Even The Nation

This is by a writer named Hillel Schenker in the Nation:

There are a number of original sins that led to this moment...the final sin was the fact that Hamas carried out a coup against the PA in Gaza and played a game of chicken with Israel with the Qassam missiles.

For actual reality, see Vanity Fair.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Helping Gaza In 2008

Who created this email address?

The predictably horrifying answer, along with one of history's greatest prank phone calls, can be found here.

PREVIOUS HELP: Don't Make Me Come Over There and Be Generous to You

—Jonathan Schwarz

New Tomdispatch

link

The Ponzi Scheme Presidency
Bush's Legacy of Destruction
By Tom Engelhardt

It may finally be 2009, but in some ways, given these last years, it might as well be 800 BCE.

From the ninth to the seventh centuries BCE, the palace walls of the kings who ruled the Assyrian Empire were decorated with vast stone friezes, filled with enough dead bodies to sate any video-game maker and often depicting -- in almost comic strip-style -- various bloody royal victories and conquests. At least one of them shows Assyrian soldiers lopping off the heads of defeated enemies and piling them into pyramids for an early version of what, in the VCE (Vietnam Common Era) of the 1960s, Americans came to know as the "body count."

So I learned recently by wandering through a traveling exhibit of ancient Assyrian art from the British Museum. On the audio tour accompanying the show, one expert pointed out that Assyrian scribes, part of an impressive imperial bureaucracy, carefully counted those heads and recorded the numbers for the greater glory of the king (as, in earlier centuries, Egyptian scribes had recorded counts of severed hands for victorious Pharaohs).

Hand it to art museums. Is there anything stranger than wandering through one and locking eyes with a Vermeer lady, a Van Eyck portrait, or one of Rembrandt's burghers staring out at you across the centuries? What a reminder of the common humanity we share with the distant past. In a darker sense, it's no less a reminder of our kinship across time to spot a little pyramid of heads on a frieze, imagine an Assyrian scribe making his count, and -- eerily enough -- feel at home. What a measure of just how few miles "the march of civilization" (as my parents' generation once called it) has actually covered.

The rest.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Fair And Balanced

The New York Times website currently has a short slideshow of six pictures from Israel/Palestine. They are:

1. The coffin of an Israeli solder about to be buried (caption: "The ground assault brings the prospect of more casualties on both sides")

2. A Palestinian boy being carried into a Gaza emergency room.

3. An Israeli man wounded by a rocket from Gaza being wheeled into an emergency room in Sderot.

4. Israeli soldiers moving into Gaza.

5. A shaken woman from Sderot in her nightgown.

6. A shot of Gaza from far away showing several clouds of white smoke in the air.

A slightly longer slideshow includes additional pictures: a elderly Palestinian man being carried into an emergency room, an Israeli man whose home has been damaged by a Gaza rocket, and an Israeli women sitting at her dining table and "tending to her wounds," which appear to be a scratch to her forehead.

During the current conflict, the ratio of dead Palestinians to dead Israelis is about 100-1.

As always, the question remains: why is the media so incredibly liberal? And why are they so sympathetic to people who hate America?

—Jonathan Schwarz

Israelis Now Safe From Life-Threatening Oxygen

By: John Caruso of The Distant Ocean

If you've been watching mainstream media coverage of Israel's Gaza assault you've probably seen an IAF snuff film of a missile strike against "a Hamas vehicle loaded with dozens of Grad type missiles in the Jabaliya area," in which eight people were incinerated (and others injured).  But B'Tselem has discovered that this vehicle posed an even more insidious danger:

B’Tselem received the testimony of Ahmad Sanur, the owner of the truck bombed. Sanur claims the truck was carrying oxygen canisters used for welding, not Grad rockets. B'Tselem field worker took photos of oxygen canisters left on the site of the bombing.

According to Sanur’s testimony, he and members of his family were trying to salvage material from a metal workshop he owns, which was next door to a bombed house, in order to prevent looting. He denies any connection to militants, or military activity, and is willing to talk to any journalist, or investigator.

(Photo from Army footage of the loading of the truck and photo of the oxygen canisters left next to the truck taken by B'Tselem fieldworker.)

