Should freshman run the fraternity house?

Elliot Chodoff's partner, Yisrael Ne'eman, questions his country's endemic political corruption? Ne'eman could just as easily have written about the political system in the United States which is driven by money, power,greed and outsized egos. But then that is the ingredients of politics. At this time in history, it appears more blatant in Israel but tell that to the Native Americans who were stolen blind by some crafty corrupt Republicans. (See 1 below.)

Stratfor's, George Friedman, has written an interesting piece about Iran and the tensions within, which range from a belief now is the time to strike because the United States is weak and bogged down in Iraq and caution because the United States might be stronger than their opposite number believe.

In his article Friedman suggests we do not believe we can establish the kind of government in Iraq we would like and the Iranians believe, in time, their dominance will prevail. What eventually will prove to be the case is driven by the varying interests of great powers but Friedman concludes Iran hrstorically has acted more cautiously than its rhetoric would imply.

Perhaps Friedman intended to focus only on Iran and the US but I found his failure to bring Israel into the picture was a mistake. I am not suggesting Israel will be able to act unilaterally but continued taunting of Israel by Iran and Iran's continued funding of surrogate terrorism which threatens Israel will have its consequences whether we like it or not. (See 2 below.)

While at the gym today after finishing my exercise regimen I decided to relax for a minute and picked up an issue of Town and Country. The cover had been torn off but it was obviously, based on the articles, published before the November elections.

I have not read this magazine for more years than I like to count but I always remembered the writing was good and it still is. What really was revealing was the total and complete liberal slant. Then I began to look at the advertisements and the articles featuring bejeweled royalty and their hob-nobbing American admirers going about raising funds for various charitable causes and I understood. Town and Country maybe always was a publication for our nation's "snobbies" but now it even aligns with their politics. Article after article either bashed GW and his administration or was critical of everything and anything he and his party were about.

I have concluded T and C is the comic book of the intelligentsia. There were pages of ads for outrageously expensive watches, jewelry, cars and clothing. The kind of baubles and items the wine and cheese set adorn themselves as they scramble to make understated statements of how wealthy they are, how poor is their taste or how vapid their lives. One of the featured articles was about the power struggle for Mr. Astor's granddaughter's wealth by members of her family whom the article quoted others as saying were a bit boorish.

Later this evening I then read Ne'eman's article (See 1 below.) and I was reminded again of how vulgar the political scene is as it becomes increasingly driven by wealth and greed - he very readership T and C strives to reach. It is so "in" to be out.

Rome may not have been built in a day because the rot, that eventually brought it down, took time to accumulate but when it started to collapse it did not take long.

Gen Halutz, the Israeli Chief of Staff, finally fell on his sword and resigned. I suspect my friend knew in advance that this was coming and I suspect others will follow. In the long run the soul searching going on within Israel's military ranks will prove refreshing and might be just what the doctor ordered. My candidate for Chief of Staff would be to return Gen. Moshe Ya'alon. (See 3 below)

Now if Olmert would do the same. (See 4 below.)

US ambassador to Israel Richard Jones told the Jerusalem Post in an
exclusive interview on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
"picked up" Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's ideas about a need to provide a
"political horizon" during her recent visit here.

Jones said it was important to give both sides "an idea of what we're
talking about, what we are getting into."

Rice is expected back in the region within a month for trilateral
discussions with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Jones stressed these would not be
"negotiations," but rather "discussions" of all the major issues that would
have to be dealt with during the final stages of implementing TRM.

Last month, Livni came out with the idea of holding talks with the
Palestinians about a future state, before implementation of the first stage
of TRM. The idea behind this was to give the Palestinians an
incentive to implement the first steps of TRM in order to reach
these goals.

Jones said he had no knowledge of any tract to agreement worked out
between Israeli, Syrian and US non-governmental officials. He said, however,
the US position regarding Syria is that it should not be rewarded for
its intransigent behavior. Jones said the Israeli government was "not
chomping at the bit" to advance negotiations with the Syrians, but,
added, the US was not standing in Jerusalem's way.

Is it not amazing that the lives of people turn on two words - negotiations versus discussions?

Now that Osoma has decided to explore running for the presidency he should resign from the Senate and enroll somewhere and learn how to govern. It is scary that someone with so little experience believes, because he wrote a book, has a nice smile, has become the darling of the media and knows how to kiss babies feels qualified to run our nation. Have recent presidents so diminished the Oval Office, even freshmen believe they should run the fraternity house?

Are we ready for another possible Carter?

Dick

1) Israel 2007 – Endemic Corruption?
By Yisrael Ne’eman

We in Israel and the Jewish world need to face some very unpleasant facts about ourselves. Our present political leadership in the State of Israel appears to be almost hopelessly corrupt. All politics is known for its “wheeling and dealing” but Israel 2007 is slipping towards an abyss we never believed could exist in the Jewish national movement. Somehow we always “knew” of such behavior happening to other peoples, but never to ourselves. For a people who were to be “a light unto the nations” we are far from being a light unto ourselves.

So what went wrong? In a word – materialism and its negative exponential – greed. Spirituality may be sidelined but it is far from dead as it continues to reside within the hearts of many Jews. Unfortunately, increasing numbers are taking their cues from the political elite (or should it be “delete”). A philosophical material understanding of the world is not negative in its own right, both Adam Smith and Karl Marx believed that wealth accumulation, redistribution or whatever the major force in socio-economic development, whether it be capitalist or socialist was being done for the good of society. By taking either theory or a bit of both as the best economic model(s) for developing the secular states in our present “age of nationalism” the rising nations of the West and later elsewhere used these ideas as tools for the betterment and advancement of their peoples. Zionism did the same, whether it was the socialism of Ben Gurion and the Labor Zionists or the capitalism of Jabotinsky and the Revisionists (or even Weizmann’s general Zionists). Such theories were a means to an end in nation building and especially in the Jewish national cause when the Zionist movement collected persecuted Jewish communities from around the world, brought them back to the ancient homeland and built a modern nation state. It was a means to an end, the end always being what is best for the Jewish People.

Unfortunately, the means is now an end in itself as excessive material well being (gluttony) and political power become their own ends as they are narrowed down to the individual. Whether one is a socialist or capitalist is unimportant. The unity of purpose through the spiritual understanding – also known as “the spirit of the People” is forgotten when leaders seek their own personal well being along with that of their friends and family at the expense of the society they are elected to represent.

The revered Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook already during the Mandate Period had great doubts about political behavior when he wrote concerning the delay of the Jewish national redemption that “our soul was disgusted by the dreadful sins that go with political rule in evil times,” in reference to the 2000 year Jewish exile. He hoped for a time of purity and holiness for then the Jewish People would achieve redemption. He lived to see the evils perpetrated by both communism and fascism in their initial stages.

Those who are greedy need to be in power to satisfy their appetites and conveniently forget there is a Jewish People out there, their only worry being how to jockey for power and win the next election. Those involved in long term planning are not in politics, such as the water (Mekorot), electric companies or best yet, the Jewish National Fund. Unfortunately, here too some are earning exorbitant salaries at public expense.

Just to recap a bit. The president, Moshe Katzav is facing criminal charges for sexual misconduct and possibly rape, the PM Ehud Olmert is being investigated for quasi-legal land deals, bribe taking and illegal appointments to civil service posts and just this past week the Finance Minister Avraham Hirshzon is being accused of financial irregularities when he headed the National Labor Union (Likud) faction. Although not charged with any crime, the Defense Minister and former labor union boss Amir Peretz has been known to sign up massive numbers of new members to the Labor party just before the primaries to ensure his own victory. It is true he was not the only one, but that does not justify such behavior. In the background is the jail sentence to be served by Omri Sharon for election fraud and illegal fundraising done for his father Ariel Sharon in his bid to win the Likud party leadership in 1999. Enter former PM Ehud Barak who wants a shot at the Labor Party top spot in the upcoming May primaries. He was notorious for developing non-profit organizations for campaign fundraising, giving them fictitious charters and breaking the election rules, at least in spirit. These are just the well known stories.

Now we have a major investigation into the Tax & Customs Service where political appointees and high powered businessmen appear to have orchestrated a partial takeover of the state revenue service. The police are still investigating. Those involved were all from the Likud at one point or another, whether they are in Kadima today, such as PM Olmert, who is considered by many to be among the most corrupt politicians in the country or if they remained in the Likud, like those supporters of former foreign minister Sylvan Shalom and the deceased minister Yitzhak Moda’i. Eitan Rob and Jackie Matza are the new superstars in the deepening morass. In short, the Likud (and Kadima of today) central committee captured much of Israel’s civil service. Only recently have political appointees to civil service jobs come under judicial scrutiny. Better a late investigation than none at all.

As Moshe Gorali pointed out in this week’s Ma’ariv weekend magazine, corruption in the civil service is more dangerous than on the political level. Here it becomes endemic and the entire system breaks down. Politicians can more easily be replaced; a civil service suffering from criminal rot brings down the entire infrastructure, meaning the state itself.

Never has the country faced such a sickening array of scandals and abuse of power. Should it become an existential threat to the State of Israel, it may very well be life threatening to the Jewish People since a strong state entity is the best insurance for the continuation of the nation. So where did it all start?

Most likely with the education system and the values projected by those in leadership positions - twenty, thirty and forty years ago. In the main, both parents and the school system forgot to teach our children the essence of Jewish being and why we are here in the Land of Israel. Too many people got sidelined chasing after money and power. Those children grew up and became our political leadership.


2) Rhetoric and Reality: The View from Iran
By George Friedman

The Iraq war has turned into a duel between the United States and Iran. For the United States, the goal has been the creation of a generally pro-American coalition government in Baghdad -- representing Iraq's three major ethnic communities. For Iran, the goal has been the creation of either a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad or, alternatively, the division of Iraq into three regions, with Iran dominating the Shiite south.

The United States has encountered serious problems in creating the coalition government. The Iranians have been primarily responsible for that. With the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June, when it appeared that the Sunnis would enter the political process fully, the Iranians used their influence with various Iraqi Shiite factions to disrupt that process by launching attacks on Sunnis and generally destabilizing the situation. Certainly, Sunnis contributed to this, but for much of the past year, it has been the Shia, supported by Iran, that have been the primary destabilizing force.

So long as the Iranians continue to follow this policy, the U.S. strategy cannot succeed. The difficulty of the American plan is that it requires the political participation of three main ethnic groups that are themselves politically fragmented. Virtually any substantial group can block the success of the strategy by undermining the political process. The Iranians, however, appear to be in a more powerful position than the Americans. So long as they continue to support Shiite groups within Iraq, they will be able to block the U.S. plan. Over time, the theory goes, the Americans will recognize the hopelessness of the undertaking and withdraw, leaving Iran to pick up the pieces. In the meantime, the Iranians will increasingly be able to dominate the Shiite community and consolidate their hold over southern Iraq. The game appears to go to Iran.

