Intellectual Atrocities

The defendant in Gordon's libel suit is the professor, columnist and writer, Professor Steven Plaut. He is on the faculty of the University of Haifa.

Neve Gordon is a member of a department that is nearly wall-to-wall leftist. He holds a Ph.D. from Notre Dame University, a Catholic school in Indiana. Most of the articles he has published are politicized and/or devoted to attacking Israeli policies and/or denounce Israel as a terrorist country. The Middle East Quarterly has declared him to be one of Israel's academic extremists.

Gordon goes beyond the chic support for the PLO and its positions so common today among Israeli academic leftists. Gordon has allied himself and collaborated with a wide variety of anti-Semites and anti-Semitic organizations. He used to lead the Physicians for Human Rights in Israel (despite not being an MD himself), a pro-Arab organization so extreme that it has been publicly denounced by the Israel Medical Association. It was condemned as an openly anti-Semitic organization by Professor Gerald Steinberg of Bar Ilan University, who, together with 200 other people, signed a petition to that effect.

Gordon also maintains a long-term ongoing collaboration with Alexander Cockburn, the anti-Israel far-leftist American columnist and publisher of Counterpunch magazine. Cockburn has been repeatedly denounced as an anti-Semite by the New Republic and by a variety of other journals, organizations and columnists, including the Seattle Times, the Declaration Foundation, Professor Edward Alexander, LewRockwell.com, LeftWatch, and Christian Action for Israel. Cockburn has openly given credence to reports that Jews spread anthrax in the U.S. and that Israel was part of a conspiracy to topple the World Trade Center. Cockburn insists Jews conspire to control the media. Gordon has published a large number of articles attacking Israel in Counterpunch.

Gordon is active in a far-Left Israeli organization with the Arabic name Taayush, which, in Gordon's own words (cited in an interview), is a seditious organization that "opposes Arab-Jewish coexistence."

But Gordon's screeds appeal to an audience that goes beyond the mere vocal critics of Israel. Gordon's articles have been published and cited on a wide variety of neo-Nazi, Holocaust Denial and Islamist fundamentalist newspapers and web sites. On several neo-Nazi web sites, a work by Gordon is cited right after a citation from Hitler himself, making for curious footnote bedfellows.

I know of Gordon, several of my friends took his class last year, and from what I've heard, all of this is 100% believable. I would seriously consider one of the following:

Meanwhile, readers who would like to tell the authorities at Ben Gurion University what they think of Gordon's writings and behavior should write to Professor Avishay Braverman, President of Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheba 84105 Israel. Letters to the American Associates of Ben Gurion University (AABGU) should be sent to 1430 Broadway, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10018. Zvi Alon is President of AABGU and Vivien Marion is the Executive Vice-President. (phone: 212-687-7721; fax: 212-302-6443; email: info@aabgu.org)

Anyone interested in defending free speech through helping defray Prof. Plaut's legal costs (he is represented by attorney Dr. Haim Misgav) is invited to contact him directly. His email address is steven_plaut@yahoo.com.

Its high time intellectual bullies like Gordon were forced to answer for their atrocities. I hope he loses and has to pay court costs. Then I hope Plaut countersues.

Treason Monkeys Beware

Yet the international Left cries in horror, "How dare those soldiers shoot one of these pro-terror vandals in his leg? So what if he was wearing a mask while valdalizing the fence? And how dare they injure one of the ISM provocateurs from overseas showing her support for terrorism? So what if she was using wire cutters at the time on the fence? So what if the crowd would have been mowed down with gunfire had they been trying to use wirecutters on, say, the fence of any U.S. military facility on earth? So what if the ISM people injured had signed a contract promising not even to enter the West Bank if allowed to disembark in Israel? So what if Israel's Police Minister described the 'protesters' as 'collaborators with terrorism,' and so what if parliament member Yuri Stern described them as 'barbaric criminals'?"

No, the international Left now demands an investigation -- of the Israelis! The Left wants to arrest all those who cheered the troops who fired at these "demonstrators," who suggested that the troops be awarded medals, who suggested an official commission of investigation be set up to see why only one hooligan was shot and charge them with incitement. And maybe libel.

But it is only the law-abiding who must play by the rules in the Left's universe. It is only the orderly, staving off attacks on innocent women and children -- on Western civilization itself -- who must be investigated, interrogated, harassed and forced to recant their ways. After all, if leftists had to obey laws, then how would they ever take power? Instead, they take it one chain-link at a time.

I think a valid point lies under the hyperbole here, namely that the Left ought to have to answer to the very rules it seeks to impose on its enemies. The anti-war movement in the US, for instance, was never adequately investigated by the media and its totalitarian, anti-semitic, anti-American leadership was never appropriately exposed. Its high time that situation began to change.

Hanson Preaches the Word

Hatred of Israel is the most striking symptom of the Western disease. On the face of it the dilemma there is a no-brainer for any classic liberal: A consensual government is besieged by fanatical suicide killers who are subsidized and cheered on by many dictators in the Arab world. The bombers share the same barbaric methods as Chechens, the 9/11 murderers, al Qaedists in Turkey, and what we now see in Iraq.

Indeed, the liberal Europeans should love Israel, whose social and cultural institutions — universities, the fine arts, concern for the “other” — so reflect its own. Gays are in the Israeli military, whose soldiers rarely salute, but usually address each other by their first names and accept a gender equity that any feminist would love. And while Arabs once may have been exterminated by Syrians, gassed in Yemen by Egypt, ethnically cleansed in Kuwait, lynched without trial in Palestine, burned alive in Saudi Arabia, inside Israel proper they vote and enjoy human rights not found elsewhere in the Arab Middle East.

When Europe frets over the “Right of Return” do they mean the over half-million Jews who were sent running for their lives from Egypt, Syria, and Iraq? Or do they ever ask why a million Arabs live freely in Israel and another 100,000 illegally have entered the “Zionist entity”? Does a European ever ask what would happen should thousands of Jews demand “A Right of Return” to Cairo?

Instead, the elite Westerner talks about “occupied lands” from which Israel has been attacked four times in the last 60 years — in a manner that Germans do not talk about an occupied West they coughed up to France or an occupied East annexed by Poland. Russia lectures about Jenin, but rarely its grab of Japanese islands. Turkey is worried about the West Bank, but not its swallowing much of Cyprus. China weighs in about Palestinian sovereignty but not the entire culture of Tibet; some British aristocrats bemoan Sharon’s supposed land grab, but not Gibraltar.

All these foreign territories that were acquired through blood and iron and held on to by reasons of “national security” are somehow different matters when Jews are not involved. Yet give Israel a population of 250 million, massive exports of oil and terrorists — and wipe away anti-Semitism — and even the Guardian or Le Monde would change its tune.

