[click on picture to enlarge]
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Amazingly Convenient Coincidence
[The Oswald-Ruby Band rocking in Dallas, 1963]
The guy who published the Wikileaks documents, Julian Assange, has been arrested in England. A British court has just ruled in favor of his being extradited to Sweden to face rape charges. The Wikileaks papers deeply embarrassed the government and military establishment of the United States. They proved what everyone knew but could not prove. Among them was the totally unsurprising revelation that the Karzai government of Afghanistan is totally corrupt and that the war is being conducted in part by bribing tribal leaders. And that the US government knows all about it. And a bunch of other things as well.
Wikipedia lists a lengthy series of applications of power to stifle Wikileaks -- including the VISA-Mastercard cartel cancelling their credit cards and several countries from Germany to Thailand blocking access to the Wikileaks website.
What an amazing coincidence that shortly after embarrassing the US government Assange should be charged with a serious crime. The Los Angeles Times reported that one of the two rape charges consisted of his having sex with a woman without a condom after she had asked him to use one. Nothing about force or threat, just failure to wear the condom. That is bad manners, not rape.
The second rape charge is from another woman who claims that Assange started having sex with her while she was asleep and could not consent. I do not know the details but that sounds like the woman was in bed with Assange without her clothes. Again, there is no claim of force or threat. If a woman takes off her clothes and gets in bad with a man, that may not be consent per se, but it is pretty close. The woman woke up to find Assange having sex with her but apparently did not then object or push him off. Which sounds like she woke up and then acquiesced. That is bad taste, not rape.
To call these charges trumped-up gives them more credit than they deserve. What appears to be going on here is the government, having been caught in a whole series of crimes and scandals, has set out to make the story be about Assange rather than about itself.
One can hope that the story will unravel as Watergate did. The jury will laugh the stupid charges out of court, the women will be interrogated and name who put them up to it. That person will face criminal charges of conspiracy and civil liability and will 'fess up to who put him up to it. And the trail will go right back to the pigs in charge. One can wonder if there will be a series of mysterious deaths as in the Kennedy-Oswald-Ruby-Kilgallen murders of 1963.
Wonderful News!
[Irish voters]
The long-time governing party in Ireland, Fianna Fail, was crushed in recent elections because of its demonstrable incompetence. The winning parties formed a coalition. They are Fine Gael, a center-right business party and Irish Labor, a socialist party. The two parties are on the opposite sides of every issue. So instead of one party that cannot govern, Ireland now has two. Way to go, geniuses!
Friday, March 25, 2011
Oh by the way....
[It seemed like a good idea at the time?]
from an article in yesterday's New York Times about dating a prehistoric campsite in Texas containing pre-Clovis artifacts (before this dig no one knew there had been pre-Clovis anything) --
Given the lack of sufficient organic material buried around the tools, the radiocarbon dating method was useless. Instead, earth scientists at the University of Illinois, Chicago, used a newer technique known as optically stimulated luminescence. This measures light energy trapped in minerals to reveal how long ago the soil was last exposed to sunlight.
Quite apart from the stunning revelation that there have been people in North America longer than anyone thought, is the 'oh-by-the-way' mention of the new technology used to date it.
Optically stimulated luminescence is hugely important for all the stuff it can be used for directly, and just as important for confirming and refining dates found by other means like radio-carbon dating, uranium dating, tree rings, oxygen isotope dating, ice cores and seabottom ooze dating, and the venerable suite-of-fossils dating, every one of which has serious limitations. Optically stimulated luminescence is potentially huge for the dating of practically anything and everything. Our understanding of the history of everything that has happened in the past many thousands of years is about take a huge leap forward. Wikipedia says it can be used to date things buried between 300 and 100,000 years ago.
With their usual acumen the Times didn't think to mention it except in passing.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Oops!
[Then-Senator Joe Biden speaking in 2007]
The Vice-President putting his foot in his mouth retroactively.
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A 1.5 Gigapixel Picture of the Inaugural
http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee899496648c2b4b06233c
Click on the link above. The whole point of this picture is how much you can zoom in.
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Dead Pool Score Update
Harvey 21 Jack 0
Elizabeth Taylor, an over rated actor but a great movie star. "Cleopatra" was a dud, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Butterfield 8" were cheesy, over-acted productions, but "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" was her shining moment, her best performance. Her films, except for "Virginia Woolf" and maybe "National Velvet" unfortunately, do not hold up with time.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Jews Seize St. Petersburg! Actual Footage!
