We're a couple hours away from today's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show. With Mitchell and Biden on the ground the show is going to be extremely diplomacy-heavy, making allowances for the time needed to cover this-week-in-Iranian-warmongering. You can tune in live via the show page or the episode page starting at 6:30pm PST, and as always I'll have the chatroom and the phone lines open for questions and comments.

There are functionally two full interviews this week. Larry Greenfield, Claremont Institute Fellow and Executive Director of The Reagan Legacy Foundation, comes on as a special guest to talk about "Israel's Increasingly Dangerous Neighborhood," the enormous writeup he just completed on the recent Jerusalem Conference. Given his role in conservative and Jewish politics - the Obama campaign banned surrogates from debating him when he was head of the California RJC and then NJDC moron Aaron Kayek targeted him in one of the dumbest attacks I've ever read - that comes up too.

Today's Diker segment goes for almost 20 minutes, which is what you'd expect given that the show topic is diplomacy and he's among Israel's top diplomacy analysts. One of the money lines from the beginning of the conversation: "we haven't seen this type of sympathy by an American administration... really since Carter, and even the Carter administration was somewhat more measured in its approach." Cf. the rest of the Israeli political world, where that exact conclusion is on its way to becoming conventional wisdom. You'll want to stay till the end where he evaluates whether Obama will actually succeed in detonating the US-Israel alliance. Tough to say, tough to say.

Official show blurb:

Omri interviews Larry Greenfield, Claremont Institute Fellow and Executive Director of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. They discuss Greenfield's recent missile defense talk at the 7th Annual Jerusalem Conference, the political climate in Israel and within American Jewry, and the future of the US conservative movement. Dan Diker also joins the show, talking about Israel's recent public and state-to-state diplomacy in the context of the Iranian threat. In between Omri runs down the week's news on global terrorism, Middle East geopolitics, and the left's Big Government push in the United States.

I'm also in the process of going over all the old shows and reediting them to make them listenable (or at least to remove cracks and pops - any unlistenable content will, alas, stay the way it is). More on that in the next week or so. In the meantime, see you in a bit.

References:
* Jerusalem's Misgivings with Larry Greenfield [TOCS]
* Israel's Increasingly Dangerous Neighborhood [Larry Greenfield]
* Obama Campaign Demands Ban On Republican Jewish Group, Escalates Thuggish Intimidation [MR]
* NJDC Tool Aaron Keyak Helpfully Illustrates How Liberal Activists Sneeringly Cocoon Themselves In Asinine Arguments And Dishonest Smears [MR]
* Politics: Not afraid to speak her mind [JPost]
* Israeli Officials: Hey, Do You Think That Maybe Obama's Going To Detonate The US-Israel Relationship? [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy
* Jewish Politics

The concrete and significant Israeli moves on settlements have all been in the direction of unreciprocated concessions. When Netanyahu announced his temporary freeze it was hailed by Clinton as an "unprecedented." Since that praise naturally sent the Palestinians into fits the Obama administration promptly backtracked. It also totally failed to deliver on its promise of international support for the freeze, a nice additional bait-and-switch. Instead the UN condemned Israel for not going far enough.

All that left Netanyahu feeling that there's nothing he can do to avoid US and international disapprobation, which is not where you want someone when you're asking them to take "risks for peace." An Israeli Prime Minister contemplating territorial concessions needs to know that he can count on international security assurances should things go wrong. So one of Biden's two goals for his trip was to give Netanyahu some much-delayed recognition and support.

Then a couple of Israeli officials from the government's most junior coalition partner made a symbolic announcement about East Jerusalem construction. Netanyahu didn't know about it. Biden's response - nonetheless - was to humiliate the Israeli Prime Minister, keeping Netanyahu and his wife waiting 90 minutes into dinner and then issuing an unprecedented condemnation. Netanyahu found out about the statement during dinner.

That treatment precisely mirrors what happened on Netanyahu's November trip to DC, when Obama dragged him around the carpet before approving a Monday meeting. The White House kept the Israelis in limbo until the night before, continuously creating new and changing prerequisites. The next day Obama arrived late, highlighting the priority he places on the US-Israeli alliance. Netanyahu offered to make additional concessions to the Palestinians anyway. Obama's response was to emphasize that East Jerusalem is not Israeli and to link Palestinian terrorism to Israeli construction in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood. That last part was so stupid that lefty Jeffrey Goldberg accused the President of inventing issues and excusing Palestinian violence.

