Four on an Anniversary + 2
Thanks to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs I've come accross 4 essays on the subject of the tenth anniversary of Oslo. I'll save the best for last, so let's start with Marwan Bishara identified as a "lecturer at the American University of Paris":

The lion’s share of the blame falls with the United States and Israel, whose actions in turn triggered violent reactions from the Palestinians.

This is like "stop me before I kill again." The PA resolved to settle all disputes through political means not violence ten years ago. It never actually followed that commitment. Violence wasn't a reaction triggered by Israeli actions; it was carefully orchestrated by the PA's leadership and excused by most of the world. The next paragraph actually is somewhat (and surprisingly) honest:

The United States failed to use its considerable influence to curb the expansionist impulses of the proponents of a Greater Israel, who slowly but steadily tore the spirit of Oslo to pieces.

That's right, the expansion of Jewish communities in Yesha and Azza was, at worst, a violation of the "spirit" of Oslo, never of the letter of Oslo, like the aforementioned violence was. (See more on this later.) The building or expanding of Jewish communities in the disputed areas was never mentioned, as Yossi Beilin acknowledges in the next items:

First, the fact that no reference was made to the freezing of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — the Palestinians accepted Rabin’s personal commitment to halt the construction of new settlements — created an opening that a subsequent right-wing government used to build new settlements, though it clearly was not the original intent of the agreement.

Of course so many other details were specified in the Accords, it strains credulity to say that the expansion of a Jewish presence in the disputed areas was clearly meant to be prohibited by the accords. Then in the next paragraph Beilin shows himself to be a master of understatement:

Second, Israel did not give sufficient importance to incitement in the Palestinian media, thinking it was a trend that would pass when the final-status agreement was signed. This incitement played a significant role in the Palestinians’ return to violence in 2000.

First of all, I heard Beilin speak in 1996 and when someone asked about Palestinian incitement (and other violations of Oslo) he answered that Israel's violations were worse! But the incitement would have led nowhere if the PA didn't allow terrorist groups to organize and arm themselves two weeks before Likud leader Ariel Sharon visited Har Habayit (the Temple Mount). Earlier on, though, Beilin demonstrated his absolute blindness with a boast:

But the talks that I initiated in Oslo contained two unique elements: For the first time, the Palestinian partner was clearly identified as the PLO; and the idea was proposed to transfer to Palestinian control most of the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area even before elections were held for the Palestinian Authority’s legislative council and leadership.

Frankly, I can't understand why he's so proud. These are precisely the reasons that Oslo failed. It was predicated on legitimizing an unrepentant terrorist and then giving him a base of operations. It required no complaince or proof of good faith from a well known thug. Of course, Beilin claims only the purist of motives, to maintain Israel's status as a Jewish democratic state. Then why did he sneak around making agreements with the PLO when it was illegal to do so and then present these agreements as a fait accompli to Rabin? I can think of no more certain subversin of democracy than what Beilin did in the name of "peace."

Next up is Dennis Ross. While his entry is not perfect, it shows a lot more clearheadedness than anything he demonstrated from 1993-2001.

Palestinians must know that there will be no Palestinian state born of violence; that terror will delegitimize their cause; that they will have to compromise on Jerusalem, borders, and refugees — indeed, that the solution on refugees must permit a two-state solution, not a one-state solution. Israel will be a Jewish state and Palestinians must be prepared to recognize it as such.

Throughout Oslo, preparation of publics was conspicuously absent, especially on the Palestinian side — where Arafat treated the very concept of compromise on the permanent status issues as a betrayal.

Third, Arab leaders must assume their responsibilities. The Arab role during Oslo was limited — in part because the Palestinians only sought their support but never their guidance; and in part because Arab leaders were fearful of being accused by Arafat asking the Palestinians to surrender their national rights if they pressed him to compromise on the core issues.

Dore Gold gets to the heart of the matter and casts the problems of Oslo as intelligence failures:

Intelligence errors usually are associated with military disasters like Pearl Harbor or the 1973 Yom Kippur War, not with diplomacy.
Yet the last decade of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process may involve such an error of assessment. Looking back now, 10 years after the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords, it’s clear that the failure to reach an Israeli-Palestinian agreement cannot be attributed to a lack of political will on the Israeli side or the failure of the United States to deal more forcibly with noncompliance.

Rather, it has to do with the more fundamental question of whether the leadership of the PLO really was prepared for reconciliation and peace with Israel.

The overwhelming evidence from statements by the PLO leadership was that it viewed the Oslo process as a tactical necessity to realize its ultimate strategic goal of recovering the entire territory of British Mandatory Palestine — including the area of Israel.

It would be a mistake to assign this intention to PLO leader Yasser Arafat alone. After all, it was the PLO’s top official for Jerusalem, Faisal Husseini, who on two separate occasions in 2001 described Oslo as a “Trojan Horse” that served the realization of “the strategic goal — namely, Palestine from the river to the sea.”

Similarly, the leader of the Fatah movement in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti, told The New Yorker that even if Israel withdrew from 100 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not end. What was needed, he said, was “one state for all the peoples.”

Now that we've covered all of the JTA articles that I can find, it's worth bringing two more opinions. Daniel Pipes pretty much agrees with Dore Gold even if he doesn't refer to Oslo as an intelligence failure:

Many things, but most important was that the deal rested on a faulty Israeli premise that Palestinians had given up their hope of destroying the Jewish state. This led to the expectation that if Israel offered sufficient financial and political incentives, the Palestinians would formally recognize the Jewish state and close down the conflict.

Israelis therefore pushed themselves to make an array of concessions, in the futile hope that flexibility, restraint and generosity would win Palestinian goodwill. In fact, these steps made matters worse by sending signals of apparent demoralization and weakness. Each concession further reduced Palestinian awe of Israeli might, made Israel seem more vulnerable and incited irredentist dreams of annihilating it.

The result was a radicalized and mobilized Palestinian body politic. In speech and actions, via claims to the entire land of Israel and the murder of Israelis, the hope of destroying Israel acquired ever-more traction.

Thus did the muted Palestinian mood at Oslo's start in 1993 turn into the enraged ambition evident today.

Finally, it's worth quoting from Michael B. Oren's excellent recollections in today's Wall Street Journal (hopefully they'll post this article to the free OpinionJournal over the weekend):

But while Israelis may have exploited the treaty's spirit, the Palestinians flagrantly disregarded its letter.

And that for now, is the last word.
Crossposted on IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Disagreeing with InstaPundit
InstaPundit had a couple of items that I have to disagree with. One for what it says; the other for what it doesn't.
#1, he has been arguing that Bush is losing his base and quotes Jonah Goldberg to that effect.

But I must say that if it weren't for the war on terrorism, I'd be a bit at a loss these days to say something nice about him given his performance of the last six months.

Maybe he is losing his base; maybe he isn't. I have to think that it's the latter. Goldberg makes it seem as if the war on terror is just another part of his presidency. But it isn't. It is the defining theme of George W. Bush's presidency. And there's no one on the other side who understands how important the war is. Not even Lieberman. Bush should use a variation on Reagan for his re-election: "You are safer today than you were four years ago." The holiday from history is over.
#2 is about the energy he (and others) is (are) expending criticizing Cruz Bustamante for his connection to a racist organization. I'm not excusing Bustamante, but there's avowed antisemite running for President. Al Sharpton doesn't have the excuse of youthful indiscretion. No as an adult he has engaged in public denunciations of Jewish "diamond dealers" and led an antisemitic protest that turned into a massacre. This is someone the Democrats should spit out; the way Republicans rejected David Duke. But there's only silence. Even from Joseph Lieberman. Who should know better. Bustamante is wrong but his violation only involves words. Sharpton's violation of civil discourse is a lot more serious.

Shhhh! We're hunting terrorists.
Little Green Footballs carried this item from Ha'aretz that reported:

Journalists have been having trouble finding enior Hamas officials over the last few days. Abdel Aziz Rantisi and his colleagues are not only reluctant to come to television studios in Gaza, they are even cutting down sharply on their use of the telephone. But beyond the real fear for their lives that Hamas members at every level are feeling (a fear that Israel is encouraging through repeated declarations by Ya'alon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz about their intention to continue the assassination policy), the organization is facing a serious dilemma. The problem with the Jerusalem attack, from Hamas's viewpoint, is that it was too successful. The large number of people killed, and the large number of children among them, aroused American and European anger at the organization (Europe is even considering declaring its "political" wing a terrorist organization) and provided a rare moment of international legitimacy for Israel's forceful response. The question is, what will happen if Hamas's retaliation is similarly "successful" - and if, once again, the gain proves to be not worth the cost?

(Parenthetically, Europe's a bit late recognizing that there is not really a "political" arm of Hamas as Michael Freund makes clear.)

And how does Israel target the heads of Hamas?

