit, of course. Neither does the Cuban dictatorship or Chinese dictatorship permit the Red Cross to see prisoners. May I remind you that the Red Cross visited inmates in Nazi concentration camps? One was Carl von Ossietzky, the pacifist journalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize for 1935. And may I remind you that Red Cross representatives were regular companions of Nelson Mandela, imprisoned on Robben Island?
If Gilad Shalit were other than Israeli, there’d be mass demonstrations in his behalf all over Europe, and on American streets, too. But . . .
In a comment article for the Bahraini newspaper Al Wasat, Obeidli al Obeidli underscored the fact that Israel outperforms the Arab world in scientific research.Part of the huge discrepancy between Israel and the Arab world when talking about scientific research comes down to a question of numbers:
According to papers presented on the academic situation in the Arab world, 35 per cent of Arab academics live in the diaspora, and two thirds of those have no plans to return. Quoting Idriss Laghrini, a Moroccan thinker, al Obeidli says that Arab countries lost the opportunity to take advantage of its academic diaspora. He accused a dilapidated bureaucracy for not offering an environment conducive to research and innovation.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal law forbidding support for peaceful activities to terrorist organizations.According to the article, the original law has been invoked about 150 times since 9/11--but rarely in connection with humanitarian aid. The case before the court was brought by aid groups that had been training a Kurdish organization in Turkey how to bring human rights complaints to the United Nations and offered assistance in peace negotiations.
In the case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the court on Monday ruled 6 to 3 that Congress and the executive branch could bar all "material support," including training and advice of a peaceful and legal nature, to organizations considered terrorist under the Patriot Act. The court said the action does not violate the free speech rights of the donors.
It's been called an "open air prison," said to be "one of the worst humanitarian crises in the 21st century." Well, here is the REAL story about the situation in Gaza. With facts from the United Nations and footage taken in Gaza City, this is the TRUTH.What we need to hear--and what the pro-Palestinian apologists cannot explain--is why Gaza, which not only receives aid on a daily basis, but to which aid can be sent by land, requires publicity-grabbing flotillas, while real humanitarian crises demanding real action are ignored.
Iran issues warning to 62,000 'badly veiled' womenAnd who should happen to oppose the crackdown?
Iranian police have issued warnings to 62,000 women who were "badly veiled" in the Shiite holy province of Qom as part of a clampdown on dress and behaviour, a newspaper said on Monday.
Around "62,000 women were warned for being badly veiled" in the province of Qom, Tehran Emrouz newspaper quoted provincial police chief Colonel Mehdi Khorasani as saying.
Protesters block unloading of Israeli cargo ship in OaklandIt just so happened that neither the headline, nor the story that followed was actually true.
Pro-Palestinian protesters on Sunday created a blockade of their own on Sunday by gathering at the Port of Oakland before dawn to block the unloading of an Israeli cargo ship.
Captain Kirk: Nobody understands you in this century unless you swear every other word. You'll find it in all the literature of the era: Jaclyn Suzanne, the novels of Harold Robbins."
Spock: Ah, the giants.
Star Trek IV
Rock bands now find moral imprimatur in canceling their summer tour stops in Israel (Elvis Costello, the Pixies, the Gorillaz, the Klaxons). A demonstrator at an anti-Israel rally in New York carries a sign depicting the skull and crossbones drawn over the word "Israel." White House correspondent Helen Thomas, in one of the ugliest incarnations of this voice, calls on Jews to move back to Poland. And of course the United Nations and other international organizations smugly pass one condemnatory resolution after another against Israel while the Obama administration either joins in or demurs with a wink.Such is what the world has come to. Jay Nordlinger writes:
The attitude to Iran is negative among Germans (86%), the French (81%), and Spaniards (73%), among other nationalities. Elsewhere, 63% of Jordanian respondents and 60% of Lebanese respondents also expressed negative sentiments towards Tehran. Iran does enjoy favorable sentiments in Pakistan (72%) and in Indonesia (62%).Nuclear Iran
But my own sad prediction is that among non-Orthodox Jews, the real divide will be between activists (whether leaders of community organizations, synagogue officials, major donors, or regular synagogue goers) and the broader majority of Jews. The activists will dump Obama; the rest will not, for their commitment to Israel and, for that matter, to Judaism is simply less powerful than their secular religion—liberalism as represented in the Democratic Party. Whatever excuse they supply themselves (for example, the Republican candidate for president, or even vice president, will undermine “a woman’s right to choose”), they will be displaying their priorities. Israel is simply not near the top of their list.Yglesias counters:
For which reason, more committed Jews can only thank God for the greater commitment of so many evangelicals—whose party loyalties have not become a religious faith and who will indeed dump Obama if he abandons Israel in a time of peril.