[click outward pointing arrows for fullscreen. sound on]
This seeming trifle is actually important.
Before 1917 Jews were not even allowed to be in St. Petersburg because it was beyond the Pale of (Jewish) Settlement. My grandfather had to bribe a policeman to travel by train from Latvia, inside the Pale, to neighboring Estonia, outside it.
Under Stalin and his successors, Jews were not permitted to publicly practice Judaism anywhere in the Soviet Union.
Today, for the first time ever, Jews in Russia are free to be Jews, free to be themselves. It is an immense step forward for Russia, and in our own time. Those who think our times are shallow and bleak aren't seeing what is right in front of them.
The vast green building in the background toward the end of the video is the Czar's Winter Palace, where the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917. Nearby is the Nevsky Prospekt where Raskolnikov walked and raved in "Crime and Punishment".
Friday, March 18, 2011
The Tsunami
[Click on four outward pointing arrows for fullscreen]
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Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The Shape of Things to Come
[The Persian Gulf has 55% of the world's oil reserves and 40% of its gas.]
Today Saudi troops fired on protesters in Bahrain. Bahrain is an island sheikdom in the Persian Gulf a mile off the coast of eastern Saudi Arabia. The majority of the people in Bahrain and most of the protesters are Shi'ites. The wealthy class and the royal family of Bahrain are Sunni.
The main Sunni power in the Persian Gulf is Saudi Arabia. The main Shi'ite power in the Gulf is Iran. The fighting in Bahrain can easily be seen as a struggle between Shi'ites and Sunnis. So can the fighting in Iraq. One is reminded of the Cold War when various countries and parties fought over seemingly local issues but in each case the underlying reality was that they were proxies for one side or the other.
In theory the endless Angolan civil war was between people who believed in socialism and anti-colonialism and people who believed in property rights and civil society. Behind one side was Cuban military and financial support and behind the other Portuguese military and financial support. But behind Cuba and Portugal were the Soviet Union and the United States.
During the Cold War it was not always clear whether the United States itself was a proxy for world capitalism and the Soviet Union for world socialism. Or the other way around. Even now it is not clear since the Soviet Union and world socialism, after long declines, collapsed simultaneously.
Similarly it is not clear whether Saudi power in the Gulf and Iranian power are proxies for Sunnism and Shi'ism respectively, or vice-versa. But it is beginning to look like it is becoming a wider conflict no matter how one looks at it.
Just as we use the expression 'World War' followed or preceded by a number to describe the catastrophes in Europe, we might do the same in the Middle East. The First Gulf War was the monster, fought from 1980 to 1988 between Sunni Iraq, then ruled by the lovable Saddam Hussein, and revolutionary Iran which had just overthrown the Shah, and ruled by the equally lovable Ayatollah Khomeini. It is estimated that Iraq lost 300,000 killed. 'Killed' mind you, not the vaguer 'killed and wounded' which is a military fact of the loss of effective troops. 'Killed' is human lives. Figures are less certain for Iran but the Wikipedia estimate is that 500,000 to one million were killed on the Iranian side. 800,000 to 1,300,000 killed altogether.
For comparison, in all the fighting, all the terrorism, and all the wars fought between Israel and its enemies over the past 100 years, the total number of dead on all sides is estimated at 51,000. More died in individual battles in the First Gulf War than that. While not specifically fought over religion, Gulf War I was nevertheless fought between a Sunni-controlled country and a Shi'ite country. Since Iraq was and is a majority Shi'ite country the export of the Iranian revolution to Iraq would have meant the overthrow of Sunni minority rule.
In 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. In 1991 the United States and its allies drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait. The Second Gulf War was a mere skirmish compared to its predecessor. Of the 959,000 coalition troops who participated, 396 were killed, 1,200 Kuwaitis died, and 20,000 to 35,000 Iraqis did not make it home. If one considers the almost 100 to 1 ratio between coalition deaths and Iraqi deaths, one sees the wisdom of the Marine Corps' unofficial motto, "Do not eff with the United States".
The Third Gulf War began in 2003 with the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. After a brief initial phase of American and British forces defeating the Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein, it soon degenerated into a long grinding civil war between minority Sunni forces unwilling to see an end to their centuries-old domination of Iraqi-Mesopotamian society, and Shi'ite forces supported by the United States.
