Obama The Unilateralist? Wonders Never Cease!

Obama tells Olmert he wants to meet with Iran to legitimize his actions in the event they do not cease their march toward nuclear arms. Does this mean he has become a unilateralist? I thought that was a bad word in Democrat circles. (See 1 below.)

Diskin warns that Israel can no long say boo with any credibility and thus will pay a higher price in the future. Diskin's hard nosed assessment is a must read. (See 2 below.)

Kyle-Anne Shiver writes a scathing indictment and terms it the Obama Bubble. Shiver takes off the gloves, pulls no punches and in doing so is trying, like Paul Revere, to awake the voters from their self-imposed somnolent torpor. A very compelling piece of writing.(See 3 below.)

Another realist, departing Amb. Dan Gillerman, speaks his mind about UNFIL 2 the U.N. next fraud. Gillerman is Israel's equivalent of John Bolton in that he understands a failure when he sees it and is outspoken about it.(See 4 below.)

Mitch Albom discusses the recent exchange of two dead IDF soldier for Hezballah terrorists.

Earlier today I bumped into a friend, a former Israeli who fought in an elite IDF unit, came to this country as a doctor and is now retired. He reads my memos and believes Israel was right in seeking their soldiers back. He bases his view on moral grounds. My friend is no left wing chicken. He is a very caring man who has saved many lives and just believes Israel and Olmert had no choice and did what was right.

I disagree with him but respect his viewpoint. I fear the recent prisoner swap was another, more public, display of Israeli weakness as viewed through the prism of Israel's many radical enemies, that it will not stop further terrorist attempts to capture more soldiers and in fact will encourage them.

When we let killers out of jail invariably they kill again. Seldom are they redeemed while in prison. In fact, they are frequently hardened by the experience. (See 5 below.)

Even scratchy voiced Susan Estrich, is having second thoughts about the press and media's love affair with our new emperor. She highlights three pitfalls and suggests what is not be asked now will come around later. (See 6 below.)

Is a leading Democrat populist about to become popular in ways that he never planned? The National Enquirer ain't the most reliable source but frankly when it comes to holier than thou politicians nothing would surprise me.(See 7 below.)

Historian Victor Davis Hanson, writes: 'we just can't shake them '60's.' (See 8 below.)


Have a great weekend.

Dick

1) Obama to PM: Talks with Iran necessary to legitimize action
By Barak Ravid and Jack Khoury

Near the close of his visit to Israel on Wednesday, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. A major topic of their long conversation was Obama's declared willingness to engage in direct dialogue with Tehran.

Obama reportedly told Olmert that he is interested in meeting the Iranians in order to issue clear ultimatums. "If after that, they still show no willingness to change their nuclear policy, then any action against them would be legitimate," an Israeli source quoted him as saying.

Obama said it is clear that the Iranian nuclear issue will be a top priority for him as president, but said that as part of the diplomatic effort to end Tehran's enrichment program, the Iranians must be given an opportunity to change.

The presumptive nominee also emphasized the importance of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He said he had been impressed by the Palestinians' assessment that there has been substantial progress in the talks.

Obama also met with Noam Shalit, whose son Gilad has been held captive in the Gaza Strip for over two years, as well as with the Goldwasser and Regev families. Shalit said Obama sympathized with the family and its public struggle to bring Gilad home. He declined to comment on whether Obama would intervene personally in talks for his son's release.

2) Shin Bet head Diskin: Cease-fire with Hamas unlikely to hold
By Amos Harel


A seven-minute ride from Talansky, a minute's walk from Obama, the murderous tractor driver who launched his attack on Tuesday afternoon in central Jerusalem provided a reminder from real life. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not going anywhere in the near future. The day after the terrorist attack, the newspapers gave prominence to what was said by Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet security service, at a briefing he gave to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee some two hours before the bulldozer attack. Diskin's forecast about there being copycats of the first "tractor terrorist," like his fierce criticism of the lack of law-enforcement and deterrence in East Jerusalem, were viewed as a prophecy that fulfilled itself at lightning speed. The small but well-oiled media section of the Shin Bet succeeded in presenting its performance, which at the bottom line was a failure to prevent a terror attack, as a near success.

Unlike his predecessor, Avi Dichter, Diskin appears very sparingly at meetings or forums in which his remarks can reach the general public. His remarks to the Knesset members therefore present a rare opportunity to understand the head of the service's world view. And the world according to Diskin is far from a friendly one: Fatah is weak, Hamas is gaining strength, Israel's deterrent powers are at a low ebb. More than a month after the declaration of the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, Diskin admits that the tahadiyeh is stable. All those involved have an interest in its continuing, he says, and Hamas' influence on the other factions in the Strip is very great. Hamas sought the lull mainly because it was under pressure on account of the distress of the Palestinian public.

The sanctions that Israel imposed on the delivery of gasoline were a salient example. The residents of Gaza stopped driving their cars and the fact that it was only Hamas men who had enough gas to enable them to continue driving around, for the first time made them look corrupt. As an ideological and social movement, Hamas is considered to be in critical need of public support. It is also interested now in consolidating its power base in the Strip and in increasing its military strength. It has no interest in an immediate military confrontation with Israel at this point.

