Anyone who acts like a doormat when he visits one foreign ruler should not be surprised when other rulers come along and act as arrogantly as the first. From day one we have let the world understand that we are a country with no self-respect, that we can be insulted and punched and will respond, if at all, with restraint and meekness...
It isn't the Americans who formulated the belittling and trivializing formula "natural growth" at which the Obama administration is now chipping away in an arrogant and bullying manner. An Israeli government, headed by Ariel Sharon, was responsible for the trivializing. And instead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring, here at home, that no independent nation can agree to have "natural growth" dictate its rate of construction, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has gone off to the United States to plead for this poor little lamb.
And to whom has he gone? To the president? To the vice president? To the secretary of state? No. To an envoy, who holds the mere rank of ambassador. The State of Israel's defense minister has tried to extract an agreement to build kindergartens in Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. And since George Mitchell has apparently sent the defense minister away empty-handed, the prime minister himself is about to go to him hat in hand. Maybe he'll change his mind.
The British government is on the brink of collapse. And with what is the British foreign minister busy? He "completely deplores" an Israeli decision to build 50 housing units in the settlement Adam in Judea and Samaria. Foreign diplomats in Israel are speaking in a lordly way to Israeli statesmen, and foreign journalists are asking them questions that are often biased, intrusive and insolent. These correspondents would never allow themselves to behave so crudely in their own countries. And why shouldn't they? Here, after all, everyone including prime ministers feels obligated to justify himself to them and gratify them. Only rarely does someone put them in their place.
The scorn for Israeli sovereignty and dignity runs from the lowest to the highest. Israelis, in contact with foreigners, tend to be self-abasing and massively critical of their country and its leaders. Those who excel at this in particular are people from Israeli organizations who get their funding from foreign governments and foreign NGOs, and in return, wittingly or not, serve their interests.
Azerbaijan, a Muslim country, has a dangerous border with Iran. Many of its interests, especially economic interests, inevitably intersect with Iran's. About three weeks ago Iran's chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Hasan Firuzabadi, paid a surprise visit to Baku. The aim: to prevent a visit to the republic by Israeli President Shimon Peres. Although it was made clear to them that Iran would take a dim view should they refuse (and indeed while Peres was there, Iran recalled its ambassador), the Azerbaijanis rejected the demand outright. Azerbaijan is a country with self-respect. They made it clear to the bullying Iranians that no one was going to tell them which guests to receive, or to whom to export goods, or especially from whom to import. Only Israel fired the director general of its Defense Ministry, Amos Yaron, because that's what the Americans dictated.
When the norm is to submit to pressure, the pressures only increase. If right at the start of the pressure campaign Netanyahu has bowed down to the Americans and given up his most basic principle - opposition to a Palestinian state - what is left for him to give when the next wave of pressure comes along? This is weakness and this is its wage.
The leaders of the Palestinian Authority do not want the international community to hear anything about massive abuse of human rights and intimidation of journalists that its security forces are practicing almost on a daily basis in the West Bank.
They [the PA] want the U.S. and the rest of the world to continue believing that peace will prevail tomorrow morning only if Israel stops construction in the settlements.
The Palestinians do not need a dictatorship that harasses and terrorizes journalists, and that is responsible for the death of detainees in its prisons. In the Arab world we already have enough dictatorships.
The Palestinians do not need additional security forces, militias and armed gangs. In fact, there are too many of them, both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
American and European taxpayers' money should be invested in building hospitals, schools and housing projects. Investing billions of dollars in training thousands of policemen and establishing new security forces and prisons will not advance the cause of peace and coexistence.
There is no doubt that many Palestinians would love to abandon the culture of uniform and weapons in favor of improved infrastructure and medical care.
As for the international media, it's time to abandon the policy of double standards in covering the Israeli-Arab conflict. For many years, the mainstream media in the US and Europe turned a blind eye to stories about financial corruption under Yasser Arafat. The result was that Arafat and his cronies got away with stealing billions of dollars that had been donated to the Palestinians by the Americans and Europeans.
Recently, a Palestinian TV crew working for Al-Jazeera was stopped at a checkpoint in the West Bank, where soldiers confiscated a tape and erased its content.
This incident hardly received any coverage in the mainstream media in the U.S. and Europe. The reason? The perpetrators were not IDF soldiers, but PA security officers at a Palestinian checkpoint.
Walid Omari, the head of Al-Jazeera's operations in the West Bank, told Reporters Without Borders that his crew was preparing a report on the death of a detainee at the PA detention center in Hebron that might have been the result of torture.
More than 700 Palestinians are being held without trial in West Bank prisons run by security forces loyal to PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.