Americans are extremely sensitive to the difficulties the United States faces in Iraq. Every nation-state has a defining characteristic, and that of the United States is manic-depression, cycling between insanely optimistic plans and total despair. This national characteristic tends to blind Americans to the situation on the other side of the hill. Certainly, the Bush administration vastly underestimated the difficulties of occupying Iraq -- that was the manic phase. But at this point, it could be argued that the administration again is not looking over the other side of the hill at the difficulties the Iranians might be having. And it is useful to consider the world from the Iranian point of view.

The Foundation of Foreign Policy

It is important to distinguish between the rhetoric and the reality of Iranian foreign policy. As a general principle, this should be done with all countries. As in business, rhetoric is used to shape perceptions and attempt to control the behavior of others. It does not necessarily reveal one's true intentions or, more important, one's capabilities. In the classic case of U.S. foreign policy, Franklin Roosevelt publicly insisted that the United States did not intend to get into World War II while U.S. and British officials were planning to do just that. On the other side of the equation, the United States, during the 1950s, kept asserting that its goal was to liberate Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union, when in fact it had no plans, capabilities or expectations of doing so. This does not mean the claims were made frivolously -- both Roosevelt and John Foster Dulles had good reasons for posturing as they did -- but it does mean that rhetoric is not a reliable indicator of actions. Thus, the purple prose of the Iranian leadership cannot be taken at face value.

To get past the rhetoric, let's begin by considering Iran's objective geopolitical position.

Historically, Iran has faced three enemies. Its oldest enemy was to the west: the Arab/Sunni threat, against which it has struggled for millennia. Russia, to the north, emerged as a threat in the late 19th century, occupying northern Iran during and after World War II. The third enemy has worn different faces but has been a recurring threat since the time of Alexander the Great: a distant power that has intruded into Persian affairs. This distant foreign power -- which has at times been embodied by both the British and the Americans -- has posed the greatest threat to Iran. And when the element of a distant power is combined with one of the other two traditional enemies, the result is a great global or regional power whose orbit or influence Iran cannot escape. To put that into real terms, Iran can manage, for example, the chaos called Afghanistan, but it cannot manage a global power that is active in Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously.

For the moment, Russia is contained. There is a buffer zone of states between Iran and Russia that, at present, prevents Russian probes. But what Iran fears is a united Iraq under the influence or control of a global power like the United States. In 1980, the long western border of Iran was attacked by Iraq, with only marginal support from other states, and the effect on Iran was devastating. Iran harbors a rational fear of attack from that direction, which -- if coupled with American power -- could threaten Iranian survival.

Therefore, Iran sees the American plan to create a pro-U.S. government in Baghdad as a direct threat to its national interests. Now, the Iranians supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003; they wanted to see their archenemy, former President Saddam Hussein, deposed. But they did not want to see him replaced by a pro-American regime. Rather, the Iranians wanted one of two outcomes: the creation of a pro-Iranian government dominated by Iraqi Shia (under Iran's control), or the fragmentation of Iraq. A fragmented Iraq would have two virtues. It would prove no danger to Iran, and Iran likely would control or heavily influence southern Iraq, thus projecting its power from there throughout the Persian Gulf.

Viewed this way, Iran's behavior in Iraq is understandable. A stable Iraq under U.S. influence represents a direct threat to Iran, while a fragmented or pro-Iranian Iraq does not. Therefore, the Iranians will do whatever they can to undermine U.S. attempts to create a government in Baghdad. Tehran can use its influence to block a government, but it cannot -- on its own -- create a pro-Iranian one. Therefore, Iran's strategy is to play spoiler and wait for the United States to tire of the unending conflict. Once the Americans leave, the Iranians can pick up the chips on the table. Whether it takes 10 years or 30, the Iranians assume that, in the end, they will win. None of the Arab countries in the region has the power to withstand Iran, and the Turks are unlikely to get into the game.

The Unknown Variables

Logic would seem to favor the Iranians. But in the past, the Iranians have tried to be clever with great powers and, rather than trapping them, have wound up being trapped themselves. Sometimes they have simply missed other dimensions of the situation. For example, when the revolutionaries overthrew the Shah and created the Islamic Republic, the Iranians focused on the threat from the Americans, and another threat from the Soviets and their covert allies in Iran. But they took their eyes off Iraq -- and that miscalculation not only cost them huge casualties and a decade of economic decay, but broke the self-confidence of the Iranian regime.

The Iranians also have miscalculated on the United States. When the Islamic Revolution occurred, the governing assumption -- not only in Iran but also in many parts of the world, including the United States -- was that the United States was a declining power. It had, after all, been defeated in Vietnam and was experiencing declining U.S. military power and severe economic problems. But the Iranians massively miscalculated with regard to the U.S. position: In the end, the United States surged and it was the Soviets who collapsed.

The Iranians do not have a sterling record in managing great powers, and especially in predicting the behavior of the United States. In large and small ways, they have miscalculated on what the United States would do and how it would do it. Therefore, like the Americans, the Iranians are deeply divided. There are those who regard the United States as a bumbling fool, all set to fail in Iraq. There are others who remember equally confident forecasts about other American disasters, and who see the United States as ruthless, cunning and utterly dangerous.

These sentiments, then, divide into two policy factions. On the one side, there are those who see Bush's surge strategy as an empty bluff. They point out that there is no surge, only a gradual buildup of troops, and that the number of troops being added is insignificant. They point to political divisions in Washington and argue that the time is ripe for Iran to go for it all. They want to force a civil war in Iraq, to at least dominate the southern region and take advantage of American weakness to project power in the Persian Gulf.

The other side wonders whether the Americans are as weak as they appear, and also argues that exploiting a success in Iraq would be more dangerous and difficult than it appears. The United States has substantial forces in Iraq, and the response to Shiite uprisings along the western shore of the Persian Gulf would be difficult to predict. The response to any probe into Saudi Arabia certainly would be violent.

We are not referring here to ideological factions, nor to radicals and moderates. Rather, these are two competing visions of the United States. One side wants to exploit American weakness; the other side argues that experience shows that American weakness can reverse itself unexpectedly and trap Iran in a difficult and painful position. It is not a debate about ends or internal dissatisfaction with the regime. Rather, it is a contest between audacity and caution.

The Historical View

Over time -- and this is not apparent from Iranian rhetoric -- caution has tended to prevail. Except during the 1980s, when they supported an aggressive Hezbollah, the Iranians have been quite measured in their international actions. Following the war with Iraq, they avoided overt moves -- and they even were circumspect after the fall of the Soviet Union, when opportunities presented themselves to Iran's north. After 9/11, the Iranians were careful not to provoke the United States: They offered landing rights for damaged U.S. aircraft and helped recruit Shiite tribes for the American effort against the Taliban. The rhetoric alternated between intense and vitriolic; the actions were more cautious. Even with the Iranian nuclear project, the rhetoric has been far more intense than the level of development seems to warrant.

Rhetoric influences perceptions, and perceptions can drive responses. Therefore, the rhetoric should not be discounted as a driving factor in the geopolitical system. But the real debate in Iran is over what to do about Iraq. No one in Iran wants a pro-U.S. government in Baghdad, and blocking the emergence of such a government has a general consensus. But how far to go in trying to divide Iraq, creating a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad and projecting power in the region is a matter of intense debate. In fact, cautious behavior combined with extreme rhetoric still appears to be the default position in Tehran, with more adventurous arguments struggling to gain acceptance.

The United States, for its part, is divided between the desire to try one more turn at the table to win it all and the fear that it is becoming hopelessly trapped. Iran is divided between a belief that the time to strike is now and a fear that counting the United States out is always premature. This is an engine that can, in due course, drive negotiations. Iran might be "evil" and the United States might be "Satan," but at the end of the day, international affairs involving major powers are governed not by rhetoric but by national interest. The common ground between the United States and Iran is that neither is certain it can achieve its real strategic interests. The Americans doubt they can create a pro-U.S. government in Baghdad, and Iran is not certain the United States is as weak as it appears to be.

Fear and uncertainty are the foundations of international agreement, while hope and confidence fuel war. In the end, a fractured Iraq -- an entity incapable of harming Iran, but still providing an effective buffer between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula -- is emerging as the most viable available option.



3) IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz announces his resignation
By Amos Harel

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz on Tuesday night announced his resignation as head of the military. The deputy chief of staff, Moshe Kaplinsky, will act as the interim head of the armed forces.

Senior General Staff officers welcomed Halutz's decision, saying it was
necessary in view of what has come to light regarding the IDF's wartime functioning. "The time has really come," a general who played an active role in the war told Haaretz on Tuesday night.

"[Former GOC Northern Command] Udi Adam indicated the proper moral path with his decision [to resign]. Now Halutz joins him as well - and the inquiries show only the tip of the iceberg regarding Halutz's functioning during the war."

Ehud Olmert's bureau said the prime minister knew ahead of time of Halutz' intention to resign, and had asked him reconsider. Olmert accepted the resignation, however, once he became convinced of Halutz' determination to do so, and expressed deep regret at the decision.

Halutz' decision to step down comes against a backdrop of failures in IDF functioning, his own performance and the performance of the army during the war against Hezbollah in July and August of last year.

Two weeks ago, Halutz said he would resign if the government-appointed Winograd committee of inquiry found him responsible for the mishandling of the war in Lebanon. The Winograd committee is also separately looking into the conduct of Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

"If the committee hands down an unambiguous sentence, it would obligate me [to resign]," Halutz had said. The resignation, however, comes before the committee has released its conclusions.

Senior IDF officers testified before the Winograd committee that they considered Halutz responsible for the failures of the war. The officers told the members of the panel that the IDF had made a rushed recommendation to go to war, without preparing the units needed and without devising an exit strategy.

In his letter of resignation to the prime minister and defense minister, Halutz said the responsibility of command led him to the decision that he must remain in the army until internal military investigations had been completed, and the lessons learned from the war incorporated into the IDF's 2007 strategic plan.

Given that this process was completed at the start of January, Halutz asked to resign his post, effective immediately.

In his letter to Olmert, Halutz wrote: "For me, the word responsibility has great meaning. My view of responsibility is what led me to remain in my post until this time and to place this letter on your desk today... Since the echoes of battle ceased, I decided to act responsibly according to the best traditions and values from home and from my service in the IDF."

Halutz said that after the conclusion of the inquiries "I feel proud that I completed what I set out to do. After these thorough processes, I am sure the IDF will be ready to meet the challenges ahead."

Halutz had since the end of the war resisted calls for his resignation, both from the public and within the army.

"I see that there are a number of people who are longing for me to resign. I have no intention of yielding and if you ask me the question again, I will give you the same answer," he told reporters several weeks ago.

"I am not on 'A Star is Born,' and I am not being voted on by SMS. I have not heard those who appointed me call for me to go, when they tell me to do so, then I will respond."

