Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The "even-handed" LA Times

The Los Angeles Times published two essays, both by Jews, about Zionism today. One was by Ben Ehrenreich, saying that Zionism is "the problem." The other is by Judea Pearl, asking "is anti-Zionism hate?"

One wonders if the LA Times would have an equally even-handed pair of essays asking whether assassination of newspaper editors is desirable or not. After all, there are two sides to every story, right?

Anyway, it is worthwhile to look at what Ehrenreich has to say, if only to expose the underlying errors in his thinking.

It's hard to imagine now, but in 1944, six years after Kristallnacht, Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, felt comfortable equating the Zionist ideal of Jewish statehood with "the concept of a racial state -- the Hitlerian concept." For most of the last century, a principled opposition to Zionism was a mainstream stance within American Judaism.

Indeed, not all Jews were Zionists in 1944. In fact, as Ehrenreich mentions, "Marxist Jews -- my grandparents among them -- tended to see Zionism, and all nationalisms, as a distraction from the more essential struggle between classes."

So does the fact that many Jews embraced Marxism in the 1930s and 1940s automatically make their beliefs relevant today? Ehrenreich might not have noticed, but there are precious few Communist states prospering today. Yet by his logic, the fact that many Jews didn't embrace Zionism sixty years ago is somehow an important fact today, I suppose in order to give him a pretext to hate contemporary Zionism and not feel quite so guilty about it.

To be Jewish, I was raised to believe, meant understanding oneself as a member of a tribe that over and over had been cast out, mistreated, slaughtered. Millenniums of oppression that preceded it did not entitle us to a homeland or a right to self-defense that superseded anyone else's. If they offered us anything exceptional, it was a perspective on oppression and an obligation born of the prophetic tradition: to act on behalf of the oppressed and to cry out at the oppressor.

So his ignoramus parents and grandparents knew nothing about what Judaism is, and Ehrenreich internalized this ignorance and now uses it to justify his bizarre beliefs? In his world, Jews must remain the eternal victims, always begging the powerful goyim for crumbs, until the wonderful day that Jews can become fully assimilated and disappear in the superior gentile culture. What a great representative of Judaism!

For the last several decades, though, it has been all but impossible to cry out against the Israeli state without being smeared as an anti-Semite, or worse. To question not just Israel's actions, but the Zionist tenets on which the state is founded, has for too long been regarded an almost unspeakable blasphemy.

No, in the case of Jews like Ehrenreich, just unspeakable ignorance.

The problem is fundamental: Founding a modern state on a single ethnic or religious identity in a territory that is ethnically and religiously diverse leads inexorably either to politics of exclusion (think of the 139-square-mile prison camp that Gaza has become) or to wholesale ethnic cleansing. Put simply, the problem is Zionism.

Interesting observation. Which areas in historic Palestine have no Jews and which have no Arabs? The people who claim that Zionists are "ethnic cleansers" never seem to mention the answer to that question.

The fate Buber foresaw is upon us: a nation that has lived in a state of war for decades, a quarter-million Arab citizens with second-class status and more than 5 million Palestinians deprived of the most basic political and human rights.

Notice the sleight-of-hand: if Israel has been in a state of war, the reason must be because of the Zionists! The Arabs would love to live in peace, if it wasn't for those pesky Zionists. While I of course am not allowed to mention this, this exactly mirrors the arguments of anti-semites: since Jews have been hated and kicked out of other countries for millenia, they must have done something to deserve it.

If two decades ago comparisons to the South African apartheid system felt like hyperbole, they now feel charitable. The white South African regime, for all its crimes, never attacked the Bantustans with anything like the destructive power Israel visited on Gaza in December and January, when nearly1,300 Palestinians were killed, one-third of them children.

Here the LA Times lets lies get thrown into the mix. No reliable source counts more than 280 children under 18 as being killed in Gaza, and many of the "children" were hardly innocent. Besides the fact that, according to Ehrenreich, Israel has literally no right to defend itself against Qassam rockets, which means that he believes that Israel is the only nation that has the moral imperative to let its citizens be killed with impunity.

Establishing a secular, pluralist, democratic government in Israel and Palestine would of course mean the abandonment of the Zionist dream. It might also mean the only salvation for the Jewish ideals of justice that date back to Jeremiah.

Ehrehreich seems to be blissfully ignorant of how peacefully Jews and Arabs lived together before Zionism. He seems to have forgotten that the victims of the 1929 riots were not Zionists, but Jews whose families had lived in Palestine for centuries. He is painfully unaware that the Arabs before 1948 never said "death to the Zionists" but "death to the Jews."