These security forces are referred to by many Palestinians as the "Dayton Forces," a reference to U.S. security coordinator Gen. Keith Dayton.
Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told... in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report.
Underlining the climate of fear among direct and even indirect supporters of Mousavi's campaign for the election to be annulled, the sources also reported that a prominent cleric gave a speech to opposition protesters in Teheran earlier this week in which he publicly acknowledged that the very act of speaking at the gathering would likely cost him his life.
"Ayatollah Hadi Gafouri said that the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] never wanted [current supreme Leader] Ali Khamenei to succeed him. He even went to say that the Islamic republic died the day the Imam did," one source said.
Other criticisms from senior clerics over the regime's handling of the elections and subsequent protests included a report from a Persian news agency, which on Tuesday quoted a senior cleric from the city of Esfahan, Ayatollah Seyyed Jalaleddin Taheri-Esfahani, defending Mousavi against the regime's criticisms.
The ayatollah was quoted as saying: "Is it a case of justice to see that an honorable and modest Seyyed [a descendant of the household of the prophet Muhammad], who until the last moments of Khomeini's life was a dear and close companion of that grand leader, is now considered to be a rioter and an agent of arrogance who must be punished?"
An Israeli daily Haaretz report cites a Jerusalem political source who states that 3 Netanyahu government ministers, Lieberman, Begin and Ya'alon have countered defense minister Ehud Barak's possible offer of a "a temporary freeze" of construction in Yehuda and the Shomron arguing that a temporary construction freeze would set a precedent which could become permanent. But the real problem is that by negotiating how much Israel is to be allowed to build, Israel has already accepted the nonsensical idea that outside forces can determine where Jews can and can not build in the Jewish heartland:
Defense Minister Ehud Barak will meet in New York today with U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell in an effort to agree on a compromise formula on settlement construction. The meeting takes place in light of a recent disagreement among the "forum of six" ministers over this issue.
A political source in Jerusalem said Monday that a "temporary freeze" of construction in the settlements was met with objections by three of the six senior ministers in the forum.
Monday morning the forum, which includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and ministers Dan Meridor, Benny Begin and Moshe Ya'alon, met to agree on a position that Barak would then present to Mitchell.
Barak supported a formula according to which Israel would freeze settlement construction completely, except for projects that have already started, and would require U.S. guarantees on the future of the peace process.
A political source in Jerusalem said that Barak's position was countered by Lieberman, Begin and Ya'alon, who opposed his proposal. The three argued that "a temporary freeze" of settlement construction will create a precedent and may become permanent. "If we start it will be difficult to go back," the three said.
It is unclear what the positions of Netanyahu and Meridor were.
According to the three ministers opposing Barak, Israel must not propose a "temporary freeze" without a commitment for similar and equal concessions by Arab states and the Palestinian Authority, and as part of a broader package deal...
...Israel should offer to temporarily freeze construction if this helped peace talks get underway. He said willingness to do so would alter Israel's "refusing" reputation.
Israel might try instead to enhance its refusing reputation by firmly saying no to this kind of thing. One firm "no" might actually save the need to say "no" later on subsequent demands, as any good negotiator knows. Is it superfluous to add that the Palestinians have refused to budge an inch in their core demands ever since 1993? This intrangience has been amply rewarded, as Israel has been made to split the difference each time, until finally offering close to 100% of the territories in negotiations.
The Haaretz report continues:
"We must explain to the Americans that we, too, have red lines," Deputy Prime Minister Ya'alon said during the meeting.
A novel idea indeed. But first Israel must develop some red lines that it is really not willing to cross.
During the meeting with Mitchell, Barak intends to present a more watered-down proposal, which will include a declared wish to resolve the settlements issue during negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over a final settlement agreement. Moreover, the proposal will be to limit new construction to the addition of stories to existing structures in the settlements, except for projects that have already begun.
As George Bernard Shaw would say, by haggling over the price Israel has already given in on the principle.
The real problem is that Israel, as a nation, has yet to decide for itself what the real future of the territories will be. As a symptom, the pace of building in the settlements is always open to internal debate, and that leads to external forces joining in on that debate. While it is certainly true that outsiders should butt out of Israel's internal affairs, it is incumbent upon Israel to make a decision, the right decision, on this matter once and for all.
Once again, the world is amazed. The massive revolt of Iranian citizens has elicited the unmitigated surprise of the free world's army of experts, pundits and commentators. And yet, just like their predecessors in the Soviet Union, Iran's democratic dissidents were right. Every totalitarian society consists of three groups: true believers, double-thinkers and dissidents. In every totalitarian regime, no matter its cultural or geographical circumstances, the majority undergo a conversion over time from true belief in the revolutionary message into double-thinking. They no longer believe in the regime but are too scared to say so. Then there are the dissidents - pioneers who articulate and finally act on the innermost feelings of the nation. More than once in recent years, former Soviet citizens returning from a visit to Iran have told me how much Iranian society reminded them of the final stages of Soviet communism.