Halutz' successor
In the near future Peretz will have to present the cabinet with a candidate to be the next chief of staff.

Kaplinsky is an obvious choice for the position, but also mentioned are Ground Forces Commander Benny Gantz, and reserve major-generals Gabi Ashkenazi (who is currently the Defense Ministry director-general), Shlomo Yanai and Ilan Biran.

The July-August assault on Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas drove them from Israel's northern border but failed to retrieve the two soldiers whose abduction had sparked the conflict, prompting many Israelis to call for a purge of the top brass in hope of restoring Israel's military superiority in the region.

Retired IDF general Dan Shomron recently submitted the findings of a probe he conducted into the war's execution.

The report, released in part last month, criticised IDF commanders for poor organization during the war, but stopped short of calling for Halutz's resignation.

Halutz, a former Israel Air Force chief, came under criticism for relying heavily on aerial barrages in the first part of the war, which caused extensive damage to Lebanon's infrastructure, while Hezbollah launched around 4,000 rockets into Israel.

Halutz was made chief of staff in June 2005, just before Israel launched its unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

The appointment raised eyebrows as it meant early retirement for the chief of staff at the time, Lieutenant-General Moshe Ya'alon, who had publicly warned that the Gaza plan would embolden Palestinian militants sworn to Israel's destruction.

4) MKs call on Olmert to resign in wake of Bank Leumi probe
By Mazal Mualem

Knesset members from across the political spectrum called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday to resign or suspend himself after the state prosecution ordered police to open a criminal investigation of Olmert's involvement in the state's sale of a controlling interest in Bank Leumi.

As in previous recent incidents in which Olmert has found himself at the center of a political storm, top Kadima officials did not rush to his defense. Other politicians who did not comment on the controversy included the contenders for leadership of Labor, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former prime minister Ehud Barak, whom Olmert would like to see replace Peretz as defense minister.

"It can't be that the crucial state matters will be run by someone who is entirely involved in saving himself," said MK Yossi Beilin, chairman of Meretz. Beilin called on Olmert to suspend himself immediately and transfer his prime ministerial authority to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who bears the title of acting prime minister, until the investigation is over.

Beilin warned that if Olmert does not suspend himself, then Meretz-Yachad will initiate proceedings in the Knesset requiring him to do so.

MK Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party), who is chairman of the Knesset State Control Committee, called on Monday for the PM to step down. He said that after the Civil Service Commissioner Shmuel Hollander said he would suspend those under investigation in the Tax Authority, it was fitting for Olmert to step down.

Aryeh Eldad (National Union) said Tuesday, "Olmert has to go."

Labor MKs said the investigation signals the end of Olmert's rule.

"The decision brings the end of the government closer," said MK Danny Yatom, who is running for the leadership of Labor.

He said a key issue in the party primaries will be the candidate's ability to rehabilitate the government and lead it to elections.

MK Ami Ayalon, another candidate for Labor chairman, said the party should prepare for the possibility of early elections, with the central issues being the fight against corruption and restoration of public confidence in the political system.

MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud) called for new elections, saying only that would bring a halt to the government's endless failures.

MK Yoel Hasson, one of the few Kadima members who defended Olmert, said: "The comments by senior economic and Bank of Israel officials, led by [Bank of Israel] Governor Stanley Fischer, who reinforced and praised the involvement and conduct of [then-]finance minister Olmert should constitute a guarantee that the police investigation will be completed quickly, and at the end, it will become clear that the prime minister strengthened the economic system."

Realism - will it ever drive our diplomatic inititaives?

As long as Sunni-Shia sectarian antipathy was directed elsewhere its more virulent strain was accepted by the Arab/Muslim world. However, when it spilled over the banks in 9/11 and we responded in Afghanistan and Iran causing their historical hatred of one another to spill into their streets threatening many of the Shia ruled autocratic fiefdoms, their leaders are now complaining and fearful.

These sheikdoms maintain our "failed" efforts in Iraq have put them in harms way. They seem unwilling to recognize their own tolerance of hate filled sermons and centers of twisted education might have some connection to that of which they complain.

The US has spent the blood of its youth and untold billions helping others. We have been doing the world's heavy lifting for decades and it has gotten us much scorn and criticism - some deserved, much not.

Though we cannot withdraw from the world it might prove instructive if we lowered our profile, curbed our involvement and let the world function more or less on its own. In fact, we could begin by lowering our funding of the UN and let the French have a go at it. The problem is, Russia and China would like nothing better and are already making inroads, particularly the latter in Africa. So we have to stay engaged. The question is whether we can as domestic support erodes and results are hard to achieve.

The Israelis learned, to their dismay, unilateralism does not work. Maybe one day we will discover our own efforts to deny reality and coddling are the basis of so many of our own self induced disappointments. Sec. Rice is going to the region again and it would be constructive if she took her blinders off and looked at the consequences of our diplomatic wishful thinking.

One of Israel's more liberal newspapers attacked Peretz, and for that matter Olmert as well, for being more interested in power than serving the critical defense needs of the nation. (See 1 below.)

Dennis Ross, who was there and involved, takes Jimmy Carter to task for purposeful ambiguity and playing with Mid East maps. (See 2 below.)

Dick



1) Cowards at the top


If the country's defense is in the hands of the wrong minister, and if everyone in the government recognizes this, the public should not be concerned by who is heading the Labor Party at the end of May - but by who is filling the defense portfolio tomorrow morning. The lack of public responsibility among elected officials, foremost Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, can go only so far. The breakdown in their relations illustrates the government's disconnect from what is really important for the country, and the extent of the selfishness of those in power.

The claim that the defense portfolio "belongs" to the Labor Party due to the coalition agreement is shameful - since the head of the party took the job upon himself, knowing nothing about it, and has proved he is incapable of assessing his skills and limitations, lacks the candor to admit it, and is unwilling to relinquish the post to a more appropriate person.

Amir Peretz destroyed his own career, and he is not worthy of compassion or understanding - only disposal from office. Since Labor is a party with working institutions, is not built around the passing popularity of a charismatic leader, has already recovered from factionalism and the assassination of its leader, and knows how to put forth an agenda and offer new leadership - it should not make do with the anomaly of Ehud Barak declaring his candidacy for "the party leadership and the post of defense minister."

This is not the way a parliamentary system is structured, nor is it how a government should function. Peretz, assisted by his party, must leave his post, and someone worthy should replace him immediately, regardless of the results of Labor's May primaries. Labor will hold internal elections, and the winner will be a candidate for prime minister. The public will follow the developments in the party, and decide how to vote accordingly.

If the prime minister had some leadership qualities, he would have replaced the defense minister a long time ago. Given that Peretz is not regarded as a successful defense minister - not by members of the government, or even the other Labor ministers - it can be assumed that if Olmert were to present Peretz with an ultimatum and ask him to take a different portfolio, Labor would not leave the coalition.

However, that is not how scores are kept in the government. Barak announced he is a candidate for defense minister so he wouldn't be seen as a threat to Olmert; Peretz announced he would not step down so that he could maintain his power before the Labor primaries; and the entire government is sitting and waiting for the five members of the Winograd Committee to do the work the government was elected to do.

This cowardly behavior, which lacks any semblance of statesmanship, is sufficient to show all of them as unworthy of serving in the government. It is impossible to negotiate with the Egyptians, the Palestinians or the Chinese, and to make promises regarding military preparations against the Iranian bomb, when a minor thing that needs fixing is not being fixed.

2)Dennis Ross: Carter mispresents maps to hide Arafat's rejection of peace
Don't Play With Maps
By DENNIS ROSS The New York Times January 9, 2007
www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/opinion/09ross.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Washington

I BECAME embroiled in a controversy with former President Jimmy Carter over
the use of two maps in his recent book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."
While some criticized what appeared to be the misappropriation of maps I had
commissioned for my book, "The Missing Peace," my concern was always
different.

I was concerned less with where the maps had originally come from - Mr.
Carter has said that he used an atlas that was published after my book
appeared - and more with how they were labeled. To my mind, Mr. Carter's
presentation badly misrepresents the Middle East proposals advanced by
President Bill Clinton in 2000, and in so doing undermines, in a small but
important way, efforts to bring peace to the region.

In his book, Mr. Carter juxtaposes two maps labeled the "Palestinian
Interpretation of Clinton's Proposal 2000" and "Israeli Interpretation of
Clinton's Proposal 2000."

The problem is that the "Palestinian interpretation" is actually taken from
an Israeli map presented during the Camp David summit meeting in July 2000,
while the "Israeli interpretation" is an approximation of what President
Clinton subsequently proposed in December of that year. Without knowing
this, the reader is left to conclude that the Clinton proposals must have
been so ambiguous and unfair that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was
justified in rejecting them. But that is simply untrue.
In actuality, President Clinton offered two different proposals at two
different times. In July, he offered a partial proposal on territory and
control of Jerusalem. Five months later, at the request of Ehud Barak, the
Israeli prime minister, and Mr. Arafat, Mr. Clinton presented a
comprehensive proposal on borders, Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and
security. The December proposals became known as the Clinton ideas or
parameters.

Put simply, the Clinton parameters would have produced an independent
Palestinian state with 100 percent of Gaza, roughly 97 percent of the West
Bank and an elevated train or highway to connect them. Jerusalem's status
would have been guided by the principle that what is currently Jewish will
be Israeli and what is currently Arab will be Palestinian, meaning that
Jewish Jerusalem - East and West - would be united, while Arab East
Jerusalem would become the capital of the Palestinian state.

The Palestinian state would have been "nonmilitarized," with internal
security forces but no army and an international military presence led by
the United States to prevent terrorist infiltration and smuggling.
Palestinian refugees would have had the right of return to their state, but
not to Israel, and a fund of $30 billion would have been created to
compensate those refugees who chose not to exercise their right of return to
the Palestinian state.

When I decided to write the story of what had happened in the negotiations,
I commissioned maps to illustrate what the proposals would have meant for a
prospective Palestinian state. If the Clinton proposals in December 2000 had
been Israeli or Palestinian ideas and I was interpreting them, others could
certainly question my interpretation. But they were American ideas, created
at the request of the Palestinians and the Israelis, and I was the principal
author of them. I know what they were and so do the parties.

It is certainly legitimate to debate whether President Clinton's proposal
could have settled the conflict. It is not legitimate, however, to rewrite
history and misrepresent what the Clinton ideas were.

Indeed, since the talks fell apart, there has emerged a mythology that seeks
to defend Mr. Arafat's rejection of the Clinton ideas by suggesting they
weren't real or they were too vague or that Palestinians would have received
far less than what had been advertised. Mr. Arafat himself tried to defend
his rejection of the Clinton proposals by later saying he was not offered
even 90 percent of the West Bank or any of East Jerusalem. But that was
myth, not reality.