Now, you may think of oxygen as harmless and even benevolent, but it's actually a deadly gas at the right concentration and pressure.  So for all we know, these oxygen canisters were a key component of a Hamas plot to submerge Israel to a depth of 200 feet and force Israelis to breath 100% oxygen (casts an entirely new light on the threat to push Israel into the sea, doesn't it?).  And even assuming the canisters were empty, just imagine the damage one of them could do if a disgruntled Palestinian dropped it off of a tall building on a crowd of Israeli women and children.  As an IDF spokesperson said:  "The intelligent audience watching the footage will know that people killed did not have peaceful intentions toward Israel. ... I don't believe they'll be disturbed."

(Sanur's son was among the eight people killed, by the way—four of whom were under the age of 18.)

— John Caruso

Why Does The New Republic Hate Israel?

By: Bernard Chazelle

OK, I understand emotions are running high about the Gaza slaughterhouse. I have pretty harsh words myself for the sausage makers who moonlight as leaders of Israel. But there are limits of decency I would not cross, nor would, I surmise hopefully, anyone at ATR. So I am wondering how it came about that The New Republic, an outlet allegedly friendly to Israel, allowed Yossi Klein Halevi to stain its pages with such filth?

It was Israel at its best.

At its best. Really?

— Bernard Chazelle

Necessary

Perhaps this is old news to some, but I've just read a 2004 Jerusalem Post interview with Haifa University demographer Arnon Soffer. Soffer is described as "widely seen as the originator of Ariel Sharon's separation plan"—ie, the "withdrawal" from Gaza, which happened in 2005, a year after the interview.

Given current events, this statement by Soffer seems worth recalling:

[W]hen 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.

In 2007, Soffer was again interviewed, and had this to say:

That statement caused a huge stir at the time, and it's amazing to see how many dozens of angry, ignorant responses I continue to receive from leftists in Israel and anti-Semites abroad, who took my words out of context. I didn't recommend that we kill Palestinians. I said we'll have to kill them.

Well, what can you do when such things are necessary? Other mideast leaders have known this. Here's a transcript from 60 Minutes in February, 2008:

PELLEY: Did you show [Saddam] pictures from the Anfal campaign [ie, Iraq's attempted genocide of the Kurds], those terrible, terrible pictures?

FBI AGENT PIRO: Yes, I did.

PELLEY: And his reaction?

FBI AGENT PIRO: Necessary.

BUT THERE'S MORE: The two Soffer interviews are very rich material.

1. Soffer brags about how many Israeli politicians listen to him, and claims Ehud Olmert said in 2003, "Professor Soffer convinced me; we can't escape this any more." To be fair to Olmert, I assume he meant "disengagement" per se, rather than Soffer's plans to "kill and kill and kill."

2. This is from the first interview:

In 1987, at a meeting organized by [former ambassador to the US] Zalman Shoval between myself, Shoval, [nuclear physicist and right-wing leader] Yuval Ne'eman and Ghandi [the late Rehavam Ze'evi], I began by presenting the demographic statistics. Ne'eman got up and said: "Don't believe a word of what Arnon Soffer is telling you: The Central Bureau of Statistics also belongs to the Left."

We see here that Israeli society works just like ours. Both countries' government agencies devote themselves to running their country's empire in a semi-rational way. And this infuriates the right-wing, because they at heart are two years old and loathe being told they can't have their every heart's desire. Hence the Israel Bureau of Statistics, like the CIA here, "belongs to the Left."

3. The original 2004 interview has disappeared from the Jerusalem Post site. I found it in the archives of a Yahoo group for residents of Efrat, a settlement outside Jerusalem, where it was being circulated approvingly.

4. In the second interview, Soffer speaks straightforwardly about Israel's collaboration with the Jordanian and Egyptian governments to subjugate Palestinians. This obviously is well known in the mideast, but is essentially never mentioned in the US media.