So say what you will about Biden's ham-fisted diplomacy. In this rare instance he's merely following the party line. First the insult - language, per the WaPo, that is "rarely used in diplomatic terms when criticizing the behavior of close allies" - and now the fallout:

At one point he actually called the cops, begging for water. I'll have to remember that strategy the next time I'm at the downtown Los Angeles post office, where one of the women posts a sign every Christmas that reads "your lack of planning is not my problem." Job security is a wonderful thing:

A man of 22 died in agony of dehydration after three days in a leading teaching hospital. Kane Gorny was so desperate for a drink that he rang police to beg for their help. They arrived on the ward only to be told by doctors that everything was under control. The next day his mother Rita Cronin found him delirious and he died within hours. She said nurses had failed to give him vital drugs which controlled fluid levels in his body. 'He was totally dependent on the nurses to help him and they totally betrayed him.'... 'They were lazy, careless and hadn't bothered to check his charts and see his medication was essential.'

Well-meaning liberals especially love government agencies because they get to use them for social experimentation. Think Michael Moore fantasizing about converting GM facilities into green tech factories. Or think British multiculturalism mixed with medicine, which is going roughly how you'd expect:

The third victim of the foreign doctor who left two patients dead in one day spoke last night of her 'horrific' treatment at his hands. Sandra Banks, 59, was left in agony two hours after Daniel Ubani treated her for an inflammatory problem normally dealt with by a painkiller. But the Nigerian-born weekend locum - who had flown in from Germany and started work after only three hours' sleep - gave her a weak dose of a diuretic instead, which lowers blood pressure... There was a language problem and he didn't seem to understand what my condition was. 'When my partner passed him a note with details of my condition and the drugs I was usually given, he just glanced at it and put it aside.'

I guess there's also an argument to be made that the need to import foreign doctors in the first place - probably more of a factor here than multiculturalism - also weighs against socialized medicine. Socialized medicine being where this thing is going, as Obama has recently taken to subtly reminding House liberals.

What I'm most looking forward to are the inevitable cycles of scapegoating. "Your health care costs are so high because of the overweight and/or smoking and/or soda-drinking guy next door." First will come the taxes - and yes, of course soda taxes are moronic - and then will come the "well you brought this on yourself" rationing. It's going to be delightful. (h/t: Jerry L)

References:
* Neglected by 'lazy' nurses, man, 22, dying of thirst rang the police to beg for water [Daily Mail]
* My horrific ordeal at the hands of the awayday GP who left two patients dead [Daily Mail]
* Obama comforts House liberals: Don't worry, this bill is just the beginning of what we'll do with health care [Hot Air]
* Shh... Massachusetts Proves Mandate-Based Health Reform Will Be A Disaster [Mere Rhetoric]
* Have a Coke and a Tax [Reason]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Health Care
* American Politics
* Britain

Make sure you watch at least until they start sliding around the ice on their bellies. The clips at 0:20, 0:30, and 0:50 - where the baby intentionally bumps and bites mom for the fun of it - are also not without their charm:

Unrelatedly, let this be your official reminder to check out MR sponsor Purchase Green, purveyor of such fine goods as artificial grass and the dog potty patch. That doesn't have anything to do with polar bears per se. But the alternative was doing a separate "check out our advertisers" post like Gawker-style blogs do, which would have been a sad reminder that we don't really have more than one advertiser. And who wants to end the weekend being sad?

Ergo: ice skating polar bear baby.

References:
* HD: 'Ice Skating' Polar Bears - Nature's Great Events: The Great Melt - BBC One [BBC / YouTube]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Brain-Melting Animal Cuteness
* Lighter Side
* Animals Are Taking Over

No word on whether those contracts included replacements for the thousand or so computers they lost last year. Or the 235 night vision scopes they misplaced. Or the $116,349 international harvester truck they can't find. Maybe this is why they can't seem to muster the necessary resources to put even one percent of "known or suspected terrorists" on the no-fly list.

Your tax dollars at work:

Even when awarding contracts to companies without competitive bidding, federal agencies are supposed to follow certain rules and guidelines. But that has not been the case at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which gave out $3.4 billion in non-competitive contracts last year. The inspector general for DHS found that officials often failed to do sufficient research and document decisions when awarding these types of contracts. Consequently, DHS is at risk of wasting taxpayer dollars if work is given to businesses that aren't the most suitable.

Here's an article about how Napolitano ditched a hearing by the House Committee on Homeland Security, where she was scheduled to answer tough questions about the Christmas Day terrorist attack. PA Democrat Rep Chris Carney on the incident: "I am very dismayed that the secretary herself isn't here. I mean, it's probably fair to ask, 'Where the hell is Secretary Napolitano?'"

And here's a post about how she doesn't think that illegal immigration is "a crime per se." Both of which fit the tone she took during her confirmation hearings, when the words "terror" nor "vulnerability" were both excluded. Because we needed to get away from the "politics of fear."

