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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 3/29/12

Today's sampler and analysis of Mideast media content from my pal Soccer Dad:

1) "Nearby" Ashdod

A recent New York Time news story, As Rockets Fly, New Conditions Shape Fight in Gaza, was illustrated with a picture of school girls taking cover from a rocket attack. The captions read, "In a fourth day of cross-border fighting, schoolgirls in Ashdod, Israel, took cover on Monday during a rocket attack launched from the nearby Gaza Strip."

The use of the word "nearby" is curious. According to Google Maps Ashdod is about twenty miles from Gaza. Gaza is not visible from Ashdod as it is from Sderot. To shoot a rocket from Gaza to Ashdod requires more fuel and technical skill. This is what the terror groups in Hamas controlled Gaza invest in, not creating a better and more productive society.

A "Letter from Israel" by Koby tells what it's like to live in Ashdod. (h/t tweet from Elder of Ziyon)

My 3-year-old has trauma. She shakes in my hands every time a siren is heard. She hugs me and wouldn’t let go for long time. She asks me: ”Dad, why is the siren coming down at us?”. What do you say to your baby when she asks this? That Arabs Hate us and want us dead? How can I explain it to a baby?
No we do not teach our children hate. We teach them hope and love and respect.

A nearby Yeshiva, Kerem B'Yavneh experiences similar warnings as a student there, Jonah Keyak writes (h/t Israel Matzav, Daily Alert) :

Sirens blare in my head. Realizing this is not a drill, I jump out of bed and dash to the closest bomb shelter. Within seconds, the room fills with American, Canadian and Israeli students, all here in fear for their lives. Boom one, that was close…boom two, that was closer…wait for it…boom three. We wait to hear the booms because, ironically, that’s the most calming sound. That’s when we know that the bombs have landed and we are momentarily safe.

To get some perspective of the rocket threat to Israel, go the JCPA website, click on the "Israel and its neighbors" tab (on top) and then choose the "Gaza Strip" button (to the left).

If things have been a little quieter lately, it might have to with Israel's success in killing the responsible terrorists than the terrorists' good behavior. (h/t Daily Alert)

On the one hand, the PIJ, which joined the attacks despite the fact that the targeted killing had not been directed at an operative of its own, launched most of the rockets with ranges greater than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). Of the 20 terrorist operatives killed by IDF fire, 14 belonged to the PIJ (the other six belonged mainly to the PRC).
On the other hand, the PIJ did not force Israel to pay a high price in lives for the targeted killing of two senior PRC terrorist organizations and the deaths in air strikes of its own operatives, despite the massive amounts of rocket fire directed against Israel, far greater than in previous rounds of escalation (About 240 rockets were fired at Israel, 170 either falling in Israeli territory or intercepted by the Iron Dome, which was successful in destroying long-range rockets.). In addition, public conduct on the home front contributed to the small number of civilian casualties. While a number of civilians were wounded and damage was done to property, in our assessment, the PIJ and PRC regarded the price exacted from Israel as far too low.

2) Gulf U

The New York Times recently featured a "Special Report," Elite Schools Find New Base in Emirates:

The universities are also contributing to much-needed original research on the Middle East, which education experts say can be patchy and outdated. The N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi Institute is spending $35 million on research into Middle Eastern issues. Wharton Abu Dhabi, an office that opened in early 2010, is supervising 30 research projects funded by the CERT Foundation, the entrepreneurial arm of the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi.
“Our goal is to create and disseminate knowledge in the region and the best way to do that was to set up an office in the Mideast,” said Pankaj Paul, regional manager for Wharton’s U.A.E. office, the business school’s sole presence outside the United States.

Hmmm. They're studying "Middle East issues" in Abu Dhabi. I wonder how academic that enterprise is! All in all the article reads more like a brochure for those looking to study in the Gulf, rather than a serious journalistic effort. After all, how could the New York Times have failed to note the arrest of Nasser bin Ghaith last year?

The arrest of Nasser bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of the University of Paris IV (Paris-Sorbonne) who has participated in the Doha Debates, a respected regional political forum, leaves observers asking what freedoms the academics working at new Western branch campuses in the emirates will enjoy. "Are professors only protected in the 90 minutes when they are giving seminars, and after that they are fair game?" asks Samer Muscati, a researcher on the United Arab Emirates for Human Rights Watch.

If lecturers (and students) are not free to discuss issues and topic that the hosting government disapproves of, it necessarily limits the quality of the academics. In the mid-90's the New York Times applauded Yale University for rejecting a contribution from alumnus Lee Bass for a Western Civilization curriculum because Bass demanded a say in who could teach in the program. But, the same newspaper seemingly has no problem with this limit on academic freedom.

Clearly this is a business decision, that will hurt the quality of education at these institutions.

3) VDH on antisemitism

This is the heart of Victor Davis Hanson's "The New Antisemitism" (h/t Instapundit)

Does the world much care about the principle of occupation? Not really. Consider land that has been “occupied” in the fashion of the West Bank since World War II. Russia won’t give up the southern Kurile Islands it took from Japan. Tibet ceased to exist as a sovereign country—well before the 1967 Middle East War—when it was absorbed by Communist China. Turkish forces since their 1974 invasion have occupied large swaths of Cyprus. East Prussia ceased to exist in 1945, after 13 million German refugees were displaced from ancestral homelands that dated back 500 years.
The 112-mile green line that runs through downtown Nicosia to divide Cyprus makes Jerusalem look united in comparison. Over 500,000 Jews have been ethnically-cleansed from Arab capitals since 1947, in waves of pogroms that come every few decades. Why are they not considered refugees the way the Palestinians are?
The point is not that the world community should not focus on Israel’s disputes with its neighbors, but that it singles Israel out for its purported transgressions in a fashion that it does not for nearly identical disagreements elsewhere. Over 75 percent of recent United Nations resolutions target Israel, which has been cited for human rights violations far more than the Sudan, Congo, or Rwanda, where millions have perished in little-noticed genocides. Why is the international community so anti-Israel?

One more point worth citing:
On the flip side, since the 1960s, trillions of petrodollars have flowed into the Islamic Middle East, not just ensuring that Israel’s enemies now were armed, ascendant, and flanked by powerful Western friends, but through contributions, donations, and endowments also deeply embedded within Western thought and society itself. Universities suddenly sought endowed Middle East professorships and legions of full tuition-paying Middle East undergraduates. Had Israel the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia, then “occupied” Palestine might have resonated at the UN about as much as Ossetia, Kashmir, or the Western Sahara does today.

Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 3/29/12

My 3-year-old has trauma. She shakes in my hands every time a siren is heard. She hugs me and wouldn’t let go for long time. She asks me: ”Dad, why is the siren coming down at us?”. What do you say to your baby when she asks this? That Arabs Hate us and want us dead? How can I explain it to a baby?
No we do not teach our children hate. We teach them hope and love and respect.

On the one hand, the PIJ, which joined the attacks despite the fact that the targeted killing had not been directed at an operative of its own, launched most of the rockets with ranges greater than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). Of the 20 terrorist operatives killed by IDF fire, 14 belonged to the PIJ (the other six belonged mainly to the PRC).
On the other hand, the PIJ did not force Israel to pay a high price in lives for the targeted killing of two senior PRC terrorist organizations and the deaths in air strikes of its own operatives, despite the massive amounts of rocket fire directed against Israel, far greater than in previous rounds of escalation (About 240 rockets were fired at Israel, 170 either falling in Israeli territory or intercepted by the Iron Dome, which was successful in destroying long-range rockets.). In addition, public conduct on the home front contributed to the small number of civilian casualties. While a number of civilians were wounded and damage was done to property, in our assessment, the PIJ and PRC regarded the price exacted from Israel as far too low.

2) Gulf U

The New York Times recently featured a "Special Report," Elite Schools Find New Base in Emirates:

The universities are also contributing to much-needed original research on the Middle East, which education experts say can be patchy and outdated. The N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi Institute is spending $35 million on research into Middle Eastern issues. Wharton Abu Dhabi, an office that opened in early 2010, is supervising 30 research projects funded by the CERT Foundation, the entrepreneurial arm of the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi.
“Our goal is to create and disseminate knowledge in the region and the best way to do that was to set up an office in the Mideast,” said Pankaj Paul, regional manager for Wharton’s U.A.E. office, the business school’s sole presence outside the United States.

The arrest of Nasser bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of the University of Paris IV (Paris-Sorbonne) who has participated in the Doha Debates, a respected regional political forum, leaves observers asking what freedoms the academics working at new Western branch campuses in the emirates will enjoy. "Are professors only protected in the 90 minutes when they are giving seminars, and after that they are fair game?" asks Samer Muscati, a researcher on the United Arab Emirates for Human Rights Watch.

Does the world much care about the principle of occupation? Not really. Consider land that has been “occupied” in the fashion of the West Bank since World War II. Russia won’t give up the southern Kurile Islands it took from Japan. Tibet ceased to exist as a sovereign country—well before the 1967 Middle East War—when it was absorbed by Communist China. Turkish forces since their 1974 invasion have occupied large swaths of Cyprus. East Prussia ceased to exist in 1945, after 13 million German refugees were displaced from ancestral homelands that dated back 500 years.
The 112-mile green line that runs through downtown Nicosia to divide Cyprus makes Jerusalem look united in comparison. Over 500,000 Jews have been ethnically-cleansed from Arab capitals since 1947, in waves of pogroms that come every few decades. Why are they not considered refugees the way the Palestinians are?
The point is not that the world community should not focus on Israel’s disputes with its neighbors, but that it singles Israel out for its purported transgressions in a fashion that it does not for nearly identical disagreements elsewhere. Over 75 percent of recent United Nations resolutions target Israel, which has been cited for human rights violations far more than the Sudan, Congo, or Rwanda, where millions have perished in little-noticed genocides. Why is the international community so anti-Israel?

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 3/28/12

Today's sampler and analysis of Mideast media content from my pal Soccer Dad:

1) I spoke too soon

Yesterday I wrote that both the New York Times and Washington Post had ignored this year's J-Street conference. Today the New York Times covers it with a ~~press release~~ news story, J Street, Pro-Israel but Opposed to Attacking Iran, Takes Its Message to Washington. The gist of the article is that AIPAC's recent convention was larger, but the folks at J-Street were more sensible because they are uniformly against attacking Iran.

Also today the New York Times has an editorial Israel’s Top Court vs. Outposts:

Israel’s Supreme Court made an important contribution to justice and kept alive hope for a two-state solution with the Palestinians, when it ruled this week that Migron, an illegal outpost built by Israeli settlers, must be dismantled by Aug. 1. Now it is up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to comply promptly, while making clear to the settlers that violent resistance will not be tolerated.

During his first stint as Prime Minister, Netanyahu made an agreement with the Palestinian Authority to withdraw from most of Hebron and Netanyahu complied. I don't know why the editors of the New York Times need to exhort Israel on this. Why not use this as an occasion to treat this as a confidence building measure that Abbas should respond to by returning to negotiations?

Here's another question. Does the New York Times consider the decisions of Israeli courts sacrosanct?

Consider the case of the Museum of Tolerance. Israel Matzav and Elder of Ziyon have noted that those seeking to stop the building have lost in the courts at every turn and that they have no historical basis for their claims.

Here's how the New York Times reported on the controversy, Gravestone Removals Add Fuel to Jerusalem Museum Dispute:

The contours of the Mamilla cemetery are part of the dispute. Wiesenthal Center supporters say that there are no human remains left in the section where they plan to build, and that only part of it was ever a cemetery. They further contend that the effort to stop the project is the work of Muslim extremists seeking a foothold in West Jerusalem, and evidence of the need for such a center to spread more tolerance.
Critics of the project say it is unconscionable to build such a center on a piece of land where Muslims were once buried, even if it has not been an active cemetery for nearly a century. The museum project is going ahead after a 2008 Israeli Supreme Court decision noting that no Muslim objections had been filed when the original parking lot was built.
There remains a dispute among Muslim clerics as to whether a former graveyard can ever be built upon for other purposes.

To the best of my knowledge there have been no editorials demanding that Islamic institutions abide by the court's rulings. So the New York Times accepts the authority of Israel's High Court of Justice, when it agrees with it. This isn't a principled position; it is deeply cynical.