In agreeing to the cease-fire, Diskin believes, Israel extended a lifeline to Hamas. "We are not attacking them and we have lifted the blockade, while they have not taken upon themselves a commitment to stop their arms buildup. From the point of view of Hamas, it is the winner in the conflict, as the side that managed to hold its ground during the Israeli blockade. The lull in fighting is depicted as an impressive achievement for it." For its part, Israel is getting a temporary calm but, he says, "this is in fact an illusion. In our assessment, the rocket firing will start again at some point in the future."

In general, Diskin says, "our situation is extremely problematic in the struggle against radical Islam." He mentions a series of events in the past three years: the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Hamas' gaining of control of the government in Gaza, the Second Lebanon War, and now the cease-fire. "The events of the past three years have been a real blow to Israel's deterrent ability. Since Hamas came to power, the level of Palestinian daring against us has risen. That is the result of the erosion of our status."

Let us assume, Diskin continues, that Israel manages to arrive at an agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). We will have to make progress with the peace process while we have one leg stuck in the Gaza Strip and the other in the West Bank. The PA will not fight against Hamas. Hamas is stronger than Fatah, and if a joint "government of experts" is set up, its status will increase even more. Had Israel not arrested, after Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, Hamas' parliament members and ministers in the West Bank, Fatah would no longer be in charge of the PA in the West Bank.

Zero-sum game

Hamas has no intention of becoming more flexible about long-term issues vis-a-vis Israel, the Shin Bet head believes. Any flexibility it shows will be tactical. "For them the entire area of the Land of Israel is waqf [holy Muslim] land. In the future, they want to set up an Islamic caliphate here. From their point of view, it is a zero-sum game - them or us. A religious movement doesn't change its ideology."

Diskin expresses support for a deal for the release of Shalit, but not at any price. "We have to get Gilad Shalit back but not at the cost of killing dozens of innocent people. I am in favor of a deal, but a sane deal." After any agreement, Israel will have to reexamine very thoroughly the rules by which it exchanges prisoners of war. He opposes freeing "Young" Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti from prison, "but if the government decides to release him, it is best that this be done as a gesture to Abu Mazen rather than as part of a deal with Hamas." Unlike others, the Shin Bet head does not predict a great future for Barghouti outside the prison walls. "After the euphoria and the celebration [among Palestinians] over his release, we do not believe that Barghouti will play a crucial role in the arena."

East Jerusalem as the spearhead

In view of the great difficulty of fighting terror born and bred in East Jerusalem, it is not just the Shin Bet head who supports the idea of destroying terrorists' homes. The prime minister and defense minister are also in favor. It sounds simpler and more convincing than the alternatives - increasing the surveillance of a population of some 200,000, carrying out security checks of (for example) hundreds of Palestinian bulldozer drivers, and restricting freedom of movement among East Jerusalem residents bearing blue Israeli identity cards.

Major general Miki Levy, the (successful) commander of the Jerusalem District police when the terrorist bombings of the second intifada were at their height, explained this week that it was the razing of houses that saved Jerusalem. In 2002, he said in an interview with Army Radio, we proposed destroying the homes of members of the so-called Silwan unit of Hamas, which was responsible for the murder of dozens of Israelis. The political echelons wavered, but finally they accepted the point of view of the police and the Shin Bet. "Since then, we have had six years of quiet, until now."

The facts are somewhat different. In the year and a half following the destruction of the homes of the Silwan terrorists, in January 2003, there were another seven suicide bombings in Jerusalem, in which 75 Israelis were killed. Only then was a relative calm established, which held for three and a half years. Terror attacks in Jerusalem were halted thanks to the tremendous efforts made by the Shin Bet and the Israel Defense Forces, which managed to almost totally uproot the murderous terror networks of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah. It is these networks that sent most of the suicide bombers to Jerusalem, where they were assisted by local Arabs, who let them sleep over there and then transported them to the scene of the crime. They were brought under control only as a result of innumerable nighttime arrests and long hours of interrogation by the Shin Bet. The establishment of the separation fence, which made it more difficult (in some parts) to reach Jerusalem from the West Bank played a part too.

In the present round, the East Jerusalemites are the spearhead, the executors themselves. It is not at all clear that there was an organization behind the past six month's three suicide attacks in central Jerusalem. All the same, the closeness of the past three attacks now begins to seem like more than a mere statistical coincidence. One of the directions that will have to be checked is whether the three terrorists - the attacker at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and the two bulldozer drivers - knew one another.Ibrahim Hamad, the head of the Silwan unit and the commander of the armed wing of Hamas in Ramallah who was arrested at the beginning of 2006, was a great believer in sleeper cells. Who knows what he left behind him when he was arrested?

Will destroying terrorists' homes again increase Israel's deterrent powers, if only in East Jerusalem? It is difficult to prove that empirically. Shin Bet and army officers who are asked for their opinion on this controversial issue always point to events that occurred some years ago, when Palestinian fathers reported their sons' intentions to the authorities for fear that the army would destroy the family's home as a punishment for the son's suicide bombing. But here too there are no more than 20 documented cases, and the question is always raised whether the destruction of a house is not the opening shot for the career of yet another terrorist.

