May 19, 2008 • Vol. 13, No. 34
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Of all the scummy things the Hezbollah and its allies have done during their takeover of West Beirut, the burning of pro-government media outlets is one of the worst. Prominent anti-Syrian media figures have long been the target of political violence: journalists Samir Kassir and Gebran Tueni were assassinated during the 2005 Cedar Revolution, and the television anchor May Chidiac barely survived a car bomb assassination attempt.
This time around, Hezbollah militants have ransacked the media offices of the pro-government Future Movement, headed by Saad Hariri, throughout Beirut. Make no mistake: this is an orchestrated attack. Hezbollah's supporters have destroyed Future Movement TV antennas across the city and threatened pro-government journalists. Most egregiously, they invaded and set fire to the Future Movement newspaper, located in West Beirut. As has become routine, the Lebanese army stood by and watched while these offices were destroyed.
This shows that the pro-Syrian forces do have a perverse understanding of the importance of public relations. It is not enough to control the streets, each side is trying to win "hearts and minds." However, Hezbollah's actions have accomplished just the opposite. Their occupation of Beirut's Sunni areas has shattered whatever remaining goodwill the party retained among non-Shia Lebanese.
Fortunately for Lebanon, its journalists are a hardy breed. The Lebanese Press Club organized a march in solidarity of Future media outlets today -- including, among others, May Chidiac. Mustapha, who blogs at Beirut Spring, has also organized a campaign in solidarity of freedom of the press in Lebanon.
The Lebanese will not surrender without a fight.
Hezbollah does seem to have the upper hand in Lebanon at the moment, and while David Kenner reports that, "Now more than ever, the Sunni, Druze and Christian communities are firmly aligned on the side of the central government," that may not be worth much if they are only united in getting steamrolled by Hezbollah.
But here's a hypothetical. Let's assume that Hezbollah prevails in their Lebanese power grab and manages to seize the reins of government. Hezbollah is a terrorist group, and it denies Israel's right to exist, but if it controlled the Lebanese government...would Obama have a sit down with Nasrallah? Just before Samantha Power got canned for calling Hillary a monster, she gave an interview explaining Obama's rules of diplomacy:
Obama would engage with Iran's President Ahmadinejad. He would sit down with North Korea and Syria. Is there anyone he wouldn't talk to? "Not among elected heads of state. He won't talk to Hamas, but he would talk to Abbas."
Even though she says "elected heads of state," she doesn't really mean elected--he would meet with Kim Jong-Il and Assad, and I don't think even the Obama folks are claiming that Ahmadinejad is a legitimately elected head of state. Granted, the campaign has been as vague as possible on this ever since Obama declared he would meet with any dictator who would sit down with him, but it seems like the key requirement is running a country with internationally recognized borders--you do that, you get your invitation to the Obama summit. So again, the question: if Hezbollah manages a complete takeover of Lebanon, would Obama meet with Nasrallah? There's no obvious reason why not, though it would be great if someone actually pushed Obama for an answer.
To secure U.S. permission, Israel actually presented the United States with a video of the Syrian nuclear facility it bombed last September:
Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core’s design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows “remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon,” a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video “very, very damning.”
Syria’s Ambassador likens this to the evidence the United States presented to the UN about Iraq, and warns Americans not to be so gullible this time around. But the real suckers are reporters, like Seymour Hersh, who buy this drivel. In his story last February, Hersh quotes anonymous Syrian officials claiming the facility only housed a chemical weapons program and the North Koreans were just ordinary construction workers. Yet Syria has extensive experience with chemical weapons and would not need the help of North Koreans to build them. And speaking of chumps, one of Hersh’s original sources is sticking to his story:
David Albright, president of Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and a former U.N. weapons inspector, said the absence of such evidence warrants skepticism that the reactor was part of an active weapons program.
“The United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation facilities or nuclear weaponization facilities,” he said. “The lack of any such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor is part of an active nuclear weapons program. The apparent lack of fuel, either imported or indigenously produced, also is curious and lowers confidence that Syria has a nuclear weapons program.”
To Albright, it is not enough to demonstrate that the Syrians are secretly building an unapproved nuclear reactor with a rogue nuclear state. The burden doesn’t even shift back to the Syrians. Does Albright think the Israeli video was obtained with the consent of the Syrians? Does he think the Syrians would have eagerly admitted UN weapons inspectors? Left-wingers decry so-called climate change deniers, but what amount of evidence will it take them to recant their denials of Syria’s nuclear weapons program?
AIPAC has some new competition. It's called J Street and it bills itself as a "pro-peace, pro-Israel political voice," in contrast with AIPAC, which the folks at J Street clearly perceive as a pro-violence, anti-Israel political voice. I took part in a conference call today with J Street's founder and executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, and several of its advisers, all of whom made clear their disdain for AIPAC and its "right-wing agenda."
Victor Kovner, former corporation council for the city of New York, had this to say:
For many years, those of us who are active in support of Democratic candidates for office have been frustrated, to say the least, at the presumption held by so many...that we are somehow supportive of initiatives of AIPAC, and those who presume, have presumed basically right-wing agendas. It is embarrassing to have to say, as I've had to say so many times, I'm not with AIPAC, I do not support AIPAC. I support a different vision for the Middle East. And in creating J Street, I think we're going to be able to, working together, make that message clear, so that no longer will that presumption be in place.
The problem with all this is that AIPAC doesn't have a right-wing agenda, it simply has an unabashedly pro-Israel agenda. AIPAC assumes the Israelis are capable of deciding what is in their own best interests as a democratic and sovereign nation. Conversely, the folks at J Street think that they know better than the Israelis what is in Israel's best interests--and they believe a halt to settlement construction, negotiations with Hamas, and the peace process offer the only viable way forward. Ben-Ami said J Street will "advocate that it is always better to find paths to diplomatic engagement with those with whom we have disagreements." They don't care what the question is, talking is the answer, and they will pressure American politicians to rein in the Israelis regardless of popular opinion inside Israel.
