Forces from Right and Left Involved in Netanyahu's Decision to Release Terrorists

Many people are asking why Netanyahu has made the wildly unpopular decision to release Palestinian murderers and other terrorists from Israeli jails, as well as why the US pressured him to do so.  (For example, Elliott Abrams, here:  http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2013/07/29/why-is-the-united-states-asking-israel-to-release-terrorists/#cid=soc-twitter-at-blogs-why_is_the_united_states_askin-072913)

Here is my entirely speculative guess.  First, Kerry is primarily interested in creating his own legacy.  While he may be peripherally concerned with the best interests of the parties involved, his main goal is to be remembered for something other than the man who lost to George Bush.  As an outside observer, it seems fairly clear to me that he put an extraordinary amount of pressure on Netanyahu to make some concession in order to jump start the process.  

My guess would be, however, that Kerry would not have had a strong preference for prisoner release over settlement freeze.  That pressure (again, I am speculating wildly) probably came from within his coalition.  Can anyone doubt that Nafatli Bennett's HaBayit HaYehudi party would have left the coalition over a settlement freeze?  Bennett has vociferously protested the prisoner release, to be sure, but he has not announced any intention to leave the coaltion over it.  

On the other side, Labor's Shelley Yachimovich bears some responsibility as well.  While she urges Netanyahu not to be "led by the extremists in his government" (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4410416,00.html) she has vowed to remain in the opposition, thereby forcing Netanyahu, in some cases, to do exactly that which she urges him not to do.  (http://www.timesofisrael.com/as-coalition-forms-yachimovich-vows-to-lead-true-opposition/)  If Yachimovich would join the coalition, Netanyahu would not be beholden to Bennett.  With prospects for peace, while still slim, at least, better than they have been in years, now is the time for Yachimovich and her party to put partisan differences aside and step up to provide Netanyahu with the votes he needs to defy extremists is his coaltion.

UPDATE 8/11/13: As I continue to give this issue a lot of thought, I want to add that, given the choice between a settlement freeze and prisoner release, it is also possible that it was Abbas who picked the prisoner release.  A settlement freeze means nothing is happening.  Abbas has a victory but it is not visual.  There are no pictures of a settlement freeze.  And when the talks fall apart, the building can always resume.

A prisoner release is a much more tangible victory.  Of the 26 prisoners set to be released this week, twelve will go to the West Bank.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/12/us-palestinians-israel-idUSBRE97A06320130812  Abbas will greet these murderers with a hero's welcome, he will hold parades in their honor.  It will be a glorious PR move for Abbas.  And, it is irreversible.  Once released, the prisoners can't be taken back.

So, perhaps it was not Bennett, after all.  

How Are These Negotiations Different from All Other Negotiations?

After several days of rumors and retractions, Secretary Kerry announced this evening that direct talks between "Israelis and Palestinians" were to resume (note how he cleverly avoids using the word "Palestine").

The announcement was greeted with skepticism (as reported here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/07/19/obama-kerry-middle-east-israel-palestinians/2569373/), and I am pretty skeptical myself.  If Abbas could not accept Olmert's 2008 offer, it is difficult to imagine him accepting anything Netanyahu will offer -- although I do believe Bibi when he says he wants two states for two peoples, it seems highly unlikely that he will offer to give up, for example, sovereignty over the Temple Mount (aka Al-Aqsa Mosque).

But there is one thing that is very different now, and that is, Hamas.  With Hamas's biggest supporters either deposed in Egypt or preoccupied with backing Assad in Syria, Hamas may be in a weaker position than it has been during any previous round of negotiations.  If the real reason that Arafat walked away from Camp David in 2000, and Abbas did the same in 2008, was fear of Hamas -- fear of widespread violence within the Palestinian territories/would-be-state, fear of assassination -- then maybe, just maybe, this weakening of Hamas can allay those fears just enough to give pragmatism and moderation enough edge to carry the day.

There is of course, a host of other reasons the talks can fail, and I am not optimistic.  But there is always hope.

Once Again, Democrats Throw the LGBT Community Under The Bus

Usually I write about Israel and the Middle East, but there is so much that is wrong with the Immigration Bill that is about to be voted on in the Senate, I just had to say a few words about it.  

I am not sure which aggravates me more, the fact that our Senate appears to be too dumb to understand that rewarding illegal behavior encourages further illegal behavior, or that once again Democrats have ignored the needs of a constituency that they know has no recourse.  

The Democratic party, that is, the supposedly liberal party that is supposed to be the friend to lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans, has omitted any provision that would allow for citizenship for same-sex spouses of American citizens.  I am not sure why this should be a surprise to me, as it was after all, a Democratic president who signed DOMA into law in 1996.  But yet, I continue to be amazed at the willingness of the Democratic party to throw under the bus a constituency that it knows has no viable political alternative.  True, if the Supreme Court holds that the federal definition of marriage in DOMA is unconstitutional, this will prove to be moot, but as of today, what the Court will do is still anyone's guess, and this does not seem to be of concern to the Democratic party.  

