Yearly Archives: 2010

Taliban launch bold attack in central Kabul

Taliban launch bold attack in central Kabul
By Dexter Filkins, New York Times, January 18, 2010

A team of militants launched a spectacular assault at the heart of the Afghan government Monday, with two men detonating suicide bombs and the rest fighting to the death only 50 yards from the gates of the presidential palace.

The attacks, the latest in a series targeting the Afghan capital, paralyzed the city for hours, as hundreds of Afghan commandos converged and opened fire. The battle unfolded in the middle of Pashtunistan Square, a traffic circle that holds the palace of President Hamid Karzai, the Ministry of Justice and the Central Bank, the target of the attack.

As the gun battle raged, another suicide bomber — this one driving an ambulance — struck a traffic circle a half-mile away, sending a second mass of bystanders fleeing in terror.

Five hours after the attack began, gunfire was still echoing through the downtown, as commandos searched for holdouts in a nearby office building. Afghan officials said that three soldiers and two civilians — including one child — were killed, and at least 71 people were wounded. The Faroshga market, one of the city’s most popular shopping malls, lay in ruins, shattered and burning and belching black smoke. [continued…]

Karzai closing in on Taliban reconciliation plan
By Rod Nordland and Alissa J Rubin, New York Times, January 18, 2010

The Afghan government will soon unveil a major new plan offering jobs, security, education and other social benefits to Taliban followers who defect, according to the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai.

The plan, in the final stages of preparation, will go beyond the government’s previous offers to the Taliban, Waheed Omer, the spokesman, said at a news conference on Sunday. “The mistakes we have committed before have been considered in developing this new plan,” he said. “We have not done enough.”

The reconciliation and reintegration plan is aimed at luring large numbers of the Taliban’s followers, estimated by NATO officials at 25,000 to 30,000 active fighters, to change sides, and has qualified support from American officials. Afghan officials are hoping to finance the plan through pledges from the international community to be made at a London conference on Afghanistan planned for Jan. 28.

Even if such a plan wins international support, serious questions remain about Afghanistan’s ability to carry it out, especially without a functioning national government, a prospect that remained distant on Sunday. [continued…]

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Candidate bans worsen Iraq’s political turmoil

Candidate bans worsen Iraq’s political turmoil
By Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, January 18, 2010

Iraqi officials have done little to clarify who, exactly, has been disqualified from running for Parliament in March because of ties to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. They did, however, make clear on Sunday that, contrary to Iraqi television news, the government’s own spokesman was not among those declared a Baathist and therefore unfit for office.

The fate of the country’s defense minister was another matter. So was that of dozens of members of a political alliance led by one of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s top rivals, Jawad al-Bolani, the interior minister since 2006.

More than a week after Iraq’s Accountability and Justice Commission first announced that it had disqualified at least 15 parties to run for Parliament, it remained unclear how many candidates out of more than 6,000 who have registered would be excluded — and which ones had been. [continued…]

Iraq’s ban on democracy
By Kenneth M Pollacka and Michael E O’Hanlon, New York Times, January 18, 2010

With Washington’s attention understandably focused on the tragedy in Haiti, Iraq has slipped onto the back burner. Yet there is a major problem brewing there — one that could jeopardize President Obama’s plan to draw down American forces and even reignite sectarian conflict.

Last Thursday, Iraq’s Independent High Election Commission upheld a ban on nearly 500 Sunni politicians handed down (possibly illegally) some days earlier by the Accountability and Justice Commission. They were accused of having had ties to the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein. Among those proscribed from running in the nationwide elections scheduled for March 7 were Defense Minister Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi and Saleh al-Mutlaq, one of Iraq’s most influential Sunni politicians. Although confusion reigns, it is rumored that the brief appeal process will end Tuesday and, at present, it seems unlikely to ameliorate the situation. [continued…]

3 explosions rock holy Shiite city in Iraq
By Leila Fadel and Saad Sarhan, Washington Post, January 15, 2010

Three explosions ripped through the city of Najaf on Thursday, just hundreds of yards from one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.

Two homemade bombs detonated just five minutes apart about 5:30 p.m. in an open-air fish-and-vegetable market. Police found another bomb inside a garbage truck. As they tried to defuse it, a bomb in a car parked nearby exploded, ripping through the crowd, said police Capt. Hadi al-Najafi. [continued…]

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Iran prosecutor calls for death penalty against protesters

Iran prosecutor calls for death penalty against protesters
AFP, January 18, 2010

An Iranian prosecutor called Monday for the death penalty against five protesters arrested during demonstrations staged as Shiites participated in solemn Ashura rituals last month, state media reported.