And to think, some people doubt the Obama administration's seriousness when it comes to protecting our borders from terrorists.

References and related after the jump...

Almost difficult to understand why Malmo's Jews are getting a Nazi vibe from their political establishment. Europe 2010: where sneering anti-Jewish bigotry is fun again:

Representatives for the Jewish Community in Malmö have slammed the city's mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, for his use of the term "Israeli lobby" in a Danish television interview. "I encounter a great many people from what one could call the Israeli lobby, who are not interested in what I say and what I think, but who do want to attribute lots of opinions to me," Reepalu said in an interview with Danish TV2... He has also denied that there had been any attacks on Jews in the city despite police figures showing that violent incidents against Jews have doubled over the last year.

Last month Reepalu also equated Zionism with antisemitism, telling Malmo's Jews that they'd better "distance" themselves from Israel if they know what's good for them. You'd think the money quote from that little would have been "Malmo does not accept anti-Semitism and does not accept Zionism." But in fact the highlight was when he blamed local Jews for violent anti-Jewish hatred. The venomous little bigot is a veritable fount of wisdom.

Punishing and blaming the Jewish victim is actually kind of a thing in Sweden. The Swedish taekwondo federation barred the Israeli national team from playing in the country because "10,000 Muslims" would attack them. Swedish journalist Andrew Bostrom and his editors whined about persecution after publishing their execrable organ theft blood libel. And when Israel pointed out how Sweden's pro-ethnic cleansing resolution on East Jerusalem violated the EU's own diplomatic position, the Swedish government pushed back by - no joke - attacking the the Jewish State for sowing dissent and division in the EU. It's Israel's fault.

Swedish NGOs were also behind one of the major awards Goldstone got for his libelous pamphlet. On account of his brave willingness to scrutinize and attack Israel. Because that's what's lacking in Europe.

References and related after the jump...

We're just a few hours from this week's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show, both the most technologically solid and the most cheerfully optimistic radio on the Internet. Tonight's show will focus on one of the more popular anti-Israel taglines, the apartheid smear that's become a leftist mainstay and a Spanish schoolyard blood libel. It's Israel Apartheid Week around the world - they've even got a Wiki entry - so we might as well talk about it. As always you can head over to the episode page or the show page, and from there you'll be able to hear the show, participate in the chat room, or call in live. Today's official blurb:

Omri discusses the global anti-Jewish bigotry and anti-Israel media bias that plays on the "apartheid" smear. From campuses like the University of California Irvine, where Muslim students stand in the center of campus and militantly chant anti-Zionist slogans, to Spanish schoolhouses where children are instructed to send antisemitic postcards to Israelis - the most venomous and explicitly genocidal blood libel is quite simply mainstream in Western educational institutions. Dan Diker calls in to provide the broader week-in-geopolitics, focusing as always on Middle East dynamics and their international consequences.

As always the top of the show will include a rundown of what's going on with Iran, including this Obama walkback on the content of sanctions and this Obama walkback on the timing of sanctions. It seems like there are only three options: this administration really thought Iran would respond positively to engagement, this administration really expected China and Russia to hop on board a workable sanctions regime, or this administration really wants Iran to get nukes. So either they're idiots or they're idiots or they're trying to detonate US hegemony in the oil-soaked Middle East. Not to ruin the ending, but they're idiots.

Since the world doesn't stop turning for anti-Jewish Western academics and teachers - no matter how much they'd prefer otherwise - Dan Diker will indeed join the show to discuss diplomacy and geopolitics. Hopefully this week we can get through the updates without the Blog Talk Radio soundboard dying. Fingers crossed.

References:
* Israel angry over anti-Semitic postcards sent by Spanish schoolchildren [Telegraph]
* The Apartheid Libel [One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show]
* Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched? [Official Site]
* Obama Giving Up On "Crippling" Iran Sanctions [MR]
* Clinton appears to extend timeline for Iran sanctions [YNet]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* European Antisemitism
* Academia

Each week, in a contest for the week's best post, the members of the Watchers Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members. This week's submissions span foreign policy, domestic policy, and have a healthy dose of media criticism. There are also a couple posts on antisemitism and Judaism, an appropriate theme given how the world's favorite aid recipients have taken to destroying certain Arab products for being just too Jewy.

To better help you cope with the onslaught of lefty weasel pseudo-sophistication - from "engagement will work" to "giving terrorists civil liberties will make them like us" - here is a slow loris getting tickled. Watch the video, read the posts, watch the video again to cheer up, and then head over to the Mere Rhetoric Facebook page and sound off about the posts you liked best:

Have at it...

