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We have our work cut out for us !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Scary thought!!!!!!!!
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Subject: Paper is not dead
One picture is worth a thousand words!
http://vimeo.com/61275290
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Sowell part two. (See 1 below.)
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OBAMA'S NOMINATIONS GET FLAKIER AND FLAKIER BUT THEN HE TOLD US WE WOULD BE IN FOR CHANGE - RADICAL CHANGE! (See 2 below.)
And all in a day's work as Obama continues to work his magic. (See 2a below.)
Dippity doo doo! (See 2b below.)
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Very long re-cap for those who care! (See 3 below.)'
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John Fund hawks Rand! (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)Intellectuals and Race: Part II
Once we recognize that large differences in achievement among races, nations and civilizations have been the rule, not the exception, throughout recorded history, there is at least some hope of rational thought -- and perhaps even some constructive efforts to help everyone advance.
Even such a British patriot as Winston Churchill said, "We owe London to Rome" -- an acknowledgement that Roman conquerors created Britain's most famous city, at a time when the ancient Britons were incapable of doing so themselves.
No one who saw the illiterate and backward tribal Britons of that era was likely to imagine that someday the British would create an empire vastly larger than the Roman Empire -- one encompassing one fourth of the land area of the earth and one fourth of the human beings on the planet.
History has many dramatic examples of the rise and fall of peoples and nations, for a wide range of known and unknown reasons. What history does not have is what is so often assumed as a norm today, equality of group achievements at a given point in time.
Roman conquests had historic repercussions for centuries after the Roman Empire had fallen. Among the legacies of Roman civilization were Roman letters, which produced written versions of Western European languages, centuries before Eastern European languages became literate. This was one of many reasons why Western Europe became more advanced than Eastern Europe, economically, educationally and technologically.
Meanwhile, the achievements in other civilizations -- whether in China or in the Middle East -- surged ahead of achievements in the West, though China and the Middle East later lost their leads.
There are too many zig-zags in history to believe that some single over-riding factor explains all, or even most, of what happened, either then or now. But what seldom, if ever, happened were equal achievements by different peoples at the same time.
Yet today we have bean counters in Washington turning out statistics that are solemnly presented in courts of law to claim that, if the numbers are not more or less the same for everybody, that proves that somebody did somebody else wrong.
If blacks have different occupational patterns or different other patterns than whites, that arouses great suspicions among the bean counters -- even though different groups of whites have long had different patterns from each other.
When American soldiers were given mental tests during the First World War, those men of German ancestry scored higher than those of Irish ancestry, who scored higher than those who were Jewish. Mental test pioneer Carl Brigham said that the army mental test results tended to "disprove the popular belief that the Jew is highly intelligent."
An alternative explanation is that most German immigrants came to the United States decades before most Irish immigrants, who came here decades before most Jewish immigrants. Years later, Brigham admitted that many of the more recent immigrants grew up in homes where English was not the spoken language and that his earlier conclusions were, in his own words, "without foundation."
By this time, Jews were scoring above the national average on mental tests, instead of below. Disparities among groups are not set in stone, in this or in many other things. But blanket equality of outcomes is seldom seen at any given time either, whether in work skills or rates of alcoholism or other differences among the various groups lumped together as "whites."
Why then do statistical differences between blacks and whites set off such dogmatic assertions -- and "disparate impact" lawsuits -- when it is common for different groups to meet employment or other standards to different degrees?
One reason is that "disparate impact" lawsuits require nothing more than statistical differences to lead to verdicts, or out of court settlements, in the millions of dollars. And the reason that is so is that so many people have bought the unsubstantiated assumption that there is something strange and sinister when different peoples have different achievements.
Centuries of recorded history say otherwise. But who cares about history anymore? Certainly not as much as they care about the millions of dollars available from "disparate impact" lawsuits.
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2)Obama's Nominee for Secretary of (Illegal Alien) Labor
The Beltway is buzzing over President Obama's likely nomination of Thomas E. Perez as the next head of the U.S. Department of Labor. But when Americans find out whom Perez has lobbied for most aggressively over the course of his extremist leftwing social justice career, they'll be wondering which country Obama's pick really plans to serve.
Press accounts describe Perez, currently the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil rights division, as a "tireless advocate of worker and civil rights." The son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Perez was a former special counsel for the late illegal alien amnesty champion Sen. Ted Kennedy.
During the Clinton years, Perez worked at the Justice Department to establish a "Worker Exploitation Task Force" to enhance working conditions for ... illegal alien workers. While holding down his government position, Perez volunteered for Casa de Maryland. This notorious illegal alien advocacy group is funded through a combination of taxpayer-subsidized grants (totaling $5 million in 2010 alone from Maryland and local governments) and radical liberal philanthropy, including billionaire George Soros' Open Society Institute.
That's in addition to more than $1 million showered on the group by freshly departed Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez's regime-owned oil company, CITGO.
As I've reported previously, Perez rose from Casa de Maryland volunteer to president of the group's board of directors. Under the guise of enhancing the "multicultural" experience, he crusaded for an ever-expanding set of illegal alien benefits, from in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students to driver's licenses and tax-subsidized day labor centers. Casa de Maryland opposes enforcement of deportation orders, has protested post-9/11 coordination of local, state and national criminal databases, and produced a "know your rights" propaganda pamphlet for illegal aliens that depicted federal immigration agents as armed bullies making babies cry.
The group can claim credit for pushing the White House to issue an estimated 800,000 illegal alien deportation waivers by executive fiat. And now, Casa de Maryland is currently leading the charge for an even broader illegal alien "path to citizenship."
Questioned by GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions during his DOJ confirmation hearing in 2009 about the illegal alien rights guide produced by Casa de Maryland, Perez grudgingly stated that "the civil rights division must not act in contravention to valid enforcement actions of our federal immigration laws."
But "act(ing) in contravention" of the law is at the heart of Perez's and Casa's radicalism -- and not just on behalf of illegal aliens.
During his tenure with the Obama DOJ, Perez sought to undermine electoral integrity by attacking South Carolina's voter ID law. His race card antics were rebuked by a unanimous U.S. District Court panel (which included a Clinton appointee), and the law prevailed.
