A Peek into Others' mind

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(44 unread)

July 09, 2008
7:40
NYU Brennan Center "along with outside co-counsel, ...
» ‎ War and Piece

NYU Brennan Center "along with outside co-counsel, is representing a group of former United States ambassadors and diplomats filing brief as amicus curiae on the diplomatic impact of CIA extraordinary rendition practices in the case of Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan...

7:22
World Brief | Middle East: Saudi Arabia: Worker Abuse Cited
» ‎ NYT > Middle East

Thousands of domestic workers in Saudi Arabia endure beatings, starvation and other abuses, a Human Rights Watch report said.
6:08
Iran Raises Vanishing of 4 Citizens in Beirut as U.N. Issue
» ‎ NYT > Middle East

Blaming Israel and backed by Hezbollah, some experts see Iran’s interest in the issue as a way of matching Israel on missing persons.

5:19
State Iran Testimony. From undersecretary of state ...
» ‎ War and Piece

State Iran Testimony. From undersecretary of state for political affairs William J. Burns' prepared testimony on Iran to the Senate Foreigh Relations committee tomorrow:... The purpose of our policy is to change Irans problematic policies and behavior by making common...

4:43
Breaking: CAIR's Chairman Resigns
» ‎ Little Green Footballs

The words “deserting a sinking ship” come to mind, as the chairman of the Saudi-funded radical Islamic front group calling itself the Council on American Islamic Relations bails out, with a series of transparent excuses: Chairman of Council on American-Islamic Relations resigns.

Jacksonville resident Parvez Ahmed has resigned as chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, saying he’s frustrated about the national organization’s failure to be more proactive and positive in its promotion of Muslim civil rights.

The nation’s most well-known Muslim advocacy group, which he has led as board chairman since 2005, also needs to be more inclusive of younger, less-religious Muslims and encourage regular turnover of leadership ranks to ensure an infusion of new ideas, he told the Times-Union on Monday, a day after resigning.

These and other goals have been agreed to in principle by the organization’s board and professional leadership, Ahmed said, but “an old guard mentality” among some of those leaders has kept elements of the strategic plan from being realized.

“And I got a little bit burned out pushing so hard” for the organization to be more open and transparent, he said.

The Washington, D.C.-based council declined to answer specific questions about Ahmed’s comments. Instead, it e-mailed a four-sentence statement thanking Ahmed, 44, for his contributions and acknowledging differences in vision.

“Ultimately, the majority of organizational stakeholders supported a vision for implementing change and growth that differed from that of Dr. Ahmed,” the statement said.

Two board members did not return phone calls seeking comment Monday.

An outspoken critic of the group said Ahmed did not capitalize on a golden opportunity to transform the organization.

The council was the only Muslim agency in the United States experiencing growth when Ahmed assumed its leadership, said Muqtedar Khan, director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware. But its continued foray into political and foreign-policy matters - such as seeking rights for foreign combatants held at Guantanamo Bay - has detracted from its mission of promoting Muslim-American rights, he said.

“He had an opportunity to take it to the next level and I think he failed,” Khan said.

Ahmed said one of his unrealized goals was to transform the council into an organization that doesn’t sound anti-American when it’s criticizing government policies.

(Hat tip: Anti-CAIR.)

4:38
Mullen Gave Israel a Red Light, Says Cordesman
» ‎ LobeLog.com

Further to my post last week about Adm. Mullen’s press conference, Anthony Cordesman, the Middle East military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), has told an Israeli audience that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told his Israeli counterpart during his visit to Israel two weeks ago that the U.S. would not support an Israeli strike on Iran, according to an article that appeared in Tuesday’s Haaretz newspaper. (Scroll down to see the relevant part.) Moreover, according to Cordesman, Mullen was speaking on behalf of the president when he communicated that message. Cordesman, a heavyweight who once served as McCain’s national security advisor (back in the candidate’s realist days), is known as a very cautious, taciturn analyst whose words are chosen with great care, although, on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he described the notion that it would result in the democratic transformation of the region as something that “crosses the line between neo-conservative and neo-crazy.”

4:26
Pat Buchanan on Fox Again
» ‎ Little Green Footballs

I just turned on Fox News, and I shouldn’t have, because there’s Pat Buchanan again on Hannity and Colmes.

Click.
4:11
Science: The Ringed Giant
» ‎ Little Green Footballs

The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft has exceeded the wildest dreams of its creators at the Discovery Institute, sending back spectacular photographs like this one—a natural color image of Saturn taken from a distance of about 900,000 miles.

(Oops. Did I say “Discovery Institute?” I meant “NASA.”)

Cassini is now starting a new chapter in its amazingly trouble-free mission: Cassini-Huygens: News.

PASADENA, Calif.-NASA’s Cassini mission is closing one chapter of its journey at Saturn and embarking on a new one with a two-year mission that will address new questions and bring it closer to two of its most intriguing targets-Titan and Enceladus.

On June 30, Cassini completes its four-year prime mission and begins its extended mission, which was approved in April of this year.

Among other things, Cassini revealed the Earth-like world of Saturn’s moon Titan and showed the potential habitability of another moon, Enceladus. These two worlds are primary targets in the two-year extended mission, dubbed the Cassini Equinox Mission. This time period also will allow for monitoring seasonal effects on Titan and Saturn, exploring new places within Saturn’s magnetosphere, and observing the unique ring geometry of the Saturn equinox in August of 2009 when sunlight will pass directly through the plane of the rings.

“We’ve had a wonderful mission and a very eventful one in terms of the scientific discoveries we’ve made, and yet an uneventful one when it comes to the spacecraft behaving so well,” said Bob Mitchell, Cassini program manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “We are incredibly proud to have completed all of the objectives we set out to accomplish when we launched. We answered old questions and raised quite a few new ones and so our journey continues.”

4:09
AP: Cheney's Office sought redactions of CDC ...
» ‎ War and Piece

AP: Cheney's Office sought redactions of CDC Testimony on health effects of global warming:Seeking to play down the effects of global warming, Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed to delete from congressional testimony references about the consequences of climate change...

2:38
Relatives of July 7 Suicide Bomber Have a Party
» ‎ Little Green Footballs

They celebrated his life.

And his act of mass murder.

It was three years to the day since the July 7 bombers brought carnage to the heart of London. In Britain yesterday, families of the victims wept for their loved ones.

In a village in Pakistan, a banquet was held to honour one of the young men who committed the murderous crimes.

Relatives of Shehzad Tanweer, who is buried there, staged the feast to ‘celebrate his life’ and ‘remember him as a martyr’ on the third anniversary of the terror attacks which killed 52 people and injured many more.

Yesterday the families of the victims reacted with outrage to the secret ceremony held at the village where 70 guests gathered to offer prayers and blessings for the suicide bomber whose grave is considered to be a ‘shrine of a big saint’.

Bradford-born Tanweer, whose father emigrated from Pakistan and ran a chip shop in Leeds, detonated his bomb at Aldgate station on July 7, 2005, killing seven innocent people as well as himself. Together with Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, Hasib Hussain,18, and 19-year-old Jermaine Lindsay, the four bombers blew up three Underground trains and a bus.