But of course most Jews will vote for the political party that advances the policy agenda, including on abortion rights, that most Jews agree with. What on earth else are people supposed to do?
The first is that Israel’s blockade of Gaza in general, and its botched raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in particular, has only strengthened Hamas.
Judging from what subsequently spewed over the transom, Statistics Canada's report that hate crimes directed at Jews were up 42 per cent in Canada was unsurprising.
Many, including Jews, who question Israeli policy, play down anti-Semitism as a factor. Yet anti-Israel rhetoric appears to grant permission to growing numbers to express anti-Semitic sentiments.
...Beyond the wilder fringes, there used to be a consensus of aims about Israel/Palestine. Just as the desired goal in South Africa was a prosperous multiracial society, in the Holy Land it was of two secure states living side by side in harmony. But for those who have fallen into the trap of equating white South Africa with the state of Israel, the conflict in the Middle East offers many more – and more comfortable – opportunities to protest than years in the bush in the frontline states.
The struggle for Palestinian rights has long since moved beyond the university campuses where the keffiyah became the fashion statement of choice for bourgeois radicals. For a generation to whom Vietnam and South Africa are either faint memories or battles only read about in history books, Palestine is the most perfect cause. Unlike in the Spanish civil war, it’s not even as though Ireland, Catholic or Protestant, could be said to have a dog in the race. There are no mutilated nuns to confuse sentiment.
Muslim states said Wednesday that what they call "islamophobia" is sweeping the West and its media and demanded that the United Nations take tougher action against it.Yeah, especially.
Delegates from Islamic countries, including Pakistan and Egypt, told the United Nations Human Rights Council that treatment of Muslims in Western countries amounted to racism and discrimination and must be fought.
"People of Arab origin face new forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance and experience discrimination and marginalisation," an Egyptian delegate said, according to a U.N. summary.
And Pakistan, speaking for the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), said the council's special investigator into religious freedom should look into such racism "especially in Western societies."
The State Department's two leading Twitterati, Special Advisor on Innovation Alec J. Ross(@alecjross) and Policy Planning staffer Jared Cohen (@jaredcohen), are in Syria this weekleading a delegation of tech companies hoping to, as the Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon puts it, "woo President Bashar al-Assad away from his strategic alliance with Iran" with offers of networking equipment, computer software, and the like.
But it's not all work and no play for Ross and Cohen, who have been finding some time to take in the sights and tell us about it, 140 characters at a time. For example, according to Ross, on Tuesday Cohen challenged the Syrian Minister of Telecom to a cake-eating contest and called it "Creative Diplomacy." Match that, Tehran!
An all-female ship, transporting medical supplies to Gaza is to leave Lebanon in the coming days, organizers said.
“We are all independent women who believe in breaking the [Israeli] siege on Gaza,” said Samar Hajj, who is coordinating the trip.
Hajj stressed that the activists were not affiliated with Hizbullah or any other political group. “This has nothing to do with Hizbullah even though it is an honor for us to be supporters of the Resistance,” she said.
Almost at the same time that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was meeting in the White House with President Barack Obama last week, the Palestinian government surprised Palestinians by announcing that municipal elections, slated for July 17, have been called off indefinitely.The reason for canceling elections?
