Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 17, 2009

Saeb Erekat not so "moderate" in Arabic

When he is quoted in the Western press, PA negotiator Saeb Erekat comes across as fully committed to peace and the "peace process."

In Arabic, however, he shows that peace is not at all what he cares about.

From WAFA:

[Saeb Erekat] said during his visit to the province of Salfit today, that there will be no peace without full restoration of our national rights, no peace with the presence of the settlements, and [no peace without] the return and compensation for refugees is a legitimate right to be the return of refugees and the creation of an international mechanism to compensate for the tragedy which they were subjected by the occupation.

In other words, Erekat is saying that unless the PA reaches its current maximal demands, it will keep supporting terror. Negotiations are not a give-and-take; they are a means to gain 100% of Palestinian Arab demands, no less - and if Israel doesn't agree, then there will be terrorism and war, fully supported by the PA, forever.

The current relative lull in terror attacks from Fatah is not because Fatah embraces peace; but it is a tactical move to gain concessions from Israel.

MEMRI translates an earlier interview of Erekat where he implies that the current maximal demands are only the beginning:

"It is true that the negotiations continued for many years, but don’t you know that President Yasser Arafat was besieged at Camp David and was killed unjustly, only because he adhered to Jerusalem, and because he refused to let the Israeli measures on the ground give rise to any [Israeli] right or any [Palestinian] obligation? The Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000, and two months ago, brother Abu Mazen [i.e. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud 'Abbas] could have accepted a proposal that talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank, but it is not our goal to score points against one another here.
"Our strategic goal, when we strive for peace, is not to do so at any price. We strive for peace on the basis of an Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 borders, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip geographically connected." […]
"There will be no peace whatsoever unless East Jerusalem - with every single stone in it - becomes the capital of Palestine.
[…]
"Our survival and steadfastness on this land, our wresting of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital - this is what we can achieve in our generation."[…]

Meaning that in future generations, they will attempt to take more.

And he reveals who has been "obstinate" towards peace:

Israeli prime minister Ehud] Olmert, who talked today about his proposal to Abu Mazen, offered the 1967 borders, but said: 'We will take 6.5% of the West Bank, and give in return 5.8% from the 1948 lands, and the 0.7% will constitute the safe passage, and East Jerusalem will be the capital, but there is a problem with the Haram and with what they called the Holy Basin.' Abu Mazen too answered with defiance, saying: 'I am not in a marketplace or a bazaar. I came to demarcate the borders of Palestine - the June 4, 1967 borders - without detracting a single inch, and without detracting a single stone from Jerusalem, or from the holy Christian and Muslim places.' This is why the Palestinian negotiators did not sign…"

So while the Western press is fixated on Netanyahu's "hawkishness," darling Mahmoud Abbas has shown zero desire to compromise on anything, a position that Erekat fully supports.

This is the so-called "moderate" position of the Palestinian Arabs - a constant war without end as long as Israel does not fully capitulate, and then a lull to be followed by a new war to expel all Jews from "Palestine."

A tiny local story out of Yemen:

Tens of bearded extremists burnt and devastated a house belongs to a citizen called Abdulmalik al-Mansour in al-Hasaba zone today morning.

The attackers accused al-Mansour and his mother of blasphemy. They hold a meeting near the victims house, got a fatwa to execute al-Mansour and his mother and destroy their house. At 5 hour morning the attackers came from al-Eman university and from other mosques in the capital to burn the house, two cars and a motorcycle belonging to al-Mansour before they brought some bulldozer and started devastating the three-storey house.

This has happened few months after the establishment of the vice and virtue committee. The attackers accused al-Mansour of tearing the Quran and walking on it in the mosque. They also accused his mother Makyah of threatening to change the mosque into a nightclub.

The government did not interfere until the attackers did the job burnt the cars , the house and the motorcycle and destroyed the house. By then the security authorities swarm the devastated house under cover. However they did not arrest the attackers they rather arrested al-Mansour, his mother, and children and rest of his family to put them all in the prison of the investigative police.