This is the second time in as many weeks that the State Department has, for reasons that are largely unfathomable, unilaterally taken an anti-Iran option off the table. Two Wednesdays ago Clinton told Al-Arabiya that military action wasn't even a consideration, which had the predictable effect of emboldening the mullahs. Now comes this announcement, which basically tells Tehran they don't have anything to fear from sanctions. Wonderful.

Remember during the election, when Obama's surrogates wouldn't shut up about "strong sticks and strong carrots"? The original liberal tagline was actually "real sticks and real carrots" but apparently "strong" focused better than "real" so that's what we got. Dennis Ross was even dispatched to reassure Jewish voters that the era of "weak sticks and weak carrots" was over. Then after the election Clinton went to the Hill and - trying to reassure Congresspeople who were nervous about Obama's appeasement - she explicitly promised to mobilize "crippling" international sanctions if outreach failed.

Nope:

The United States said on Thursday it does not aim to impose crippling sanctions on Iran but rather to pressure the Iranian government to change course on its nuclear program while protecting ordinary people. "It is not our intent to have crippling sanctions that have... a significant impact on the Iranian people," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters. "Our actual intent is... to find ways to pressure the government while protecting the people."

On the plus side, this is more honest than the last few months' of spin. Obama doesn't have the means to establish a robust international sanctions regime, even if he wanted to. The Iranians knew that and bragged about it. The pretense of credible sticks was meant for American audiences, the better to buy Obama breathing room for ever more engagement. Just because previous efforts had drawn humiliating responses didn't mean the approach was misguided. It was just that Iran's "unsettled political situation" was getting in the way!

But that only takes you so far. Eventually you need new excuses for why a crippling sanctions regime has failed to materialize. Giving up on the whole idea - that's certainly one excuse.

The other option was to continue unblinkingly asserting that Iran was still open for talks, no matter how many previous deadlines they had brazenly ignored. Again - remember "Obama says he wants progress with Iran by year's end?" If 2009 ended without a deal - the President intoned - then sanctions would be used "to ensure that Iran understands we are serious." Believable!

References and related after the jump...

Which part of the new "positive, constructive U.S.-Syrian relationship" involves having the US Secretary of State getting publicly mocked by grinning totalitarian thugs?

President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a bilateral deal to remove travel visas and attended a Muslim ceremony in the Syrian capital... "We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement to cancel the visas," Assad said. "I find it strange that they (Americans) talk about Middle East stability and peace and the other beautiful principles and call for two countries to move away from each other," he added. Ahmadinejad told a joint news conference: "Clinton said we should maintain a distance. I say there is no distance between Iran and Syria." He added: "We have the same goals, same interests and same enemies."

Interesting bit about enemies at the end. If Khamenei had recently and officially emphasized that the US was an enemy of Iran, that would be even more troubling than Assad's sneering jokes about bad translations.

In any case - very disappointing. Sure Assad rebuffed Obama's craven obsequiousness - six high-level delegations to Syria, promises to restore relations, waivers for aircraft parts, deals worth billions in cash, and so on. And sure he's exporting jihadism across the Middle East, financing among others the AQI cretins trying to reignite the insurgency. And sure his interference in Iraq got so severe that the Iraqis appealed directly to the UN. And sure he just threatened to saturation bomb Israeli civilians. And sure he's reestablishing Syria's stranglehold on Lebanon, having forced Hariri to capitulate.. And sure he's extending his strategy of building multiple, redundant nuclear sites.

But I really thought he'd come around this time.

Guess not.

References and related after the jump...

Compare...

Washington refused to endorse British claims to over the Falkland Islands yesterday... Despite Britain's close alliance with the US, the Obama Administration is determined not to be drawn into the issue. It has also declined to back Britain's claim that oil exploration near the islands is sanctioned by international law, saying that the dispute is strictly a bilateral issue... a State Department spokesman told The Times. "The US recognises de facto UK administration of the islands but takes no position on the sovereignty claims of either party."

... and contrast...

The Obama administration criticized Israel Wednesday for designating two shrines on Palestinian territory as national heritage sites... Underscoring those difficulties, the State Department on Wednesday sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for adding two shrines in the West Bank to Israel's list of national heritage sites... State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the administration viewed the move as "provocative" and unhelpful to the goal of getting the two sides back to the table.

The Palestinians have sovereignty over Jewish holy sites in the West Bank - which they've historically desecrated and destroyed - but the UK has no sovereignty over the Falklands. Nice to see the White House responding to increasingly public UK concerns that "Obama has it in for Britain." Overflowing with nuance and agility, is this government.

Add this to Obama's early snub of Brazil, which included misspelling Silva's name and was later repaid in the form of Brazilian backing for Ahmadinejad. But presumably Argentina now owes us a favor, so we've got that in our pocket in case they ever magically become the largest country in South America or a nuclear-armed European NATO ally.

