They'd rather die of thirst than recognize Israel's legitimacy
Jonathan Tobin has a must-read commentary on why Israel's
brilliant solution to its water crisis won't
promote peace with the 'Palestinians.'
Only a few years ago, Israelis were concerned about the question of
how they could continue to grow their first world economy with a growing
population in a country where there simply wasn’t enough water. What
followed was a major investment in technology and enactment of sensible
policies about water use that led to this startling fact. As the Times
states, “More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli households,
agriculture and industry is now artificially produced.” Though water is
expensive, the prospect that the country will run out is gone. In a
region that is in desperate need of Israel’s expertise, you would think
this development would lead to better relations with the Palestinians
and the Arab world. But what is missing from the Times’ story
is the fact that there is little sign of any interest in cooperation on
the part of Israel’s antagonists. As much as they ought to take
advantage of the Jewish state’s advances, such concerns are always
secondary to their main priority: fighting Israel.
The story of how Israel revolutionized its production and use of
water is another proud chapter in the country’s history. In the past
couple of decades as attacks on Israel’s legitimacy have multiplied, we
haven’t heard much about Jews making the desert bloom. That old line
about the rebirth of this old land under the care of a returned people
has been treated as an outdated cliché by biased journalists who
preferred story lines that reinforced the libels about Israel being an
apartheid state. That theme was also part of the narrative about water.
To the extent that water has been mentioned much in the news, it
generally served as another point of attack as Palestinian claims that
Israel was “stealing” their water in the West Bank was often reported as
fact rather than a political talking point. As even the Times notes in
its feature, Israel continues to supply the Palestinians with more water
than it is required to do under the Oslo Accords. Israel shares the
mountain aquifer that runs through the West Bank with the Palestinians.
But the Palestinians position is that they are entitled to all of it,
not just their share.
The underlying problem of that discussion has
always been the assumption that all of the territory is “Palestinian
land’ to which Israel has no legitimate claim. But even if you think
Israel ought to cede much of that territory if the Palestinians are ever
willing to make peace, the problem with this argument is that the Arabs
still don’t recognize Israeli rights to any water except the sea into
which they have been trying to push the Jews ever since they began
returning to their ancient homeland.
It might make sense for Israelis and Arabs to cooperate about water.
But if water remains an issue that exacerbates the conflict rather than
solving it, it’s not because the Israelis aren’t willing to share their
expertise or even some of the water they are desalinizing or treating
for further use. It’s because water, like economic development, has
always been beside the point to Palestinians and other Arabs and
Muslims.
Read it all.
Gee - where have I heard
something like that before?
Labels: anti-Israel media bias, desalination, drinking water, Kineret, New York Times, Palestinian economy, sea water, wastewater treatment, water, water shortage
As California thirsts, Israel beats its water crisis - permanently
When I was in the US two weeks ago, I was told that in California, it's forbidden to flush your toilet unless someone has had a bowel movement in it. Meanwhile, here in Israel, we have resolved a water crisis that threatened us with a
perpetual drought.
A
hefty tax was placed on excessive household water consumption,
penalizing families with lawns, swimming pools or leaky pipes. So many
of Mr. Zvieli’s clients went over to synthetic grass and swapped their
seasonal blooms for hardy, indigenous plants more suited to a semiarid
climate. “I worried about where gardening was going,” said Mr. Zvieli,
56, who has tended people’s yards for about 25 years.
Across
the country, Israelis were told to cut their shower time by two
minutes. Washing cars with hoses was outlawed and those few wealthy
enough to absorb the cost of maintaining a lawn were permitted to water
it only at night.
“We
were in a situation where we were very, very close to someone opening a
tap somewhere in the country and no water would come out,” said Uri
Schor, the spokesman and public education director of the government’s
Water Authority.
But that was about six years ago. Today, there is plenty of water in Israel. A lighter version of an old “Israel
is drying up” campaign has been dusted off to advertise baby diapers.
“The fear has gone,” said Mr. Zvieli, whose customers have gone back to
planting flowers.
As California and other western areas of the United States grapple with
an extreme drought, a revolution has taken place here. A major national
effort to desalinate Mediterranean seawater and to recycle wastewater
has provided the country with enough water for all its needs, even
during severe droughts. More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli
households, agriculture and industry is now artificially produced.
...
