Abortion Foes Tell of Their Journey to the Streets – NYTimes

If you’re in favour of a woman’s right to choose, you probably find the people depicted in the NY Times article not just objectionable but downright crazy. We can argue about the merits of allowing or banning abortion, although I suspect it wouldn’t be much of a debate as few people’s minds would be swayed.

What is rather sad are the people who engage in these activities. These are all broken people, in one sense or another. They may not all have obviously traumatised childhoods like Deborah Anderson, but they all clearly have some void in their lives they are desperately trying to fill by hectoring other people on how they should lead their lives. So often, people who feel something broken in their lives find it easier trying to fix what they think is wrong with other people’s lives, even if those other people see nothing that needs fixing. It’s not hard to see why: it takes less courage to face other people’s demons than to face your own.

The other thing is that they are all obviously craving attention. Desperately. I quote from one of the people in the story.

“I don’t want to say the conflict is fun, because it isn’t,” said Mr. Brewer, 40, an easygoing state pool champion with an earring high in his left ear. “But the interaction is fun, to be able to talk to people who take the time to listen to what you have to say.”

Whether you’re talking about anti-abortionists or the Fox News tea-baggers, these are people with inflated egos who cannot understand why the world is not paying them their due attention. They love being the centre of attention, even if they have to act out like cranky 5 year olds throwing a tantrum. How much more attention can you get than to have someone getting in your face and yelling at you?

On a wing and a prayer with the TSA

Only weeks ago, we heard about what has got to be the dumbest US Airways employee ever (which is saying a lot) helping his equally retarded roommate smuggle an unloaded handgun on board a US Air flight. The only reason this master-plan failed was due to an observant passenger who reported the suspicious activity. Makes those long lines and waits at the security checkpoints all worthwhile, knowing these sleuths can’t even spot a passenger handing over his luggage to his roomie at the gate.

Now, we have another episode of stupidity on the part of the TSA.

Steve Bierfeldt was pulled aside at a TSA checkpoint and questioned about a box of money in his carry-on luggage. Bierfeldt, who works for a Ron Paul organization appears to have asked if he was required to answer questions about the money. And for his troubles, he was detained for half an hour.

You can hear an audio recording of the entire half hour in the interrogation room here. But as the website summarises, as does the CNN article, essentially, Bierfeldt wants to know if he is required to answer any of the questions he is being asked. The TSA “agents” refuse to tell him whether he is required to or not and basically demand that he just do whatever he is told. The incident is not resolved until an FBI agent comes on the scene and is able to guess that the money in question is for the Ron Paul organisation, which Bierfeldt (I think somewhat inadvertently) confirms.

What you can’t get a sense of without listening to the audio recording is that Bierfeldt is being somewhat of a smart-ass. He’s not being rude in any way, but he is being a smart-ass. Of course, that’s not against the law, and it’s his right to be that way if he so chooses. He is also not acting particularly suspicious or gives any reason for a reasonable person to believe he is acting suspicious, unless you have an overactive imagination.

The trouble really seems to have stemmed originally from the fact that TSA agent #1 is an idiot with a chip on his shoulder, who felt Bierfeldt represented a threat to his self-perceived authority. I’m guessing from the recording that his sense of threat was heightened by the fact that he seems to have no idea what Bierfeldt is or is not required to do under the law. I mean, it would have been bad enough if Beirefldt was only not bowing down to his authority.

Even after it is revealed who Bierfeldt is and what the money is for (about 6 minutes left on the recording), when the FBI agent tells Bierfeldt he’s free to go, this moron insists that he won’t let Bierfeldt go without checking with his supervisor, because Bierfeldt is “suspicious”. The FBI agent curtly tells him he can do whatever he wants, but as far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing suspicious about Bierfeldt or his money.

This hero is probably the one who was disciplined. If the TSA has any idea what it is doing, that meant he was fired, or he’s doing a task where he is under constant supervision by someone without a Napoleon complex.

