It's been a rather unsettled week, hasn't it. The stock market has dumped a major load of do-do. The Tour de France has continued to spiral ever closer to the drain. M. le President Sarkozy has proven that, well, he's French. And Ehud Olmert continues to do his best imitation.
And speaking of dumping ... there's an extremely nasty bright red streak of wind, rain, lightening and hail headed this way. Appropriate, somehow.
Shabbat Shalom.
Look what I found crawling on my lemon verbena today.
Several of them, actually. Very pretty, but not good for plants. And sneaky, but a little dumb. They try to hide on the opposite side of the stem when they sense a threat, but one of them hopped right into the glass jar I held up for it.
I was wondering why that plant was turning such a sickly shade of yellow. Fortunately, I have another one.
(now if I could only find the rest of my website -- maybe it's hiding behind that stem, too... oh, my! It's back!!)
Be back in a few.
(hopefully, the missing parts of this page will be, too ...)
Remember? It was just before the Aqaba summit. U.S. President George Bush was pressing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to release hundreds of terrorist prisoners as a "good will" gesture toward Yassir Arafat's new Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. There were all sorts of documents being drawn up and promises made about how the released prisoners would forever abjure terrorism and would become model citizens working toward peace. Remember?
It's already hard to find a lot of hard news archives from way back then, and those that are out there are pretty lame. Here's a good flashback, though, to refresh all of our memories.
If you still don't believe that terrorists will return to "work", then look at the case of Ahmed Jbarra, better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Sukkar. He's the Palestinian prisoner who was released by Israel on the eve of the Aqaba summit in June. In spite of his signing an agreement not to engage in any violent activities upon his release - as has the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah prisoners due to be released - he recently called on Palestinians to kidnap Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them for the prisoners held by Israel. Abu Sukkar was recently appointed as Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's special adviser on the issue of the prisoners.
According to the Hamas-affiliated Palestine Information Center, Jbarra who served 28 years of a life sentence for murdering 14 people when he planted a refrigerator bomb in Jerusalem's Zion Square in 1975 spoke recently at a Bethlehem rally held in his honor. The report said he "indirectly" urged Palestinians to abduct IDF soldiers. According to the center, he told the rally that there would be no peace or security for Israel without the release of all the prisoners. "I would like to remind all the national and Islamic factions that in return for three soldiers, Israel released 1,150 prisoners in the famous exchange," Jbarra said, referring to the 1985 prisoner exchange between Israel and the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian-General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril. Jbarra also praised the Palestinians for killing one Jew for every three Palestinians killed during the current intifada, noting that in the previous intifada, the figure stood at on e Jew for every 28 Palestinians killed in clashes with the IDF. So much for "repentant activists", one can clearly see the lessons they've learned.
Jbarra's claim to fame (in addition to the fact that he had murdered 14 people and maimed dozens of others) was that he had been the longest serving terrorist held in Israeli jails. On June 3, 2003, that honor passed to one Said Al-Ataba. Try as I might, I can't find out exactly what he was arrested for, other than "brave resistance against the occuption" (according to the various and sundry voices calling for his release). I do know that the failure to include him on the latest misbegotten prisoner release list is one of the excuses the PA is allegedly dredging up to once again reject the offer (even though ... hello? ... it's a freebie).
President Bush is, in fact, brain dead.
Israel has taken difficult actions, including withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Palestinians have held free elections, and chosen a president committed to peace. Arab states have put forward a plan that recognizes Israel's place in the Middle East. And all these parties, along with most of the international community, now share the goal of a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state -- a level of consensus never before seen on this crucial issue.
Only one of those statements is true. Does he truly not know this?
The past five years have also brought developments far too familiar in the recent history of the region. Confronted with the prospect of peace, extremists have responded with acts of aggression and terror. In Gaza, Hamas radicals betrayed the Palestinian people with a lawless and violent takeover. By its actions, Hamas has demonstrated beyond all doubt that it is [more] devoted to extremism and murder than to serving the Palestinian people.