Perez was instrumental in covering the backsides of the militant New Black Panther Party thugs who menaced voters and poll watchers in Philadelphia in 2008. The American Spectator's Quin Hillyer recounted that a federal judge challenged the veracity of Perez's testimony about DOJ political appointees' interference on behalf of the Panthers. "This came after Perez also had, apparently unlawfully, refused to honor valid subpoenas from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights -- and it was in addition to yet another falsehood by Perez, this one to the effect that DOJ had sought the maximum allowable penalty against the Panthers," Hillyer reported. "While the original decision to dismiss the case pre-dated Perez's appointment to the Justice Department, his direct involvement in, and hands-on management of, what amounted to a cover-up of the decision's origins should alone be disqualifying for any Cabinet post."
Perez also helped spearhead the lawsuit against Arizona over its immigration enforcement measures and launched a three-year DOJ witch-hunt against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The vengeful investigation against Arpaio, the nation's most outspoken local law enforcement official against illegal alien crime, was dropped without charges last summer. Perez is leading similar witch-hunts against police departments across the country based on leftwing junk science theories about racial "disparate impacts."
With Senate Republicans John McCain, Lindsey Graham and company folding like lawn chairs on Obamamnesty, open-borders groups are thrilled at the prospect of another victory with Perez's nomination. Last week, conservatives stood with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., over John Brennan's nomination as CIA director. Who will stand for American workers in opposition to Obama's pending secretary of illegal alien labor? Anyone?
2a)Training Syrian Rebels to Conquer Golan Heights and Shoot Down Israeli Aircraft
By Shoshana Bryen
No, they don't say it quite like that. But after years of hypocrisy, the Obama administration has admitted that while it declined to arm Syrian rebels directly for fear that weapons would end up in the hands of al-Qaeda forces, it has been quietly vetting and training anti-Assad forces while others provided weapons all around. Now the training is out in the open, and Secretary of State Kerry has pledged $60 million in "non-lethal aid" to the rebels. (Plus $250 million to Egypt, while Israel may take a hit of $150 million from sequestration -- makes you wonder.)
2a)Training Syrian Rebels to Conquer Golan Heights and Shoot Down Israeli Aircraft
By Shoshana Bryen
No, they don't say it quite like that. But after years of hypocrisy, the Obama administration has admitted that while it declined to arm Syrian rebels directly for fear that weapons would end up in the hands of al-Qaeda forces, it has been quietly vetting and training anti-Assad forces while others provided weapons all around. Now the training is out in the open, and Secretary of State Kerry has pledged $60 million in "non-lethal aid" to the rebels. (Plus $250 million to Egypt, while Israel may take a hit of $150 million from sequestration -- makes you wonder.)
American assistance is supposed to go only to "moderate" rebels, but arms have been flowing freely, paid for by American "allies" Qatar and Saudi Arabia and moving through Turkey. Recently, a source with ties to Israeli intelligence claimed that a supply line has been running from Bosnian extremist groups, outside the control, influence, or even vision of the U.S. and its allies. Libya and al-Qaeda in Iraq have also been conduits for weapons to rebel militias, and last week, 48 Syrian government soldiers and officials were killed in Anbar Province, an al-Qaeda stronghold.
Israel expects to see any and all weapons, including some of the estimated 15,000 surface-to-air missiles the U.S. admits "disappeared" from Libya, aimed in its direction.
More than a year ago, Maj. Gen. Avi Kochavi, chief of IDF Intelligence, warned that al-Qaeda had moved into the buffer zone that separates Israel and Syria, which had been at least nominally in the hands of U.N. peacekeepers since 1974. Last week, Syrian rebel groups captured 21 Filipino peacekeepers from their Golan Heights enclave and caused others to flee into Israel. Croatia announced that it is removing its 100 soldiers, and Israel fears that others may follow. Kochavi said that should Assad fall, the rebels would aim straight at Israel; Syrian rebel groups agree.
It was Israeli intelligence reports that Assad was moving his chemical weapons that first brought American Special Forces to Turkey and Jordan in 2012, hoping to train Syrian rebels to secure the arsenal before Assad or Hezb'allah moved it to Lebanon or used it. The irony of planning to entrust chemical weapons capability to rebels to whom they wouldn't give guns appears to have escaped the Americans.
British papers report that the U.S., Britain, and France are now working together with high-ranking Syrian defectors at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center near Amman. EU guidelines on the Syrian arms embargo allow military training as long as the aim is "the protection of civilians." This is nebulous at best, harking back to "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P), the announced basis of American intervention in Libya. Only this time, we're apparently training Syrians to do the protecting, raising the question of what weapons they will use, since the U.S. doesn't yet admit to providing any.
The Guardian (U.K.) quotes an EU official in Brussels acknowledging, "It's deliberately hazy. When it comes to technical assistance, what it means in practice depends on whom you ask. The Brits and the French, for example, are much more forward leaning than others. The principle is that the assistance should be for the protection of civilians, but as we saw in Libya, that can be interpreted in different ways."
In Libya, "technical assistance" was interpreted by the Western allies to include bombing government assets and permitting militias, including known al-Qaeda militias, to oust Gaddafi and take control of the government's arsenal. The arsenal was then distributed. Some went to Tuareg militias and their al-Qaeda partners, resulting in the war in Mali. Some traveled through Sinai, headed for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Some went to Syrian rebels. Shortly after Gaddafi's death, Libyan rebel leaders met with Syrian rebels under Turkish auspices and offered them arms. It wasn't a secret; Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi of the al-Qaeda-related Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIF) was interviewed in Il Sole and the U.K. Telegraph. Throughout 2012, weapons shipments from Libya to Syria via Turkey or Lebanon were openly reported in the press (here and here, for example).
The United States, France, and Britain claim to be training their own Syrian rebel force, either to help overthrow Assad or to help ensure a peaceful transition after he's gone. But there's that pesky weapons question again. Whether the rebels are supposed to kill government soldiers, or be prepared to kill "jihadists" after the war to prevent a jihadist government, with what are they supposed to do it?
Is the U.S. honestly sure our "moderate" rebel friends aren't using the al-Qaeda pipeline on the side? Or are we cynically sure they are? If the former, what makes us believe they will be able to defeat al-Qaeda-related groups after the revolution? And if the latter, what makes us think they will want to?