Major General Udi Shani, who headed the committee that at the beginning of 2005 recommended to then chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon ceasing the practice of destroying the homes of terrorists, enlisted the help of writers and academic experts in preparing his report. The Shani committee stated that the damage caused by knocking down houses was greater than the value yielded by the practice, and that it had not been proven that it indeed deterred terrorists. So long as the trend is that terror is being thwarted, Shani said at that time, it is better to avoid destroying houses. If we find that we are in the midst of a new wave of suicide bombings, it is always possible to reconsider.

Ya'alon accepted the conclusions, even if they did not please him. Diskin thinks differently, but he has not yet produced decisive arguments in support of his stand.

Refighting the Lebanon war

Lebanon, too, is now a central concern for the top security echelons. There are officers in the General Staff who recommend putting an end to restraint and sending "military signals" to the adversary, especially against the backdrop of reports in the Arab media about Hebollah setting up advanced anti-aircraft batteries in the Lebanese mountains. The head of Military Intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, said at the cabinet meeting this week that, with the completion of the prisoner-swap deal, Hezbollah could be expected to try and carry out an attack along the northern border as early as this summer. Yadlin explained that from the organization's point of view, there are still some "open files" that could constitute a pretext for an attack: the assassination last February of its leader, Imad Mughniyeh, and the fate of the Shaba Farms and the village of Maghar. In the last General Staff exercise, which took place in May, as at the meetings of the General Staff, there were profound professional arguments - does Israel have a large enough order of battle, in case of need, to conduct an attack on two fronts, the Syrian and the Lebanese? To what depth would a maneuvering force have to penetrate in order to achieve a decisive win over the enemy? Does the IDF have sufficient firepower at its disposal in view of the missions it might have to face in the North? (Major General Moshe Ivri-Sukenik, who was head of the Northern Corps until the beginning of the year, believed that the answer was negative, and expressed vehement criticism of the situation). Following the war in Lebanon, the accepted wisdom among IDF officers and academic experts was that one of the worst mistakes in that conflict was the decision to hold back the entry of ground forces into Lebanon and the presumption that it was possible to solve the problem of the Katyushas by more and more aerial bombing. Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi hints that with him, things would be handled completely differently. And indeed, analysts believe that Ashkenazi, unlike his predecessor, Dan Halutz, has a thorough understanding of ground warfare and therefore would not hesitate to send forces deep into the field. However, when the question of what should have been is addressed to a number of senior officers, one hears contradictory responses. Some speak about flanking and encircling South Lebanon (in the spirit of the plan proposed by cabinet minister Shaul Mofaz toward the end of the war, a plan that the government refrained from approving). Others believe that there is no way to avoid a systematic hunt, house after house, and cell after cell. And there are some who return to the air force option, even though this approach failed in the war.

One senior officer says that it is clear that in the next round, ground forces will be employed "so as to take a maximum number of civilians out of the range of the Katyushas," but that such a move would not be the way to win the battle. "We must not discount the short-range rockets but we must also not exaggerate. A great deal depends on how well we know how to protect ourselves and on responsible behavior on the home front. In the end, the real result will depend on something else - on our ability to deter the other side and to create destruction there on a scope that will force them to stop." Another senior officer, from the field corps, touches on a sensitive spot: "It is easy to say that next time we'll send in the ground forces," he says. "What is not mentioned is the price. A government that decides on a move like that has to know that it will entail the loss of many soldiers' lives. Even after what we experienced in Lebanon, I can't see a government in Israel today making a decision of that kind without hesitating over the matter for a few days."

3) The Bubble of Obama Supremacy
By Kyle-Anne Shiver

‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.'
--The Gospel of Matthew 25:23 (New American Bible) Parable of the Talents

America is a unique country. We are the new world, not the old. We elect leaders in a reasonable step-by-step fashion, honoring lifetimes of experience and wisdom, proven abilities to do the job, much in keeping with Jesus' parable of the talents. Once a person proves capable at the small job, we give him a whack at a bigger one.

It's the American way.

Our Founders were wise to dump European monarchy in favor of government of the people, by the people and for the people. And because of our Founders' direct experience with capricious rulers, American tradition has shied away, in every generation, from putting our leaders upon larger-than-life pedestals.

Hero worship of politicians just reeks of old-world kingdoms, and thus produces visceral disgust among Americans.

As Herbert Spencer so wisely noted, "Hero worship is greatest where there is least regard for freedom."

And that's just not us, is it? We revere freedom too much to indulge in hero worship of our leaders

As Americans, we honor reasoned discourse, and spurn emotionalism in our elections.

As Americans, we honor accomplishment, not birthright.

As Americans, we listen, consider and carefully elect.

We don't fawn and follow. We don't faint. And we don't coronate.

So, how has it come to pass that we now have a mere candidate for the Presidency of our United States of America, who is being received upon foreign shores as though he were not only already our President, but also our king?

Barack Obama is an American anomaly. An enigma. An aberration.

* Never in American history has a man with so pitifully little on his resume received such adoration.

* Never in American history has a candidate had the temerity to mimic our Presidential seal and place it upon his podium.

* Never in American history has a mere interviewee deigned to write the rules for our interview.

* Never in American history has a mere candidate had the gall to travel abroad with a press corps and secret service in tow to give "fake press interviews" for manipulated "news" coverage.

* Never in American history has so little respect been given to our electoral process.


The whole disgusting spectacle just smacks of old-world Europe, those folks so quick to hail a Bonaparte or a Hitler.

And sadly, oh-so-sadly, the comparisons don't stop with the fawning masses surrounding our audacious whippersnapper, Obama.

