quite contrary

2003-05-31T15:23:00.000-07:00

ON THE RUN

Driven crazy by Bloggerspot, I registered a new (temporary?) URL: mirandica.blogspot.com. The new Blogger version does function better in general, apart from non-vital quirks, such as problems with special characters.

See you there.

2003-05-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

My good intentions...

(groan)

See you once Bloggerspot comes to its senses. Remarkable that Google itself never seems to have server problems, isn't it?

Whatever, it's a holiday week.

2003-05-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

bear with me, and I'll tell you what these funny links mean

2003-05-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

template update once again impossible, sorry for the remaining debris on the site

2003-05-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

GENETIC WEAPONRY REDUX

Not again! Al Quds Al Arabi, London, May, 22 2003 -- summary by "Proche Orient":

At a lecture in the United Arab Emirates, Egyptian biologist Wajdi Abdelfattah Swahel, a Cairo university professor, asserted "the Hebrew state not only uses chemical products to torture Palestinians, it uses Palestinian prisoners to test viruses and bacteria genetically engineered exclusively to harm Palestinians. […] Similarly, Israeli researchers are studying common Palestinian stomach illnesses in order to develop viruses capable of destroying a Palestinian's immune system, which resists these specific diseases. This will allow for the killing of as many Palestinians as possible, through "natural" causes. The Israelis are also developing a gas which will lead to the sterilization of Palestinians."

Arabic readers can enjoy the original here.

Update: To those of you fortunate enough to have missed the original show -- it's a subject I've recently developed a specific allergy to. Ths must be the exact reason why I simply have to return to it.

2003-05-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

CNN reports on concerns about radiation sickness among Iraqis living in the vicinity of the looted nuclear research site, Tuwaitha (via Phil Carter (check out his related post) via Aziz Poonawalla who both comment on it). As someone who has dealt with victims of various Soviet nuclear fallouts, I am as horrifed as I was when I wrote myself about the looting. On the other hand, the symptoms the CNN describes

Amar Jorda is a boy who said he has fallen ill after drinking water from a plastic barrel from the site.
"My skin itches. I can't breathe well, and my nose bleeds at least four times a day," Amar said.
The boy said he and his father bought the barrel from a man in the street. Amar said he only drank water from it once.

(was he the only one to drink from that barrel?)

and

One of Amar's friends drank water stored in a different barrel, and she said her vision has faded. "I can't see," Irkhlas Hassam said.
Dr. Jaafar Nasser, a senior physician at the nearest hospital, said he suspects the girl is suffering from radiation sickness. However, until experts conduct a detailed medical study, there's little chance of pinpointing the precise causes or of predicting consequences.
Nasser said he has seen six people within two days with similar symptoms as Amar's -- breathlessness, rashes, frequent nosebleeds and vomiting.

are pretty unspecific. The conclusion the local physician draws

"This is called acute radiation sickness," Nasser said.

appear premature. Such symptoms can be related to other health problems, including chemical poisoning. And, in acute cases, the first measures don't require "detailed medical studies".

2003-05-23T06:01:00.000-07:00

The Tree of Sin
By Valerie Pons

2003-05-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

Identity crisis

I do NOT intend to wind up as a Steven Den Beste double (courtesy of Samuel Gillis). See you in the gym.

In the meantime:

You are welcome to sign and not just to

my silent visitors, if you have nothing else to tell me.
I'm dying to learn why would someone choose to read a site like this every day.

2003-05-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

POMO WARFARE?

(This post has been rewritten on 5/23/2003 5:50:55 PM)

After having read a dozen speculations of why the Voice Of Osama should choose Norway for a target, a short "Norway Post" article (reproduced here in full length since their server is periodically down) has managed to set my inner crazy counterterrorist on the loose:

CIA operations on Norwegian soil?

22. Mai 2003

According to the newspaper VG, the CIA has been given extended authority to operate on Norwegian soil, because of US dissatisfaction with the work of the Norwegian Security Police (PST).

It is USA's opinion that the PST takes too long investigating people in the Muslim religious communities in Oslo, persons that the CIA believes to be connected with the Al Qaida terrorst network, VG writes.

Earlier, only Norwegian agencies were authorized to carry out intelligence work on Norwegian soil, but after the terrorist actions in the US, US and British intelligence services were given extended authority, according to the newspaper.

According to sources quoted by VG, this decision was made by Justice Minister Odd Einar Doerum.

However, the Justice Department demands that any major foreign operation on Norwegian soil must be approved beforehand.

The Justice Minister has denied the story, NRK Radio reports.

(NRK/Aftenposten)
Rolleiv Solholm

Could rumours in the respective circles regarding the officially non-existing Norwegian authorization have inspired the latest Osama hit? Aren't both "NRK/Aftenposten" and the Osama tape producers likely to draw their information from the same source(s)?

Maybe we should indulge less in trying to find a profound global political rationale behind terrorist activities? A recent "Why they hate us" discussion on "The Poor Man" makes the same point, only much better than I.

I've allowed myself to place a question regarding the publication date in the original Norwegian source, the "VG" newspaper, on Bjoern Staerk's blog. Update: the reply.

2003-05-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

BLOGGER WOES AND REMEDIES

It didn't function, Shai (test link). The culprit kindly provides extended instructions, although I'd put at least an hour between the two republishing actions. (I did it when I started out and decided to change the archiving frequency from monthly to weekly.)

With my site, it works when I simply click the little "republish" button for the respective week on the archive page.

The $15 Blogspot upgrade does exactly one thing: take the banner off the pages. Guilty as I am of trying to make it less visible, I've grown rather fond of mine by now. I'd miss its entertaining presence. (Update: and sometimes a useful one, like Imshin's discovery.) Whoever wrote the algorithm to match the content of the page with the ads must have had a great sense of humour.

Oh, and someone please send the guy with the Uzi to Ribbity Frog next (test link).

The good news is that there is a new version in the making. I've tried it out for a new "annex" blog (under construction) -- it is the purest of delights. I even like the templates. Unfortunately, you can only register new non-"Pro" blogs with it at the moment. The existing ones must wait -- "Heads up".

2003-05-22T04:49:00.000-07:00

O horror! I'm becoming a real blogger. A sequence of posts on terrorism, Palestinians and the French-US relations... Be grateful that I'm doing more quoting than writing, otherwise I'd already have qualified for membership in the Steven den Beste club

2003-05-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

Trans(atl)antics

Are they really worth it, all things considered? IHT, May 16:

Despite the heated anti-French rhetoric emanating from Washington, the anti-terrorist collaboration between France and America has continued unabated. As one official in the French government closely connected with the intelligence community puts it, "On the practical working level, nothing has changed. We've managed to separate that aspect of our relations from the diplomatic problems of the Iraqi crisis."
.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks the French have been providing key assistance in Afghanistan. And in some ways the French quietly aided the attack on Saddam Hussein. France did not close its airspace to U.S. military aircraft. And while French diplomats were doing their best to block American intervention, the French military was providing information for the buildup of U.S. military and intelligence forces in the former French colony of Djibouti. "Each time they asked us for input we replied," the French government source says.

Or maybe a "keep cool" approach would make more sense, of the type an older article I've seen in the same IHT some time ago reminds us:

In the 1960s, President Charles de Gaulle denounced the American war in Vietnam, withdrew from NATO's integrated command and kicked American troops out of France. None of these moves were welcome in Washington. But President Lyndon B. Johnson, a very different kind of Texan from the one now in the White House, adopted a businesslike response. "When a man asks you to leave his house, you don't argue," Johnson said to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, as told in Richard Barnet's book "The Alliance." "You get your hat and go." There followed nearly three decades of sometimes prickly, but generally constructive partnership between France and the United States, an important element of Western unity and victory in the Cold War.

Plus, some interesting observations on the gap between the attitudes of Jacques Schmoe and these of his rulers:

While some French political figures and business executives are uncomfortable about bad relations with Washington, the public seems superbly indifferent.

A recent poll listed several issues confronting the French government and asked the public which of them should be immediate priorities. Just 3 percent of those polled said that restoring good relations with the United States is the most important thing for the government to do.

At the same time the French public expresses warmth toward Americans. In the latest poll of national attitudes by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the German Marshall Fund, the French expressed roughly the same warmth of feeling toward Americans as did the Germans, the Dutch and even the Poles. In other words, there's nothing personal in the French attitude. It's political.

Will the "Transatlantic crisis" nonsense ever stop?

2003-05-22T03:41:00.000-07:00

Damage control?

I am far from claiming to understand the driving forces behind the intra-Israeli discourse. Nevertheless, on the background of a recent Palestinian protest against Hamas, the latest opinion piece by Amira Hass is somewhat surprising, all the more so that it is given prominent linkage on the Ha'aretz English website as of this writing:

The Saturday-Sunday attacks are not only testimony to the Hamas ability to ensnare Abbas and Dahlan (with whom the Hamas has a long history of clashes) and to thumb their noses at the Israeli security services, nor merely the technical capability for renewed terror. It also shows Hamas feels its position in the Palestinian public is firm.

...

The Hamas people know very well how much the Palestinian public hopes for a lengthy lull of the conditions of the the internal siege imposed by Israel.

But Hamas, like every Palestinian, knows the automatic Israeli response to an attack is to tighten the internal siege, or immediate cancelation of abatements that had been implemented or just announced. Hamas, therefore, not only refuses "to give a chance" to the Abbas-Dahlan government, it is signaling to the people that there is no significance to short-term abatements, a slight relaxation of the suffering.

Since the establishment of the PA in 1994, Hamas has swung between its political-military-religious platform, calling for a struggle against "the occupation of all of Palestine," and its ability to pay attention to the mood in the Palestinian public, which wants to see a normal solution in its lifetime and not in some illusory mythological future. When it did hold fire, or avoided escalating the power struggle with the PA, it was not because of steps Yasser Arafat and his security apparatus took against the Hamas activists (mass arrests without trial, firings, intimidation and paying them off with jobs); it was also - and perhaps primarily - out of awareness that Hamas, as a movement that takes pride in its grass-roots support, could not alienate itself from the public.

Despite the immediate harm to Palestinian expectations for relief from the pressures imposed by Israel, Hamas is convinced the public will not harbor resentment against it. The public will continue to blame the Israeli occupation regime for its suffering and not the Hamas actions, which as far as the Palestinians are concerned are legitimate reactions for civilian deaths at the hands of the IDF in its attacks in Gaza particularly, which have not ceased since Abbas was appointed. So strong is Hamas, that it allows itself to damage the short-term expectations of the Palestinian public.

Another thing -- I wish she (and her fellow writers) would quantify such statements a bit. What exactly is the "Palestinian consensus"? Are there differences between certain locations, social groups, political affiliations, etc.? What are such differences in terms of percentages? To me, an outsider, such articles are more confusing than anything else. For example, is the exact status of the Jerusalem neighbourhood where one the latest attacks took place --

The two attacks on Saturday and Sunday morning, in which nine Israelis were killed, are part of the Palestinian consensus about legitimate military activity in the framework of the legitimate campaign against the occupation: Both were in areas Israel occupied in 1967. By Palestinian definition, Pisgat Ze'ev, from which Egged bus No. 6 departed on Sunday morning, is a settlement and not a Jerusalem neighborhood.

