My Interview With Netanyahu

"You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran."

Heroes of Fact-Checking

Hamas Lags Behind Hezbollah in P.R., Among Other Things

J Street Backs Theater J, Which is Semi-Palindromic

The decision to feature Seven Jewish Children at Theater J should be judged not on the basis of the play's content but, rather, on its value in sparking a difficult but necessary conversation within our community. To preclude even the possibility of such a discussion does a disservice not only to public discourse, but also to the very values of rigorous intellectual engagement and civil debate on which our community prides itself.

Caryl Churchill and Ari Roth: A Dissent

Some observations from seeing the play at Theater J.

On paper, Seven Jewish Children isn't really a play. It's more of a simplistic poem. I haven't read any of her plays since Cloud Nine (not a fan) or seen any other than A Dream Play (she translated it, too dreamy for me). But the staging (by Ari Roth) added surprising depth to the words. He had the actors read the lines as concerned and confused parents. So, the lines:

"Tell her they want to drive us into the sea."

"Tell her we kill far more of them"

"Don't tell her that"

is read as a discussion by two concerned parents, as to how best inform their child of the situation. It seems to me, from the staging, that the parents don't know what is the truth and what part of the real story to tell the child, who they only want to protect. They may be facts in Churchill's mind--I haven't read much on her views--but Ari's staging was a discussion, clearly not a diatribe. In the talk afterward, many members of the audience complained that the play is missing 99% of the story, and only covers one side of the argument. As a writer of several short plays, including one read at Theater J a few years back, I would argue that a ten-minute play is not long enough a form to tell 100% of any story of any size, much less the story of Israel. You can tell a fragment of a bigger story or create a sketch. Churchill's done both, if not successfully, then a bit lazily. Ari Roth, however, has taken her words, however she meant them, and staged them in a very useful, thoughtful way. Even though much of the audience was just there to get a few simplistic words of their own off their chest about how Israel is a demonic state or a model of good, neither of which it is, a more thoughtful audience would gain from Theater J's somewhat risky venture.

You Think You're Having a Bad Week...

The Limitless Potential of Rail

[I]f we're willing to think bigger and more long term--and we should be--the potential of a twenty-first century rail system is truly astonishing. ... Yet despite this astounding potential, virtually no one in Washington is talking about investing any of that $1 trillion in freight rail capacity. Instead, almost all the talk out of the Obama camp and Congress has been about spending for roads and highway bridges, projects made necessary in large measure by America's over reliance on pavement-smashing, traffic-snarling, fossil-fuel-guzzling trucks for the bulk of its domestic freight transport.This could be an epic mistake.

Scheuer: Emanuel is a Treasonous Israel-Firster

This is a good question, but the discussion will be feckless if it avoids what the moderator refers to as intimations that may be "ugly." Well, friends, ugly is here and it has been here for decades. There is indeed an identifiable fifth column of pro-Israel U.S. citizens -- I have described them here and elsewhere as Israel-Firsters -- who have consciously made Israel's survival and protection their first priority, and who see worth in America only to the extent that its resources and manpower can be exploited to protect and further the interests of Israel in its religious war-to-the-death with the Arabs. These are disloyal citizens in much the same sense that the Civil War's disloyal northern "Copperheads" sought to help the Confederates destroy the Union. The Israel-Firsters help Israel suborn U.S. citizens to spy for Israel; they use their fortunes and political action organizations to buy U.S. politicians with campaign donations; and most of all they use their ready access to the media to disguise their own disloyalty by denigrating as anti-Semites or appeasers fellow citizens who dare to challenge them. The Israel-Firsters are unquestionably enemies of America's republican experiment and will have to be destroyed as the Copperheads were destroyed -- by the people, after a full public deabte (sic), at the ballot box."

The TSA Should Investigate This Airport

The Brave Pat Oliphant and His Semitic Shark Unicycle

How clever and bold is Pat Oliphant! Risking violence and rioting and even beheading by speaking a harsh truth about the Middle East. Oh, wait a minute, this cartoon is directed against Jews. How brave is Pat Oliphant! Risking letters-to-the-editor and snarky blog posts and aggressively-written press releases by speaking a harsh truth about the Middle East.

Will someone please explain this cartoon to me? It looks to be a headless jackbooted muscle-man with a sword pushing a Star of David-shaped shark unicycle? Or am I missing something?

Ignatius: American Tax-Deductions Help Settlements

There's nothing illegal about the charitable contributions to pro-settlement organizations, which are documented in filings with the Internal Revenue Service. They're similar to tax-exempt donations made to thousands of foreign organizations around the world through groups that are often described as "American friends of" the recipient.

But critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns. A search of IRS records identified 28 U.S. charitable groups that made a total of $33.4 million in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organizations between 2004 and 2007.

"I Am Not Shylock," a New Play at Theater J

From a prominent New York theater type who just read my exchange with Ari Roth:

Ari Roth's comical incoherence on Caryl Churchill and her odious playlet is not only a classic case of "Bad for the Jews," it's also bad for the American theater.  This is a guy who admits the play is pernicious, and freely acknowledges Churchill's bad faith in writing it, but turns his stage over to her anyway, because she once upon a time wrote some good plays and can still turn a decent phrase.  Those of us who devote our lives to the notion that the American theater needn't be just a Vaudeville act consigned forever to the margins of the national debate can only hang our heads when the leader of a hitherto well-regarded institution punts so totally.  Here's an idea: let's turn your conversation with him into a performance piece. You'll launch a new career as a playwright, and Roth, this Tony Kushner-manqué, will get what he really wants: eight shows a week sitting center stage, in the spotlight.  We'll call it, "I am Not Shylock," and we'll stage it in Caryl Churchill's living room, where all her other American theater Jews will give it a perpetual standing ovation.

"Drunk Enough To Say I Love You?"

Imagine that someone hands you a pamphlet attacking the United States with full-blown rage and loathing. Your first inclination is to toss it. It's the usual screed, spewing standard-issue accusations about American megalomania, imperialism and destructiveness.

But there's something about the typeface, the quality of the paper and the very arrangement of the words that hypnotizes you. You find yourself grinning, not at what it says -- whether you agree with it or not, the content is old news -- but at the way it says it. That's how I felt watching "Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?," the brief and bilious new play by Caryl Churchill that opened Sunday night in a superlative production at the Public Theater. On paper this 45-minute allegory about the seduction of Britain by the United States -- presented as gay men locked in a seriously sick love affair -- reads as a minor work from a major playwright, little more than a political poison-pen letter.

