Untruth in Labeling
The Washington Post November 15, 2004. "Shots fired near new PLO Chief":

A Fatah leadership council in Ramallah had earlier announced, apparently in error, that Abbas would be the movement's candidate. But Abbas told al-Jazeera that the announcement was "premature," and that he had not yet been selected as the group's candidate.

Such a move by Fatah would preempt the candidacy of anyone else, particularly Marwan Barghouti, the former head of Fatah in the West Bank and a reputed founder of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who is serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison.

It could not be determined whether the gunmen in Gaza were angry about the announcement that Fatah had selected Abbas over Barghouti. If that were the case it would signal a much-anticipated battle between Fatah's old guard and young reformers who have done most of the fighting in the current Palestinian uprising.

The Washington Post, November 22, 2004 "Powell Arrives for Talks On Palestinian Transition":

In talks Monday in the West Bank city of Jericho, the Palestinians will also press Powell to help win the release of Marwan Barghouti, a charismatic Palestinian leader serving a life sentence after being convicted in connection with the deaths of several Israelis since the Palestinian uprising began in 2000. He has considered running for the Palestinian Authority presidency since Arafat's death, according to associates.

Powell told reporters he would "hear what others have to say" about Barghouti.

The Washington Post, November 23, 2004 "Fatah Panel Nominates Ex-Premier for President":

By all accounts, Fatah's candidate is a prohibitive favorite to win the election. But as the organization works to smooth Abbas's path to victory, there remains a possible bump: Marwan Barghouti, 45, the charismatic, firebrand leader of Fatah's young reformist wing. Polls had consistently ranked Barghouti as the most popular Palestinian after Arafat, but he is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison. Barghouti's followers, including guerrillas from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Fatah military wing that has conducted a suicide bombing campaign against Israel, maintain that he has the support of the Palestinian street and should be Fatah's candidate.

An early champion of the 1993 Oslo peace accords and their two-state solution, and a strong critic of official Palestinian corruption, Barghouti began advocating violent resistance against Israel because of what he considered its pattern of breaking promises made in Oslo. He was a member of the Palestinian parliament and a founder of the al-Aqsa Brigades. This year, an Israeli court convicted him of murder and belonging to a terrorist organization.

The Washington Post, November 26, 2004, "Fatah Council Endorses Abbas to Lead Palestinians":

Abbas, 69, is favored by Israel and the United States because of his calls to end a Palestinian armed uprising launched in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip four years ago. But the council vote was seen largely as a rubber-stamp approval of his candidacy as Abbas, once viewed as a front-runner to replace Arafat, faced a new challenge. Officials said that Marwan Barghouti, a jailed leader of the uprising and a fellow member of Fatah, might also announce his candidacy.

Barghouti, 45, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison, has a stronger base than Abbas among young Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Abbas also faces challenges from militant groups that have vowed to keep fighting Israel.

The Washington Post, November 27, 2004, "Abbas Rival Withdraws Challenge":

Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian leader serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison, decided Friday not to run for president of the Palestinian Authority in elections in January, associates said.

Barghouti, 45, a shrewd politician and firebrand orator, had threatened to run for president from his jail cell, and many Palestinian analysts said they thought he could win the Jan. 9 election to fill the post vacated by the Nov. 11 death of Yasser Arafat.

But Barghouti, who was the clear favorite of younger members of Arafat's Fatah movement, bowed to intense pressure not to risk splitting the movement by challenging its official nominee, former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, 69, who was favored by Fatah's old guard.

The decision averted a generational clash within Fatah and a potential public relations nightmare for Israel.

. . . .

Barghouti, the former head of Fatah in the West Bank and a member of the Palestinian parliament, was convicted this year by an Israeli court of killing five people and belonging to a terrorist organization. He denied the charges but did not participate in his defense, saying the trial was a political show.

He has approved of attacks against Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Abbas has condemned the use of violence, saying the militarization of the Palestinian uprising against Israel's continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was a mistake.
. . . .
The process by which Abbas was chosen was a key complaint of Barghouti and his backers in Fatah, who include many activists who have grown up in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They complained that the selection process was controlled by Arafat's old guard -- the group that followed the former leader abroad during his years in exile and returned to Gaza and the West Bank with him in 1994.

The Washington Post, November 23, 2004, "An Israeli Hawk Accepts the President's Invitation":

Those looking for clues about President Bush's second-term policy for the Middle East might be interested to know that, nine days after his reelection victory, the president summoned to the White House an Israeli politician so hawkish that he has accused Ariel Sharon of being soft on the Palestinians.

To whom is Dana Milbank referring? Why to one of the great freedom fighters of the 1980's, Natan Sharansky. Note: Sharansky in the article is not referred to as a "firebrand," as being "popular," charismatic" or "a reformist."
No, those flattering modifiers have all been used in the Washington Post recently (I did a search on "Barghouti" and these are the results. One was a wire report, the remainder were from the Post's own reporters) to refer to the convicted murderer, Marwan Barghouti.
And in one of the articles (cited above) the Post the reporter goes so far as to provide a justification for Barghouti's advocacy of terror:

An early champion of the 1993 Oslo peace accords and their two-state solution, and a strong critic of official Palestinian corruption, Barghouti began advocating violent resistance against Israel because of what he considered its pattern of breaking promises made in Oslo.

Gov. Ehrlich vs. MSM
The Baltimore Sun is having a hissy fit. Governor Ehrlich has issued a ban to state agencies barring them from talking to a reporter and a columnist.

The Ehrlich administration has taken the unusual step of banning all state officials from speaking with two Sun journalists, who they say are "failing to objectively report" on state issues.

The governor's press office sent a memo Thursday to all state public information officers and to the governor's staff ordering them to not speak with State House Bureau Chief David Nitkin or columnist Michael Olesker.

"Do not return calls or comply with any requests," press secretary Shareese N. DeLeaver wrote in the memo. The ban is in effect "until further notice."

"There's no hiding the fact of The Sun's distaste for the results of this past election," said Greg Massoni, also a press secretary to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican. "And they are perfectly entitled to that opinion. We have a grave problem with their editorial page taking over the news division, and apparently that's what's happened."

Sun Editor Timothy A. Franklin, the top newsroom executive, called such a suggestion "ridiculous on its face." He said, "The editorial board and the newsroom are distinctly separate departments of the company, on separate floors of the building. We don't know what they're going to write about, and they don't know what we're going to write about. And that's as it should be."

The Sun is honest enough to list the reasons cited by the Ehrlich administration for its action:

In a column Tuesday, Olesker wrote that at a hearing in Annapolis last week, the governor's communications director, Paul E. Schurick, was "struggling mightily to keep a straight face" when Schurick said that political gain was "not a consideration" in making state pro-tourism commercials that feature the governor.

DeLeaver said Olesker did not attend that hearing and could not have known the expression on Schurick's face. Olesker said he did not need to be there to "know the patent absurdity of the remark" by Schurick.

"What I was clearly intending to say for any discerning reader was that the ads were clearly meant to profit the governor politically, and for anyone to say otherwise, they would have to struggle to keep from smiling," Olesker said yesterday. "Anyone past the age of elementary school could have figured that much out."

The second complaint was with a front-page map the Sun published Wednesday indicating properties across the state that were "being considered" for sale. In fact, the land shown on the map was all 450,000 acres of state-owned preservation land. A correction ran on Page 2A yesterday.

Here's what the Sun's ombudsman has to say about these infractions:

The Sun bears responsibility for the errors that escalated an already contentious relationship. The newspaper's system of checks and balances broke down on deadline, which allowed the incorrect map of state lands to be published.

The other issue is more serious. The decision by Olesker to describe Ehrlich's communications director's facial expression was a major lapse in judgment. Olesker later apologized and explained his actions in a Nov. 24 column. But in a letter to the editor, Rex Rehfeld, who condemned Ehrlich's banning of the two Sun journalists, also said, "I am just as appalled at the information that columnist Michael Olesker made a comment about the facial expressions of the governor's communications director, Paul E. Schurick, at a hearing that Mr. Olesker had not attended."

Actually I would reverse the levels of seriousness. As Olesker himself notes:

Instead, I am specifically taken to task for describing an Ehrlich spokesman, Paul Schurick, as "struggling mightily to keep a straight face" while claiming there was no political intent behind the commercials. No one is supposed to notice that, in the very next sentence, I intentionally describe a Democrat "trying just as mightily to keep a straight face" to describe his own party leaders' ads of previous years.