-- a priority concern for some Gazans wishing to tend to their orange orchards?

2003-05-22T03:22:00.000-07:00

Osamology studies center, dept. of mass promotion

Mick Hume: Organised paranoia of West blows threat posed by al-Qaeda out of all proportion:

The West's fearful response to each new threat or attack is acting as an open invitation to every little terrorist cell. The message is, "We are scared, so why not scare us some more?" All it takes is a few zealots with home-made bombs in Africa or Asia to have the Western world pressing the panic button.

Since the bloody bombings in Casablanca, there has been much talk of a new global crisis. Yet in truth the world cannot be changed by the blowing-up of a Spanish social club and a Jewish community centre in Morocco, any more than by last week's attacks on petrol stations in Pakistan. Only our overblown reactions to these local incidents can create a crisis.

It is worth asking to what extent al-Qaeda now exists more in the West's fevered imagination than in the real world. Only a few weeks ago, American intelligence officials were boasting that al-Qaeda was all but defeated.

Now, after the bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Morocco and alerts in East Africa, top strategists and tabloid headline writers seem to agree that "Bin Laden is back". Yet there is nothing of substance linking these local attacks to any al-Qaeda central command. Not a word has been heard from Osama bin Laden since the audiotape he allegedly authored six months ago. But all it takes are a few scattered bombs in vulnerable outposts, and everybody appears convinced that al-Qaeda's leadership is once more organising a worldwide conspiracy that threatens Western civilisation. Alive or dead, the spectre of bin Laden is haunting the top minds of Europe and America.

Is the West maneuvering itself into the very rat-in-a-behavioural-experiment loop William Saletan of the "Slate" has warned against in September 2001, in its most stupid and lethal form imaginable?

It is hardly surprising that others should see the West as scared of its shadow. Or that a few fanatics should take up that open invitation to terrify us some more.

Via Andrew Northrup.

2003-05-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Salam Pax update

Posting on a site called Electronic Iraq, which, as opposed to his blog, is designed for readability; getting interviewed by his former Viennese fellow students (German original and a translation*); receiving no royalties for "his" mugs and t-shirts...

Via Jim Henley... yes, Jim, you were the first, but the idea is just too obvious to be worth claiming credit for... but maybe you should take the "Where is Raed" link off the "In Memoriam" list -- it looks eerie there...

* scroll down to May 18, 2003 -- the translations Jeff Jarvis is unsure about are correct, the original is in part the Austrian dialect rather than standard German

2003-05-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

European diversity

Cheer up, Gil and Allison, you are very welcome to a selected a few among the club members, seriously.

Update: A comprehensive "Head Heeb" post on the subject from last December. I respectfully disagree with some of Imshin's objections: the real Europe is much less "European" than many would like to believe.

Update: A long analysis from UPI.

2003-05-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

Questions for my American visitors

Are the security measures prescribed by the "Code Orange" alert level

being implemented, especially by private companies?
likely to be of any use under the known terrorist attacks scenarios?

(No, I am not amusing myself at your expense. The threat around my place is by all accounts no less, but the authorities seem to prefer a "don't panic" approach.)

2003-05-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

0.6

Why chimps and bananas don't need human rights.

2003-05-21T05:59:00.000-07:00

Ain't no blood libel

Remember that Sharon cartoon from "The Independent"? The one that was too much even for one of the blogosphere's most prominent anti-Sharonites? From now on it's officially kosher:

The commission [Britain's Press Complaints Commission] rejected Israel's charge that the cartoon was "prejudicial" and "pejorative," and reflected an anti-Semitic motif of a blood libel.

The commission said that it recognized the illustration offended some readers, but that reactions published in the newspaper following the cartoon's publication showed there were readers and political commentators who did not view it as an expression of a blood libel.

There was no reason for the commission to disbelieve the cartoonist's position that he had taken the view that the attack on Gaza City was a form of 'macabre electioneering' whose equivalent in less fraught situations might be the more traditional stunt of kissing babies," the commission wrote in its decision.

2003-05-20T21:27:00.000-07:00

The enjoyable web

Encyclopedia Mythica -- if only they would run their pictures through decent image processors... you won't believe the treasures concealed behind their black photos. Via Brian Ulrich.
Speculative Grammarian. Just these two: The BS Node: Proof That Lines Can Cross -- by Knotta Gnome Luvver and The BS Default Node: A Reply to Luvver -- I.M. Shirley Wright. Via Language Hat.
An idiosyncratic collection of resources for a university course on American poetry. Indirectly via Imshin.

2003-05-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

News, unreported, and the international solidarity with the Palestinian people

Sighted on yesterday's Jerusalem Report front page:

Quote · Unquote

"They [the militants] claim they are heroes. Yet they brought us only destruction and made us homeless. They used our farms, our houses and our children... to hide."

Beit Hanoun resident Mohammed Zaaneen, 30, taking part in a rare protest today against Palestinian militant groups firing rockets on Israeli targets from the Gaza Strip. The attacks resulted in Israeli incursions aimed at destroying areas used by militants for cover which ended today.

Remarkable that of the entire army of international media and peace activists the place brims with, none -- to the best of my knowledge [see Update I for corrections] -- have cared to report on this particular protest. If there has ever been a Palestinian contibution to peace, then this was one. No match for the pictoresque hordes of Ku-Klux-Klan lookalikes in terms of profitable sensationalism?

The International Solidarity Movement, or, to put it precisely, its visible Western component, may or may not take part in Palestinian violence. It most certainly endorses it verbally, describing it as the exercise of the "Palestinian right to self-defense". The same theory can be heard from other purportedly pro-Palestinian groups as well.

The late Rachel Corrie has left a delighted breathless account of a demonstration where "the internationals recognized symbols and banners from numerous school and community-groups, Fateh, DFLP, FIDA, PFLP, Hamas". The banners carried at that event were offering less surprising messages, such as "The real terrorists are in the United States and Israel":

One international delivered a speech in English, translated into Arabic by one of the Palestinian coordinators of ISM-Rafah. ... The international thanked the Palestinian people for offering a continuous example to the rest of the world of resistance against all odds. ... As the speech concluded they began to chant, with the crowd immediately surrounding them, "Hurriyah la Falasteen" -- Freedom for Palestine -- repeatedly."

-- but did the ISM take part in the protest against Hamas, I wonder? Or was it not big enough an event for them? Or maybe not approved by the local Palestinian co-ordinators we (prefer to?) know next to nothing about? Did they bother to ask people like Zaaneen whether they regard violence as self-defense?

If not, are such activists, intentionally or not, by their own choice or as a result of their local bosses' guidance, forcing upon their presumable protegés a road some (who really knows how many?) of them don't want to take? Even if one leaves Israeli victims out of the equation for a moment, are they actually helping Palestinians -- on the long run? Or do they ultimately help local terrorist organizations suppress voices like the one quoted at the beginning of this post?

--------------------

On re-reading this post, I decided that the title "Questions of a political idiot" would have been more appropriate. I also decided not to change it.

--------------------

Update I: According to Allison, the episode did get a three-paragraph mention in an unrelated Ha'aretz article. According to Barry Meislin, it is front-page news on today's "Globe and Mail" -- an AP report, to be exact. According to Jonathan, it is has created a stir in the blogosphere. (Sorry, I'm not much of an LGF regular.) The question of whose side international pro-Palestinian activist are on, still stands.

Update II: The sad truth is that the fact that the protestors blamed the militants for causing the recent IDF raid in the town, which is aimed at stamping out the missile strikes can also be interpreted as an argument in favour of harsh Israeli action extracting a toll on Palestinian civilians, given the context:

The operation in Beit Hanun was launched in response to the firing of rockets by Palestinians against Israeli towns inside the Green Line. During the early morning hours, the IDF entered the village in the northern Gaza Strip with dozens of armored vehicles and bulldozers.

...

During the Beit Hanun operation, IDF forces took over four houses belonging to Hamas and Fatah activists and evacuated the residents. In the morning hours, the houses were destroyed with explosives. [AP reports worse damages]

The operation was carried out amid exchanges of gunfire with Palestinian gunmen. Two men were killed in the area known as Zeitun: Nidal Krayem, 24, and Halil Karmut, 33. The three unarmed teens killed during the fighting were Abd al-Qadr Abu Kas, 16; Mohammed Za'anein, 14; and Zuheir Jrab, 13.

Come to think of it, I don't know much about Arabic names, but isn't it strange that one of the dead teenagers carries the same name as the protestor?

2003-05-20T14:52:00.001-07:00

Yet another futile call for a campaign to democratize European governance:

Let me suggest that Europe needs its own Parliament First movement, too. No, let's call it Parliaments First - the plural matters. For national parliaments need to be given greater influence over European decision-making, in addition to that exercised by the European Parliament in Brussels itself.

...

The EU in its early days was a diplomatic club, representatives of the national governments meeting together in secret to take most of the decisions. As time has passed, successive treaties have increased the influence of the directly-elected European Parliament in the decision-making process. Democracy is taking over from diplomacy.

But this process is still not complete. The Council is not yet accountable enough as a decision-making body.

Demands that the Council should meet in public and publish its documents are only half the story. Sometimes there are not proper meetings, sometimes there are not proper documents. I have often been told to wait for the results of a Council meeting while the minutes are written. This is absurd. No-one would be happy if we had to wait several days before it was clear what the outcome of a vote in the European Parliament was.

At other times, the Council meets merely to rubber-stamp decisions already effectively taken elsewhere. The Council acts like a committee: it ought to be more like an assembly.

2003-05-19T20:44:00.000-07:00

On the bad news

I have nothing to add at the moment. Read

Update I: Tal, Allison-2
Update II: the JTA

2003-05-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

Haloscan has taken another of its naps a short time ago. Note that I have an alternative option, permanently linked to in the sidebar under "Talk" -> "non-disappearing comments".

Update -- it's the war and politics: Often a good idea to take a look at the service provider's site:

4/13/03

High traffic

The site is currently experiencing an unusally high load because of some war and politics related weblogs that use this commenting system that have skyrocketed in popularity because of the war. Therefore during peak hours, the site may respond slower than usual. We appreciate your patience.

They also console users with a link to a partial workaround, plus, the forum offers a full list of currently functioning smileys:

:-)
:-(
;-)
:?:
:+:
:-:
:lol:
8)

-- forget your :p's and :o's.

2003-05-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Israeli readers, any ideas on...

... how to smuggle Zack safely in and out of Israel for the the Pakistani-Israeli driving competition he proposes (the comments relate to to this somewhat moody post of mine)?
... how to get the eminiently readable Sha! to update his archives (don't suggest mailing him - this I have already tried...) - unless, of course, he is preparing to introduce the latest in online publishing, a paid archived content scheme?