TSA agent #2 is, at least, not a complete douche. He is, generally, not on a power trip and is genuinely more concerned about trying to get to the bottom of things. Unfortunately, he also seems clueless as to what passengers are actually required to do, versus what the TSA would like them to do. As a result, he too is unable to answer Bierfeldt’s questions and gets frustrated. He probably would have acquitted himself much better if only he was actually, you know, given real training.

In fairness, the FBI agent too is unable to tell Bierfeldt what he is or is not required to do. Now, it is entirely possible that Homeland Security and the Justice Department don’t think this is something they should teach their agents. If that’s true, that’s stupid.

It is also possible that this is standard operating procedure, trying to keep the “suspect” in the dark and off balance. If that’s true, then between all these agents you would think at least one would have realised that it was not working and wasn’t worth continuing, and that they should have just told Bierfeldt, “Yes!”

One last possibility is that answering that question constitutes giving legal advice and the agents are barred from doing that. If that’s the case, I’m not sure how you deal with that without it escalating to everyone “lawyering up” whenever they encounter law enforcement. Like I said, Bierfeldt was being a smart-ass.

In any case, being a TSA screener is probably not one of the more desirable jobs in that agency. It’s probably tedious, definitely monotonous, and is probably not all that pleasant, having to deal with the public who are probably mostly not all that happy with the hassles of the security checks. But it is an important job. One that has to be done properly and diligently. By people focused on their jobs, not on a power trip.

Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea for anyone, regardless of what they’re supposed to be doing.

The sinking F1 Titanic

According to the BBC, Lola has decided they are no longer interested in joining F1.

They quoted one person from their comments section who interpreted this to mean that Lola was sure there would not be any open slots for them, after their initial entry was not one of the three accepted by the FIA. But I think that’s the wrong takeaway here.

More likely, they recognise that the only way that a slot would open up for them is if the eight teams which are members of FOTA do not enter F1 next year. There’s physically no more slots available for any new entries unless existing entries drop out, and those eight teams have been pretty united in laying down the conditions for their 2010 F1 entries.

That means that a field in 2010 which included Lola would not include the most iconic names in motor racing: Ferrari and McLaren, to name just two. And all the major car manufacturers currently in F1, such as Mercedes, Renault, and BMW.

Logistically and technically, that would cause difficulties for the remaining “F1″. One can assume that there will be no technical help for the new entrants from the existing, and now former, teams. That may not be such a big deal for Lola, who have a wealth of experience in motor racing and lots of technical know-how. But it could hamper the rest of the field of new comers. This could make the series not competitive, reducing its attraction to audiences, or even worse, turn it into a joke, with the field populated by teams who can barely get their cars off the starting line.

More seriously, the major motor manufacturers currently supply all the engines for existing F1 teams. Although at least Force India, and perhaps Williams too, have multi-year contracts for the supply of engines, if companies like Mercedes and Toyota leave F1, they are unlikely to do little more than perfunctory building and selling of engines until the contracts end. While one might argue they would still want their engined cars to win, they would most likely to be involved in a rival racing series which they would be more anxious to promote. If you were the car companies, which series would you direct more of the development funds toward?

Granted,  Cosworth, a great name in automotive engineering and F1 racing, has been contracted to supply engines to the three new entrants, and could conceivably supply engines to other teams. But this is likely, over time, to result in a single-sourced engine series with Cosworth the sole engine supplier. Other companies could conceivably crop up, but there are no likely candidates which could compete with Cosworth.

There is also a real danger that the best drivers in F1 will have no interest in such a “Mickey Mouse” racing series. If the threat of a rival series, comprised of the eight teams in FOTA plus perhaps others, is realised, that is likely to be the series attracting the true talent, rather than second-rate “also-ran” or “has-been” drivers you can see in many other racing series already.

The only fly in the ointment for the FOTA members is the considerable difficulty in setting up a brand new racing series from scratch. To set up a rolling circus to rival the F1 spectacle in less than a year (at this point, not even 6 months) would be a Herculean task. While the companies may have the resources to pull it off, it’s not clear that they will have the talent or the organisational unity to. And the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone will undoubtedly do everything in their power to play spoiler.