This is a moment of clarity for all Palestinians. And now comes a moment of choice. The alternatives before the Palestinian people are stark. There is the vision of Hamas, which the world saw in Gaza -- with murderers in black masks, and summary executions, and men thrown to their death from rooftops. By following this path, the Palestinian people would guarantee chaos, and suffering, and the endless perpetuation of grievance. They would surrender their future to Hamas's foreign sponsors in Syria and Iran. And they would crush the possibility of any -- of a Palestinian state.
There's another option, and that's a hopeful option. It is the vision of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad; it's the vision of their government; it's the vision of a peaceful state called Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people. ...
How long have we been hearing about this moment of choice? For many years, now. And the choice is always the same. But wait! There's another option. Abu Mazen's dream of a peaceful state called "Palestine," stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, with nary a Jew in sight. Which peaceful state, by the way, would be gobbled up before you could blink by those local members of the "international community" who have never bought in to that mythical "consensus" Bush keeps referring to.
... To realize this vision, these leaders are striving to build the institutions of a modern democracy. They're working to strengthen the Palestinian security services, so they can confront the terrorists and protect the innocent. They're acting to set up competent ministries that deliver services without corruption. They're taking steps to improve the economy and unleash the natural enterprise of the Palestinian people. And they're ensuring that Palestinian society operates under the rule of law. By following this path, Palestinians can reclaim their dignity and their future -- and establish a state of their own.
No, they're not. No. They. Are. Not. Saying it, wishing it, hoping it, doesn't make it so. They're not doing any of those things. They're the second face of the same two-faced coin. And it's really scary that the so-called leader of the free world is this incredibly clueless about something so important.
President Bush! Wake the hell up!
Haveil Havalim is packed full of goodies this week, and it's Sammy's 1000th post, as well, so you really shouldn't miss it. Wish him a slightly belated 50th birthday while you're there.
Shimon Peres will be sworn in today as Israel's 9th president because there was no time or will to find a plausible alternative in the wake of the Katzav scandal.
He's obviously not the person the Israeli public would have preferred to have in that office. He's been rejected in every fair contest he's joined to date. But at this point they have very little choice.
Sad.
Peres has contributed tremendously to the State of Israel. There's no denying that, no matter what you think of his politics and his methods of promoting them. But he should exhibit some humility and recognition of the circumstances that finally brought him to this place. And he's not.
Speaking in a live interview broadcast after the 7:00 AM bulletin on Israel Radio's "This Morning" news magazine, Yoram Dori, the man closest to Shimon Peres, who will serve as his top strategic adviser, said that the position of president is a powerful position rather than one void of authority and that Peres would use the presidency to "do what is good for Israel" and "bring peace" with the Arabs.
Dori said Peres would be active when program anchor Arieh Golan asked him if Peres would restrain himself from getting involved in promoting his own agenda in Israel-Arab affairs given that the position of president is a ceremonial role devoid of authority.
Golan then asked how Shimon Peres could take the role Dori described and remain "the president of all Israelis - both left and right."
Dori argued that Peres would be "the president of all Israelis" by virtue of the unprecedented size of the Knesset vote in his favor and poll results showing that most Israelis support his being president.
While this informed, articulate Israeli Arab journalist is trying to tell the Israeli government (and the Bush administration) that they've been pushing all the wrong buttons for some time now ... no one is listening.
What should Israel do at this stage? Nothing. Israel should stay away from the internal affairs of the Palestinians. There is no one to deal with on a serious basis on the Palestinian side. Abbas doesn't even have control over his own Fatah militias, so what are you going to talk to him about? Israel should just sit and wait. Don't repeat the mistake of unilateralism, when Israel left Gaza to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups.
I'm one of those who argued before Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza that this would send the wrong message to the Palestinians and empower Hamas. Hamas came to power a few months after the unilateral disengagement because the man in the street was saying: "This is wonderful. Hamas has managed to drive the Jews out of Gaza with rockets and bombs, while the PLO has been negotiating with the Jews and they didn't get as much. Look at what Hizbullah did in Lebanon. Kill them and they'll give you more." This is what worries me. Israel's unilateral disengagement undermined the moderates throughout the Arab world.