The five were accused of having ties with Iran’s exiled and armed opposition, the People’s Muhajideen, and charged with “Moharebeh” or being enemies of God, which is punishable by death under Iran’s Sharia-based law.

“I ask the court for maximum punishment against these people based on the investigations, the defendants’ confessions and (their) criminal acts on Ashura,” the prosecution said in the indictment carried by the media. [continued…]

Iran’s political winds are shifting
By Iason Athanasiadis, Los Angeles Times, January 17, 2010

In late December, I received a New Year’s e-mail from a former Iranian diplomat. The contact surprised me. I had known the man when I lived in Tehran from 2004 to ’07, but I hadn’t heard from him in more than two years. In 2007, as the Ahmadinejad administration began tarring its ideological enemies as foreign stooges, he cut relations with me.

I hadn’t become less of a liability in the interim. In 2009, during the postelection unrest, I was arrested at Tehran’s airport as I was boarding a flight and transferred to Evin Prison. Though the Greek government intervened to obtain my prompt release, others were less fortunate. A government-issued indictment accused many green movement sympathizers of being pawns of America, Israel or Britain and seeking to execute a velvet revolution. Most were sentenced to long prison terms or execution.

Things were so bad, I doubted I would be hearing from my estranged friend, particularly because the government had stepped up its monitoring of electronic communications. But then his season’s greeting arrived, and I wasn’t the only recipient. Some even more radioactive addressees were openly listed in the e-mail. One of them was a high-profile prisoner in Evin Prison, tried and found guilty on a charge of espionage. Another was an American academic whose name came up in a show-trial indictment as an intelligence agent. [continued…]

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Turkey and Russia move closer to building strategic partnership

Turkey and Russia move closer to building strategic partnership
By Faruk Akkan, Today’s Zaman, January 15, 2010

Turkey and Russia have come closer to building a strategic partnership by agreeing to deepen cooperation in the area of energy and work on a plan to lift visa requirements for their citizens.

The two countries also have ambitious plans to boost their trade volume to $100 billion in the coming years. “Our relations are developing and becoming more diversified in the political, military, economic and cultural spheres. What is exciting for me is that both sides have a positive will,” to further boost ties, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said at a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, late on Wednesday.

Erdoğan, who had talks with Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during his one-day visit to Moscow, announced that the two countries will start work on abolishing visa requirements for their nationals. [continued…]

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After the earthquake, how to rebuild Haiti from scratch

After the earthquake, how to rebuild Haiti from scratch
By Jeffrey D. Sachs, Washington Post, January 17, 2010

President Obama has declared that the United States will not forsake Haiti in its moment of agony. Honoring this commitment would be a first for Washington.

To prevent a deepening spiral of death, the United States will have to do things differently than in the past. American relief and development institutions do not function properly, and to believe otherwise would be to condemn Haiti’s poor and dying to our own mythology.

In Haiti, we are facing not only a horrific natural disaster but the tectonics of nature, poverty and politics. Even before last week’s earthquake, roughly half of the nation’s 10 million inhabitants lived in destitution, in squalid housing built of adobe or masonry without reinforcements, perched precariously on hillsides. The country is still trying to recover from the hurricanes of 2008 as well as longtime social and political traumas. The government’s inability to cope has been obvious, but those of us who have been around Haiti for many years also know about the lofty international promises that follow each disaster — and how ineffectual the response has been each time. [continued…]

Why Haiti matters
By Barack Obama, Newsweek, January 15, 2010

… above all, we act for a very simple reason: in times of tragedy, the United States of America steps forward and helps. That is who we are. That is what we do. For decades, America’s leadership has been founded in part on the fact that we do not use our power to subjugate others, we use it to lift them up — whether it was rebuilding our former adversaries after World War II, dropping food and water to the people of Berlin, or helping the people of Bosnia and Kosovo rebuild their lives and their nations.