Why is it important to set the record straight? Nothing has done more to
perpetuate the conflict between Arabs and Israelis than the mythologies on
each side. The mythologies about who is responsible for the conflict (and
about its core issues) have taken on a life of their own. They shape
perception. They allow each side to blame the other while avoiding the need
to face up to its own mistakes. So long as myths are perpetuated, no one
will have to face reality.

And yet peace can never be built on these myths. Instead it can come only
once the two sides accept and adjust to reality. Perpetuating a myth about
what was offered to justify the Arafat rejection serves neither Palestinian
interests nor the cause of peace.

I would go a step further. If, as I believe, the Clinton ideas embody the
basic trade-offs that will be required in any peace deal, it is essential to
understand them for what they were and not to misrepresent them. This is
especially true now that the Bush administration, for the first time, seems
to be contemplating a serious effort to deal with the core issues of the
conflict.
Of course, one might ask if trying to address the core issues is appropriate
at a moment when Palestinians are locked in an internal stalemate and the
Israeli public lacks confidence in its government. Can politically weak
leaders make compromises on the issues that go to the heart of the conflict?
Can the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, compromise on the right of
return and tell his public that refugees will not go back to Israel? Can
Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, tell his public that demography and
practicality mean that the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem will have
Palestinian and not Israeli sovereignty?

The basic trade-offs require meeting Israeli needs on security and refugees
on the one hand and Palestinian needs on territory and a capital in Arab
East Jerusalem on the other. But producing such trade-offs won't simply come
from calling for them. Instead, an environment must be created in which each
side believes the other can act on peace and is willing to condition its
public for the difficult compromises that will be necessary.

So long as mythologies can't be cast aside, and so long as the trade-offs on
the core issues can't be embraced by Israelis or Palestinians, peace will
remain forever on the horizon. If history tells us anything, it is that for
peace-making to work, it must proceed on the basis of fact, not fiction.

Always said victimhood paid. Now we have the figures!

GW's speech Wednesday is the last straw, so to speak. There is little the Democrats can or will do, other than grumble, but if his new strategy does not begin to bring results he will eventually be forced to retreat. The WSJ lead editorial tried to put the matter in perspective today and also published a different view in an op ed piece written by the former Sec. of The Army and a Johns Hopkins Professor entitled "OUR ONLY HOPE.".

If PM Maliki gets tough with Cleric Sadr, highly problematical, that would go a long way towards helping GW to ultimately accomplish his goal of a liberated and less conflictual sectarian Iraq society. I argued a year ago that Sadr should have been arrested and tried for treasonous activities. Face him then or face him later but in the end he must be faced. The same is true for Iran and Syria.

There are some issues you cannot duck and doing so prolongs problems. Furthermore, it serves to weaken your position when you eventually have to face them. The adage about putting off today etc. comes to mind.

Shin Bet has published a report which states 14% of the suicide bombers had been granted Israeli citizenship. That would be the equivalent of about 42 million Americans - equal to the population of about half the entire southern states (See 1 below.)

I have stated for years, victim hood pays well. We now have some new statistics. The U.S. taxpayer has been taken for another ride. (See 2 below.)

If and when the next war begins from Gaza and the West Bank, Israel might be facing Katyushas instead of Qassams. (Seee 3 below.)

Many many years ago Upton Sinclair wrote about the Chicago Stockyards and the outrageous employment of under age youth and the terrible working conditions. Has WalMart replaced the Chcago Stockyards? To hear some politicians you would think so. But a new poll reveals railing against WMT does not have the same political sting.

I do not understand why we love to attack the successful in this country simply because they are successful. No doubt any successful company makes mistakes and engages in some abuses but the vindictiveness against WalMart is beyond logic. It is pure populism. WMT benefits their customers by offering good products and service at a low cost. When they open a new store people line up for blocks seeking employment.

It would seem politicians would be wiser to pick another fight based on polling but then politicians are often tone deaf or maybe I am missing something.(See 4 below.)

In the interest of objectivity I own 582 shares.

Dick



1) Shin Bet: 14 percent of suicide bombers had Israeli citizenship
By Gideon Alon

38 of the 272 suicide bombings in Israel (roughly 14 percent) were carried out by terrorists that had received Israeli citizenship in the context of family reunification, a Shin Bet official told the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee on Monday.

The committee met Monday in order to discuss the extension of a temporary law that prevents family reunification between Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza and Israeli Arabs due to security reasons.

The Shin Bet official said the figures show it is imperative that the government extend the temporary law, which will expire January 16.

Deputy Attorney General Mike Blass also said it is absolutely necessary to extend the law, because security threats have not decreased. Justice Ministry attorney Yochi Gansin said there has been an increase in the involvement of women in terrorist attacks, including married women, widows, and educated women.

Nearly all of the MKs who participated in the deliberations were harshly critical of calls to extend the temporary law. The committee's chairman, Labor MK Raleb Majadele, demand the committee be presented with statistics on the involvement in terror of Palestinians who received entry permits, and not just those who received citizenship as a result of family unification.

Meretz Chairman Yossi Beilin called the law "a terrible law, a draconian law that has no place in the book of laws," while Hadash MK Dov Khenin said: "It is a bad law that harms human and civil rights."

Ra'am-Ta'al MK Ahmed Tibi said the "rationale behind the law is not security but demographics."

Attorney Oded Peler from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel said the association opposes extending the law, saying it constitutes collective punishment, blatantly violates individuals' constitutional rights to personal freedom, dignity, equality, and privacy, and harms family life.

This is the fourth time the Knesset has been asked to extend the temporary law.

In the summer of 2005, the law was amended allow Palestinian males over the age of 35, and women over the age of 25, to begin the family reunification process. In addition, the amendments expanded the army's authority to grant entry permits for periods over six months for the purpose of medical treatment.

In May, an expanded High Court of Justice panel approved the temporary law in a 6-5 vote. The court determined, however, that arrangements must be put into place in order to put greater emphasis on humanitarian concerns.

Among the dissenting votes was former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, who argued that the "worthwhile objective of increasing security does not sanctify serious harm to the lives of thousands of Israeli citizens."

The new version of the law will change the response to humanitarian exceptions. For instance, the interior minister will determine the maximum annual quota of individuals that will receive entry permits for humanitarian reasons on the basis of a professional committee's recommendation.

In such cases, the Palestinian individuals in question may be granted not only entry permits, but also may be given temporary resident status, which will allow them to work legally.

The new version of the law would also grant the interior minister the authority to reject any citizenship request filed by residents of Iran, Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon.

2)What Did the Palestinians Do with Their "Marshall Plan"?[Squandered millions]
by Ben-Dror Yamini
The Palestinians have bought themselves a place of honor on the list of
unfortunates in the world. A well-oiled public relations campaign has turned
them into a nation of victims. Misery pays. One of the countries hated by
the Palestinians the most, the United States, has since 1993 helped them
more than any other nation in the world, according to World Bank figures.
From 1994 to 2004, the U.S. provided the Palestinians with $1.3 billion, the
EU $1.1 billion, and Japan $530 million. In addition to direct aid, the U.S.
is also the largest contributor to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian
refugees.

In 1992, the Palestinian per capita GDP was $2,683 per person. If there had
not been terror, the Palestinian economy could have grown during the 1990s
into one of the leaders in the Middle East. The money was used for three
major purposes: perpetuation of the refugees as victims, purchase of weapons
and explosives, and corruption. Opportunities to achieve independence and
prosperity were rejected for the ultimate goal: the removal of Israel from
the map.

In relation to their numbers, the Palestinians have received more aid than
provided by the Marshall Plan after World War II. Since the Oslo agreements,
the Palestinians in the territories have received $5.5 billion, or $1,300
per person. By comparison, in the Marshall plan, each European enjoyed only
$273 (in today's numbers). Above all, the guilt lies with those who gave
these huge sums without having the Palestinians undergo a period of recovery
from their futile dreams of the destruction of Israel. The result is,
primarily, the continued destruction of Palestinian society.

3) Palestinian terror cells seek to acquire Katyusha technology
By YAAKOV KATZ

A number Palestinian terror cell members have recently left the Gaza Strip and traveled abroad to learn how to manufacture and effectively launch short-range Katyusha rockets, high-ranking defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

According to the officials, the new rockets, with an estimated range of over 35 kilometers, could reach the southern cities of Kiryat Gat, Netivot and Ofakim.

A senior IDF officer said the terrorists who traveled abroad were those responsible for the development and firing of Kassam rockets at the western Negev. The terrorists have decided, the officer said, to begin using Katyusha rockets against Israel, since the Kassam has exhausted itself technologically.

"The Kassam cannot be further upgraded, and the Palestinians need a new weapon," the officer said. "The cells have traveled abroad to learn about the Katyusha rocket and how to manufacture it back in the Gaza Strip."

While the officer refrained from revealing the cell members' destination, Hamas terrorists have been known to travel to Lebanon and Iran for training with Hizbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

While the Kassam has been the IDF's current and immediate focus, a high-ranking defense official said Monday that it was necessary to begin preparing for the possibility that the Palestinian terror organizations in the Gaza Strip would also soon obtain rockets with even longer ranges than that of the Katyusha.

Palestinian terrorists in Gaza are also known to have a small quantity of old Soviet-era Grad-type Katyusha rockets, some of which have been fired at Israel - although without reaching their maximum range of close to 30 kilometers. During the war in Lebanon, close to 4,000 rockets - mostly short-range Katyushas - landed in northern Israel.

As a result of the new intelligence, the Home Front Command has stopped formulating protection and defense plans based on the Kassam threat, and has updated all of its databases and now runs simulations and tests protective measures against the larger Katyusha rocket.

In May, the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a Katyusha rocket attack on the Gaza-belt community of Netiv Ha'asara.

Unlike the homemade, short-range Kassam rockets frequently launched at Israel, Islamic Jihad said the Grad version of the Katyusha was 2.8 meters long, weighed 66 kilograms and had a caliber of 122 mm. It carried a 17-kilogram warhead, the group said, and had a range of 18 to 30 kilometers.

4) Poll: Critique of Wal-Mart is a Political Loser
By Peter Brown

Democratic presidential candidates who attack Wal-Mart due to concerns about the ill effects of globalization, the firm's business practices and its pay for workers are hurting their own election prospects.

That's the message from new polls in Ohio and Florida, the two most important swing states in presidential elections.

Simply put, the poll results raise this question: Why have Democrats chosen to highlight their opposition to the nation's largest employer.

Three-in-four voters say attacks by politicians on Wal-Mart won't affect their voting behavior. But among those who say it will, those people are much more likely to vote against a candidate who skewers Wal-Mart than they are to vote for him.

Quinnipiac University polls of more than 1,000 voters in each of those states last month found that Wal-Mart is viewed very favorably by the electorate, and especially by independent voters who generally decide close elections.

A plurality of voters also believes that Democrats who attack Wal-Mart are doing so to curry favor with organized labor, which is unhappy with the firm because its stores are non-union.