I also don't see any Arab country willing to send forces to maintain order in Gaza. The feeling in the Arab world is to try to disengage from the Palestinians
The Palestinians need to get their act together and find a way to resolve their problems, and then Israel can talk with them. But under the current circumstances, if I was Israel I wouldn't pull out from one inch of land because there is no strong and reliable partner on the other side.
Please click through and read the rest.
Shavua tov (wishing you a good week).
They say that life imitates art. And sometimes the other way around. This one is hard to untangle. The story is old but ongoing and a little off my usual well-beaten path. And it involves a pissing contest between an institution that I'm quite fond of and an artist whose ego appears to have raged out of control. Yes, I guess I'm taking sides.
[ ... ]
Take the current imbroglio involving Christoph Büchel, a Swiss installation artist, and that capacious reclamation of derelict industrial space, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (a.k.a. MASS MoCA) in North Adams, in the western part of the state. MASS MoCA invited him to do a large installation piece called “Training Ground for Democracy.†The artist accepted, apparently on a handshake, and promptly asked the museum to fetch him, among a long list of things, a police car, a voting booth and a two-story house that could be disassembled. He also wanted various items wrecked, burned and painted, and he wanted everything dragged or hoisted into MAAS MoCA's most cavernous (the size of a football field) gallery. The museum complied, as much as it could. The artist then asked for a second mobile home and portions of a reassembled old movie theater. The museum gave it a shot. But then, having been suckered into the role of the shockable bourgeois, MASS MoCA hollered, “Enough!â€
Way over budget for Büchel’s troubled and uncompleted work of art ($160,000, then doubled, with no final limit in sight) the museum had spent more that $300,000 to install the exhibit), MASS MoCA figured it could salvage something from the project by exhibiting the unfinished piece in as-is condition. Büchel threatened legal action, saying a museum can’t show something it says is a work by a certain artist when the artist hasn’t come close to finishing it. The issue is currently before a federal district court. No matter what is decided, though, the artist wins.
But does he? This guy doesn't think so and puts a pox on both their houses. The Boston Globe doesn't think so either, but (naturally) for the opposite reason (i.e., that Büchel's work is being unfairly demeaned by Mass MoCA's workaround, which has veiled the incomplete exhibit in burlap). At this point, I think I'd go out of my way to avoid any other Christophe Büchel exhibition, not only because of this story but also because of some of the other stuff I confirmed he's up to while I was doing some background checking. I say "confirmed" because from the title of this exhibit and the description of its contents, you can sort of see pretty clearly the political statement emerging (you see, that well-beaten path was right here all along).
They say there's no such thing as bad publicity and maybe that's what Büchel was counting on. Some people have speculated that this impasse was his intention all along. But there are exceptions to every rule. I hope Mass MoCA wins this one, but I doubt it will be in time for me to see the incomplete exhibit un-veiled when I'm up there next week.
Shabbat Shalom.
The geniuses at Newshounds.us "watch FOX so you don't have to." Check this out.
Yesterday during Special Report anchor Brit Hume delivered a short, snide update on the status of a lawsuit filed in 2005 by the parents of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old Washington State peace activist killed by an Israeli military bulldozer in Gaza in 2003. The D9 bulldozer had been sold to the Israeli government by the American company, Caterpillar. Ms. Corrie was acting as a human shield to prevent the demolition of the house of a Palestinian pharmacist and was mowed down by the bulldozer despite the fact that she was in front of it, wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and carrying a megaphone.
[ ... ]
In Hume's report he made it sound like this was a frivolous suit brought by the parents of a girl too stupid to get out of the way of a large piece of machinery. He claimed that it was an "accident" while airing a picture of Rachel wearing a black head scarf. This, naturally, created the image that she was somehow in league with those awful terrorists who want to blow us all up. Hume could barely control the dripping sarcasm and at one point I thought he was actually going to laugh as a way of diminishing the Craig and Cindy Corrie's attempts to hold Caterpillar responsible for the hundreds of deaths and injuries that have occurred as the result of their bulldozers being used to gut Palestinian homes.