2) Zogby on the API

It's been ten years since the Arab Peace Initiative was presented to the international media. James Zogby writes about its implications for the Gulf Daily News:

For many Palestinians, Oslo was a difficult step but one they knew they needed to normalise their situation, secure the right to establish their state and rebuild their community. It was not a perfect outcome and would not, they understood, redress all of their grievances. But they believed the future they could create through the Oslo process would be better.
Ten years later, Israeli settlements in the occupied lands doubled, Jerusalem had been severed from the rest of the Palestinian lands by settlements and checkpoints, poverty and unemployment increased and it had become clear that Israel has no intention of allowing a viable Palestinian state to come into existence or engage in talks to resolve other issues - refugees, borders, etc.
The second Intifada erupted. Unlike the first, it was violent and met with oppression. Heads of state met in Beirut to issue API. They hoped that by offering the Israelis what they had claimed they wanted - peace, recognition and normalcy - API would provide incentives to restart talks for peace.

The second "intifada" didn't just "erupt." It was orchestrated by Arafat. Zogby's definition of self-defense as "oppression" is outrageous.

But let's consider some of the things that have happened since 2002.
1) Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 and its withdrawal was deemed complete by the UN. Hezbollah, instead of laying down arms built up its armaments and attacked Israel sporadically until 2006, when the threat to northern Israel became so severe that Israel was force to respond.
2) Israel "disengaged" from Gaza. Like Hezbollah, Hamas used the opportunity to arm itself and attack Israel, forcing Israel into Operation Cast Lead.
3) Israel sought approval of the Magen David Adom's red star as a protected symbol by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Arab League didn't even allow this humanitarian gesture as a humanitarian gesture.
4) During the past year we've seen the "Arab spring" in which a number of the despots, who promoted the "peace initiative," deposed and killed. Would their successors have abided by the terms of an agreement? In Egypt, where the newly dominant Muslim Brotherhood is threatening the Camp David Accords could be abrogated or changed to Israel's detriment suggests that the answer is "no."
5) It's also worth noting that between the time then Crown Prince Abdullah originally proposed the idea and the time the initiative was actually presented, he changed it, at the behest of Bashar Assad, to include a reference to Lebanon, even though Israel had withdrawn completely from southern Lebanon. If the terms of the initiative changed even before it was presented, to put a new (dishonest) demand upon Israel, how many more changes could we expect.

3) Running to asylum

This Is Just the Start by Thomas Friedman, March 1, 2011

Add it all up and what does it say? It says you have a very powerful convergence of forces driving a broad movement for change. It says we’re just at the start of something huge.

Asylum claims up from Arab nations , Al Jazeera, March 27, 2012 (h/t tweet from Daled Amos)

The number of people seeking asylum in developed countries has risen 20 per cent in 2011, with the Arab Spring movements fueling a sharp rise in arrivals from Libya, Syria and Tunisia, the UN refugee agency has said.
The number of asylum applications in 44 countries reached 441,300 during the year, up from 368,000 recorded in 2010, the agency said on Tuesday.

Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 3/28/12

Israel’s Supreme Court made an important contribution to justice and kept alive hope for a two-state solution with the Palestinians, when it ruled this week that Migron, an illegal outpost built by Israeli settlers, must be dismantled by Aug. 1. Now it is up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to comply promptly, while making clear to the settlers that violent resistance will not be tolerated.

The contours of the Mamilla cemetery are part of the dispute. Wiesenthal Center supporters say that there are no human remains left in the section where they plan to build, and that only part of it was ever a cemetery. They further contend that the effort to stop the project is the work of Muslim extremists seeking a foothold in West Jerusalem, and evidence of the need for such a center to spread more tolerance.
Critics of the project say it is unconscionable to build such a center on a piece of land where Muslims were once buried, even if it has not been an active cemetery for nearly a century. The museum project is going ahead after a 2008 Israeli Supreme Court decision noting that no Muslim objections had been filed when the original parking lot was built.
There remains a dispute among Muslim clerics as to whether a former graveyard can ever be built upon for other purposes.

For many Palestinians, Oslo was a difficult step but one they knew they needed to normalise their situation, secure the right to establish their state and rebuild their community. It was not a perfect outcome and would not, they understood, redress all of their grievances. But they believed the future they could create through the Oslo process would be better.
Ten years later, Israeli settlements in the occupied lands doubled, Jerusalem had been severed from the rest of the Palestinian lands by settlements and checkpoints, poverty and unemployment increased and it had become clear that Israel has no intention of allowing a viable Palestinian state to come into existence or engage in talks to resolve other issues - refugees, borders, etc.
The second Intifada erupted. Unlike the first, it was violent and met with oppression. Heads of state met in Beirut to issue API. They hoped that by offering the Israelis what they had claimed they wanted - peace, recognition and normalcy - API would provide incentives to restart talks for peace.

Add it all up and what does it say? It says you have a very powerful convergence of forces driving a broad movement for change. It says we’re just at the start of something huge.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 3/26/12

Today's sampler and analysis of Mideast media content from my pal Soccer Dad:

1) The Perils of Lara

When we last found Lara Friedman, the Director of Policy and Government Relations of Americans for Peace Now, she was in Doha Qatar attending the International Conference on Jerusalem at the end of February. This was an Arab League event dedicated to fighting the "Judaization" of Jerusalem.

Her first day at the conference was an eye opener. As she wrote in the Forward at the time.

Speakers at Sunday’s opening session, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, one after another laid out laundry lists of criticisms of Israel — many of them regrettably marked with exaggerations. All also spoke a great deal about Muslim and Christian attachments to Jerusalem and the importance of defending the holy sites and communities associated with both religions. However, only one speaker, Michel Sabbah, formerly the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, mentioned any Jewish connection to the city. This is a serious problem. If President Abbas cannot acknowledge Jewish claims in Jerusalem, even as he asserts Palestinian claims (a problem Yasser Arafat suffered from), he should not be surprised if it is more difficult for Israelis and Jews, wherever they are, to believe that he can be trusted in a peace agreement that leaves Jerusalem sites precious to Jews under Palestinian control.
If representatives of the organization that sponsored the Arab Peace Initiative cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the legitimacy of Jewish equities in Jerusalem, they should know that they discredit their own professed interest in peace. Their framing of the future of Jerusalem as a zero-sum game only makes it more likely that Israel will continue asserting its current power over East Jerusalem to hinder the vision of two states living in peace with a Jerusalem as a shared capital.
All throughout the day, it was unfortunately the same story. Participants talked about Jerusalem as if Jewish history did not exist or was a fraud — as if all Jewish claims in the city were just a tactic to dispossess Palestinians. Here I do need to acknowledged the one person the entire day who I heard speak in a serious, credible way on this matter: veteran Palestinian diplomat Afif Safieh. In closing one of the afternoon sessions, Safieh emphasized the international consensus around the idea that in Jerusalem it is necessary to reconcile two national narratives — Israeli and Palestinian — and three religious narratives, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. Safieh made clear that he thought this was still possible with a two state solution with two capitals in Jerusalem, an Israeli capital in the west and a Palestinian capital in the east.