Israel, not for the first time, will be left to cope with a situation born of the inability of its neighbors to fashion a tolerant society and the failure of the West to understand and protect its interests and its friends
2b)
Obama’s approval drops as Americans take a dimmer view of his economic policies
The afterglow of President Obama’s reelection and inauguration appears to have vanished as increasingly negative views among Americans about his stewardship of the economy have forced his public approval rating back down to the 50 percent mark, according to a newWashington Post-ABC News poll.
In December, just after he won a second term, Obama held an 18-percentage-point advantage over congressional Republicans on the question of whom the public trusted more to deal with the economy. Now, it’s a far more even split — 44 percent to 40 percent, with a slight edge for the president — but the share of those saying they have confidence in “neither” has ticked up into double digits.
The poll contains ample evidence of the disillusionment voters feel toward both sides amid a sense of continuing dysfunction in Washington, which since December has been grappling with fiscal crises and deadlines of its own making.
Almost two weeks into the automatic across-the-board budget cuts known as thesequester, a slim majority of Americans disapprove of the reductions. At the same time, nearly three-quarters say they are feeling no impact on their lives, and fewer than half expect a toll on their family finances if the cuts continue.
Still, large majorities expect that the sequester will eventually damage the economy, the military and the government’s ability to provide basic services. Most, 68 percent, say they would like the two sides to work together to come up with a deal to stop the cuts. The desire for cooperation is widely shared across party lines.
Asked who is responsible for the sequester, 47 percent say Republicans in Congress and 33 percent say Obama.
The poll suggests a closer divide on which side the public trusts in the battles over issues such as immigration and gun control — closer, perhaps, than the public’s policy preferences would indicate. Americans largely support the administration’s stand on new measures to curb gun violence, but on basic trust on the issue, the president and Republicans in Congress fare about evenly.
Obama’s overall job-approval rating stands at 50 percent, down five points from before he took the oath of office in January. Looking along partisan lines, the slippage since then has been particularly pronounced among political independents. Two months ago, independents tilted clearly in his direction, with 54 percent approving and 41 percent disapproving. Now, half of independents express a negative opinion of the president’s performance; just 44 percent approve.
The president has also seen an erosion in confidence among groups that he has counted as core supporters. Compared with a Post-ABC poll in December, the share of liberals who place their faith in Obama over Republicans when it comes to dealing with the economy is 14 points lower; there has been a 12-point slide among women.
At 50 percent, Obama’s overall standing in the poll is lower than that of most other modern second-term presidents at this point in their terms. Of the seven second-term presidents who have been in office since Harry S. Truman, only George W. Bush had a positive rating as low as 50 percent at this stage.
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3)
Arab-Israeli Peace Agreements
Israel faced a “Trojan Horse,” an ancient metaphor borrowed by PLO leaders while still in Tunis Israel , stage-by-stage, using the Palestinian Authority to establish a platform from which they could attack Israel Oslo Oslo Hebron was the last city in the West Bank to be turned over to Palestinian control. It required a special arrangement because a major Jewish holy site (the Tomb of the Patriarchs) is in the heart of the city and because it is the only city on the West Bank where there is a modern Jewish community (all seven other West Bank cities are purely Palestinian). Hebron , along with Jerusalem Jerusalem for safety and never allowed Jews to rebuild the Hebron Hebron Hebron Hebron Hebron Hebron Hebron Hebron
3)
| By Eli E. Hertz |
Between 1993 and 2001, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) signed six agreements with Israel and conducted countless meetings and summits to bring about a lasting peace between them.
Each Israeli concession was met with Palestinian non-compliance and escalating violence. Six times, Palestinians failed to honor their commitments and increased their anti-Israeli aggressions. Finally, they broke every promise they made and began an all-out guerrilla war against Israel
The failure of the Palestinian leadership to be earnest and trustworthy stands in stark contrast to the statesmanship exhibited by Israel
Although Israel succeeded in reaching historic peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, when the time came to negotiate with the Palestinians in the territories, the Israelis discovered the Palestinian Arabs were unable or unwilling to choose peace or honor their given word.
Despite numerous agreements, the pattern has always been the same: The Palestinians violate the conditions and commitments of virtually every agreement they sign.
The Camp David Accords
The 1979 Camp David Accords brought peace between Israel and Egypt Egypt
On March 26, 1979, Israel and Egypt took the first step toward a peace agreement between the Arab world and Israel U.S. presidential retreat, Camp David . They were guests of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who acted as the facilitator. The summit took place less than a year after Sadat made his historic trip to Israel and addressed the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) in Jerusalem Israel
Peace with Egypt Egypt and Israel , which finally ended the 1948 War with Egypt
The second accord – and the more complicated of the two – dealt with prospects for a comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East with other parties – including ‘representatives of the Palestinian people.’ It established a ‘framework’ designed to settle such issues as the future of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza, based onlimited autonomy for the Palestinian Arabs living in the Territories. By agreeing to conclude a separate peace with Israel
Despite the promise of self-rule proffered by the Camp David Accords – the first concrete offer in decades – the PLO denounced them because they failed to call for an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Egypt , suspended it from the Arab League, and ousted Egypt
The Madrid
The 1991 Madrid Jordan , renewed at a later point, led to the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan
The conference was sparked by the 1991 Gulf War. The U.S. Department of State reasoned that cooperation between the United States and Arab countries during that war signaled a change in the Middle East and sought to use it as leverage to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. After the Gulf War, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker pressed Israel and its Arab neighbors to agree to an international conference to launch direct negotiations between Israel
Held at the royal palace in Madrid , Spain
Delegations from Israel , Syria , Lebanon and Jordan Gaza
The Madrid Conference put in motion the process that led to a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel Syria Lebanon , which put an Israeli withdrawal from the security zone in southern Lebanon on the table in exchange forLebanon ’s assurance of peace along Israel Syria ’s interference in Lebanese affairs and its support of Hezbollah extremists, who continued to attack Israeli forces in southern Lebanon Israel was willing to discuss limited self-rule for the Palestinians in the Territories, Palestinian delegates demanded full sovereignty over the entire West Bank and Gaza
The Oslo
The 1993 Oslo Accords marked a potential turning point, which dead-ended when the Palestinians refused to live up to their commitments and held to their zero-sum hard line, rejecting the very notion of compromise.
