This is What Happens When You Trade Land for Peace

From Israel: You're Not Alone:

Netanyahu's Speech to Congress

At WSJ, "Netanyahu Maintains Firm Stance on Mideast," NYT, "Netanyahu Repeats Stiff Criteria for Peace," WaPo, "Netanyahu, Addressing Congress, Lays Out Vision for Mideast Peace."

Also, Jonathan Tobin, "Netanyahu’s Triumph," and Jennifer Rubin, "Bibi Does Not Disappoint, Rocks the House."

And video at The Right Scoop: "Benjamin Netanyahu's Epic Speech Before Congress." And from WaPo, "Transcript: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Address to Congress."

'The Best Part of Easy Rider is the Last 20 Seconds'

See Kathy Shaidle, "Leftists strangely silent about Peter Fonda’s death threat against Obama."

Well, actually Joe Gandelman sees an opening to slam the "fringe" right-wing: "Further Proof that Not All Nuts are in Stores or on the Right."

Full story at Telegraph UK, "Cannes 2011: Peter Fonda encourages his grandchildren to take up arms against President Barack Obama" (via Memeorandum). Says Fonda: "I’m training my grandchildren to use long-range rifles," with Barack Obama in mind.

BONUS: An amazing flashback. Exactly two years ago, I attended a 40th anniversary screening. Hey, great flick, "'Easy Rider' in 40th Anniversary Screening at L.A.'s Nuart Theatre."

Move Over AIPAC! Protests Netanyahu Speech

It's a Code Pink joint.

See Weasel Zippers, "Code Pink Does The Islamists Bidding at AIPAC: Continuously Interrupts Netanyahu’s Speech…"

IN THE MAIL: Subversion, Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers

From Matthew Vadum, Subversion, Inc.

It's a great read. I'll post some passages later ...

An Anti-Israel President

From Bret Stephens, at Wall Street Journal:

Say what you will about President Obama's approach to Israel—or of his relationship with American Jews—he sure has mastered the concept of chutzpah.

On Thursday at the State Department, the president gave his big speech on the Middle East, in which he invoked the claims of friendship to tell Israelis "the truth," which to his mind was that "the status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace." On Friday in the Oval Office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his version of the truth, which was that the 1967 border proposed by Mr. Obama as a basis for negotiating the outlines of a Palestinian state was a nonstarter.

Administration reaction to this reciprocal act of friendly truth-telling? "That was Bibi over the top," the New York Times quoted one senior U.S. official, using the prime minister's nickname. "That's not how you address the president of the United States."

Maybe so. Then again, it isn't often that this or any other U.S. president welcomes a foreign leader by sandbagging him with an adversarial policy speech a day before the visit. Remember when the Dalai Lama visited Mr. Obama last year? As a courtesy to Beijing, the president made sure to have the Tibetan spiritual leader exit by the door where the White House trash was piled up. And that was 11 months before Hu Jintao's state visit to the U.S.

When this president wants to make a show of his exquisite diplomatic sensitivity—burgers with Medvedev, bows to Abdullah, New Year's greetings to the mullahs—he knows how. And when he wants to show his contempt, he knows how, too.

The contempt was again on display Sunday, when Mr. Obama spoke to the Aipac policy conference in Washington. The speech was stocked with the perennial bromides about U.S.-Israeli friendship, which brought an anxious crowd to its feet a few times. As for the rest, it was a thin tissue of falsehoods, rhetorical legerdemain, telling omissions and self-contradictions. Let's count the ways ...

RTWT.

Netanyahu v. Obama

Some folks might not know, but Benjamin Netanyahu is a former Israeli commando and military hero who took part in a rescue operation for Sabena Flight 571, in 1972, which had been hijacked by terrorists from the Black September organization. The Bloodthirsty Liberal has the story, "The Rescue Of Sabena Flight 571."

IMAGE CREDIT: Theo Spark, " Netanyahu vs. Obama, at the same age ..."

PREVIOUSLY: "Netanyahu at AIPAC."

