Henry Siegman, "Give Up on Netanyahu, Go to the United Nations": Expect Fairness from the UN? Yeah, Right!

"The notion that the war against terror cannot be won by military measures alone but must also provide Palestinians with prospects for a political solution is hardly revolutionary. It is a view that Sharon’s own security advisers have advocated. Sharon has been accused of many things by his critics, but stupidity is not one of them. Why, then, hasn’t Sharon reached this conclusion on his own?
 
The inescapable answer to this question is that the war that Sharon is waging is not aimed at the defeat of Palestinian terrorism but at the defeat of the Palestinian people and their aspirations for national self-determination."

- Henry Seigman, "Sharon’s Phony War," The New York Review of Books, December 18, 2003

"I think this is something that is going to happen. We have to look at it realistically: in the end there will be a Palestinian state. I see things firstly from our own perspective. I don't think we should be ruling over another people and running its life. I don't think we have the strength for that. It is too heavy a burden on our people, and it gives rise to serious moral problems and serious economic problems."

- Ariel Sharon, Haaretz interview, April 2003

You wish to publish a guest New York Times op-ed? If you're Jewish and prepared to vilify Israel, your chances will improve immeasurably. And so it should come as no surprise that in a New York Times opinion piece entitled "Give Up on Netanyahu, Go to the United Nations," 85-year-old Henry Siegman would have us know:

"The victory of Israel’s far right has thus provided an unexpected, if narrow, opening for Mr. Obama, allowing him to call for a reassessment of America’s peace policy.

Such a reassessment must begin by abandoning the old assumption that Palestinians can achieve statehood only by negotiating with Mr. Netanyahu. Because of Mr. Netanyahu’s statements and behavior during the elections (not to mention the continued construction in the settlements), that belief has been irreparably discredited. It is now certain that a two-state agreement will never emerge from any bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations."

Yup, it's all Netanyahu's fault. Of course, there's no mention of the fact by Seigman that Palestinian Authority President 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. And one year later, after Netanyahu declared a 10-month settlement freeze "to restart peace talks" at the request of Obama, Abbas delayed entering negotiations until the last moment and then walked away from the discussions.

Nevertheless, according to Siegman, something must be done to end Netanyahu's "continued subjugation of the Palestinians." After all, those poor Palestinians, who fire missiles at Israeli towns and cities and call for the death of all Jews (not just Israelis), are denied their basic voting rights. But wait, isn't it Fatah that has refused to allow elections in the West Bank, and Hamas that does not permit elections in Gaza?

The subjugation of the Palestinian majority in Jordan? The subjugation of Yarmouk, the Palestinian suburb of Damascus? Why should Siegman care?

The subjugation of women, e.g., honor killings, by Palestinians? No mention by Siegman.

The subjugation of homosexuals by Palestinians? Also no mention by Siegman.

How, nevertheless, to end Israeli subjugation of Palestinians? Simple. Siegman would have the UN dictate terms to Israel and the Palestinians:

"Such an agreement can only be achieved if the United Nations Security Council, with strong support from the United States, presents the parties with clear terms for resumed peace talks that will produce an agreement within a specified timeframe."

Ah yes, the United Nations, which time and time again has demonstrated its impartiality involving Israel. As Anne Bayefsky recently wrote in a Fox News opinion piece entitled "UN says Israel, not Iran, North Korea or Syria worst violator of human rights":

"What country deserves more condemnation for violating human rights than any other nation on earth? According to the U.N.’s top human rights body, that would be Israel.

Last week, Israel was the U.N.’s number one women’s rights violator. This week it is the U.N.’s all-round human rights villain.

The U.N. Human Rights Council wrapped up its latest session in Geneva on Friday, March 27 by adopting four resolutions condemning Israel. That’s four times more than any of the other 192 UN member states.

There were four resolutions on Israel. And one on North Korea -- a country that is home to government policies of torture, starvation, enslavement, rape, disappearances, and murder – to name just some of its crimes against humanity.

Four resolutions on Israel. And one on Syria. Where the death toll of four years of war is 100,000 civilians, ten million people are displaced, and barrel bombs containing chemical agents like chlorine gas are back in action.

Four resolutions on Israel. And one on Iran. Where there is no rule of law, no free elections, no freedom of speech, corruption is endemic, protestors are jailed and tortured, religious minorities are persecuted, and pedophilia is state-run. At last count, in 2012 Iranian courts ordered more than 30,000 girls ages 14 and under to be 'married.'"

Thank you, Anne.

Israel should submit to a UN imposed peace involving the Palestinians, or stated otherwise, agree to stick its head in a noose? Thanks, but no thanks, Henry.

Iran: Thomas Pickering Paves the Way to a Nuclear Armageddon

As reported by David Sanger in a New York Times article entitled "Report Urges White House to Rethink Iran Penalties" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/world/middleeast/report-on-iran-urges-obama-to-rethink-sanctions.html?_r=0):

"A panel of former senior American officials and outside experts, including several who recently left the Obama administration, issued a surprisingly critical assessment of American diplomacy toward Iran on Wednesday, urging President Obama to become far more engaged and to reconsider the likelihood that harsh sanctions will drive Tehran to concessions.

In a report issued by the Iran Project, the former diplomats and experts suggested that the sanctions policy, rather than bolstering diplomacy, may be backfiring. As the pressure has increased, the group concluded, sanctions have 'contributed to an increase in repression and corruption within Iran' and 'may be sowing the seeds of long-term alienation between the Iranian people and the United States.'

The critique comes as both Israel and Congress are urging the administration to go in the opposite direction, to put a sharp time limit on negotiations and, if necessary, to go beyond the financial and oil sanctions that have caused a tremendous drop in the value of the Iranian currency and sent inflation soaring.

