Archived
news and commentary: March 4 - 10, 2002
2002/03/25 - 2002/03/31
2002/03/18 - 2002/03/24
2002/03/11 - 2002/03/17
2002/03/04 - 2002/03/10
2002/02/25 - 2002/03/03
2002/02/18 - 2002/02/24
2002/02/11 - 2002/02/17
2002/02/04 - 2002/02/10
2002/01/28 - 2002/02/03
2002/01/21 - 2002/01/27
2002/01/14 - 2002/01/20
2002/01/07 - 2002/01/13
2002/01/01 - 2002/01/06
Sunday,
March 10, 2002
News and commentary:
"A Foul Wind" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2002/03/10)
"There is something about this new, intensely violent, stage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is starting to feel like the fuse for a much larger war of civilizations. ... But once these forces are all bundled together, they express themselves in the most heated anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiments that I've ever felt. ... "The question is whether Palestinian extremists will do what bin Laden could not: trigger a civilizational war," said the Middle East analyst Stephen P. Cohen. 'If you are willing to give up your own life and that of thousands of your own people, the overwhelming power of America and Israel does not deter you any more. ... That's why this Israeli-Palestinian war is not just a local ethnic conflict that we can ignore. It resonates with too many millions of people, connected by too many satellite TV's, with too many dangerous weapons.'""Israel destroys Arafat's Gaza HQ" (BBC News, 2002/03/10)
"Israel helicopters and gunboats have totally destroyed the headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Gaza. The operation came early on Sunday morning, hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 and injured more than 50 at a busy cafe in West Jerusalem."
"Rewarding Palestinian terrorism" (The Jerusalem Post, 2002/03/10)
"In a stunning reversal of policy, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Friday night that he would agree to negotiate under fire with the Palestinian Authority and would no longer insist on seven days of absolute quiet as a precursor to such talks. ... By suddenly reversing course, Sharon has done precisely what he warned against all along - he has rewarded Palestinian intransigence, handing Yasser Arafat a major diplomatic victory while receiving nothing in return. ... By failing to stand firm on the principles which he himself enunciated and insisted upon, he risks inviting unremitting pressure on Israel in the future."
"Bin Laden's men wait to take bloody revenge" (Jason Burke, The Observer, 2002/03/10)
An article from The Observer's "6 months on: special issue": "From the nuclear, chemical and biological documents seized in Afghanistan we know what damage they want to do. Quite what they will or can do is unclear. To an extent, it depends on how many men they can recruit and what governments, domestic and foreign, can do to turn young men in Gaza, in Jeddah, in Khartoum, Kabul and Coventry, away from the seductive cool, cold certainties of radical Islam. Either way, although the physical infrastructure of al-Qaeda may have been destroyed, and bin Laden may be dead, it is certain that al-Qaeda will pose a clear danger for the foreseeable future.""Continental Drift - How to combat Europe's toothless anti-Americanism" (Charles Moore, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/03/10)
"Ever since President Bush's "axis of evil" speech, Europeans have been fuming over what they see as U.S. war-mongering. Indeed, to many European sophisticates, the mere idea of "rogue states" is seen as crude. ... And here we arrive at the crux of the problem. To the European elite, the language of morality in foreign affairs is, to use a favored diplomatic word, "unhelpful." Nothing in international relations is good or bad, the elites believe; certainly nothing is "evil." Unilateral action is, to use a word forbidden by the previous proposition, bad. Military action alone solves nothing. True statecraft must address what are seen as root causes. One cause of terrorism, in the more extreme European versions of this argument, is America."