Now Brit Hume is certainly more than capable of delivering a news report with a sufficiently snide inflection to imply that the subject matter is frivolous and even laughable. I've seen him do it many times, and few reports would be a more appropriate target for such derogation than this one. Unfortunately and contrary to Newshounds' overwrought account, he played it perfectly straight this time. But don't take my word for it. See for yourself, courtesy of Newshounds.
I do wonder what they're smokin' over there. Then again, after reading the rest of this, I suppose that anything short of genuflecting while uttering Rachel Corrie's name is considered sacrilege by these people.
Wait. Ron Paul did NOT say that. Except that, well, yes, he did.
Maybe he really didn't say it before he really did say it but, hey, toward the end of this interview, he says pretty much exactly that.
In other news, getting on towards six months after his multiple felony convictions, Brown is still living the good life in his NH "compound" and holding off the Feds, while waxing poetic about the global Jesuit/Freemason/Zionist illuminati conspiracy and entertaining guests like Randy Weaver.
This week's edition of Haveil Havalim is up and at a new host. So please visit.
Unless, of course, "here" happens to be Saudi Arabia.
JEDDAH, 3 July 2007 — The story of the forcibly divorced couple Fatima and Mansour that shocked the Saudi street for over a year has not found closure and, according to the husband in the case, has continued with his unjustified detention and coercion in signing a gag order that the National Society of Human Rights says is illegal.
In this highly publicized case, a judge nullified Fatima’s marriage to Mansour Al-Timani on July 20, 2005 after her family intervened that the husband had lied about his tribal background. By the time the legal action against the couple was instigated by the wife’s half-brothers, the husband and wife were the parents of two children. The wife and younger child remain in a women’s shelter because she refuses to return to the custody of the men who intervened on her marriage, which has been sanctioned under Islam but apparently not on tribal grounds.
The elder daughter is living with her father in Alkhobar. Because a judge officiated the divorce imposed on the wife and husband by the wife’s half-brothers, Fatima cannot legally return to Al-Timani’s custody because the husband is no longer considered such by the courts, and therefore he cannot have legal custody of her. (Under Saudi law, all women regardless of age can only be returned to their legal male guardian, or mahram, who must be a relative by blood or marriage, or, in some cases where legal custody is being disputed, a court judge.)
So why was Al-Timani, the husband (or ex-husband), detained and forced to agree to a gag order?
. . . Fatima’s family members complained to a high official that Al-Timani’s statements to the press are harming the reputation and family name.
His wife's (or ex-wife's) relatives didn't like the publicity the case has been generating. I can see why.
No, this could not happen here in the USA. Thankfully . At least not yet.
BTW, with completely accidental irony, Saudi News also published this report last week.
JEDDAH, 5 July 2007 — A large number of foreign men and women in the Kingdom are embracing Islam each year after learning more about the faith. According to one report, 4,285 expatriate women in the Eastern Province alone have become Muslim in the past five years.
Many Saudi and non-Saudi women are actively engaged in the propagation of Islam among non-Muslim women and compete with their male counterparts, believing that helping a person embrace Islam is one of the greatest achievements done by a Muslim.
Because Islam, especially in Saudi Arabia, is so supportive of women. Or could it possibly have something to do with the fact that no other religion may be legally practiced in Saudi Arabia? I just don't know.
More and more people, and more and more people who actually have some influence of some sort, seem to be distancing themselves as much as possible from the British University and College Union's absurd boycott of Israeli academicians.
LONDON – British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Friday slammed the University and College Union's vote in favor of considering a boycott of Israeli academics and institutions in May.
Miliband spoke during a meeting with Acting President and Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, who arrived in the United Kingdom for an official visit. She also met with Prince Charles and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been appointed the Quartet's Middle East envoy.
Itzik said that Miliband was the one to raise the issue of the academic boycott, saying that the call for a boycott was a bad mistake which had caused damage to his country's citizens.
Prince Charles also chimed in. Not to get too giddy over this, though. Both Miliband and HRH also managed to slip in there a reference to British journalist James Miller and ISM "activist" Tom Hurndall, both killed by the IDF while doing their thing in very dangerous parts of Gaza.