No matter what happens on that front, however, the result is that any F1 to which Lola is granted entry is unlikely to be attractive. It’s just not going to be the pinnacle of motor racing that F1 currently is. And if you’re Lola, already involved in many other racing series, why bother?

Lola may, and probably have, already thought of this themselves. Which could mean that this is also a strategic move on their part. If FOTA leave F1 and start a new racing series, they are likely to want to attract new entrants themselves as well. And they would also want to institute some economising measures. This could mean that they would offer a package of regulations and technical aid which would allow a technically sophisticated and experienced operator like Lola to join such a series.

And as I’ve already noted, that may be the more attractive proposition.

Peace in the Middle East no closer with Netanyahu

The speech by Prime Minister Netanyahu was eagerly awaited to see how Israel would respond to President Obama’s insistence that Israel actually live up to the repeated commitments it has made, in writing, to stop all settlement activity. A commitment which only Israel even pretends it has not flagrantly broken even before the ink on the commitments were dry.

Well, we got our answer today. Which is to say, Netanyahu, as expected, basically flipped off the rest of the world.

Aside from using the word “state” to describe the possible status of lands occupied by Palestinians, there is nothing new in what Netanyahu said. Frankly, it’s the same double-talk and hypocrisy. Some would call them lies.

If you read the BBC article and watch the clip of the speech, it’s breathtaking the extent of confabulation Netanyahu engages in. Or it would be if it was not standard operating procedure for Israelis.

He urges talks without preconditions. Well, except Israeli preconditions. They don’t count. And of course all sides should live up to existing commitments. Except any commitments Israel has made, and consistently ignored. That doesn’t count either.

And most importantly, Israel and Israelis want peace. Except what they want isn’t peace at all. What they want is victory. What they want is to win and to dictate terms to the Palestinians. So I suppose to the extent that Israel wants to dictate peace to the rest of the Middle East, they want peace.

To be fair, it is not clear that this is what the majority of Israelis want. There are many who believe that the majority wants actual peace as much as anyone. To the extent that they are unable to reign in the extremist fringes of their polity, they are held as much captive as the rest of us. Of course, to the extent that they allow the extremists to hold the reigns of power in Israelis politics, they are not really captives at all.

Which is true of American support of Israeli policies. During Bush’s presidency, there was blind support of anything Israel wanted to do, to the detriment of everyone’s interest in true peace. Now is the time when we will see if the Obama administration will allow Israel to hold their foreign policy hostage as well.

Beware partisans bearing “science” (or pretending to be reporters)

I just had the misfortune of reading an article on Car’s website about an apparent proposal for reducing speed limits in the UK. This is one of the sadder examples of a rabid advocate and partisan trying to disguise their writing as “reporting” for unsuspecting readers. Somthing we see far too frequently in what passes for public discourse today. So as a long time reader of the magazine, I’m going to dissect why this piece should have been ripped up by the editor.

First of all, the title: “Growing opposition to UK 50mph speed limit plan.” If you actually read the consultation paper here, it actually recommends an accelerated review of speed limits on British roads, on the premise that the limit on some roads might then be reduced as a result of reclassification of some types of roads. So right at the start, the “reporter” actually gets the facts wrong.

Then he claims that opposition to these (fictional) plans “is gathering momentum.” How can we tell? There is a petition with 34,000 signatures opposing the plans. To put that in perspective, according to the CIA World Factbook, the estimated population for the UK in July 2009 is over 61 million. That means that the people who signed this petition, if all are genuine, represent approximately 0.05% of the population. Or to put it another way, Old Trafford, the stadium for Manchester United, will seat over twice that many people in a sold-out match. Wow! What a momentum!

The reporter then claims these plans are being “steamrollered through” and are really just “a revenue raising scam.” And the basis for these claims? I have no idea, since there is no evidence provided. I guess we’re supposed to just take the reporter’s word for it, what with him having gotten everything else right so far.

But finally, we get some more support for this reporter’s bias.

A recent CAR Online poll showed a similar dissatisfaction among our regulars. An overwhelming 62% of you thought the 60mph limit should remain in force on rural roads, 31% said the limit should be raised and only 7% backed the Government’s plan.

