Love of the Land: Ben Wedeman trying to undermine Israel on its Aid to Gaza: But even he has to admit…

Ben Wedeman trying to undermine Israel on its Aid to Gaza: But even he has to admit…

Richard Landes
Augean Stables
14 January '10

Here’s Ben Wedeman in the second week of the war commenting on Israel’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, by supplying Gazans with aid.

This is a particular gem of MSNM moral and intellectual confusion since his overall thrust is that Israel’s aid is a) just PR for show, b) pretty pathetic given that “ironically, their actually bombing the place,” and c) that no one’s impressed in Gaza since Israel’s to blame for the blockade in the first place. In the process of dismissing Israel’s effort, he makes an error which forces him to correct himself in mid-stream, which then leads him in another direction. The result: a revealing piece of euphemistic nonsense well worth savoring.



Well Israel has allowed a steady number of trucks coming with humanitarian goods uh into Gaza. This rather ironically as they’re actually bombing the place they’re sending food in as well. My understanding is 66 trucks went in today, so they do want to be at least seen as, as uh caring or providing or allowing others to provide humanitarian relief to the civilian population. Uh, but that sort of thing doesn’t necessarily go down very well, because it’s only Israel that controls the crossings, uh, into Gaza, with the exception of the one in Egypt and uh so, therefore if Israel were to cut off the supply altogether, uh, they would depend on Egypt and that’s not a good, uh, place to depend on.

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Love of the Land: Ben Wedeman trying to undermine Israel on its Aid to Gaza: But even he has to admit…

Love of the Land: Goldstone vs. Talal abu Rahmah on Hamas’ human shields: Whom to believe

Goldstone vs. Talal abu Rahmah on Hamas’ human shields: Whom to believe

Richard Landes
Augean Stables
04 January '10

As any serious reader of this blog knows, I don’t have a lot of respect for Talal abu Rahmah, the seeing of whose rushes (see below) for September 30, 2000 inspired the term Pallywood. So what to think when he and another favorite unreliable rogue in my gallery disagree?

The Goldstone Report, at paragraph 481, takes up the subject of whether Hamas deliberately hid among civilians.

¶481. On the basis of the information it gathered, the Mission is unable to form an opinion on the exact nature or the intensity [emphasis added] of their [Hamas’] combat activities in urban residential areas that would have placed the civilian population and civilian objects at risk of attack. While reports reviewed by the Mission credibly indicate that members of Palestinian armed groups were not always dressed in a way that distinguished them from civilians, the Mission found no evidence that Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack [emphasis added].

Moshe Halbertal in “The Goldstone Illusion,” not an author known for his sarcasm, remarks on Goldstone’s cautious conclusion:

The reader of such a sentence might well wonder what its author means. Did Hamas militants not wear their uniforms because they were inconveniently at the laundry? What other reasons for wearing civilian clothes could they have had, if not for deliberately sheltering themselves among the civilians?

So imagine my surprise when I ran across the following gem from Talal abu Rahmah in a phone interview with a CNN reporter on January 2, 2009:

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Love of the Land: Goldstone vs. Talal abu Rahmah on Hamas’ human shields: Whom to believe

Love of the Land: Swedish Meatballs

Swedish Meatballs

The story according to Reuters, as quoted by the Daily Times ( a Pakistani Site)

JERUSALEM: "A proposal before the European Union to endorse the division of Jerusalem would risk closing off half the city to non-Muslims, according to a think tank close to the Israeli government. The Israel Project said the plan could be backed at a regular meeting of the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers on Monday, as part of what it called a bid to “forge a high-profile role” in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Diplomats in Brussels said the EU meeting was likely to discuss the stalled Middle East peace process, but no radical new policy change was in the works. East Jerusalem has been seen for years as prospective capital of a future Palestinian state. The think tank singled out current EU president Sweden and its foreign minister Carl Bildt, saying he aimed to sideline the EU’s more balanced existing policy. Relations between Sweden and Israel have been irritated recently by what was seen in Israel as an anti-Semitic story in the Swedish press and Israel’s refusal to let a Swedish minister visit Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip." -more

