Libertarian Leanings

Quote Of The Day

In a column persuasively arguing that the Arab Spring uprisings are driven by economics rather than politics, Caroline Glick had this to say:

The current debt-ceiling negotiations between US President Barack Obama and the Republican Congressional leadership have made it apparent that Obama is ideologically committed to increasing government spending and taxes in the face of a weak economy. If Obama is reelected next year, the dire implications of four more years of his economic policies for the US and global economies cannot be overstated.

And the implications for Israel are even more dire.

Aside from remaining economically responsible, as Israel approaches the coming storms it is important for it to act with utmost caution politically. It must adopt policies that provide it with the most maneuver room and the greatest deterrent force.

First and foremost, this means that it is imperative that Israel not commit itself to any agreements with any Arab regime. In 1977 the Camp David Agreement with then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in which Israel surrendered the strategically invaluable Sinai for a peace treaty seemed like a reasonable gamble. In 2011, a similar agreement with Assad or with the Palestinian Authority, (whose budget is largely financed from international aid), would be the height of strategic insanity.

Beyond that, with the rising double specter of Egyptian economic collapse and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power, Israel must prepare for the prospect of war with Egypt. Recently it was reported that IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz has opted to spread over several years Israel's military preparations for a return to hostilities with Egypt. Gantz's decision reportedly owes to his desire to avoid provoking Egypt with a rapid expansion of the IDF's order of battle.

Gantz's caution is understandable. But it is unacceptable. Given the escalating threats emanating from Egypt - not the least of which is the expanding security vacuum in the Sinai -- Israel must prepare for war now.

Israeli Jews Consider Obama Pro-Palestinian

President Obama’s speech to AIPAC last Sunday did not change Israeli minds about his hostility towards Israel, according to a Smith Research poll sponsored by The Jerusalem Post.

When asked in the poll whether they saw Obama’s administration as more pro-Israel, more pro-Palestinian or neutral, just 12 percent of Israeli Jews surveyed said more pro-Israel, while 40% said more pro-Palestinian, 34% said neutral and 13% did not express an opinion.

A Complete Surprise

Analysis in the Jerusalem Post reveals that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was caught completely by surprise when President Obama called for a return to pre-1967 borders.  It wasn't the first time.  Obama pulled a similar stunt in 2009 when, without warning, he demanded a halt to settlement construction.

But again Obama opted for surprise. Unlike May 2009, however, at which time Netanyahu did not respond directly to the settlement freeze demand in the press conference that followed his first meeting with Obama, this time he changed tactics and in an exceptional delivery of statements during an Oval Office photo-op on Friday told Obama that this simply would not work.

Beyond the whole debate of what Obama truly means when he says “1967 lines with land swaps,” the concern in the Prime Minister’s Office was that if left unchallenged, the impression would be that US policy now called on Israel to return to those lines. It was in order to alter this perception that the prime minister challenged Obama so publicly. And, indeed, Obama clarified his statement, seeming to roll it back a bit.

A bit, but not completely.

What is currently irking Netanyahu, beyond the president’s failure to say specifically that the descendants of Palestinian refugees would need to be absorbed in a future Palestinian state rather than in Israel, is the idea of land swaps that appeared in both of Obama’s speeches.

Perhaps the future holds another unpleasant surprise for Israelis when Obama decides Palestinian refugee descendants have a right to land in Israel.

Cantor At AIPAC

After President Obama spoke at the AIPAC Policy Conference, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor got a turn at the podium.  Cantor, a Republican, was well received by an audience that was in large part made up of Democrats.

Undoubtedly, his most well-received moment was when he addressed the president’s own illusions. Cantor first noted that Palestinian culture — which Obama omitted criticizing — is laced with “resentment and hatred.” Cantor then shrewdly rebuked Obama:

[Palestinian culture is] the root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It is not about the ’67 lines. And until Israel’s enemies come to terms with this reality, a true peace will be impossible … If the Palestinians want to live in peace in a state of their own, they must demonstrate that they are worthy of a state.

