Bloodthirsty Liberal

Ralph Peters with some words of encouragement for sub-Saharan Africa:

Whatever planet Earth may find in short supply in 2010, violence and misrule will remain abundant, from the most-recent round of Muslim-vs.-Christian massacres in Nigeria to Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez’s delight in unleashing his thugs on students marching for freedom.

But no region — not even sub-Saharan Africa — competes with the greater Middle East when it comes to wanton savagery, thwarted opportunities and the danger posed to innocent populations around the world. With fanatical terrorists of unprecedented brutality, Islamist extremists pursuing nuclear weapons, rogue regimes, disintegrating states and threats of genocide against Israel, the lands of heat and dust between the Nile and the Indus form a realm of deadly failure that will haunt the civilized world throughout our lifetimes.

A survey of the region’s key countries — and problems — doesn’t offer much good news for the Obama Administration’s naive foreign policy efforts:

Said survey follows.

Oh, okay, you want a few highlights?

LEBANON: This isn’t a country — it’s a temporary stand-off.

…

Hezbollah has been rearming mightily in the wake of its 2006 war with Israel. A new war would devastate much of Lebanon — if internal strife doesn’t do it first.

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EGYPT: … Egypt faces a potential succession crisis as octogenarian president Hosni Mubarak, who’s ruled the country for almost three decades, grooms his singularly unimpressive son, Gamal, to take over upon his death.

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SYRIA: The neighborhood’s in such awful shape that this police state’s beginning to look like a success story…. When Damascus looks like a beacon, it’s getting awfully dark in the Middle East.

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IRAQ: Can’t say we didn’t try. After years of serious progress toward a national compromise… [r]econciliation has come to a screeching halt. The Shia are smug, the Sunnis feel betrayed, and the Kurds are still denied title to the traditionally Kurdish city of Kirkuk. Every faction’s fighting for a greater share of oil revenues. And the Obama administration’s AWOL (this was Bush’s war — we wouldn’t want a positive outcome).

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SAUDI ARABIA: Its two main exports are oil and fanaticism…. They care only for their repressive version of Islam. The birthplace of Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia’s differences with his terror organization are over strategy and tactics, not over their mutual goal of forcing extremist Islam on all of humanity.

IRAN: Racing to acquire nuclear weapons, delighting in the prospect of a cataclysmic war that would lead to the “return of the hidden imam,” beating the hell out of its own people in the streets, murdering members of the intelligentsia, and explicit in its vows to destroy Israel, the government of Iran continues to be protected by China and Russia.

If you want to know more about that benighted, poxy patch of scrub and swampland… I pity you. You need a date.

If it weren’t for the tragedy of two lives lost, I’d be laughing my ass off over this.

Oh, you all know me too well. I’m laughing my ass off precisely because of the tragedy of two lives lost.

Hizbullah communicated “deep disappointment” to Hamas leadership over the discovery that the party was conducting military drills in a residential building in Lebanon without the party’s knowledge, the country’s An-Nahar newspaper reported Wednesday.

Information around the training was uncovered during the course of an investigation into an explosion in Haret Treik that killed two Hamas members last week, the paper said. Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Al-Murr said the blast targeted Hamas Representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan.

According to the London-based Arabic daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, the attack was carried out as Hamas members received live ammunition training in the basement of the building under Hamas control.

The daily said Hezbollah told Hamas it would not intervene, and that Hamas “would have to resolve the problem on its own.”

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat also reported that Hamas decided to close its office in Haret Hreik until the situation was resolved.

This is from a Palestinian “news” source, so the syntax is a little confusing, but I think Hamass people killed each other while trying to kill someone else (also Hamass), and Hezbollah is pissed because this was on their turf—in a residential neighborhood.

I love the use of the term “office”. Like it had computers and faxes and a coffee machine. Anyway, two dead terrorists sounds like the problem resolved itself.

Clean up in aisle three!

