October 2011 Archives

People rarely like to hear bad news, so when it comes to the "Arab Spring," they can be perhaps be forgiven for preferring to luxuriate in feeble fluff like Tunisia's example: Successful elections followed the Arab Spring rather then face the hard cold facts cited by Barry Rubin in Tunisia: The 'Moderate' Islamists Make a Radical Revolution.

They do so, however, at their own peril.  From Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, the "Arab Spring" is looking and sounding more and more like a fever swamp.  Best to pay attention.

The lesson? To understand grand scale events, stop focusing on individuals -- whether ousted Arab dictators (Tunisia's ben Ali, Egypt's Mubarak, now Libya's Gaddafi) or slain jihadist leaders (Osama bin Laden and the various no-names the administration boasts of killing) -- and start focusing on the forces, the "spirit of the time," in this case, Islam, which creates bin Ladens no less than the tyrannical autocrats who suppress them.

Nor is this approach limited to comprehending the significance of the "Arab Spring." To the many who think that America's problems begin and end with Obama, consider the logic of the following quote, attributed to a Czech newspaper:

The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. ...

He knows of what he speaks.  Read on.

A devastating but magnificent analysis by Melanie Phillips.

No decent person can fail to be moved by the return of Gilad Shalit to Israel. Few eyes will have been dry at his reunion with his family. Yet it has to be said that ultimately, this deal represents a triumph of heart over head and sentimentality over realism.

The Shalit family did what many of us hope we would have done in similar circumstances - fought a tenacious and brilliant campaign to sustain public pressure on the government to secure their son's release.

It was, however, emotional blackmail - and the Israel government should have resisted it. Shalit came to be regarded as every Israeli's son.

Tragically, however, in the years to come Israel may come to realise that it paid for the life of Gilad Shalit with the blood of further murdered Israelis and the lifelong torment of their families.

Yet no-one should underestimate the extreme difficulty of the decision Netanyahu was forced to take in this case.

Much more here on the deal's effect on the "peace process," the bitter fruits of moral equivalence, the nature of the enemy and the choices no human being should ever be forced to make.

Shalit Agreement Shows Moral Failure of International Human Rights Frameworks

NGO Monitor
October 12, 2011

JERUSALEM - While welcoming the agreement to release kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as an important humanitarian act, Professor Gerald M. Steinberg, president of human rights watchdog NGO Monitor, noted that this episode further exposes the moral bankruptcy of international human rights mechanisms.

"Throughout the five years of Shalit's captivity in Gaza, during which every human rights obligation was blatantly violated, organizations such as the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), Gisha, and the International Red Cross demonstrated very little interest," Steinberg stated. "Similarly, the report of the UN Fact-Finding Commission on the Gaza War, headed by Judge Richard Goldstone, downplayed Shalit's captivity in blatant violation of international law. This moral stain will never be erased." 

In addition, NGO Monitor noted that the agreement to release hundreds of terrorists, responsible for heinous crimes, and tried and convicted according to due process of law, highlights the continued erosion of international legal principles. Instead of serving their time for these convictions, the murderers have been freed under extreme duress and compulsion, adding to the incentives for similar actions in the future. Organizations dedicated to human rights have an obligation to condemn such immoral extortion.

(via IMRA) 

For a list of NGO Monitor's detailed reports on the neglect of Shalit by human rights groups, scroll down.

One in a million billion/generation.

Everyone's favorite "moderate" palestinian Arab has thrown a bit of a curve ball at his Western apologists and acolytes, it seems.  At Al Jazeera last week, Sari Nusseibeh explained, in painstaking detail, Why Israel can't be a 'Jewish State.' It is, he says, "an inherently problematic concept."

What's inherently problematic is what pretends to pass for history, reason and logic in this essay.  What is it about this topic that seems to bring out the crazy in so many people?

Fortunately, most of the main weaknesses of the piece (there are just too many) have been thoroughly exposed by both Elder of Ziyon (where I first read about it) and Elliot Abrams (to whom Elder links).  Please read both of those posts first, as I'm only going to focus on one narrow excerpt that I believe demands more attention.

Nusseibeh says:

Nevertheless, it remains true that, in the Old Testament, God commands the Jewish state in the land of Israel to come into being through warfare and violent dispossession of the original inhabitants. Moreover, this command has its roots in the very Covenant of God with Abraham (or rather "Abram" at that time) in the Bible and it thus forms one of the core tenets of Judaism as such, at least as we understand it. No one then can blame Palestinians and descendents of the ancient Canaanites, Jebusites and others who inhabited the land before the Ancient Israelites (as seen in the Bible itself) for a little trepidation as regards what recognising Israel as a "Jewish State" means for them, particularly to certain Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox Jews. No one then can blame Palestinians for asking if recognising Israel as a "Jewish State" means recognising the legitimacy of offensive warfare or violence against them by Israel to take what remains of Palestine from them.