Two Dealers in Hope

A leader is a dealer in hope.
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte is not one of my personal favorites, as historical leaders go, and it's really quite interesting that a guy, who seized power through a military coup d'etat put so much stock in the old diabolical lure of souls, hope, when one might presume that he could have just as easily relied on bully force alone to motivate his people.

And, of course, Napoleon's purpose was nearly the perfect opposite of Obama's. Napoleon wanted to conquer the world for France. Obama wants to take American sovereignty and submit it to the whims of the global community. Opposite ends, employing the same old tacky lure.

"What if," says an Obama ad, "there was hope instead of fear?" Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope is, not surprisingly, a portrait of utter despair and hopelessness, the kind aspiring rulers usually paint just before they offer themselves as the cure.

In Obama's America, as presented in his own written words, our Country is in dire need of a new era, abundant "change" to fix our "broken souls," to fill up that "hole" in our lives.

What do Americans want, according to our new sage, Barack Obama?

"They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives, something that will relieve a chronic loneliness or lift them above the exhausting, relentless toll of daily life. They need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them -- that they are not just destined to travel down a long highway toward nothingness."


I'm not sure which to reach for here, my hanky or my Pepto Bismol.

Ah, but we should not fear, little ones, for Barack is here. And he brings on his starlit wings and with his rising sun...hope.

And for generations to come, we shall remember Barack's coronation (or is that inauguration?) as the "moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal..."

Who does this man think he is?

If I were going to put my hope in a mere mortal, I certainly would not invest such a precious commodity in a man who took taxpayer money for a state senator's job and voted "present" 130 times, any more than I would give the title "valedictorian" to the student with the worst attendance record.

I would not put my hope in a man who promised his district's poor better housing and then got in bed with a slumlord, a man who used taxpayer funds to produce rat-infested, uninhabitable dwellings instead.

I would never, ever put my hope for the whole country, much less for the entire planet, in the hands of a man who could not even change one racist preacher's mind or convince a single Chicago neighborhood to forego gang warfare for honest work.

Barack Obama is riding within the biggest fantasy bubble this side of Oz.

Another Inconvenient Truth

The cry of "change" has been used by demagogues and revolutionaries throughout history, as they fan discontent. The worst of the lot was a European who brought his political party to power using the same ephemeral change mantra as Obama's.

Adolf Hitler plastered early 1930s Germany with posters declaring his noble democratic socialist intentions:

Peace and equal rights.
All must be different.


However, Adolf Hitler's notions of peace and equal rights turned out to be quite different than those of the rest of the civilized world. And his quaint, little slogan, All must be different, certainly produced different results, but they weren't exactly pleasing to all the Jews, nor to the Christians, who learned sadly after the fact, that for Hitler, different meant replacing Christ with himself.

Of course nobody is accusing Obama of being another Hitler here. But I have always looked askance at those who sell dreams of "change." So, when Obama emblazons everything within his grasp, including his super jet:

Change you can believe in

he seems to be calling out to those mortal-worshiping Europeans in a voice to which they can certainly relate, but in America those open-ended declarations from power-seekers tend to fall upon deaf ears. Americans traditionally are extremely skeptical of such messianic claims.

So, what to make of Obama's appearance this week before fawning European masses at Berlin's Victory Column, planted where it is by Hitler's architect Albert Speer as the central focal point of Imperial Berlin, to be renmed "Germania."

Poor planning perhaps. Horrible judgment, certainly, at least in the eyes of most Americans.

Nevertheless, while the Europeans fawn and faint for Obama this week, Americans sit on the other side of the Pond, wondering when someone will have the guts to call attention to the fact that the "Emperor's clothes" might not be all we've been told to believe.

A European Mindset Inflating Obama's Bubble: George Soros

After spending 25 million dollars in his "life or death" mission to defeat President Bush in 2004, and coming up with nothing but a souvenir Kerry t-shirt, George Soros is apparently pulling out all the stops this year. And Barack Obama is his man.

Soros, a Hungarian-born naturalized American citizen, prides himself in being able to speculate on currencies and reap astronomical profits. Since the early 90s, he has become increasingly involved in global politics, especially in his adopted country, our U.S. of A. He bought Obama stock early on, by contributing heftily to Obama's 2004 Senate campaign, then as a personal presidential backer.

And when Soros talks, Democrats listen. He has become their number one financier, and his pockets are 7-billion-dollars deep.

Soros, however, does not seem to believe in the nation-state concept and has been pushing with all his monetary might for a system of global governance, with global taxation powers, in which he and his power-broker comrades could better do their "good deeds," without the hindrance of those pesky things like borders, national constitutions, and individual defense interests.

Soros also owns more than 250 global publishing outlets, which are fed storylines from his Open Society Institute. Soros' political presence is shadowy, but if one looks closely, one cannot miss the emanations and penumbras of his backing of Obama's campaign.

When the Jeremiah Wright affair was exploding in his candidate's face, with a reluctant mainstream media finally forced to show the pastor's racist rants, while YouTube Wright snippets were wracking up hits so fast that it looked as though Obama's boat might sink, Bill Moyers did a one-on-one interview with Wright to let him explain himself. Moyers is a former trustee of the Open Society Institute, and one of Soros' "closest confidants and political collaborators." (David Horowitz and Richard Poe; Shadow Party; p. 240)

Moyers is also infamous for his remark on the Charlie Rose show, 2004 election night:

"I think if Kerry were to win this in a tight race, I think there'd be an effort to mount a coup, quite frankly."


