RUTHFULLY YOURS

A lot of ink has been spent in recent weeks – and deservedly so, given the gravity of the situation – on the Israeli-Palestinian flare-up that followed the killing of three Israeli teenagers, and the subsequent revenge killing of a Palestinian youth. People far more qualified than me have written endlessly on the subject, but I did want to insert my oar.

What is concerning is the growing animosity on the part of the media and people around the world toward Israel. The media is careful that their criticisms are not cocooned in terms that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic; nevertheless they are disturbing. They are subtle, but insidious in their subtlety. Examples of what I mean could be seen in a couple of front page photos in Wednesday’s newspapers. One by Mohammed Saber of the European Pressphoto Agency that appeared in the New York Times showed smoke billowing “after an Israeli attack on Gaza City.” Another, an AP photo in my local paper, The Day, by Khali Hamra, showed Palestinians trying to salvage what they could from the rubble of a house “destroyed by an overnight Israeli airstrike in Gaza City.” Should either paper be accused of bias, they could point out that on inside pages reporters do mention rocket attacks on Israel. That is true. They do, but that doesn’t take away from the visual image one gets from skimming the story – that Israel is the aggressor, using overwhelming force against a smaller and weaker neighbor.

But it is Israel that responded to the killings in the way civilized nations ought. They arrested six Israeli youths as suspects in the brutal killing of the Palestinian teenager. Has Palestine arrested, or held anyone in connection with the equally brutal murder of three Israeli teenagers? Of course not. It is Israel that has made an effort to limit civilian casualties. They call occupants of houses known to harbor terrorists, urging them to get out, and fire warning shots in attempts to reduce civilian casualties. It is Hamas that indiscriminately lobs rockets at Beersheba, Rehovot, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. And it is Hamas that urges occupants of targeted homes to remain as they are, to act as human shields, to be used as pawns on the PR battlefield being fought in world-wide media.

A sentiment often attributed to Joseph Goebbels or Adolph Hitler, but one which is true is that if you repeat a lie (or a story) often enough, it becomes accepted as gospel. George Orwell made a similar observation in his dystopian novel, 1984. He wrote, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” That, in my opinion, is what is happening in the saga between Israel and the Palestinians. The Israelis are being portrayed as the aggressor, against less well-equipped Palestinians. Little is made of the terrorist organization Hamas, which occupies Gaza and shares power with Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party, a political party that emerged from the Palestinian National Liberation Movement.

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Between the Settlers and the Unsettlers, the One-State Solution Is on Our Doorstep

Why Israel will soon be the only state able to govern Judea and Samaria, and the only military force capable of securing its borders

A one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is upon us. It won’t arrive by Naftali Bennett’s proposal to annex the West Bank’s Area C, or through the efforts of BDS campaigners and Jewish Voice for Peace to alter the Jewish state. But it will happen, sooner rather than later, as the states on Israel’s borders disintegrate and other regional players annex whatever they can. As that happens, Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria is becoming inevitable.

Last week’s rocket attacks from Gaza failed to inflict many casualties in Israel—but they administered a mortal wound to Palestinian self-governance. Hamas launched its deepest strikes ever into Israel after the IDF cracked down on its West Bank operations following the murder last month of three Israeli boys, arresting nearly 900 members of Hamas and other terrorist groups. Humiliated in the territories, and unable to pay its 44,000 Gaza employees, Hamas acted from weakness, gambling that missile attacks would elicit a new Intifada on the West Bank. Although Fatah militias joined in the rocket attacks from Gaza, for now the Palestinian organizations are in their worst disarray in 20 years.

The settlers of Judea and Samaria have stood in the cross-hairs of Western diplomacy for two decades, during which the word “settler” has become a term of the highest international opprobrium. Yet the past decade of spiraling conflicts in the Middle East have revealed that what is settled in the region is far less significant than what is unsettled. Iran’s intervention into the Syrian civil conflict has drawn the Sunni powers into a war of attrition that already has displaced more than 10 million people, mostly Sunnis, and put many more at risk. The settled, traditional, tribal life of the Levant has been shattered. Never before in the history of the region have so many young men had so little hope, so few communal ties, and so many reasons to take up arms.

