Gleanings from the blogosphere, Oct. 29

What is Al-Jazeera up to? The Arabic news channel comes in for some fierce criticism - in the Arab media.

Writing in Asharq Alawsat, Hussein Shobokshi wonders just what Al-Jazeera TV is about.

He notes that the TV channel is right out there condemning Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, but has remarkably little—try nothing—to say about Lebanese imprisoned in Syria. We hear a lot about the US 'occupation of Iraq', but nothing about Iranian occupation of islands in the Persian Gulf claimed by the UAE. To pretend that Al-Jazeera speaks for the Arab world is nonsense, Shobokshi says.

John Burgess has more at Crossroads Arabia.

Technorati tags: Al-Jazeera

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Oct. 14

Islamic scholars are taking up the Pope's challenge and engaging in interfaith dialogue, reports Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters. Their response to the Pope will be delivered Sunday, but it is already available online. It's a small start, but it's a start. As you can read in the Bible, "Do not despise the day of small beginnings."

Continuing the Islamic theme, John Burgess at Crossroads Arabia tells us the Saudi government has set up an English/Arabic website with the express purpose of combatting Muslim extremism.

A moderate Muslim journalist, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, is literally running for his life in Bangladesh. Reader_iam at Done With Mirrors brings us up-to-date on his situation, with more than a note of despair.

Technorati tags: Salah Choudhury

The beginnings of popular dissent in Iran?

Here's a story that has received very little attention in the Western media, but which might be a sign of growing trouble for the regime in Iran.

The earlier story from the Iranian media: Tehran Police Clash With Supporters Of Outspoken Cleric

Hat tip to Ianism! The Sequel for the original heads-up.

Jimmy Carter wants aid restored to Palestinians

Jimmy Carter has a good heart, but as far as I can tell, not a very good head.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Friday that a foreign policy aimed at punishing the Hamas-led Palestinian government through a seven-month aid freeze has failed, and called on the international community to seek other ways to resolve the conflict.

"The attempt to coerce Hamas leaders by starving the Palestinian people has failed, and it is time for the international community to alleviate their suffering and resort to diplomacy," Carter said in a statement.

The former president added that he is doubtful that Palestinian leaders will make any progress toward reconciliation with Israel "as long as the Palestinians are subjected to this kind of debasement and personal suffering."

What Carter doesn't seem to understand is that sometimes tough love is required. The best way to love the Palestinians is to stop enabling their delusions and their hatred and make them face reality.

They have now been living with the existence of a Jewish state for almost six decades and still refuse to accept that it will not go away. They need to realize that they would be better off with leadership that can face that reality and find a diplomatic way to deal with it, rather than wallowing in unending psychotic hatred. And the only method that has even the foggiest hope of succeeding is to stop financing it, until the pain of the reality forces the Palestinian "street" to reject the leadership in place and start looking for an entirely different approach. There have been some isolated Palestinian voices of reason, but they've been relatively timid, given the very real possibility of getting their heads blown off for dissenting. We do tend to forget that Palestinians kill far more Palestinians than Israelis. (Yes, you can read that last sentence two ways. They are both true.)

Carter says the attempt has failed. I say that it is just now starting to reach the point where it has a hope of succeeding. The delusions of the Palestinian people are very powerful and can only be broken by rather extreme methods. Carter is far too much like the doting father who bails his children out of jail yet again and gently tries to reason with them, while establishing no limits and shielding them from the consequences of their actions.

It's time to stop shielding the Palestinians and let them realize that nasty actions have truly nasty consequences.

Technorati tags: Jimmy Carter

Violent protests in Palestine may be sign of hope [Updated]

I know that sounds perverse, but I think that the only real hope for Palestinians is to reject both Hamas and Fatah and enter the real world. They need to accept that Israel is not going to go away, and that if their Arab brethren haven't risen up to liberate them since 1948, that might just mean they never will (60 years is a long time for a message to sink in). Coming out into the real world will entail a painful re-ordering of mentalities, but now that the enablers have cut off financial support, Palestinian fantasies might finally die.