When asked by Rose to explain what he meant by "coup," Moyers replied,

"I mean that the right wing is not going to accept it."


Americans get disappointed; Europeans mount coups.

When Wesley Clark, the Democrats' favorite retired army general, attacked John McCain's "qualifications" for the Presidency, especially his military credentials, our watchdog mainstream media seems not to have thought it relevant to point out that Wesley Clark currently sits on the board of another of Soros' groups: The International Crisis Group. Soros, in addition to heavily funding the group, also sits on the Board with Clark, as do some other Obama "people," Samantha Power and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Richard Armitage, the leaker of Valerie Plame's name, is also a member, as is Kofi Annan.

Barack Obama may be an upstart with a flimsy resume, but he travels in some very fancy circles, especially among those who adore Europe and truly wish America were much more like her.

Unfortunately, for Soros, his European mindset and his European-style game plan for Obama, his candidate, Americans tend to think of Europe as a nice place to visit, but not many of us really want to live there.

Soros has done all in his power to burst what he calls the "Bubble of American Supremacy," but so far, our economy has proved too resilient and our people too attached to our way of life, our freedom and our sovereignty.

Soros is betting on this Obama bubble of inevitability, the inflation of which has been helped so much by Soros' own machinations.

I'm betting on America.

4) Gillerman: UNIFIL failures may set stage for new conflict
By MICHAL LANDO and YAAKOV KATZ


UNIFIL soldiers assigned to maintain the cease-fire that ended the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006 are not carrying out their mandate and are potentially laying the groundwork for another round of violence between Israel and Hizbullah, Israel's outgoing UN ambassador Danny Gillerman has told The Jerusalem Post.


In a parting interview, Gillerman, who has served in the sensitive position for the past six years, had harsh words for the UN's failed implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701, which brought the war to an end on terms, he said, that should have constituted an achievement for Israel.

"They [UNIFIL] should be much more proactive - more aggressive in going after Hizbullah - in detecting [and] identifying arms depots. They should be going in there, not just relying on Lebanese armed forces to do so, who often work in collusion with Hizbullah," he said.

"The UNIFIL soldiers were not sent there to give out chocolates to children or write traffic tickets. They were sent there to carry out a mandate which was very clearly defined, and they are not [doing so]. By not doing it, they may be laying the groundwork for the next flare-up. So even in their own interest and for their safety, they should be more proactive and go after Hizbullah, and find a way to control the Israeli-Syrian border."

Gillerman said he had brought up his "very grave concerns" about the situation with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. He said the Israeli government had made a concerted effort to persuade the UN leadership to take a more assertive approach to the UNIFIL troops' nonimplementation of Resolution 1701.

"We have brought in experts, brought in generals, briefed them on the situation - they know exactly what is happening. We are not even asking them to change the mandate or the rules of operation, because that would mean opening the whole thing today, and God knows where you will end up. But within the mandate as it stands today, they can do much more and be more effective, and if they don't, they will have to regret it," he said.

"Resolution 1701 was perceived as a major diplomatic achievement for Israel, because in previous wars, while we did have resounding and outright victories on ground, they were never followed by political or diplomatic achievements. Here, while we may not have had a resounding victory on the ground, we did have a very significant diplomatic achievement, which not only put an end to the war, but also had elements of dramatically changing the situation on the ground.

"It brought in 30,000 soldiers to southern Lebanon, including 15,000 Lebanese armed forces who had never set foot there - that's totally new - and 15,000 international soldiers under UN mandate, some very highly skilled and well-trained, which created a new situation in southern Lebanon.

"Until July 12, 2006, southern Lebanon was Hizbullah territory - a state within a state. Hizbullah could do whatever it wanted out in the open, and no Lebanese soldier would dare venture [in]. All of a sudden, there were 30,000 soldiers there," Gillerman said.

Yet frequent Israeli reports state that Hizbullah has used the two years since the war to arm itself to a much larger extent than it had in the six years after Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.

"Resolution 1701 was supposed to limit [the] actions of Hizbullah, and prevent it from rearming," said Gillerman. "It did not achieve that. Hizbullah today has rearmed to the point that it is possibly even better equipped than it was before the war. The resolution also imposed an embargo on arms shipments to militias in Lebanon - namely Hizbullah - which was a huge achievement, but that wasn't implemented either.

"1701 also demanded the immediate release of [reservists] Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, who, tragically, were returned two years later in coffins. So the implementation of 1701 is far from satisfactory. In fact, it's very disappointing. But the elements were there, and still are.

"One of the things I keep telling the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and others is that it is up to them to implement it. It is the Security Council who passed it, and the Security Council cannot afford for it to be just another piece of paper because, in the end, when there is another flare-up in Lebanon, and there very well may be, the UN will be to blame, because they sent those forces there, drafted the resolution and at the end nothing came of it," Gillerman said.

UNIFIL sources told the Post that while they were familiar with such criticism from Gillerman, the UN force had not received any official objections to the way it was operating and implementing its mandate.

One official said that UNIFIL had recently received letters of gratitude from Israel and Lebanon, thanking the peacekeeping force for implementing its mandate and operating against Hizbullah in southern Lebanon.