Love of the Land: Swedish Meatballs

Love of the Land: All It Takes

All It Takes

"All it takes . . ." is a reference to the often quoted and more often ignored piece of folk wisdom "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

* * *

Below is an editorial from yesterday's (Nov.5, 09) Wall Street Journal about Obama's response to the pro-Democracy protests in Iranian cities:

Obama on Tehran's Democrats:
"We do not interfere in Iran's internal affairs"

Tens of thousands of protesters yesterday braved police batons and tear gas canisters in the streets of Iranian cities to denounce their theocratic rulers and call for a change of regime. In spite of repression by the Basiji thugs and the West's short attention span, the Green Revolution lives on.

On this, the 30th anniversary of the hostage taking at the U.S. Embassy, their message was to a large degree intended for America and President Obama. The opposition hijacked the day, usually an occasion to denounce the Great Satan, to declare their desire to break with that past and build a free Iran. They marched alongside state-sanctioned rallies, before their protests were broken up violently.

For this broad coalition of democrats, America is a beacon of hope and the Iran of the street arguably the most pro-American place in the world. Earlier this year, before the huge demonstrations in the wake of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's brazen theft of the June presidential election, one popular opposition chant was, "O ba ma!"—in Farsi a play on the new American President's last name that translates as, "He with us!"

But the opposition's dreams of American support, moral as much as anything, have been dashed. Mr. Obama was slow and reluctant to speak out on their behalf and eager to engage the Iranian regime in nuclear talks as soon as the summer of protest tapered off. Iran's democrats are now letting their disappointment show. The new chant passed around in Internet chat rooms and heard in the streets yesterday was, "Obama, Obama—either you're with them or with us." -more

Love of the Land: All It Takes

Love of the Land: News Watch

News Watch

(24 September 2008)

Western Democracies rely on a well-informed public. So what can be done when respected journals like the New York Times and theWashington Post display anti-Israel bias and distortions in their reporting ?

The answer is CAMERA.
(The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America).

And while you're at it, take a look at their blog. It's called Snapshots
.

Love of the Land: News Watch

RubinReports: To the Media: Higher Standard for Israel? Then Higher Standard for Coverage of Israel

To the Media: Higher Standard for Israel? Then Higher Standard for Coverage of Israel

By Barry Rubin

A friend who deals professionally with the media says that when he complains about coverage of Israel in the media he is told: ""We expect more from the Jews and Israel."

I suggested he respond like this:

You are saying that because of historical factors you have higher expectations from Jews and Israel. Ok. But there are other historical factors to take into account: antisemitism, deliberate slander and honest misunderstanding of Jews, and deliberate slander and misunderstanding of Israel. You should also have higher standards on how Jews and Israel should be treated fairly.

For most of history people have held mistaken concepts--Jews killed the guy from Nazareth, Jews killed the guy from Mecca, Jews poisoned wells, Jews sought to destroy Christianity, Jews were behind capitalism and communism, Jews were disloyal citizens, and so on. Incidentally, these all are not only ideas common in the Muslim majority world today but are once again spreading quickly into the West, in part due to your coverage.

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RubinReports: To the Media: Higher Standard for Israel? Then Higher Standard for Coverage of Israel

Israel Matzav: Israel's Left slams Obama

Israel's Left slams Obama

The things that make this article noteworthy are where it appeared (Haaretz, Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily) and who wrote it (Yoel Marcus, one of their more Leftist writers).

With all of Obama's goodwill and all-embracing ambition, there is something naive, not to say infuriating, about his policy of rapprochement and about the whistle stops he has chosen on his travels dealing with our issue. He spoke in Turkey, he spoke in Egypt, he appeared before students in Saudi Arabia, in Paris, in England, in Ghana and in Australia. Even there the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was mentioned. His plan to begin rapprochement with Iran, which openly threatens to destroy Israel, and to reassure its fanatic leadership, which cruelly suppresses any attempt by the younger generation to get rid of the regime of the ayatollahs, is delusional.

