Fred Hiatt, Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Post, Goes to Bat for Fareed Zakaria, Plagiarizer and Liar

As you will recall, I have repeatedly complained to The Washington Post concerning Fareed Zakaria's opinion piece entitled "Obama appeals to Israel's conscience," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-obama-appeals-to-israels-conscience/2013/03/27/a4365b18-96f5-11e2-b68f-dc5c4b47e519_story.html?hpid=z2) in which he falsely claimed:

"After all, Israel has ruled millions of Palestinians without offering them citizenship or a state for 40 years."

Of course, as well known to Zakaria, Israeli prime ministers Barak and Olmert offered Arafat and Abbas an independent state along the 1967 lines with agreed upon land swaps, and Olmert even offered Palestinian control of east Jerusalem. Arafat and Abbas refused.

After publication of my blog item on this topic yesterday (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/all-washington-posts-mice-fareed.html), Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post finally replied:

Dear Mr. Grossman,

The history of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is contentious and, as I’m sure you know, subject to widely differing interpretation. Mr. Zakaria’s statement is within the bounds of acceptable interpretation for an opinion columnist.

Thank you for your interest.

Fred Hiatt

"The history of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is contentious and, as I'm sure you know, subject to widely differing interpretation"? You don't say! Yes, I can indeed accept this vacuous platitude.

But "Mr. Zakaria's statement is within the bounds of acceptable interpretation for an opinion columnist"? Even the Palestinians are not contending that Israel did not offer them "a state for 40 years." Perhaps it can be claimed that Israeli offers did not meet Palestinian requirements or expectations, but no one - I repeat no one - can claim that offers were not made.

First, have a look at Bernard Avishai's February 2011 New York Times article entitled "A Plan for Peace That Still Could Be" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&) in which Avishai writes:

A viable plan exists: it is waiting to be forged from the far-reaching proposals that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority made to each other in 2008. We had a glimpse in mid-January of these negotiations — the 'Palestine Papers,' leaked by Al Jazeera; and then excerpts from Ehud Olmert’s memoir, published in Israel.

. . . .

I spoke with Olmert this year in Jerusalem on the morning of Jan. 21, and that same evening with Abbas in Amman, Jordan. The leaders revealed in detail what was proposed, what was implicitly agreed, what the gaps were and what they suggested was susceptible to compromise.

. . . .

Olmert insisted that he had conceded to Abbas every major demand Palestinians had made for decades: a border based scrupulously on the 1967 lines, a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem and 'recognition of the problem' of refugees.

. . . .

Even on borders, Olmert and Abbas were able to agree on fundamentals: a desire to disrupt as few lives as possible and to maximize the contiguity (and therefore the economic possibility) of Palestinian cities. "We didn’t waste a minute during our months of negotiation," Abbas said.

Where bridging proposals seemed most called for was over the extent and nature of land to be swapped — in effect, the fate of specific large Israeli settlements. The Israeli position, where it diverged from the Palestinian, was not about principle but focused primarily on the practical matter of how many (often violent) settlers the Israeli government would have to force back behind the Green Line.

. . . .

Olmert’s security principles were the following: Palestine would have a strong police force, "everything needed for law enforcement." It would have no army or air force. The Palestinian border with Jordan, through which missiles and heavy armaments might be smuggled, would be patrolled by international forces, probably from NATO.

. . . .

So when Olmert finally showed Abbas his map on Sept. 16, it was an established principle of these negotiations that any territory Israel sought to annex in Greater Jerusalem would have to be compensated like any other occupied territory. This was unprecedented. Olmert held that the no man’s land also be divided 50-50, with Israel understandably taking more around its highway and ceding more in other areas, but this slight divergence from Rice’s definition was of no great consequence. 'I told Abbas this land had never been used, so the only reasonable thing was to divide it,” Olmert said. "He seemed quite happy with it."

The real issue in contention, however, was which Israeli settlements would be permitted to stay, and which would have to be removed.

. . . .