"We read this criticism in the press," the official said. "But no one has filed a complaint about this on an official level."

While Gillerman's criticism is shared by many in the defense establishment, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak - who recently said publicly that 1701 had "collapsed" - officers in the IDF Northern Command are less critical, and in recent briefings have said that Israel is "far better off with UNIFIL than without."

The explanation for this discrepancy stems from the fact that the IDF - and not the diplomatic echelon - is in charge of relations with UNIFIL. IDF Strategic and Foreign Liaison Department head Brig.-Gen. Yossi Heiman holds monthly meetings with UNIFIL commander Maj.-Gen. Claudio Graziano and a representative of the Lebanese Armed Forces.

5) A grim exchange illustrates a key difference
By Mitch Albom



It seemed such a ghastly trade, flesh and blood for two boxes of bones. Many criticized it. Some could not bear to watch it. But if anything showed the difference between Israel and Hezbollah in last week's exchange of two dead Israeli soldiers for five live prisoners and 199 corpses, it was not the trade itself.


It was the reaction.


In Israel, where the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev arrived in black coffins, the mood was, according to reports, somber and mournful. Candles were lit. Prayers were recited. These two young soldiers, both students and reservists at the time, were captured in a cross-border raid two years ago by Hezbollah guerrillas, setting off a small war that ultimately left 160 Israelis and 1000 Lebanese dead.


Because the Israeli military vows to never leave a soldier on the battlefield, negotiations were held to get the two men back, even though most believed they were dead. Hezbollah, which captured the two men to use them as bargaining chips, held firm to its demand that Israel free several prisoners, including one named Samir Kuntar.


Not Kuntar, many Israelis said. He was serving life sentences for murdering three people in 1979: a police officer, a civilian named Danny Haran, and Haran's four year-old daughter, whose head Kuntar smashed on rocks and with his rifle butt. Haran's wife, hiding her other baby from Kuntar, covered her mouth to stop her whimpering. The child suffocated.


Kuntar's killings were regarded in Israel as the most brutal form of terrorism. The thought of freeing him went against every fiber of justice.


But last week, after almost 30 years behind bars, Kuntar was allowed to go by the Israeli authorities. And on Wednesday, he walked down a red carpet in Beirut and was kissed by the Hezbollah leader and cheered like a rock star.



"Samir! Samir!" the crowd reportedly yelled. This for a man convicted of smashing a child's head into pieces.


You can take whatever side you like in the Israeli-Palestinian debate. You can argue who is entitled to land and statehood and borders.


But you cannot defend the frenzied lovefest that took place for Kuntar in Lebanon, as if he were some long-lost statesmen, instead of a common murderer who did the worst thing you can do: take the life of a child. What religion condones that? What holy book says that is a good thing? A banner in Beirut, according to the New York Times, read "G-d's Achievement Through Our Hands."


What G-d would have a child's murder on anyone's hands? How do people celebrate such a killer?


Is it because the little girl was Israeli — and Israel is the enemy? Since when does a 4-year-old know of politics or war? Is it because Arab children get killed by Israelis? Yes, children undeniably die in bombings — on both sides. But an Israeli soldier who deliberately smashed a child's head on a rock would be tried as a criminal, not cheered like a hero.


The total disregard for life of anyone who does not believe what Hezbollah believes stands in stark contrast to the value of life — and even of its demise — that Israel demonstrated in bringing those two bodies back. The families of Goldwasser and Regev were able to put their sons in the ground, to say goodbye, to end the wondering. That small act meant something to the government, which voted on the exchange. In the midst of the never-ending conflict Israel faces, that says an awful lot.


Meanwhile, here is what Kuntar said to the cheering crowd: "I return from Palestine only to go back to Palestine. I promise families in Palestine that we are coming back, me and my brothers in the resistance."


You'll note he never says the word "Israel." To men like Kuntar, Israel does not exist and should never exist. He and the terrorist group that freed him (and you can install Hezbollah into all the government seats you want, a terrorist group is still a terrorist group) want a world in which Israel has no place. The Jews should be driven into the sea.


With a philosophy like that, it may be hard to expect remorse. But if you can justify Hezbollah calling a national holiday to cheer home a child murderer, there is no talking to you. There is only mourning — as there was over two coffins last week — for a world in which such things and such thinking can take place.

6) Media Love of Obama Doesn't Equal Victory
By Susan Estrich

Some years ago, a friend of mine who was then District Attorney of Los Angeles held a press conference on the beach with a couple of high-powered celebrities to trumpet efforts to use the criminal law to crack down on polluters. The press covering the event included representatives of the courthouse/political press corps and the entertainment/celebrity media. The difference was so stark that it made for a great story, which my friend told with relish. The political reporters were their usual selves: yelling questions, demanding answers, cynical, skeptical, giving nothing and showing no respect. Another day at the beach. The entertainment/celebrity reporters groveled, fawning and apologizing, grateful for the opportunity to be in the presence of the stars, eager not to offend, showing more courtesy than my political pal got from his own staff. The celebs themselves were appalled by how crudely and rudely behaved the political reporters were; my friend the politician couldn't believe that the members of the entertainment press actually considered themselves to be "reporters."

