Came across this Washington Post article in Google’s roundup of world news:

Danny Rubenstein, Haaretz’s veteran West Bank correspondent, notes a perhaps unanticipated result of the Bush administration’s campaign for democracy in the Arab world. The Bush policy to starve Hamas financially is tacitly supported by unelected Arab regimes resisting Bush’s calls for democratization.

“In their view, the successful functioning of the Hamas government sends a message of encouragement to opposition groups in their countries, proof that an Islamic government can rule,” Rubenstein says.

Rubenstein doubts that the U.S.-European aid cutoff will persuade Palestinians to abandon Hamas.

“It is clear to everyone now that whatever Fatah, Israel, the Arab states and the entire world do to undermine the Hamas government will not work,” he writes. “The Palestinian public is loyal to it. So it is best to look for a way to live with it.”

Personally, I can’t bring myself to be so pessimistic. Fantastic if Hamas is starved out of its stance… but also fantastic if the Palestinian Authority finally learns to actually run a government, something that the “governing bodies” of the Palestinian territories have never yet learned to do. When “Palestine” proves itself capable of supporting its people, That is when a two-state solution will actually be implemented, whether it be by mutual agreement by two governments, or imposed by Israel, seeing as how the representatives of the Palestinian people has never yet over the decades accepted any two-state solution put forth in good faith by the Israeli government.

A little pessimism creeps in here: when the Palestinians have their own independant state, Palestine will continue to attack Israel. However, any attacks perpetrated against Israel by a sovreign Palestinian state could no longer be framable in a light of a “fight for freedom” but will rather be seen for what it is, and has been all along: an actual war against the Jewish State, and will be treated accordingly.

Sunday, April 30th, I spent about 10 hours on a bus for three hours at a rally. I went with about 100 folks from my synagogue and brought along Jason and Ana. While there we ran in to Alex completely by chance.

People ask me how the rally was. That is a very difficult to answer question. My first impulse is to say “it was good.” Because it was good. The weather was beautiful. The turnout was good. The media coverage was good. The experience was enjoyable.

But is that what makes a good rally?

Did I get riled up? Did I shout and cheer and scream and clap my hands? No. I didn’t. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care about Darfur as much as those who were yelling and screaming and waving signs. I was taking pictures. I was taking mental notes. I was contemplating hypocrisy.

The crowd was for the large part comprised of those same protesters who claim anti-interventionism with regards to Afghanistan and Iraq, but want troops on the ground in Sudan.

The same protesters who condemn the US for ignoring or circumventing the UN’s ineffectuality in the declaration of war against Saddam Hussein’s genocidal regime here condemn the UN’s ineffectuality and the Bush administration’s lack of action.

They want troops out of Iraq and into Sudan. They don’t buy the humanitarian angle in the middle east, but demand it in Africa. They refuse to recognize the common strain of Arab Imperialism in the two conflicts. They refuse to see the hypocrisy of their cries “It’s All About The Oil!” in both situations.

So yes, it was hard to get riled up and to shout and scream and cheer. Because the cause was the same, but I found very little else in common with the shouts and cheers and cries and slogans of the folks around me.

Many held aloft the noble sentiment “Never Again.” But apparently “never” means something different to them as to myself and Ana and Jason.

I have pictures, but do not yet have a means by which to upload them. Soon.

Here’s a nice educational site.

A few of my favorites of the “top ten facts you need to know”

1. In the summer of 2000, Israel offered the Palestinian Arabs 97% of the land they claim to be fighting for, making Israel the first and only country ever to offer the Palestinian Arabs a homeland. This offer was rejected with no counter-offer from the Palestinians.

6. Three major attempts to destroy Israel have been carried out by the Arab World: in 1947, 1967, and 1973. Although many neighboring Arab countries today still wish to destroy Israel, Israel still seeks peace. Israel has forged peace agreements with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), and has lived in peace with these countries ever since.

7. The West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza were never controlled by any Palestinian government or organization until 1993, when Israel agreed to give the Palestinian Authority certain controls under the Oslo Peace accords.

9. There have been roughly as many Jews displaced from Arab Nations as Arabs displaced from Israeli territory. Israel has absorbed the Jewish refugees, yet the Arab world refuses to accept the Palestinian Arabs into their countries.