And, unbelievably, he thinks that his thought processes have something in common with Jewish prophets of old.

The worst part is that he believes that the accident of birth that caused him to be genealogically Jewish somehow makes him an authority of Judaism and on Jewish ideals. More sickening is that the LA Times believes the same thing.

Fatah takes credit for murder of two Israelis

Ha'aretz reports:

Two Israeli police officers died Sunday evening from gunshots wounds sustained while on patrol near the settlement of Masu'a, in the northern West Bank.

Both victims were found in their vehicle suffering from critical gunshot wounds. One was pronounced dead by medics shortly after discovered, and the other succumbed to his wounds following resuscitation efforts.

Guess who took credit for the attack? Yes, it was the "moderates!" Fatah has taken responsibility for the killing, according to Firas Press quoting Channel One.

Israel has recently removed checkpoints in the West Bank. Israel also pardoned dozens of suspected Palestinian Arab terrorists last week.

Even though Israel has been consistently easing restrictions on the West Bank and helping the Palestinian Arabs there economically, more than half of Palestinian Arabs still support suicide bombing attacks inside Israel proper and only 42% oppose terror attacks.

PalArab media roundup 3-15-09

Arsonists burned down a Jenin music school. Islamists?

Arsonists also burned a car belonging to the PA's director general of the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

A new school was constructed in Gaza, from pre-fab buildings. Even so, it looks nicer than many American schools.

The number of Israelis who travel to Egypt for Purim plummeted this year by 90%, hurting the Egyptian tourism industry. Israeli authorities have been warning Israelis against going to Egypt for fear of terror attacks and kidnappings.

There is concern in the Palestinian Arab media that Israel is planning to "exploit" the economic situation in Russia to encourage more immigration to Israel. Oh, they also mention the fact that anti-semitic attacks in Russia have skyrocketed, which means that it is only a matter of time before people blame to Mossad for those attacks.

In Lebanon, enterprising women started their own taxi service - for women only. The taxis are pink and presumably the women who must take taxis will feel far safer with women drivers.

A recent study shows that nearly 17% of all Egyptian adults suffer from mental illness. Is this because of Israel?

Israeli arms, Bollywood-style

From Stratpost (South Asian Defense & Strategic Affairs)

That the international defense industry is keen on getting a piece of the enormous Indian defense market is not surprising, considering the expenditure the Indian government is planning on defense equipment....

But another measure of this eagerness to do business with India is also the innovative video marketing which an Israeli arms company, Rafael displayed on large screen televisions at their stall at Aero India 2009 recently.

The video is a Bollywood-style dance number featuring Israeli artists in full Bollywood costume singing in English about the potential for the Indo-Israeli defense trade relationship and dancing around mock-ups of Rafael’s products. It is significant that recent reports have indicated Israel to have overtaken Russia as India’s single-largest defense materiel supplier.

StratPost spoke to Assy Josephy the Director of Exhibitions for Rafael about how this video came about. “In Israel we have Jewish people from India, so we know about Bollywood and the song and dance numbers. Israelis are generally aware of Indian culture. This video is to help build familiarity between India and Israel and Rafael,” he says.

And here it is:

(h/t Moe Lane via The Other McCain)

Rule 5 Sunday: Forbidden Fashion

(Rule 5 Sunday is my attempt to gratuitously show pictures of attractive women, a la Rule 5 of The Other McCain, while still trying to keep to the themes of my blog, whatever they might still be.)

Al-Quds newspaper regularly publishes pictures of models from fashion shows, especially from designers with Arab or Muslim roots. The readers of that publication are not happy about it.

For example:

The translated description from Al Quds of this model is "Casual Fashionwear: Sri Lankan model wearing local costumes during a parade held in the framework of the Colombo Fashion Week."

One comment wishes for "The death of her family in Sri Lanka."

Another one says "What next? What will we see soon? Don't waste our time showing pornographic images...Fear Allah, if you are believers in Islam, or Christ.

One other recent photo unleashed even more vitriol:

"Casual wear design of a 'so soft' clothing during a fashion festival in the Phraya Lebanese ski resort in the north-east of Lebanon."

One commenter wrote "Do you intend to change Al-Quds to 'Al-naked' with photos from Playboy magazine as well?"

Another: "Jerusalem (Al-Quds) means purity and this has nothing to do with holiness. Obey God."