I can't help but think of that story as I watch some of our nation's finest -- or at least our most famous -- political reporters fawning all over Barack Obama like entertainment reporters covering a movie star. Is this good for them? Or for him, for that matter?

I certainly understand exactly why it is happening. Right now, Obama is bigger than any rock star. Right now, every reporter wants to be close to him, on his good side, at the front of the bus, or at least the front of the line for an interview. They are reporting what they are getting, which in many cases means what they are given, not exactly reporting by any definition. But who's to complain? No one wants to offend a guy who just might be President. No one wants to be on the "bad" list, the list of the last to know, of people who don't get the invites or the leaks or the tidbits that their editors and bosses back home are reading in somebody else's blog or watching on someone else's broadcast.

No one, or almost no one, attacks the press for tossing softballs. Oh, John McCain can complain about the coverage, but complaining makes him look smaller, not bigger; he gets attacked for whining, which may be one reason he has backed off from any such complaints and is now going out of his way to say that he is not making an issue of the press love-in with Obama. Andrea Mitchell made the point that the press is running video and pictures they are being given with no idea of what's been edited in or out, but that certainly hasn't stopped her own network from doing so. Katie Couric, in the nicest possible way (the old, "not that I'm criticizing you but people are scratching their heads trying to understand approach") tried to pin Obama down on whether he now sees the surge as a success, whether he would still be against it if he knew then what he does now (sort of like, Hillary -- was your vote for the war a mistake?), and what are people saying all over the Internet? Bad Katie. How dare she do that? How dare she push that way? How dare she do her job? Next thing you know, CBS will be joining FOX News on the "no interview" list.

The problem with all this fawning is threefold. First of all, the fact that the press doesn't push doesn't mean that, sooner or later, the Republicans won't. They will. Every question the press doesn't ask and Obama doesn't have to answer will be the subject of a speech at the Republican convention, an ad down the road, a tirade by somebody that will ring truer than it should precisely because it hasn't been addressed before. Do you really think McCain and his friends won't push hard for Obama to admit he was "wrong" about the surge? Of course they will; every bit as hard as Obama pressed Hillary on her war vote. Better to deal with it in questions from Katie, get an answer down that puts the question to rest rather than leaving her hypothetical viewer scratching his head than waiting for it to come back in a debate. Attacking Katie is not the answer -- Katie isn't running for President.

Second, being the favorite of the press doesn't necessarily win you votes. Most people don't actually like the press. The friend of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Being liked by the boys and girls on the bus doesn't necessarily earn you the respect of the people back home. Standing up to them, giving as good as you get, all that helps. But if being loved by the press were a sure route to success, Hillary Clinton would never have carried all those big states after March 1. Ronald Reagan would never have gotten elected President. George Bush would have lost, twice.

Third, and perhaps most important, the American press corps is the most fickle lover you could ever have. They make my worst ex-boyfriend look like a paragon of loyalty and devotion, giving new meaning to the old expression, "love 'em and leave 'em." Except the press doesn't just leave, they destroy. The better the coverage at the outset, the worse it will almost certainly be later on. I can't begin to count how many times I have warned politicians and candidates to worry as much about the good coverage as the bad, because the more air they put in your balloon, the bigger the target when they start shooting.

Maybe the media will remain as firmly in Obama's camp as they seem to be right now, fighting for seats on the plane, celebrating his every move. But if so, he will really be a first. And it won't necessarily help him win.

7) The Democratic ticket and the John Edwards affair
By Byron York

There’s been a lot of talk lately that former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) will have some sort of role in the Obama administration, if there is one.

A few months ago, Edwards, the Democratic Party’s 2004 vice presidential candidate, seemed to pull himself out of the VP race. But then, a couple of weeks ago, Edwards quietly put himself back in, telling National Public Radio, “I’m prepared to seriously consider anything, anything [Obama] asks me to do for our country.”

“Anything” could, of course, mean running for vice president. But Edwards has done that before, and he didn’t exactly put Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) over the top.

Of course, “anything” could also mean serving as Obama’s attorney general, a position that has been mentioned for the former trial lawyer from North Carolina.

In any event, Edwards has shaped up as someone to watch should Democrats win in November.

But now there’s another reason to watch: an extensive story in the National Enquirer providing new evidence that Edwards, in the midst of his presidential campaign, had an extramarital affair that has, perhaps, resulted in a child.

The story began in 2006, when Edwards commissioned a woman named Rielle Hunter — sometimes described as a documentary filmmaker and sometimes as an aspiring actress — to make a series of brief behind-the-scenes Web videos about his campaign.

Newsweek did a short item on the videos, mentioning that Edwards met the filmmaker “at a New York bar where Edwards was having a business meeting.”

That’s all we heard about it until September 2007, when the Huffington Post published a story headlined “Edwards Mystery: Innocuous Videos Suddenly Shrouded In Secrecy.”

The website’s Sam Stein reported that the videos made by Hunter had suddenly disappeared from Edwards’s campaign website. “No longer am I working on a piece about new media and politics,” Stein wrote. “Now, I just want to know why these webisodes are shrouded in such mystery.”

Then, the Enquirer got into the story, reporting last October that Edwards was “caught in a shocking mistress scandal that could wreck his campaign.”

When Edwards was asked about the allegation, according to the Enquirer, he strongly denied it.