As thousands mourned in Britain yesterday, in Pakistan there were prayers uttered for his soul and verses of the Koran were read out. At the commemorative dinner held by Tanweer’s uncle, 42-year-old property developer Tahir Pervez at his home in Samundari, guests were treated to two courses of sweet rice and salted rice with curry and beef prepared by a renowned local chef.

And to mark the occasion, rice was distributed among villagers. For the last two years, the family gathering has been held in secret at his grave, but this year police urged the family not to hold a memorial at the site.

His headstone - the largest in the cemetery of the village - bears the phrase ‘La ilaha il Mohammed dur rasool Allah’ which means ‘There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger’.

Local police officer Zafar Iqbal said: ‘At least 60 to 70 guests, who included villagers and close relatives, were invited. They recited the holy Koran inside Tahir’s home and prayed for his soul.’

Religion of peace!

2:33
I want to say thanks on behalf of Dave
» ‎ Israellycool

It’s been a little quiet here and I just wanted to let everybody who’s been commenting on the previous thread know that there is a reason.

I’m not the biggest expert on these things, perhaps the others who post here will chime in with more, but Dave is observing the Jewish tradition of Shiva. Aish has a tremendous site about it which you can find here: The Stages of Jewish Mourning. The only thing I will say is that using the Internet is probably not something an observant person is going to do at this time which would be the only reason Dave hasn’t responded. I’m sure when he does get back on line he will be deeply moved by the response here.

Thank you all and we’ll try to keep the blog moving in Dave’s absence.

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0:44
Assad's moment of truth
» ‎ Counterterrorism Blog

Syrian President Bashir al Assad is going to have to make a decision soon if he wants to cut its ties to Tehran and reintegrate the international community.
For an extensive coverage of the Levant, please see The Croissant (subscriptions available for $99/year).

I just wrote an article for the Middle East Times on this topic.
You can read the whole piece here.

Here is an excerpt:
The international community had shunned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad completely since 2005 when he was forced to "officially" remove his troops from occupied Lebanon. But he is not a pariah anymore. He has now become a hot ticket courted from Jerusalem to Ankara and Paris, to name a few. How did Assad realize this tour de force?

While many analysts viewed Assad as a weak pawn, facts are contradicting this assessment. Indeed, on the contrary Assad turns out to be an astute strategist playing his cards quite well.

First he weathered a nasty storm in 2005, clinging to power and fending off successfully all his adversaries including former French President Jacques Chirac, U.S. President George W. Bush and Saudi King Abdullah. Then, he started "secret" peace negotiations with Israel while at the same time closing ranks with Iran and profiting from Tehran's financial largesse.

But now the crucial time has come and Assad is going to have to decide in the next few months which camp he really belongs to: the West's side or Iran's.

The first major public event that really put things in motion was the assassination in February in Damascus of Hezbollah's terror master Imad Mughnieh. In an article for the Middle East Times, right after Mughnieh's murder, I made the case of Syria's involvement and the possibility that this was part of a deal with Israel.

July 08, 2008
23:35
At the Official Barack Obama Blog Site: 'Nazi Neo Con Republicans' Guy Returns Again
» ‎ Little Green Footballs

Here’s a lunatic we’ve featured before, who has been banned from the official Barack Obama blog site several times but simply re-registers and starts raving again: my.barackobama.com | The Spook who sat by the door. (Former CIA Agent).

His last four blog posts, all dated July 4th:

NAZI NEO CON REPUBLICAN RATS ARE NOT THE SAME AS HONEST REPUBLICANS, THEY ARE FILTHY NASTY PEOPLE WHO HATE!!!
By The Spook who sat by the door. (Former CIA Agent) - Jul 4th, 2008 at 6:29 am EDT

THOSE WHO SPEAK AGAINST THE OBAMA FAMILY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN NAZI NEO CON REPUBLICAN RATS. TAKE YOUR NAZI FILTY NEO CON REPUBLICAN TRAILER TRASH BACK TO YOUR OWN HATE WEBSITE.

The Spook who sat by the door.

Mail to a Friend | Link | Comments (0) | Report Objectionable Content

BYE!
By The Spook who sat by the door. (Former CIA Agent) - Jul 4th, 2008 at 5:45 am EDT

THOSE WHO SPEAK AGAINST THE OBAMA FAMILY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN NAZI NEO CON REPUBLICAN RATS WHO’S OWN BLOG IS SO FILLED WITH HATE THAT THEY HAVE TO BRING THEIR FILTH TO OUR BLOG! GO HOME YOU FILTHY NAZI NEO CON REPUBLICAN RATs AND TAKE YOUR TRAILER TRASH WITH YOU!!!

The Spook who sat by the door.

Mail to a Friend | Link | Comments (1) | Report Objectionable Content

OBAMA FAMILY REPUBLICANS READ LIKE THEY PERFORM... RETARDETLY, LOL!!!
By The Spook who sat by the door. (Former CIA Agent) - Jul 4th, 2008 at 5:42 am EDT

BUSH AND HIS CRONIES DO NOT GET IMMUNITY FROM CRIMINAL PROSECUTION ON PAST CRIMES IN FISA BILL!

The Spook who sat by the door.

Mail to a Friend | Link | Comments (1) | Report Objectionable Content

RETARDS!!!
By The Spook who sat by the door. (Former CIA Agent) - Jul 4th, 2008 at 5:17 am EDT

THOSE WHO SPEAK AGAINST THE OBAMA FAMILY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN NAZI NEO CON REPUBLICAN RATS WHO’S OWN BLOG IS SO FILLED WITH HATE THAT THEY HAVE TO BRING THEIR FILTH TO OUR BLOG! GO HOME YOU FILTHY NAZI NEO CON REPUBLICAN RAT AND TAKE YOUR TRAILER TRASH WITH YOU!!!

The Spook who sat by the door.
Mail to a Friend | Link | Comments (0) | Report Objectionable Content

This freak is able to simply come right back every time because there’s no verification process at all when you sign up for a blog account at my.barackobama.com. They don’t even verify that you’ve entered a valid email address; just give any info you want and start ranting.

This is a finely-nuanced view of web security.

22:54
Winning the War of Ideas
» ‎ Counterterrorism Blog

Engagement in the battle of ideas and strategic communication has long been the missing ingredient in the government-wide effort to combat terrorism. Now, with a restructured public diplomacy bureaucracy at the State Department and elsewhere in the interagency process, engaging foreign publics has formally and strategically become part of the toolkit to combat radical extremist ideologies. Today, in his first major public address in his new position in Washington, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman addressed The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Special Policy Forum on "Winning the War of Ideas." The prepared text of his remarks is available here.

22:44
Ha'aretz's Amos Harel: ... A senior U.S. ...
» ‎ War and Piece

Ha'aretz's Amos Harel: ... A senior U.S. strategic analyst says the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, sent Israel an unequivocal message stating that Israel does not have a "green light" from the U.S. to...

