Do You Recall David Ignatius Saying of Iran, "the Nation That Chanted in Unison 'Death to America' Is Probably Gone Forever""?

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Do you remember David Ignatius writing in a March 31, 2015 Washington Post opinion piece  entitled "Deal or no deal, the Iran talks have borne fruit" :

"Whatever the endgame produces, it’s useful to focus on the process of negotiation itself, which is nearly as important as whether there’s a sustainable deal.

First, there is the fact of U.S.-Iranian engagement. For more than 18 months, Iran has been in direct talks with a power it once demonized as the 'Great Satan.' Iranian hard-liners certainly remain, but the nation that chanted in unison 'Death to America' is probably gone forever."

When I sent emails to Ignatius and provided evidence that he was wrong, he wrote back to me and declared:

"You miss my point entirely. What I said was that the NATION will never again chant it in UNISON. There will still be fanatical hardliners but they are beginning to be outliers."

Well, in case there was ever any doubt except in the minds of Ignatius and Obama, have a look at a November 2, 2015 Yahoo! News article entitled "'Death to America' stands despite nuclear deal: Iran MPs," which informs us:

"Tehran (AFP) - A clear majority of Iranian legislators said Monday the Islamic republic will not abandon the slogan of "Death to America" despite its July nuclear accord with world powers.

'The martyr-nurturing nation of Iran is not at all prepared to abandon the slogan of 'Death to America' under the pretext of a nuclear agreement," 192 members of Iran's 290-seat parliament said in a statement carried by state news agency IRNA.

They said the slogan, chanted at the weekly Friday prayers in mosques and at protests, had "turned into the symbol of the Islamic republic and all struggling nations'."

Of course, "moderate" Iranian President Hassan "the Hangman" Rouhani explained in September:

"This slogan that is chanted is not a slogan against the American people. Our people respect the American people."

Or stated otherwise, when Iranians cry "Death to America!," they don't really want to kill you. Yeah, right.

Khaled Mashaal Acknowledges Hamas Killed 3 Israeli Teenagers: Do Andrew Sullivan, Katie Zavadski and Sheera Frenkel Care to Comment?

In a Yahoo! News article entitled "Hamas leader: Don't compare us to ISIL," Khaled Mashaal acknowledges that Hamas was responsible for the killing of the three Israeli teenagers, which led up to the current Gaza conflict:

"Meshaal acknowledged for the first time that Hamas members — but not the group's political leadership — were behind the slaying of three Israeli settlers on the West Bank in June. But he defended the murders as a legitimate action against Israeli 'illegal occupation.'"

But notwithstanding Mashaal's attempt to distance Hamas's leadership from the murders, Haaretz reported two days ago in an article entitled "Hamas claims responsibility for three Israeli teens' kidnapping and murder":

"A senior Hamas official boasted during a conference in Istanbul on Wednesday that the group's military wing was behind the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank in June.

A video captured during the conference shows Salah Arouri, who is based in Turkey and is considered a primary figure within Hamas, saying that the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades were responsible for the abduction of the three youths, Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, 16."

You will recall that Katie Zavadski in a New York Magazine article entitled "It Turns Out Hamas May Not Have Kidnapped and Killed the 3 Israeli Teens After All [Updated]" wrote:

"BuzzFeed reporter Sheera Frenkel was among the first to suggest that it was unlikely that Hamas was behind the deaths of Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach. Citing Palestinian sources and experts in the field, Frenkel reported that kidnapping three Israeli teens would be a foolish move for Hamas. International experts told her it was likely the work of a local group, acting without concern for the repercussions."

Following Zavadski's piece, Andrew Sullivan's The Dish told us in an item entitled "The Lie Behind The War":

"Katie Zavadski, fresh from a Dishternship, nails down a critical fact in the latest Israel-Hamas death-match. As the Dish has noted before, the Israeli government knew from the get-go that the murderers of three Israeli teens – the incident that set off this bloody chain of events – were not doing official Hamas’ bidding even in the West Bank, let alone Gaza."

Do Andrew Sullivan, Katie Zavadski and Sheera Frenkel wish to say anything further on the subject?

[I sent an email to Andrew Sullivan, requesting a retraction. Do you think he will bother to respond?]

New York Times Editorial, "Gaza’s Mounting Death Toll": More Distortions From the Times

In an editorial entitled "Gaza’s Mounting Death Toll" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/opinion/gazas-mounting-death-toll.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), The New York Times begins by declaring:

"These days, even a school — clearly identified as a shelter run by the United Nations — cannot protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza from deadly attacks."

Although the Times goes on to acknowledge, "There are competing charges over who carried out the attack" on the school in Beit Hanoun, the Times goes on to ask if Israel is "doing enough" to avoid damage to UN facilities:

"According to a United Nations official in New York, at least 72 United Nations schools, hospitals and offices have been damaged in the fighting, even though they are clearly marked. At the same time, the United Nations did not enhance its own credibility and influence when its Human Rights Council focused entirely on Israel in a resolution on Wednesday, opening an inquiry into possible Gaza-related human rights violations."

Needless to say, no mention by the Times that in recent days rockets have twice been discovered in UNRWA schools in Gaza (see: http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-condemns-placement-rockets-second-time-one-its-schools) and that these rockets have been turned over by the UNRWA to Hamas. Why does this information go missing from the Times editorial?