This is, obviously, a voluntary poll among people who read a magazine about fast cars. To expect a different result than the one presented would be like polling the NRA on gun control. Would you expect too many NRA members to say guns should be banned?

In fact, as a voluntary poll, as in one which you volunteer to participate in, it is likely to attract participants who hold particularly extreme views, as they are more likely to be riled up enough to spend time responding to a poll which actually impacts nothing.

Our hapless reporter then appeals to the Association of British Drivers. I refer you to my previous comparison to the NRA. This is clearly a group of sad and crazy fanatics who people avoid at parties. If you want to evaluate the bona fides of this organisation, you can check out their website. There, among other things, they cling to the fiction that global warming is real. Even many American Republican politicians don’t claim to believe this rubbish any more.

And yet, Brian Gregory, the “association’s” chairman appeals to scientific principles.

On higher quality roads, the speed limit should even be raised. They need to use scientific principles. Speed limits should be based on the 85th percentile [between the speeds where 80 to 90% of road users drive]. On the motorway, many people drive at 85 to 90mph, so 85mph would be a safe speed limit.

He even appeals to economic consequences.

Each mph you slow the average speed down by costs the economy £800 million to £1 billion each year.

I haven’t bothered to test this man’s economic claims. I stopped after checking out the association’s webpage on the “scientific principle” of the “85th percentile.” I won’t explain here what’s wrong with this quasi-scientific sounding nonsense, but anyone who has any training in any science (natural or social) or statistics will immediately recognise that Brian Gregory lacks any such training or understanding.

I’m really sick and tired of lazy, stupid, and partisan hacks pretending to journalism and laying on a screed. Either write an editorial or report the news; don’t conflate the two. Which is not to say that there are not bad policy ideas which should be exposed as such. But my experience in such cases has been that laying out an honest, fair, and thorough analysis and reporting of facts will do more to convince an intelligent person than an obviously biased manifesto.

As it stands, all this article does is to convince me that the reporter is a sad fanatic, and not a very bright one at that. And the fact that he is clearly riled up about this position paper is in no way a mark against it. If anything, you can’t help suspecting that it’s got to have something to recommend it if the crazies are against it.

Stupid people with semi-smart toys

This story caught my eye today.

CARROLL COUNTY, Ga. — This is a story that may leave you shaking your head.

A Sandy Springs man got a phone call Monday that his family home in Carroll County was gone. Torn down. Demolished.

The thing is, it was the wrong house.

The demolition company said it had paperwork.

“I said, ‘Paperwork for what?’ and he said, ‘For the house, to demolish the house.’ I said, ‘I’m the owner of the house, I haven’t given anybody any authority to demolish this house,’” said Byrd.

So what was this “paperwork” that the moron company was so proud of?

Channel 2 Action News reporter Jovita Moore asked Byrd if the demolition company had an address.

“I said, ‘What address did you have?’ and he said, ‘They sent me some GPS coordinates.’ I said, ‘Don’t you have an address?’ (and) he said, ‘Yes, my GPS coordinates led me right to this address here and this house was described,’” said Byrd.

Byrd said he suspects the intended target was actually across the road.

There are clearly multiple levels of stupidity on the part of this demolition company here. Before you do something as destructive as total demolition of a building, the sensible thing to do would be to get more than “GPS coordinates” which can be misinterpreted by your retard workers.

(And what the hell does “GPS corrdinates” mean anyway? Are we talking longitude and latitude? What? Most people find directions to an address using a GPS unit, so I’m not sure what these clowns really mean here.)

Before you do something dangerous like demolishing a house, wouldn’t it be sensible to check that it is uninhabited at the time? That there is no one or nothing inside which they should not harm or destroy? They do that sort of thing when they demolish buildings with explosives and the like, and I don’t see why it would be different with any other demolition. And of course, if these cretins had performed, or tried to perform, even a cursory check, they would have realised that the house was still occupied.

Sad for the family involved and, one hopes, it will be very, very expensive for the companies involved. Preferably to the point they go out of business. For good.