The
turnaround came with a seven-year drought, one of the most severe to
hit modern Israel, that began in 2005 and peaked in the winter of 2008
to 2009. The country’s main natural water sources — the Sea of Galilee
in the north and the mountain and coastal aquifers — were severely
depleted, threatening a potentially irreversible deterioration of the
water quality.
Measures
to increase the supply and reduce the demand were accelerated, overseen
by the Water Authority, a powerful interministerial agency established
in 2007.
Desalination
emerged as one focus of the government’s efforts, with four major
plants going into operation over the past decade. A fifth one should be
ready to operate within months.
Together, they will produce a total of
more than 130 billion gallons of potable water a year, with a goal of
200 billion gallons by 2020.
Israel
has, in the meantime, become the world leader in recycling and reusing
wastewater for agriculture. It treats 86 percent of its domestic
wastewater and recycles it for agricultural use — about 55 percent of
the total water used for agriculture. Spain is second to Israel,
recycling 17 percent of its effluent, while the United States recycles
just 1 percent, according to Water Authority data.
Read the whole thing. Part of the problem was that although Israel was the
world leader in desalination long before 2008, all of our desalination plants were
being built abroad. I'm glad to see that the government has turned things around.
Someone named "Netanyahu" has been Prime Minister since 2009. But don't expect him to get any of the credit.
Labels: desalination, drinking water, Kineret, sea water, wastewater treatment, water, water shortage
Europe as Nazi as ever
Knesset members heckled and then
walked out on a speech in the Knesset chamber by European Parliament President Martin Schulz on Wednesday after Schulz repeated as fact 'Palestinian' claims regarding denial of water and the 'blockade' on Gaza. To add insult to injury, Schulz spoke in German.
Schulz condemned Israeli “settlements” east of the 1949 armistice
line as “an obstacle to peace,” and claimed, “The blockade of Gaza
creates despair and extremism.”
MKs reacted with anger. “The president of the European parliament, a
son of the German nation, is unashamed to quote lies he heard yesterday
in Ramallah,” MK Motti Yogev (Jewish Home) accused.
Yogev burst into Schulz’s speech, saying the EU parliamentary head
had “chutzpah” for “supporting the Palestinians who are inciting to
destroy Israel, 70 years after the Holocaust.”
Both claims Schulz cited are false, he said. Israeli Jews and
Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria get equal amounts of
water. “Regarding the ‘blockade’ on Gaza, Israel has not been in Gaza
for some time, and Israel is the one that supplies the Palestinians in
Gaza with food and with the concrete they use against Israel,” he said.
Minister of Economy Naftali Bennett expressed outrage over Schulz’s
claims as well. “We will not be silent in the face of lies,” he said.
Culture Minister Limor Livnat and Minister of Pensioners Affairs Uri
Orbach criticized Schulz as well. Jewish Home MKs ultimately walked out
of Schulz’s speech.
JPost adds that Jewish Home party chairman and Economics and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett has demanded that Schulz
apologize.
Bennett and the entire Bayit Yehudi faction walked out in the middle of
Schulz's speech, with several MKs yelling "Palestinians are liars" and
"shame."
"When he said Palestinians get 17 liters of water for every 70
Israelis get, it was a total lie. It's preposterous," Bennett told The Jerusalem Post after
the Bayit Yehudi walk-out. "All the ministers were perplexed. I stayed
quiet at first, but then he criticized the Israeli blockade on Gaza and
said it caused pain to the Gazans."
"Did he forget that we
expelled 8,000 Jews from Gaza? This week I worked on helping the
evacuees. Did he forget that [Gazans] shoot thousands of missiles at us?
And then he criticizes us about the very place we vacated?" Bennett
asked.
The minister demanded that Schulz "take back his lies," and
called for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to make the same demand.
"Our
national honor as the State of Israel isn't mine or the ministers'. It
belongs to all of the people of Israel," he stated. "I won't sit in the
Knesset and hear a European, certainly not a German, saying such
things."
The Bayit Yehudi leader said that when he noticed no one
else was protesting, he instructed his faction to walk out quietly,
though some only listened to the first part.
According to Bennett, the Bayit Yehudi were "the only ones who stood up for our national honor."
"I
thought Schulz would express the EU's regular criticism about Israel in
the West Bank. He started out speaking nicely about the Holocaust, he
showed a lot of empathy. He spoke about the importance of peace, and I
get it, he's not in the Bayit Yehudi," Bennett recounted. "We can accept
criticism, but we cannot live with lies."