Yeah. What he said.

Treason Monkeys at the Wall. I don't know how much play this has been getting in the States, but its been leading the news over here. I imagine the anti-semitic Left is making hay over it at every major university which is to be expected, but I think it really underlines the childish nature of the Left today. These people simply haven't the slightest idea of what they're playing at. I saw the footage of the incident the other day and its very clear that these people weren't "protesting" at the wall, they were trying to tear it down, and quite violently too. The soldiers there were badly outnumbered and could not have stopped them without opening fire. Of course, this is also exactly what the Leftists there were after. They were trying to provoke a shooting incident and that's what they got. I don't understand why I ought to be sympathetic to someone who goes out spoiling for a fight and ends up finding one. This ridiculous whining after the fact is not only hypocritical, its infantile. These people aren't revolutionaries, they're pathetic, dysfunctional children. I also don't understand why its significant that an Israeli citizen was hit. He was engaging in a violent demonstration, his citizenship is irrelevant. I'm not even going to talk about an organization called "Anarchists Against the Wall" except to say that anyone who is an anarchist is, axiomatically, a traitor. The fundamental tenant of their ideology is overthrow of the existing government by violence, i.e. treason. Why they aren't all locked up already I don't know. All in all a sorry display. I understand Yossi Beilin is quite outraged, which is hardly surprising, he's been doing his fair share of whining lately as well.

Dr. Henry Speaks His Mind

American opposition to the concept of a security fence, therefore, should be reconsidered. A physical barrier difficult to penetrate would facilitate Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian cities and the abandonment of checkpoints that deprive so much of Palestinian life of dignity. It provides a line on the other side of which settlements have to live under Palestinian rule or be abandoned. Is the Palestinian objection less the result of the principle of the fence but the ratification of the permanence of Israel it represents? By the same token, Israel must be serious about vacating the territories beyond the security fence. Some object to the security fence as being reminiscent of the walls created by communism, especially in Berlin and along the east-west German borders. But the Communist walls were designed to keep their peoples in; complex than a device for using the United States to extract concessions from Israel for little more than the word ``peace.'' The Palestinians must make a choice between the requirements of genuine acceptance of the Jewish state and an interim solution that creates a Palestinian state immediately and marks a major step toward dealing with the settlement, even if it falls short of the entire gamut of their aspirations. Israel must abandon a diplomacy designed to exhaust its counterparts and concentrate, in close coordination with the United States, on the essentials of its requirements.

An excellent assessment by Henry Kissinger in a Korean newspaper, courtesy of Israpundit . I agree with pretty much everything in this article, including the traumatic effects of peace he mentions a bit later in the article, read the whole thing.

The Speech. I’m still a bit dumbfounded. I think my predictions were largely correct, it went much further then observers were predicting. The implications seem pretty clear: Sharon is laying the groundwork for a unilateral withdrawal. He is doing slowly and incrementally what Barak wanted to do all at once three years ago. Obviously, the territorial absolutists on the Right are going to be incensed, although I think they’ll be tempered a bit in their rhetoric due to the memory of the Rabin assassination. The Palestinianists will also, perhaps surprisingly to some, come out against it with guns blazing, since it turns the main weapon they have, demographics, against them, threatening them with a humanitarian disaster of mammoth proportions. Their main objection, however, will be to the security wall, since it neutralizes their other primary weapon: suicide terrorism. I also very much liked the opening part of the speech, which no one seems to have noticed, where Sharon spoke about internal Israeli issues like social cohesion, the religious divide (somewhat obliquely), and noted that these issues can't be put off until the elusive peace is obtained and have to be dealt with now. I found that very encouraging. I live in a poor city and I can see the difference in the way my neighbors live and the way people live in Herzliya and Tel Aviv.

It was, all in all, a supremely hopeful speech. Perhaps that sounds odd, since the primary criticism of it is going to be that it is capitulatory and defeatist, but it held out, to me at least, the prospect that Israel may have turned an ideological corner, and we may be on the crest of resolving some of those debates which have so bitterly and lamentably divided this country since 1967. I think the dream of the Left is coming true, we are withdrawing from the territories and returning to ourselves. The only catch is that the Right is going to accomplish it. As I have said before, I don’t see that as a defeat. It fact, the opposite, it wins us a future. Our enemies may rejoice for days, but we will rejoice for generations. That is the greatest possible victory.

Withdrawing. Which begs the question of whether unilateral withdrawal is a good idea altogether. I've been advocating it since Barak suggested it three years ago and I think that, unquestionably, it is what will eventually happen, although what the specific borders will be I don't know. My personal support for unilateral withdrawal stems from three principles:

1. The demographic situation. I have yet to see any argument from the pro-settler Right that argues successfully in favor of the possibility of retaining the territories without losing the Jewish majority. Even if, by some miracle, the Jewish majority is maintained, it will be so thin that Israel will still become, in effect, a bi-national state. Any Zionist who advocates indefinate retention of the territories is ultimately arguing Transfer, and I am not prepared to support Transfer except as an absolute last resort. Whatever the extremists say, we are not at that point yet. Israel can live without Hebron, we are not in a life or death confrontation which demands such brutal actions for the sake of survival.

2. Palestinian intransigence. I see no indication whatsoever that Palestinian society either accepts the Jewish State or is overly interested in an agreement with it except as a political tactic leading to more war. I think it will take at least two or three generations to reconcile Palestinian society with Israel's existence, if it is ever reconciled. This, and nothing else, was the reason for Oslo's failure and the reason the Road Map will, ultimately, fail as well. Since an agreement is not forthcoming, the demographic situation threatens Israel's existence, and Transfer is not an option, the only recourse is unilateral withdrawal.

3. Israel's own interests. There is no question in my mind that all the major factors which work in the Palestinians's favor, most especially time, are neutralized and reversed by unilateral withdrawal. Firstly, the demographic issue. Instead of a threat to Israel's Jewish character, it suddenly becomes a humanitarian disaster in the making. Birth rates of that level simply cannot be sustained for long without the threat of famine, disease, and a catastrophic collapse in infrastructure. This will push the Palestinians into concentrating on their humanitarian situation and not on war with Israel. It also makes reconciliation with Israel, with its sundry economic advantages, far more attractive to the Palestinian leadership. Secondly, it removes from Israel the economic and social burden of maintaining a military presence in the territories, a monkey which Israel has carried on its back for decades at great cost. Thirdly, it allows Israel to decide which settlements it will retain and which it will not, thus minimizing social upheavels. And finally and perhaps most importantly, it removes completely the threat of international pressure to implement a distastrous Right of Return for Palestinian refugess and permits the retention of sovreignty over Jerusalem's holy sites as well as keeping East Jerusalem as a viable bargaining chip for future negotiations.

