Rashid Khalidi, "John Kerry and Israel: Too Little and Too Late": More Israel Bashing From The New York Times

Tweet

Do you remember the controversy surrounding Obama and Rashid Khalidi?  The Los Angeles Times still refuses to release the video of Obama speaking at a 2003 going-away party honoring Khalidi, at which virulent anti-Semitism was expressed by other speakers. Well, it should come as no surprise that today, in the aftermath of John Kerry's speech earlier this week attacking Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Khalidi is being given space on The New York Times op-ed page to vent his spleen at Israel. Described by the Times as "a professor of Arab studies at Columbia who was an adviser to the Palestinian delegation during peace negotiations from 1991 to 1993" (no mention, of course, by the Times of the relationship between Obama and Khalidi or the video stashed away in a Los Angeles Times safe), Khalidi bashes Israel in his Times guest op-ed entitled "John Kerry and Israel: Too Little and Too Late":

"During Mr. Obama’s eight years in office, the illegal Israeli settler population has swelled by 100,000, to well over 600,000. Simultaneously, for eight years Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has directed a barrage of calculated slights, insults and acts of disrespect at the president of the United States. The Obama administration has finally reacted with Mr. Kerry’s speech and by allowing Resolution 2334, which condemns Israeli settlement expansion, to pass in the United Nations Security Council. By doing so, the United States simply acted in accordance with international law and the global consensus of nearly 50 years.

Meanwhile, a third generation of Palestinian children is growing up under a brutal occupation and Gaza has been under siege for a decade. Palestinians are obliged to seek the permission of the Israeli military for the most basic of needs, such as medical treatment, or to travel abroad or even just to Jerusalem."

Fascinating. Khalidi would have us believe that there are no hospitals in the West Bank or Gaza. In fact, there are some 60 hospitals and medical centers in the West Bank and Gaza, and although I am not claiming that Palestinian medical facilities are on a par with Israeli facilities, it is worth noting that average life expectancy in the West Bank is 75.91, compared with 75.69 in Hungary, 75.41 in China, 75.05 in Saudi Arabia, 74.57 in Turkey, 74.35 in Jordan, 73.70 in Egypt, and 71.15 in Iran.

Khalidi describes Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank as "brutal"? Consider what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, now in his twelfth year of his four-year term in office, declared to Jackson Diehl in 2009 (my emphasis in red):

"'I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements,' he said. 'Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life.'"

This statement was made after Abbas refused Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's 2008 peace offer, providing the Palestinians with an independent state along the 1967 lines together with agreed upon land swaps and Palestinian control of east Jerusalem. 

As for Khalidi's claim that "During Mr. Obama’s eight years in office, the illegal Israeli settler population has swelled by 100,000, to well over 600,000." An answer to this rubbish is to be found in an editorial in today's Washington Post entitled "On Israel, we’re right back where Obama started," which informs us (my emphasis in red):

"THE OBAMA administration is ending eight years of failed Middle East diplomacy exactly where it began in 2009 — with an exaggerated and misguided focus on Israeli settlement construction. As he railed at the continuing growth of West Bank Jewish housing on Wednesday with a prolixity that Fidel Castro would have admired, Secretary of State John F. Kerry sounded a lot like President Obama during the early months of his first term, when he insisted that the Israeli government freeze all construction as a starting point for negotiations on a Palestinian state.

. . . .

Mr. Kerry’s speech was, above all, a vivid demonstration of the administration’s inability to learn from its mistakes or adjust the ideological tenets that Mr. Obama brought to office.

. . . .

In fact, the two-state solution remains entirely viable, as even the settlement statistics cited by Mr. Kerry demonstrate. The administration asserts that the Jewish population in the West Bank has increased by 100,000 since 2009 — but by Mr. Kerry’s account, 80 percent of that growth was in areas Israel would likely annex in any settlement. In eight years, 20,000 people have been added to communities in territory likely to become part of Palestine — an area where 2.75 million Arabs now live. That growth of about 3 percent per annum, the product of a restraint for which Mr. Netanyahu received no White House credit, means that the Jewish population outside Israel’s West Bank fence may have decreased as a percentage of the overall population even as Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry have made it the focal point of U.S. policy."

Perhaps the WaPo editorial should have also observed what was acknowledged by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat: Israeli settlements have been built on only some 1.1% of the West Bank (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/erekat-olmert-offered-palestinians-territorial-equivalent-of-west-bank-1.393484).


Bottom line: Khalidi's Israel bashing op-ed amounts to just one more effort by The New York Times to discredit Israel during the waning days of the Obama administration. Despicable.