The Bayit Yehudi leader
pointed out that Schulz quoted Edmund Burke as saying "the only thing
necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
"He could criticize us, even sharply, but to tell lies and expect me to be quiet? It won't happen," Bennett stated.
Although they didn't walk out, other MK's also ripped Schulz.
Immediately after Schulz departed, Culture Minister Limor Livnat took the stand to say his words were "a vulgar lie."
"Schulz
told lies in German, and it's unfortunate someone can speak German in
this house, but it is our responsibility to stand up against it,"
Pensioners' Affairs Minister Uri Orbach said. "The generation of
Schulz's parents and the generation of the Arab MKs' parents
collaborated to destroy the Jews."
Indeed.
Labels: European anti-Semitism, Gaza blockade, Gaza plenty, Germany, Holocaust, Nazis, Palestinian lies, water
Dump on Tom Friedman Day!
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, March 17.
1) When elephants crash land
Recently, I brought up an example of how Professor Barry Rubin handled a
mistake. First he admitted it. Then he explained the forces involved.
His behavior showed a few things.
1) He is serious about what he has written.
2) He respects his audience's intelligence.
Neither of these qualities can be attributed to Thomas Friedman.
A few weeks ago, Friedman wrote a column in which he faulted the Muslim
Brotherhood for failing to govern Egypt effectively. Nowhere, in the
essay does Friedman acknowledge that he had misunderstood the revolution
in Egypt from the start.
For example, two years ago in Postcard From Cairo, Part 2 Friedman wrote:
Well, that’s what happened here. The ferocity and popularity of
Mubarak’s ouster should have told Israelis that they need to get to work
immediately on building a relationship with the dynamic new popular
trend here, not to be trying to cling to a dictator who was totally out
of touch with his people. And, as we sit here today, the popular trend
is not with the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, what makes the uprising here
so impressive – and in that sense so dangerous to other autocracies in
the region – is precisely the fact that it is not owned by, and was not
inspired by, the Muslim Brotherhood.
In contrast, two weeks later Barry Rubin wrote:
Finally, there is the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood itself. While the
likelihood of the Brotherhood taking power in the near future is very
low, the chance of it gaining power in the long run is now enhanced. At
any rate, the Brotherhood is going to be an important force in Egypt and
perhaps an influence on the government. As it spreads its message of
hate, this is not likely to lead to a love-fest for Israel.
...
But won’t the Egyptians just concentrate on raising living standards and
enjoying freedoms? Perhaps. Yet the problem is that there is no money
for improving the Egyptian economy and angry frustration is more likely
than prosperity. We have seen often in the Arab world how a government
that cannot deliver the goods provides foreign scapegoats instead.
Last year, when it became clear that the Muslim Brotherhood had emerged as the leading force of the revolution, Friedman wrote Watching Elephants Fly:
SOMEDAY I’d love to create a journalism course based on covering the
uprising in Egypt, now approaching its first anniversary. Lesson No. 1
would be the following: Whenever you see elephants flying, shut up and
take notes. The Egyptian uprising is the equivalent of elephants flying.
No one predicted it, and no one had seen this before. If you didn’t see
it coming, what makes you think you know where it’s going? That’s why
the smartest thing now is to just shut up and take notes.
If you do, the first thing you’ll write is that the Islamist parties —
the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist Al Nour Party — just crushed the
secular liberals, who actually sparked the rebellion here, in the free
Egyptian parliamentary elections, winning some 65 percent of the seats.
To not be worried about the theocratic, antipluralistic,
anti-women’s-rights, xenophobic strands in these Islamist parties is to
be recklessly naïve. But to assume that the Islamists will not be
impacted, or moderated, by the responsibilities of power, by the
contending new power centers here and by the priority of the public for
jobs and clean government is to miss the dynamism of Egyptian politics
today.
The Islamists were taking power and here's Friedman assuring us that
they will be moderated by the responsibilities of governance. Note too,
how he uses his authority as a journalist to assure us that he knows
more than the rest of us. (I guess this is an implicit acknowledgement
that he got the Egyptian revolution wrong at first. As an admission it's
a pretty weak one.)
In response to this column Barry Rubin wrote Friedman Cheers as Egyptians Are Enslaved:
But there’s even more irony here. These women are already living lives
governed by Sharia and, as traditionalists, are happy (and told to be
happy) with that situation. Thus, they have ample reason for supporting
Islamists. There is nothing surprising in their political behavior,
except to people like Friedman who predicted last year they would back
liberal, Westernized Facebook kids.