That's why I think the riots in Palestine, which have both Hamas and Fatah worried, might actually be a good thing, as the Palestinian "street" starts to realize that their leaders have never brought them anything but grief.

One can hope, anyway.

[Update] It would appear I spoke too soon. Other news releases make it clear that the fighting is between the rival factions of Hamas and Fatah, not a rejection of the two of them together. No encounter of any kind with reality on the horizon.

Technorati tags: Fatah, Hamas

Egypt loses patience with Hamas

Maclean's is reporting that Egypt has sent a letter to Hamas - which has been acknowledged - demanding that they form a unity government with President Abbas and release the Franco-Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

The Egyptian demand came in a "strongly worded letter" from Egypt's powerful intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to the Syrian-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the letter.

The letter also demanded Hamas co-operate fully with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in forming a national unity government, a step that has been stalled by the militant group's refusal to form an administration that recognizes Israel.

The message reflected increasing impatience with Hamas by Egypt, which has been mediating for months, trying to reach a deal on a prisoner swap for the release of Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who is being held by Hamas-allied militants in Gaza.

An adult has arrived on the scene! I'm not sure that even Egypt can grap Hamas by the scruff of its neck and haul it into reality, but they've got as good a shot as anybody else on the planet. It would take some pretty intense pressure over an extended period of time to have any lasting result, it seems to me. Cognitive therapy always works better with a willing participant.

Up until now, I think the majority of the Arab world was perfectly content to let the Palestinians moulder. In the last 60 years, they have only paid lip service to solidarity with the Palestinians, who were never very popular with their Arab brothers anyway. A perpetually needy, "oppressed" Palestine enabled them to turn the eyes of their own discontents toward Israel, instead of looking toward reform at home. A festering Palestine was highly useful.

It is Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad who shook up this cozy arrangement. The Arab states are deeply worried about an aggressive Iran actively seeking to become a major player beyond its borders. Muslim solidarity would not be able to handle that kind of strain. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan in particular can only view with alarm Persian incursions through its unruly proxy Hezbollah.

Egypt finds itself in the position, not for the first time, where its interests coincide with Israel's. A strong Israel, undistracted by Palestinian troublemakers, could put Hezbollah in its place better than anyone else, particularly since UNIFIL is obviously not going to accomplish anything meaningful.

Members of the international force sent to Lebanon under the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 have said that they cannot set up checkpoints, search cars or trucks, homes or businesses, or detain suspects.

Commanders of the force, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or Unifil, say the resolution places Lebanese sovereignty paramount - meaning they first must be authorized by the Lebanese Army to take such actions."

So Egypt has obviously decided that new tactics are necessary. Hamas is "studying" the letter. I imagine they're in a state of shock. If this doesn't wake them up, only total collapse of the Palestinian Authority to the point that both Fatah and Hamas are rejected by the Palestinian people in favour of someone willing to deal with Israel could bring about any real change.

Technorati tags: Gilad Shalit

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Dysfunctional Palestinians

"Palestinians never miss an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot."

I heard that one decades ago, and it has never ceased to amaze me how doggedly they will prove it over and over again. Is there any more profoundly dysfunctional group of people on the planet?

Hamas and Fatah absolutely have to work together to pull the Palestinian Authority out of its morass, but Hamas absolutely refuses to do anything that implies a recognition of Israel, precisely what it needs to do to recover its funding. To complicate things, gunmen are threatening any political leaders that try to find a way out of their international isolation.

In Gaza City, meanwhile, two dozen Islamic militant gunmen threatened to attack any coalition that recognized Israel.

"We will fight against it by all means, and we will deal with it as an entity linked to the occupation," said one of the gunmen, who would only identify himself by his nom de guerre, Abu Abir.

The gunmen, who gathered outside a mosque, represent only a small splinter group. However, it marked the first time Palestinian militants said publicly they were prepared to attack government officials.