Now with the transformation of the Third Gulf War into a Sunni - Shi'ite civil war in Iraq, it seems to be spreading into a Sunni - Shi'ite religious war all around the Persian Gulf. The Third Gulf War, currently a civil war in Iraq, seems likely to morph into the Fourth Gulf War, a prolonged conflict between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.
What has just emerged in Bahrain, with Saudi troops firing into crowds of Bahraini protestors is a pattern of Sunnis shooting Shi'ites. This is just getting started and it can only get worse before it gets better.
And we, as Americans, are stuck with the morally and politically bankrupt but awash-in-oil Saudi regime as our ally.
Just for a sense of scale,
Egypt 80 million people
Iran 75 million
Iraq 31 million (about 20 million Shi'ite)
Saudi Arabia 27 million
Israel 7.5 million (about 5 million Jews)
Bahrain 0.8 million (about 0.5 million Shi'ite)
Just as an aside about how good an ally Saudi Arabia is to the United States. Muslims are not automatically anti-American and anti-Israel. The primary nexus between Islam and anti-American Islam, between Islam and terrorist fanaticism, between Islam and fanatic anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel, is the world-wide network of Wahhabi madrassas or religious schools. Which are entirely funded by Saudi Arabia.
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Monday, March 14, 2011
How This Works
[Half a loaf]
Palestinians murdered the Fogel family two days ago. They broke into the family home and stabbed the husband and wife to death. And then murdered their three children, one of whom was a baby.
How does one deal with people who do not hesitate to murder children? The easy and obvious response would be to kill as many of their fellow Palestinians as one can get one's hands on. But the Palestinians have shown over and over that they have no respect for anyone's life, not even their own.
There also is not much deterrent value. The Palestinians have also shown over and over that they are unable to grasp the notion of their acts having consequences, that anything that happens to them is their own doing. Palestinians seem unable to grasp the connection between Israeli reprisals and the Palestinian atrocity that preceded them.
Which is to say that Palestinians are hard to motivate and hard to deter. The one thing they have shown to be a powerful motivator is Israeli settlement in the West Bank. The Palestinians quite rightly see the Israeli settlements as eroding the amount of land that they can reasonably claim in any eventual peace settlement.
Which is why the Prime Minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, responded to the wanton murder of the Fogel family not by announcing air strikes or commando raids. After informing Washington, he announced the construction of new apartments in Ma'aleh Admumim, a suburb of Jerusalem. The town and the new apartments are in an area of the West Bank claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians.
Since the Palestinians do not fear Israeli military reprisals but do fear construction of new apartments in the West Bank, that is a great response to their terrorism. It is a punishment feared by people who do not fear death.
It is also a good example of why Israel is a successful society and Palestine is a failed one. Palestinians act out their national purposes by murder of children and self-defeating rage. Israel acts out its national purpose and its anger at the murder of Jewish children by building homes in our ancient homeland. Having won the wars, Israel is now winning the peace as well.
If this cycle continues, in the end Israel will have settled the West Bank and the Palestinians will be left with nothing.
Which makes it ironic that Israel is pressing the Palestinians to make peace and accept a two state solution and the Palestinians continue to refuse to negotiate. The Palestinians have been fighting and killing for the One State Solution so long, Palestine and no Israel, that they are in the process of getting it. But it will be Israel and no Palestine. And they will deserve what they get.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Lights in the Sky
[Click on outward-pointing arrows for full screen before starting video]
The two moving lights are the International Space Station and the space shuttle Discovery separating.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Pictures of Afghanistan
Click on photos to enlarge.
[Mai in Kabul]
[Retired wives]
[Mujahedeen]
[Woman in burqqah]
Friday, March 04, 2011
YMCA
[click on outward pointing arrows for full screen]
I have finally recovered from my winter funk enough to join the YMCA. This was after a week of promising myself then stalling or finding something else that just absolutely had to be done first, but in the end didn't get done anyway. That this turning over of a new leaf is an act of will is indubitable. That it amazingly happens to have occurred just as spring returns in earnest to the northern hemisphere is mere coincidence. Instead of staying in bed until 11 I am now up at the crack of 8. Which is to say that because there is now morning light in the mornings, I have left off semi-hibernating. There are now evenings that are not simply the onset of night in the afternoon.
