How big a stick? How big a carrot?

Dennis Prager explains the Left's grip on our courts, education and media. (See 1 below.)

Chodoff asserts Olmert's new pronouncements vis a vis Gaza will fail, will not undercut Hamas' support and is simply a substitution for justified military action. (See 2 below.)

Israel's latest IAF raid on Syria was assisted with information from the US involving N Korea scientists. Whether the attack destroyed a nuclear facility or other type WMD remains unclear. (See 3 below.)

I attended a lecture last night sponsored by the local Council on World Affairs. The presenter was a young scholar named, Nathan Gonzalez who has just written a book entitled: "Engaging Iran." Gonzalez asserts we share many things in common with Iran and must find a way to meet them and focus on these shared views, ie. Iran's population desires to have more freedom and wants to end the repressiveness of their current leaders. Iranian's are predominantly pro-American and Iran would prefer a Shia ruled Iraq in their border. He believes Iran's leaders are dangerous and have cleverly used the umbrella of anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli rhetoric to still Arab leaders fearing backlash from the Arab Street in order to develop their nuclear ambitions.

Any attack on Iran would rally the Iranians round their nation's flag and strengthen their leadership's position and power and thus he urges we renew our efforts at dialogue and in doing so reduce our threat of attack which they obviously fear. Gonzalez also does not believe Iran would attack Israel, ie Jerusalem, and destroy Islam's 3rd holiest site. He further argues Iranians are a proud people and though their government might sponsor terrorists Iranians, themselves, do not resort to bomb-belt tactics.

Gonzalez was rational and made sense except he never explained a nuclear attack on Tel Aviv and the consequences of allowing Iran to gain nuclear capability and what would happen consequently if his more benign views were wrong.

Most wars are a consequence of mis-calculation and judgement of the other side's willingness to fight. Feed a bully and you increase his appetite. Disbelieve his words and you do so at your peril. How big a stick and how big the carrot?

Dick




1) Why the Left has changed journalism, education and the courts
By Dennis Prager

Whether one is on the left or right, it cannot be denied that the left has had an enormous impact on the major institutions of American society — specifically journalism, education and the judiciary.


In every poll I have seen, liberals overwhelm conservatives in academia, including the teachers' colleges, which are quite far left, and in journalism. And few deny the leftward tilt of the Supreme Court for most of the last 40 years.


The question, then, is not whether the left has had such an impact, but why.


I learned a major part of the answer years ago in Idaho where I was the moderator of a panel of judges — including a past California Supreme Court justice — and lawyers connected to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. I asked the panel members to give their view of the role of judges. The response of the liberal former California Supreme Court justice opened my eyes to the left's view of virtually everything in society.


He said that the purpose of a California Supreme Court justice, and for that matter, every judge, is to fight economic inequality and racism in society.


I responded that I thought the one purpose of a judge was to render justice in the courtroom.


I might as well have responded in biblical Hebrew (that's where I got the idea of a judge's role anyway): He and the other liberals on the panel reacted as if I had offered a new and original notion of judges' roles.


Because the left views the purpose of judges as furthering a social agenda that transcends justice in the courtroom, the judicial process has been distorted for decades. Perhaps the best-known example is Roe v. Wade, a decision that even some liberal scholars — such as Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School — have criticized.


In the words of pro-choice liberal Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, "[T]he very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision — the one that grounds abortion rights in the Constitution — strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous. Whatever abortion may be, it cannot simply be a matter of privacy." But for the liberal justices involved, the question was not whether abortion rights are to be found in the Constitution; it was whether or not they wanted to legalize abortion.


The same principle holds true in journalism. There was a time when the primary purpose of journalists was to report the news. That is why they were called "reporters." But for most news people on the left, reporting the news is insignificant compared to changing society for the better, which is the whole point of being a leftist.


This explains why coverage in the mainstream news media is liberal. The New York Times is simply more interested in furthering its social ideals than in reporting news. That is why, to cite just one recent example, the newspaper featured such poor reporting about the Duke lacrosse players who were falsely charged with raping a black woman. The facts suggested the district attorney had trumped up the charges, but The New York Times was less interested in the facts than in portraying rich white Duke athletes as racists.


