Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Hezbollah slams UN

The continued presence of Palestinian armed factions in Lebanon constitutes a serious threat to national and regional security, according to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
In his latest interim report on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, seen by The Daily Star on Tuesday, Ban encouraged Lebanese leaders to exert pressure on groups possessing arms outside of state power.
“The existence of armed groups outside government control is a fundamental anomaly that stands against the democratic aspirations of Lebanon and threatens domestic peace,” the UN chief said. “It is also an obstacle to the prosperity and welfare that the Lebanese people deserve.”
Earlier this month fighting broke out between members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) in the eastern Bekaa Valley. This followed clashes between Fatah al-Islam partisans in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian Refugee camp in March.
Ban issued a strong rebuke to such incidents.
“I remain deeply concerned at the maintenance of paramilitary infrastructures by Palestinian militias outside the camps which pose a threat to the stability of Lebanon,” he said.
Ban also indirectly addressed recent allegations from Washington and Tel Aviv that Hizbullah was receiving long-range scud missiles – capable of striking any target in Israel – across Lebanon’s mountainous border with Syria.
“I continue to receive reports asserting that Hizbullah has substantially upgraded and expanded its arsenal and military capabilities, including sophisticated long-range weaponry,” he said in reference to comments made last week by Israeli President Shimon Peres and White House Spokesperson Robert Gibbs.
The UN head added that although he had received several reports from member states about weapons-transfer activity “across the land borders,” the UN “does not have the means to independently verify” such information.
“I am concerned that such activities have the potential to destabilize the country and could lead to another conflict,” Ban said.
He asked that both Lebanese and Syrian governments redouble efforts to demarcate their shared border in order to better patrol the flow of goods leaving and entering over the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.
“The government of Lebanon can extend its authority throughout the country only if it, and all other relevant parties, know what the entirety of the territory of Lebanon is,” Ban said.

Hezbollah wasn't pleased:

Hizbullah strongly condemned Tuesday the latest report of Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, saying it "represents blatant tutelage over Lebanon and revives the headlines of igniting internal strife."

A communiqué issued by Hizbullah said the party was not surprised by "the rhetoric of (Roed-Larsen's) report which sides with the Zionist enemy."

"The resistance is not a militia, as his new-old report describes it, but a Lebanese resistance movement that defends its territory and deters aggression, whether he likes it or not," the communiqué added.

The sad part is that this seems to be the position of Lebanon as well - and it has been for a long time. When Resolution 1559 was passed in 2004, here is what the Lebanese response was: "There were no militias in Lebanon. There was only the national Lebanese resistance, which appeared after the Israeli occupation and which would remain so long as Israel remained."

One of the commenters at the Iranian PressTV site wrote this in reaction:

the U.N. should be called the Jew.N.!

Arabs upset at Google Yom Ha'aztmaut "doodle"

Israeli users of Google yesterday saw the logo replaced with this nice one:

It appears that the Palestinian Arab ISP's that use Israeli internet routes saw the same logo:

They weren't happy.

"Toxic plastic?"

From Ma'an:

Palestinian Authority customs officers and police confiscated plastic materials smuggled from an Israeli settlement into Hebron on Tuesday.

Officer Husam Khalayleh, the head of customs in Hebron, said the goods were seized at 2:00 am in a waste disposal truck in Hebron. The truck owner, from Nablus, said he was transporting waste but after inspecting the vehicle, police found nine tons of toxic plastic materials, banned by the Health Ministry.

The head of customs said the smuggling of settlement goods into the occupied Palestinian territories was extremely dangerous.

If we are to believe Ma'an, somewhere in an evil Zionist settlement, the colonialist and imperialist Jews are churning out tons of toxic plastic.

Obviously, the only possible purpose of such plastic is to harm the Arabs. They couldn't be selling the plastic to Israelis.

It is sometimes hard to understand the business model of these Jews who run a factory dedicated to manufacturing tons of utterly useless products, but once you understand that the entire focus of Jews in the Middle East is to cause pain to the Arab population, then it all makes sense.

Abba Eban on the Arab refugees

The Jewish Press reproduced a speech given by Abba Eban at the UN in 1958. Here's part of it:

The Arab refugee problem was caused by a war of aggression, launched by the Arab states against Israel in 1947 and 1948. Let there be no mistake. If there had been no war against Israel, with its consequent harvest of bloodshed, misery, panic and flight, there would be no problem of Arab refugees today.