And a third: "What a waste to the world to display forbidden images like this."

I will keep looking to see if any readers say something like "She's hot!" or "I wish my second wife looked like that!" or "What the hell are those yellow things on her arms? Swimmies?"

Halachic trivia question

And now for something completely different, that I heard this weekend:

Name a situation where one alternates between saying "tzidkoscha tzedek" on Shabbos mincha and not saying it for 9 Shabbasim in a row.

Fatah official: Hamas doesn't have to renounce terror

From Ma'an:

Hamas should be allowed to keep its political positions even as it joins a transitional Palestinian government with Fatah, a senior Fatah member said on Saturday.

Ahmad Abd Ar-Rahman said in a statement sent to Ma’an, “Fatah is working forward to reaching agreement; it gave lots of initiatives within those meetings and ahead of them, and it still has the ability to cooperate with Egypt to reach a conclusion for the talks.”

Apparently, the "moderate" and "peace loving" PA really doesn't have that much of a problem with Hamas' support for terror and with working together with those who openly advocate the destruction of Israel.

Perhaps because they, deep down, agree with them?

The "moderate" Mustafa Barghouti

One way to see how far from reality Palestinian Arabs are is to look at what their so-called pragmatic, moderate leaders say. One such leader is Mustafa Barghouti. His moderate bona-fides include publicly advocating non-violent resistance, strongly criticizing Fatah and PLO corruption, and heading an NGO dedicated to health care in the territories.

Today, Barghouti published an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which tries very hard to tell Americans that supporting Israel is...un-American.

I believe that under an Obama administration Israel will no longer have carte blanche to lay waste to Gaza. But the new administration must recognize that there can be no peacemaking without talking to the whole Palestinian political spectrum following democratic elections in 2006.

I brokered the first Hamas-Fatah agreement in 2007. The same can be done now, but there must be assurances from the West that a unity government will be recognized.
Despite the Obama administration’s reluctance to deal with the government Palestinians elected, a breath of fresh air is clearly blowing through Washington. And just in time....

The Obama administration, alert to the closing window of opportunity for a two-state outcome, will have to counter Netanyahu’s prescriptions for Palestinian economic development — a Potemkin village on the West Bank — as a substitute for Palestinian freedom.
Netanyahu’s plan is a fig leaf. My recent conversations in Washington suggest it will be seen as such. Economic development cannot replace political freedom. The question is whether American officials will have the courage to stand up to Netanyahu and an Israel lobby that for the most part lacks the moral courage to criticize Lieberman’s racism, let alone Netanyahu’s intransigence on ending the occupation.

The administration can help level the playing field by taking three steps. First, insist Israel immediately stop all settlement activity. Second, reject Israel’s embrace of apartheid. One set of laws for Jewish settlers and another for Palestinians is unacceptable. Third, accept our democratic choice.

I am convinced that an evenhanded mediator such as former Sen. George Mitchell will soon find that we are not the recalcitrant party. He will uphold American principles and serve American interests if he has the courage to say so. And let us hope that more American officials go see for themselves the harm Israel is causing Palestinians — and long-term Israeli interests — with American tax dollars.

Notice that Barghouti does not think that Palestinian Arabs have any responsibilities whatsoever in a peace agreement. They deserve rights, Western aid, respect - but they do not have to earn any of those. A unity government that he is advocating can openly call for Israel's destruction, it can adopt the Hamas charter in total romanticizing the genocide of all Jews, and it can include daily calls for "death to America" - but Barghouti is trying to say that this is irrelevant, because it is supposedly the democratic choice of the Palestinian Arabs.

He is knowingly pushing a false logic: that a nation that supports democracy must respect the democratic choices made by another people, even if those choices are in fact bigoted and terrorist.

Barghouti doesn't say that Hamas must accept Israel or eschew terror. Barghouti doesn't say that Palestinian Arabs have to stop incitement, or criminalize terror groups, or stop shooting rockets at Israeli civilians. Barghouti is trying to manipulate his American audience to think that a democratically elected leadership has carte-blanche to act however they want, and they must be respected.

Unless, of course, the democratically-elected leadership was elected by Israelis. Suddenly, democracy is not so important to Barghouti. Washington must uncritically accept Palestinian elections of terrorists but must reject Israeli elections of anyone he personally finds distasteful. Washington must not send American tax dollars to a true friend and reliable ally in the Middle East - but it must send unlimited amounts of money to a people who dance in the streets when Americans die.