22:41
Iraq warns US on withdrawal date
» ‎ BBC News | Middle East | World Edition

Iraq will not accept any deal with the US which does not include a pullout date of foreign troops, a senior Iraqi official says.

22:23
Speaking of Humiliation
» ‎ LobeLog.com

After posting Mohammed Omer’s account of his treatment at the hands of Israel’s Shin Beth ten days ago, I was reminded of a passage I had just read in the New Yorker’s excellent profile by Connie Bruck of Freedom’s Watch’s co-founder and biggest financier, multi-billionaire and staunch Likudist, Sheldon Adelson:

“Adelson, whose countenance often suggests that he is spoiling for a fight, takes pride in being an outsider, who has suffered rejection and ridicule but has avenged every slight, many times over. Vindication is sweet, if never quite sufficient…”

“Adelson’s father, a Lithuanian immigrant, was a cabdriver in Boston, and his mother ran a knitting shop from home, in a tenement in Dorchester. Sheldon, his three siblings, and their parents all slept in one room. He and other Jewish boys in the neighborhood were beaten up by Irish youths.”

The last point immediately brought to mind the similar childhood experience of another staunch Likudist, Norman Podhoretz. As he recounted in his famous 1963 Commentary essay, “My Negro Problem — and Ours,” Podhoretz suffered a series of humiliating encounters with “Negro” youths both in schoolyards and other venues close to his predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn throughout his childhood. According to a review of Podhoretz’s latest book, ‘World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism,’ by Ian Buruma, those encounters, which included beatings, contributed decisively to Podhoretz’s later politics, which Buruma describes as ”the longing for power, for toughness….”

Podhoretz’s original essay, admirable in its honesty, explores the origins of his “fear and hatred” of “Negroes” and finds them in his earliest memories when he could not understand why it was they who “were supposed to be persecuted when it was the Negroes who were doing the only persecuting I knew about — and doing it, moreover, to me. …The Negroes,” he went on, “were tougher than we were, more ruthless, and on the whole better athletes.” It was thus in a confrontation with a Negro gang that Podhoretz underwent his “first nauseating experience of cowardice” that, with it, came the “appalled realization that there are people in the world who do not seem to be afraid of anything, who act as if they have nothing to lose.” To him, Negro life “seemed the very embodiment of the values of the street — free, independent, reckless, brave, masculine, erotic …But, most of all, (Negroes) were tough; beautifully, enviably tough, not giving a damn for anyone or anything” in a world where “sissies” was “the most dreaded epithet of an American boyhood.” (Italics in the original.)

I have been thinking about the relationship between humiliation and the neo-conservative worldview — particularly the rage at much of the world that seems to underlie its more hard-line personifications, such as those of Podhoretz or Adelson or Caroline Glick or, for that matter, Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle — since I first read “My Negro Problem” a long, long time ago. Of course, the latter three were presumably never physically beaten as were Podhoretz or Adelson, but their rage, their obsession with “toughness,” their contempt for softness (diplomacy) and devotion to “hard power” all suggest that they may have suffered their own humiliations.

For example, in Perle’s roman a clef, aptly titled ‘Hard Line,’ you find this description of the childhood of the protagonist, Michael Waterman:

“He had not always been so zealous or so tough. The only jewel in the crown of a Los Angeles kosher butcher named Sam and his wife, Esther, Michael Waterman was born in 1943 and grew up in a two-bedroom, one-bath stucco bungalow on Hayworth Street in the Fairfax section of Los Angeles, equidistant from his father’s shop and the storefront temple where Same went to pray. A slight, precocious child, Michael suffered heavily at the hands of his schoolmates. When most boys his age spent their free time playing baseball, football, or tennis, Michael’s parents insisted, with the best of intentions, on giving him cello lessons four days a week. So during the fifth through eight grades — crucial years for youngsters — Michael Waterman didn’t carry a fielder’s mitt or shoulder pads to school, but a heavy black leather instrument case. Instead of weekends at the beach, he spent his time indoors practicing scales. He was small and perpetually pale and thin and wore orthodontic braces. He was …different. And so his classmates picked on him in the instinctive, impersonal cruel way of preadolescents, and Waterman withdrew like a turtle inside an emotional shell.”

In reality, Perle’s parents were both better off and less pious than depicted in this passage, according to his biographer, Alan Weisman, but I don’t doubt that much of the rest of Perle’s description of “Waterman’s” childhood is a more or less accurate reflection of his own sense of being an outsider, a kind of “sissy” forced to endure cruel and humiliating taunts, even as he later got his revenge by excelling at debate and subsequently at political intrigue in Scoop Jackson’s office and beyond. One has only to look at the remarkably curious and vaguely pathetic sequence in “The Case for War,” his production in last year’s “America at the Crossroads Series” on PBS, when he revisits his high school in Hollywood and draws particular attention to and gazes longingly at the names of its movie-star graduates painted garishly above the lockers in the hallway, as if their glamour and celebrity proved something special about himself. Those few seconds conveyed a much more insecure personality than his Beltway identity as the very embodiment of toughness and a “Hard Line.”

Jacob Heilbrunn’s suggestion of a social, as well as a personal, connection between humiliation and what he correctly calls the neo-conservative “mindset” (as opposed to “ideology”) was, along with his description of the movement’s Trotskyite origins, the most compelling part of his book, ‘They Knew they were Right: The Rise of the Neocons’. “The social exclusion experienced by Jews at the hands of the WASP elite” that persisted in the US well into the 1960s stirred a “deep resentment” among many of the movement’s most influential leaders, notably Irving Kristol and Podhoretz, according to Heilbrunn. Indeed, he notes, Podhoretz has described the neo-conservative movement as the war against the “WASP patriciate.”

Neoconservatives “know that they will never be accepted by the establishment,” Heilbrunn goes on in a later passage about Perle. “Indeed, they outwardly revel in the knowledge that they are outsiders. But beneath the veneer of confidence is a seething rage at the government bureaucracy and social elites.”

That rage is on extravagant display throughout the extremely angry book that Perle wrote with David Frum in 2004, “An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror” (as well as on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal), in which the authors pour unremitting scorn on the CIA and the State Department (and Europe) for their failure to understand, let alone seriously address, the apocalyptic threat that faces them in the form of what Podhoretz calls “Islamofascism.” And, ironically, in describing the origin of that threat, they cite the centuries of humiliation experienced by the Muslim world at the hands of the West and, more recently, Israel. The 9/11 attack, in their view, was about “restoring injured pride through the destruction of the symbols of an opposing civilization.”

“The Islamic world has lagged further and further behind the Christian West; since 1948, it has repeatedly been humiliated even by the once disdained Jews,” they write. “These defeats and disasters have been more than a wound to Muslims: They directly challenge the truth of Islam itself.” And that in turn has fueled a “murderous rage” throughout the Middle East. “Religious extremists and secular militants; Sunnis and Shiites; communists and fascists – in the Middle East, these categories blend into one another. All gush from the same enormous reservoir of combustible rage.”