He boldly laid out a challenge to Abbas, noting that his media and schools regularly preach hatred of Israel as well as Jews as a people. His following remarks received an ovation:

Stop naming public squares and athletic teams after suicide bombers. And come to the negotiating table when you have prepared your people to forego hatred and renounce terrorism — and Israel will embrace you. Until that day, there can be no peace with Hamas. Peace at any price isn’t peace; it’s surrender.

The reception Cantor received leads me to think that Herman Cain might just survive his right of return gaffe.  On Fox News Sunday Cain said much the same thing as Cantor, though more abruptly.

WALLACE: Question: what would President Cain offer the Palestinians to make peace?

CAIN: Nothing.

No matter how you slice it, a Cain presidency is a very long shot, but the longer he stays in the race the more difficult it is for candidates to play along with the Palestinian charade, and that may inject a modicum of realism into the peace process.  If we can call it a peace process.

Goldstone Reconsiders

Gee, if I only knew then what I know now, says Richard Goldstone, author the UN sponsored Goldstone Report that was so libelous of Israel.

We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

The Goldstone Report cast Israel and Hamas as equally guilty of terrorism.  When Israel refused to be party to the UN witch hunt, Goldstone proceeded to gather his evidence almost exclusively from parties hostile to Israel.  I can imagine Goldstone thinking, "I'll show them."

For Goldstone, it was a given that the Palestinians and Hamas were in the practice of deliberately firing rockets at Israeli civilian targets, a practice which the UN seems to consider culturally acceptable in the current Middle East context.  The Goldstone Report acknowledged the rocket attacks with casual, halfhearted condemnation, but then focused on Palestinian allegations of Israeli war crimes which were readily accepted at face value. 

808. In reviewing the above incidents the Mission found in every case that the Israeli armed forces had carried out direct intentional strikes against civilians. The only exception is the shelling of the Abu Halima family home, where the Mission does not have sufficient information on the military situation prevailing at the time to reach a conclusion.

But now Richard Goldstone has changed his mind.

Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.

The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

It's a regrettable misunderstanding which Goldstone now seems to imply was all Israel's fault for not cooperating in the first place.  Realistically, would Israel have gotten a fair shake from anyone so eager to accept the Hamas storyline?  Today Goldstone says,

Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case.

Yes.  Sadly it has not.  And sadly there is nothing to suggest that the Goldstone Report would have been any less naively (or dishonestly) accepting of Hamas accusations, even if Israel did play along with its kangaroo court.

Fourth Anniversary

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu notes the passing of a milestone.  Four years ago today Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza.

"According to the Hebrew calendar, today is the day Israel uprooted approximately 10,000 Israelis - men, women and children - from their homes,"he said at the weekly cabinet meeting. "To our regret, Gaza has become a base for Hamas-led, Iran-sponsored terrorism. Thousands of rockets and missiles have been fired at us."

[...]

Netanyahu reiterated that Israel would not tolerate rocket and missile fire of any kind, neither barrages nor individual attacks, adding that "all firing will be vigorously responded to."

In an apparent criticism of the 2005 disengagement, over which he had been at odds with then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, Netanyahu said, "peace will go back to being based on reciprocity, not unilateralism."

Meanwhile Barack Obama and his peace negotiator George Mitchell turn up the pressure on Israel to halt all construction in West Bank settlements, including construction to accommodate the natural growth that occurs when children are born. This is necessary, they say, to move the peace process forward. New York Times editors recently explained the issue.

'Mr. Obama and his negotiator, George Mitchell, have focused on settlements after prying loose a commitment — highly caveated — from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a two-state solution. The Palestinians insist they won’t return to talks until all construction halts. The Americans have decided that a freeze is needed to show Palestinians and other Arabs that Israel’s conservative government is serious about peace.

Less visibly, but we hope just as assertively, the administration is pressing the Palestinians and other Arab leaders to take concrete steps to demonstrate their commitment to a peace deal. Those must clearly contribute to Israel’s sense of security.'