Just out of curiosity, if Obama was trying to detonate all of the US's traditional alliances - what would he be doing differently?

References and related after the jump...

We're mere minutes away from tonight's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show, which will focus mostly on the Al-Mabhouh liquidation and its consequences. Media reports have been filled with "analysis" of Israel is coping with an operation that was disastrous on multiple levels. Nobody's really sure exactly what those levels were - and as of today Israel has yet to be officially condemned by anybody that anybody else cares about - but they're obviously there. Because why would international media outlets be writing about them if they didn't actually exist?

So we'll be discussing that for most of the evening, and you can tune in live to ask questions via phone and chatroom, or just pick up the podcast afterward.

Contrary to the preferences of anti-Israel partisans, though, the world doesn't actually stop while they manufacture their petty little anti-Israel tempests in their teacups. Dan Diker will be on for an update on the peace process, kicking off with France's recent stunt and getting into its effects on everything from internal Palestinian politiking to EU/Sunni relations. The second segment gets into the prospects for renewed Israeli/Syrian talks, how they have the potential to threaten Israel, and which are apparently again a thing. And since this still exists there will be the usual overview of Iran at the top of the show.

Other than that, it'll be the usual optimistic mix of great news and sanguine predictions.

References:
* Diplomatic own goals by Israel have set alarm bells ringing [FT]
* Syria urges EU to back Turkish role in peace process [Press TV]
* France wants Middle East peace talks kick-start: PM [Reuters]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Israeli-Arab Peace Process
* Anti-Israel Journalism

The picture was too small to copy over, but if you click through you can see a mosque in the background while she's on her knees getting beaten. Picturesque:

As a result of Shariah law being imposed in Malaysia, Muslim women were caned on Tuesday for engaging in illicit sex... The three women are reportedly the first to receive such a brutal punishment under Shariah law. According to the Home Minister, Datuk Hishmmudin Hussein, two of the women were struck six times while the third was hit four times with a "cane" or "rotan."... Malaysians have witnessed an increase in canings as a result of the nation moving from a secular legal system to one based on the Koran and the teachings of radical imams. Many were shocked to learn that last Summer a 32-year old woman... was sentenced to be caned for the crime of consuming an alcoholic beverage.

And the punchline:

Hishammuddin claimed that he decided to bring to public attention the punishment given to the three women because there had been "too much hype" over Kartika's sentence. "People are saying that no woman has been caned before and that Kartika should not be caned. Today I am announcing that we have already done it...." he stated during a press conference yesterday. The staunchly Islamic minister declared that the three women did not suffer any cuts or abrasions from their beatings but assured the media that the punishment had a rehabilitative effect.

Malaysia is also where there's been that recent rash of church bombings. Apparently "Allah" is the local non-sectarian word for "God." God being of central concern to Christians, it comes up now and again in services. But political Islam being a pathological ideology mixed equal parts of seething resentment and unremitting expansionism, they've decreed that Allah is theirs, dammit. Christians have been formally banned from using the word by Malaysian courts. And just to make sure the message gets through - firebombings.

Man, this stuff's going to go over like gangbusters when it finally hits Britain.

References:
* Women beaten in Malaysia under Shariah law [The Examiner]
* Fourth Church Hit by Firebombs Over 'Allah' Ban [Fox News]
* Shariamania Sweeps Across Syria, Britain, and... US Treasury Dept [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Malaysia
* Women In Islam
* Sharia

It'll be interesting to watch the guy who proved so critical to Iranian nuclearization...

The poor management of the crisis with Iran has to be attributed largely to [ElBaradei]. The Egyptian diplomat is responsible for his organization's placatory approach toward the Iranian nuclear program. For almost a decade, starting in 1992, the agency inspectors did not notice that Iran had a secret nuclear program that violated its international commitments. Even when the agency had the information, in 2002... ElBaradei ignored it and made every possible effort to undermine its reliability. He intervened repeatedly to distort his inspectors' reports on Iran's nuclear sites, and he made sure that the IAEA's periodic reports about Iran would be camouflaged in diplomatic gibberish. Time and again they repeated the phrase that "no proof was found" that Iran's nuclear program had military aspects, even though they were blatantly obvious. ElBaradei was opposed to sanctioning Iran, not to mention military action, and repeatedly attempted to conduct a dialogue with Tehran in order to reach a compromise.

... take control of Tehran's most powerful Arab rival. From a certain perspective it almost seems like the basis for a kind of de facto anti-Western alliance:

Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, is awaited in Cairo as police warn his supporters not to mark the homecoming of a would-be electoral challenger to President Hosni Mubarak. ElBaradei, who is expected to fly home on Friday, has repeatedly called for democratic change in Egypt since stepping down as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in November. On the eve of his return, he reaffirmed his determination to "do everything I can for Egypt to advance toward democracy and economic and social progress."