Rage deriving from humiliation is a compelling concept, whether the humiliation originates in physical abuse, personal taunts, social exclusion, or membership in a group, nation, or civilization that has been colonized, occupied, or otherwise subdued or dominated by foreign powers. But the last kind of humiliation is certainly not unique to the Islamic or Arab worlds. Indeed, hard-line neo-conservatives — when pressed to elaborate on “why they hate us” — often draw parallels between the causes of “Islamofascism” and the rise of Nazism in a Germany humiliated and enraged by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. In recent years, they’ve also warned against the threat of a revanchist Russia eager to restore the Soviet empire and its superpower status; the emergence of an aggressive and ultra-nationalist China, determined to avenge the humiliations it has suffered since the 1840 Opium War and reclaim its status as the world’s “Middle Kingdom;” and even the plotting of the perfidious French who, by manipulating the EU to oppose the U.S., can redress, according to neo-con historiography, the undying shame they presumably must feel about both their Nazi collaboration and their subsequent rescue by Anglo-Americans! The message from these examples is clear: those whom one should most fear are those who feel, whether rightly or wrongly, that they have been humiliated and are unwilling to forgive, if not forget.

What is remarkable — and what really struck me when reading “An End to Evil” — is that Jewish neo-conservatives never seem to acknowledge that they, too, may be susceptible to a similar sense of collective historical humiliation — and the rage that it can create — arising from the centuries of abuse experienced by Jews that culminated in the Nazi Holocaust. Indeed, the book’s tone was so angry that it occurred to me that the authors might be projecting some their own “combustible rage” onto Arabs and Muslims, in particular. (Ironically, Podhoretz proves helpful here: in his 1963 essay, he notes that, “The psychologists …tells us that the white man hates the Negro because he tends to project those wild impulses that he fears in himself onto an alien group which he then punishes with contempt.”) That’s not to say that Perle and Frum and other hard-line neo-cons are incorrect about the existence of feelings of humiliation and anger among Muslims in the Greater Middle East; I just wonder to what extent their own rage, of which they seem much less conscious, exaggerates those feelings and their pervasiveness in the region.

Of course, the Holocaust and its impact on the worldview of contemporary American Jews, the great majority of whom are much more open to accommodation with the Muslim world and Palestinians than hard-line neo-cons, is an overwhelming subject. (For those who are interested, I addressed some aspects of the subject in an article I wrote three years ago, called “From Holocaust to Hyperpower, although I also stongly recommend “The Holocaust in American Life” by Peter Nozick). But, for purposes of this post, the image of Jews going to their deaths “like lambs to the slaughter” — an image that first became dominant during the formative years for the generation that includes Perle, Ledeen, Charles Krauthammer, among others in the early 1960s when the Eichmann trial and “Judgment at Nuremberg”, among other events, brought the Holocaust much more forcefully into the public domain than it had been before — was deeply, deeply disturbing, even at a time when victimhood had gained a certain moral stature thanks to the civil rights movement, and identity politics was on the rise. While Israel’s stunning military victory in 1967 offered a remarkable and highly welcome antidote to the image of Jews as helpless victims, the war — along with other events of the time, including the rise of the Black Power and anti-war movements — also reinforced among a not insignificant number of Jews a sense of vulnerability and insecurity, as well as the notion that Jews had to be tough to survive. Indeed, it was shortly after the war that Podhoretz steered ‘Commentary,’ the flagship publication of the American Jewish Committee, sharply to the right on foreign-policy issues, in particular, and that Rabbi Meir Kahane, who popularized the slogan “Never Again” with its multiple connotations of humiliation, shame, militancy, and rage coming out of the Holocaust, founded the Jewish Defense League. (This was before “Never Again” was appropriated by anti-genocide movements that wanted to make the idea universal, rather than specific to Jews, as Kahane had intended.) Kahane, a man filled with rage, emigrated to Israel in 1971 where he formed the Kach Party, which was put on Israel’s and the State Department’s terrorism lists after one of its U.S.-born militants, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Palestinian worshipers and injured more than a 100 more at the Mosque of Abraham/Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994. (Kahane himself was assassinated in New York in 1990.)

While more recent historical research has suggested that the “lambs-to-the-slaughter” paradigm was over-simplified, and Holocaust-related museums and school curricula have tried over time to present a more-nuanced image, the Jew-as-victim has remained dominant through most of the last 40 years or so, and the fact that the Holocaust itself has become so thoroughly integrated into American culture and education, primarily through the efforts of the “Israel Lobby,” has probably not helped in that respect. And while the image no doubt helps ensure continued U.S. support and sympathy for Israel, it has also perpetuated a sense of humiliation for at least some Jews. Consider, for example, this passage in Rich Cohen’s 1998 book, “Tough Jews”, a paean to Jewish-American gangsters, like Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, who Cohen sees as the perfect counterpoint to the Jew-as-victim paradigm. Cohen, who was born in 1968, writes of both his embarrassment and anger with the Holocaust unit taught in school.

“You see, for people like me, who were born long after Germany was defeated, the worst part of the Holocaust was never the dead bodies; it was the way Jewish victims were portrayed. In history class at my junior high school in Illinois, we were forced to sit through films, spooled by some A/V geek, that showed images of the Holocaust: all those Jews waiting to be shot, looking ahead with already dead eyes, trees in the background, hands covering genitals. In none of those pictures was there even a faint suggestion of personality, an individual. There was only a silent, wide-eyed mass, the shame of being marched naked, being seen by women, by men …For forty minutes I would sit there, surrounded by non-Jewish classmates, my eyes burning my neck starting to itch. At recess I would walk up to Clay Mellon, biggest kid in our school, the bully who ran everything, and say, ‘You stupid asshole.’”

Cohen doesn’t tell us what happened next, but the message is pretty clear: humiliation leads to aggression, however ill-considered or indirect it may be. Moreover, the humiliation doesn’t even have to be up close and personal, as with physical attacks or verbal taunts; in this case, it was conveyed by a film strip created 40 years before and half a world away. Is it no wonder that Arabs and Muslims get angry when they see video of violence perpetrated against Palestinians by Israeli soldiers or settlers broadcast on their television screens in real time or read Mohammed Omer’s account of how he was treated by Shin Beth?

So, might humiliation — whether in the form of physical beatings by the “Other”, as experienced by Adelson and Podhoretz and their generation; or taunting and social exclusion, as experienced by Perle and his generation; or learning about (through watching old film strips and photos and other means) the mass murder of a collective group of which you are a member, even if two generations removed, or some combination of two of the three, or all three — produce a rage that would translate into extremely and even irrationally aggressive policy recommendations against a perceived threat? At the least, it would make such a result more likely. Yet, while hard-line neo-cons recognize that dynamic in other groups, particularly those they see as enemies, they never seem to see how it might apply to their own experience and outlook.

At the same time, rage and aggression is clearly not an inevitable outcome of humiliation, however it is incurred. Most Jewish Americans have been exposed to one, two, or even all three of these kinds of humiliations but, unlike the hard-line neo-cons like Adelson, Podhoretz, Perle, and Frum, they still oppose attacking Iran and favor withdrawal from Iraq; they still support territorial compromise a two-state solution with the Palestinians for whose plight they even express some sympathy; and they are not obsessed with “Islamofascism,” nor, in Buruma’s words, do they “[long] for power and being tough.” So, while humiliation may well be a necessary condition for the kind of extremism that hard-line neo-cons espouse, it may not be sufficient by itself.