Once you determine the responsibility for that war, you have determined the responsibility for the refugee problem. Nothing in the history of our generation is clearer or less controversial than the initiative of Arab governments for the conflict out of which the refugee tragedy emerged.

The origins of that conflict are clearly defined by the confessions of Arab governments themselves: "This will be a war of extermination," declared the secretary-general of the Arab League speaking for the governments of six Arab states, "it will be a momentous massacre to be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades."

The assault began on the last day of November 1947. From then until the expiration of the British Mandate in May 1948 the Arab states, in concert with Palestine Arab leaders, plunged the land into turmoil and chaos. On the day of Israel's Declaration of Independence, the armed forces of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, supported by contingents from Saudi Arabia and the Yemen, crossed their frontiers and marched against Israel.
The refugee problem was not created by the General Assembly's recommendation for the establishment of Israel. It was created by the attempts of Arab governments to destroy that recommendation by force. The crisis arose not, as Arab spokesmen have said, because the United Nations adopted a resolution eleven years ago; it arose because Arab governments attacked that resolution by force. If the United Nations proposal had been peacefully accepted, there would be no refugee problem today hanging as a cloud upon the tense horizons of the Middle East.

Apart from the question of its origin, the perpetuation of this refugee problem is an unnatural event, running against the whole course of experience and precedent. Since the end of the Second World War, problems affecting forty million refugees have confronted governments in various parts of the world. In no case, except that of the Arab refugees - amounting to less than two percent of the whole - has the international community shown constant responsibility and provided lavish aid.

In every other case a solution has been found by the integration of refugees into their host countries. Nine million Koreans; 900,000 refugees from the conflict in Vietnam; 8.5 million Hindus and Sikhs leaving Pakistan for India; 6.5 million Muslims fleeing India to Pakistan; 700,000 Chinese refugees in Hong Kong; 13 million Germans from the Sudetenland, Poland and other East European States reaching West and East Germany; thousands of Turkish refugees from Bulgaria; 440,000 Finns separated from their homeland by a change of frontier; 450,000 refugees from Arab lands arrived destitute in Israel; and an equal number converging on Israel from the remnants of the Jewish holocaust in Europe - these form the tragic procession of the world's refugee population in the past two decades.

In every case but that of the Arab refugees now in Arab lands, the countries in which the refugees sought shelter have facilitated their integration. In this case alone has integration been obstructed.

The paradox is the more astonishing when we reflect that the kinship of language, religion, social background and national sentiment existing between the Arab refugees and their Arab host countries has been at least as intimate as those existing between any other host countries and any other refugee groups. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the integration of Arab refugees into the life of the Arab world is an objectively feasible process which has been resisted for political reasons.

Recent years have witnessed a great expansion of economic potentialities in the Middle East. The revenues of the oil-bearing countries have opened up great opportunities of work and development, into which the refugees, by virtue of their linguistic and national background, could fit without any sense of dislocation. There cannot be any doubt that if free movement had been granted to the refugees there would have been a spontaneous absorption of thousands of them into these expanded Arab economies.

Read the whole thing.

The other gangs of Gaza (Zvi)

From Zvi, commenting on the article that claimed that many "work accidents" in Gaza were really from infighting:

Gaza is controlled by one vicious terrorist gang, but there are other, equally vicious criminal and terrorist gangs running around. These people have no concern whatsoever for the welfare of Gazans. They focus either on profit, or on serving their foreign masters, or both.

The Army of Islam, which held Alan Johnston hostage and which Hamas violently crushed thereafter, was an example. These people are mostly members of the Doghmush clan, a Turkish criminal family that moved to Gaza in the 1920s. (Incidentally, by what right are a bunch of criminals from Turkey in Gaza at all, and exactly how can they, of all people, justify attacks on Israel? But they are not at all unique. There are many Palestinians who actually hail from other places. It's one of those elephants standing around in the room, which everybody pretends do not exist).

In addition, smuggling tunnels are often controlled by smuggling gangs (though some seem to be controlled by "legitimate businessmen"). In the past, when Gazans have attacked the border crossings with mortars, the culprits have sometimes been identified as smuggling gangs. The attackers were attempting to force closures; by cutting off the flow of aid and trade goods being imported legitimately through the crossings, they hoped to raise the prices that would be paid for their smuggled goods.