2003-05-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

My blogging is/was/will be light these days, fortunately, there are other bloggers ou there writing almost exactly what I think. For two samples, check out a sensible informed and a sensible egoistic posts on the current Transantlantic squabbles.

2003-05-16T08:45:00.000-07:00

My voice of reason

Thank you, Meryl, for the kind words. I am really touched.

Frankly, I was pretty mad at both sides, which must have mollified my overall tone in a mysterious way. Under normal conditions I'd start spitting as well, but I hate to see what I consider my side in antisemitism debates present poor arguments. And no, I wasn't thinking you were looking for kudos in the Google News affair - that "claims credit" was just of of my linguistic slips, sorry.

Btw., my archives always function. I am currently busy propagating a simple discovery: they should be republished manually after new posts. All it takes are two extra clicks.

2003-05-14T13:32:00.000-07:00

Since you were wondering, Allison --

Saudi Arabia delays U.S. team investigating Riyadh bombings:

An FBI team sent to investigate the suicide bombings on Western targets in Riyadh has been delayed in Germany as it awaits Saudi permission to enter the kingdom, leaving the U.S. still waiting to test the level of cooperation with Saudi authorities.

...

Sources in the American security establishment expressed fear that the delay of their arrival on the scene of the attacks will make efforts to secure witnesses more difficult.

Despite the hold-up, the White House noted that cooperation with the Saudis is good. U.S. President George W. Bush spoke by telephone with Saudi Crown Prince Amir Abdullah and received a promise for full cooperation in the investigation.

...

Last week, after it became clear there were fears of potential attacks in Saudi territory, the U.S. Embassy requested the Saudi authorities increase security around facilities in Riyadh in which American citizens live.

According to Robert Jordan, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, there was no Saudi response to the American request for additional security.

...

Saud [Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal] said he had not received a request from the American ambassador to intensify security measures around the U.S. facilities.

Anyone surprised?

Update:To illustrate the reporting chaos:

According to three Arab reports, Sunday night's suicide attacks on US targets in Saudi Arabia killed up to 100 people

May 13, 2003 01:54 pm CET

By Zaher Barakate

A news team from the Saudi daily "Al Watan" witnessed one of the suicide attacks on American residential compounds last night in Riyadh's eastern suburbs. They reported that at least seven car-bombs exploded, beginning at 11 PM local time. The daily also disclosed that heavy gunfire followed the attacks. This corroborates the suicide-attack report and also indicates that other terrorists were on the scene to engage armed guards and police in a frontal clash. The daily reported that the death toll exceeded 20, including five Saudis. Up to 100 people are now believed to have been killed. Official Saudi government sources, however, initially placed the death toll at only 3, with forty wounded.

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdelaziz, contacted by the daily, confirmed that there had been a suicide attack, although he declared that only three car-bombs had exploded. Nayef said three charred corpses which had been found were the bodies of the terrorists. He promised to issue further statements as soon as a full investigation has been carried out. Nevertheless, he blamed the attack on "foreign elements," without citing Al-Qaeda, unlike sources from the United States.

The Lebanese daily "Assafir" pointed out that last night's attack in Riyadh came less than one week after Saudi officials announced they had dismantled an Islamist terror network connected to Al-Qaeda, despite the fact that none of the 19 presumed members of the network had been arrested. The attacks also followed shortly after a communiqué, issued by a movement with close ties to bin Laden, containing threats to US interests, and just before US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Saudi Arabia. The attacks were directed against US-owned businesses in Riyadh, in both the oil and security sectors, as well as the residential compounds where foreign employees and their families live. The daily's foreign news correspondents reported dozens of casualties.

According to eyewitnesses cited by the Lebanese daily "An-Nahar", three batteries of bombs exploded in Riyadh's eastern suburbs, off the airport highway. The first two attacks were carried out using three car-bombs timed to explode at four-minute intervals. The third explosion destroyed four homes in an enclave of about 600 dwellings where Westerners live. Last week, Saudi police found a regular arsenal of explosives and automatic weapons inside one of the homes in this compound. According to the correspondent from "Al Arabiya" satellite television, at least 25 bodies have been found inside the "Granada" residential compound. The "Hamra" complex was also hit. Local residents reported seeing ambulances and emergency vehicles.

2003-05-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

Beautiful: the Butterfly Alphabet

2003-05-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

Idiotic conspiracy theory of the week

(This post has been altered - I recovered a small part of my good manners after a while)

Quoth a Canadian journalist (via Instapundit):

Salam is the scion of a senior figure from Iraq's Baathist nomenclature. He was brought up at least partly in Vienna, which is the OPEC headquarters; his father was therefore an oilman, and possibly a former head of Iraq's OPEC mission.

Let me see. There are surely a couple of thousands of Russian citizens in and around Washington, D.C., and even more Chinese. What could their sole occupation be, if one applies a similar theory?

Or perhaps Salam himself or any one of them was directly employed by Mr. Saddam's very extensive, and in places quite sophisticated, network of Soviet-modelled spy and disinformation networks -- we cannot know yet.

And so on.

What we can know, just by reading his blog, is that this Salam is up to no good. He is spreading "inside views" of the new Iraq, not only to the blogosphere, but directly among the journalists still encamped at the Meridian (formerly Palestine, formerly Meridian) hotel.

Please. Get your heads out of your browsers and the blogosphere out of your heads for a while. What on the earth can a blog like this plus a couple of chats with international journalists achieve? Everything the combined diplomatic and political forces of at least three quarters of the world's countries plus the domestic opposition within the pro-war block failed at? Just like this, a one-man conspiracy to bring down the American post-war plans for Iraq? I'm sure it would make a best-selling thriller.

Come to think of it, did someone mention freedom of expression for the liberated Iraqis?

And if you really want to know, why don't you try the simplest thing in the world first: ask?

Update: My objections to the first quoted paragraph are here.

2003-05-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

For the record

From the new English version of "Proche Orient" - Miguel Angel Moratinos : «You are asking if Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. I refuse to answer that question.»

By Jeremy de Vidas

Miguel Angel Moratinos is, since 1996, the European Union's special representative for the Middle East peace process. Between 1984 and 1987, he was political advisor to the Spanish Embassy in Rabat before becoming adjunct director general in Madrid for North Africa (1987-1991). Later, he became general director for the Institute for the Cooperation with the Arab World (1991-1993), general director of foreign policy on North Africa and the Middle-East and finally Spanish Ambassador to Israel from June to December 1996.

Jérémy De Vidas What is the European Union's position today on Syria, notably concerning the Syrian troops stationed in Lebanon ?

Miguel Angel Moratinos I believe that the European Union has maintained an open and constructive dialogue with Syria. The Union has always demanded the implementation of the Security Council's resolutions. We know that there is an agreement between Syria and Lebanon on the troop situation, and we would like to arrive at a general agreement for the entire region. We have always insisted that Syria is a strategic partner of Europe, above all at this difficult time. We will continue to seek the best way to maintain a dialogue with them.

J. De Vidas Where is the European position on Hezbollah at now ?

M. A. Moratinos The European Union's demands are quite clear. The resistance, however it may be, must be peaceful and political. It must neither be violent nor terrorist. That is our stance. It is up to the Labanese who have seats in the Parliament to continue to represent their people. The Union will not accept a violent or militarized resistance.

J. De Vidas In a word, is Hezbollah a terrorist organization ?

M.A. Moratinos I refuse to answer that question.

2003-05-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

Read Language Hat's short take on a new book about the Levantine culture.

2003-05-13T07:47:00.000-07:00

"The Jewish look is so 1999"

Harry R. is insufficiently Aryan to appear on MTV - via Allison

Interesting, this difference in perception. Around my place, such incidents are not necessarily regarded as jokes. Not by everyone, to be exact. In my vocabulary, it's called racism. Its antisemitic variety, in this case.

2003-05-13T03:31:00.000-07:00

Just seen a rather boring weblog whose author has decided to dump permalinks alltogether, since he can't be bothered with republishing the archives. The result - one long, long link-free page...

Update - Dept. of self-promotion: The blogger in question has not only found the way to this post, but also linked to it from his blog.

2003-05-13T03:21:00.000-07:00

On the drawbacks of Creative Commons licenses.

2003-05-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Extreme
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very High

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

Via Zack who is destined to share the accomodations with me. We'll both look up enviously to Al-Muhajabah.

I am not only Violent. I am also Fraudulent, Malicious, Treacherous, Wrathful and Gloomy and I want to live up to it --
note that several English translations of "The Divine Comedy" are availiable online at no charge.

2003-05-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

Free/low-cost blog hosting and commenting alternatives?

Anyone ever heard of Bloggedup, Mobynuke and 22blog?

2003-05-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

Salam Pax produces for the first time a witness to his, Salam's, existence with a full name and verifiable occupation.

2003-05-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

Administrative note: the posts on this page have been written and "posted" over the weekend, but "published" just now. Blogger doesn't permit date reformatting, alas, so don't be surprised if this page looks so different from half an hour ago.

2003-05-12T07:32:00.000-07:00

The sweetest revenge

Read Allison's translation of a Hebrew article describing the reopening of "Mike's Place".

2003-05-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

Miranda the rude observes a flame war

(Note: the following has been written about 15 hours ago, and has been hanging around in my computer getting checked for typos. 15 hours are a long time in a heated blogosphere debate, but I don't have time to keep up with the latest developments. My opinions stand as they are.)

I have made the mistake of not resisting the temptation to post several comments (the corresponding post) regarding the never-ending discussion set off by Aziz Poonawalla's bright pronouncements on the Israeli "genetic bomb" and currently revolving around the issue of whether the forcibly retired blogger Diana Moon is advocating the genocide of all Muslims. [See Update II at the end of the post.]

Now, children, a clean fight is always more honourable than a dirty one, and this applies to all participators.

To begin with, there are no hard criteria for antisemitism. If Diana Moon, a Jew, perceives the motivation behind Aziz Poonawalla's ignorant pursuit of the subject as antisemitic, she has every right in the world to voice her discomfort. In the same way, if Aziz Poonawalla, a Muslim, perceives Diana Moon's negative attitude towards him as resulting from her "anti-muslimism" (the expression is new to me, borrowed from the same post by Aziz), he has every right in the world to state it. Whatever "anti-muslimism" may be, it is, like any other bias, ultimately for the victim to judge.

There are many more illogical assumptions involved. Diana's attempt to apply conclusions drawn from Aziz' statements alone to all Muslims is obviously flawed. Aziz is under no greater obligation to prove that "moderate Muslims" are good and noble people lest Diana would think poorly of them than any Jew to display his or her rejection of Jewish extremist violence against Palestinians on demand. Indeed, as a Jew enjoying the European debate on the subject in real life, I often respond to such turns of conversation with a large part of my expletive vocabulary. The fact that the total numbers of Jewish and Muslim extremists are wildly disproportionate doesn't change the quality of the debating tactic as such. On the other had, it might have been logical to write that Aziz himself doesn't live up to his claims of "moderation" -- provided he ever made them, which I don't know.