I am not unaware of the drawbacks to this plan. Israel will look weak and defeated, which will most certainly embolden its enemies. However, I doubt they will do much in the way of acting on their blustering. Only Egypt has the power to truly confront Israel militarily, and they are a long way from abrogating their peace treaty (although there are ominous rumblings in that direction) and, at any rate, retaining the territories does nothing to defend against an attack from the south. There will be an uptick in terrorism for a brief period, although the political latitude which Israel will enjoy due to the end of its occupation of the territories will allow it to deal with the problem more effectively then in the past. The worst consequences will likely be social, as Israelis try to adjust to the loss of a piece of their ancestral land. For the Israel Right, especially, of which I count myself a member, the upheavel will be wrenching, but to put it off is merely to postpone the inevitable. I do not believe such an attitude is defeatist. To withdraw from the territories is not a defeat. It helps, more then anything else possibily could, to ensure the future of Zionism and, thus, the Jewish people themselves. Our enemies will rejoice in days, but we will rejoice for generations. There could be no greater victory.

The Sharon Speech. Haaretz's prediction:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will tell the Herzliya Conference this evening that his political plan for a settlement with the Palestinians is based on a commitment to implement the U.S.-sponsored road map. He will note, however, that if - within a few months - it emerges that Israel has no Palestinian partner and that the Palestinian Authority is not fighting terror, he will consider a series of security measures that will include a redeployment in the territories and also the relocation of settlements.

According to a political source, in one of the talks Sharon held with ministers and lawmakers in preparation for his address, he said he intended to give Palestinian PM Ahmed Qureia six months to prove his commitment to a settlement with Israel, and then to announce that for security reasons, the small settlements - Ganim and Kadim in the West Bank, and Morag in the Gaza Strip - would be relocated.

Well, I don't know what Arik is going to say anymore then Haaretz does, but this sounds kind of light compared to the hype that's brewing around it. I think Arik is likely to announce something a bit more radical then this, probably the removal of one or two larger-then-a-few-caravans settlements and a commitment to finishing the security fence post-haste. In other words, some preliminary moves pointing towards an ultimate unilateral withdrawal, along the lines of what Ehud Olmert has been proposing, proposals which, in my opinon, are clearly trial balloons from the old man himself.

The Candidates. Which begs the question just what one is to make of Dean in the first place. Basically, he looks to me like self-satisfied, ideological lout who lacks the slightest understanding of the world we live in or the measures needed to deal with its problems, the most prominent being the threat of radical Islam and its asundry terrorist appendages. In this, he's pretty much in the same boat as the wacko candidates like Kucinich, Mosely-Braun and should-be-in-jail-for-incitement-to-murder Al Sharpton. All of them are Leftist fanatics who would be much more at home in the Green Party but understand there's no chance of getting elected without the Democratic machine behind them. Dean, however, has a real chance of getting elected, which makes him slightly dangerous, since I think he would be a disaster on the same level as Jimmy Carter.

Kerry, Lieberman, and Gephardt are all much smarter then that, and understand that Dean's ideology is at best illusory and at worst catastrophic for our country's future, although only Lieberman, God bless him, has the guts to come out and say so. Again, we can see how the party's Leftist establishment has simply marginalized him for doing so. Kerry is the most pathetic one, mainly because he was hoping to run to the Right (i.e. as a Clinton Democrat), but has been forced to the Left by Dean, thus turning him into a blubbering mass of cognitive dissosance and embarrassing self-contradiction. It has resulted in the sorry sight of him kissing necro-radical ass at Rolling Stone by saying "fuck" when he just didn't need to. Its a sorry sight but not surprising to those of us who remember him as a Massachusetts senator whose primary talent was his overarching ambition. Gross.

Gephardt is not all bad, although he's got the charisma of a dead rat and therefore no possibility whatsoever of being elected. He's also basically an old time labor populist, which just doesn't translate into a enough votes in the information economy. I can't see him being nominated.

Lieberman also has no chance in hell, mainly because he's the only one with the personal and political courage to tell his party that their being lied to by a bunch of Leftist treason monkeys with an illigimate hold on the nominating process. I like him but the party's Leftist elite hates him for the exact same reasons. He actually dares to believe the United States is worth defending against its enemies.

The wild card is, of course, Wesley Clark. He hasn't run much of a campaign so far, but he has cache on national security and I personally think he's a much savvier politician then people give him credit for. SACEUR is no picnic and he managed to negotiate the various Euro-monkeys pretty deftly during the Kosovo War. I also think that, although I disagree totally with them, he has some genuinely thought-out criticisms of the war and how its being conducted, which puts him a head above all the other candidates (excluding Lieberman who, as far as I can see, has no disagreement with the war or its conduct) and makes him a serious contender. To my mind, he's the only candidate with the ghost of a chance of beating Bush next November, which is why I think, if the Democrats ever come to their senses (an unlikely scenario) he will be the rallying point.

Dean's Derangement. The dreaded Weekly Standard weighs in on the little world the Deaniacs have built for themselves on line. I think there's a fair amount of truth to this article, but it really just scratches the surface. The idea of Dean as an "insurgent" candidate is ludicrous, he is in every way the candidate of the upper middle class white Left elite who, ever since '72, have maintained a stranglehold on the nominating machinery of the Democratic Party, mainly by rewriting the rules in their favor. Because of their geographical and institutional concentration, i.e. in the big universities and their environs, they have maintained a lengthy conversation with themselves since the McGovern campaign. They are, quite simply, incapable of conceiving that any other opinions except their own and, therefore, the fact that they are constantly losing elections can only be explained by the various wretched conspiracy theories we've gotten used to hearing from the type of people who are now handing over multiple $50 contributions to Howard Dean's campaign. The man is a poster boy for a bankrupt and illigitimate leadership which, had they not corrupted the party machinery to keep themselves in power, would have collapsed years ago as a result of their chronic inability to win elections.

The Comeuppance

Everyone and their mother has been talking about nothing but Saddam for two days, and I'm not sure I have anything hugely important to add. As usual, Andrew Sullivan is summing it all up nicely: one seriously evil dude has just been permanently prevented from unleashing further carnage. Whether this will further the cause of Iraqi reconstruction is another matter. It certainly can't hurt, although I think the damage to the various death squads operating right now in Iraq will be largely symbolic, although the fact that Saddam was captured with a large amount of money indicates that there may be some financial damage due to his capture. It will probably help in the hearts and minds department more than anything else. We forget that the Iraqis have spent the last 30 years living in a totalitarian state, one where a small elite whose power extends well beyond the political sphere runs everything, and are now trying to sort out how to live in a society where they are suddenly not totally alienated from the source of power and authority. I think maybe 10-15% wish the old regime was back, maybe about the same are hellbent on democracy, and the vast majority are waiting to see if this whole freedom thing is going to take. The capture of Saddam obviously helps them make their decision about whether they are going to stay silent or go, as we would like them to, with the democrats.