Ten Hamas men have died in helicopter ambushes since Israel vowed retaliation for a suicide bombing by the Islamic group that killed 21 people aboard a Jerusalem bus on August 19.
Seasoned by previous campaigns against a 35-month-old Palestinian uprising in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, dozens of Hamas leaders went into hiding. But this time the odds are really against them, Israeli security sources said on Sunday.
''We have refined our methods and are confident we can reach those in our 'target bank' with minimum risk to innocents,'' a source said, referring to militants slated for attack, although four bystanders have been killed in the recent air strikes.
The names in the ''target bank'' are usually common knowledge, particularly in Gaza where Hamas and kindred groups have a high public profile. That means marked militants are especially vulnerable to Israel's vast network of paid informers, who are themselves likely to be lynched as traitors if discovered.

What's particularly interesting here is the line describing "... Israel's vast network of paid informers ..." If the network is that vast why do we hear so little about it? And if the cost of discovery is so high - being dispatched in a very unpleasant manner - what would motivate anyone to risk it? Wouldn't a vast network of paid informers suggest a very strong disaffection with the PA among its constituents?
Crossposted at IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Un-Intelligence
If anyone wants to know how to think about American foreign policy during the Clinton years, he would not do worse than read Charles Krauthammer's "Holiday from History." Krauthammer lays out the general case of how the Clinton administration ignored the threatening forces arraying themselves against the West during the years 1993-2001.

More specific charges are available. Richard Miniter has written a book "Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror," which is now being excerpted in the Washington Times. Part 1 detailed how Richard Clarke, the Clinton administration's anti-terror czar recommended hitting Bin Laden after the attack on the Cole. He could find no one in the administration to support his recommendation and America launched no counter-attack.

Part two deals with James Woolsey's vain attempts to recruit more Arabic translators for the CIA. He didn't have the president's support to do so and eventually resigned. (If Woolsey had the president's confidence maybe he wouldn't have resigned and George Tenet - one of those who dithered instead of heeding Richard Clarke's recommendations - wouldn't have been head of the CIA at a critical time. Pure speculation, of course, but no doubt Clarke would have had an ally in Adm. Woolsey. If it had happened like that, there's still the likelihood that two clear thinkers would have been overruled anyway.)

What makes part 2 particularly compelling is that it confirms Reuel Marc Gerecht's critique of the CIA in The Atlantic in the summer of 2001. In his excellent "The Counterterrorist Myth," Gerecht wrote:

A former senior Near East Division operative says, "The CIA probably doesn't have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who would volunteer to spend years of his life with sh***y food and no women in the mountains of Afghanistan. For Christ's sake, most case officers live in the suburbs of Virginia. We don't do that kind of thing." A younger case officer boils the problem down even further: "Operations that include diarrhea as a way of life don't happen."

Gerecht's article was particularly striking because it appeared just before the 9/11attacks; Miniter simply confirmed Gerecht's charges.

Gerald Posner seems to have covered some of the same ground as does Miniter, but his targets are lower on the totem pole.

It's not the principle; it's the money
Today's NY Times had an item about the current settlement talks going on between France and Libya over the bombing of a French airliner in 1989. No this isn't Pan Am flight 003. The BBC notes:

The 53-page document lodged with the federal district court in Washington DC tells the story of UTA 772.

It has remarkable parallels with that of Pan Am 103.


On 19 September 1989, the UTA plane was bound for Paris from Congo Brazzaville in Central Africa.

It exploded over the Sahara desert in southern Niger killing all 170 people on board.

An examination of 15 tons of wreckage sent to France revealed traces of an explosive called pentrite in the forward hold.

Then a dark grey Samsonite suitcase was found covered with a layer of pentrite.

This was determined to be the source of the explosion. It had been loaded at Brazzaville.

Also found was a small piece of a green coloured circuit board which turned out to be a timing device.

It was traced back to Libya though a marketing company which, according to the document, had been asked to provide 100 of them for one of the Libyan defendants named in the lawsuit.

A similar link to Libya was made in the Lockerbie case.

The French are threatening to block the American and British effort to lift sanctions against Libya. No this isn't a matter of principle. The French aren't angry that Bush and Blair seem to be betraying their principles for money. It's that France hasn't been offered enough to sell out.

In an address to the nation on Sunday, the anniversary of the coup in 1969 that brought him to power, Colonel Qaddafi said Mr. Chirac had asked for more money, "saying he is embarrassed by the families of the victims who asked why the French victims got less money than the Americans."

(Libya is compensating the Pan Am victims' families between $5 and $10 million, but is, so far, only offering $200,000 to the UTA victims' families.

I don't mean ot belittle the suffering of those who lost relatives in 1989, it's just that it's bad enough that the US isn't standing for the principle of not giving into terrorists. Chirac adds insult to injury by making it clear that his prinicples are available for the right price.
Finally, I just don't get this paragraph:

Mr. de Villepin did not disclose details of the deal. His remarks followed a phone call on Sunday by President Jacques Chirac to Colonel Qaddafi. The conversation, like one between Mr. Chirac and Colonel Qaddafi on Aug. 24, was described by aides to Mr. Chirac as businesslike, rather than warm. Although the French government has not been directly involved in the negotiations, Mr. Chirac intervened to underscore the seriousness of the matter in the eyes of the French government.

If I were representing my country in negotiations with a terrorist who had killed 170 of my citizens, I hardly think the conversation would be "warm." What was the reporter thinking when she wrote this? Why would a conversation between Chirac and Qaddafi on the subject of reparation be expected to be "warm?"

First Impressions
There are a number of anniversaries coming up. This month is the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords, the third anniversary of the start of the "Aksa Intifada," and the second anniversary of 9/11. No doubt we will be treated to numerous media stories about the significance of each. In the case of the 3 year anniversary of the "Aksa Intifada" it's important to remember the degree to which the media skewed its meaning from the very start. This anniversary will no doubt be the occasion to lament the "cycle of violence" that has threatened to "spin out of control" since then. I don't wish to delve into the issue of how the PA started the violence. I plan to do that at some point. If you're interested check out the Statement by Israel Ambassador Lancry before the UN Security Council.

For now I'd like to focus on three pictures that arguably defined the "Aksa Intifada" in its first month.

First there was the photograph which was misrepresented all over the world. It is the picture of Tuvia Grossman, an America yeshiva student in Israel. On his way to the Kotel (Western Wall) in a taxi, Grossman and several friends were set upon by an Arab mob. Grossman, severely injured, was photographed with a bloody face and an Israeli policeman in the background. The picture published in many papers was captioned, "An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount.” Readers were left with the impression that the Israeli soldier had beaten the young man in the picture. In fact he was chasing the mob away from Tuvia Grossman and saving the young man.

Someone recognized Tuvia Grossman and informed his father. Aaron Grossman wrote a letter to the New York Times identifying his son in the picture and the Times responded with a half-hearted correction. It took a lot more outrage and complaints before the complete story was told. (The Baltimore Sun still ran the picture with an incorrect caption a week later. It didn't bother changing its Sunday edition even though the mistake had been corrected by Thursday!) There are articles on this incident at CAMERA and HonestReprorting. Tuvia Grossman's first person account appears at Aish.com.

The media didn't just suffer from mistakes of fact, it also suffered from mistakes of interpretation. Take for example the searing picture of the young Arab man with bloody hands. After participating in the murders two Israel reservists, Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Norzich, the young man,with a smile on his face, was photographed at the window of the Ramallah police station proudly displaying his bloody hands. Instead of simply portraying the lynching as a brutal display of hatred by one side against the other, America's most prominent newspapers attempted to put the lynching in "context." The late Scott Shuger (of "Today's Papers" fame at Slate) properly critiqued the media's refusal to report on this brutality in an honest fashion.

Honest Reporting carries an item about a Washington Post story that equates the lynching of the two soldiers with the Palestinians own example of Israeli brutality. The Post article reads:

Each side in the brutal Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has raged here since September nurses its own image of outrage.

For Palestinians, it is a terrified 12-year-old Mohammed Dura, cowering behind his father seconds before he was raked by Israeli machine-gun fire and killed last Sept. 30. For Israelis, it is the Ramallah lynching.

Now, it appears, it wasn't Israeli machine-gun fire that killed Mohammed Dura. Writing in The Atlantic, James Fallows examined the evidence and concluded:

But almost since the day of the episode evidence has been emerging in Israel, under controversial and intriguing circumstances, to indicate that the official version of the Mohammed al-Dura story is not true. It now appears that the boy cannot have died in the way reported by most of the world's media and fervently believed throughout the Islamic world. Whatever happened to him, he was not shot by the Israeli soldiers who were known to be involved in the day's fighting—or so I am convinced, after spending a week in Israel talking with those examining the case.

In short, the barrel in the picture stood between the Duras and the Israelis, it would have been impossible for the Israelis to have shot the boy at that angle. It's still worth reading the whole article.

