Obama's First Test?

It is probably no suprise that I did not vote for Obama in the recent presidential elections here. Like most everyone else, I found his youth, inspiring background and eloquence refreshing. However, I was worried that he was inexperienced and naive with regards to the nature of the threat that the world faces from ideological extremists and hard-nosed realists.

Though I did not vote for him, I admit that I was proud of America for showing the world that neither his skin color or foreign sounding name barred him from serving in the highest office in the land. Indeed, it could be reasonably argued that this helped him in many ways, a fact that no doubt has led to a great deal of consternation among those who are convinced that America is a racist and islamophobic society.

As the attacks on Mumbai over the past three days clearly demonstrate, this is unfortunately not enough for those committed to their radical causes. Several commentators have noted that in many ways, this is Obama's fist real test, i.e. the one that Biden famously predicted (See Here, Here and Here for example). Since he is clearly in no position to actually do anything at this point as the President elect, I thought it would be interesting to see if his comments might betray his sensibility regarding these heinous terrorist acts. Personally, I think that they do. Just compare Obama's statement vs that of Russia's President Medvedev:

"President-elect Obama strongly condemns today's terrorist attacks in Mumbai," said a statement by Brooke Anderson, Obama's spokeswoman on national security. "These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism. The United States must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks."

vs.

"The monstrous crimes of terrorists in Mumbai arouse our wrath, indignation and unconditional condemnation," Medvedev said in a message to the his Indian counterpart Pratibha Patil and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. "The inhuman terrorist attacks on hospitals, hotels and other public places aimed at killing civilians, taking and murdering hostages are crimes directed against the foundation of civilized society," he said. Russia supports the decisive actions the Indian government has taken to curb terrorist actions and those criminals should be severely punished, Medvedev added.

First of all, I find it odd that Obama could not find the time to make the statement himself. It is after all Thanksgiving weekend. Perhaps he was too busy stuffing himself with stuffing?

Let's Compare and Contrast the language used in each one:

Obama (through spokesperson) vs. Medvedev

strongly condemns vs. arouse our wrath, indignation and unconditional condemnation
coordinated attacks vs. inhuman terrorist attacks
urgent threat vs crimes directed against the foundation of civilized society
strengthen our partnerships vs decisive actions
root out and destroy terrorist networks vs. those criminals should be severely punished

Hmm. Which one seems like they get it? Which one inspires more confidence?

Do you think Medvedev would be willing to run in the US Presidential elections once Putin puts him out of a job?

Yehi Zikhram Barukh - Blessed be their Memory

I have been closely following all of the tragic events in Mumbai and my heart really goes out to everyone who has suffered because of these terrifying and senseless acts.

I did not personally know Rabbi Holtzberg, but I corresponded with him on several occasions when I lived in India. He was gracious and kind and made sure that I was supplied with Matzohs and seders for the two Passovers I spent in Puri. He even extended a personal invitation for me and my family to come spend the holiday with him in Nariman House. We never did make it and now I truly regret not having had the honor to have personally met him and his selfless wife Rivka in person.

As a father to two young boys, I can also not help but feel anguish at the though of their son Moshe, who was orphaned a day shy of his second birthday, which is today. If any of you wish to help Moshe, it is possible to make a contribution by clicking on this link: Chabad India

The Reason for the End of Reason

Edward Bernard Glick writes an interesting article on how academia became the way it is:

It's August 1968. Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators have just wrecked the Democratic national convention in Chicago and ruined Hubert Humphrey's chances to become President. So what did these Marxist demonstrators and their cohorts elsewhere do next?

They stayed in college. They sought out the easiest professors and the easiest courses. And they stayed in the top half of their class. This effectively deferred them from the military draft, a draft that discriminated against young men who didn't have the brains or the money to go to college. That draft also sparked the wave of grade inflation that still swamps our colleges. Vietnam-era faculty members lowered standards in order to help the "Hell No, We Won't Go" crowd.

So now I get it! Basically, a bunch of self-indulgent leftists radicals with an agenda took over and destroyed any semblance of thought or standards.

Forty years have passed since the 1968 Democratic national convention. During that time, American academia has been transformed into the most postmodernist, know-nothing, anti-American, anti-military, anti-capitalist, Marxist institution in our society. It is now a bastion of situational ethics and moral relativity and teaches that there are no evil people, only misunderstood and oppressed people. American academia is now a very intolerant place, As Ann Coulter, who has been driven off more than one campus podium because of her conservative views, has put it, "There is free speech for thee, but not for me."