Relatives of al-Mansour denied that he torn the Koran pages at any time saying that he was a good Muslim and usually pray in the mosque. They also shed sarcasm over the story that his mother threatened to change the mosque into a night club. “There is no night clubs in the country and mother Makyah do not know what the meaning of a night club is, she is a good Muslim but she doesn’t like Salafayeen and that’s why they burnt her house,” Makeya’s relative said.

The attackers claimed they had called on Sheikh ab-Dulmajeed al-Zindani who gave them a fatwa to authorize them kill the family and devastate their house. How ever newsyemen.net website said the website called on Sheikh al-Zindani’s office which confirmed that the attackers had called on Sheikh al-Zindani but said that he did not issue such fatwa.

Last week Some extremists from the same university burgled on to top of a house in al-Khaniq zone north east of the capital where they destroyed satellite dish , stabbing and beating its owner and his son whom they accused of directing the dish to a European satellite to watch porn movies. The authorities arrested some of the attackers but later arrested the victims and put them into the investigative police prison.

It sure looks like Yemenis can do any crime they feel like and get off scot-free as long as they pretend it was done for religious reasons. Pretty nice if you have a grudge against someone - you can guarantee getting that person arrested.

So did Jews pray at the Temple Mount?

I had mentioned on Tuesday that Arabs were freaking out about reports that Jewish groups were planning to ascend to the Temple Mount on Thursday to pray. It turns out that the Israeli police prevented all Jews as well as Muslims under 50 from going there to prevent any riots.

But Ma'an claims that something else happened:

Israeli police officers in charge of preventing extremist settlers from performing religious rituals near the Al-Aqsa Mosque were seen praying there on Thursday.

Settlers had earlier been prevented by Jerusalem police from reaching Lion's Gate near Al-Aqsa on Thursday, yet the police themselves were later seen praying there.

Ma'an's Jerusalem correspondent reported that police removed their uniforms, put on head coverings, and began to pray in the area shortly after preventing settlers from reaching the very same place.

Of course there are no pictures so it is hard to tell whether this really happened or is just an attempt at incitement.

But it shows yet again the bigotry of Palestinian Arabs as they threaten violence if Jews dare consider praying at their holiest site.

Notice also how they define "extremist" Jews - not Jews who want to destroy the mosque, not Jews who threaten to kill all Arabs, but Jews who simply want to pray.

The BBC looks at Jeremy Bowen

The BBC just released a lengthy report that addresses complaints about the accuracy and impartiality of Jeremy Bowen, its Middle East editor.

While the report did find that Bowen did breach its impartiality standards in one case and its accuracy standards in a very small number of cases brought by a complainant, for the majority of the complaints the BBC found that he reported fairly and accurately. (Briefly, the BBC found that Bowen's description of the Six Day War as "“The myth of the 1967 Middle East war was that the Israeli David slew the Arab Goliath. It is more accurate to say that there were two Goliaths in the Middle East in 1967" was not an impartial statement.)

One of the complaints, and the BBC's response, caught my eye.

Bowen, in a different report about the Israeli presence on Har Homa, referred to “the considerable number of Israelis who say that their country’s colonisation of the West Bank has been a national disaster.” The complaint mentioned that a majority of Israelis support settlements in some way and that the phrase "considerable number" was misleading and false.

The BBC's findings show its own bias:

The Committee considered that a “considerable number of Israelis”, did not suggest a majority or imply a figure close to 50%. The Committee then considered the evidence provided to it regarding this comment. The Committee noted that poll findings would suggest that more than 10% of Israelis disagree with the settlements, and the figure could be much higher depending on the precise questions asked. The Committee accepted that it was reasonable to summarise their objections in this way.

