Bookworm Room

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

Funnily enough, I haven’t seen a word about this this in the MSM

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We hear a lot about dead or wounded Palestinian children, each of whose death or injury is a tragedy. Funnily enough, though, the MSM falls silent when it comes to the Israeli children:

There were a lot of tears of sadness and pain on Monday at the convalescence wing of the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer outside of Tel Aviv, as Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal visited the two young victims of the recent Qassam rocket attack.

Osher and Rami Tuito are being hospitalized at Sheba after a Qassam rocket made impact just a few feet away from the two brothers causing serious injury. Osher, 8, had to have a part of his leg amputated and his older brother Rami, 19, sustained moderate injuries.

As I tried to make clear in my introductory paragraph, I’m not denigrating what happens to Palestinian children, since children are the true tragedy of every conflict. I am noting, however, that while they make headlines, Israeli children don’t even rank the back pages.

What do you bet these good men are dead by next week?

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While fanatics fight, ordinary people try to live. In Hebron, a City with a sadly bloody history, a few good men have had the courage to try to achieve stability and some measure of harmony:

Heads of local Palestinian clans in Hebron met on Sunday with representatives from Israeli settlements in the area and discussed the easing of tensions between the two sides.

The settlers reported that sheikhs Abu Khader Jabri and Haj Abu Ahram Abu Sneina representing the city’s Arab Muslim population in the West Bank city met in Jabri’s home with the Kiryat Arba Regional Council head Tzvi Katzover, former Knesset Member Elyakim Haetzni and other settler leaders.

The commander of the IDF’s Hebron Brigade, Colonel Yehuda Fuchs, also took part in the meeting.

The Israelis said Sheikh Jabri told them during the meeting that “I do not regard you as settlers but as residents. This city is yours just as much as it is ours.”

The Jewish participants described the meeting as cordial, adding that the sides agreed to strive to live in peace with one another.

You can already anticipate the response that these Sheikhs’ humane, moral efforts received:

According to the Israelis, shortly after the meeting began, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades issued a proclamation throughout the city that called for dealing with the meeting’s participants “with an iron fist.”

And just to make it more likely that this threat will be put into action, Israel released more than 30 al-Aqsa Murderers back into the pond.

So, back to my original post title: How likely is it, do you think, that these decent men, men who clearly want their children to live a quality life, and to have their souls freed from the burden of religious and racial fanaticism, will still be alive even a week from now? I’ll try to keep an eye on the Israeli newspapers and see what happens.

The stupid dance begins again *UPDATED*

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We now know that the Gazans instant collapse into existential despair the last time Israel reduced their electricity flow was a carefully choreographed dance that served two purposes: it enabled Hamas to knock down the wall Egypt had built (a wall about which no one in the West ever complained) and it gave photo ops to the useful idiots in the Western press. It looks as if the whole grotesque dance is starting all over again:

Israel began reducing the amount of electricity it sells to Gaza as part of sanctions against continued rocket fire, Israeli officials said on Friday. The move prompted a warning from the United States not to “worsen the humanitarian situation” of the civilian population in Gaza, and was followed by the firing of yet more rockets at Israel by militants there.

Israel began reducing its electricity flow into the Gaza Strip by less than one percent late Thursday night. By Friday afternoon, 21 rockets had been launched against Israel, an Army spokeswoman said, with several landing in and around the Israeli border town of Sderot and in open areas south of Ashkelon, a larger Israeli coastal city north of the strip.

Israeli officials said the electricity had been cut by about one megawatt out of the 124 megawatts that Israel provides to Gaza, and that an additional megawatt could be cut each week depending on the security situation and the needs of the Gaza population. Israel said it would continue to provide the necessary minimum to prevent harm to the safety or health of the residents.

Has there ever been a time in the history of the world when Country A repeatedly states its wish to destroy Country B and then acts upon that wish, only to have Country B continue to keep vital material flowing into Country A? I’d like to say that it’s gotten to the point that Israel is too stupid to deserve the gift of national survival, but I won’t. It’s true that the Israelis, for reasons unclear to me, keep the amazingly ineffectual Olmert in office, and it is true that the Israeli peace movement could more aptly be named the National Suicide Pact, but there’s more to it than that.

The fact is, Israel inadvertently made a pact with devil when she began to rely. Because America is a necessary part of the Israeli war machine and the Israeli economy, Israel can’t afford to alienate her — that would be a suicidal act as sure as just opening the borders and letting in the Palestinians. So as long as the US has this bizarre “let’s make nice with your killers” attitude, Israel is completely handicapped. She cannot fight a war against her open enemies and, instead, ends up subsidizing them as they fight a war against her.