Though I really can't stand Ann Coulter, she is right on this one. All is relative, no "truth" (always in quotes) exists, yet their utterances are pearls of wisdom and anyone else is wrong or stupid (or both). These folks regularly get themselves all worked up into this kind of pretzelled logic.

I think of these folks as the CTD Crowd (and no, CTD does not stand for cliterodectomy). It stands for "Curse the Darkness" - the only thing that they know how to do. This is what they call "Critical Theory" (!) and sadly, this is what passes today for reasoned thought.

After too many years in the CTD camp, I am happy to report that I am finally with the life-affirming LAC Crowd (and no, LAC does not stand for Legal Aid of Cambodia). Rather, it stands for "Light a Candle" - something that is kind of hard to do if you are debating whether or not fire is something that should ever be endorsed. After all, so many people have burned themselves with fire in the past.

Then again, as the geniuses will be quick to point out, there really is no such thing as darkness. It's ALL a social construct.

Which Would You Choose?

Here are two articles that show the difference between living under Palestinian rule and living under Israeli rule.

The first one describes the human rights situation in Gaza over the past year.

Palestinian Mazen Shahin says the torture he suffered in a month spent as a prisoner of the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip was worse than the several years he spent in Israeli jails.

He says he will never forget his time in Mashtal prison: "It was a lot worse than being in jail in Israel," he told AFP at his modest home in Khan Yunis refugee camp in the south of the Palestinian territory.

The Israelis arrested him four times and he spent "several years" behind bars inside the Jewish state, said Shahin, a member of the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Sadly, the article buys the Hamas propaganda that this was carried out by rogue elements of the security forces and that the public can now complain if they wish. No doubt, those who dare to complain will be given their own private tours of the Hamas penal system. A place where:

He says he had the soles of his feet beaten with heavy electric cables. His captors also made him suffer the indignity of shaving his head and beard.

"They told me I was not a religious person and that I wasn't allowed to pray because God would not hear my prayers,"

By the looks of it, Meshtal prison makes Abu Ghraib look like a sanatorium.

The second article deals with Palestinian collaborators with Israel who now live in Sedorot - the same town that is constantly bombarded by missiles from Gaza. According to the Guardian - a newspaper that rarely if ever has something positive to say about Israel, these collaborators unanimously asserted like "Samir" that:

"I'm very happy that I helped the state of Israel. Here everything is straightforward, not like with the Arabs. Here there is a law and there are rights."

So basically, people prefer to live under a rain of deadly missiles rather than live in Gaza under Islamofascists. Ponder that the next time you hear about how some leftist, "peace-loving" organization or Carterite has expressed their solidarity with the Palestinians. Too bad Rachel Corrie did not live long enough to enjoy the type of hospitality reserved for Alan Johnson and Mazen Shahin.

Friends don't Let Friends ...

Starting with this election cycle, I have noticed a recurring trope in the left wing's discourse surrounding Israel - the assertion that the Bush administration has hardly been a true friend of the Jewish state. As Jeremy Ben-Ami, the director of the new anti-AIPAC lobby J-Street recently stated in the pages of the Washington Post, the notion that Bush has been the best friend Israel has ever had is no less than a "myth". According to this political savant, this is:

Not even close. The president has acted as Israel's exclusive corner man when he should have been refereeing the fight. That choice weakened Israel's long-term security. Israel needs U.S. help to maintain its military edge over its foes, but it also needs the United States to contain Arab-Israeli crises and broker peace. Israel's existing peace pacts owe much to Washington's ability to bridge the mistrust among parties in the Middle East. So when the United States abandons the role of effective broker and acts only as Israel's amen choir, as it has throughout Bush's tenure, the United States dims Israel's prospects of winning security through diplomacy.

So, Israeli military strength is its diplomatic weakness? No matter that Ben-Ami's interesting algebra has no historical precedent in the Middle East world of realpolitik, he truly believes that a strong Israel is the root of the problem. Worse, he accuses Israel - the only country in the world that would show such restraint when its civilian population is being bombarded on a daily basis - of a diplomatic DUI in its dealings with the Palestinians:

Would a true friend not only let you drive home drunk but offer you their Porsche and a shot of tequila for the road? Israel needs real friends, not enablers. And forging a healthy friendship with Israel requires bursting some myths about what it means to be pro-Israel.