When attempts to reach a live-and-let-live solution with Palestinians in the Territories failed to produce results at Madrid , Israel Israel
The agreement signed by Israel and the PLO known as the Oslo Accords was named for the secret talks held between the PLO and the Israeli envoys in Oslo , Norway Oslo
At the time, the Oslo Accords were viewed as a historic breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli conflict, perhaps even more so than the agreement between Egypt and Israel , because of its potential it held for a comprehensive peace between Israel
The agreement was signed on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993 by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Executive Council Member Abu Abbas in front of almost 3,000 dignitaries and ended in the famous handshake between PLO Chairman Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
After three years of secret talks in Oslo , on August 31, 1993, the Israeli government approved, in principle, a plan for interim Palestinian self-rule in Palestinian Arab communities in the West Bank and Gaza Israel Israel
The Oslo Accords called for a five-year interim period of Palestinian self-governance at the municipal level, with the scheduling of negotiations on the permanent status of the Territories to begin no later than the third year of the interim period. Permanent status arrangements were to take effect at the end of the five-year period. During that interim period, elections were to be held in a newly established Palestinian Council or legislative body. The Israeli military was to withdraw gradually from populated Palestinian areas, while continuing to protect Israeli settlements in the Territories. Israeli military control and civil administration in Palestinian areas was to be transferred to authorized Palestinian Arabs who would become responsible for a variety of functions, including municipal services and the machinery to combat Palestinian terrorism through a strong Palestinian police force and special counterterrorism units. In short, Palestinian Arabs would take control of all their own internal affairs. In the New York Times, the agreement was heralded as “a triumph of hope over history.”[5]
Two more agreements intended to implement the Accords followed. The first – the May 4, 1994 Gaza Jericho Agreement signed in Cairo - allowed Arafat and the PLO to travel from Tunis
The first challenge Arafat faced was reining in Palestinians who refused to abide by the agreement.[6] Despite his pledge to crack down on terrorists, Arafat failed the first test of leadership as a peace partner. In retrospect, we can see it is a role he never planned to play. Instead of confronting terrorists, he concluded a series of hudnas, or tactical truces, with rival Islamic elements to prevent a showdown. That led to a tacit division of labor where the PA covered the diplomatic front and radical Islamic groups continued to carry out terrorist attacks.
Israeli peace architects clung to the hope that these were only temporary setbacks, birth pangs in a breakthrough peace process. Jewish victims of suicide bombings, drive-by shootings and other terrorist acts were labeled ‘victims of peace’ (korbanot hashalom in Hebrew) by Israeli doves. Such Orwellian terminology could not mask or change realities. The window of opportunity opened at Camp David and Oslo Oslo
· Failure to accept Israel’s existence: Constantly referring (in Arabic) to a “phase strategy” designed to use self-administered areas as a base of operations to destroy Israel; comparing Oslo to a historic treaty made and broken by the Prophet Mohammed once it was expedient; continuing to use maps, insignia, and terminology presenting Israel proper as “Occupied Palestine”; disseminating inflammatory and fallacious material that denied Jewish nationhood and Jewish historic roots in the Land of Israel.
· Failure to take ‘all measures necessary against terrorism’: Refraining from disarming lawless militias or even closing their training camps; refusing to outlaw organizations that championed and carried out terrorist acts (including Hamas and Islamic Jihad); seeking reconciliation with such rivals who openly aided, abetted and carried out terrorist acts - in essence, adopting a modus operandi that allowed some Palestinians to attack Israel while others negotiated.
· Failure to change the PLO Covenant: Using a string of excuses and provisos to postpone the vote time and again so that the pledge to remove from the PLO Covenant clauses denying Israel’s right to exist was never fulfilled; likewise, failing to annul clauses calling for an armed struggle to destroy Israel and the denial of Israel’s right to exist.
· Failure to repudiate terrorism and violence and refrain from anti-Israeli propaganda: Constantly calling for a jihad (holy war), praisi ng terrorists as heroes and Hamas leaders as brothers, while vilifying Israel in demonic, antisemitic terms on Palestinian media channels; under self-governance, transforming public schools into factories that inculcate hatred of Israel and Jews and nurture a ‘cult of death’ in children, instead of promoting peace education as they promised.
· Failure to extradite or discipline terrorists: Procrastinating in arrest of suspected terrorists who found asylum in Palestinian Authority areas; or apprehending them and then refusing to extradite them to Israel; abusing the terms of the agreement that allowed the Palestinian Authority to prosecute and sentence perpetrators by conducting bogus ‘quickie trials’ and establishing jails with revolving doors.
· Failure to abide by limitations placed on the Palestinian Authority’s police force: Failing to provide Israel with a full list of police personnel and register all weapons as required; accepting former terrorists into the force who were specifically barred from serving under the terms of the agreement.
· Failure to respect human rights and the rule of law: Creating a police state where the number of security personnel per capita (police, preventive security personnel, etc.) was frightening in scope and where strong arm tactics, torture, and intimidation of citizenry was rampant and where lack of due process and lack of freedom of the press for Palestinians was endemic.[10]
· Failure to adopt transparent methods of funding and honest governmental procedures: Ignoring the norms of honest governance they promised to uphold, misusing foreign aid, resulting in widespread corruption and graft among Palestinian Authority officials and governing institutions. Far from improving average Palestinians’ standard of living, standards plummeted under self-rule as Arafat and his cronies grew rich: Forbes magazine’s 17th annual survey (2003) of the richest people in the world shows Arafat has used his position to amass a personal fortune estimated at $300 million, stashed away in Swiss banks. Ranked among heads of state, Arafat’s personal fortune was reported to be one notch below that of the Queen of England.[11]
The Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty
The 1994 Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty was made possible by the sense of optimism created by Oslo Syria ,Lebanon
Just over a year after the historic Oslo Accords were signed, on October 26, 1994, Israel and Jordan Israel ’s Prime Minister Rabin and Jordan ’s King Hussein, who met in Washington
The primary drive behind Jordan Jordan ’s port on the Red Sea, Aqaba, had served as a primary port for Iraqi imports and exports, but the international embargo on trade with Iraq Jordan hoped peace with Israel would bolster its economy by increasing trade with Israel Israel Jordan remained neutral during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and for most of its history had earnestly tried to prevent incursions into Israel
King Hussein would no doubt have made peace earlier if not for Jordan ’s weak position in the Arab world and Jordan Israel Israel Jordan
Peace with Jordan has been the most normalized and the warmest peace, despite the fact that it was signed during an upsurge in Palestinian terrorism and met considerable opposition by Jordan
The Taba Agreement (“Oslo II”)
Despite the Palestinian Authority’s failure to honor its commitments in “Oslo I,” Israel
The 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is often referred to as “Oslo II” because it revised and reiterated a host of obligations set forth in “Oslo Oslo I” terms, Israel
Also known as the Taba Agreement, because it was signed in Taba , Egypt , on September 24, 1995, “Oslo II” established a detailed schedule for further redeployment of Israeli troops beyond the ‘Jericho Gaza
· Area A: Gaza and Jericho, as well as seven major Palestinian cities on the West Bank, for which the Palestinian Authority took full responsibility, including internal security and public order.