Oh, there’s more. There’s a lot more.

Also, I came across this the other day:

“I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it,” [Palestinian Foreign Minister] Zahar said in the interview. “I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (will materialize).”

This dream, he added, “will become real one day. I’m certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land.”

Meanwhile the new Hamas government is appealing for international financial aid cause they’re, well… bankrupt.

In more ways than one, I might add.

Allison takes a deep breath and talks about Gaza.

Here’s the deal: when Fatah is in charge, Hamas and Islamic Jihad hurl Kassam rockets at Israel. When Hamas is in charge, Fatah hurl the rockets. Unless Fatah and Hamas have it out militarily and a winner is declared — the rocket-firing isn’t going to stop. Someone’s going to be tossing them. But I’m not supposed to wish civil war on them, right? That would be terrible. So I don’t.

Because as Jews we are taught not to wish ill on others. That is our teaching.

And so the rockets continue to get fired. Of course we Israelis aren’t going to sit around twiddling our thumbs and let them hurl rockets at us, and we shouldn’t — that’s not our style and no country can sit back and let its citizens be attacked. We’re going to fire back, and do everything we can to go after the people who are hurling the rockets. And so we bomb and shell, which of course, instantly turns us into the evil bad guys in the eyes of the world.

I agree with Allison… it’s depressing. Terribly so. Makes you just want to duck under the covers and ignore it all.

But you don’t get stronger without getting out of bed and exercising. So I’m not going to be ignoring the world anymore. I’m going to go back to reading and learning everything I can… and I’m not going to keep quiet anymore.

Because Global is Local. This is my world.

Snatched from Good Ol’ Glenn

In February 1999, Zahawie left his Vatican office for a few days and paid an official visit to Niger, a country known for absolutely nothing except its vast deposits of uranium ore. It was from Niger that Iraq had originally acquired uranium in 1981, as confirmed in the Duelfer Report. In order to take the Joseph Wilson view of this Baathist ambassadorial initiative, you have to be able to believe that Saddam Hussein’s long-term main man on nuclear issues was in Niger to talk about something other than the obvious. Italian intelligence (which first noticed the Zahawie trip from Rome) found it difficult to take this view and alerted French intelligence (which has better contacts in West Africa and a stronger interest in nuclear questions). In due time, the French tipped off the British, who in their cousinly way conveyed the suggestive information to Washington. As everyone now knows, the disclosure appeared in watered-down and secondhand form in the president’s State of the Union address in January 2003.

I think that Mr. Hitchens is on to something. It looks like perhaps there was something to that now widely ridiculed assertion made by The President in the 2003 State of the Union Address.

But if all of this evidence was so overwhelmingly there, why the ridicule? From whence comes all this “Bush Lies, Who Dies” rhetoric?

For a start, someone produced a fake document, dated July 6, 2000, which purports to show Zahawie’s signature and diplomatic seal on an actual agreement for an Iraqi uranium transaction with Niger. Almost everything was wrong with this crude forgery—it had important dates scrambled, and it misstated the offices of Niger politicians.

Hmm. Interesting. Now why would anyone produce such a blatantly obvious forgery when no one looking at the actual situation could possibly see anything but sinister goings-on?

There seem to be only three possibilities here. Either a) American intelligence concocted the note; b) someone in Italy did so in the hope of gain; or c) it was the product of disinformation, intended to protect Niger and discredit any attention paid to the actual, real-time Zahawie visit.

Ahah. The plot thickens.

Read the whole thing. Not exectly a conspiracy theory (people are so fond of those nowadays) but definitely an interesting read.

The Chicago Tribune reviews President Bush’s nine justifications for the war in Iraq and holds them against the current facts on the ground. The verdict? Some exaggeration and some intelligence errors maybe (and by maybe I mean maybe) but certainly no lies. And, in my opinion, what amounts to valid justification.

What I think of the Bush administration domestically aside (and honestly, not determined) I still think that it was and continues to be right.

When I was in junior high school I had a social studies teacher who tried to teach us to support unions. And because that was what I was taught, I grew up believing unquestioningly that unions were a good thing, that unions were always right, that unions were always about protecting the little guy.

The MTA workers, whose salaries average 50k with minimal education, who have full heath coverage, full pension at 55, and drive in circles for a living, are not the little guy.