So apparently it is Israeli recklessness and not Palestinian or Arab intransigence that is preventing peace from gushing forth in the Middle East.

It does not take much to see this as none other than a brazen and self-serving attempt to stop the hemorhaging of Jews from the Democratic to the Republican party. As recent polling clearly shows, this is a real concern and may actually be the first time that the Republican party could get as much as 40% of the Jewish vote.

In practice this could mean that Obama's nomination could cost the Democrats "180,000 votes in the state of Florida if we drop 20 percent. It means 35,000 votes in Ohio. God forbid New Jersey's in play, 130,000 votes in New Jersey; 16,000 votes in the small state of Nevada; 25,000 votes in Colorado; 70,000 votes in Pennsylvania"

Yet, the oddest thing about Ben-Ami's argument (aside from the "false consciousness" angle) is that none of the respective parties seem to think that what he is saying has any basis in fact.

For starters, President Bush stated during his recent visit to Israel that, "America is proud to be Israel's best friend in the world." and Israel's President Shimon Peres, someone who would hardly fit the picture of a hawk, "lamented the coming end to Bush's presidency in January, calling Bush's tenure a "moving" eight years."

Even Palestinian President Abbas asserted that Bush is "biased" towards Israel while Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri used less diplomatic language and stated that, Bush was "the leader of evil in the world".

So basically everyone agrees that Bush has been a true friend to Israel. In fact, even Ben-Ami implicitly agrees that Bush is a staunch supporter of Israel, though from his perspective this as a negative and Israel, the only country that to this day has made any concessions for peace, needs to be forcibly pushed into making peace with its neighbors. It should come as no surprise then that Ben-Ami and his organization openly endorse Obama and has gone on record to state that "From our pro-Israel point of view (!), he's right on the money."

This obviously begs the question - Who would you rather have as a friend - a person like President Bush who is committed to Israel's survival and opposed to all Arab attempts to delegitimize Israel or paint it as the source of all problems in the Middle East or those "pro-Israel" types like Ben-Ami and Obama?

The former believes that Israel is drunk on power and that it's strength and success are the root of the problem while Senator Obama has termed Israel a "constant sore" to the Arab world. Do I really need to point out that friends don't call friends "constant sores"?

The Obama Nation's Playbook

The recent Clinton RFK flap reminds me of the Vilnai comment on Gaza that used the Hebrew word "shoah". Aside from the fact that the meaning of "shoah" as Holocaust is always "Ha Shoah", or THE Holocaust, like most words in any language, "shoah" has several meanings including "catastrophe" and "disaster".

No matter. The Arab reporters of Reuters (Adam Entous and Joseph Nasr) who broke the story took it upon themselves to translate this in the most negative way they could and the world press swallowed it up. Of course no one stopped to consider the chutzpah inherent in appropriating a Hebrew word and then telling the speakers of Hebrew what it really means. Hamas not only lapped it up, but declared this as incontrovertible proof of Israel's Nazi intentions. (e.g. see the Electronic Intifada article on this.)

It does not matter what Clinton meant, the liberal media are doing their part for the cause and the Obaminators have borrowed a play from the Hamas playbook while also doing their best to emulate Soviet-era thought police. Any statement that could remotely have anything to do with their candidate (e.g. Bush's remarks on appeasement) or could somehow be twisted to imply racism is latched onto as paranoid "proof" of the nefarious forces out there.

Unfortunately for Obama, this approach will certainly backfire, as there are few things that cause resentment as being constantly told you must be a racist (e.g. 1, 2, 3) just because you do not support his candidacy. After all, it is possible that someone simply disagrees with his positions. Of course that would just prove that they are "bitter".

Self Inficted Catastrophe

Prof Ephraim Karsh's definitive and eye-opening article on the Palestinian refugee issue is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the events of 1948. Based solely on documents from that era, many of which have only recently been made available to historians, Karsh shows, what reputable historians have been saying all along - that the Palestinian refugee problem is one that was caused primarily by the venal Palestinian leadership and self-interested Arab parties.


To read the article in HTML.
To read it as a PDF.
To read the fully annotated version.

Which ever way, definitely read it!

Happy Birthday Israel!