On the other hand, an amnesty program for people who are currently here illegally will only incentivise  more people to come here illegally in the future.  The height or number of patrol personnel on a border fence does not change this.  Rewarding illegal behavior encourages illegal behavior -- this is a fact of human nature.  

One final point.  The inability of the national discourse on immigration to acknowledge the distinction between legal and illegal immigration is confounding and frustrating.  I am not anti-immigrant -- I am anti-illegal immigrant.  Increasing the number of individuals we allow to come here legally is a totally separate issue from rewarding people who come here and break our laws by working without authorization to do so, and commit fraud by using phony social security numbers (yes, even if they are paying into the system, they are still committing fraud).  If people who have come here without authorization to do so are now given amnesty, this will come at the expense of law abiding, would-be immigrants, who have waited their turn to come here lawfully.  There is no justice in that.  

Would You Think I Was Crazy if I Said the U.S. Should Invade Canada?

It is no secret that our neighbor to the north has had some disagreement with its First Nation population (people who, in the U.S., would be known as "Native Americans").  Earlier this year, the Chief of Attawapiskat went on a hunger strike to call attention to "unfinished business in terms of relationships, Aboriginal rights, and in terms of our relationship with the land.” See http://bit.ly/WQD2I3.  And this week, Huffington Post Canada reports, the Hupacasath Nation is in court with the Canadian government, trying to stop a trade deal with China which it claims will negatively affect its rights in natural resources.  See http://huff.to/1925ksB.  

Would you think I was certifiable if I said that the U.S. should invade Canada to militarily impose a solution that we deem fit on Canada and its First Nation people?  Well, yes, of course you would!  And if, eleven years from now, I tried to disown or explain away those comments, would you still think that I was, at best, pretty nutty, that I made outlandish statements about a country and a situation about which I obviously was quite ignorant, and that I was unfit to hold a high diplomatic position?  Probably.  

That is how Samantha Power sounds to people who are knowledgeable about Israeli history and society.  In the 2002 interview in which she advocated a U.S. military imposition on Israel of a solution that the U.S. would deem fit to the Palestinian issues, she displays complete ignorance of the events at Camp David in 2000 and at Taba in 2001.  She also sounds certifiably insane.  This is not a woman who should be named the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.  

And as far as today's column in the Washington Post by Max Fisher trying to somehow explain those comments away, well, we all can, and all should, watch the video ourselves and hear for ourselves what she said.  

Sympathy for Terrorists at New York's Paper of Record

The New York Times.  Do I love to hate them?  No, I just hate them.  The Times's chronic anti-semitism, which dates back to the WWII era, has led them to become soft apologists for terrorists.  First, for terrorists who act against Israel, and by extension, all terrorists.  No where is this more apparent than in the headline shown in this screen grab, which sympathises with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/19/new-york-times-sympathy-for-the-devil/#ixzz2QwNJfnVK  (Mysteriously, the headline has been changed, which is why my link is to a blog showing the screengrab.)

We have also seen this phenomenon in action when they refer to Guantamo as a "political prison," implying that its prisoners are political prisoners, as described in this blog: http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/04/the-new-york-times-declares-al-qaeda-membership-legitimate-political-activity/

Perhaps that puts some context on Times Magazine covers like the one in this screenshot (again, the headline and main graphic have been changed on the Times's website, and are now availably only through screengrabs that document it, like this one)  http://www.israellycool.com/2013/03/17/ben-ehrenreich-and-the-ny-times-paint-false-picture-of-terror-and-violence-advocates/

The One-State Solution – Why Not? 

The New York Times editorial page has been publishing pieces advocating a one-state solution in Israel and the West Bank for some time.  Recently, Saree Makdisi and Joseph Levine graced the Times’s Op-Ed pages, and perhaps most infamously, in 2009, an OpEd by Muammar Qaddafi put forth the same proposition.  (You can read Qaddafi’s column here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22qaddafi.html?_r=0.)  

To Americans, Jews and non-Jews, who were raised with the American ideal of the “melting pot,” or, in other metaphors, the “tossed salad,” or “beautiful mosaic” this may sound like the perfect solution.  Two peoples want the same land, why shouldn’t they share it?  Why can’t they live together, the way that the different ethnic groups that make up the United States do?  Ms. Makdisi asserted in her Times piece that in a single, binational state, “what [Jews] will gain . . .  is the right to live in peace.”