The Committee discussed how far it was meaningful to link the extension of Har Homa to Israelis’ opinions of colonisation in the West Bank, given that the Israeli public may distinguish between Har Homa and the West Bank. The Committee concluded that this fact does not alter the meaning of the sentence, namely that announcement that Har Homa would be extended led to consternation among those Israelis who consider the colonisation of the West Bank to have been a national disaster. The Committee considered that this sentence is logical and that there is no evidence that it is inaccurate.

The Committee did not feel that Jeremy Bowen was obliged to mention that the majority of Israelis were in favour of settlements, and concurred with the ECU in this regard.

In conclusion, this element of the complaint was not upheld as a breach of the guidelines on either accuracy or impartiality.

In other words, if 10% of a group believes something, that is considered a "considerable number." Of course, anyone who looks at polls can spin any poll using that criteria to demonize any group of people, because rarely does any poll show that over 90% of people agree with something.

To give a more concrete example, a poll of Muslims worldwide found that 6.5% thought that 9/11 was "completely" justified and another 7% found it "mostly" justified. (This is not counting the 23% who found them justified "in some way.") Would the BBC countenance a report saying that "a considerable number of Muslims justify the 9/11 attacks"?

And in terms of pure numbers, the 13.5% that find 9/11 fully or mostly justified represent over 150 million Muslims, which - by any definition - is a "considerable number," an order of magnitude more than there are Jews worldwide. Yet I cannot imagine that the BBC would ever use such terminology to describe Muslims, which would be far more accurate than the report referenced above.

The reason is obvious: the terminology "a considerable number" implies a number that is large enough to have political clout, at least 30%, and certainly not the 10% that the BBC has decided it implies.

So when the BBC cannot accurately note an obvious breach of impartiality, the entire process is a joke.

(Other posts about Bowen and his obvious bias here and here.)
(h/t Oyavagoy)

UPDATE: See Melanie Phillips.

Have a good Yom Tov!

Two more days of massive caloric intake, prayer, learning some Torah, wonderful afternoon naps and catching up on reading. To be followed by annual the frenzied trip to a local kosher Dunkin' Donuts to get some serious chometz after Passover ends.

So...for those who celebrate it, enjoy the rest of Passover! I'll be back אי"ה Thursday night or Friday morning.

Arabs can't stand Jews wanting to pray

Jews are planning to go near their holiest site and pray on a major Jewish holiday.

Naturally, this is making Arabs furious.

From Ma'an:

Israeli police have warned against demonstrations against a planned settler march ending in Al-Aqsa Mosque where prayers will be performed, sources said Tuesday.

Settlers have said they intend to enter and pray in the Haram Ash-Sharif compound where the Al-Aqsa Mosque sits on Thursday.

Palestine News Network puts things a bit differently:

Israeli extremist organizations are seeking to enter the courtyards of the Al Aqsa Mosque on Thursday.
This latest threats comes within the context of an outright onslaught on the Palestinian heritage, culture and population of the city.
In response the Palestine Liberation Organization has called for Thursday as a day “to defend Jerusalem.” A spokesperson at the PLO told PNN this afternoon that protecting the Mosque is of utmost import. It is hoped that Palestinians will form a ring around the Muslim holy site to protect it from further damage.

Now you can understand the rest of the Ma'an article:

Israeli police also handed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s Consult for Jerusalem Affairs Hatem Abdul Kader an official warning that accused him of intending to create a public disturbance by gathering Palestinians to demonstrate against a planned settler march.
Police said Abd Al-Kader was planning a campaign “of incitement” whose planned actions would “enflame the situations in Jerusalem” and said he would be held accountable for any mishaps.

Abd Al-Kader responded to the warning by issuing a statement saying the warnings should rather be sent out to the settlers.

The police said they would study the case and may only allow the group to visit the mosque and prevent prayers in the area.

Abd Al-Kader said he would welcome any decision to prevent the settlers from praying at the holy Muslim site. He stressed that he was only concerned about the holiness of the space and wanted to avoid any violence in the area.

So Jews want to go to the Temple Mount to peacefully pray. Arabs say that doing that is unacceptable incitement and they will act violently as a result. And then they say that they only care about the holiness of the area and want to avoid violence?