David Without a Sling ‘Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel’

It may be hard for some to believe, given the endless attacks on the Jewish state today, that in the not-too-distant past, Israel was as beloved as it is now widely reviled. More remarkable, it was especially loved on the left, where now it is scorned. The process by which Israel turned from paragon into pariah is the subject of Joshua Muravchik’s well-argued new book Making David into Goliath.

Muravchik sets the stage by describing the time when Israel was popular. One factor he cites was the reservoir of sympathy created after the Holocaust. For “progressives,” Israel’s socialist leadership was another source of solidarity. The kibbutzim were particularly admired outside of Israel as successful experiments in communal living. In the state’s early years, leaders from around the world came to visit the kibbutzim and pay homage.

All this changed in the aftermath of the Six Day War. Muravchik documents the wide sympathy in Europe as well as in the United States—including in the media—which Israel enjoyed immediately prior to the war. At that time, it looked as if Israel might be annihilated by its Arab neighbors, who made no secret of their intention to rid the world of the Jewish State.

But when, to general amazement, Israel defeated the Arab armies and captured lands previously held by Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, it overnight became the ruler of millions of Arabs. The Arabs would take advantage of this, setting in motion a redefinition of the conflict. No longer was it tiny Israel against a vast Arab world. “Now it was Israel versus the homeless Palestinians. David had become Goliath,” Muravchik states.

As those familiar with the conflict know, Palestinian peoplehood was not the first choice of identification for the Arabs living on the west bank of the Jordan River. They had viewed themselves as “Syrian,” or as part of a pan-Arab world, in which all Arabs belong to a supra-national whole.

Indeed, the Arabs of Palestine resisted the label “Palestinian” for some time. It was only after 1967 that they began to see themselves as “Palestinian,” and to be trumpeted as such by an Arab world cognizant of the propaganda value of doing so. As the Egyptian weekly Al Mussawar admitted in 1968: “The masses of the Palestinian people are only the advance-guard of the Arab nation … a plan for rousing world opinion in stages, as it would not be able to understand or accept a war by a hundred million Arabs against a small state.”

The Rolling Stones’ first concert in Israel began as the holiday of Shavuot ended, and quite fittingly, too. When better for rock-n-roll royals to journey to the Holy Land than during one of Judaism’s three festivals of pilgrimage? Moreover, when better to affirm Israel’s identity as a Jewish state and homeland? The Stones’ performance in Israel was an implicit rebuke to artists—most notoriously, Roger Waters—who have chosen to boycott Israel selectively. While a slew of acts have canceled performances—among them Elvis Costello, Snoop Dogg, Carlos Santana, and Gil Scott-Heron—the Stones enthusiastically embraced their gig in the Jewish state, with all the panache that has made them the longest-running rock act in the world.

Around the same time as the Stones’ gala night in Tel Aviv, the Modern Language Association (MLA), the premier association of literature scholars in the United States, was releasing the results of yet another anti-Israel initiative. It put the pro-BDS (Boycotts, Divestments, Sanctions) measure to a vote of its nearly-30,000 members—who rejected it decisively. Fully 94% of MLA members proved unwilling to endorse bigotry, dishonesty, and the shameful wish (albeit expressed by only 6% of its members) to single out the Jewish state for opprobrium.

Though the MLA ruled in favor of Israel, the episode revealed that such poisonous beliefs have quite a toehold in an organization supposedly devoted to fair-minded inquiry. To provide an opportunity for members to debate the resolution, the MLA set up a members-only listserv on which opinions for and against it could be posted. The comments on that listserv have now been made public and show the true colors of some of the groups members—who prove to be paranoid, obsessed with conspiracy theories, virulently anti-Israel, and even anti-Semitic. While every organization has its kooks, these are academics charged with teaching our country’s young people. That they are willing to spew such hatred should alarm anyone who expects scholars to place a premium on truth.

One commenter alluded to “Zionist attack dogs” who put pressure “on universities by Zionist funders and lobby groups to quell any dissent.” A similar “conspiratorial” comment on the listserv made use of that traditional anti-Semitic trope: that Jews control the media, government, and academia, and use their influence to suppress criticism of Israel. The individual who posted this dreck also decried the “humongous influence that Jewish scholars have in the decision-making process of Academia in general.” Clearly, to this worthy professor, opponents of the initiative were not simply in honest disagreement with it, but outsiders gunning for control. It never seems to have occurred to the faction that challenges Israel’s right to exist that the fault may lie with the weakness of their argument, not with the tactics of their ideological opponents.

http://www.pm.gc.ca/news/2014/07/13/statement-prime-minister-canada-response-situation-israel

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today issued the following statement in response to the situation in Israel:

“The indiscriminate rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are terrorist acts, for which there is no justification. It is evident that Hamas is deliberately using human shields to further terror in the region.