As to Saddam himself, however, I can say nothing except that its to bad George Galloway, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and all the other useful idiots, fellow travelers, contemptuous power worshippers, and wretched enablers who aided and abetted his crimes throughout the years weren't down in that hole with him. I hope that at his trial the truth starts to come out about exactly who he was paying off and who was voluntarily collaborating with him in furthering his political goals in the Western world, and I hope that the American government finds the guts to make sure those people pay a price for their crimes against humanity as well.

SADDAM CAPTURED

For those of you still sleeping in the blogosphere, Israeli TV and radio are reporting that Saddam is in American custody as we speak. The news was apparently greeted by celebrations in Baghdad and chants of "death to Saddam" at the press conference announcing it, apparently from Iraqi journalists. Bracing time we live in, isn't it?

A False Idol

I am linking to this because it gives a good overview of why I think conservatives, and especially conservative Jews, are wrong to consider Christopher Hitchens one of their own or even a particularly admirable figure. Firstly, his statements regarding Herzl and Nordau are garbage, neither of them ever voiced the belief that Palestine had no Arab residents or the intent to expel them and steal their land. Glazov is absolutely right, the Zionists never stole anybody's land, they bought it from its Arab owners. The claim of stolen land stems from the '48 war, seventy years into the Zionist project, in which all the land controlled by the Hagana became property of the Jewish State, something very similar to what happened in many decolonized area during this period (especially Africa, post white rule) and came about because of a war the Palestinian Arabs chose rather then reach a compromise over the partition of the land. Hitchen's claims otherwise are ahistorical propaganda. His assertion that the Jewish "cosmopolitans" (read: Communists) correctly foresaw Zionism's false Messianism is also self-serving nonsense, if anything, it was them who drove the Jewish people down into disaster by convincing them to stay in a civilization that was making ready to exterminate them instead of joining the movement to create a Jewish State which could have prevented just such a disaster. I find his insistance on referring to democratically elected Ariel Sharon as "General Sharon" odious, morally hypocritical and rather obviously racist. Keep in mind that this is from a man who has supported all manner of murderous totalitarian regimes, from the North Vietnamese to the Sandanistas. Furthermore, as he openly admits, Mr. Hitchen's attitude towards Judaism is that of a fanatically bigoted anti-semite, although I will give him credit for being equal-opportunity, he appears equally intolerant of all other religions as well, except, of course, for Marxism, of which he seems to be a blindly devoted acolyte with no capacity whatsoever for critical assessment. However, because he is a Trotsyist, his hatred of Judaism is the most violent and emphasized of his attitudes towards the three monotheistic faiths. This stems from the fact that Trotsky himself was a Jew and adopted anti-Jewish attitudes as a means of rejecting his ancestry and proving his fealty to the universalist cause. He spearheaded the persecution of the Jewish religion in pre-Stalinist Russia and was both challenged and terrified by Zionism, which posited that his attempts at rejecting his Jewishness were futile and self-destructive. Trotsky never forgave Zionism for throwing the identity he had rejected in his face and he persecuted it relentlessly. Hitchens seem to suffer from a similar neurosis. I could go on, but I wont bother, the man is a fool and not worth my time. In my opinon, the Hitchens worship which has become so prevelent among conservatives and war-supporting liberals is badly misplaced. He is a bigoted, morally arrogant pygmy who traffics in hatred and fanaticism. I see no reason to celebrate him merely because, perhaps more out of contrarianism then anything else, he is not also anti-American.

The Horowitz Strikes Again

The scene between the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and the dying Cohn has to be one of the most sophomoric episodes in the history of the theater, an excerise in puerile one-upmanship that illuminates nothing. The Republican-bashing politics that pepper the script are merely embarrassing and show that Bushphobia was preceded by the left's general hatred of anyone not like them and was just as unappetizing. The Tonys and Pulitzers and other liberal accolades for this trashy agit-prop reveal a progressive culture that is abysmally lacking in the basic stuff of art -- empathy and understanding. It is a culture generally at the end of its tether. Why should this be so? Perhaps because -- true to its intolerant, mean-spirited nature in the hour of its decline -- it has driven everyone who disagrees with it from the stage it controls -- and consequently speaks only to itself.

The indispensible David Horowitz blasting Tony "Waste of Protoplasm" Kushner out of the water. Horowitz does it much better then I ever could, of course, but having been forced to sit through one of Mr. Kushner's rancid lie-fests I can't help loving every time that Hitlerian dwarf gets taken down.

Bad News for Dean

Six in 10 approved of the decision to go to war and a similar six in 10 said the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over. Those are the highest levels of support since August, when attacks against U.S. troops began escalating and public support started to decline...

At the same time, Bush's overall job-approval rating rose to 55% from a pre-Thanksgiving 50%, which was equal to the lowest in his presidency.

Hehehehehehe...ehhehehehehehehehe...

Chomksyfication Continues Apace

Gonzalez, who would have become the first Green Party to win the nonpartisan mayor's office, ran a stronger campaign than anyone anticipated, an effort Newsom termed "extraordinary.''

"We had enough supporters to win this election,'' Gonzalez said at his concession speech Tuesday night at his Mission District headquarters. "We didn't win it, but we didn't lose it either. ... I look forward to working on the next progressive campaign in this city...''

Gonzalez captured the attention of voters in their 20s and 30s who had shown little interest in electoral politics in the past. Like Howard Dean's run for president, Gonzalez's campaign relied strongly on the Internet to spread the word and to raise money, and it incorporated the traditional get-out-the-vote tactics of precinct walking and phone-banking along with poetry readings, rock concerts and yoga workouts...

Gonzalez's candidacy in the runoff election coalesced the city's progressive movement -- winning the support of tenants groups, homeless activists, environmental organizations and social justice advocates who have dogged Brown since his 1999 re-election and reached their greatest power a year later when Gonzalez and a majority of other anti-Brown candidates won seats on the 11-member Board of Supervisors.

The Democratic Party's lamentable tactic of turning itself into the embodiment of big city machines based around racial grievances and ethnic tribalism is now turning against it, as the Green Party makes inroads in these constituencies. The Green Party, by the way, is the mainstream face of what some have called transnational progressivism but is really old-fashioned Leftwing totalitarianism. Anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-semitic, anti-globalization, and, and I don't think there is much argument about this even from the Party members themselves, pro-terrorist). Most of the Boston Green Party leaders that I knew were ex-(and some not so ex-)communists. I don't mean that as hyperbole, they were card-carrying members and felt free to tell you so. What this points to is the continuing Chomksyification of the Left. As is always the case with Leftist movements, they inevitably gravitate towards their most radical constituency. In this case, despite losing the race, the Green Party has established itself as a force in San Francisco politics and the Democrats are more and more going to have to bed to their will. What is happening here is nothing less then the emergence of a new "remade" (in Al Gore's words) Democratic Party, remade as a Leftwing totalitarian party along the lines of the European Left.