Said Ben-Ami, "it can be pro-Israel to hold views that are not necessarily in accordance with the sitting government of either the United States or of Israel. That's a democratic right and part of what this effort is about." No one would dispute that it is a democratic right to hold dissenting views of whatever sort, or to differ from the views of the government of the United States and/or Israel. But those are both democratically elected governments, and the J Street guys are going to have to explain why they know better than both. The truth is they think they know better because they are left-wing ideologues, and want to persuade people that a leftist agenda is in the interest of the U.S. and Israel. Not a promising prospect.
And if you're wondering how they arrived at the name J Street, amusing speculation here.
Have you heard the good news?
US Ambassador Ford Fraker said in Sakaka that his country aims to double the number of student visas issued to Saudis.
“Currently there are 15,000 Saudi students in the US,” he said during an event on Sunday with local business leaders to an audience at the Al-Jouf Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We aim to increase their numbers to 30,000 over the next five years.”
If we're going to role the dice on visas for young Muslim men, shouldn't we be taking in refugees from Iraq who've already proven their loyalty to this country? The U.S. government only plans to admit 12,000 Iraqis in FY2008 and is likely to fall short of that goal with just 2,600 admitted in the first three months of the year. So how about if we cancel the visas for the Saudi student pilots and instead bring in a few thousand more of those Iraqis who can get U.S. soldiers and Marines to vouch for their character and loyalty.
The Economist reports:
In the wake of Condoleezza Rice’s shuttle diplomacy last year, Israeli officials reportedly coined lecondel, meaning to go back and forth repeatedly to no effect.
Rice devoted herself to the peace process and has nothing to show for it. In Iraq, the Pentagon has made more progress in the last year (see Fred Kagan's latest on Iraqi benchmarks for a status report) than the State Department has made in Israel in the last 20. Surely Condi's considerable talents might have been better put to use furthering that mission. And at least nobody's mocking Petraeus for being ineffectual--or they aren't anymore.
 Getting my marching orders. Some of you may have noticed my absence over the last week. I was in Israel with the American Israel Education Fund, an affiliate of AIPAC. A few observations/impressions...
Israeli politics are not polarized, they're paralyzed. We spoke with members of both the governing party, Kadima, and the opposition Likud. They all agree that disengagement has been a failure, in Lebanon, in Gaza, and to a lesser extent in the West Bank, yet no one has any real idea about how the country can move forward. The Palestinian Authority is incapable of delivering security, though surprisingly many of the politicians we spoke with think Abbas would if he could.
Iran is the enemy. No matter what question you ask, the answer is the same--Iran is behind all of the current troubles. The Islamic Republic supports Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south. But, the Israelis are somewhat less alarmist about the threat of a nuclear armed Iran than their American counterparts. Why is this? There are a number of reasons, not least of which is polling that indicates a substantial number of Israelis would consider leaving the country if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon. Israeli politicians seem to fear that an Iranian bomb is inevitable, and that it would therefore be a mistake to hype the threat. Apparently the word has come down from the government that the threat is not to be discussed in existential terms. Which isn't to say that the threat isn't existential, just that no one wants to be painted in to a corner. Still, we did hear from at least one intelligence official who thought that a nuclear Iran could be deterred from using the device, even if it would embolden the clerical regime in other areas detrimental to Israeli security. Bottom line, the situation in Israel is bad, and it will be a lot worse if the Iranians succeed in building a bomb.
Israelis don't buy the NIE. This is a fact, and the explanation for it was interesting. Basically, the two countries approach intelligence differently. According to one former intelligence official we spoke with, and I see no reason to doubt his analysis, American assessments of the Iranian program are shaped almost entirely by the intelligence failures of the Iraq war. That is to say, the American intel community was burned by the failure to find WMD in Iraq, and is thus extremely fearful of overhyping the threat from Iran. On the other hand, the assessment of the Israeli intelligence community is shaped by another event, the Yom Kippur War. They fear underestimating the capabilities of their enemies as they did then, and will err on the side of caution in order to avoid a repeat. Still, one got the sense that the Israelis and their American counterparts are not really so far apart on their estimation of Iranian capabilities, at least privately.
The land for peace paradigm is dead. It didn't work. The Israelis gave up southern Lebanon and got a war with Hezbollah. They gave up Gaza and they now have a hot war in the south with rockets hitting Sderot daily. There is no chance that the Israelis give up the West Bank only to see the same thing happen, especially given the West Bank's proximity to the economic heart of Israel. Which only further contributes to the paralysis--the old paradigm is dead, but nothing has yet developed to take its place. Even the country's peaceniks are horrified by the turn of events in Gaza--they are no longer pushing for a similar withdrawal from the West Bank.
The people we spoke with painted a very bleak picture, and yet life goes on in Israel. The economy is booming, the bars and clubs are full, and the country, outside of Sderot at least, is enjoying something resembling peace. We drove around the West Bank and saw almost no evidence of violence. The security fence has had the desired effect, and despite all the talk about checkpoints and their impact on the daily lives of Palestinians, we moved relatively freely from one end of the territory to the other. I was also struck by how empty the West Bank is. Despite the attachment some settlers have to the land, most Israelis seem willing to cede the area in exchange for peace. That just isn't possible given the current fractures in the Palestinian body politic.
On the other hand, the Golan is spectacular. It's also largely empty, but it is stunning terrain. The Israelis we spoke with seemed willing to part with this land as well in exchange for a real and lasting peace with Syria. I'm not sure I would.
Probably not, but it's still an interesting "what-if."