“Failure by the international community to condemn these reprehensible actions would encourage these terrorists to continue their appalling actions. Canada calls on its allies and partners to recognize that these terrorist acts are unacceptable and that solidarity with Israel is the best way of stopping the conflict.

“Canada is unequivocally behind Israel. We support its right to defend itself, by itself, against these terror attacks, and urge Hamas to immediately cease their indiscriminate attacks on innocent Israeli civilians.

“Canada reiterates its call for the Palestinian government to disarm Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups operating in Gaza, including the Iranian proxy, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

Barack Obama did not blow apart Hillary Clinton’s huge lead during the 2008 Democratic primaries just because he was a landmark African-American candidate, new to the scene, and a skilled campaigner. Even Democrats were all Clintoned out [1].

By such weariness, I don’t suggest that either of the Clintons is unpopular. Indeed, Americans apparently look fondly back on the high-growth 1990s as the continuation of the Reagan-Bush boom years, and a time when Democrats and Republicans finally fixed budget deficits. (Note well that when Obama went back to the Clinton-era tax rates for the more affluent, the deficit dipped, but certainly did not approach the balanced budget that was once achieved by spending discipline under the Clinton-Gingrich compromise.)

The problem instead is Hillary Clinton herself [2]. She is not a very good speaker, and is prone to shrill outbursts and occasional chortling. She has a bad habit of committing serial gaffes (e.g., speaking too candidly), and what she says on Monday is often contradicted by her rantings on Tuesday. She seems cheap and obsessed with raking in free stuff. When Bill steps in to correct her mistakes, either sloppily or out of some strange psychological spite, he usually makes things even worse. We saw that often in 2008 [3] and are seeing it again now. But aside from the cosmetics of her political style, the Clintons are faced with two fundamental obstacles in 2016.

One, Hillary Clinton seems to be interested in running on the elite progressive themes of equality and fairness. The problem here is obvious. Few Americans have more enriched themselves by trading on their public service than have she and her husband. A George Marshall [4] in retirement Hillary is not.

With the Clintons there is always a catch to the apologies for their progressive graspingness. At a time of record student debt, sky-rocketing tuition, and scandalous university perks, Hillary Clinton is now charging over $200,000 [5] for a brief run-of-the-mill “I am Hillary” speech — no landmark political announcements, no insights into foreign policy, nothing much other than standard liberal therapeutic boilerplate trading on her increased market value due to her recent tenure as chief foreign affairs officer of the United States.

When these exorbitant fees were questioned by the liberal media, she seemed stunned that any would doubt her progressive fides, and cited her past caring for the poorer off. Then she backed off and assured us that the money went to “charity.” Of course, with the Clintons, we know there is always a nuance and tweak to follow. So next, the “charity” turned out to be the Clinton Foundation [6], which tends to fund the extravagant private jet travel of mostly Bill and Hillary and their appendages.

One Percenters as Populist Poseurs

Fewer than half of U.S. adults are working full time. Why? Slow growth and the perverse incentives of ObamaCare

There has been a distinctive odor of hype lately about the national jobs report for June. Most people will have the impression that the 288,000 jobs created last month were full-time. Not so.

The Obama administration and much of the media trumpeting the figure overlooked that the government numbers didn’t distinguish between new part-time and full-time jobs. Full-time jobs last month plunged by 523,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What has increased are part-time jobs. They soared by about 800,000 to more than 28 million. Just think of all those Americans working part time, no doubt glad to have the work but also contending with lower pay, diminished benefits and little job security.