The reason this story stuck with me was that I had somewhat of a similar experience a few years ago, although thankfully, my story did not end badly.

One day I’m in a Chick-fil-A having lunch. You can see out through the windows, obviously, and I could see my car in the lot from where I was eating. So I’m enjoying my lunch when I see a tow-truck pull up and a guy get out by my car. This guy promptly goes up to my car and appears to be trying the door handles.

Now, this was in the middle of the day, on a bright sunny day, in a large parking lot of a strip mall, with lots of people around. Which was why I was sat there for at least a minute or so, observing all this with incredulity. I’m thinking, “WTF? What is this idiot up to? He can’t be brazenly trying to break into my car in open daylight, in an open parking lot?”

It seemed so strange and incredible, I thought this simpleton was just confused and would move on soon enough. But no. He keeps fiddling about with my door handles. I still had to finish my lunch, but I had had enough. I went out to the parking lot and confronted him.

Me: “Hey! What the f@ck do you think you’re doing? Get the f@ck away from there!”

Idiot: “Is this your car?”

Me: “No, I’m just yelling at you because it’s someone else’s car! Of course it’s my car, you idiot! What the fu@ck do you think you’re doing?”

Idiot: “I got a call from someone who said they’d locked themselves out of their Acura in this parking lot. They wanted me to come out and unlock the car.”

Me: “And they gave you my license plate number?”

Idiot: “No. They just said it was an Acura.”

Me (now more incredulous than angry): “Well, is it another CL in this colour?”

Idiot: “Well, no. I don’t know what model it is. Or what colour. I just saw this Acura and thought this one was it.”

Me (now angry again and incredulous): “Are you telling me you were trying to break into my car without having any freakin’ idea if this one was the right one? You have no freakin’ idea which Acura it is, you f@cking idiot! What the f@ck were you going to do? Try every Acura in the lot? Or did you think there would just be one in the entire lot?”

Idiot (still f@cking clueless): “Sorry about that. I guess I’d better try to call back and get more info.”

Me: “You THINK?!”

At this point, the moron went back to his truck and sat in his cab, apparently making calls. After checking my car, I went back inside and finished my lunch.

I have to say that by the time I went back to my lunch, I was so pissed I was ready to call the cops. Before you think I was over-reacting, I was going to call if this cretin went onto another Acura. You never know; the guy might have been lying and it’s a ruse for theft. Or even if he was telling the truth, I had no confidence that he wouldn’t be randomly trying to break open other people’s cars. Fortunately, he left the parking lot altogether after a couple of minutes in his truck.

At the risk of sounding like a terrible snob, there are just some people who are too stupid to be anything more than a janitor. If not because they’re too dumb to be anything else, but for the protection of the rest of us.

Chrysler dealership has five days to sell entire inventory

There’s been lots of press over the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies. Only time will tell how they will work out.

My personal view is that buying Chrysler is a mistake for Fiat. Chrysler has done much over the years to destroy the brands it owns. So much so that Jeep is about the only brand with any kind of goodwill of value left. (I realise that there are undoubtedly fans of various Chrysler brands still out there, but I suspect the benefits they bring to owning the company is easily outweighed by the negatives.)

And for that prize, Fiat is taking on a company whose problems are legion. As many commentators have pointed out already, Fiat has pulled off a remarkable turnout of its own in the past few years, but it still has a long way to go to finish the job. There are arguments to made that if Fiat really wanted to enter the U.S. market for the sales volume, they may have been better off purchasing Saturn for the dealership in the U.S. They could have supplied the excellent and relatively new dealership network (probably much better than Chrysler’s), with vehicles from existing factories, or from greenfield sites which do not suffer all the issues of legacy, both good and bad, that come with Chrysler plants.

As for GM, being unburdened of some of its debt will help, but it needs to start producing better products or it will fail. The reason not enough customers bought GM cars wasn’t because they didn’t like the fact that GM workers supposedly got better pay than those in a Toyota plant (why does the customer care, as long as the price is right?); it was because they did not design and build sufficiently attractive cars.