But then there's Alan Dershowitz's on-line petition which, for what it's worth, has reportedly now gathered over 6,000 signatures from academicians around the world requesting honorary affiliation with Israeli universities in solidarity against the boycott.
This is actually the first time I've mentioned this particular boycott here, I think, and there's a good reason. It seemed to me like a fairly impotent little temper tantrum by a bunch of fairly insignificant fools. More and more people seem to be coming to a similar conclusion.
Shabbat Shalom.
The concept of land for peace has proven a failure in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and any future IDF withdrawal from the West Bank will create a second "Hamastan," former chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon said Wednesday.
Hitting the nail smack on the head. But he went further. And his points are, I think, essential to any hope of achieving peace and stability of any sort in the Middle East.
Ya'alon said the faulty conceptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict included the beliefs that the Palestinians want - or were able - to establish an independent state within the pre-1967 armistice lines, that the creation of two states within those boundaries would solve the conflict, that land for peace was the basis for any peace agreement, that peace would bring security, and that the key to stability in the Middle East was the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Let's look at those points a little more closely:
1. The palestinians arabs do NOT want or are not able to establish an independent state within the pre-1967 armistice lines. Yaalon elaborates:
He said the violent Palestinian rejection of the peace proposal offered to them at Camp David seven years ago, which would have given them a state on the Gaza Strip and some 95 percent of the West Bank, and the refusal of both Hamas and Fatah to recognize the existence of a Jewish state negated the essence of Israeli and international policies - that the Palestinians want an independent State alongside Israel on the pre-1967 borders.
Remember that the UN Parition Plan of 1947 offered the Jews a tiny fraction of the land they had had every reason to hope for as a national homeland, and much of that was considered uninhabitable. But an oppressed people, having just survived attempted genocide and truly wanting a place to call home, accepted it nonetheless and turned their attention to draining the swamps and making the desert bloom. Well, they turned their attention to that after successfully defending themselves against the onslaught of five Arab nations determined not to allow them even that. This is how a people desirous of a homeland behaves. Compare and contrast.
2. The creation of two states within the post-1967 boundaries would NOT solve the conflict.
This proposition is so self-evident, it barely requires an explanation. The entire Arab world has always believed and continues to believe that there is no room for a Jewish State of any size in the Middle East. The creation of two states has been accepted by some (but not all) as a temporary situation that will ultimately lead to the obliteration of Israel. So the conflict would continue, but with one more, extremely close Arab state cherishing that dream.
3. Land for peace is NOT a basis for a successful peace agreement.
See, the last 30 years. Sinai. Egypt. The coldest peace ever. See also, Olso. Wye. Camp David. See, especially, Gaza, disengagement from (although admittedly that fiasco wasn't an attempt to trade land for peace but rather an attempt to trade land for nothing so, note: land for nothing is also not a basis for a successful peace agreement).
4. Peace will not necessarily bring security.
Ok, I have to confess. I'm not sure exactly what this means. Perhaps Ya'alon was referring to the "peace" with Egypt and Jordan, which has certainly not brought security. Instead, the "peace" with Egypt has brought smuggling of munitions, explosives and drugs (to name only a few items) into Gaza and lots of US aid to finance Egypt's continuing military build-up and training for a hypothetical war with a hypothetical country just to its northeast. The "peace" with Jordan has just resulted in a big pay-off -- for Jordan. PM Olmert plans to release four terrorists serving life sentences to Jordan tomorrow, where it appears all but certain that they'll be released after 18 months (and more likely sooner).
5. The key to stablility in the Middle East is NOT the resolution of the conflict between Israel and the palestinian arabs. Ya'alon again:
Ya'alon said regional stability was not dependent on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as many Western leaders argue, but on the defeat of jihadism, led by the Iranian regime.
"Any Israeli concession will not only not reduce the threat, but will increase it," he said.
"The result of Israeli concessions today will hurt not only Israel's interests and those of the West, but those of moderate Arab regimes in the region," he added.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!!