Western governments are fearful of imperiling actual or hoped-for relations with the world's ayatollahs, generals, general secretaries and other types of dictators - partners, so it is thought, in maintaining political stability. But this is a fallacy. Democracy's allies in the struggle for peace and security are the demonstrators in the streets of Tehran who, with consummate bravery, have crossed the line between the world of double-think and the world of free men and women. Listen to them, and you will hear what you yourself know to be the true hope of every human being on Earth.
Natan Sharansky spent nine years in the Soviet gulag. He is chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.
The Iranian leadership took more measures to calm tensions, instructing a senior judge to investigate the death of protester Neda Agha Soltan and stating that the Islamic republic does not want to downgrade relations with Britain.
According to Al-Alam state television, recounting had started in 22 Teheran districts as well as in provinces. North Teheran is a base of support for opposition Mir Hossein Mousavi, who insists he - not Ahmadinejad - won the disputed election.
The Guardian Council, Iran's top electoral oversight body, said it planned to complete the recount of a random 10 percent of ballots by the end of the day.
Yet it was unclear what purpose the recount would serve. Khamenei and the Council already have pronounced the results free of major fraud and insist that Ahmadinejad won by a landslide, and Mousavi has insisted the government nullify the results and hold a new vote - steps it flatly refuses to consider.
State TV said Mousavi representatives met with a Guardian Council election review panel, but it ended in a stalemate and officials decided to proceed with the recount.
In the second report in which Rafsanjani publically calls for a fair vote probe, sources indicate that Revolutionary Guards and paramilitary Basijis have commandeered ambulances:
Revolutionary Guards and paramilitary Basijis made numerous arrests, Teheran sources said, jumping out of ambulances in some cases to apprehend protesters, and preventing onlookers from halting to watch.
"The regime's agents have taken over the ambulances. Now whenever there are clashes, the hospital ambulances come to the scene. And instead of paramedics, plain-clothed agents [wearing white jackets] emerge and load up the people," one source said.
According to the same source, these ambulances have also been used to secretly transport the dead from earlier clashes and bury them.
"Many of the ambulances are leaving the city and coming back and then leaving the city again. It is obvious... The police, who guard [all exits leading out of the capital], let them pass without question after the driver waves at them... The regime is doing this to cover its bloody tracks."
As the Iranian authorities work to restore order, cameras and other monitoring equipment are being set up in on the main streets, especially Baharestan Square, the sources said.
Plain-clothes agents and special units have also been stationed in other parts of Teheran and are stopping people with injuries for questioning, to establish whether they were involved in protest rallies.
Barack Obama is taking what he and his administration refer to as "a more balanced approach to Middle East policy."
Let me explain what that literally means in real terms.
It means the U.S. government is now using its clout with Israel to insist Jews, not Israelis, mind you, but Jews, be disallowed from living in East Jerusalem and the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank.
I want you to try to imagine the outrage, the horror, the outcry, the clamoring, the gnashing of teeth that would ensue if Arabs or Muslims were told they could no longer live in certain parts of... their own country.
Of course, that would never happen with "a more balanced approach to the Middle East."
It's the 1930s all over again. This time, it's the enlightened liberal voices of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who are telling Jews where they can live, how they can live...
Why... seek to create, by definition, a racist, anti-Jewish state that doesn't even tolerate the mere presence of Jews?
Obama and Clinton... have determined they will yield to the racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic demands of the Palestinian Authority that no Jews be allowed to live in their new state.
I like to think that in any other part of the world, this kind of effort at ethnically cleansing a region would be roundly condemned by all civilized people...
Think about what I am saying: It is the official policy of the Palestinian Authority that all Jews must get off the land! Why is the United States supporting the creation of a new, racist, anti-Semitic hate state? Why is the civilized world viewing this as a prescription for peace in the region? Why is this considered an acceptable idea?
Is there any other place in the world where that kind of official policy of racism and ethnic cleansing is tolerated – even condoned?
Why are the rules different in the Middle East? Why are the rules different for Arabs? Why are the rules different for Muslims?
Why are U.S. tax dollars supporting the racist, anti-Semitic entity known as the Palestinian Authority?
This is "balance"? Are there any impositions upon the Arabs and Muslims suggesting they can no longer move to Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslims suggesting they cannot buy homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslim suggesting they cannot repair their existing homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs or Muslims suggesting the cannot build settlements anywhere they like? No.