When he wasn't busy denying Iranian weaponization - here he is calling highly enriched Iranian uranium "of little significance" - he was perennially promising to "pin down" deals with the mullahs. When his summits fell through, as they inevitably did, he delayed Western responses by asserting that Iran was still considering offers. And in the twilight of his term - when it was clear that Iran was intent on weaponization and that negotiations were a cover - he continued deriding even non-military solutions because sanctions "really don't resolve issues." From "no problem" to "no solution" in just a few years.

Though you know who really does merit close IAEA scrutiny, per this tool? Israel. Because someone hatched a feverish tale that the IDF used uranium against Gazans, so of course that had to be probed. And not only are Israelis a bigger threat than North Korea - another country that got nukes under ElBaradei's watch - they're actually the number one threat in the Middle East. Not Iran, which is actively engaged in undermining the stability of the Egyptian government. Israel.

Should ElBaradei become President, those kinds of geopolitical delusions probably won't be a problem. The Middle East is a pretty forgiving region. You can afford to indulge in the occasional fantasy.

Speaking of the region, he's also pledging to open up Gaza. That's an extremely popular position domestically and it fits in addition to fitting the rest of his political inclinations would be an extremely popular campaign platform. Sure it would be an invaluable boost to Hamas, facilitating their contacts with Iran and giving them an endless supply of goods to siphon off for military purposes (think of all the medicine grenades!) But he's a humanitarian. You don't hate humanitarianism, do you?

Regardless. He's pretty popular in Egypt right now. He hopes - and I'm quoting - "to be an instrument for change." So this is probably going to become a thing.

References and related after the jump...

Fresh off creeping rapprochement with the US - Obama just reinstated our ambassador and State has dropped their travel advisory - Syria wants you to know that they're ready to return to the Western fold. Or to light up the Middle East in the process of completing a decade-old genocidal war against the Middle East's sole, beleaguered democracy. But definitely one of the two:

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem recently told Israelis that "you know that war at this time will reach your cities." The statement bolsters the recognition that the Syrian strategy in a future war will be based on targeting population centers in Israel. It seems that after the enemy's attempts to act through conventional military means and terrorism failed, it tried to locate Israel's weak point. Damascus sees our cities as a weak point. The Syrian minister's comments show the extent to which Damascus has adopted a terrorist modus operandi that is no different from that of Hezbollah or Hamas.

It must be nice to have the freedom to explicitly threaten the other side's civilians. Israel, of course, focuses exclusively on military targets. Which isn't something they should be rewarded for - it's what decent countries do - but the contrast is stark. Not only does the Israeli political echelon refrain from threatening war crimes, but the IDF really does goes out of its way to limit civilian casualties. And yet for some reason, over the last year, Syria has grown closer to America while US/Israeli relations are at historic lows. Strange, that.

Syria's also skirting their NPT obligations and refusing the IAEA access to their bombed nuclear site. Israel haters will point out that the Jewish State isn't even a member of the NPT, so Syria is more in line with global norms than is the Jewish State. Then someone will remind them that Israel's entire concern is that international law is politicized, and that Israel's Arab enemies don't live up to their treaty obligations. So this spectacle crystallizes exactly why Israel refuses to sign ostensibly balanced treaties that in practice allow totalitarian regimes to cheat with impunity. Then the Israel haters will scream about how it's not right to accuse them of antisemitism and shoot off an email to Andrew Sullivan.

Rational debate.

References and related after the jump...

Too bad...

A multi-branch team of PA agents found an Arab-driven car carrying 20,000 shekels' worth of cleaning products several days ago. The "contraband" was manufactured in the Jewish community of Karnei Shomron... and was therefore promptly confiscated and destroyed... PA police, tax officials, customs agents, and PA Preventive Security personnel banded together to carry out a recent PA Finance Ministry decision... The destruction operation was described in the PA as a "Palestinian national moral obligation" in safeguarding PA "interests and its economy."

... they really could have used those supplies for that shiny new Palestinian city they're building:

The construction of the new Palestinian city Rawabi, north of Ramallah, is proceeding... Israel is not obstructing the progress of this important project. Israel has repeatedly declared that it views economic peace as an essential stage on the path to political peace... Improvement of living standards there will assist in lowering the value of violence, will encourage moderation, will allow the incremental building of confidence and will portend a horizon of hope.

The factory which produced the goods, by the by, was owned by Israeli-Arabs who just happened to be located in a Jewish community. Which means that these tools are now destroying goods that were produced by Arabs living in West Bank territory that the Palestinians claim for... Arabs.