Even self-identified Democrats say their local communities are better off for having a Wal-Mart in their area, although in Ohio, union families are more likely to have mixed feelings about the company.

Many Democratic presidential candidates, including Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have not just been critical of the nation's largest retailer, but used it as a campaign prop.

Bashing Wal-Mart has become almost a stock part of their rhetoric, arguing that the company doesn't treat its workers well, and hurts communities because a side effect of offering its low prices is driving down wages.

To determine the effectiveness of that message, the independent Quinnipiac Poll asked voters in Ohio and Florida whether anyone in their household had shopped in a Wal-Mart in the past year.

In Florida, 91 percent answered affirmatively; in Ohio 86 percent.

But not only do these voters shop there, they overwhelmingly see the company as a positive force in their community, and by a solid margin as a good thing for the country. The difference probably reflects a concern about the outsourcing of American jobs, since Wal-Mart imports a large percentage of its goods from overseas.

In Florida, by a 72-16 percent margin, voters think Wal-Mart has a positive rather than negative effect on their area. By a 61-25 percent margin, they feel that way about the firm's affect on the country. In Ohio, by 65-23 percent voters think it has been a positive force in their area, 52-37 percent for the country.

By a ratio of four-to-one, 56-14 percent, Floridians view Wal-Mart favorably. The figures for Florida Democrats aren't much different, 54-15 percent.

Ohioans see the firm favorably 44-24 percent, although in the roughly one in five Ohio households in which there is a union member, Wal-Mart is viewed negatively 40-31 percent. However, those union households believe by a 53-28 percent margin that Wal-Mart has been positive for their area.

In Ohio 77 percent, and in Florida 78 percent, say a candidate's attacks on Wal-Mart would not affect their voting behavior. But among those who say it matters, the view is decidedly negative about such candidates.

In Ohio, twice as many voters, 14 percent, said attacks against Wal-Mart make it less likely they would support such a candidate than the 7 percent who said it made them more likely. Among independents, that margin was 13 percent to 4 percent.

In Florida, 16 percent said they would be less likely to support such a candidate, compared to 4 percent who said they would be more likely to support him. Among independents, it was 18-4 percent.

Of course what a presidential candidate says about Wal-Mart doesn't rank high on voters' list of priorities, but it is interesting that Democrats, and not just those running for president, have decided to declare verbal warfare on the company.

At least on the surface, it does not seem to make political sense.

We the people - the stuckees!

Now that the Pelosi and Reid led Democrats are in control it will be instructive to watch how they function with the claimed re-enstatement of PAYGO - something the first Bush introduced, Clinton embraced and the second Bush and his Party abandoned.

If Democrats want to help their little "straw-man" the first place to start would be by reducing the escalating and crushing effect of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) on middle income earners. This means they will have to cut spending somewhere. Doing the cutting in the face of Jesse Jackson's new demands on his Congressional friends should prove highly entertaining. Many members of the Black Caucus now have assumed high positions within the Democrat Party and are in charge of several key committees due to seniority. If Democrats are true to Pelosi's word and intend to act fiscally responsible, the girdle effect of PAYGO should make the budget appear downright svelte.

I do not believe it will happen of course and I also believe, as the Democrats begin to take over governance, many things they have railed against will come back to bite them because they are not a Party prone to fiscal responsibility any more than the Republicans were and/or are. Spending other peoples money is what gets politicians elected. Like bees, it is their political honey.

New ethical rules, aimed at lobbyists and trumpeted by Ms. Pelosi, are full of holes and a sham. Also, the hundred day rush to pass "showy" legislation is just that - create the appearance of governance and that we are in charge. The fact that the Democrats are doing so without allowing for debate and giving Republicans any hope of offering amendments is just another sham. What we are actually witnessing, in between all the kisses highlighted by an obsequious media, is vindictive pay-back and politics as usual. The Democrats stuck it to the Republicans for some forty years.

The Republicans then stuck it to the Democrats for some ten plus years and now the Democrats are back in town. It is nothing but political hypocrisy and who is truly getting stuck? - we the people.

Though I am over my head in discussing these matters I thought I would add a few comments about two our nation faces longer term from the perspective of demographics and health and fissures revealed by failed military episodes.

There are many ongoing debates with respect to the consequences of retirees, ie. who will buy their assets and what will be their economic future etc. Some argue there will be a significant asset shift as other emerging nations accumulate wealth, placing themselves in a position to buy up our domestic assets. Thereby, providing our retiree population the economic wherewithal to do so in comfort. Certainly we are not creating wealth through our own savings rate which hovers around zero. We can, however, create wealth through innovation and productivity but the former demands continued investment in basic research and the latter comes from increased labor saving type investments and an educated and sophisticated work force.

Germany is currently suffering a brain drain as more of their productive and employable citizens flee the increased Muslim influence both in Europe and, more specifically, in their own country; as well as the onerous tax burden on German incomes. In or own country, legal immigration is being restrained by more challenging visa procedures following 9/11, while illegal immigration goes relatively unchecked. The latter may contribute to filling gaps in our work force needs but since most repatriate much of their earnings while making increasing demands on the nation's social structure, they provide little financial offset. Another escalating future burden we face unless rational changes are implemented in our immigration policies.

A second issue pertains to our nation's health care costs which are escalating out of control. Whatever legislation is being proposed does more to reduce efficiency, escalate costs and adds to a decrease in quality of professional care. We would be wise to scrap all existing federal programs and replace them with something fresh and more workable - it will never happen because there are too many vested interests in maintaining what does not work. So the inefficient patchwork will persist and expand.

The demand for health care will only increase as a result of our aging population. Some reports indicate 50% of one's entire health costs are generated in the last 6 or more months of life. In the lecture series we are putting on, I and my committee have scheduled a panel discussion on medical ethics and aging.

The issues I raise relate to quality of life and income disparities. Democracy and capitalism, in tandem, have spawned successive generations of egalitarian benefits and wealth beyond anything seen in the rest of the world. Americans are living longer, are healthier, have more life style options and the lists continues endlessly. Whether we will maintain these opportunities for future generations and remain a magnet nation capable of attracting immigration as well as capital inflows is the critical issue we face and must resolve.

Each successive Congress has an opportunity to leave their mark and either chip away at these problems or add to them. We have been in political stalemate for many years and though some believe that beneficial, I find these views cynically based on their contempt for bureaucracy - justified or otherwise. We have real and serious problems. Answers must be found or they will mount and solutions will become ever more costly and difficult.

I hope the new Democrat Congress will think outside the box and move towards sensible reforms where needed but like the "stalemate crowd" I doubt it will happen. It takes a crisis to accomplish anything and then progress generally responds with unwise solutions, aka - Sarbanes Oxley and other such past legislative enactments which either made the problem bigger or added new ones or both.

Perhaps our political cycles are not geared to long term solutions. Perhaps our predilection for quick fixes and our impatient temperament are part of the problem. Whatever it is, the time has passed for more political footballing.

I believe our successive military failures in Viet Nam and now possibly Iraq suggest there are transcending fissures in our methodology, our national temperament, our political structure that need to be addressed and debated because they effect our nation's future and the hopes of future generations.

Can and will we?

Dick

Lead balloons cannot stay aloft forever!

PM Malik now claims he will crack down with Iraqi troops on anyone creating problems regardless of sect.

The newly appointed US military commanders seem more associated with our effort to achieve an end goal. Bush is taking the more difficult and controversial road. I heard Admiral Fallon lecture several years ago, when I attended a Naval War College function. Very impressive person. His previous command has been in the Far East and he is a great believer in pursuing a diplomatic accommodation with China because he sees them as a growing naval power and possible threat to our influence in that region. He saw his role as much an ambassador as a naval commander. (See 1 below.)

As I indicated several weeks ago, the plan GW will announce will finally be coupled and co-ordinated with increased aid and plans to put Iraqis to work.

Meanwhile, if GW's plan fails the next president will have to struggle with the problem and it could get wider because GW's new strategy might also include finally addressing Iran and Syria. Something I have been urging for years. We have been treating the sympton and not attacking the disease and consequently have wasted American blood and resources in a halfhearted re-active effort which has been failing.

Giving it your all and then leaving if not successful is one thing but getting involved and not knowing how to proceed is folly.

Finally, what goes around comes around. Cindy Sheehan is now attacking Demmocrats. Has the mother turned to eating her young? I have many liberal Jewish friends who have been shocked by the attacks against Israel by their intellectual compatriots just as were German Jews shocked at the turn of events in their country. Scapegoats are convenient and can never hide - they will always be discovered and used to suit nefarious purposes.

Haniyeh has returned from Saudi Arabia and Mecca and allegedly Egypt allowed him to return with $20 million in cash thru Rafah and contentious issues between Hamas and Fatah gunmen continue to roil Gaza. (See 2 below.)

Has Israeli FM Minister, Livni, hit on something by highlighting the fact that more "moderate" Arab/Muslim nations are coming to the realization that Israel is not the region's problem. Would it not be ironic if a country like Saudi Arabia finally left the EU and Jimmy in the dust as they began to admit reality. But, if so why does Saudi Arabia give $20 million to Haniyeh? (See 3 below.)

I have argued we should be thinking outside the box and creating a unified air force of U.S. Israeli and Saudi to go after Iran's nuclear facilities. It would create a momentary backlash for sure but it would also send a clear message that Saudi Arabia is willing to confront the Iranian threat to its own regime and could do so aligned with countries that are bent on saving the region from an eventual catastrophe.

The EU has followed a policy of feckless pacification of those virulent voices in the region and has been denying reality because it fit their appeasing stance of an anti-Semitic foreign policy - all the while denying same. Jimmy has been busy re-writing history to fit his warped notion that Israeli intransigence is the cause of the region's problems and our own State Department has fed these flames with their own biased logs.

Obviously the establishment of Israel became a magnet for those opposed to the idea and Israel's successful defense of its people resulted in one-sided victories and increased control over land. That is the price losers historically pay. Israel is not without blame either but it has made continued efforts to respond to world demands only to be confronted by terrorism, Intifadas and anti-Semitic attacks, votes and conferences sponsored by the UN.

Pusillanimous powers promote bad policies resulting in the prolongation of strife and conflict. I Guess this is why God put France and Germany on the earth - to serve as a reminder of how stupid, cowardly and heinous man can be. (See conclusion of 4 below.)

Lead balloons cannot stay aloft forever!

Dick

1) EYEING IRAN
By RALPH PETERS

January 6, 2007 -- WORD that Adm. William Fallon will move laterally from our Pacific Command to take charge of Central Command - responsible for the Middle East - while two ground wars rage in the region baffled the media.

Why put a swabbie in charge of grunt operations?

There's a one-word answer: Iran.

ASSIGNING a Navy avia tor and combat veteran to oversee our military operations in the Persian Gulf makes perfect sense when seen as a preparatory step for striking Iran's nuclear-weapons facilities - if that becomes necessary.