5. Soffer is obsessed with calibrating what the United States will allow Israel to do. Here he is describing Israel getting permission to permanently hold onto a strip of land along the West Bank's border with Jordan:

[President of the Council on Foreign Relations] Richard Haass, who was director of policy planning for the US State Department at the time, told me personally: "We'll allow Israel to establish a 'Philadelphi Corridor' in the Jordan Valley, to guarantee the neutralization and demilitarization of Judea and Samaria."

It's also interesting to see who Richard Haass hangs out with. I wonder if it would be hard to become President of the Council on Foreign Relations if you liked to have heart to heart conversations with a member of Hamas who proudly speaks of the need to "kill and kill and kill" Israelis.

6. Soffer describes himself as being "in the center" of the Israeli political spectrum. He also says he's "originally a Mapainik"—ie, a supporter of Mapai, the forerunner to today's Israeli Labor party.

7. Soffer doesn't believe Iran is a threat to Israel, calling it "so weak and vulnerable that it's unbelievable." However, he says America's "considerations are a different story. The world's superpower cannot accept that 2/3 of the world's oil is in the hands of a crazy person like Ahmadinejad."

8. In both interviews, the Jerusalem Post describes Soffer as a "geostrategist." I understand Saddam was quite the geostrategist too.

9. Help?

Next World Order?

By: Bernard Chazelle

Strange op-ed in the Times by Gurcharan Das.

CHINA and India are in a struggle for a top rung on the ladder of world power

Both countries are world powers. If the writer means struggle between them, that has already been settled. China is between 2.5 and 3.5 times richer than India.

[W]hy is it that it’s the Indian economy that has become the developing world’s second best?

I have no satisfactory explanation for all this, but I think it may have something to do with India’s much-reviled caste system. Vaishyas, members of the merchant caste, who have learned over generations how to accumulate capital, give the nation a competitive advantage.

Not surprisingly, Vaishyas still dominate the Forbes list of Indian billionaires.

The author is not praising the caste system. Just like people who point out the economic benefits of slavery are not advocating it. What they are doing, however, is rather unclear.

80% of Indians live on $2.5 a day (PPP), a higher percentage than in Sub-Saharan Africa. Income inequality is rising, so let's all rejoice in India's stellar performance on the Forbes list of the world's richest.

The idea of becoming a military power in the 21st century embarrasses many Indians.

Because it was not one in the 20c?

When you have millions of gods, you cannot afford to be theologically narcissistic. It also makes you suspect power.

Having many gods makes one suspicious of power. The Roman Empire is a good example.

Indians expect to continue their relentless march toward a modern, democratic, market-based future. In this, terrorist attacks are a noisy, tragic, but ultimately futile sideshow.

Muslims, Pakistan, poverty... all a sideshow next to the relentless march toward a market-based future.

— Bernard Chazelle

La La La

Associated Press, "Fighting in dense Gaza brings child casualties":

[A]t least 37 children and 17 women have died, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. The United Nations has said the death toll includes 34 children...

"Hamas uses civilians as human shields," said an Israeli military spokeswoman, Maj. Avital Leibovich. "The targets we picked are military."

Osama bin Laden, Messages to the World:

[I]f the enemy occupies an Islamic land and uses its people as human shields, a person has the right to attack the enemy...

The targets of September 11 were not women and children. The main targets were the symbol of the United States: their economic and military power.

—Jonathan Schwarz

"Round Midnight" - Part I

By: Bernard Chazelle

I know I should be out there slaying the flame-breathing dragons of evil, but that'll have to wait till Jan 2. I have to deal with a more pressing matter right now, which is to indulge myself with my favorite jazz tune of all time.

The most recorded jazz standard and one of the most beautiful, haunting ballads ever composed, Thelonious Monk's Round Midnight is easy to play decently but hard to play right. It took Miles Davis years of hard work to master it, and, till the end, Monk himself rarely missed a chance to make him feel inadequate. In one recorded version, Miles screws up the intro -- intentionally, rumor has it, as retaliation for Monk's putdowns. Miles was always intimidated by Monk (and by Bird, too, but he idolized Bird). In a famous recording session, Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane get so confused about Monk's music they turn to him for help. Monk brushes them off: "Aren't you the great Coleman Hawkins? Aren't you the great John Coltrane? Then, if you're so great, you should be able to figure it out on your own." Monk was tough and uncompromising. But he was also a generous soul, who would actually spend hours "explaining" his music to his friends. If Bird was Beethoven, a born improviser, then Monk was Chopin. Notes were god-ordained to be somewhere and reordering them at Improv Time was only asking for trouble. He didn't think too highly of musicians improvising over his lines: "I wrote the perfect sequence of notes; why in the world would you want to play anything else?" (Advice he didn't apply to himself, of course.)