· Area B: 450 Arab towns and villages in the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority took over civic functions, while Israel continued to control security.
· Area C: Rural and unpopulated areas of the West Bank that Israel considered strategically important to its own defense; Israeli settlements in the Territories also remained the exclusive responsibility of Israel, as set forth in previous agreements.
The Palestinian Authority, however, failed to comply with the terms of “Oslo
· Failure to revise the Palestinian National Covenant: Arafat made a travesty of his obligation in Gaza, when he pretended to annul the Covenant in the presence of President Bill Clinton, in a manner contrary to the process stipulated in the Covenant itself, by merely staging a spectacle without legal validity.
· Failure to prevent terrorist attacks: Non-compliance continued parallel to terrorist attacks. Failing to act, Palestinian forces began to express openly their support of terrorists at demonstrations by firing weapons in the air, then using those weapons to threaten and even kill members of joint patrols. The most memorable case was a two-day rampage in September 1996 when Palestinian police turned their weapons against Israeli soldiers, leaving 13 members of the Israel Defense Force dead.
· Failure to guarantee religious freedom: Despite pledging to respect their integrity and provide free access to Jewish holy sites in areas transferred to the Palestinian Authority, Palestinians burned down the ancient Shalom al Yisrael (“Peace Upon Israel”) synagogue in Jericho and smashed to rubble Joseph’s Tomb on the outskirts of Nablus, declaring that a mosque would be built on the site.
· Failure to limit the size and firepower of the Palestinian Authority police force: The Palestinian Authority equipped its police force with massive quantities of ammunition and contraband weaponry, the quantity and quality of which was prohibited under the agreement. Between 1995 and 2000, the PA violated the terms of the treaty by increasing the size of the force from 36,000 to 40,000, vastly more than the 12,000 originally envisioned as a ‘strong police force,’ and far above the 24,000 ultimately agreed upon in “Oslo I” or the 30,000 Israel acquiesced to retroactively in October 1995 in ‘Oslo II,’ hoping that a greater force would fight terrorism.[17] In essence, the Palestinian Authority built an infantry force larger than that maintained by the IDF, a genuine military force (which the Accords clearly prohibited) rather than a police force.
· Failure to halt terrorism: The Palestinian Authority police force did not prevent terrorist acts launched by Hamas and others. In September 2000 when Arafat launched all-out guerrilla warfare against Israel , PA police turned into combatants and Palestinian preventive security forces became terror management operators, secretly directing and funding attacks on Israel
Five More Attempts to ‘Make Oslo
From January 1997 through August 2000, five more attempts to make Oslo Hebron , an unprecedented offer of statehood and a proposal to give the Palestinians about 95 percent of the West Bank in an attempt to hammer out a final status agreement at Camp David .
Attempt #1: The 1997 Hebron Agreement
Despite a change of government in Israel as a result of the 1996 elections, Israel ’s commitment to withdraw from 80 percent of Hebron
Violence erupted again when Palestinians protested the groundbreaking of a Jewish housing project in Har Homa, overlooking East Jerusalem .[19] Another Palestinian suicide bombing in Tel Aviv became the last straw, and the new Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, postponed further withdrawals beyond Hebron
Attempt #2: 1998 Wye River Memorandum
The Wye River Memorandum – so named because it was convened at the Wye River Plantation in Maryland Israel Wye River Oslo West Bank . Yet the conditions of Wye were never fully implemented.
Attempt #3: 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum
The Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum, signed in Egypt on September 4, 1999, was yet another effort to move the peace process forward by using pressure from leaders of Arab countries that had already made peace with Israel
The peace process launched with the Oslo Accords in September 1993 had ground to a halt, due largely to Palestinian non-compliance. That led to the Israeli refusal to continue scheduled redeployments as long as its Palestinian partners refused to abide by the agreements, particularly on security issues. Final-status talks, originally scheduled to be completed by May 4, 1999, were rescheduled under the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum. The new date for completion was September 13, 2000. Both sides agreed that a framework for a final status agreement would be established by March 13, 2000, but that date came and went with a series of working-level meetings and shuttle diplomacy that fell short of real expectations.
Attempt #4: August 2000 Camp David ‘Final Status’ Summit.
When Clinton summoned Barak and Arafat to Camp David in August 2000 for final status talks, Israel
According to media reports, Barak made the following offer:
· Establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state on some 92 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip.
· Dismantlement of most Jewish settlements; uprooting settlers from isolated communities to concentrate the bulk of the settlers inside 8 percent of the West Bank along the Green Line, and annexing this area to Israel in exchange for a transfer of 3 percent of land in Israel proper adjacent to Gaza.
· Establishment of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and sovereignty over half the Old City of Jerusalem (the Muslim and Christian quarters) and ‘religious custodianship’ over the Temple Mount; some Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem would become sovereign Palestinian territory, while others would enjoy ‘functional autonomy.’
· A return of Palestinian refugees to the prospective Palestinian state, although no Right of Return to Israel proper would be allowed; generous international assistance to help settle the refugees would be encouraged.
In return, all Israel
· An end to violence, and
· A public declaration that the terms of the final settlement marked an ‘end of the conflict’ and that there would be no more Palestinian claims or additional demands on Israel in the future.
The offer went beyond long-standing Israeli ‘red lines,’ particularly with regard to Jerusalem
According to a post-mortem analysis of the Camp David summit conducted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,[25] the negotiations were governed by three attributes: They were hypothetical (pending agreement in other areas), oral, and conducted through a third party. “Together, these attributes made Camp David more a ‘brainstorming’ session than formal negotiations in which the parties move from paragraph to paragraph until they reached complete agreement.” Even Abu Mazen admitted the proposals were no more than ‘test balloons.’ As President Bill Clinton stated on July 25 (the day after the summit closed), negotiations under such conditions could not bind either party or be construed as a ‘starting point’ for future negotiations: “Under the operating rules that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, they are, of course, not bound by any proposal discussed at the summit.”[26] Arafat was aware of the rules of the game and the ‘now-or-never’ quality of the Israeli offer. Yet Arafat walked out, his actions underscoring Palestinians’ refusal to seek compromise or reconciliation.