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Israel Matzav: Israel's Left slams Obama

Israel Matzav: How the media chooses 'Israeli supporters' who are far left of the mainstream

How the media chooses 'Israeli supporters' who are far left of the mainstream

While this is a Russian network and not an American or European one, it's still English-language media and it's a seemingly unbiased report.

Let's go to the videotape and then you can let me know what you think of the person they chose to represent Israel's interests and I can tell you a bit about him (note the 'even Rahm Emanuel comment, as if Rahm Emanuel isn't willing to sell his birthright to get ahead).

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Israel Matzav: How the media chooses 'Israeli supporters' who are far left of the mainstream

Israel Matzav: 'An international laughingstock'

'An international laughingstock'

Caroline Glick reflects on the real 'Obama effect,' a result of the American mainstream media's unwillingness to relate critically to the President:

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Israel Matzav: 'An international laughingstock'

WHER ARE ALL THE DEMONSTRATORS ?

Where Are All the Demonstrators?

It's an article of faith with most True Believers of this political franchise or that, that the media is controlled by the other camp. Zionists control everything, or AIPAC, or the Neocons; on the other side everyone's convinced the media is totally Left-controlled, in the hands of the Anitsemites and what have you.

I'm in favor of empric data, when possible.

This article in Maariv today has all the hallmarks of the "Everyone's against us" syndrome: except that the authors are onto something that can be tested empirically. Their thesis: the mobs who routinely demonstrate against imaginary or real Israeli misdeeds, are totally lacking from their usual haunts as the Thugs of Teheran shoot their own civilians in bright daylight.

Where are the hundreds of thousands of European demonstrators?

Someone sent me an English translation, for the Hebraically-challenged among you:

Where is Everyone?

Ma’ariv (Monday, June 22, 09) by Ben Caspit and Ben-Dror Yemini (opinion) –

Tell us, where is everyone? Where did all the people who demonstrated against Israel’s brutality in Operation Cast Lead, in the Second Lebanon War, in Operation Defensive Shield, or even in The Hague, when we were dragged there unwillingly after daring to build a separation barrier between us and the suicide bombers, disappear to? We see demonstrations here and there, but these are mainly Iranian exiles. Europe, in principle, is peaceful and calm. So is the United States.
Here and there a few dozens, here and there a few hundreds. Have they
evaporated because it is Tehran and not here?