“A government that is scared of a corpse is a weak government,” Shirin Ebadi said, referring to the government’s decision to bar families of killed protesters from holding public funerals. Attacks on Mehdi Karroubi and raids on the offices of Grand Ayatollahs Saane’i and Montazeri show the increasing desperation of Iran’s rulers. Every website managed by WordPress (the most popular blog hosting platform on the web) has been filtered since this past weekend in Iran (including this blog), and the
Revolutionary Guards have even set up a “Facebook Espionage Division.” All of this indicates that the Islamic Republic is a regime that has become afraid of its own shadow. And this is the real story of the past year.
In the most open conflict in months between the left-leaning Israel group J Street and the traditional pro-Israel powerhouse AIPAC, the liberal group is asking members of Congress not to sign a letter backed by AIPAC that supports the Israeli side of the Gaza flotilla incident.The key point about Ben-Ami's letter to Congress:
J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami writes that the AIPAC letter "fail[s] to address the impact of the present closure of Gaza on the civilian population, the deep American interest in resolving this conflict diplomatically, or the urgency of moving forward with diplomacy before it is too late."
His letter is silent on the actual substance of AIPAC's defense of Israel's actions.The Congressional letter is intended to recognize the evidence that has shown that the world condemnation of Israel is unfounded--and J Street finds that threatening.
The statement, delivered by Norwegian Ambassador Bente Angell-Hansen, expressed concern over a "lack of progress in the protection of human rights in Iran," especially since the widespread arrests and bloody crackdowns against dissidents that followed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election on June 12, 2009.
Obama is too friendly with tyrants
When a billboard appeared outside a small Minnesota town early this year showing a picture of George W. Bush and the words "Miss me yet?" the irony was not lost on many in the Arab world. Most Americans may not miss Bush, but a growing number of people in the Middle East do. Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remain unpopular in the region, but his ardent support for democracy was heartening to Arabs living under stalled autocracies. Reform activists in Lebanon, Egypt, Kuwait and elsewhere felt empowered to press for greater freedoms during the Bush years. Unfortunately, Bush's strong support for democracy contrasts sharply with President Obama's retreat on this critical issue.Somehow, for Obama, favoring stability seems to come at the expense of allies--and Israel is just one of many.
...Despite his promises of change when speaking in Cairo last June, Obama has retreated to Cold War policies of favoring stability and even support for "friendly tyrants."
[S]ince 2001, Iran has improved its geostrategic position more than almost any other country in the world, and it has done so based almost entirely on the blunders of others...As with virtually every major regional event since 2001, the Iranians will need only to sit back without firing a single shot to come out on top.
The State Department has dispatched a high-level diplomatic and trade mission to Syria, according to senior U.S. officials, marking the latest bid by the Obama administration to woo President Bashar al-Assad away from his strategic alliance with Iran.
The U.S. delegation comprises senior executives from some of America's top technology companies, including Microsoft Corp., Dell Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. and Symantec Corp., according to the U.S. officials. All these companies' businesses in Syria are constrained by U.S. sanctions.
The mission is controversial, given recent U.S. allegations that Syria transferred missiles to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Syria, Hezbollah and Lebanon deny the allegations.
Overview
1. Statements made by IDF soldiers, pictures taken aboard the Mavi Marmara,
statements from passengers, information found in files on laptops seized from the ship and
statements made by passengers to the media after their release, all prove that the
violence employed against the IDF on board the ship was not spontaneous but
rather a premeditated operation. The operation was organized beforehand by IHH
and implemented by a hard core of 40 violent operatives who were taken on board
specifically for the purpose. This bulletin provides an updated picture based on recently
acquired information.
Despite official denials, some hint that the US advocates dialogue with [the less radical elements within] Hamas and Hizbollah -- yet for someone who is avowedly NOT a terrorist, the USA is trying its best to deport himFrom The Wall Street Journal:
The Muqata
Mosab Hassan Yousef is a best-selling author who wrote "Son of HamasAnd here is a post from Yousef's blog" about his life as a Palestinian who became an informant for Israeli intelligence. He's probably near the top of every Islamist terror hit list, yet, incredibly enough, the U.S. may soon deport him as a terror threat.