At no time is that more true than in moments of great peril and human suffering. It is why we have acted to help people combat the scourge of HIV/AIDS in Africa, or to recover from a catastrophic tsunami in Asia. When we show not just our power, but also our compassion, the world looks to us with a mixture of awe and admiration. That advances our leadership. That shows the character of our country. And it is why every American can look at this relief effort with the pride of knowing that America is acting on behalf of our common humanity. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — When human misery is at its most extreme and acute, is this the time to start singing praise to America?

President Obama is sending the fleet, soldiers, and relief to Haiti because… because that’s what we do: we’re Americans.

Instead, why not because… the Haitians, dirt poor, are nevertheless just like us (even though they’re not Americans)?

Is it possible to offer help without turning the occasion into a demonstration of national sainthood?

Of course there is nothing uniquely American about seeing crude nationalistic PR opportunities riding on tragedy.

Israelis, acutely conscious of the extent to which their national reputation has been shredded in recent years, clearly see in Haiti a stage for demonstrating the depth of compassion that exists in the Jewish state.

If the devastation wrought on southern Lebanon in 2006 and in Gaza a year ago and the ongoing merciless siege of Gaza all serve to reinforce an image of Zionist brutality, then sending teams of doctors to Haiti might go some way to counter that impression.

That at least seems to be the thinking behind Haaretz‘s headline story today, “Life amid death: Baby born in Israeli field hospital in Haiti” – a gripping narrative from the intrepid Natasha Mozgovaya.

She starts:

Amid the tragedy and devastation encompassing the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince since Tuesday’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake, a happy event took place Sunday inside the field hospital erected by the Israeli relief delegation in the city. Doctor Shir, who works at Hadassah, delivered the first healthy baby in the Israeli hospital.

The mother told Dr. Shir that she would name her son Israel. “Amid all the death around us,” the doctor said, “it is very symbolic.” He added that childbirth in Haiti doesn’t usually take place in a hospital in the impoverished country, and that this particular woman received the best care from the best doctors.

Oh my! Israeli doctors in an Israeli hospital delivering a baby called Israel! And who would have thought little Israel could do so much good so far away?

Here’s one Haitian who was dumb-founded:

One of the Israeli search and rescue teams on Saturday freed 69-year-old France Gilles from the rubble.

“We told him we were from Israel and he asked if we were mocking him,” one rescuer said.

As for the non-Israeli relief efforts, well, when non-Israelis try and rescue someone the victim doesn’t survive:

Elsewhere, a British team was able to make contact with a woman trapped beneath the debris but was unable to reach her. Before they could dig their way through, a Haitian bulldozer destroyed the remains of the building and the woman was recovered, dead.

Poor woman, that the Israelis couldn’t get there first. When they do, they heroically save lives:

At another site Israelis spoke with a trapped man, seemingly the only survivor after a building collapsed. Following several hours of excavation, rescuers had succeeded in injecting him with fluids, one worker said, and that the team hoped to extricate him within a few more hours.

“We’ve had to drill through a concrete girder, as he is trapped between pipes and planking,” said Liron Shapira, deputy commander of the Israeli delegation. “We have already removed most of the piping and have managed to attach intravenous drips to his torso. As far as we are concerned, as soon as the drips are attached we can proceed smoothly. Now we need to remove the debris from around his legs. Then we should be able to pull him free.”

And might there be a religious dimension in the league table of compassion?

Distress has clearly not bred solidarity and shouts and elbows fly as the needy jostle for food. Three young women from Wisconsin – Susan, Becky and Jamie, volunteers at a Catholic orphanage – are trying to board their flight. “Don’t tell her anything,” one of the girls warns her friend, pointing at me. “She’ll use it to take our place on the flight.” Only after I explain that I have no intention of stealing their seats do they calm down. “We were originally supposed to leave today but because there are no phones or communications we didn’t know if there was a flight, so we came anyway.”

OK, cynicism aside, Israel’s 220-strong relief team is impressive coming from a country of just 7.5 million. Mind you, Iceland, a country that’s bankrupt and has a population of just 320,000 has managed to send a 37-strong search and rescue team. Good on those plucky Icelanders!

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Israel threatened a “seond Gaza” in the West Bank

Diskin to Abbas: Defer UN vote on Goldstone or face “second Gaza”
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, January 17, 2010

The request by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the United Nations Human Rights Council last year to postpone the vote on the Goldstone report followed a particularly tense meeting with the head of the Shin Bet security service, Haaretz has learned. At the October meeting in Ramallah, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin told Abbas that if he did not ask for a deferral of the vote on the critical report on last year’s military operation, Israel would turn the West Bank into a “second Gaza.” [continued…]

Lebanese protest Egypt’s Gaza barrier
AP, January 17, 2010

Lebanese protesters accused Egypt’s president Sunday of acting like an agent of Israel over his country’s construction of an underground steel wall along the Gaza border.