I was uncertain about joining the YMCA since I qualify neither as 'Y' nor 'C'. But I have re-yclept it to 'Ye Mortal Curmudgeon Association' and I qualify handsomely. It seems like everyone I know or meet is having or has had horrible medical problems. I am starting to wonder when it will be my turn. My medical exams showed that I am in good health but too fat. The opportunities for sliding into horrible medical problems on account of the fat are manifold and manifest.
So I have started breakfasting on Faux Oeufs Turquoise a l'Oignon which sounds better in French but is still only barely edible. And have been to the aforesaid YMCA twice so far in two days and mean to go there again today.
I have been listening to Joseph Conrad's 'Lord Jim' on an iPod while I exercise (The YMCA seems to be a front for Apple.) and am reminded again of what an extraordinarily good writer he is, and all the more when one considers that English was not his native language.
The Berkeley YMCA is not a Wilde of homosexuals as the video would suggest but a Congregation of puritans. Berkeley's besetting vice is self-righteousness and nowhere does one feel more virtuous than when working out in a gym. The hard pious faces go a long way toward explaining the universality of escape into iPods. Appropriately they don't seem to care even for one another, being tolerant only of their own Puritanism, not that of others.
I have a bet with Pelfrey as to which of us loses more weight by June. I am intent on winning -- just this once.
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Thursday, March 03, 2011
Not Guilty!
This is from the pope who as a young man was a member of Hitler Youth. There are pictures of him in his Hitler Jugend uniform. For HIM to forgive US is impudence on a cosmic scale.
There is a saying, "Justice delayed is justice denied." How about when it is delayed 2000 years? So I think I can speak for Jews everywhere in wishing Benedict XVI a hearty "Fuck you!".
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Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Zenga! Zenga!
[click on outward pointing arrows for full screen]
What does it tell you about the UN that Libya was on the UN Human Rights Council while it was ruled by an iron-handed military dictator but has been expelled from the Council now that it is driving him out?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Three Minute Video from BBC
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Why Peace is Necessary
[click on the photo to enlarge]
From the Space Station:
The long shining snake at bottom is the valley of the Nile. The bright slash atop it is Cairo. The broad lit area above Cairo is the Nile Delta and Alexandria. The small smear of light to the right (east) is Tel Aviv. The even smaller smear of light to the right of Tel Aviv is Jerusalem.
The faint arc just above the horizon is the top of the atmosphere. That's all there is of it. And you are going to pollute it further by driving your car today.
Again,
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Monday, February 21, 2011
Mood of Revolt Spreads to Zimbabwe
[President Mugabe]
from today's New York Times:
HARARE, ZIMBABWE Dozens of students, trade unionists and political activists who gathered to watch Al Jazeera and BBC news reports on the uprisings that brought down autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt have been arrested on suspicion of plotting to oust President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
Related
Times Topic: Middle East Protests (2010-11)
James Sabau, a spokesman for the police, which is part of the security services controlled by Mr. Mugabe’s party, was quoted in Monday’s state-controlled newspaper as saying that the 46 people in custody were accused of participating in an illegal political meeting where they watched videos “as a way of motivating them to subvert a constitutionally elected government.”
The evidence seized by the police included a video projector, two DVD discs and a laptop.
Lawyers for the men and women in custody said they had not yet been formally charged but had been advised they may be accused of “attempting to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means,” a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
The fighting and killings in Libya and the arrests in Zimbabwe, compared to the relatively bloodless overthrows in Tunisia and Egypt, show that not all dictatorships are created equal, not all revolutions are created equal, and not all armies and police behave the same.
But the pressure on President-for-life dictators all over the world can be expected to be relentless in the coming years. The French Revolution did not mean the end of monarchy in Europe for more than a century in some places, but it put European kings and aristocracies on the defensive throughout the 19th Century. We may see the same in the 21st century.
But my guess is that it will not take as long as it did in Europe. The internet does not just enable people to organize against tyrants. Before that, it shows people by word, sound, and video examples of dictators being overthrown.
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Sunday, February 20, 2011
World Hunger
I just had a call from a charity asking me to donate some of my clothes to the starving people throughout the world.