The media mistakes in these three instances show the way that biases affect reporting. If reporters went into situations with open minds this wouldn't happen. In the Middle East they go in with the mindset that there are two sides who are fighting for no reason. One side, Israel, is stronger than the other. Our job is to even the odds. So reports get tailored that point of view. And truth is the casualty.
Crossposted on IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Fair and Balanced, Not
I love the way Middle East correspondents pretend to be balanced. The husband/wife team of John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore reported that "All Sides Failed to Follow 'Road Map'." The happy couple seem to be saying, "See, we're not biased, we criticize all sides!" Of course that's true if each side is equally to blame. But that wasn't the case here.

In a nutshell Anderson and Moore say that the PA refused to fight terror, Israel refused to restrict settlements and the United States refused to make sure both sides lived up to their parts of the bargain. (Later in the article Anderson and Moore quote Saeb Erekat

"There's nothing wrong with the substance of the road map . . . but we need to implement the road map of the quartet, not the road map of Sharon and his 14 reservations."

In other words, America should have leaned on Israel. To back this up they quote ". . . of Israel's most prominent political scientists and philosophers," Yaron Ezrachi:

"The principal cause of Palestinian humiliation and despair is that the settlements have not only not been removed, but are expanding constantly. . .This is absolutely outrageous that the U.S. can let them get away with this. . . . Sharon should be pushed very strongly to remove settlements as a key to the U.S. ability to demand from Palestinians that they dismantle terror."

This supports Erekat and contradicts Dr. Dore Gold who had been quoted earlier saying that peace couldn't begin without security. Anderson and Moore don't bring any viewpoint to support Gold.

Aside from stacking the deck against Israel, there are a few claims toward the beginning of the article that collapse under the weight of their internal contradiction:

Critics said the plan relied too heavily on incremental measures that avoided forcing tough decisions on the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians: the location of borders, dismantling Jewish settlements, the final status of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees to homes in Israel.

Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian pollster and political analyst, said future negotiations may have to "recognize that the process of step-by-step diplomacy and responding to violence doesn't work, and the only way is to reach a comprehensive deal right away."

Shikaki and other analysts also questioned the utility of supplanting the Palestinians' elected leader, Yasser Arafat, with an appointed government acceptable to the United States and Israel -- a tactic that has garnered limited success because Arafat continues to hold most of the power.

Note the claims here that 1) there was a need for a comprehensive deal and that 2) it was a mistake to replace Yasser Arafat "the Palestinians' elected leader."

Now I'm not a reporter but I have a pretty fair memory. What happened in July 2000 in Camp David Maryland? Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat a comprehensive deal to end the conflict. Arafat refused. To argue that what the peace process is missing is a comprehensive deal and that it needs Arafat is to fall victim to willful amnesia.

If someone said, fifteen years ago that the PLO would control Gaza and various cities in the West Bank of the Jordan River, that person would have to submit for drug testing. Israel has allowed a lot and given a lot to the PA. It has paid a high price. And it hasn't even realized the basic promise of non-violence that Arafat made ten years that allowed the terrorist to be accepted in polite company.

Anderson and Moore and any other reporter may write that all sides are at fault, but the position of the PA in the past ten years is greatly improved and expanded; while Israel has ceded real territory, empowered enemy and not become more secure in the deal. To miss that truth is to miss the clearest theme of the Oslo years. One that unfortunately persists to today.
Crossposted on IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Hello Mudda. Hello Fadda. Here I am at Camp Sahida
Back in July Palestinian Media Watch reported that Wafa Idris, the PA's first female suicide bomber had a summer camp named for her. Last week, PMW reported a camp named for Ayyat Al Akhras. Akhras killed teenager Rachel Levy and security guard, Haim Smadar in a Jerusalem supermarket. Alas little is remembered of her victims, particularly of Mr. Smadar. As he struggled with the murderess, Smadar reportedly said, "You are not coming in here. You and I will blow up here." His bravery was unable to save Rachel Levy, but he probably saved a number of others. (I wish that PMW would post their e-mails to their website, so I could link them directly, instead of relying on others.)
Crossposted to IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Reports from an "Industry"
In yesterday's New York Times Don Van Natta, tries to give us a view of the terror "industry:"

As the devastating attacks on civilians in Jerusalem and Baghdad last week demonstrated, suicide bombings have become a grimly efficient terrorist industry. The industry is flourishing worldwide; bomb-makers are in especially high demand.

Pioneered by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon two decades ago and adopted as a routine tool by Hamas and Al Qaeda — most notably in the attacks in New York and Washington two years ago — the suicide bombing campaign was adopted in recent months in Iraq, where a truck bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad last Tuesday may turn out to be terrorism sponsored by the sympathizers of a deposed state.

Of the terrorism industry's two raw materials — bombs and people — people are far easier to come by. In the militant corners of the Muslim world, signing up for such a mission infuses the volunteer with an urgent purpose and the promise of glory. It seems unlikely that the bombs will ever outnumber the people eager to deliver them.

I object to the characterization of terror as an "industry" but I'll grant him that. But Von Natta makes the recruiting of suicide bombers seem much too easy.

Ismail Abu Shanab, the prominent Hamas leader who was killed Thursday by six missiles fired from an Israeli helicopter into his station wagon, was asked in 1999 why so many people were eager to serve as suicide bombers. He said there was only one thing a person needs to qualify: "A moment of courage."

"The person who explodes a bomb does not need a lot of training," Mr. Shanab told Jessica Stern, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the author of "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill," during a 1999 interview in Gaza.

This moment of courage is not an epiphany; it is, rather, the end product of indoctrination, recruitment and training. As Daniel Pipes wrote in "Arafat's Suicide Factory":

Convincing healthy individuals to blow themselves up is obviously not easy, but requires ideas and institutions. The process begins with the Palestinian Authority (PA) inculcating two things into its population, starting with the children: a hatred of Jews and a love of death. School curricula, camp activities, TV programming and religious indoctrination all portray Israelis in a Nazi-style way, as sub-human being worthy of killing; and then deprecate the instinct for self-preservation, telling impressionable young people that sacrificing their lives is the most noble of all goals.

The system works: Hassan reports that "hordes of young men" clamor to be sent to their own obliteration. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have established a process of selection based in the mosques, where "a notably zealous youth" ready for martyrdom gets noted by clerics who recommend him for selection.

Those who make the cut enter a protracted, highly supervised, and disciplined regimen of spiritual studies and military-like training. These adepts are taught to see suicide operations as a way to "open the door to Paradise" for themselves and their families. "I love martyrdom" says one such "living martyr."

A lot of effort is undertaken to create that "moment of courage" and Van Natta simply glosses over it. True he mentions the infrastructure, but attaches little importance to it.

Instead Van Natta's effort to "understand" is voiced by two terrorism experts. One is Jessica Stern:

His assessment led Ms. Stern to conclude that suicide bombers are a terrorist organization's most economically viable way to conduct its bloody business. "It's certainly cost-effective," Ms. Stern said, "both financially and in terms of the number of terrorist lives ultimately put at risk."

and

"The fact that they've been able to sustain the tactic suggests that this tactic is applauded in the community, and it reflects a society under considerable stress," said Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert with the RAND Corporation. "I think we'd all agree, and it's not just a Western view, that suicide bombing is abnormal. The fact that abnormal behavior is applauded reflects abnormal conditions. If normal conditions are restored, then normal behavior should return — at least they'd be less tolerant of abnormal behavior."

To Ms. Stern it's an economic consideration; to Mr. Jenkins it's a reaction to "abnormality." Both seem like they're making excuses for the terror. The main motivation is hatred. Not economics and not abnormality.

Fiamma Nirenstein uses MEMRI to document what Pipes referred to as "...religious indoctrination all portray Israelis in a Nazi-style way, as sub-human being worthy of killing..." in an article "How Suicide Bombers are Made." An excerpt:

From such hatred it is but a short step to incitement and acts of violence. Arab schools teach not just that Israel is evil, but that extirpating this evil is the noblest of callings. As a text for Syrian tenth graders puts it, "The logic of justice obligates the application of the single verdict [on the Jews] from which there is no escape: namely, that their criminal intentions be turned against them and that they be exterminated" (emphasis added). In Gaza and the West Bank, textbooks at every grade level praise the young man who elects to become a shahid, a martyr for the cause of Palestine and Islam.

The pervasive hatred that is spread about Israel is what fuels the desire of young men to obliterate themselves and take as many Jews with them as possible. It is only when that hatred stops - and there is little sign of it happening in the near future - that there would be any hope for peace. Until then the best way to prevent the suicide bombers is to kill as many of the organizers as possible making it harder to keep the factory running.

(Snide Note: In Thomas Friedman's column this past Sunday, "Fighting 'The Big One'," he derides "terrorism experts,"

By the way, how do you get to be a terrorism expert? Can you get a B.A. in terrorism or do you just have to appear on Fox News?

