Kristof's tilted balance

Another piece in the New Ork Times from Nicholas Kristof, "Seeking balance in the Middle East". The balance he seeks is supposed to be obtained in the US Congress. It so happens that this elected body, in Kristof's eyes, has been entirely "obstructionist" - that is, obstructing the road to "Palestinian statehood". The reason is that the Congress does not follow the "clarion call for American reasonableness in the Middle East" - that of J Street, a Soros-funded organization whose members consider the IDF (Israel Defense Force) to be as terrorist as Hamas and support the BDS campaign (boycott of Israeli products, divestment from and sanctions against Israel). Kristof's "balance" does not include any demands from "Palestinians" - just give them what they want. Knowing that this is a blatant double standard and attempting to preempt this critique, he provides a straw man of "denouncing worse abuses by, say, Syria" and justifies his lack of demands for that by the lack of financial help to Syria from his tax dollars. No word, of course, about those American tax dollars - about a billion direct and much more in many other ways - that go to the terrorist and terrorist-supporting Palestinian Administration.

In his opinion, virtually the whole Congress is engaged in "tomfoolery", when it demands accountability from the "Palestinians" before they ask for the UN's recognition of their state. There is no reason to doubt that that state would be a terrorist one, with no responsibility for terror required from it, as Kristof considers Israel's operation in Gaza to halt rocket attacks an illegitimate "invasion". The only "intransigence" there, in his view, is Netanyahu's government's. His rule is false symmetry, whereby Israeli Jews' building kindergartens in "illegal settlements" (which are fully legal from the legal standpoint) is equal to Palestinian Arabs' slaughtering Jewish children - both are "extremism". It is therefore clear what is needed for the "balance" a la Kristof: to follow the marginal views of despicable J Street, which he is trying to present as the American Jews' mainstream.

He cowardly repeats the antisemitic "Jewish money and influence" canard - without taking full responsibility for it: "Some see this influence of Jewish organizations on foreign policy as unique and sinister". There is certainly plausible deniability in that "some", isn't there, but in the end it is very hard for him to hide his sympathies, when he expresses his hope that J Street will help Washington to get a "new beginning" - along the lines of Arab Spring. Considering that the only thing changed so far as the result of this "spring" is that the friendly dictators are replaced with unknown ones but supported by peace-lovers like Muslim Brotherhood, it is clear what this new beginning would be like.

As the likes of Kristof always do, they demand everything for "peace settlement" from the side that is not waging the war. They think that the price is not for them to pay if another Munich 1938 happens. Fortunately, it seems the US Congress has more common sense and knowledge of history to understand that the "land for peace" principle should have died in the ruins of 1945 Berlin and in the ashes of Auschwitz.

Dreams from the Smartniks

Perhaps this can be of interest to those who like linguistic trivia. There is a mildly derogatory word in Russian, умник (pronounced "oomnik"), which can be translated as "smartnik", something like smartypants. It recognizes a possibility that somebody can be smart but not really wise. I am talking about the attention that the latest "rapture" story has received. I don't mean the media - hardly any source of the "news" missed the story. I am talking about Facebook, where some of my Facebook friends - doctors and professors - to the very presumed "world's end" - just could not keep from expressing their derision for the "morons", competing for a better disparaging joke. Now, I could readily understand the educated crowd's interest to this  story, had it raised interest to cognitive dissonance, research in which started by Leon Festinger from a similar story. But no, apart from using the benighted "morons" to celebrate their own incomparably higher intelligence, my educated friends evinced no other motivations for investing their considerable time and effort into this "fun" of observing a banal inconsequential illusion.

Am I not doing the same now, but on the account of my friends? I really would not care, were it not in such contrast with the lack of attention to what may really result in the world's end, jihadist Islam, which has just been supported by the American president. Obama called for Israel to return to the "1967 lines", a euphemism for the Auschwitz borders of the 1949 armistice lines. If indeed the future borders were the 1967 lines, Israel would have full control of Gaza, Judea and Samaria, and Sinai. In addition, as per Obama's diktat, Israel has to ensure that the "Palestinian" state is contiguous, thus Israel should cut itself, relinquishing its own contiguity. As usual, Obama did not mention anything tangible from "Palestinians" or other Arabs, except for unspecified "provisions" that "must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism, to stop the infiltration of weapons, and to provide effective border security". If such provisions were anywhere in the cards, would he himself  put the "profound and legitimate questions for Israel:  How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?" Doesn't it require deep cognitive dissonance of the president, who recognizes the impossibility of such negotiations, to demand these negotiations from Israel exactly when Fatah has openly joined openly genocidal Hamas? What "credible answer to that question" could these bandits in principle give? It is to these joined terrorist gangs that Obama wants Israel to make known the "territorial outlines of their state".