In the face of Iran's race to obtain nuclear weapons, defense officials who will visit the US next week plan to ask the Pentagon to reconsider its decision not to sell Israel the F-22 fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas Buhris will visit the US for several days next week to discuss a wide range of security and defense issues, including the continued funding of the Arrow missile defense system as well as the possibility that Israel will receive the F-22.
Israel had asked for the stealth jet - manufactured by Lockheed Martin - last year in an effort to retain its qualitative edge in the region in the face of American plans to sell Saudi Arabia advanced JDAM smart bombs. The Israeli request was turned down.
This, coupled with the fact that Israel has been ferociously trying to acquire the F-35 ahead of schedule, makes me wonder if the IAF is second-guessing their ability to knock back Iranian air defenses enough to clear strike lanes to Bushehr and Natanz. Seeing that some sort of Operation Dawn throw-back mission might be needed to guarantee neutralization of the myriad of nuclear-related targets, you can see why the IAF would be interested in an airframe that assures dominance of the skies.
Doubtful that Congress grants Israel's wish, though. Even though the Israelis would be doing us an enormous favor by cratering Iran's budding reactors, the fact that Israel sold advanced radar technology to China some years back still leaves a bitter taste in many a lawmaker and defense official's mouth. That's to say nothing of the fact that selling the Raptor to allied nations is illegal.
Happy compromise? If Lockheed can speed up delivery by a year or two, Israel might go for the STVOL F-35 bravo. While it lacks the range of the alpha variant, the F-35b can sneak into enemy territory (or close to it) and be refueled by a special forces team. No runways necessary, which means you can find a Desert One type location for your fighter jets, and stage your attack from there. Minus the Desert One style fiasco, presumably.
More straight talk from Samantha Power, the now departed foreign policy adviser:
Like Vieira de Mello, Obama is "comfortable crossing boundaries". They also have in common a willingness to talk to dictators; and here Obama needs to be careful. When the former Yugoslavia was disintegrating, Vieira de Mello was so obsequious to the Serb leaders Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic that he was nicknamed "Serbio".
"In his relationship with evil, he almost got a little seduced," she admits. The way to do it, according to Power, is "to be in the room with the bad guys but not to check your principles in at the door". Obama would engage with Iran's President Ahmadinejad. He would sit down with North Korea and Syria. Is there anyone he wouldn't talk to? "Not among elected heads of state. He won't talk to Hamas, but he would talk to Abbas."
Why draw the line at (democratically elected) Hamas? Obama explained earlier this week while campaigning in Texas:
“You can’t negotiate with somebody who does not recognize the right of a country to exist so I understand why Israel doesn’t meet with Hamas.”
How unbelievably arbitrary. Obama has pledged to negotiate directly with Iran, and yet Iran does not recognize Israel's right to exist. Nor does Syria. Obama famously said that it was a "disgrace" that George W. Bush had not spoken to the (undemocratically installed) leaders of Iran and Syria. Yet even by Obama's own logic such negotiations ought to be precluded. After all, Iran has not only pledged to wipe Israel from the map, but it is building the capacity to do so.
HT: FP Passport
One thought about the Jerusalem massacre: the lack of moral outrage about the fact that the gunman disguised himself as a rabbinical student.
Although the media frequently covers protests by outraged Muslims throwing temper tantrums at any perceived disrespect to their religion, Reuters and other news outlets fail to focus on the transparent hypocrisy when writing about terrorist attacks against Jews and Catholics. Not only do the terrorist sympathizers celebrate attacks against other religions with street-parties, prayers, and sweets, they fail to condemn al Qaeda’s bombing of mosques, which presumably contain an abundant supply of oh so sacred Korans.
On Friday, I noted the open border between Egypt and Gaza threatened not only Israel, but Egypt, allowing Islamists of all stripes to freely enter the country. Yesterday an Egyptian official explained the country's predicament to the Associated Press:
Cairo was now caught between the hammer and the anvil, the officials said. On the one hand, they said, Egypt did not want to use force against the Palestinians for fear of being accused by the Arabs of taking part in the blockade on the Gaza Strip; on the other hand, the Egyptians were very worried that Hamas and its allies would "occupy" the northern Sinai, turning it into a center for Islamist terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida.
The Egyptian authorities are now focusing their efforts on preventing Gazans from heading toward Cairo and other cities. Authorities also warned Egyptians not to allow Palestinians to stay with them.
Thirty-eight Egyptian border guards were wounded, several critically, during failed attempts to close the border. And tens of thousands of Palestinians are still pouring into the Sinai.
The breakdown of the Gaza border also exposes the rift between the moderate government in Cairo and the Palestinians. While Arab governments delight in Palestinian attacks on Israel, they are wary of the violence spilling over. The Kuwaitis despise the Palestinians for backing Saddam Hussein during the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Palestinians wore out their welcome in Baghdad after some were connected to terror attacks following the U.S. invasion in 2003. And the Palestinians in Lebanon are treated like third class citizens, unable to hold jobs outside the refugee camps. The Fatah al Islam uprising in the Nahr al Bared camp in northern Lebanon claimed the lives of 122 Lebanese troops while the Ein al Hilwah camp is essentially a no-go area for government forces.
Egypt will now need to deal with its own Palestinian problem. It must prevent terrorist groups that run Gaza from spreading within its own borders, and all while not appearing too harsh on the world's most favored victims.
The Hamas regime in Gaza scored a political coup when it destroyed the hated border wall that separated the Palestinian territory from Egypt. Established by the Israelis to halt the flow of weapons into Gaza, the wall stood as a symbol of Israeli occupation. Hamas did what Yasser Arafat, the PLO, and the Palestinian Authority never could, and even Fatah members were quoted praising Hamas for the achievement.