You may recall that in 2000, these same peaceful prayerful Muslims threw bricks from their holy area onto praying Jews below, claiming that the Jews and Ariel Sharon started the violence - by "provocatively" yet peacefully visiting the Temple Mount. And it appears that they are just itching to start a new intifada using the same hollow pretext.

As if more evidence is needed for the sheer bigotry of the current "moderate" Palestinian Arab leadership, earlier the PA cabinet condemned Jews going on the Temple Mount, and added this interesting comment:

Such [provocative acts], according to Palestinian cabinet, are attempts to divide the Al-Aqsa compound and impose a de facto as what they have already done in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in the southern West Bank. These procedures will end up in escalation in the whole region killing the peace process.

Reading ever so slightly between the lines, this means that the current Palestinian Arab government believes that Jews do not have the right to pray at their second-holiest site, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron! The fact that Jews pray there today is considered unacceptable but unfortunately necessary for the time being - but if given a chance the "moderate" anti-semites in the PA would kick every Jew out of Hebron forever and not even let them visit!

Is Muslim prayer ever considered incitement, or is it exclusively Jewish prayer - especially when the Jewish claim to every holy site pre-dates Islam itself by over a thousand years?

The vicious Arab bigotry needs to be exposed for what it is. It is not a defense against violence; it is an incitement to violence and an attempt to minimize any Jewish connection to the Holy Land.

It is also worth recalling that Arabs do not believe that Jews have the right to pray at the Western Wall either. They claim that this is also holy Muslim land and if the PA had its way, Jews would be forbidden from all of Jerusalem. This is not exaggeration; this is what they are demanding. They will tell the West that they will "compromise" and allow Jews to have access to their holy places, but they have said that before - in 1949, Jordan's armistice agreement with Israel included "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives." Needeless to say, Jordan reneged on that agreement as soon as it took control of eastern Jerusalem. There is nothing to indicate that the PA, the institution that the West loves to pour billions of dollars into, would act exactly the same way if given the chance.

To deny Jews the right to pray at their holiest site is pure anti-semitism, pure bigotry. No amount of doubletalk about "sanctity" or "peace" or "status quo" can change that naked fact.

What scares the Arabs more than anything is when Jews in Israel start acting like Jews...because they know that their own Islamic claims are but a shadow compared to the Jewish claims to the land.

And this is why the idea of Jews praying on the Temple Mount makes them so upset.

The anti-jihad meltdown

I have been watching with increasing concern the blog war between Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs and Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch.

It is alarming because when two powerful players fight each other, the only loss is to the cause itself.

The details aren't important. Both sides and their supporters have already spent countless hours trying to dig up tenuous connections between the opposition and, absurdly, Nazis and Islamists. As so often happens in situations like these, eventually the hard-core get caught up in minutiae that casual fans quickly lose interest in, to the detriment of both blogs.

I have a simple rule to determine what people believe: read what they write and say. Don't make leaps of logic based on who they associate with. No two human beings agree on everything; that doesn't mean that they cannot talk to each other or link to each other in cyberspace or even say nice things about each other. If someone writes something that is bigoted or racist, call them on it; but don't start making assumptions based on their connections or their commenters.

I have read enough of Robert Spencer's and Charles Johnson's writings to say that they are both against bigotry and they are not racist. The accusations to the contrary are absurd and divisive.

I have also read enough of their writings to say that they are both right about the Islamist threat, period. That is the issue and everything else is a distraction. And today especially, we cannot afford distractions.

The silly game of accusations and counter-accusations has to stop. Disagreements can and should occur, but without the stupid baggage that turns them into wars. There is enough real scary stuff going on out there that wasting time on blog wars ends up hurting everybody.

10 years for double murder. But they were only women.

From Ma'an:

A Palestinian military court in Ramallah on Monday sentenced a man to ten years in prison for murdering two sisters in November 2005.