"Caryl Churchill Advances Demonization of Jews"

I just returned from watching "Seven Jewish Children" at Theater J. It was a propaganda piece, pure and simple. Palestinian talking points (Israelis rejoice at dead Palestinians, Israelis steal water, the Jews have no claim to the land, every Israeli child lives in a "Palestinian" home) were presented as fact. There are "good" Jews - the characters at the beginning hiding during the Holocaust or some other persecution (it isn't specified) and the characters who say the Palestinian talking points ("Tell her we would never have come if we knew [what we did to the Arabs]", "Don't tell her it's water for their fields"....) And then there are the "bad" Jews - those who feel that Israel is their rightful home, those who celebrate victory after the Six Day War. There is no nuance whatsoever. Either you are deeply ashamed at having to raise a child in such an awful country as Israel, or you rejoice when Palestinian children are killed. Your interview with Ari Roth was very good and very telling. Unfortunately, despite his copious talents, or perhaps because of them, Mr. Roth seems like the sort of person whose adulation of artists and their technique supersedes his understanding of our current reality. In other words, in a time when Israel is demonized around the world and has few friends, it was a JEWISH theater that performed a play demonizing it further, all for the sake of artistic expression and dialogue.

Netanyahu's Rise, and How it Will Affect Debate in the U.S.

The fact that debate exists over Israel's policies isn't new. What may begin to change, with the advent of the second Benjamin Netanyahu era in Israel following the February election, is that the "out there" described by Mr. Foxman won't be limited to America's political margins-the Cynthia McKinneys and Jim Morans and Ron Pauls in Washington, or those Juan Coles and Stephen Walts and John Mearsheimers in the academic world, who constitute what amounts to a political niche as European-style critics of the Israeli enterprise and of what they believe to be a much-too-powerful Israel lobby in America.

Caryl Churchill: Gaza's Shakespeare, or Fetid Jew-Baiter?

Continue reading "Caryl Churchill: Gaza's Shakespeare, or Fetid Jew-Baiter?" »

You Want an Anti-Semitic Circus?

A man dressed in Chasidic regalia speeds in a go-cart around Moscow's one-ring Circus Nikulina. Aziz Askaryan then dismounts and leads two gangly orangutans -- one in a suit and kipah, the other in a full bridal gown -- on a lurching matrimonial march toward a hastily constructed chupah in front of a guffawing audience.

The mock Jewish wedding between two orangutans has been the closing number for weeks in Act I of the famed Moscow circus, whose theme is "Empire: A Magical Show with Bright National Flavor."

An Anti-Circus Reader Writes

Mr. Goldberg,

As a Jewish woman, I'm astounded at your lack of intelligence, let alone insight.  You expected your children to see the elephants abused at Feld's Ringling Brothers show?  How stupid can you be?  I'd advise you instead to have them gather round and watch many of the videos showing elephants routinely beaten with bullhooks.

So, what would you say of a Jew who routinely chains elephants 22 hours a day. Elephants who walk 50 to 60 miles a day in their natural habitat!   Magnificent, intelligent beings who care for their young tenderly, mourn their dead, and have social matriarchies just as Jews do?...Next time, Mr. Goldberg, don't be a lazy Jew who spouts opinions rather than facts.  Do some homework.  I hope you are a better father than a writer.

On Circus Cossacks

I think it's great they're in a Jewish owned circus. Let's hope that 100 years from now there's a troop of flying shahids who blow themselves up on stage, last remnant of a once terrifying movement. (Of course you'd need a large troop and a lot of insurance...)  

Bring on the Bullet Trains, Already

That money will not be enough to pay for a single bullet train, transportation experts say. And by the time the $8 billion gets divided among the 11 regions across the country that the government has designated as high-speed rail corridors, they say, it is unlikely to do much beyond paying for long-delayed improvements to passenger lines, and making a modest investment in California's plan for a true bullet train.

This Will Get Iran to Stop its Nuclear Program

In theory, Israel maintains a trade embargo on Iran. In practice, valley growers say, they have repeatedly found evidence of Iranian pistachios finding their way into Israel. Since 1997, when then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright weighed in, U.S. officials have periodically pressed Israel to stop the Iranian shipments. Earlier this year, the maneuvering culminated in Israel raising its tariff on non-U.S. pistachios to 23 percent. That tariff, plus an added weight-based duty, effectively rendered the tariff-free U.S. pistachios a better buy than the foreign competition.

Rothkopf Not Liking the Austrians

2.) The pope

To non-believers he may be just a creepy old ex-Hitler Youth member who wears funny clothes and has appalling values, but to Catholics he is so much more than that. For example, according to one Vatican insider quoted in the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph newspaper, "he's out of touch with the real world" and his papacy is "a disaster." Another is reported to have said he "is isolated and fails to adequately consult his advisors." At least. His Africa trip pronouncement that condoms not only don't help the fight against AIDS but that their distribution actually "aggravates the problems" is not just a PR nightmare for the Holy See; delivered on the continent where both AIDS is most rampant and the Church is growing fastest, it is a formula for massive death and suffering.

1.) Josef Fritzl

Back in the good old days, when Joseph Alois Ratzinger was a little boy, being an Austrian sadist was a surefire path to the top, it could lead anywhere, perhaps even to world domination. But today, Austrians are outraged that one of their own could have locked his daughter in the basement, made her his sex slave, and killed one of the seven children he had with her. Which is really bad. Austria has changed, you see. There is no tolerance for twisted brutality there anymore. Well, less. In fact, fewer than a third of Austrians voted for the hate-spewing, neo-fascist extreme right parties like the Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future. And while cynics (Jews or Muslims) might point out that this was the same proportion of the population who voted for Austria's leading party, the Social Democrats, their point is undercut by the fact that it was only a relatively few Austrians who honor Nazi heroes in public ceremonies on the anniversary of Kristalnacht or who have participated in nasty little rituals like the recent unfurling of a Nazi flag in Hitler's hometown of Braunau. No, there is no place for a Fritzl in modern Austria and so he will be sent to a psychiatric prison for the rest of his life. But one must wonder, is the outrage because of his crimes, because they were against fellow Austrians or because he thought so small?