The Egyptian barrier could deprive Gaza’s Hamas rulers of their only lifeline by blocking hundreds of smuggling tunnels. [continued…]

Israel is engaging in gangster diplomacy
By Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, January 17, 2010

Now we have also shown the Turks who we are, because when it comes to the Jewish, Zionist honor of a nation that endured the Holocaust and the Goldstone report, no one will make a movie about us – certainly not the Turks – portraying us as war criminals. If Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan thinks he can reprimand us without a reaction, we’ll show him and all the other countries of the world.

There’s no choice because they only understand force. Britain wants to boycott Israeli goods? We’ll summon the British ambassador and have him sit on a bed of nails. The United States handles the settlements unfairly? We’ll point an unloaded gun at the American ambassador’s head and pull the trigger, just to scare him. We’re not murderers. We’re just trying to frighten, which, as is well known, creates respect. Just ask the Godfather. [continued…]

So who is Israel’s one true friend? Clue: it isn’t the US
By Tony Karon, The National, January 17, 2010

Friends don’t let friends drive drunk, an old American slogan says. By that measure the US has hardly been a real friend to Israel over the past decade. It has enabled a pattern of Israeli behaviour so reckless as to endanger Israel’s prospects of ever achieving peaceful coexistence with the states and peoples around it.

An aggressive drunk often reserves his most toxic invective for those of his friends who tell him the truth: that his behaviour is intolerable, is dangerous to himself and others, and can’t be allowed to continue.

So it should come as no surprise that the most belligerent of Israel’s leaders are shaking their fists at Turkey, most recently in last week’s adolescent stunt in which the deputy foreign minister deliberately humiliated the Turkish ambassador. The specific complaint was a negative portrayal of Israelis in a Turkish TV drama. The deeper grievance is that Turkey, a long-time friend of Israel, has started to deliver a message no longer heard from the US or most of Europe: that normal relations with Israel depend on Israel pursuing a policy of peace. [continued…]

Detained American journalist Jared Malsin goes to court today to fight deportation from Israel
By Adam Horowitz, Mondoweiss, January 17, 2010

Four days ago we posted on the the case of Jared Malsin, the chief English editor at the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency. Malsin was detained at the Ben Gurion Airport for the past four days and is in danger of deported from Israel/Palestine today. Apparently, the primary reason for his detention was his critical reporting of Israeli policy. Here is a timeline of Malsin’s case so far. People who have been in touch with Malsin say he has been kept in a windowless room for five days. [continued…]

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Elite US troops ready to combat Pakistani nuclear hijacks

Elite US troops ready to combat Pakistani nuclear hijacks
By Christina Lamb, The Sunday Times, January 17, 2010

The US army is training a crack unit to seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants, possibly from inside the country’s security apparatus, get their hands on a nuclear device or materials that could make one.

The specialised unit would be charged with recovering the nuclear materials and securing them.

The move follows growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan’s military, a series of attacks on sensitive installations over the past two years, several of which housed nuclear facilities, and rising tension that has seen a series of official complaints by US authorities to Islamabad in the past fortnight.

“What you have in Pakistan is nuclear weapons mixed with the highest density of extremists in the world, so we have a right to be concerned,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who used to run the US energy department’s intelligence unit. “There have been attacks on army bases which stored nuclear weapons and there have been breaches and infiltrations by terrorists into military facilities.” [continued…]

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Obama confidant’s spine-chilling proposal

Obama confidant’s spine-chilling proposal
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, January 15, 2010

Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama’s closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama’s head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs.” In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-“independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites — as well as other activist groups — which advocate views that Sunstein deems “false conspiracy theories” about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper’s abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.

Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false “conspiracy theories,” which they define to mean: “an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.” Sunstein’s 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story’s Daniel Tencer. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Glenn Greenwald’s whole analysis is well worth reading but I’ll make a couple of points. If Sunstein gave more attention to where conspiracy theories come from, he’d come at this issue from a completely different direction.