The discussion obtained the quality of a Woody Allen family drama the moment a conservative blogger previously unknown to me, Tacitus, jumped in with a somewhat chaotic post accusing Diana of nothing less than "mentally subscribing to a dialectic wherein Muslims must be exterminated". And with this Flame War II was ablaze in full glory.

When I read such sentences, my first reflex is to grab a reference work to guard myself against linguistic pitfalls:

di·a·lec·tic

1. The art or practice of arriving at the truth by the exchange of logical arguments.

2a. The process especially associated with Hegel of arriving at the truth by stating a thesis, developing a contradictory antithesis, and combining and resolving them into a coherent synthesis.

b. Hegel's critical method for the investigation of this process.

3a. The Marxian process of change through the conflict of opposing forces, whereby a given contradiction is characterized by a primary and a secondary aspect, the secondary succumbing to the primary, which is then transformed into an aspect of a new contradiction. Often used in the plural with a singular or plural verb.

b. The Marxian critique of this process.

4. dialectics (used with a sing. verb) A method of argument or exposition that systematically weighs contradictory facts or ideas with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contradictions.

5. The contradiction between two conflicting forces viewed as the determining factor in their continuing interaction.

Tacitus (does the blogosphere also host a Cicero and a Seneca?), I decided, must have had something approaching version 4 in mind. "Viewpoint" (or similar) instead of "dialectic" would have probably done better, since both Diana and Charles Johnson (mentioned on the same breath) were voicing their immediate impressions (a.k.a. gut feelings) rather than performing complicated mental acrobatics ("systematically weighting", etc.).

Should my position be unclear so far, Diana has made not the most intelligent of her statements. Yet, she was questioning attitudes, not advocating a course of action.

Someone ought to help Diana find a decent new employer. The poor soul was forced to publish a guest post on someone else's ugly-named blog. While her response to the "genocidal dialectic" theory is quite adequate, her insistence on Aziz' inherent "Muslimness" as the main factor behind all of his writings on Israel and Jews in general is questionable, to put it mildly. In my perception, all of Aziz' non-religious posts (the ones I've read) could have been just as well written by the WASPishest of all "Counterpunch", "Zmag" & Co. fans. If I didn't know it, I wouldn't have ever guessed his background. He sounds exactly like thousands of others. "Indigenous" extremist Muslim rhetoric rings completely differently.

Now, I am a poor judge of the nuances of American public discourse. In my, mostly the germano- and francophone, part of the world, I don't buy the notion of antisemitism as a fundamentalist Muslim import contamining our free societies otherwise innoncent of this sentiment since 1945. What does happen is that immigrants often try to find common ground with native majorities by copying and reinforcing the already existing prejudices towards third parties. Nothing unites better than a common enemy. Thus, many Eastern Europeans "know" practically on arrival what a burden Africans are for a clean and civilized country, non-Muslim Asians "know" how terrible is it to have to deal with Muslims, Turks are horrifed at the unrest caused by Kurds on European streets, they "knew" these troublemakers all along, and so on. Unsurprisingly, pseudo-Third World anti-Jewish prejudice sells beautifully among European natives -- on the line of nature's unspoiled children speaking out what we would never dare to ("we" do it, but never mind) -- the way the original, rather frightening, rhetorics never would. (There are also other factors involved, but I don't want to throw this post too much off track.)

This is not what I think of Aziz' personal motivations. Obviously, I don't know the exact American social context, therefore I withhold my judgement on this. This is what I think when I see immigrants with a similar background in Europe reproduce impeccably Western constructs on issues related to Jews.

I never shared the delight over the famous "lanat upon the hirabists" post, much lauded as a principled statement against attacks on Israeli civilians throughout the blogosphere. On one hand, I rely completely on Aziz' personal theological differentiation between "harabah" and "jihad" (I cannot follow Charles Johnson's objections on this - why should non-Muslims cling to interpretations of Islamic terminology by certain groups of Muslims alone? Even at the time of the Inquisition, not all Christians agreed upon the notion of torture and executions for "holy purposes" as the non plus ultra of applied Christian love, did they? Or is it too easy to get used to the term "jihad" as a general pejorative?). On the other, the mention of Mohammed al-Dura, whose -- doubtlessly tragic -- death has been blown up to a permanent fixture of hate propaganda against Israel, gives the entire text a dubious ring.

But again, there is nothing specifically Muslim about this sleight of hand as such. The scheme "bad, bad bombers -- poor, poor, Palestinians" is, in fact, a familiar cozy Western one.

Being human, Aziz probably couldn't resist repaying Diana with the same coin. If his political views are supposed to result solely from his Muslimness, then Diana's are a consequence of her -- what did you think? no, not the J-word, "but because she is an Israeli partisan, and thus sees all Muslims through lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which she equates to "The Jewish-Muslim Conflict"." Here, the same argumentation as above applies to a certain degree as well: much of Diana's statements on Muslims could -- again, I'm going mostly by my region -- have just as well come from a non-Jew without any particular sympathy towards Israel arguing against Muslim immigration. More likely from someone influenced by 9/11.

There is in such debates a genuine imbalance concerning historic realities. The mass extermination of Jews by non-Jews did take place within recent memory, a mass extermination of Muslims by non-Muslims didn't. While there is ample documentation of rhetoric leading directly to the former, statements about the latter are a pure conjecture, tasteless to the point of insanity (can anyone seriously picture the U.S., for all the shortcomings of the current administration, perform a genocide against Muslims?) at that.

The same goes for present-day threat assessment. The notion of danger on a large scale emanating from Jews is paranoid. (In the most recent "Western" case, involving the "Jewish influence" on the British and American governments, one can, among other things, question whether the "Washington hawks" are really helping Israel.) The large-scale threat to Jews Diana writes about

There are a couple of dozen Islamic polities in which Jew-hatred is a big business. Every species of rage on earth -- political, social, sexual, you name it -- is being processed into a potent brand of paranoid frenzy in the Muslim world. The object of this paranoid ideation is Jews and Israel. It's not a small, negligible feature of otherwise admirable societies. This stuff is big business. It is recycled in mosques, sold in tapes, and taken for granted as truth. And it's not a function of poverty or colonialism, because Muslim immigrants have taken it with them to the places to which they've emigrated in large enough numbers to create communities. I have a friend who was raised a Muslim. He no longer believes, but he occasionally goes to mosque to satisfy the in-laws. He tells me that anti-Semitism and paranoia about Israel are very intense in his own family and “the Jews” are a regular topic of conversation in the mosque.

is real and I most certainly perceive the mindset Diana describes in correct detail as a source of mortal danger for my people, everywhere in the world. In terms of relative numbers (an interesting occupation for a leisurely moment is to make a rough estimate of how many people out there believe that the world would be a better place without Jews, divide it through the number of living Jews -- I doubt any other ethnic or religious group could even remotely compete with us regarding the range of the results -- and then forget it as quickly as possible), the physical potential for massive attacks on Jews by extremist Muslims is there. Just ask the European* security establishment, not known for its Zionist sympathies and unlikely to see anything through the lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in its Jewish interpretation. Visiting some of our more exposed synagogues feels like entering a high-security prison these days. Guess why.

This is not to deny the existence of street-level racism directed against Muslim immigrants in the West, with its clear potential for a much higher incidence of lynch justice than the one we have witnessed so far -- a situation that calls for efficient security measures by the authorities. [See Update I at the end of the post.] If this is the "anti-muslimism" in question --

The point of Tacitus' comment is that her [Diana's] words, aimed at Muslims, create an atmosphere (see LGF) that facilitates anti-muslimism.

-- well, "mass extermination" is something else, and I honestly wish Aziz and his religious brethren not to find out what it feels like in real life. Don't paint the devil on the wall, a German proverb says.

Another peculiarity is the disparate evaluation of statements from both sides in terms of conceivable practical consequences. Diana comes under fire not just because of the content of her remarks, but mostly because of their potential negative real-world consequences in the given social context. Yet -- doesn't this apply the other way round as well? Where is the concern about the potential of -- as freedom of the speech goes, legitimate -- criticism of Israel to unleash antisemitism under equally real-world conditions? (The latter scenario has been already amply observed in France over the last years where Muslim youths have happily stated on numerous occassions that it was the mainstream French TV reporting on "the suffering of the Palestinian people" in loving detail that motivated them to antisemitic violence.) Could an overdose of Israel-bashing, however legitimate in theory, fortify the illusion of legitimacy and public acceptance of antisemitism in its most murderous forms in the minds of paranoiacs and thus become one day the match that ignites the explosion? Has a single critic of Israel ever given thought to that, just for a second?

This scenario is a pure conjecture on my part, mostly for the sake of restoring conceptual symmetry.

Last, the Internet Jewish Cabal (short: IJC) as represented by the lawful proprietress of this weblog affirms its profound respect for the right of all bloggers to make fools of themselves over every subject conceivable as guaranteed by the American Constitution and other relevant documents. At the same time, the IJC reserves the right to voice its opinion where and when it sees fit. Specifically, it is much more interesting to read voluminous texts when they contain either a unique personal angle or well-researched information originating from other sources than superficial impersonal potpourris of what has already been said and written countless times before.

To sum it up, a number of bloggers and commenters have made poorly thought-out statements on explosive subjects. I'd be happy to see my corner of the blogosphere return to its regular schedule. As far as I am concerned, the main part of the current debate -- on persons -- is closed. Other debates -- on the relation of traditional religious teachings to the present-day social realities of many Muslim countries and expat communities, the role of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Western political discourse, the relation of words to actions, the role of Muslim minorities in Western countries, etc. -- are worth being pursued in a serious manner.

--------------------

* "European" as in Continental "Old Europe". I hope I'll find the time to write about The Continent vs. Britain (vs. the States before 9/11) in more detail.

--------------------

[posted at 5/14/2003 8:55:40 PM:]

Update I: This post has received more attention than I expected, causing me to re-read it. I am not a careful writer, so there is one point (surely more than one, but I'll leave it at that) that needs to be expanded. I have written above:

This is not to deny the existence of street-level racism directed against Muslim immigrants in the West, with its clear potential for a much higher incidence of lynch justice than the one we have witnessed so far -- a situation that calls for efficient security measures by the authorities.

The situation certainly calls for addressing anti-Muslim bias and incitement on the communicational level as well. The same applies for any other negative -isms.

Update II: For proper background - read the comments by Randall Parker and the ensuing discussion on "Gene Expression".

2003-05-11T14:52:00.001-07:00

Gil links to the weblog of an 18-year-old Israeli who has, according to a posts from May the 7th and the 8th brought "Google news" to drop "Indymedia" from its sources -- with a single e-mail to "Google". What followed were tons of hate mail from "Indymedia" fans, unsurprisingly. Now, if "Only in Israel"'s author would get his or her permalinks to function...

The question of how a rag-tag semi-anonymous project like the "Indymedia" did ever find its way into what is supposed to be a database of news reports by professional media institutions in the first place remains open.

Update: OnlyInIsrael points out in the comments that Google must have received many e-mails of the same kind.