'I fundamentally believe that the balance between sanctions and diplomacy has been misaligned,' said Thomas R. Pickering, who was one of the State Department’s highest-ranking career diplomats and whom the department has called on to head up important investigations, including one into the death last fall of the American ambassador to Libya.

In an interview, Mr. Pickering also contended that Mr. Obama should review the covert program against Iran — which has included computer sabotage of its nuclear facilities — to 'stop anything that is peripheral, that is not buying us much time' in slowing Iran’s progress."

Yeah, right. Drop the sanctions, and expect the Iranians to gratefully relinquish their nuclear weapons development program. Given the mullahs' underlying humanitarianism over the past several decades, as reflected by the stoning of women, hanging of homosexuals, persecution of Baha'is, oppression of Kurds, repression of Christians, mistreatment of Sunni Muslims, arrest of journalists, and torture of regime opponents, they are sure to respond kindly to such a magnanimous gesture from Washington.

What are these "experts" in Washington smoking?

As for Pickering, Tom co-authored a March 20, 2008 article in The New York Review of Books entitled, "A Solution for the US–Iran Nuclear Standoff" (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21112), which begins:

"The recent National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Tehran stopped its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003, together with the significant drop in Iranian activity in Iraq, has created favorable conditions for the US to hold direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program."

"Tehran stopped its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003"? As we all know by now, this "conclusion" amounted to pure rubbish.

"Favorable conditions to hold direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program"? Years of negotiation with Tehran under the Obama administration have led nowhere.

If you think North Korea has turned the Far East upside down, wait and see what happens if Iran is allowed to build its first atomic bomb.

Ronald Dworkin, "Why the Health Care Challenge Is Wrong": Really? Let's Talk Turkey (and Broccoli)!

Yesterday, Maureen Dowd slimed the conservative Supreme Court justices over their objections to the Affordable Care Act, i.e. Obamacare (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/04/maureen-dowd-men-in-black-pot-calls.html), labeling them "hacks dressed up in black robes." Her New York Times opinion piece barely touched upon the issues, and one can only wonder whether her ire was aroused by the underlying constitutional law issues, which are plainly beyond her ken, or by the prospects that one of the few "achievements" of the current administration might be nullified months prior to the November presidential election.

However, there are persons more knowledgeable than Dowd arguing that this legislation should not be overturned. In "Why the Health Care Challenge Is Wrong" (http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/apr/02/why-health-care-challenge-is-wrong/), which appears in The New York Review of Books blog, law professor Ronald Dworkin writes:

"The prospect of an overruling is frightening. American health care is an unjust and expensive shambles; only a comprehensive national program can even begin to repair it. If the Court does declare the Act unconstitutional, it will have ruled that Congress lacks the power to adopt what it thought the most effective, efficient, fair, and politically viable remedy—not because that national remedy would violate anybody’s rights, or limit anyone’s liberty in ways a state government could not, or would be otherwise unfair, but for the sole reason that in the Court’s opinion the strict and arbitrary language of an antique Constitution denies our national legislature the power to enact the only politically possible national program."

Note how this paragraph conflates an admixture of economics and law. Yes, "American health care is an unjust and expensive shambles;" yet I think it is presumptuous to say that only a "comprehensive national program" can improve it. Moreover, I think it is foolhardy to declare that Obamacare is "the most effective, efficient, fair, and politically viable remedy" that Congress could devise, given that this legislation was passed by a slim margin in the House (219-212), and given that a plurality of Americans favor its repeal (see: http://www.gallup.com/poll/150773/Americans-Tilt-Toward-Favoring-Repeal-Healthcare-Law.aspx).

Far more objectionable, however, is Dworkin's reference to an "antique" Constitution. (I don't know if I am more offended by Dowd's reference to the conservative Supreme Court justices as "hacks," or by Dworkin's reference to the Constitution as "antique.") If the Constitution is "antique," perhaps the oath of office of American presidents should no longer require them to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution."

But let's get back to broccoli. Claiming it is possible to "distinguish health care and insurance from broccoli and electric cars," Dworkin writes:

"Neither the Constitution’s language nor that principle distinguishes between negative and positive regulation of commerce, between prohibition and mandate. The principle does require that Congress show that the commerce it seeks to regulate has a profound impact on the national economy. National regulation of health care plainly passes that test."

Oh really? If Americans were forced to eat broccoli instead of Cheetos, Twinkies and nitrate-saturated frankfurters, I would wager that we would see a marked decline in obesity, cancer and heart disease, which in turn would have "a profound impact on the national economy."

Now let's take this a step further: If Congress were to mandate breakfast, lunch and dinner menus for all Americans, my guess is that health care costs would plummet, but do we want to go there? Or more to the point, does America's "antique" Constitution permit this?

Dworkin argues:

"The rhetorical force of their examples, about making people buy electric cars or broccoli, depends on a very popular but confused assumption: that it would be tyrannical for any government to force its citizens to buy what they do not want. In fact both national and state governments steadily coerce people to do just that through taxation: they make them buy police and fire protection and to pay for foreign wars whether they want these or not."

But Dworkin fails to observe that whereas state and local governments correctly assume responsibility for police and fire protection, they cannot and should not take responsibility for national defense. In fact, herein lies the question: Whether the federal government or state governments should take responsibility for health care. According to a February 2012 Gallup poll, "Americans overwhelmingly believe the 'individual mandate,' as it is often called, is unconstitutional, by a margin of 72% to 20% (see: http://www.gallup.com/poll/152969/Americans-Divided-Repeal-2010-Healthcare-Law.aspx), and I believe there is merit to the conviction of this sizeable majority, which obviously believes that control over health care need not and should not reside with a monolithic federal government incapable of efficacy and economy.