Shortly thereafter, in September 2000, the al-Aqsa Intifada erupted. Subsequently, it became evident that this guerrilla war, launched by the Palestinians, was in the planning stages prior to Camp David . It was accompanied by escalation of violence on all fronts, including waves of suicide bombers, ambushes of civilian traffic on the roads, shootings into Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem , and rocket attacks from Gaza into civilian settlements in the Negev .
Michael Oren, an Israeli scholar of the Six-Day War and other aspects of modern Israeli history, summed up Camp David and the Palestinian position in an article in the December 2001 issue of Harper’s magazine: Why did the Palestinians constantly ‘lose ground?’ Oren asked.
The peace process collapsed not over land but because of the Palestinians’ refusal to accept Israel Israel
Oren’s assessment of responsibility is backed up by Palestinian pronouncements.
In January 1996, Nabil Sha’ath, a senior member of the PA leadership, considered a ‘moderate’ by Western observers, told a gathering in Nablus
"We decided to liberate our homeland step-by-step. Should Israel continue [to make concessions] – no problem. If and when Israel
On November 28, 1996, in an official communiqué, Muhammad Dahlan, at that time the PA’s security chief responsible for enforcing the 2003 hudna, reiterated:
“The Palestinian Authority does not exclude the return to the armed struggle, and it will use its weapons.”
The term hudna in Arabic refers to a temporary breather for tactical reasons, not a peace pact. Should negotiations ever resume in earnest, the Arabs will no doubt claim that negotiations should begin ‘from the point where negotiations broke off,’ but there is absolutely no foundation for such a claim.
Attempt #5: 2001 Taba Conference
In 2001 – in the midst of Arafat’s War, the al-Aqsa Intifada, a last-ditch attempt was made to end hostilities, renew security cooperation and at least theoretically, re-open negotiations. Yet the Palestinians balked again. Against the backdrop of continued Palestinian violence from the Intifada and with Israeli elections only a few weeks away, Israeli and Palestinian delegations met one last time at the Egyptian Red Sea resort at Taba between January 22 and January 28, 2001. The Clinton administration had tried unsuccessfully to end the Arab violence and bridge the gaps between the two sides with talks in Washington
With Clinton Jerusalem
· Jerusalem: Israel proposed creating an international regime in an area of Jerusalem that included the Old City, but the Palestinian Arabs rejected this, saying they wanted sovereignty over the entire city.
· Territories: Israel proposed giving the Palestinian Arabs 97 percent of the land area of the West Bank, yet no agreement was reached.
· Refugees: The two sides discussed the Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 and the Jews who left Arab countries in the aftermath of the 1948 War of Independence. Palestinians insisted on the Right of Return of all Palestinian Arabs to Israel
· Security: In return, Israel asked for: 1) an end to violence, and 2) a public declaration that the final status agreement would mark an ‘end of the conflict’ and there would be no more claims on Israel in the future.
The Palestinians preferred armed struggle. A Palestinian state in the West Bank was viewed as a prelude to a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Violence continued, despite American efforts to mediate a truce.[30] The Taba Conference ended without an accord – all but spelling an end to the peace process that began inMadrid
What Can be Learned from a Post-Mortem of the Oslo
In the two decade that passed since the historic handshake between Arafat and Rabin in 1993, optimistic expectations turned out to be unfounded.
The idea that negotiations, gradual empowerment, and a transfer of territory - ‘hope’ and ‘something to lose’ - would prompt the Palestinians to opt for reconciliation and abandonment of such unbending principles as the Right of Return never translated into reality. Israeli concessions only hardened Palestinian positions.
In the wake of Israel’s last-ditch effort to save the peace process, and 24 hours after Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ben-Ami tried to mitigate the gap by optimistically announcing that peace was nevertheless within the parties’ grasp, Arafat responded with a speech at the Davos World Economic Forum on January 28, 2001 that symbolically buried the Oslo Accords for good.
In a bellicose diatribe filled with lies and venom, he accused Israel Sharon
Barak’s political fate was reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s response when Arafat called the outgoing president to thank him for his efforts on behalf of peace: "You are a great man," Arafat told Clinton , three days before the U.S. Clinton New York dinner party where Clinton Clinton
Refusal to Negotiate in Good Faith
The Palestinians’ refusal to negotiate in good faith shows that they are more interested in perpetuating war with Israel
The leaders of Egypt and Jordan took bold steps toward peace, transcending a history of refusal to recognize Israel Gaza si milar courage. Given repeated chances to return to the negotiating table, offered unprecedented tangible concessions by Israeli governments, both Right and Left, the Palestinians refuse to live in peace with Israel
Failing to make political gains through three years of guerrilla warfare and a decade of violence, Palestinians, under the short-lived premiership of Abu Mazen, seemed to have returned to a more subtle form of their phase-strategy. They demanded Israel Israel Israel
This moderate Munich-style view – to achieve an independent state and then continue to make further demands – was expressed by the late Faysal al-Husseini (considered by many Israeli doves to be a moderate), who, several months after the outbreak of the Intifada, told a forum of Arab lawyers in January 2001 in Beirut:[33]
“There is a difference between the strategic goal of the Palestinian people, who are not willing to give up even one grain of Palestinian soil, and the political [tactical] effort that has to do with the [present] balance of power and with the nature of the present international system. The latter is a different effort from the former. We may lose or win [tactically], but our eyes will continue to aspire to the strategic goal, namely, to Palestine
Dr. Boaz Ganor, executive director of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, stresses that Palestinian acceptance of the 2003 “road map” (proposed by the United States, the UN, the European Union and Russia) amounted to part of the ‘strategy of stages’ meant to lead to the eventual elimination of Israel, though not necessarily by violent means alone.[34] That strategy, according to Ganor, is built on a three-phase approach, starting with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; followed by the overthrow of the Hashemite regime in Jordan whose population consists of a vast Palestinian majority; and ending with the unification of both banks of the Jordan River . The third stage would be “a change of rhetorical tacks” from claiming that Israel is a conquering colonialist state to branding Israel a racist ‘apartheid’ state that must become ‘a state of all its citizens,’ eliminating Israel as a Jewish state.