With criminal gangs involved in the tunneling business, it is quite reasonable to expect the competition between tunnel operators to turn violent.

Hamas is the ruling gang. It has used either intimidation or violence to suppress political opponents, a number of jihadi groups and also a number of gangs. Some of the incidents have been large and well-publicized (the violent coup against Fatah, the violent suppression of the Army of Islam, the extermination of the al Qaeda group that holed up in the mosque, and so on) but some of them have received little media attention.

Hamas has won itself some friends by being the strong guy in Gaza, but by killing people, it has won itself enemies, too.

And Hamas taught its enemies well. It rose to power in part by carrying out terror bombings and assassinations against Fatah and its supporters. I rather think that others - especially Fatah supporters - would like to do the same to it, though Hamas is not the eternally disorganized and inept rabble that was Fatah, and it seems unlikely that such tactics will make much of a difference against Hamas. The significance of Cast Lead was not lost on many Gazans; Hamas forces proved themselves to be rather worthless in real combat. There are enough crazy idiots on the Fatah side who see the Hamas coup as a stain on their honor, and we all know what that means...

Did Avigdor Lieberman say "Al Quds is our capital"?

The International News of Pakistan refuses to write the word "Jerusalem," instead replacing it with "Al-Quds". This means that some of its articles are a little, um, strange sounding:

OCCUPIED-AL-QUDS: Israel’s foreign minister warned on Tuesday that foreign pressure would further intensify the Middle East conflict and insisted al-Quds will remain forever the country’s undivided capital.

“Any attempt to force a solution on the parties without establishing a foundation of mutual trust will only deepen the conflict,” Avigdor Lieberman told diplomats at a reception to mark the 62’nd anniversary of Israel’s creation.

“Peace cannot be enforced, it must be built,” the right-wing minister said at the event held at the presidential residence in al-Quds.

Lieberman recalled the words of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who said 30 years ago, that “the city, north and south, east and west, is entirely under Israel’s sovereignty, our eternal capital city. It cannot be divided. And will never again be divided. Neither directly, nor indirectly.”

“Today,” Lieberman said, “I stand before you in al-Quds, as Israel’s foreign minister, and reaffirm late Prime Minister Begin’s statement: al-Quds is our undivided, eternal capital.”

Meanwhile, Israelis fired up barbecues in packed campgrounds and beaches across the country on Tuesday as they celebrated the 62nd anniversary of the illegal creation of the Jewish state.

Did we find an authentic Palestinian Arab dish?

From Ma'an:

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad seen testing a massive dish of musakhan, a traditional Palestinian food, in the West Bank village of Arura, near Ramallah on 19 April 2010. The dish has a diameter of 4 meters.

Chefs are hoping to win an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest dish of musakhan ever made. It contained 500 chickens, 500 kg of onions, 250 kg of flour, 170 liters of olive oil, 70 kg of almonds and 50 kg of spices and sumac.

Is musakhan a Palestinian food?

It seems that this depends on your definition of "Palestinian." Mentions of the food in the media in the past decade or so generally call it Palestinian, but that was not always the case. In this fluff piece for the Saudi Aramco World magazine from 1975, it is identified as Jordanian:

Jordan’s Legendary Musakahan

To people with a desert heritage, the idea of cooking on or in earth, by the heat of the sun, a twig fire, or hot stones, is the natural way to a meal. From Aqaba to Baghdad, the bread baking in the ashes, tea bubbling on hot rocks, the bird roasting in a jacket of mud, this has been cookery through the millennia.
Not that that Dior-dressed lady over there is going home to fashionable Jabal Amman to poke up a fire among hot rocks. She may not even turn on her electric stove if she's having people in to dinner. She'll probably send out for that legendary Jordan Valley specialty, musakhan —literally "heated"—a succulent concoction of chicken, bread, onions and sumac baked in a tabboun.

The tabboun is the mud igloo once found in the back yard of old Jordanian homes. Its dome, over a mud-and-stone baking surface, over a fire trench, builds up and holds an intense, even heat which demonstrably adds a different flavor to baked bread, roasted meat. This venerable institution is sometimes found today even in cities, where neighborhoods have hung onto their ancient communal tabboun, the local bakery. After the baker has finished his day's allotment of loaves, the oven stays hot for hours, and in it will be found the dinners of his neighbors—a whole lamb at the back, a stuffed chicken, a casserole of eggplant.