Nobody can accuse Hamas of being inconsistent. They have consistently lived in an alternate reality from day one. Consider their January offer of "hudna," as reported by Threatswatch.org:

Al-Zahar refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, claiming that Hamas would decide that issue once they met his demands as set forth. Those demands include “to release our detainees; to stop their aggression; to make geographic link between Gaza Strip and West Bank”.

The substance of the above demands aside, the true insight into the subject offered by Hamas came with the qualifier that followed the demands, as al-Zahar concluded, “at that time, with assurance from other sides, we are going to accept to establish our independent state at that time, and give us one or two, 10, 15 years time in order to see what is the real intention of Israel after that.”

In short, if Israel releases all of its prisoners (not happening, as many are held on direct charges of acts of terrorism), pulls out of the West Bank entirely (including all settlements), ceases all operations (presumably including future operations in reaction to attacks by any other Palestinian-based terror group not recognizing a Hamas hudna), and gives them an additional swath of land from Israel proper in the Negev Desert that links Gaza and the West Bank, then Hamas will think about reconsidering their recognition of Israel.

Now isn't that a compelling bargaining position?

Hudna, by the way, refers to a temporary truce to be entered into when Muslims are in a position of weakness. So, let's recapitulate: give us everything we want, we will give you nothing in return, and then maybe, just maybe, we might temporarily concede that you have a right to exist. But just for a little while.

I'm willing to believe that even a total collapse of the Palestinian Authority will not bring these guys to their senses. Is there any way of breaking through that level of delusion? Perhaps if things get bad enough, the Palestinian people as a whole will get fed up and massively reject both the corrupt Fatah and the delusional Hamas, but I'm not holding my breath. It does seem to be the only possible way back to the real world though.

Technorati tags: Hamas, Fatah

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 14

William Weston at the Gruntled Center cites a British study that showed a stark difference in the number of parental break-ups after the birth of a child, depending on the marital status.

Married couples divorcing: 6%
Cohabiting couples breaking up: 32%
"Closely involved" fathers disappearing: 74%

It would appear that marriage is more than a piece of paper... Hat tip to Booker Rising.


Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters is talking about how Nasrallah's stock has sunk considerably in Lebanon and the Arab world. I can only hope that he's absolutely right.


Aisha who has taken over for Ali at Eteraz shows herself to be more than up to the task. Today, she meditates on atheism as a religion, the Koran as a historical document or the Word of God and religions as social constructs. I can't say that I agree with everything she says, but she has good things to say and she says them well. And they are well worth meditating on.

Technorati tags: Nasrallah

Amnesty accuses Hezbollah

Amnesty International, after blasting Israel, is now accusing Hezbollah of war crimes because of its targetting of civilians with Katyusha rockets. Hezbollah, it will come as no surprise, does not agree and claims that they were just responding to Israeli attacks. Now, maybe my memory is fuzzy, but it seems to me that they had been lobbing Katyushas at Israel for quite some time before war broke out, so this argument seems disingenuous at best. Or, in plainer English, they're lying.

Amnesty is preparing another report studying whether Hezbollah contributed to civilian deaths in Lebanon by hiding among civilians, Nicole Choueiry, a spokesman for Amnesty in Britain, said.

High time. The use of human shields is utterly despicable, and I can't understand why there hasn't been a greater outcry over it. Well, actually, I can, but it makes me a little ill.

Technorati tags: Amnesty International, Hezbollah

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 13

Aisha at Eteraz has a great post on What the Infidel Did Today. I particularly like the sex strike called by the wives and girlfriends of Colombian gangsters. Now if we could just see a similar movement in the hip hop and rap world...

Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye finds the extremism evident in far too many blogs to be unrealistic.

People seem to be advocating mindlessly extreme positions as the minimally acceptable policy. Only a pure market health care system is acceptable. Only a totally socialized health care system is acceptable. Abolish the minimum wage. Double the minimum wage. Nuke all Arabs. There is no terrorist threat. Nothing is Bush’s fault. Everything is Bush’s fault. 9/11 changed everything. 9/11 changed nothing.