Withdrawal

As Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pressed his bid for a future unilateral Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying that the chances of reaching a signed peace agreement with the Palestinians were very small, there were new signs Wednesday of growing support within the ruling Likud for such a move.

Olmert met Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday for closed-door talks. Sharon has also hinted at a plan for unilateral withdrawal, but has revealed few details. Asked if Sharon had rebuked him or suggested that Olmert had gone too far in his public remarks, Olmert said the session had gone excellently. "Substantively, I certainly think that there is great closeness in our outlook over how to move forward."

Wow. I've been saying for awhile that unilateral withdrawal was the only good option left on the table, it appears the ruling party is now starting to agree with me.

I have to confess, however, that now that unilateral withdrawal is beginning to look like a real possibility, I'm starting to get cold feet. For one thing, the argument that all it does is bring the enemy to our doorstep is a good one, and certainly no withdrawal that I could support would satisfy Palestinian nationalist ambitions or their enabler in the international community. However, I do think unilateral withdrawal can guarantee better and more defensible borders then we would ever be likely to get in negotiations, particularly under the ridiculously biased Road Map. Plus, the retention of Jerusalem could allow us to use East Jerusalem as a bargaining chip in future negotiations, thus negating the argument that withdrawal leaves Israel with no cards left to play. Basically, if you believe the Palestinians under their current leadership will never make peace, and I certainly do believe that, then you are left with two options: unilateral withdrawal; and transfer. The latter, even divorced from moral considerations, isn't really a viable option, leaving us with only one possibility. It seems that people in high places are beginning to realize this.

The old Dean was a free trader. The new Dean is not. The old Dean was open to Medicare reform. The new Dean says Medicare is off the table. The old Dean courted the N.R.A.; the new Dean has swung in favor of gun control. The old Dean was a pro-business fiscal moderate; the new Dean, sounding like Ralph Nader, declares, "We've allowed our lives to become slaves to the bottom line of multinational corporations all over the world."

The philosopher George Santayana once observed that Americans don't bother to refute ideas — they just leave them behind. Dean shed his upper-crust WASP self, then his centrist governor self, bursting onto the national scene as a mysterious stranger who comes out of nowhere to battle corruption.

I don't understand why this is profound. The old Dean was a manipulative liar and so is the new one.

When a recent opinion poll found that nearly 60 percent of EU citizens believed that Israel was a threat to world peace, comfortably ahead of those doves in Pyongyang (53 percent), it seemed yet more proof that an old virus was already abroad in the land. Perhaps, but check the numbers and you'll see that the U.S. (also on 53 percent) was rated as just as dangerous as crazy little Kim. That's ludicrous too, of course, but it's evidence that this polling data reflects not gutter prejudice but something almost as insidious: Europeans' desire to accept any compromise so long as it could buy them a quiet life — at least for a while.

It's an attitude that used to show itself in the argument, once popular among large sections of the European Left, that there was a broad degree of moral equivalence between the Cold War's American (Holiday Inn, McDonalds) and Soviet (Gulag, mass graves) protagonists. It's an attitude that regards "peace" (that word again) as a good that trumps all others — so when Israel is labeled the worst threat to world peace, or the U.S. and North Korea are described as being as dangerous as each other, it shows only that Europeans, left powerless by years of relative decline, falling self-confidence, and shrunken military budgets, have realized that both Israel and America are more interested in self-defense than suicide. That these two countries may be fully entitled to take the positions they do is, naturally, quite irrelevant...

Prompted in no small part by Soviet propaganda efforts, that attitude began to change, particularly after the Six Day War and, even more so, in the wake of the 1973 conflict. Conveniently, some might say, in the light of OPEC threats to Europe's oil supply, Israel came to be seen as the oppressor, not the oppressed, a colonialist, "racist" (evil Zionists!) outpost of European savagery, rather than a refuge from it. As such, condemnation of Israeli policy was not so much an expression of European disdain for "the Jews" as yet another manifestation of Europe's hatred for itself. Combine that sentiment with today's televised images of the hard-line response of the Sharon government to the revived Intifada and it's easy to see that the anger now directed at Israel was almost inevitable.

But if it's a mistake to attribute all this hostility to anti-Semitism, it is also a mistake that to deny that European vituperation of Israel has now reached such a level that it may be tapping the wellsprings of a very ancient psychosis, as well as, it should also be admitted, the more "modern" anti-Semitism long associated with Europe's hard Left. Under these circumstances, it is unfortunate, to say the least, that so much of the imagery and the language used by Europe's harsher critics of the Jewish state recalls the anti-Semitism of an earlier era.

From an excellent assessment of European anti-semitism by Andrew Stuttaford in NRO. Its nice that he mentions the USSR's role in all this (its high time someone did), but I disagree with one major point. The issue here isnt whether current European attitudes are a "resurgence" of the old anti-semitism, or the old anti-semtism pushed under the guise of opposition to Israeli policies, but whether they constitute a form of anti-semitism in and of themselves. In other words, does the European denial of the most basic rights of national sovreignty and self-defense to the Jewish people constitute a devaluation of Jewish individual and collective life and, therefore, a form of racism? I would contend that they most certainly do.

In moving to endorse Howard Dean, Al Gore embraced an insurgent candidate who has spent months railing against the brand of centrist-at-home, hawkish-abroad Democratic politics that Mr. Gore worked 20 years to help build. And in winning the endorsement, Dr. Dean has shown that he is now much more concerned about wooing the Washington establishment than whacking it.

Politics makes strange bedfellows? You bet...

In August, Mr. Gore made a policy speech at New York University in Manhattan, criticizing the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. The event was sponsored by MoveOn.org, the grass-roots Internet organization that was founded in opposition to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and has been instrumental in Dr. Dean's campaign.

From an NY Times nonsense piece on the Gore endorsement. I for one cannot stand this garbage about Dean as a "grassroots", "insurgent" candidate. He's the ultimate elitist, his followers are dissafected, upper-middle class white people who think Europe is right about everything and its all the Jews fault, and supported by an anti-war movement that, the last time I checked, was running at 30% public support. I think George McGovern got more then that. The MoveOn.org reference is very telling though, as they are an ultra-Left anti-semitic organization which is fanatically anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic. Don't take my word for it, go check out their policy statements. Then check their chat rooms, it even scarier. What we are witnessing here is nothing less than the Chomskyfication of the Democratic Party.

