Toluu : http://tonykaron.com/feed/

http://tonykaron.com/feed/

Analysis and commentary by Tony Karon

An unremarkable op ed in the LA Times that trots out Israel’s boilerplate arguments that bombing the crap out of Gaza is actually an attack on Iran, was penned by Yossi Klein Halevy and Michael Oren. What is remarkable, though, is that Oren, AIPAC’s favorite historian, is listed simply as “a distinguished fellow at the Shalem Center and a professor at the foreign service school of Georgetown University.” What they forgot to note, of course, is that Oren is currently in Gaza, in the uniform of the Israeli Defense Force, in which he is a reserve officer whose current duty is as a media officer working to shape perceptions of the Gaza operation. I’d have thought that should have been made clear.

‘Legimitizing’ HamasJanuary 2

Tzipi Livni says Israel can’t have a cease-fire with Hamas because that would “legitimize” the organization. Actually, Hamas’ legitimacy is beyond question, having been democratically elected to govern the Palestinians in 2006. And Israel knows it will eventually have to talk to the organization — indeed, it already has been; that’s why there was a cease-fire from June to December. If Israel was to confine its negotiation efforts to those it considers “legitimate,” it would have to negotiate a cease-fire with Abu Mazen. Which would be pointless, of course, because Abu Mazen has longsince retired from the business of confronting Israel. (Then again, rewind the clock 20 years, and Livni and her ilk were saying you couldn’t negotiate with Abu Mazen, either, because that would “legitimize” him…)

Jonathan Alter is an IdiotDecember 31 2008

Never mind the stuff he’s spewing on TV about the Middle East (and I’ve been meaning to make this point ever since I read one of those vacuous evasions he wrote about Israel and the apartheid question), but I couldn’t help wonder how he can say things like this priceless line from his Newsweek encomium to the Clintons:

“If Obama decides to deploy him properly, Bill Clinton will be a terrific troubleshooter, perhaps in tandem once again with his old rival, George H.W. Bush. He could pick up in the Middle East where he left off in 2000, except this time the main obstacle to peace—Yasir Arafat—is dead.”

Uh, dude, you need to recycle your propaganda lines sometimes. That may have been the Israeli spin dutifully put out by Clinton after Camp David in a craven (but vain) attempt to bolster the electoral credentials of the clownish Ehud Barak, but don’t you think that, eight years later, a war raging, that you sound more than a little stupid saying that the main obstacle to peace is a man who died years ago? Or have they just forgotten to give you the new spin talking points?

Understanding GazaDecember 31 2008

It’s fear of another Holocaust that has driven Israel to bomb the crap out of the Palestinians in Gaza — at least, that’s if you believe what you read on the New York Times op ed page. (Never a good idea, of course, because as I’ve previously noted, when it comes to Israel and related fear-mongering, there simply is no hysteria deemed unworthy of the Times op ed page.)

Morris, a manic fellow at the best of times prone to intellectual mood swings — having laid bare the ethnic cleansing that created modern Israel, Morris then didn’t as much recant as complain that the problem was that Ben Gurion hadn’t finished the job. And since the 2000 debacle at Camp David, of course, he’s been a de facto editorial writer for Ehud Barak, the failed former Prime Minister nicknamed “Mr. Zig-Zag” while in office because of his inconsistency — and who, of course, is the author of the current operation in Gaza.

Barak, never shy about spewing utter rubbish when his audience is American and prone to be taken in by dem

Rambo III and the Mumbai MassacreDecember 6 2008

This from my latest in the National:

If Condoleezza Rice had been looking for some in-flight movies pertinent to her mission in South Asia over the past few days, she ought to have considered Rambo III. Or Pinocchio. Or Frankenstein. Aladdin, even.

All four could help explain the background to the Mumbai massacre that has brought India and Pakistan to the brink of confrontation. Pinocchio and Frankenstein, after all, are cautionary tales about how those who fabricate creatures to do their bidding are often forced to reckon with the often vindictive impulses of their creations. Aladdin unleashes a genie who has his own agenda. And Rambo III, in which Sylvester Stallone’s action-hero joins up with the Afghan mujahideen to fight the Soviets (just like a certain Mr Bin Laden) should serve as a timely reminder that support for holy warriors waging jihad had been an article of faith in Ronald Reagan’s Washington.

Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, had served as the conduit for Washington to use the Afghan mujahideen and the Arab volunteers who joined them, to wage a proxy war on the Soviets. And from the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 to the 9/11 attacks, the monster created by assembling an Islamist Intern