As usual, Obama draws false parallels between Arab terrorist murderers and Israelis who defend themselves from terror, between the victims of terrorist slaughter and Arab civilian casualties of anti-terror response that result from the terrorists' hiding behind civilians' backs. (It's hard to use military terms like "civilians", considering that the terrorists do not wear a military uniform either). He equates "suspicions and hostilities" for both sides of the "conflict" - the same "conflict" as illustrated in the video above. He equates the "issues of territory [for Arabs] and security [for Israel]", when anybody with any cognition understands that a territory cannot be taken back when security is violated. Let alone the simple fact that Israel's security is incompatible with the ruling charters of both PLO and Hamas, this incompatibility is embedded in the Koran, and no security for Israel can be guaranteed by any duplicitous verbiage of Abbas. This "president" of no country has just lied again about the history of the Arab "plight", mentioning nothing about their refusal to create their state, starting from 1947 

and many times since, as playing some role in that "the Palestinian state" is "long overdue". As Obama said, "Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist". "Palestinians" - whether Abbas's "authority", whose maps have no Israel on them, or Hamas with its call for exterminating the Jews in their entirety - have given no sign they they are stopping that denial. How then does that "never" play along with any "1967 lines"?

I find cognitive dissonance of those waiting for yesterday's rapture a healthy relief compared with delusions of Obama and his smartnik peace-mongering incompetent pro-Arab ideologues. The rapture gevalt will be forgotten tomorrow. Obama's nasty arm-twisting rewards terror and calls for more of it.

A perfect metaphor

This is what happens (or finally should) when Israel reaches its limits of patience:

What peace?

Another "Peace talks" charade has just started. Charade, because it makes no sense. Peace talks assume there is a war and there are warring sides, states. One cannot call "war" attempts of a terror gang (PLO, Fatah, Hamas, etc.) to kill Israelis and blackmail them into accepting the Arabs' desire to destroy Israel.

There is no war. There is continuous unrest and terror acts of the Arabs, which are ideologically motivated and can cease only if the ideology has no support. A nationalist ideology could be satisfied by attaining statehood if that ideology included the idea of Israel as a Jewish state. It does not seem to, as it is not a truly nationalist ideology. This ideology, from the start, has been focused not on the creation of a state but on the elimination of Israel. PLO was founded in 1964, before any "occupation" excuse for its terror. If Arabs had a goal of creating a state, they would have done that by now, taking one of the many opportunities they have had and rejected. The Islamic ideology, both embedded in the Palestinian Arab "nationalism" or in its pure Hamas form, in general predominant, does not allow a Jewish state at all, inasmuch as "Palestine" is Islamic waqf. There is nobody on either Fatah or Hamas side both capable and willing to suppress either ideology. Any "peace" they may achieve will consist, as usual, of Israel's irreversible tangible concessions and reversible and non-enforceable empty Arab promises. Non-agreement is fraught with Arab violence. Agreement is fraught with Israeli losses and Arab violence. I'd be happy if proven wrong.

Suppose, however, that this is a war. Isn't it the same war wherefore the Oslo accords were supposed to bring peace? That was the only justification for reimporting the career terrorist Arafat and his coterie, Abbas included. Evidently, it has not worked, if "peace talks" are needed again, after Oslo and all the rest of later talks. What would make anybody think it will work this time?

Oslo accords as well as all the later "peace" negotiations with terrorists have failed for the same reason as the most famous negotiations of this kind, Munich 1938. The "land for peace" principle did not work then and only stoked Hitler's ambitions. That should have been enough to condemn and forget this approach, particularly when dealing with spiritual descendants of Hitler. Instead, it is history that has been forgotten.

Finally, Abbas does not represent even the "Palestinian authority" (that's why he mentioned PLO and only PLO in his speech) and is nobody's "president" as of January 2009. Hamas holds sway over Gaza and over the minds of Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Both Hamas and Abbas's Fatah are terror groups committed to Israel's destruction. The way they compete for hearts and minds is by indiscriminately killing Jews. Those, however, are just small details for "peacemakers" of the Quartet, traditionally antisemitic Russia and the UN, the Arab-appeasing EU, and the US of Reverend Wright's capable pupil.