The recent Friedman column was called The Belly Dancing Barometer:
The Brotherhood, though, doesn’t just need a new governing strategy. It
needs to understand that its version of political Islam — which is
resistant to women’s empowerment and religious and political pluralism —
might be sustainable if you are Iran or Saudi Arabia, and you have huge
reserves of oil and gas to buy off all the contradictions between your
ideology and economic growth. But if you are Egypt and basically your
only natural resource is your people — men and women — you need to be as
open to the world and modernity as possible to unleash all of their
potential for growth.
Barry Rubin mocked this attitude:
On top of that, Friedman uses that “needs to understand” phrase, so
beloved by editorialists but totally absurd when dealing with dictators.
Well, what if they don’t understand, Mr. Friedman?
Friedman's latest does not acknowledge that he had been wrong for the
past two years about Egypt. In fact the tone of his article is more a
message to the Muslim Brotherhood, "Hey, guys, you're getting this
revolution thing wrong." Worse, his final paragraph reads:
It would not be healthy for us to re-create with the Muslim Brotherhood
the bargain we had with Mubarak. That is, just be nice to Israel and
nasty to the jihadists and you can do whatever you want to your own
people out back. It also won’t be possible. The Egyptian people
tolerated that under Mubarak for years. But now they are mobilized, and
they have lost their fear. Both we and Morsi need to understand that
this old bargain is not sustainable any longer.
To Friedman, the problem isn't even really with the Muslim Brotherhood
but with the United States. The United States was so concerned about
Israel it allowed Mubarak to oppress his own people for thirty years.
Israel isn't even a factor here. But Friedman brings it in because it
sounds good to him. In Friedman's world everyone is wrong but him.
That works for him. He has a great high profile job and lots of people
pay good money to hear him speak. However since he has no capacity for
self-criticism, it's unlikely that you'll learn anything of value from
him except for a few meaningless pithy phrases.
If you want to learn something, read Barry Rubin. Unfortunately too many
of our policy makers are drawn in by Thomas Friedman's clever sounding
but ultimately meaningless tropes.
2) The Friedman deficit
"What ails the Arab world is a deficit of freedom, a deficit of modern education and a deficit of women’s empowerment." Thomas Friedman, A Festival of Lies, March 24, 2012
A couple of weeks ago, Thomas Friedman wrote The Scary Hidden Stressor:
Ditto in Syria and Libya. In their essay, the study’s co-editors,
Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell, note that from 2006 to 2011, up to
60 percent of Syria’s land experienced the worst drought ever recorded
there — at a time when Syria’s population was exploding and its corrupt
and inefficient regime was proving incapable of managing the stress.
In 2009, they noted, the U.N. and other international agencies reported
that more than 800,000 Syrians lost their entire livelihoods as a result
of the great drought, which led to “a massive exodus of farmers,
herders, and agriculturally dependent rural families from the Syrian
countryside to the cities,” fueling unrest. The future does not look
much brighter. “On a scale of wetness conditions,” Femia and Werrell
note, “ ‘where a reading of -4 or below is considered extreme drought,’ a
2010 report by the National Center for Atmospheric Research shows that
Syria and its neighbors face projected readings of -8 to -15 as a result
of climatic changes in the next 25 years.” Similar trends, they note,
are true for Libya, whose “primary source of water is a finite cache of
fossilized groundwater, which already has been severely stressed while
coastal aquifers have been progressively invaded by seawater.”
Friedman sees the water crisis as a major problem going forward.
As Sarah Johnstone and Jeffrey Mazo of the International Institute for
Strategic Studies conclude in their essay, “fledgling democracies with
weak institutions might find it even harder to deal with the root
problems than the regimes they replace, and they may be more vulnerable
to further unrest as a result.” Yikes.
Friedman is great at quoting other experts. However, there's one story he missed, How Israel beat the drought:
Kushnir’s answers: Yes, Israelis must still be wise with their water
use. Yes, emphatically, this is a desert region, desperately short of
natural water. And yes, we have indeed been worried for years about the
possibility of water shortages provoking conflict.