So it appears that Musakhan originated in the Jordan Valley, which includes parts of British Mandate Palestine and parts of today's Jordan.

Palestinian Arabs are now claiming the food as pretty much exclusively their own (see Wikipedia's stub entry.)

Proud to be a Zionist - 5770 edition

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been modifying it since then. Here is this year's edition:

Every year, the State of Israel seems to be up against yet another unsolvable crisis. Whether it is war against terrible odds, a wave of terror attacks, a new feeling of isolation as friends seem to turn hostile, or the threat of nuclear-armed enemies, there are always new challenges that she faces - sometimes simultaneously.

Yet, here she is, 62 years old and more beautiful than she was at birth.

In prayers every morning Jews say a phrase praising G-d, describing Him as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית - He who continually renews the act of Creation. In other words, the Jewish concept of G-d has him in an active role keeping the universe running, and as such it is appropriate to praise Him.

It is a little hard to conceptualize this idea, that the very laws of physics, of the world turning and revolving around the sun is not automatic, but only occurs due to the constant will of G-d. But perhaps it is easier to understand this phrase if we apply it to the modern state of Israel.

Every single day that the Jewish state continues to exist cannot be explained adequately with historical or social or military reasons. Which means that we are witnessing a miracle every day.

The most recent years have been very hard for Zionists, as well as for religious Zionists. Yet when we step back and look at the big picture, Israel remains something to be very proud of.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.
I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like - and possibly more than - any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during the war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keep trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the Palestinian people. This is not done because of "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains an incredibly high moral standards.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war situation. Any other nation, again besides the US, would have imposed martial law to maintain peace.

I am proud of how the IDF responded to the terror attacks of the early days of the intifada, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to a single attack in 2007 and one in 2008. The enemy has not stopped trying, and if Israel hadn't acted decisively things would look like Iraq or Afghanistan today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous.

I am awed and humbled at how ordinary Israelis responded to the dark days of 2002-2004. Rather than demanding revenge, the victims of terror worked hard to help others - building institutions, creating scholarships, volunteering their time, all to help other victims of the same horror. To Israelis, it is not a zero-sum game, and every new setback is an opportunity to improve the world.

Of course, I am proud of Israel's many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, world class universities and culture. A tiny nation, under constant siege, with almost no natural resources besides breathtaking beauty, has used its brains - and strength - to build a modern success story. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming. At a time that people are trying to hurt Israel economically, it has thrived.

I am proud that the vast majority of Americans support Israel as I do, and that the rabid terror-lovers we see on the Internet are the aberration.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Immediately after the prayer mentioned above we see the phrase 'מה רבו מעשיך ה , "How great are Your works, O G-d." It is easy to find faults but in the big picture, the accomplishments are remarkable and need to be highlighted.

The word "Zionist" is not an epithet - it is a compliment.

Followup on Saudi preacher and Jerusalem

Asharq Al Awsat has an op-ed by Hamad Al-Majid from which we can piece together what happened after the Saudi TV preacher, Mohammed al-Arifi, apparently changed his mind about visiting Jerusalem under pressure from Saudi clerics.

After all the criticism, Al-Arifi claimed that he was misunderstood - he never intended to broadcast his show from Jerusalem to show solidarity with Palestinian Arabs. Oh, no. He was just going to go to the Jordanian border and look at Jerusalem from afar.

In fact, al-Arifi said, it was all merely a misunderstanding and he could never visit Jerusalem as long as it remains under Zionist occupation and that he would never appeal to or beg the Israeli consulates to grant him an entry visa. He added that he would never enter Jerusalem except by the sword "just as the Zionists seized it by the sword."

The columnist, a seemingly moderate Saudi who is active in human rights and has received degrees from universities in the US and the UK, says that he was surprised at the number of young people who supported the idea of al-Arifi visiting the city. He finds a silver lining in the episode:

Dozens of Arab satellite television channels dedicated hours of live broadcast to cover the issue of the Jerusalem visit and to explain its broad impact, danger and [potential] repercussions on the Arab-Israeli conflict. A number of Muslim sheikhs and scholars appeared on television and warned against this. It was one rare occasion where the entire intellectual and political spectrum including Islamists and liberals shared the same view and criticized the idea of a Muslim scholar visiting Jerusalem.