From the context it certainly seems that Olesker was writing metaphorically. However, I have a bigger problem with the original column that even Olesker seems to understand. The complaint about Ehrlich using state funds to make commercials rings rather hollow. All chief executives seemingly make commercials.

There's nothing particularly new in politicians using the airwaves. Harry Hughes used to pitch vacations in Maryland (while Hughes himself was quietly vacationing in Delaware). William Donald Schaefer did his own TV pitches, and so did Parris Glendening and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Democrats, all of 'em - unlike the Republican Ehrlich.

Yet that there's something untoward about Ehrlich's use of commercials to promote Maryland as a tourist destination has been a theme of the state's Democratic party:

“The truth is,” Leggett continued, “Some of these ad buys are not targeted to potential tourists from other states alone. Additionally, these ads are targeted to Maryland households with Maryland voters, urging them to visit a place where they already live. That leaves only one conclusion: Governor Ehrlich and his team of taxpayer-funded political operatives are using millions in state dollars in an effort to boost his positive name recognition across the state...."

Except that Marylanders often vacation outside of Maryland. I know that I usually do. And I think that the positive message of Ehrlich is preferable to the Glendening commercials that abdicated the state's responsibility for protecting its citizens from crime. (Use a club so that your car won't get stolen.)
But if the Ehrlich administration is correct that the Sun has distorted its coverage of the Governor, as even Paul Moore the paper's ombudsman admits, why does Moore then say:

The governor's ban seeks to limit The Sun's ability to gather and report information. It also is designed to put the paper on the defensive and to plant seeds of doubt among readers about the veracity of The Sun's reporting.

Why doesn't the Sun worry about getting its house in order. The Washington Post, Maryland's largest circulation newspaper has also been very hard on the governor, yet Ehrlich has not issued a ban on talking to that newspaper. It would seem to me that the Sun has a bigger problem than Ehrlich does.
Finally, on the issue of the Sun and the State House I think there are three items to note. These are all old issues, but still worth keeping in mind. When Ehrlich was first elected to Congress (he was elected in 1994), he sat down with an editor who proceeded to compare Ehrlich to David Duke in a column. The column a blatant hatchet job, but it didn't bother anyone at the Sun. While I don't believe that the same editor is still employed by the Sun, I can't believe that Ehrlich's resentment of the paper for having run the column unapologetically doesn't still exist.
1994 was notable in Maryland for having a very close election between Democrat Parris Glendening and Republican Ellen Sauerbrey. Throughout the campaign both the news and editorial departments of the Sun portrayed Glendening as fiscally responsible and Sauerbery as a reckless tax cutter.
A few weeks after the election, the Sun (following the Washington Post which portrayed the campaign in a similar fashion) noted that Glendening had left Prince George's County, where he had previously been Executive, with a $150 million deficit. I find it hard to believe that the Sun (and Post) couldn't have discovered the true record of Glendening prior to the election. (I've heard a rumor that the Post knew of it but spiked the story until after the election was safely decided. But I won't believet that until I hear more than just a rumor. The charge that both papers were lazy is damning enough.) The Sun sent a reporter to New Jersey to show that statewide tax cuts along the lines of those proposed by Sauerbrey would just lead to higher local taxes. But the Sun didn't even check out the story in its back yard.
What if both papers had done their homework and had to be a little less enthusiastic about Glendening? Would it have made a 6000 vote difference? I think that it might have. But what's also important is that Glendening then left the state with a $1 billion deficit. Maryland voters were denied the opportunity to judge Glendening by his full record because neither paper fulfilled their public trust and did the necessary investigation of their favored candidate. It's not the same as hiding information, but an indication that neither was as curious as it should have been.
Skip ahead four years. A man named John Frece, director of communications for Governor Glendening, writes an op-ed in favor of the Governor and against his second time challenger, Ellen Sauerbrey. As Mr. Frece's biography mentions in his current position as Communications Director for Governor Warner of Virgninia:

Mr. Frece joined the Governor’s staff on Jan. 2, 1996, as Communications Director. In that capacity, he was responsible for coordinating the activities of the Governor’s press office and the public information officers in the various state agencies and departments.

Then the bio tells us something very interesting:

Mr. Frece moved to the Governor’s office after a long career in journalism, working first for the weekly Reston Times newspaper in Reston, Va., then the wire service United Press International in both Richmond, Va., and Annapolis, and for 11 years as the Maryland State House bureau chief for The Baltimore Sun. As a reporter, Mr. Frece covered the Fairfax County (Va.) Board of Supervisors, the Virginia General Assembly for one year, and the Maryland General Assembly for 17 years. He covered every election in Maryland from 1978 through 1994, as well as the administrations of acting Gov. Blair Lee III, Gov. Harry R. Hughes, Gov. William Donald Schaefer and the first year of Governor Glendening’s term.

In other words, Frece moved directly from the Baltimore Sun as a reporter to a partisan job in the governor's office. So was Mr. Frece objective and then all of a sudden turned on a switch and become a partisan of the sitting governor? Or did his strong political views color his reporting?
I don't care how professional Mr. Frece was as a reporter, I have a hard time believing the first possibility to be true.
If Mr. Moore, the Sun's ombudsman wishes to to do his job perhaps he could do some research to answer these questions:
1) Why has Gov. Ehrlich limited access to the Sun but not to the Washington Post?
2) Has the Sun ever apologized to Gov. Ehrlich for the disgraceful smear of one of its editors?
3) Did the Sun fail in its most basic duty of uncovering Parris Glendening's record in Prince George's County?
4) To what degree did John Frece's politics influence his reporting?
I don't expect a satisfactory answer on the 4th question. However he should be able to investigate the other three to some degree.

Untruth in Labeling
The Washington Post November 15, 2004. "Shots fired near new PLO Chief":

A Fatah leadership council in Ramallah had earlier announced, apparently in error, that Abbas would be the movement's candidate. But Abbas told al-Jazeera that the announcement was "premature," and that he had not yet been selected as the group's candidate.

Such a move by Fatah would preempt the candidacy of anyone else, particularly Marwan Barghouti, the former head of Fatah in the West Bank and a reputed founder of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who is serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison.

It could not be determined whether the gunmen in Gaza were angry about the announcement that Fatah had selected Abbas over Barghouti. If that were the case it would signal a much-anticipated battle between Fatah's old guard and young reformers who have done most of the fighting in the current Palestinian uprising.

The Washington Post, November 22, 2004 "Powell Arrives for Talks On Palestinian Transition":

In talks Monday in the West Bank city of Jericho, the Palestinians will also press Powell to help win the release of Marwan Barghouti, a charismatic Palestinian leader serving a life sentence after being convicted in connection with the deaths of several Israelis since the Palestinian uprising began in 2000. He has considered running for the Palestinian Authority presidency since Arafat's death, according to associates.

Powell told reporters he would "hear what others have to say" about Barghouti.

The Washington Post, November 23, 2004 "Fatah Panel Nominates Ex-Premier for President":

By all accounts, Fatah's candidate is a prohibitive favorite to win the election. But as the organization works to smooth Abbas's path to victory, there remains a possible bump: Marwan Barghouti, 45, the charismatic, firebrand leader of Fatah's young reformist wing. Polls had consistently ranked Barghouti as the most popular Palestinian after Arafat, but he is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison. Barghouti's followers, including guerrillas from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Fatah military wing that has conducted a suicide bombing campaign against Israel, maintain that he has the support of the Palestinian street and should be Fatah's candidate.

An early champion of the 1993 Oslo peace accords and their two-state solution, and a strong critic of official Palestinian corruption, Barghouti began advocating violent resistance against Israel because of what he considered its pattern of breaking promises made in Oslo. He was a member of the Palestinian parliament and a founder of the al-Aqsa Brigades. This year, an Israeli court convicted him of murder and belonging to a terrorist organization.

The Washington Post, November 26, 2004, "Fatah Council Endorses Abbas to Lead Palestinians":

Abbas, 69, is favored by Israel and the United States because of his calls to end a Palestinian armed uprising launched in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip four years ago. But the council vote was seen largely as a rubber-stamp approval of his candidacy as Abbas, once viewed as a front-runner to replace Arafat, faced a new challenge. Officials said that Marwan Barghouti, a jailed leader of the uprising and a fellow member of Fatah, might also announce his candidacy.

Barghouti, 45, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison, has a stronger base than Abbas among young Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Abbas also faces challenges from militant groups that have vowed to keep fighting Israel.