But the destruction of the southern border wall between Egypt and Gaza threatens more than just the security of Israel, says Aaron Mannes at his blog Terror Wonk. While the Israelis have expressed some concern that the opening of the border will open the flow of weapons used against the Israeli state (this concern is tempered by the relative ease with which munitions had already flowed into the strip), the state of Egypt is now open to multiple terror threats:
Now, in Gaza, the enemies of the Egyptian regime finally have the secure base they have long sought. There are reports of Palestinian terror cells affiliating with al-Qaeda as well as international "volunteers" filtering in. However, al-Qaeda is not the gravest Gaza-based threat to Egypt. Hamas itself has proven to be a formidable organization. The destruction of the Gaza barrier was a formidable technical achievement that required months of careful preparation. But the political preparation was also carefully managed. Hamas successfully advanced its story of deprivation at the hands of an Israeli blockade (in fact, Israel consistently allowed necessities through and only cut off fuel in response to a barrage of rocket attacks)...
However, a new base of operations against Egypt could have vast geopolitical implications. Egypt has a fragile economy, frustrated populace with a large Islamist movement, and an aging leadership. There have already been terror attacks in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula with Gaza links. Even if the regime is not overthrown, HISH [the Hezbollah-Iran-Syria-Hamas axis] will acquire substantial leverage over Egypt, and further the penetration of radical Islam into the largest Arab state, while acquiring a staging ground into the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond.
Read the entire post at the Terror Wonk for more on the developing threat to Egypt. Egypt appears to be waking up to this reality and has begun to reseal the border. But will the Mubarak regime have the political will to crack down on Hamas and the Palestinians, keep the border closed, and police it as carefully as the Israelis had done?
The Telegraph reports:
Saudi Arabia is to lift its ban on women drivers in an attempt to stem a rising suffragette-style movement in the deeply conservative state.
Government officials have confirmed the landmark decision and plan to issue a decree by the end of the year.
The move is designed to forestall campaigns for greater freedom by women, which have recently included protesters driving cars through the Islamic state in defiance of a threat of detention and loss of livelihoods.
Blake Hounshell notes the creepy logic behind the decision: "Can't have that kind of uppity behavior!" And the snark is also in full effect at Dhimmi Watch, where they post the story under the headline "Saudi Arabia to enter 20th century."
Still, women driving around Saudi Arabia in protest comes as surprising news to me. I'm reminded of a contentious meeting Karen Hughes held with Saudi women during a trip to Saudi Arabia. Back in 2005, when Hughes made the trip, her first to the region, the New York Times reported that "when Ms. Hughes expressed the hope here that Saudi women would be able to drive and "fully participate in society" much as they do in her country, many challenged her."
As one Saudi woman told Huges:
"There is more male chauvinism in my profession in Europe and America than in my country," said Dr. Siddiqa Kamal, an obstetrician and gynecologist who runs her own hospital.
"I don't want to drive a car," she said. "I worked hard for my medical degree. Why do I need a driver's license?"
"Women have more than equal rights," added her daughter, Dr. Fouzia Pasha, also an obstetrician and gynecologist, asserting that men have obligations accompanying their rights, and that women can go to court to hold them accountable.
The Times reported the event as though this was the one unscripted moment on Hughes's tour through the country. The International Herald Tribune actually ran the story under the headline "Saudi women depart from the script." Worth keeping in mind the next time you read some nonsense about how Muslim women love being legally required to wear burqas and hijabs--they say so themselves.
Haaretz prints an interview today with John Bolton, who was in Israel to attend the Herzliya Conference. Bolton offers this startling glimpse into how U.S. policy shifted during Israel's war with Hezbollah:
the main reason for America's retreat from its initial position was U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who "changed her mind fundamentally" after an Israeli aerial assault killed 28 civilians in Kana on July 30. "Rice exerted enormous pressure on me to reach an agreement already," he said. "Until Kana, the U.S. wasn't interested in another typical Middle Eastern cease-fire. We thought we would exploit the fighting to fundamentally change the situation, especially in Lebanon and Syria. But under the influence of her shock over Kana, the secretary of state changed her mind and only wanted an immediate end to the fire. That was the policy Rice dictated."
Olmert bungled the war, but a few more weeks of fighting might have provided a different result. Instead we got 'another typical Middle Eastern cease-fire.'
Across the Bay, an excellent blog covering events in Syria, points to this report from AFP:
Syrian official media poured scorn late on Tuesday on comments by a visiting US Congressman that he had secured an undertaking from President Bashar al-Assad to free seven jailed dissidents.
Syria "denies the statement by House of Represenatives member Patrick Kennedy that he raised the issue of certain detainees during his meetings with Syrian officials," the state SANA news agency cited an "official source" as saying.
"Syria refuses categorically to discuss its internal affairs with any foreign official. All that a foreign official can do is to be briefed about the situation in Syria in general and to listen to answers.
"No one has the right to interfere in Syria's internal affairs," the official source said.
After talks with Assad on Sunday, Kennedy told a news conference that he had secured an undertaking that Syria would free the seven dissidents, whose arrest last month drew strong criticism from the White House.
"The president said that they would be released," Kennedy told reporters.
It was bad enough when Pelosi went to Syria, but now the Dems have sent Patrick Kennedy? Seriously? Across the Bay headlines the item " Visit Assad, Get Egg on Your Face," but Patrick Kennedy hardly needs help getting egg on his face.
Israeli Air Force to Lockheed: Hurry it up:
Israel plans to keep its aerial domination of the Middle East intact, and that includes buying Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, accelerating its first deliveries, and deciding whose advanced equipment will be packed into the stealthy strike aircraft.