This is how a Palestinian Arab "moderate" thinks.

(h/t jh in the comments)

Let's do some Gaza math

The PCHR just released a report saying that in Gaza, 960 of the dead were civilians and 474 were "fighters" or Hamas "police officers."

As we've seen, the PCHR is hardly accurate in its description of who is a civilian. But we can assume that their tally of women and children victims are accurate. So therefore this is a curious statement:

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ (PCHR) investigations reveal that throughout the course of the assault, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) used excessive, indiscriminate force, in violation of the principle of distinction. This claim is evidenced by the disproportionately high rate of death amongst the civilian population, when compared to that of resistance fighters.

OK, let's look at the numbers, according to PCHR.

PCHR says that 280 of the victims were children and 121 were women. If we assume that none of the 15-17-year old "children" were in fact "fighters," which is clearly not true, and if we assume that half of Gazans are under 18 (the median age is 17.2) and that half of Gazans are male and half female, and if we further assume that there were 20,000 fighters, then according to PCHR's own figures:

"Combatants" and Hamas police were 35 times more likely to be killed than civilians.
Adult males were 8.5 times more likely to be killed than adult women.
Adult males were 7 times more likely to be killed than children under 18.

When the PCHR lists the dead's names next week, we can look at how many of the "children" were in fact males between 15-17.

Given that the terrorists were completely integrated into the civilian population, without uniforms, this is hardly evidence of "indiscriminate" force. On the contrary, it proves great care on the part of the IDF to target terrorists.

Parsing the PCHR a bit more indicates that they are not counting Hamas or Islamic Jihad members to be "combatants" if they were not actually shooting at the IDF at the time of their deaths. For example, it appears that if the IDF would shoot at an unarmed terrorist a minute after he shot a rocket into Israel, the PCHR would classify him as a "noncombatant." The PCHR made no attempt to determine whether any of the dead were members of terror groups, only if they were (what PCHR defines as) active "combatants." The PCHR also counts Nizar Rayyan as a civilian. The real numbers of terrorists killed is clearly much higher than what PCHR claims.

Putting these facts together, one can see not only PCHR's bias but also the fact that the IDF actions were anything but "indiscriminate."

[It is also interesting that between the end of the war and now, the PCHR death figures went up from 1285 to 1434, but the number of women went up by only 10 and the number of children stayed exactly the same. It is an amazing statistical feat that 139 of the 149 newly-discovered dead were adult males.]

Yes, anti-Zionism really is anti-semitism

I mentioned earlier that a new "Arab quartet" was started yesterday, with the leaders of Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait holding a summit to come up with a unified approach to Arab issues. And the only issue they mentioned explicitly was the "Palestinian issue."

Interestingly enough, when it comes to actually helping Palestinian Arabs, their Arab brethren fall consistently short.

While Gaza - an area proudly run by an unrepentant terror group who cheers the deaths of civilians - received pledges of some $5 billion to rebuild, another set of Palestinian Arabs who were caught in a war and who suffered (percentage-wise) much greater damage have been all but ignored by the Arab world. In this case, I'm not talking about the few thousand Iraqi Palestinians who lost their homes after being chased out of Iraq by resentful native Iraqis, but about the Lebanese Palestinians whose camps were destroyed in last year's fighting between the Lebanese Army and terrorists in the camps:

The United Nations has laid a foundation stone at the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon to mark the formal start of reconstruction there.

The Palestinian refugee camp was destroyed in heavy fighting between Islamist militants and the Lebanese army in 2007.

Some 400 people died and 30,000 Palestinians were displaced.

But there is not enough money to rebuild completely, and some of its residents booed as work began.

As the first stone in the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared was laid, some Western diplomats admitted the occasion was not as positive as the organisers had hoped.

The UN's relief agency for Palestinian refugees (Unwra) has only managed to raise $43m (£31m) to rebuild the camp - a tiny fraction of the $430m needed.

Lebanon's rich neighbours in the Gulf have not delivered the funds they pledged.

Only 50m (165 feet) away from the VIP guests, several hundred Palestinian refugees booed from behind barbed wire.

Displaced by last year's fighting between the army and the Islamic militants, these refugees now live in the areas around the camp, surrounded by the rubble of their homes.

They say they worry about whether the international community will ever find the money to rebuild their homes.

But even if they do, Mahmoud, like many here, says it will not solve their problems in Lebanon.

"This is not life, this is not life. We need to change this country. We have no rights here, we have no rights. We need life. Where is the life? Here, no life."