Buried deep in his paper is the following remark:

… we have conjectured that there is a causal link between the prevalence of conspiracy theories and the relative absence of civil liberties and a well-functioning marketplace of ideas, so it is unsurprising that such theories are even more widespread in the Muslim world than in the United States.

But as soon as has he makes this important observation he goes on to imply that the US government can exploit political repression overseas to its advantage. He notes that in the foreign arena “the U.S. enjoys greater freedom of action, in part because domestic U.S. politics will tolerate some actions abroad that it would not tolerate if taken at home.”

What Sunstein fails to do is look at the psychological dynamics in play in situations that provide fertile ground for the proliferation of conspiracy theories.

The US, relative the Middle East, might enjoy the protection of civil liberties and a marketplace of ideas — though I don’t know that anyone could seriously describe the latter as well-functioning — yet the appetite for conspiracy theories here, particularly relating to 9/11, is huge.

This is a reflection of two things:
1. Massive and historically deep-rooted mistrust of government, and
2. The widespread and well-founded belief that the citizens of this country exercise little influence over the workings of government.

Both of these factors (and especially the second one) serve to reinforce a profound sense of the grossly inequitable distribution of political power and a subjective experience in which government appears all-powerful and the individual essentially powerless.

The instinctive response to feelings of powerlessness is to grasp hold of a narrative of agency. Rather than feel that we are living in a world out of control, we prefer to believe that the control we lack is possessed by someone or something else. That might be a supposedly benign entity such as a loving God, or alternatively a cloaked and dangerous entity: the US government, a global Zionist conspiracy, aliens… you name it.

The psychological comfort that a belief in malevolent agency provides, is that it tells us we are not truly impotent but we have been deprived of the opportunity to exert our natural power. We are imprisoned but we can still rattle the bars.

Circling back to the problem that Sunstein wants to address, a real solution would not involve any of his preferred Orwellian machinations.

If the US government wants to challenge dangerous conspiracy theories it needs to pursue two far-reaching political goals:

1. Make government more trustworthy.
2. Turn “government of the people, by the people, for the people” into a reality.

For as long as neither of these goals have effectively been accomplished, conspiracy theories will remain popular. They should be seen for what they are: a symptom of an underlying socio-political disease; not the disease itself. People who think like Sunstein are part of the problem; not the solution.

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Welcome to Hebron

Leila Sarsour, who is 17 years old, lives in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in Palestine. She has a dream that everyone can live in peace, but she and her schoolmates are exposed daily to harassment, violence and intimidation from Israeli settlers.

For the Palestinian school girls in the city of Cordoba School in Hebron in the West Bank, it is impossible to remain unaffected by the Israeli occupation. The school is surrounded by military checkpoints, barbed wire and fanatical Israeli settlers. The path to school has become a path of degradation. Leila and her classmates are exposed daily to the indifference of the Israeli soldiers and laughter and stones from settlers. But in spite of constant harassment and racist slogans, Leila retains a belief and hope in peace and justice. She refuses to let bitterness and hatred to control her life: “We can all live together. Muslim, Jew or Christian, there is no reason to hate each other,” she says in Terje Carlsson’s documentary Welcome to Hebron.

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Obama pledges aid to Haiti

Obama pledges aid to Haiti
By Helene Cooper, New York Times, January 15, 2010

President Obama on Thursday promised $100 million along with more American troops for the relief effort in Haiti, vowing that the United States would stand with the impoverished nation as it grappled with the devastation of its capital city.

The Pentagon sent 125 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, N.C., and said that by the end of the week their number would grow to 3,000. Military officials said their primary mission would be to provide security as aid began to arrive.

Those Army troops will be supplemented in the coming days by 2,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., who are scheduled to arrive in Haiti by Monday. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — How much is $100 million?

As much as the US Department of Defense spends in one hour, each hour, 24/7, 365 days a year. (In this case the DoD is of course making a major effort to help the people of Haiti so the US contribution will be more than $100 million.)

But since the United States is expected to spend over $880 billion on defense in 2010, it’s worth asking: Forgetting about the humanitarian imperative, which makes a more significant contribution to the US national security? A $100 million spent on relief work in Haiti or $100 million spent on the war in Afghanistan? (Before Obama announced his surge plan, the war was estimated to be costing $133 million a day.)