In 2007, Mr. Yousef came to the United States, where he converted to Christianity from Islam and applied for political asylum. The request was denied in February 2009, Mr. Yousef says, on grounds that he was potentially "a danger to the security of the United States" and had "engaged in terrorist activity." His case has automatically proceeded to the deportation stage, and on June 30 at 8 a.m. he will appear before Judge Rico Bartolomei in Homeland Security Immigration Court in San Diego.
Homeland Security is well aware of the author's history, and in fact is using it against him...
Why Israel Cannot Solve Its PR Challenge (or, It’s The Message, Stupid!)
By Glenn Jasper
I spend my days helping clients develop and implement PR campaigns designed to promote the company in such a compelling way that its key audience will respond positively to what the company is communicating. Ultimately, the goal is always to build momentum and help the company achieve its potential.
So given that professional experience, it should be relatively simple to diagnose the PR problems Israel is having and prescribe a certain program to improve the situation.
And it is simple, but not in the way you might think.
Much has been written over the past few weeks – ever since "The Flotilla Affair" – about the overall weakness of Israel's PR, both when crises hit and in general. And they all brought wonderful examples of how and why Israel's PR has missed the mark.
But I'm afraid they've missed the mark as well.
Iara Lee, a Brazilian-American filmmaker and activist who was shooting a documentary on the flotilla of ships that was intercepted last week on its way to Gaza, has posted one hour of unedited video online that shows the early stages of the Israeli commando raid.Over at CiF Watch, in Violence was Planned on the Mavi Marmara: “Ready to Fight” AKUS isolates a piece which clearly shows that not everyone aboard the ship was a peaceful demonstrator:
Ms. Lee’s raw video, posted on YouTube on Friday, gives viewers a chance to see the atmosphere on the main ship in the flotilla, the Mavi Marmara, just before and during the raid. The footage was shot over the course of more than one hour, as the camera was turned on and off a few times, but it shows long, uninterrupted stretches of the event.
On the one-year anniversary of the election that spawned the Green Movement in Iran:A hard but simple truth--especially when the Internet actually can be controlled.
Twitter cannot stop a bullet.
That's the lesson of what happened last year. There was a lot of romantic outpouring here thinking that Facebook is going to stop the Revolutionary Guards. It doesn't. Thuggery, a determined regime that is oppressive, that will shoot, almost always wins.
Now imagine that Obama had made it clear that the administration would support no international inquest. If Obama had assembled a group of countries to stand with Israel and support the blockade, reminded the world that Israel’s forces acted in self-defense, insisted that Turkey come clean on its role, and made it clear that the real responsibility lies with Iran and its proxies, he would have avoided repeating the same error that has been at the root of 18 months of his failed Middle East policyYou can open your eyes now.
'Netanyahu not a real peace partner'
Abbas: We are negotiating with the US, not Israel.
Dear Friend,It is the beginning of a message from Ann Wright, United States Army Colonel (Ret.) announcing her speaking tour and requesting donations.
I just returned from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and started my speaking tour last night in NYC to share what I witnessed aboard the flotilla, and what people can do to end the siege.
I witnessed the Israeli attack that killed 9 persons and wounded 50 on the Gaza Flotilla - the six unarmed civilian passenger and cargo ships that were taking humanitarian aid to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza to break the over three year Israeli siege of Gaza.
And I say in front of you, Mr. President, that we have nothing to do with incitement against Israel, and we’re not doing that. What we care about is to live in coexistence with Israel, in order to bring about the independent Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and stability.But that was in public, privately Abbas hedged when confronted on the issue:
Researchers say the study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, puts to rest age-old questions about whether Jews are a group of unrelated people who share a religious ideology or a distinct ethnicity with common ancestry.