I told them to kiss my ass. Anybody who fits into my clothes isn't starving.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Lyrics
[Harry Belafonte]
The music to 'Havah Nagila' is from a traditional Chassidic niggun (song without words). The words were composed by Abraham Idelson in 1918 to celebrate the British victory in freeing Palestine from the Turks.
| Hava nagila | הבה נגילה | Let's rejoice |
| Hava nagila | הבה נגילה | Let's rejoice |
| Hava nagila v'nismeḥa | הבה נגילה ונשמחה | Let's rejoice and be happy |
| (repeat stanza once) | ||
| Hava neranenah | הבה נרננה | Let's sing |
| Hava neranenah | הבה נרננה | Let's sing |
| Hava neranenah v'nismeḥa | הבה נרננה ונשמחה | Let's sing and be happy |
| (repeat stanza once) | ||
| Uru, uru aḥim! | !עורו, עורו אחים | Awake, awake, brothers! |
| Uru aḥim b'lev sameaḥ | עורו אחים בלב שמח | Awake brothers with a happy heart |
| (repeat line four times) | ||
| Uru aḥim, uru aḥim! | !עורו אחים, עורו אחים | Awake, brothers, awake, brothers |
| B'lev sameaḥ | בלב שמח | With a happy heart |
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Rose-Colored Glasses
This is a repost of a blog entry here on December 17, 2006. Note that Ahmed Sheik is not some ignorant streetcleaner. He is Editor-in-Chief of Al-Jazeera.
Pierre Heumann is a writer for the Swiss Weekly, Die Weltwoche. He interviewed the Editor-in-Chief of Al-Jazeera, Ahmed Sheik, a Palestinian. The following is the conclusion of the interview.Die Weltwoche: You sound bitter.Yes, I am.Die Weltwoche: At whom are you angry?It's not only the lack of democracy in the region that makes me worried. I don't understand why we don't develop as quickly and dynamically as the rest of the world. We have to face the challenge and say: enough is enough! When a President can stay in power for 25 years, like in Egypt, and he is not in a position to implement reforms, we have a problem. Either the man has to change or he has to be replaced. But the society is not dynamic enough to bring about such a change in a peaceful and constructive fashion.Die Weltwoche: Why not?In many Arab states, the middle class is disappearing. The rich get richer and the poor get still poorer. Look at the schools in Jordan, Egypt or Morocco: You have up to 70 youngsters crammed together in a single classroom. How can a teacher do his job in such circumstances? The public hospitals are also in a hopeless condition. These are just examples. They show how hopeless the situation is for us in the Middle East.Die Weltwoche: Who is responsible for the situation?The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important reasons why these crises and problems continue to simmer. The day when Israel was founded created the basis for our problems. The West should finally come to understand this. Everything would be much calmer if the Palestinians were given their rights.Die Weltwoche: Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?I think so.Die Weltwoche: Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.Die Weltwoche: In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?Exactly. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this.Pierre Heumann is the Middle East correspondent of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche. His interview with Ahmed Sheikh originally appeared in German in Die Weltwoche on Nov. 23, issue 47/06. The English translation is by John Rosenthal.
One could argue that what has happened in Tunisia and Egypt is that playing the Israel card has stopped working. Governments and institutions are no longer able to change the subject from questions of corruption, incompetence, and dictatorship. No longer able to play the Israel card, Arab governments have no excuse for themselves. And collapse within days for lack of one.
Which raises an interesting possibility. It may be Pollyanna optimism to even suggest this, but with honest representative governments, Arab states might no longer have a vested interest in demonizing Israel to maintain the appearance of an external enemy to justify their corrupt dictatorial rule. And without that interest in maintaining a groundless and pointless hostility, it might wither away. So much has been invested for so long in the mindless campaign of vilification that it is not imaginable that there can peace, let alone friendship, anytime soon. But there can be a loss of interest. Israel might eventually become to them what Lebanon is today -- a confusing oddity which is of interest only to specialists, tourists, and businesspeople.
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It Ain't Over 'til the Fat Lady Sings
[Monserrat Caballe in 'Lucia di Lammermoor']
It has become an object of public interest to hunt down Mubarak's ill-gotten gains. I wouldn't worry too much about Mubarak. He is less important than people imagine.
The fall of the old regime is only the very beginning of the revolution. From the fall of Louis XVI to the establishment of a stable government under Napoleon Bonaparte was eight years of rapidly changing governments, warfare, and domestic bloodshed. From the fall of Nicholas II to the expulsion of Trotsky and the entrenchment of Stalin was eleven years of rapidly changing governments, warfare, and domestic bloodshed. From the fall of Wilhelm II to the consolidation of the power of Adolf Hitler was fifteen years of rapidly changing governments and domestic bloodshed. From Bunker Hill to George Washington taking office was thirteen years of rapidly changing governments, warfare, and, baruch Hashem, only a small amount of domestic bloodshed..