The Washington Post, November 27, 2004, "Abbas Rival Withdraws Challenge":

Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian leader serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison, decided Friday not to run for president of the Palestinian Authority in elections in January, associates said.

Barghouti, 45, a shrewd politician and firebrand orator, had threatened to run for president from his jail cell, and many Palestinian analysts said they thought he could win the Jan. 9 election to fill the post vacated by the Nov. 11 death of Yasser Arafat.

But Barghouti, who was the clear favorite of younger members of Arafat's Fatah movement, bowed to intense pressure not to risk splitting the movement by challenging its official nominee, former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, 69, who was favored by Fatah's old guard.

The decision averted a generational clash within Fatah and a potential public relations nightmare for Israel.

. . . .

Barghouti, the former head of Fatah in the West Bank and a member of the Palestinian parliament, was convicted this year by an Israeli court of killing five people and belonging to a terrorist organization. He denied the charges but did not participate in his defense, saying the trial was a political show.

He has approved of attacks against Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Abbas has condemned the use of violence, saying the militarization of the Palestinian uprising against Israel's continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was a mistake.
. . . .
The process by which Abbas was chosen was a key complaint of Barghouti and his backers in Fatah, who include many activists who have grown up in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They complained that the selection process was controlled by Arafat's old guard -- the group that followed the former leader abroad during his years in exile and returned to Gaza and the West Bank with him in 1994.

The Washington Post, November 23, 2004, "An Israeli Hawk Accepts the President's Invitation":

Those looking for clues about President Bush's second-term policy for the Middle East might be interested to know that, nine days after his reelection victory, the president summoned to the White House an Israeli politician so hawkish that he has accused Ariel Sharon of being soft on the Palestinians.

To whom is Dana Milbank referring? Why to one of the great freedom fighters of the 1980's, Natan Sharansky. Note: Sharansky in the article is not referred to as a "firebrand," as being "popular," charismatic" or "a reformist."
No, those flattering modifiers have all been used in the Washington Post recently (I did a search on "Barghouti" and these are the results. One was a wire report, the remainder were from the Post's own reporters) to refer to the convicted murderer, Marwan Barghouti.
And in one of the articles (cited above) the Post the reporter goes so far as to provide a justification for Barghouti's advocacy of terror:

An early champion of the 1993 Oslo peace accords and their two-state solution, and a strong critic of official Palestinian corruption, Barghouti began advocating violent resistance against Israel because of what he considered its pattern of breaking promises made in Oslo.

In another case the Post includes Barghouti's claim that Israel's trial of him was a "show trial."
These claims of Barghouti's were never challenged. Did the reporter check to see if all the proper rules of proof were applied in Barghouti's trial? Did the reporter check to see if targeting of civilians - even settlers in the West Bank - was permissible under any circumstances? Well, no.
On the other hand Milbank, who wrote about Sharansky managed to paint the former prisoner of conscience as in ingrate:

While accusing then-President Jimmy Carter, who championed Sharansky's cause during his Gulag days, of having "blind sympathy" and "trust for dictators," the Israeli praised a Bush speech on the Middle East as "almost too good to be true," saying: "President Bush turned his back on Yasser Arafat's dictatorship once and for all." As previously noted in this space, that Bush speech lifted many of Sharansky's ideas.

And while Milbank expresses Sharansky's ideas concisely and well:

Sharansky's ideas are clear: no concessions, funds or legitimacy for the Palestinians unless they adopt democracy, but a modern-day Marshall Plan for the Palestinians if they embrace democratic ways. The same hard line that worked for Ronald Reagan against the Soviet Union, Sharansky argues in his book, would work for Israel against the Palestinians.

in other places Milbank suggests that these ideas, rather than being the well thought out conclusions of an intellectual are the convenient excuse for the politically motivated:

The warmth for the dissident is nothing new: Sharansky, who spent nine years in Soviet prisons before Reagan secured his release, has long been a cause celebre for the administration's neoconservative hard-liners.

In a nutshell the contrast in the portrayal of Barghouti and Sharansky could not be more stark. Barghouti is defined by his apparent popularity and Sharansky is defined by his opposition to Prime Minister Sharon. If you didn't know more and was told that one was a killer and one was a freedom fighter you might not draw the correct conclusions from reading the Washington Post.
Patrick Ruffini notes the shabby treatment afforded Sharanky by the Post in "Milbank's Reading List Hit List."

Civilian, Arms, Tactics and Ethics
via Arutz-7.
There's a new website WeaponSurvey.com that catalogues the arms Israel's "peace partners" in the PA (and related organizations) have acquired and deployed. The editor of the website, Aharon Etengoff used to work for the IDF spokesperson's office.
If the Palestinians had used their resourcefulness over the past 11+ years to build an economy instead of a terrorist state, there'd now be peace between Israel and a prosperous Palestine. That there isn't is a testament to the fact that the PA was always more interested in destruction than in production.
And how should Israel face the threat these weapons and their users present to their country. Why that's been addressed by Maj Gen Amos Yadlin in "Ethical Dilemmas in Fighting Terrorism."
To take one example of the difficulty Israel has in fighting its civilian surrounded enemy Yadlin tells us:

The case of Salah Shehada, the head of the military arm of Hamas, is a prime example of ethical concerns in decision-making. Shehada planned terror attacks in Israel, including the attack on the Dolphinarium discotheque where twenty-one teenagers were killed, and he was in the process of planning a "mega-attack." We knew that if we hit him, the mega-terror process would stop because he was the mind behind it, the planner, the one who was really pushing the button. Shehada was always surrounded by innocent people until one night in July 2002 we found him almost alone, and we delivered a 2,000-pound bomb on his apartment and he was killed. Unfortunately, the intelligence about those in the surrounding buildings was wrong, and innocent people were killed. Yet when the decision was made, it was the right decision from an ethical point of view because the scale included a mega-attack threatening the lives of hundreds of Israelis, balanced against a terrorist with some collateral damage. But in this case the collateral damage was too high.

A month later, in August 2002, we had all the leadership of Hamas - Sheikh Yassin and all his military commanders, all his engineers, all the minds of terror - in one room in a three-story house and we knew we needed a 2,000-pound bomb to eliminate all of them - the whole leadership, 16 people, all the worst terrorists in the world. Think about having Osama bin Laden and all the top leadership of al-Qaeda in one house. However, due to the criticism in Israeli society and in the media, and due to the consequences of innocent Palestinians being killed, a 2,000-pound bomb was not approved and we hit the building with a much smaller bomb. There was a lot of dust, a lot of noise, but they all got up and ran away and we missed the opportunity. So the ethical dilemmas are always there.

The chief of staff is always asking, "Bring me an operational plan that will endanger fewer civilians around the terrorist." This is an important principle: We never target civilians. They kill our civilians but we will not kill theirs as a punishment. We are always targeting terrorists on their way to do us imminent harm. The dilemma is that the terrorists are within these civilians.

It's not so simple as Israel's many critics would have us believe. Israel took a lesson when too many died as collateral damage - in an attack fully compliant with international law despite what the naysayers would claim - and, as a result, a group of terrorists survived to fight and kill another day.
And when you read about how cruel Israeli soldiers keep this in mind:

On the one hand, we had to deal with the terrorists and look for the tunnels. On the other hand, we had to avoid collateral damage or hitting the civilians. So first of all we applied the principle of warning. We warned the civilians that they had to leave because the terrorists were there.

We had to make every attempt to move them before the fighting began. Two soldiers paid with their lives because they were trying to help a Palestinian old lady get some water and Palestinian snipers killed them. Think about the commander who has to go to the parents of the soldiers and tell them that because of ethical issues they helped this old lady but your son is dead because of it. It's an awful dilemma.

Other than the American army is there any other army in the world that would take such care to assist civilians from the enemy's side? The French?

Imperious Hubris
Dave Ross, doesn't much like bloggers.

The thing about the critics is this: most of them sit at a desk pounding out their blogs, and the closest they ever get to an actual news story is when they pass a traffic accident.

They're critics of the media, but they're also creatures of it. Everything they know they know second hand. They learn it from people who actually go out and get stories. People like... well, Dan Rather.