Thelonious Monk was one of the founding fathers of bebop, but he parted ways with the boppers eventually, accusing them of favoring virtuosity (the "externals") over depth and structure (the "internals"). He was the most original member of the group. While Bird's and Dizzy's innovations, dazzling as they were, have a historical logic to them, Monk is more of a musicological mystery -- as though he fell from a different planet. (An asteroid is named after him, so maybe that's what happened.) To say that Monk was a quirky guy is an understatement. He'd go days without saying a single word to anyone. Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Thelonious Monk all spent time in mental institutions, but I'd blame the drugs they inflicted on their bodies before any talk of mad genius.

That the end of Monk's life was not a hellish descent into the abyss can be attributed to the miraculous kindness of the patron (matron?) saint of bebop, the one and only Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter, in whose Jersey home Monk spent the last years of his life.

Charlie Rouse's solo is very beautiful, I think -- tender, bluesy, poignant. It must be the dream of every composer to write something as perfect as Round Midnight. In Part II, I'll write about some of the technical genius embedded in that piece. This will be, I promise, the most stultifyingly boring piece ever posted at ATR. (Or your money back!)

— Bernard Chazelle

Happy Dean Baker New Year!

Here's Dean Baker making an incredibly obvious and important point that professional liberals seem completely unable to absorb:

The extraordinary financial collapse of recent months has been commonly described as a testament to the failure of deregulation. The events are indeed testament to a failure—a failure of public policy. Blaming deregulation is misleading...

The less-versus-more framing of regulation supports the premise that there is in principle an unregulated market out there and that some of us wish to rein in this unregulated market while others would leave it alone. This is consistent with the idea that large inequalities in income distribution just happen as a result of market forces. But...no one is really talking about an unregulated market—rather we are all just talking about whom the regulation is designed to benefit. Distribution of income has never preceded the intervention of government.

The government is always present, steering the benefits in different directions depending on who is in charge. Accepting this view provides a political vantage point much better suited to the case for progressive regulation. After all, conservatives want the big hand of government in the market as well. They just want the handouts all to go to those at the top.

The rest.

—Jonathan Schwarz

More Fine Journamalism From America's Finest Journamalists

Today in the New York Times:

Israel’s stated goal for its military operation is to halt the rocket fire from Gaza and to create a new security equation in southern Israel, where three civilians and a soldier have been killed in rocket attacks in the last six days.

It has not declared its intention of toppling Hamas...

Tuesday in Slate, which is owned by the Washington Post:

Asked if Israel was out to topple Gaza's Hamas rulers, [Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni] said, "Not now." If reinstating the status quo ante is the test of proportionality, then Israel passes with flying colors. All it wants to do—as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert explained—is "to improve the security reality of southern residents in a thorough manner." A modest goal...Olmert never promised Israelis that he would dismantle Hamas' rule in Gaza.

The Times of London, quoting something said on Monday—ie, well before either of the above articles were published:

"The goal of the operation is to topple Hamas," Haim Ramon, the deputy to Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, said.

It was the first time since it launched its blistering offensive that Israel has openly stated that regime change is its ultimate goal. "We will stop firing immediately if someone takes the responsibility of this government, anyone but Hamas," Mr Ramon said.

—Jonathan Schwarz

The Long Dark Primary Race Of The Soul

From a New Yorker profile of Obama in 2007:

A potential crisis in the Social Security system is a long way off. Why, then, would a new President spend political capital on yet another tax hike when he will almost certainly seek to undo the Bush tax cuts for more immediate demands, like universal health care? When I asked Obama about this, he smiled and leaned forward, as if eager to explain that my premise was precisely the politically calibrated approach that he wanted to challenge. "What I think you’re asserting is that it makes sense for us to continue hiding the ball," Obama said, "and not tell the American people the truth—"

I interrupted: "Politically it makes sense—"

He finished the sentence: "—to not tell people what we really think?"