Now, keep in mind, there are already quite a few Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East. Many of them already forbid Jews to live in them. Some prohibit Christians as well. But now, the only Jewish state in the world, and one that has a claim on the land dating back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is being told Jews must keep off land currently under their own control, but destined [under Obama/Clinton policy] for transfer to people who hate them, despise them, want to see them dead and will not even accept living peacefully with them as neighbors.
All the while, Israel continues to hold out its naive hand of friendship to the Arabs and the Muslims – welcoming them in their own tiny nation surrounded by hateful neighbors. Arabs and Muslims are offered full citizenship rights – and even serve in elected office. They publish newspapers and broadcast on radio and television freely.
But, conversely, Jews are one step away from eviction from homes they have sometimes occupied for generations. Gaza is about to happen all over again.
I hope my Jewish friends remember this well. Many of them voted for Barack Obama. Many of them voted for Hillary Clinton. These are not your friends. These are the same kinds of people who turned away ships of Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1940s.... who appeased Adolf Hitler at Munich.... who made the reformation of the modern state of Israel so difficult.
Were Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to publicly announce Israel's support for the protesters, Israel would stand to gain politically in a number of ways. First and foremost, it would be doing the right thing morally and so would earn the respect of millions of people throughout the world who are dismayed at their own governments' silence in the face of the brave Iranian protesters risking their lives for freedom.
However, in writing her piece, she notes that:
...Israel has joined the US and Europe in rejecting the protesters....
For Israel, the arguments for staying clear of events in Iran align with those informing much of the rest of the Western world. Israel's primary concern is Iran's foreign policy and specifically its nuclear weapons program and its support for anti-Israel terror groups. There is no reason for Israel to believe that a Mousavi government will be more inclined to end Iran's race to the bomb or diminish its support for terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas than Ahmadinejad's government is. As prime minister in the 1980s, Mousavi was a major instigator of Iran's nuclear program and he oversaw the establishment of Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
"Dear Israeli Brothers and Sisters," writes Iranian dissident Arash Irandoost, "Iran needs your help more than ever now. And we will be eternally grateful. Please help opposition television and radio stations which are blocked and being jammed by the Islamic Republic (Nokia and Siemens) resume broadcast to Iran. There is a total media blackout and Iranians inside Iran for the most part are not aware of their brave brothers and sisters fighting and losing their lives daily. And the unjust treatment and brutal massacre of the brave Iranians in the hands of the mullah's paid terrorist Hamas and Hezbullah gangs are not seen by the majority of the Iranians. Please help in any way you can to allow these stations resume broadcasting to Iran.
"And, please remember that we will remember, as you have remembered Cyrus the Great's treatment of you in your time of need," Irandoost concludes, signing his blogged call for help "Your Iranian Brothers and Sisters!"
In an interview with Israel National News, Iranian expatriate pro-democracy activist Amil Imani said that Irandoost's message represents the sentiments of much of the youth in the streets in Iran. They have a strong belief in the technological know-how of the Israelis to overcome the Iranian regime's attempts to block communications.
"This is going to be the most massive, impressive revolution of the 21st century," Imani said, "and we're seeing it live." However, he added, it is now too dependent on Internet communications, so the protesters are very much in need of outside assistance to fight the technological and information war.
More generally, Imani said, the Iranian people are lionizing any leader of any nation who comes out strongly against the Islamic Republic at this time.
According to Imani, at least 500 people have been killed by Iranian government forces, with another 5,000 injured. But the hospitals are no longer safe, he added, as the gunmen from the basiji militia enter the emergency wards looking for wounded protesters. Therefore, Imani said, sympathetic doctors have taken to treating the wounded wherever they can, including in private homes...
As for the basijis themselves, Imani reported, many of them are Lebanese and Palestinian Authority Arabs hired by the regime to do its bidding. Iranians reportedly captured seven basijis who spoke no Persian, only Arabic. According to Imani, 10,000 more Arab hired guns arrived in Tehran to serve the mullah-led regime...
Even outside Iran, thousands of protesters are out in the streets every day, especially in the United States. Imani said he thinks the phenomenon represents unprecedented unity in the Iranian community, within Iran and abroad.
"There is no turning back," Imani concluded.
The bottom line: The technical assistance being requested by the Iranian revolutionaries in their battle with the the fundamentalist Islamic regime presents an opportunity for Israel to make a tangible contribution to assist in bringing about change in the region, eliminating the nuclear danger posed by the Achmedinejad/Khameini regime, without high profile public statements which the Netanyahu government may deem counter-productive toward Israeli diplomacy.