Note the tone. It is not one of anger but of disappointment. Never mind that she had just heard the President of the Palestinian Authority effectively violate the agreements the PA had signed with Israel.

The next day she felt better, though.

There were four committees that met and delivered final reports at the conference. The Civil Society committee was the only one of the four that mentioned anything like this. And while I didn't agree with every word of the entire report, I think this report's framing is thoughtful, constructive and pro-peace -- framing anchored in tolerance and recognition of the equities of all parties in Jerusalem.
I can't say for sure how the report of this committee would have come out if I had not been there and had not spoken up. I am confident that it would not have looked like this. For those who demand that we refuse to engage with people who hold different points of view, my experience in Doha is a powerful reminder of how small-minded such an approach is.

This is the her great victory. She got her working group to issue a statement that didn't totally deny Jewish history! Wow! I challenge you to find any reference to this declaration at the conference's website. The website's only acknowledged statement is called the "Doha declaration." Here's how it starts:

International Conference for the Defense of Jerusalem has praised the proposal of HH the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani calling for approaching the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution on forming an international commission to investigate all the actions taken by Israel since the 1967 occupation in Arab Jerusalem, in order to erase its Islamic and Arabic identity.

Friedman's been very clear. She went as a private individual, not as a representative of APN. APN said that they had nothing to do with the conference. But it's very clear that she was invited to Doha because of her affiliation which is listed at the conference's website. She was used by the Arab League to be a token "Zionist" at the conference. That her views were ignored and that the views expressed were antithetical to peace did not bother her too much.

Yesterday, Lara Friedman took to the JTA, to tell us the real problem with the Middle East with Stop the excuses, boycott the settlements (via Daled Amos):

Dayenu. Enough with the handwringing and self-righteous declarations that boycotting fellow Jews is wrong. If the Jewish community is looking for a kosher stamp on a settlement boycott, it should look directly at Israel and follow the lead of engaged, unapologetically patriotic Israelis who are taking a stand by boycotting settlements, including prominent academics and artists and Peace Now, which last year launched its campaign: So sue me, I'm boycotting settlement products.
These Israelis know that settlements are an existential threat to Israel. They're fed up waiting for Israeli leaders to come to their senses and end this suicidal policy. They’ve given up hoping that the international community will pressure Israel on this issue. They're voting with their feet -- and their pocketbooks -- against settlements.
For those who argue that boycotting settlements won’t make any difference politically or economically, the Israeli right’s reaction to boycott efforts says otherwise. Indeed, the pro-settler lobby and its Knesset partisans are terrified of settlement boycotts -- so much so that they passed an openly undemocratic law criminalizing them. As a result, in Israel today it's legal to boycott everything but settlements.

First of all note the tone. It's not disappointment, but outrage with, perhaps, at little hatred thrown in for good measure. Oh, and she uses a Hebrew word.

It's interesting that Friedman calls Israelis who agree with her view of settlements to be patriotic. I believe that election results show that maybe 20% of the electorate (including Arabs) would be patriotic by her standards.

Really, I'm not bothered by her boycotting settlements. I am much more bothered by her giving cover to Israel's enemies and pretending that there was some noble purpose in doing so. Friedman's outrage directed at Israelis who disagree with her contrasts sharply with the seeming understanding she extends to Israel's enemies. How she calls herself a "Zionist" is beyond me. Over this past month, Friedman has thoroughly discredited herself. APN must take the next step now and cut all ties to her.

2) Fisking Fisk

In the blogging age the term to "fisk" has come to be defined as "pointing out the factual mistakes in a reporter's work." The term derives from Robert Fisk, an anti-Israel, anti-Western writer who "reports" for The Independent. Now it appears that Fisk has received the ultimate fisking.

3) The baby libel
For a while now, Gaza has been suffering from power outages due to a dispute between Hamas and Egypt. It has gotten precious little press, presumably because Israel could in no way be blamed for it. Elder of Ziyon has been covering this ongoing story and noted last week that Hamas was blaming everyone else, but Gazans were catching on.
Hamas used the energy crisis to blame Israel for the death of a baby, but the AP caught on. Anti-Israel writer, M. J. Rosenberg (defended by J J Goldberg as someone who loves Israel) has also blamed Israel for the baby's death. The New York Times has finally seen fit to report on Gaza's energy crisis:.

At the request of the Palestinian Authority, which has no access to Gaza, Israel allowed some 450,000 liters of fuel to be trucked through its Kerem Shalom border crossing on Friday, when it is usually closed. Maj. Guy Inbar, a spokesman for the Israeli authority responsible for the crossings, said that amount would be enough for no more than two days..
Over the last year, Hamas stopped paying the Palestinian Authority for Israeli-supplied fuel and relied on cheaper fuel smuggled through tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egypt border. In recent months Egypt has tried to end the practice and to have Gaza import fuel from Egypt legally, also via the Israeli border crossing, a request that Hamas refused. Hamas wants the fuel to arrive directly from Egypt to Gaza.

Question: If Israel could have been blamed for the gas shortage, would the New York Times have waited so long to report on it?

Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 3/26/12

Speakers at Sunday’s opening session, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, one after another laid out laundry lists of criticisms of Israel — many of them regrettably marked with exaggerations. All also spoke a great deal about Muslim and Christian attachments to Jerusalem and the importance of defending the holy sites and communities associated with both religions. However, only one speaker, Michel Sabbah, formerly the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, mentioned any Jewish connection to the city. This is a serious problem. If President Abbas cannot acknowledge Jewish claims in Jerusalem, even as he asserts Palestinian claims (a problem Yasser Arafat suffered from), he should not be surprised if it is more difficult for Israelis and Jews, wherever they are, to believe that he can be trusted in a peace agreement that leaves Jerusalem sites precious to Jews under Palestinian control.
If representatives of the organization that sponsored the Arab Peace Initiative cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the legitimacy of Jewish equities in Jerusalem, they should know that they discredit their own professed interest in peace. Their framing of the future of Jerusalem as a zero-sum game only makes it more likely that Israel will continue asserting its current power over East Jerusalem to hinder the vision of two states living in peace with a Jerusalem as a shared capital.
All throughout the day, it was unfortunately the same story. Participants talked about Jerusalem as if Jewish history did not exist or was a fraud — as if all Jewish claims in the city were just a tactic to dispossess Palestinians. Here I do need to acknowledged the one person the entire day who I heard speak in a serious, credible way on this matter: veteran Palestinian diplomat Afif Safieh. In closing one of the afternoon sessions, Safieh emphasized the international consensus around the idea that in Jerusalem it is necessary to reconcile two national narratives — Israeli and Palestinian — and three religious narratives, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. Safieh made clear that he thought this was still possible with a two state solution with two capitals in Jerusalem, an Israeli capital in the west and a Palestinian capital in the east.

There were four committees that met and delivered final reports at the conference. The Civil Society committee was the only one of the four that mentioned anything like this. And while I didn't agree with every word of the entire report, I think this report's framing is thoughtful, constructive and pro-peace -- framing anchored in tolerance and recognition of the equities of all parties in Jerusalem.
I can't say for sure how the report of this committee would have come out if I had not been there and had not spoken up. I am confident that it would not have looked like this. For those who demand that we refuse to engage with people who hold different points of view, my experience in Doha is a powerful reminder of how small-minded such an approach is.

International Conference for the Defense of Jerusalem has praised the proposal of HH the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani calling for approaching the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution on forming an international commission to investigate all the actions taken by Israel since the 1967 occupation in Arab Jerusalem, in order to erase its Islamic and Arabic identity.

Dayenu. Enough with the handwringing and self-righteous declarations that boycotting fellow Jews is wrong. If the Jewish community is looking for a kosher stamp on a settlement boycott, it should look directly at Israel and follow the lead of engaged, unapologetically patriotic Israelis who are taking a stand by boycotting settlements, including prominent academics and artists and Peace Now, which last year launched its campaign: So sue me, I'm boycotting settlement products.
These Israelis know that settlements are an existential threat to Israel. They're fed up waiting for Israeli leaders to come to their senses and end this suicidal policy. They’ve given up hoping that the international community will pressure Israel on this issue. They're voting with their feet -- and their pocketbooks -- against settlements.
For those who argue that boycotting settlements won’t make any difference politically or economically, the Israeli right’s reaction to boycott efforts says otherwise. Indeed, the pro-settler lobby and its Knesset partisans are terrified of settlement boycotts -- so much so that they passed an openly undemocratic law criminalizing them. As a result, in Israel today it's legal to boycott everything but settlements.

At the request of the Palestinian Authority, which has no access to Gaza, Israel allowed some 450,000 liters of fuel to be trucked through its Kerem Shalom border crossing on Friday, when it is usually closed. Maj. Guy Inbar, a spokesman for the Israeli authority responsible for the crossings, said that amount would be enough for no more than two days..
Over the last year, Hamas stopped paying the Palestinian Authority for Israeli-supplied fuel and relied on cheaper fuel smuggled through tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egypt border. In recent months Egypt has tried to end the practice and to have Gaza import fuel from Egypt legally, also via the Israeli border crossing, a request that Hamas refused. Hamas wants the fuel to arrive directly from Egypt to Gaza.

Question: If Israel could have been blamed for the gas shortage, would the New York Times have waited so long to report on it?

Monday, December 19, 2011

Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 12/19/11‏

Today's sampler and analysis of Mideast media content from my pal Soccer Dad:

1) Whatever happened to Hamas?
Maybe it's wishful thinking. In early October, The Christian Science Monitor reported:

Of the many complaints in Gaza, one has become a popular refrain: the increasing taxes levied by Hamas. Fathi Abu Gamar, a gas station owner in Jabaliya refugee camp, readily joins the chorus: The Islamist movement that rules this tiny coastal territory takes more than half his revenue from gas sales, he says, leaving him with a tiny profit.
But he quickly becomes quiet when a man, whom neighbors identify as a Hamas informer, begins hovering nearby, listening intently. Above him, the green flags of Hamas flutter in the strong sea breeze. Like Hamas's popularity, they are faded and tattered.
Hamas has been steadily losing support among Gaza's 1.6 million residents after winning elections in 2006 and violently ousting its secular rival, Fatah, the following year.

Following the announcement of the exchange of prisoners for Gilad Shalit, Time Magazine reported:

Such complaints, damaging to any political party, are potentially fatal to the Islamists. Besieged by Israel and the West, which regards it as a terrorist group, and cut off from the Palestinian majority in the West Bank, Hamas has little to offer beyond its jihadist credentials — and the promise of clean government. So it's hardly surprising that the party has been rapidly losing ground in its stronghold. Recent surveys by leading pollsters conclude that if elections were held in Gaza today, Hamas, an acronym in Arabic for the Islamic Resistance Movement, would not be returned to power. A June poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that Hamas would get just 28% of the vote, a steep decline from the 44% plurality it won in 2006.
Especially alarming for the Islamists is a precipitous drop in support for the party among Gaza's youth: two-thirds of the population is under 25. In a March survey taken in the afterglow of the protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square that led to the ouster of Egypt's dictator, Hosni Mubarak, more than 60% of Gazans age 18 to 27 said they too would support public demonstrations demanding regime change.
Soon after that poll, 10,000 turned out at a rally to voice a more modest demand — that Hamas end the bloody rift with Fatah, the secular party it bested six years ago. Hamas sent thugs to break up the demonstration. "We came out to say the people should be united, and they attack us!" says Shadi Hassan, 22, who lives in a refugee camp and sells cigarettes. "We are suffocated, and we need regime change."

At the same time the Sydney Morning Herald reported:

Hamas's popularity has plummeted this year in Gaza and the West Bank, polls show. Palestinians criticise the group for its strong-arm rule over Gaza and confrontational stance towards the outside world, which fuelled an economic boycott by the West and rigid restrictions by Israel.