There is some truth in these above paragraphs. However, what is most clear is the disdain Ross has for us bloggers. I won't deny that I'm a critic who does no real reporting and that I scavenge what I can from the original sources.
But what's wrong with critics? Would Ross ever criticize a movie critic because he never directed or produced a movie and therefore can't rightly criticize one? That's what he's saying here about bloggers.
But of course when it comes to Dan Rather, some bloggers did do original reporting. Powerline became a clearinghouse for those who smelled a rat. Little Green Footballs then was able to recreate the document to a "t" using electronic typesetting. Together they broke a story and backed it up. And they didn't have to leave their houses to do it. Remarkable in my view; but for Dave Ross that's not journalism. There may have been no literal legwork, but they uncovered an inaccuracy that suggested gross negligence if not outright fraud. Given the closeness of the report to the election it's fair to say that it was intended to influence the election.
For too long the MSM has operated with an ethos of "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Their work is too important and complex to be understood by mere laymen who are not journalists. Even ombudsmen these days seem less concerned with addressing issues of bias than explaining why the newspaper's judgment was correct.
But one need not be a journalist nor a reporter to smell a rat. Or to judge when too much opinion has been injected into what should be a report of facts. Or to note contradictory assertions. All you need are eyes and a functioning brain to do that.
I suppose there are other ways to critique the media.I could write letters and I used to be a pretty regular presence on the letters page of the Baltimore Sun. Still there are limits. For one your response is often edited, and not always satisfactorily. (Once the Sun's wizards changed "predicate" to "predict" making me look foolish. When I called the editor to complain, he didn't seem much bothered with the error.) Secondly, they won't publish you every day. No one limits my blogging. I try to argue logically. If I do, then people will pay attention to me; if not I'll continue sliding down the TTLB ecosystem until I become and amoeba again. In the MSM my fate is always in the hands of others.
Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine has a great post on Dan Rather's retirement that makes this point:

Yes, the exit of Dan Rather, stage left, spotlight off, tail twixt legs, marks the death of the anchor, the extinction of the trusted news star.

But it's more than that. It's the toppling of journalism on a pedestal. It's the end of news as a lecture. It's the death of one-way media.

That is what anchors embodied. And that is what we, the people formerly known as viewers/listeners/readers in the audience, have rejected.

We rejected the old system of trust: If we trusted the person, it was thought, then we trusted what he said. Anchors equaled automatic authority. But no more.

But the bloggers (actually it was very few of them) didn't just catch Dan Rather spreading a false rumor, they also paid attention when Trent Lott suggested that he longed for segregation. Reporters actually covering the event didn't report on the implication of Lott's words. It was Andrew Sullivan and others who couldn't believe what they read and things started snowballing after that until a Majority leader was deposed.
Bloggers aren't going to be perfect. But they provide a useful corrective for the MSM that don't seem to have a sense of their own fallibility. That's what the blogosphere is here for. And if Dave Ross wishes to stand the way of progress that's his perogative. But if he continues to deny that MSM has a crisis of confidence, he will slowly but surely find hismelf to be irrelevant.

Oakland trades for Pittsburgh catcher
That headline (or something similar) will be appearing this week as the A's trade Mark Redman and Arthur Rhodes to Pittsburgh for Jason Kendall. This wasn't the first time the A's acquired a star catcher of the Pirates. In 1976 they traded for Manny Sanguillen. He only played for Oakland one year and was then traded back to Pittsburgh. But what was more remarkable was who Manny was traded for. Hint: Manny Sanguillen has something in common with Randy Winn.

The New Abbas is the same ...

via Yahoo! News about the Middle East
1)Abbas Vows No Retreat from Arafat Refugee Demand - Reuters via Yahoo! News (Nov 23, 2004)
2)Powell: `New attitude' in Mideast - Chicago Tribune via Yahoo! News (Nov 23, 2004)

Striking Out

In "Mr. Sharon, You're Up at Bat" the editors of the NY Times puts the onus of peacemaking on PM Sharon:

After four years of gloom and doom for those who seek peace in the Middle East, the last few days, with the baby steps toward some modicum of civility between Israelis and Palestinians, have been downright heady. First, the new Palestinian leaders offered Israel a burial site it could accept for Yasir Arafat. Then President Bush, prodded by the British prime minister, Tony Blair, actually said he was willing to "spend the capital of the United States" on creating an independent Palestinian state. And finally, Mahmoud Abbas, the new head of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the likely front-runner to replace Mr. Arafat, set a date for elections: Jan. 9. What's more, Mr. Abbas has thus far resisted any urge to toughen up his image with Palestinian hard-liners through unnecessary anti-Israel speeches. If this were baseball, President Bush would have hit a single, and Mr. Abbas a double. Now it's time for Ariel Sharon to step up to the plate.

What has Mr. Abbas to advance the "peace process?" He's refrained from calling for Israel's destruction. That's not a first step though. That's a premise. But a year and a half ago Nissan Katz-Ratzlav wrote a brief history of Mahmoud Abbas for National Review Online, "Laundering Abu Mazen". Ratzlav-Katz starts:

Mahmoud Abbas, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mazen, has been tapped by PLO leader Yasser Arafat to be the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. Merely the fact that he has been selected by arch-terrorist Arafat to take on the mantle of authority should already give pause to those committed to fighting terrorism. In fact, anyone involved with the corrupt, duplicitous terrorist organization called the PLO Â? Abu Mazen is the head of its executive committee Â? should by now be considered unfit to lead anything but a prison-work detail. Beyond his senior position in the PLO, however, Abu Mazen is also a Holocaust revisionist, a conspiracy theorist, and a promoter of terrorism.

The reason why people such as Abu Mazen need to have their records airbrushed is because without such distortions, no reasonable person could consider anyone in the PA a "partner for peace."

In "Power Brake" Ilene Prusher doesn't feel that Abu Mazen has the capability of leading anything. Arafat visited the homes of the "martyrs," Abu Mazen didn't. Of course for Prusher it seems it would be better if Abu Mazen were more vocal in his support of violence against Israel. And that is the main problem. Palestinian nationalism cannot be separated from the destruction of Israel. Anyone who isn't vocal enough in calling for Israel's destruction, can't lead the movement. There needs to be wholesale change in Palestinian politics. There hasn't been one. And there won't be unless people (like the editors of the NY Times) stop demanding "peace" now. There won't be anytime soon.

The first order of business is to give the moderate Mr. Abbas something tangible to help him shore up his credibility with the Palestinian people. Mr. Sharon should immediately announce a complete freeze on settlement activity in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. That should take priority over releasing Palestinians held in Israeli jails, as many of those prisoners have blood on their hands.

What we saw, even when the Labor party was in power that each and every Israeli concession was pocketed by the PA. It didn't buy Israel any good will or gratitude. The editors don't seem to appreciate the enormity of the concessions Israel made from 1993 to 2000.
The violence of the past 4 years is not a function of the lack of a peace process, but the consequence of a "peace process" where one side was interested in peace and the other side wasn't. It is the result of asymmetric demands of concrete action on one side balanced by requests for nebulous statements on the other. When Israel was trying to build peace; the PA was preparing for war.

Next, Mr. Sharon has got to do all he can to expedite free, full and fair elections involving all Palestinians - including those in East Jerusalem. Right now many are practically under lock and key, with their movements zealously restricted by Israeli roadblocks and closures. Added to that are regular Israeli Army incursions into Gaza and all the towns in the West Bank, which will also discourage election turnout. Obviously, Israel has the right to protect its citizens from Palestinian suicide bombers bent on upending any attempt at a peace settlement. But Mr. Sharon and the Israeli Army need to find ways to allow Palestinians to maneuver more easily around roadblocks and closures - especially when it's time to get to polling sites.

If you're demanding this of Israel, at least acknowledge the risks. Israel's actions in Yehuda, Shomron and Gaza are not primarily to "discourage election turnout" but to prevent terror. Lifting the Israeli presence may well lead to more terror.

While the editors pay lip service to the idea that "Israel has the right to protect its citizens from Palestinian suicide bombers bent on upending any attempt at a peace settlement" they don't acknowledge that Israel has the obligation - as any other sovereign state - to protect its citizens. Nor do the editors acknowledge that the prime motivation of the bombers is to kill Jews not to upend any settlement.

A peace deal will be possible only if a new Palestinian leader can establish enough authority to prepare the Palestinian people for what they must accept if they ever want an independent state: a Jerusalem shared between the two countries, final borders based on 1967 lines and a recognition that for all but a symbolic handful of refugees, the right of return will be to a new Palestinian state, not to Israel. Such a deal was difficult enough for Mr. Arafat to accept; it will be even harder for a new leader who comes to the table with only a fraction of Mr. Arafat's authority with his people.