While the Air Force would deliver the heaviest tonnage of ordnance in a campaign to frustrate Tehran's quest for nukes, the toughest strategic missions would fall to our Navy. Iran would seek to retaliate asymmetrically by attacking oil platforms and tankers, closing the Strait of Hormuz - and trying to hit oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates.

Only the U.S. Navy - hopefully, with Royal Navy and Aussie vessels underway beside us - could keep the oil flowing to a thirsty world.

In short, the toughest side of an offensive operation against Iran would be the defensive aspects - requiring virtually every air and sea capability we could muster. (Incidentally, an additional U.S. carrier battle group is now headed for the Gulf; Britain and Australia are also strengthening their naval forces in the region.)

Not only did Adm. Fallon command a carrier air wing during Operation Desert Storm, he also did shore duty at a joint headquarters in Saudi Arabia. He knows the complexity and treacherousness of the Middle East first-hand.

STRENGTHENING his qualifications, numer ous blue-water assignments and his duties at PACOM schooled him on the intricacies of the greater Indian Ocean - the key strategic region for the 21st-century and the one that would be affected immediately by a U.S. conflict with Iran.

The admiral also understands China's junkie-frantic oil dependency and its consequent taste for geopolitical street-crime: During a U.S. operation against Iran, Beijing would need its fix guaranteed.

While Congress obsesses on Iraq and Iraq alone, the administration's thinking about the future. And it looks as if the White House is preparing options to mitigate a failure in Iraq and contain Iran. Bush continues to have a much-underrated strategic vision - the administration's consistent problems have been in the abysmal execution of its policies, not in the over-arching purpose.

Now, pressed by strategic dilemmas and humiliating reverses, Bush is doing what FDR had to do in the dark, early months of 1942: He's turning to the Navy.

AS a retired Army officer, I remain proud of and loyal to my service. I realize that the Army's leaders are disappointed to see the CentCom slot go to an admiral in the midst of multiple ground wars. But, beyond the need for a Navy man at the helm should we have to take on Iran, there's yet another reason for sending Fallon to his new assignment: The Army's leadership has failed us at the strategic level.

After Gen. Eric Shinseki was sidelined for insisting on a professional approach to Iraq, Army generals did plenty of fine tactical and operational work - but they never produced a strategic vision for the greater Middle East.

Our Army is deployed globally, but our generals never seem to acquire the knack of thinking beyond the threat hypnotizing them at the moment (the Marines, with their step-brother ties to the Navy, do a better job of acting locally while thinking globally). Perhaps the Army's Gen. Dave Petraeus will emerge as an incisive strategic thinker after he takes command in Baghdad, but his predecessors routinely got mired in tactical details and relied - fatally - on other arms of government to do the strategic thinking.

The reasons are complex, ranging from service culture to educational traditions, but it's incontestable that the Navy long has produced our military's best strategic thinkers - captains and admirals able to transcend parochial interests to see the global security environment as a whole. Adm. Fallon's job is to avoid the tyranny of the moment, to see past the jumble of operational pieces and visualize how those pieces ultimately might fit together.

NOR is the Iran problem the only Navy-first issue facing CENTCOM. As you read this, our ships are patrolling the coast of Somalia to intercept fleeing terrorists - and have been hunting pirates in the same waters for years. China's future development (and internal peace) is tied to dependable supplies of Middle-Eastern and African oil transiting Indian-Ocean sea lanes, as well as to shipping goods along the same routes. In a future confrontation with China, our ability to shut down the very routes we're now challenged to protect would be vital.

Not least because of the botch-up in Iraq, there's a growing sense of the limitations of U.S. ground-force involvement in the Middle East. That doesn't mean we won't see further necessity-driven interventions and even other occupations, only that our strategic planners have begun to grasp that positive change in the region - if it comes at all - is going to take far longer than many of us hoped and won't always be amenable to boots-on-the-ground prodding.

If we can't determine everything that happens in the Big Sandbox, we need to be able to control access to and from the playground - a classic Navy mission.

And in the end the United States remains primarily a maritime power. As Sir Walter Raleigh pointed out 400 years ago, he who controls the waters controls the world.

Gen. Petraeus is going to Baghdad to deal with our present problems. Adm. Fallon is going to the U.S. Central Command to deal with the future.


2) Abbas: Special Hamas force in Gaza is illegal
By Avi Issacharoff

In a statement released on Saturday, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared that Hamas security forces not integrated with PA forces would now be considered illegal.

Abbas made the announcement two days after members of the Hamas force attacked the home of a senior security commander in Gaza, killing the man and seven of his bodyguards. The man was a member of the Preventive Security force, which is loyal to Abbas' Fatah party.

"In light of continued security chaos and assassinations that got to a number of our fighters ... and in light of the failure of existing agencies and security apparatuses in imposing law and order and protecting the security of the citizens, President Mahmoud Abbas decided to reshuffle the security forces and its leadership and to consider the (Hamas) executive force, officers and members, illegal and outside the law," Abbas' office said in a statement.

With Abbas, who was elected in a separate presidential vote, claiming authority over most of the security forces, Hamas last year formed its own unit, known as the "Executive Force."

Members of the black-clad Hamas militia are visible throughout Gaza, and have periodically clashed with the existing pro-Fatah security forces.

More than two dozen people have been killed in the latest wave of factional violence, which erupted early last month. Thursday's attack on the Fatah commander's home in northern Gaza was the bloodiest single battle in the standoff to date.

Abbas has agreed in recent months to integrate the Hamas unit into existing security forces. But those efforts have failed to make progress.

In his statement Saturday, Abbas reiterated the offer but said he would not wait forever. "It will be dealt with accordingly so long as it is not immediately folded into the legal security forces," Abbas said.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called Abbas' announcement "misplaced and useless."

Al-Aksa Martyrs Bridgades force strike in Hebron
Earlier on Saturday, Gunmen from the Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades forced a strike in the West Bank city of Hebron, preventing stores from opening and clearing the streets of traffic.

The militants forced the strike as a protest against recent attacks by Hamas on its members in the Gaza Strip that have left a number of people dead in recent days in factional fighting between the two groups.

In the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, unknown assailants burned the house of Mohammed Ah-Sharafi, a member of the Hamas faction in the Palestinian parliament. In response, Hamas members have threatened to burn the house of Fatah cabinet member Sufian Abu zeida.

Hamas cleric gunned down in Gaza
A local religious leader who was a frequent critic of the Islamic militant group Hamas was killed in a drive-by shooting Friday as he walked out of a Gaza mosque, witnesses and medical officials said.

Fatah accused Hamas of killing the cleric, saying in a statement: "Sheik Nasar was killed after he came out of the mosque where he criticized Hamas after the crime committed by some of its gunmen yesterday."

Hamas officials said they were investigating the killing. Nasar's assailants pulled up to him in a white car and sped away after the shooting, witnesses said.

Nasar, 50, was not openly affiliated with any political party, but he was a well-known figure in the refugee camp and often preached against Hamas. Shortly before the shooting, Nasar had criticized Thursday's bloody attack on the home of Col. Mohammed Ghayeb, a top Fatah official in northern Gaza, witnesses said.

In his sermon, Nasar warned that God would punish the killers of Ghayeb and his bodyguards. He also said God would punish Palestinian rulers for not preventing the attack, said Jibril Awwar, a friend of the preacher who was lightly wounded in the shooting.

Nasar did not mention Hamas by name, but Awwar said the preacher's message was aimed at the group, which controls most of the Palestinian government.

Hamas: U.S. is funding a 'revolt' against our government
Senior Hamas official Mushir al-Masri blamed the United States on Friday for attempting to promote a revolt against the Hamas government, after U.S. documents showed that the Bush administration will provide $86.4 million to strengthen security forces loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

"We demand that Abbas reject this U.S. policy, which is tearing the Palestinian people apart," he said.

The new policy would expand U.S. involvement in Abbas' power struggle with Hamas.

Fighting between Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas has surged since talks on forming a unity government collapsed and Abbas called for early parliamentary and presidential elections. Hamas accused Abbas of mounting a coup.

The U.S. money will be used to "assist the Palestinian Authority presidency in fulfilling PA commitments under the road map to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism and establish law and order in the West Bank and Gaza," a U.S. government document obtained by Reuters said.

Speaking to reporters after Friday prayers in Gaza City, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh urged Palestinians not to let the violence spill over to the West Bank and to focus on fighting Israel. "Our fight is not an internal one, it's against the occupation," Haniyeh said.

Haniyeh's words were echoed by senior West Bank Fatah official Jibril Rajoub, speaking in the town of Bil'in to supporters celebrating the movement's 42nd anniversary.

"Our battle with Hamas is not a battle of assassination, kidnapping or revenge. Our battle with Hamas is a democratic moral battle," he told a crowd of about 100. "Our battle is with the occupation, not with each other."

Thousands of Palestinians carried bodies draped in yellow flags through pouring rain Friday in a funeral procession for seven Fatah men killed in the bloodiest single battle in weeks of factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Dozens of Fatah gunmen marched in the procession, firing in the air and calling for vengeance against the rival Hamas group, which is locked in a
power struggle with Fatah over control of the Palestinian government.

Eighth Palestinian dies from wounds sustained in Thursday's attack
A Fatah security man on Friday died of wounds sustained in a battle against Hamas militants the previous day, medical officials said, raising the death toll to eight in the bloodiest single battle in weeks of factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.

The bodyguard had been wounded in a Thursday's assault by Hamas gunman on the home of a top Fatah security official. The official and six other bodyguards were killed in Thursday's fighting.

Haniyeh, Abbas agree to defuse tensions
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Friday he and Abbas had agreed at emergency talks to keep gunmen from their rival Hamas and Fatah factions off Gaza's streets after eight people were killed and 18 were wounded.

"We have expressed our regret and sorrow for these incidents that do not reflect our struggle," Haniyeh told reporters at Abbas's office at the end of their first meeting in two months.

Haniyeh said he and Abbas agreed to "withdraw all gunmen from the streets and deploy police forces to keep law and order."

Abbas made no public comment after the session, but a diplomat who attended the talks and declined to be identified confirmed an agreement had been reached.

Similar pacts in the past have been shattered swiftly by violence and Gazans said they feared another eruption of bloodshed later in the day when Thursday's dead are buried.

On Thursday, a senior Palestinian security officer allied with Fatah was killed when Hamas militants laid siege to his house in the northern Gaza Strip, engaging in a protracted gun battle with his guards, and then attacked it with grenades and a dozen rockets, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.

The officer, Colonel Mohammed Ghayeb, was on the phone to Palestine TV just moments before his death and appealed for help as his house came under attack. Ghayeb's wife was seriously wounded in the attack, in which Hamas fired assault rifles and rockets at the building.

"They are killers," he said of the Hamas gunmen. "They are targeting the house, children are dying, they are bleeding. For God's sake, send an ambulance, we want an ambulance, somebody move."