All the peace-loving and justice-loving Europeans, British professors in search of
freedom and equality, the friends filling the newspapers, magazines and various academic journals with various demands for boycotting Israel, defaming Zionism and blaming us and it for all the ills and woes of the world—could it be that they have taken a long summer vacation? Now of all times, when the Basij hooligans have begun to slaughter innocent civilians in the city squares of Tehran? Aren’t they connected to the Internet? Don’t they have YouTube? Has a terrible virus struck down their computer? Have their justice glands been removed in a complicated surgical procedure (to be re-implanted successfully for the next confrontation in Gaza)? How can it be that when a Jew kills a Muslim, the entire world boils, and when extremist Islam slaughters its citizens, whose sole sin is the aspiration to freedom, the world is silent?
Imagine that this were not happening now in Tehran, but rather here. Let’s say in Nablus. Spontaneous demonstrations of Palestinians turning into an ongoing bloodbath. Border Policemen armed with knives, on motorcycles, butchering demonstrators. A young woman downed by a sniper in midday, dying before the cameras. Actually, why imagine? We can just recall what happened with the child
Mohammed a-Dura. How the affair (which was very harsh, admittedly) swept
the world from one end to another. The fact that a later independent
investigative report raised tough questions as to the identity of the weapon
from which a-Dura was shot, did not make a difference to anyone. The
Zionists were to blame, and that was that.
And where are the world’s leaders? Where is the wondrous rhetorical ability of Barack Obama? Where has his sublime vocabulary gone? Where is the desire, that is supposed to be built into all American presidents, to defend and act on behalf of freedom seekers around the globe? What is this stammering?
A source who is connected to the Iranian and security situation, said yesterday that if Obama had shown on the Iranian matter a quarter of the determination with which he assaulted the settlements in the territories, everything would have looked different. “The demonstrators in Iran are desperate for help,” said the man, who served in very senior positions for many years, “they need to know that they have backing, that there is an entire world that supports them, but instead they see indifference. And this is happening at such a critical stage of this battle for the soul of Iran and the freedom of the Iranian people. It’s sad.”
Or the European Union, for example. The organization that speaks of justice and
peace all year round. Why should its leaders not declare clearly that the world wants to see a democratic and free Iran, and support it unreservedly? Could it be that the tongue of too many Europeans is still connected to dark places? The pathetic excuse that such support would give Khamenei and Ahmadinejad an excuse to call the demonstrators “Western agents,” does not hold water. They call them “Western agents” in any case, so what difference does it make?
To think that just six months ago, when Europe was flooded with demonstrations against Israel, leftists and Islamists raised pictures of Nasrallah, the protégé of the ayatollah regime. The fact that this was a benighted regime did not trouble them. This is madness, but it is sinking in and influencing the weary West. If there is a truly free world here, let it appear immediately! And impose sanctions, for example, on those who slaughter the members of their own people. Just as it imposed them on North Korea, or on the military regime in Burma. It is only a question of will, not of ability.
Apparently, something happens to the global adherence to justice and equality, when it comes to Iran. The oppression is overt and known. The Internet era
broadcasts everything live, and it is all for the better. Hooligans acting on behalf of the regime shoot and stab masses of demonstrators, who cry out for freedom.
Is anything more needed? Apparently it is. Because it is to no avail. The West remains indifferent. Obama is polite. Why shouldn’t he be, after all, he aspires to a dialogue with the ayatollahs. And that is very fine and good, the problem is that at this stage there is no dialogue, but there is death and murder on the streets.
At this stage, one must forget the rules of etiquette for a moment. The voices being heard from Obama elicit concern that we are actually dealing with a new version of Chamberlain. Being conciliatory is a positive trait, particularly when it follows the clumsy bellicosity of George Bush, but when conciliation becomes blindness, we have a problem.
The courageous voice of Angela Merkel, who issued yesterday a firm statement of
support for the Iranian people and its right to freedom, is in the meantime a lone voice in the Western wilderness. It is only a shame that she has not announced an economic boycott, in light of the fact that this is the European country that is most invested in building infrastructure in Iran. She was joined by British Foreign Secretary Miliband. It is little, it is late, it is not enough. Millions of freedom seekers have taken to the streets in Iran, and the West is straddling the fence, one leg here, the other leg there.
There is a different Islam. This is already clear today. Even in Iran. There are millions of Muslims who support freedom, human rights, equality for women. These millions loathe Khamenei, Chavez and Nasrallah too. But part of the global left wing prefers the ayatollah regime over them. The main thing is for them to raise flags
against Israel and America. The question is why the democrats, the liberals, and Obama, Blair and Sarkozy, are continuing to sit on the fence. This is not a fence of separation, it is a fence of shame.

taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

IGNOREMUSI PONTIFICATING

Ignoramusi Pontificating

Regular readers will know my opinion that The Economist is at the pinnacle of the journalist world. Sadly, this doesn't mean much. Even the folks at The Economist can't remember things that were quite obvious only a few years ago.

Today's Leader (British for Editorial) analyses Netanyahu's speech, under the subtitle Binyamin Netanyahu has taken one essential step. Now he must take a whole lot more. Set aside the silly proposition that the Israelis must move so that there will be peace, while the demands on the Palestinians are perfunctory and shallow. They're Brits, are the editors of The Economist. What's so completely outlandish about the article is the assumption that Netanyahu has inserted new conditions into the process that will foil the process.

The Germans have a fine word for this, which needs no translation: Quatsch.

Rather than write a long rebuttal, I've done something easier. I've gone back to the book I wrote in 2003, Right to Exist, and have simply lifted its tenth chapter, the one which described what would need to happen for there ever to be peace. Admittedly, I have no official standing, and represent only myself, but the chapter contains descriptions of what everyone was talking about in early 2003. Since the topics were exacly the same then and now, and the positions also (though the Palestinian positions got worse when they elected a Hamas majority in January 2006), well, the Economist contention must be wrong.

Wrong. Not interpreted in a way that aggravates me. Factually wrong. What the Economist has to say is demonstrably false. Not true.