[I sent this blog item to Andrew Rosenthal, former editorial page editor of The New York Times:

Dear Andrew,

I thought you might be interested.

Jeffrey

Rosenthal's response:

I'm not sure why. But thanks.

Andy

Why am I not surprised?]

Ban Ki-moon, "Don’t Shoot the Messenger, Israel": Ignorance Is Bliss for This Messenger

Tweet

In a guest op-ed entitled "Don’t Shoot the Messenger, Israel," Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon begins by asserting, "History proves that people will always resist occupation." But if that's the case, why isn't Ban Ki-moon raising his voice against China, which has occupied Tibet for the past 65 years? Needless to say, unlike the Palestinians who overwhelmingly reject Israel's right to exist, Tibetans have never denied China's right to exist. But I digress.

Ban Ki-moon declares in his opinion piece:

"Israeli settlements keep expanding. The government has approved plans for over 150 new homes in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Last month, 370 acres in the West Bank were declared 'state land,' a status that typically leads to exclusive Israeli settler use."

My goodness, 150 new homes! However, Ban Ki-moon forgets to mention that Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has acknowledged, as was reported in a Haaretz article entitled "Erekat: Olmert Offered Palestinians Territorial Equivalent of West Bank" by Jack Khoury, that Israeli settlements have been built on only "approximately 1.1% of the West Bank." In addition, Khoury wrote that former "Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had offered a final peace settlement that would include territorial concession equivalent to the entire West Bank, the return of thousands of Palestinian refugees into the West Bank, and the division of Jerusalem." Palestinian Authority President Abbas, now in the twelfth year of a four-year term of office, rejected Olmert's proposal. Can you imagine? The chutzpah of those nasty Israelis!

Moreover, every peace proposal considered by the Israelis and the Palestinians has included land swaps, but Ban Ki-moon fails to indicate whether those 150 homes will be built on land that the Palestinians have agreed will be passed over to Israel as part of a future land swap.

I have often expressed my desire to see a prosperous, democratic Palestine living side-by-side with Israel in peace. On the other hand, there can also be no ignoring the refusal of Palestinians to accept Israel's right to exist. It is also hard to ignore that 24 percent of Palestinians support the Islamic State - more than anyplace else in the world. Where does that ultimately lead?

Ban Ki-moon concludes, "The status quo is untenable." However, as observed by Palestinian Authority President Abbas in a 2009 interview with Jackson Diehl:

"'I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements,' he said. 'Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life.'"

This statement was made after Abbas refused Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's 2008 peace offer. So who is responsible for the perpetuation of the status quo? Ban Ki-moon has yet to figure it out.

Thomas Friedman, "Sheldon: Iran’s Best Friend": Tom, Israel's Worst Enemy

As you are no doubt aware, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid recently went on record as decrying the conservative billionaire Koch brothers as being "un-American" (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/02/27/reid-koch-brothers-are-un-american/).

Well, not to be outdone by Reid in his vilification of the ultra-rich, Thomas Friedman, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Sheldon: Iran’s Best Friend" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/opinion/sunday/friedman-sheldon-irans-best-friend.html?smid=tw-TomFriedman&seid=auto), has kindly taken it upon himself to label Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson "foolhardy," "crude," "extremist," and someone who "personifies everything that is poisoning our democracy and Israel’s today." Alleging that both Adelson and Iran are "trying to destroy Israel," Friedman begins his opinion piece by observing that Iran is seeking to annihilate Israel, but not by way of war:

"Iran’s leaders want Israel destroyed but have no desire, in my view, to use a nuclear bomb to do it. That would expose them to retaliation and sure death."

Good to have Tom's expert view, but he first might want to have a glance at the following 2014 Iranian simulation of a nuclear attack against Israel:



Friedman goes on to say:

"Israel’s 47-year-old occupation of the West Bank has led it to build more settlements there and in doing so make itself look like the most active colonial power on the planet today. The 350,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank reinforce that view by claiming their presence in the West Bank is not about security but a divinely inspired project to reunite the Jewish people with their biblical homeland."

Apparently unbeknownst to Friedman, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has acknowledged that Israeli settlements have been built on only some 1.1% of the West Bank (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/erekat-olmert-offered-palestinians-territorial-equivalent-of-west-bank-1.393484). After 47 years, this is the extent of the occupation by the "most active colonial power on the planet today"? But why should Friedman concern himself with facts? They only get in the way of his opinions.

Finally turning to Adelson, Friedman writes:

"And now Iran has an ally: Sheldon Adelson — the foolhardy Las Vegas casino magnate and crude right-wing, pro-Israel extremist. Adelson gave away some $100 million in the last presidential campaign to fund Republican candidates, with several priorities in mind: that they delegitimize the Palestinians and that they avoid any reference to the West Bank as 'occupied territories' and any notion that the U.S. should pressure Israel to trade land for peace there.