Last week Elder of Ziyon noted that there were Charges of corruption against Hamas leader Haniyeh.The source Elder of Ziyon used was from Fatah, but just because the source was an interested party doesn't necessarily mean that the charges were false. But Elder of Ziyon also points out that there is no proof of Haniyeh's corruption.

Still Hamas has been reported to smuggling lots of money over the years. Given that there's no transparency in Hamas (despite supposedly having run on a platform of good government) it's not a stretch to believe that as much of the money that goes to public purposes, also lines private pockets.

2) Making peace with tyrants

Shortly before his famous column claiming that (then) Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was willing to promote a peace initiative to the Arab League, Thomas Friedman presented the idea in a column, Dear Arab League. Using the conceit of a memo from then President George W. Bush, Friedman wrote:

There is one thing I can guarantee, though. If you don't make this offer, nothing will change, the Israeli silent majority will continue following Sharon into a dead end, and the Arab League will fall further and further behind the rest of the world. Guys, you know that the peace process was about so much more than just Israelis and Palestinians. It was also a cover and an engine for all the progressive forces in the Arab world, that want to integrate, trade and modernize. Without the peace process, all those forces are now on the run. That's why you all need this as much as Israelis and Palestinians do. The future is in your hands -- not mine.

There's much wrong with this. Why was Israel fighting back against terror a "dead end?" But the basic idea that Friedman was promoting here is that the Arab League needed to reach out to Israel.

What's interesting, though, is how Friedman began the column:

Memo to: President Hosni Mubarak, Crown Prince Abdullah, King Abdullah, President Bashar al-Assad and the rest of the Arab League

Not a single elected leader among them. However in May of this year, Friedman wrote End of Mideast Wholesale.

Let’s start with Israel. For the last 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt wholesale — by having peace with just one man, Hosni Mubarak. That sale is over. Today, post-Mubarak, to sustain the peace treaty with Egypt in any kind of stable manner, Israel is going to have to pay retail. It is going to have to make peace with 85 million Egyptians. The days in which one phone call by Israel to Mubarak could shut down any crisis in relations are over.

This is, of course, an oversimplification. Still his point - not ten years after he effectively told Israel, make peace with the a club of dictators - was that dictators are not reliable peace partners. Given the energy Friedman devoted to promoting the Arab peace initiative, this is a pretty big reversal. Friedman never acknowledged his change of heart. (His later opinion is closer to the truth.)

I really don't believe that Friedman thinks things out. He comes up with a cute, pithy (and usually wrong) phrase to explain a phenomenon in the news, but doesn't think through its implications for more than a few columns. He's an ADD columnist, always distracted by his next brilliant insight. Of course, when it comes to the Middle East somehow, Israel is always the problem.

A different Friedman, this time Andrew, writes in the Jerusalem Post, Uprisings opportunity for new Israeli foreign policy:

Whereas Israel has historically driven toward peace treaties with enemy states like Egypt and Jordan, Islamic countries further afield have been left to the back burner. There are good reasons for this approach: There has never been any chance of a military conflict with Indonesia, so there has never been a sense of urgency to make “peace” with the world’s largest Muslim nation.
But as the events in Egypt over the past year have shown clearly, there is a yawning gap between “non-belligerence” and peace. Three decades after Camp David, most Egyptians continue to boycott Israeli artists and shun ties with Israeli professionals, and the Egyptian press continues to be a prime source for violent, repulsive anti-Semitism in the world today. A contact in Alexandria told me recently that it would be very unwise to visit Egypt with a Jewish name like Friedman, and that walking the streets there with a kippa today is simply unthinkable.
In contrast, there is no peace deal with Indonesia. Israel does not even have formal diplomatic ties with Jakarta. All we’ve got with Indonesia is trade – $300 million in bilateral trade in 2010 – and rich, expanding cultural ties. Indonesian journalists, doctors and graduate students visit Israel freely (in this case, “freely” means that Israel welcomes them in, and they do not face repercussions upon returning home), and Israelis do the same thing in the opposite direction.

Implicitly, Andrew Friedman is arguing that the fashionable idea of negotiated peace between Israel and its neighbors is obsolete. The appeal of a negotiated peace between Israel and the Arab world was that it would bring stability to a notoriously unstable region. But perhaps peace isn't something that can be forced on societies that don't want it. What's really needed is a change or attitude in the Arab world towards Israel, and all the negotiations in the world can't change that. In fact as long as Israel is faulted for failing to make peace, it excuses those who won't accept Israel under any circumstances.

If I am to choose which Friedman is more sensible, I would choose Andrew over Tom.

Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 12/19/11‏

Of the many complaints in Gaza, one has become a popular refrain: the increasing taxes levied by Hamas. Fathi Abu Gamar, a gas station owner in Jabaliya refugee camp, readily joins the chorus: The Islamist movement that rules this tiny coastal territory takes more than half his revenue from gas sales, he says, leaving him with a tiny profit.
But he quickly becomes quiet when a man, whom neighbors identify as a Hamas informer, begins hovering nearby, listening intently. Above him, the green flags of Hamas flutter in the strong sea breeze. Like Hamas's popularity, they are faded and tattered.
Hamas has been steadily losing support among Gaza's 1.6 million residents after winning elections in 2006 and violently ousting its secular rival, Fatah, the following year.

Following the announcement of the exchange of prisoners for Gilad Shalit, Time Magazine reported:

Such complaints, damaging to any political party, are potentially fatal to the Islamists. Besieged by Israel and the West, which regards it as a terrorist group, and cut off from the Palestinian majority in the West Bank, Hamas has little to offer beyond its jihadist credentials — and the promise of clean government. So it's hardly surprising that the party has been rapidly losing ground in its stronghold. Recent surveys by leading pollsters conclude that if elections were held in Gaza today, Hamas, an acronym in Arabic for the Islamic Resistance Movement, would not be returned to power. A June poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that Hamas would get just 28% of the vote, a steep decline from the 44% plurality it won in 2006.
Especially alarming for the Islamists is a precipitous drop in support for the party among Gaza's youth: two-thirds of the population is under 25. In a March survey taken in the afterglow of the protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square that led to the ouster of Egypt's dictator, Hosni Mubarak, more than 60% of Gazans age 18 to 27 said they too would support public demonstrations demanding regime change.
Soon after that poll, 10,000 turned out at a rally to voice a more modest demand — that Hamas end the bloody rift with Fatah, the secular party it bested six years ago. Hamas sent thugs to break up the demonstration. "We came out to say the people should be united, and they attack us!" says Shadi Hassan, 22, who lives in a refugee camp and sells cigarettes. "We are suffocated, and we need regime change."