Canary in the Coal Mine

Israel has often been called the canary in the coal mine - what happens in Israel tends to repeat itself elsewhere, usually sooner rather than later. Ironically, this is no where more true than in the Muslim world. The terrorism that was first tested out on Israeli children is now de rigeur in Baghdad. Suicide bombings - which were unheard of twenty years ago, are now common from Mauritania to Pakistan. The fighting skills that Hamas perfected against Israel was used to throw their brothers off of rooftops and to undemocratically maintain power in Gaza.

Moreover, while countless articles have been written about how the conflict has been bad for Israel, it seems to me the Arabs have fared much worse. Israel remains a vibrant democracy with an enviable economy and a strong legal system. Palestinian society is in shambles. When they remember the Nakba, they do not have to hearken back 60 years, but rather can just look around them. Sure, they blame Israel, but it is they - and not Israel - that has to endure daily suffering at the hands of their own brothers.

The Palestinians - who were once led by the secular PLO and famously included many Christians, has now been replaced by Hamas - which is rapidly weeding out Fatah along with the minuscule Christian community in Gaza. While Israel is roundly attacked for "human rights abuses" Hamas in Gaza has perfected its societal oppression and waiting for the chance to spread it to the West Bank and all of Israel. If it works in Israel, you can be sure this will impact Jordan Egypt and Lebanon.

Though I am opposed to the way Kossovars declared independence, I commend them for instinctively realizing this. Michael Totten, who usually reports from Lebanon is presently doing a series on the Balkans. Recently (April 30), he wrote:

Kosovo is the world’s newest country, and its unilateral declaration of independence is more controversial than the existence of Israel. It should be only slightly surprising, then, that many Kosovars, though most are Muslims, identify to an large extent with the Israelis. “Kosovars used to identify with the Palestinians because we Albanians are Muslims and Christians and we saw Serbia and Israel both as usurpers of land,” a prominent Kosovar recent told journalist Stephen Schwartz. “Then we looked at a map and woke up. Israelis have a population of six million, their backs to the sea, and 300 million Arab enemies. Albanians have a total population of eight million, our backs to the sea, and 200 million Slav enemies. So why should we identify with the Arabs?”

So, while columnists the world over are busy eulogizing Israel on the 60th anniversary of its founding, they may want to consider also asking about the odds of the Palestinians surviving as one people for another 60 years. Or will the fault lines of Fatah and Hamas, Christian and Muslim, Secular and Religious, and Refugee and those living in the territories, West Bank and Gaza, and Israeli Arab and non-citizen Arabs prove too much? The same could be said for most of the repressive Middle East states, where tribe, religion, ethnicity and politics are all regularly suppressed by the totalitarian regimes that rule the region.

Sure, Israel has its societal divides as well, but they are out in the open and are regularly discussed. As New York Times columnist Freedman noted in his book The World is Flat, the difference between India and Pakistan is that in India, when a poor boy looks up the hill and sees a mansion, he says "One day I will grow up and be that man." When a Pakistani boy looks up, he says, "One day I am going to kill that man." The only discussions that occur at present in Palestinian society and Muslim society as a whole, occur at the end of a rifle.

I doubt I will be around in 60 years and don't really know if Israel will be around in 60 years, but am pretty sure that Muslim dictators and the Palestinians should be the most worried right about now.

Administering Silence

In a predictable and self-serving opinion piece that appeared in last week's Guardian, David Edgar writes of former leftist brothers-in-arms who have left the reservation and dared to think independently. According to him they have contracted the dread disease of conservatism.

As an anthropologist, this would likely be interpreted as an example of "segmentary opposition" i.e. when one group/kin stands in opposition to the other and defines themselves in this way in a typically tribal manner. By declaring his former brothers-in-arms as right-wingers, Edgars he is effectively placing them beyond the pale.

Yet, I think that in reality he is doing something else. He is, as Foucoult would say, "administering silence" - declaring what discourse can be heard and discussed and what can not. By labelling his ideological opponents this way, he is saying that they should not be allowed to be heard anymore.

It is actually quite ironic that quite often the best way to analyse the Left is through the writings of Leftist writers. Yet, the totalizing tendencies of Leftist thought lend themselves easily to their own critiques. Clearly, they are good at projecting.

Melanie Phillips, who is listed as one of the apostates in Edgar's article, forcefully and eloquently responds to his claptrap and comes to the same conclusion. To read her response and the interesting comments, click here.