The cleaning lady says she doesn’t do windows or pools of blood:

Wouldn’t want to disturb “sensitive negotiations”

This is even more interesting when we consider that the same administration just confiscated hundreds of millions worth of Iranian real estate in the United States.

On Veterans Day, Christine Devlin stood in the cold in Westwood for the unveiling of a new memorial to local soldiers lost overseas, including her son Michael, one of the 241 servicemen killed in the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983.

Devlin is among 30 Massachusetts relatives of victims of the Beirut attack who have been fighting for more than a decade to get compensation for what many consider the first major terrorist attack against the United States. After a federal judge ruled in 2007 that Iran was liable for $2.65 billion in damages to be shared by 150 families seeking restitution, they believed they were on the cusp of victory.

But now, the Obama administration is going to court to try to block payments from Iranian assets that the families’ lawyers want seized, contending that it would jeopardize sensitive negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and establish a potentially damaging precedent.

In a little-noticed filing in federal court, the Justice Department is arguing that giving the money to the victims “can have significant, detrimental impact on our foreign relations, as well as the reciprocal treatment of the United States and its extensive overseas property holdings.’’

The Obama administration’s position is a blow to those like Devlin, who is still waiting for some measure of justice for her son, who was 21 when Hezbollah terrorists rammed a suicide truck bomb into the peacekeepers’ headquarters.

I wonder why they are “terrorists” when they murder Americans but something entirely more gentle when they murder Israelis? I would be interesting to do a search of descriptors tied to the word Hezbollah in the Boston Globe, especially during the period when they were sending rockets into Haifa. I guess I’ll never understand.

- Aggie

If the United Nations is so crucial to world peace (and I can’t even type that with a straight face), how come nobody yells “Call the Security Council!” when mugged by reality?

UNIFIL - the UN’s 13,000-strong peacekeeper force in southern Lebanon - is doing a good job of preventing Hizbullah from operating out in open areas, BUT dares not enter the hundreds of villages which dot the area, and which have become the central bases of operation for the Shi’ite terrorist group, an army source told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

UNIFIL’s mandate is based on the enforcement of UN Resolution 1701, which bans Hizbullah from building up weapons caches south of the Litani River. But in reality, the arms ban is being partially enforced, the source added.

Speaking by phone from southern Lebanon, UNIFIL’s Deputy Spokesman, Andreas Tenenti, told the Post that the peacekeepers have not encountered any attempts by Hizbullah to rearm itself in violation of Resolution 1701.

“From what we’ve seen during our patrols, we have not witnessed any rearmament,” Tenenti said. “We have a large presence in the south of the country, [BUT] we are not in every place at every time,” he added.

Why do I picture the UN spokesman as being played by John Cleese or Graham Chapman?

If Israel relied on the UN for its self-defense, it wouldn’t survive for long, nor would it deserve to.

Do you love diversity as much as I do? Can’t get enough of it myself. I’m a diversity pig, wallowing in differences and dissimilarities.

Take the Middle East: after war between Israel and Lebanon, each side has gone its own way.

Israel:

During the Second Lebanon War, in the summer of 2006, the Rambam Health Care Campus (RHCC) admitted hundreds of wounded patients, soldiers and civilians, to an old, crowded and unprotected emergency room. As this took place, Katyusha missiles were falling in areas adjacent to the hospital.

For the Rambam administration, one of the main lessons of the war was the need to immediately construct a new protected emergency room. This facility would have to stand up to conventional and chemical means of warfare, and supply quality medical care for residents of Haifa and Northern Israel.

As a result of cooperation between donors - the Discount Investment Corporation Ltd of the IDB Group, the Jewish Agency, the Claims Conference and the non-profit organization, “Reut” - the necessary amount of 60 million shekels was raised for building and equipping the new emergency room.

“At the start of the Second Lebanon War we promised to protect Rambam. After three years we have completed the first stage,” said RHCC Director Prof Rafi Beyar, referring to a huge building project at Rambam. This plan includes establishment of a secure underground hospital for 1,730 patients, a children’s hospital, and facilities for cancer care and for cardiac treatment, and a tower for clinical research.