It always was a Catch-22, of course, because Israel could never have survived as long as she did without US aid. It’s like steroids I guess: first they make you stronger, then they destroy you.

UPDATE:  While Israel is forced by world pressure to support her enemy, fellow Arabs have no such constraints.  As James Taranto describes:

Arabs love Palestinians in the abstract–as a symbol of the putative evil of the hated Jews. But they’re not so crazy about Palestinians as actual human beings. Here is a prominent Egyptian who is so averse to Palestinians that even their money isn’t good enough for him.

The crystal ball was accurate once again

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Here’s what I wrote yesterday:

Laer does a fantastic post about Israel’s decision to cut of power to Gaza. I would be more impressed if it weren’t for the fact that I know that, in a day or two, when Palestinian shrieking reaches fever pitch, the UN, Europe and the US will gang up on Israel and demand that she act in a more humanitarian way. And Israel, instead of sticking to her guns and refusing to provide supplies to those trying to destroy her and every one of her citizens, will yield — and the Palestinians will be heartened once again.

And here’s the news today:

Israel resumed fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip’s main power plant on Tuesday, offering limited respite from a blockade that plunged much of the Hamas-ruled territory into darkness and touched off international protests.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had voiced her concerns to Israel, which has argued that sealing the borders could make the Palestinians stop rocket salvoes.

“Nobody wants innocent Gazans to suffer and so we have spoken to the Israelis about the importance of not allowing a humanitarian crisis to unfold there,” Rice told reporters travelling with her to Berlin for a meeting on Iran.

“Nobody wants innocent Gazans to suffer….”  Somewhere, lost in that whole little touching intro is the fact that Israel cut power to Gaza because those innocent Gazans, over the course of the two days before the fuel shutdown, lobbed 53 rockets into Israel.  Apparently a few in Gaza very much want innocent Israelis to suffer.

It’s only when one digs halfway through the story that any mention is made of those rockets — and then one learns that Israel caved, not because the rockets stopped, but because they merely lessened:

Israel’s decision to allow in emergency supplies followed a decline in the number of rocket attacks.

Islamist Hamas refuses to renounce the fight against the Jewish state and opposes peace moves by Abbas, who condemned the Israeli closure as harmful to diplomacy.

Palestinians launched at least one rocket into Israel from Gaza on Tuesday, causing no damage, compared with 45 salvoes on Friday and Saturday, the military said.

Israel will go down in history as the only country in the world that supplied the enemy with the weapons of Israel’s own apparently inevitable destruction.

Quick picks *UPDATED*

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I’ve got a deadline, so I thought I’d just give you a few links to things that interested me this morning:

Rick Moran highlights Zimbabwe’s insane inflation, another horrible indictment of Mugabe, who took one of Africa’s most stable and prosperous nations and reduced it to abject poverty.

An Iraq War widow, trying to help others, was scammed out of $57,000, and now needs help.

I don’t know if Jonas E. Alexis is a good writer or not, but he’s certainly written what sounds like my kind of book: In the Name of Education: How Weird Ideologies Corrupt our Public Schools, Politics, the Media, Higher Institutions, and History. You can read an interview with him here and see if it sounds like your kind of book too.

Chavez the coke-head — it explains so much, including the paranoia and megalomania.

About three years after the rest of us, NPR is finally catching on to the fact that there is a problem integrating Islamists into Western culture, especially when it comes to the subjugation of Muslim women.

Laer does a fantastic post about Israel’s decision to cut of power to Gaza. I would be more impressed if it weren’t for the fact that I know that, in a day or two, when Palestinian shrieking reaches fever pitch, the UN, Europe and the US will gang up on Israel and demand that she act in a more humanitarian way. And Israel, instead of sticking to her guns and refusing to provide supplies to those trying to destroy her and every one of her citizens, will yield — and the Palestinians will be heartened once again.

I blogged yesterday about the problem with Obama’s race, and it’s not that he’s black, it’s that the Left cares deeply that he’s black. Apparently (and unsurprisingly), I’m not the only one who has figured this out. Slate is running excerpts from what promises to be an interesting book: Richard Thompson Ford’s The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse. Given the nature of the publishing industry, this book was obviously written before Obama and Hillary dove into the cesspool of racism, so its presence on the market right now is serendipitous.

