Jonathan Tobin comments on the JPost interview with Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon that I blogged in the wee hours of Sunday morning (the full interview is to appear in Monday's JPost).
The reason why Palestinians insist that all Jews must leave their future state is because they do not recognize the legitimacy of Israel or the Jewish presence anywhere in the land. And Palestinian political culture is so steeped in violence and hatred of Jews and Israel that it is literally impossible to believe that Jews, even if they behaved like Quakers, could live in a Palestinian state.
Moreover, Ya’alon’s point about the example of Gaza is telling. Removing every Jew from Gaza didn’t satisfy the Palestinians there. Not only did the Palestinians burn the synagogue buildings and the tomato greenhouses left behind by the Israelis for them to use, they immediately began to use that land for launching terrorist missile attacks inside of Israel. So long as the Arabs still view the conflict as zero-sum game in which the goal is to remove or kill every Jew, territorial withdrawals won’t bring peace. If the Palestinian vision of peace — even the vision articulated by so-called moderates like Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas — is predicated on ridding the land of Jews rather than embracing coexistence, then there will be no peace.
How many people in the US can't understand that? (Obama understands it fully well - he wants to create a 'Palestinian state' and doesn't care - or worse - that it will attempt to destroy the Jewish state).
Isn't it funny how things aren't always what they appear to be? Back in March, just before the Arab League summit, we were told that the Arab League was anxious to have 'closer ties' with Iran. What we weren't told was the denouement of the proposals by Arab League Chairman Amr Moussa to forge those closer ties. It seems that most of the Arab countries rejected the idea outright.
At the recent Arab League summit held March 27-28 in Sirte, Libya, league secretary-general 'Amr Moussa made two proposals aimed at strengthening ties between the Arab states and Iran and allowing the latter to play an active role in the Arab world.
The first proposal was to create a forum within the Arab League to represent countries neighboring Arab states, in order to increase mutual coordination and cooperation, while advancing interests shared by both the Arab and non-Arab states. Though many Asian, African, and even European countries were named as candidates for membership in the proposed forum, it was abundantly clear that Iran would be the most significant member.
The Arab League countries received the proposal with reservations and even hostility, Qatar being the only state to express explicit support. It was ultimately decided to postpone discussions of the proposal for six months, at which time a special summit conference would be held to address the matter.
Moussa's second proposal was to initiate a dialogue between the Arab states and Iran. In his address at the summit's opening session, he claimed that this dialogue was essential, saying, "Even though I realize the level of concern over Iran's positions, this does not negate the need for holding talks. Despite our clash with [Iran], we have a common history and geography."[1] This proposal was not mentioned at all in the summit's closing statement.[2]
If you read the whole thing, you will see that Syria gave 'cautious approval' for the proposal to create a forum, but not for dialogue (which proposal it said was grounded in 'bad intentions' toward Iran). The rest of the Arab League apparently said no.
I suppose that if Walid Jumblatt is going to go kiss up to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, this is the next logical step.
The Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reports on the distribution of a communiqué in the region of Rashaya Al-Wadi village in Lebanon's Beq'a announcing the launch of operations of the Druze Resistance Front.
The communiqué stated that the front would operate alongside Hizbullah against "the oppressing Zionist enemy" and would defend the gates of Greater Syria determinedly and will all its might.
Funny, but the thousands of Druze who serve in the IDF don't consider the Zionists to be the enemy.
On Tuesday, I linked to an interview with former IAEA chief and current possible Egyptian Presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei in which ElBaradei in which ElBaradei allegedly expressed support for the 'Palestinian resistance' and suggested that the Palestinian Authority use violence, since “power is the only language the Israeli occupiers understand.” Now, it turns out that whole interview may have been faked (Hat Tip: Elder of Ziyon).
However, upon further checking and a message received by Ali ElBaradei, the opposition leader’s brother and press contact, it appears the entire “interview” was made up.
“If you are referring to the interview with that Palestinian media agency, it is total bogus,” the brother told Bikya Masr. “He never gave such an interview.”
According to al-Qassem, they reported that ElBaradei had said “the peace process has become a stupid joke ,which we talk about without achieving any progress.” But, the comments never occurred. The agency added that ElBaradei said that “Arabs should back their negotiation option with force and deterrence.”
It begs the question as to why an organization would create a false interview with such a high profile Egyptian politician. According to Mohamed Latif, a Palestinian media analyst and blogger based in Ramallah, the idea was probably to create solidarity with the Palestinian cause, “after so much frustration with Egyptian political leaders.”
However, Latif believes that fabricating such interviews will do more harm than good to other Palestinian news organizations and agencies who seek proper news gathering.
“Now, it will be even harder for Palestinian reporters and organizations to deal with ElBaradei because there will be a lot of suspicion as to how the quotes will be used and rightfully so,” he added.
Bikya Masr and Elder of Ziyon both speculate as to who might have been behind the 'interview.' Bikya Masr assumes it was the 'Palestinians,' while Elder of Ziyon believes it could have also been Iran.
I have to wonder whether the Egyptian government might have been involved. They're the ones with the biggest interest in discrediting ElBaradei. Hmmm.
Plans for the new group are set to be announced on Sunday by a Philadelphia-based journalist and activist named Binyamin Korn, a former executive director of the Zionist Organization of America. The announcement is unlikely to make big news, as the group is embryonic, with an advisory committee of several journalists and academics.
Its aim, however, is to take advantage of the growing alarm within the Jewish community at what Mr. Korn, in an interview this week with the New York Sun, called an “escalation of rhetoric” criticizing the Jewish state. The group also hopes to counter suggestions — by, among others, such opposite figures as the widely read Atlantic magazine blogger Jeffrey Goldberg and the left-of-center, anti-Israel publication Counterpunch — that Mrs. Palin’s support for Israel is animated by “end of days” theology that believes an in-gathering in Israel will precede the apocalypse and the destruction of the Jews.
Mr. Korn dismisses such talk, saying that there is “a wide range of views about religion within the Jewish Community and an even wider range of views about religion in the Christian community” and that “whatever motives Governor Palin may have or may be imputed to her are entirely within the mainstream of American discourse . . .” He said his group was encouraged by a defense of Mrs. Palin in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal by the most famous neo-conservative, Norman Podhoretz, who wrote that he would “rather be ruled by the Tea Party than by the Democratic Party” and “would rather have Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama.”
What Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin is saying, Mr. Korn said, “is that the most articulate person in the public arena today in opposition to the Obama administration’s shift in policies against Israel is Sarah Palin.” He called her “very direct,” particularly on the controversy of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, on terrorism policies, and on the emerging Obama doctrine.
Korn goes on to say that his group has no contact with Palin and that she has nothing to do with its formation. I happen to know some Jews who are in contact with Palin and have been teaching her about Israel and the Middle East. Maybe between them, they can get her to revoke that Rand Paul endorsement and to stop funding his campaign. I'd love to know how she got into that one. (Yes, I remember what I said here, but I'm still uncomfortable with that endorsement).
Here's a Power Point presentation that shows some of the walls and fences between countries around the World. If you think Israel is the only country in the world to decide that good fences make good neighbors, you're in for a surprise. Use your down arrow to go to the next slide (Hat Tip: Lance K).
I often refer to Haaretz as Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily. It's a quip I got from Steven Plaut, a professor at Haifa University, who sends daily email updates that I've been getting for years.
For those of you who wonder why I refer to Haaretz that way, Caroline Glick provides two prime examples here. The problem is that while we all know what lessons we ought to be learning from Haaretz's latest fiascoes, most of us aren't learning them.
As for the State of Israel, depressingly, what the Haaretz spy scandal demonstrates is that the state is utterly unwilling to deal with this dangerous state of affairs. Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin stated that Israel will not change its screening process of candidates for military service. In the post-Kamm IDF, religious youths will continue to be grilled about their willingness to expel Jewish Israelis from their homes, and radical leftist youths will not be questioned about their loyalty to the state and willingness to keep the IDF’s secrets.
So, too, Diskin admitted that the Shin Bet was loath to aggressively pursue the investigation because its officers didn’t want to be accused of impinging on freedom of the press. Because he was a journalist, Blau was not seriously investigated and was let off the hook even as he lied to investigators. And the Shin Bet gave Haaretz the rope with which to hang it by requesting a gag order in order to give Blau more time to do the right thing – in spite of the fact that he had already demonstrated his bad faith and flagrant contempt for the law.
Ma’ariv and Globes both reported that thousands of Israelis canceled their subscriptions to Haaretz this week. Haaretz denied the reports. But really, it doesn’t care. Haaretz’s target audience is not Israeli. It is global. And there it remains the champion of those who seek an Israeli affirmation of their anti-Israel attitudes.
If so many newspapers are supposedly collapsing because they have no more print subscriptions, how is Haaretz surviving? The Europeans? The New Israel Fund? An interesting question indeed.
The Holocaust survivors who helped build Israel "made our world better," US Gen. David Petraeus said Thursday.
"The men and women who walked or were carried out of the death camps, and their descendents, have enriched our world immeasurably in the sciences and in the arts, in literature and in philanthropy," said Petraeus, the key note speaker at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum commemoration in the Capitol Rotunda.
"They have made extraordinary contributions in academia, in business, and in government. And, they have, of course, helped build a nation that stands as one of our great allies. The survivors have, in short, made our country and our world better, leaving lasting achievements wherever they settled."
But don't worry: The Obama administration will continue to try to spin Petraeus as claiming that Israel endangers US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The New Republic has an interesting exchange of letters between James Risen and his childhood friend Yossi Klein HaLevi. Here are some highlights. Klein HaLevi:
Of course a solution to the Palestinian problem would ease tensions in the Middle East. That is as much in my interest as yours: The Palestinian problem threatens Israeli boys far more than American boys. I am ready to make almost any concession that would end this pathological conflict, provided I sensed that Israel would receive security and legitimacy in return. And that of course is the problem. Most Israelis are convinced that, under current conditions, a Palestinian state would only result in greater terrorism and instability. American pressure will not likely force us to take risks we perceive as existential.
The Netanyahu coalition is the first Israeli government to suspend settlement building. Yet instead of demanding reciprocal Arab gestures of goodwill—or even that Palestinian leaders return to the negotiating table—the administration has intensified the pressure on Israel, with an unprecedented ultimatum over Jerusalem.
If the administration were to pressure the Palestinians and their Arab allies as it is pressuring and humiliating Israel, many Israelis might consider a temporary building suspension even in Jerusalem. But not this way, Jim; not as a one-way American diktat.
The more besieged Israel becomes, the more its enemies in the Arab world and Iran will be tempted to attack us. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that, as the American-Israeli crisis deepened, we’ve experienced a renewal of rocket attacks from Gaza and even a mini-intifada in Jerusalem. That was a warning of how the jihadists are reading America’s policy shift. If anyone is endangering lives with an ill-conceived policy, it’s the administration which is endangering Israeli—and Palestinian—lives with its disproportionate pressure on Israel.
Risen:
While you weren't looking, the rest of the world has changed. What troubles Americans today is that Israelis don't seem to get the fact that the United States has fought two wars and fundamentally altered the dynamics of the Middle East. Yet when it comes to Israel, it might as well still be 1980, not 2010.
And so increasingly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict looks to American eyes like Northern Ireland, an endless conflict fought over land and ethnicity and religion and half-forgotten blood feuds, with a strange immunity to influences from the outside world.
The United States has always supported Israel, even as Europe has grown more distant. But will Americans continue to do so if they don't see progress? If it looks—as it does today—like Israeli leaders are ignoring the larger context?
I saw a cartoon a year or two ago that made me laugh, but also wince. It showed headlines from the future. 2020: "Man returns to Moon, Israeli tanks storm into Gaza." 2050: "Man lands on Mars, Israeli tanks storm into Gaza." 2100: "Man lands on Jupiter, Israeli tanks storm into Gaza."
What is perhaps most ominous for Israel is that slowly but surely, Americans are coming to understand the complexities and nuances of the Middle East. For a time after 9/11, ten-foot tall Arabs replaced ten-foot tall Russians in the American imagination. But that is fading. More and more, Arabs, and Muslims generally, are appearing more human, less monstrous, less dangerous. Nearly a decade of involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan—and nearly a decade without a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil—will do that to a country and its people.
Arabs are also becoming more integrated and assimilated into American society, and now they are neighbors, too.