For the left, to accuse someone of ‘moving to the right’ is akin to claiming they have put themselves totally beyond the moral pale. Anyone tarred with this dread brush instantly becomes an unperson, to be exiled from civilised society altogether and treated as a pariah.

So others on the left who harbour similar feelings of support for overthrowing the tyrant Saddam Hussein or horror at Islamist extremism (which in their innocence they imagine are progressive positions) and who read Edgar’s diatribe wouldn’t think ‘What a berk!’ They would think with a shudder of dread: ‘So would I also be denounced if I were discovered to be thinking this’.

The single most important thing for left-wingers -- what defines them in their own eyes as people of moral worth -- is the fact that they are not ‘right-wing’. For ‘the right’ is a place of unmitigated evil. Only the left is good. So this is how it goes in the left-wing mind.

To be not on the left is evil.
To be not on the left is to be on the right.
Therefore everyone who disagrees with the left on anything is automatically an evil right-winger.

The idea that there can be anything other than left-wing or right-wing – eg ‘liberal’, or ‘not really that interested in political ideology, thanks’, or ‘it’s just common-sense, surely?’ – won’t wash at all. Anything not left-wing is right-wing. Any other explanation is just… well, false consciousness.

So this is what follows.

The left believe a wide range of lies.
Others believe in the truth instead.
Therefore to the left, those people are ‘right-wing’.
Therefore truth is actually a right-wing concept.
Therefore truth is evil.
Therefore truth has to be relabelled lies while lies of course remain unchallengeable truth.

It is no exaggeration to say that, since the vast majority of the media and intellectual class in Britain are on the left, this mindset has quite simply poisoned British public debate and brought us to our current state of suicidal irrationality in the face of an unprecedented global threat. For examples of this pathology, and the viciousness to which it gives rise, see some of the readers’ comments posted under various entries on this very website.

The reflex reaction of a left-winger, when presented with a set of facts which challenge his or her assumptions about the world, is not to ask ‘Is this true?’ but ‘Will adopting this position make me right-wing?’ It’s not just that to adopt such a heresy would risk social ostracism and worse amongst friends and colleagues. More profoundly, the left-winger really does believe that to be left is good and to be ‘right’ is evil.

Fitna and Free Speech

If you have been living under a rock you may not have heard about the imminent release of Geert Wilders film Fitna. While I personally do not see the utility in deliberately offending a group of people, I agree that we need to vigorously defend our Right to Free Speech.

As Peter Hoekstra, a native of the Netherlands and the ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence wrote in a Wall Street Journal article:

I do not defend the right of Geert Wilders to air his film because I agree with it. I expect I will not. (I have not yet seen the film). I defend the right of Mr. Wilders and the media to air this film because free speech is a fundamental right that is the foundation of modern society. Western governments and media outlets cannot allow themselves to be bullied into giving up this precious right due to threats of violence.

No Civilians Killed in Tibet

It is good to see that based on the news reports we are receiving, NOT ONE Tibetan civilian has been killed by Chinese forces. Contrast that to the actions of the Israeli army in Gaza where it seems that almost everyone killed was a "civilian".

Reuters, which has been particularly clear that Israel primarily kills "civilians" apparently does not believe that the Tibetans who have been killed are, in fact, civilians:

Tibet's self-proclaimed government-in-exile said up to 80 people had been killed in total, but Qiangba Puncog put the figure at 13.

Tsegyam, head of the Tibet Religious Foundation of the Dalai Lama in Taiwan, told reporters that more than 100 people had been killed and about 1,000 injured in the rioting.

The BBC reports that some people have "died". It's not immediately clear if they had a heart attack or succumbed to fright:

The exiled Tibetan government says at least 80 protesters died in the Chinese crackdown.

The According to the Washington Post bodies were "seen". It's not clearly if they were part of a public art performance or injured, or dead. Certainly, it is not clear if they are "civilians":

The Dalai Lama's exile organization, headquartered in Dharamsala, India, since his flight from Tibet in 1959, said Tibetans reported by telephone and Internet that they had seen about 80 bodies after the violence Friday, identifying them as Tibetans killed in the disturbances.

Actually, the only time the news reported that "civilians" were killed was when quoting the Chinese spokesperson who accused the Tibetan protesters of killing civilians. Do you think that this is so that they could justify the mayhem that they have unleashed? I guess that this is to be expected when you allow precisely those people from the places that do not have and do not believe in press freedom to control the message.