Others believe the last stage will be a wholesale military assault on Israel , once the Arabs have gained a strong enough foothold in western Palestine Middle East .
Scrutiny of Palestinian behavior prior to the 1993 Oslo Accords indicates that this impasse is not a quirk or temporary stumbling block. Unfortunately, the Palestinians’ current behavior, the Palestinian Authority’s failure to live up to its promises and its insistence on a winner-take-all solution using indiscriminate terrorism to achieve its objectives, rests on a long tradition of rejectionism that has stymied countless attempts to find a live-and-let-live solution. A philosophy of rejectionism has been played out through a combination of uncompromising diplomacy and repeated use of violence, time and again, over a period of more than 90 years.
The process set in motion by the Camp David Accords with Egypt, that ultimately led to the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, never did bring an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict through face-to-face negotiations.
Palestinians’ dogged pursuit of a winner-take-all solution designed to destroy Israel, using violence and rejecting any form of compromise, have stymied all attempts to solve substantive issues between the parties.
The Palestinians have consistently failed to ‘walk the walk’ – breaking commitment after commitment as well as promise after promise and draining agreement after agreement and memorandum after memorandum of meaning.
Only the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the late Jordanian King Hussein had the courage and earnestness to pursue peace. Palestinian leaders lack the courage, the integrity and the political maturity required for statehood, employing the same rejectionism Palestinian Arabs have exhibited for over 90 year.
[1] Ian J. Bickerton and Carla L. Klausner, A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Prentice Hall, 2001.
[2] Thomas L. Friedman, “Mideast Session Adjourns, With Prospects Uncertain For Second Phase of Talks,” New York Times, November 2, 1991, p. A1.
[3] Lamia Lahoud, “Remote Control,” Jerusalem Report, 1991, at http://www.jrep.com/Info/10thAnniversary/1991/Article-6.html. (10704)
[4] Thomas L. Friedman, “Rabin and Arafat Seal their Accord as Clinton Applauds ‘Brave Gamble,’” New York Times, September 14, 1993,p. A1.
[5] Ibid.
[6] For a list of attacks involving fatalities since the Oslo Accords, see: http://www.terrorvictims.com/victims2000.html. (10705)
[7] For details of the Palestinian stage-by-stage strategy to destroy Israel adopted in 1974, see the June 2001 interview with the late Faysal Al-Husseini, a key member of the PLO’s inner circle, translated at http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP23601. (10707)
[8] For a graph of the number of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks in the 30 years since the 1967 Six-Day War, see: http://www.iris.org.il/terr6796.htm. (10708)
[9] For a critique of non-compliance between Oslo I and Oslo II, substantiated by documentation, see Morton A. Klein, “U.S. Aid to Arafat? No. Not until Arafat Fulfills His Promises” Middle East Quarterly (December 1995) at http://www.meforum.org/article/271. (10709)
[10] For a report on intimidation of Palestinian journalists, for example, see the February 1999 ABC radio report on “State of the Media and Journalism in the Palestinian Territories” athttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/mstories/mr990204.htm. (10710)
[11] See Forbes, Kings, Queens And Despots at http://www.forbes.com/work/compensation/2003/02/24/0224kings.html. (10711)
[12] Clyde Haberman, “Israel and Jordan Sign a Peace Accord,” New York Times, October 27, 1994, p. A1.
[13] Up until 1988, 80 percent of Jordan’s population was Palestinian due to annexation of the West Bank in 1950 – a move that transformed Jordan into a de facto Palestinian state. Jordan’s decision to disenfranchise West Bank Palestinian residents in 1988 only improved demographics temporarily – and today 70 percent of all Jordanians are Palestinians.
[14] For details, see the chapter “Incitement.”
[15] The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement, http://www.mideastweb.org/palestineisraeloslo.htm. (10944)
[16] Serge Schmemann, “Israel and PLO. Reach Accord to Transfer West Bank Areas,” New York Times, September 25, 1995, p. A6.
[17] For details, see: Ariel Kehane, “Thanks for Arming US,” Nekuda, December 2000, translated and updated to February 2001 at http://www.afsi.org/OUTPOST/2001FEB/feb4.htm. (10712)
[18] For details of Israeli compliance and Palestinian non-compliance, see “Israel links further withdrawal to Palestinian compliance,” January 15, 1997, at http://www.likud.nl/govern23.html. (10713)
[19] See fact sheet on Har Homa project at http://www.io.com/~jewishwb/iris/archives/891.html. (11345)
[20] Bickerton and Klausner, “A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict”, Pearson Education, October 2001.
[21] Barton Gellman, “Netanyahu, Arafat Sign Accord,” Washington Post, October 24, 1998, p. A1.
[22] CAMERA at http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_article=124&x_context=7. (11346)
[23] King Abdullah’s father, King Hussein, died of cancer at the age of 63 in February 1999.
[24] Jane Perlez, “Barak and Arafat Sign Peace Accord with a New Hope,” New York Times, September 5, 1999, p. A1.
[25] “The 2000 Camp David Summit, the Clinton Plan and their Aftermath,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, February 1, 2001, at http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp447.htm. (10747)
[26] Despite making what President Clinton describes as "significant progress" on core issues, Israeli and Palestinian officials have said that the issues agreed on were poisoned by the failure to agree on Jerusalem. President Clinton said in his statement following the collapse of the summit: "Under the operating rules that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, they are of course not bound by any proposal discussed at the summit." See the BBC “What did Camp David achieved at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/852834.stm. (11348)
[27] Michael B. Oren, “Losing Ground,” Harper’s, (December 2001) at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1822_304/ai_83553499. (10715)
[28] Quotes cited in The PLO Anthology, 4, no. 9 (December 12, 2001), Middle East Briefing, at http://www.jecc.org/jcfmeb/jcfmeb64.htm. (10716)
[29] Ibid.