Saturday,
March 9, 2002
News and commentary:
"Explosion rocks Jerusalem cafe" (BBC News, 2002/03/09)
"Up to nine people are reported dead and more than 30 injured in an explosion in a busy cafe in West Jerusalem. The blast was said to have occurred in the Moment cafe, a few hundred metres from the offices of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. ... Throughout the day, Israeli forces kept up attacks on Palestinian areas, launching helicopter raids and rounding up hundreds of Palestinian men.""Losing the Middle East?" (Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Weekly Standard, 2002/03/09)
"The Islamic kamikazes in Israel are not blowing themselves to bits because Israel refuses to give back all of the "settlements," which comprise a bit less than 1.5 percent of the West Bank and Gaza; they are not killing themselves because of where and how a sovereignty line should be drawn in East Jerusalem. ... Palestinian holy warriors are martyring themselves because they believe that with God's help they can smite the Jews and take back all that they believe was theirs. ... Islamic militants don't want to compromise with Israel any more than Osama bin Laden wants to compromise with America. ... We may morally recoil from what war demands of us - and in that revulsion lies our humanity - but it is preposterous to suggest that diplomacy has any relevance when your enemy is hurling suicide bombers at you. The "peace process" for years, probably decades, is finished.""Redrawing the Map - It's pointless to talk "peace" when Arabs seek to destroy Israel" (The Wall Street Journal, 2002/03/09)
"Would Winston Churchill have sat down for negotiations with an enemy whose ultimate goal was to drive the British into the North Sea? That essentially is what is being asked of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by those who claim that the alternative to today's escalation of violence is a "peace" plan, say along the lines of the one being promoted by Saudi Arabia. ... But the real problem with the Saudi plan is that it will not resolve the niggling fact that denying Israel's right to exist is still de facto Palestinian Authority, indeed pan-Arab, policy. ... Israel has no choice but to wage this kind of war until its enemies give up the idea of destroying Israel. A real conclusion to the violence in the Middle East requires Mr. Arafat and his followers to change the map inside their heads. Until they do, Jews and Palestinians alike will continue to suffer, and no new "peace plan" will make any difference.""Sharon Eases Cease-Fire Demands" (Lee Hockstader and Alan Sipress, The Washington Post, 2002/03/09)
"Under pressure from the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced this evening he would relax his demand for seven days of absolute quiet before Israel renews truce talks with the Palestinians. His announcement came as a ferocious Israeli military offensive killed about 40 more Palestinians today, the highest one-day death toll in 17 months of fighting. The Israeli leader's aides said that rather than insisting on a full week's cease-fire as a precondition for renewing security talks, as he has for months, Sharon would accept an indeterminate number of days in which, in his judgment, the Palestinians made a serious effort to crack down on violence."
Friday,
March 8, 2002
News and commentary:
"U.S. to Resume Mideast Peace Effort" (Alan Sipress, The Washington Post, 2002/03/08)
"President Bush yesterday ordered his special envoy Anthony C. Zinni back to a Middle East staggered by unprecedented bloodletting between Israelis and Palestinians, shelving the administration's longtime insistence that the sides begin restoring calm before the United States resumes its role as peace broker.""Mid-East sees bloodiest day" (BBC News, 2002/03/08)
"Friday has become the bloodiest day in the 17 months of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, against Israel, with some 50 people reported dead. Following the killing of five Israeli students by a Palestinian gunman, Israeli forces launched a fresh assault on the territories. At least 44 Palestinians were killed with Yasser Arafat's security forces bearing the brunt of the casualties."
"Edward Said and the War Against Terrorism" (Ronald Radosh, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/03/08)
"To Said, the problem is not that we in the West and in our own country are faced with a major and dangerous terrorist foe, a foe inspired by radical Islam - but rather the problem is "how to deal with the unparalleled and unprecedented power of the United States," whose rulers - a "small circle of men," - have decided to unleash an unjust war against the entire Muslim world. We have, in clear words, his main point: The enemy of the world is the United States and our democratically elected leaders. Among other crimes, it has carried out what he calls the "Israelisation of US Policy," symbolized by what he sees as a kowtowing to Arial Sharon. ... What Said attempts to do is to deflect our attention away from this very real threat, and to make it appear that the Bush administration simply views any nation with different views as an enemy, or as he puts it, 'eradicating everyone who opposes the US.'" (See also: "Thoughts About America" (Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly/ZNet, 2002/03/02))"Down with Saudi Arabia" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2002/03/09 issue)
"The royal family derives such legitimacy as it has from its role as the guardian and promoter of Wahhabism. It is, therefore, the ideological font of militant Islamism in the way that Saddam and Boy Assad and Mubarak and the other Arab thugs aren’t. Saddam is as Islamic as the wind is blowing: say what you like about the old mass murderer, but his malign activities are not, in that sense, defined by his religion. One cannot say the same for the House of Saud. If the issue is ‘religious tensions’, who’s fomenting them, from Pakistan to the Balkans to America itself? Saudi Arabia should be a "root cause" we can all agree on."