At the same time the Sydney Morning Herald reported:

Hamas's popularity has plummeted this year in Gaza and the West Bank, polls show. Palestinians criticise the group for its strong-arm rule over Gaza and confrontational stance towards the outside world, which fuelled an economic boycott by the West and rigid restrictions by Israel.

There is one thing I can guarantee, though. If you don't make this offer, nothing will change, the Israeli silent majority will continue following Sharon into a dead end, and the Arab League will fall further and further behind the rest of the world. Guys, you know that the peace process was about so much more than just Israelis and Palestinians. It was also a cover and an engine for all the progressive forces in the Arab world, that want to integrate, trade and modernize. Without the peace process, all those forces are now on the run. That's why you all need this as much as Israelis and Palestinians do. The future is in your hands -- not mine.

Memo to: President Hosni Mubarak, Crown Prince Abdullah, King Abdullah, President Bashar al-Assad and the rest of the Arab League

Not a single elected leader among them. However in May of this year, Friedman wrote End of Mideast Wholesale.

Let’s start with Israel. For the last 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt wholesale — by having peace with just one man, Hosni Mubarak. That sale is over. Today, post-Mubarak, to sustain the peace treaty with Egypt in any kind of stable manner, Israel is going to have to pay retail. It is going to have to make peace with 85 million Egyptians. The days in which one phone call by Israel to Mubarak could shut down any crisis in relations are over.

Whereas Israel has historically driven toward peace treaties with enemy states like Egypt and Jordan, Islamic countries further afield have been left to the back burner. There are good reasons for this approach: There has never been any chance of a military conflict with Indonesia, so there has never been a sense of urgency to make “peace” with the world’s largest Muslim nation.
But as the events in Egypt over the past year have shown clearly, there is a yawning gap between “non-belligerence” and peace. Three decades after Camp David, most Egyptians continue to boycott Israeli artists and shun ties with Israeli professionals, and the Egyptian press continues to be a prime source for violent, repulsive anti-Semitism in the world today. A contact in Alexandria told me recently that it would be very unwise to visit Egypt with a Jewish name like Friedman, and that walking the streets there with a kippa today is simply unthinkable.
In contrast, there is no peace deal with Indonesia. Israel does not even have formal diplomatic ties with Jakarta. All we’ve got with Indonesia is trade – $300 million in bilateral trade in 2010 – and rich, expanding cultural ties. Indonesian journalists, doctors and graduate students visit Israel freely (in this case, “freely” means that Israel welcomes them in, and they do not face repercussions upon returning home), and Israelis do the same thing in the opposite direction.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 12/01/11‏

Today's sampler and analysis of Mideast media content from my pal Soccer Dad:

1) New York Times Mideast op-ed Index

A) In Israel, Press Freedom Is Under Attack by Dimi Reider - November 1, 2011

Despite the steps Ms. Kamm and Mr. Blau took, the Israeli government has labored over the past year to portray Ms. Kamm as an enemy, initially charging her with espionage. Israel’s largest newspapers jingoistically referred to her as “the soldier spy,” rushing to sensationalize the case at the expense of their own vital interest in press freedom.
The plea bargain which Ms. Kamm eventually struck left her charged with “unauthorized holding and distributing of classified information.” But the memory of the espionage charge and the implied notion that informing the public can somehow be equated with treason will continue to poison the Israeli public sphere for years to come.

I don't know enough about the legal matters involved to comment on this case. However Yaacov Lozowick does. Here's an excerpt:

Since Haaretz had so helpfully shown the stolen documents, the counter-espionage officials came to talk with Blau. Had he been anything other than a journalist, he'd have been summarily arrested and facing many years of jail. But since he's a journalist, and democracy needs journalists to be able to act freely, he wasn't arrested. A deal was cut with him and he agreed to give back the stolen documents, so that they'd never reach someone more dangerous than Haaretz.
Blau returned 50 documents. When the investigators found Kamm independently of him, she told them there had been 2000 documents, not 50. The went back to Blau and his newspaper to retrieve the other 1950 documents, but he absconded, and his lawyers - who are the lawyers of Haaretz - have refused to return the documents.
All the attorneys I talked to over the weekend agree this is illegal. It's also stupid, I'd think. If I were in the Iranian intelligence services I'd be frantically looking for Uri Blau about now, obviously. Our counter espionage forces say this fear is what lead them to insist on that gag order until after they got the documents back, which makes sense but was probably a bad decision for other reasons. Yet if that's how it happened, Haaretz carries some responsibility for the gag order, too.

Didi Reimer is a self-interested activist. The only reason to publish the op-ed was to continue misinforming the public of what really happened.

Current Scores - Anti-Israel - 1 / Pro-Israel - 0

B) Israel and the Apartheid Slander by Richard Goldstone - November 1, 2011

In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.

After the damage he did by leading an investigation into Operation Cast Lead, it was refreshing to read Judge Goldstone write a defense of Israel against one of the more offensive slanders hurled at the Jewish state.

Current Scores - Anti-Israel - 1 / Pro-Israel - 1

C) The Last Jew in Zagare by Roger Cohen - November 8, 2011

Carrying Zagare in my blood, aware of what centuries of Jewish precariousness have wrought, I believe the case for Israel was and remains overwhelming, but an Israel that condemns another people to permanent exile is not the one its founders imagined.
...
I went to see the grave of Mendelsonas — the last Jew in Zagare.

So, I thought, Zagare is finally Judenrein. In a sense the Nazis have won. Then, nearby, I saw a European Union flag and thought, no.

By Roger Cohen's standards this isn't as awful as his usual anti-Israel diatribe. Still he writes evocatively about the Holocaust seemingly just to score rhetorical points about Israel. If Jews (and Europe) could get past Nazism, surely Israel can get past Arab hatred of the Jewish state. The difference is that the Nazis have been defeated; the Arabs who hate Israel are still trying to destroy it.

