I've pointed out several times on this blog that contrary to those who argue that Israel somehow pushed the U.S. into war with Iraq, Israeli leaders actually thought Iraq was a distraction from the much greater threat of Iran. Here's a piece on the same theme:

Israeli officials warned the George W. Bush administration that an invasion of Iraq would be destabilizing to the region and urged the United States to instead target Iran as the primary enemy, according to former administration official Lawrence Wilkerson.

Wilkerson, then a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and later chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recalled in an interview with IPS that the Israelis reacted immediately to indications that the Bush administration was thinking of war against Iraq. After the Israeli government picked up the first signs of that intention, Wilkerson says, "The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy – Iran is the enemy."

Wilkerson describes the Israeli message to the Bush administration in early 2002 as being, "If you are going to destabilize the balance of power, do it against the main enemy."

The warning against an invasion of Iraq was "pervasive" in Israeli communications with the administration, Wilkerson recalls. It was conveyed to the administration by a wide range of Israeli sources, including political figures, intelligence, and private citizens.

It's true, as the article suggests, that American neoconservatives prepared a policy paper for Binyamin Netanyahu arguing "for a more aggressive joint U.S.-Israeli strategy aimed at a 'rollback' of all of Israel's enemies in the region, including Iran, but beginning by taking down Hussein and putting a pro-Israeli regime [update: sic, no one was naive enough to think that, they were hoping for a regime at least willing to live and let live, and perhaps sign a peace treaty] in power there." But this has been consistently misrepresented as reflecting the Likud's position, as expressed by its American allies. Quite the opposite; this was the American neoconservatives' position, and they were trying to get their friends in Israel to go along with them. Israel's view on such things does have some influence in Washington, and the neoconservatives were unsuccessfully looking for allies for their crusade to spread American power and democracy (in that order).

Why unsuccessfully? With the partial exception of Natan Sharansky, who has been for some time a rather marginal figure in Israeli politics, no important Israelis have ever even come close to endorsing the neoconservatives longstanding goal of spreading American influence through the use of force to establish pro-American democratic regimes. If anything, Israeli policy has consistently erred on the other side, preferring to deal with dictators like Arafat and Sadat and King Hussein who can impose peace without worrying about public opinion, rather in trying to encourage democracy and having to make peace with democratic regimes. While neoconservative foreign policy may be too idealistic, Israeli foreign policy, Likud, Labor, Kadima, or otherwise, is if anything too cynical.

Short and sweet, the Likud is not neoconservative, and neoconservative foreign policy, while pro-Israel and hawkish, is otherwise not much like Likud's. "Experts" who fail to recognize this very basic fact simply don't know what they are talking about.

That still leaves the possible argument that even if the neocons weren't acting in concert with Israel, they still believed that they were acting on behalf of Israel, as opposed to U.S. interests. But since the neoncons have supported just about every proposed or actual use of U.S. military force for the last 35 years, and their underlying ideology presupposes the aggressive use of military force by the U.S. to spread democracy, to attribute neocon support for toppling Saddam primarily to concern for Israel makes one wonder why the necons bothered opposing the Panama Canal Treaty, supporting aid to the Contras, opposing nuclear arms negotiations with the Soviet Union, supporting U.S. intervention in Yugoslavia, and so forth and so on. Just a thirty-year smokescreen so they could get George Bush to intervene on behalf of Israel when the moment presented itself? Not likely.

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There's a long and honored tradition of New York City employees with non-office jobs working only part of the day. My family's alarm system, for example, was put in during "working hours" over a several day period by a city employee, who always seemed to be able to arrive by 1 pm. A close relative who worked as a city health inspector started work at 9 and was usually home for lunch.

After all, why would an employee accept government wages if he actually had to work a full day? Because of the extraordinary pensions NYC retirees receive? Please! If he wanted to work hard, he would have become an investment banker! I'm outraged that New York City is now actually trying to keep track of its workers during working hours. The dreams of thousands of New York City youths, who strive for the elusive "City job," are being shattered.