That great curmudgeon Pat Condell takes on Canadian dhimmitude.

UPDATE:  Hah!  What did I tell you?  Two days and Israel’s already started caving.  I can also guarantee you that the Palestinians are not thanking the Israeli’s for their munificence.  Instead, they’re gloatingly thinking “weak, weak, weak” — and they’re right.

More fake but accurate — this time from Israel *UPDATED*

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In one of my recent posts fawning over Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, I mentioned his discussion about the fascistic love for the “fake but accurate” approach to “truth.” Thus,

As the cross-burning incident at Cornell demonstrated, this preference for arousing passions at the expense of truth and reason defined the agenda for those fighting in [the 1960s Leftist] trenches. The practice of “lying for justice” — always acceptable on the communist left — was infused into the American New Left with potency. The catch-phrase at the Columbia uprising was “the issue is not the issue.” No wonder, since the actual “issue” — building a gym in adjacent Harlem — was such small beer. For most of the activists, deceit wasn’t the point. The point was passion, mobilization, action. As one SDS member proclaimed after he and his colleagues seized a building and kidnapped a dean, “We’ve got something going on here and now we’ve just got to find out what it is.” (p. 179.)

Apparently — and unsurprisingly — this viewpoint isn’t limited to the American left, but arises wherever there is a left. Thus, at Augean Stables, Richard Landes describes giving a speech to Israelis about the false Muhammed al-Durah video:

I recently gave a talk at a conference on Media and Ethics in Jerusalem, where I presented the case against Enderlin’s version of the Muhammad al Durah story. Apparently, the presentation was relatively convincing since one of the first criticisms I immediately received from a prominent Israeli professor of communications was: “So what? According to reliable statistics, the Israeli army has killed over 800 Palestinian children since the second Intifada. So what difference does it make if this case is staged or not?” His intervention was followed by a round of applause from about a third of the 200-some person audience.

Israel is not going to be murdered. With the help of her own leftists, using Hamas as its instrument of choice, she’s going to commit assisted suicide.

UPDATE: Melanie Phillips elaborates on Israeli suicide, and its roots in the false history promulgated about Israel on the left (often by Israel’s own leftists).  Sadly, those who can no longer buy the leftist view seem to have settled for a type of apathetic nihilism (which may explain why Israeli voters can’t rouse themselves to get rid of Olmert).  My cousin, an incredibly smart sabra who still lives in Israel, admits that she is no longer a leftist (which was the default political position for Israel’s educated class when she was a girl in the 1950s).  Now, she says, “I support them all.  One of them might have an idea.”

Obama, Israel and the Jews

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If you’re a liberal Jewish voter, and tremendously excited about Obama’s candidacy as the fulfillment of the civil rights movement, slow down, Pardner.  Jews have always assumed that, because they supported the civil rights movement with enthusiasm and hard work, there would be a quid pro quo by which blacks, recognizing Jews as fellow victims, would be equally supportive of Jewish issues.  Jews have held to this viewpoint despite regularly occurring proof of the fact that African-Americans, perhaps resentful of having to share the “victim” limelight with the Jews, are not supportive of Jews or Jewish causes.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in Obama himself, a man who has aligned himself with anti-Semitic churches and causes his entire adult life.  If you think this will change when he reaches the White House, I would suggest that you think again.  And if you believe that Israel, a small island of democracy surrounded by hostile tyrannical nations should exist without anyone questioning her legitimacy, you may not want to vote for Obama.  (Of course, if Israel’s security matters to you, you also might want to rethink any vote for Hillary, either — not just because she mouths the usual liberal pieties about a Palestinian state, but because she kissed Suha Arafat immediately after the latter spouted vicious antisemitic lies.)

George Bush may well be right

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Although I think he’s fallen into the stupidity trap that plagues all American presidents who get embroiled in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I actually don’t doubt the possibility that Bush will force through another peace agreement within the next year.  These agreements are easy to reach, with the Israelis so desperate for peace (especially under the craven Olmert) that they’ll agree to anything; and the Palestinians willing to agree to any plan proposed because they have no intention of abiding by any proposal, at least not for the long haul.  The Palestinians’ widely trumpeted long term goal is the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews.  To achieve this goal, they are willing, in an entirely unprincipled but effective way, to say “yes” to any proposal that comes along if it will buy them time and gnaw away at Israel’s position.  Israelis used to win because they were smart; they’re losing now because they’re acting dumb.