The battle outside the house raged for much of the day and killed four of Ghayeb's guards and a Hamas gunman. About three dozen people, including eight children, were also wounded.

Ghayeb was the chief of the Preventive Security Service in northern Gaza, and his killing was expected to trigger revenge attacks by the men under his command.

During the standoff outside Ghayeb's home in Beit Lahiya, dozens of women rushed into the streets in protest, chanting "Spare the bullets, shame, shame."

One resident, Amina Abu Saher, told the local Al Quds radio station that it was difficult for her to see Palestinians fighting each other and said she and the other women were determined to stop the internal fighting.

Haniyeh called for calm in the wake of the renewed internal violence. "These clashes must stop, this bloodshed must end. Let all of you love one another, let's resolve differences through dialogue and not with weapons," Haniyeh told reporters after returning from making the Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. "Weapons must only be directed against the Israeli occupation," he added.

Also Thursday, unknown gunmen fired on mourners at a funeral for three security officers loyal to Abbas who were among those killed the day before.

Fatah sources and medical officials said two mourners were wounded during the funeral march in central Gaza when gunmen shot at the procession.

A senior Hamas member was also kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Gaza City, the Islamists said.

3) Interesting Times: Expose stealth rejectionism
By SAUL SINGER

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in her recent interview said something worth contemplating. "Anyone who lives in the Middle East and has his feet on the ground cannot permit himself to be optimistic. But I see a type of opportunity. On the one hand, we're surrounded by a growing threat and extremism and zealotry. But on the other hand, precisely because of this threat, moderate countries... in the region understand today that their problem is not Israel."

For the Arab states, Israel (and the Islamist threat) has always been the enemy that can be used to distract from their own corrupt and oppressive regimes. But it is also possible for a real enemy to arise that renders the fomenting of anti-Israel fervor counterproductive.

At the same time, recent events have exposed a fundamental weakness in the Arab strategy: It is hard to pretend you want peace with a country that you are trying to wipe off the map.

Before 1967, the Arab states did not pretend they were in favor of a two-state solution. They did nothing to create a Palestinian state when the West Bank and Gaza were in their hands. Their open objective was one state, built on Israel's ashes.

IN THE decades after the Six Day War, the Arabs' strategy slowly changed. They noticed that they could not convince a single non-Arab state that Israel had no right to exist, but they could convince almost the entire international community that a Palestinian state should be created in the West Bank and Gaza.

Stealth rejectionism was born.

The Arabs, in other words, adopted the long view: First create a state in some of Palestine, while continuing to aim for the whole ball of wax. This was the famous "phased plan" adopted by the PLO in 1974, now openly embraced by Hamas.

Fatah takes the slightly more subtle, if contradictory, position that it favors a two-state solution, but also favors the "right of return," which aims to eliminate Israel demographically by flooding it with millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees.

The Arab world's problem is that the gap between its stated and real positions has become more obvious. The rise of Hamas puts the "destroy Israel" position front and center, so much so that it is coming to be recognized as the mainstream Palestinian objective.

Hamas is also not bothering to hide the fact that Iran is becoming its principal patron, as illustrated by the suitcases of money Hamas premier Ismail Haniyeh returned with from his recent trip to Teheran. These ties, including Hizbullah's payments to Palestinians to shoot rockets at Israel, increasingly identify the Palestinians with Iran's "wipe Israel off the map" line.

At the same time, the other half of the Arab equation, namely that Israeli obstinacy is the obstacle to peace, has also been severely undermined. Many things can be said about Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza and Ehud Olmert's still-simmering desire to continue on this path, but one conclusion is indisputable: Israel has not only dropped its opposition to a Palestinian state, it almost desperately wants to create one.

As Livni put it in the same interview: "The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a keg of gunpowder... Time is working against a solution of two nation-states... My vision says that the principle of two nation-states is not only an Israeli gift to the Palestinians, but a promotion of Israel's interests."

The old equation was "Palestinians want state, Israelis resist." The evolving new equation is, "Israelis want two states, Palestinians and Islamist front want to destroy Israel as part of their jihad against the West."

THAT THIS new equation is slowly sinking in was illustrated by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 from this summer's Lebanon war. Though the resolution is largely turning into a dead letter, it clearly blamed Hizbullah for starting the war and, ineffectually but in principle, took Israel's side on all the main points: Hizbullah should be disarmed, the Lebanese army should move south, and an embargo should be imposed on the rearming of Hizbullah.

This marked departure from the UN's usual blame-and-restrain-Israel approach is the result of the realization that this was not about Israel and the Palestinians, but whether the international community would back what was essentially an Iranian and Syrian bid to attack Israel and redominate Lebanon. The almost total failure to enforce the resolution demonstrates Western weakness, but does not negate this paradigm shift.

Similarly, Italian premier Romano Prodi and outgoing UN chief Kofi Annan both recently hinted that the Palestinians need to give up the "right of return" because it is inconsistent with Israel's right to exist. This too is a sign that it is becoming harder to deny that the obstacle to peace is the Arab/Islamist refusal to accept Israel, not Israel's supposed refusal to relinquish land.

The importance of the shift toward placing blame for the conflict where it properly belongs cannot be overemphasized. Our weakness, Lebanon notwithstanding, lies not in the military arena but in international legitimacy.

For decades, we have been blamed for being under attack. We are so used to this that we cannot conceive of any other reality. Yet we must not only conceive of a better reality but work to bring it about.

Our leaders seem to think that the only way to do this is the Sharon way: continuing to dramatize our active desire for a Palestinian state. But blame for the conflict can't hang in midair: We will never shift it off our shoulders until the world recognizes the shoulders on which that blame belongs.

Accordingly, the thrust of our policy should not be to unveil new peace plans, but to press more Western leaders to speak out against Arab and Iranian rejectionism, and demand active support for peace from the Arab world.

If Israel is not exposing stealth rejectionism while concretely outlining how those responsible for the conflict must contribute to ending it, how can we expect other nations to do so?

4) After the Danish Cartoon Controversy
by Pernille Ammitzbøll and Lorenzo Vidino


On February 5, 2006, at the height of the tension following the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, Muslim protesters torched Denmark's embassies in Beirut and Damascus. While many in the West looked on with bewilderment, protests spread across the Muslim world, and stores in Muslim areas removed Danish products from their shelves. Even as the cartoon crisis captured headlines around the world, most people outside Denmark remain unfamiliar with the forces propelling it. Like the Salman Rushdie affair before it and the furor over Pope Benedict XVI's remarks at Regensburg University after it, the cartoon controversy had less to do with genuine outrage over the depiction of Islam's prophet and more to do with the ambitions, first, of a small group of radical imams and, later, of jousting Middle Eastern powers. Now that the dust has settled, what is the legacy of the crisis, not only for Denmark but also for the Western world?
Background

Beginning in the late 1960s, a small Muslim population of Turks, Lebanese, and Somalis began to settle in Gellerup, a Western suburb of Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city. Gellerup, known to most locals as "the ghetto," suffers not only lower income, poorer education rates, and a higher crime rate than the rest of the city but also physical isolation. Its high-rises, which 28,000 Gellerup residents call home, are surrounded by a thick ring of public green and large boulevards. Designed in 1968 to house blue-collar workers and students from the local university, within two decades, Gellerup had become the destination of thousands of foreign immigrants who had moved to Aarhus to work in the city's food industry. By the mid-1990s, few ethnic Danish residents remained in the development.

As immigrant isolation grew, few Danes, wrapped in the political correctness common across Scandinavia, were willing to talk publicly about the problems simmering among the population; officials and commentators labeled those who did as racists and "Islamophobes." By 2001, attitudes began to change. In November, the center-right Liberal Party ended more than seven decades of left-of-center Social Democratic rule. In order to cement a coalition, the Liberal leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen reached out to the People's Party, a nationalist party that had also made significant gains. The new conservative government introduced a series of measures affecting immigrants, ranging from cutting state benefits to raising the threshold required to obtain Danish citizenship. Such measures, especially in the wake of 9-11, triggered an intense public debate over the once taboo topics of immigration and integration.

While some politicians and commentators embraced an extreme tone, as when a People's Party spokesperson compared Muslims to cancer cells,[1] much of the debate was constructive. For the first time, newspapers began to report crimes committed by gangs of teenage immigrants and honor killings of young Danish Muslim women. Politicians detailed overrepresentation of immigrants in benefit abuse and criminal activities. For example, in 2004, Danish authorities pressed charges against five times as many second generation immigrants than against ethnic Danes. In Copenhagen, three in four minors arrested is of immigrant background.[2]

Journalists also began to focus attention on the activities of some of Denmark's most radical imams. These clerics, for their part, did not hesitate to supply the media with headline-making statements. In 2004, one Copenhagen imam, for example, said in a televised interview that Danish women who do not wear the veil "were asking for rape;" other clerics recommended that Denmark adopt the tribal concept of blood money.[3]
Enter Jyllands-Posten

At the forefront of Denmark's new openness toward discussion of Muslim integration was Jyllands-Posten, the country's largest circulation newspaper. Conservative but respected for independent reporting, in 2005, Jyllands-Posten won the "To Multiplicity, against Discrimination" award from the European Union for its positive coverage of successful cases of Muslim immigration in Denmark.[4] At the same time, though, the paper began to run a series of stories on radical imams in the Aarhus area with particular focus on two who had made Gellerup their headquarters.

The first to be the focus of Jyllands-Posten was Raed Hlayhel, a Lebanese graduate of the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia where he immersed himself in Wahhabism.[5] He moved to Denmark in 1999 after receiving a humanitarian visa to get medical care for his son but refused to learn Danish. Hlayhel established himself at Gellerup's small Grimhoejvej mosque and began to preach his strict and politicized interpretation of Islam, attracting a small following among the neighborhood's Arab population. His sermons repeatedly made Jyllands-Posten headlines, as he decreed that Muslim women should cover themselves from head to toe and will disqualify themselves from paradise if they wear perfume or go to the hairdresser.[6]

Hlayhel teamed up with 28-year-old imam Ahmed Akkari. Born in Lebanon, Akkari had grown up in Aalborg and made a name for himself when, at age 15, local papers portrayed him as a model immigrant and joined a campaign to prevent his family's deportation to Lebanon for illegal immigration.[7] After winning his battle with the government, Akkari attracted attention for other reasons. In 2001, a Danish court convicted Akkari of assault after he almost ripped off the ear of an 11-year-old boy who had accidentally removed Akkari's sister's veil; in another circumstance, he advocated kicking unveiled Muslim girls.[8]

Both Hlayhel and Akkari had an axe to grind with the Danish press and with Jyllands-Posten in particular. They saw an opportunity when Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.[9] Culture editor Flemming Rose explained that the idea of running such cartoons came to him "in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam."[10] In the aftermath of the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, ritually butchered in central Amsterdam by an Islamist who had been offended by van Gogh's movie Submission, Rose was disturbed by several episodes in which European artists and publishers refused to display art or perform plays that could expose them to similar threats. Having learned that a local author writing a book on Muhammad was having problems finding illustrators, Rose contacted forty illustrators and asked them to draw cartoons on the subject, curious to see what their responses would be. Only twelve cartoonists responded. Most of the cartoons were harmless, but a few were offensive and two depicted the Prophet negatively: one drew him with a bomb-shaped turban and another as an assassin.