Though the statement made by Sheikh al Arifi about visiting Jerusalem caused unease, discontent, confusion and strong reactions, it must be stated that it was not all bad. The question ‘what’s wrong with visiting Jerusalem’ was finally answered in a detailed and comprehensive manner through debate, discussions, articles and fatwa shows in response to Sheikh al Arifi’s proposed visit to Jerusalem. It was a good opportunity to shed light once again on the issue of anti-normalization with our Zionist enemy and to revive the idea among the younger generations that are sadly unaware of the significance of the anti-normalization campaign and the necessity of keeping it alive.

Sadly, I was not privy to the many hours of debates he mentions, so I do not know the Islamic legal issues involved in banning Muslims from visiting Islam's supposedly third-holiest site.

But the question must be asked: If there is such a consensus that Muslims may not visit Jerusalem - even to help boost the morale of their poor, oppressed Palestinian Arab brethren - then why are Palestinian Muslims allowed to visit the city? If the only way to visit is "by the sword," then shouldn't they also withdraw as soon as possible until that glorious day arrives?

In fact, wouldn't the same logic apply to the entire West Bank and Gaza? After all, the PalArabs must suffer humiliation daily from the Zionist occupiers, and they must show their dependence on the Jewish state for travel and other daily activities. Wouldn't it be better if they joined the "anti-normalization" movement and refused to even live in an area that is under occupation until the Muslim world awakens from its slumber and pushes the Jews into the sea?

Obviously, maintaining hatred for Israel is much more important than showing love for Jerusalem and love for Palestinian Arabs. The Palestinian Arabs themselves do not seem to be showing the correct levels of hatred by continuing to live under the oppressive Zionists, as opposed to the lucky ones who live under the benevolent Lebanese or remain stateless after being in Syria for three generations. Isn't it time for them to do something about it and eliminate their ties to Jewish-occupied territory altogether until they could enter it "by the sword?"

I must be missing something.

Report: "Work accidents" really murders

Firas Press reproduces a report from some other newspaper (which they never cite, but this one might be Egyptian) that claims that many of the recent "work accidents" and tunnel collapses in Gaza have really been murders.

The article goes through a number of specific examples going back to November. For example, one of the supposed victims of a tunnel collapse had a gunshot wound. The family of a"work accident" victim also from November disputes Hamas' account.

Even some of the explosions were engineered by other Hamas members, the report says, as some victims were targeted in their cars (and, indeed, there has been a marked increase in the number of car bombs in recent months, usually directed to security forces, that Hamas dismissed as being done by "teenagers.")

The report also details a story about a woman, who had considered Hamas to be her "brothers," abducted by Hamas. Her family found her in the hospital where she says that she was beaten and her abductors threatened to publicize indecent photos of her.

Top PA official says Israel doesn't want peace - while dedicating Abu Jihad Street

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, director-general of the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority, gave a speech criticizing Israel for a host of issues, such as the fallacious idea that it was planning to deport tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from the West Bank (which he claims has already started!) as well as building the separation barrier.

One of Rahim's points was that Israel was more interested in building settlements than in peace.

And where did he make these statements?

At the public dedication ceremony of Shahid Khalil al-Wazir 'Abu Jihad' Street in Ramallah!

Abu Jihad was the architect of a number of terrorist attacks, including the Savoy Hotel and Coastal Road massacres. He is generally referred to as the "prince of martyrs."

Apparently, the irony of claiming that Israel is not interested in peace as he represented Mahmoud Abbas in honoring a master terrorist was lost on Rahim.

At the ceremony, the mayor of Ramallah emphasized that they will continue to name streets after their heroes and martyrs, no matter what Israel says - a clear reference to his support for naming other streets after terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi.

Just a little more intransigence

From Ma'an:

Senior-most Hamas leader Khalid Mash'al said Monday that Arab officials had urged the movement to accept the International Quartet's condition and recognize Israel, in exchange for amendments to the Egyptian-backed unity deal.

"Whoever asks us to recognize Israel will be disappointed," Mash'al said during a speech marking a week of Prisoners Day activities in Damascus.