And this is Ali Abunimah, also writing in 2007:

Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker....

The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.

As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front." He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, "Keep up the good work!"

How completely predictable that Obama is eager to say what he "really thinks" when (1) what he "really thinks" is inaccurate and (2) it serves political power, but is not eager to do so when (3) what he "really thinks" is accurate and (4) it requires confronting political power. (Of course, god only knows what Obama truly believes about Israel/Palestine at this point.)

PREVIOUSLY: "Power was taking her son."

—Jonathan Schwarz

"I Wonder Where You Are Tonight"

By: Bernard Chazelle

All bluegrass songs are sad, Bill Monroe said. This one is no exception.

— Bernard Chazelle

The Lighter Side Of The Bombardment Of Gaza

The funny thing about the Israeli attack on Gaza following its long blockade is that Israel's original justification for taking over Gaza in 1967 was that Israel was being subject to a blockade. This is from the official Knesset history of the Six Day War:

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser blockaded the Straits of Tiran on May 21st and 22nd to all shipping from and to Eilat; the area was open to Israeli ships under UN supervision since 1957, and Israel repeatedly stated that such a blockade will be considered as casus belli (justification for acts of war).

Of course, there are many differences between the two situations. Just for instance: (1) Israel could still receive shipments by water via the Mediterranean, and (2) Israelis are human beings, whereas Palestinians are wolves in human form.

In any case, I expect this provides Gaza residents with quite a chuckle as they ponder whether their wounded children will succumb first to their injuries or to their intestinal parasites caused by contaminated water.

THANK YOU, MEMORY HOLE: As best as I can tell with Google News, no journalism has drawn this obvious parallel.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Barak's "War to the Bitter End"

By: Bernard Chazelle

The military operation in Gaza is the brainchild of Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak. He is trying to become Prime Minister again but he is facing three major obstacles along the way: one is the head of Kadima, Tzipi Livni, the second is Bibi Netanyahu; the third is his transcendent political ineptitude. He's the only guy in the world who could wash your dishes, walk your dog, give you a million bucks, and still manage to leave you thoroughly pissed off.

Barak's road to the PM's office runs through Gaza. He's prepared this assault for months. The truce (the "tahdiya" or "calm") was fairly effective. It was violated unilaterally by Israel on Nov 4th, a day when, if you remember, Americans were a bit distracted. The chart below (h/t) shows how the number of rocket attacks against Israel went down but not how the siege of Gaza was tightened. What Israel negotiated with Hamas was this -- oh sorry, I forgot that Israel does not negotiate with terrorists. I meant to say what Israel got Egypt to tell Hamas it agreed to was this: No Qassams, openings of border crossings (Sufa, Karni, Rafah): that was the deal in June. The blockade of Gaza was not eased. On the contrary. On Nov 5th, Israel sealed Gaza completely. The tahdiya was dead.

Barak has a problem. He has no exit strategy. The US and its poodles are not doing their part. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the PA all hate Hamas. The idea was that after a few days Uncle Sam would force Israel to stop. Then Barak could turn to his people and say "See, just as me, your magnificent commander on my white horse was about to finish off Hamas, the cruel world made us stop!" He's got the cruel part right. The US is applauding the offensive. So are Israelis anxious to restore their precious deterrent lost in the hills of South Lebanon. For Barak to ask for a ceasefire now would be a big political gamble. Many in Israel question his resolve; hence his "Sharon" complex. Plus, Qassams would keep on crashing into Sderot and he could easily be the new Olmert. A sustained ground operation would lead to heavy Israeli casualties. In the end, there will be a ceasefire with occasional violations on both sides. But Hamas is there to stay. How Barak's War to the Bitter End does not turn into the War to the Bitter End of Barak remains to be seen. All we know is that hundreds of innocent people have already paid with their lives for his electoral ploy.

Qassam attacks per month

— Bernard Chazelle