What has happened in Egypt is not a revolution. It is the beginning of a revolution.
Egypt today has a population equal to Russia in 1917, four times that of France in 1789, and twenty times that of the American colonies in 1776.
Revolution against colonial rule in America led eventually to revolutions against colonial rule throughout the Americas. Republican revolution in France led to the overthrow of monarchies throughout Europe. Bolshevik revolution in Russia led to communist governments from Berlin to Hanoi.
What the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt will lead to remains to be seen. But whatever it is, it will be a big deal and will likely lead to big changes in hundreds of millions of lives. And in all likelihood, there will be rapidly changing governments, warfare, and domestic bloodshed before it is over.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Where the Jews live, Israel. Where the Arabs live, Palestine.
[UN Headquarters, New York]
I just read a long complicated article on Israel and Palestine in 'The New York Review of Books'. With the usual Arab and leftist denial of reality and history the author argues that Israel must be forced to accept a two-state solution.
That first Britain in 1936, and the UN in 1947, and Israel in 1967, and again in 1993, and in 2000, and in 2002, publicly offered the Palestinians a two state solution, and offers one now, is seemingly unknown to the author. And that the Palestinians each time peremptorily and usually violently rejected a two-state solution each time is similarly unknown to him.
The Palestinians and several Arab governments formalized their position at the Khartoum Conference in 1964 in the Three Noes of Khartoum - no peace, no recognition, no negotiation. That doctrine is called appropriately, Rejectionism.
That first Britain in 1936, and the UN in 1947, and Israel in 1967, and again in 1993, and in 2000, and in 2002, publicly offered the Palestinians a two state solution, and offers one now, is seemingly unknown to the author. And that the Palestinians each time peremptorily and usually violently rejected a two-state solution each time is similarly unknown to him.
The Palestinians and several Arab governments formalized their position at the Khartoum Conference in 1964 in the Three Noes of Khartoum - no peace, no recognition, no negotiation. That doctrine is called appropriately, Rejectionism.
Rejectionism became and remains the basis of the Palestinian Covenant, the founding document of the Palestinian Authority. It was signed, and probably designed, by Yasser Arafat. Arafat's chief deputy in 1964 was Abu Ala, nom de guerre of Mahmoud Abbas, the current president of the PA.
The 1947 offer of a two-state solution by the UN was simplicity itself - where the Jews live will be Israel, where the Arabs live will be Palestine. The Jews accepted half a loaf. The Arabs rejected their half a loaf and instead began a war of annihilation against the Jews. The Jews rudely, unfairly, and unreasonably declined to be annihilated.
The Palestinians, having rejected their half of the loaf, got nothing. What could have gone to them was generously seized by their brothers, the Jordanians and Egyptians. With great kindness and good faith, the Jordanians and Egyptians, rather than create a Palestinian state, imposed a military occupation on the Palestinians that lasted nineteen years.
After the Six Day War of 1967, with the Jordanians and Egyptians expelled from what could have become Palestinian territory, Israel offered the Palestinians half a loaf again. i.e. a two-state solution. And with their usual good faith and good judgment they refused again.
Now they are demanding, or at least some of them are, exactly what they were repeatedly offered and repeatedly and violently refused - a two-state solution. And in spite of their decades of bad faith and violence, they ought to get it. And with no penalty. They ought to get exactly what the UN offered them in 1947.
Every argument of fairness and reason suggests that if they are offered it again, it should be exactly the UN offer of 1947. Where the Jews live should be Israel and where the Arabs live should be Palestine. Which means that the Jewish settlements are Israel and will remain Israel, and the Arab settlements will become Palestine. That was the deal then, it should be the deal now.
When Milosevic demanded and attempted the ethnic cleansing of Muslim Bosnians from their homes in Bosnia, the UN arrested him, tried and convicted him, and he died in prison. Mahmoud Abbas has demanded the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from their homes in Judea and would attempt it if he could. He should be more generously treated than the UN treated Milosevic. He should be forced to be president of the Palestinian state he and his late boss Arafat fought so long and hard to prevent the existence of. That would be humiliation enough.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Damn! Not Again!
[click on four outward-pointing arrows for fullscreen]
This happens to me all the time....