It's nice of the editors to dictate terms to Israel. By now it's clear that the Palestinians should realize that their bad faith has cost them. By promoting the Palestinian line that they've already compromised by allowing Israel to exist the editors simply gives the Palestinians cover for hardening their position. Terror against Israel has been supported by a vast majority of Palestinians even since 1993. That support should cost them. They shouldn't expect the same amount of land they could have gotten ten years ago. Nor should they expect any return of refugees.

Over the years, there have miraculously been a few moments of possibility that have punctured the gloom that is the peace process in the Middle East: the talks at Oslo and at Camp David come to mind. Now we seem to have stumbled, through the death of Mr. Arafat, into another moment of opportunity. It would be criminally negligent if any of the principal leaders involved didn't step up to the plate. Mr. Sharon, we await you, and we beg that you swing for the fences.

This is exactly what's wrong. Arafat's death is not the opportunity that the Times' editors make it out to be. In a mathematical proof there's an idea of a necessary but insufficient condition. Arafat's death was a necessary condition for there to be peace in the Middle East. But it was hardly sufficient. There needs to be an ideological change among the Palestinians as well as lowered expectation of what peace will bring them.

Meyrav Wurmser says it well in "How Not to Promote Democracy":

One could argue that Abu Ala and Abu Mazen could not control the results of an election, that a challenger to their power could win. But these two are attempting to stack the cards in their favor. Even if relatively orderly elections occurred in 60 days, they would not be free and democratic. Abu Mazen, who recently announced his candidacy, is trying to make sure that no one of any real influence will compete against him. Not wishing to look undemocratic, he might find Â? as Arafat did in the elections of 1996 Â? a single, unknown, and unpopular candidate to "oppose" him. Even if there is a strong opposing candidate, the lack of a free press, the existence of bodies (such as the PLO) that are more powerful than the elected institution, and an insufficient period for the oppositional candidates to organize, these elections will not accurately reflect the will of the people.
The Bush administration, which remains committed to a vision of a free and democratic Middle East, must be certain not to legitimize oppression by endorsing Palestinian elections now. In the process of building a free and democratic society, elections are the last Â? not the first Â? step. Elections should come after limits on governmental institutions are in place and the basic freedoms of individuals have been guaranteed. Western recognition of this masquerade of freedom would only serve to strengthen the undemocratic nature of Palestinian society.

Wurmser calls for taking a long view that the short sighted editors of the New York Times would do well to heed. For now they swung too soon and struck out.

Apheresis

Yesterday I did something I hadn't tried before. I donated platelets. Since it was my first time, they didn't keep me on the machine the full time. It is something that I'll have to get used to.
They're all ready for platelet donors at the Mt Hope office of the Red Cross. (The main office for the Chesapeake region. It's about 10 minutes from my house.) In addition to blankets for the expected chill (For some reason donors get very chilly) they have a nice collection of DVDs to watch. Since a donation usually takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and you can't move, having a movie is very useful.
Platelets are one of the components of blood and they control bleeding. So for a platelet donation you get two needles, one to get the blood out and the other to return your blood - minus the platelets. The process didn't bother me as much as I expected. Though hypothetically you can give platelets every other day - and up to 24 times a year -, I'm not inclined to do it so regularly. (Two hours is a long time to give up!)
The importance of platelets is that they are used to assist with cancer and leukemia patients in their treatments. Chemotherapy compromises a person's ability to produce platelets leaving these patients susceptible to excessive bleeding. Donated platelets can help them clot properly. I was recruited because platelet supplies are low and the Red Cross found the last time I donated blood that I had a very high concentration of platelets in my blood. (When the phlebotomist was taking my blood for the iron test yesterday, she noted that the pinprick clotted rather quickly and said that I must have lots of platelets.)
I don't think that apheresis is for everyone. But if you are healthy and can donate blood, think about occasionally donating platelets.
(If Instapundit can put in a plug about blood donation, why can't I plug apheresis?)

In Denial

Richard Morin, the Washington Post's pollster, was "Surveying the Damage" yesterday.

But rather than flog the bloggers for rushing to publish the raw exit poll data on their Web sites, we may owe them a debt of gratitude. A few more presidential elections like this one and the public will learn to do the right thing and simply ignore news of early exit poll data. Then perhaps people will start ignoring the bloggers, who proved once more that their spectacular lack of judgment is matched only by their abundant arrogance.

Get the feeling he doesn't much like bloggers?
My imperfect memory of election was that the bloggers I was following noted the report of Wonkette and expressed their skepticism. For example here, here, here, here and here is Power Line.
Also IIRC a reason for the skepticism was the report that Virginia was going to be close. In other words, the bloggers showed skepticism - as they should have - of the exit polling data. They wondered if there was a concerted effort to undercount support for the President. But where was the arrogance?
I love what Morin writes towards the end:

Compounding and amplifying the exit poll woes this year was that the first wave of results, available moments after 1 p.m. on Internet Web sites everywhere, shaped the way journalists were thinking, at least through much of the afternoon and early evening. The first rounds exert a particularly strong influence on broadcast journalists because they use them to develop story lines ("Kerry won a majority of female voters, but Bush did better among women than he did four years ago . . .") before the evening news.

So even as he's dissing bloggers, he acknowledges that the MSM was trying to develop its stories based on - what they must have known was - false data! (And no doubt you recall that the MSM was calling Pennsylvania for Kerry on the basis of a smaller relative lead than what the President had in Ohio!)
In other words, it appears to me that the bloggers were the ones who were properly skeptical. And Morin wishes they'd disappear? Talk about your arrogance.

Deodorizing A Terrorist - A continuing saga
On Friday, the NY Times featured a fawning profile of convicted murderer Marwan Bargouti, "Jailed in Israel, Palestinian Symbol Eyes Top Post". (A "symbol," right. And according to the Washington Post, Yasser Arafat was a "dreamer." As the murderers are romanticized, their victims are forgotten.)

Running through the political chatter among both Palestinians and Israelis since Mr. Arafat died a week ago has been speculation electrifying to both - that Israel would pardon Mr. Barghouti or release him in some sort of prisoner exchange.

That possibility is extremely remote, Israeli politicians and analysts say. An Israeli court has found Mr. Barghouti to have blood on his hands. But some Israelis also remember him for his support of a two-state solution and his formerly close relationships with Israeli politicians, including some right-leaning ones.

Right, he supported a "two state solution." So did Faisal Husseini:

In 1989, when he left Israeli prison, he stated his philosophy, "We are fighting to build our state, not to destroy another state."

Whoops make that:

"We are [acting] exactly like them. In 1947, in accordance with [the UN] Partition Plan, they decided to declare statehood on 55% of the land of Palestine, which they later increased to 78% during the War of 1948, and then again [increased it] to 100% during the War of 1967. Despite all that, they never attempted to make secret of their long-term goal, which is "Greater Israel" from the Nile to the Euphrates. Similarly, if we agree to declare our state over what is now only 22% of Palestine, meaning the West Bank and Gaza – our ultimate goal is [still] the liberation of all historical Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, even if this means that the conflict will last for another thousand years or for many generations."

I guess I can't really expect more from the Times but at the end, Barghouti makes a false claim and Bennett (the reporter) fails to take him to task:

During this uprising, which began in September 2000, Marwan Barghouti called for violence but insisted that he remained "a politician, not a military man." He said he supported attacks only against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied territories, violence that he argued was condoned by international law.

Well, actually it doesn't. Amnesty International, not an organization that is known to be particularly sympathetic to Israel, claims persuasively that even settlers - whom Amnesty says are living in their land illegally - are civilians:

However, no violations by the Israeli government, no matter their scale or gravity, justify the killing of Sinai Keinan, Danielle Shefi, Chanah Rogan or any other civilians. The obligation to protect civilians is absolute and cannot be set aside because Israel has failed to respect its obligations. The attacks against civilians by Palestinian armed groups are widespread, systematic and in pursuit of an explicit policy to attack civilians. They therefore constitute crimes against humanity under international law. They may also constitute war crimes, depending on the legal characterisation of the hostilities and interpretation of the status of Palestinian armed groups and fighters under international humanitarian law. (see section 5)

The end of the article is positively Orwellian:

Israeli officials say he aimed at civilians on both sides of the 1967 boundary between Israel and the West Bank. "In practice it has been proven beyond all doubt," the Israeli court's verdict read, "that the accused took part in, and headed, murderous activity which aimed at striking innocents."