“The story is false. It’s completely untrue, ridiculous,” Edwards said. “Anyone who knows me knows that I have been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years.”

Later, in December 2007, the Enquirer published more details. A pregnant Hunter had moved to North Carolina, living in a house “owned by an Edwards backer” and driving a BMW sport utility vehicle registered to a longtime Edwards aide.

Hunter denied any affair, saying that the longtime, married Edwards aide was actually the father. A lawyer for that aide confirmed to the Enquirer that the aide was indeed the father.

Now the Enquirer has published a new story under the screaming headline SEN. JOHN EDWARDS CAUGHT WITH MISTRESS AND LOVE CHILD!

The tabloid reports that Edwards visited Hunter in a Los Angeles hotel Monday night, leaving her at 2:40 Tuesday morning. When the Enquirer’s reporters confronted Edwards, the story goes, he tried to escape.
Critics might question the Enquirer’s involvement in all this. Perhaps, they might charge, money changed hands to make the story happen.

Maybe it did. But one reads an Enquirer story just like one reads a story in The New York Times. You look at the allegation and try to sort out how much evidence the paper is presenting.

For example, after carefully reading the Times’s front-page story alleging that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had had an affair with a lobbyist, one could only ask, Where’s the evidence?

That’s not the case with the Edwards story; there’s quite a bit of detail.

What will happen now? Well, we probably won’t hear as many mentions of Edwards as a possible key player in an Obama administration.

But so far, Edwards is going on as if nothing happened. The morning after the Enquirer story appeared, he was in Denver, promoting an anti-poverty project.

Asked about the vice presidency, he said, “I’m not seeking the job. But anything Sen. Obama would ask me to do in his campaign or presidency I would consider seriously.”

Will Obama ask? Not likely.

8) The '60s Won't Go Away
By Victor Davis Hanson

What more can anyone say about the 1960s and all its legacies?

Those who protested some 40 years ago often still congratulate themselves that their loud zeal alone brought needed "change" to America in civil rights, the environment, women's liberation and world peace. Maybe. But critics counter that the larger culture that followed was the most self-absorbed in memory.

Everyone can at least agree that the spirit of the "Me Generation" is not going quietly into the night -- especially since that generation ushered in a certain coarseness and self-righteousness that still plagues our politics.

Take grandiose sermonizing about changing the world while offering few practical details how to do it.

Al Gore recently prophesized that America within 10 years could generate all its electrical needs from "renewable resources and carbon-constrained fuels" -- mainly wind, solar and geothermal power (which currently together account for less than 10 percent of our aggregate production).

In truth, that daydream has about as much chance of being realized by 2018 as Al Gore this year swearing off the use of polluting SUVs and gas-guzzling private jets as he whizzes to his next environmental pulpit.

Barack Obama, a child during the '60s, is imbued nonetheless with that decade's "hope and change" messianic sermonizing. Now he wants a new mammoth government-funded "civilian national security force," one "that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the Pentagon.

Sounds utopian, but at a time of record aggregate national debt, are we really going to borrow another half-trillion dollars a year to fund a kinder, gentler version of the military?

Gore and Obama may mean well. And we may someday rely mostly on wind and solar electrical power, and even benefit by having more aid workers abroad. But they discredit their proposals with '60s-style exaggeration and feel-good fantasies that cannot be realized as promised.

Another permanent '60s legacy is the assumption that the ends justify crude means. The so-called netroots bloggers often celebrate online with glee the illnesses or deaths of supposedly reactionary political opponents.

The crass anti-war group Moveon.org was not just content to object to Gen. David Petraeus testifying before Congress last autumn. In the fashion of 1960s agitprop, it had to go the next step in demonizing at a time of war our top-ranking Iraq ground commander as a traitor -- a "General Betray Us" as the group's ad in The New York Times blared.

Due to a "grassroots effort" to garner thousands of petition signatures, the city of San Francisco will have on the November ballot a measure to change the name of one of its water "pollution control plants" to the "George W. Bush Sewage Plant." What a national trend that would be! Should red states follow that pettiness and rename their own sewers and dumps after John Kerry or Bill Clinton?

We still suffer from the same 1960s juvenile petulance when the powers that be did not immediately fall in line as protestors demanded.

Now the spirit of that age permeates Congress, whose members won't drill oil off our coasts or the continental shelf, or in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Yet in infantile fashion, they rant about "Big Oil's" high gas prices. So, Congress instead threatens to sue OPEC to be fairer and to pump more oil. And we beg the Saudis to drill and pump more in their waters so we don't have to in ours.

Even in the much-poorer 1960s, it was hard to take seriously the idea of loud middle-class suburban kids as street revolutionaries, given the fact that America was the richest and freest society in history. And it's even harder now when many of them are rich seniors and the country itself is far wealthier.

So when a member of the aging baby-boom generation finger-points at us that drilling oil is the moral equivalent of invading Iraq, or that America has become two nations (the haves and have-nots), we can often expect to discover that the self-righteous sermonizer is a hypocrite. Green Al Gore uses a lot more energy than the average American. Populist John Edwards lives in a huge mansion.

By now, we've grown accustomed to elites railing about America's pathologies from the comfort of their own privilege -- along with the usual '60s-style apologies that their own lives don't need to match their rhetoric, and that we should just concentrate on their near-divine messages.

In their defense, they can't help it -- it's still a '60s thing.