UPDATE: Next thing you know, deans are going to start harassing tenured law professors who haven't written anything in years!

be used specifically to combat cancer, and not on general health care issues, like access to health care? That's certainly what I'd expect as a donor, but apparently the leadership of the society disagrees.

Not my cup of tea, but any Jewish Obama supporters who want to be styling at High Holiday services this year can order "Obama-kahs" (Obama yarmulkes) here.

Update: Is it wrong to declare political allegiances on a yarmulke? I'm not sure, but given that it's easy enough to find, for example, Mets yarmulkes, a Simpsons yarmulke, and even a Grateful Dead yarmulke, I wouldn't judge wearers of the Obama-kah.

Gail Heriot has an excellent op-ed on the subject in the Wall Street Journal. As I've emphasized in previous writings and speeches, it's a real problem when the consistent focus of affirmative action in law schools is on how many black students are admitted, with little if any attention paid to how many of the admittees actually succeed in becoming lawyers.

Interestingly, the ABA, which just last year was on the offensive in passing new guidelines requiring all law schools to engage in significant racial preferences, has now proposed new accreditation rules that threaten the viability of many lower-tier law schools, including several historically black law schools. The ABA is acting under pressure from the Department of Education, which has grown weary of the ABA mandating all sorts of requirements for law school, but ignoring what would seem to be the most significant mandate: that the schools actually succeed in preparing their students for careers in law, not least by ensuring that they actually pass the bar.

Isn't it time the ABA just gave up, and acknowledged that as a body completely captured by the perceived interests of the profession it's supposed to be regulating, is in no position to serve as a neutral gatekeeper for law school accreditation?

Meanwhile, my antenna have picked up some subtle new signals from the ABA bureaucracy, that it is less interested in enforcing universal norms on schools that find its preference policies counter-productive, and more interested in finding ways to get all sides together to cooperate in increasing transparency and improving the prospects of minority law students. Unfortunately, I doubt this shift would last if the Department of Education lays off, as it will almost certainly do if a Democrat wins in '08.

UPDATE: The ABA's new proposed rules have apparently been "withdrawn for further study" until February 2008. Thanks to Lee Otis for the pointer.

Also, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights plans to issue a report today calling for federal and state officials to require law schools to disclose detailed information about their use of affirmative action in admissions and the short- and long-term success of the minority students they enroll.

The report also urges the section of the American Bar Association that accredits law schools to drop a requirement that law schools seeking accreditation demonstrate a commitment to diversity, with a majority of the commission's members arguing that such a requirement infringes on the schools' academic freedom. Among its other recommendations, the report calls for the National Academy of Sciences or some other entity to finance research on the effect of law schools' affirmative-action policies, and it urges state bar associations to cooperate with such studies.

Duncan Kennedy's extremely influential manuscript, circulated via photocopies for three decades, is now available as a paperback book, with a preface by the author. It should interest some law professors that Kennedy writes that he researched the manuscript between September 1973 and September 1975, and submitted it as the principal element in his tenure file. Two years of work, for a lifetime gig at Harvard Law School--not bad work if you can get it!

In the comments to my post reconstructing a quotation, distorted by an ellipsis, attributed to Ariel Sharon, a reader wrote,"Next up, Prof. Bernstein explains the quote attributed to Moshe Dayan, 'we have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave.'" Sure, why not. This quote comes up pretty often, and is a particular favorite of Noam Chomsky. It's generally attributed to Dayan as saying that this is what he said Israel should tell "the Palestinians" or "the Palestinians in the occupied territories."