Hezbollah:

An explosion ripped through the garage of a Hezbollah member’s home in southern Lebanon on Monday, and security officials said the building might have been used to store weapons.

One senior security official said the blast killed one person, but the other officials could not confirm that. The Hezbollah militant group that holds sway in the south said no one was killed but one person was wounded.

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A July explosion in an abandoned building in another southern village was said to have been caused by a fire in a secret Hezbollah arms depot. The group said at the time that the building housed ammunition leftover from Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

That incident raised tension along the border with Israel, which called it a violation of a U.N. resolution that ended the monthlong 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The resolution prohibits the militants from engaging in military activity in south Lebanon and forbids the smuggling of weapons to the group.

But Hezbollah fighters are believed to continue to have a clandestine presence in the area.

Arabs boast that they love death the way the rest of us love life. And they just go on proving it.

Celebrate diversity, baby.

When the history books are written, fair-minded people will read the text of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the United Nations and wonder how the diplomats were not moved to hang their heads, tears of shame streaming down their cheeks.

And then they’ll read the speech by the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, on the relative behavior of the two peoples:

Israel seeks peace. We want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace. A peace in which two states, one Jewish, one Palestinian, will live side by side, in peace and security. Recognizing such a vision will move the peace process forward. Terrorism, bloodshed, and incitement will not.

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Let me briefly describe the reality on the ground. As I have lately communicated to you, the month of September witnessed an alarming rise in terrorist attacks.

In the south, thirteen rockets and mortars were fired at Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Fifteen other attacks were launched with light weapons and anti-tank missiles. There were multiple attempts by terrorists to infiltrate Israel and to plant explosives along the fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

To our north, three rockets were launched on Israeli territory from southern Lebanon.

The Hizbullah terrorist organization continues to receive deadly weapons from its sponsors, members of this organization. At the same time, Hizbullah builds a military infrastructure in the midst of the civilian population south of the Litani River. Its operatives and affiliated civilians openly threaten UNIFIL, obstructing it from discharging its mandate.

The explosions on July 16th of an actively maintained weapons depot in Khirbat Silim proved beyond any doubt that Hizbullah’s violations are the greatest obstacle to the implementation of resolution 1701.

In addition, just two days before this meeting, another explosion of arms occurred in a civilian home in the village of Tayr Filsi.

…

We expect UNIFIL and the relevant UN authorities to promptly conduct a thorough investigation into this incident, and to share its findings with the governments of Lebanon, Israel, and the members of the Security Council.

Southern Lebanon, Mr. President, is occupied by terrorism. Hizbullah’s terrorism.

…

Behind Hizbullah’s defiance and build-up stands Iran. Iran’s sponsorship and support of terrorism pushes the region towards instability and conflict.

As Iran hurtles towards nuclear weapons capabilities coupled with long-range missiles, its leaders refuse to truthfully answer the inquiries and demands of the international community. The recent Iranian admission of a uranium enrichment plant outside Qom leaves no doubt: the Iranian nuclear program is an international crisis.

This country –– Iran –– is driven by religious extremism, officially sponsors Holocaust denial, and violently suppresses the democratic aspirations of its citizens, while continuing to promote international terrorism. The world’s most dangerous weapons are quickly falling into the hands of the most dangerous regime in the world.

This is the real threat to peace and security in our region and in the world.

Five years ago, in the pursuit of peace, Israel dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis from the Gaza Strip.

Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Israel’s actions a “courageous decision.” This very Council “commend[ed] the ongoing implementation of [the disengagement process].” Member States assured us that if Israel needed to defend itself, international legitimacy would be on our side.

Yet Israel’s hope turned into a nightmare. Instead of promoting a functioning Palestinian society, Hamas built an infrastructure of terror. Instead of promoting peace, Hamas murdered and silenced opposition, while inciting an entire generation to kill and hate.

Gaza is occupied by terrorism. Hamas terrorism.