First, and just to get this out of the way, there are no descendents of the ancient Canaanites, Jebusites and others who inhabited the land of Israel before the Israelites alive today.  Claims to the contrary must be dismissed as disingenuous nonsense (with the sole exception that one archeological theory postulates a merger of the Canaanite population into the Israelite population which, if true, would technically make the Jews the only living descendents of the Canaanites).  The first Arab inhabitants of the region arrived in the 7th century C.E., as part of the Muslim conquest launched from ... Arabia.

But even if there were actual Canaanites and Jebusites living in the Middle East today, the biblical passages that Nusseibeh quotes (and he does so at length) would not apply to them or their land.  This is a point that is too often overlooked and cannot be stressed enough.  The parts of the Hebrew Bible that describe the conquest of the Land of Israel are historical.  They relate events that happened some 3400 years ago.  The battle narrative, as such, is descriptive, not prescriptive.  There is no denomination of Judaism of which I am aware that even suggests that it directs a course of action for today or any other time in the last three millennia.  The Taanach is not a Jewish blueprint for jihad.

Which brings us to the understandable source of Nusseibeh's confusion (to be charitable).  The same cannot be said of the Koran, wherein the call to conquest is most certainly not only descriptive but also prescriptive, not limited to a specific place and time in the past but a directive for the present and the future.  The only enemy that Jews are exhorted to continue to fight against in perpetuity is Amalek, and the last of actual Amalekites is gone.  The non-existent Canaanites and Jebusites can rest easy, and the palestinian Arabs need not fear a legitimization of offensive warfare or violence against them emanating from the Jewish State.  Nusseibeh's argument on this score is at best misguided projection.

For a complete rebuttal of the other implications of that paragraph and many more, please see Elder and Abrams.

This is a day late ... ok, a week late, but I missed it until now. 

From the Huffington Post Monitor (speaking of delinquency ... to be added to my blogroll any minute now), a truly masterful evisceration of a badly misleading and misinformed ramble last week at the Huff Po attempting to defend (I think) the UDI.  Actually, it's hard to tell what Ru Freeman was trying to do there, other than hopelessly mangle the history of much of the Middle East, from antiquity right up to today.

Zach sets the record straight.

The Zionist Organization of America today issued a press release comparing President Obama's recent messages on the respective occasions of the beginning of Ramadan and Rosh Hashana.  The contrast is disturbing.  As the release notes, in his Rosh Hashana greetings last week, Obama

... never actually mentioned 'Jews' or 'Judaism' even once, referred to 'Jewish tradition' only once, and said nothing about the Jewish contribution to American life or anything else. (This is in stark contrast to President Obama's August 2010 Ramadan Message, in which he referred to 'Muslims' six times and to 'Islam' twice, stated that "American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country," and praised "Islam's role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings ... a faith known for great diversity and racial equality").

 

Instead, in his Rosh Hashanah Message, President Obama discussed chiefly general world developments.

If you're inclined, as I initially was, to think perhaps this is much ado about not a lot, you might want to click through to read the actual text of the messages.  While that discussion of general world developments does refer, at least, to Israel, doesn't this sound rather more like a campaign speech than a holiday greeting?

That is why my Administration is doing everything we can to promote prosperity here at home and security and peace throughout the world - and that includes reaffirming our commitment to the State of Israel.  While we cannot know all that the New Year will bring, we do know this: the United States will continue to stand with Israel, because the bond between our two nations is unshakable.

Such stumping about what his "Administration is doing" is curiously absent from the Ramadan remarks.  And as the ZOA piece points out, while Obama addresses those remarks "to Muslims in America and around the world," his Rosh Hashana message is directed to "everybody" and, at the end, to "all who celebrate Rosh Hashanah."  Who might that be?

A comparison with this year's Ramadan message raises questions as well, such as why he felt it appropriate there to recall

... [t]he heartbreaking accounts of lost lives and the images of families and children in Somalia and the Horn of Africa struggling to survive ...

but not to mention in his Rosh Hashana address the victims of terrorism in Israel this past year who were targeted purely because they were (or were presumed to be) Jews.  The Fogel family comes to mind, as well as those dozens killed or wounded in the August terrorist attack near Eilat.  And all of those living within rocket range of Gaza.

Our president has a very odd sense of balance when it comes to addressing the different faith communities in America.  No doubt this is due to his belief that, if not for his constant reminders, we might forget that "Islam has always been part of America" whereas our Judeo-Christian heritage can be taken for granted.

Elder of Ziyon landed an impromptu, exclusive and extremely interesting video interview last night with ... Alan Dershowitz.  Big time.