Thursday,
March 7, 2002
News and commentary:
"Powell Criticizes Sharon, Attacks On Palestinians" (Alan Sipress, The Washington Post, 2002/03/07)
"Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday criticized Israel's decision to wage war on the Palestinians, reflecting mounting frustration in the Bush administration about the increasingly harsh measures ordered by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. ... "Prime Minister Sharon has to take a hard look at his policies to see whether they will work. If you declare war against the Palestinians thinking that you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians can be killed, I don't think that leads us anywhere," Powell told the House Appropriations Committee.""Memo to Mr. Carter: Evil Exists" (Norbert Vollertsen, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/03/07)
"President Bush has rightly identified North Korea as a prison state that uses terrorism against its own people. Moreover, his "axis of evil" has sent a strong message to the North Korean people that they are not forgotten--and they are listening. Every North Korean defector I spoke to over several weeks was delighted by President Bush's words. For the first time in their lives they feel as if the outside world understands the hell they have endured. Moreover, they are full of hope that, like President Reagan's "evil empire" speech," President Bush's "axis of evil" speech will eventually lead to the collapse of Kim Jong Il's brutal regime. Perhaps those who are outraged with President Bush's choice of words should ask survivors of the Holocaust, survivors of the Soviet gulag and survivors of North Korea's concentration camps what they think of Mr. Bush's use of the word 'evil.'""Left Plays Survivor" (Stanley Kurtz, National Review, 2002/03/07)
"Wideman begins with the fact that he is an African American living at the "ground zero" of pervasive American racism: "I'm sorry. I'm an American of African descent, and I can't applaud my president for doing unto foreign others what he's inflicted on me and mine." ... His point is that Bush has cooked up a fraudulent war abroad "to upstage and camouflage the real war at home" (i.e. the "war" of a racist white American society against blacks). Wideman has next to nothing to say about Islamic terrorism. He's preoccupied instead with the cultural and political effects on America of a war with "alarmingly open-ended goals." Bush's "phony war," says Wideman is being waged not "to defend America from an external foe but to homogenize and coerce its citizens under a flag of rabid nationalism." ... We use the word "terrorist," Wideman says, to deny the possibility of "reasoned exchange" with our foes, to project the evil in ourselves onto a despised "Other." Funny, I thought it was the terrorists themselves who'd traded in reasoned exchange for murderous scapegoating.""The Israeli army must learn new tactics - or lose the war" (John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/03/07)
"Yasser Arafat would say that, if Israel withdrew from the occupied territories, the violence would cease. Israelis have good reason to doubt that. They would have given up much, without winning Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist. Practical people, of whom Creveld is one, would propose something different. First, a reduction of the IDF's responsibilities, by withdrawal from the most exposed settlements in Palestinian territory; there is absolutely no reason, Zionist politics apart, for it to have to defend a Jewish presence in Nablus, an entirely Arab city. ... Third, a measure of separation is probably inevitable, if suicide bombing is to be controlled. That would entail a disruption of the economic life of Israelis and Arabs but is preferable to a descent into a Hobbesian horror of the war of all against all."Note: My new computer is finally up and running, which means the coverage will be back to normal after a couple of weeks of more sporadic updates.
Wednesday,
March 6, 2002
News and commentary:
"The Core of Muslim Rage" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2002/03/06)
"Why is it that when Hindus kill hundreds of Muslims it elicits an emotionally muted headline in the Arab media, but when Israel kills a dozen Muslims, in a war in which Muslims are also killing Jews, it inflames the entire Muslim world? ... When Hindus kill Muslims it's not a story, because there are a billion Hindus and they aren't part of the Muslim narrative. When Saddam murders his own people it's not a story, because it's in the Arab-Muslim family. But when a small band of Israeli Jews kills Muslims it sparks rage — a rage that must come from Muslims having to confront the gap between their self-perception as Muslims and the reality of the Muslim world. ... Three broad trends are now converging: (1) The worst killing ever between Israelis and Palestinians; (2) a baby boom in the Arab-Muslim world, where about half the population is under 20; (3) an explosion of Arab satellite TV and Internet, which are taking the horrific images from the intifada and beaming them directly to the new Arab-Muslim generation. If 100 million Arab-Muslims are brought up with these images, Israel won't survive.""Saudi Peace Sham" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2002/03/06)
"In 35 years of studying the Middle East, I have rarely seen anything to rival the Saudi "peace plan" for cynicism (of those pushing the plan) and gullibility (of those buying it). If it were not so tragic it would be comic. Israeli civilians are being blown up almost daily in restaurants, at bus stops, at prayer. Retaliatory attacks are launched by the hour. A new "peace plan" is then floated whose essence is this: When peace is achieved between the two parties killing each other on the ground, the Saudis will give it their blessing and make peace too."