In an interview with The New York Times in March 2002, while he was in hiding, Mr. Barghouti said that all his efforts were in pursuit of a lasting peace. Israel had shown that only violence would prompt it to agree to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, he said. He said that by conducting sensational attacks, Fatah had restored its popularity with average Palestinians, who he said were otherwise turning to militant groups like Hamas that were dedicated to Israel's destruction.

"We were very brave to fight for peace, and I received a lot of criticism from our side," he said, referring to his support of Oslo. "Now we are brave enough to fight for peace again - but with different tools.'"

Different tools for achieving peace? Killing Yoela Chen and Father Georgios Tsibouktzakis achieved peace how?
Here's an excerpt of the verdict via Arutz-7:

"The accused generally did not have direct contact with the people on the ground who perpetrated the attacks," last month's verdict stated. "The contact was made with people close to him, among them [his nephew] Ahmed Barghouti... who, with the support of the accused, planned and carried out the murderous attacks, using the money and arms that the accused made sure to supply to them for that purpose."

Why not the Kurds?

Why not the Kurds?

Yosef Goell, no rightwinger, asks about the Palestinians "These people deserve a state?"

The most telling pictures from Ramallah on Friday were of the Palestine Authority's Saeb Erekat vainly trying to force open the door of the helicopter in the face of the mob, then escaping with his other returning colleagues and losing themselves in the crowd.

In that context it is worth recalling that until Friday many were pressuring Israel to permit Arafat's burial on the Temple Mount.

The problem all along was not merely the murderer Arafat but the Palestinian people whom he truly represented and led. It is a population with an unprecedentedly high proportion of violence-prone young men, and parents who have surrendered any hope of controlling them.

Such a population does not deserve an independent state, even if it does hold superficially democratic elections. Such an armed independent state would constitute a great danger to Israel, to the surrounding Arab world and to the stability of the Middle East and the world as a whole.

For all the talk we hear of how Israel must allow the Palestinians their own state for Israel's own good and Israel's claim to legitimacy (How many times have we heard that if Israel's occupation continues it will cease to either be a democratic state or it will cease to be a Jewish state?) there's precious little talk of the requirements the Palestinians must meet to create a legitimate state. It's just not there. But Goell is right. Is creating a nation of people who are so wedded to violence a good thing? He thinks not, and I agree.
If anything Oslo delayed the day a moderate Palestinian state might come to exist. Arafat and his Tunis mafia destroyed all institutions of moderation in the lands Israel ceded to them. The Palestinians have a long way to go before they show that they're capable of governing themselves without endangering their neighbors.

The Terrorist is not home now. Would you like to call back?
American and Iraqi troops reportedly found Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's hideout in Falluja. Here's how the AP reported in "U.S. May Have Found Fallujah Militant Base"

Calls to Al-Zarqawi's family home in Zarqa, an industrial city northeast of the Jordanian capital, Amman, went unanswered.

What exactly was the reporter expecting? It isn't like he was calling some city official at home who was out shopping. What response exactly were they expecting from the Zarqawi household?

Whodunit?
The Washington Post reports that "Conspiracy Theories Persist on Arafat's Death." While this conspiracy talk is, of course, nonsense, John Ward Anderson seems to be lending it some credence.

The suspicion that Arafat was murdered is not being peddled just by a few conspiracy theorists, but by many, including some of Arafat's top aides. His Jordanian doctor has called for an autopsy, citing possible poisoning. Tayeb Abdul Rahim, the secretary general of Palestinian Authority's Office of the President, also raised the possibility of poisoning, saying that Palestinians deserved to know what caused Arafat's death.

"In the Western media, you think this is paranoid conspiracy theories, but here in the Arab world, that is not the case at all," said Hishad Ahmed, a political scientist at Bir Zeit University, on the outskirts of Ramallah. "If people found that Yasser Arafat was poisoned, it would be a volcano here -- a big earthquake."

"I strongly believe" Arafat was poisoned, he said, adding "most likely it was done by Israel, but it would have to have been executed by those around Arafat." As evidence, he cited previous assassination attempts by Israel against Palestinian leaders, Israel's threats against Arafat, the demand by Arafat's doctor for an autopsy, his treatment at a military hospital that was not likely to divulge secrets and the "campaign of disruption Palestinian officials engaged in for two weeks" during Arafat's hospitalization.

So he quotes a political scientist who adds to the speculation. What he never does is cite any sort of objective evidence that said poisoning took place. Did Arafat's decline follow any known course of poisoning? Were there any physical signs that suggest poisoning?
Now Anderson does not at any point suggest that Arafat died of AIDS. As long as he's giving credence to outright fantasies - you know, like Israel spikes gum given to Palestinian boys to corrupt their morals - why doesn't he cite speculation that Arafat died of AIDS? If he was a homosexual that would make such a diagnosis more likely. The fact that some of his alleged symptoms fit AIDS is also relevant. (Those symptoms, though, are apparently not unique to AIDS.) It would also explain why Arafat's handlers had him flown to Paris where the secrecy laws are tighter. Had Arafat died of AIDS, it would have caused him - and perhaps his cause - great shame in the Arab world.
Incidentally, remember the chewing gum I mention before? The Washington Post actually tested some of it. It wasn't spiked.
But what was interesting about that article from July 1997, "POP! WENT THE TALE OF THE BUBBLE GUM SPIKED WITH SEX HORMONES" by Barton Gellman was how it compared the ludicrous Palestinian to Israeli claims of Palestinian malfeasance.

The Israeli plot, as Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority exposed it recently, was triply diabolical.

To begin with, it aroused irresistible sexual appetites in women, undermining Islamic morals and self-restraint. Then it sterilized them to suppress Arab population growth. Worst of all, according to Palestinian Supply Minister Abdel Aziz Shaheen, it was capable of "completely destroying the genetic system of young boys."

All that with packets of bubble gum. Palestinian officials maintain, having subjected the gum to laboratory tests, that it is spiked with sex hormones and sold at suspiciously low prices near schoolhouses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Variations of the story, blending pseudo-science with inventive tales of conspiracy by Israel's secret services, have been making the rounds of the official Palestinian media for weeks.

Promoted at the highest levels of the Palestinian Authority, the story recalls a propaganda style that Palestinians largely abandoned after their first accord with Israel in 1993. It is one among many recent signs that after months of stagnation in peace talks, the process of accommodation is falling into decay.

Israel, too, devotes substantial efforts these days to discrediting its ostensible negotiating partner. David Bar-Illan, director of communications for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, has described the government as engaged in a full-scale propaganda war, and he does his part with periodic faxes to foreign reporters about unattractive or allegedly unlawful Palestinian behavior.

Except the Israeli charges were largely true. If Gellman were interested in checking it out. Which he wasn't. Maybe because it was too much fun, he, at least, deserves credit for debunking the spiked bubble gum charge.

The Washington Post commissioned a test of allegedly contaminated chewing gum provided by Palestinian health officials.

Dan Gibson, professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at Hebrew University and a member of the left-wing lobby group Peace Now, said that, using a mass spectrometer capable of detecting as little as a microgram of progesterone, he found none in the gum. When used as a contraceptive pill, according to a standard physician's reference, the effective dose is about 300 times larger than a microgram.

In practice, the body rapidly inactivates progesterone taken by mouth. Birth control pills normally rely on synthetic compounds known as progestins or progestogens that are similar but not identical. These oral contraceptives, according to Stanley G. Korenman, the head of endocrinology at the Center for the Health Sciences of the University of California at Los Angeles, generally diminish female libido rather than increase it, although the effects in either direction are not dramatic.

In men, progestins are powerful inhibitors of sperm production. They also impair libido and the ability to maintain an erection.

But whatever the science, the politics are clear. Most Palestinians interviewed had heard of the gum, and even the most worldly tended to say they believed accounts of its evil powers.

The fact that he doesn't devote any energy to debunking Israeli claims suggests that they were (generally, at least) true.
There's no excuse for Anderson simply reporting the charges without making an attempt to debunk them.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

When There's Will

When There's Will ...

via Real Clear Politics. George Will on ABC's "This Week":

In June 2002, the President said there's no problem getting to peace in the Middle East and the Palestinian state if the Palestinian people can generate a leadership that is a peaceful interlocutor for Israel. 60 days we're going to do it? The Palestinian people have been the most execrably led people of the 20th century. Palestinian leaders supported Germany and the central powers in the first World War, Hitler in the second World War, Stalin in the Cold War, Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War. That's a losing streak. Tomorrow morning, Palestinian children will get up and go to schools where teachers appointed by the Palestinian Authority and textbooks selected by them will teach them a kind of virulent anti-Semitism akin to that in Nazi Germany. We need ten years of de-Nazification to get over what the Oslo Accords produced when they brought that thug and his "thugocracy" back to Palestine.