Here's a snippet of the chapter, relating head on to the Economist's untrue description:

In July 2001, 9 months into the Jerusalem Intifada and four months into the Government of Ariel Sharon, a group of some two dozen intellectuals from both
sides convened to build a bridge over the ruins of peace. These were all old friends who have been meeting for many years in hope of finding enough common ground to enable the politicians to pick up the torch. Back when they started, they were unpopular pariahs in their respective communities for daring to reach out to the enemy; but over years of perseverance they had managed to pull ever larger segments of their people behind them, and from eccentrics they had become mainstream. Between them there must have been many thousands of hours of dialogue. Intelligent, educated individuals, rational realists, there was not a hard-line militant among them.

Their idea was simple: to agree on a joint declaration calling on the warring factions to desist from their insanity and return to negotiations. The peaceniks would join hands, and with their moral authority embarrass the politicians back to sanity. The Palestinians were willing to join in stating that there should be two independent states alongside one another, but the Israelis, alerted by the fiascos of Camp David and Taba to a nuance they had previously overlooked, demanded that the statement clearly say that Israel would be a Jewish State and Palestine an Arab one. The Palestinians refused. Jews, they said, are a religion, not a nationality, and neither need nor deserve their own state. They were welcome to live in Israel, but the Palestinian refugees would come back, and perhaps she would cease to be a Jewish State.

taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

TALKING TROUGH THEIR HATS

Talking Through their Hats

Whether you like him and his opinons or not, you've got to admit that over the past week Andrew Sullivan has made himself into one of the single most important sources for news coming out of Iran. He's doing a fine job.

None of which makes his information any more reliable. Consider the two posts he put up right before Khamenei's speech in Teheran this morning. Ian Black at The Guardian telling that since we haven't seen much of Ahmedinejad this week, his position may well be weakening. And Charles Recknagl sifting the evidence to bolster the proposition that Khamenei is wavering. Both articles appeared mere hours before Khamenei's scheduled speech, in which he proved the opposite of what these folks had been speculating.

Why don't these people and their legions of colleagues go find a real job, say, baking bread or paving roads or laying bricks? At least then they'd have the satisfaction they'd created some sort of value in life.

taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

OPINION TRUMPS REALITY

Opinion Trumps Reality

The NYT has a cute article this morning about technology's application to the events in Iran. Nothing profound, mind you, but I recommend, especially if technology and its application to life interests you.

The reason for this post, however, is to have a look at the picture which goes with the story.

Or better, have a look at the caption: A Moussavi supporter flashed a peace sign to marching protesters.

It's not a peace sign, of course. It's a victory sign. The fingers form a V, not a P.

Telling, isn't it. About the New York Times, not Iran.

taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

IRANIAN REALITY

Iranian Reality

I have nothing significant to tell about the election in Iran. I don't speak Farsi, I don't follow Iranian matters particularly closely, I have no expertise that would allow me to make any credible pronouncements on Iranian matters one way or the other.

The best I can do is seek those voices of experts who seem credible to me. Interestingly, the Guardian's CiF has two such fellows up right now. Iranian expatriate Abbas Barzegar reports from Teheran that it was ever only wishful thinking to expect Ahmedinejad might lose:

I have been in Iran for exactly one week covering the 2009 Iranian election
carnival. Since I arrived, few here doubted that the incumbent firebrand
President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad would win. My airport cab driver reminded me that the president had visited every province twice in the last four years – "Iran
isn't Tehran," he said. Even when I asked Mousavi supporters if their man could
really carry more than capital, their responses were filled with an Obamasque
provisional optimism – "Yes we can", "I hope so", "If you vote." So the question
occupying the international media, "How did Mousavi lose?" seems to be less a
problem of the Iranian election commission and more a matter of bad perception
rooted in the stubborn refusal to understand the role of religion in Iran.