Below is an analysis of an absurd asymmetry in plans for "peace" in the Middle East.
It comes under the title "2 states for 2 peoples". Because of the implied symmmetry it sounds fair, but the name is anything but correct and the symetry is non-existent.
Most of those that support the plan do NOT mean that the Jews will get a state (Israel) and the Palestinian Arabs will get a state (Palestine).
What they actually mean is:
1) A 2nd Palestian Arab state (in addition to Jordan, which has a majority of Palestinian Arabs) and a 21st Arab state will be created where no such state existed before. All Jews currently living in what will become Palestine will be removed.
2) The one Jewish state will be made non-Jewish by the influx of millions of third generation Arab "refugees" who apparently could not possibly be settled in the new Palestinian Arab state. All Arabs already living in Israel would stay.
In short, a new, extraneous state would be created ex nihilo for the Arabs and made Judenrein; simultaneously, the one existing Jewish state would be destroyed by flooding it with hostile Arabs.
Does that sound fair to you? No? Keep it in mind the next time someone preaches that there should be 2 states for 2 peoples.
The absurdity of the whole idea was recently brought out by Binyamin Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state as a prerequisite for peace, and the subsequent rejection of that prerequisite by the 2-states-for-2-peoples crowd, as explained by The Jerusalem Post's Evelyn Gordon:
To mainstream Israelis, Binyamin Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state is self-evidently just. Yet many in the West, the Arab world and even Israel's left reject it utterly.
Meeting in Luxembourg last Monday, European foreign ministers said conditions such as this were unacceptable. Former US president Jimmy Carter echoed this comment. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak declared that "nobody in Egypt or anywhere else... can recognize Israel as the state of the Jews"; pro-government papers in Jordan and Saudi Arabia published similar statements. The Palestinians said they will never accept this demand...
Specifically, they demand the right to relocate 4.6 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants (UNRWA's figure) to Israel - a demand from which they have never budged in 16 years of negotiations. This influx, combined with the 1.5 million Arab citizens, would make its 5.6 million Jews a minority in their own country, effectively eradicating the Jewish state.
Thus it is the Palestinians, not Israel, who have placed its Jewish character on the negotiating table. Netanyahu, far from raising new and irrelevant demands, is merely responding to theirs.
Moreover, far from being an obstacle to peace, Netanyahu's demand is indeed essential to it - because the Jewish state will never agree to abolish itself via a peace treaty. Hence until the Palestinians stop demanding that it do so, no treaty will be possible.
This is not exactly true -- the whole point of 2 states for 2 peoples is to trick or bludgeon Israel into suicidal self-emasculation, as was done to Czechoslovakia before World War II. But Netanyahu's demand, if met, would make the emasculation much less likely -- see below:
Since this already is a Jewish state, Palestinian recognition of this fact would in no way worsen Israeli Arabs' existing situation...
Indeed, the only effect Palestinian recognition of Israel's Jewish character could have on Israeli Arabs is forcing them to abandon the delusion of someday eliminating it via mass Palestinian immigration...
Successive Israeli governments have committed explicitly to the goal of a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians have yet to abandon their demand for the demographic elimination of the Jewish one. It has thus become increasingly clear that the real problem is not the refugees, but Palestinian unwillingness to accept the very existence of a Jewish state. And since Israel will not agree to commit suicide, further talks will be pointless unless this unwillingness changes.
Yet the justice of making recognition a precondition for talks goes far deeper than that, as a Palestinian parallel ironically demonstrates. Prior to his speech last Sunday, Netanyahu had refused to commit to the goal of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians refused to resume negotiations unless he did... Essentially, the Palestinian position was "we will not agree to negotiate about whether we have a right to exist; we are only prepared to discuss the details." But the Jewish state is also not prepared to negotiate about whether it has a right to exist. It, too, is only prepared to discuss the details: borders, water rights, compensating the refugees, etc. And despite its initial belief in Palestinian good faith, it never should have allowed the "right of return" onto the table: No sane country would agree to make its very existence a subject of negotiations.
Netanyahu, however inconsistently, is belatedly trying to correct this fatal error, and he deserves the world's wholehearted support. And this is not merely because, practically speaking, no peace deal will be possible unless the Palestinians accept the Jewish state's existence.
Primarily, it is because the Jewish state cannot be the only state in the world whose very right to exist is subject to negotiations. And the Jewish people cannot be the only people in the world whose right to a nation-state of its own is deemed negotiable.
According to an article in last weekend... written in collaboration with a journalist inside Iran, the protests were started not by supporters of Mousavi but rather by supporters of his wife Zahra Rahnavard.