Hamas openly rejects Israel’s right to exist. Hamas openly rejects a two-state solution. Their charter calls for Jews to be killed and quotes notorious anti-Semitic citations. Yet the world does nothing.

As Hamas smuggled a constant supply of deadly Iranian arms into Gaza, the world did nothing. As Hamas placed weapons and launched attacks from within schools, mosques and hospitals, the world did nothing. As Hamas fired 12,000 rockets against one million innocent Israeli men, women and children, the world did nothing. This, Mr. President, is the situation in the Middle East.

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An officious bystander would think that the issue of such an urgent meeting would be the continuous shelling of Israeli territory by terrorists from Gaza and Lebanon, or the continuous threats from Iran’s nuclear development.

However, the “urgency” of the matter is a pretext to hijack the Council’s agenda by raising here an issue that belongs elsewhere.

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Today we heard references to the Goldstone Report. Although the debate on this report belongs elsewhere, let me state Israel’s position briefly.

I regret to say that the Goldstone report is one-sided, biased and therefore wrong – just as the forum and the mandate that established its mission. The report favors and legitimizes terrorism. It is a prize for terrorist organizations.

It denies Israel’s right to defend its citizens. It falls directly into the pitfall strategically laid down by terrorist organizations around the world. It prevents, and will prevent democratic Member States from defending themselves against terrorism. It permits terrorists to victimize civilians, target the innocent, and use as human shields those it claims to defend.

…

For those of us who seek to resume the peace process in the Middle East, debating the Goldstone Report in the Security Council is but a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

If Israel is asked to take further risks for peace, the international community must recognize our right to self-defense.

I’m sorry, I let I him (sorry, her) go on a bit—but this kind of rhetoric is persuasive to me, inspiring even, as opposed to the empty words others (unnamed) speak to this den of thieves, thugs, and thick-skulls.

But I don’t find it persuasive that Israel will win the battle of the history books. That’s not enough. That Israel can be the victim of months, years, and decades of violence and incitement, that it can be the target of genocidal hatred—its existence and history denied—and still be called into the dock at the United Nations is an appalling insult to decency and morality.

Same as it ever was.

One case where the Arabs bettered the Jews:

At least four senior members of Hezbollah suffered serious financial losses as the result of embezzlement by the Lebanese Shi’ite businessman Salah Ezzedine, according to the London-based newspaper Asharq Al Awsat. Ezzedine, who has been dubbed “Hezbollah’s Madoff,” is suspected of embezzling more than one billion dollars.

The four were identified as Mohammad Raad, head of the Hezbollah faction in the Lebanese parliament, Hezbollah MPs Amin Shari and Hussein al-Hajj, and Wafiq Safa, head of the organization’s coordinating committee.

Safa was the person who handed over the bodies of missing Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser, to the United Nations, during a 2008 prisoner swap between Hezbollah and Israel. At the time, he stood in front of the Al-Manar television cameras and declared: “You will know immediately what their fate was,” as he pointed to the coffins containing the remains.

According to assessments in the Arab media and the news agencies, Ezzedine succeeded in defrauding hundreds of investors out of sums totaling between $600 million and $1.3 billion. He was arrested at the beginning of last week after persuading a large number of investors - including businessmen from Qatar and the Gulf states and thousands of villagers from southern Lebanon - to transfer sums of money to him, which he promised to invest with returns of 25-55 percent. After he declared bankruptcy, Ezzedine turned himself over to the Lebanese authorities.

Madoff’s crimes hurt many Jewish charities—educational, cultural, scientific. Hezbollah’s Madoff hurt terrorist scum. He should get a medal.

Seriously, it will take these Islamist a-holes years to embezzle their riches back. They won’t have the time or the money to invest in the arsenals and training necessary to wreak genocide upon Israel. If Lebanon won’t name a street after Ezzedine, Israel should.

Hizballah!

Ever since 9/11, the world has been scratching our collective heads, looking for those missing weapons of mass destruction. I wonder how much of this stuff they have? And who is the source?

Hezbollah was keeping chemical weapons in the arms stockpile which exploded more than a month ago in southern Lebanon, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa reported on Thursday.