. . . .

Adelson personifies everything that is poisoning our democracy and Israel’s today — swaggering oligarchs, using huge sums of money to try to bend each system to their will."

Sorry, but this is just plain stupid. Israel does not need to be pressured to trade land for peace. Israeli prime ministers Barak and Olmert both offered land swaps for peace with the Palestinian Authority, and Arafat and Abbas both refused their offers.

The ironclad guiding principles of Palestinian Authority President Abbas are to be found in a declaration he made to Jackson Diehl in 2009 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052803614.html):

"'I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements,' he said. 'Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life.'"

In fact, nothing has changed for Abbas over the past five years, and this logic, premised upon survival, still guides Abbas, who is in the tenth year of his four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority.

In the West Bank the Palestinians have a "good reality"? How peculiar! That's not what Tom is telling us! But then a swaggering omniscient Tom knows better than Abbas and all the rest of us combined.

Thomas Friedman, "Secretary Kerry’s Derring-Do": More Twaddle From Tom Terrific

Read the conclusion of Thomas Friedman's latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Secretary Kerry’s Derring-Do" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/friedman-secretary-kerrys-derring-do.html):

"No question — for America, Israel and the Palestinians, no deal is still better than a bad deal that blows up the morning after. What Kerry is trying to put together are decent, hardheaded deals, in which opportunities can legitimately outweigh the risks for all sides. His chance of succeeding on the Iran or Israel-Palestine fronts is very low, but I greatly respect his daring to fail."

And so, Friedman sings paeans to a man who called the murderer Bashar al-Assad his "dear friend." Friedman praises a man who cut a deal with Putin, which allowed Assad to continue killing Syrians with impunity.

Kerry's deal with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei? This "agreement to agree":

• allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium;
• permits Tehran to continue to build its Arak nuclear reactor, which is capable of producing enough plutonium for two atomic bombs each year;
• does virtually nothing to reduce the "breakout" time for construction of Iran's first atomic bomb;
• does not bring home American captives from Iranian prisons;
• does nothing to prevent Iranian human rights atrocities (e.g., hanging of homosexuals and stoning to death of women accused of adultery).

Perhaps it should also be added that Kerry's deal with Khamenei destroyed America's long-term alliance with Saudi Arabia. As Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain, declared yesterday (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/saudi-arabia-will-go-it-alone.html?_r=0):

"We expected to be standing shoulder to shoulder with our friends and partners who have previously talked so much about the importance of moral values in foreign policy. But this year, for all their talk of 'red lines,' when it counted, our partners have seemed all too ready to concede our safety and risk our region’s stability."

President Obama of course shares with Kerry the "credit" for all of the above.

Israel? Friedman writes:

"But I fear for Israel. If Israel doesn’t stop the settlement madness, denying the Palestinians a West Bank state, it will fit the caricature of its worst enemies."

Apparently unbeknownst to Friedman, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has acknowledged that Israeli settlements have been built on only some 1.1% of the West Bank (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/erekat-olmert-offered-palestinians-territorial-equivalent-of-west-bank-1.393484). This is the extent of Israeli "settlement madness" after 46 years?

Yes, Friedman is a moron, who unfortunately has the president's ear.

Andrew Bacevich, "With Iran, Obama can end America’s long war for the Middle East": Nice Try, Colonel

In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "With Iran, Obama can end America’s long war for the Middle East" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/with-iran-obama-can-end-americas-long-war-for-the-middle-east/2013/12/06/4ab56fd4-5c3e-11e3-95c2-13623eb2b0e1_story.html?hpid=z3), Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, claims (my emphasis in red):

"Any such deal would surely annoy Saudi Arabia and Israel, each for its own reasons committed to casting Iran as an existential threat. Obama just might choose to let them fret.

Although Americans have not yet fully digested the news, the United States no longer must defer to the Saudis. North American reserves of oil and natural gas are vastly greater than they appeared to be just a few years ago. As the prospect of something approximating energy independence beckons, the terms of the U.S.-Saudi alliance — they pump, we protect — are ripe for revision. Not so long ago, it seemed really, really important to keep the Saudi royal family happy. Far less so today.

Much the same applies to Israel. Easily the strongest power in its neighborhood and the only one possessing a nuclear arsenal, the Jewish state privileges its own security over all other considerations. It has every right to do so. What doesn’t follow is that Washington should underwrite or turn a blind eye to Israeli actions that run counter to U.S. interests, as is surely the case with continued colonization of the occupied territories. Just as Israel disregards U.S. objections to its expansion of settlements in the West Bank, the United States should refuse to allow Israeli objections to determine its policy toward Iran."