Footage of Jewish history

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Here you will find amazing film clips from almost one hundred years of 20th Century Jewish history, including images and testimony from Eichmann’s trial. It is a reminder that, while the Jews wanted Israel as an escape from bloodshed and tyranny, the Palestinians joyfully imagine their lands awash in a sea of blood.

Hat tip: Crossing the Rubicon

UPDATE: More on the blood Palestinians long to have on their hands. And if you click over to this last link, remember Golda Meir: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

Would the Muslims really make nice with us if Israel were gone?

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In my post about Jews’ love for Israel and America, I noted Michael Medved’s thought experiment, which was to imagine whether world attitudes towards America would change if Israel magically vanished, as well as his conclusion that nothing would change. Nevertheless, in the comments to that post — and perhaps inevitably given how widespread the canard is that Israel taints America — came the charge that it’s all Israel’s fault that the Muslim nations have aligned against us. It is for that reason that I now post about a bombing that normally would not provide subject matter for this blog (heinous though the bombing was):

Two car bombs ripped through the Algerian capital Tuesday, reportedly killing at least 62 people in what appeared to be targeted attacks on government and United Nations buildings.

One explosion occurred outside the constitutional court in the Algiers neighborhood of Ben Aknoun while the other took place in the residential area of Hydra tearing the front off the U.N.’s headquarters in the city.

A reporter from CNN affiliate BFM quoted hospital sources as saying 62 people were killed in both blasts.

[snip]

So far no group has admitted responsibility for Tuesday’s blasts.

[snip]

Algeria, which has a population of three million, is still recovering from more than a decade of violence that began after the military government called a halt to elections which an Islamist party was poised to win.

Tens of thousands of people died in the unrest. Although the country has remained relatively peaceful, recent terrorist attacks have raised fears of a slide back to violence.

In April, the northern Africa wing of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in downtown Algiers that killed 33 people.

A couple of points: First, although the police are not yet sure, it is reasonable to believe that this is an Al Qaeda blast, both because of Al Qaeda’s history in Algeria and because of the simultaneously explosions, a typical AQ hallmark. Second, neither Algeria nor the UN are friends of Israel or America.

In other words, the Muslim violence described above had nothing to do with America’s support for Israel. The same holds true for the Muslim violence in the Philippines, India, Spain, England, and Russia, all of which have distinguished themselves over the years by continued hostility to Israel and, often, to America. (Although India, faced with intractable Muslim violence and a booming capitalist economy, is hewing closer to both Israel and America.) Likewise, the Sudanese — both Christian and Muslim — being slaughtered left and right at the hands of their Islamist compatriots probably have only the haziest knowledge of either America’s or Israel’s very existence.

And for those who claim that Spain and England came into the line of Islamist fire only because they supported the Iraq war, which in turn is the result of a Zionist conspiracy, a couple of facts should put that argument to rest: First, it does not explain the Islamic violence in the other countries, which have nothing to do with or actively opposed the Iraq War. Second, Israel and most American Jews opposed the Iraq War, the former because it viewed Iran as the greater threat and didn’t want to get side tracked, and the latter because they hate Bush, and whatever he’s for, they’re against.

Indeed, when one looks thematically at Muslim violence, there is only one common thread: Islam itself. That is, one cannot wrap around each act of Muslim violence the blanket of economic oppression, or support for the Iraq War, or support for Israel, or support for America, or any other common denominator other than Islam itself. Islam is now, as it has always been, a religion devoted to territorial conquest and the acquisition of non-Muslims to serve as a tax base. Islam also is now, as it always has been, a religion defined by a deep and abiding intolerance for anything non-Islamic and, true to the teachings of Mohammad himself, this intolerance provides license for rapine and slaughter.

So please disabuse yourself of the notion that Muslims world-wide hate America because America staunchly supports the nation that so closely shares her values and that is so besieged by those who don’t. Instead, Muslims world-wide hate America because Muslims currently hate everyone.

UPDATE: Just today, out of Indonesia, comes a story, not of another bombing or attack, but of Muslim militants sent off to jail for slaughtering Christians in that land. The murder victims, including several school girls attacked and beheaded, had no known connection to Israel or America.