"I tell the Americans, the Zionists, and everyone ... we will not succumb to your terms. We won’t pay a political price no matter how long the blockade lasts. God is with us and he will grant us victory."

Addressing Palestinian prisoners, the Hamas leader vowed to ensure their release....

"We only have one solution now, we will detain your soldiers as you detain our men and women," he added. "Gilad Shalit will not be the last [captured soldier], this is a promise," the leader said.

As the enlightened world pushes the "peace process" forward and demands more and more concessions from Israel, they all make sure that they pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Gaza medics (forced to) celebrate Hamas

The medical establishment in Gaza has violently been taken over by Hamas over the years. Hospitals have turned into torture chambers, medical officials have been replaced with Hamas supporters, medical supplies have been turned into bombs, and ambulances confiscated and turned into military vehicles. Hamas has refused to receive blood from Israel and has politicized the sending of Gazans to Egypt and Israel for treatment, resulting in deaths. It arrested, tortured and humiliated doctors. It has even attacked the Red Crescent headquarters.

Keep all of this in mind when reading this Ma'an story:

The Palestinian Military Medical Services marched toward Gaza's legislative council building on Monday, marking over four years since Hamas' electoral victory in the January 2006 general elections.

Crowds of doctors, nurses, and administrative staff participated in the rally and were welcomed by a number of the Palestinian Legislative Council members in Gaza City.

Abdul Qader Al-Arbid, general director of medical services, said staff "came today to assure [the government] that the medical services stand beside Palestinian legitimacy."

Doesn't that sound like a spontaneous expression of their love for their terrorist overlords?

A cynical look at Obama's Independence Day Message

This seems to be the text of President Obama's message to Israel on Yom Ha'atzmaut today, although I have not been able to find an official version:

On the 62nd Anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel, I join the American people in congratulating the government and people of Israel on this celebration of their independence. Minutes after David Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s independence, realizing the dream of a state for the Jewish people in their historic homeland, the United States became the first country to recognize Israel.
To this day, we continue to share a strong, unbreakable bond of friendship between our two nations, anchored by the United States’ enduring commitment to Israel’s security. Israel remains our important partner and key strategic ally in the Middle East, and I am confident that our special relationship will only be strengthened in the months and years to come.

I look forward to continuing our efforts with Israel to achieve comprehensive peace and security in the region, including a two-state solution, and to working together to counter the forces that threaten Israel, the United States, and the world.

On this day, we once again honor the extraordinary achievements of the people of Israel, and their deep and abiding friendship with the American people.

I offer my best wishes to President Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the people of Israel as they celebrate this happy occasion.

All in all, a very nice message (although, as Aussie Dave points out, putting Peres ahead of Netanyahu might be interpreted as a tiny snub.)

However, in light of the problems between the White House and Israel this year as well as the pressure that Obama has been feeling from members of Congress and prominent Jewish leaders, this message was clearly important for the White House to get right.

How about last year's message, before the current mini-crisis? How effusive was Obama then?

From the White House web site:

Statement on the 61st Anniversary of Israel’s Independence

On behalf of the people of the United States, President Obama congratulates the people and government of Israel on the 61st anniversary of Israel’s independence. The United States was the first country to recognize Israel in 1948, minutes after its declaration of independence, and the deep bonds of friendship between the U.S. and Israel remain as strong and unshakeable as ever. The President looks forward to working with Israel to advance our common interests, including the realization of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, ensuring Israel’s security, and strengthening the bilateral relationship, over the months and years to come.

Let's compare this short 2009 message with Pakistan's:

At the stroke of midnight on August 14, 1947, a new Nation emerged from the plateaus of Balochistan and the mountains of the North West Frontier Province. More than one hundred years after colonial rule had arrived, it departed. The Quaid-i-Azam would later explain, "The story of Pakistan, its struggle and its achievement, is the very story of great human ideals..." Over the course of its history, Pakistan has encountered and overcome great challenges, and Pakistanis have brought life to the great ideals that Muhammad Ali Jinnah described.

In the earliest days of the Independence Movement, Muslims, Hindus, and other religious groups banded together to turn back the yoke of British rule. In the early 20th century, many Muslims began to pursue a separate homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims. This pursuit, lead by the Muslim League, ultimately pointed a people towards self-determination and, out of this effort, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was born.