According to court records, the masked killer broke into the home of Dawlat and Fitnah Assaf, stabbing both of them. Dawlat died instantly while Fitnah succumbed to her wounds later.

What Ma'an fails to mention is that the sisters were elderly - Dawlat was 75 years old.

The Palestinian Arab jurisprudence is working overtime for justice. Looking through Ma'an, I only found two other recent stories from the Ramallah Law and Order beat: the conviction of a man who stole millions via insider trading to 2 years in prison and a $150 fine, and a man who was arrested for marketing expired yogurt.

Hezbollah ridicules idea of "political wing"

From the LA Times (h/t Carl in Jerusalem):

On one point, the United States agrees with Hezbollah's No. 2 leader, Naim Qassem, and not such allies as Britain.

Neither Qassem nor Washington distinguish between the Shiite militant group's political wing, which has members serving in the Lebanese Cabinet and parliament, and its military wing, preparing for the next round of battle against Israel. "Hezbollah has a single leadership," said the 57-year-old cleric in a rare interview with an American reporter recently.

"All political, social and jihad work is tied to the decisions of this leadership," he said. "The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel."

This article was published yesterday morning. It is an explicit refutation of Great Britain's decision in March to talk "only" with Hezbollah's "political wing."

Yet the story has not been picked up by any British media. So far it has only been reported in Israel, Iran and peripherally in the UAE.

And Ha'aretz reports on the interview - yet ignores this statement about Hezbollah's leadership, which led the story in the LAT!

Given what Great Britain did and what Europe is doing in legitimizing Hezbollah, isn't this kind of important? Wouldn't a responsible Western press pick up on something like this? It isn't as if the LA Times is a tiny newspaper. The story's been out for more than a day.

The media silence is perhaps more troubling than the story itself.

PalArabs deny booby-trapped boat had explosives

Ma'an:

The Palestinian Agriculture Ministry in Gaza slammed on Tuesday Israeli allegations that Palestinians attempted to attack an Israeli warship using an explosive-laden fishing boat on Monday morning.

The ministry said in a statement that Israel’s account of Monday’s events was “trumped up story aimed at escalating aggression against fishermen” and “an excuse for piracy and destruction.”

The Agriculture Ministry said it has spoken with eyewitnesses who said the boat contained no explosives, and that it exploded only when an Israeli warship shelled it.

The Israeli military’s Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, maintained the Israeli version of events saying, “The fishing boat that was identified this morning by Israel Navy boats was booby-trapped with hundreds of kilograms of explosives."

“We assume that this was an attempt to attack one of the Israel Navy boats, an attempt that fortunately was not successful, thanks to the soldiers correctly implementing the regulations,” said Ashkenazi.

For some reason, the PA didn't explain why exactly this "fishing boat" that exploded so spectacularly after being shelled had no people on board. Perhaps the Gazans have perfected robot fishing techniques?

Saudis go nuts over - sewing machines

From the Saudi Gazette:

Rumors that Singer sewing machines contain the so-called “red mercury” substance has sent prices skyrocketing around the Kingdom, with individuals flocking to markets to pay up to SR200,000 [$53,000] for a single machine.

The rumors, which first started circulating a few days ago via the Internet and then the word of mouth, led to a rush for sewing machines that could previously have been bought for as little as SR200.

Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, described the rumors, which have gathered momentum around the Kingdom, “as false and deceptive.”

Believers of the rumors say that the presence of a drop of red mercury in the machine’s needle can be verified with a mobile telephone. If the line cuts off when the telephone is placed close to the needle, they say, that proves the existence of the substance.

In Madina, trading in the sewing machines was intense in many places. Potential buyers were seen using their mobile telephones to check the machines for the level of its red mercury content.

While crowds have also thronged car boot sales and other market areas in search of the sewing machines, others have resorted to theft, with two female tailoring shops broken into in Dhulum and their sewing machines taken.

So what is "red mercury?"