Explaining American Jews’ love for Israel and America

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I did something fun tonight: I went to a moderated talk concerning Israel. The speakers were Dennis Prager, John Podhoretz and Mona Charen, with Michael Medved moderating. As you can imagine, the discussion was informed, vigorous, amusing, intelligent and opinionated. I enjoyed every minute of it and I gathered from the applause, laughter, murmurs of agreements and other sounds of an engaged audience that the hundreds of other people attending did as well. (And believe me, it impressed me tremendously that there were hundreds of conservative Jews who could be gathered together in San Francisco. Before I arrived, part of me suspected that only about 10 people would show up — just enough for a political minyan.)

At the end of the evening, I asked a question that got some very interesting answers. I didn’t go into the evening expecting to ask this question, by the way, but it seemed an appropriate question by evening’s end. You see, it was patently clear, both from the conversation at the front of the room, the periodic audience applause, and the audience questions, that people in that room were both fiercely supportive of Israel and deeply patriotic Americans. That love for and belief in two countries reminded me of a question that’s been thrown at me over the years (or, perhaps, it could be categorized more accurately as an accusation): “How can you support Israel and call yourself a loyal American?” So when Michael Medved went around the room with a microphone, I caught his eye, and quickly asked “For those people who claim that America’s and Israel’s interests are antithetical to each other, how do we justify or explain our loyalty to both?”

John Podhoretz answered first by pointing to the common values shared by both nations — their belief that all men (and women, of course) are equal before God and their commitment to true Democratic values (however imperfectly that commitment may sometimes be realized). He noted that these shared values have resulted in two unusually free societies, free by any standards, but especially when one compares Israel’s society to her neighbors. Although I don’t think he quite said it outright, I gather that Mr. Podhoretz believes that American Jews are not disloyal to America when they support Israel because it is the morally correct thing to do: one beacon of light supporting another. I think he’s right.

When he’d wrapped up, Mona Charen chimed in to point out that the most fervent support for Israel comes, not from American Jews, but from Evangelical Christians. In other words, support of Israel is not some shady Jewish conspiracy, but is part of the value system religious conservatives of all stripes, both Christian and Jewish.

Finally, Michael Medved closed with the flip side to these preceding answers. That is, after Mr. Podhoretz and Ms. Charen pointed out that it is not unpatriotic to support Israel, he explained why Jews are — or should be — patriotic. His take, and one with which I strongly agree, is that America is one of the great blessings bestowed on the Jews. In America, they have enjoyed freedom and opportunity the likes of which has never been seen before during diaspora history — and probably wasn’t seen that often during the Jews’ own Biblical history. We have every reason to be profoundly grateful to this nation that has treated us so generously over the centuries, and there is no reason to doubt the patriotism of Jews who recognize America’s beneficence.

Mr. Medved also suggested a thought experiment: if Jews could magically vanish onto a space ship (kind of like the space ship that Louis Farrakhan assures his followers will be coming for them), would the world like America any better? It’s doubtful that the Europeans would. Our support for Israel isn’t why they dislike us, it’s just a piece of evidence in the litany of complaints they have against us. As for the Muslim world, Medved believes that it is our support for Israel — real support, not just lip service — that forces the Muslim world to pay attention to us and to give us some influence in those lands, influence we’d never have if there was no Israel and they dealt with us only as supplicants for oil. He also pointed out that, in the Arab hierarchy, we’re the Great Satan, with Israel ranking only as the Little Satan. That may relate to geographic size, but one has to suspect it also goes to influence and importance.

I gathered that the panel thought it was a good question (something reinforced by the fact that Mr. Medved was kind enough to tell me — twice — that it was a good question). I liked their answers, but I’d be interested in what you have to say as well. So, my question again: Can American Jews be both patriotic Americans and supporters of Israel? And to take Mona Charen’s point, if an American Evangelical Christian supports Israel, should that call his patriotism into question in the same way that people feel it calls a Jewish person’s patriotism into question?

Syria — spoiler or saviour?

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My view of the Annapolis talks has been that they will turn into something of a gang bang, with Israel, led by the inept Olmert, as the victim. I just know that Israel is going to concede and concede and concede, with nothing to show for the experience except a ruined reputation and some serious problems down the line. However, it turns out that Syria, of all countries, has stated that its purpose is to make sure that Israel leaves Annapolis with her national virtue intact.  Okay — I admit it.  Syria doesn’t actually use that language, nor does Syria intend for anything good to happen to Israel.  Nevertheless, Israel might benefit from Syria’s stated goal going in, which is to make sure that nothing whatsoever comes out of Annapolis:

It really would be something if the Syrian delegation could find their own road to Damascus on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. But that would require something approximating good faith. The Syrians’ decision to be represented at Annapolis by their deputy foreign minister–his bosses evidently having more important things to do–is one indication of the lack of it. So is the Assad regime’s declaration (via an editorial in state newspaper Teshreen) that their goal at Annapolis is “to foil [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert’s plan to force Arab countries to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.” And lest the point hadn’t been driven home forcefully enough, the Syrian information minister told Al Jazeera that Syria’s attendance would have no effect on its relations with Iran or its role as host to the leadership of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.

