Sunday 18 January 2009

There is nothing new under the sun

There is nothing new under the sun

Posted using ShareThis

INVENTING YOUR OWN REALITY



Tobin Harshaw, writing at the Opinionator blog of the NYT, rounds up responses to Jeffrey Goldberg's piece from last about how Hamas really and truly doesn't like Israel, period. (I blogged approvingly about Goldberg's post here).


So far as I can tell, of all the people responding to Goldberg, not a single one speaks Arabic except of course Goldberg himself. Apparently one can respectably pontificate on the finer points of Hamas policies and intentions without being able to talk to them in their language or read what they write, with nary a twinge of embarrassment at your own arrogance or ignorance or both.


Actually, it's much worse. Most people with opinions on such matters don't even know the sort of stuff one can learn even in English. Here's a nasty rhetoric trick I've often resorted to, which you can use also with no more than an hour of preparation. Whenever I find myself about to face an audience who I expect to be hostile, I quickly prepare a list of six or eight Arab names, or when I want to be really nasty, six names and two Arabic words that are not names, and then at the appropriate moment I reel them off and ask my audience to distinguish between them: which is the Palestinian Prime Minister, which the top negotiator, which the Druze member of Knesset from Likud, and which the top terrorist from Hezbullah someone assassinated last year.


In 100% of the cases I've done this, my audiences or interlocutors are not able to identify anyone. I then run over the names, or not, while noting that any educated Israeli could of course identify at least most of the names, and ask what that tells us about their level of seriousness when talking about Arabs in general or Palestinians in particular. "How serious am I supposed to take your assertions that if only we did things differently with the Palestinians, the outcome would be so much better, when you can't even tell the difference between an important Palestinian leader and a dead poet?


"Yes, I admit, it's nasty. But fun, and they deserve it, which is the important part. Preening ignoramuses.


How can you do the same? Go spend an hour googling intelligently. That's all it will take.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

SIX KASSAMS SO FAR



I'm in favor of the unilateral cease fire Israel declared last night. I know some of my friends disagree (including friends who were visiting us last night when the announcement was made). I agree with them that peace with Hamas in not ever going to happen as long as Hamas remains Hamas. I'm inclined to agree with them that peace with the Palestinians is not going to happen anytime soon, with Obama or without. As I've been consistently saying ever since my trust in a peace process was destroyed in late 2000, our task is to manage the conflict as intelligently as possible, with as few casualties (on both sides) as possible, until the world changes and peace becomes possible.


In that conceptual framework, Hamas raining rockets on Sderot is bad conflict management. Now we've got to wait till the morning after the morning after (I liked Thomas Friedman's formulation) to see if Hamas has reached a stage similar to the one Hezbullah reached the morning after their morning after their "victory" in 2006. If this morning's rockets cause no casualties and cease by the afternoon, not to be renewed for years, that's fine. If they continue, however, even if only in a drizzle, we have to keep on hitting, inaugural parties in Washington or not.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

THE JEWS POISON WELLS



Neither the Economist nor the New York Times in their respective investigations of Israel's methods of waging war gave any credence to the story of the phosphorus weapons. The story is simply not true.


Yet the Guardian just can't give up, and day by day they repeat the accusation, according to which, yes, the Jews do poison wells.


I apologize for carping so much about the Guardian. The fact that an overtly antisemitic newspaper has 700,000 subscribers in the middle of the civilized world, irks me. It shouldn't surprise me, and indeed, it doesn't, but it impinges upon my otherwise perfect world.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

THE ISRAELI WAY OF WAGING WAR (NYT)



Steven Erlanger tries to figure out how bad we've been. One of his chief sources is Jessica Montell, head of B'tselem, and one of those Israelis who really doesn't like us. In spite of which, his findings are, from our perspective, totally reasonable. They're not perfect - it's a war, not a picnic - but I can live with them and keep my head high.


Since then, the Red Cross has noted improvements, even praising Israel for trying to avoid civilian casualties and provide humanitarian assistance in a briefing for Europeans in Tel Aviv, according to a European diplomat who attended the briefing.


Pierre Wettach, head of the organization in Israel and the Palestinian territories, said of the Israel Defense Forces in an interview: “I believe there is a true concern on the part of the I.D.F. to address these things, which are extremely complicated to organize.”


(Thanx, Gavin)

taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

DRESDEN AND GAZA



A person I know to be intelligent, educated and serious, even though he's of the looniest of our loony left, writes to tell me the images coming out of Gaza remind him of Dresden, "and what do they remind you of, Yaacov?"


Not of Dresden.


In the late 1930s, while preparing themselves for an aggressive war against everyone in their way, the German Wehrmacht developed the doctrine of destroying cities from the air as an essential element in demoralizing enemies. They experimented in the Spanish civil war, the most famous case being Guernica in 1937, a village of 5,000 where they killed at least 250 people on one day. In 1939 they applied the doctrine to the cities of Poland. In 1940 they destroyed the center of Rotterdam in neutral Netherlands, killing 800 civilians and destroying the homes of 80,000 in one day. Then they turned to the British Isles and launched the Battle of Britian, which was based almost entirely on bombing civilian populations.


The British, joined later by the Americans, bombed back. In 1943 the British accidentally invented the firestorm: on a bombing attack on Hamburg they dropped so many incendiary bombs that the conflagration took on a power of its own, and the resulting inferno was far more destructive than anything the RAF had planned on. No-one had known such a thing was even possible; now they knew. The Germans had, quite literally, sown the wind and reaped the firestorm.


In February 1945 British and American planes quite purposefully created a firestorm in Dresden. In two days much of the city was destroyed, and a minimum of 24,000 people were killed, but perhaps as many as 40,000. Since many of the bodies were totally incinerated, there was no way to count.


