Voters in the Spanish province of Catalonia yesterday gave a large majority to pro-independence parties, who now command 2/3 of the seats in the regional parliament. The practical impact may be attenuated, because the secessionist movement is weakened by being spread across four parties: separatists can’t unite. Madrid vows to resist any split. Spain apparently […]
Archive | Israel
Starting a Column with a Lie?
Thomas Friedman in the New York Times: “Israeli friends have been asking me whether a re-elected President Obama will take revenge on Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for the way he and Sheldon Adelson, his foolhardy financier, openly backed Mitt Romney. My answer to Israelis is this: You should be so lucky.” I’m pretty sure it’s […]
How Syria is Iran’s route to the sea
By David Kopel on October 24, 2012 2:29 am in Counter-Terrorism Policy, Iran, Israel, National Security, Presidency, Press, Terrorism
“Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. It’s their route to the sea.” So said Mitt Romney at the Monday debate. The Associated Press, The Guardian, The Telegraph, New York, U.S. News, Brad DeLong, Rachel Maddow’s Maddowblog, Comedy Central, and The Daily Kos promptly seized the opportunity to show off their superior geographical knowledge, pointing out that Iran […]
Now There’s a Photoshop for You
Here’s the photo of Netanyahu’s Iranian bomb / red line image, from his speech today to the UN: And here’s a version by David Ferguson (Snicker Snack Baby): Thanks to Powerline and Instapundit for the pointer. UPDATE: A commenter asked why I thought the cartoon was interesting; I hope that others perceive some of this […]
Poor Coverage of the Rachel Corrie Verdict
I’ve been reading different accounts of an Israeli court’s decision to deny a judgment for Rachel Corrie’s parents. Corrie, you may remember, was the young American activist who was struck by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza while protesting trying to prevent housing demolitions during the first intifada [UPDATE: more precisely, she intentionally went to a […]
Munich and the Politics of the IOC
Tonight’s opening ceremony for the 2012 Summer Olympics has been marred by the International Olympic Committee’s refusal to hold a brief moment of silence for the 40th anniversary of the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. IOC president Jacques Rogge claims that the reason is that “the […]
Washington Post Article on Obama’s Israel-Palestinian Policy
An interesting piece. Key line: “According to former administration officials and outside advisers briefed on some White House meetings, Emanuel, in particular, thought Netanyahu could be pressured to make concessions, just as he had in the 1990s.” The article suggests that this wasn’t true because Netanyahu had learned in 1999 that if he made concessions […]
More Data Contra Peter Beinart
Back in 2010, I wrote: Peter Beinart has written a scathing indictment of organized American Jewry’s “conservative” views on Israel. He claims that “right-wing” Israeli policies, combined with American Jewish groups’ unflinching support for Israel, are alienating young American Jews, and reducing their attachment to Israel. Beinart’s essay has received a remarkable amount of attention, […]
Terrorists Exchanged for Shalit Take up Terrorism Again
When the Israeli government exchanged over 1000 captured terrorists for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit last fall, I pointed out that the deal was likely to cost a lot more innocent lives than it saved, because many of the freed terrorists are likely to go back to their old ways. Sure enough at least two […]
Passport Dispute Does Not Present “Political Question”
In non-mandate news, the Supreme Court issued two merits opinions today, including Zivotofsky v. Clinton, a challenge to the State Department’s refusal to follow a federal statute directing the federal government to recognize Jerusalem as a part of Israel specifically by allowing American citizens born in Jerusalem to have “Israel” listed as their birthplace. The […]
Seattle University Law Professor Dean Spade versus LGBT Israeli Activists
A delegation of Israeli Jews representing the “Alliance of Israeli LGBT Educational Organizations, a network of groups that support LGBT youth and families,” was visiting the West Coast last week. The Israeli delegation’s visit was sponsored by A Wider Bridge, which describes itself as “a San Francisco–based national organization that seeks to educate people about […]
Sec. of State Clinton–Don’t Believe our Pro-Israel Rhetoric (or Anything Else we Say)
Here’s Clinton speaking in Tunisia. Note that the questioner operates under the assumption that to be pro-Israel is to be against the “common Arab citizen,” and Clinton not only fails to challenge that assumption, but implies that rhetoric that pleases the “Zionist lobby” is somehow anti-Muslim. She then suggests that Americans (and others) are fools […]
Did Historian Ilan Pappe Fabricate a Quote by David Ben-Gurion?
The quotation in question is “The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as war.” With regard to the first part of the quotation, “The Arabs will have to go,” this piece makes a strong case that he, at best, relied on a mistranslation of the […]
A Coaseian Peace Settlement for Israel/Palestine
According to this article, the Netanyahu government is willing to cede 90% of the West Bank to the Palestinians. The Palestinians are demanding 98.4% plus land swaps. Eventually, one hopes, a middle ground could be reached, but why not settle things right now? How about if Israel simply “buys” (without necessarily conceding lack of current […]
More on the New York Times, Israel and Neil Lewis in CJR
Last week, I posted a short piece on an article by Neil Lewis in the Columbia Journalism Review, discussing whether the New York Times reporting is hostile to Israel. As I noted, Lewis gets the basic story right–the Times’ isn’t anti-Israel, as such, but its reporting on Israel tends toward the adversarial, for two reasons. […]