Netanyahu at AIPAC

At Jerusalem Post, "PM: 'Israel cannot return to indefensible 1967 lines'." And, "Prime Minister Netanyahu's AIPAC Speech."

Also, from Joel Rosenberg, at National Review, "Netanyahu to AIPAC: Stop Iran or Israel Will":

After the worst week in U.S.-Israel relations in 35 years, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington Monday and gave a powerful and effective speech at the AIPAC gala dinner at the Washington Convention Center, warning the world to stop Iran — or Israel will – and respectfully but directly challenging the Obama administration on Jerusalem and the peace process.

Netanyahu received scores of standing ovations from the 7,800 guests in attendance, the biggest event in the history of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee). More than half of the members of the U.S. House and Senate were there, as were ambassadors from more than fifty countries and many top Israeli officials, including defense minister Ehud Barak and opposition leader Tzipi Livni. The longest and most sustained came when the prime minister firmly resisted the policy of President Obama, who seeks to divide Jerusalem and stop Israel from building “settlements” in East Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is not a settlement,” said Netanyahu. “It is our capital.”

More at the link.

RELATED: At WSJ, "Palestinian Statehood Vote Looms Over U.S.-Israel Rift."

Defund the Orange County Human Relations Commission

I received this e-mail today:

The most important thing that we may do this year is urge the Orange County Board of Supervisors to pull funding for the unconstitutional Human Relations Commission.

Also, please urge every OC taxpayer to write the Board of Supervisors to ask them to defund the Orange County Human Relations Commission. The simple message is that no government sponsored group should criticize or condemn any exercise of free speech. This group is not accountable to voters, has no legal or political power and has no business passing judgment on exercise of constitutional rights. This is crucial since free speech is the key to all of our other freedoms and the only tool we have to challenge groups that want to veto our speech rights. The very fact that this group dares to censor speech based upon their view of what "creates an environment of hate" is shocking. They have become a law unto themselves and their subjective judgments must stop.

Please write the supervisors below and tell them that free speech means exactly that: FREE speech. Our First Amendment does not say that speech is free unless a county commission thinks that it is offensive!!

bill.campbell@ocgov.com
john.moorlach@ocgov.com
shawn.nelson@ocgov.com
patricia.bates@ocgov.com
janet.nguyen@ocgov.com

A sample of the commission's anti-speech campaign: "OC Human Relations Commission Calls for a Return to Civility in Reaction to Muslim Charity Speakers and Protests."

The background, of course, is the manufactured outrage of political correctness that followed the protests by some breakaway activists in Yorba Linda in February, at an Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) fundraiser. The event was ruthlessly exploited by the Muslim Brotherhood's Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its neo-communist allies at George Soros' Center for American Progress. Gary Fouse has the background: "What Happens When Political Correctness Runs Wild."

RELATED: If folks have been reading Blazing Cat Fur, then what's happening in Orange County might sound familiar. Frankly, the O.C. commission sounds like a clone of the Canuckistan version, or vice versa: The Canadian Human Rights Commission. Or, some might remember the case of Mark Steyn: "The Kafkaesque Show Trial of Mark Steyn." (And some of Steyn's offending material, "The future belongs to Islam.")

Complaints were also filed against Ezra Levant for publishing the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. Blazing Cat Fur has more on that today, "You only have to give "average" head to get a job at the CHRT...":

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor at AIPAC Policy Conference: VIDEO

At Weasel Zippers, "GOP Leader Eric Cantor Rips Obama at AIPAC Conference, Says Arab “Hatred” of Jews to Blame For Lack of Peace…" (Via Memeorandum.) And at Weekly Standard, "Eric Cantor: 'It Is Not About the '67 Lines'."

Plus, a long analysis from Jennifer Rubin, "Reaction to Obama’s AIPAC Speech."

Added: From Ron Radosh, "Eric Cantor Gives AIPAC Delegates a Lesson on Which Political Party Really Supports Israel and America’s Alliance with the Jewish State."