Maybe it's appearing in the NY Times not FOX news that confers status upon a person. Both Stern and Jenkins have been published on the op-ed page of the Times. In fact, Stern was just there last week arguing that America had made Iraq into a terrorist haven. In fact Stern was arguing the opposite of what Friedman wrote in that very column:

I have no doubt that the U.S. presence in Iraq is attracting all sorts of terrorists and Islamists to oppose the U.S. I also have no doubt that politicians and intellectuals in the nearby Arab states are rooting against America in Iraq because they want Arabs and the world to believe that the corrupt autocracies that have so long dominated Arab life, and failed to deliver for their people, are the best anyone can hope for.

But I totally disagree that this is a sign that everything is going wrong in Iraq. The truth is exactly the opposite.

We are attracting all these opponents to Iraq because they understand this war is The Big One. They don't believe their own propaganda. They know this is not a war for oil. They know this is a war over ideas and values and governance. They know this war is about Western powers, helped by the U.N., coming into the heart of their world to promote more decent, open, tolerant, women-friendly, pluralistic governments by starting with Iraq — a country that contains all the main strands of the region: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

While this part of the Friedman column is on target, he eventually descends into gratuitous Bush bashing. Still, if an expert like Stern, thinks the opposite of him, why doesn't Friedman mock her? I don't think it's about being correct; it's about being right or rather right-wing. So Friedman starts his bashing early with a gratuitious slap at FOX.)

Crossposted on Israpundit and SoccerDad.

Kenneth Lasson critiques Middle East Coverage
I didn't link to this story soon enough, but the cache is still available via Google! Kenneth Lasson surveyed various Middle East correspondents. Though he gives each a chance to present his side of the story Lasson concludes:

For a variety of reasons, many of them understandable, foreign correspondents covering Israel frequently betray a narrow a-historical focus. In their effort to be balanced, they too often succumb to an overarching, intuitive obeisance to the illusory journalistic rule that both sides of any story must be reported equally.

Even though few of them buy into the notion of moral equivalency, their choice of language implies otherwise. In doing so, the media are largely insensitive to the idea that words can wound.

This strict taboo against the term "terrorist" at The New York Times, The Washington Post and at Reuters is adherence to a blind principle. Homicide bombers are instantaneously transmogrified into "militants," a much weaker word that could equally be applied to freedom fighters or rock-throwing teenagers.

The same is true with "cycle of violence" — implying that a military response to terrorism is no different than an attack against women and children riding a bus.

In fact there is no circular relationship here between two combatants. If Palestinian terror were to cease entirely, the IDF would certainly cease its military actions. But if the IDF were to disappear, there is little reason to believe that the growing number of radicalized Palestinians would abandon their original charter — which calls for a jihad to "obliterate Israel" and "raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine."

Likewise, the catch-all "extremists on both sides" suggests that a maker of bombs filled with nails covered in rat poison is no different from a settler voicing nationalistic rhetoric.

Why so much of the media appear to miss this logic and reality is not readily apparent, unless they're just caught up in the journalistic jargon of the day. It may be difficult to supply full and accurate historical context to every moving news event, but it is not impossible.

There's a lot more and it's worth your while.
Crossposted on IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Famous Last Words
Martyrdom Operation Does Not Contradict Truce - Ismail Abu Shanab, reported August 21, 2003. I guess the Israelis granted him his wish. Now he's a martyr too.
Crossposted at IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

The Sick Hudna Joke
Various headlines gave the impression that Israel's hit of Ismail Abu Shanab and his body guards destroyed the ceasefire. (Question: if he was a political leader of Hamas why did he need bodyguards? They don't help much against rockets and the Israelis don't generally send assassins against these guys? Might he have needed muscle to protect himself from other "political" enemies?) If the Israeli hit destroyed the ceasefire, then why did the slaughter of twenty innocents only "endanger" it?

Still there's an occasional bit of truth in reporting. In this case in the Washington Post reported that "Israeli Strike Kills Hamas Political Figure." But buried deep down in the article is an acknowledgement that it wasn't much of a ceasefire:

The 53-day cease-fire had brought a sense of relief and tranquillity to Israel, with people streaming to parks, malls, restaurants and outdoor cafes that they had shunned for more than two years, fearing Palestinian attacks. Israeli military officials claimed that the number of alerts they received about possible attacks had dropped from about 70 a day before the cease-fire to about 15 or 20 a day when it was being observed. Israeli officials said that this week the number of such alerts had jumped to pre-truce levels.

At least Moore and Anderson acknowledge that there were still 15 to 20 threats a day during the hudna, even if they ignored the actual attacks. And even if they ignored the Qassam missiles that Hamas built undisturbed.

Still it's important to remember that the Hudna simply reduced the current threats without eliminating them, but it certainly enabled future attacks. Claiming that this was an important accomplishment that Israel fatally undermined is just a sick joke.
Crossposted at IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Blind Eyes
There's little I can add to Joe Schick's comments on yesterday's Richard Cohen column. I'll reiterate that the claim of dispossession has allowed Arafat to legitimize his terrorism. It's never worked anywhere else. (A few years ago, Turkey arrested and tried Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Turkish PKK terrorist group. They sentenced him to death. An NY Times editorial urged Turkey not to execute Ocalan, but never once did the editorial take the approach that Kurdish longing for a homeland somehow justified the PKK's violence.) That, of course, is backwards. The means should reflect on the cause. The terror should have delegitimized the cause (which was never compromise but the destruction of Israel. Instead, regarding Palestinian terror, the cause (or ends) justified the means. That's exactly what Cohen did here.

But there's a cost to such moral obtuseness. One of the late Michael Kelly's best columns was "When Innocents are the Enemy" published September 12, 2001. The whole column is excellent but pay attention to the following paragraph in particular:

If it is morally acceptable to murder, in the name of a necessary blow for freedom, a woman on a Tel Aviv street, or to blow up a disco full of teenagers, or to bomb a family restaurant -- then it must be morally acceptable to drive two jetliners into a place where 50,000 people work. In moral logic, what is the difference? If the murder of innocent people is for whatever reason excusable, it is excusable; if it is legitimate, it is legitimate. If acceptable on a small scale, so too on a grand.

For good men to excuse one form of terror, it is to invite more terror.
Crossposted on IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Gevihah ben Pesisah Revisited
According to MEMRI a number of Egyptian lawyers are looking to bring a class action suit against Jews for stealing Egyptian money at the time of the Exodus.

Dr. Hilmi: "… Since the Jews make various demands of the Arabs and the world, and claim rights that they base on historical and religious sources, a group of Egyptians in Switzerland has opened the case of the so-called 'great exodus of the Jews from Pharaonic Egypt.' At that time, they stole from the Pharaonic Egyptians gold, jewelry, cooking utensils, silver ornaments, clothing, and more, leaving Egypt in the middle of the night with all this wealth, which today is priceless."

I don't know if the Arab world really wants to go there as Article 20 of the Palestinian National Charter says:

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.

But what's really odd, is that we've been here before. The Talmud in Tractate Sanhedrin page 91:a tells the story of Gevihah ben Pesisah. At the time of Alexander the Great, the Egyptians brought a claim against the Jews of the time. They said that it says in the Torah that the Jews borrowed (or more literally asked for) gold and jewelry from the Egyptians when they left after 210 years of slavery and took the wealth with them.

Gevihah ben Pesisah said to the sages of the time, "Let me argue the case of the Jews. If I win the argument fine, if not you can say 'Well it was only Gevihah ben Pesisah who lost.'" (The implication here is that, despite his humility, Gevihah ben Pesisah was himself quite a formidable sage in his own right.)

When the case came before Alexander, Gevihah ben Pesisah countered the Egyptian charges by asking, "How much would it cost to pay 600,000 workers (the number of Jews enslaved by the Egyptians) wages for 210 years?" Alexander accepted the argument and the Egyptian case was dismissed.
Crossposted on Israpundit and SoccerDad.

Half-Empty
What's incredible is the way the New York Times does all it can - whether in its news reporting or its choice of opinion pieces - to question the strategy of the Bush administration. One view of what the post-Saddam troops in Iraq are doing is serving as flypaper. In other words, the American troops are now serving as targets to Al-Qaeda and like minded vermin. They will come to attack the American troops, and the Americans will neutralize them - one way or another. That's possibly what President Bush was referring to when he said to bring them on.
The NY Times of course doesn't see things that way. Yesterday, in an essay titled "How America Created a Terrorist Haven" Jessica Stern wrote:

Of course, we should be glad that the Iraq war was swifter than even its proponents had expected, and that a vicious tyrant was removed from power. But the aftermath has been another story. America has created — not through malevolence but through negligence — precisely the situation the Bush administration has described as a breeding ground for terrorists: a state unable to control its borders or provide for its citizens' rudimentary needs.