It was Rahnavard, a professor of art history, author of more than a dozen books on art, former government minister and former chancellor of Alzahra University in Teheran, who called for the protests when the altered results came in. (She and her husband were originally told that they won, and then several hours later the official announcement was changed.) The million protesters running to the streets calling for an end to radical Islamic rule in Iran came because of her not him. In fact, what you might not read in the media is that at the beginning, most of the protesters were women.
WELL IT'S about time. Radical Islam is worse for women than arguably any other group.... Women are the ones arrested in Iran for having an ankle showing or for wearing lipstick. After three such arrests, women go to prison. At the fourth arrest, they get a public lashing. For Ahmadinejad, the ideal woman is not only covered from head to toe, literally, but is not to be seen in public - ever. Iranians have no idea what his wife looks like because, as per his wishes, she is never seen. Ahmadinejad's vision of an ideal society is not just Israel-less but also women-less.... Women's oppression is the symbol of radical Islamic rule around the world.
So now women are finally protesting in a way that the world can see and hear. And lots of men are joining as well. It took the leadership of a powerful woman to bring them out, but once the truth begins to emerge, there is no turning back. Rahnavard, educated... and fearless, inspired them to believe in change. She is not only seen in public, but she speaks - loudly. Every once in a while she will even remove her chador in protest of the Islamic regime, just to make the point. She is her husband's political partner - they are even seen holding hands in public, which apparently makes Ahmadinejad fume. When Ahmadinejad was elected in 2006, she spoke out from her position as university president against his victory. "He hates women," she said from her pulpit. She was fired shortly thereafter.
Geraldine Brooks, in her outstanding book Nine Parts of Desire about women and Islam, demonstrates unequivocally that radical Islam's fight against the world hinges on the role of women. The more their woman are covered, the more religious men claim to be... What we are really watching in Iran is women taking to the streets, under the unofficial leadership of a woman, to challenge the dark, barbaric rule of radical Islam...
So now US President Barack Obama offers a position of noninvolvement. He doesn't want to interfere, he has said, in "internal" Iranian politics. He's like a police officer walking into an apartment where a man is beating his wife and saying, "It's between the two of you." When he does that, the aggressor smiles and the victim screams in horror. Victims need intervention - and aggressors want everyone to look the other way.
That's why there is really no such thing as neutrality, especially not when a terrorist regime is systematically and brutally killing those who fight for human rights. Neutrality in the face of aggression by definition empowers the aggressor. The only ones to benefit from this false stance of neutrality are the brutal attackers. The victims - in this case, women - are crying out for help.
It is quite telling that the new hero of this movement is a heroine - shot while watching from the side. The video of Neda Soltan horrifically bleeding out and dying is not the only element of the story to get people's attention. Also "before" and "after" photos of her - that is, before and after she was forced into religious subservience by Islamic law - are quite shocking, a transformation from free woman to imprisoned chattel. These photos tell the real story about what is going on in Iran.
Thursday marks three years since Palestinian infiltrators tunneled into Israel from the Gaza Strip, killed Lt. Hanan Barak and St.-Sgt. Pavel Slutsker and dragged our young soldier into captivity.
Hamas has held Schalit incommunicado. Violating international law and human decency, and although Hamas prisoners in Israel are permitted visitors, Gaza's rulers have refused to allow even the Red Cross to see their Israeli hostage.
NEGOTIATIONS under Egyptian auspices for Schalit's release are accelerating. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in Cairo this week, and a top Egyptian intelligence operative was said to have been in Tel Aviv yesterday on Schalit-related business.
Schalit's parents have not known a day of tranquility in three years and Israel must strive to bring him safely home - but not at any cost: Hamas has been insisting on the release of 1,000 prisoners in exchange for their Israeli hostage.
This newspaper raises no objection to freeing a modest number of prisoners, provided their release won't jeopardize more Israeli lives - though we regret the release yesterday of West Bank Hamas politician Aziz Dweik, while Schalit remains a prisoner.
However, we remain adamantly opposed to trading Schalit for mass-murderers such as Abdullah Barghouti, who has the blood of 66 Israelis on his hands (Sbarro, etc.); Ibrahim Hamed, who murdered 36 (Moment café, etc); Abbas Sayad (Netanya massacre, Pessah 2006).
It is not surprising that just as talk of an imminent deal on Schalit is circulating, so too is news of a blue-ribbon Defense Ministry panel shortly submitting its proposed guidelines governing future prisoner exchanges. These would constrain decision-makers in making obscenely lopsided exchanges: There would reportedly be no more releases of vast numbers of enemy prisoners for one or two Israeli soldiers, and only terrorist corpses - not live prisoners - could be traded for fallen Israelis.
