Category Archives: Islam

‘Avigdor Lieberman’s Brilliant Debut’

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s new foreign minister, has given his maiden speech, which has left Daniel Pipes elated. It’s hard to disagree, given that it was through strength that Menachem Begin, a hardliner Likudnik, made peace with Egypt. “Here are some of the topics Lieberman covered in his 1,100-word stem-winder”:

Egypt: Lieberman praises Cairo as “a stabilizing factor in the regional system and perhaps even beyond that” but puts the Mubarak government on notice that he will only go there if his counterpart comes to Jerusalem.

Repeating the word “peace”: Lieberman poured scorn on prior Israeli governments: “The fact that we say the word ‘peace’ twenty times a day will not bring peace any closer.”

The burden of peace: “I have seen all the proposals made so generously by Ehud Olmert, but I have not seen any result.” Now, things have changed: “the other side also bears responsibility” for peace and must ante up.

The Road Map: The speech’s most surprising piece of news is Lieberman’s focus on and endorsement of the Road Map, a 2003 diplomatic initiative he voted against at the time but which is, as he puts it, “the only document approved by the cabinet and by the Security Council.” He calls it “a binding resolution” that the new government must implement. In contrast, he specifically notes that the government is not bound by the Annapolis accord of 2007 (“Neither the cabinet nor the Knesset ever ratified it”).

Implementing the Road Map: Lieberman intends to “act exactly” according to the letter of the Road Map, including its Tenet and Zinni sub-documents. Then comes one of his two central statements of the speech:

Read the rest here.

'Avigdor Lieberman's Brilliant Debut'

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s new foreign minister, has given his maiden speech, which has left Daniel Pipes elated. It’s hard to disagree, given that it was through strength that Menachem Begin, a hardliner Likudnik, made peace with Egypt. “Here are some of the topics Lieberman covered in his 1,100-word stem-winder”:

Egypt: Lieberman praises Cairo as “a stabilizing factor in the regional system and perhaps even beyond that” but puts the Mubarak government on notice that he will only go there if his counterpart comes to Jerusalem.

Repeating the word “peace”: Lieberman poured scorn on prior Israeli governments: “The fact that we say the word ‘peace’ twenty times a day will not bring peace any closer.”

The burden of peace: “I have seen all the proposals made so generously by Ehud Olmert, but I have not seen any result.” Now, things have changed: “the other side also bears responsibility” for peace and must ante up.

The Road Map: The speech’s most surprising piece of news is Lieberman’s focus on and endorsement of the Road Map, a 2003 diplomatic initiative he voted against at the time but which is, as he puts it, “the only document approved by the cabinet and by the Security Council.” He calls it “a binding resolution” that the new government must implement. In contrast, he specifically notes that the government is not bound by the Annapolis accord of 2007 (“Neither the cabinet nor the Knesset ever ratified it”).

Implementing the Road Map: Lieberman intends to “act exactly” according to the letter of the Road Map, including its Tenet and Zinni sub-documents. Then comes one of his two central statements of the speech:

Read the rest here.

Update II: Brownie Points For Barack

Barack Obama, Bush, Europe, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Islam, Military, Neoconservatism, War

Yes, I award them when warranted.

• Obama has lifted the “Pentagon’s 18-year ban on media covering the return of fallen U.S. service members” to the Dover air force base in Delaware.
Excellent, honest move. I applaud Obama for taking it. In this way, Americans can see what death in the service of America’s recreational wars looks like.
As a child in Israel, I remember funerals for the fallen being state affairs. The entire nation would honor the fallen soldiers and be made to confront the agony of death. No wonder Israeli Jews have no stomach for wars.

• Recalibrating the relationship with Russia: another very good move, although, given how Bush-like Barack is—in other words, neocon-compatible—it’s hard to envision him taking a fundamentally different stand on Chechnya or Georgia, for example. Still, restarting the relationship with Russia is in itself a start.

• All in all, making nice with “Old Europe”—which is how the stupid, reckless Bush administration dismissed Europe (including its correct objection to the Iraqi invasion)—is a good thing. Sure, neoconservative war harpies get hot for over heated rhetoric against any and all. They’ll have to get their kicks playing video war games. As will they have to get through their thick skulls that this country is no longer a super power. It’s neither sexy nor smart to smite the world when you’re … broke and bankrupt.

No matter how Republicans spin it, Obama’s overtures to Islam and the Muslim world do not present any change from Imam Bush’s religion-of-peace preaching.

• It’s premature to rejoice over the cuts to some military spending announced by Defense Secretary Robert Gates today. Touted as a balancing of “want and need,” and intended to gear “Pentagon buying plans to smaller, lower-tech battlefields the military is facing now, and expects in coming years”—Gates’ proposed $534 billion budget for the coming year is up from $513 billion for 2009.

This is really nothing but a reshuffle.

Update I (April 7): Obama gets credit on Cuba too. This from MyWay News:

President Barack Obama will soon move to ease travel and financial restrictions on Cuba as his administration conducts a broad review of its policy toward the communist nation, a senior American official said Monday.

“We can expect some relaxation, some changes in terms of the restrictions on family remittances and family travel,” said Jeffrey Davidow, the White House adviser for the upcoming Summit of the Americas, which Obama will attend.

Davidow said Monday that the changes – which officials say would allow unlimited visits to Cuba by American families and remove caps on money transfers – are intended not only as a moral step for the estimated 1.5 million Americans who have relatives in Cuba, but also to foster change there.

Good going. Trade—not democracy or sanctions—is also the best antidote to war. The more economically intertwined countries are, the less likely they are to quarrel. Boycott Cuba less and barter with it more and it’s bound to tone down its belligerence and transform for the better.

Update II (April 8): Neocon Newt Gingrich is going gaga, but here again Obama’s “refusal to take military action against nations like North Korea and Iran” is the right thing to do.

Newt the nut told Fox News’s Gretta von Susteren that Obama needed to learn from his trip. And what is it that Newt believes the lessons ought to be? Obama must follow the neocons’ policy prescriptions and consider nations that do not do what we want them to do as hostile. From the fact that Europe didn’t indulge Obama, he needs to learn what Newt and the neocons preach: there is no basis for diplomacy, unless the world bows to America.

Only America has national interests; other nations have a problem aligning theirs with America’s.

Don’t Be A Turkey, Obama

Barack Obama, EU, Europe, Foreign Policy, Islam, The West

The Europeans have qualms about admitting a Muslim country into a European Union. Obama, like Bush before him, wants to admit the entire world into the US–and expects Europeans to, similarly, advance an all-inclusive EU.

“Mr Sarkozy, a long-standing opponent of full membership for Turkey, rebuffed the US leader in language that seemed to sour the revival of Franco-US relations. …the French President warned his US counterpart yesterday to keep his nose out of the issue of Turkey’s membership of the European Union.”

More details from the Times:

“Mr Sarkozy said in an interview on French television. ‘I have always been opposed to this entry and I remain opposed,’ he added.”

“His comments laid bare the continuing EU split over Turkish membership, with France and Austria openly opposed and deep reservations in Germany and the Netherlands. Turkey would become the most populous EU country and Germany in particular is said to have concerns about the shift in power that this would cause, with the largest number of MEPs coming from Turkey, along with strong voting rights in European Council decisions.”

Imagine that? As awful as the EU is, even it, occasionally, acts in the national interest, while the US never does, concerning itself with political correctness and eternal posturing about a fictitious fraternity of mankind.