Yesterday, I stumbled across this blog, the author of which appears to be a "traditionalist" Catholic (perhaps not unlike Hutton Gibson?). I was looking for an informed and rational discussion of the Tridentine Mass issue (for an incendiary version, see here). Instead, I got this:
There is nothing at all uncharitable about these references in the traditional Missal to Judaism. They are milder than the passages of Scripture, for example, where St. Paul refers to the Jews who reject the Messiah and persecuted the Christians, "The Synogogue of Satan."
Instructing others in the Faith and praying for their conversion is a true work of mercy on the supernatural level. Rather than attacking Christians for it, they should be thankful that we care enough to remember them in our prayers and ask for their enlightenment. Unfortunately, for many today Charity is nothing other than making other people "feel good," and not questioning the way they live. This could only come from a faithless people who have no belief in punishment after life. If there is indeed eternal punishment for those who reject Jesus Christ, what greater act of Charity could there be than to pray that people turn to Him in this life?
Nothing uncharitable? We should be thankful? Oy vey. Let's look at the language of the mass.
Let us pray also for the Jews, that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ.
(chas v'chalila) And then some stuff about our "blindness" and a hope that we'll be delivered from it. Nothing uncharitable. We should be thankful.
I wonder how many Catholics would find it "charitable" and would be "thankful" for Muslims prayers to take the veil from their hearts that they might acknowledge the prophesy of Muhammed and the falsity of those aspects of Christianity that Islam rejects. If there is indeed eternal punishment for those who worship "three," what greater act of Charity could there be than to pray that unbelievers accept the word of Allah in this life ... ?
The same post mentions that, contrary to a number of reports now circulating, the "perfidious Jews" reference was removed from the version of the mass that Pope Benedict is apparently determined to rehabilitate. I've read that elsewhere and on that score I think those articles might be wrong. But this guy had no problem with that phrase anyway as, he claims, "perfidious simply means " 'faithless.' " He says it again here in a section called "The Jew Card Played Yet Again." (cute)
While that may be an accurate literal translation from the Latin, the more common usage is the one found in my dictionary: deliberately faithless; treacherous; deceitful. Nothing uncharitable there, I guess. Nothing hinting at antisemitism there. I guess.
OTOH, we have the many offensive talk-backs at the JPost version of the story, several calling the Pope a Nazi, others claiming that Catholics aren't Christians. That's just plain ignorant.
I think we're going to somehow have to come to grips with the fact that the Benedict of Regensburg and the Benedict of this Motu Proprio are one and the same. This Pope is seeking to protect and reinforce the Catholic Church in what he believes to be its "authentic" form against what he perceives to be an onslaught of multidimensional proportions. It's hard to argue with either his premises or his approach.
Ironically, some of the rituals of this Tridentine Mass harken back to the true "roots" of the church in that they mirror more closely the role of the Kohanim in the Temple who, naturally, faced the Holy of Holies in their supplication and not the congregation. Both "Traditionalist" Catholicism and traditional Judaism have understandably resisted the Protestant trend toward "involving" the masses by facing and lecturing them rather than participating with them in prayer. But.
We Jews tend to take exceptional umbrage at efforts to convert us, in part because of what we've suffered at the hands of "well-meaning" missionaries through the ages but also because our tradition now eschews a reciprocal effort. Many Jewish prayerbooks long ago removed from the Aleinu prayer the words "for they bow to vanity and nothingness" but even those who retain them do not pray for non-Jews to have the veil lifted from their hearts. This just isn't part of our tradition, and so we have little tolerance for those who find it "charitable" to seek to woo us away from our truth. This factor is a dialogue dead-end.
It's still not clear how exactly this Papal edict is going to come down nor what its actual effect will be. I do worry a little about what kind of consequences a renewed campaign to pray for the conversion of the Jews might have for interfaith relations. But I'm afraid that Catholics and Jews and Protestants are going to be too busy fighting a common enemy in the coming decades to bother going at each other all that much. And I also believe that after 2,000 years we're learning to handle our differences better than we once did. Maybe papering them over and pretending they're not there isn't the best approach.
This has been pretty much a stream of consciousness rumination. Can you tell? I expect there will be more of them appearing here from time to time.