A senior Israeli air force (IAF) official says those major areas of concern appear to be on the right track because of an "understanding" with the U.S. officials. Washington's representatives are more ambiguous, saying that there has been no official change to Israel's F-35 program.
"The plan is that we will get the F-35 as soon as it's possible," the senior IAF official says. He says the service will end up with more than 100 F-35s, but he would not confirm the size of the purchase or that Israel is asking that the initial delivery date be accelerated by two years to 2012. The IAF wants the JSF "the minute it is available."
"Israel has a unique requirement, it doesn't operate in a coalition, [and it has a] different kind of strategic relationship" with the U.S. than the other F-35 partners," says Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin's vice president and general manager for the F-35. However, he says the overseas release of the first export aircraft will be no sooner than 2014.
Another "unique requirement" is that Israel has to penetrate integrated air defenses without the advantage of stealth technology. Stealth is the primary reason that the USAF has made Russian-built IADs their bit&* these past two decades. The air defenses that the United States overcame in Serbia and Iraq are similar to the ones fielded by Israel's enemies. While the IAF is skilled enough to pull off gee-whiz raids like Operation Orchard with bulky Strike Eagles, they have to beat radar coverage with sophisticated hacks or Wild Weasel missions. The JSF, with its shortcomings noted, fits the IAF's profile perfectly: slip in, break stuff, slip out.
Somewhat surprising though, is how hot the IAF is for these news birds. Israel has always been first in line for the latest American jets, but this time around their rhetoric sounds awfully urgent. The easy answer is that they want a stealth asset capable of sneaking into the hell that is the airspace surrounding Iran's nuclear facilities. But their requested timeline of 2012 for the first deliveries doesn't sync up with Mossad warnings that Iran could have the bomb by 2010. They might be giving Iran some wiggle room on the estimate, they might be worried that Russia closed the radar loophole that they exploited during Orchard, or they may just be sick of their F-15s and F-16s.
Motives aside, it will be most interesting to see what new tricks the always innovative IAF will pull off with the stealth advantage.
The Shrine of the Bab, this Israeli port city’s most distinctive architectural feature, is the final resting place of Siyyid Ali Muhammad, born in Shiraz, Persia, in 1819, one of the two founders of the Baha'i faith, and best known as the Bab, Arabic for "gate." He was the forerunner of the other founder, Mirza Husayn ‘Ali, also an Iranian and known as Baha’ullah, or "Glory of God."
The Bab was persecuted and executed in 1850 for ideas that Persia’s Muslim authorities deemed heretical, and Baha’ullah was chased into exile in the Holy Land. Given that their teachings are still relatively fresh for a part of the world where shepherds have chatted and wrestled with God in the desert for millennia--Baha’ullah only died at the turn of the 19th century--the Bahai faith is often referred to as the most recent of the world’s great religions. Its most famous adherents are the 70s folk-pop duo Seals and Crofts, and University of Michigan professor and blogger Juan Cole, who is apparently a Bahai dissident. "The Bahais are also really big in Hawaii," says my friend Cathay, an American journalist I’m traveling with in a group tour hosted by the Israeli Tourism Ministry. "The Bahais," she says, "are part of the New Age scene on the Island."
In Israel, however, the Bahai are just part of a large mosaic of religious sects that includes Muslims, Christians, and Druze along with the Jewish majority. The varied nature of Israeli society comes as a surprise to most of my traveling companions, all of them Americans. The real composition and texture of Israel is so different from how the country is typically represented as the homeland of European Jewry, that it is easy to forget how much the Ashkennazi establishment here has invested in a Euro-centric narrative that gives room to the country’s critics to label it racist. But, among others, there are the Oriental Jews, the Ethiopians, and the Russians, all of it making even Haifa familiarly multicultural enough for this group of mostly New Yorkers here to see a side of Israel that seldom appears in the international media, like luxury hotels and restaurants, wine tours of the Galilee, treks in the Judean desert, Tel Aviv fashionistas, and, of course, the the Shrine of the Bab.
Elsewhere throughout the Middle East, as in neighboring Egypt, the Bahai are repressed and persecuted, but in Haifa they have pride of place in the middle of town where the shrine’s beautiful hanging gardens, carefully attended by Bahai volunteers from around the world, surround the large pink shrine that is capped by a dome covered with 14,000 golden bricks.
It occurred to me that the shrine must have been a very vulnerable target during Hezbollah’s summer 2006 war against Israel. And had it been destroyed by a katyusha rocket, no doubt there would have been celebrations throughout the strongholds of South Lebanon and Beirut, where the Islamic Republic of Iran has seeded a version of Islamic intolerance and obscurantism that is not exclusive to hatred of Jews. The Israelis traveling with us do not recognize I am only half joking when I suggest that maybe the shrine was the real target of the rocket blasts that kept Haifa underground for a month.
As generous as the Israelis are, it is difficult for them to understand that they are not the only Middle Easterners who have real enemies. Indeed, while this society is various and multiracial, one of the more regrettable, if understandable, aspects of the Israeli mindset is that they see themselves surrounded by enemies without being able to discriminate between their neighbors and discern their real intentions. In this instance at least, the problem with seeing only foes is not that you will be in a constant state of war, but that you will be always seeking peace even if there is none to be had. In the Middle East, this is quite dangerous.
Continue reading "No Such Thing as Peace in the Middle East" »
According to this article, posted at the Drudge Report, YouTube suspended the account of an Egyptian "anti-torture" activist whose videos included Egyptian police violence against anti-government protesters:
Wael Abbas said close to 100 images he had sent to YouTube were no longer accessible, including clips depicting purported police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations. YouTube, owned by search engine giant Google Inc , did not respond to a written request for comment. A message on Abbas's YouTube user page read: "This account is suspended."