Charming E-mail of the Day

Hey Goldberg,

Shouldn't all American Jews sign loyalty oaths? (the kind Mr Lieberman is advocating in Israel). After all just like Israel, that is a Jewish state, America is a Christian state. A lot of American Jews, as well documented, including you, have more loyalties to the state of Israel than this country.

The way I see it, we've got two non violent options:

1- To deport American Jews;
2- To get them sign loyalty oaths (legally binding i.e. to be used in the court of law if they show suspicious behavior that may require legal actions) and keep a real close tab on them i.e. wire tapping, logging their internet activeness, investment strategies, and recording all their conversations, etc.

I'm ccing Andrew to see if he might want to add to this list of options above.

Keeping America and American values should be our core focus.

"Cast Lead" Sounds Different in Hebrew

[T]he name given to the operation...greatly affects the way in which it will be perceived. Israelis associate the Hebrew for Cast Lead, as the operation was called, with a line written by poet Haim Nahman Bialik that is part of a Hanukkah song typically sung by cute little children. The fact that the operation began around Hanukkah sharpened that association.

Abroad, however, it was seen differently. In English, not to mention German, Cast Lead has a whole other association. Lead is cast into bullets, bombs and mortar shells. When the world reported on Cast Lead it sounded militaristic, brutal and aggressive; it was associated with death and destruction rather than spinning dreidels. Even before the first shot was fired or the first speech explaining Israel's case was made, the operation had already acquired an image of belligerence.

Freeman on Afghanistan

Now, naturally, it would never for a moment compromise Freeman's objectivity that his self-declared political opinions are wildly at odds with those of the administration he sought to join.  Nor is there anything even slightly unseemly about a candidate for such a position publicly stating preferences that would immediately put him at partisan odds with the President.  Nor, of course, need we wonder at the fact that Freeman found himself politically at home with a conspiracy theorist like Finkelstein.

Department of Silver Linings

The potential silver lining amid these bleak scenarios [regarding Israel and its enemies] is that Clinton, and by extension Obama, would have a George Shultz experience.

Some may remember the fear in the pro-Israel community when Shultz, then an executive at the Bechtel Corporation, was named to his post by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. But by the time he left the State Department in 1989, he was considered one of Israel's great supporters. What seemed to put him in that camp was having been thwarted and lied to repeatedly by Yasir Arafat and other Arab leaders in repeated negotiations.

So there is the hope that as the U.S. engages Syria and Iran in talks, it will become evident that neither is sincere about compromise or equitable alternatives to confrontation.

The fact that the new Obama administration engaged in preliminary talks on the Durban II conference and then pulled out after recognizing that the meeting promises to be a sham and disgrace in its anti-Israel agenda, is a positive and hopeful sign.

From China (to Gaza) With Love

"There are about 35 Gazan companies with offices in China," according to an MN International Al-Dahshan representative in Guangzhou, who spoke to IRIN on the phone on condition of anonymity. Goods from Guangzhou take a circuitous route before reaching Gaza, according to the representative: Shipped first to Port Said, a duty-free port in northeastern Egypt, they are then taken to the Egyptian side of Rafah, via Al-Arish, before being smuggled into Gaza by tunnel.

"Each small box costs US$30 to enter Gaza via tunnel and there are about 4,000 boxes per container," said the representative. He reckoned about 400 Chinese companies exported goods to Gaza, including IT products, furniture and clothing. The tunnels remain a vital lifeline for Gazans, supplying the market with goods restricted from entering Gaza through the Israeli-controlled crossings, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Cossacks Invade the Verizon Center, Film at 11

For centuries, the warrior horsemen guarding the frontier borders of Eastern Europe employed astounding acts of dexterity, skill and strength to outmaneuver and outwit encroaching predators. Today, daredevil equestrians -- generically referred to as Coassacks -- perform feats of extreme horsemanship that trace their roots to tribes of the same name who inhabited 15th century Russia and Poland.

More Proof that I'm a Top 50 Jew

Predictably alarmed, the Israel lobby launched a smear campaign against Freeman, hoping that he would either quit or be fired by Obama. The opening salvo came in a blog posting by Steven Rosen, a former official of Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, now under indictment for passing secrets to Israel. Freemans views of the Middle East, he said, are what you would expect in the Saudi Foreign Ministry, with which he maintains an extremely close relationship. Prominent pro-Israel journalists such as Jonathan Chait and Martin Peretz of the New Republic, and Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, quickly joined the fray and Freeman was hammered in publications that consistently defend Israel, such as the National Review, the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard.

Dahlan: We Never Recognized Israel's Right to Exist

Dahlan, who was recently tapped to serve as an adviser to Fatah's leader, P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas, acknowledged that the PLO -- an umbrella organization of Palestinian groups that has been headed by Fatah's leader -- did recognize Israel.

"We acknowledge that the PLO did recognize Israel's right to exist, but we are not bound by it as a resistance faction," he said.

Israeli Self-Examination in the Wake of Gaza

War is one of the worst occupations men can engage in - though genocide and some large scale injustices are worse, and their prevention justifies war. There is no such thing as a pretty war. The decision to be in war entails, always, the decision to do things that would be totally unacceptable in any other context. For this reason, the decision must be made with care, including detailed planning, meticulous training, permanent self reflection even under fire, and calm examination of everything afterwords so that mistakes not be repeated. Israel is currently examining itself, in a public, communal discussion. I cannot think of any other society which does this in such a frank and open manner; certainly never any of our enemies, but not any of our friends, either. The decision of our critics to cast this in a very different light tells mostly who they are, not who we are.

How Far Has the IDF Fallen?

"You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won't say anything. To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing: To understand how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It's what I'll remember the most."

Imminent Flying Chinese Soldier Threat

Peace Through Strippers

A young Israeli woman who works as a stripper was found intoxicated in Ramallah Friday morning, and returned to Israel with the aid of the Palestinian security sources. She was handed over to the police.

Palestinians called the offices of the Civil Administration Friday morning and reported that an Israeli woman in her twenties was seen at the heart of town. "They said that she didn't quite understand what was going on," said Major Shadi Seif of the Ramallah District Coordination Office. The IDF immediately alerted a police unit to the nearest checkpoint, and within 10 minutes the woman was brought to the place by the Palestinian officers.