"Less visible" is something of an understatement as regards Palestinian and Arab commitment to peace or, for that matter, the administration's pressure on them for some concessions that might help to achieve it. "Non-existent" might be more accurate.

Administration acceptance of Iranian nukes?

A Jerusalem Post report hints that there is a sense of acceptance within the Obama administration of nuclear armed Iran. 

'The United States will call for "even stricter sanctions on Iran to try to change the behavior of the regime," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a TV interview broadcast late Tuesday.

Washington remained concerned about what Clinton called Iran's "pursuit of nuclear weapons," which could "be very destabilizing in the Middle East and beyond," Clinton told the private Venezuelan television network Globovision.

Earlier Tuesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said Iran was "very focused on developing [nuclear weapons] capability, and I think when they get it, or should they get it, it will be very destabilizing."'

Oops.  I guess that just slipped out. 

US President Barack Obama told CNN US has "absolutely not" given Israel a green light for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, saying diplomacy is his preferred course of action.'

No worries.  Israel can rely on Obama's massive charisma to shield it from destruction.

The Road Untravelled

Just over a week ago, Neurotic Iraqi Wife vented her frustration at Israel's incursion into Gaza.  Among the tragedies in Gaza was the death of a school friend of hers, which prompted her to direct one of her blog posts, The 21st Century Murderers... to "everyone who thinks the Gaza massacre is justifiable."  She wrote,

'Im not saying Hamas is right. Im not a supporter of Hamas or any organization that deals with violence. But at the same time THIS SHOULD STOP. IT SHOULD STOP NOW. What did my school friend do? What was his fault? Why did he die? He died as a result of this inhumane war. BOTH SIDES ARE WRONG.

I don’t give a damn why this war started in the first place. Nothing, nothing whatsoever justifies kids dying. NOTHING. This post is for every single ignorant person who supports Israel’s current actions. And then you sit and wonder why do people hate us? Why do people dislike us. This is exactly why. You sit and wonder why people want to kill us? All these kids, the kids that have been orphaned, the kids who woke up having no family around will grow up thinking of ways to take revenge. And you wonder why suicide bombers do what they do in your part of the world. Bloody hell even people in other countries are asking to go fight in Gaza...This is exactly what happens as a result of unjustifiable violence.'

It turns out that several "ignorant persons"who support Israel's actions stopped by to explain why in Neurotica's comment section.  First out of the gate was Tex who asked,

'What do you want Israel to do Neurotica? Open their borders to the palestinians and let the murderers flood across and murder all their children and kill every last living jew? Would Israel then be justified in defending themselves? Should Israel pull out of the occupied territories and let them govern themselves? Oh wait...they already did that and the thanks they received for forcing their own citizens to give up their homes was what? Thousands of rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately at civilians.'

Programmer Craig added his two cents soon afterward,

'By the way, Neurotica... every Palestinian blogger I know of has been preaching hate and violence against the Jews (or "zionists" as they call them) for years. Every single one. How am I supposed to sympathize with people like that, when it seems they got exactly what they wanted? You say that the people in Gaza aren't all like Hamas, and that is undoubtedly true, but where are the voices of those in Gaza who DON'T want war? Why aren't they being heard? Why aren't they on the news? Why aren't they on they internet? You say those people are important... shouldn't they be front and center in the Arab world, then?'

Julie added,

'I think a caring heart "gives a damn" why this war is started. How do you fight wrong/evil if you don't? You're not saying "Hamas is right" but can you say they are WRONG?'

Since Neurotica published her essay there have been 80 comments attached to it, far more than I've seen on her blog in the brief time I've been reading it.  To her credit she responds... up to a point.  Yes Hamas is wrong but Israel should target the militants, not the children.

But it's pretty well known that Israel targets the militants, even going so far as to warn civilians to clear out before the shooting starts.  Hamas has made a practice of setting up its rocket launchers near schools and hospitals in order to win the information war with footage of massacred women and children.  Neurotica seems reluctant to believe it, reluctant to accept the possibility that Hamas is to blame for Palestinian deaths.  The best she can do concede that Hamas and Israel are both worthy of blame, and refusing further comment she throws up her hands and says,

'Whether people agree with me or not is not the point here. How can we stop the massacres thats what is important right now. Im leaving it at that.'