Joplin, Missouri, Tornado: VIDEO

Robert Mackey has a video roundup, "Video Shows Missouri Tornado Damage."

And at ABC News, "Tornadoes Rip Across Midwest; 89 Dead in Joplin, Mo."

ALSO: A first-person video, riding out the storm, here.

Dr. Charli Carpenter and the Laws of War

Charli Carpenter is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She's also a progressive Israel-hater at Lawyers, Guns and Murder. I wrote previously on Charli's entry on Palestine. See, "Israel-Bashing Progressives Paint Iran/Syrian-Backed Border Incursion as 'Martin Luther King-Style Non-Violence'." Not only is Charli's post itself a disgraceful bit of anti-Israel propaganda, the anti-Semitic comments therein are shocking, as I noted:

It's like a bloodthirsty mob that's mainlined a toxic zombie cocktail of Noam Chomsky and the Hamas Charter's genocidal jihad. Seriously. It's Western Jew hatred condensed in netroots fever-swamp form, available on an ostensibly responsible academic political science blog.

I tried to generate serious discussion at the thread (who knows why?), but Robert Farley childishly scrubbed my link and replaced it with his favorite jail-bait pop songster. Che's chicken, I guess. Manchild loser.

Anyway, Charli's an expert on civilian protection in international conflict, and her writing is quite conducive to the extreme left's campaign of delegitimation of Israel as an apartheid state. In two recent essays at Foreign Affairs, Charli utilizes the widely discredited Goldstone Report as a launchpad for a theoretical and legalistic discussion on reducing civilian casualties through international law. See "Fighting the Laws of War: Protecting Civilians in Asymmetric Conflict," and "War Crimes Reporting After Goldstone: Filling the Geneva Regime's Gaps Through Monitoring." Charli shifts to a more systemic focus, but, especially in the first essay, which is a book review, the abstraction at the argument ends up leaving her case missing the most important problems when applied to Israel's recent wars. One of the more inane points she makes (or not inane, if we understand it as essentially a crude Code Pink-style gambit), is that the U.S. should actually abjure precision-guided remote weapons technology in favor of sending in boots on the ground. Basically, if nation-states had skin in the game they wouldn't kill civilians. Rebutting a point made by Michael Gross, in Moral Dilemmas and Modern War, she argues:

In outlining the limitations presented by the laws of war in addressing modern conflicts, Gross argues that the current legal framework for civilian protection must change to meet state interests. He is sympathetic to the new tendency among Western states to broaden the scope of acceptable military targets to include civilians who assist insurgents. Yet this is a deviation from the existing norm by states seeking to pursue their interests outside the bounds of the law. Were this trend adopted as a new legal standard, it would be nothing less than an abandonment of the current rules, weakening civilian protection rather than strengthening it.

Moreover, underlying Gross' belief that the laws of war must change to meet states' needs is the historically flawed notion that modern combat presents unique challenges. The kinds of asymmetries in the warfare he writes about are hardly unprecedented. The laws of war have in fact already adapted to many of the questions that, according to Gross, have been raised for the first time by recent wars. The current framework distinguishes, for example, between civilians who support warring factions by providing food and shelter, who are not automatically rendered legitimate targets, and civilians who take up arms themselves, who do lose their immunity. Gross points out that these rules place critical restraints on the actions of state militaries. But he overstates the case when he suggests that the laws of war tie their hands completely. To Gross, there seem to be only two options for state forces engaged in asymmetric wars: bend the rules by fighting guerrillas with an expanded notion of legitimate targets, or prepare to lose.

Yet a third option exists: militaries can choose to place their uniformed men and women in harm's way rather than cede the moral high ground by placing civilians in greater danger. When Gross describes the fundamental dilemma of asymmetric war as "who do we bomb when there are no more accessible military targets?" he assumes that states must deploy aerial firepower to defeat their unconventional enemies. But this is not the only tool in the arsenals of Western states. To combat insurgents and protect civilians simultaneously, governments could choose to use ground troops, which are arguably better equipped to discriminate between innocent bystanders and insurgents and their accomplices. Although militaries risk significantly higher casualties by deploying their troops rather than dropping precision bombs, this sacrifice is precisely what the logic of just war requires: that civilians not become more expendable than a country's armed forces.