Klein HaLevi:
In urging Israelis to face reality and accept Palestinian statehood, you're pushing against an open door. That argument was resolved, at least in theory, 20 years ago, during the first intifada, when a majority of Israelis concluded that the occupation would devastate Israel from within and turn us into a pariah from without.
A majority of Israelis agree that ending the occupation is an existential need—to spare us from growing isolation, from the moral attrition of occupation, from the untenable choice between Israel as a Jewish state and a democratic state.
But that's only half the equation. You ignore the other half: that a Palestinian state could turn into an existential threat to Israel. Most Israelis are convinced that, given the current state of the Palestinian national movement, an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would lead to missile attacks against the Israeli heartland, including greater Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion Airport. All it takes is a few "primitive rockets" to be launched every day against Israeli neighborhoods—and for the international community to tie our hands when we try to defend ourselves—for normal life in this country to become impossible.
In order to make your case against Israel, you have to ignore the fact that Israel tried—three times in the last decade—to create a Palestinian state. Palestinian leaders rejected the equivalent of one hundred percent of the West Bank and Gaza, because that deal would have required them to restrict refugee return to a Palestinian state. The Palestinian pre-condition for an Israeli withdrawal is that Israel commit suicide. As a veteran Peace Now activist said to me recently: The Palestinians won't let us end the occupation.
We've tried negotiations and got suicide bombings; we tried unilateral withdrawal without negotiations and got rocket attacks. What would you have us do next?
What's so depressing about your position, Jim, is that it offers proof that Arab intransigence is winning, that with enough time, the combination of terrorism and denial of Israel's legitimacy will wear down even friends of Israel like you. And then the Middle East conflict seems to turn into an endless blood feud. Or that stupid journalistic phrase, a cycle of violence. And then what you once knew about the conflict—that at crucial moments Israel has accepted compromise and the Palestinians have rejected it—gets lost in the general weariness.
Here's a slide show of Jewish life in Poland between 1920 and 1931. Use your down arrow to move the show ahead to the next picture (Hat Tip: Mrs. Carl).
Charles Krauthammer rips President Obama's farcical nuclear summit that took place in Washington this past week.
All this during a week when top U.S. military officials told Congress that Iran is about a year away from acquiring the fissile material to make a nuclear bomb. Then, only a very few years until weaponization.
At which point the world changes irrevocably: The regional Arab states go nuclear, the Non-Proliferation Treaty dies, the threat of nuclear transfer to terror groups grows astronomically.
A timely reminder: Syria has just been discovered transferring lethal Scud missiles to Hezbollah, the Middle East’s most powerful non-state terrorist force. This is the same Syria that was secretly building a North Korean–designed nuclear reactor until the Israeli air force destroyed the facility three years ago.
But not to worry. Canadian uranium is secured. A nonbinding summit communiqué has been issued. And a “Work Plan” has been agreed to.
Oh, yes, and there will be another summit in two years. The dream lives on.
Sitting in Israel, I keep wondering whether I'm actually getting a real picture of what's going on in the US or is my picture limited by the publications and writers I choose to read? Do most Americans agree that what happened in Washington last week was a farce par excellence? Or were they taken in by it?
Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon told the JPost on Friday that there is 'no need to remove any settlements' in order to reach peace with the 'Palestinians.'
“If we are talking about coexistence and peace, why the [Palestinian] insistence that the territory they receive be ethnically cleansed of Jews?” Ya’alon asked during a wide-ranging interview that will appear in the Post’s Yom Ha’atzmaut supplement on Monday.
“Why do those areas have to be Judenrein?” he asked. “Don’t Arabs live here, in the Negev and the Galilee? Why isn’t that part of our public discussion? Why doesn’t that scream to the heavens?”
Ya’alon said that if Israel and the Palestinians were truly headed down the path of peace and coexistence, “Jews living in Judea and Samaria under Israeli sovereignty and citizenship” should be possible.
He stressed that “no settlement” should be removed, and that the country’s previous withdrawals – from Lebanon and from Gaza – strengthened Hizbullah and Hamas, respectively.
“That is opposed to our strategic interest and to the strategic interests of the West,” he said.
Forgive me, but I get nervous when I hear talk like that. It reminds me of the Sharon government's talk like that which was code for saying 'if you don't move out now, we will abandon you and you won't get any compensation when you are forced to leave.' That, in fact, was how Sharon attempted to prod revenants to leave Gaza in 2004 - 2005 before they were expelled. They offered 'increased' compensation to those who left early. It wasn't very successful in getting people out, but on the other hand, most of the people who were expelled still don't have homes in which to live and are now broke. So who won in that scenario?
And let's be serious: How much living in real peace would it take before any of us would be willing to trust the 'Palestinians' enough to want to live in an area under their control without the IDF?
So yes, in theory, if there was really going to be peace, Jews living in areas under 'Palestinian' rule in Judea and Samaria ought not to be an issue. But the fact that most of us regard Jews living in areas under 'Palestinian' rule as totally impossible shows just how far away true peace really is.
In Friday's Los Angeles Times, historian Benny Morris sums up the way an awful lot of Israelis feel right now (Hat Tip: Power Line).
But at the same time, Obama insists that Israel may not launch a preemptive military strike of its own. Give sanctions a chance, he says. (Last year he argued that diplomacy and "engagement" with Tehran should be given a chance. Tehran wasn't impressed then and isn't impressed now.) The problem is that even if severe sanctions are imposed, they likely won't have time to have serious effect before Iran succeeds at making a bomb.
Obama is, no doubt, well aware of this asymmetric timetable. Which makes his prohibition against an Israeli preemptive strike all the more immoral. He knows that any sanctions he manages to orchestrate will not stop the Iranians. (Indeed, Ahmadinejad last week said sanctions would only fortify Iran's resolve and consolidate its technological prowess.) Obama is effectively denying Israel the right to self-defense when it is not his, or America's, life that is on the line.
Perhaps Obama has privately resigned himself to Iran's nuclear ambitions and believes, or hopes, that deterrence will prevent Tehran from unleashing its nuclear arsenal. But what if deterrence won't do the trick? What if the mullahs, believing they are carrying out Allah's will and enjoy divine protection, are undeterred?