As the administration made clear in its national security strategy released last September, weak states are as threatening to American security as strong ones. Yet its inability to get basic services and legitimate governments up and running in post-war Afghanistan and Iraq — and its pursuant reluctance to see a connection between those failures and escalating anti-American violence — leave one wondering if it read its own report.

But during the past few months the U.S. has scored some victories against Al-Qaeda, isn't it possible that this a result of ridding Al-Qaeda of a significant ally and forcing them into guerilla actions leading to the apprehensions of some significant cogs? Speculation, of course, but hardly unreasonable.

Puppet or Rock?
Saul Singer in National Review online is worrying a lot about the Sharon government:

How did Israel get into this predicament? The same way that the Oslo process died a death of a thousand violations, each deemed too small to blow the whistle and hold the Palestinians accountable for their commitments. Once commitments are replaced by arbitrary judgments by the U.S. and the Palestinians of what Israel will tolerate, the pressure on the Palestinians is not to comply, but to continue to push the envelope: In other words, to escalate.

The products of this indulgence are devastating not only to Israel, but to the Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole. Indulgence of the PA during this particular ceasefire is an extension of the tolerance for the violent Arab rejection of Israel that has existed since before its inception.

Surprisingly, Amnon Lord apparently sees the light at the end of the tunnel.

But having seen him step toward that map, several ministers - no less attentive to public opinion - have recently decided to take an adamant stand on requiring the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and not handing anything over to the Palestinians for nothing. They are ministers Shaul Mofaz, Silvan Shalom and Netanyahu - and Sharon is toeing their line.

There's nothing like a Hizbullah flare-up on the northern border to illustrate, to Israelis and those abroad, what lies in store for Israel behind the fence in Judea. There is no indication that the prime minister is planning to buy peace and domestic quiet at the price of political concessions. Quite the contrary: Defense Minister Mofaz recently told Defense Ministry planning officials that in the next bout with the Palestinians, Israel will no longer adopt a strategy of limited confrontation, and will opt for strategic victory.

Should the Palestinians infringe the cease-fire, said Mofaz, "the Palestinian Authority's historical role will come to an end."

As far as Israel is concerned, it will be the end of experimenting with the lives of Israelis for no other reason than to placate domestic or foreign decision-makers, however powerful these might be.

Crossposted at IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Israel's Vision Is Fine; Cobban wears Blinders
Last week Helena Cobban published one of the most vile op-ed columns imaginable. Little Green Footballs already noted one blatant distortion: Cobban calls the Arab prisoners that Israel isn't releasing quickly enough "hostages." That point could be sharpened. Alas, by now, I no longer have access to the complete article, but when the NY Times reported on the release of "only" 300 some prisoners, statements reported made it clear that the main focus of the PA is on the actual terrorists. Why? Because it is the PA's way of moral equivalence: Our terrorists are no different from their soldiers, so they don't belong in jail.
I suppose that the worst part of Cobban's column is this:

I write from France, a country that was invaded and occupied by Germany twice during the 20th century. In the process of dealing with those two catastrophes, the French and their allies learned a lot about how to build long-term peace between former enemies.

In 1918, after France and its allies (including the US) brought about the country's first liberation from German occupation, they adopted policies that imposed harsh, long-term punishments on Germany and its people. Those policies helped incubate Adolf Hitler.

In 1945, after the Allies were successful in their second attempt to liberate France and the other German-occupied lands, they adopted a much smarter policy toward Germany.

By the time the Allies reached Berlin, Hitler and some top lieutenants had killed themselves. The Allies put 22 suspected top Nazis on public trial. (Some were found not guilty. Some were hanged, and others imprisoned.)

First of all, she blames Nazism on the allies of WWI for adopting harsh measures vis a vis Germany after WWI. But look at the implication here. - We can learn how to restore friendliness between two enemies by looking at France that was occupied by Germany in WWII. Wait a second. That makes the Palestinians the equivalent of the French and Israel the equivalent of Nazi Germany.

On the subject of occupation, it's worth asking how does Cobban feel about the Syrian occupation of Lebanon? In a piece of pro-Syrian propaganda Cobban allows that "...its troops shouldn't be in Lebanon." How nice, but he "o" word doesn't escape her keyboard. Her solution for any problems with Syria is to pressure Israel to cede the Golan Heights to "Baby Eye Doc" Assad and to give up its nuclear weapons.

My father has long tracked the academic fellow travelers of Edward Said, and Cobban is one of his "favorites." Much to its discredit she finds sympathetic ears at APN forums. But this article demonstrates that she is not only morally obtuse, she is a borderline antisemite (for equating Israel with Nazi Germany).
Cross Posted on IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

I guess the biggest frustration with media coverage of is the focus on the security fence and the Palestinian prisoners. On the former, Israel is said to be increasing conflict in the words of the New York Times's Ethan Bronner

The problem is that is not what is happening. The fence is not being built on the likely border between two future states but is snaking into the West Bank in ways that make daily life, already burdensome, even harder for Palestinians. Qalqilya is not only blocked off from Israel to its west. It is entirely surrounded by the barrier so it will be isolated it from West Bank Jewish settlements to its east. The result for Qalqilya is that it has become — there is no other word for it — a ghetto, a term with chilling resonance for Jews whose forbears were restricted to such areas across Europe not many generations ago

And on the latter, the prisoner release is portrayed as being inadequate to reduce Palestinian grievances as Greg Myre reports

Israel was not required to make the releases under the Middle East peace plan known as the road map, but it said it hoped to help the sputtering peace negotiations. It had the opposite effect. Palestinian leaders — and even those freed — described it as a hollow gesture, since most of the prisoners had only a short time left to serve, or had not been charged at all. The Palestinians said they would not be satisfied until Israel freed most or all of the roughly 6,000 Palestinians who remain imprisoned. But many have been directly involved in violence against Israelis, and Israel has said that it will not release such prisoners.

But in both these cases the analyst or reporter ignores the bigger question. Bronner never really faces the question as to why Israel requires the fence; he is more eager to draw implicit parallels between Israel and Nazi Germany. (Is Tony Auth's cartoon really worse than this?) Nor does he consider that the Palestinian polity, which happily advocates violence against Israel might be paying the price for its extremism.
Ethan Bronner's dishonesty is emphasized by a report by Elizabeth Bumiller from Texas.

On the construction of a barrier in the West Bank to separate Israelis from Palestinians, Mr. Bush said that he was talking to Israeli leaders about "all aspects" of the barrier. "I made it clear I thought the fence was a problem, and we're talking with them and we'll continue to work on this issue," Mr. Bush said.

The president ignored a question about whether he would reduce loan guarantees to Israel to try to persuade the Israelis to stop construction of the barrier. Democrats have sharply criticized the Bush administration after reports that the White House was considering such a move to pressure Israel.

I don't doubt that Bumiller reports honestly. I can believe that no reporter asked Bush why the fence was so terrible if it wasn't on the Road Map or why didn't the PA respond more graciously to the prisoner release that wasn't on the Road Map. Reporters don't think like that. They frame a story - often unfairly - and become captive to the groupthink that follows.
Still, President Bush could have helped matters by not evading the question of pressure on Israel, and said something like, "Israel has abided by all elements of the Road Map so far. We have some disagreements but they are minor. On the other hand the Palestinian Authority hasn't taken the first step in honoring its obligations. We will excuse Mr. Abbas for a short time because his position is weak, but there are limits to our patience."
Now I still think that such a formula would be too "evenhanded." But I could live with it because the president would be using his bully pulpit to minimize American differences and maybe stop some journalistic tongues from wagging too much over said differences. It's not the President's job to be pro-Israel; it is his job to promote democracy over terror. His diffidence in this area is a significant failing.
I suppose Greg Myre deserves credit for at least acknowledging that prisoner releases are not part of the "Road Map." But still the bulk of his article is devoted to publicizing the Palestinian grievance, not examining whether it is warranted.
A few weeks ago Israel released "refrigerator bomber" Ahmed Jbarra. Did he express any appreciation for his early release from a life sentence? No. Actually after being named a special advisor to Yasser Arafat he used his position to advocate the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. In short order one Israeli soldier was kidnapped and murdered. Two more young Jews are missing in the north. Not only hasn't Jbarra's release made peace more likely, it has hurt Israel. Does Myre even question his assumption that a prisoner release would help the peace? Nope. Objective analysis must be sacrificed to accomodate the Palestinian interpretation of the Road Map and the strengthening of Mahmoud Abbas. The means must be supported even if it means ignoring the ends.
Jbarra's lack of contrition is nothing new. It should be clear to anyone that Israel's prisoner releases are dangerous and an honest reporter should be investigating the cost of these releases. But there are few, if any, honest reporters.
By focusing on the fence and the prisoners the correspondents of the Times ignore the main problem of PA non-compliance and put Israel under undeserved scrutiny. Peace will never come until the instruments of freedom in the free world stop excusing terror.
Crossposted on IsraPundit and SoccerDad.