Three points: Charli's reflexively resistant to an expanded definition of combatants (at the highlighted passage above), which is an odd thing considering that from Afghanistan to Iraq, and most definitely in the case of Israel's wars against state-backed Islamist movements, it's increasingly non-conventional combatants who are waging war against states. Such fighting forces aren't generally paying attention to the Marquess of Queensberry niceties of supranational legal institutions. And while true that ground units would be more likely to avoid killing non-combatants, the argument goes explicitly against trends in anti-insurgency toward unmanned high-technology warfare. Americans don't necessarily tolerate casualties, especially over time and when victory in war in unassured. Thus making a case for increasing the number of engagements with boots on the ground is sneaking in an antiwar argument to increase the political costs of war and perhaps reduce military effectiveness in some cases.

Also, it's basically dishonest to begin analysis of civilian casualties with the Goldstone Report. Even before Richard Goldstone renounced his own investigation in the Washington Post, the legitimacy of the Goldstone Report was highly contested (it's an international solidarity hit piece). In her most glaring omission, Charli neglects mention of the use of human shields by irregular forces, which was one of the most important aspects of Palestinian war fighting during the 2008 war. See the Jerusalem Post, "'Hamas Used Kids as Human Shields'":

Hamas gunmen used Palestinian children as human shields, and established command centers and Kassam launch pads in and near more than 100 mosques and hospitals during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year, according to a new Israeli report being released on Monday that aims to counter criticism of the IDF.

The detailed 500-page report, obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post, was written by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam), a small research group led by Col. (res.) Reuven Erlich, a former Military Intelligence officer who works closely with the army.

The IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) cooperated with the report’s authors and declassified hundreds of photographs, videos, prisoner interrogations and Hamas-drawn sketches as part of an effort to counter the criticism leveled at Israel in the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report.

Work on the Malam report began immediately after former judge Richard Goldstone issued his damning report of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip in September.

One example of the material revealed in the Malam report is an-until-now classified sketch of the village of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza discovered by IDF troops during the operation, that details the extensive deployment of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and snipers inside and adjacent to civilian homes.

The sketch was discovered in a home of a Hamas operative together with several IEDs and Kalashnikov rifles.

“The Goldstone Report is one-sided, biased, selective and deceptive, since it simply accepts Hamas claims at face value and presents everything through Hamas’s eyes,” Erlich said.

The Malam report also provides an analysis of another sketch found during the offensive in the Atatra neighborhood in northern Gaza City that Erlich said proves Hamas’s culpability for the ensuing death and destruction.

“By placing all of their weaponry next to homes, by operating out of homes, mosques and hospitals, by firing rockets next to schools and by using human shields, Hamas is the one responsible for the civilian deaths during the operation,” Erlich said.

More at the link, and see also the full report, "Response to the Goldstone Report: Hamas and the Terrorist Threat from the Gaza Strip; The Main Findings of the Goldstone Report Versus the Factual Findings."

Finally, Charli Carpenter has long exhibited an anti-American streak in her research under the guise of scholarly inquiry. It was blatantly obvious during her writing on WikiLeaks, although perhaps less so in her writings on civilian protection. But reading over her second piece cited, "War Crimes Reporting After Goldstone," one finds a confidence in the effectiveness of international law that's hardly warranted in the case of Israel. Charli argues for the creation of a new monitoring agency centered at the United Nations. But of all places in international politics, the U.N. is without a doubt the most hostile to the existence of Israel, and thus it goes without saying the the Jewish state would never get a fair hearing in such monitoring activities so long as investigative power rests among the anti-colonialist majority at the world body. (The essential discussion is Dore Gold's, Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos.) Again, even if we take her analysis as abstracting to the system level, Charli's ineluctable referent is the Israeli case: "The hubbub over the Goldstone report raises the question of whether the UN is capable of independent human rights investigations." It's thus easy to see why Charli would post a lame piece of anti-Israel propaganda (on the ridiculous notion of the May 15th Nakba border incursions as "non-violent"). And soon enough the bird-brained LGM commentariat started spouting off about Israel's "apartheid state" now oppressing those poor Palestinians who enjoy more rights in Israel than in any Arab regime in the region.