Since its founding, Pakistan has changed a great deal, but its people still carry forward the proud traditions of their forbears. The unmistakable rhythm of the qawwali and melody of the ghazal reverberate and inspire audiences in Pakistan and across the globe. Pakistani artists and poets elucidate the human experience as they explore time-honored themes such as devotion and love. World-class cricket, field hockey, and polo players participate in regional and international competitions, impressing all those who witness their skill.

The United States has been a friend to Pakistan over the course of much of this storied history, and the American and Pakistani people share deep ties and common aspirations. Americans and Pakistanis have both made sacrifices in the service of justice, democracy, opportunity, and the rule of law. Our Nation knows well the heritage of Pakistanis because of our own proud Pakistani American populations. Living in cities large and small, from the shores of New York to the sands of Hawaii, Pakistani Americans enrich our Nation’s diversity. Their professional contributions, family values, and religious traditions have strengthened our economy and enriched our culture.

As Pakistan enters the next chapter in its history, the United States supports the great human ideals to which we both aspire. Our children deserve the opportunity to receive an education and to achieve their dreams. Our families deserve the right to live freely in peace, to practice their faith without fear of insecurity, and to enjoy respect for the full range of their human rights. Today, as we mark the proud birth of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the American people recognize our common future, and reaffirm our unyielding support for Pakistan’s democratic institutions and the Pakistani people.

Working together, we can ensure that Pakistan rises above its challenges just as it has so many times before.

To be fair, there are very few such national messages at the White House web site; it appears that the job of congratulating countries on their independence falls to Hillary Clinton. And Pakistan is hugely important.

Even so, I cannot help but be cynical about the message from the White House today.

The "peace process" is a false religion (Aaron David Miller)

Aaron David Miller, one of the staunchest proponents of the failed "peace process," has started to see the light.

In a lengthy Foreign Policy piece, he deconstructs what has become a cornerstone of American diplomatic thinking:

Like all religions, the peace process has developed a dogmatic creed, with immutable first principles. Over the last two decades, I wrote them hundreds of times to my bosses in the upper echelons of the State Department and the White House; they were a catechism we all could recite by heart. First, pursuit of a comprehensive peace was a core, if not the core, U.S. interest in the region, and achieving it offered the only sure way to protect U.S. interests; second, peace could be achieved, but only through a serious negotiating process based on trading land for peace; and third, only America could help the Arabs and Israelis bring that peace to fruition.
I can't tell you how many times in the past 20 years, as an intelligence analyst, policy planner, and negotiator, I wrote memos to Very Important People arguing the centrality of the Arab-Israeli issue and why the United States needed to fix it. Long before I arrived at the State Department in 1978, my predecessors had made all the same arguments. An unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict would trigger ruinous war, increase Soviet influence, weaken Arab moderates, strengthen Arab radicals, jeopardize access to Middle East oil, and generally undermine U.S. influence from Rabat to Karachi.

From the 1940s through the 1980s, the power with which the Palestinian issue resonated in the Arab world did take a toll on American prestige and influence. Still, even back then the hand-wringing and dire predictions in my Cassandra-like memos were overstated. I once warned ominously -- and incorrectly -- that we'd have nonstop Palestinian terrorist attacks in the United States if we didn't move on the issue. During those same years, the United States managed to advance all of its core interests in the Middle East: It contained the Soviets; strengthened ties to Israel and such key Arab states as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia; maintained access to Arab oil; and yes, even emerged in the years after the October 1973 war as the key broker in Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

Today, I couldn't write those same memos or anything like them with a clear conscience or a straight face. Although many experts' beliefs haven't changed, the region has, and dramatically, becoming nastier and more complex. U.S. priorities and interests, too, have changed. The notion that there's a single or simple fix to protecting those interests, let alone that Arab-Israeli peace would, like some magic potion, bullet, or elixir, make it all better, is just flat wrong. In a broken, angry region with so many problems -- from stagnant, inequitable economies to extractive and authoritarian governments that abuse human rights and deny rule of law, to a popular culture mired in conspiracy and denial -- it stretches the bounds of credulity to the breaking point to argue that settling the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most critical issue, or that its resolution would somehow guarantee Middle East stability.

I don't agree with everything he says, but it should be required reading for the current administration.