The American veto may ultimately consign millions of Israelis, including me and my family, to a premature death and Israel to politicide. It would then be comparable to Britain and France's veto in the fall of 1938 of the Czechs defending their territorial integrity against their rapacious Nazi neighbors. Within six months, Czechoslovakia was gobbled up by Germany.
But will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu follow in Czech President Edvard Benes' footsteps? Will he allow an American veto to override Israel's existential interests? And can Israel go it alone, without an American green (or even yellow) light, without American political cover and overflight permissions and additional American equipment? Much depends on what the Israeli military and intelligence chiefs believe their forces -- air force, navy, commandos -- can achieve. Full destruction of the Iranian nuclear project? A long-term delay? And on how they view Israel's ability (with or without U.S. support) to weather the reaction from Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria.
An Israeli attack might harm U.S. interests and disrupt international oil supplies (though I doubt it would cause direct attacks on U.S. installations, troops or vessels). But, from the Israeli perspective, these are necessarily marginal considerations when compared with the mortal hurt Israel and Israelis would suffer from an Iranian nuclear attack. Netanyahu's calculations will, in the end, be governed by his perception of Israel's existential imperatives. And the clock is ticking.
Ultimately, I don't see much choice. It's either attack Iran and pray that it succeeds (and that we weather the response) or roll and over and die. In that context, Obama becomes irrelevant, except to the extent that he is or is not willing to order the US Air Force to shoot down IAF jets over Iraq - and maybe not even then.
Elie Weisel has taken a full page ad in Friday's Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, and in Sunday's New York Times, in which he rips the Obama administration's policies on Jerusalem.
It was inevitable: Jerusalem once again is at the center of political debates and international storms. New and old tensions surface at a disturbing pace. Seventeen times destroyed and seventeen times rebuilt, it is still in the middle of diplomatic confrontations that could lead to armed conflict. Neither Athens nor Rome has aroused that many passions.
For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture -- and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming. The first song I heard was my mother's lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.
Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital, Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions; when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again, when under Jordanian occupation, Jews, regardless of nationality, were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon's temple. It is important to remember: had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the war against Israel, the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab. Clearly, while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem.
Today, for the first time in history, Jews, Christians and Muslims all may freely worship at their shrines. And, contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city. The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory.
What is the solution? Pressure will not produce a solution. Is there a solution? There must be, there will be. Why tackle the most complex and sensitive problem prematurely? Why not first take steps which will allow the Israeli and Palestinian communities to find ways to live together in an atmosphere of security. Why not leave the most difficult, the most sensitive issue, for such a time?
Jerusalem must remain the world's Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope. As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said, "Everything in this world has a heart; the heart itself has its own heart."
Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.
And where does Obama come into this? Jennifer Rubin explains.
Iran is trying to convince five million people to move out of Tehran to the countryside. They say it's because Tehran sits on an earthquake fault line.
Noah Pollak explains how President Assad's actions this week have ensured him a place in the next Middle East war.
Syria is in fact now in more danger than the Israelis. The IDF’s Arrow missile-defense system can knock Scuds out of the sky with great reliability, so they don’t pose a tremendous a threat. What they do provide to Israel is an opportunity — and they impose a requirement. The fact that they were transferred to Hezbollah in violation of tacit but well-understood red lines gives Israel clear and credible casus belli, should hostilities break out, to expand any conflict to Syria.
The crossing of the Scud-missile red line carries its own inexorable logic: since Syria has chosen to become a provider of military-grade weapons to Hezbollah, Israel has little choice but to include Syria in any future war with Hezbollah. And if Israel goes to war with Syria, there will be little rationale, given the risks involved and the immense reward of ridding the region of Iran’s only ally, from going for regime change.
Earlier this week, I reported that Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) had decided that Israel may not advertise the Western Wall (Kotel) as being in Israel. Jonathan Tobin puts his finger on just what is so offensive about the ASA's statement.
Moreover, there is something profoundly offensive about a foreign government claiming that the most sacred shrine in Judaism — the Western Wall — is part of what the Guardian calls “the Palestinian occupied territories.” Though this UK pronouncement will do little damage to Israel, it does represent the lengths to which Israel’s enemies will go in their efforts to delegitimize the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and the entire country. If Britain thinks Jews have no right to call the Kotel their own, then what hope is there of convincing it that Jews have a right to live anywhere in their country?
Earlier this week, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel compared President Obama to George H.W. Bush (also known as Bush 41 or Bush, the father) on foreign policy.
Foreign Policy (the blog) asked several academics what they thought of Emanuel's comparison. Here are a few of their answers.
Robert Kagan Senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
I will leave it to the self-described realists to explain in greater detail the origins and meaning of "realism" and "realpolitik" to our confused journalists and politicos. But here is what realism is not: It is not a plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons through common agreement by all the world's powers. And it is not a foreign policy built on the premise that if only the United States reduces its nuclear arsenal, this will somehow persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program, or persuade China and other reluctant nations in the world to redouble their pressure on Iran to do so. That is idealism of a high order. It is a 21st-century Wilsonian vision. And it is precisely the kind of idealism that realists in the middle of the 20th century rose up to challenge. Realists would point out that the divergent interests of the great powers, not to mention those of Iran, will not be affected in the slightest by marginal cuts in American and Russian nuclear forces.
The confusion no doubt stems from the fact that President Obama is attempting to work with autocratic governments to achieve his ends. But that does not make him Henry Kissinger. When Kissinger pursued diplomacy with China, it was to gain strategic leverage over the Soviet Union. When he sought détente with the Soviets, it was to gain breathing space for the United States after Vietnam. Right or wrong, that was "realpolitik." Global nuclear disarmament may or may not be a worthy goal, but it is nothing if not idealistic.
...
Danielle Pletka Vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute
There is a certain weird irony in the Obama administration's efforts to portray the U.S. president as the successful son George H.W. Bush never had. In 2008, before Rahm Emanuel labeled his boss more "realpolitik, like Bush 41," the Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne memorably announced that in "electing Barack Obama, the country traded the foreign policy of the second President Bush for the foreign policy of the first President Bush."
Those eager to take a cheap shot would remember that among the hallmarks of George H. W. Bush's foreign policy were (hmmm) antipathy to Israel, an eagerness to kowtow to creepy dictators, and a lack of the "vision thing" that will forever relegate him to being that guy Americans elected because they couldn't give Ronald Reagan another term.
