Soccer Dad |
- I'm not a cop but i played one on tv
- Obama's Mideast Peace Process: New Letter Threatening Pressure On Abbas Is Meaningless
- Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying ...
- Comfort from distorted history
I'm not a cop but i played one on tv Posted: 01 Aug 2010 12:04 PM PDT D.C. Sniper confesses to William Shatner Lee Malvo confesses to Police will once again question DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, after the convicted serial killer said for the first time in a TV interview with actor William Shatner that two other men were initially part of the bloody plot that terrorized the Washington area and left 10 people dead in 2002. But some are casting doubt on Malvo's latest: "I think Malvo's full of crap," said Lt. Bruce Guth, the Fairfax County homicide detective who headed the task force that helped convict Malvo of capital murder in 2003 for his role in the 10 local slayings. "He's changed his story at least five or six different times." Certain aspects of his latest "confession" to Shatner do seem to match with what was reported at the time. The Washington State Crime Lab says one of those guns, a .45-caliber pistol, was used to kill 21-year-old Keenya Nicole Cook on Feb. 16 when she answered the door of her aunt's Tacoma home. Court records place Muhammad in Tacoma last Feb. 12, when he was ticketed for shoplifting. Muhammad and Malvo are accused of killing 12 people and wounding five others between September 14 and October 24 in Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, Washington state and Washington, D.C. So maybe Malvo's claim of other confederates is false, but the "admissions" about other murders seem to be old news. |
Obama's Mideast Peace Process: New Letter Threatening Pressure On Abbas Is Meaningless Posted: 01 Aug 2010 07:36 AM PDT Back in March, the very fact that Abbas agreed to the Proximity Talks was itself seen as Abbas giving into pressure. At the time, Herb Keinon wrote in the Jerusalem Post:
However, in the time since then, we have seen that this was a false alarm. After all, was Abbas 'talking' with Netanyahu through Mitchell really a concession? Besides, just what movement has there been during the Proximity Talks since they first started? Zero. A. Big. Fat. Zero. So, when Abbas went to the Arab League to get his refusal to deal face-to-face with Netanyahu rubber stamped, Obama applied pressure: Yeah, that helped Abbas take Obama seriously. So, not surprisingly, when Abbas met with the Arab League:
What the Arab League did, was to agree that Abbas should negotiate directly with Netanyahu--but left it up to Abbas to decide when. Now it is being reported that Obama has applied real pressure to Abbas. According to Laura Rozen at Politico:
The letter is rumored to promise Abbas that if he agrees to direct negotiations, Netanyahu will extend the settlement freeze. While it's good to see that Obama is taking a harder line on Abbas, applying pressure as he has on Netanyahu in the past, Arlene Kushner writes about how misleading news of this letter actually is:
Two weeks ago? Yup:
That would mean that in the 2 weeks after Obama wrote this letter, warning Abbas that failure to meet directly with Netanyahu would affect US ties with Abbas and the Palestinian Authority:
One may assume that that latter result was guaranteed by the former. Obama has threatened that failure to meet with Netanyahu will adversely affect US-PA relations--and no one seems to care. Apparently, Obama has taken the skills he demonstrated in negotiating with Iran and has applied them to Abbas and the Arabs. When will he get to the point that, as with Iran, Obama will apply real pressure on Abbas? by Daled Amos |
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying ... Posted: 01 Aug 2010 07:06 AM PDT The headline reads, "Fury as Israel president claims English are 'anti-semitic'" Shimon Peres said England was "deeply pro-Arab ... and anti-Israeli", adding: "They always worked against us." As you can see, this is largely reported correctly, so the headline is misleading. He used an English definition of antisemitism, but he did not call England antisemitic. He called England "pro-Arab" and "anti-Israel." So unless those who are complaining think (like I do) that being anti-Israel is a proxy for being antisemitic. But the reporters (and critics) took Peres's comments out of context by leaving out an essential qualification: Our next big problem is England. There are several million Muslim voters. And for many members of parliament, that's the difference between getting elected and not getting elected. And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment. They abstained in the [pro-Zionist] 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution, despite [issuing the pro-Zionist] Balfour Declaration [in 1917]. They