No word yet on whether Prime Minister Fayyad - the ne plus ultra of Palestinian moderation, the one the State Department holds up us the linchpin of Palestinian good governance - showed up this time to burn the Jewish goods. He was certainly there last time:

Your tax dollars at work (h/t: Doris).

References:
* PA Agents Destroy 20,000 Shekels' Worth of Jewish Products [A7]
* Summary of editorials from the Hebrew press [Yisrael Hayom via MFA]
* U.S. warns it won't recognize PA unity gov't sans Fayyad [Ha'aretz]
* Fayyad helps burn settlement products [YNet]
* Obama Bundles $200 Million Palestinian Aid Into Emergency Iraq/Afghanistan Supplemental [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Palestinians
* Israeli-Arab Peace Process
* Israel

Hmmm...

Israel's air force on Sunday introduced a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day and fly as far as the Persian Gulf, putting rival Iran within its range. The Heron TP drones have a wingspan of 86 feet (26 meters), making them the size of Boeing 737 passenger jets and the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel's military. The planes can fly at least 20 consecutive hours and are primarily used for surveillance and carrying diverse payloads.

Depressing theory: Israel only revealed the fleet because it doesn't intend to use it on Iran. If an attack was in the works, the existence of the drones wouldn't be confirmed until they were done dropping ordnance on Natanz. Israel's new urban warfare weapons were unveiled during Cast Lead, and not in a formal setting.

Possible counter-theory: the US and the EU3 need to credibly raise the specter of an Israeli attack to get China and Russia on board the sanctions train, and this is aimed in that direction.

Depressing counter-counter-theory: China's never going to assent to a genuine and robust sanctions regime. Minus military action, Iran's going nuclear.

Should that happen, Israel is working on a few other drone projects as well:

Israel is increasingly worried about the threat of a nuclear, missile-equipped Iran. So the Israeli military is working on "a high-fly­ing, long-endurance unmanned in­frared sensor" that can tell the difference between "nuclear war­heads amid doz­ens of decoys sent to confound na­tional missile defenses," Defense News' Barbara Opall-Rome reports. "If implemented, the Israeli program will mark the first use of an unmanned platform for [n]uclear warhead hunting."

The problem, of course, is that only a single missile has to get through for the result to be nuclear genocide. How lucky do you feel? How lucky do you think Netanyahu feels? Barack put the point of no return somewhere around the first half of 2010, and that was in the context of Iran's last generation of long-range missiles.

Then the P5+1 couldn't meet because the Chinese were too busy. Then they met but couldn't come to a consensus. Then Iran showed off their new lines of even more powerful domestically-produced offensive missiles.

So probably not all that lucky.

References:
* Israel unveils new drone fleet that can reach Iran [AP]
* Israel Developing Nuke-Hunting Drone [Wired Danger Room]
* Israel Says Iran Close to Nuclear Capability [VOA]
* World powers fail to agree in meeting on Iran [JTA]
* Clenched With Two New Offensive Missile Lines [IIFSC]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Israel
* Israeli Technology
* Iran

Because if there's one quality that the TSA has consistently demonstrated - from pranking coeds with fake drugs to harassing fans of rival sports franchises - it's seriousness. And professionalization. Seriousness and professionalization are the two qualities that the TSA has consistently demonstrated. Good times:

About 10,000 airport security workers will get access to secret intelligence that could help stop terrorist attacks on planes. The [TSA will give]... them more detailed information about tactics and threats... [TSA] hopes to empower its higher-level workers as part of an effort to professionalize airport security. The 10,000 people in line to get classified information are managers, supervisors and "behavior detection officers" who roam airports looking for suspicious people. They represent about 20% of the TSA's airport workforce and exclude screeners who scan passengers and bags... The information could include copies of terrorist training videos or tips vaguely describing a terrorism suspect, experts said. "Some classified information seems innocuous but is classified because it was derived from an intercepted phone conversation," said Steven Aftergood, an intelligence-policy specialist for the Federation of American Scientists.

Seems fair. Insofar as TSA agents need to watch out for terrorists, it's a good idea to educate them about what terrorists look like (we weren't doing that already?) There are probably a few straightforward downsides Giving behavior profilers information about ongoing plots - if that's a part of this new plan - might throw them off their game by focusing them in a single direction. There's also an argument to be made that you don't "professionalize airport security" by giving the officers security clearance. That's usually a prerequisite.

But those are process considerations.