A Settler Writes...

I'm no fan of his (for instance, I think he wants to give away my home.  I don't take that personally, but neither does he score any points on a subject rather dear to me).  And his accent is worse than mine.  But when I listen to him on radio, he sounds intelligent, says what few could really disagree with, and has identified the elephant in the living room (the Israeli Arab dilemma).  I do not think he would disagree with your formulation which correlates Israeli Arab rights and responsibilities. I don't know if he applies the same requirements to Israel's haredi community,  but I'll wager he'd like to.  Coalition politics will certainly prevent this from being an issue in the near future.  But if you are among those who wish to see a greater separation between church and state in Israel, Leiberman should be your champion.

I don't agree that he has turned himself into a racist as much as the media has painted him so.  Sure, he rants and rails against Arab members of Knesset, but that's the Knesset.  Would a racist have a Druze on his list?  And why all this attention for the "racist Russian" now, when Netanyahu is about to form a government, when nary a word was heard when he was a senior minister in the Kadima government?

In any case, at least you did not give any space to the eternally on-going investigations against him.  Not that I have illusions that he is clean, but he can't be worse than what has already walked through the Knesset doors.  At least he seems intelligent, and is not afraid to actually express a point of view.  And he might be a better foreign minister that you or I suspect.  He might be as good as, let's say, Hillary Clinton?

Arafat: Less Authentic Than Hamas, but Just as Radical

Joe Kanter raises an important and provocative point. I wish your response had gone further.

The despots running Arab countries (except Jordan and later Egypt) used the Palestinian refugees and the PLO almost entirely as instruments of their own national goals until 1991. Immiserating refugees by refusing to assimilate them hurt these fellow Arabs far more than it pressured Israel. Assad's disequilibrium following the collapse of his (and the PLO's) Soviet sponsor opened a window for the Madrid process to occur, after which the PLO's interests eventually diverged from his. He sought power, influence, and a greater Syria encompassing Palestine and especially Lebanon. The PLO sought opportunities for graft, mythical appeal to the Arab Street, and opportunities to claim glorious victories. Oh, and a Palestinian state too.

Is Hamas akin to the pre-Madrid PLO with Iranian instead of Syrian backing? Hamas is more authentic than the PLO because it is not fundamentally a creation or puppet of Muslim countries. (Hezbollah by contrast has something to lose in Lebanon and grim prospects if it loses Iranian backing by way of Syria.) The irridentists in Hamas and Hezbollah care about sharia, and see non-Muslim control ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD as a religious abomination, even if their present focus is on Jews in Palestine, with Hezbollah further focused on Jews in Argentina and of course on non-Shia in Lebanon. As Tom Friedman points out over and over (and over and over), Hamas is unlikely come to an agreement with Israel until it loves life for its people more than it loves death for the Israelis. Iran's weaponry broadens the opportunities for jihadists to become shahids, but it is hard to see how an absence of Iranian sponsorship would change the essential win-lose character of the Manichean game Hamas seeks to play.

The irridentists in the PLO and PFLP on the other hand care about the Ummah and wish to believe that Israel is a colonial implant, facts be damned. Colonists facing costs larger than benefits will pick up and leave -- if they are rational -- so the PLO sought trappings of legitimacy like the UN General Assembly to affect rationality. But why limit the scope to Israel's June 6, 1967 borders?

Also, I think you are giving Arafat too much credit when you suggest that his truculence was limited to ceding one grain of sand of Jerusalem. Arafat's fulminations about an absence of Jewish history in Jerusalem were in Arabic. More problematically, Arafat refused to compromise on a Palestinian "right of return" to overrun Israel, and everyone but Malley recalling the Sharm and Wye River meetings seems to have concluded that Arafat had never at any time intended to soften on that point. The Jews can stay, but only if their state commits to a path ending in its becoming yet another Arab state.

This by the way is Jimmy Carter's "why can't we all get along in a good Christian way?" recurring delusion. He wants to believe that there is something (the West Bank? An apology?) that the Israelis could give the Palestinians that would make everybody happy. What if there isn't? What if Mr. Barghouti (if he's released from his seven consecutive life terms) and his followers aren't satisfied by recovering the West Bank? Rationality cuts both ways.

Instaputz Corrects Me

Says he:

I'm not sure what Jeffrey Goldberg is getting at here, in which he tackles the Avigdor Lieberman appointment.

It's a disaster because he's made himself into a racist.

I can't tell if Mr. Goldberg is suggesting that Lieberman isn't a racist, but has carelessly allowed the perception he is a racist to stick -- or, that Lieberman does, in fact, harbor racist thoughts, but can resist ("unmake") them if he so chooses.

I don't believe either to be true; Lieberman doesn't seem to be putting on an act. Either way, perhaps Mr. Goldberg would approve of some judicious sentence-tightening?

It's a disaster because he's made himself into a racist.

Shalit, One of Olmert's Signal Failures

When Zal Speaks, Israel Should Listen

"There were moments when I felt that Israel could do a little more. For example I thought that there was so much bad publicity, and I got under pressure when I was trying to explain or defend Israel's action, when Israel refused to give the maps for cluster bomb munitions that were used in Lebanon. I used to say to my Israeli friends, that it makes it very hard for me to sit there and the opponents say. 'kids are dying in Lebanon, and UN says Israel won't give information about it.'

"We need to focus on a strategic thing. It doesn't justify that Hezbollah is getting arms from Syria, smuggling of arms to the south and so on. I've always been very strong in taking them to task, but it makes difficult when you lose a moral argument with the cluster bomb munitions' maps, or the overflights that can be too frequent and very aggressive. If the purpose was intelligence, maybe you could do it from higher altitude.

Nasrallah on the Possibility of Recognizing Israel

Today, and tomorrow, and after one year, and one hundred years, and one thousand years, until the Hour of Judgment, we and our children and our grandchildren and our people... as long as we are Hizbullah, we will not recognize Israel. What is Israel? Israel is a plundering entity, an illegal and illegitimate state, a racist, belligerent, terrorist state. By what standard can a human being, Muslim or Arab, recognize an entity of this kind, and come and say, simply: "Yes, this is Israel," while three quarters of it or more has been given to foreigners brought from all corners of the world, and while the people who are in the right, who are the legitimate ones, the people of the land and the holy places, the Palestinians - Muslims and Christians - have to let go, and leave, and surrender, and submit! Show me that standard! What is the religious standard? What is the moral standard? What is the humanitarian standard? What is the nationalist standard? What standard is it?!