Yossi Beilin’s Problem

Sooner or later, even the best of evangelists becomes tiresome. Maybe that’s Yossi Beilin’s problem. There’s only so long that one can listen to the withering barrage of admonitions, self-incriminations and poisonous denunciations that passes for Beilin’s contribution to international discourse before one begins to suffer from the sinking feeling that we’ve heard all this before. Of course, there isn’t any question that we have heard it all before. It was said at Oslo, at Wye, at Camp David, at Taba, now we’ve arrived at Geneva, and we are once again being subjected to fervent assurances that the Palestinian national movement can be reconciled, is already reconciled, to the existence of the Jewish State. Once again we are told to believe that it is only the ill will of our democratically elected leaders, whose failure to realize the obvious rectitude of the self-appointed peacemakers renders them illegitimate in any case, and our own accumulated paranoia that stands in the way of peace, justice, and a paradise of human brotherhood. Their rejection at the ballot box only proof of the necessity of their defiance, withering criticism only proof of their courage, opposition only proof of their vision, we see before us the extraordinary power of political theology, in the fervent, violent belief that the people have no real right to govern themselves, no real right to decide their own destiny. Only the visionaries may rule, only the righteous have the right to decide the fate of their nation and their people.

The sordid nature of the whole thing became terribly apparent at the Felliniesque signing ceremony last week. One almost expected a bevy of clowns, flute players and half-naked women to come prancing out on stage at any moment. What we got was an extraordinary procession of slanderous rhetoric, libelous accusations and violent threats, all at a ceremony supposedly dedicated to the furtherance of peace and understanding between the two parties. The Israelis on hand seemed nonplussed, confused, perhaps slightly drunk (I’m told the partying was heavy on the flight over), mumbling a few words about the necessity and inevitability of peace before retiring in favor of Israeli pop star Aviv Gefen, who did his best John Lennon impression, complete with white Nehru suit, which someone should have told him no one, including the Nehrus, have worn for over thirty years. It all seemed to underline what many millions have been thinking for three years: the Israeli Left is dead, bankrupt, finished, pathetic, useless, slightly dangerous in its desperate death throes. It has collapsed utterly, worse then the American Left collapsed during Vietnam. It has embraced cowardice, confusion, self-hatred and a violent, reprehensible contempt for its own people. I was reminded watching the whole thing of the special report on the Geneva negotiations, which aired a few weeks ago on Israeli television. At one point Avraham Burg, who recently tried to unilaterally announce the death of Zionism in a magazine article, sat, in all his sweaty, demagogic glory, kippa perched on his bald head, slamming the table and bellowing like Khrushchev and his shoe at the UN, screaming: “Take the Temple Mount! Take it! Take it and give me the Right of Return!” As though he were empowered by the Israeli government to take or give anything, let alone the holy site which serves as the central symbol of the Jewish people. Not that it mattered, in the end they took it and kept the Right of Return anyways. Burg was no doubt deeply proud of his negotiating skills. He had, after all, gotten a few minutes of screen time, and all it cost him was the Temple Mount.

Of course, everyone is taking this extremely seriously. The international elite always enjoys celebrating Israelis who concur with their belief that their country is, at least in some small manner, the work of Satan himself. CNN has nearly turned itself into the Geneva channel over the past few days. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who managed to find nothing bad to say about the anti-Semitic takeover of the Durban conference a few years ago but, when pressed, seemed to think it was all Ariel Sharon’s fault anyways, has been falling all over himself to endorse the maneuver. Jimmy Carter, the patron saint of dictator hugging Leftists and professional do-gooder imbeciles, has also put in his endorsement, along with attacking the current president of the United States. Of course, seeing as George Bush has actually managed to face down one or two Middle Eastern dictators in a way that the erstwhile peanut farmer never could, Carter’s jealousy is hardly surprising. And the European Union, an organization which lectures to other countries about democracy while unilaterally imposing the will of France and Germany on all its members, has begun to pump millions of dollars, which might otherwise go to paying back the United States for rebuilding their economies and defending them militarily for fifty years, into Beilin’s campaign to convince the Israeli people to support the Accords, or, failing that, to convince the international community to impose it on them. Perhaps the point of all this is to underline the core belief of the international Leftist elite: all peoples deserve democracy, freedom and justice, unless, of course, you happen to do or think anything of which we disapprove, in which case you should shut up while we decide what to do with you.

Well, having been subjected to a week of all Geneva all the time, I don’t much feel like shutting up. I feel like speaking my mind, and perhaps all these babbling multilateralists will be interested in hearing the opinion of someone who actually lives in the country upon which they foist so much contempt and opprobrium. Here it is: I think the Geneva Accord is a disgrace. Its an appalling, grotesque usurpation of Israeli sovereignty and democracy by a morally, intellectually, and politically failed elite who have no right, no right whatsoever, to attempt to undermine the current Israeli government or to impose a peace agreement, any peace agreement, let alone this pathetic, capitulatory, dangerous surrender of some of Israel and the Jewish peoples most fundamental rights, most especially the right to a state of their own which will exist as a Jewish State in perpetuity, on the State of Israel.

But what is most inexcusable, most reprehensible of all is that this has happened before, and at the hands of exactly the same people under exactly the same circumstances. Once again Yossi Beilin has negotiated in secret with members of a movement which fundamentally denies Israel’s right to exist and has emerged with an agreement which he claims will bring peace and justice for all parties and open the door to a Utopian Middle East of peace and brotherhood among all people and nations. One might almost think that this isn’t a coincidence. One might almost think that this is something that Beilin needs. That he has to do. That he has to believe. Otherwise he might have to admit that his Messianic ambitions did nothing more than drag Israel into one of the bloodiest and most difficult wars in its history. That he has done incalculable damage to Israel’s military and economic security. That he has contributed mightily to the rise of a ferocious new global anti-Semitism, fueled by the very Muslim and Arab nations he believed his peace plan would reconcile forever with the Jewish State. But no. This is impossible. Beilin has neither the courage nor the capability for that level of self-examination. You see, if he had just had a little more time to negotiate, if Barak had only dealt differently with Arafat, if Israel had only negotiated the core issues sooner, Ariel Sharon, George Bush, the “extremists on both sides”…its always somebody else’s fault.