But Barack Obama isn't a realpolitician, and I fear he does indeed have a vision. Obama has embraced the foreign policy of an ideologue, a worshipper at the altar of American decline. The framework seems a simple repudiation of American global leadership, a devaluation of alliances, and a penchant for paper agreements and empty dialogue that articulate grand aims (Disarmament! Global zero! Proximity talks!) but ignore the practical threats to the United States that exist in the real world.
...
Peter Feaver Alexander F. Hehmeyer professor of political science at Duke University; contributing editor to Foreign Policy and blogger at Shadow Government
Emanuel's quote is puzzling. President Obama may be more "realpolitik" than George W. Bush in the sense that he has downgraded the place of human rights and support for democracy in his foreign policy. But it is certainly not "realpolitik" to slight the personal relationships of presidential diplomacy -- and it would be hard to identify something more unlike George H.W. Bush than this feature of the Obama approach to foreign policy. In any case, the rewards for this alleged "realpolitik" turn are still hard to measure. President Obama is significantly more popular with the general publics in the other great powers (except possibly in Asia), but if measured cold-bloodedly by American "self-interest," the last President Bush had at least as good and probably more effective and cooperative relations with the governments of those great powers (except possibly with Russia). Relations with Britain, China, France, Germany, India, and Japan were more troubled in 2009 than they were in 2008.
...
Michael Lind Policy director for the economic growth program at the New America Foundation; author of The American Way of Strategy
Rahm Emanuel is right. In many areas, ranging from his caution about escalating the war in Afghanistan to his firm approach to Israel, Barack Obama shows more affinities with the moderate Republican realist tradition of Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and the first Bush than with the Cold War liberal tradition of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson that spawned the neoconservative combination of hawkishness and crusading rhetoric. This reflects not only Obama's worldview but also the migration into the Democratic Party of many former moderate Republican voters. Their influence is seen as much in the Democratic health-care bill, which rejects New Deal-style social democracy for an approach of subsidizing private insurance that Eisenhower and Nixon pioneered, as in the Obama administration's cost-conscious, realist foreign policy.
I didn't particularly care for George H.W. Bush, but I cannot see him going on a worldwide apology tour and bowing to world leaders, nor can I see him being afraid to pull the trigger on Iran. In fact, the only foreign policy area in which this comparison seems valid is that Bush 41 was also hard on Israel.
The Journalists' Association in Tel Aviv, which represents reporters from all the media outlets in Israel, refused on Thursday to back the Haaretz daily over the classified documents its reporter Uri Blau received from Walla website reporter Anat Kam.
Arutz Sheva has learned that Haaretz publisher Amose Shocken asked the organization to back the newspaper in its dealings with the Shabak Israel Security Agency and to help Blau, but the association refused and called on Shocken to bring the reporter back to Israel and to return the documents to the security establishment.
When your own union won't back you, it ought to make you stop and think that maybe you're really wrong. But don't expect Haaretz to even consider that.
You will recall that earlier this week, at the press conference concluding his nuclear summit, President Obama defined a resolution of the Israeli - 'Palestinian' conflict as a 'vital national security interest' of the United States.
"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."
You will also recall that Senator John McCain (R-Az.) went on Fox News to rip Obama for those comments.
Now it's Eric Cantor's (R-Va.) turn. Cantor is the House Minority Whip and he issued a statement about US - Israel relations on Thursday.
The true barrier to ending the Mideast conflict is the widespread Palestinian refusal to accept and to live alongside Israel as a Jewish state. While Israel continues its search for a reliable partner in peace, Palestinian terrorism is still celebrated in the West Bank and Gaza. Despite this reality, since day one the White House has applied a severe double standard that refuses to hold the Palestinians accountable for their many provocations. It makes one wonder where the responsible adults are in the administration?
The administration’s troubling policy of manufacturing fights with Israel to ingratiate itself with some in the Arab world is no way to advance the cause of Mideast peace. What kind of message is sent to the world when our country appears to turn its back on key strategic allies who share our values?
“The list of grievances supposedly stoking the hatred of Islamic terrorists is endless and evolving. Before Al Qaeda used our support for Israel against us, Bin Laden’s main grievance was the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and sanctions against Saddam’s Iraq – both of which no longer exist. The suggestion that terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan will lay down their weapons if we distance ourselves from Israel is blindingly naïve. We know this because it’s been tried before. For example, Russia has sided with Israel’s Arab enemies since the days of the Cold War, and today it condemns Israel at the U.N., sells arms to Israel’s arch-enemies Syria and Iran, and is attempting to block meaningful international sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. Did this stop Islamist suicide bombers from murdering 38 in an attack on two Moscow subway stations last month?
“With each passing day, more Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about the deteriorating state of U.S.-Israel relations. This concern was expressed succinctly by a letter today from World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder to President Obama, who wrote, ‘Our great country and the tiny State of Israel have long shared the core values of freedom and democracy. It is a bond much treasured by the Jewish people. In that spirit I submit, most respectfully, that it is time to end our public feud with Israel and to confront the real challenges that we face together.’ I couldn’t agree more.
Last month, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told Cantor that Vice President Joe Biden never told Israeli leaders that Israeli settlement activity imperils the lives of U.S. troops.
I don't know why she threw that line into her post - it's seemingly out of place. But assuming that it's true, you have to wonder why Secretary of Defense Gates said that the fact that the conflict is not resolved endangers US troops, and why General David Petraeus has had to engage in acrobatics to disclaim being the source for Biden's imaginary remarks.
With Israel's relations with Turkey on the rocks, Israel is looking for another country in the region whose airspace it can use for IAF drills.
In recent years, due to the various threats it faces, primarily from Iran, the IAF has increased its long-range training missions. Most notable was in 2008, when 100 IAF aircraft flew over Greece in an exercise that was perceived as a dress rehearsal for a strike against Iran.
Until Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter, the IAF frequently flew over Turkey, and it had participated in several annual exercises with the Turkish Air Force. Following the offensive against Hamas and the deterioration in Israeli-Turkish relations, Ankara has refused to allow Israel to deploy its fighter jets in Turkey.
“We are looking for new places where we can fly,” a senior IAF officer said recently.