The real concern is that TSA has a habit of hiring and employing - sometimes for years at a time - out and out drug dealers. They've also recently taken to hiring convicted felons and then badgering airports into badging them:

The TSA hired a guy... to do security work at the airport. It turns out that Giancarlo committed a robbery when he was 17 and was convicted when he was 18. According to the TSA, that's not an issue. He was still qualified for the job. But the TSA doesn't do badging; the airport does. So, Giancarlo went to the airport to get his Security Identification Display Area (SIDA) badge which allows for access to all secure areas without an escort... [Richmond] airport uncovered the robbery in a background check, even though Giancarlo left it off his application, and refused to give him a badge... the TSA started threatening the airport until they buckled and issued the guy a badge.

An agency that won't and can't keep out petty criminals seems pretty vulnerable to, say, determined foreign double agents seeking data on what TSA "thinks a terrorist looks like." They already know some of that because of past TSA idiocy. But still.

References and related after the jump...

I'm been egregiously lax about posting Council results - or about posting anything - but this week's results were such crush that I wanted to direct your attention to the winning post. JoshuaPundit's account of his recent heart attack took the voters by storm:

Having a heart attack tends to focus you on what's important. Like breathing, which I thoroughly recommend. There I was, coming back into the house after swimming some laps when I suddenly became aware of pains that were roughly like a bad case of heartburn and shortness of breath. And no, I did not immediately think heart attack. It didn't go away after about a half hour... in fact,the pain increased and was joined with a certain light lightheadedness and a cold sweat. So I dialed 911. Contrary to popular legend, I was able to get through immediately and was promptly switched from the main operator to the paramedics, where the dispatcher took me through my symptoms, advised me what to do and literally stayed on the line with me and held my hand - I do not exaggerate - until the paramedics got to my home.

The Council runner-up was The Razor's take on Chinese motivations, Iran's nuclear program, and why the two line up so well. Probably nothing a little smart power can't solve, so no worries.

The non-Council winner came from the Daily Caller and was about the Pentagon's ongoing refusal to recognize what happened at Ft. Hood. The runner-up post from Harry's Place dealt with Andrew Sullivan's antisemitism. There's a lot more in the article than just Andrew Sullivan's antisemitism, of course: Israel, the global campaign to delegitimize Jewish statehood, the woe-is-me victimized ethos of rhetorical thugs, etc. But Andrew Sullivan's antisemitism runs as a kind of thread throughout the whole thing. A very antisemitic thread.

References:
* Life 2.0 - Turning Hindsight Into Foresight [Watcher Of Weasels]
* Life 2.0 [JoshuaPundit]
* Failing at force protection: The misguided Pentagon report on the Ft. Hood massacre [Daily Caller]
* Sullivan [Harry's Place]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics
* Multiculturalism
* Global Antisemitism

I'm trying to find the anti-Israel angle here, ala that Cast Lead HuffPo comment "the narcotic is one thing the Israeli occupiers will allow to get smuggled thru the blockade. No accident, I am sure. Tear down the Apartheid Wall, you Israeli criminals!!" (sic)

Maybe Israel hasn't bombed Hamas's smuggling tunnels because they want to flood Gaza with so many goods that the Palestinians become decadent, neglecting their glorious resistance. Or maybe it's a plot to get them to sink their money into foodstuffs and luxury products, draining resources away from the glorious resistance. It definitely has something to do with the glorious resistance.

Anyway, this is exactly what Auschwitz was like:

Owners of the smuggling tunnels bordering the Gaza Strip and Egypt have been suffering from financial problems due to their tunnels' inactivity, according to Palestinian sources. The reason, it turns out, actually stems from the overall success of smuggling tunnels in Gaza. Hamas has recently set up 'legal' tunnels, which... are used to bring in merchandise intended for sale in markets, such as food products and home appliances. Palestinians believe that the overflow of goods caused a complete smuggling standstill in dozens of underground channels...

The increase in merchandise in Gaza made prices sharply decrease, which seriously reduced the earnings from the 'illegal' smuggling industry... Under Hamas rule, hundreds of underground channels have been dug between Gaza and Egypt. The recent increase in smuggled goods in Gaza caused many factories to renew activity. Overall, if judging by the two most smuggled products - gasoline and cement - tunnel activity has actually caused Gaza to experience an economic reawakening.

"Economic reawakening" is only part of the story. Another part is that, between their tunnels and their Iranian-funded military, Hamas has become the second largest employer in the Gaza Strip (the PA, which pays its employees with the help of Obama's largess on behalf of US taxpayers, is number one). No word on whether Goldstone headscarves are Hamas-sanctioned products, but given these cretins' affinity for his blood libel they at the very least look the other way.

Anyway, I can't remember where I found these pictures. I'd guess either Carl or Elder. They were originally posted to PalToday last November (Google Translate). Again - it looks exactly like a Nazi death camp. The similarities are so eerie that you can't help but marvel at the level-headed objectivity of those "Jews = Nazis" smears so favored by the Islamic world and the Western left.