Dahlan Watch I

Dahlan Watch I

Yasser Arafat ran the PLO, not as a revolutionary movement (despite his rhetoric) but as an (dis)organized crime family. Thus whoever will take over for him will not be a political successor. (Yes I know, we keep hearing that the election will take place within 60 days as stipulated by the Palestinian constitution. Right. The Palestinian constitution is a nice fig leaf, but I suspect it's rarely referred to - except when its provisions can be promoted by Western journalists trumpeting Palestinian "democracy.")
Arafat's successor will have two important attributes: Guns and money. In Gaza, the man with the most solid credentials in those areas are former security chief Mohammed Dahlan. I'm going to try to keep up with his antics over the coming months.
Because Dahlan headed the security service in Gaza he should have plenty of armed men whose loyalty he commands. Because he has lots of money he should be able to buy the loyalty of others. How did he get his money? Here's part of the answer:

This tax enables Rajoub to expand his organization's power. There are approximately 20 different security apparatuses operating in the territories today; they compete with one another, and the extent of their influence is naturally derived from their economic prowess. Avraham Biger, CEO of Paz up until two months ago, wrings his hands in chagrin: "Pedasco was simply too serious; we believed the Palestinians would live up to their obligations under the Paris agreement and would honor previous agreements. We never received any formal tender announcement from the Palestinians, and this fell on us like a bolt out of the blue."

Overnight, Pedasco found itself without contracts, without customers, and without the equipment it had leased to the gas stations. After the fact, it turned out that the Authority had even had an exclusive contract for supply with the German-French company Marimpex, signed by Yasser Arafat, when suddenly Dor showed up and snatched all the marbles. The agreement was signed between Joseph Antverg, then the CEO of Dor, and Muhammad Rashid, representing the Palestinians, as "senior economic advisor" to Arafat.

The gas station owners have no business relationship with Dor Energy. Dor sells the fuel to the Palestinian monopoly at a certain price, and the monopoly sells it to the station owners at a much higher price. The monopoly keeps the difference. The station owners have no alternative, because Rajoub's outfit in the West Bank and Muhammad Dahlan's in the Gaza Strip prevent any other, competing importation and assign armed guards to escort Dor's tankers right up to the stations themselves.

Another way in which the security apparatuses finance their augmented activity is through the collection of unloading taxes. Rajoub and Dahlan control, in effect, all the discharging platforms at the transit points to the Palestinian Authority. Dahlan is also the owner of the loading pitchforks at the Erez checkpoint. Every merchant and truck owner must pay the preventive security apparatus a tithe in order to proceed. Sometimes, its done in a simpler fashion. An Israeli importer of cleaning products, who opened a branch in Gaza, was asked to pay $2,000, a "donation" to Force 17. A year ago,a rich Arab from East Jerusalem was asked to purchase 14 new jeeps, out of his own money, for Rajoub's organization's use.

I don't believe Hamas will really be a serious player for awhile as Yassin and Rantisi pre-deceased Arafat. But it really doesn't make much of a difference as Dahlan has had a pretty good working relationship with Hamas in the past.

On Thursday, five Israelis were wounded, one critically, in Palestinian attacks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The attacks came as Palestinian sources confirmed that Hamas militant Mohammed Deif, who tops Israel's most-wanted list for his involvement in terrorist attacks, has escaped from a Palestinian jail.

According to Israel Radio, a Hamas Web site claimed that Mohammed Dahlan, the head of Palestinian security in Gaza, helped Deif escape. Deif and Dahlan reportedly became friendly while serving time together in an Israeli jail.

According to the site, Dahlan arranged for Deif to be moved to a safe house amid concern that Israel might bomb the jail to assassinate Deif.

And I expect that he still does.

After Arafat's death, the Scotsman interviewed Dahlan:

Palestinians need time to Â?build a new houseÂ? following the death of Yasser Arafat, and the key to a cease-fire with Palestinian militants is in IsraelÂ?s hands, said Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan in an interview published today.

Dahlan, who holds no official position but who commands a loyal following in Gaza, told the Israeli Yediot Ahronot daily that halting four years of violence with Israel will not be the first priority of the post-Arafat leadership.

Â?If you want, there will be a cease-fire. If you donÂ?t want, there wonÂ?t be. The key is in your hands,Â? he was quoted as saying, blaming Israel for the breakdown of previous cease-fires.

Â?But a cease-fire is not the first stage. We are building a new house now from the foundations. That is the first task,Â? he said.

Then there's this gem:

Dahlan is expected to hold a key position of power in the post-Arafat Palestinian power structure, though it is not known if he will enter the Cabinet.

As if the only power to wield is political. Having armed men supporting him, I'm sure that Dahlan will hold a "key position of power" he need not join the cabinet. This isn't Washington, it's Gaza.

Still it's interesting apparently that Dahlan is considered close to America as this article about the killing of 3 Americans in Gaza tells us:

Ranking Palestinian Authority officials know the solution to the mystery, but lack clear proof. What's more, they are afraid of talking about it in public. Almost certainly, the solution is that the explosive charge was indeed intended to cause American casualties, but the people behind the attack intended to devalue the status of the man considered to be closest to the Americans in the Gaza Strip. This is Mohammed Dahlan, once described as the most powerful strongman in Gaza. The Preventive Security Service, which Dahlan created and also led, received widespread assistance from the United States. Dahlan has maintained contact with American government agencies and authorities, and any disruption of the relationship between the U.S. and the Palestinian Authority harms him.

(It's also interesting as Dahlan said in the Scotsman article:

Dahlan appealed to Israel to allow the Palestinians to hold elections within 60 days, as set out in Palestinian law. Â?The next president cannot receive legitimacy from Israel or America,Â? he said, Â?but only from our street, from the refugee campsÂ? and population centres.

I'm curious to what degree Dahlan still gets support from the US. Or is it just perception now?
For now Dahlan has bowed out of the presidential race and thown his support behind Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). That would be good news for Abbas. But it suggests that he would be a puppet. At the end of the article, talking of the attempted assassination of Abbas on Sunday, Dahlan said:

Dahlan said he was confident the campaign for president could proceed without violence, and played down Sunday's shooting at a mourning tent for Arafat, moments after Abbas arrived. Abbas was whisked to safety, but two security agents were killed and five people wounded.

Dahlan said the names of the gunmen were known to police, but refused to elaborate. "Measures will be taken against them," he said.

Hmm. Think there'll be some "collaborator" executions in Gaza soon?

From Swaziland to Tzfat

Thanks to It's Only Supernatural for a link to this fascinating story.

A State or not a State

A State or not a State

Earlier I had noted that both Jackson Diehl and Daniel Pipes predicted that President Bush would start bringing undue pressure on Israel to move forward with negotiations with whatever exists of the PA. The former wrote with barely concealed glee; the latter with a sense of foreboding. In his blog, Pipes sees more evidence and concludes:

There is more on this same topic in the press conference, but this suffices to show how determined the president is to see a Palestinian state emerge on his watch. Also, he is saying (along the lines of his June 2002 speech and the policy in Iraq) that if the Palestinians develop a democratic system, they will for sure live in harmony side-by-side with Israel. To which I say that if the Palestinians still retain their intent to destroy Israel, democracy cannot take place. Instead, the goal of U.S. policy should be to get the Palestinians to give up on this foul goal.

On the other side Barry Rubin in "US Outlook on the Middle East" predicts:

Arab-Israeli conflict: The administration has no illusion of any breakthrough happening soon. Envoys will be sent to run around, meetings held, plans announced, yet this is also done with a profound doubt that anything is going to change. There will be much talk about helping Palestinian moderates win the leadership battle but the United States is going to have little influence and any hint that someone is an American candidate for Palestinian leadership will only hurt his chances. U.S. policy will still back the Roadmap plan but emphasizing that the Palestinians must act fully to stop terrorism before they receive any political rewards. American commitments to Israel will stay in place to support the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and building the security fence. U.S.-Israel relations will remain quite good.

While Rubin's article was written before the thug died, an article in Friday's Washington Post seems to support this view:

Privately, administration officials made it clear that Bush will keep the onus on the Palestinians, saying that the United States cannot impose a desire for peace on them if they do not want it themselves.

Actually that was only one paragraph in the article. Most of the other statements in the article appear to show an administration hellbent on creating creating a Palestinian state regardless. (I give a little more credence to the paragraph I cited because it was said "privately.")