The fact that this proposal was advocated by Qaddafi ought to be enough to give one pause.  But setting that point aside, one way that we can assess the possibility of success for this proposal is by turning to history.  Throughout history, as long as Jews have lived in Muslim majority states, we, like any other religious minority in those states, were forced to live with so-called dhimmi status.  This was a second-class status, mandated by Islamic law, that allowed religious minorities to live in Muslim majority countries, but with many political restrictions, subject to a special dhimmi tax, and always subject to persecution.  

“But that is the past,” the melting-pot advocates will cry. “In the current times, we have all moved beyond that.  Modern Muslims would live in equality with Jews in this binational state.”  To see how preposterous this suggestion is, one only has to look at the current situation of Egypt’s Coptic Christians. 

Egypt is a U.S. ally, perhaps one of our closest Muslim allies.  After the overthrow of Mubarak, it held ostensibly democratic elections, the product of which was the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power.  Since that time, the persecution of women has increased and religious minorities have come under fire.  In October of 2011, between 25 and 35 Coptic Christians were killed by Egyptian police attempting to disperse a peaceful protest against religious suppression.  (You can read about it here: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/279657/situation-worsens-egypts-coptic-christians-kurt-j-werthmuller.)  Just last Friday, four more Christians were killed in sectarian violence, and on Sunday, the police attacked mourners at the funeral for those killed.  (You can read about it here: http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/04/07/funeral-for-killed-copts/ and here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/07/us-egypt-clashes-idUSBRE93503A20130407.)  And, of course, let’s not forget the reaction of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to the recent Declaration from the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.  The Brotherhood denounced the statement for advocating, among other things, to raise the minimum age of marriage, grant equality to gays and lesbians, and provide contraception.  (You can read the official brotherhood response here: http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=30731.) 

A bi-national state would mean a return to dhimmi status, and persecution, as soon as the Muslim population outnumbered the Jewish population (or possibly sooner, due to the fractionalized political system).  Anyone who is familiar with the history of the region knows this, that is why it is not being advanced as a serious solution by anyone of any sense.  But no one wants to articulate it, because to do so would appear bigoted.  U.S. liberals need to understand that co-existence in “Israstine,” as Qaddafi put it, is simply not an option.  

UPDATE: Just today, 4/18/13,  the Times has published an Op-Ed by Marci Shore, which seems at first to be about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and pretends that its topic is a hero of that uprising, but ends with this line: "a single-nation state is never a good thing.”  This transparent advocacy for a bi-national state, with all that that entails, now under the guise of Holocaust Rememberance, is completely revolting.  Just when I did not think the Times could top its past antisemitism, sadly, I was wrong.  

UPDATE: 5/11/13.  This morning I said to my husband something I never thought I would say: "there was a good editorial in the Times yesterday. . . ."  I was referring to Manan Ahmed Asif's editorial on Pakistan.  If one wants to know what a bi-national state in Israel will look like by the end of this century, just read Asif's description of what is happening now in Pakistan.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/opinion/pakistans-tyrannical-majority.html?_r=1& 

Ha'aretz and Israel's Imaginary Ethnic Cleansing

I am an upper middle class woman living in a New York suburb.  I am a US citizen and English is my native language.  I am in the fortunate position of having access to the best medical care that money can buy.  And still, I have had medications prescribed for me without being made fully aware of the side effects.

Why?  Well sometimes doctors are rushed and don't take the time to fully explain all the possible side effects of medications.  Sometimes doctors are arrogant and don't think they need to do so.  Sometimes doctors are forgetful and there are oversights.

These phenomena will obviously be compounded in a clinic-like setting, especially when combined with a language barrier.  So is it true, as Ha'arezt reported in March, that some Ethiopian women were prescribed and administered Depo-Provera without being fully aware of what the medication was?  Well, unfortunately, it probably is true.  Was this deliberate ethnic cleansing?  Doubtful.

Think about this: Why would the Israeli government pay to bring these people from Ethiopia to Israel, footing the bill for not only the travel but also for absorption (olim get a generous package from the government including financial assistance, rent assistance, tuition assistance, and more) as well as any social services they will need for the foreseeable future, only to commit genocide on them?  This doesn't even make any freakin' sense!  The proposition that Israel went out of its way to bring people to the country only to forcibly sterilize them is completely illogical.  And contrary to the initial reports by Ha'aretz, the government never admitted that this happened.  Rather, upon allegations that some women were receiving Depo-Provera without being fully made aware of what it was, the government took remedial measures to ensure that, if such incidents had happened, they would not be repeated.  You can read the actual facts here: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=55&x_article=2411

But Israel's detractors are determined to see only the bad.  So much so that they are determined to believe that the government has done something so completely illogical.  And despite Ha'aretz's retraction, almost a month later, this allegation is still being circulated.

Ha'aretz needs to understand that Israel's detractors are waiting with bated breath to pounce on sensationalist stories like this.  This is not to say that Ha'aretz should not expose racism where it occurs. But before printing allegations such as this, they ought to make damn sure that what they are printing is true.