What I really hope GM does in bankruptcy though, is to treat its dealers better than Chrysler has. While they did need to shed dealers, and they did need to do it far more drastically than the dealers would have liked, many of the tactics smacked of callous opportunism. Pressuring dealers to take on excess inventory, with promises that they would then survive the coming dealer cull, literally days and weeks before they were axed was clearly cynical and dealing in bad faith. Refusing to take back inventory while hiding behind bankruptcy is just pathetic.

What I didn’t know, and what many people probably don’t, is that the axed dealers only have a short time to sell their inventory of new vehicles. After a deadline, it is illegal for them to sell those vehicles!

This only adds to my opinion that those running Chrysler are scum and bad enough things cannot happen to them. And just to confirm the righteousness of that stance, I noted this in the last paragraph of the article referenced above.

Chrysler points out that since it hasn’t produced vehicles since May 1, many dealers are hungry for inventory, and they’ve been buying vehicles from the soon to be closing retail stores.

What a load of crap! The reason Chrysler hasn’t been producing vehicles since May 1 is that it’s been months (actually, more like years) since they’ve been able to find enough people crazy enough to buy their horrendous products! They still have inventory built only God-knows-when, sitting on their lots waiting for a buyer. The only reason anyone seems to be buying Chrysler these days is the dealers who were canned by Chrysler are practically giving them away to get rid of them.

If these vehicles really were in demand, there is no reason why the company could not take them back from the closing dealers and simply send them to the dealers who are still open.

The other possibility is that the vehicles are in demand, but this way Chrysler can give a bonus to the remaining dealers of bargain-basement deals on their inventory. It’s at the expense of the closing dealers, but Chrysler has already demonstrated they don’t actually care about those dealers.

America’s continuing shame

Another inmate at Guantanamo has apparently committed suicide.

It is way past time that the Obama administration shut this place down. Congress may be balking and the American public maybe hesitant. But they are wrong. The camp is a continuing source of shame to the U.S. and does not make the country safer one iota.

We can find any number of people in American prisons who are, and would be if released, more dangerous than some of the people being held in Guantanamo. The continuing existence of this camp sends nothing by negative messages about this country to the world, and to the terrorists who want to do it harm.

It says that America is so terrified of these few criminals that they can’t stand to have them on American soil, even in some of the most secure prisons on Earth. It says that the U.S. won’t try these people because Americans themselves believe that their justice system is so weak and ineffective that they cannot stand up to a motley crew of Third World thugs. It says that Americans believe that they are above the standards that they preach to the rest of the world to abide by. That they think they are somehow special and above everyone else.

If the debacle in Iraq, the current troubles in Afghanistan, and the continuing fight with terrorists has shown us one thing, it is that even the most powerful nation needs friends. Getting rid of Guantanamo won’t dissuade those inclined to believe the worst about America, but it wont’ hurt to make everyone else more sympathetic to the American cause.

Room for Debate?

Anyone else read the “Room for Debate” blog on the NY Times?

I found it while reading a piece on the silly comment on gay marriage by an even sillier girl in a beauty pageant. And then I read another article they have in the series, this one on gays in the military.

More than the article themselves or what the commentators they invited had to say in the articles, I was struck by one thing. Both articles seemed to include at least one right-wing crazy who is there because they work for some “policy organisation”.

In the gay marriage piece, it is someone from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). In the military piece, it’s someone from the Center for Military Readiness (CMR). NOM is infamous at this point for having created a crazy advertisement against gay marriage. And I don’t mean it’s crazy for its stance; I mean the advertisement is crazy. (Just google for it and search on YouTube.)

As for CMR, Google Chrome browser warned me and would not let me explore their website with the following warning:

Warning: Visiting this site may harm your computer! The website at cmrlink.org contains elements from the site telecom.dgnet.net, which appears to host malware – software that can hurt your computer or otherwise operate without your consent. Just visiting a site that contains malware can infect your computer.

Wow. Must be a reputable organisation!