Meanwhile, Teheran-based Saeed Kamali Dehghan explains that the elections were clearly stolen:

I have visited at least 10 provinces, some villages and couple of rural places
in the past month. I attended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's big rally in Tehran's Mosala
religious complex last Tuesday as well as President Mohammad Khatami's huge
pro-Mousavi rally in Isfahan on Wednesday and I have talked to pro-Ahmadinejad
villagers who were paid money and given potatoes, but the results announced
today are completely meaningless and ridiculous for me.

These two perspectives, of course, aren't actually mutually exclusive. Ahmedinejad could both have won, perhaps narrowly, and stolen the election; the Ayatollahs, the real powerbrokers, may have decided that since he won they could comfortably crack down on the elements that from their perspective have been getting out of control recently.

Of course I'm making that up; spinning whole cloth out of thin air so as to use it to cut a baseless story line. Which is what most of the Western media seems to be doing, too. They don't have the faintest idea what's really going on in Iran, nor the slightest qualifications to find out, and certainly not the patience to spend the years necessary to obtain those qualifications. What they do have, however, is a beloved narrative, whereby President Obama is transforming the world into a nicer place, and since he's doing this so adroitly, it's working; by holding out his open hand he's encouraging others to unclench their fists - well, most others. Not the Israelis of course, and their ghastly government. And not those weird North Koreans. But just about everyone else.

Or not.

At the end of the day, it doesn't make much difference if the Iranian election was stolen or not. It wasn't democratic to begin with, as any honest observer should have admitted, since only politically acceptable men were ever allowed to run, and because the real positions of power aren't decided by ballot in Iran. More important, whether the election was stolen or not is immaterial to the question of what happens next. This will be determined by the people wielding power, not by the nicer people who aren't. Deal with it.

taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Israel Matzav: Helping Obama down from the tree

Helping Obama down from the tree

The Washington Post attempts to help President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton down from the tree up which they scampered.

A good compromise is achievable. Mr. Netanyahu should publicly acknowledge that the peace process will lead to Palestinian statehood, and should adopt a series of measures curtailing settlements. He should quickly dismantle those deemed illegal, end all government subsidies, prohibit the territorial expansion of all settlements, stop new construction in those outside Israel's West Bank fence and agree to a monitoring mechanism that will prevent cheating. Mr. Obama can reasonably accept that as a freeze, while not requiring that not a single brick be laid in any of the more than 120 West Bank communities. Then he can turn to the equally important task of pressing Palestinian leaders and Arab states for measures that match Israel's actions.

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Israel Matzav: Helping Obama down from the tree

Israel Matzav: Hezbullah terrorist: 'We don't have wings"

Hezbullah terrorist: 'We don't have wings'

The BBC got an interview with a Hezbullah terrorist in Beirut. As part of the interview, the BBC discusses the British government policy of talking to Hezbullah's 'political wing' but not to its 'military wing' with the British ambassador to Lebanon.

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Israel Matzav: Hezbullah terrorist: 'We don't have wings'

Adbusters' Spurious Gaza - Warsaw Ghetto Comparison

Adbusters' Spurious Gaza - Warsaw Ghetto Comparison

A Canadian magazine abuses Holocaust imagery to attack Israel.

Following the recent 22-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, anti-Israel proponents - in politics, the UN, Hamas, trade unions, academia, and in the media - have drawn spurious comparisons of the situation of Palestinians in Gaza to that of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.

The reason the Warsaw Ghetto analogy is used is to trump up libelous claims that Jews who were once the victims of the Nazis during the Holocaust are now the victimizers carrying out the genocide of Palestinians. It should be noted that comparisons of Israeli policy and actions to Nazism fit the European Union's and U.S. State Department's working definition of anti-Semitism.

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Adbusters' Spurious Gaza - Warsaw Ghetto Comparison

HIGH-QUALITY POLITICAL CYNICISM GALORE

High-Quality Political Cynicism Galore

The Ministerial Legislation Committee stopped the draft of the Loyalty Law in its tracks.

A bit of context may be called for, as this matter, like most, is barely understood by most observers while being widely cited. In order for a law to be legislated in Israel, it must pass three readings, three seperate votes, in the Knesset. If it's initiatied by the government, it fmust irst pass a ministerial committee even before the first reading. After the first reading it goes to a parliamentary committee (or three), which can eviscerate it, change it to mean something else, block it indefinately, or forget it forever - or, occasionally, pass it back to the full Knesset for legislation. If legislation is not supported by the government, it can nonetheless be submitted by an individual MK or 30 of them, but in that case it must pass four readings: a preliminary one, a committee, and then the mandatory three readings.