The Times concludes its editorial by observing:

"Secretary of State John Kerry has been working feverishly to get a cease-fire, but his mission is hugely complicated. Meanwhile, the killing goes on."

No mention by the Times that Hamas, not Israel, has been refusing efforts to achieve a cease-fire. As reported by Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/hamas-stubbornly-refusing-ceasefire-bid-kerry-150758663.html):

"US Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday blamed Hamas for the continuation of the conflict in Gaza, saying the Islamic militants were refusing all ceasefire efforts.

'They've been offered a ceasefire and they've refused to take the ceasefire,' Kerry told ABC television, adding Hamas has 'stubbornly' refused efforts to defuse the conflict 'even though Egypt and others have called for that ceasefire.'

By its behavior, Hamas had 'invited further actions' by the Israelis to stop the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, Kerry said.

'It's ugly, obviously. War is ugly, and bad things are going to happen. But they need to recognize their own responsibility,' he added, referring to Hamas."

But why should The New York Times acknowledge that Hamas is responsible for the continuation of the fighting? After all, this would not be in keeping with ongoing efforts being made by Andrew Rosenthal's op-ed page to vilify Israel (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/mohammed-omer-darkness-falls-on-gaza.html).

NBC News, "Iran's Ayatollah: Nuclear Talks 'Will Lead Nowhere'": Rouhani, the Executioner of Poets, Is a Moderate?

Okay, it's all over the news that Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei believes that the negotiations between the Islamic Republic and six world powers "will lead nowhere." Yup, after learning that Syrian mass murderer Bashar al-Assad has no intention of turning over his arsenal of chemical weapons for destruction pursuant to the agreement brokered by Putin, Obama is now learning that his deal with Khamenei - which is being hidden from the American public - is not worth the paper on which it is written.

But also shocking is how a naive American press is depicting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as a "moderate" or "relative moderate," while informing us of this latest Obama administration debacle. From NBC News (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/irans-ayatollah-nuclear-talks-will-lead-nowhere-n32056) (my emphasis in red):

"The election of moderate Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran and his September phone call with President Obama during the United Nations General Assembly buoyed hopes of a new chapter opening between Iran and the West."

Similarly, we are being informed by Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/iran-39-khamenei-says-nuclear-talks-39-lead-093913804.html) (my emphasis in red):

"Rouhani, a relative moderate elected last year on vows to engage the West, revived the nuclear negotiations after years of stalemate under his hardline predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and thus far enjoys the support of Khamenei."

Rouhani is a "moderate"? A "relative moderate"? This maniac, with whom Obama held a "historic" conversation in September, just ordered the execution of a poet and a human rights activist for "enmity against God" after they were first subjected to torture (see: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Rouhani-orders-executions-of-Iranian-Arab-poet-rights-activist-340173).

I read this trash from NBC News and Yahoo! News and grow nauseous.

Paul Krugman, "Free to Be Hungry": Should Food Stamps Be Used to Purchase Junk Food?

We were recently told in a New York Times op-ed by Maureen Dowd that she attended an event at Georgetown University honoring Warren Buffett, who spent the evening drinking Coca-Cola, a product with almost no nutritional value, manufactured by a company whose shares he owns (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/09/maureen-dowd-americas-billionaire-buy.html). Does Warren Buffett buy Coca-Cola using food stamps? Not a chance. But should recipients of food stamps be allowed to use them to buy Coca-Cola and other junk food?

Surprisingly, I agree with some of what Paul Krugman has to say in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Free to Be Hungry" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/opinion/krugman-free-to-be-hungry.html?_r=0). Krugman writes:

"The recent growth of SNAP [the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program] has indeed been unusual, but then so have the times, in the worst possible way. The Great Recession of 2007-9 was the worst slump since the Great Depression, and the recovery that followed has been very weak. Multiple careful economic studies have shown that the economic downturn explains the great bulk of the increase in food stamp use. And while the economic news has been generally bad, one piece of good news is that food stamps have at least mitigated the hardship, keeping millions of Americans out of poverty."

Makes sense? Yes. But Krugman continues:

"Beyond that, however, you might think that ensuring adequate nutrition for children, which is a large part of what SNAP does, actually makes it less, not more likely that those children will be poor and need public assistance when they grow up. And that’s what the evidence shows."

Hold your horses, Paul. Given that food stamps can be used to purchase junk food, they cannot possibly ensure adequate nutrition for children.

Moreover, the link in the US between poverty and obesity is clear (see, for example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198075/).

I agree with Krugman that food stamps are a necessary safety-net at times like these, when the US economy remains in the doldrums. However, I also believe that various proposed laws to prevent food stamps from being used for junk food desperately need to be enacted. As reported by Yahoo! News in a September 11, 2013 article entitled "GOP bill would ban using food stamp funds on junk food" by Eric Pfeiffer (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/gop-bill-would-ban-using-food-stamp-funds-on-junk-food--215158768.html):

"Newly proposed legislation in Congress would ban recipients of food stamps from buying junk food.

The Hill reports that a bill proposed by Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., would require food stamp recipients to purchase only healthy food.

The Healthy Food Choices Act, H.R. 3073 is the latest salvo from Republican members of Congress who have criticized the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps or the Women, Infants and Children program (WIC).

. . . .

Roe’s legislation is specifically in response to a 2012 study, which showed that recipients from the food stamp fund spend approximately $2 billion a year on junk food."

Does such a ban, proposed by a . . . Republican (there, I said the nasty word), make sense? Absolutely, positively.