All this is just my way of wondering how NY Times thinks the “debate” is furthered by giving a forum to people who are clearly on the extreme fringes of the issues by most reasonable standards. While people do have the right of free speech, the press, or anyone else for that matter, do not have an obligation to listen to the rantings of extremists, or an obligation to give them a forum.

Perhaps someone at the NY Times thinks we are better served by being informed of these extremist views. I don’t think so. They wouldn’t think to print the views of a neo-Nazi on a piece on anti-Semitism, and rightly so. Such fringe views don’t educate the reader in any meaningful way, and therefore does not, and cannot, further any debate.

Middle East through the looking glass

This article in the NY Times seems to encapsulate all the reasons why the Israeli people are doing themselves no favours by having elected in the current coalition headed by extremists. It’s probably why president Obama will not make much progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue in his first term (assuming he will have a second).

The article says that there are two reasons why the world view of the new Israeli administration will be a hard sell to the rest of the world.

First, even though the standard approaches have not yielded success, no alternative has emerged.

Second, the Obama administration has repeatedly backed the two-state solution, as have the Europeans. In other ways, too, this White House has seemed to be closer in outlook to Europe than the past administration was.

They omit the most obvious third reason why it would be a hard sell: The new Israeli story is completely self-serving of the new administration’s own extremist views and policies.

Unlike just about every other country, the new Israeli world view is that the real problem is that Arab countries don’t accept Israel, and as the growing power of Iran. Under this alternate reality vision of the issue, Iran is the real problem because they support Hamas and Hezbollah.

Even if you accept this view (I can’t bring myself to even call it an “analysis”), it is completely one-sided and self-serving. This view is really advocating the elimination of the single most active and powerful source of military, if not financial, source of support for Palestinian resistance of Israel. The Israelis policy in this case, as is apparent in all other cases, is not for peace but victory over the Palestinians, by eliminating any means of leverage the Palestinians might have over Israel.

You can see the flimsiness of the Israeli position. On the one hand, they would have you believe that the real problem is the Iranians because they are causing all the problems. All of them. But Israel will not work on trying to resolve the Palestinian issue to help with the Iranian issue because the two are not linked. So they are linked, but not linked?

According to the article, Israel would like to argue that this is all moot, because the Palestinians aren’t ready to govern themselves. From Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman,

But it is expected that he would say that such a state was far in the future because Palestinian institutions and economic development required a great deal of work — as well as investment from Arab states — and that Palestinian education and public discourse needed to be more oriented toward coexistence.

Putting aside the naked colonial language, which is frankly hard to swallow, it doesn’t take an astute observer to note that “Palestinian institutions and economic development required a great deal of work” mainly because Israel actively destroys all and any Palestinian progress on either front on a regular basis. Usually with the liberal use of tanks, missiles, guns, and assassins. Which is also why “Palestinian education and public discourse needed to be more oriented toward coexistence.”

Fact of the matter is that before there can be real peace, Palestinians will have to put a stop to violence against Israel. But if Israel is serious about wanting peace, as opposed to trying to dictate peace (which is, of course, not the same thing), then it has to make concessions and compromises too. And so far it hasn’t.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks Israel hasn’t been doing much in the way of compromising or contributing.

The American, European and Arab response is that for Iran to be checked, every nation needs to do its part, and Israel’s part is to work toward ending the occupation, stopping settlement construction and fostering the creation of a Palestinian state.

Israeli negotiating tactic is most reminiscent of North Korean dealings with the rest of the world. They act out like a spoiled child. Then they eventually come whining to negotiations and sign a deal. The rest of the world starts to deliver, but North Korea doesn’t, so the world demands the North do so. They scream and yell they have been insulted, tear up the deal publicly, and demand another deal while trying to keep the benefits they already received in bad faith.

Israel keeps promising they’ll give back other people’s land (the Golan Heights), but only if they get something too. (Kind of like a thief offering to return your car, but only if you pay for it.) They say they’ll stop expanding settlements, and don’t. They say they’ll slow the expansion from their current levels, while accelerating the rate of “current” expansions.

While the world may not like what Hamas and Hezbollah have to say, at least they deal in (relative) good faith.