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To be Israeli today

To be Israeli today
By Larry Derfner, Jerusalem Post, January 13, 2010

To be Israeli today is to organize your thinking around the enemy. Without the enemy, you can’t understand the world or your place in it. Without the enemy, you don’t know what you want – except more money, which is the default goal of the whole human race.

What else do Israelis want? We want security! We want those bastards to leave us alone! We want the enemy to go away! Fear and aggression toward the enemy – that’s all that drives us anymore, that and the desire for more money.

And even if we make more money, what do we want to do with it? Invest it in improving the country, in improving the world? Is that what the start-up nation stands for?

When we think of the economy, we think of “me.” But when we think of “us,” we think first and last of “them.” Of course, there are loads and loads of generous, public-spirited Israelis doing great things individually or in groups. But when we’re all together as a nation, all we see is the enemy. Stopping the enemy is the only national project we have left. It’s the only issue that gets people’s attention for more than a day.

As for the Jewish part of being Israeli, Judaism in this country is overwhelmingly tribal, to the point of belligerency. Israeli-style Judaism feeds this us-against-them mentality like nothing else except, maybe, the national cult of the military. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Andrew Sullivan writes:

The Netanyahu government has all but declared war on the Obama administration and then openly disses a vital ally, Turkey. The slow cultural shifts in Israel – toward ever more arrogance, more fundamentalism, more Russian immigrant racism, contempt for the Muslim world, military adventurism, and the daily grinding of the Palestinians on the West Bank and pulverization and inhumane blockade of the people of Gaza … well maybe some others can explain it.

All I can say is: it saddens me, as a longtime lover of the Jewish state. It does not represent the historic mainstream of liberal Jewish society, it is a betrayal of many Jewish virtues that goyim like me deeply admire, and it seems designed for war as some kind of eternal and uplifting state of mind. I hope Israel shifts soon. For Israel’s sake.

It’s good that Sullivan is helping pull the issue of Israel into mainstream American discourse, but is he really as perplexed as he presents himself? Is the history of Palestinian dispossession really so murky that he must depend on others to explain what’s going on here?

He sounds like an aging aunt bemused about the downfall of a nephew she used to dote upon: He used to be such a nice boy but then he started taking drugs. I just don’t know what happened to him.

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Turkish human rights group: Arrest Barak when he arrives here

Turkish human rights group: Arrest Barak when he arrives here
By Daniel Edelson, Ynet, January 14, 2010

espite the intensifying crisis between Israel and Turkey, Defense Minister Ehud Barak is insisting to follow through with his scheduled plans to visit Turkey next week. However, on Thursday it became clear that an arrest warrant may await him there.

One of the major human rights organizations in Turkey, Mazlumder, requested from the Turkish state prosecution to order that Barak be arrested upon landing in the country for what they call “his responsibility for war crimes during Operation Cast Lead.”

A statement published Wednesday night by the Istanbul branch of Mazlumder claimed that the request is rooted in the right of universal jurisdiction and Article CMK98 of Turkish law. [continued…]

U.S. to store $800 million in emergency gear in Israel
By Amos Harel, Haaretz (via The Forward), January 10, 2010

The U.S. Army will double the value of emergency military equipment it stockpiles on Israeli soil, and Israel will be allowed to use the U.S. ordnance in the event of a military emergency, according to a report in Monday’s issue of the U.S. weekly Defense News.

The report, written by Barbara Opall-Rome, the magazine’s Israel correspondent, said that an agreement reached between Washington and Jerusalem last month will bring the value of the military gear to $800 million.

This is the final phase of a process that began over a year ago to determine the type and amount of U.S. weapons and ammunition to be stored in Israel, part of an overarching American effort to stockpile weapons in areas in which its army may need to operate while allowing American allies to make use of the ordnance in emergencies. [continued…]

Bomb in Jordan misses convoy of Israeli diplomats
By Charles Levinson, Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2010

A roadside bomb exploded near a convoy of vehicles carrying Israeli diplomats in Jordan on Thursday, but no one was injured, according to Israeli and Jordanian officials.

“All I can say at this moment is there was an attack that targeted an Israeli embassy vehicle,” foreign-ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. “The Israeli embassy staff in the vehicle were not injured. The vehicle proceeded.”