maintained an arms embargo against us [in the 1950s]; they had a defense treaty with Jordan; they always worked against us. Note what I emphasized. That's a pretty important qualification. Paraphrasing Shakespeare one could say that Peres's critics are protesting too much, or you could wonder what all that fury signifies. Biased BBC wonders if the backlash against Peres's comments really extends past the Telegraph (so far). Of course the anti-Israel nature of English politics isn't exactly a surprise. Perhaps you recall the grotesque picture of Ariel Sharon in the Independent. Or perhaps you recall Robert Fisk's interview of Walt and Mearsheimer? Nor is this necessarily a recent phenomenon as observed by Yehuda Avner. Begin listened intently to what Sir Isaac was saying, and in an English that was accented but perfect responded by thanking him profusely for his expressions of good will. Then, with a roguish glint in the eye, he asked, "So tell me, Sir Isaac, the British press, do they have a good word to say about me on my first day in office? Or am I still their favorite fiend?" Whatever Sir Isaac's answer was it wiped the impish look from the premier's face. Little by little it darkened into displeasure. He clucked his tongue, wagged his head, and in a tone huffy with disdain, shot back, "So The Times is at it again, preaching Middle East appeasement just as it preached German appeasement in the Thirties. "That's the newspaper, remember, which dismissed the atrocities of Hitler's Brownshirts as mere 'revolutionary exuberance.' Bah! What do they want of me now? Another Munich? Give up Judea and Samaria like Neville Chamberlain forced Czechoslovakia to give up the Sudentland? What are we supposed to do, commit suicide like Czechoslovakia?" . . . "And you tell me there are still people there in Britain who call me a terrorist and Yasser Arafat a freedom fighter? I have nothing but contempt for them." I do think that Peres's critics are protesting too much. His remarks were qualified, and there's an awful lot of evidence to support him. |
Comfort from distorted history Posted: 01 Aug 2010 03:17 AM PDT A couple of articles, from differing perspectives, on how blaming Israel for the plight of the Palestinians hurts the cause of peace. In the Jerusalem Post Mudar Zahran writes: The demonization of Israel by the global media has greatly harmed the Palestinians' interests for decades and covered up Arab atrocities against them. Furthermore, demonizing Israel has been well-exploited by several Arab dictatorships to direct citizens' rage against Israel instead of their regimes and also to justify any atrocities they commit in the name of protecting their nations from "the evil Zionists." (Do you think that Mudar Zahran is someone Thomas Friedman thinks we need to hear more of? My guess is that since Mudar Zahran challenges Friedman's believe that Israel is mostly at fault for the lack of peace in the Middle East, that the answer is "no.") Sol Stern in the City Journal writes about The Naqba Obsession: In Balata, history has come full circle. During the 1948 war, Palestinian leaders like Haj Amin al-Husseini insisted that the Arab citizens of Haifa and Jaffa had to leave, lest they help legitimize the Jewish state. Now, the descendants of those citizens are locked up in places like Balata and prohibited from resettling in the Palestinian-administered West Bank--again, lest they help legitimize the Jewish state, this time by removing the Palestinians' chief complaint. Yet there is a certain perverse logic at work here. For if Israel and the Palestinians ever managed to hammer out the draft of a peace treaty, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, would have to go to Balata and explain to its residents that their leaders have been lying to them for 60 years and that they are not going back to Jaffa. Which, to state the obvious again, is one of the main reasons that there has been no peace treaty. (via the Daily Alert Blog Speaking of Sol Stern, if you haven't read his Israel without apology; you must.) I suppose that it's easier to blame Israel because Israelis are different from Arabs, so it's intelectually easier to subscribe to the view that Israelis are prejudiced against Palestinians and refuse to give them their due. Such a prejudice is fixable by education and enlightenment. On the other hand the the hatred of the Muslim world for Israel, is not something that is so easily fixed. It also is too alien for most of the enlightened West to comprehend. Better then to address the issue that can be fixed and ignore the one that can't. Of course that attitude doesn't solve the problem, it merely exacerbates it. Crossposted at Yourish. |
You are subscribed to email updates from Soccer Dad To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 |
No comments:
Post a Comment