Yup, you got it: In Obama's brave new world, the hell with America's former allies.

But what was this bit about Israel's "continued colonization of the occupied territories"? Apparently unbeknownst to this West Point-educated B.U. professor, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has acknowledged that Israeli settlements have been built on only some 1.1% of the West Bank (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/erekat-olmert-offered-palestinians-territorial-equivalent-of-west-bank-1.393484). This is the extent of Israeli "colonization" of the West Bank after 46 years?

Nice try, colonel.

The Palestinian Authority: Obama Has No Credibility in the Middle East

As I observed in yesterday's blog entry:

"Obama has done almost nothing to stop the Iranian drive for nuclear weapons, and his wavering, perceived as impotence throughout the Middle East, is destabilizing Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt."

You didn't believe me? Then read what Saeb Erekat, chief of the Fatah Steering and Monitoring Committee, told George Mitchell about Obama during negotiations in October 2009, according to Palestinian documents leaked to Al-Jazeera and the Guardian:

“It’s not up to me to decide your credibility in the Middle East. He [Obama] has lost it throughout the region.

. . . .

[P]eople in the Middle East are not taking Barack Obama seriously. They feared Bush, despite everything. This is important. BO [Obama] has lost it with the decision-makers, although not the street.”

See: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=205392

Welcome to the savage world of the Middle East, where expressions of kindness and empathy are treated as frailty and naivete. Obama and his administration have yet to learn that "making nice" to poor misunderstood despots while "beating up" on longstanding allies - what I have labeled the "Obama Doctrine" in prior blog entries - leads nowhere.

Noam Chomsky Likens Israel to Stalinist Regime

Denied entry to Israel on Sunday, linguist Noam Chomsky, who had been scheduled to lecture at Bir Zeit University, likened Israel to a Stalinist regime. According to an article in Ha'aretz:

"The Interior Ministry refused to let linguist Noam Chomsky into Israel and the West Bank on Sunday. Chomsky, who aligns himself with the radical left, had been scheduled to lecture at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, and visit Bil'in and Hebron, as well as meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and various Palestinian activists.

* * * *

'I find it hard to think of a similar case, in which entry to a person is denied because he is not lecturing in Tel Aviv. Perhaps only in Stalinist regimes,' Chomsky told Haaretz."

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/after-denied-entry-to-west-bank-chomsky-likens-israel-to-stalinist-regime-1.290736

I detest the radicalism of Chomsky, who met with Nasrallah and declared, ""Hizbullah's insistence on keeping its arms is justified". However, I would not have barred entry to this 81-year-old man, consumed with anger and struggling with his irrelevance. But personal feelings aside, is Israel "Stalinist"?

Let's examine two events within recent days. According to another article in Ha'aretz:

"The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Tuesday [May 11] acquitted the head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, of charges on his involvement in a 2007 riot in East Jerusalem.

Around four months ago, Salah was given a nine-month jail sentence for his role in an affray, suspected incitement, and for assaulting a policeman during disturbances at the Temple Mount in the Old City in Jerusalem.

* * * *

Salah was arrested in February 2007 after protests over planned improvement works at the Temple Mount. According to the court, Salah spat in the face of a policeman during the protest, saying: 'You are all racists and murderers, you have no respect.'"

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/court-acquits-islamic-movement-leader-of-involvement-in-temple-mount-riots-1.289654

Sorry, Noam, but this acquittal would never have occurred in a Stalinist regime.

This past Sunday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat spoke before the Israeli public at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. According to an article in the Jerusalem Post:

'I know that many in Palestine and Israel today doubt the possibility that peace can be achieved. I beg to differ,' said Erekat.

'We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. There can be a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with land swaps and solutions for the refugees,' he continued.

* * * *

'The Americans cannot make peace for us. Americans cannot make the concessions that are required by Palestinians or Israelis. Americans cannot make decisions for Palestinians and Israelis,' said Erekat.

* * * *

'You could fill volumes on the mistakes we have made, but you must understand, we are a very young authority,' he said."

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=175731

Maybe Chomsky was denied entry into Israel, but here we have Erekat conversing freely with diplomats and academics in Tel Aviv. Sorry again, Noam, this is no Stalinist regime. Moreover, both Obama and Congressman John Yarmuth (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/05/us-congressman-john-yarmuth-infected.html) would be wise to heed Erekat's forthright declaration that "Americans cannot make decisions for Palestinians and Israelis."