Tuesday,
March 5, 2002
News and commentary:
"Egyptian Columnist: Guantanamo is the Real Auschwitz" (Special Dispatch No. 351, MEMRI, 2002/03/05)
"An article by Islamist Dr. Rif'at Sayyid Ahmad, titled "Guantanamo, the Auschwitz of the American era: J'accuse!!" recently appeared in the Lebanese daily Al-Liwa. ... '...We always see how human beings prey upon each other, how values are trampled, and how tragedies recur. This is exactly what happened, and is still happening, at the 'American Auschwitz' detention camp...excuse me, I meant the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay!! This is one of the worst deeds of the American era in which we live, and one of the most infamous of its crimes, and will go down in history if [history] is written by men of honor, not by traitors.'""Violence Escalates as Mideast Leaders Inflame Fighting" (Lee Hockstader and Daniel Williams, The Washington Post, 2002/03/05)
"Amid the bloodiest eruption of violence between Israelis and Palestinians in a generation, the two sides pounded each other with missiles, bombs, rockets and bullets today as the fighting reached a new level of lethality - and, perhaps, a chilling new clarity. ... More than 85 people have died in the last week alone, the steepest tally in 17 months of steadily escalating mutual destruction. Even after days of double-digit death tolls, there was every indication both sides were ready for more intense fighting. Israeli F-16 war planes and helicopter gunships struck targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip today, killing at least two Palestinian militants. Those attacks followed the killings of five Israelis in three separate Palestinian attacks by breakfast time this morning – a shooting spree in a trendy restaurant in Tel Aviv that killed three; a suicide bomb on a bus in northern Israel; and a sniper attack on a road used by Jewish settlers in the West Bank."
Monday,
March 4, 2002
News and commentary:
"Saudi schools fuel anti-US anger" (Charles M. Sennott, Boston Globe Online, 2002/03/04)
"At the Islamic Law department here at King Khalid University, students line up to buy cassette tapes and printed pamphlets from militant Islamic clerics whose sermons burn with anti-American sentiment and ''fatwas,'' or religious decrees, declaring holy war against infidels. At a public high school in this provincial town in the southwest part of the country, 10th-grade classes are forced to memorize from a Ministry of Education textbook entitled ''Monotheism'' that is replete with anti-Christian and anti-Jewish bigotry and violent interpretations of Islamic scripture. A passage on page 64 under the title ''Judgment Day'' says: 'The Hour will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews, and Muslims will kill all the Jews.'''"Are too many Muslims in denial about September 11?" (Barbara Amiel, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/03/04)
"In that context, the proposal the New York Times attributes to Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia that Israel should return to its 1967 borders and then the Saudis and Arab world would consider recognition, seems a deal one can't immediately recommend - though there is a hint of some flexibility in it regarding Jerusalem. The many problems of the proposal begin with the question of whether it exists or is merely kite-flying. But, to mention only one objection, such a proposal would mean Israel giving up tangible assets in exchange for the promise of eventually getting a piece of paper signed by countries that you know regard Israel's very existence as "a catastrophe". This seems, to put it mildly, unwise.""U.S. Planes Pound Enemy as Troops Face Tough Fight" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/03/04)
"American bombers flying round-the-clock sorties struck positions believed to be held by fighters of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the folds of 11,500-foot-high mountains near this provincial town for the second successive day today, as allied ground forces met some of the fiercest resistance since American military operations began across Afghanistan five months ago. ... Military officials said the ground operations involved American and Afghan troops, as well as contingents from Australia and Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and Norway, for a total of about 1,500, making it by far the largest ground combat operation of the war."See the archive for earlier news and commentary.
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Articles
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"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)
"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)
"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)
"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)
"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)
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Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.
"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)
"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)
"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)
"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)
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