"They closed it (the account) and they sent me an e-mail saying that it will be suspended because there were lots of complaints about the content, especially the content of torture," Abbas told Reuters in a telephone interview. Abbas, who won an international journalism award for his work this year, said that of the images he had posted to YouTube, 12 or 13 depicted violence in Egyptian police stations.
Abbas was a key player last year in distributing a clip of an Egyptian bus driver, his hands bound, being sodomised with a stick by a police officer -- imagery that sparked an uproar in a country where rights groups say torture is commonplace.
That tape prompted an investigation that led to a rare conviction of two policemen, who were sentenced to three years in prison for torture. Egypt says it opposes torture and prosecutes police against whom it has evidence of misconduct.
I wonder if they'll shut down this video? Or this one? Or this one?
There are hundreds of similar videos now available on YouTube. The ones above include nudity, abuse, and graphic photos of dead people. Are the Egyptian videos really more graphic? Or is there a double-standard?
Albeit 3,300 years ago. The New Scientist asks, Were Cursed Rams the First Biological Weapon?:
Ancient written texts from the Middle East may reveal that the use of biological weapons dates back more than 3300 years, according to a new review.
The historical documents hint that the Hittites – whose empire stretched from modern-day Turkey to northern Syria – sent diseased rams to their enemies to weaken them with tularemia, a devastating bacterial infection that remains a potential bioterror threat even today, says the review.
Experts caution that more evidence is needed to firmly establish that the Hittites intended to spread disease using the animals. But they add that if this proves true, it might represent the earliest known use of biological warfare.
Tularemia, also known as rabbit fever, can pass from animals such as rabbits and sheep to humans through various routes, most commonly through insects such as ticks that hop between species. The bacterium responsible for tularemia, Francisella tularensis, causes symptoms ranging from skin ulcers to respiratory failure.
Interesting bunch, the Hittites. When they weren't busy with their robust bio-weapons program, they developed one of the first constitutional monarchies. In 1550 BC, they successfully sacked Babylon, located in what is now southern Iraq--possibly to prevent the Iraqis Babylonians from developing WMDs of their own.
From the AP, Hailstorm Sets Off Bomblets:
BEIRUT — The season's first hailstorm Tuesday was a blessing in disguise for cluster bomb-infested parts of southern Lebanon, triggering blasts from previously unexploded bomblets. No injuries were reported.
After a long dry spell across Lebanon, hailstones as big as walnuts hit villages and struck undiscovered bomblets scattered across the landscape, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Dalya Farran, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center (MACC), confirmed that many cluster bombs exploded when they were hit by hailstones in villages near the town of Marjayoun.
More than 30 people have been killed by cluster bombs in southern Lebanon since last year's war between Hezbollah and Israel.
That's a wonderful story. Minus the AP's obligatory blame Israel meme.
The United Nations and human rights groups accuse Israel of dropping about 4 million cluster bomblets during the war. Up to 1 million failed to explode and now endanger civilians in the area.
In lieu of divine intervention, one of the most aggressive efforts to clear southern Lebanon of unexploded ordinance has been conducted by the United States.
HT: Danger Room
Karen Hughes, a longtime friend of the president, has announced her resignation as undersecretary of state, effective at the end of this year. Hughes was supposed to enhance the image of the United States in the greater Middle East, but, in this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Stephen Hayes writes that she was never very well suited to the job as she "had never been to the region, had no expertise in the Muslims who largely populate it, and had never shown any real interest in it either." Hayes goes on:
It showed. On her first trip to the Persian Gulf, she approached foreign dignitaries as if they were soccer moms and began with a campaign slogan: "The four E's of diplomacy: Engagement, Exchange, Education and Empowerment." In one meeting, she told her host that the most famous phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance--"One Nation, Under God"--came from the U.S. Constitution.
So why did George W. Bush pick Karen Hughes for such a critical mission? Her words upon emerging from a meeting with an Egyptian sheikh provide one clue: "I think I was able to have a wonderful meeting with His Eminence to talk with him about the common language of the heart."
We don't know what His Eminence thought about his introduction to the common language of the heart. But George W. Bush, who years earlier declared that he had seen into the soul of Vladimir Putin, speaks it fluently. Hughes knows Bush as well as anyone other than his wife. And when Bush needs help on the big issues, he often seeks assistance from those most familiar to him, whatever their qualifications and without regard to what the rest of world might think.
And so it was that, as Hughes finished her trip, a reporter approached her for a comment on Bush's likely Supreme Court nominee: "Harriet would be a wonderful Supreme Court justice!"
This is probably for the best.
What is Condoleezza Rice thinking? Last week, the Secretary of State turned to former President Jimmy Carter for advice on Middle East, which, to put it in terms that Rice, an avid NFL fan might understand, is like asking Rex Grossman how to play quarterback. Or it would be if Grossman had publicly insulted you first.
"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." That is what Carter said about the Bush Administration less than six months ago. Although he later tried to soften his criticism, the attack was harsh enough that it even provoked a response from the White House press office, which labeled the former president "increasingly irrelevant."
Not any more, apparently.
Carter is the author of Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, a volume so tendentiously anti-Israel that it prompted this response from Dr. Kenneth W. Stein:
President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary.
Stein speaks with authority on the subject. He co-authored a book with Carter and served as the Middle East Fellow at the Carter Center of Emory University. Stein leveled this criticism in his resignation letter, leading a widespread condemnation of the book and its author.
Then, just three weeks ago, Carter was at it again. This time, he attacked Vice President Dick Cheney. "He's a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world," Carter said in an interview with the BBC.
"You know he's been a disaster for our country," Carter said. "I think he's been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he's prevailed."
So, Jimmy Carter attacks the vice president as a disaster, writes a deeply flawed book on the Middle East, and claims that the Bush Administration is the worst in U.S. history. Why does he deserve an audience with the Secretary of State?