Update II: Meryl Yourish claims credit as well. Good work, everyone.

2003-05-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a simple proposal: anyone offering comprehensive ideas on the long-term solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should spend at least half a year riding Israeli buses daily.

2003-05-11T14:51:00.002-07:00

Uriah International

I prefer to spam on other people's blogs rather than write on my own these days, it looks. Maybe it was the storm that spent a day and a half deciding whether or not to pay us a visit. Imagine a medium-sized city sandwiched in between hills to prevent air circulation whose entire population can choose between choking, splitting headaches or both.

Whatever. It was a useful exercise.

Jonathan the Head Heeb as usual, my victim of choice (1, 2) since my return. Some of the following I have already written in the comments to his second "Uriah" post. Inspired by the news about the Israeli Interior Minister granting citizenship to "non-Jewish soldiers, he voices a somewhat peculiar claim:

But shouldn't the Arabs who serve in the Israeli army receive the same accolade? For them, of course, the problem is not citizenship - they already have that. Their difficulty is social rather than legal - that even those who fight for Israel aren't regarded as co-nationals by a significant fraction of the Israeli population. Arabs who serve in the IDF, however, have cast their lot with Israel and joined the Zionist enterprise every bit as much as the ten paratroopers honored by Poraz. If a Uriah who is Russian can be accepted as a member of the tribe, so should a Uriah who is Bedouin or Druze.

The soldiers in question are indeed all of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union, according to this article (in Russian, scroll down to "Avraam Poraz: Roditeli soldat poluchat..."). Contrary to popular belief, this does not necessarily mean that they are Russians, whether by ethnicity or native language, nor that they are baptized Russian Orthodox Christians.

Permit me to digress.

Much to the chagrin of the rest of the world's Jewry, after the fall of the Soviet Union it turned out that the Soviet Jews' self-definition (I h-a-t-e the term "identity") was, while doubtlessly there, often a vague one in terms the rest of the world, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, could be comfortable with. More of a specific way of thinking, usually of speaking and writing as well, of an approach, than of keeping up anything resembling an immediately recognizable tradition, however superficially. The type of Soviet Jew I'm writing about would have never seriously regarded Judaism as an obligation that could or should be in any way permitted to interfere with his very own ideas of how to live his life. (One may argue, as some do, that this individualitity is already shaped by divine forces... Naturally, I use "he" as a shorthand for both sexes here.) If he is a Jew, than acting Jewish is what he does, period. In real life, this is much less of a sacrilege than it may sound to some, rather a practical extension of the wise notion that "Sabbath is there for you, not you for the Sabbath". By the same token, Jews are not donkeys whose main task is to transport unadulterated Judaism on their shoulders for the coming generations to continue the endless march, but rather the practice of Judaism is there to enhance Jewish lives to the degree every Jew is free to decide upon.

To someone like this the question what is Jewish about him is a Radio Armenia joke. There is no about him. He is Jewish. Every word he says is Jewish. His hair is Jewish. Demanding from him to present evidence of his Jewishness is to him like asking for additional proofs of the fact that he has a digestive system. Questions? How dare Rabbi XYZ ask any? Who gave him the right? How do you explain to your fellow humans that you are exactly what you are and nothing else? And, after all, everyone can learn a couple of Hebrew prayers by heart. Thank your stars for the faded wisps of paper on which it stands that your maternal granny was Jewish, something they, these black-clad weirdos and whoever listens to them call Jewish.

If he is a Jew and get along well with his spouse, the spouse is Jewish. If he brings children up, the children are Jewish. A synagogue can be only as Jewish as he feels at home there.

If there is yet no suitable model to explain his personality, then it is because the combined resources of rabbinical thought have been wasted for lesser challenges. Not his fault, is it?

Only in a place like the SU was could such attitudes go unchallenged. Non-Jews didn't declare themselves Jews just for the sake of it. The external pressure was sufficient to drive away unfriendly intruders. And - there was no fashion for dandified Judaism as an exotic intellectual exercise.

If Jewishness is where and what the individual Jew is then there is little problem marrying non-Jews as long as one gets along with them on personal level. The non-Jewish spouse would be typically assimilated into a kind of secular Jewishness. And - in country that has witnessed plenty of bloody antisemitic campaigns, any non-Jew throwing his or her lot in with a Jew accepted a considerable burden, an additional selection factor in such marriages. I submit that most non-Jewish spouses of Jews from the former Soviet Union have no less a claim to Jewish solidarity than IDF servicemen of Arab descent.

All of this has so far been anathema to the larger parts of the Jewish establishment, which continues to insist on a formalistic approach intended to preserve a praehistoric notion of "Jewish purity" - the costs to real-world Jews be damned.

The former Soviet Union was a relatively liberal society with regard to the sacred instituion of marriage in its own rather eccentric manner. While unregistered unions were deemed officially unacceptable (an unmarried couple couldn't as much as rent a common hotel room), divorces were easy, and, in many social circles, illegitimate children were not much of a stigma. Children of divorced couples remained almost exclusively with their mothers, the fathers often maintaining little to none contact. The result is a high number of families where the actual father is not the biological and/or the legal one.

This accounts for children without a drop of Jewish blood in them growing up as impeccable Jews, as far as the type of Jewishness described above goes, under the influence of their Jewish stepfathers. If they were young enough, they were permitted to enter Israel as children of their stepfathers' non-Jewish wives, but they were granted only residence permits, not citizenship. The only way to improve their status in the eyes of the Jewish officialdom is for their mothers to undergo the torturous process* of Orthodox conversion. Few do it, for obvious reasons. (As an aside, some conversion candidates are reported to be more welcome than others.* Please note that this is not intended to belittle serious convertites to Judaism or Orthodox Jewry as such. What I find disgusting is the very wordly abuse of power under the guise of spirituality.)

Of course, there are other scenarios, such as missing papers, but this is the one I mostly hear about. There are plenty of similar cases in (or rather, crying beneath the unkind walls of) the Diaspora communities as well.

Admirable as the Poraz decision is, there is one aspect I find disturbing. What about young people with the same background unfit for army service for health reasons?

To return to the actual subject, what surprises me most in the statement quoted above is that

even those [Arabs] who fight for Israel aren't regarded as co-nationals by a significant fraction of the Israeli population

Israeli citizenship as such doesn't heighten the acceptance among those who stick to religious criteria, and, to judge by attitudes I can observe around my place as well, Mr. Poraz is not exactly such people's hero. Indeed, the fact that Israel grants citizenship to non-Jews if often used as an argument not only against the Aliyah but also against any kind of support for the country. On the other hand, within the mindset I have described above any individual who genuinely "casts his lot with Israel and joins the Zionist enterprise" (as opposed to earning a living the best way he can in a country he would much rather prefer to disappear together with its Jewish population, not an uncommon attitude either, I'm told) would be regarded as Jewish if he himself does. Thus, I doubt that there are many that are willing to accept the "Russians", but not the "Arabs". (To judge by certain specimen of the Israeli left and their Diaspora supporters, it is often the other way round, and viciously so.)

In fact, we are speaking about a serious friction within the entire Jewish world, which is not merely about Arabs in Israel. There are far too many Jewish dignitaries around claiming the right to determine other Jews' lives down to the tiniest detail. The attempts to isolate them from narrowly defined non-Jews are just one of the many negative side effects.

I would be very grateful for any factual corrections, especially from readers living in Israel.

--------------------

* Jerusalem Report's links exist in a state of permanent erratic oscillation: the title of the first article is Up Front: An Arduous Journey and that of the second one Hirsh Goodman: Zap -- You’re Jewish (in the "Columnists" section)

2003-05-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

Where are the human shields?

Imagine the reaction if Jews were doing this:

According to reports reaching the West Bank and Gaza from Baghdad, the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime brought another blow to Palestinians living in Iraq. Most of the Palestinians in Iraq are concentrated in Baghdad, with many refugee families from 1948. According to the reports, their Iraqi neighbors are now harassing Palestinian Baghdadis.

Some 250 Palestinians reached one of the refugee centers in Iraq last week, saying they had been evicted from their homes. Rasmiya Hijazi told a reporter from a news agency that as Baghdad fell to the Americans, her landlord told her she had 24 hours to leave her apartment. "Saddam Hussein helped and protected you. He's gone. So you have to get out," Hijazi reported the landlord as saying. She is now living in a tent.

2003-05-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

Stop the world

Rinat/Renatinha was -- like many -- surprised that the bombers in "Mike's Place" were/are British. Sadly, I wasn't. Britain has been the hub of Islamist activity unhindered by authorities for years. Check out this excellent article from March 18, 2002 for more background.

Stopping the world and getting out is not a bad idea, though, provided you have nice company.

2003-05-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

More evidence of mankind's intellectual regression

There are still bloggers out there who haven't updated their archives.

2003-05-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

I have been asked in a mail why did I cut down my links to other sites lists from previous version of the blog. With regard to non-blogs, I have simply decided against the practice of replicating a portion of my regular bookmarks on every page. I'm working on a permanent "sources" page (yes, Miranda, you have just written that you are).

As for the shorter blog list, this is connected to a realistic assessment of my current time resources. I use the left-hand bar as a personal blog checklist, and I don't want to keep more blogs there than I can visit at least once a week under normal conditions. This doesn't mean that I manage to read every post there. Nor that I don't read anyone other than my "regulars". The order in which they are listed is that of language and geographic proximity to my present location, plus a bit of fun I permit myself with the optics. As with the previous version, the presence or absence of a blog on that list isn't supposed to signal profound approval or disapproval on my part.

I have never been loyal to such principles, so I guess this will change if I join the Blogroll community one day.

2003-05-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

Now that's a visit record:

Who's reading?
B2I has been accessed by every branch of the U.S. military as well as Central Command, Pacific Command, Southern Command and European Command. It was also accessed from the CIA, the House of Representatives, NASA and the United States Supreme Court. It has been mentioned in the Boston Globe, Jim Lehrer's NewsHour, Time Out New York, Reuters, NPR, CNN and many other media outlets.

2003-05-08T19:03:00.000-07:00

Quote of the week

Men, unlike women, are not a work in progress

Susan Sontag

2003-05-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

How to hold an audience in breath

A Ha'aretz article on Israeli intelligence ("Week's End, May 2") breaks off like this:

Dagan himself perhaps might not succeed in recruiting every fastidious candidate, because contrary to his predecessor, Ephraim Halevy, he did not represent Israel at European Union headquarters in Brussels. In one of his working conversations with the head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, the two met over lunch, each with a spotless napkin next to

... I'll never know next to what the illuminati of the espionage world keep their spotless napkins, unless the readers of my blog will write some sequels. The best proposals will be sent to Ha'aretz.

2003-05-07T22:45:00.000-07:00

Instapundit pounces on this presumable case of top-level French support for terrorism. (Thanks to R. for mailing me the link.)

I don't quite get the story, specifically what they mean when they write "French passports". All it takes to move freely within the countries of the Schengen treaty is, as a minimum, a French (or, of course, any other Schengen signatory's) tourist visa, easy to come by even without "official" help and a far cry from being awarded full French citizenship.