It is a mythical substance, rumored to be used to build nuclear weapons, that supposedly is worth a fortune.

Those Singer folks are brilliant to start such a rumor!

Triple "honor killing" plus Gaza kids killed by Hamas bomb

From PCHR:

On Thursday, 9 April 2009, three members of the ‘Olaiwa family – including a child – were murdered in Gaza City. The police found three bodies belonging to Sufian ‘Arafat 'Olaiwa, 45, his wife, Miriam al-Majdoub (‘Olaiwa), 30, and his son, Jawhar Sufian ‘Olaiwa, 5, in their houses in al-Shoja’eya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. The victims were shot by several bullets to different parts of their bodies. On the same day, the police arrested three members of the ‘Olaiwa family for questioning. Yousef Abdul Wahab, Chief of the Police Criminal Investigation Bureau in Gaza, told PCHR that the crimes were related to ‘family honor’.

This is not a clan clash - this is members of a family killing other members of the same family for "honor." I'm not sure what heinous crime 5-year old Jawhar did, but it must have been a doozy.

Also, two weeks ago two Gaza boys were killed while playing with a "suspicious object" which exploded. The original stories concerning this made it sound like they were leftover Israeli ordnance, but PCHR says:

Palestinian police sources informed PCHR that they had opened an investigation into the incident, but they have not yet obtained any data about the suspicious object.

This is the Hamas police, of course, and if they are not blaming Israel immediately this means that the kids found one of the hundreds of booby traps that Hamas had seeded urban areas of Gaza with.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 66.

Chol HaMoed Open Thread

Since I am not able to do any real blogging until later tonight, it is time for the highly anticipated and always unpredictable Open Thread, where various and sundry topics get discussed in entertaining ways.

Lotsa Matzoh

I was just reading the back of a Manischewitz matzoh box, where they are celebrating their 120th anniversary, and I wondered - did they invent the machine matzoh?

A brief Google search brought me to an article from Time magazine last week that answered that and many other matzoh questions:

For thousands of years, the story of matzo remained relatively unchanged. For one week during Passover, observant Jews refrained from any leavened bread product (meaning, anything made from dough that is able to rise), replacing it with irregularly shaped discs of handmade matzo. Orthodox Jews went a step further, eating only shmurah, or "guarded" matzo made from grains that had been watched by a Jewish official from the moment of harvest to ensure that they never came into contact with a liquid that would lead to accidental leavening. According to rabbinic law, once the flour is combined with water, matzo dough must be kneaded, rolled and baked within 18 minutes — otherwise it will begin to rise.

In 1838, a Frenchman named Isaac Singer invented a matzo-dough-rolling machine that cut down on the dough's prep time and made mass production possible. But changes to 3,000-year-old religious traditions never go smoothly, and Singer's invention became a hot-button issue for 19th century Jewish authorities. In 1959, a well-known Ukrainian rabbi named Solomon Kluger published an angry manifesto against machine-made matzo, while his brother-in-law, Rabbi Joseph Saul Nathanson, published a defense. Jewish communities around the world weighed in on the issue — arguing that handmade matzo provided kneading jobs for the poor; that the machine made matzo cheap enough that poor people could afford it; that the mitzvah, or good deed, of eating matzo was ruined if a machine was used; that the machine made it easier to abide by the 18-minute rule. These discussions were not resolved quickly — and in some Orthodox communities, not at all.

In 1888, a Lithuanian immigrant named Dov Behr opened the first matzo-making factory in Cincinnati, Ohio. Behr adopted the name Manischewitz, named his factory the B. Manischewitz Company and developed an entirely automated method of matzo production. In advertisements, Manischewitz boasted that "no human hand touches these matzos!" By 1920, he was the world's largest matzo producer — at 1.25 million rectangular, sheetlike matzos a day — but he always adhered to the original kosher rules. As Manischewitz's popularity grew, so did the general perception of matzo. Gone were the lumps and bumps of homemade mazo; machine-made mazo was uniform in size, shape, taste and texture. Manischewitz endured some controversy for his use of machines, but after he spent 13 years studying the Talmud in Jerusalem, even the most hardened traditionalists eventually considered him an acceptable authority on matzo. The Manischewitz family sold the company in 1990 for $42.5 million; the brand is still the most popular type of matzo in the world.
Matzo Facts:

1. A matzo bakery was invited to the 1938 New York World's Fair, but for unknown reasons never appeared.

2. In 1973, Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan shouted, "Man, oh, Manischewitz," the matzo company's slogan, in the middle of his moonwalk.