But it isn’t somebody else’s fault. Its Yossi Beilin’s fault. It’s his fault because he bought the PLO’s lie that it had acknowledged the right of the State of Israel to exist. Its his fault because he did more to anyone else then anyone else to install a terrorist leadership in the West Bank and Gaza, legitimize it in the international community, and provide it with arms and ammunition. Its his fault because he slandered and libeled everyone who voiced even the most marginal of misgivings about such actions, because he sought to push and manipulate a democratic country into adopting an agreement around which no consensus existed. But more than anything else, its his fault because, despite all the death, all the violence, all the disillusionment, despite the realization even on the part of many of the formerly faithful that no partner for peace exists on the Palestinian side, he himself has learned nothing. Because he is too weak and too frivolous and too fanatical to grapple with the terrible moral implications of what he has done. Because if he and his fellow true believers can do it all over again, but bigger and better, with rock stars and speeches and televised ceremonies, all paid for with EU money and played out in the midst of the Great Game of the War on Terror, then maybe, just maybe, they might be able to live with themselves. So far the indications are not good, recent polls indicate that 70% of the Israeli public opposes the Geneva Initiative. Israel, it seems, does not have the same problem as Yossi Beilin.

Sarid was responding to a
report published in Haaretz
on Thursday, which concluded
that Israel was ‘a full
partner’ of the
American and British
conception regarding
Iraq’s non-conventional
capabilities.


Sarid, who filed the request to head of the
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee,
Likud MK Yuval Steinitz, said Thursday that the
report proves that the Israeli
intelligence’s estimates were
exaggerated, and caused damage to the country
by forcing it to prepare for “threats
that did not exist.”


More Euro-style idiocies from the Israeli Left. I guess dragging their country into one of the most painful wars in its history wasn't enough for them.

This is an Andrew Sullivan post about the various myths relating to Ronald Reagan's AIDS policy, aroused by the movie version of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America". Now the reason I'm linking is to say a few words about the play's author. Having been forcibly subjected to one of Mr. Kushner's "speeches" at a graduation last summer, I feel qualified to make one or two comments on Mr. Kushner and his ideas.

First and formost, Tony Kushner is an idiot. And not merely an idiot, a demagogic, self-righteous, cosmically asinine fool who is absolutely one hundred percent certain that he is a fearless truth-teller facing down the insidious forces of international evil and divinely appointed to bring the painful truth to stupid, self-absorbed, complacent rich white people like you and me. He is an insulting, racist, bloviating, disrespectful, publicity loving whore who is convinced that conservative Republicans, which in his definition means anyone to the Right of Noam Chomsky, are the only real threat to human freedom and dignity and the assorted forces of Leftist totalitarianism, radical Islam, and the collective inability of mainstream Liberalism to stand up to them are merely the illusory products of an insidious conspiracy of Right-wing forces who are using these false constructions to press their real agenda of gay-hating, racist, globalizing capitalism whose only real purpose is to enslve the world under the thumb of the Bush family. This worldview is so badly thought out and articulated that to listen to him speak is to listen to the pathetic whinings of a middle-aged child who cannot concieve of the fact that people might disgagree with him and actually have decent, intelligent reasons for doing so. He traffics in an arrogant, pretentiously verbose cocktail-party radicalism which makes perfect sense to him and his limosine-leftist freinds but appears to all the rest of us as the blubbering pretentions of a no-talent hack with an inferiority complex. Francois Truffaut, when he called Jean-Luc Godard a "piece of shit on a pedestal", could easily have been talking about this monument to the moral, intellectual, and artistic bankruptcy of America's creative elite. The fact that this odious amateur's ninety-odd hour, insomnia-curing diatribes against all his imagined enemies, his anti-historical pseudo-Brechtian demonizations of any and all who dare to deviate from his fanatical ideology, his reprehensible poison pen letters to one of the few countries in the world where an openly gay man like himself could become rich writing plays excorating said country in the most vile of terms, have actually won the Pulitzer Prize speaks volumes for the collapse of what was once a vibrant, albriet arrogant and closeted artistic elite. Kushner is the epitome of the insidious banality pioneered by his hero Brecht who, when challenged that Stalin's Terror was murdering innocent people replied "the moe innocent they are, the more they deserve to die". Kushner, of course doesn't even have the guts to be that honest. He is a gutless, cowardly tool in the hands of political evil. His work is a pollution, a stain on American culture, a monument to the tyrannical sympathies and ferocious embrace of political evil that today typifies an American artistic alite collapsed, bankrupt, and pathetic behind their decaying ramparts.

"…There is no doubt that every 'news item' originates in a [particular] event, but the distance between the event and the news item is great… I will give an example: When Hitler's atrocities are mentioned, [people] immediately point out the cremation of the Jews in the gas chambers. This happens because of the knowledge that is passed on regarding the Holocaust.

"This is knowledge that has reached the world via a diverse stream of information from journalists' reports, historical research, compensation, [the] unceasing buzz in the media, and films such as Schindler's List which made the entire world cry and which was banned in our country [Egypt] so that we won't cry too over the fate of the poor Jews!"

"What is important is that the information arrived, but what about reality? In reality, 50,000,000 fell victim to the Nazis, among them 1,000,000 Jews and the rest Gypsies, Poles, and other nations. In reality, an analysis of samples from the purported gas chambers has proven that these were sterilization chambers, without a sufficient quantity of cyanide to kill.

"In reality, had Hitler wanted to annihilate the Jews of Europe, he would have. He had an opportunity. The distance between events and widespread knowledge about them is great."

But, you see, he's anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic. (Courtesy of the indispensible Andrew Sullivan.)

IsraPundit Reading your works and interviews you have given to such outlets as World News Daily, it seems at times that your voice is a lone Moslem voice in the wilderness. This contrasts sharply with the situation among Christians, where you can find a large body of Christian Zionists. How much of a following do your views about Israel have among Moslems the world over, and among the half-million Moslems in Italy?


Prof Palazzi: The situation is not ideal at all, and one must admit that in the Muslim world mosques, universities, Islamic schools, media, etc., are frequently under the total control of the Wahhabis, while Sunnis - who are until today the majority of the Muslims - have very limited resources.

The role played in the religious programs of al-Jazirah TV by Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the ideologue of suicide terrorism, made this situation even more dramatic. Originally the Sunni position, represented by the then Sharif of Mecca al-Hussein and later by his son, the late King Feisal of Hijaz and then of Iraq, was openly pro-Zionist, while the Wahhabi one was extremely anti-Zionist

Now the situation is such, that many of those who are Sunni from the point of view of belief, and consequently condemn terrorism and suicide bombing, are nevertheless reasoning like the Wahhabis for what concerns Israel and its relations with the Muslim world. This is especially true for the Arab world, while outside of it many Sunnis have preserved their original pro-Zionist stance.