It may be that the timing of the humiliation(s) experienced by the individual in relation to his or her own emotional and social development, as well as the degree to which the individual is traumatized by the experience(s), are key factors that trigger the anger and aggression that, in my view, underlie the neo-conservative worldview. In that respect, I found a reaction to Buruma’s essay by a reader of Josh Marshall’s blog, talkingpointsmemo.com, last September, particularly compelling. Although closer in age to Perle, the reader, “PK” was subject to beatings — in his case, by Italian and Irish kids — of the kind experienced by Podhoretz and Adelson in their youth. Here’s what he writes about Buruma’s analysis of Podhoretz, although I suspect he would apply it to Adelson, if not the others, as well:

“The simple explanation is that Podhoretz is suffering the rage of the impotent. When I was a young Jewish kid in the fifties, I lived in an area that was 90% Irish and Italian Catholic. I still like to joke that growing up I thought my middle name was “kike”.

It was not unusual for my small crowd to be constantly bullied and intimidated by these other kids. Most of us were bookish and only a few of us were big enough or tough enough to fight back when it inevitably came to blows. Over the years, most of figured out a way to make peace and by the time we were in high school, some sort of truce had evolved.

Yet with all of that, when I feel I am being pushed around, my mental state conjures up what can only be called violent fantasies of revenge……..inflict the beating on my persecutor that I couldn’t inflict as a kid but that was the source of humiliation to me.

I am sure that Podhoretz must have had the same type of internal reaction. The difference is that he must have a personality defect and has been unable to evolve past the primitive emotional level of his childhood. Add a towering intellect and powerful personality and you get the kind of miscreant that throughout history has lead [sic] people into monumental carnage as a means to overcome their own insecurity and feelings of helplessness.

I know this may sound like pop psychology from a layman but in a lot of respects I can relate to the experiences Podhoretz had as a kid and the feelings it engendered. The difference is that I have learned that hatred and revenge are poisonous to the soul. Podhoretz makes the mistake of believing that if he can only find a way to conquer his “enemies”, it will somehow mitigate his own sense of inadequacy. Where he has gone, there is no coming back, nothing would ever be enough, there will always have to be a new enemy, always another affront to his manhood, always another way to prove he is not that weak little impotent Jewish kid afraid of being beaten up.”

As Franz Fanon wrote in “The Wretched of the Earth,” “Violence is a cleansing force [that] …frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inactivity: It makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.” Remarkably, that quote appears in Perle’s “An End to Evil” as part of the passage devoted to explaining the origins of Muslim and Arab extremism. Compare it with Charles Krauthammer exulting in the smashing victory achieved by the U.S. in Afghanistan –

“What talks in the region? Power. …The elementary truth that seems to elude the experts again and again — Gulf War, Afghan war, next war — is that power is its own reward. Victory changes everything, psychology above all. The psychology in the region is now one of fear and deep respect for American power”

– and you can hear what Fanon was writing about.

22:18
A Jaw-Dropping Case of Media Bias
» ‎ IRIS Blog

Read this and weep for our upside-down world (and note that the BBC's initial headline was Israel Bulldozer Driver Shot Dead):

Last Wednesday's terror attack in Jerusalem was unique. Due to the fact that Husam Taysir Dwayat bulldozed his victims outside of Jerusalem Capitol Studios where many of the foreign television networks have their offices, his was one of only two attacks to have been caught live on camera.

The only other attack which was filmed was the lynching of IDF reservists Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Novesche at a Palestinian police station in Ramallah on October 12, 2000. That attack, which showed the mob basking in the blood of the two men, was filmed by an Italian camerawoman from the privately owned Mediaset television station. The attack last Wednesday was filmed by the BBC whose correspondent Tim Franks witnessed the carnage from the outset through his office window.

Their film documentation is not the only things those two attacks share. The lynch in Ramallah and the attack last Wednesday are also the only attacks that elicited abject apologies by otherwise arrogant media giants. In the aftermath of the lynch, Riccardo Cristiano, Italy's state-owned RAI network's correspondent in Israel, wrote a groveling apology to the Palestinian Authority in which he went to painstaking lengths to explain that it was not his network, but his competitor that published the footage.

In the letter which the PA published in its Al Hayat al Jadida daily, Cristiano fawned, "We always respect the journalistic procedures with the Palestinian Authority for [journalistic] work in Palestine and we are credible in our precise work. We thank you for your trust, and you can be sure that this is not our way of acting. We will not do such a thing."

ON FRIDAY, the BBC published an apology for broadcasting the footage of Wednesday's carnage. The film showed an unarmed, furloughed IDF commando climb onto Dwayat's bulldozer just after Dwayat murdered Batsheva Ungerman by crushing her car. It showed the soldier grabbing a gun belonging to a security guard who was unsuccessfully trying to restrain Dwayat and shooting Dwayat three times in the head. The film did not show Dwayat or any of his victims dying. What it showed was the terror of the wounded, Dwayat's murderousness and the soldier's heroism.

Yet, the network declared, "It's not normally the BBC's policy to show the moment of death on screen. These are always extremely difficult decisions to make. However, on reflection, we felt that the pictures featured on Wednesday's News at Ten did not strike the right editorial balance between the demands of accuracy and the potential impact on the program's audience."

At first glance, it is not at all clear what the BBC was talking about. Its film was a journalistic achievement. Through it, tens of millions of people worldwide were able to see for themselves what a terror attack against innocents looks like from a fairly sterile angle. What did the BBC have to apologize for?

In this case, as in the case of the lynching eight years ago, the reason the BBC apologized is not because the film's images were too gruesome, but because it strayed from the accepted narratives of the Palestinian war against Israel. To maintain the narratives, "the right editorial balance between the demands of accuracy and the potential impact on the program's audience," is one that engenders the belief that Israel is either morally indistinguishable from the Palestinians, or that Israel is morally inferior to the Palestinians.

Read the whole thing and then see this editorial for more...
21:56
Prediction Confirmed: Peres Retracts 'No Chance for Peace'
» ‎ IRIS Blog

Four days ago, other bloggers called Shimon Peres' comment that there was no chance for peace with the Palestinians a "flying pig moment." My prediction was:

Don't put too much stock in this 'flying pigs' moment. Shimon Peres will revert back to form after a good night's rest

Here's the inevitable retraction:

Peres denies said no chance of peace with Palestinians

President Mahmoud Abbas received on Sunday a telephone call from Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Israeli President denied what some of the media reported on his tongue, especially with regard to President Abbas.

Peres also expressed his regret in this regard, confirmed that he was committed to the peace process and he has not changed his position on this matter.
21:45
Saddam's Nukes
» ‎ IRIS Blog

Investor's Business Daily is the first mainstream publication to ask why others have embargoed the huge story IRIS published days ago:

It's a little known fact that, after invading Iraq in 2003, the U.S. found massive amounts of uranium yellowcake, the stuff that can be refined into nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel, at a facility in Tuwaitha outside of Baghdad.