He observes that in real life, workable approaches are neither burning hot nor bitterly cold. Hard to get a crowd roaring with that kind of approach, but he's absolutely right.

Michael J. Totten publishes a lengthy interview he conducted with Major Tal Lev-Ram, Spokesman for the IDF Southern Command. It dates from June, but it's still interesting. What I found most striking was the Palestinians' use, not only of human shields, but young teenagers for planting charges, moving weapons.

"It’s a problem," he said. "Sometimes we see resistance. But it’s difficult to judge from our perspective. We see a lot of cases where Katyusha or Qassam rockets are fired from within populated areas. More than that, they came up with a system that was based on the fear that we would find the exact location of the rocket launchers. So they place the launchers with a timer. And ten, eleven, and twelve year old children come and take the launcher away afterwards. Often we’re faced with fourteen or fifteen year old youth who come, armed, and place charges along the fence. When we see them, even when we see that they are armed, if they are only fourteen or fifteen we only shoot to scare them. We don’t actually fire at them. Of course, only if there is no immediate danger to our forces."

...

"About a month and a half ago," he said, "another event that shows you the dilemma here: Two terrorists with an RPG tried to shoot a tank. We shot back. In the same house the mother of them, and a cousin, were in the same house. They fired five meters away from where the mother and cousin were standing. The Palestinian headline said that a mother and child were killed. The child was twenty two years old. And he was a member of Hamas. So, I am not happy about the mother. But, this is my right. You know? In the houses of Hamas militants, and all the other terrorist organizations, there are storages of weaponry. That’s because in the past we would avoid attacking houses with families. Which raises the question: Sometimes we as the IDF care more about the families and the children than he who would put them in danger. In a house, let’s say of three floors, a whole floor may be used as a storage."

Technorati tags: Gaza Strip

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 11

The Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength is talking about how one man seeks to love the world by giving away wheelchairs.

Pat at Stubborn Facts is singing the praises of the Electoral College and asserting that democracy does not mean majority rule all the time. Being contrarian and thought-provoking again, are you Pat?

John Burgess at Crossroads Arabia gives an impressive list of reasons why he's cautiously optimistic about the liberalization occuring in Saudi Arabia since 9/11.

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Sep. 10

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters analyzes the new agreement between Saudi Arabia and the US to quintuple the number of Saudi students attending American universities. He admits it looks pretty bad at first and second blush, but that it could have great benefits for both Saudi Arabia and the West if the risks are managed carefully. He is cautiously optimistic.

Iranian dissident freed [Updated]

The good news is that Ramin Jahanbegloo has been released on bail from an Iranian jail. The bad news is that it apparently required a bogus confession (yes, I'm making a value judgment here) and a prohibition against communicating with foreigners of any kind, especially the media.

Ramin Jahanbegloo is that most dangerous of Iranian dissidents: a Western-educated thinker who believes in dialogue and a secular state. His invitations to Western philosophers for lectures posed such an acute danger to the Iranian government that he obviously had to be jailed for "being involved is US efforts to overthrow the government". Of course.

His dual Canadian/Iranian citizenship probably did him more harm than good, especially in the wake of the Kazemi affair. Canada doesn't exactly have any big sticks to beat Iran with in this kind of case, but the Foreign Minister, Peter Mackay, did take the highly unusual step in June of asking Germany to arrest Iranian Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi, an Iranian official implicated in the murder of the photojournalist, should he set foot in Germany on the way home from Geneva.

Iran did not appreciate the gesture and Mortazavi took a direct flight home.

I applauded the action of the Canadian government at the time. It may not have been a grand gesture, but it did signal to the Iranian government that we would do whatever was in our reach to defend our citizens. Unfortunately there was little we could do in the Jahanbegloo case that wouldn't endanger him further.

***

I'm not the only one questioning the validity of Jahanbegloo's "confession".