2003-05-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

"If you are reading this it means that things have gone as I hope..."

Whew! Diane/a of Gotham (who did blog from her office, it turns out) posts everything Salam Pax has written for his blog but couldn't publish. (Via Allison.) And a happy monkey out there.

Update: Gil compares me with Salam.

2003-05-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

Blogger/Blogspot archives are still not updating automatically with new posts. The new system, however, functions beautifully so far. Unfortunately, free users like yours sincerely cannot transfer existing weblogs to it, only create new ones.

2003-05-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

The "Bits and pieces on (online) writing" post (link collection) has been transferred here

2003-05-07T10:56:00.000-07:00

Imshin links to the usual suspects.

2003-05-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

Do you want to know what type of blogger I really admire? The one who doesn't put a counter on a Blogspot-hosted weblog. Not giving a damn about one's site's traffic, turning up one's nose at all these petty hectic competitions must be the epitome of coolness these days. I don't have the nerve to do the same, but I wonder whether it was some deep-down Freudian mental process that made me put the Useless Blob directly over my counters.

2003-05-06T11:51:00.000-07:00

English (also) spoken here: Is it right that Anglos have a corner on the "global language" market?

2003-05-06T11:49:00.000-07:00

Do I recognize a familiar face here?

Don't miss the "How spammers make money" series, and not just because it's "For Miranda":
Part 1
Part 2

2003-05-06T11:07:00.001-07:00

On the European vs. American state models

Jonathan writes in one of his "binationalism" posts:

Suffice it to say that there are two basic models of constitutional democracy - the American pluralist model and the European ethnically-based model. The American model is most common in "new societies" created substantially through immigration, while the European model is more suited to countries where a dominant ethno-cultural group and indigenous minorities are well-established.

There exists no ethnically-based European model such as described. The treatment of selected "indigenous minorities" is more comparable to that of the American Native Indians.

The main friction is, however, over non-indigenous minorities, although the definition is questionable (exactly how much time does a certain ethnic group have to spend in a country to be regarded as indigenous?).

Legally and thus, ideally, most European states share the American model. There is no such thing as a "French" or "German" "state" that would be comparable to a "Jewish state" in the legislation of the respective countries, nor in these of any of their neighbours I can think of. (Admittedly, I never studied the Constitutions of all European countries.) Psychologically, significant portions of the "dominant ethno-cultural" groups don't want to accept this fact. (I cannot find the link at the moment, but I remember a survey that showed well over 60% of ethnic Frenchmen absolutely agreeing with the statement "there are too many Arabs living in the country" - the French society is commonly regerded as "less racist" than the German one...) European states also being established democracies, this creates a rich breeding ground for nationalist populism in politics with all of its ugly consequences, down to the security problems which came to world attention after 9/11.

2003-05-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

As a warming-up exercise for my return to anglophone blogging I decided to take a kick at the binational state discussion, calling it a stop-beating-your-wife subject in the comments. Jonathan promptly responded:

I think there's a little bit more to it than "when will you stop beating your wife." The binational-state arguments are based on unexamined premises that are common on the left - i.e., a Palestinian state on the WB and Gaza wouldn't be viable, the rights of Jews could be protected by a constitution, etc. It's worth showing why those premises are false - why two states can work, why Israeli Jews won't be reassured by words in a constitution, why Israelis and Palestinians won't drop their national identities on a dime. Binationalism is a symptom of many common misconceptions, and discussing binationalism is one way to set the record straight.

Now that the links function, here is Jonathan's part of the discussion in question:

Beginning of a debate
The Two-State Solution: Why two states can work
The Two-State Solution: The problems of binationalism

First, I admit that I am uncapable of taking anything written by the blogger who elicited these responses seriously. Much as I sympathize with the desire of anyone with an Occidental cultural background to learn more about Islam, at the very least I'd look for other sources of comment on political and social issues.

Second, and much more important, is that unless one assumes that the discussion is a pure intellectual exercise from the beginning, an entertaining "alternative history of the future" topic, the very notion of a binational state is a profoundly undemocratic one. To reiterate the previous post, given that the proportion of Israeli citizens in favour of a binational state can be assumed as roughly equal to the one of Belgian citizens supporting a Sharia state and unlikely to rise, the binational state could be only achieved by brutal outside force. The relatively unbloody South African model won't work, which makes this an even less realistic perspective than the forcible "transfer" of all Palestinians into the neighbouring Arab countries, just to name an example from the same place.

I prefer not to explore the psychological mechanisms at work behind binationalism advocacy.

Another thing. For all my dislike of armchair politics, I don't see the two-state solution function in foreseeable future either.

2003-05-05T13:43:00.000-07:00

Imshin, Gil and Allison on Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars)

2003-05-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

A. Brilliant. Military. Campaign. To. Prevent-The-Proliferation-Of-Saddam's-Terror-Regime's-WMDs

Really bad news.

April 24, this struck me speechless. Then I poked around and thought, well, maybe the WaPo got it wrong. Surely it would have caused a mega-scandal, both within the blogosphere and outside of it, among the Left and among the Right, among anti-Americans and American patriots, in the Arab states and in the West. There was no trace of one. May 2, I ran into this, and told myself, what's WorldNetDaily after all. The subject was supposed to be among my first May posts, but then I thought why offer even the microscopic additional publicity this blog can effect to such a horror, which might, after all, prove to be untrue. Not anymore.

Report: Major Iraqi Nuclear Plants Looted

A major radioactive waste site in Iraq has been looted and U.S. officials have little idea whether nuclear material is missing, according to a news report.

A report in Sunday's Washington Post says a specially trained Defense Department team finally was dispatched to the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility (search) after a month of flip-flopping over whether to survey the site.

It's feared that dangerous material may be sold on the black market and could end up in the hands of terrorist groups.

Let's be clear what we are talking about. According to the April report:

Before the war began last month, the vast Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center held 3,896 pounds of partially enriched uranium, more than 94 tons of natural uranium and smaller quantities of cesium, cobalt and strontium, according to reports compiled through the 1990s by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Immensely valuable on the international black market, the uranium was in a form suitable for further enrichment to "weapons grade," the core of a nuclear device. The other substances, products of medical and industrial waste, emit intense radiation. They have been sought, officials said, by terrorists seeking to build a so-called dirty bomb, which uses conventional explosives to scatter dangerous radioactive particles.

This is more than enough to make 9/11 look like a schoolyard brawl.

I didn't like this war and I still don't. Mainly because I don't trust the entire Bush administration to run more than a pizza stand - I don't care for law and ethics. I'd much rather be proven wrong than right. Pity there is so little chance of it now.

Update: more from the LA Times, via Zach Mears via Matthew Yglesias.

2003-05-04T22:06:00.000-07:00

JUST WAIT TILL I GET AT BLOGGERS I READ
WHO HAVEN'T YET REPUBLISHED THEIR BLOGSPOT ARCHIVES

2003-05-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Wait, we did bring peace and prosperity to Afghanistan, didn't we?

2003-05-04T21:59:00.000-07:00

Better than nothing

EU revises aid to Palestine

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission announced today (Wednesday), that it will change the way in which it provides aid to the Palestinian Authority. At the same time officials strenuously denied claims that the changes were prompted by allegations that EU money has been used to fund terrorism.

In February 2003, the European Anti-Fraud Office, known as OLAF, announced that it would open an investigation into these allegations.

The Commission will now supply 80 million euro each year specifically for the Authority to repay debts owed to small private enterprises and social services. An additional 10 million will be made available to aid the peace process.

Previously, funding from the EU was not earmarked for specific projects and went into the central Palestinian budget.

It's been a long struggle within the EU. This report looks like a semi-victory:

The Commission claims that the new rules will be more transparent, as they will be paid on receipt of an invoice, they also claim that the figure received by the Authority will be "more or less the same as before".

"If businesses are not paid that means that they go under, and people are out of work" said Ms Udwin.

The exact figure in question:

In total the EU expects to give 245 million euro to the Palestinian Authority in 2003.

- a sum that could also save most of the children mentioned in the other news over the same period of time, if I understand it correctly. Talk about setting priorities...

2003-05-04T21:58:00.000-07:00

Peace is a matter of definition

Adrian's short report about a protest against the construction of the "security fence" mentions an unpleasantly familiar name:

I also met Uri Avnery, who isn't as extreme as he's painted. He gave me a quote.

This fence twists like a snake. We must stop it before it poisons the peace process.

I don't feel like discussing the fence as such, but rather the devaluation of the term "peace". How can someone like Avnery or the members of the ISM seriously be described as peace activists escapes my comprehension.

He sent a considerable portion of the German public reeling (and, predictably, another part of it jumping up and down with glee) with an interview given to a German newspaper shortly after 9/11. The "Berliner Zeitung" from 28.11.2001, to be exact.

My inner graphoman has his day off. I present here a translation without the all too obvious comments. Maybe later, as usual. Just this one: is Avnery employing the popular tactic of different messages for different audiences? His explanation of Palestinian terrorism left even those of us who have the misfortune of being used to his antics agape.

[After Avnery explains that Barak was trying to cheat Arafat at Camp David, the interviewer half-objects:]

After Sharon's election, it were the attacks by radical Palestinians that hindered negotiations.

[Avnery:] I call it not terrorism, but a popular uprising against a 20-year-old occupation. The means employed are the identical to these of any other popular uprising of the last century, be it in Algeria, South Africa, Northers Ireland or in the Jews' fight for their own state.

Can this be equated? In Israel, it is always stressed that Palestinian terrorism is directed primarily against civilians.

A Palestinian has once countered this to me: Give me airplanes and tanks and I'll fight with them and stop the terrorism. But there has never been a popular uprising that was directed solely against military targets. Algerians have been sending women with bombs into cafés during the fight against the French colonial powers. As a young man, I used to be a terrorist myself. I belonged to the underground group "Irgun Zvai Leumi" which fought against the British Mandate powers and the Arabs: We too have exploded bombs on Arab markets, killing women and children.

Can freedom fighters be distinguished from terrorists?

The answer is: freedom fighters are on my side, terrorists on the other. I consider terror justified in situations in which political goals can not be achieved by political means. Thus, French terror against the Nazi regime was justified, I'd like to see someone dare to contradict me on this.

The Palestinians could achive their goals politically.

There were no terror acts after the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian accords in 1993. It was only after the Israeli government didn't honour the agreements and the Palestinians have lost all hope that the terror attacks resumed.

[German] foreign minister Joschka Fischer has undertaken great efforts to get the conflict under control. What is your opinion of his role?

"Gush Shalom" has initiated a boycott of goods produced in settlements five years ago. So far, 50 000 households have asked us for a list of these products. The EU decided to refuse custom exemptions granted to other Israeli goods as well. Now that the EU Comission is finally going to put this decision in practice, I read that Fischer wants to block it. One gets the impression that he is sabotaging EU decisions only in order to get a friendly welcome in Israel. I find it outrageous and protest against it. The settlements are the greatest obstacle on the road towards peace, they endanger the security and the future of the State of Israel. Putting an end to them is the only way towards a solution. A foreign minister who supports the settlement policy indirectly is engaging in anti-Israeli politics.