“The debate is over,” said Dr. Edward R. Burns, one of the lead authors of the study. “The Jewish people are one people with a common genetic thread that evolved in the second or third century BC.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told U.S. Jewish leaders on Wednesday that he would never deny Jews their right to the land of Israel, according to participants of the two-hour roundtable discussion.But the question is not what he says for consumption in the English press--it's what he says to the Arab world.
The U.S. is seeking election to the Council because we believe that working from within, we can make the council a more effective forum to promote and protect human rights. We hope to work in partnership with many countries to achieve a more effective Council.So how's that working for you?
U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, March 31, 2009
This is a state that is built on hatred, discrimination, oppression and a paranoid feeling of superiority. Hatred is widespread, taught to even small children, who are taught to use weapons, and who are taught to sign missiles that will be fired at Arabs.Not surprisingly, the members of the UNHRC found nothing here worth objecting to--even the chairman could summon up nothing more than a thank you:
Let me quote a song that a group of children on a school bus in Israel sing merrily as they go to school. And I quote “With my teeth I will rip your flesh. With my mouth I will suck your blood.”
The video is a repulsive attempt to use satire to make Israel’s case on Flotilla Devbacle. I recommend suffering through its entirety to grasp just how much. This is not really surprising to anyone who has ever read Glick’s columns or makes a cursory inquiry into her background.It's not quite clear why inquiring into Glick's background is important to critique the video [view here], whose success seems to have irked Remez.
Palestinian local elections scheduled to be held in the West Bank on July 17 have been postponed indefinitely, officials said on Thursday. Hamas Islamists, who seized control of the Gaza Strip from Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007, had already said they would boycott the vote.
The Human Rights Council in its midday meeting adopted a resolution on the attack by Israeli forces against the humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza in which it condemned in the strongest terms the outrageous attack by the Israeli forces which resulted in the killing and injuring of many innocent civilians from different countries, and decided to dispatch an independent international fact finding mission to investigate violations of international law resulting from the Israeli attack.
Hezbollah, Hamas Raise Money for ‘Terrorist Activities’ From Drug Trade in South America, Congressional Research Service Says
Amid growing concern about the illicit drug trade across the U.S.-Mexico border, the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas have been linked to South American drug trafficking organizations–and the money Hezbollah and Hamas make from narco-trafficking is used to finance their organizations, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS).The April 30 report quoted is entitled -- Latin America and the Caribbean: Illicit Drug Trafficking and U.S. Counterdrug Programs:
“International terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have also reportedly raised funding for their terrorist activities through linkages formed with DTOs in South America, particularly those operating in the tri-border area (TBA) of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina,” stated CRS in an April 30 report.
Israel-haters are making much of the fact that one of the Turkish "humanitarians" killed last week while attempting to break Israel's naval blockade of Hamas was a U.S. citizen. This, however, was by accident of birth: Furkan Dogan was born in Troy, N.Y., but his parents were Turkish and he grew up in Turkey.
"His brother, Mustafa, told the Turkish news media that he was 'clean-hearted with a happy face,' " the New York Times reported Friday. But a report from the Middle East Research Institute says he was far from the all-American boy the Israel-haters are making him out to be. Memri quotes Hussein Orish of IHH, the Turkish outfit that instigated the flotilla:
As Israeli naval commandos raided the flotilla ship convoy that was on its way to the Gaza Strip, Hamas security officers stormed the offices of five non-governmental organizations, confiscated equipment and documents, and ordered them closed indefinitely.
Ever since it seized control over the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, Hamas has imposed a reign of terror on the local population in general and its critics in particular. Hamas has brought nothing to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip other than death and disaster.
Both parties are taking some steps to help create an atmosphere that is conducive to successful talks, including President Abbas’ statement that he will work against incitement of any sort...So, what has Abbas been busy doing since May 9th?
Statement on Special Envoy George Mitchell's Trip, May 9, 2010
this case is far worse. Google initially suggested it was a user-content problem beyond its control, however, it eventually admitted it was wrong and fixed the problem. Yahoo isn't even pretending. This is corporate foreign policy and a deliberate effort at misinformation to advance a political agenda.Crossposted on Soccer Dad