Credibility Problems Dog the Washington Post
Today the Washington Post reported that weapons inspector David Kay says that Iraqi scientists are cooperating with the American army in uncovering new WMD sites.

Kay said "solid evidence" is being produced, but he indicated that it would not be made public "until we have full confidence it is solid proof of what we're to talk about." He also emphasized that he had been working for only six weeks and in that time had been "concentrating initially on the biological [weapons programs] and the role of the intelligence and security services."

Funny but just yesterday the Post reported, "Scientists Still Deny Iraqi Arms Programs" sub headlined, "U.S. Interrogations Net No Evidence." It's a remarkable turnaround from yesterday:

No matter the circumstances, all of the scientists interviewed have denied that Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program or developed and hidden chemical or biological weapons since United Nations inspectors left in 1998. Several key Iraqi officials questioned the significance of evidence cited by the Bush administration to suggest that Hussein was stepping up efforts to develop new weapons of mass destruction programs.

So is the Washington Post going to investigate how it apparently got bad information into its report yesterday? (I'm assuming that it's today's report that's accurate.) Doesn't it need to restore confidence in its credibility?

But why hasn't the army found anything yet? Little Green Footballs quoting Ha'aretz suggests an answer!
UPDATE: Sgt. Stryker noticed the same thing.

Stem Cells in Saudi Arabia
GedankenPundit, noting Christopher Reeve's visit to the Middle East, is confused whether Israel or Saudi Arabia is more advanced in stem cell research. Maybe the Saudis have to be. How do you re-attach a head? :-)

The dishonest president
No I'm not talking about President Bush whose integrity the media is impugning on the basis of a specious charge. I'm referring to his predecessor, Governor Clinton. Last week Governor and Senator Clinton received word that most of their legal expenses for defending themselves against the independent counsel would not be reimbursed. The court held that of the $3.5 million the Clintons claimed they were only eligible for $85,000.
The Washington Post wasn't happy. So the Post impugned the court's motives.

An indictment of the Bush administration?

The Washington Post dedicated a front page article to Rand Beers, a former counter-terrorism adviser to the president who has resigned his position and signed on with the Kerry campaign. The article explains that Beers felt that the administration is not doing enough to fight terror at home. I guess if the article simply described Beers' feelings of being overwhelmed by threat reports it wouldn't be bad. But the reporter does all she can to amplify Beers' view that the Bush administration asks for results that conform to its worldview. Mrs. Beers is quoted:

"It's a very closed, small, controlled group. This is an administration that determines what it thinks and then sets about to prove it. There's almost a religious kind of certainty. There's no curiosity about opposing points of view. It's very scary. There's kind of a ghost agenda."

In fact not a single quote is brought to suggest that maybe Beers' criticism of the Bush administration is misplaced. After all if there are more terror threats now maybe it's the result of more complete reporting. According to the State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism report it would appear that actual terror has been declining since the Bush administration came to power in 2001. Maybe the reason for that is that President Clinton took a "Holiday from History" that cost the United States much of its deterrent power.

Of course the Washington Post must simply add to the chorus of those who claim that this administration is ideological rather than practical; even if facts suggest that its ideology is on target!

NY Times Math
In an article about State Department employee Liz Cheney - the Vice President's daughter - the NY Times reports that:

Although the program provides only a small part of the $1 billion in annual economic aid that the United States gives to the Arab world, its goals are an unusual amalgam of ideas usually associated with liberals, such as improving the status of women in the developing world, and with neo-conservatives like Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, who argue that the United States has an unparalleled chance to spread democracy throughout the Middle East after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The United States give $2 billion in aid to Egypt annually. How does the Times get $1 billion to the Arab world? Does Egypt give some of it back?

Internet 1, NY Times 0

Unlike the New York Times the internet seems to have self-correcting mechanisms. According to "Counteracting the Internet Rumor" Starbucks was faced with a boycott on account of its closing its franchises in Israel. According to the report:

For Mrs. Miller, 39, a private investment manager who lives in Greenwich, Conn., the e-mail message meant the immediate end of almost daily runs to Starbucks for a tall decaf caramel macchiato or a Frappuccino.

"I was determined that I was not going back to Starbucks," said Mrs. Miller, who said she believed the e-mail message because it came from a person she considered to be a reputable source. That day she forwarded the message to about 30 of her cyberbuddies.

But Mrs. Miller's boycott lasted only one day because the implication of the e-mail message was not true. Starbucks had said it was pulling out of Israel because it was dissolving its ties with a partner in the country and because of an economic downturn in the area.

So it took Mrs. Miller one day to determine that something was wrong with the rumor. How long did Jayson Blair report for the Times? It's amazing that the Times didn't mention snopes.com. The day I received the message, I thought it sounded funny so I checked out the 'net's debunker of urban legends. Sure enough...

Starbucks didn't remove itself from Israel because it was pro-Arab or anti-Israeli; it did so because this was the business decision that appeared to make the best sense. Although the corporation has given muddled explanations for its pull-out from Israel — sometimes citing the danger of terrorist attacks, sometimes making passing mention of "operational challenges" — the most likely reasons for the retreat were Starbucks' difficulties in dealing with its Israeli partner and the underperformance of their six stores. (Starbucks was a latecomer to an already-saturated Israeli market, didn't adapt well to local market conditions, and offered little to distinguish themselves from their competition except higher prices). As Chief Financial Officer Michael Casey said about the cessation of Starbuck's operations in Israel, "It's a difficult place to do business, as you can imagine. And we've had some disagreements of philosophy with the partner. You put those two together and we just decided it was a good time to stop."

There you have it. I was able to debunk the rumor pretty quickly. I don't know that this even rated a news story. But at least be complete.

Sniping at Muhammed

I fail to see the problem with seeking the death penalty in the case of John Allen Muhammad. It should not be important whether or not he pulled the trigger to kill any of the victims. News reports consistently referred to Muhammad as an army trained sniper. Well why not check the regulations governing snipers?

Under the heading of "Organization" we learn that:

b. Snipers work and train in 2-man teams. One sniper's primary duty is that of the sniper and team leader while the other sniper serves as the observer. The sniper team leader is responsible for the day-to-day activities of the sniper team.

In other words according to his training, snipers operate in teams. Each one is an essential component of the team. Specifically,

Each member of the sniper team has specific responsibilities. Only through repeated practice can the team begin to function properly. Responsibilities of team members areas follows:

a. The sniper--

Builds a steady, comfortable position.
Locates and identifies the designated target.
Estimates the range to the target.
Dials in the proper elevation and windage to engage the target.
Notifies the observer of readiness to fire.
Takes aim at the designated target.
Controls breathing at natural respiratory pause.
Executes proper trigger control.
Follows through.
Makes an accurate and timely shot call.
Prepares to fire subsequent shots, if necessary.
b. The observer--

Properly positions himself.
Selects an appropriate target.
Assists in range estimation.
Calculates the effect of existing weather conditions on ballistics.
Reports sight adjustment data to the sniper.
Uses the M49 observation telescope for shot observation.
Critiques performance.

The way John Allen Muhammad learned how to shoot, was in two man teams. He was an essential component to the commission of the crime. I fail to see why the question of whether or not he pulled the trigger is relevant. He should be subject to the needle if he is convicted.

The twisted Times

If there's even a hint of racism or sexism, count on the New York Times to lead the fight in its news and editorial pages. But when the subject is antisemitism the Times seems somewhat reticent to condemn. This is astonishing. According to the FBI's hate crime statistics Jews are the ethnic group that suffers from the highest rate of hate crimes in this country. (Check out page 13 of the report. Yes I know that more hate crimes are directed against blacks, but blacks have roughly 7 times the population of Jews in the U.S.)

The problem is with the Times's coverage of the new trial of Lemrick Nelson. After two trials, in which he's claimed that he never stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum during the 1991 Crown Heights pogrom, Nelson is changing his story. Now he's admitting to having stabbed Rosenbaum but that he wasn't motivated by hate. There's a problem with this claim. But in the Times report on Nelson's change this is left until the last paragraph.

Mr. Rosenbaum's older brother, Norman Rosenbaum, a former prosecutor in Australia, dismissed Mr. Jasper's arguments with a snort. Mr. Nelson, he said outside the courthouse, did not appear drunk in videotapes of the scene. As to the contention that Mr. Nelson's attack on his brother was motivated not by racial bias but simply by the excitement of the moment, Mr. Rosenbaum said it would have been impossible not to know what the excitement was about.

"The excitement was when that mob called out, `There's a Jew, let's get the Jew,' " he said. "It was the excitement of getting the Jew."

In fact what's worse than waiting until the last paragraph to note that the mob that attacked Yankel Rosenbaum yelled "...get the Jew" is that Newman (the Times reporter) presents that information through Norman Rosenbaum, Yankel's brother. Many accounts of the riot I've found, note that the members of the crowd identified Rosenbaum as a Jew. Unless drinking made Nelson deaf, this story establishes his motive as being based on hate. The information should have been presented earlier in the story to discredit Nelson's legal strategy and not simply as a statement of a bereaved brother.