But for Israel, for the foreseeable future, Kushnir says, the water
crisis is over. And not because this happens to have been one of the
wettest winters in years. Rather, he says, an insistent refusal to let
the country be constrained by insufficient natural water sources — a
refusal that dates back to David Ben-Gurion’s decision to build the
National Water Carrier in the 1950s, the most significant infrastructure
investment of Israel’s early years — led Israel first into large-scale
water recycling, and over the past decade into major desalination
projects. The result, as of early 2013, is that the Water Authority
feels it can say with confidence that Israel has beaten the drought.
It's true that Israel's area is much smaller than any of the countries,
so maybe solutions that work for Israel won't work for Syria, Libya or
Egypt. On the other hand Israel has the technology and know-how to
alleviate the effects of drought. Maybe Friedman didn't see the article
about Israel's success. But is it conceivable that he would have written
something like:
Ironically the struggling governments of the Middle East could benefit
by putting aside their irrational hatred of Israel and turning to the
Jewish state to learn about desalinization and water management.
Of course not.
In 2002, Friedman's most famous column was his "speech in the drawer" column
in which he announced that (then) Crown Prince Abdullah would propose
normalization with Israel at the upcoming Arab summit if Israel would
agree to end the occupation on the terms dictated by the Arab League.
What was astounding about the column is how overwhelmed Friedman was by
the proposal. Abudllah's offer was very specific about its demands on
Israel and very nebulous about what was promised to Israel in exchange.
There was no unequivocal statement to the effect of "In return for
complying with our conditions, the Arab League promises to treat Israel
as it does any other nation." Rather there were questions as to the
degree of normalization promised.
What mattered to Friedman, was not how poorly Mubarak, Assad or Qaddafi
were persecuting their own people at that time, but whether they were
willing to make the Palestinian cause their first priority. It didn't
make a difference that Israel was now fighting a terror war directed by
Arafat, Friedman promoted this proposal, which put pressure on Israel,
rather than suggesting any alternative that would have pressured the
Palestinians to stop their violence.
By promoting the Abdullah proposal, Friedman was normalizing the Arab
rejection of Israel. He effectively endorsed the idea that Arab concern
for the Palestinians was sufficient reason for them to treat Israel as a
pariah. Concern for Arabs in Egypt, Syria, Libya or Saudi Arabia was
absent from his writing back then.
Over the years Friedman would sometimes refer to the deficits of the
Arab world. To be sure he'd recommend some form of Westernization as a
cure for these deficits. Never, though, did Friedman suggest that
accepting Israel and eschewing antisemitism would be a necessary step
for these countries to take.
So when Thomas Friedman wrote about droughts in the Arab world it is
inconceivable that he'd have suggested that Egypt or Libya turn to
Israel for help. (Right now even water technology won't help Syria.) To
Friedman Israel is an inconvenience when it comes to the Middle East,
not a benefit.
Labels: Barry Rubin, Egyptian democracy, Egyptian Revolution, Hosni Mubarak, Middle East Media Sampler, Muslim Brotherhood, New York Times, Saudi plan, Soccer Dad, Syrian uprising, Tom Friedman, water, water shortage
The end of AIPAC?
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Thursday, February 28.
1) Water, water everywhere
At the Times of Israel, editor David Horovitz writes about how Israel's dealt with its water crisis.
(h/t Yaacov Lozowick)
“How did we beat the water shortage? Because we said we would. We
decided we would,” says Kushnir, a big man with a warm smile and a
robust Russian accent. “And once you’ve made that decision, you build
the tools to reduce your dependence. We’re on the edge of the desert in
an area where water has always been short. The quantity of natural water
per capita in Israel is the lowest for the whole region. But we decided
early on that we were developing a modern state. So we were required to
supply water for agriculture, and water for industry, and then water
for hi-tech, and water to sustain an appropriate quality of life.”
The National Water Carrier — which takes water from the Sea of Galilee
(Lake Kinneret) south through the whole country to Beersheba and beyond —
exemplified Israel’s ambition. Contemplated even before the modern
state was founded, its planning and initial construction were “a
dominant feature of the first Ben-Gurion government — an unprecedented
investment,” Kushnir notes. “It stressed our desire to achieve a
different reality.”
Carrying almost 2 million cubic meters a day nationwide, that supply
line, together with water from underground aquifers, kept Israel watered
through the 70s. By the 1980s, though “we had a bigger population,
bigger needs and the natural resources were overstretched. So we
experimented with a small desalination plant in Eilat. And we began
recycling purified sewage, and bringing industry into purifying water.”