It’s a good question.
Oh, by the way, here is what Carter said about Rice in his interview with the BBC:
"I'm filled with admiration for Condoleezza Rice in standing up to (Cheney) which she did even when she was in the White House under President George W. Bush," Carter said. "Now secretary of state, her influence is obviously greater than it was then and I hope she prevails."
That's the report from the Guardian:
Talks due to start this week on the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear weapons programme have been postponed, it was announced today.
The six-party talks between Russia, China, the US, Japan and North and South Korea were aimed at setting a timetable for final decommissioning of the state's nuclear capabilities. They were arranged after experts from the US, China and Russia visited North Korea's nuclear facilities and reportedly reached a deal on how to dismantle them.
No reason was given, but might it have something to do with the mysterious Israeli air strike in Syria? There is increasing suspicion that the facility the Israelis struck was in some way connected to North Korea. Administration officials have confirmed a relationship between North Korea and Syria, but we already knew that--Syria has long been a customer for North Korean arms. The Israeli press has been prevented from reporting on this story by the country's military censors, but Haaretz has reported that a North Korean flagged ship had docked in Syria three days before the strike following the release of similar information in the Washington Post. And the North Korean Press Agency did lash out over Israel's violation of Syrian airspace. A lot of coincidences.
Is it possible that the North Koreans were selling nuclear material to Syria as some reports would have it? Joseph Cirincione at the left-wing Center for American Progress calls such reports "nonsense," claiming that this story is being pushed by the White House for purely political reasons. As evidence, Cirincione states that "if North Korea gave them anything short of nuclear weapons it is of little consequence. Syria does not have the financial, technical or industrial base to develop a serious nuclear program anytime in the foreseeable future."
That's one way of looking at it (and perhaps a preview of a Hillary administration counter-proliferation policy?), but such a statement assumes that Syria isn't also acting as a conduit for the shipment of material from North Korea to Iran--just as it acts as a conduit for the transfer of Iranian weaponry to the Lebanese Hezbollah. Or perhaps the Syrians were warehousing North Korean nuclear material in advance of new international inspections that are to be reinstated as a result of the Six Party talks.
If the Israelis merely struck a depot containing weapons destined for Lebanon, why so much secrecy? And why did the North Koreans postpone the six party talks? It's hardly clear that hardline administration officials would have been able to foresee this sequence of events: Israel bombs Syrian desert and rumors of North Korean involvement lead to collapse of talks? If, as Cirincione says, this is all part of some neoconservative ploy to derail the talks--well that's a pretty big conspiracy, but apparently very well played.
On Tuesday this week, Chancellor Merkel’s cabinet voted to extend for another year what has arguably been Germany’s most controversial military operation since the end of WWII, namely the 2006 deployment of Bundeswehr naval forces off the Lebanese coast to interdict arms shipments to Hezbollah forces as part of the UNIFIL mission. In October 2006, the German contingent, which currently consists of about 1,000 soldiers and eight ships, took the lead in UNIFIL’s maritime mission, which counts a total of 2,000 forces and is also supported by Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria.
 Chancellor Merkel visited UNIFIL military personnel
aboard the Brandenburg earlier this year. In August last year, UN Security Council resolution 1701 had authorized up to 15,000 UN peacekeepers (about 13,000 troops were subsequently deployed) to help keep the shaky ceasefire in the wake of the 2006 Lebanon War--the bloody, destructive, and ultimately inconclusive 34-day proxy war between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.
In a piece for THE DAILY STANDARD published almost exactly a year ago, titled "Germany Goes to the Middle East," I analyzed why the Bundeswehr’s naval deployment in Lebanon proved to be so divisive for Chancellor Merkel's Grand Coalition government, the three opposition parties, and German public opinion:
Ironically, both supporters and opponents of Germany's military engagement in Lebanon have made veiled references to the Holocaust in support of their positions. Those in favor of sending troops argue that Germany has a moral obligation to do everything in its power to help guarantee the existence of the Jewish state. […]
In contrast, Germans opposed to sending soldiers to police the ceasefire argue that this would have the potential of setting Bundeswehr against Israeli soldiers. […]
And still others argue that precisely because of Germany's pro-Israel stance, it cannot be part of a neutral U.N. force in Lebanon which, by definition, would have to respond equally to ceasefire violations by either party.
On Tuesday, the German government portrayed the Lebanese naval mission as a success story. According to German Defense Minister Franz-Josef Jung, Bundeswehr forces checked more than 8,500 ships via radio, 35 of which were subsequently searched by the Lebanese in their ports. According to official statistics, none of these searches yielded any weapons. It should be noted that no ship was ever searched by force.
Under German law, the Lebanon mission’s 12-month extension (like all Bundeswehr deployments abroad for that matter) has to be approved by the Bundestag in a parliamentary vote, which is now scheduled for mid-September. It is widely expected that the governing CDU/CSU-SPD Grand Coalition parties and the Greens will provide overwhelming support for the naval operation. In contrast, the pacifist-populist post-Communist Left Party and parts of the pro-market Free Democratic Party (FDP) are still adamantly opposed to the Bundeswehr mission. The Left Party opposes any Bundeswehr mission abroad and wants to strictly limit the military to Germany’s territorial defense. The FDP is particularly concerned about the potential for German-Israeli military clashes and demands more assurances from Chancellor Merkel’s government that those issues have been addressed.
In fact, in October last year, several incidents involving German UNIFIL ships/helicopters and Israeli fighters took place off the Lebanese coast. While the Israeli government denied reports that its jets had fired two shots at an unarmed German reconnaissance vessel, Prime Minister Olmert had a 40-minute conference call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel a few days later to apologize for the unspecified incident and to assure her government that these things would not happen again.