A senior Israeli official said Israel’s ambassador to Jordan, Danny Nevo, wasn’t in the convoy, but refused to specify who was. [continued…]

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Ex-IAEA chief injects life into Egypt’s politics

Ex-IAEA chief injects life into Egypt’s politics
AP, January 14, 2010

The U.N.’s former nuclear chief has yet to return home to his native Egypt after almost a quarter century monitoring the world’s atomic programs, but the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner has already created the biggest political stir in his homeland in years by hinting at a new career in politics.

Mohamed ElBaradei may one day regret plunging into Egypt’s politics — where challenges to the regime have been few and swiftly dealt with — but his move has injected fresh hope into the country’s stagnant political atmosphere.

Egypt has been ruled for nearly 30 years by Hosni Mubarak, now 81, who appears to be trying to set up a political dynasty by grooming his son to succeed him. [continued…]

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Suicide attack reveals threat to Obama’s Afghanistan plan

Suicide attack reveals threat to Obama’s Afghanistan plan
By Saeed Shah, McClatchy, January 14, 2010

The bombing has focused new attention on the Haqqani network, an Afghan insurgent group that U.S. intelligence officials said is based in North Waziristan, has ties to members of the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and probably played a key role in the suicide bombing.

The relative sophistication of the attack, especially in contrast to the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines jet, suggests that the militants who been planned and ran it may have received some training or advice from rogue ISI officers, the officials said.

For example, they said, the bomber, 32-year-old Jordanian Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al Balawi, spent most of 2009 in Pakistan and traveled to Khost from Pakistan, and he managed to evade the counter-intelligence tools that customarily are used to assess whether a potential agent is reliable, they said.

“Pakistan has to decide whether Haqqani is an asset or a liability. At the moment, I think they’re veering towards liability, but it’s not clear,” said a Western official in Afghanistan, who couldn’t be named because he isn’t authorized to discuss the subject publicly. [continued…]

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Yemen clerics warn US to stay out or face jihad

Yemen clerics warn US to stay out or face jihad
By Mohammed al Qadhi, The National, January 14, 2010

Yemen’s association of clerics warned yesterday they would call for jihad in the case of foreign military intervention amid growing concern that the United States might carry out direct strikes against al Qa’eda militants in the country.

“If any party insists on aggression, or invading the country or carrying out military or security intervention, then jihad becomes obligatory according to Islam,” said a statement signed by 150 clerics, announced at a meeting of dozens of prominent religious leaders.

The clerics, led by Sheikh Abdulmajeed al Zindani, a hardliner labelled by the US as a “global terrorist”, met amid heavy security at the historic al Mashhad mosque in Sana’a. [continued…]

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Haiti, the devil and Pat Robertson

Haiti, the devil and Pat Robertson
By David Waters, Washington Post, January 13, 2010

Pat Robertson is at it again. The purported Christian minister who suggested assassinating Venezuela leader Hugo Chavez and nuking the U.S. State Department, the reputed follower of Jesus who blamed the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, is now attributing the Haitian earthquake to Haiti’s “pact to the devil.”

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about,” Robertson said Tuesday on his 700 Club show. “They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Stripped to their psychological core, there are two responses that animate life: attraction and recoil. The interplay of these two movements operates in one of its most complex ways when we witness the suffering of others. Do we empathize and through our imagination enter into that suffering, or do we move with the core and instinctive reflex which is to step away? Inevitably and in infinitely varying degrees we do both.

Pat Robertson, with his warm and fuzzy, how tragic — but those Haitians had it coming, offers a salve to the selfish response by suggesting that this disaster is an act of divine retribution. In so doing he creates a space for sympathy with no empathy. White suburban evangelical Americans can be charitable but sleep soundly knowing that since they have not made a pact with the devil, they should have no fear that they might suffer like the Haitians.

Meanwhile, for those of us who see neither the divine nor the demonic at work in nature, we have another reminder that since misery is never far away our only hope will be found in mutual aid.

How you can help.

World races against time to aid Haiti
AP, January, 2010

resident Barack Obama says “one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history” is moving toward Haiti. Some U.S. resources already are on the ground providing water and medicine, search and rescue efforts and airlifts of the injured.

Speaking to reporters Thursday at the White House, Obama said the U.S. government is making an initial investment of $100 million for the earthquake relief effort in Haiti. He said the amount would grow over the year.