CSIS: Israel Could Strike Iran with Missiles

• Attacking the Bushehr Nuclear Reactor would release contamination in the form of radionuclides into the air.
• Most definitely Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE will be heavily affected by the radionuclides.
• Any strike on the Bushehr Nuclear Reactor will cause the immediate death of thousands of people living in or adjacent to the site, and thousands of subsequent cancer deaths or even up to hundreds of thousands depending on the population density along the contamination plume.

An Afghan Reconstruction Horror Story

Many honest liberals and reformists, culled from the ranks of an impressive Afghan diaspora, have tried to rebuild a country ravaged by a decade of Islamist totalitarian rule only to discover that, while surface appearances may indeed be more hygienic, "official" corruption and criminality persist at levels intolerable for the future viability of a post-totalitarian regime. The sad case of Dr. Mohammed Atash, the former president of Ariana, Afghanistan's largest commercial airline, should be seen as a cautionary tale for what the U.S. and Europe may face in short order: namely, a failed state built on the ruins of the Taliban and sustained by cynical domestic interests.

Humanitarian of the Year

"Only Lieberman Understands Arabic"

What Makes Hamas Different Than the PLO?

By claiming Hamas is not now, nor will ever practically be, a partner for peace, one makes the implied argument that there is something inherently different from Hamas now and the PLO of years past.  From my reading of history, I see many similarities in both the rhetoric of Hamas-now and PLO-then, as well as in the arguments made against engaging/trusting Hamas-now and PLO-then.  Do you draw some distinction here between the two groups which I'm not seeing?  It seems that, while a great deal is left to be desired, the transformation of the PLO from resistance fighters to negotiating partners has, at the very least, proven much of the critics-then wrong. 

The Lieberman Disaster

"Iran is Killing Americans in Iraq"

As the new administration moves forward, it must realize that U.S.-Iranian negotiations will take place while Iran is killing Americans in Iraq and increasing its support for armed Iraqi factions. Like its predecessor, the Obama administration must prepare for the challenge of negotiating under fire.

Judea Pearl on Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

[T]he vital tissues of Jewish identity today feed on Jewish history and its natural derivatives -- the state of Israel, its struggle for survival, its cultural and scientific achievements and its relentless drive for peace.

Given this understanding of Jewish nationhood, anti-Zionism is in many ways more dangerous than anti-Semitism.

The Fetishizing Arbiters of Jewishness

A Jerusalem rabbinic court ruled that the adopted son of the late, famed Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim was not Jewish, and had never been Jewish, even though he had undergone an ultra-Orthodox conversion at age 2 and was married under the auspices of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate in 2001. Ha'aretz reports that the court made the decision when Yossi Fackenheim and his wife went to the court for a religious divorce. You don't need a divorce, the court told him, because you were never really married under Jewish law, because you are not a Jew, because you do not observe halakhah.

Under halakhah, however, someone who has converted remains Jewish even if he or she ceases to observe halakhah. Therefore, the court was not observing halakhah. Therefore, if one of the judges was actually a convert, he should by his own logic declare himself not Jewish, thereby negating the court's decision and reinstating Fackenheim.

Wolpe: Cohen Came, Listened, Learned Nothing

The audience tried over and over again to convince Cohen that while he was partly right - the Iranian people were sophisticated, poetry loving, freedom loving people, they were also people many of whom (particularly their leaders) were in the grip of a terrifying ideology. The government sponsors the production of the "protocols of the Elders of Zion" the anti-Semitic forgery that has done more harm than any other. They negotiated five years with the European Union in return five more years to build a nuclear program. The relentless persecution of the Bahai, which came up several times in the evening, shows the face of a regime that claims homosexuals do not exist, that Muslim lives (according to law) are worth more than others, that non-Muslims carry impurities, that women's status is degraded - on and on these Iranian Jews pleaded that Cohen acknowledge that his reading was partial at best, dangerous at worst.

Roger Cohen's World

Rabbi David Wolpe: I grant you that this is not a perfect analogy to Iran and Israel, but right would you say that Israel is much more powerful than Hezbollah, much more powerful than Hamas. Let's say tomorrow, it were reversed. Let's say Hezbollah had the firepower of Israel and Israel had the firepower of Hezbollah. Let's say Hamas had the firepower of Israel and Israel had rockets---

Roger Cohen: We can say, we can say--.

DW: Wait, wait, wait, wait---

RC: We can---

DW: Let me finish my question. You don't know what to respond to until I've finished my question. What do you think would happen to Israel were the balance of power reversed? And the reason I'm asking that is because Iran is pursuing means by which they could actually in the end  be more powerful than Israel so it's not just hypothetical. If Iran gets several nuclear bombs, they have much more territory and they could be more powerful than Israel. What would happen if Hamas and Hezbollah -- which are Iran's proxies -- had that power tomorrow?

RC: I don't know what would happen.

[audience laughter]

DW: I do.

RC: I don't know what would happen and it doesn't matter I don't know what would  happen because it's not going to happen tomorrow, or within a year, or two years, or three years. It is somewhere into the future. What is important, I think, is to try and reach an agreement with Iran which prevents them from going to a nuclear bomb. And I think that's possible. What is important is to begin to think differently about the Middle East in ways that could actually advance the cause of peace and the two-state solution rather than dreaming up scenarios from hell, rather than dreaming up the ultimate nightmare, rather than dwelling on nuclear Armageddon. Let's try and build something better in the Middle East

Abu Muqawama on Hezbollah

Maybe it's about time we start taking some Islamist groups seriously and at their word. When Hamas or Hizballah says there is no circumstance under which they would recognize Israel or accept a two-state solution, maybe we should, you know, believe them.

1. Maybe we shouldn't think about how we are going to pursue our own interests without first seeing whether or not we have partners willing to meet us halfway. Hizballah can put the most enlightened spokesperson in front of the organization -- Ibrahim Mousawi, Hussein Rahal, whoever -- but if it looks as if there is no middle ground on which we can meet, there is really nothing we can talk about.
   