The details are fascinating and well worth a read.
Since part of Israel's water program involve re-use, a joint team of Israeli and Palestinian scientists is looking for possible dangers:
While people – and even their farm animals – continue to consume more
and more medicines and chemicals, the effect of these substances once
they have passed through the body and into the country’s water system
are unknown, Tal explained. No one in Israel, or the Palestinian
Authority, is currently looking for the presence of these chemicals or
their effects “in a systematic way,” he added.
...
Tal has received a three-year, $560,000- grant from the USAID’s Middle
East Regional Cooperation (MERC) Program to conduct the project. Many of
his own students from Sde Boker will conduct the lion’s share of the
laboratory testing in Health Ministry labs.
In the Palestinian contingent is water engineer Nader al-Khateeb, who
also serves as Palestinian director of Friends of the Earth Middle East;
Dr. Alfred Abed Rabbo, an assistant professor at Bethlehem University’s
Water and Soil Research Unit; Dr. Shai Armon; and a group of
Palestinian students, Tal explained.
One point that these two articles underscore is that if the Arab world
would put aside its boycott of Israel on account of the Palestinians, it
probably could benefit its own citizens by using Israeli technologies.
2) Is AIPAC obsolete?
In Tablet Lee Smith explains How AIPAC is losing, as evidenced by its non-response to the Hagel nomination:
Yet AIPAC has remained totally mum. The group says it focuses its
energies on matters of policy rather than personnel. If it campaigned
against Hagel, where would it stop? The organization would potentially
have to take a position on every Cabinet nominee. Meantime, in the
absence of AIPAC, other pro-Israel organizations have come out publicly
against Hagel, like the Emergency Committee for Israel. For taking the
lead on this issue, they have been labeled partisans, while AIPAC has
preserved its bipartisan status.
But it’s not clear how much that label matters when a very influential
segment of the Democratic party has made it plain that supporting Israel
isn’t a top priority. I’m not just referring to the delegates who booed
pro-Israel changes to the party platform on the floor of the convention
in Charlotte last summer. I’m talking about the White House.
Pro-Israel Obama supporters on the Hill and in the press keep trying to
make the case that in spite of how it might look on the surface, the
administration cares deeply about the U.S.-Israel relationship. They
point to the success of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defense
batteries as evidence that the security and military cooperation between
the United States and Israel has reached unprecedented highs under
Obama’s stewardship. But politics is mostly about how things look. And
if the administration really cared that much about Israel, it wouldn’t
nominate a secretary of defense who referred to defenders of the
U.S.-Israel relationship as “the Jewish lobby.”
AIPAC is a lobby built to cultivate a pro-Israel bi-partisan consensus.
AIPAC probably figured that Senators like Schumer and Cardin will be
around after Obama's second term ends and the bitterness of a contested
nomination wasn't worth alienating them. Still Smith persists:
The Iranian negotiating team meeting with its Western counterparts in
Kazakhstan this week has earned the right to its smugness. The Iranians
are installing equipment that will allow it to accelerate the
production of nuclear fuel. And then there was North Korea’s nuclear
test two weeks ago. At the very least, it signaled to the Iranians that
in the end, despite all of the tough talk coming from the White House,
the Americans are not going to stop the Iranians from acquiring the
bomb.
Tehran has the upper hand in negotiations because it recognizes that
all the White House wants is some sort of deal it can sell as a victory.
And the all-powerful pro-Israel lobby has no choice but to swallow it
and smile.
In other words, generally, it's worth it for AIPAC to preserve its
bipartisan appeal, but this issue was important enough to take sides on.
The New York Sun has a related editorial criticizing numerous Jewish and pro-Israel organizations for staying silent.
That was the Zionist Organization of America, which is the oldest
pro-Israel organization in America, having been founded in 1897, the
same year in which Theodor Herzl convened at Basel, Switzerland, the
First Zionist Congress. It opposed the Hagel nomination early,
forthrightly, and unapologetically. The result, according to the ZOA’s
president, Morton Klein, is that it received objections from several
leaders worried about the consequences for the Jewish community of such a
public position.
Mr. Klein believes the Hagel nomination would not have been confirmed
had the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation
League, and the American Jewish Committee taken a formal public position
against Mr. Hagel. All three agencies have had many heroic moments. But
they stood down on Mr. Hagel. Said Mr. Klein: “Several senators — and
important ones — said to me: ‘If Aipac, ADL and AJCommittee — especially
Aipac — had come out and lobbied against Hagel, he would have been
stopped.”