As a result, the Defense Ministry is looking to continue an agreement it signed in 2006 that allows Israeli fighter jets to deploy in Romania. The IAF has sent jets to Romania for training in 2007 and plans to deploy aircraft there again later this year.
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It is possible that the flyover by two IAF Gulfstream reconnaissance aircraft in Hungary last month was also part of an air force exercise in Europe. The appearance of Israeli military aircraft in Hungarian airspace triggered a political controversy that culminated this week in the dismissal of the head of the air traffic department at Hungary’s Transportation Ministry.
“Our ties with Turkey will never return to be the way they once were,” a senior defense official said on Thursday. “It is unlikely that under the current government in Ankara we will be allowed to fly there again.”
Jews wake up? Only 42% would vote for Obama in 2012
Could it be that for many of my fellow Jews in the US, yarad ha'asimon (the token dropped) at last? A new survey shows that a plurality of US Jews would consider voting for someone other than Barack Hussein Obama in 2012. In 2008, 78% of American Jews voted for the Democratic candidate (Hat Tip: Mona Charen).
I. A plurality of Jewish voters would consider someone else for President.
According to the 2008 exit polls, Barack Obama won 78% to 21% among Jewish voters. Now, in the second year of Obama’s presidency, only 42% of voters would re-elect him, while the plurality (46%) would consider voting for someone else.
Would you vote to re-elect Barack Obama as President or would you consider voting for someone else? Total Re-Elect 42 Someone Else 46 Don’t Know/Refused 12
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III. Jewish voters do not support President Obama’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state
The majority of voters (52%) disapproves of the Obama Administration supporting a plan to recognize a Palestinian state within two years. The majority of voters (64%) says that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel, while only 13% say that the United States should force Israel to give up parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Six in ten voters (62%) say that the Palestinians would continue their campaign of terror to destroy Israel if they were given a Palestinian state, while only 19% say they would live peacefully with Israel. More than seven in ten voters (73%) say Israel is right to insist upon the Palestinians accepting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state before there are any negotiations about a Palestinian state.
And for those wondering how the survey was done:
McLaughlin & Associates conducted a national survey of 600 likely Jewish voters on April 7th and 8th, 2010. All interviews were conducted via telephone by professional interviewers. Respondents were randomly selected within predetermined geographic units structured to correlate with actual voter turnout. The survey of 600 likely Jewish voters has an accuracy of +/- 4.0% at a 95% confidence interval.
So what does it all mean? Well, it doesn't necessarily mean that if the elections were held today, 46% would vote for a Republican and 42% for Obama. But given Jewish voting patterns over the last 80 years or so, with Obama the presumptive Democratic nominee, the fact that 46% of Jews would consider voting for someone else would be major progress. Since FDR, the only Democrat not to get a majority of Jewish votes was Jimmy Carter in 1980, and much of the vote that was siphoned off went to Independent John Anderson and not to the eventual winner of that election, Ronald Reagan. As Jennifer Rubin notes:
Given the sentiments about the components of Obama’s approach to Israel, it is still remarkable that a full 50 percent approve of his handling of relations with Israel. This suggests, as did the AJC poll, that Jews still can’t quite break the habit of agreeing with whatever Obama is up to. But this is a sign, a significant one, I think, that the Jews’ views are not fixed and that the policies and tone of the administration do impact Jewish support. The movement in Jewish public opinion may in turn spur Jewish leaders to step forward, as Lauder did. After all, they wouldn’t want to be seen as lagging behind their members, or worse yet, as irrelevant.
Scud transfer from Syria to Hezbullah just the latest chapter
This week's transfer of long-range Scud missiles from Syria to Hezbullah is just the latest installment in a long list of weapons transfers from Syria to the terror organization. Here are some other recent transfers.
Weapons have been flowing from Syria to Lebanon for decades. However, in recent months, reports have indicated that the sophistication of the weapons systems provided to Hezbollah has grown. In October 2009, the British military magazine Jane's Defence Weeklyreported that Syria had supplied Hezbollah with M-600 rockets, a Syrian variant of the Iranian Fatah 110, whose rudimentary guidance system can carry a 500-kilogram payload to a target 250 kilometers away.
In early March, the head of the research division of the Israel Defense Forces' Military Intelligence, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, that Syria had recently provided Hezbollah with the Igla-S man-portable air defense systems. The shoulder-fired weapon can bring down the Israeli drones, helicopter gunships, and low-flying fighter aircraft that routinely fly over Lebanon to gather intelligence.
Reports of increased weapons transfers surfaced again following Ford's nomination hearing on March 16. Rumors circulated around Capitol Hill that Syria had delivered Scud-D missiles to Lebanon. These reports did not specify whether the missiles were Russian Scud-Ds or Syrian varieties of Scud-Ds, which are upgraded versions of older Scud models that Syria reportedly began producing in mass quantities during the last year. Both missiles have a range of up to 700 kilometers, which means they could hit most, if not all, Israeli cities even if fired from northern Lebanon. Both can carry chemical or biological warheads.
Less than a week after a Feb. 17 visit by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns -- the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Damascus in more than five years -- Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah at a banquet in Damascus. During the visit, Assad openly mocked U.S. efforts to distance Syria from Iran and stated that his government is "preparing ourselves for any Israeli aggression."
These weapons transfers appear to mark a continuation of Assad's belligerent stance. While Lebanon has long been the battlefield between Syria and Israel, the transfer of these weapons may indicate that the Syrian president is calculating that the next war with Israel could involve strikes on Syrian territory. Conversely, others have postulated that the transfers could also be designed to put pressure on the United States to get Israel back to the negotiating table -- a bizarre tactic that is clearly not working.
'Engagement' with Syria has really put a stop to all those arms transfers, hasn't it?
Assad shill: Syria will stop arming Hezbullah if it gets the Golan back
Assad shill Josh Landis claims not to know whether Syria delivered long-range scud missiles to Hezbullah this week (despite Hezbullah's admission that it did). He dismisses the scuds as 'wobbly rockets' and claims that the Mossad's data about them was 'worthless.' And then he comes up with this:
The larger question, however, is not whether Syria has delivered Scuds to Hezbollah. Syria has been rebuilding Hezbollah's missile supplies ever since they were largely exhausted during Israel's 2006 incursion into Lebanon. It will continue to do so as long as Israel refuses to trade land for peace. Syria says it will no longer have any reason to arm Hezbollah once it gets the Golan back and can sign a peace agreement with Israel.