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Winnie and Hosni
Winston Churchill once said, "Britain has no permanent friends, only permanent interests."
Keeping Mubarak in power would be protecting a friend. Keeping the Muslim Brotherhood out of power is protecting an interest.
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Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
The Best and Brightest
From today's NY Times --
At a two-hour meeting at the White House last Saturday, Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser; William M. Daley, the White House chief of staff, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta; and other officials coalesced around a strategy to start trying to ease Mr. Mubarak out, an official said.
So the greatest power in the world, faced with a crisis the outcome of which will likely determine the future of the Middle East for decades to come, brought together:
Thomas E. Donilon -- before becoming National Security Adviser, a registered lobbyist for Fannie Mae (which is a privately owned bank), and a corporate attorney
William M. Daley -- before becoming White House Chief of Staff, a businessman and brother of the boss of the Daley machine which runs Chicago
Hillary Rodham Clinton -- before becoming Secretary of State, wife of a President who seldom slept with her and a US Senator who specialized in women's and children's issues. Also the Secretary of State who lost us the crucial air force base in Uzbekistan from which sorties into Afghanistan were flown.
Leon Panetta -- before becoming Director of CIA, a congressman from San Jose and general political hack responsible for imposing political agendas on government agencies
Barack Hussein Obama -- before becoming President, a Daley machine stooge who was elected because he is a fine speaker and black.
Not one of them can find Egypt on a map. Isn't it wonderful that the affairs of the Republic are in such good hands?
More Egypt
[Open and frank discussions between pro- and anti-government demonstrators]
from today's NY Times --
The army’s role and its ultimate game plan have remained opaque, with soldiers seeming to fraternize with protesters, without moving against the elite to which its officers belong. While the military has said it will not use force against peaceful protesters, the signs on Wednesday suggested that any gap between it and Mr. Mubarak was narrowing.
The announcement by a military spokesman appeared to be a call for demonstrators, who have turned out in hundreds of thousands in recent days, to leave the streets. It came as high-powered diplomacy between Cairo and Washington unfolded at a blistering pace and reverberations from the protest continue to rumble through the Arab world.
Which reinforces the lesson of the experts on Charlie Rose. "Opaque" and "we don't know" seem pretty close together to me. What is artfully omitted from the reporting is with whom in Cairo the diplomacy is being conducted. One assumes it is with the high command in the Egyptian army. If the army can maintain control of its troops - far from a given - then it can shape the incoming government regardless of whether Mubarak is in it or not.
Washington has a strong leverage over Egyptian politics. We send $1.6 billion dollars to Egypt every year under the terms of the Camp David Accords of 1977. If Egypt abrogates the treaty the money stops. The treaty requires Egypt to maintain peace with Israel, maintain the demilitarization of the Sinai Peninsula, and permit the US to use the Suez Canal.
There are strings attached to the money. One is that it must be spent in the United States. Which means that the gift is not really of cash, but of goods and services produced by the United States. Fortunately the US economy, in spite of all the bad things one has heard about it, is a colossus which produces $14 trillion of goods and services every year. If you want to buy something useful to Egyptians -- say a million tons of wheat -- you can generally buy it here. Since the money gets spent in America, the $1.6 billion is as much a subsidy to American manufacturers and farmers as it is aid to Egypt. Requiring it to be spent here also makes it harder, but not impossible, for Egyptian officials to simply pocket it for themselves.
But it could be cut off if Washington decides the treaty has been abrogated. As it would surely be if the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. One assumes that secret provisions of the treaty require Egypt to cooperate in counter-terrorism efforts by the US and European powers. One assumes this because Egypt has helped enormously in those efforts.
I have heard it said that cutting off aid would be ineffective because it is too blunt a weapon to be useful. Which shows what flat-out morons journalists are. Or lying partisans. One never knows for sure which. In fact nothing is more flexible than money. One can cut off some or all. One can condition some or all of it on whatever Washington decides constitutes compliance with treaty obligations. One can make it spendable on some things but not on others. Washington has a billion options.
Washington's leverage is all the stronger because the feeble Egyptian economy would be in even worse shape than it already is if the aid were cut off or diminished. On the other side we have the problem of having the most inept Secretary of State in living memory in charge. One can hope that in spite of Secretary Clinton's valuable efforts, the Egyptian army will be cohesive enough to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of power rather than face the cutoff of aid.