3. In 2008, competitive-eating champion Joey Chestnut ate 78 matzo balls in eight minutes for a $1,500 prize.

But Time magazine in 2009 is not the only mainstream media to be interested in matzoh. Here's a typically inaccurate but fascinating article from the New York Times, April 4, 1871 (click to enlarge):

Roger Cohen unveils his "appease Iran" plan

What can you say about someone who is so consistently wrongheaded and stubborn as to keep digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole of insanity?

Today, Roger Cohen, the self-appointed guru of realpolitik, unveils his Grand Plan for Peace, Sunshine and Unicorns!

Iran ceases military support for Hamas and Hezbollah; adopts a “Malaysian” approach to Israel (nonrecognition and noninterference); agrees to work for stability in Iraq and Afghanistan; accepts intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency verification of a limited nuclear program for peaceful ends only; promises to fight Qaeda terrorism; commits to improving its human rights record.
The United States commits itself to the Islamic Republic’s security and endorses its pivotal regional role; accepts Iran’s right to operate a limited enrichment facility with several hundred centrifuges for research purposes; agrees to Iran’s acquiring a new nuclear power reactor from the French; promises to back Iran’s entry into the World Trade Organization; returns seized Iranian assets; lifts all sanctions; and notes past Iranian statements that it will endorse a two-state solution acceptable to the Palestinians.

There is a fundamental flaw when trying to apply realpolitik to the Muslim world.

Realpolitik by definition is not ideological - and Islam by definition is.

The vapid assumption that ideologically motivated Muslims such as the Iranian leadership can violate their core principles for practical considerations is breathtakingly wrongheaded. The Islamic Republic of Iran styles itself as being based on moral and religious principles, and in reality they are not subject to compromise unless they are backed into a corner, when the principles may be downplayed but never changed.

Cohen's plan is fundamentally flawed in another way as well. It assumes that Iran's leaders are not only practical, but that they are trustworthy. For someone who thinks of himself as an expert on Iran, this betrays an unparalleled amount of self-deception on Cohen's part. In the past few years, how many times have we seen Iran flout the IAEA and UN? How many times have we seen them promise that they were only working towards a peaceful nuclear program, only to find out later about secret military nuclear programs that the IAEA has been banned from inspecting? Even Cohen agrees that Iran is working towards a "virtual nuclear power status" - even as Iran denies that today! If Cohen agrees that Iran is lying today about its aims, why on earth would he believe them if they would "agree" under his plan to stop funding and arming Hezbollah and Hamas? They are doing it covertly now!

Iran, however, would love this plan. It can easily lie and bifurcate about its "commitments" all the while happily accepting its increased prestige and power that would be given to it. To take an example, Iran would - and does - insist that it carefully respects the human rights of all its citizens even as it persecutes dissidents and executes minors.

One other point that Cohen makes that comes out of Neverland: the idea that Iran has endorsed a two-state solution "acceptable to the Palestinians." The only thing I can think of was an incident from last year where Iran's flag was placed on an advertisement by the PLO pushing the Arab peace plan. Iran's reaction was pretty explicit:

Iran condemns "any move taken by some Arab countries to push the recognition of the occupying Zionist regime in any manner, including in Islamic conferences."

How moderate! How practical!

Cohen is another of a long line of people who think that if they just shut their eyes tightly enough and believe, that when they can see again the world will be magically aligned with their fantasies.