With regard to education, the same change of purpose has occurred. Until the left took over education, the primary purpose of a teacher was to teach, and to do so as truthfully and apolitically as possible. Today, the primary purpose for very many high school teachers and college professors on the left is to influence students. That is why so many high schools show students Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" (and show nothing that contradicts his thesis). It is more important to influence young people to fight global warming than it is to teach them.


The same holds true for textbooks. Until the left took over education, textbooks were largely chosen on the basis of their clarity and historical accuracy. But for leftist educators, a vital goal of American history texts is to make minority students feel good about themselves. Thus, history can be distorted so as to give as much attention to minorities and women — no matter how much less significant their actual roles in American history — as to white men, who constitute the great majority of the primary figures who shaped American history.


And the situation in universities is even worse. Entire departments — English, sociology, political science, women's studies and African American studies, to name a few — have become leftist laboratories. Their commitment to actual, let alone objective, teaching is minimal. A student is no longer supposed to leave an American university well educated in Western civilization — the primary purpose of a university education throughout American history — but committed to left-wing notions of social justice, economic equality, environmentalism, opposition to American exceptionalism, self-identification as a world citizen rather than as primarily an American, and the like.


Merely teaching is as unimportant to most left-wing teachers and professors as is mere reporting of the news for left-wing journalists or mere rendering of justice to most liberal judges. They regard their professions not as ends but as means — to higher, leftist ends.

2) The Gaza Enemy
By Elliot Chodoff


This past week the Israeli government decided to declare Gaza a "hostile entity," after years of terrorism emanating from that area. Many Israelis felt the decision to be too late by 5-7 years, but on the principle of "better late than never" it was generally well received by the public. There is good reason for this positive reception.

Gaza has been a center of terrorist activity for decades, long before it became Hamastan. In recent years, before and after the Israeli withdrawal in August 2005, rockets and mortar bombs flew out of Gaza at Israeli civilian targets, disrupting lives when not actually taking them. As the rocket makers learn and improve their skills, the early primitive rockets have been gradually replaced with more effective longer range ones. Importation of weapons from other countries, notably Iran, has added further to the terrorists� rocket deployment and capabilities.

Suicide attacks initiated in Gaza cost hundreds of innocent lives, and more would have been lost had the Israeli security services not discovered them and taken appropriate action, either through air strikes or ground operations. Hamas� operational and support center is located in Gaza, but it is by no means the exclusive terrorist organization on the ground. It shares space with Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, the Popular Resistance Committees and a plethora of smaller, lesser known groups as well as Fatah and its spin-offs which still operate out of Hamas-ruled Gaza despite the overthrow some months ago.

Thus, declaring Gaza a "hostile entity" is simply recognition of a longstanding reality. The ramifications of the declaration, including possible reduction of electricity, gasoline, and other supplies currently provided by Israel to the population that elected and supports Hamas, would seem to have few if any ethical issues associated with them. After all, if the children of Sederot are fearful of rocket attacks while in their homes and schools, to say nothing of their streets and playgrounds, the people who support those whose rockets are the cause of this fear should realize that there is a price to be paid for that support.

We are in total agreement with the above sentiment. Nonetheless, the Israeli political and military leadership have chosen the wrong policy by which to actualize that sentiment. Of itself, the "hostile entity" declaration is meaningless. Given that the IDF has been operating in and out of Gaza for years, the declaration adds nothing to the military security aspect of the war with the terrorists. In fact, the declaration comes as a substitute for military action, which the government repeatedly refuses to authorize. It a policy that is doomed to fail and ultimately will backfire.

A reduction in essential supplies and services, such as electricity and gasoline, will indeed make life more difficult for the Palestinian residents of Gaza. If the policy purpose were purely tit for tat or revenge, this would certainly be effective. But if the objective is to reduce popular support for terrorism in general and Hamas in particular, it simply won't work that way.

Terrorist organizations are not easily coerced, if at all, by threats to the population, even of their supporters. In the absence of a true central government, it is simply too easy for them to lay the blame at the doorstep of the enemy or another organization. Here�s how it will work in Gaza:

Hamas will alternatively blame Israel, Fatah, and the other Gaza terrorist organizations for the suffering of the population. Israel, because, in addition to cutting off supplies, it represents all that is evil in the world; Fatah, because it is collaborating with Israel and the Great Satan USA (Hamas can argue, with some justification, that when Fatah was in control of Gaza there was just as much if not more terrorist activity, and no declaration of hostility � there must be a conspiracy in there somewhere); and Islamic Jihad et al. because they are really the ones firing the rockets, not Hamas (wink, wink).