European sources quoted in the article also said that three out of the eight Hezbollah operatives who were killed in the blast died after coming in contact with the chemicals.

According to Al-Siyasa, the Lebanese militant organization attempted to keep Lebanese Army personnel as well as UNIFIL forces away from the blast site in order to cover up any evidence.

Does anyone believe that Hizballah can bring chemical weapons into Lebanon without anyone in the government or the UN knowing about it? I have trouble with that, but I suppose if things are disorganized enough, it’s possible.

…

The article also stated that Iran had recently sent new kinds of chemical weapons, as well as thousands of gas masks providing protection from chemical and biological weapons via Syrian airports.

The militant organization also reportedly received a system capable of warning against substances used in weapons of mass destruction as part of its Iran supply.

Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, prohibits Hezbollah from engaging in military activities in south Lebanon and forbids weapon smuggling to the group.

- Aggie

Your tax dollars at work:

The United States plans to transfer $200 million to the struggling Palestinian Authority to help cover its budget crisis, an Obama administration official said on Friday.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to announce the transfer of funds later on Friday as part of US efforts to improve conditions on the ground that will bolster attempts to revive stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The girl must be stoned on all the Oxy she’s taking for her broken wrist (or whatever she broke).

In a related-ish story:

United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain LeRoy said Thursday that Hezbollah was responsible for heightened tensions in southern Lebanon.

During a UN Security Council session that discussed Israel’s complaints on the recent developments in Lebanon, LeRoy said that the arms cache that exploded in the area last week was used by Hezbollah.

He claimed that the attack on French UNIFIL soldiers sent to investigate the explosion was not carried out by civilians, adding that Hezbollah men were spotted in the area.

Ambassador Alex Wolff, of the US Mission to the UN, said the Shiite group’s arms cache constituted a clear violation of UN Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War.

The UN discussed the Middle East and did not find it an occasion to blame Israel???

Do my eyes deceive me, or has the UN done the right thing for once?

BTL, you’re getting soft!

I know many of you swing by here for answers to the imponderables of the world, but there are some things about the Middle East I just don’t get.

[H/T IMRA for all these stories]

Thing No. 1:

Jordanian authorities have started revoking the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians living in Jordan to avoid a situation in which they would be “resettled” permanently in the kingdom, Jordanian and Palestinian officials revealed on Monday.

The new measure has increased tensions between Jordanians and Palestinians, who make up around 70 percent of the kingdom’s population.

Seventy percent? Doesn’t that make it, well, Palestine?

Leave it to the the Palestinians to [bleep] up statehood in a state where they are the overwhelming majority.

Thing No. 2:

Senior Hamas and Fatah officials stated their objections on Sunday to what they said were US suggestions that Palestinians accept a land swap with Israel and give up the right of return.

The officials said that the US is pushing for a final status agreement with Israel that does not include the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, and maintains so-called Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank.

Senior Fatah official Hatem Abdul Qader, who deals with Jerusalem issues, said “the United States is trying to deceive the Palestinians through these proposals, which they think are creative, but [exist] only in their imaginations.”

That sounds like this administration, all right.

So, it’s not just about the settlements, is it? Unless you think Tel Aviv and Haifa—even the Second Temple!—are “settlements”.

Thing No. 3

On Friday, 15 Lebanese civilians crossed illegally into Israel, shouting and waving Hizbullah flags. IDF troops spotted the group, but did not confront them as they were reportedly unarmed and returned to Lebanon minutes later, without incident.

In a letter submitted by the ambassador to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the president of the United Nations Security Council, Shalev accused a contingent of Indian UNIFIL peacekeepers of having done nothing to prevent the demonstrators from crossing the border and even cooperating with the group.

Why doesn’t the international community just butt out? Pretend the Holy Land is the back seat of the car, and tell the kids to figure it out on their own. If we had done that sixty years ago, the beaches of Gaza Strip would be the Costa del Saul and the West Bank would boast PaloDisney.