Although Neurotica seems predisposed to believe the Arab media take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she was willing to acknowledge, in a more recent post, that there is another side to the story. 

'A few days ago I had to attend some family lunch that my parents were hosting. I wasn’t really up to it but I had to go. As we sat down chitchatting, a few mobile phones beeped simultaneously. “Please donate to Gaza at such and such banks” One of the ladies read the message out loud. She then threw her phone in dismay at the table. “Why should I care about Gaza” She said “While my own country is suffering. What did the Palestinians do for us Iraqis when my people were getting killed by the hundreds” She continued. “Let them go to hell.”

I was in shock. “But Khala (Aunti), these are humans dying, not animals. Surely you can be more compassionate” She had a very hard look on her face. She took out a cigarette, lit it, inhaled, then exhaled and shook her head and said “Neurotica, Iraqis are humans too. Do you know what they (Palestinians) did in Iraq? Do you know how the preyed on us when Saddam was in power. I don’t give a damn about these people. They elected their government so let them suffer the consequences”

Another woman joined in and said “She is right Neurotica. You know where the money is going? Its not going to the victims, it will end up in Hamas’s hands, and surely Hamas will buy weapons. All this is propaganda. No, not a single penny from MY own hard earned money is going there, Id rather spend it on the Orphans of Iraq. Half the millionaires in the Emirates are Palestinians, why don’t THEY help their OWN people?” Then she said, “Hamas don’t even care about their own people, theyre sitting comfortably in Syria and Lebanon while their people burn.”'

Is Neurotica ready to challenge long held convictions?  Wonderful if true.  More people should do it, and if there is ever to be peace in the Middle East, they'll have to.

Of course, there's the alternative that's popular in certain circles -- destroy Israel and annihilate the Jews.  In the conventional view, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the source of all unrest in the Middle East.  But if the Jews were to disappear from the face of the earth, would that bring peace?  I think not.  What about the next enemy of Islam? 

Arab dreams of Israel's destruction gained justification from the reported death of Muhammad al Durah, a twelve year old Palestinian boy said to have been killed by Israeli gunfire in 2000.  But was he?  A challenge of the original news report by Charles Enderlin of France 2 resulted in a 2006 libel suit against Phillippe Karsenty, the challenger, in which Enderlin and France 2 prevailed.  The appeal, however, favored Karsenty.  The French Appeals Court found that Enderlin's report of the death scene was a fake.  

So what's a Palestinian "freedom fighter" to do?  What kind of an identity crisis would each of us endure at the destruction of a core cherished belief?  At some level, what we believe is who we are.  There are core convictions that are not relinquished easily, if ever at all.  Convictions likely to be more tightly held in Palestine and other Arab places, where keeping the faith is a matter of life and death, where deviating from the straight and narrow can draw the wrath of religious enforcers who will kill any who offer dissent.

Iraq had been on the verge of becoming one of those places, but for the success of Bush, Petraeus, and the soldiers and Marines who conducted the surge.  Neurotica's post testifies to the fact that differing opinions can and do exist among Iraqis.

'As I was about to voice my own opinion another lady said “You forgot what they did to our country Neurotica? To our People? They sent suicide bombers, they joined so called “Jihad” groups and killed hundreds even thousands of our people. They backed Zarqawi, that criminal man” Again as I tried to say something, a few teenage girls (daughters of another woman) announced they were leaving to join the protests. “What protests?” we asked. “There is a protest here in AD” They answered while they fixed their Palestinian scarves around their necks. The women rolled their eyes and shot the girls’ mother an evil look.

“How can you let them go?” The mother shrugged and said, its their choice, and I wont stop them. I just got up and left the table for I knew that the poor mom was going to be lectured. The conversation was already draining me.'