The problem is that the original English source for this quote is Noam Chomsky, in his 1992 book Deterring Democracy. Not surprisingly, Chomsky provides no meaningful context; all he writes is "Dayan's advice was that Israel should tell the Palestinian refugees [note that even in Chomsky's original, Dayan is referring to "refugees" assumedly living in refugee camps, not Palestinians in general, something that Chomsky has conveniently forgotten over time] in the territories 'that we have no solution, that you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave — and we will see where this process leads... [beware the ellipsis!] In five years we may have 200,000 less people — and that is a matter of enormous importance.'"

Chomsky's source is Yossi Beilin, Mehiro shel Ihud 42-43 (Revivim, 1985), a Hebrew book written by Israeli dove Beilin. If we have any Volokh Conspiracy readers who are fluent in Hebrew and have access to the book, let me know in more detail what specifically Dayan was referring to, what is missing via the ellipsis, and if, for that matter, Chomsky is indeed quoting accurately (which with Chomsky cannot be taken for granted), please write in.

UPDATE: In a debate with Alan Dershowitz, the cheeky Chomsky states: "Dayan was in charge of the occupation. He advised them that we must tell the Palestinians, that we have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes, may leave. That's the solution that is now being implemented. Don't take my word for it. Go check the sources I cited, very easy, all English." Well, all English so long as you allow Chomsky to cite himself citing the Hebrew original!

FURTHER UPDATE: Here's a translation of the original Hebrew:

At this stage, there was, it seems, in Dayan’s position, a willingness to go back to the international border in Syria and Sinai, to find a way to transfer the refugees from Gaza to the West Bank, to add Gaza, and to divide authority on the West Bank with Jordan.

The single voice that represented the dovish position in the internal deliberations in RAFI [a small center-left party] was Itzhak Navon. Three months after the war, he said, “Time is not in our favor but against us... the West Bank is tied to hundreds of thousands, we need to decide on policy based on coordination with the Palestinians and not with Hussein...! We need to reach a settlement with them, meaning building an independent country. Meaning, part of the West Bank, and the IDF will say... ‘if we don’t stand face to face with [occupy and confront] the Palestinians, we didn’t solve anything, and we cannot keep our position as ruler of a million and a quarter Arabs... it’s a different nation, a different people that you can’t explain to them [the Arabs] why we’re sitting there.”

No one supported this position, and Navon himself didn’t repeat his position in RAFI forums, and later in Labor Party forums.

On the other hand, the RAFI attitude became more hawkish, under the leadership of Moshe Dayan. Even his position became more extreme after the Fall of 1967.

In the RAFI secretariat meeting in September of 1967, Tvzi Shiloah, one of the Founders of the Greater Israel movement, said, “borders is the most delicate thing in world politics, and we need to expel ‘arrangements’ from our thoughts. Our job is to educate our party to the notion that there are no political agreements.”

An argument between Dayan and Peres at the same meeting demonstrates a very extreme approach regarding the Palestinian refugees. Moshe Dayan states during this discussion “let’s say ‘we don’t have a solution, and you will continue living like dogs, and whoever wants will go, and we’ll see how this procedure will work out.’ For now, it works out. Let’s say the truth. We want peace. If there is no peace, we will maintain military rule and we will have four to five military compounds on the mountains, and they will sit ten years under the Israeli military regime. Whoever wants to go, will want. It’s possible that in five years, there will be 200,000 fewer people, and that’s an enormous thing.”

RAFI secretary Shimon Peres retorts, “we could act like Rhodesia, but we need to avoid that. Putting aside our standing in the world, there is a problem for ourselves. We need to consider how to maintain Israel’s moral status, and let’s not ignore that.” To that, Dayan replies, “Ben-Gurion said that whoever approaches the Zionistic problem in the moral aspect is not a Zionist.”

So, first, the original Hebrew source is a secondary source that provides only the barest context for Dayan's remark--all the book tells us is that Dayan's comment illustrates an extreme attitude toward Palestinian refugees, and was made during a meeting with other leaders of the small RAFI party, which was composed of hawkish defectors from the dominant Labor Party. Apparently, Chomsky couldn't be bothered to look up the original transcripts, which are footnoted by Beilin.