Continue reading "German Cabinet Renews Maritime Mission In Lebanon" »
I guess this is the Palestinian version of the Disney Channel. The irony of those Marines singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song as they walked the ruins of Hue City in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket must not have translated well in Arabic.
(HT KMW)
 Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas declared last Tuesday that the West Bank city of Ramallah would soon rename one of its biggest thoroughfares after Jacques Chirac, the incumbent French President. Mahmoud Abbas called his French counterpart a “grand homme” on this solemn occasion of their farewell meeting, and Chirac replied by reiterating his support for restarting the flow of European aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Ramallah’s inhabitants should be pleased by their street's new name, given the cheerful way they welcomed Jacques Chirac in 1996, when the French president snapped at Israeli security personnel, famously threatening that he was “going back to his plane.” Watch the video here.
This report from Lebanon's Daily Star:
"The road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus," Pelosi told reporters after meeting with Lebanese parliamentary leader Saad Hariri at Qoreitem.
Steve Schippert writes at ThreatsWatch.org:
That she believes “the road to solving Lebanon’s problems” passes anywhere near Damascus is troubling enough, as ‘solving’ has nothing to do with it.
But that a major US political figure uttered such after speaking with the son of a man assassinated at the command of Bashar Assad - who happens to live in Damascus, coincidentally - is simply stunning.
Schippert's right...pretty galling that Pelosi would say such a thing after speaking with Hariri. But Pelosi's statement is not false. Syria will need to play a constructive role in Lebanon for any progress to be made there, but Pelosi can't seriously believe that the Assad regime will ever answer that call.
From the MEMRI Blog:
Ibrahim Karagul, a columnist with strong anti-U.S. views who writes for the Islamic Turkish daily Yeni Safak, which is the unofficial mouthpiece of Turkey's AKP government, has stated that since the disappearance of former Iranian deputy defense minister Ali Reza Asghari, two more Iranian commanders have been "kidnapped." He added that the espionage games being played by the U.S. and Israel, with Istanbul as their playground, are making Turkey look suspicious.
In his column, Karagul wrote that while the mystery of Asghari's disappearance is still unsolved, Iranian Col. Amir Muhammad Shirazi and Gen. Muhammad Sultani are missing.
He added that fingers in Iran are pointing at U.S. and Israeli intelligence services, and wrote, "It is said that five Iranians left Iran on Friday, March 16, and entered Turkey at midnight on March 17, and that they were handed over to CIA and Mossad agents on March 18. Whether Col. Shirazi and Gen. Sultani were among these five is not clear."
He warned, "If the U.S. keeps kidnapping Iranian officials, a big storm will erupt, because Iranian circles are warning that they have the capability and manpower to kidnap or strike at any U.S. or Israeli target, any time and anywhere in the world."
Yesterday Powerline linked to this op-ed by Sergeant David Thul in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Thul, now serving in Iraq as a member of the Minnesota National Guard, argues "that a majority of U.S. troops want to stay in Iraq and finish the mission." How does he know that? "Two ways," he says.
The first is anecdotally, from the men and women I work with and talk to every day. I have yet to meet someone who thinks the long-term good of the United States and the Middle East would be served by an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Many of us are tired and frustrated and miss our families and just want to go home. But we want to go home after transferring our area of responsibility to another unit, whether it is U.S. or Iraqi. We don't want to abandon our posts.
The second way I know that my fellow soldiers want to stay is that they have been saying so in a petition to Congress. At the AppealForCourage.org website, more than 1,500 service members in less than a month have signed an appeal for redress, the officially authorized method for the military to ask Congress to right a wrong, asking Congress to stop calling for retreat and to support our mission.
Day after day we see and hear our elected leaders in Washington telling us that the war is already lost or that it is not winnable. Nothing could be further from the truth. The essence of the military mission here is really quite simple. Train the Iraqi army and police to do the job that we are currently doing, give them the reins, and then take our leave. It is a slow job, but steady progress is being made. Already entire provinces of Iraq are under Iraqi military control. In more than 70 percent of the country, the Iraqi army and police are in the lead.
The petition can be found here, and here is the wording:
As an American currently serving my nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat. I also respectfully urge my political leaders to actively oppose media efforts which embolden my enemy while demoralizing American support at home. The War in Iraq is a necessary and just effort to bring freedom to the Middle East and protect America from further attack.
From Haaretz:
The London-based Arabic language newspaper A-Sharq al-Awsat reported Wednesday that the Iranian army has lost contact with one of its high-ranking officers based in Iraq.
The report states that the officer, Mohammed Muhsayin Shiradi, from a unit in the Jerusalem Brigade, has not been in touch with his commanders for three weeks.
A senior source in the Iranian military told the newspaper that it is possible that Shiradi has been arrested by American forces.
Here's an interesting story from today's Telegraph:
The disappearance of a former Iranian spy chief has raised speculation he has been kidnapped by Mossad or the CIA.
Ali Reza Azkari, 63, who headed Iran’s intelligence operation in Lebanon in the 1990s liaising with the local Shia militia, Hizbollah, went missing last month during a routine visit to Istanbul.
One report said after leaving Teheran he never made it to the Istanbul hotel where a room had been reserved in his name. Another account said he arrived in Istanbul but then disappeared, leaving luggage still in his hotel room.
You can read the rest here.
Just when you thought the "Zionist entity" couldn't stoop any lower, we now have word of a new conspiracy . . . to desecrate synagogues. According to Abu Abir, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza included plans to leave two large synagogues intact "so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them." Here's the quote from the New York Sun:
"We are proud to turn these lands, especially these parts that were for long time the symbol of occupation and injustice, like the synagogue, into a military base and source of fire against the Zionists and the Zionist entity," Mr. Abir said.
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