Olmert, for his part, was presenting a plan in which the most sparsely populated settlements would be evacuated, but Efrat (extending from Gush Etzion), Maale Adummim (a town just east of Jerusalem) and Ariel, a town of 18,000 between Ramallah and Nablus, should be permitted to stay.

. . . .

"I told him, 'Sign,'" Olmert said. "'You will never get a better proposal from any Israeli government for the next 50 years.'" Abbas would not sign.

. . . .

Olmert made his most comprehensive offer to Abbas on Sept. 16, 2008, the opening day of the General Assembly in New York.

Count the number of time that the words "offer," "plan," "proposed" and "proposal" appear above.

Concerning Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's earlier peace proposal providing the Palestinians with statehood, have a look at Sandy Tolan's 2011 article in al Jazeera entitled "Two-state solution: A postmortem" (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201121810588471977.html):

Like other such fictions - chief among them "Israel's generous offer" at Camp David in 2000 - this one is not entirely without substance. As the Palestine Papers show, the two sides did agree on various security arrangements, land swaps and some principles of the right of return, much to the alarm of many Palestinians. Just as significantly, Palestinian negotiators agreed to allow Israel to annex major settlement blocs in East Jerusalem - a fact that, in the wake of the document dump, is eroding what is left of Abbas' credibility among his own people.

. . . .

The US has long been hypersensitive to Israeli domestic political considerations while ignoring those of the Palestinians and the broader Arab and Muslim worlds. In 2000, Yasser Arafat turned down Israel's "generous offer," refusing to agree to a "sovereign presidential compound" in the Old City - essentially, a golden cage near the Muslim holy sites.

Again, it can be claimed that Israeli offers in 2000 did not meet Palestinian requirements or expectations, i.e. were insufficiently "generous,"but no one - I repeat no one - can claim that offers were not made.

Sorry, Mr. Hiatt, but Zakaria's fabrication does not fall "within the bounds of acceptable interpretation for an opinion columnist" or any other serious journalist for that matter.

[See my follow-up e-mail to Fred Hiatt: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/the-ongoing-zakariahiattwashington-post.html]

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Iran: "The Moment of Truth is Approaching"

As the P5+1 continues to dilly dally in its nuclear armament negotiations with Tehran, under the misguided oversight of the EU’s High Nincompoop for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has informed the Israeli public that delay will not be tolerated much longer. In a must-read interview with Shlomo Cesana, published by Israel Hayom (http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=4199), Barak observes that Israel cannot accept a situation in which Iran is able to assemble an atomic weapon within 60 days:

"The moment of truth is approaching. We have to decide what to do about this if the sanctions and diplomacy fail.

. . . .

Some say let’s trust the world. No matter how hard it is and there is risk involved and it is difficult to predict the outcome, I say that in the end we can deal with Iran now or deal with a nuclear Iran that poses a far greater danger.

. . . .

If [Iran] obtains a nuclear weapon, it will be very hard to bring it down. Now they are trying to seek immunity for their nuclear program. If they achieve military nuclear capability, for arms, or a threshold in which they can assemble a bomb within 60 days, they will acquire another form of immunity – for the regime.

. . . .

We will be in a much better position to make decisions about conflict in a few years, when the Magic Wand, Arrow, and Iron Dome missile-defense systems are complete. The problem is that sometimes you can't determine the timing for decisions."

Will this wake the P5+1 from its torpor? I doubt it. French foreign policy is apt to grow vichy-vashy given the election of François Hollande with the support of France's significant Muslim minority. Moreover, Obama will soon be consumed with re-election, and a confrontation with Iran would only introduce unknown, unwanted variables come November.

Nicholas Kristof, "The False Debate About Attacking Iran": Yes, Kristof Is an Imbecile

Nicholas Kristof has written several New York Times op-eds which have demonstrated appalling nescience. For example, in a 2010 opinion piece entitled "New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06kristof.html), Kristof declared:

"The President’s Cancer Panel is the Mount Everest of the medical mainstream, so it is astonishing to learn that it is poised to join ranks with the organic food movement and declare: chemicals threaten our bodies."

In that same op-ed, Kristof went on to say:

"Avoid meats that are cooked well-done."