On July 2 President Obama boasted that the jobs report “showed the sixth straight month of job growth” in the private economy. “Make no mistake,” he said. “We are headed in the right direction.” What he failed to mention is that only 47.7% of adults in the U.S. are working full time. Yes, the percentage of unemployed has fallen, but that’s worth barely a Bronx cheer. It reflects the bleak fact that 2.4 million Americans have become discouraged and dropped out of the workforce. You might as well say that the unemployment rate would be zero if everyone quit looking for work.
Last month involuntary part-timers swelled to 7.5 million, compared with 4.4 million in 2007. Way too many adults now depend on the low-wage, part-time jobs that teenagers would normally fill. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen had it right in March when she said: “The existence of such a large pool of partly unemployed workers is a sign that labor conditions are worse than indicated by the unemployment rate.”

There are a number of reasons for our predicament, most importantly a historically low growth rate for an economic “recovery.” Gross domestic product growth in 2013 was a feeble 1.9%, and it fell at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.9% in the first quarter of 2014.

But there is one clear political contribution to the dismal jobs trend. Many employers cut workers’ hours to avoid the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to provide health insurance to anyone working 30 hours a week or more. The unintended consequence of President Obama’s “signature legislation”? Fewer full-time workers. In many cases two people are working the same number of hours that one had previously worked.

Dubious studies on the danger of hurricane names may be laughable. But bad science can cause bad policy.

Academic publishing was rocked by the news on July 8 that a company called Sage Publications is retracting 60 papers from its Journal of Vibration and Control, about the science of acoustics. The company said a researcher in Taiwan and others had exploited peer review so that certain papers were sure to get a positive review for placement in the journal. In one case, a paper’s author gave glowing reviews to his own work using phony names.

Acoustics is an important field. But in biomedicine faulty research and a dubious peer-review process can have life-or-death consequences. In June, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and responsible for $30 billion in annual government-funded research, held a meeting to discuss ways to ensure that more published scientific studies and results are accurate. According to a 2011 report in the monthly journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, the results of two-thirds of 67 key studies analyzed by Bayer researchers from 2008-2010 couldn’t be reproduced.

That finding was a bombshell. Replication is a fundamental tenet of science, and the hallmark of peer review is that other researchers can look at data and methodology and determine the work’s validity. Dr. Collins and co-author Dr. Lawrence Tabak highlighted the problem in a January 2014 article in Nature. “What hope is there that other scientists will be able to build on such work to further biomedical progress,” if no one can check and replicate the research, they wrote.

The Obama administration has brought an accused Libyan terrorist named Ahmed Abu Khattala to Washington for trial. His saga reveals how the government views the Islamist threat, and it’s discouraging. Fortunately, a much better alternative exists.

Abu Khattala stands accused of taking part in the murder of an ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi in September 2012. After an achingly slow investigation, during which time the suspect lived in the open and defiantly gave media interviews, the American military seized him on June 15. After being transported by sea and air to Washington, D.C., Abu Khattala was jailed, provided with a defense attorney, Michelle Peterson, indicted, arraigned, and, after listening to an Arabic translation of the proceedings, he pleaded not guilty to a single charge of conspiracy and requested a halal diet. He potentially faces life in prison.

This scenario presents two problems. First, Abu Khattala enjoys the full panoply of protections offered by the U.S. legal system (he actually was read his Miranda rights, meaning his right to stay silent and to consult with a lawyer), making conviction uncertain. As the New York Times explains, proving the charges against him will be “particularly challenging” because of the circumstances of the attacks, which took place in the midst of a civil war and in a country brimming with hostility to the United States, where concerns about security meant that U.S. law investigators had to wait for weeks to go to the crime scenes to collect evidence, and the prosecution depends on testimony from Libyan witnesses brought over to the United States who may well falter under cross-examination.

Secondly, what good does a conviction bring? If all goes well, a minor operative will be taken out of commission, leaving the ideological sources, the funding apparatus, the command-and-control structure, and the terrorist network untouched. A years-long, cumbersome, expensive, and draining effort will prove a point, not damage the enemy. If Abu Khattala is convicted, administration officials can crow, but Americans will be only marginally safer.

This futility recalls the 1990s, when terrorist attacks were routinely treated as criminal incidents and handled in courts of law, rather than as warfare to be dealt with using military force. In response, I complained in 1998 that the U.S. government saw terrorist violence “not as the ideological war it is, but as a sequence of discrete criminal incidents,” a mistaken approach that turns the U.S. military “into a sort of global police force and requires it to have an unrealistically high level of certainty before it can go into action,” requiring it to collect evidence of the sort that can stand up in a U.S. court of justice.