Things are not going well for Nelson. Or shouldn't be. After essentially claiming that Nelson was deaf yesterday, (apparently he drank so much he couldn't hear anyone say "...get the Jew." the defense can't even establish that Nelson was drunk!

Lieutenant Sanossian testified yesterday in United States District Court that Mr. Nelson did not appear to be drunk, did not smell of alcohol, did not have problems following instructions and had no difficulty walking up the stairs of the station house when he and other officers took him back there from the hospital.

I would like to see the Times get as upset about this patently dishonest attempt to escape justice for murder as it did about Trent Lott's offensive but essentially harmless (to other people) remarks about Strom Thurmond's 1948 candidacy for president.
I won't hold my breath.

The Times they are a-charging - Crippling the Blogosphere

Today I wanted to take another look at an excellent article I had recently read in the New York Times Magazine. It was Paul Berman's investigation into the philosophy of Sayyid Qutb, called the "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror." Well I went to my blog with a reference to the article and clicked the link. Go ahead try it. What happened?

Guess what? The Times now resolves the URL into its archives section and charges for the article. This is another step in the Times efforts to limit free access to its articles. First you could access articles for two weeks and get older articles through Yahoo or saved links. Then they shortened the free searches to a single week. Then they started charging for articles accessed through Yahoo news. Now they're charging for articles even if you have the links yourself.

I know that it's their property and they have a right to charge for it. Maybe they noticed that through blogs people were circumventing the for-fee accesses and they were losing money due to blogging.

The problem is that if more media outlets start doing this it will undermine one of the joys of blogging - being able to link to articles that you're critiquing. InstaPundit often brings up the skill with which bloggers do their tasks without editors. In truth, everyone edits a blog. If you misrepresent an article there's millions of editors out there to set you straight, or even to - gasp - Fisk you. Maybe the Times will relent. Maybe it's just another example of big corporate interests trying to squeeze the little guy.

Cantori's Wrong

This morning I switched to WBAL to get a traffic report. When I switched, the morning guy Dave Durian was interviewing Prof. Lou Cantori of UMBC. Even before I heard who it was I wasn't much impressed with the analysis. In addition to the typical complaint that the Americans were spread too thin, another thing that got me was that Cantori claimed that Iraqis are nationalists and prefer Saddam to the Americans. Really? Did he read today's David Ignatius column?

"It's too dangerous," he said. "We are scared from Saddam's people, 100 percent." He said Iraqis believe that Hussein's power is "like magic," invisible and impossible to destroy. "We will not sleep well until we know he's dead," he said.

Yeah these guys prefer Saddam.

Second Guessing Rumsfeld

There seems to be a parlor game in the media: second guessing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The most notorious of these articles "The Battle Between Rumsfeld and the Pentagon" by Seymour Hersh has gotten a lot of exposure. Hersh's article wasn't the first. (Several months ago the Washington Post reported that Rumsfeld had run afoul of a number of bureaucrats and generals in the Pentagon.) Hersh's premise, and of those that follow him, is that Rumsfeld is doing a bad thing by undermining the military. But is he? Maybe Rumsfeld isn't simply an ideologue but someone who's trying to change an entrenched culture. That could be a good thing.

Happily there are some people who don't view our leadership with such a jaundiced eye. Jim Hoagland makes Tommy Franks into something of a hero. And implicitly backs Rumsfeld.

Give my regards to Baghdad

A number of publications have published accounts of "human shields" who have seen the error of their ways. There's this piece in the Jerusalem Post (originally in the Telegraph). The author notes when he had his epiphany:

As he realized I was serious, he slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime. Until then I had only heard the president spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq's oil money went into Saddam's pocket, and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family.

Leave it to the NY Times to publish a piece by a human shield who had no regrets. Being a human shield is just lots of campfires and singing, "Kumbaya." It doesn't mean that we're standing up for a guy who turns opponents into fish food.

No doubt the Times will argue, "but it's our job to give exposure to alternative views" or "do you want us to support the government blindly?" Of course they'd be obfuscating the issue. Given the horrific nature of Saddam's regime you'd think that a newspaper would like to keep a reputation of at least a moral authority when covering the war. Yet it seems more intent on demonstrating its independence from the government than in showing it is capable of judging right and wrong.

So the Times gives the benefit to America's opponents and enemies. It publishes letters to the editor in proportions that reflect its own views and not those of the country. And they find the odd "human shield" who's been hit in the head one too many times and remains oblivious to Saddam's evil.

Doomed to Repeat

Does a lot of the war reporting seem redundant? Not just within this war - but have you heard any of it before?

Tom Bevan at realclearpolitics noted the impression in the media and elsewhere that the war effort was getting bogged down. Well as Tom noted it happened before. In Afghanistan. That was about 15 or 16 months ago. How did the president react then? Like this:

"We've been at this only 19 days. Be steady. Don't let the press panic us." The press would say they needed a new strategy, that the current strategy was a failed one. He disagreed. "Resist the second-guessing. Be confident but patient. We are going to continue this thing through Ramadan," the Muslim holy month. "We've got to be cool and steady. It's all going to work."

In other words he had confidence in his game plan. He wasn't going to change it because of the second guessers. President Bush is very deliberate. He's not going to get spooked by an impatient media. He knows that wars aren't won in a day and he will stay the course now, too.

Did anyone think it was weird when Amnesty International condemned the United States for bombing Iraqi TV? Well in 1999 the UN investigated the United States - actually NATO - for war crimes for its choice of bombing targets in Yugoslavia.

The charges came not just from the government of President Slobodan Milosevic, who was indicted on war crimes charges by the tribunal in May, but from journalists and academics in the West. Arbour met with a delegation of legal scholars from Norway, Greece, Canada and other countries in August to hear their views on the tribunal's role.

The there's this headline:

Bombing Awakens Anti-U.S. Feeling Around World

Sounds familiar doesn't it? OK, I cheated, that should read "Bombing of Yugoslavia..." and if you read the article you'll learn that:

Here in Argentina, one of Washington's closest Latin American allies, a poll last week showed that 64 percent of the populace opposes the NATO air campaign. More respondents had a negative opinion of NATO than of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Of course there's the similarly themed recent headlines:

Opponents of War Decry U.S. Stance

Many Nations Assail End of Diplomacy

And many of those in the anti-war movement think that Bush is worse than Saddam.

Lest we think that this international anti-Americanism is a recent phenomenon, let's remember Daniel Patrick Moynihan with some of his observations presented by George Will:

At the United Nations he witnessed that institution's inanity (as in its debate about the threat to peace posed by U.S. forces in the Virgin Islands, at that time 14 Coast Guardsmen, one shotgun, one pistol) and its viciousness (the resolution condemning Zionism as racism). Striving to move America "from apology to opposition," he faulted U.S. foreign policy elites as "decent people, utterly unprepared for their work."

Their "common denominator, apart from an incapacity to deal with ideas, was a fear of making a scene, a form of good manners that is a kind of substitute for ideas." Except they did have one idea, that "the behavior of other nations, especially the developing nations, was fundamentally a reaction to the far worse behavior of the United States."

In other words, the anti-American anti-war movement has been going on for a long time. It used to be, in Moynihan's time a front for pro-Soviet groups. Now, the anti-war movement has coalesced around the anti-globalization movement. In either case it's a movement that tolerates the worst dictators. The movement has no moral compass (well maybe it does with the United States always pointed toward E(vil)).

Those like Thomas Friedman who criticize Bush's efforts diplomacy don't acknowledge that the movement had been in place well before Bush was elected. Look these people have the right to express themselves, no matter how wrong they are. Our duty is to point out the immorality and indefensibility of their position.

Survival of the Fittest to Print?

On March 26, InstaPundit ran an item about how the NY Times spins its poll results. In the Times article, the reporters play up all the divisions in the country over the war, finally, in the last paragraph they acknowledge that:

"Support for Mr. Bush and the war remains high. By 70 percent to 24 percent, Americans believe that the United States did not make a mistake getting involved in Iraq."

Well you wouldn't know it from reading the Times's letters page. On the 27th, The Times ran 8 letters to the editor about the war in Iraq. Guess what? Only one of them was pro-Bush!!! (There was a second letter that supported the war but dissed Bush for not pushing the Mideast Peace Process like his British counterpart was doing.)

What's going on here? Are the editors of the Times screening letters to give the impression that the population of this country largely agrees with the editorial position of the Times regarding the war in Iraq? Or are letter writers simply self selected? Those who agree with the Times figure that they have a good chance of having their letter published. However those who disagree figure (fairly or not) that there's less of a chance that their letter would be published, so they blog instead.

Soccer Dad

My repository for thoughts not having to do with Israel or Thomas Friedman.