Arafat's (and the world's) Disgraceful History

Arafat's (and the world's) Disgraceful History

Andrew McCarthy wrote an excellent overview of the history of "The Father of Modern Terrorism." He covers the violent history of the recently deceased terrorist.

For the last week of his life, the scuttlebutt about the Palestinian movement's centrifugal force concerned whether his impending demise was driven by AIDS, likely contracted, according to leaked foreign-intelligence reports, by his omnivorous, orgiastic sexual appetite. This as if, after three quarters of a century's worth of megalo-sadism, additional indicia of Yasser Arafat's throbbing depravity were somehow necessary. And so, evidently, they were. Thus is reflection on his life, a signal emblem of the late 20th century's triumph of terror and fraud over security and reason, as instructive about our times as it is about him.

(This first paragraph recalls Daniel Pipes's "Arafat's Bedroom Farce.")
McCarthy's point about how Arafat's life representing the "...triumph of terror and fraud over security and reason" is important. Perhaps a worthwhile exercise would be to study McCarthy's history next to Jeane Kirkpatrick's "How the PLO was legitimized"
While McCarthy outlines Arafat's terror CV, Kirkpatrick gives a history of how the PLO became accepted internationally. (The aritcle is 15 years old; but still relevant.) I think studying these two phemomena in parallel would be quite instructive. What outrages were being ignored while the PLO was getting an international legal imprimatur for its actions?

Mendacity Alert II

"Vote For Peace" ex President Jimmy Carter's obituary for Yasser Arafat is riddled with gross distortions and untruths. It is a testament to the lack of editorial control that such a sloppy piece of garbage made it to the op-ed page of an elite American newspaper. So it begins:

For more than 40 years, Yasir Arafat was the undisputed leader of the fragmented and widely dispersed Palestinian community and the symbol of its cause. His pre-eminent role was not perpetuated by his boldness or clarity of purpose, but was protected from challenge by his status as the only common denominator around which the disparate factions could find a rallying point.

No clarity of purpose? Arafat never accepted a Jewish connection to the land of Israel. Consider article 20 of the Palestinian National Charter:

Article 20:
The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

Oh but the Palestinian Legislative Council rejected those sections of their charter that denied Israel's right to exist (in 1996 and in 1998)? Well consider the following from "Clinton Won't Meet His Goal Of Mideast Peace, Aides Fear" by Jane Perlez from the NY Times of September 8, 2000:

Mr. Arafat has been saying since the Camp David talks, when the question of sovereignty over the site was raised, that the Temple does not exist, a senior administration official said. By insisting that what the Jews consider to be the most sacred of their holy sites was not even a Jewish place, Mr. Arafat was denying a basic respect to his main negotiating partner, the official said.

The denial of the historical connection between Jews and Israel is an essential component of Palestinian nationalism. It is not something that can be voted down. It is essential to the Palestinian cause to cast Jews as interlopers. It is a belief that Arafat subscribed to and embodied, even as it became one of the main obstacles to peace with Israel.
The lack of Arafat's "clarity of purpose" is simply a projeciton of Carter's. He can't believe that anyone would hold such beliefs, so he denies and rationalizes the denial.

When given a chance by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel, Mr. Arafat responded well by concluding the Oslo Agreement of 1993, which spelled out a mutually satisfactory relationship on geographical boundaries between Israel and the Palestinians. The resulting absence of serious violence by either side was broken when a Jewish nationalist assassinated Mr. Rabin. Mr. Arafat later rejected a proposal devised by President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, but its basic terms have led to positive initiatives between private groups of Israelis and Palestinians, in particular one known as the Geneva Accords. This proposal addresses the major issues that must be resolved through further official negotiations before a permanent peace can be realized.

No serious violence until November 1995? Let's see:

Apr 6 94 Asher Attia, 48, of Afula, bus driver; Vered Mordechai, 13, of Afula; Maya Elharar, 17, of Afula; Ilana Schreiber, 45, a teacher from Kibbutz Nir David; Meirav Ben-Moshe, 16, of Afula; Ayala Vahaba, 40, a teacher from Afula; and Fadiya Shalabi, 25, of Iksal were killed in a car-bomb attack on a bus in the center of Afula. HAMAS claimed responsibility for the attack. Ahuva Cohen Onalla, 37, wounded in the attack, died of her wounds on April 25.

Apr 13 94 Rahamim Mazgauker, 34, of Hadera; David Moyal, 26 of Ramat Gan, an Egged mechanic; Daga Perda, 44, who immigrated from Ethiopia in 1991; Bilha Butin, 49, of Hadera; and Sgt. Ari Perlmutter, 19, of Ir Ovot in the Arava were killed in a suicide bombing attack on a bus in the central bus station of Hadera. HAMAS claimed responsibility for the attack.

13 people killed in two bus bombings isn't serious? I guess that depends on your point of view? (And that wasn't the only post-Oslo terror prior to the assassination of PM Rabin.)
Besides the violence of early 1996 (which presumably is what Carter is referring to) occurred after Israel withdrew from Jenin, Nablus, Kalkilye, Bethlehem and Ramallah (and one other city) suggesting that the terror increased due to the greater opportunity that Hamas had to operate once the PA took control of those cities.

In effect, peace efforts of a long line of previous administrations have been abandoned by President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. For the last three years of his life, Mr. Arafat was incapacitated and held as a prisoner, humiliated by his physical incarceration and excluded by the other two leaders from any recognition as the legitimate head of the Palestinian community. Recognizing Mr. Arafat's failure to control violence among his people or to initiate helpful peace proposals, I use the word "legitimate" based on his victory in January 1996 by a strong majority of votes in an election monitored by the Carter Center and approved by the occupying Israelis.

Yes the man who certified dictator Hugo Chavez's stolen election earlier this year is an expert in electoral democracy. Dan Polisar has a different view:

As the January 1996 elections approached, Arafat was assured of victory for himself and his loyalists in Fatah. The steps he had taken since assuming power had succeeded in bolstering his position and shunting aside most potential challengers. In fact, Arafat almost ended up running unopposed, as the best-known individuals who considered challenging him-including rights activist Iyad a-Sarraj and the popular Haydar Abed a-Shafi (who had headed the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid conference) decided that there was little point in running in the political climate that had been created. In the end, the only person who decided to face off against Arafat was Samiha Halil, a little-known, 72-year-old women's rights activist, who was hardly in a position to compete for mainstream support in the traditional society of the West Bank and Gaza.

Nonetheless, Arafat took advantage of his monopoly on power to turn a sure victory into a landslide. He adopted an electoral system for the Council races that favored Fatah and undercut the chances of the smaller parties, and that played a role in persuading most Islamic and left-wing groups to boycott the elections.154 Within Fatah, he overturned the results of party caucuses and replaced independent-minded local nationalists chosen in balloting among party activists in each district with his own hand-picked slates-often dominated by loyalists who had come with him from Tunis. During the campaign, PA police stepped up their intimidation of candidates running against Fatah nominees for seats in the Council, while government ministers and other PA officials used the resources of their offices to further their candidacies. On election day, the massive presence of Palestinian policemen in and around the polls-in direct violation of the campaign law Arafat had promulgated-had a clear effect on voters. This effect was especially pronounced with regard to the approximately 100,000 illiterate voters, who were often "assisted" in filling out their ballots by policemen or Fatah officials.

Another deeply disturbing change is the decision by Hamas and other militant factions to resort to suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism, whereas the hope for peace and justice discouraged such violence eight years ago. After that election, Hamas representatives rejected my efforts to have them accept Mr. Arafat as their political leader, and they continue to act independently.

As noted before, Hamas bombings are not a new phenomenon; they go back ten years and in early 1996 with Shimon Peres as Prime Minister, it's hard to say that prospects for peace were any greater. Yet that's when Hamas first turned up the violence to unprecedented levels killing scores in a two week period. Violence is not a function of hopelessness. (Carter tried to restrain Hamas? I never heard that one before.)

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has stated recently that peace in the Middle East is the most important international issue. It is to be hoped that, in Washington and Jerusalem, there is also recognition that a bold and balanced move to achieve this goal will help to attenuate the Middle East tension and hatred that exacerbates the global threat of terrorism.

What exacerbates the global threat of terrorism is coddling the likes of Yasser Arafat. It sends a message that violence works. Taking a tough stand against the terrorist leaders and not allowing them independent states is the most important deterrent we have. Forcing Israel to make concessions to terrorists will only encourage the terrorists more.