Current Scores - Anti-Israel - 2 / Pro-Israel - 1

D) Release Marwan Barghouti by Avinoam Bar Yosef - November 9, 2011

The trouble is that Fayyad is regarded by the Palestinians as a professional, as the C.E.O. of the Palestinian Authority, but not as its leader. Many experts believe that Israeli and Western negotiators should encourage cooperation between Fayyad and Barghouti. The endorsement of Tanzim would bring Fayyad and his reforms critical support from the Palestinians.
This may be why some in the Israeli leadership, those who are interested in achieving a two-state solution to the conflict, see Barghouti as a possible partner, even if his sins are not forgiven. At least he is honest, and has the trust of the Palestinian people. Abbas, after all, is Arafat’s former deputy, and hardly a saint in Jewish eyes, and at 76 he appears largely concerned now with his legacy.

So this argument boils down to: Barghouti is a murderer but at least he's an honest one. Maybe I could understand the argument if Barghouti demonstrated remorse, though I still wouldn't agree. This is just a bad idea.

Current Scores - Anti-Israel - 3 / Pro-Israel - 1

E) After Egypt’s Revolution, Christians Are Living in Fear ... by Andre Aciman - November 20, 2011

“Hidden hands” stands for Satan. And with Satan you don’t use judgment; you use cunning and paranoia. Cunning, after all, is poor man’s fare, a way of cobbling together a credible enough narrative that is at once easy to digest, to swear by, and pass around. Bugaboos keep you focused. And nothing in the Middle East can keep you as focused (or as unfocused) as the archvillain of them all: Israel.
Say “Israel” and you’ve galvanized everyone. Say Israel and you have a movement, a cause, a purpose. Say “Israel” and all of Islam huddles. Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and now Turkey.

No this one wasn't primarily about Israel (and I did leave out a few items that were about Iran, but accused Israel of sabre rattling), but Aciman makes an important point here. Reporters and analysts celebrating the Arab spring usually fail to note that whatever reforms are being considered, the antisemitism or anti-Zionism of the dictators is still extant. True Aciman's focus is on the military's treatment of the Copts, but I expect that he'd agree that the Muslim Brotherhood would not improve the situation.

Current Scores - Anti-Israel - 3 / Pro-Israel - 2

F) Israel and 'Pinkwashing' by Sarah Schulman - November 22, 2011

In Israel, gay soldiers and the relative openness of Tel Aviv are incomplete indicators of human rights — just as in America, the expansion of gay rights in some states does not offset human rights violations like mass incarceration. The long-sought realization of some rights for some gays should not blind us to the struggles against racism in Europe and the United States, or to the Palestinians’ insistence on a land to call home.

For sheer viciousness, it's hard to imagine a worse op-ed. Schulman takes Israel's virtue and turns it into a vice. There's no way to win. Worse, as one time public editor of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt, argued (defending an op-ed by a member of Hamas) the reason to publish offensive ideas is to get them out into the open where they will wither. But Schulman here is identified simply as a professor not as an anti-Israel advocate. If bad ideas need to be exposed, then the source needs to be correctly identified. The only reason for publishing this was to slander Israel, not to stimulate debate.

Current Scores - Anti-Israel - 4 / Pro-Israel - 2

G) Israel's other occupation by Gershom Gorenberg - November 25, 2011

Israel’s courts, human rights groups and large parts of the public have fought back, seeking to preserve the principle of equality and the fragile sense of a shared society. The problem they face is that Israel remains tied to the West Bank and the settlement enterprise. And the ethnic struggle cannot be kept on one side of an unmarked border.
If and when Israel finally leaves the West Bank quagmire behind, it will face a further challenge: the settlers need to be brought home. But allowing them to apply their ideology inside Israel, or to transplant whole communities from the West Bank to the Galilee, will only make the situation worse in Israel proper.

There's something odd in the second paragraph quoted above. Even as Gorenberg demands equality for Arabs in Israel, he acknowledges that his vision of peace requires that Jews not live in a Palestinian state. He even would tell Jews who lived in Judea and Samaria where to live in what he calls "Israel proper," even if he objects to telling Arabs where they can and cannot live. As with many of Israel's critics he applies two sets of standards; one for Israel and another for the Palestinians.

Current Scores - Anti-Israel - 5 / Pro-Israel - 2

H) The Arab awakening and Israel by Thomas Friedman - November 28, 2011

Israel’s best defense is to strengthen Fayyadism — including giving Palestinian security services more areas of responsibility to increase their legitimacy and make clear that they are not the permanent custodians of Israel’s occupation. This would not only help stabilize Israel’s own backyard — and prevent another uprising that would spread like wildfire to the Arab world without the old dictators to hold it back — but would lay the foundation for a two-state solution and for better relations with the Arab peoples. Remember, those Arab peoples are going to have a lot more say in how they are ruled and with whom they have peace. In that context, Israel will be so much better off if it is seen as strengthening responsible and democratic Palestinian leaders.

When critiquing this op-ed yesterday, I referred to Friedman as a global thinker. The reason for that appellation was this silly "special report" at Foreign Policy. Fayyad and Abbas are global thinkers. So is former Mossad chief, Meir Dagan for opposing Netanyahu. And of course, Friedman, whose columns about the Middle East are consistently anti-Israel or, at least anti-Netanyahu.
Regardless, a shorter version of this column would be: "Israel has a significant reservations of the Arab spring, but Israel is still wrong." The premise of the article that "Fayyadism" is Israel's lifeline in the turmoil, is easily dismissed. "Fayyadism" was never a serious analysis; if it had been, we would have seen a Friedman column condemning the Fatah / Hamas rapprochement. After all, if "Fayyadism" is a necessary element of Palestinian statehood, and that statehood is essential to Middle East peace, shouldn't a rejection of "Fayyadism" by Fatah be characterized as inimical to peace? Since there was no such column, clearly, "Fayyadism" is a cudgel with which Friedman can condemn Israel for failing to recognize a moderate peace partner. "Fayyadism" is convenient but meaningless.

Final Scores - Anti-Israel - 6 / Pro-Israel - 2

About the methodology: I searched the New York Times website for opinion articles about Israel for the month of November, 2011. I didn't include letters to the editor and didn't include articles that were not substantially about Israel.
The impetus for this exercise is public editor Clark Hoyt's 2007 column The danger of the one-sided debate, in which he defended the publishing of an op-ed by Ahmed Yousef, a spokesman for Hamas. With the usual ratio of 3 to 1 or more favoring Israel's critics, I think it can be safely said that the New York Times need not fear that its opinion pages are too sympathetic to Israel.