Second, Dayan didn't make this remark in the "early 1970s," he made it in September 1967, just three months after the Six Day War.

Third, he didn't say it to his "cabinet colleagues," or in any official government capacity, but at meeting of the leaders of his small party, and his statement on that particular day may or may not have reflected his more general, or his longer-term, views regarding the Palestinians.

Fourth, according the book, Dayan was addressing the situation of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, not all Palestinians, or even all Palestinians in the West Bank.

Fifth, and by far most significant, Chomsky leaves out the next few sentences uttered by Dayan: "For now, it works out. Let's say the truth. We want peace. If there is no peace, we will maintain military rule and we will have four to five military compounds on the hills, and they will sit ten years under the Israeli military regime." Thus, rather than this quote reflecting a long-term "plan" by Israel, it reflected Dayan's view of the alternative if a peace deal with Jordan (Beilin notes on the same page that Dayan was willing "to divide authority on the West Bank with Jordan"), could not be reached. Moreover, even in the absence of an immediate peace deal, Dayan was not speaking of a permanent occupation, but of a ten-year Israeli presence.

Nevertheless, the quotes in the book don't make Dayan look good. Shimon Peres objects that the occupation proposed by Dayan would make Israel act immorally like Rhodesia, and Dayan responds that moral considerations should be irrelevant.

So, if you want to claim, as Beilin does, that Dayan was prone to adopting extreme views regarding the Palestinian refugees in September 1967, this certainly provides strong supporting evidence. You could argue, moreover, that this suggests a moral blind spot on Dayan's part, as Shimon Peres (whom Chomsky also despises, and also claims was not interested in peace) did at the time. But if you want to argue, as Chomsky does, that the relevant quotation shows that in the early 1970s the man in charge of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank was lecturing his cabinet colleagues (without apparent dissent) that they should reject peace, and mistreat the Palestinian population so badly that they will all want to leave, you are stretching the truth beyond recognition.

The subject [of their book on the Israel lobby] will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Jewish cultural center in Washington and three organizations in Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled events with the authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the format.

Those Jews really know how to censor people; can you imagine, for example, that the 6th and I synagogue in D.C. refused Mearsheimer and Walt's request to have a forum to promote their thesis that the "Israel lobby" is endangering America? These Jewish stormtroopers had the temerity to request that any such presentation include an opposing voice! If an anti-Israel propagandist (Mearsheimer) who spoke at a Council for American Islamic Relations event and gleefully sported a "Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby" button, can't successfully invite himself to speak unopposed at a synagogue/Jewish cultural center in DC, clearly we have reached the point of no return with regard to freedom of speech.

Shame on the New York Times (Times Select) for covering this non-story, peddled to stimulate sales of the forthcoming Israel Lobby book.

UPDATE: By the way, none of the above-mentioned organizations has invited me to speak about any of my books, even though I'm perfectly willing to appear with critics. Censorship!

FURTHER UPDATE: A related, and very hard-hitting, editorial in the liberal Jewish weekly, The Forward.

N.Y. Times:

The median price of American homes is expected to fall this year for the first time since federal housing agencies began keeping statistics in 1950.

Economists say the decline, which could be foreshadowed in a widely followed government price index to be released this week, will probably be modest — from 1 percent to 2 percent — but could continue in 2008 and 2009. Rather than being limited to the once-booming Northeast and California, price declines are also occurring in cities like Chicago, Minneapolis and Houston, where the increases of the last decade were modest by comparison.

The reversal is particularly striking because many government officials and housing-industry executives had said that a nationwide decline would never happen, even though prices had fallen in some coastal areas as recently as the early 1990s.

As I noted over a year ago, the idea that a nationwide year over year decline in housing prices was virtually impossible, despite an unprecedented nationwide price bubble--driven by low interest rates and incredibly lax lending standards--was extremely ill-considered (okay, last time I called it "idiotic").