No Good Deed . . . .

Here is a hypothetical: refugees fleeing genocide and civil war arrive in a small country, uninvited, seeking asylum.  Although the refugees have no connection whatsoever to the host country, the host country takes in a number of refugees close to 1% of the pre-existing population.  With school districts overcome by sudden population influx, that country spends its own money to build new schools to accommodate the children of these refugees.  Yet, so-called liberal pundits proceed to condemn the new host country.

Sounds crazy, I know.  Except it's not hypothetical, it's real, and of course, the host country is the one country on the planet that can do nothing right, ever -- Israel.

That is the gist of last week's Open Zion column claiming that Israel has set up apartheid schools for children of refugees from war-torn Eritrea and Sudan. Of course, all one has to do is google translate -- well, and read down to the very last paragraph -- the supposed source of Lisa Goldberg's piece to see that "The municipality said: 'Kindergartens are established according to the needs of the neighborhood. [The] Municipality considers its duty to provide adequate education to every child everywhere, so the children of the foreign community in Tel Aviv - Jaffa integrated in all schools in the city."  http://www.mynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4420418,00.html.  

To the columnists of Open Zion, of course, this does not matter.  Neither does the report in the Jerusalem Post, which states: 

The Tel Aviv Municipality has not enacted any policy of segregation that would see local preschools exclusively for the children of asylum-seekers and other preschools for the rest of the children, the city said on Monday.

A municipality representative said that no such policy has been enacted, and that the only determining factor for where a child attends preschool is their place of residence.

The representative said that in order to accommodate the 2,716 new preschool students in the city, Tel Aviv has opened 70 new kindergarten classrooms ahead of the new school year, and that a large number of these are in neighborhoods with a high concentration of children of African asylum-seekers.

 http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Tel-Aviv-denies-policy-of-segregation-in-pre-schools-for-new-year-324319

With almost 3,000 new students, the city has a choice of overcrowding it's schools, or building new facilities.  So it builds new facilities.  Only in Israel would such an action be labelled "apartheid."  

Of course, no one at Open Zion is crying for the children of the 2 million Syrian refugees, who are living  in tents in Jordan and Turkey, who are not going to school at all this fall.  

Israel's Plan B

A few days ago I wrote that one thing that is very different about the negotiations currently underway between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is that Hamas has been considerably weakened by the downfall of its Egyptian allies in the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as by Iran's and Hezbollah's current preoccupation with Syria.  There is another difference as well: Thanks in part to Hamas, Israel now has a Plan B.  

Seth Mandel speculated in Commentary a few days ago as to whether or not Israel has a Plan B, and if so, what the effect of that would be on the negotiations.  http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/08/02/doomsday-diplomacy-and-the-middle-east/#.Uf0GtRG6LYY.twitter  Since Israel's most recent incursion into Gaza, in November of 2012, Israel's Plan B has emerged.  

Prior to last November, unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank, similar to what occcured in Gaza in 2005, was not widely discussed as a viable option.  This was because Israel's major population centers in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were considered too close to the would-be West Bank border.  Watching the barrage of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, withdrawal from the West Bank without a peace agreement was considered too dangerous.  Iron Dome, however, has changed that.  

It is thanks to Hamas that we saw how well the Iron Dome missile defense system worked.  Even the longer-range missiles that Hamas aimed at Tel Aviv were rendered ineffectual.  Now that we know that Israel can protect its major cities from a close and hostile enemy, disengagement without a peace agreement seems viable.  In December, the Jerusalem Post reported that 45% of Israelis supported unilateral withdrawal.  http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Poll-45-percent-of-Israelis-support-unilateral-withdrawal  This option was seriously considered at the Jerusalem Post conference that I attended in April of this year, and appears to have been seriously discussed at the Herzliya Conference in March (which I did not attend).  

What would such a move by Israel mean?  To start, it would mean that Israel alone would decide on the borders of the land it would cede to Palestine.  Israel could theoretically keep a presence in the Jordan Valley, and keep as many of the settlement blocs as it chose.  Jerusalem would not be up for discussion at all.  And certainly, no descendants of Palestinian "refugees" would be allowed into Israel.  

The threat of putting Israel's Plan B into action could be what finally pushed Abbas back to the table.  Either way, let's just hope he stays there. 

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/