In recent weeks, the U.S. secretly has helped the Iraqi government ship it all to Canada, where it was bought by a Canadian company for further processing into nuclear fuel thus keeping it from potential use by terrorists or unsavory regimes in the region.

This has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Yet, as the AP reported, this marks a "significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy."

Seems to us this should be big news.

After all, much of the early opposition to the war in Iraq involved claims that President Bush "lied" about weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam posed little if any nuclear threat to the U.S.

This more or less proves Saddam in 2003 had a program on hold for building WMD and that he planned to boot it up again soon.

This is clear, since Saddam acquired most of his uranium before 1991, but still had it in 2003, when invading U.S. troops found the stuff. (The International Atomic Energy Agency seems to have known about the yellowcake in the 1990s, but did nothing to force Saddam to get rid of it. It's duplicating its error today with Iran and North Korea).

That means Saddam held onto it for more than a decade. Why? He hoped to wait out U.N. sanctions on Iraq and start his WMD program anew. This would seem to vindicate Bush's decision to invade.

The American Thinker Web site reported four years ago on the scary math behind Saddam's uranium hoard: 500 tons of yellowcake, once refined, could make 142 nuclear weapons.

But yellowcake wasn't all they found at Tuwaitha. According to the AP, the military also discovered "four devices for controlled radiation exposure . . . that could potentially be used in a weapon."

By the way, this should put to rest the canard peddled by the American left and by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson that "Bush lied" about Iraq seeking yellowcake from the African country of Niger.

Given what we know, including comments by officials in Niger's government, Iraq did make overtures to buy uranium. And it's quite possible all or part of the 550 tons came from there.

What's more, if Bush hadn't acted, we might today see a nuclear Iraq, an Iran on the way to having a weapon, Libya with an expanded nuclear program, and Syria with its close ties to Saddam on the way to having a nuke.

Of equal concern is why the media ignored this good news coming from Iraq. It seems to be of a piece with how they've treated other recent positive developments in Iraq (see editorial below).

We ask again why aren't you seeing and hearing more about this? The reason is simple: The mainstream media find it inconveniently contradicts the story they have been telling you for years.

21:31
New US nuclear sanctions on Iran
» ‎ BBC News | Middle East | World Edition

The US puts new financial sanctions on Iranian firms and individuals said to be involved in its nuclear programme.

20:58
The Obama Youth
» ‎ Little Green Footballs

Here’s an utterly ludicrous statement from Barack Obama that’s flown under the radar so far; he is planning a “civilian national security force” that is as powerful and well-funded as the US military.

Obama promised to increase AmeriCorps slots from 75,000 to 250,000 and pledged to double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011. ...

Obama had first outlined many of the proposals he talked about Wednesday during appearances in Iowa last December.

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” he said Wednesday. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”

Notice that he also says he plans to increase the size of the active military.

Is he even aware that the Department of Defense’s current base budget is close to $500 billion? Obama is going to create a civilian force with this level of funding and equipment? To do what?

(Hat tip: Exurban League.)

20:28
Car wash
» ‎ BBC News | Middle East | World Edition

Somali refugee life in Yemen after risky crossing

19:52
Rank Antisemitism At the Official Barack Obama Blog Site
» ‎ Little Green Footballs

One of the most blatantly antisemitic diaries ever posted at Daily Kos, full of blood libels, conspiracy theories, and nauseating hatred, remains posted on the site two months later: Daily Kos: Eulogy before the Inevitability of Self-Destruction: The Decline and Death of Israel.

Imagine my surprise to discover that this neo-Nazi creep also maintains a blog at the official Barack Obama campaign web site, and has been posting anti-Israel hate speech since February: women.barackobama.com | The Ruminations of an Anti-Zionist American Nationalist.

Notice the code-word “nationalist.”

This is the creep’s web site, with more of the demented stuff he’s been posting at Daily Kos and the official Obama site: Wake Up From Your Slumber | The Truth Will Set You Free.

19:18
US won't let Israel attack Iran?
» ‎ Israel Matzav

Professor Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon official and currently a defense analyst at ABC TV, said Monday that the United States will not let Israel attack Iran. Cordesman was speaking during a meeting with Israeli defense analysts held by the Institute of National Security Studies. He said IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was notified of the United States' stance regarding

19:16
Balt Sun: "With Congress on the verge ...
» ‎ War and Piece

Balt Sun: "With Congress on the verge of outlining new parameters for National Security Agency eavesdropping between suspicious foreigners and Americans, lawmakers are leaving largely untouched a host of government programs that critics say involves far more domestic surveillance than...

18:56
Why sanctions against Iran don't work: Exhibit C - USA
» ‎ Israel Matzav

While the numbers for US exports to Iran are nowhere near as ominous as those of Germany or Italy - $546 million (directly) during the Bush years - the quality of those exports makes it appear that US violations of the sanctions are almost as important to Iran's continued functioning as the European violations. Sanctions are intended in part to frustrate Iran's efforts to develop its military,

18:48
Iran leader plays down war talk
» ‎ BBC News | Middle East | World Edition

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he sees no possibility of a war between Iran and the US or Israel.

18:39
Barbara and the Chinless Ophthalmologist
» ‎ Little Green Footballs

Bashar Assad must really love mush-headed Western mediabots like Barbara Walters: Barbara Walters: Syrian Dictator ‘Charming,’ ‘Intelligent’.

While most Americans celebrated Independence Day with fireworks and barbeques, Barbara Walters spent the occasion dining with Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad, whom Walters described as “intelligent” and “charming” who wants “very much to have good relations with us.” Perhaps realizing her own gushiness about Assad Walters pre-empted accusations and denied she is “brainwashed.”

I think brainwashing requires a brain, so I believe her on that one.

18:34
Al-Jaeera Dedicates Program to Palestinian Terrorist Al-Maghrabi,Sister Salutes Bulldozer Killer
» ‎ Israel Matzav

On the morning of March 11, 1978, Dalal Mughrabi and her Palestinian Fedayeen unit of eleven members (including one other woman) landed by Zodiac boats on a beach near Ma'agan Michael north of Tel Aviv, having departed from Lebanon. They killed Gail Ruban (some sources spell Rubin), an American photographer who was taking nature photographs nearby, and then hijacked a bus full of Egged bus

18:27
Tablet stirs resurrection debate
» ‎ BBC News | Middle East | World Edition

An ancient tablet shows that the idea of a resurrected messiah originates in Jewish tradition, an Israeli academic argues.

17:39
Parenting by Parasha 101
» ‎ The Muqata

I heard a wonderful Dvar Torah over Shabbat that originated from the "Tzohar" weekly pamphlet. Unfortunately, the pamphlet isn't available on-line yet, nor do I have a copy of it, but I hope to find it and post it online soon and will quote accordingly)

In the meantime, the jist of it was as follows:

Twice the Jewish people complained about their lack of water in the desert, and G-d provided a "water from rock" solution.