Kristof was unaware that our bodies consist of chemicals and that well-done meat (as opposed to charred meat, which can be carcinogenic) ensures that dangerous bacteria have been killed.

Ignorance, however, has never prevented Kristof from foisting twaddle upon the readership of The New York Times, and in an op-ed entitled
"The False Debate About Attacking Iran" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/kristof-the-false-debate-about-attacking-iran.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), he has once again outdone himself. Today, Kristof would have us believe that there is consensus among "experts" that an Israeli military strike against Iran later this year would be senseless, and he cites three opinions to buttress this claim:

• "'I don’t know any security expert who is recommending a military strike on Iran at this point,' noted Anne-Marie Slaughter, a Princeton University professor who was a senior State Department official earlier in the Obama administration."

• "'Unless you’re so far over on the neocon side that you’re blind to geopolitical realities, there’s an overwhelming consensus that this is a bad idea," said W. Patrick Lang, a former head of Middle East affairs for the Defense Intelligence Agency."

• "'Most security experts agree that it’s premature to go to a military option,' said Michèle Flournoy, who has just stepped down as the No. 3 official in the Defense Department."

Or stated more simply, these people are claiming that an Israeli strike is roundly opposed, a bad idea and premature. However, none of the three live in Israel, apparently none of the three have consulted with Israeli military intelligence, and none of the three bother to make reference to Supreme Leader Khamenei's recent declaration during prayers at the campus of the University of Tehran (http://www.mehrnews.com/en/newsdetail.aspx?NewsID=1524218):

"The tumor of Israel, which is in fact cancerous, must be removed from the region, and this will definitely happen."

Is this an instance where Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu should ignore Khamenei and gamble away Israel's existence? In January, US Defense Secretary Panetta acknowledged that Iran is only a year away from building a nuclear weapon (http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=249800). Do Kristof and his "experts" honestly recommend that Israel not prepare for the possibility that Iran will manufacture a bomb? Should Israel stand silently to one side and pray that this time around the world will intervene before it's too late? Eighty years ago, the world chose to ignore Hitler's threats against the Jews, leading to Treblinka and Auschwitz.

Moreover, is it possible that without militant Israeli declarations, the US and Europe would not have implemented sanctions against Iran? Until Israel began to make noise, Obama had done precious little to avoid the crisis.

Kristof makes the inane claim that an Israeli air strike would ignite Muslim ire against the US:

"Day by day, anger in the Muslim world and around the world would grow at Israel — and at America. The coalition pressuring Iran through sanctions might well dissolve."

Unbeknownst to Kristof, America's Sunni allies in the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are more afraid of a nuclear Iran than Israel, and are demanding that the US eliminate this Shiite threat.

Kristof concludes:

"So as we hear talk about military action against Iran, let’s be clear about one thing. Outside Netanyahu’s aides and a fringe of raptors, just about every expert thinks that a military strike at this time would be a catastrophically bad idea. That’s not a debate, but a consensus."

Yeah, those like Ms. Slaughter, who defended the 2003 invasion of Iraq, now oppose unilateral action intended to save Israel from nuclear devastation. After all, no one is pressing a gun to Ms. Slaughter's head at Princeton's ivied campus. Sometimes, when someone presses a gun to your head, there are no happy options.

Naksa Day: Israel Responds to Syrian Casualty Figures

In response to the claims of Syrian Health Minister Wael al-Halki that 23 persons storming Israel's border with Syria yesterday were killed, and 350 were wounded, in commemoration of Yawm an-Naksa, i.e. the "day of the setback," referring to the 1967 Six Day War, Israel finally got around to responding (http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=223886):

"[Israeli Defense Minister] Barak told Israel Radio that he believed the death count was under 20.

The Army said that at least eight protesters who died in Naksa Day border clashes were killed by land mines that exploded on the Syrian side of the border, after the rioters threw gasoline bombs, which exploded in a field, starting a fire that then set off the mines."

Israel still hasn't learned that this is a "real-time" world, and this highly relevant information should have been conveyed to the media much earlier.