I am fully aware that I am voicing a minority orientation, but do not feel so isolated as it could appear. The former President of Indonesia and leader of Nadwat al-Ulema (i.e. the leader of the main Islamic organization of the most populous Muslim country of the world), Shaykh Abdurrahman Wahid, is known for his pro-Israel stance, and was also invited to lecture in New York by the American Jewish Committee. The Mufti of Sierra Leone, Shaykh Ahmad Sillah, is also pro-Israel, and so are the Grand Mufti of the Russian Federation, Shaykh Tajuddin, and the Mufti of European Russia, Shaykh Salman Farid, who wrote a fatwa against the intifadah. Same can be said about the Muftis of Chechnya, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Courtesy of the folks at Israpundit. Absolutely fascinating. At first I thought this guy was a serious nut, but his history is absolutely correct. Prince Faisel even reached a signed agreement with Chaim Weizmann back in the '20s in which he endorsed Jewish statehood. The other Arab leaders simply ignored it, of course, arguing that Faisal wasn't empowered to make such agreements on behalf of the Arab nation (which of course he wasn't, but neither was anybody else either, since the Arab nation was really nothing more than a collection of feuding tribes and clans at the time). Check out the rest, its well worth reading.

Ralph Nader Awaits Word From His Inferiors

Part of his consideration is whether the major political parties decide to take his progressive agenda seriously. Nader has sent letters to Republican and Democratic party leaders urging more of a focus on issues such as universal health insurance and corporate fraud. Amato said Nader is still waiting to hear back from party officials.

This reminds of the Simpsons episode where the French delegate to the Olympic Committee says he wants the Games in Paris, when asked why he answers: "I don't have to respond to the likes of you! I await your reply..." I think someone hit him with a wine bottle.

The Left Continues It's Campaign to Control Your Children's Minds

Billed as "The Wheels of Justice Bus Tour," a brightly decorated school bus will roll into Mendocino County on Thursday, Dec. 4, bringing speakers who have recently been to war zones in the Middle East. Having seen and lived with war, terror, and occupation in Iraq and Palestine, participants in the Wheels of Justice offer first-hand witness about the actual effects of war and occupation on people abroad and Americans at home.

Commenting on the upcoming events, Gordon Miles, UUSD social studies teacher said, "From a teacher's perspective, any time we encounter an alternate perspective based on experience, it challenges our ways of thinking. At the same time, our students will challenge their assumptions. This can only lead to greater understanding."

In honest countries this is called "brainwashing". (Link courtesy of the indispensable Maccabian warriors at LGF.)

Let His Majesty Lord Beilin the First, Self-Appointed King of All Israel and Subsidiary Domains, Know What You Think

If you wish to express any sentiments to Mr. Beilin personally, you may do so here. (Be polite, I beg of you, he is not Satan, just an idiot. The link, by the way, is by way of KesherTalk.)

Bankruptcy on Display. More Geneva Ugliness

Palestinian representatives took over and dominated the occasion with strident diatribes against US President George Bush and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and warm praise for Yasser Arafat. One speaker after another, his back to the olive tree adorning the platform, accused Israel of practicing the same sort of apartheid as the white regime of South Africa, of directing cruel racialist policies against the Palestinian people and of building settlements and a separation wall to satisfy its siege mentality.

The Palestinian participants appeared well-rehearsed and put their case cogently, never departing from their central theme, a powerful indictment of Israeli actions and the Jewish state per se.

Israeli speakers, for their part, appeared to be at sea and at odds with each other’s messages all of which harped on peace as a concept without too much content. Nothing was said about Palestinian suicidal terror, the fading of the Oslo Peace Accords and who buried them, or even the Middle East road map. Displays of abject self-abasement before Palestinians such as the one presented to the Geneva audience must surely be rare. A Palestinian troupe played and sang the Prisoners Song by Muhammad Darwish, the anthem of the Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons. The Israeli audience, including ex-chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, applauded.

Former US president Jimmy Carter and Hollywood actor Richard Dreyfuss launched tirades against the Bush administration and its head. Carter accused George W. Bush of failing to address the sufferings of the Palestinian people which he said were the main cause of terror and hostility towards America in the Middle East. In other words, Bush policies were responsible for world terrorism – an unusually harsh judgment of a White House incumbent to be voiced in public by a former US president, especially in the middle of a war.

A key role in the proceedings and the drafting of the Geneva Accord was played – albeit behind the scenes – by another American called Rob Malley, formerly of the Clinton team. Of Egyptian origin, Malley does not admit to being Jewish. He was one of Clinton’s senior advisers at the August 2000 Camp David talks between Arafat and prime minister Ehud Barak, whose failure led into Arafat’s current terrorist confrontation with Israel.

The tenor of Carter’s address seemed to indicate that the ex-president has made common cause with the American Democratic left wing and certain European leaders to challenge Bush on his Iraq policy and his attitude towards the Palestinians.

Some excellent, and I thing completely accurate, analysis of the Geneva Atrocity from DEBKA. What the whole dispicable farce underlines for me is the totaql bankruptcy of the Israeli Left. They have, effectively, abdicated Zionism. They no longer believe in a Jewish State, whatever its borders, and are now actively working, maybe with the best of intentions, though I think ego and moral arrogance are their major motivations, to undermine and destroy the overwhelmingly elected government of Ariel Sharon. It also points to the attempt on the part of the European establishment to construct an international elite which will operate in a supra-national fashion, negating the sovreignty of democratic nations and the policies of elected governments whenever it sees fit. The European establishment and the Israeli left are soulmates in their moral bankruptcy, abject cowardice, and proclivity for suicide. I sincerely hope Beilin forms his party and runs with Geneva as his platform, he'll be destroyed, but it wont stop the international campaign to deny the Jewish people their sovereign rights. That is the campaign which Beilin is now aiding and abetting, and the campaign which all Zionists must work to delegitimize and defeat. The moral and political bankruptcy of one part of the Israeli political spectrum notwithstanding.

The Peanut Farmer Speaks

Former US president Jimmy Carter unleashed a fierce attack against the Israeli and American governments in his speech at the Geneva Accord ceremony here.

He blamed US President George W. Bush for anti-American sentiment and worldwide terrorism.
"The present administration in Washington has been invariably supportive of Israel, and the well-being of the Palestinian people has been ignored or relegated to secondary importance," he said.

"Without a resurrection of strong and unbiased American influence, Israeli and Palestinian extremists will prevail.

"There is no doubt that the lack of real effort to resolve the Palestinian issue is a primary source of anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East and a major incentive for terrorist activity."

Some pearls of wisdom from the man who brought you stagflation and the Iranian Revolution. I love listening to officious, arrogant, morally bankrupt lies from the man who's cowardly and amoral foreign policy led to the first real victory for revolutionary Islamic fundamentalism and the establishment of a psychotic theocracy which is now a year from a nuclear weapon. Maybe being the single worst president of the 20th century has made his ego so weak that he feels the need to lash out in pathetic and sladerous fashion at his own country in a time of war and one of its strongest allies, which has been the victim of one of the most deadly and sustained terrorist campaigns in history. I don't know about you, but I am personally horrified that this Chomskyite slimeball was once president of the United States. Thank God for Ronald Reagan, that's all I can say.