That's curious. Because what Israel has asked in return for the deal that 'everyone knows' will bring peace on the Syrian border is that Syria declare the conflict to be over and that it drop its relationships with Iran, Hezbullah and other terrorist organizations. If Landis is correct, that's a slam dunk to happen. So if Syria wants peace, as Landis claims, why does Syria keep saying it won't drop those relations?
Syria understands that the reason Israel will not return the Golan Heights is because of the terrible imbalance in power between the two countries. So long as there is no peace, Syria will feel compelled to arm itself and its allies. Only this week at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, we were reminded that Israel has hundreds of atomic warheads that can be delivered by missile, plane, and submarine. What's more, Washington continues to supply Israel with large amounts of military aid and cutting-edge military technology. Israel accuses Syria of trying to change the balance of power by introducing Scuds to Lebanon, but from Syria's point of view, it is Israel that has skewed the regional balance.
Actually, Syria took a better shot at changing the balance of power in the region by trying to build a nuclear reactor at al-Kibar. Landis conveniently forgets that. Fortunately, Israel destroyed that reactor in 2007.
And now a little incitement from the 'Palestinian Authority'
The 'Palestinian Authority' keeps telling us how they have 'ended incitement' against Israel and that therefore they are ready to live in 'peace.' Not quite.
Amaryeh, who previously has accused the United States of being in cohorts with the Palestinian Authority, also says it and Israel are in an unholy alliance.
Attacking Koch for criticizing President Obama’s demands that Israel stop building for Jews in united Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Amaryeh wrote, “For Koch and like-minded Zionists, asking Israel to rein in Nazi-minded Jewish settlers, stop stealing occupied Arab land and freeze the expansion of Jewish-only colonies on land belonging to another people is tantamount to throwing Israel under the bus, according to these arrogant dogs and sick thugs.”
Besides calling Koch “an aggregate Zionist racist and liar," he termed former U.S. President George W. Bush “another pathological liar, former President Bush who claimed that Muslims and Arabs hated the U.S. because of our freedoms and liberties’ not because of America’s dark embrace of Israeli Nazism….
“One can argue rather candidly that Koch is either an irredeemable, willful ignoramus…or a pornographically odious liar that lies as often as he breathes oxygen, which is the more likely probability.”
The article was disseminated on the "Palestine Free Voice" website despite the PA commitment to cease incitement against Israel.
Of course, Obama may agree with Amaryeh's characterization of former President Bush, so don't expect this diatribe to come up in discussions with the PA.
Actually, now that I look at it, the domain called 'Palestine Free Voice' is for sale, so I'm not sure we can blame the 'Palestinian Authority for this one. There's also a blog by the same name (which I won't link), but it's not clear who writes it.
David Hazony has a brief piece on the Anat Kam case in London's Jewish Chronicle. While I don't agree with everything he writes there, this paragraph is spot-on:
Because you can’t have journalism without security. Secrets should be uncovered, but not at any price. Freedom of the press is a minimum condition for a healthy society, but security is a minimum condition for life itself. A watchdog that bites its master will end up hungry indeed.
It's sometimes easy for a lot of you in the West to forget that the kinds of secrets Kam exposed are life and death matters. We Israelis cannot forget it.
Fifteen months into the Obama administration, Victor Davis Hanson suggests some things to ponder. In each case, the question to be answered is "have things improved?"
Here are the items that are connected with our region: In other words, are Palestinians and Israelis, and the region at large, closer to peace or further from it? And is there a greater or lesser chance for another war involving Hezbollah and Hamas? Is Syria more or less likely to fuel regional tension? Is Lebanon more likely to erupt in sectarian violence or stay tranquil? Is Iran closer or more distant to getting the bomb, and is its behavior more conciliatory or provocative? Has Turkey warmed to the U.S., or is it continuing its Islamic distancing? Is Israel more or less secure?
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Did all the new euphemisms, the serial promises to close down Guantanamo, the envisioned civilian trial of KSM, the Middle East interviews, the Cairo-like speechmaking, and general reach-out to the Muslim world result in 2009 in fewer efforts on the part of Islamic extremists to kill Americans here at home, relative to the annual average since 2001, or more?
Has the United States gained greater good will with our immediate northern and southern neighbors, and is the Clinton diplomatic team more or less likely to commit diplomatic gaffes than was the team of Secretary of State Rice?
And are Chinese, Russian, and Middle East leaders more or less likely now, than in the past, to test an American president? Fifteen months is still early, but answers to these questions are becoming clearer. Not all of these issues involve the United States, but the Obama administration in one manner or another has addressed all of them — usually on the premise that America's prior eight years were the problem and the next four are the solution. Such exultation only makes the contrast more stark.
From the answers to those questions, it is obvious to me that Obama's foreign policy is a complete and utter failure where it concerns Israel. And if you read the rest of it, you will see that Obama is a complete and utter failure in the rest of the world as well.
I warned you this will not be a surprise, but look how the Jewish Orthodox answer the questions on Obama's handling of Israel: 17% approve (compared to 55% of Jews generally), 74% disapprove (37% for Jews generally). Interestingly, when it comes to Netanyahu's handling of the relations the Orthodox aren't as forgiving as one might assume: 30% of American Orthodox Jews disapprove of the way Netanyahu is handling his relations with Obama and the US. In fact, the number of Orthodox approving of Netanyahu (57%) is lower (!) than the number of Conservatives (61%) and identical to the number of Reform who think Netanyahu handles the relations properly (also 57% - 31% of Reform disapprove).
There is likely a difference between why the Orthodox disapprove of Netanyahu's handling of Obama and why the others disapprove. Those Conservative and Reform Jews who disapprove of Netanyahu's handling of Obama likely do so because Netanyahu is not accommodating enough to Obama and because Obama is obviously displeased with Netanyahu. Those Orthodox Jews who disapprove of Netanyahu's handling of Obama likely do so because Netanyahu is not tough enough - for example, because Netanyahu caved in on the 'settlement freeze' in Judea and Samaria. Thus the disapproval numbers on Netanyahu - even if they are similar - are not comparable.
Hezbullah admitted on Thursday that it did receive long-range scud missiles from Syria. Syria is still denying it.