The Ridiculous and the Sublime

Michael Moore got all the attention on Sunday for his rude criticism of the President at the Academy Awards on Sunday night. Despite the dishonesty of his speech and of his film (that dishonesty should have disqualified him from an Oscar for documetaries!) he made it to the news. The shame is that the guy's a buffoon and not a particularly pleasant one either.

Sunday was the day that the guy who should have been talked about was Paul Berman who wrote a fantastic article in the New York Times Magazine called "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror." Berman's article is a careful synopsis of the worldview of Sayyid Qutb, whose worldview guides Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

So what does Paul Berman have to do with Michael Moore?

Back in 1986 Michael Moore was the editor of Mother Jones Magazine. Paul Berman had been commissioned to write an article about the Nicaragua. Berman's article was critical of the Sandinistas. Moore, favoring radical orthodoxy over truth spiked the article. As a result of the controversy, Moore was ousted as editor (with a generous golden parachute). (Check out the third paragraph here.)

Even back then, Moore had only a passing acquaintance with the truth. He's successfully parlayed his dishonesty into a lucrative and critically acclaimed career. (What does that say about the ability of critics to think critically?) He's not everyman. He's a skilled con man.

Not in whose name?

Funny but the ones who protest that an American led war is not being waged in their names seem to be under the impression that life in Baghdad is just dandy. If only the United States would steer clear, regular Iraqis would continue thriving under Saddam and would vote him out of office if he didn't behave. Maybe Iraq isn't such an Eden. One refugee writes very well that they don't speak for him. And what of the posturing of the human shields? This fellow didn't have a choice. (These two came from Real Clear Politics.) This harrowing testimony- do not read if you are faint of heart - comes from Little Green Footballs and the Volokh Conspiracy. Additionally from the Volokh Conspiracy there's this.

Prayer for Soldiers

The Orthodox Union (Jewish) has published a prayer for the well being of American soldiers in their fight against the forces of terror. Though it goes back to December 2001, the Rabbi of my synagogue recited it Monday evening before the prayers of Purim and reading the Megillah (Scroll) of Esther. I suppose that the Pat Buchanans and Jim Morans of this country will see this as just one more sign that Jews support the war, it's not that at all.

Jews have been privileged to live in this country. After the destruction of European Jewry, the freedom of America's Jews has been a factor in the strengthening of Judaism. Jews have benefitted tremendously from America's benevolence. The country may not be perfect; no human institution is. But America has been an extremely generous host.

Jewish expressions of support for America's armed forces are not just expressions of gratitude. They are expressions of confidence that such a benevolent nations does not use force recklessly.

Misguided Protesters
Even Pravda, I mean the New York Times, occasionally allows dissenting opinions on its Letters to the Editor page. Though it's not the only good one, scroll down to Susan Petrarca's letter. She says it very well:

Millions supported Stalin and Hitler; they were misled. Millions opposed the placement of Pershing missiles in Eastern Europe; they were overreacting. Millions demonstrate in support of Hamas, Hezbollah, Yasir Arafat, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein; they are misguided.

I wish I had said that.

"Two men do not dream the same dream"
There's been a lot of buzz about the talking fish of New Square. Did it really happen? Or is this just one more example of Messianic talk that becomes frequent before Passover?

A Scrapple Attempt

Today Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer responded to Rep. James Moran's charges that influential Jews were leading the United States to war with Iraq. "I'm shocked by this charge," exclaimed the President's spokesman, "I thought I had done a better job of hiding the conspiracy. Until Representative Moran revealed what was going on, I thought that Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Rice had hidden their Judaism effectively. Now I'll have to consult with the secret cabal of Rabbis to who secretly control the American government to determine how to undo the damage of this revelation. If it hadn't been for Mr. Moran's uncanny ability to detect conspiracies we might have gotten away with it and no one would have been the wiser."

Reforming the UN

Back when I used to subscribe to the New Republic, they had an idea for the Democrats. The year was 1985 and Reagan had just trounced Mondale. TNR was therefore trying to come up with ideas that would help make the Democrats viable again. One of the ideas proposed by the magazine for the Democrats to champion was an United Nations for democracies. An interesting idea to be sure. After all it's odd to have countries that deny their own citizens a vote attaching signigance to the fact that they all ganged up on Israel and condemned the Jewish state.

I've come up with an alternative system. The number of votes a country in the UN gets is based on the percentage of votes the opposition to the government received. Think of the Tirana Index. The Tirana Index measures the freedom of a country by the number of votes in opposition. It was inspired by Albanian elections of the early to mid 80's which featured less than 1% going to the opposition candidate (who, I believe, died shortly after the election). Thus the less opposition the less free the country. (In Jay Nordlinger's column, linked to above, he attributes the index to Charles Krauthammer. I'm pretty certain that Krauthammer credited Morton Kondracke with the concept.)

In practical terms that would mean that the United States would get 50 votes. (Al Gore got a little more than 50% of the vote.) Israel would get 43 (the opposition parties hold 52 seats in the Knesset.) Obviously some rules are necessary because each country has different voting protocols and different governing structures. (For example would Israel's vote total be based on the whole
opposition? Or just on the support for the largest opposition party vs. the support for the largest governing party?)

Obviously this would lead to quite a complicated scheme. Not even practical. And certainly Saudi Arabia or any other unfree country wouldn't sacrifice its one vote to increase the cause of freedom in the world.

Eugene Asimov?

In a recent post (and some subsequent posts too) Eugene Volokh discussed the possibility of the civil order breaking down. Specifically:

But I don't think that we can just ignore this cost. We've generally lived our lives in environments of peace and civil order, but there's no guarantee that this will continue; in fact, judging by recent human history, there's reason to think that there's a significant (10%? 20%? who knows?) probability that at least some time in our lives, our homeland will be attacked, possibly with sophisticated anti-electronic weapons, and civil order will break down. And when that happens, we'll both be in special need of personal defense weapons, and in special need of personal defense weapons that haven't had their innards fried to a crisp.

A 10 or 20 percent chance that America will be attacked ... and "civil order will break down". I don't know why that stuck with me. Then I realized. I just started reading Isaac Asimov's "Foundation." One of the first characters we're introduced to is Hari "Raven" Seldon a "psychohistorian" who has an uncanny knack for predicting the future. Seldon is put on trial for sedition (or similar crime) because he predicts that the Empire in which he lives will disintegrate in 500 years time. While Volokh's prediction is qualified in a way that Seldon's wasn't, his prediction of civil disorder echoes the view of the fictional character.

(I am no Asimov expert. The only other stories of his I read were in a collection of short stories. One, "Nightfall," I've been told is one of the greatest science fiction stories of all time, had a similar theme. The story was about a planet with three suns. Ever 200+ years the suns would all set and the society would disintegrate into complete chaos. IIRC, one of the characters in "Nightfall" was attempting to preserve his society through the trauma of planetwide darkness, similar to what Seldon seems to be doing in "Foundation".)

Fun but Stupid

Thanks to my brother in law for pointing out this really fun game. Stupid. But fun.

Corporate Radio Strikes Again! (Horrors!)

InstaPundit made Brent Staples into a prophet! A few weeks ago Staples was bemoaning the lack of protest music against the coming war with Iraq. He traced the problem to corporate greed and the consolidation of the radio business. (Do these corporate behemoth still play Sheryl Crow despite her outspoken opposition to the war?) Now this evil has proliferated outside of the corporate boardroom. In a post today, InstaPundit reports that there was a pro-war rally in San Antonio sponsored by one of the evil radio conglomerates: Clear Channel! I guess they're trying to lobotomize the population by making them mindless supporters of the war. The then-hypnotized pro-war population will then listen to the mindless pablum on its local Clear Channel affiliates. What a dastardly plot. (Disclaimer: I'm no fan of Clear Channel. But it isn't the reason there's little or no protest music. A band that wanted to make a statement could surely record a song, start distributing it over the internet and expect free advertising for their product by Brent Staples or some other representative of big, corporate New York Times Company.)

InstaPundit reveals his pro-war sympathies when he writes:

Well, better conglomerates than communists.

I doubt that Mr. Staples agrees.

How to get France's cooperation


Why doesn't President Bush just tell Chirac, "When we uncover further evidence of your involvement in undermining sanctions and otherwise propping up Saddam Hussein we will reluctantly have to consider whether you have been guilty of crimes against humanity. We are, however, prepared to be reasonable." You know, give him the option of a plea bargain. Chirac admits to some technical crime of violating UN sanctions in exchange for some sort of a reprimand. If he assures that the Security Council resolution will pass. Else he'll have to sweat and hope that the American (and coalition of the willing) forces don't find documentation that makes him look worse than he already does. And if the war crimes threat doesn't scare him suggest that he'll be liable for any class action suits that Saddam's victims might bring. One way or another it would seem that Security Council approval seems a small price to for Chirac to pay to avoid spending his golden years in the dock at an unpleasant trial.