What if the Obama Administration said, "Hey, Hizballah, if we guarantee Israel will not attack you, will you lay down your arms?" I'm guessing the response would be something along the lines of "a) let us check with Tehran first and b) well, we've been telling our Shia supporters that these crazy Sunnis in Lebanon are a threat as well, so that's really not an option. Plus, they think our hard-won seat at the table in Beirut would go away if we disarmed. So, no."

The bottom line is, we the United States made things easy on Islamist groups from 2001-2009. With hard-liners in Washington, they could always deflect blame onto the United States and our inflexible policies. Now, I suspect, they will have to adjust to the new realities in Washington -- or risk isolating many of the supporters they have gathered in recent years.

Camel Technology Breakthrough

DUBAI  -- Three years after robots replaced human jockeys, camel racing has lost none of its allure in the UAE and has become more accessible for expatriates and tourists, authorities said yesterday as the Dubai racing season wound up.

"It is safer and more comfortable," Rashid al Swadi, the deputy manager of the Dubai Camel Racing Club, said minutes after the final race. "This has always been a popular sport. We upgraded the traditions of our fathers and grandfathers."

The UAE and other Gulf countries were previously criticised because of the use of children as camel jockeys. The practice is now banned in the UAE.

This and other changes are making the sport more accessible to non-Emiratis, according to Dr Ulrich Wernery, the scientific director of the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory in Dubai, who has been following camel racing for decades. "It was a very good impetus," he said.

"Racing is slowly becoming more and more popular, especially with tourists. Before visitors were not allowed in with cameras. There were checkpoints and police everywhere and it was very tense. Now you can go everywhere you want."

No Doggie Bags: The Corby Kummer Story

Unbelievable

Memo from NPR's director of morning programming

From: Ellen McDonnell
To: ME list; Davar Ardalan; Jenni Bergal
Sent: Thu Mar 12 15:48:24 2009
Subject: saving money

As of April 1 NPR is cancelling all newspaper subscriptions. We are making some arrangments to get the Wall Street Journal either on line or hard copy. You have until tomorrow to appeal this if there is a solid reason why you should be exempt. This is a cost saving measure company wide.

Rothkopf: Freeman's Great, Walt Cashes in on Anti-Semitism

Freeman, I can forgive. He had every reason to be angry. Walt, not now, not ever, because whatever the pale intellectual merits of his hackneyed argument may be, he and Mearsheimer know full well that their prominence on this issue has come not because they have had a single new insight but rather because they were willing and one can only believe inclined to play to a crowd whose "views" were fueled by prejudice and worse. They may not be anti-Semites themselves but they made a cynical decision to cash in on anti-Semitism by offering to dress up old hatreds in the dowdy Brooks Brothers suits of the Kennedy School and the University of Chicago. They did what the most desperate members of academia do, they signed up to be rent-a-validators, akin to expert witnesses who support the defense of felons with specious theories served up on fancy diplomas. They would argue that they were daring to speak truth to power.  In reality they were giving one crowd in particular precisely what it wanted to hear.

Patrick Leahy, Friend of Israel

 Patrick Leahy, long serving Vermont Senator and chairman of the Judiciary committee, compared the plight of the Palestinians to that of his Irish ancestors in the 19th century. This is huge in American politics; everyone loves the Irish (or at least pretends to)...  How long before Jeffrey Goldberg and John Podhoretz claim that Leahy is a rabid anti-Semite?

Hamas' unilateral decision to break the ceasefire was deplorable.  It is clear that rather than work for peace, Hamas used the ceasefire to amass more powerful and longer range weapons.  Its actions should be universally condemned, and they will achieve nothing positive for the cause of the Palestinian people.  Those who have collaborated in supplying weapons that are being used to terrorize and harm innocent civilians in Israel are complicit in the suffering and destruction that has occurred on both sides.

For its part, Israel used the ceasefire to pressure Hamas through a blockade that, in the absence of a long-term strategy, has caused extreme hardship for the Palestinian people collectively in Gaza but done nothing to change Hamas' militant policies.  The blockade was not coupled with an effective strategy to address the underlying causes of the conflict.  

Washington Post: Freeman is a Conspiracy Theorist

What's striking about the charges by Mr. Freeman and like-minded conspiracy theorists is their blatant disregard for such established facts. Mr. Freeman darkly claims that "it is not permitted for anyone in the United States" to describe Israel's nefarious influence. But several of his allies have made themselves famous (and advanced their careers) by making such charges -- and no doubt Mr. Freeman himself will now win plenty of admiring attention. Crackpot tirades such as his have always had an eager audience here and around the world. The real question is why an administration that says it aims to depoliticize U.S. intelligence estimates would have chosen such a man to oversee them.

Lane on Freeman: A Conventional Thinker

Freeman's strong suit is supposed to be original, contrarian thinking on foreign affairs. Actually, it's more like a competing brand of conventional wisdom. On China, Freeman goes a bit further than others in his disdain for American human rights pressure on Beijing and in his indifference toward the regime's opponents. But, overall, his sympathetic view of that country's leadership is hardly unorthodox, much less brave. Right or wrong, Freeman's thinking is widely shared among influential U.S. businessmen, diplomats, scholars and think tanks. A more paranoid person than I might even refer to these folks as the "China Lobby." Stripped of its more controversial rhetoric, though, Freeman's "analysis" of China is a rehash of a very familiar apologia.

At Least One Newspaper Is Still Hiring

Five Observations on the Freeman Withdrawal

Leftists who praise Freeman on the single issue of Israel-Palestine, ostensibly out of a concern for justice and human rights, say it's beside the point to confront his endless euphemisms and evasions on other human rights abuses. An unintended consequence of this maneuver is that these same leftists appear even more obsessed with the Jewish state than do the "neocons" they purport to monitor. They also look especially stupid in this instance because they're effectively arguing that what goes on in the West Bank is more crucial to U.S. national security than what goes on in the one country which produced fifteen out of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. How's that for realism?

Cohen on Hamas and Hezbollah

The 1988 Hamas Charter is vile, but I think it's wrong to get hung up on the prior recognition of Israel issue. Perhaps Hamas is sincere in its calls for Israel's disappearance -- although it has offered a decades-long truce -- but then it's also possible that Israel in reality has no desire to see a Palestinian state.

Perhaps Cohen would be served by reading their charter a little more closely. He also insists the U.S. "should initiate diplomatic contacts with the political wing of Hezbollah."