What such public opposition would have done, Mr. Klein argues, is that
it “would have given a number of Democrats, who thought Hagel was awful,
cover to vote against him.” Instead, the response leaders of the Jewish
community received was, “If he’s so awful how come we’re not hearing
anything against him from other Jewish groups.” Mr. Klein says he heard
such a message from both sides of the aisle in the Senate.
Would it have made a difference? Morton Klein (and apparently the New York Sun) believe it would have. I am less certain.
Labels: AIPAC, Chuck Hagel, Middle East Media Sampler, Soccer Dad, water
Lebanon diverting Hezbani River?
The IDF is concerned that Lebanon is planning to
divert the Hezbani River to deny Israel its waters. The waters of the Hezbani, which is north of Metula, provide 25% of the waters in the Jordan River.
The IDF is deliberating responses ahead of the possibility that Lebanon will divert water from the Hatzbani River, a move that Israel has in the past viewed as a casus belli – justification for war.
Israel’s concern stems from the construction of a large tourism center on the Lebanese side of the river, not far from the Israeli town of Metulla.
...
Israel is concerned about the site’s proximity to the border, particularly in light of a number of near-clashes between IDF troops and soldiers from the Lebanese Armed Forces.
“It has our attention and we are keeping a close eye on what is happening there,” the officer said. “Our concerns range from the diversion of water to the possibility that the tourism center will be used as cover to launch attacks against Israel.”
Hezbullah seems to be
looking to start a war with Israel. And if they do, you can bet that
we will respond.
Labels: Hezbullah, Lebanese Armed Forces, water
Hezbullah-controlled Lebanon looking for war trigger?
Hezbullah-controlled Lebanon is so wrong on this story that
even UNIFIL has come out on Israel's side. Is Hezbullah looking for an excuse to go to war?
Israeli troops erected earth mounds and established a military post along the border with Lebanon in an area that oversees the Wazzani river zone of Muntazahat, the National News Agency reported Thursday.
Around three bulldozers, a dredger and 30 soldiers backed by four Merkava tanks and 3 Humvees began the operations in the early morning hours along the border that stretches from the Western side of Ghajar all the way to the al-Hamari.
The NNA said that the works carried out by the Israelis are in an area that Lebanon has expressed reservations over.
But the Jewish state and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon consider it in conformity with the U.N.-drawn Blue Line.
UNIFIL and the Lebanese army scrambled to the area and the military asked the peacekeepers to urge Israel to end the aggression, Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) said.
But UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told NNA that the mission was informed on Wednesday “by the Israeli army about its intention to carry out some works near Wazzani and UNIFIL immediately informed the Lebanese army about it.”
“During the Israeli works, UNIFIL soldiers and the Lebanese army were present there to monitor the situation and guarantee that there won’t be any violation of the Blue Line,” Tenenti said.
In the past, Lebanon has tried to divert water from the Hezbani and Wazzani rivers to make sure it doesn't reach Israel. Israel is being vigilant and according to UNIFIL, it's within its rights.
Ghajar, as you might recall, is the town that the blue line cuts in half. When it fell back into Israeli control a couple of years ago, the UN demanded that we return it to Hezbullah. But the residents don't want us to do that, so for now it's staying put.
Lebanon can express all the reservations they want, but either the area is over the blue line (which the UN certified in 2000) or it's not. And according to UNIFIL it's not.
Finally, one has to wonder whether Lebanon is looking to create another
incident like two summers ago, or whether they are looking for a war. There aren't too many other logical explanations.
Labels: Lebanese Armed Forces, Lebanon, UNIFIL, water
Arab world to face water crisis by 2015
Maybe a trade can be arranged....
Water for oil The Arab world, one of the driest regions on the planet, will tip into severe water scarcity as early as 2015, a report issued on Thursday predicts.
By then, Arabs will have to survive on less than 500 cubic metres of water a year each, or below a tenth of the world average of more than 6,000 cubic metres per capita, said the report by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development. Per capita supply has plunged to only a quarter of its 1960 level.
Gee, I know a country that can sell them desalination equipment.... Go ahead. Cut off your noses to spite your faces. Boycott Israel.
Heh.
Labels: Arabs, boycott Israel, desalination, oil, water