There are more than 200,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, living in 12 camps across the country.

Palestinians have been here for more than 60 years - since the creation of Israel - but they are still barred from at least 70 professions, have no access to state education or healthcare, and cannot move freely or buy land.

Compared to the entire Palestinian Arab population of Lebanon, the war last year was far more devastating than the Gaza war was for Gazans. The average Palestinian Arab in Lebanon was five times more likely to lose their home and twice as likely to be killed compared to Gazans.

Yet the world pledged billions for Gaza and only a tiny fraction of that for Lebanese Palestinian Arabs.

What could account for the incredible discrepancy between the attention and money given to Gaza and that given to Lebanese camps?

When Jews are involved in killing Palestinian Arabs - no matter how justified their cause, no matter how defensive the actions, no matter how careful they are to avoid civilian deaths - there are cries of "genocide" and "holocaust." Europeans go out of their way to show empathy to the Arab victims. People contribute cash and aid. Nations pledge billions. Prominent politicians and poets and others rush to show their support. Everyone loves Palestinian Arabs - when they are perceived as the victims of Jews.

Yet when Arabs are killing Palestinian Arabs, the world sympathy for Palestinian Arabs dries up completely. No screaming headlines, no money, no charity drives, no European bleeding hearts, no Gulf states sending convoys of medical aid, clothing and building materials. No one castigates Lebanon in the UN for explicit discrimination against a minority group of 200,000, most of whom were born in that country, and their refusal to let them own land, take many jobs or become citizens. No boats of activists are being sent to Lebanon to bring public attention to a problem that really does need public attention. No countries say they will arrest any Lebanese officials who visit as "war criminals."

How much starker could the hypocrisy of "human rights advocates" be? How much more obvious can it be that a significant percentage of people who claim to care about Palestinian Arabs are, in fact, anti-semites who cloak their hatred of Jews in the mantle of "human rights"?

When Alice Walker, Lauren Booth, and George Galloway decide to visit Palestinian Arabs suffering under oppression in Lebanon, and they speak out about that oppression, then they can claim to be compassionate. When Caryl Churchill writes a play about Lebanon, talking about how Arabs pretend to care about their Palestinian brothers while actively working to keep them second-class citizens, then she can claim not to be anti-semitic. When the nations of the world decide to have a "donor's conference" to raise billions for Palestinian Arabs who have been victimized by their own people, then they can claim to be fighting for human rights and justice.

But until that happens, there is only one logical reason that all these people pretend to be fixated on Gaza, and it is not to help the Paletinian Arabs there. Deep down, they are itching to blame the Jews. They feel deeply that those Jews who are so sanctimonious, who claim to be the "chosen people," who claim to be moral, need to be taken down a peg. They love the delicious and manufactured irony of Holocaust victims turning into oppressors. The unfashionable hate of Jews has been replaced with the vary fashionable hate of the Jewish state and all its actions. Above all, they love to paint the Palestinian Arabs as the Jews of the 21st century, suffering under the Nazi-like Zionist regime, pretending that Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto with heroic Arabs fighting for their very dignity.

I know I am painting with a broad brush here. Certainly there are people who are honest in their criticisms of Israel and who criticize others as well. But the acid test of whether a critic of Israel is acting based on morality and not anti-semitism is by seeing what they say - or ignore - about Lebanon.

By that standard, there are precious few legitimate and honest critics of Israel.

(BBC article h/t Andre in the comments)

The Arab world isn't embarrassed at all....

I've mentioned many times before about the plight of Iraqis of Palestinian Arab descent who are stuck in refugee camps between Iraq and Syria. Arab countries have refused to help them, so the lucky ones are getting resettled in Iceland, Brazil, Chile, and Canada.

But one Arab country has offered to take all of them in: Sudan. In an effort to divert the world's attention away from the genocide in Darfur, Sudan has offered to house the Iraqi-Palestinian refugees, and the refugees are considering it:

A delegation of Palestinian refugees stranded on the Iraqi-Syrian border visited Sudan recently to discuss possible resettlement there.

The deputy head of the Refugees Affairs Department in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Muhammad Abu Baker, said that refugees from Al-Walid Refugee Camp went to Sudan in hopes of moving there.

Abu Baker told Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad that four representatives of the refugees met with a committee that is working on arranging the move to Sudan. The committee includes representatives of the PLO, the Sudanese government, and the UN High Commission for Refugees.