IMAGE CREDIT: Serr8d's Cutting Edge.

The Case for Voter ID

From Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, at Wall Street Journal:

Voter fraud is a well-documented reality in American elections. To offer a few examples, a 2010 state representative race in Kansas City, Mo. was stolen when one candidate, J.J. Rizzo, allegedly received more than 50 votes illegally cast by citizens of Somalia. The Somalis, who didn't speak English, were coached to vote for Mr. Rizzo by an interpreter at the polling place. The margin of victory? One vote.

In Kansas, 221 incidents of voter fraud were reported between 1997 and 2010. The crimes included absentee-ballot fraud, impersonation of another voter, and a host of other violations. Because voter fraud is extremely difficult to detect and is usually not reported, the cases that we know about likely represent a small fraction of the total.

My office already has found 67 aliens illegally registered to vote in Kansas, but when the total number is calculated, it will likely be in the hundreds. In Colorado, the Secretary of State's office recently identified 11,805 aliens illegally registered to vote in the state, of whom 4,947 cast a ballot in the 2010 elections.
Evidence of voter fraud is present in all 50 states, and public confidence in the integrity of elections is at an all-time low. In the Cooperative Congressional Election Study of 2008, 62% of American voters thought that voter fraud was very common or somewhat common.

Fear that elections are being stolen erodes the legitimacy of our government. That's why the vast majority of Americans support laws like Kansas's Secure and Fair Elections Act. A 2010 Rasmussen poll showed that 82% of Americans support photo ID laws. Similarly, a 2011 Survey USA poll of Kansas voters showed that 83% support proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration.

Kobach is pictured above speaking at the David Horowitz West Coast Retreat. After than panel (video here) the secretary and his wife met with a small group of participants for a meet-and-greet session. He's a great guy. Friendly and down to earth, I expect he'll be a rising star in Kansas and national politics for some time.

Full Video: President Obama's AIPAC Policy Speech

Debate continues over the president's speech today in Washington.

Obama more than once said that the United States will not stand by while Israel is delegitimized. And he sounded forceful. But he remains committed to a Palestinian state that would cut through territory Israel needs to maintain its security from hostile neighbors. Contiguity for Palestine means dividing Israel geographically where there's been no basis in negotiations previously. Israel will be required to relinquish a corridor from Gaza to the West Bank that divides the county on the map. See, "Obama’s ‘Contiguous’ Palestinian State Could ‘Split Israel in Half,’ Says Middle East Expert." That will open up Israel's strategic vulnerability and impede transportation corridors necessary for national defense. It's absurd. Besides, I doubt there's any realistic chance for the old-time "two-state solution." The demand for Palestinian right of return is the dominant theme. The "Nakba" the basis for historical grievance, despite the myths behind it. The administration should be pushing the other way, against the Fatah-Hamas alliance committed to Israel's destruction, and against the Muslim anti-Semitism that's darkened the region like a terminal malignancy. This is why the AIPAC speech is a lost opportunity.

Barbara Efraim at UCLA: 'David Horowitz and Noam Chomsky Deserve Equal Coverage'

My former student and friend, at the Daily Bruin:

Bruin Republicans held an event May 11 that demonstrated the tolerance and civility of the UCLA community. David Horowitz, a former radical leftist and now conservative activist, gave a speech, followed by a Q&A, titled “Intellectual Terrorism: The Left’s War on Free Speech.”

In the past, he has gotten pies thrown at him, and his speeches at universities across the nation are regularly interrupted by hecklers from various student organizations. But this time, there were no outbursts during the speech.