The first time was soon after leaving Egypt -- the children of Israel has no water, they complained, and G-d told Moshe to hit the rock and water would come forth.
שמות פרק יזא ויסעו כל-עדת בני-ישראל ממדבר-סין, למסעיהם--על-פי יהוה; ויחנו, ברפידים, ואין מים, לשתת העם. ב וירב העם, עם-משה, ויאמרו, תנו-לנו מים ונשתה; ויאמר להם, משה, מה-תריבון עמדי, מה-תנסון את-יהוה. ג ויצמא שם העם למים, וילן העם על-משה; ויאמר, למה זה העליתנו ממצרים, להמית אתי ואת-בני ואת-מקני, בצמא. ד ויצעק משה אל-יהוה לאמר, מה אעשה לעם הזה; עוד מעט, וסקלני. ה ויאמר יהוה אל-משה, עבר לפני העם, וקח אתך, מזקני ישראל; ומטך, אשר הכית בו את-היאר--קח בידך, והלכת. ו הנני עמד לפניך שם על-הצור, בחרב, והכית בצור ויצאו ממנו מים, ושתה העם; ויעש כן משה, לעיני זקני ישראל
Shmot 17: 1 And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, by their stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and encamped in Rephidim; and there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Wherefore the people strove with Moses, and said: 'Give us water that we may drink.' And Moses said unto them: 'Why strive ye with me? wherefore do ye try the LORD?' 3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said: 'Wherefore hast thou brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?' 4 And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying: 'What shall I do unto this people? they are almost ready to stone me.' 5 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Pass on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thy hand, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink.' And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
The second time was this past week's parasha. What many people don't realize is that this isn't the same "children of Israel" as those who left Egypt. This story takes place 38 years later. Its a completely new generation...and G-d doesn't want Moshe to hit the rock, but to speak to it.
במדבר פרק כ

א ויבאו בני-ישראל כל-העדה מדבר-צן, בחדש הראשון, וישב העם, בקדש; ותמת שם מרים, ותקבר שם. ב ולא-היה מים, לעדה; ויקהלו, על-משה ועל-אהרן. ג וירב העם, עם-משה; ויאמרו לאמר, ולו גוענו בגוע אחינו לפני ה' . ד ולמה הבאתם את-קהל ה' , אל-המדבר הזה, למות שם, אנחנו ובעירנו. ה ולמה העליתנו, ממצרים, להביא אתנו, אל-המקום הרע הזה: לא מקום זרע, ותאנה וגפן ורמון, ומים אין, לשתות. ו ויבא משה ואהרן מפני הקהל, אל-פתח אהל מועד, ויפלו, על-פניהם; וירא כבוד-ה' אליהם. {פ
ז וידבר ה' , אל-משה לאמר. ח קח את-המטה, והקהל את-העדה אתה ואהרן אחיך, ודברתם אל-הסלע לעיניהם, ונתן מימיו; והוצאת להם מים מן-הסלע, והשקית את-העדה ואת-בעירם. ט ויקח משה את-המטה, מלפני ה' כאשר, צוהו. י ויקהלו משה ואהרן, את-הקהל--אל-פני הסלע; ויאמר להם, שמעו-נא המרים--המן-הסלע הזה, נוציא לכם מים.יא וירם משה את-ידו, ויך את-הסלע במטהו--פעמים; ויצאו מים רבים, ותשת העדה ובעירם. יב ויאמר ה' , אל-משה ואל-אהרן, יען לא-האמנתם בי, להקדישני לעיני בני ישראל--לכן, לא תביאו את-הקהל הזה, אל-הארץ, אשר-נתתי להם

1 And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there. 2 And there was no water for the congregation; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. 3 And the people strove with Moses, and spoke, saying: 'Would that we had perished when our brethren perished before the LORD! 4 And why have ye brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness, to die there, we and our cattle? 5 And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.' 6 And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tent of meeting, and fell upon their faces; and the glory of the LORD appeared unto them. 7 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 8 'Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes, that it give forth its water; and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock; so thou shalt give the congregation and their cattle drink.' 9 And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as He commanded him. 10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said unto them: 'Hear now, ye rebels; are we to bring you forth water out of this rock?' 11 And Moses lifted up his hand, and smote the rock with his rod twice; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle. 12 And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron: 'Because ye believed not in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.'
Unfortunately, Moshe didn't fully understand the differences between the previous generation and the current one, and assumed that hitting the rock would be sufficient.

Different ages and different generations need different methods of teaching, education, parenting. You dont speak to a 5 year old that way you do to a 15 year old. You may hit the hand of a 5 year old to keep him from touching an electrical outlet, but a 15 year old needs a conversation.
Moshe's "punishment" of not leading the Jews into Eretz Yisrael, for not speaking to the rock wasn't so much as a "punishment" but a recognition that Moshe could no longer be the leader for the new generation. He was out of touch, and the newer generation needed a leader to speak to the rock, a leader that could connect to the generation and lead them.

For me, I found this message extremely poignant.

Footnote: The כלי יקר writes something similar to this as well.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

17:37
NEFA Foundation Report - The Evolution of the Taliban in Pakistan: Feb-May 2008
» ‎ Counterterrorism Blog

The NEFA Foundation has released a new report by NEFA Senior Investigator Claudio Franco titled "The Evolution of the Taliban in Pakistan during the February-May 2008 Period: The Peace Accord Era." Franco explores the evolution of the insurgency in North-Western Pakistan from February-May 2008, a time characterized by an attempt to stabilize the area by means of a negotiated effort. The new Pakistani cabinet, led by Yusuf Reza Gilani, initiated a dialogue with the insurgents in Malakand and Swat, eventually finalizing two distinct peace accords in April and May 2008. But have the Pakistani authorities been more successful than the West has noticed in stabilizing the region, or is this another ephemeral exercise in tribal diplomacy? Will the undeniable results achieved by Pakistan benefit the Coalition's forces across the border? And more importantly, what kind of conflict are the tribes of North-Western Pakistan bracing for: An Islamist insurgency or conflict by proxy across the border? In the report, Franco also examines the emergence and consolidation of non-Taliban Islamist militias in the northern tribal areas of Pakistan, paying particular attention to Mangal Bagh's Lashkar-e-Islam (LI); LI is the Khyber-based Islamist militia targeted by the army in the first military operation ordered by Yousuf Reza Gilani, Pakistan's first post-Musharraf Prime Minister.