Technorati tags: Jahanbegloo, Kazemi

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Aug. 29

Ed at Captain's Quarter's comments on a Jerusalem Post article about Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official who is urging Palestinians to stop blaming Israel for their internal problems and to take responsibility for their own chaos. He blames the armed factions who are crawling over the Gaza Strip for the mayhem. I will confess to a state of shock after reading this. It's not often you hear a voice of reason being raised in the Gaza Strip. I hope he survives.

August 22nd has come and gone

... in the Middle East and the world has not ended.

Technorati tags: August 22

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Aug. 21

Lebanese intellectuals are speaking out against Hezbollah. So far they are still alive. Hat tip to GayandRight.

Technorati tags: Lebanon, Hezbollah

Ahmadinejad and August 22

Now it appears it is the Iranians who are worried about August 22.

Ahmadinejad's promise to give a formal answer to the incentives package offered by the West if he suspends uranium enrichment projects by that date has had many people in the West deeply concerned. August 22 is the day that Sunni Muslims celebrate Mohammad's night flight to - presumably - Jerusalem, prompting speculation that Iran's president might be contemplating some hugely destructive act against Jerusalem at that date, or at least something that would throw the Middle East into even greater turmoil. Ahmadinejad has made it quite clear he believes the return of the Mahdi to be imminent and according to Shiite belief, this return will be preceded by a time of upheaval. Few people doubt Mahmoud's willingness to hasten things along by stirring the pot.

But now the Iranians are conducting massive military manoeuvres because they fear that terrorists are plotting an attack on Jerusalem in order to give Israel and the US a pretext to bomb Iran. Read this DEBKAfile Special Report for further details.

Sometimes I feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole.

Middle Easterners are said to be fond of deliciously complex conspiracy theories. So does this mean that the Iranians are going to pull off some stunt in Jerusalem and use it as a pretext to claim that they are the ones being framed, thereby giving THEM an excuse to attack overtly? Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

My fondest hope is that Mahmoud does precisely nothing and then has a good laugh on all of us. If he has a sense of humour.

Hat tip to Dreams into Lightning.

Technorati tags: Iran, Middle East

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Aug. 19

Captain Ed thinks that Hamas is trying to have its cake and eat it too. They kidnap Israeli soldiers as a part of their policy and then scream like crazy when Israel does it right back to them. Make up your minds - either kidnapping is legitimate or it isn't. And if it is, then the other guy had the right to do it too.

The same argument could perhaps be leveled at Israel, but there are a couple of differences. First of all, everybody knows where Israel is keeping its captives and what their state of health and care is. Second, Israel is targetting people who actually bear some personal responsibility.


Greg at Sippican Cottage looks at life through a wonderfully lyrical lens, and shares the view with us. Today's homage to childhood baseball games turns into an ode to the dignity of work. He has the gift of making remarkably readable prose feel like poetry, the kind you read because you want to, not because it's in the text book. Absolutely wonderful stuff.


Tim at Challies.com tells a sweet story of his son wanting to repay his Christmas gift and turns it into a parable of the grace of God.


Technorati tags: Hamas, Israel, Kidnapping, Baseball, Grace

Gleanings from the blogosphere, Aug. 18

Callimachus at Done With Mirrors looks back.

Back at the beginning, between 1945 and 1952, when the new world was new and unsettled, the Soviet Union was Israel's friend and the Americans were allied with the aspirations of the Arabs and opposed to the fading colonial power of Britain.

Hard to believe, eh? European leftists and socialist Israel on one side, Arabs and Americans on the other, Britain harrassed by both.

How times have changed...


Omayma Abdel-Latif at Al-Ahram examines the looming debate over disarming Hizbullah and how it might impact on the Lebanese political scene. This is written from an Arabic point of view (not surprising), and I choked rather badly at the term "Israel's war" but the reporting is mainly factual and worth a read.


Pat at Stubborn Facts is worrying about the coming war in the Middle East and making a pitch for citizen journalism.


Janet over at Janet's Garden (hmm, that lady looks vaguely familiar) is inordinately pleased to discover that the health benefits of a garden have been recognized. OK, I confess. This is shameless promotion of my gardening blog. I won't do it often, promise.

Technorati tags: Gardening, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East