The little guy is the hourly worker who takes the subway every morning to a retail job where they are on their feet for 9 hours taking shit from people and smiling through it for 25K if they’re lucky. The little guy can’t afford a taxi and can’t even dream of a car. The little guy works in Manhattan but lives way out in Brooklyn Queens or The Bronx because they can’t afford to live closer to their job. The little guy could concievably walk to work if they had four hours in which to do it and didn’t then have to be on their feet all day.

They want respect. MTA workers are some of the nastiest people around. Ask them a question and they huff at you and roll their eyes like you’re asking them to move the earth for you. I was riding the bus once with a friend of mine who is in an electric wheelchair, and it took her a little longer than the bus driver liked for her to maneuver her scooter into position to get off the bus… the driver yelled at her that she was making him late, grabbed the handlebars of her scooter and twisted it, catching her arm between the bar and the chair, and continuing to yell at her as she yelped in pain.

When MTA workers are expected to provide customer service, to stay awake at their posts, and to treat their customers respectfully… then they still wouldn’t deserve the kinds of things they’re demanding.

So, I’m torn.

I was watching TV with my roommate tonight (Think we’ve found a new show to obsess over… House is pretty awesome) and the 10 o’clock news comes on with a story about how a town has banned the internet for school age kids and for their parents on pain of expulsion from school. Here the Youth Rights activist in me was all set to be outraged. When the story actually came on, it was Lakewood New Jersey, and a Chassidic community in which this ban was instituted by the local rabbis. The punishment for violation of this ruling (on honor code, at this point) is expulsion from yeshiva.

My first thought was “Oh, well, they’re Chassidim, they’re lost anyway. No use being outraged.” Not the best example of Ahavat Yisrael, I know. But when a community so isolates itself from the rest of the world, becomes so zealous and fanatical, it’s hard not to shudder a bit at the fact that these are the people that much of the world thinks of when they hear the word “Jewish.”

On the other hand, they afford the opportunity for the rest of us to teach, because while they are the most visible, we (that is, the Jews whom the Gentiles know and befriend, who are a part of their world and allow them into theirs) are the more approachable. The Chassidim who walk among, but seemingly aloof from, the rest of us are the ones who raise the questions which my friends then come to ask me about “why do they do this?” and “why do they dress like that?” and “where does this custom come from?” and “how are you different from them? How are you the same?”

Then reality comes rushing back in… they are Jews and thus affect the Jewish world, and by multiplying and isolating and multiplying in an endless cycle, they gain and retain the power of ignorance in numbers. That is scary to me, as a Jew.

Where is the place for Ahavat Yisrael, and where is the place for pragmatism? And what of the children?

It’s not that I find politics uninteresting now. I just find that I don’t have the energy for it. Having resolved some time ago not to discuss politics at work I’ve kind of left the keeping up and the reasearch and the blogtivism (yes, I just made up a word… what of it?) to Jason and have been focusing on my more immediate world.

For this I feel a degree of shame. I was “Beyond The Near: Because Global Is Local!” I was all about caring about everything and everyone because everything affects everything else. I had to know what and why and I had to be able to argue and debate competently. Now I just avoid the subject, favoring personal diplomacy over half-hearted disclaimers. I’m trying to decide now if it’s time to start reading various news media sources again. How many plates should I be trying to spin at once?

None of this “Oh woe” crap.

None of this “It could have been us.”

None of this “The end is nigh” bullshit.

You know why? Because it *was* us. And now New York City is a fucking fortress. And that’s not a bad thing. Had we gotten the Olympics, something might have happened, yes. But you know what? I agree with this guy. It’s been 4 years. And the best they could do is kill 33 people in London. Not to belittle or diminish the atrocity of the attacks, but think about it… 3000 to 33. It’s pathetic. You know what that means? I know that there are those who do not want to hear this, but it means that we are winning.

One has to realize that we are at war. All of us. And honestly, really and truly, there is nothing that we can do about that except to fight. We cannot end this war except by winning it. Those who stand on the side of sanity are under threat from the forces of nutjobitude and will be until such time as those forces are one way or another neutralized.

This is not the time to lay down and sob. This is the time to assess the progress, assess the failures, pick up the pieces, and keep going. That is how you stand up and spit it back in their face.