[30] For U.S. envoy General Anthony Zinni’s assessment of why his own three attempts to facilitate an end to violence between 2001-2002 failed, see “Assigning Blame,” Near East Report, athttp://www.aipac.org/result.cfm?id=1428. (10717)
[31] Text of Arafat Speech at Davos, with most bellicose sections in boldface, at http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2001/jan/ler4.htm. (10718)
[32] “Camp David, One Year On,” Jerusalem Post, July 25 2001, at http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/isreport/july01/camp_david1.html. (10719)
[33] On his way to Kuwait, where he later died of a heart attack, Faysal Al-Husseini gave what turned out to be his last interview to the Egyptian (Nasserite) daily, 'Al-Arabi' and translated by MEMRI. See:http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sd&ID=SP23601. (11349)
[34] Boaz Ganor, “Stage by Stage, Peace by Piece,” June 20, 2003, at http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=488. (10720
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Palm Beach, Fla. — Those who doubted that Rand Paul was will running for
president need to change their minds after considering how he energized the
conservative grass roots with his 13-hour Senate filibuster last week.
Paul took a narrow issue — as he put it, “whether an American can be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime” — and captured the attention of political activists. As social media lit up with praise for his efforts, many of his fellow senators joined him on the floor, in solidarity with his demand that the Obama administration answer a question it had legalistically evaded for days. Representative Keith Rothfus of Pennsylvania was part of a group of House members who went to the Senate floor to “stand with Rand.” “The atmosphere was electric, “ he says. “Republicans felt we were advancing.” The day after the filibuster, Attorney General Eric Holder capitulated and finally gave Paul a direct answer: “‘Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ The answer to that question is no.” Rand Paul isn’t as direct when asked whether he is running for president, but he says he is “seriously” considering it. If he does enter the race, he will clearly do so by stepping out of what he views as an establishment straitjacket that keeps conservatives from communicating their message to young people, Hispanics, and disillusioned independents. “We’ve got to appeal to younger voters, the West Coast, people who view Republicans as in league with crony capitalists and the wealthy, and those who are suspicious of endless foreign interventions,” he says. “Otherwise, we are going to become a niche product for red states.” Much of the GOP establishment obviously resents Rand Paul’s arrival on the national stage. Take John McCain, who tangled frequently with Rand’s father, Ron Paul, when they both ran in the GOP primaries in 2008. A front-page photo in the New York Times captured him glowering as he happened to share an elevator with Rand Paul in the Capitol building last week. McCain told reporters that if the younger Paul “wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids.” But at the annual Club for Growth meeting here in Palm Beach, it wasn’t kids in the audience who greeted Paul as a hero, giving him a standing ovation both before and after his talk last Friday. The Club for Growth is a group of sober-minded business owners and investors who have proved their political clout by helping elect tea-party- oriented senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Rand Paul himself. Some Club members are already in Paul’s corner for 2016. “He has broadened his appeal to include three issues that 75 percent of the American people agree with,” says George Yeager, an investment counselor from New York. “He wants a balanced- budget amendment, term limits, and a questioning of mindless nation-building overseas.” Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina senator who is now president of the Heritage Foundation, told Club members that he “couldn’t think of a more dramatic contrast between some senators having dinner with President Obama on the same night last week that Rand Paul and his allies were making their courageous stand.” In his view, “the balance of power in the Senate GOP caucus is shifting.” He noted that key members of the Senate leadership, such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Jerry Moran of Kansas, came to the Senate floor in support of Paul’s effort. If Paul ran for president, he would no doubt be the underdog, given the Republican Party’s post-Reagan penchant for nominating only establishment figures. But two consecutive presidential defeats have discredited the establishment in the eyes of many activists. Mallory Factor, who runs a popular “Monday Meeting” of conservative activists in Charleston, S.C., had Paul speak to his group recently and reported that the response was very favorable. “He has a fresh appeal,” Factor says. “And the mailing lists he inherits from his father’s two campaigns are a huge fundraising and organizational head start” in South Carolina and other states that will vote early in the 2016 nominating process. The reaction in other early-voting states is also favorable. “I don’t think you can underestimate how big of a moment this was,” conservative Iowa talk-radio host Steve Deace told Politico, speaking of Paul’s filibuster. “If the Iowa caucuses were tomorrow, he would win in a landslide.” Even Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s 2008 presidential effort, told Politico that Paul could be a formidable candidate. “I can’t tell you how many hours and meetings are devoted to discussing the candidate’s vision in a campaign,” said Schmidt. “Well, you wouldn’t have to do that with him. . . . He’s got the right combination of principles, oratory skills, smarts, and showmanship.” Now that Paul has seized the limelight, he will begin a process of being grilled and dissected by a media that is largely hostile to his libertarian message. He delivers that message more smoothly and effectively than his father does — the elder Paul has been tagged at times as cranky — but Paul’s strength, his freshness, is also a potential weakness. After his upset GOP-primary win for the Senate in 2010, the neophyte Paul, who has held office for only two years, gave a now-infamous interview on MSNBC in which he disastrously questioned the constitutionality of parts of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since then, Paul has done a better job of steering what he calls “a middle ground between pure libertarianism and traditional conservatism,” but some GOP leaders still view him as a loose cannon. One senator told me privately that if Paul runs, GOP voters would be unlikely to shake a sense that Paul “has a veiled radical agenda that would undermine the military, leave Israel in the lurch, and savage programs many people depend on.” By all appearances, Paul is trying to assuage these misgivings. He recently met with the leadership of the American Israel Political Action Committee and made his first trip to Israel. He has put his legislative staff to work on veterans’ issues and pointed out that reforming the Pentagon will help ensure U.S. military strength. Most important, he has developed a good relationship with Minority Leader McConnell, his fellow Kentuckian. Paul’s former campaign manager is now leading McConnell’s 2014 reelection effort, and McConnell has allowed Paul a great deal of freedom to offer amendments of his choosing on the Senate floor. All of this makes it harder for people to depict Paul as a fringe figure in the Senate. But for all his efforts, some Republicans — those who blame the Tea Party for the GOP’s failure to take back the Senate from Democrats in 2012 — would probably treat a Paul candidacy as an insurgency they need to suppress. They will insist that Paul won’t appeal to women, moderates, and people who will be suspicious of his Kentucky drawl. But even those who are hostile to Paul should welcome his candidacy. If his star- making filibuster is any indication, his entry in the race will help make the GOP attractive to younger voters and people who are traditionally suspicious of both major parties. For a party that clearly had an “outreach” problem to those voters in 2008 and 2012, that can only be helpful. — John Fund is national-affairs columnist for NRO. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- |
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