And all this is merely the outline. Bismarck famously quiped that there are two things one can enjoy upon completion but should never observe in the making: sausage and legislation; this is as true for Israel as anywhere. It just so happens that some of my best friends are lobbyists, and damn good ones, too, and I've watched many of the shticks from close up. Getting a law passed in Israel requires either the bulldozer of the Finance Ministry on your side, or lots of talent and experience.

So whenever some populistic politician moots some idiotic idea for an outlandish law, the fact that it passes the first of four readings is almost meaningless. It's an act of futile grandstanding. 100% of the legislators involved know the chance of the law ever being enacted are slim to non-existent, depending on how idiotic it is. But no matter.The point is to appear to be trying, to score brownie points for intentions. Since the system won't ever let it happen, there's nothing to lose but lots to gain: if you're behind the law, you'll be interviewed by lots of media outlets and your constituents will see you. If you're scandalized by the law, you'll be interviewed by lots of media outlets and your constituents will see you. If you're a media type, you'll have lots of fun footage of passionate politcians talking through their hats, you'll be able to report breathlessly on the dramatic events, and your ratings will rise. If you're an NGO who lives off donations from foreign folks, you'll be able earnestly to tell them of your heroic efforts to fight the good fight; some NGOs work harder at putting out English-language press-releases than at Hebrew ones, since the Hebrew ones are pointless but the English ones go into dramatic files for donors.

Sooner or later the law will reach some adults who bear real responsibility, and they'll shoot it down. The Loyalty Law, for example, was apparently voted down in something like 30 seconds, with no discussion: Yaacov Neeman, Minister of Justice, going through the meeting's agenda, reached this line and curtly noted that there'd be no discussion, merely a vote, who's for who's against, the majority's against, the law's rejected next item.

And note who did the voting: government ministers, not the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). Cabinet members from Likud, Shas, haBayit haYehudi, and of course Labor - the first three solidly on the Right. These people aren't idiots. They recognize a destructive and imbecillic law when they see one, and dispose of it with no qualms.

All of which leaves the question, why try in the first place if everyone knows it won't happen? Why give the Guardian and the Juan Coles of this world unnesseccary grist for their mills? A fine subject for a different post, someday. Though I will note that no matter how childish the politicians-media-NGO activists are, the foreign reporters who eagerly take only part of the story and use it to damn Israel shouldn't be exonerated. They could tell the same story I've just told you, but scrupulously won't, ever.

taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Israel Matzav: Hezbullah did Syria's dirty work?

Hezbullah did Syria's dirty work?

The German daily Der Spiegel is reporting that new evidence indicates that Hezbullah was behind the 2005 murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and not Syria as previously believed (Hat Tip: Little Green Footballs).

SPIEGEL has learned from sources close to the tribunal and verified by examining internal documents, that the Hariri case is about to take a sensational turn. Intensive investigations in Lebanon are all pointing to a new conclusion: that it was not the Syrians, but instead special forces of the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah ("Party of God") that planned and executed the diabolical attack. Tribunal chief prosecutor Bellemare and his judges apparently want to hold back this information, of which they been aware for about a month. What are they afraid of?

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Israel Matzav: Hezbullah did Syria's dirty work?

Terror No Obstacle to Peace? - Honest Reporting

Terror No Obstacle to Peace?

The Independent mysteriously omits years of Palestinian terrorism.

There has been much analysis and a wide variety of opinions expressed in the media following this week's meeting in Washington DC between US President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Independent, however, stands out from the crowd with a glaring omission.

In an article by Donald Macintyre, "Israel goes cold on plan for regional peace deal," a list of "obstacles to peace" includes issues such as settlements, Palestinian infighting, Iran, Syria and Israel's own apparent reluctance to publicly endorse a Palestinian state.

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Terror No Obstacle to Peace?