The delegation also met with an aide to Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, Uthman Isma’il, and looked at examples of the mobile homes the Palestinians could move into in the capital, Khartoum.

Abu Baker explained that this visit came in application for a resettlement agreement between the PLO, Sudan and the UN. Under the proposed terms of the agreement the Palestinians would reside “temporarily” in Sudan.

According to Abu Baker, the Sudanese government promised the Palestinians that they will enjoy full civil rights in Sudan, including the right to employment. “The Palestinian refugees moving to Khartoum will live as Sudanese people do,” the report said.

With the obvious exception, that is consistent in the Arab world: no citizenship for anyone who can be called a "Palestinian." Ever.

Our of all the oil-rich Gulf countries, out of all the Arab countries who host hundreds of thousands of descendants of Palestinian Arab refugees, the only one that offers any semblance of help for these people is genocidal Sudan. Yet the PLO doesn't castigate the Arab countries - their caring brethren - for treating 2000-3000 people like dirt. Gazans live in luxury compared to these real refugees from Iraq, but there are no Arab charities helping them, no Arab calls to take care of them, no outraged international conferences about their plight.

The reason, of course, is because their plight has been created and extended by Arabs - and Israel cannot be blamed.

The Arab world does not betray even a hint of embarrassment about how they treat their so-called brethren, nor over the idea that Sudan is the only Arab country that (cynically) offers to help.

For a society that is based on honor and shame, it is notable that the Arabs have no shame at all when it comes to abusing their own.

Possible "honor killing" in West Bank

From Ma'an:

A young man from the West Bank town of Habla, south of Qalqiya, strangled his younger sister to death on Wednesday night before handing himself in to the police.

Qalqiliya police said the body of the 18-year-old girl in Habla. The police said that the 21-year-old suspect went to the police station in Qalqiliya and confessed to the killing.

Of course, the reason he did this must have been because of the "occupation," according to Amnesty International.

Together with a student being stabbed to death yesterday and a Gaza man being stabbed to death on Monday, the 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 53.

US Mideast policy based on wishful thinking

From VOA, about how the Obama administration is overhauling Mideast policy:

Senator Kerry says there has been a tectonic shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Kerry says the rise of Iran following the war in Iraq has created an unprecedented willingness among moderate Arab nations to work with Israel.

"So there is a new reality - moderate Arab countries and Israel alike are actually more worried together about Iran than they are about each other. As a result, they are now cooperating in ways that were unimaginable just a couple of years ago. The truth is that an international initiative to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is an essential building block of stability in the Middle East. If we succeed, Arab moderates will be stronger and Israel will be much more likely to take the risks for peace," he said.

There is no doubt that Arab nations are concerned about Iran. But they seem to consider something else to be their top priority. From the Saudi Gazette:

A summit here Wednesday by the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Kuwait saw the emergence of a new “Arab Quartet” that pledged the beginning of “a unified approach in Arab politics.”

[Their] statement reported by SPA said “the leaders consider their meeting the beginning of a new phase of relationships in which the four countries will serve Arab causes through cooperation and serious, continuous work for the welfare of Arab countries, and through a unified approach in Arab politics on essential causes, topped by the Palestinian issue.”

In fact, that was the only issue mentioned in the press release.

So on what does Senator Kerry base his thinking that the Arab nations consider Iran to be more pressing than the sixty-year old "Palestinian issue" that they themselves work assiduously to prolong?

Last month we mentioned that a child, during a live call-in segment of a popular Iranian children's TV show called Uncle Pourang, said that his stuffed monkey was named "Ahmadinejad."

Now it turns out that the Iranian leaders, whose sense of humor is so finely tuned that they find the Holocaust to be funny, were not amused - and they canceled the show after seven successful years:

The final episode will be screened next week after a successful seven-year run.
A conservative website, Jahan News, quoting "reliable sources," said the decision was prompted by the "high financial and spiritual damage" inflicted by live broadcasts. Stopping short of identifying the president by name, it highlighted an incident in which "a child in a live telephone line compared its doll to one of the well-known authorities and managers".
The incident is believed to have been the last straw following several other naive indiscretions by callers, which caused acute embarrassment and offended Iran's religious conservative mores.
In one instance, Farziayi was left open mouthed and groping for an appropriate response when, after asking a participant to hand the phone to his mother or father, he was told: "They are in the shower."

Maybe Hamas' "Pioneers of Tomorrow" will be syndicated in Iran to replace "Uncle Pourang."