The civility Horowitz received is exceptional, but it does not belie the pressure Bruin Republicans and the David Horowitz Freedom Center received prior to the event. Such were the pressures that the group was advised to hire armed campus security officers to be safe. The event nearly filled Moore 100 and while I’m glad it ran smoothly, I wonder where the dissenting voices went.

It’s remarkable that conservative groups have to use enhanced security measures to ensure events are uninterrupted. On May 7, I attended Noam Chomsky’s lecture hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine in Young Hall, CS 50.

There was a long line, formed hours before the start of the event, and people were waiting to take a seat and listen to a lecture that would attack American foreign policy and compare the Israeli democracy to South African apartheid. I agree that Chomsky has the liberty to speak, just as I expect someone who shares my beliefs would have a right to make his views heard.

But as opposed to Horowitz, Chomsky did not have any security guards at his side.

More at the link above. The full video at FrontPage, "David Horowitz at UCLA."

Also, Barbara's at AIPAC in D.C. and just tweeted: "Obama showed that he's still his arrogant, demagogue-like self."

No doubt.

Obama at AIPAC

Pamela reports: "AIPAC 2011: OBAMA'S SPEECH TO JEWS."

Also, from Jennifer Rubin:

The president just finished speaking to a packed convention room at the AIPAC policy conference. He was not booed when he entered; most stood and offered brief applause. Still, the crowd during the speech had long periods of stony silence, and audible boos were heard when he brought up his plan to base an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal on the 1967 border lines. President Obama took nothing back from his foreign policy speech on Thursday and blamed the press for any controversy. He doubled down, making this upcoming presidential election a time for choosing for friends of Israel.

See also, Elliott Abrams, "Obama at AIPAC: Correcting Some Errors, Compounding Others." Plus, from Bruce Kesler, "Reactions to President Obama at AIPAC" (via Memeorandum and Power Line).

If You Believe That Anyone Like Me Within a Song...

Flashback to 1981.

The Psychedelic Furs, "Into You Like A Train":

'Carrie' Remake in the Works?

People are talking about it. But why? Hard to improve on a classic:

The 12-Step Plan to Make Amanda Marcotte's Head Explode

And other feminists too, of course.

From Gavin McInnes, at Taki's (via FFOF). The whole thing's riot, for example, "Step 10" to restore femininity:

DON’T CUT YOUR HAIR

As Steve Sailer has made very clear, the traits we find attractive in the opposite sex are based on exaggerating our differences. Men can’t grow hair as long as women can, so prove you’re a woman and let it grow to the floor. American women seem to think that once they give birth, they have to visit Rachel Maddow’s barber for the rest of their life. This is tantamount to rape, because when we have sex with you from behind, we look down and see this weird smirking Boy Scout getting drilled. Thanks for that.

Interestingly, Amanda's Saturday post is inspired by Sadly No!, although it's anybody's guess whether the essentials of McInnes' 12-step plan would bear the slightest bit of interest to Carl "Young & Hung" Salonen, ringleader of the Sadly comment threads. (Yo, that's comedy!)

Obama 'Black Mascot' of Wall Street

I saw this earlier, but William Jacobson's covered it for the Saturday night race card, "Progressives Devouring Their Own Tail":

More at West's interview with Truthdig:

“We have got to attempt to tell the truth, and that truth is painful” ... “It is a truth that is against the thick lies of the mainstream. In telling that truth we become so maladjusted to the prevailing injustice that the Democratic Party, more and more, is not just milquetoast and spineless, as it was before, but thoroughly complicitous with some of the worst things in the American empire. I don’t think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Obama. If it turns out in the end that we have a crypto-fascist movement and the only thing standing between us and fascism is Barack Obama, then we have to put our foot on the brake. But we’ve got to think seriously of third-party candidates, third formations, third parties.”

I'm just laughing at how Obama suckered these idiots. I don't care about the empire bull, but I've long hoped that Obama would genuinely work to help the disadvantaged, and he's done jack as far as I'm concerned, especially on the school choice issue. What a waste of opportunity.

RELATED: At Saberpoint, "My Impression of CORNEL WEST (Photoshop)."