The only way to see a resemblance between Dresden and Gaza is by being willfully and maliciously blind to common sense.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

Israel Matzav: Did Israel cave to Mubarak?#links#links

Israel Matzav: Did Israel cave to Mubarak?#links#links

Israel Matzav: IDF opposed cease fire#links#links

Israel Matzav: IDF opposed cease fire#links#links

Israel Matzav: If fired upon, Israel will respond#links#links

Israel Matzav: If fired upon, Israel will respond#links#links

Israel Matzav: Hamas claims victory#links#links

Israel Matzav: Hamas claims victory#links#links

Israel Matzav: Liveblog: Olmert announces Israel to surrender to 'public opinion'#links#links

Israel Matzav: Liveblog: Olmert announces Israel to surrender to 'public opinion'#links#links

BBC AND TUE UN : THE SAME HYDRA



Jeremy Bowen, the BBC correspondent sent to tell about the war in Gaza, informs us that


I just broke off writing for a couple of minutes to take a call from Chris Gunness, who is the spokesman for Unrwa, the UN agency that looks after Palestinian refugees.


He was ringing to say that Unrwa wanted an investigation into whether Israel has committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Civilians are protected by the laws of war.


I have known Chris for years, as he used to be a BBC foreign correspondent.


Interesting, isn't it? The fellow from UNRWA used to be a fellow from the BBC. Two organizations with very little goodwill towards Israel, with interchangeable personnel.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

THE BUCHRIS METHOD



Avi Issacharoff at his best (he's always excellent) on what's going on in Gaza:


The IDF is proceeding in Gaza in a slow, orderly, efficient and very destructive manner. During 2002's Operation Defensive Shield, in the Jenin refugee camp, disagreements developed among the different units as to how much force should be applied. A battalion of the 5th Reserve Infantry Brigade, which employed relatively humane operating methods, suffered 13 casualties in one single day from an ambush and roadside explosives. After those incidents, everyone took up the "Buchris method," named after the commander of the 51st Golani battalion, Lt. Col. Ofek Buchris (today a brigade commander in the reserves): Forceful entry with "Akhzarit" ("cruel") armored personnel carriers, which demolished houses' walls before the soldiers entered them, leaving them a relatively protected corridor.


In Gaza 2009, there are no such debates. Yedioth Ahronoth reporter Yossi Yehoshua, who was embedded with the 51st Battalion in Gaza's Sajaiyeh neighborhood, heard battalion commander Lt. Col. Shuki Ribak say, "We've used artillery shells, tanks and helicopters for close-range assistance. I don't remember when we ever fired mortars in Gaza before.


"His soldiers explained that, if it boils down to choosing between their own lives and Palestinian houses, the choice is clear. Lt. Col. Cohen of Givati told Haaretz that, in his view, Hamas is at fault, for having booby-trapping populated buildings.


That's fine with me. It's important to make efforts not to kill innocent Palestinians, even to the extent of marginally endangering our own troops. But when it's the lives of troops versus buildings in Gaza, there should be no question. After the war the Iranians will pay for new buildings; lives can't be re-invented.


Read the whole thing, and everything Issacharoff writes, generally at haaretz.com.

taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

COLE REALLY DOESN'T GET IT



Juan Cole warns Israel not to spoil the party:


There are rumors that the Israeli government may declare a unilateral cease fire Saturday. They had better. Because if they ruin the Obama inauguration by splashing the bloody bodies of dead Palestinian children all over the press during the next few days, no Americans, even the most pro-Israeli, are going to forgive them. The war has left 1,140 Palestinians dead, over 300 children, and over 5,000 wounded including many women and children, as well as 13 Israelis (4 of them civilians killed by rocket fire). We pay for these wars, we provide the fighter jets, bombs, and tanks. And we don't want our money used for this sanguinary purpose in the first place; we have enough to be guilty about all on our own. And we especially don't want to hear a peep from over there while we swear in our first African-American president.


Newsflash for Cole: after 2,000 years, the Jews have reacquired sovereignty. This doesn't mean they can do whatever they wish, even the USA can't do that; indeed Israel generally tries to stay on the good side of the Americans, their best friends; but "generally" isn't "automatically and always". If we had our druthers, we wouldn't be on the agenda of the American president at all, and we'd be mentioned in the media only rarely, as the place top technology companies open R&D units in, an occasional Nobel Prize winner hails from, and a fine place to visit if you're into history and archeology. We'd be fine with that. However, if we need to spoil your party in order to defend ourselves, that's just what we'll have to do. Sorry, but we've got our priorities.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

HAMAS HATES PALESTINIANS



Ethan Bronner of the New York Times went into Gaza, as far as the IDF would let him, and came back to report:


Israeli Merkava tanks plowed through potato and strawberry fields on Thursday as paratroopers guarded their ground, a mix of ruins that once were handsome two-story houses and farm fields that had been turned into rocket-launching pads against Israel by Hamas.

No doubt in some future report he'll tell us about the destruction wrought by the IDF, but in this report he makes it clear that Hamas bears significant responsibility, not only for provoking the IDF by shooting at Israeli citizens, but also for the destruction of Palestinian homes, as many as one third of which have been booby trapped - which means, the explosives that brought them down were put there by Hamas.


Nice people. Always on the lookout for ways best to serve their citizens.


taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

Esser Agaroth: CNN: "10 Things To Say To Keep The Peace."

Esser Agaroth: CNN: "10 Things To Say To Keep The Peace."

B'NAI ELIM (Sons of the Mighty): U.S. and Israel Sign Understanding Regarding Smuggling of Arms to Terrorists...#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links

B'NAI ELIM (Sons of the Mighty): U.S. and Israel Sign Understanding Regarding Smuggling of Arms to Terrorists...#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links#links
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...