The overthrow of Saddam, the battle for Iraq, and the introduction of its democratic government were seismic events that caused a dramatic change in Arab perceptions of the U.S. and of themselves.  But if there was a shift in Arab expectations it is one that was imposed.  If real change is to be sustained, Arabs must begin to arrive at those perceptions on their own. 

Over the last thirty or forty years conventional wisdom has had it that achieving peace in the Middle East depended on resolving the Palestinian situation.  The obvious but unspoken reality is that the Palestinian situation is designed to be irresolvable.  One might have expected the Israeli departure from Gaza in 2005 to lay the groundwork for peace, but instead Gaza became a launch site for lobbing Palestinian rockets into Israel.  Whenever Palestinians thugs are threatened with peace they find a way to avoid it.

Recognition of terrorist tendencies caused Michael Scott Doran to write in a 2003 Foreign Affairs article,

'It is worth remembering that Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 came on the heels of the first Palestinian intifada, which also provoked much Arab hostility toward the United States. It was Saddam's defeat that cleared a space for the Madrid Conference and eventually the Oslo peace process. Then as now, defeating Saddam would offer the United States a golden opportunity to show the Arab and Muslim worlds that Arab aspirations are best achieved by working in cooperation with Washington. If an American road to a calmer situation in Palestine does in fact exist, it runs through Baghdad.'

If Neurotica is to be believed, a rift has appeared in Arab circles, or at least in Iraqi circles.  The Palestinian cause no longer enjoys unanimous, unqualified support in the Arab world, if it ever really did.  Continuing erosion of Arab support for Palestinian demands may eventually exert enough pressure to prevent militant Palestinians from torpedoing every substantive peace initiative that comes down the pike. 

But who is willing to challenge the conventional wisdom?  Neurotica's outspoken Aunti suggests that Doran's "road to a calmer situation in Palestine" has been cut through and construction is well under way.  The question remains as to whether or not the Obama administration, or the rest of the world for that matter, will choose to travel that road.

Linkage

According to Richard Fernandez, there are consequences to the nearly universal insistance on a solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict as a prerequisite for solving any other crisis in the Middle East.

Political movements often need a narrative to justify acts which would otherwise plainly be seen to be driven by expediency and self interest. The "linkage" with Israel provides an admirable pretext to excuse misgovernance, terrorism and outright thievery. "God's Army to Combat Zionism and Free Al-Quds" sounds a heck of a lot more noble than Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. (With apologies to Ali Baba, who really wasn't part of the Forty Thieves, but I digress) Without "linkage" perfume to deodorize his despicable deeds, the late and unlamented Yasser Arafat would have graced the FBI Most Wanted Poster rather than the cover Time Magazine's 1993 Person of the Year issue. Tom Gross called Yasser Araft "the great con man of modern politics". Even while Araft was still alive, CBS News reported that "Jim Prince and a team of American accountants - hired by Arafat's own finance ministry" found he had probably stolen a billion dollars for his own use.

So far, Prince's team has determined that part of the Palestinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion -- with investments in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands.

Although the money for the portfolio came from public funds like Palestinian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; it was all controlled by Arafat. And, Prince says, none of these dealings were made public.

What ultimately prevented the detection of Arafat's obvious knavery, what made it feasible for Arafat to become the "great con man of modern politics" was the "linkage" myth. As long as he could convince people that he was "struggling" against Israel, Arafat would be given a pass -- and more than a pass -- he would be accorded adulation.

The linkage myth also provides the pretext for the terrorist organization Hezbollah to maintain a standing army in Lebanon, acting as a state within a state.

Addressing the Israeli Parliament

During a three-day visit intended to upgrade ties between Germany and Israel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the Israeli Parliament.  Tuesday marked the first time that a German chancellor spoke to the Knesset.

Merkel told the Knesset that it was up to Iran to convince the world that it is not building a nuclear weapon, and that Iran's acquisition of one would have "disastrous consequences" and "must be prevented."

Doesn't that have a familiar ring to it.  For someone who is supposed to be an alienated ally, Angela Merkel sounds an awful lot like George Bush.

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

My emphasis above.