Please, Adrian, how can Avnery be possibly painted extremer than he is, short of being accused of smuggling bombs into Israel?

2003-05-03T14:34:00.002-07:00

Is it a good idea to put "bits and pieces" in one long post rather than a dozen separate ones, I wonder? Guess I'll get used to proper blogging one day.

2003-05-03T14:34:00.001-07:00

You have to love the way Google matches its banners with the contents of $0-hosted blogs:

What if Iraq Attacked USA
Saddam plots revenge against U.S. after defeat. Read the new novel. www.featurexpress.com

seen soaring over EuroPundits: Columns by notable Eurobloggers on politics, culture, and society.

2003-05-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

Good news - the Blogger interface (the old one) functions with Opera 7 (user mode, pictures on). Well, almost. The new interface functions even with the images turned off. Now if they'd just fix the archives...

2003-05-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

Blogosphere bits and pieces

Samuel Pepys, May 3, 1660:
This morning my Lord showed me the King’s declaration and his letter to the two Generals to be communicated to the fleet. The contents of the letter are his offer of grace to all that will come in within forty days, only excepting them that the Parliament shall hereafter except. ... Upon the receipt of it this morning by an express, Mr. Phillips, one of the messengers of the Council from General Monk, my Lord summoned a council of war, and in the mean time did dictate to me how he would have the vote ordered which he would have pass this council. Which done, the Commanders all came on board, and the council sat in the coach (the first council of war that had been in my time),....
Nearly 350 years later, we are still at it. Depressing.
Haggai links to an article detailing the Bush administration's attempts to block embarassing 9/11 inquiries. In case you didn't know it, intelligence material once released can become secret again. The transformation process is known as "reclassification", apparently obliging the general public to forget it ever heard of it. Or do I get it wrong?
Thomas Nephew, short and to the point:
...I could hardly believe my eyes: the WHO estimates that 3000 African children die each day from malaria. That's over a million children per year.
...back to our regular broadcasting.
Ah, the mysterious warbloggers. Stephen Green the Vodka Pundit:
Sure, it might be nice in the future if continental Europe had a military able to fight alongside our own in some distant land. But there are two big problems.
First, their proposal isn't just about sucking up to us. Of course Germany would like better relations with us again, and (believe it or not) so would France. But they still see a European Rapid Reaction Force as a counterweight to our military, not just an add-on to it. "You need us to help you fight," they'd love to be able to argue, "so we're going tot help decide where and when and how." A Franco-German RRF would more likely be used in the same way as France's UN veto than it would to act as an allied army.
Second, it ain't gonna happen. Neither France nor Germany (the only two nations big enough to count) can afford a deployable military without slashing their welfare states. Cutting entitlement payments to populations as gray as theirs is about as likely as a crack ho getting a jumbo mortgage at 5.5%. Besides, Europe has been talking about these improvements for years without doing anything much to achieve them.
Umm... just what if the ERRF initiators want a force that could operate independently of the US? With due respect, the world is still not completely revolving around America, there are some conflicts out there with no Marines in sight. So why call it a "counterweight", rather than a means of achieving more independence on security issues? With a country like White Russia around the corner, we might even need it. As for the feasibility - I wouldn't be surprised if they do cut the welfare spending one day.
Sam of the Pedantry blog takes words out of my mouth:
I take a dim view of moralising, even in politics. Cries for morality in public affairs are usually cries for leaders who are larger than life, and that is the last thing I want to see in a politician. Give me a corrupt and flawed but competent and decent man over a towering figure of moral authority any day.
Read what he has to say on the ERRF and a his almost serious (?) proposal to swap Britain for Canada in the EU
And finally, the Quote of the week from the Hasidic Rebel:
I borrowed a book form the library called Essential Blogging published by O'Reilly. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I was looking for something that would give me ideas on how to use a blog to change the world. The book meanwhile just goes into boring detail on how to use the differet blogging tools available. Oh, well. ::sigh::
I admit I have never read a line on how to blog (should I?). But then, I've given up on changing the world. Good luck to Rebel, who has what looks like a genuinely feasible cause.

2003-05-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Grr... I wanted a simple template. This one took minutes, in fact. But there is something wrong with the green tones. Too many of them? Or is it the grey? Damn it, maybe I should have just swapped the brown of the old site for a pale green? Or else...

2003-05-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

Potpourri

Flag sales statistics from my personal political barometer, a Mr. Flag, mentioned earlier on this weblog :
1. Israel
2. Palestine
3. UK Red Ensign
4. *OFFER* Cocktail Flags
5. Set of "DINNER IS SERVED" and "BAR IS OPEN" flags
"metafilter" on the opening of the Dutroux process. In case you know what it is about and doubt your sanity when you read this, you are all right. It's the Belgian justice system that begs being finally taken off LSD.
Weblogs Unite to Protest Detained Iranian Blogger
The coming American Civil War II?

2003-05-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

Where is Raed?

The famous blog hasn't been updated since March the 24th, raising, among other things, speculations about the author's identity, yet again. Could he have been the son of an Iraqi diplomat, arrested in the US on espionage charges around the same time?

Frankly, I don't care. If the blog is partial fiction, it is a magnificient one. And maybe this was exactly what it took at that moment: the Iraqi population given voice by a half-outsider, someone in touch with both worlds. Salam sounded authentic, the way only a gifted writer can. Whether or not he was physically present where he claimed to be matters less.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part. Alternative explanations for Salam's silence are very painful to consider. (Also: a related "metafilter" discussion)

And now: WHERE IS RAED, the other guy from Amman Salam's blog was addressed to, who also had posting access to the site? Please, Raed, give a sign of life. Post a "hi" on the blog, if nothing else.

In the meantime, someone has taken down the comments on the site (no, this is not yet another of Haloscan's temporary disappearing acts)

Update: Silly me. Who is going to read this anyway?

2003-05-01T14:54:00.002-07:00

The mother of senseless political discussions?

(If you have visited this page a short time ago - sorry for the mess. Blogger and my computer were conspiring against me.)

There is a discussion permanently popping out of and descending back into merciful oblivion, namely that on a binational Jewish-Palestinian state. It has even found its way onto the normally well thought-out blog of Jonathan Edelstein (Blogger still hasn't gotten over some wacky programmer's April 1st joke, it seems. I cannot open Head Heeb's archive pages, let alone get the direct links to function. Jonathan, please republish your archives, it works.)

What is remarkable about this subject, is its complete uselessness, even by the typical criteria of political discussions. The binational state project in its present-day form is so completely devoid of any benefits for the Jewish side that it is hard to imagine Jewish Israelis supporting it. Feel free to correct me on this, but to the best of my knowledge, next to none actually do - an aspect the proponents of the binational state fail to appreciate.

Since we are speaking about a sovereign state, the interesting question is: how is this binational state supposed to become reality? Should, say, the NATO make war against Israel and occupy it, forcing the Jewish part of the population of the future binational paradise into submission?

And please don't tell me about apartheid South Africa succumbing to international pressure. All other obvious inappropriate comparisons aside, the anti-apartheid movement was pretty strong among the Whites within the country for decades. Yet to the best of my knowledge even the most dedicated and radical of all Israeli leftists and peaceniks don't want to wind up as a minority in an Arab-dominated state.

So what's the point of bringing up the subject over and over again?

Update: My answer to some of the comments can be found here, together with the now-functioning links to Jonathan's posts.

2003-05-01T14:54:00.001-07:00

On the risks of blogging, and other Blogistan news from the time I was away

Diane of Gotham has resigned from blogging, following pressure from her employer. This is as sad as it is ugly, in what is supposed to be a free country.

Now, I can sympathize with the objections of an employer if the blogger uses his facilities (internet access, media database accounts) for what are obviously private purposes without explicit consent. Or, in certain situations (such as employees of media institutions writing on subjects related to their work or project managers working with problematic company customers), when the blogger makes his full name and workplace public, without co-ordinating this with the employer in advance.

What I fail to understand are the objections against anonymous webpages. How many people were able to make the connection between the cyberpersonality known intermittently as "Diana Moon" and "Diane E." and the real-world person? If there were not so many, it's anyone's guess what Diana/e's employer has found so disturbing about her blog. Could it have frightened away potential customers? Interfered with the workplace atmosphere? We will never know, I'm afraid.

The way I see it, the recipe for a blog, as for any internet appearance is to stay strictly anonymous, unless you intend to use the internet for self-promotion. This may be worth it for freelancers, politicians, or students about to graduate in search of a good job, but hardly for anyone else. But then you need to understand what you are doing, the manner in which every sentence you write contributes to your image. Constructing a public persona isn't everyone's thing. In worst case, you have to perform the mental swap of the highly intimate situation of clicking on your computer keyboard for the public one of, say, speaking on a TV talkshow - and act (write) accordingly.

To return to employees' situations - don't offer your company hard evidence of your connection to your site. Never log in via your office computer, neither to edit your site nor in any of the mailboxes and other services mentioned on it (sure, I trust my sys admin not to record passwords, although the network software logs all of them, and if he does, to respect my privacy and so on, but ... ), never offer a public description of the tasks you perform, your colleagues, or any other information that might serve to identify you uniquely among thousands of vaguely similar individuals - and there is no case from the legal point of view. You can always deny your authorship, period. (Ah, the protective labour laws of an imperfect, as in European, market economy...)

Then, of course, people change, both their views and their circumstances. Do you really want to preserve your short-term mental snapshots for eternity?

Update: The second part of this post has been altered and posted here separately.

Update II: creative quoting

2003-05-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

Language and liberty?

Did all of my esteemed fellow bloggers who link to a "Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" (in Iraq and maybe elsewhere) take a look at its "about us" page? I get a kind of funny feeling when I see Newt Gingrich right on the top of an advisors list. Am I the only one?

Newt Gingrich, known to me first and foremost as the creator of "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control", a piece of teaching material on a site dedicated to propaganda analysis:

As you know, one of the key points in the GOPAC tapes is that "language matters." In the video "We are a Majority," Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning. As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard a plaintive plea: "I wish I could speak like Newt."

That takes years of practice. But, we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases.

A much more serious challenge is not to speak/write "like Newt". I cannot help myself: each time I read "commitment", "courage", "legacy" and "moral" within two paragraphs I get a slight itch. On the other hand - is it possible to write an opinion piece without any of the expressions he lists?

2003-05-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

Discovered on the Blogspot/Google advertising banner over Rinat's blog:

Har-El printers and publishers

Think of all the beautiful things you miss on paid Blogspot sites!

And, Rinat, did you know that balagan is originally Turkish (some say, Persian) and has most probably entered Hebrew through Russian? It used to mean the entertainment tents on fairs, with all kind of nonsense going on inside, and evolved into more or less the same it means in Hebrew.