The report can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

17:34
Abu Mazen the terror fighter
» ‎ Israel Matzav

'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen has been in Damascus this week, where he met with the leaders of all of the 'radical Palestinian' groups - except for Hamas. Abu Mazen was warned that a meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal could cost him $7.4 billion. But it's 'okay' in the eyes of the Bush administration for him to meet with the other groups with whom he shares the

17:20
(NBC/NEFA) - Voices from the Iraqi Insurgency: An Exclusive Interview with the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI)
» ‎ Counterterrorism Blog

(See also - MSNBC Deep Background: "Iraqi insurgents weigh in on American election")
In an effort to help Americans better understand the evolving dynamics behind the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, I have begun conducting a series of exclusive interviews with prominent Sunni insurgent organizations. The third group to accept my invitation was the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI), a dominant Sunni faction that has come into frequent conflict with Al-Qaida over the past year. From MSNBC's Deep Background:

A spokesman for one of Iraq’s most prominent insurgent groups declares in a rare interview that he favors the Democrats in the upcoming presidential election. “We believe that the Democrats are more aware of the severity of the American situation in Iraq, and, therefore, they can give more attention to safeguarding American interests in this region,” the spokesman said. The comments are part of an exclusive interview that NBC News terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann recently conducted with Dr. Ali al-Naimi, spokesman for the Islamic Army in Iraq. Kohlmann, who also serves as Senior Investigator for the NEFA Foundation, has now conducted several interviews with the leading insurgent groups in Iraq. The on-the-record conversations have revealed the rifts that have arisen amongst the Iraqi insurgent groups and al-Qaida. In the recent interview, al-Naimi denounces al-Qaida and its foreign fighters. “The errors of al-Qaida in regards to spilling the blood of the innocent are more numerous than can possibly be covered in a single response, statement, or interview,” al-Naimi said. The IAI, as it’s commonly referred to, is one of the largest insurgent groups in Iraq. It claims to have been founded in the years prior to the U.S. invasion, “when all signs indicated that Bush was going to lead the Americans to slaughter the peaceful people of Iraq,” al-Naimi said. Its mission is to kill and drive out U.S. forces, which it derides as occupiers. "We wish the American soldiers would leave us in peace, for we are not murderers and we do not experience joy in killing anyone. But if they insist on staying here in order to satisfy the whims of Bush, then American families should expect to receive many more bodies," al-Naimi said. “Send my blessings to the intelligent people of America and let them know of my point of view,” he concludes.

A complete translated transcript of my exclusive interview with the IAI can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

16:17
Saudis urged to curb maid abuse
» ‎ BBC News | Middle East | World Edition

Human Rights Watch calls on Saudi Arabia to do more to protect Asian domestic workers from mistreatment.

14:35
Drafting Sherut Leumi Girls for Emergencies
» ‎ The Muqata

Girls serving in the IDF has been as issue for years.

Some rabbis say that non-religious girls should even lie to get exempted from army service, by claiming a religious exemption.
In an article titled "Recruitment of girls is absolutely forbidden!", the rabbi of Beit El and head of the Ateret Kohanim yeshiva presented several halachic rulings regarding the issue that were given in recent decades, and stated that despite the "Mitzvah War" the people of Israel were engaged in, the modesty of women must not be compromised.

According to the rabbi, a girl who avoids joining the army only strengthens it, because she allows for God to be present in the IDF base. "This is our choice: Who do we want in the army, women or the Almighty?" he wrote, adding that the recruitment of women may lead to spiritual deterioration among soldiers.

Rabbi Aviner added that in certain cases, girls are even permitted to evade service by making false declarations to the IDF about their religious beliefs." (YNET)
Curiously, despite saying it's absolutely forbidden, R' Aviner supports those who are in the IDF.
"Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, one of the notable religious Zionist rabbis, praises and supports the girls who decided to do military service, as reported Tuesday in a leaflet published by the non-profit organization, Aluma.

In the flier, Rabbi Aviner wrote: "Every religious woman soldier is called to be a loyal emissary of the Master of the Universe, in her personal behavior and in fulfilling her role in our holy army." Rabbi Aviner's statements represent a higher rank in regards to the religious community's relation to girls who decided to enlist in the IDF. (YNET)
Putting IDF service aside, Sherut Leumi is also not without controversy:
Sherut Leumi was originally proposed as a mandatory draft of young women, which great Torah scholars vehemently opposed. It is now an entirely voluntary program.

It seems that R. Tzvi Yehuda Kook generally viewed Sherut Leumi favorably provided that a girl is placed in a spiritually appropriate atmosphere. Someone spoke on my behalf with R. Ya'akov Shapiro, the son of R. Avraham Shapiro, and he said that girls who may be influenced negatively should not do it. But for other girls, it is fine provided that they are in a proper atmosphere. R. Mordechai Eliyahu, as related by his son R. Shmuel Eliyahu (link), seems to be cautious but not entirely against. R. Avigdor Nevenzahl is also quoted as having permitted Sherut Leumi, when in an appropriate environment (Hirhurim)
And how does all this connect to the news of today? IDF Homefront Commander, General Yair Golan has announced a new initiative that in war-time or times of crisis and emergency, some of the 12,000 Sherut Leumi volunteers will be "drafted" to the IDF HomeFront command civilian defense organization.
"They won't be requested to wear uniforms, but they will be under the command of the IDF" stated Homefront command population division officer Col. Chilik Sofer, "but we need to remember than in time of emergencies, the Homefront command will need as many volunteers as possible to aid with local communities, and the idea is to enable the participation of the 12,000 Sherut Leumi volunteers with the communities." (Walla News in Hebrew)
ZAKA volunteers would also be drafted to IDF Homefront command to help with the Chareidi communities.

I wonder what sort of backlash this is going to generate, despite clearly being only for life threatening emergenices/wartime.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

A Peek into Others' mind » July 8, 2008

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Iran Raises Vanishing of 4 Citizens in Beirut as U.N. Issue

State Iran Testimony. From undersecretary of state ...

Breaking: CAIR's Chairman Resigns

Mullen Gave Israel a Red Light, Says Cordesman

Pat Buchanan on Fox Again

Science: The Ringed Giant

AP: Cheney's Office sought redactions of CDC ...

Relatives of July 7 Suicide Bomber Have a Party

I want to say thanks on behalf of Dave

Assad's moment of truth

At the Official Barack Obama Blog Site: 'Nazi Neo Con Republicans' Guy Returns Again

Winning the War of Ideas

Ha'aretz's Amos Harel: ... A senior U.S. ...

Iraq warns US on withdrawal date

Speaking of Humiliation

A Jaw-Dropping Case of Media Bias

Prediction Confirmed: Peres Retracts 'No Chance for Peace'

Saddam's Nukes

New US nuclear sanctions on Iran

The Obama Youth

Car wash

Rank Antisemitism At the Official Barack Obama Blog Site

US won't let Israel attack Iran?

Balt Sun: "With Congress on the verge ...

Why sanctions against Iran don't work: Exhibit C - USA

Iran leader plays down war talk

Barbara and the Chinless Ophthalmologist

Al-Jaeera Dedicates Program to Palestinian Terrorist Al-Maghrabi,Sister Salutes Bulldozer Killer

Tablet stirs resurrection debate

Parenting by Parasha 101

NEFA Foundation Report - The Evolution of the Taliban in Pakistan: Feb-May 2008

Abu Mazen the terror fighter

(NBC/NEFA) - Voices from the Iraqi Insurgency: An Exclusive Interview with the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI)

Saudis urged to curb maid abuse

Drafting Sherut Leumi Girls for Emergencies