He said it will take hours “maybe days” to get the full U.S. relief contingent on the ground, because of the damaged roads, airport, port and communications. He acknowledged that “none of this will seem quick enough” to the many suffering. [continued…]

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Report: Turkey warns Lebanon that Israel may be planning attack

Report: Turkey warns Lebanon that Israel may be planning attack
Haaretz, January 14, 2010

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week warned Lebanese leaders that Israel may be planning an attack on its northern neighbor, Lebanese sources told the London-based Arabic language daily A-Sharq al-Awsat on Thursday.

At a meeting in Ankara with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and President Michel Suleiman on Monday, Erdogan declared that Israel was endangering world peace by using exaggerated force against the Palestinians, breaching Lebanon’s air space and waters and for not revealing the details of its nuclear program.

Erdogan called on the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to pressure Israel over its nuclear program in the same way that the international community has been dealing with Iran. “Israel never denied that it has nuclear weapons,” said Erdogan. “In fact, it has admitted to such.” [continued…]

Turkish-Israeli tension on the axis of the ‘Damascus Province’
By Cengiz Candar, Hurriyet Daily News, January 13, 2010

As Turkish-Israeli relations turn sour, Turkey has lifted the visas to all Arab countries neighboring Israel and a political-economic integration is being pursued.

This means being a “center of power” in the region.

But if you pay attention to Erdoğan’s remark on Israel the other day in the press conference with Hariri, you realize that Turkish Prime Minister said: “Israel says ‘I am the power of the region’ because there is an imbalance of opportunities. We never approve of this picture. We will continue to be with the aggrieved.”

Against a state that declares itself to be the power of the region just because of having more opportunities than the others, Turkey gathers the “aggrieved” around it, lifts visas, engages in serious economic ties and does all these by applying “soft power” only.

We should expect more reactions to come because Turkey and its prime minister have made serious moves against Israel and have caused debates both at in the region and outside it. [continued…]

Danny Ayalon should resign for provoking shameful crisis vis-à-vis Turkey
By Adi Dvir, Ynet, January 14, 2010

Diplomatic crises are a dime a dozen these days, but the most recent one, orchestrated by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, has delivered a gut-wrenching blow to Israel’s dignity.

The Turkish television show that enraged the Foreign Ministry is indeed insulting, and somewhat reminiscent of an earlier crisis involving Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet. In that case too, the Foreign Ministry came out with guns blazing. A silly and wholly unsubstantiated tabloid article that could have gone totally unnoticed was turned into a battle with the Swedish government.

Like the Swedish tabloid article, the Turkish television show was given more credibility by Israel’s vehement response to it. However, the crisis with Turkey had far more devastating results, as it ended with an official apology to a state now widely viewed as biased against Israel – a state which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes is inching closer to Iran every day. [continued…]

Ayalon apologizes following Turkish deadline
By Amnon Meranda, Ynet, January 13, 2010

Ayalon’s office said later Wednesday that “now, following President Peres’ appeal and with respect to his request, a letter has been sent from the deputy foreign minister to the Turkish ambassador to Israel.”

The deputy foreign minister addressed the Knesset on Wednesday evening and said that “Israel will eventually benefit, and I believe that the relations between Israel and Turkey will also benefit” from the diplomatic incident.

The deputy minister was asked by Knesset Member Carmel Shama (Likud), “Was everything that happened preplanned?” Ayalon responded, “I think we should leave an element of surprise for our rivals and enemies… Let’s leave it, let them decide.” [continued…]

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The meritocracy and Jewish kinship network

The meritocracy and Jewish kinship network
By Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, January 13, 2010

A lot of people are talking about David Brooks’s distastefully-smug column in the Times yesterday about Jewish achievement, in which he says that we are 2 percent of the U.S. population and 25 percent of this and that. And that we get all the patents in the Middle East while the Arabs smoke hookahs.

He asks how this can be, and talks about our incredible culture. I agree: it’s a helluva bookish culture. Though that same intellectual culture is going out the window now that the chief occupation of Jewish leadership is saying, Repeat after us, apartheid is democracy.

But I’d like to inject a realistic note here. How much of Jewish achievement reflects the fact that Jews look out for one another? When I had to get a partner on this website to keep it going, I was most comfortable getting another Jew. Years ago when I was at the Harvard Crimson newspaper, my Irish-Catholic friend Mary Ridge informed me that it was a “Jewish club”–we selected for our own kind; and the Crimson produced a lot of professional journalism talent. I have gotten most of my journalism work from Jewish bosses. [continued…]

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