Abu Muqawama disagrees:

First off, who is this "political wing?" Does he mean Hizballah parliamentarians? If that's who he is talking about, then fine, I understand. The seven-man Shura Council, though, has operational control over both what Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh calls the "Political and Administrative Apparatus" as well as the "Military and Security Apparatus." So while there is a clear division of labor between Hizballah's activities in the government and its military activities, the command is more or less unified. (I have no idea how Hamas is set up, so someone feel free to jump in here.)

Second, why on Earth would Hizballah want to talk to us? What would they want from us?

Third, it would be one thing if the only thing Hizballah has ever said about armed resistance was said in the Open Letter of 1985, but Hizballah leaders have repeatedly and consistently defined the organization as an armed resistance movement first and foremost. What's more, this armed resistance is no longer tied into concrete territorial demands that we could conceivably help out with, such as the Shebaa Farms. So that complicates things, both for us in dealing with them and also for them as they try to figure out what the future of their party holds.

Andrew, Freeman, Me, Treason, and Dual Loyalty

Human Rights Watch Hijacked by Neocons

Rosner on Salam Fayyad's Departure

[W]hile the Palestinian partner is becoming less promising and more complicated to deal with, it seems that the administration is pulling out of the bag the only available trick: pressuring Israel on the settlement issue.
...
This pressure from the Obama team was to be expected but, with the resignation of Fayad, its futility will be even more evident than usual. Those who expect the freezing of settlement activities to make peace more probable should prepare for disappointment. Since peace is not in the cards as a short-term cause, Obama may want settlement activities halted in hopes of not derailing future agreements. That would be long-term future -- when a new Fayad is found.

Andrew, Chas, and Me

Fallows on Freeman: An Antidote to Groupthink?

A president's Secretary of State had to represent the country's policies soberly and predictably around the world. His National Security Advisor had to coordinate and evenhandedly present the views of the various agencies. His White House press secretary had to take great care in expressing the official line to the world's media each day. His Director of National Intelligence had to give him the most sober and responsible precis of what was known and unknown about potential threats.

For any of those roles, a man like Freeman might not be the prudent choice. But as head of the National Intelligence Council, my friend said, he would be exactly right. While he would have no line-operational responsibilities or powers, he would be able to raise provocative questions, to ask "What if everybody's wrong?", to force attention to the doubts, possibilities, and alternatives that normally get sanded out of the deliberative process through the magic known as "groupthink."

Freeman on Israel and 9/11

We have paid heavily and often in treasure in the past for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel's approach to managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago we began to pay with the blood of our citizens here at home.

Freeman's Son Threatens to Punch Critics in Their Faces

My Dad is a royal pain in the butt, but I love him. Why this pack of arfing lapdogs have chosen him as a target is clear: he's been a longtime thorn in the butt of the Israel first-ers. Never mind that he'd be a killer NIC chair for genuine American interests.

My Dad and I are going to continue to argue.

We'll do it, respectfully though.

Wish that could be said about his detractors. They are low-lives. And if you're among them and by chance read this: I still want to punch you in the face. You'd deserve it, you schmucks.

Hezbollah's Insane Roger Cohen Graphic

Al Manar regularly airs raw footage of violence in the occupied territories, and it will break into its programming with what one Al Manar official called "patriotic music videos" to announce Palestinian attacks and applaud the killing of Israelis. When I visited the station, the videos were being produced in a basement editing room by a young man named Firas Mansour. Al Manar has modern equipment, and the day I was there Mansour, who was in charge of mixing the videos, was working on a Windows-based editing suite. Mansour is in his late twenties, and he was dressed in hip-hop style. His hair was gelled, and he wore a gold chain, a heavy silver bracelet, and a goatee. He spoke colloquial American English. I asked him where he learned it. "Boston," he said.

Mansour showed me some recent footage from the West Bank, of Israeli soldiers firing on Palestinians. Accompanying the video was a Hezbollah fighting song. "What I'm doing is synchronizing the gunshots to form the downbeat of the song," he told me. "This is my technique. I thought of it." He had come up with a title: "I'm going to call it 'Death to Israel.' " Mansour said that he can produce two or three videos on a good day. "What I do is, first, I try to feel the music. Then I find the pictures to go along with it." He pulled up another video, this one almost ready to air. "Try and see if you could figure out the theme of this one," he said.

The video began with Israeli soldiers firing on Palestinians. Then the screen filled with pictures of Palestinians carrying the wounded to ambulances, followed by an angry funeral scene. Suddenly, the scene shifted to Israelis under fire. An Israeli soldier was on the ground, rocking back and forth, next to a burning jeep; this was followed by scenes of Jewish funerals, with coffins draped in the Israeli flag being lowered into graves.

Mansour pressed a button, and the images disappeared from the screen. "The idea is that even if the Jews are killing us we can still kill them. That we derive our power from blood. It's saying, 'Get ready to blow yourselves up, because this is the only way to liberate Palestine.' '' The video, he said, would be shown after the next attack in Israel. He said he was thinking of calling it "We Will Kill All the Jews." I suggested that these videos would encourage the recruitment of suicide bombers among the Palestinians. "Exactly," he replied.

Krauthammer: Israel to Attack Iran

The only thing that would stop the Iranians, conceivably, would be a complete embargo, including refined petroleum, meaning gasoline, which would shut down its economy.

A, that may not even deter them, and, secondly, the Russians and others, and even the Europeans are not going to go alone, which means that in the end, it will be Israel acting here--6 million Jews in Israel are not going to allow a country that is threatening genocide to acquire a genocidal weapon.

We have to prepare ourselves for an Israeli attack by the end of this year....

Hamas: No Solution Is the Best Solution

Sometimes, no solution is better than a bad one. Hamas is undeniably a difficult interlocutor to avoid on Palestinian issues. The movement has effective veto power over most major Palestinian decisions. However, negotiating with Hamas would only better allow it to change the subject away from what it wants most to avoid: a settlement with Israel along the post-Oslo lines defined during the 1990s. If deadlock is assured on the Palestinian track in the coming year, then it's best to avoid talking to Hamas, allowing the Palestinians themselves, perhaps in the next elections, to cut the movement down to size first. And if they don't do so, then they should prepare to see their national aspirations postponed indefinitely.