The Israeli leadership must also be aware of the fact that the Palestinian population will suffer a great deal before capitulating and removing Hamas, if it ever does. In the meantime, support for Hamas will grow, international pressure will build on Israel to relieve the humanitarian plight of the Palestinians, and the policy will collapse without achieving its objectives. This failure will leave Israel worse off in the eyes of the world and the terrorists, of only for having been foolish enough to initiate a policy that was so clearly doomed to fail from the outset.

It is perfectly understandable that the Israeli leadership seeks a policy substitute for large scale military action in Gaza, especially after its por decision making performance against Hizbullah last year. Unfortunately it will find that the only way to eliminate terrorism is to eliminate terrorists. And f they are not willing to go away quietly of their own accord, it will be left to the IDF to do the job. The only question that remains is how long it will take before the government comes to this conclusion, and how many innocents will be killed and maimed along the way.

3) Report: Syria, North Korea hold high-level talks in Pyongyang


North Korea and Syria held high-level talks Friday in Pyongyang, the North's state media reported, amid suspicions that the two countries might be cooperating on a nuclear weapons program.

The talks took place between Choe Tae Bok, secretary of the Central Committee of the North's ruling Workers' Party, and Saaeed Eleia Dawood, director of the organizational department of Syria's Baath Arab Socialist Party, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

The two sides discussed ways of improving friendship and cooperation and other issues of bilateral interest, KCNA said, without elaborating.

U.S. government sources have said that Israel shared intelligence information with the Bush Administration this summer indicating that North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, the Washington Post reported Friday.

According to the report, the sources said the White House was deeply concerned by the possibility that North Korea was assisting the nuclear ambitions of a country closely linked with Iran.

The newspaper reported that the sources said, however, that Bush opted against an immediate response due to fears it would undermine negotiations with Pyongyang aimed at securing the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program.

The sources reportedly said the United States is believed to have provided Israel with some corroboration of the original intelligence, prior to an alleged Israel Air Force strike on Syria earlier this month.

According to reports in the American and British media, the target of the alleged strike was a nuclear facility built with North Korea's assistance.

Syria has said IAF planes violated its airspace and fired missiles at targets on the ground, but both Damascus and Pyongyang have vehemently denied the reports of nuclear cooperation.

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. sources said the IAF strike was carried out in the middle of the night in order to minimize potential casualties.

The report stated that the quality of the intelligence, which included satellite imagery, is uncertain, as is the extent of North Korean assistance and the seriousness of the Syrian effort.

The Washington Post said this uncertainty raises the possibility that North Korea was merely unloading items it no longer needed, adding that Syria has actively pursued chemical weapons in the past but not nuclear arms. The newspaper said that some proliferation experts are thus "skeptical of the intelligence that prompted Israel's attack."

The newspaper also quoted Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence officer at Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, as saying "There is no question it was a major raid."

"It was an extremely important target," the report quoted Riedel as saying. "It came at a time the Israelis were very concerned about war with Syria and wanted to dampen down the prospects of war. The decision was taken despite their concerns it could produce a war. That decision reflects how important this target was to Israeli military planners."

Israel has long known about Syria's interest in chemical and even biological weapons, but "if Syria decided to go beyond that, Israel would think that was a real red line," Riedel told the Washington Post.

The Washington Post, which had previously reported that the alleged air strike occurred three days after a North Korean ship docked at the Syrian port of Tartous, said Friday that the "ship's role remains obscure."

"Israeli sources have suggested it carried nuclear equipment," the paper wrote. "Others have maintained that it contained only missile parts, and some have said the ship's arrival and the attack are merely coincidental. One source suggested that Israel's attack was prompted by a fear of media leaks on the intelligence."

Ronen Solomon, who searches information in the public domain for companies, told Haaretz recently that Online databases tracking the ship had altered their records following a report in The Washington Post linking it to the reported air strike.

U.S. President George W. Bush refused to comment Thursday on reports of an IAF strike in Syria, but said he expects North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program and not allow other countries to gain its know-how on producing such technology and weapons. (For more, click here to watch Haaretz.com TV)

"We expect them to honor their commitment to give up weapons and weapons programs," Bush said during a news conference. "To the extent that they are proliferating, we expect them to stop their proliferation."