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Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Egypt
[Akhnaten - the biggest revolutionary of all time]
One can't help but wonder if this is merely a coup from the streets or whether it is a real revolution. My sense is that it is on the verge of becoming one. One recalls that both the French and American Revolutions were initially about taxes. And only later did they lead to the transformation of European society and the founding of a new state in North America.
What makes this seem more like a revolution and less like a coup, is that it is spreading. The Tunisian government has been overthrown, and the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Yemeni governments are in peril. There was even a mention of unrest in Syria, perhaps the most iron-fisted police state in the world. The Palestinian Authority has announced elections while it still can.
I saw some experts on Charlie Rose last night and after some commonplaces and banalities they agreed that there is no knowing what will happen. My own prediction is that whatever happens, it will be something no one expected. When the Shah was overthrown by liberals and reformers, who would have predicted it would lead to an Islamic Republic? When Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General, who could have foreseen his deCapet-ation? Or the Terror? Or Napoleon? When the Duma first assembled, who could have foreseen Stalin and the Gulag and the Five Year Plans?
What is not mentioned in the news is how big a deal this is. Egypt today has more than 70 millions of people. That is more people than Britain or France. More people live in the city of Cairo than live in the country of Israel. Egypt is the center and fulcrum of the Middle East.
What is mentioned is that the Egyptian government is almost certainly undone, but the wrong or no reasons are given for believing that. The underlying premise of government is that it has a monopoly on the use of force. When the troops fraternize and refuse orders to coerce the opponents of the government, it ceases to govern. Governing is about giving orders that will be obeyed. When the Tunisian police and army refused to fire on the demonstrators, Ben Ali had a one-way ticket out of the country. The same was true of the French and Russian Revolutions. When the troops refuse orders and fraternize the government is overthrown that very day. That is precisely how Napoleon came to power. The French army had repeatedly fraternized with the crowds they were sent to disperse. And each time the government fell. After all the changes of revolutionary governments Napoleon was the first commander whose troops were loyal enough to him to fire on the Paris mob. Whereupon his path from brigadier to emperor opened before him.
The Egyptian army has already fraternized with crowds it was sent to control. The army is now giving the demonstrations a wide berth between them and the soldiers. That is not just to protect the demonstrators. It enables the officers to avoid giving orders that the soldiers might not obey.
That is one thing one can predict, Charlie Rose experts or none. When the troops fraternize with demonstrators, the president will shortly thereafter leave the country. A classic example of this is the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. The army was called out to restore order in Lisbon. Crowds marched out of the city to greet them. The demonstrators put carnations in the barrels of the soldiers' rifles. They marched into Lisbon as heroes of the Revolution in a sea of carnations. This was especially vexing to the Portuguese ruler because Estoril, the beautiful seaside town and once the favorite home of overthrown dictators, is in Portugal so he had nowhere to flee.
The obvious risk everywhere is of the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood / Hamas. Under the Tsarist government, all but token opposition was broken up and disbanded. Only the illegal underground parties, particularly the Bolsheviks, had strong political organizations. When the Tsar fell, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the only well-organized political force in the country. Unwittingly the Tsarist government had cleared the ground for them.
It seems possible that a similar situation may prevail in Egypt even as we speak. The Mubarak regime may have disbanded or neutered every political organization but the illegal and brutally suppressed Muslim Brotherhood. And it may well be the strongest political force in Egypt on account of it. Like the Tsarist regime, they may have unwittingly cleared the Egyptian political scene of everyone else.
The one large difference between Russia in 1917 and Egypt today is the army. In 1917 the Russian army had been defeated and ground to tatters by three long years of World War I. The Russian revolution can be seen as an afterthought to the mass desertion of the Russian Imperial Army. The Egyptian army today is intact. But as we have seen, it is clearly neither reliable nor trusted. Yet it is the main path to the future, both Egypt's and ours, that does not lead through a long period of Islamization, sharia law, and a fundamental turning away from modernity.
Ironically the public demand for freedom and accountability could lead to Egypt in effect being conquered from within by precisely those forces most inimical to freedom and accountability.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
There's More
[Rahm Emanuel responding to questions about his not being a resident of Chicago]
Even as the brother of the mayor of Chicago, William M. Daley, is coming to Washington to be President Obama's incoming White House Chief of Staff, the outgoing White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel is on his way to Chicago to run for the mayoralty. His coronation is considered a near-certainty, the law against non-residents being elected notwithstanding.
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