Italy Pulls Out of Durban II

Frattini's comments on Durban II, made on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels, were reported by Italian news agencies. Ministry Spokesman Maurizio Massari confirmed Frattini's statements and said Rome would not participate in the conference unless the document was changed.

"There are expressions of anti-Semitism," Massari said by telephone. "Until the document is modified we will not have a part in it." The United States has imposed similar conditions. Israel and Canada have already announced a boycott.

I Prefer Muslim Salt, Personally

Retired barber Joe Godlewski says that when television chefs recommended kosher salt in recipes, he wondered, "What the heck's the matter with Christian salt?"

By next week, his trademarked Blessed Christians Salt will be available from seasonings manufacturer Ingredients Corporation of America. It's sea salt that's been blessed by an Episcopal priest.

Lede of the Year Contest

When the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrant for Sudan's president on Wednesday, an 8-year-old boy named Bakit Musa would have clapped -- if only he still had hands.

Good for Roger Cohen

Livni's Maneuver

Livni claims she has rejected Netanyahu's overtures because he won't commit to a two-state solution. But she knows that that disagreement is theoretical, because there is no chance anytime soon of creating a viable Palestinian state: As long as Hamas dominates Palestinian politics, it will impose a veto on any agreement. Nor has Livni managed to negotiate an agreement with Fatah. Livni, after all, served as foreign minister in the outgoing Kadima-Labor government of Ehud Olmert, which had three years to deliver peace with the Palestinians. In fact, Olmert tried to deliver two peace agreements--with the Syrians as well as the Palestinians. Instead, he became the first prime minister to fight two wars in one term--and not because he didn't try to bring peace.

How Big is Wal-Mart?

The Lingerie-Seller of Damascus

"Islam orders the woman to keep herself pretty for her husband, that's well-known," Mohammad Habash, head of the Damascus Center for Islamic Studies, said.

He said there is nothing at all contradictory in a veiled Muslim woman buying sexy underwear. "A woman can buy whatever she desires, even a dancer's outfit for when she wants to give pleasure to her husband," Habash added. "This is not only her right, it's an obligation."

The Israel Policy Forum's Professional Slander Expert

Chait calls Walt out for failing to note that many of the "usual suspects" Walt cites didn't only write about Freeman's views of Israel. Some wrote about his views of...China. Chait has to be joking. None of the bloggers in question had any interest in Freeman's views on China until Steve Rosen (and some of his colleagues) decided to stir up the opposition to Freeman because of his alleged lack of fidelity to the occupation. In fact, I hear that the offending China quotes were only discovered in the context of a Google Nexis/Lexis search to find incriminating material to block Freeman's appointment because of his Middle East views. China was not even an afterthought.

That should be obvious unless one believes that Rosen, Goldfarb, Goldberg, Peretz, Goldberg again and Scheonfeld suddenly developed a deep and simultaneous concern about human rights in China. The only issue that gang has in common is defending the occupation and opposing the peace process.

Sharon is taking on the most dangerous segment of the Israeli population. In the May 31 issue of The New Yorker, Jeffrey Goldberg -- an American Jewish reporter who served in the Israeli army -- describes the extreme settlement movement as a threat to the very existence of the Jewish state. Goldberg, a regular in the New York Times Magazine and elsewhere, has often been criticized for his supposed pro-Israel bias, and that makes his take on the settlers particularly significant.

I'm Not So Sure This is Good for the Jews

An Invitation for Roger Cohen

Thanks Very Much, Jared Polis

"I have to say, that when we say, 'Who killed The Rocky Mountain News,' we're all part of it, for better or worse, and I argue it's mostly for the better," Polis said at the Netroots Nation in Your Neighborhood event in Westminster, according to a recording posted online. The group supports progressive politics. "The media is dead, and long live the new media, which is all of us," said Polis, a Boulder Democrat.

Schneier on Perverse Security Incentives

Incentives explain much that is perplexing about security trade-offs. Why does King County, Washington, require one form of ID to get a concealed-carry permit, but two forms of ID to pay for the permit by check? Making a mistake on a gun permit is an abstract problem, but a bad check actually costs some department money.

In the decades before 9/11, why did the airlines fight every security measure except the photo-ID check? Increased security annoys their customers, but the photo-ID check solved a security problem of a different kind: the resale of nonrefundable tickets. So the airlines were on board for that one.

Charles Freeman: Tiananmen Massacre Was Justified

"[T]he truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than -- as would have been both wise and efficacious -- to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo's response to the mob scene at 'Tian'anmen' stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action. . . .

"I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be. Such folk, whether they represent a veterans' 'Bonus Army' or a 'student uprising' on behalf of 'the goddess of democracy' should expect to be displaced with despatch [sic] from the ground they occupy."

Not All Reporters in Iran Get the Roger Cohen Treatment

From today's Times:

TEHRAN -- Iran has arrested an Iranian-American reporter who worked for National Public Radio and other news organizations out of Iran, her father told N.P.R. on Sunday.

The father, Reza Saberi, said that his daughter, Roxana Saberi, 31, who has worked as a freelancer in Iran for six years, was arrested Jan. 31 by the authorities after buying a bottle of wine. He said she called Feb. 10 and told him that she was in custody but that she could be released soon.

Roger Cohen's Credulity, Cont'd

Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran -- its sophistication and culture -- than all the inflammatory rhetoric. That may be because I'm a Jew and have seldom been treated with such consistent warmth as in Iran.

Warmth, civility, hospitality and friendliness are the hallmarks of most Muslim societies I've visited. I have been in many places -- in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq and Iran -- where people absolutely hate Israel, absolutely hate "International Jewry," and hate the Talmud, or what they think is in the Talmud. But people in these places have been almost uniformly kind to me as a visiting Jewish reporter (and they almost always know, right from the outset, that I'm Jewish, because it's not something I ever hide).

Israel, Crying Wolf

Israel cannot keep up for much longer the role of managing the global coalition against Iran. Its term is running out, not least because, in the wake of the Gaza war, it has lost its status as a country under threat. It may seem that the two fronts are unconnected, but it's hard not to notice how less qualified Israel is to cry wolf as it prevents pasta trucks from entering the Gaza Strip.

Unfortunately, this erosion is spreading. You can't be perceived as a bully on one front and a righteous nation on the other. It's not that the Iranian threat has weakened, it's that the shine of its potential victim has dimmed.

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