These guidelines are eminently reasonable, and should - but won't - be applied to the Schalit case.
Once the wrenching Schalit affair is ended, we urge an efficient commission of inquiry into why there was no attempt to rescue the soldier over three years. Israelis have the right to know why the risks to the civilian population in releasing busloads of terrorists were deemed to trump those of a rescue mission.
If the government miscalculates the Schalit endgame, it could inadvertently fortify Hamas, endanger Israeli civilians and set the stage for the next hostage ordeal.
President Bush said liberating Iraq would have a regional domino effect and give people a taste for freedom and democracy. Is this what we’re seeing now in Iran?
As Bush said, liberty isn’t American, or British, or French. It is human. No, the morality police in Iran are not just “part of Iranian culture” as some critics of Bush have claimed. Nor are public hangings. Nor are arbitrary detentions of doctors, or Holocaust denial conferences.
Peace comes through the spread of liberalism and democracy. Whatever the “foreign policy realists” or “regime apologists” might claim, there is little doubt in my view that should Iran become a free nation the world will be a safer place for all, not just a better place for Iranians.
I have posted some videos of the Iranian uprising... and I would strongly urge you to watch them.
[Warning: these videos show graphic -- and real -- violence. -ed.]
They show the reality of Iran’s dictatorship, a reality that many international TV networks are refusing to show. Some of these videos are disturbing but I feel they need to be watched to understand the true nature of Iran’s regime and why it should never be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.
To state the obvious, this is not some video game or Hollywood movie. These events really happened, and they happened last week, and the leader of the free world, Barack Obama, has been extraordinarily slow to criticize them.
Iran's Guardian Council admitted to irregularities in the June 12 presidential election, implying that the number of votes from the June 12 presidential election collected in 50 cities surpasses the number of eligible voters.
Council spokesperson Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, speaking on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Channel 2 on Sunday, made the remarks in an attempt to play down accusations of election fraud launched by failed presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei.
"Statistics provided by the candidates, who claim more than 100% of those eligible cast their ballot in 80-170 cities are not accurate - the incident happened in only 50 cities," Kadkhodaei was quoted on the Iranian state-funded Website Press TV.
Only 50? Well, that makes me feel better. How about you?
Iran’s most powerful oversight council announced on Monday that the number of votes recorded in 50 cities exceeded the number of eligible voters there by three million, further tarnishing a presidential election that has set off the most sustained challenge to Iran’s leadership in 30 years.
The legitimacy of the vote remains at the core of the dispute. On Monday, the Guardian Council sought to help validate the outcome when it announced there had been discrepancies... which it said involved up to three million votes, not enough to overturn the landslide election margin that the government had announced for Mr. Ahmadinejad. But the recognition of a broad discrepancy between the number of recorded votes and registered voters in some districts only fueled suspicions that the election — and the Guardian Council’s arbitration of it — was unfair.
The Guardian Council is scheduled to certify or nullify the vote on Wednesday, or, some speculated, call for a runoff between the two top vote-getters. It has so far appeared to prejudge the race as fair and legitimate.
The extra votes add to a list of complaints leveled against the election by the reform candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, and other challengers inside and outside Iran. Among them:
How did the government manage to count enough of the 40 million paper ballots to be able to announce results within two hours of the polls closing? How is it that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s margin of victory remained constant throughout the ballot count? Why did the government order polls closed at 10 p.m. when they often stay open until midnight for presidential races? Why were some ballot boxes sealed before candidates’ inspectors could validate they were empty? Why were votes counted centrally, by the Interior Ministry, instead of locally, as in the past? Why did some polling places lock their doors at 6 p.m. after running out of ballots?
Iran is the leader of the Islamist terror network world-wide, the funder and backer of Hizb'allah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and other unsavory groups, and a budding nuclear power led by fanatical, messianic leaders longing to bring on an Islamic Armageddon. The recent uprising there could change all that, making this one of the biggest stories related to the security of Israel, and the entire Western World, in a long time.
What began 9 days ago as a protest of possible rigged results in the June 12th Iranian presidential elections may well have escalated with the number of casualties resulting from brutality on the part of Iranian security forces, including police and members of the Basij militia, and with a report of Iranian state-run press TV that former President Hashemi Rafsanjani's eldest daughter and four other unidentified members of his family were arrested late Saturday. An AP report on Yahoo points to a split amongst Iranian clerics. The big question now is whether the Iran uprising is about rigged elections or full-scale revolution:
Iran's government said Sunday it arrested the daughter and four other relatives of ...Rafsanjani, one of the country's most powerful men, in a move that exposed a rift among the ruling Islamic clerics over the disputed presidential election.