2003-05-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

Another mystery

- - the proliferation of money-collecting blogs, to pay for the hosting, we are told. Around my place, keeping a blog like mine under a separate domain would cost 5 to 10 euros a month (roughly the same or slightly less in dollars), and I doubt that there are many blogs that exceed typical data transfer volume limits for such accounts. Come to think of it, free and $15 Blogspot accounts are said to have such limits as well - anyone ever encountered a problem with this? I can well understand that bloggers who write a lot cannot always afford the unpaid worktime, especially when they perform research for this, but hosting costs, other than for high traffic blogs? Sorry, I don't get it.

2003-05-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

Hi, Brian, good instinct!

2003-05-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

OK, I can access about half of what I need.

Thanks for all your mails. I hang my head in shame for not having replied to all of them.

this doesn't apply to several hundred spam mails

2003-05-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

for Blogger, Worker's Day equals April 1st:

Under Construction
The site you were trying to reach does not currently have a default page. It may be in the process of being upgraded.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try this site again later. If you still experience the problem, try contacting the Web site administrator.

try about 5 reloads. it works

2003-05-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

Now here is an amusing trick. A site offers e-mail services. For free, no known restrictions other than the volume. You have a full mailbox there, contacts, registration information for other websites and all. You try to sign in. Forget it. Unknown user ID, the service is restricted to paid subscribers only.

Welcome to the world of advanced capitalism. What a brilliant way to make absolutely sure that your free customers will never become the paying ones.

2003-05-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

I'm back into a blogging hiatus thinking up a worthy subject for The First Serious Post

2003-05-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

notes to myself:

where have you been?
make this a pblog. or maybe not
where have you been all the time? think something up. an undercover mission in Iraq in search of Salam Pax?
real-world life has a habit of getting unpleasant. keep away from it whenever you can
have a life
it's all a matter of healthy balance
I'm sick of the comments bingo. what was I going to install, Movale Type? I mean, get a decent provider first. no, it was b2, but the developer seems stricken by the same affliction I (am) was. or is life just too nice on Corsica to spend your time in front of a computer?
in Russian they call it departure English-style. send mails to all of my dear old blog pals?
find these damned passwords for your mailboxes! surely there are nice mails waiting for you
I have developed an entirely different idea of what a personal internet site should look like than the one I had at the beginning of the year
keep it simple
... ?

2003-05-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

Bits and pieces on (online) writing

(transferred from here)

(OK, OK, this post should be reorganized. No, I won't do it. Or maybe.)

How to misinterprete Google search results from Poynter.org via CyberJournalist

Update: More interesting stuff from/via both sites, of marginal, if any, use for blogging:

Online Storytelling Forms (the links!) and Writing News Online
Dueling columns on journalists' right to blog and J-Blogs: a directory of journalists' weblogs
(Roy) Peter Clark's classic "How to Write a Good Story in 800 Words or Less": the original version and the shorter remake.
By the same author: If I Were a Carpenter: The Tools of the Writer, Two Ways to Read, Three Ways to Write, Thirty Tools for Writers and, in retrospect, some of his articles on 9/11-related journalism written in Sept.-Oct. 2001 (How to Cover the Big, Big Story, Journalism of Why, Truthful Propaganda, Framing the Struggle, The Name of the Dog, Nearing the Saturation Point on Bio-terrorism Coverage, The Post Traumatic Press)
...and, of course the life-saving Fluent Writer:
... "Writing is easy. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." ...
... "Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead." ...
...I’m about to write something you may not want to read, that The Writer’s Struggle is over-rated. The struggle turns out to be a con game, a cognitive distortion, a self-fulfilling prophecy, the best excuse in the world for not writing.

“Why should I get writer’s block?” asked veteran newspaper columnist Roger Simon. “My father never got truck driver’s block.”

Imagine these excuses for procrastination:
- Fire Fighter’s Block
- Paramedic’s Block
- 7-11 Clerk’s Block
- Casino Dealer’s Block
- Ditch Digger’s Block
- Surgeon’s Block
- Postal Worker’s Block
- President’s Block
This little essay will not deny the periodic utility of The Writer’s Struggle...

...Let’s be honest, we writers are invested in the struggle. We become writers (or senior scholars) to avoid heavy lifting. Our hernias are mental. But because physical work aversion is considered unmanly, we’ve created a mythology about our craft. The writer’s life is so hard, Hemingway and his ilk taught us, that only drinking, drugs, and infidelity forestall the dissolution that awaits us. ...
sure...
So it all boils down to a good language instinct and lots of exercise, like any other craftsmanship. (Surprised? Miranda, why don't you just go ahead and delete all of these links?)
From the rest of the world: Guide to Online News in Iran (April 2002), U.S. May Take on Role as Anti-Censorship Champion, Afghan's Thirst for Web Access, Kazakhs Crack Down on Journalists

Update II: The other search engines list, and don't forget Northern Light

2003-02-22T14:56:00.000-08:00

Matthew Yglesias notices an interesting detail in the unmentionable Le Monde:

The Chief Inspector has not asked Baghdad to destroy the factories where the Al-Samouds are built, contrary to the wishes of certain American officials. Nor has he demanded the dismantling of a testing ramp which can be put to use testing missile motors even larger than those of the Al-Samoud.

Check out the continuous updates of the same post.

2003-02-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

A bored programmer from Brussels puts a sensible question:

I'm not an International Lawyer

But maybe one of my readers is ;-) I have a question I've been wondering about lately. With all the diplomatic wrangling going on to get a second (well, fifteenth or so) U.N. resolution authorizing war in Iraq, would't there be another way for the U.S. to go to war 'legally'? Might there be a loophole in one of the previous resolutions? More specifically:

Would (some of) the reasons in the U.N. resolution authorizing the first Gulf war still be valid, and if so, could this resolution still be used to justify an attack now?
If I remember correctly, no peace treaty was ever signed with Iraq after the previous war, just a cease-fire. Is this correct? And if so, could hostilities just be resumed like that? It would of course have been neccessary for the U.S. to have officially declared war on Iraq back then. I'm not sure, but I don't think it did. At least, I can't find any 'Declaration of War' right now.

I realise this is highly hypothetical and would certainly be frowned upon by the international community, but could it be done?

I have been wondering about the same for some time now. The war talk is going on for several years - so why don't the US just do it?

2003-02-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

And the title of

Psychologist of the week

goes to Adrian Nastase, the Prime Minister of Romania for the statement: "I as well, when I have trouble with my wife, I shout at my boys"

2003-02-22T13:46:00.000-08:00

ExpatEgghead comments on my post linking to Brendan O'Neills 10 bad reasons to oppose the war against Iraq (O'Neill's text in quotation marks):

'The five permanent members of the UN Security Council are the only nations legally allowed to hold nuclear weapons;'
Wrong. There is no international treaty banning any country from having nuclear weapons. There is a treaty requiring weapon owning states not to help other states procure them. If it were illegal, then India and Pakistan and Israel would be in the dock.
'Because the weapons inspectors need more time...'
'Weapon inspectors won't kill anyone.
'they can decide whether, when and why to launch a war'
Wrong. It takes 9 members of the security council with no vetoes from any permanent member.
Here's another one to add. Because the pentagon thinks it's the wrong war.

Update: I admit to a weakness for "Spiked" and most of its contributors. I like their refreshing, sassy writing, but don't expect solid background checks from them on anything that extends beyond domestic affairs, least of all from O'Neill. This is rather amusing since he has lashed out against bloggers on two (1, 2) occassions, accusing them among other things of generating little "original content". Yet he himself only appears to write opinion pieces with zero of the same "original content", and based on poor research for that... just like any run-of-the-mill blogger, in fact...

Why don't they just offer a media job to Imshin?

2003-02-22T13:16:00.000-08:00

A historical first: European politicians have found something to agree upon

2003-02-20T14:58:00.002-08:00

It is utterly illogical that I should be against the war on Iraq, but I am. Give me time to sort out why exactly. Besides, I have some work to do.

2003-02-19T14:50:00.001-08:00

A lively discussion on Thomas Nephew's post With regrets: For war on Saddam, plus an interesting blog via the same source: The Diablogger

2003-02-19T14:50:00.000-08:00

A chance discovery: the beautiful site of Hiroette, a Japanese graphic designer. Note the gallery

2003-02-17T14:45:00.002-08:00

Doesn't look like too serious a site, but still:

Israelis warned U.S. of al Qaida "misinformation" campaign

Israeli intelligence professionals warned the United States that Osama bin Laden's al Qaida network lacked sufficient resources to mount a 9-11 type large-scale attack on American targets but would instead use misinformation to keep intelligence agencies guessing just when and where the next attack would come.

A report given to the Central Intelligence Agency by Mossad, Israel’s highly-regarded intelligence agency, concluded American attacks against al Qaida in Afghanistan, coupled with seizure of assets in banks around the world, had, for the time being, crippled bin Laden’s ability to mount any large-scale attacks against the United States.

However, the Israelis warned bin Laden would use “misinformation” planted through CIA assets and captured al Qaida operatives to keep America guessing on just when and where such attacks might come and force the United States to waste time and resources preparing for attacks that would not come.

“Misinformation has always been a primary weapon of the terrorist,” says a highly-placed source within the Israeli intelligence community. “When properly utilized, such misinformation can cause an enemy to forfeit important resources and energy.”

]...[

To Israel’s dismay, the U.S. ignored the report and elevated the national threat level from yellow to orange, triggering a nationwide run on “survival” supplies at grocery and hardware stores along with an increase in anxiety among Americans.

]...[

Instead, the Israeli report details stronger ties that it says exists between bin Laden and Saudi Arabia, a country the Bush administration considers an ally even though its support for war with Iraq has been minimal.

Spokesmen for the White House, CIA, FBI and the Israeli government would not return phone calls seeking comment on this article

2003-02-17T14:45:00.001-08:00

beauty is...

2003-02-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

For Russian speakers: The war on Iraq section of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta"

2003-02-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

American Jewish leader says terror threat to U.S. Jews overstated:

Speaking in Jerusalem at the opening of the annual meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, executive vice chairman Malcolm Hoenlein said that although there is cause for concern, the threat level has been exaggerated by the media.

]...[

"Each day we get reports of another new alert or a rumor, which does create great concern and fear in the community," he said. "This is part of the tactic, terrorism is called terror because of the fear it instills."

2003-02-16T16:48:00.000-08:00

Brendan O'Neill of "Spiked" offers 10 of the worst reasons to oppose The War, but not a single good one. Last sentence:

Give me a break

2003-02-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

From the site of Mr. Flag, a British - you guessed it - flag distribution company:

Top 5 Products:

Palestine
USA
UK Red Ensign
Set of "DINNER IS SERVED" and "BAR IS OPEN" flags
Flag Gillet

The best-selling product comes in 10 sizes, the largest, 4.5 m wide, costs 120 British pounds. Makes me wonder what the patriotically-clad Mr. Flag himself thinks of it. They don't sell Palestinian waistcoats though... hey, I have just uncovered yet another Zionist conspiracy!