Hizbullah sources confirmed Thursday that the terror group received a shipment of Scud missiles from Syria, the Kuwaiti paper Al-Rai reported.
According to the report, the missiles were claimed to be old and unusable. Hizbullah also accused Israel of blowing the incident out of proportion in order to provoke a media ruckus.
The sources added, "Our organization has many surface-to-surface missiles spread across all of Lebanon, in case Israel attacks the country again.”
In spite of this confirmation, the Syrian Foreign Ministry denied the reports, saying Israel was trying to stoke tensions in the Middle East and could be setting the stage for a possible Israeli "aggression" to avoid Middle East peace requirements.
Here's the most interesting part:
At the same time, according to the Wall Street Journal, the IDF came very close recently to attacking a convoy carrying weapons from Syria to Lebanon, but at the last moment decided against it.
Hmmm.
And here's the bad news:
In related news, Col. Ronen Cohen, former head of the Northern Front in Military Intelligence and the current chief intelligence officer for the IDF’s Central Command, said in a research paper that an Israeli bombing of Lebanese national infrastructure would likely unite the Lebanese people behind Hizbullah and its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.
As if they're not already.
When we go to war with Hezbullah again (which will happen), I believe we should hit Lebanon's infrastructure regardless of whether it unifies them behind Hezbullah.
Like most of Israel's universities, Tel Aviv University is taxpayer funded, with students paying a fraction of what they would pay in other Western countries for an education (university tuition here is around $3000 per year - less than my tuition as a Freshman at Columbia 35 years ago).
But all that taxpayer money doesn't just go to fund student tuitions and faculty research. I thought you'd all (especially the Israelis) like to hear about something your tax shekels funded on the Tel Aviv University campus on Thursday. Those of you who are abroad can follow along as well - I'm sure you donate money to Tel Aviv University as well (and if you don't, your federation probably does).
A report in Maariv said that Tel Aviv University was on Thursday sponsoring a symposium called “Voice from Gaza.” Speaking at the symposium will be far-left academics and professors who have urged the United States to develop relations with terror groups Hamas and Hizbullah. Attendees will also have the opportunity to talk to their “colleagues” in Gaza via videoconferencing.
The symposium is being chaired by Professor Uri Hadar, who is a signatory to dozens of leftwing petitions, including a number calling on IDF soldiers to refuse to serve in Judea and Samaria, and to disobey orders that violate their conscience. He was also a strident supporter of Tali Fahima, who spied on Israel for her boyfriend, Zakaria Zubeidi, Jenin chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Also attending will be Sarah Roy, a Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors who is a professor at Harvard and a fierce supporter of Hamas, as well as Richard Norton, who has called on the U.S. to recognize Hizbullah.
Yes, of course, they can talk to their colleagues at the Islamic University of Gaza who are studying Bombmaking 101.
Aren't you happy you funded that? You mean you're not happy that you funded that? Sorry. I'm not happy about it either.
Goldstone's favorite court system executes two 'collaborators'
I'm sure you all remember Richard Richard Goldstone telling Christiane Amanpour of CNN (at least at the time) that Hamas has a 'court system' that is capable of investigating the war crimes they committed during Operation Cast Lead. That court system was in action early Thursday morning. In what's being billed as the first 'officially sanctioned' executions in Gaza in nearly a decade (except for the ones that were), Hamas summarily executed two 'Palestinians' for 'collaborating' with Israel early Thursday morning, and dumped their bodies outside Gaza's Shifa Hospital.
The executions were announced by Ahmed Atallah, the head of Gaza's military court. In a statement on the Interior Ministry Web site, Atallah said the two defendants had provided information to Israel and helped with attacks on Gaza militants for several years.
Atallah said Mohammed Ismail, 36, was convicted of planting devices in the cars of militants, presumably to help track them. Nasser Abu Freh, 33, a former Palestinian police captain before the Hamas takeover, allegedly started receiving money to work with Israel in 1998.
Collaboration with Israel is considered the highest crime in Palestinian society. In a sign of shame, the two men's families did not hold typical mourning ceremonies for them, instead burying them quietly in a brief funeral.
The executions were the first since 2001, when two collaborators were put to death by firing squad in Gaza during the reign of Abbas' predecessor, Yasser Arafat. The then-justice minister said at the time that the executions were meant as a warning to those thinking of betraying the homeland.
Hamas officials have made a similar argument in recent weeks, saying executions would deter spies. Thursday's executions were also seen as a move by Hamas to assert internal control and independence from Abbas.
'Palestinian' justice in action. Heh.
By the way, the picture at the top is from the execution of Fatah-affiliated prisoners by Hamas at the beginning of Operation Cast Lead.
Good news: IDF preparing soldiers to deal with 'Jewish demonstrations' and 'settler violence'
Apparently anticipating government compliance with an Obama administration demand to extend the 'settlement freeze' when it expires at the end of September, the IDF is giving troops stationed in Judea and Samaria a 'crash course' on dealing with 'Jewish demonstrations' and 'settler violence.'
The IDF Central Command has prepared a special crash course for soldiers in the Judea and Samaria Division amid concern about a possible escalation in settler violence should the government extend the moratorium on new settlement construction in the West Bank beyond the end of September, senior officers have told The Jerusalem Post.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu convened top cabinet ministers earlier this week to discuss the US’s demands to extend the freeze, which were presented during his visit to the White House in March.
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As a result, the Judea and Samaria Division decided recently that all military units deployed in the West Bank will undergo a crash course in dealing with Jewish demonstrations and settler violence.
As part of the course, soldiers will watch movies from past incidents and will hold discussions to determine potential flash points and learn how to neutralize them. The course will also include live simulations during which commanders and soldiers will learn how to confront and disperse Jewish demonstrations in the West Bank.
I suppose the government is trying to have less violence than the Olmert government had at Amona (pictured above).
The demand that the government extend the freeze was inevitable - I predicted it right after the freeze was announced. And apparently the IDF doesn't think the government will stand up to it.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for twenty-eight years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 5 to 26 years and two grandsons. Our eldest daughter and eldest son are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
Jonathan Tobin comments on the JPost interview with Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon that I blogged in the wee hours of Sunday morning (the full interview is to appear in Monday's JPost). 