State-run Press TV reported that Rafsanjani's eldest daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, and four other unidentified family members were arrested late Saturday. On Sunday evening, it said the four others had been released but that Hashemi remained in detention.
Last week, state television showed images of Hashemi, 46, speaking to hundreds of supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. He alleges fraud in the June 12 election, which the government said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won.
The arrests are the strongest sign yet of a serious divide among Iran's ruling clerics.
Rafsanjani, 75, heads two powerful institutions. One of them, the cleric-run Assembly of Experts, has the power to monitor and remove the supreme leader, the country's most powerful figure. The second is the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council, which can block legislation.
The assembly has never publicly reprimanded the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since he succeeded Islamic Revolution founder Aytollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. But the current crisis has rattled the once-untouchable stature of the supreme leader with protesters openly defying his orders to leave the streets.
Underscoring how the protesters have become emboldened despite the regime's repeated and ominous warnings, witnesses said some shouted "Death to Khamenei!" at Saturday's demonstrations — another sign of once unthinkable challenges to the virtually limitless authority of the supreme leader.
Rafsanjani was deeply critical of Ahmadinejad during the presidential campaign and has the potential to lead an internal challenge to Khamenei...
Iran's regime continued to impose a blackout on the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
But fresh images and allegations of brutality emerged as Iranians at home and abroad sought to shed light on a week of astonishing resistance to hard-line Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.
The New-York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said scores of injured demonstrators who had sought medical treatment after Saturday's clashes were arrested by security forces at hospitals in the capital...
Thousands of supporters of Mousavi, who claims he won the election, squared off Saturday against security forces in a dramatic show of defiance of Khamenei...
Saturday's unrest came a day after Khamenei sternly warned Mousavi and his backers to all off demonstrations or risk being held responsible for "bloodshed, violence and rioting." Delivering a sermon at Friday prayers attended by tens of thousands, Khamenei sided firmly with Ahmadinejad, calling the result "an absolute victory" that reflected popular will and ordering opposition leaders to end their street protests.
The Iranian police commander, in green uniform, walked up Komak Hospital Alley with arms raised and his small unit at his side. “I swear to God,” he shouted at the protesters facing him, “I have children, I have a wife, I don’t want to beat people. Please go home.”
A man... threw a rock at him. The commander, unflinching, continued to plead. There were chants of “Join us! Join us!” The unit retreated toward Revolution Street, where vast crowds eddied back and forth confronted by baton-wielding Basij militia and black-clad riot police officers on motorbikes.
The taboo-breaking response was unequivocal. It’s funny how people’s obsessions come back to bite them. I’ve been hearing about Khamenei’s fear of “velvet revolutions” for months now. There was nothing velvet about Saturday’s clashes. In fact, the initial quest to have Moussavi’s votes properly counted and Ahmadinejad unseated has shifted to a broader confrontation with the regime itself.
Garbage burned. Crowds bayed. Smoke from tear gas swirled. Hurled bricks sent phalanxes of police, some with automatic rifles, into retreat to the accompaniment of cheers. Early afternoon rumors that the rally for Moussavi had been canceled yielded to the reality of violent confrontation.
I don’t know where this uprising is leading. I do know some police units are wavering. That commander talking about his family was not alone. There were other policemen complaining about the unruly Basijis. Some security forces just stood and watched. “All together, all together, don’t be scared,” the crowd shouted.
Iranian state television on Sunday brought the official confirmed death toll to twenty, when it reported that 13 people were killed in violent clashes between police and what they call "terrorist groups." Seven deaths were confirmed last week.
The report did not specify how the deaths occurred...
CNN reported that at least 19 people were killed on Saturday based on eyewitness accounts of medical officials in Teheran's hospitals. CNN also quoted unconfirmed reports that put the actual death toll at 150.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman clashed over US demands for a freeze on settlements in Palestinian territory.
At a press conference after talks in Washington on Wednesday, Clinton reaffirmed US demands for an end to settlement building but her Israeli counterpart rejected the call.
Perhaps it is naive to expect unbiased news coverage today, especially where Israel is concerned. But the land in question has never been controlled by a Palestinian Arab entity and almost all the settlements are built on empty land where no Arabs lived or are living. So using the phrase "Palestinian territory" can only mean a) that the author of the story doesn't know anything about Middle Eastern history or b) the author is trying to influence the ultimate arrangements for that territory by making people think that it was once owned by the Palestinian Arabs and therefore should revert back to their control
Either way, one would expect accuracy from major news outlets, regardless of their political positions. Words matter.