Of course, things are never quite so simple. Because Syria seems more adept at this Machiavellian game than either America or Israel, there’s a strong likelihood that it’s not simply going to ensure that Annapolis doesn’t change the status quo (because I’m sure Olmert, unfettered, will make things worse), but instead it will actually use subtlety and nuance to drive both the US and Israel into positions that are untenable and even dangerous over the long term.  Thus, as Bret Stephens says in the article from which I quoted above:

At best, then, Syria will attend Annapolis as a kind of non-malignant observer, lending a gloss of pan-Arab seriousness to the proceedings. At worst, it will be there as a spoiler and unofficial spokesman of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. If it’s clever, it will adopt a policy of studied ambivalence, with just enough positive chemistry to induce the administration into believing it might yet be prepared for a real Volte face, provided the U.S. is also prepared to rewrite its Syria policy. Recent attestations by Gen. David Petraeus, that Damascus is finally policing its border with Iraq to slow the infiltration of jihadis, suggest that’s just the game they mean to play.

What price will the U.S. be asked to pay? Contrary to popular belief, recovering the Golan is neither Syria’s single nor primary goal; if anything, the regime derives much of its domestic legitimacy by keeping this grievance alive. What’s urgently important to Damascus is that the U.N. tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri be derailed, before the extensive evidence implicating Mr. Assad and his cronies becomes a binding legal verdict. No less important to Mr. Assad is that his grip on Lebanese politics be maintained by the selection of a pliant president to replace his former puppet, Emile Lahoud. Syria would also like to resume normal diplomatic relations with the U.S. (which withdrew its ambassador from Damascus after Hariri’s killing), not least by the lifting of economic sanctions imposed by the 2003 Syria Accountability Act.

Random thoughts about Annapolis

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Regarding Annapolis, I’ve had little to say. I feel as if I’m watching a car accident in slow motion, horrified by the spectacle, but helpless to do anything. I do have one hope, though, and one comment. My hope is that the Arab nations attending get into “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” mode and recognize that they may need to form an alliance with Israel against the greater threat that is Iran.

The comment is that I know the outcome is going to be the same old, same old: Palestinians are going to emerge with tangible benefits based on their promise never to be bad again. This will happen regardless of a long history showing that this is one promise they can’t keep.

How about this instead: If Palestinians promise to go 40 years without attacking Israelis, and do in fact keep that promise, then they will get X, Y & Z.

By the way, that 40 years is a deliberate number that you may recognize from the Bible: God determined that 40 years in the desert was a sufficient time for the old, slave generation to die out and a new nation to be born, deserving of its own land. Maybe 40 years of self-imposed peace amongst the Palestinians will be enough to see the fading away of the hatred that currently animates them so that a new people can be born.

Of course, my wish will never see the light of day. As always, Israel will make concessions and get nothing in return but bombs dropped on her citizens. As many have said, until the Arabs take the first step of recognizing the Jewish state’s right to exist, everything else is meaningless, pointless window dressing. As Bernard Lewis said in a WSJ article (which, unfortunately, is behind the subscription barrier as of this writing):

If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.

If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.

UPDATE:  A little boost for my theory that the Arab leaders showed up because their fear of Iran outweighs their hatred for Israel.

Keep Jerusalem whole

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If you are like me and think that it’s insane to use the Annapolis gather to pressure Israel to divide Jerusalem, you can make your voice heard through a free phone call.  Go to this link and follow the instructions.

If you’re waffling, keep in mind that, when Jerusalem was in Arab hands after the Israeli War of Independence, the Arabs evicted all Jewish residents, desecrated Jewish graves and sites of worship and denied Jews access to their holy places.  Since 1967, when Israel took Jerusalem, the Israelis have made this holy city freely available to all worshipers.  Also, do keep in mind what happened in Gaza just recently when Hamas took over.  This is a bad idea whose time has not come and whose time should never come.

Hat tip:  LGF