Anger within the Danish Muslim community was high. Some Muslim readers sent letters to the newspaper denouncing the cartoons and organized peaceful protests to express their frustration. For Hlayhel, this was not enough. "Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation," he admonished, "The article has insulted every Muslim in the world. We demand an apology."[11] Two days later, Hlayhel and Akkari contacted like-minded imams throughout the country and summoned them to Odense, halfway between Aarhus and Copenhagen.[12] Addressing the clerics with a "you-are-either-with-me-or-against-Islam" rhetoric, Hlayhel said he would fight to obtain an apology and perhaps other concessions, not only from Jyllands-Posten but also from the Danish government.[13]

Hlayhel's attitude was likely shaped not only by strong religious convictions but also by personal ambition. He saw in the crisis the opportunity to enhance his own prestige within the Danish Muslim community.[14] He could leapfrog from being an imam at a small mosque in the suburbs of Denmark's second largest city to being the de facto leader of Danish Muslims. Hlayhel's ultimatum put other imams in a dilemma: to play along and attract negative publicity or stand accused by a radical upstart of being insufficiently willing to defend Islam.
Enter Abu Laban

Ahmed Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian from Jaffa, who had become perhaps Denmark's most famous imam, was a case in point. A frequent commentator on Danish television and in meetings with government officials, he had taken pains to label himself a moderate. But Abu Laban's past was marred by connections with terrorists. He had settled in Copenhagen in 1983 after being expelled from both Egypt and Kuwait for his involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood.[15] In Denmark, he became the right-hand man of Abu Talal al-Qassimy,[16] a top leader of the Egyptian terrorist group Gama'a Islamiya who had received asylum in Denmark after fighting in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden and other future founders of Al-Qaeda. Many other Gama'a members subsequently passed through Copenhagen, including Al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.[17] Abu Laban also worked as a translator and distributor of Al-Murabitoun, the Gama'a's official magazine, which was published out of Copenhagen and, at the time, glorified the killing of Western tourists in Egypt and urged the annihilation of Jews in Israel.[18]

Abu Laban understood that leaving the spotlight to others could cost him his position of leadership within the Muslim community. Despite mutual suspicions, Abu Laban and Hlayhel teamed up to create and lead the Committee for the Defense of the Honor of the Prophet consisting of twenty-seven Muslim organizations and mosques whose stated aim was to obtain an apology for the cartoons. The committee was less than met the eye, however; Abu Laban only invited imams to Odense known for their radical views. Many of the twenty-seven member organizations were either empty fronts or groups with no more than ten members.[19]

A few days later, Hlayhel issued a press release demanding an apology from Jyllands-Posten on behalf of the entire Muslim community. His call for an apology was a veiled threat. "We are not threatening anybody," said the Lebanese cleric, "but when you see what happened in Holland and then still print the cartoons, that's quite stupid."[20] Abu Laban and the other imams also contacted the media and voiced their indignation.

While the story was top news in Denmark, outside reaction was muted. On October 17, 2005, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Fajr published the cartoons to illustrate that the depictions were in poor taste[21] as did the widely read Indonesian news website Rakyat Merdeka.[22] Publication of the cartoons sparked not outrage, but only indifference.

Many moderate Danish Muslims sought to distance themselves from the committee's actions. On January 16, Jyllands-Posten ran a front page story with the statements of forty-nine Danish Muslims who wanted to express their disapproval of the actions of the imams and dispel the notion that the committee spoke on behalf of the Muslim community.[23]

For a few weeks, the radical imams continued to voice their protests while Jyllands-Posten defended its right to freedom of expression and satire. With their efforts going nowhere, the imams contacted the ambassadors to Denmark of various Muslim countries to seek their assistance in convincing the Danish government to force Jyllands-Posten to apologize. Eleven of the diplomats, led by Egypt's ambassador Mona Omar Attia, sought a meeting with Danish prime minister Rasmussen to discuss the issue. Rasmussen refused. "This is a matter of principle. I won't meet with them because it is so crystal clear what principles Danish democracy is built upon that there is no reason to do so," the prime minister explained. "As prime minister, I have no power whatsoever to limit the press—nor do I want such a power."[24]
Internationalizing the Crisis

In response, the imams decided to escalate matters. Abu Laban called upon his connections throughout the Muslim world to "internationalize this issue so that the Danish government would realize that the cartoons were not only insulting to Muslims in Denmark but also to Muslims worldwide."[25]

Helped by the Muslim ambassadors, he put together two delegations of Danish Muslims who traveled to various Muslim countries to solicit support. The delegations met with, among others, Arab League secretary Amr Moussa, the grand imam of Al-Azhar University, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, and influential Sunni scholar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The delegation showed each of these leaders the twelve cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten along with others which had never been published in any Danish publication.[26] The new cartoons were much more offensive than the original twelve: one was falsely alleged to depict the Prophet Muhammad with a pig face and another to show him having intercourse with a dog. When challenged with this fraud, the imams said that the new images had been sent to them via e-mail as threats and had been shown to their Middle Eastern hosts only to give them an idea of the widespread anti-Muslim sentiment in Denmark, a claim that cannot be verified. A booklet presented by the delegation contained several blatant untruths about the oppression of Muslims in Denmark, claiming Muslims do not have the legal right to build mosques and are subjected to pervasive racism.[27] Some of the imams also gave interviews to Arab media, reiterating their accusations and claiming that the Danish government was planning to censor the Qur'an.[28]

The imams' tour was successful. By the end of December, the cartoon controversy had become international. Middle Eastern regimes, trying to ride the wave of religious revival influencing their populations, rushed to condemn the cartoons and called for boycotts of Danish goods.[29] The Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League held meetings on the matter.[30] The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups used the controversy to prove their claim that the West hates Islam.[31] Many groups and organizations for different reasons opportunistically jumped on the "I hate Denmark" bandwagon.

News of the Danish controversy spread throughout the Muslim world. The same cartoons that had not sparked reaction in October caused outrage three months later. At the end of January and the beginning of February, the West watched as the cartoon controversy peaked. In Denmark, a country where even top politicians normally go around on bicycles, security guards were assigned to various Jyllands-Posten editors, and bomb threats were called in almost daily to various newspapers. Danish websites were hacked, and Islamists posted on-line threats of attacks against the country.[32]

Various clerics issued fatwas calling for the death of the twelve cartoonists, and a Pakistani cleric even put a US$1 million bounty on their heads.[33] Several Muslim countries officially endorsed a boycott of Danish goods launched by religious organizations. Protesters from Gaza to Jakarta burned Danish flags and effigies of Rasmussen. That many used the controversy for local reasons was apparent. In Pakistan, where Islamists could not find buildings with Danish links, they attacked U.S. fast food restaurants.[34] In Libya, rioters did not attack Danish facilities but targeted the consulate of Italy, the country's former colonial power.[35] In Yemen, government forces falsely accused opposition journalist and free press advocate Hafez al-Bukari of accepting Danish money.[36] And in Afghanistan, the target was the U.S. air base at Bagram.[37]
Enter Naser Khader

Paradoxically, a year later, the consequences of the crisis have been largely positive for Denmark. There has been no terrorist attack against either Denmark or Danish interests abroad. The boycott of Danish goods caused only minor losses for some Danish companies but did not affect the country's general economy.[38] In some cases, the boycott backfired: Egypt saw a 30 percent drop in Scandinavian tourism, and Danish papers reported that the Egyptian tourism attaché in Denmark was flooded with phone calls and e-mails from Egyptian hotel owners begging him to bring back Danish tourists.[39] Danes also proved the imams' accusations of Danish racism wrong; there was not a single anti-Muslim attack in Denmark throughout the cartoon crisis.

The controversy catapulted the debate about Muslim integration into the top issue among all political parties in Denmark. Seldom is there a day without a newspaper editorial, university roundtable, or a television program discussing Muslim integration. Compared with the period before the crisis erupted, the debate is more sophisticated and nuanced. The Danes understand that the Muslim community is not a monolithic bloc but encompasses different religious traditions, ethnic backgrounds, and political opinions. The crisis has taught the Danes to distinguish between Muslims who believe their faith is compatible with a secular democracy and seek integration and those who promote Shari‘a (Islamic law) and shun Danish society.

Rose wrote in an editorial that the country's radical imams have been marginalized and "no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them."[40] Possibly the most positive consequence of the cartoon controversy is the emergence of a number of moderate Muslim leaders, who have confronted the imams and affirmed their pride in living in a society that gives them freedom of expression and religion. The best known among this group is a young Syrian-born Danish parliamentarian, Naser Khader.

Khader moved to Copenhagen in 1974 at the age of 11, rejoining his father who had found a job there as an unskilled worker.[41] Learning Danish, he received a Master's degree in political science in 1993 and launched a successful political career, first locally and then nationally, making integration a priority issue. For more than a decade, Khader had criticized the attitude of many Muslim immigrants who settle in Denmark without embracing its values. His 1996 book, Honor and Shame,[42] which denounced some aspects of Middle Eastern culture as backwards, led to a violent confrontation with Abu Laban; the two men have not spoken since. While Danish media had once characterized the dispute between Abu Laban and Khader as merely a rift within the Muslim community, they now recognize its significance to and consequence for Danish society.

At the height of the cartoon controversy, Khader founded the Democratic Muslim Network, an organization aimed at uniting moderate Danish Muslims. Membership in Khader's organization is dependent on endorsing a document called "The Ten Commandments of Democracy,"[43] the first commandment of which is, "We must all separate politics and religion, and we must never place religion above the laws of democracy."[44]

Abu Laban has described Khader and his Muslim supporters as "rats in a hole" and "cowards" responsible for the troubles of all Muslims in Europe.[45] Then, in March 2006, French journalist Mohammed Sifaoui used a hidden camera to tape comments made by the Danish imams during what they thought was a break in an interview.[46] "If he becomes minister for foreigners or integration," said Akkari, "wouldn't there be two guys sent over to blow up him and his ministry?" Because of the ensuing outrage, Akkari wrote an open letter to Khader, apologizing for what he called his bad joke.

While few Danes still tolerate fake moderates and their double talk, where do most Danish Muslims stand? Khader's organization has more than 15,000 non-Muslim supporters but only 1,100 Muslim members, making Muslims a minority in their own organization. Khader responds that membership does not mean much. He points to the People's Party, which has 3,000 members but which obtained 13 percent of the vote in the 2001 elections.[47]

Still support could be higher. Many Muslims support Khader's vision but are afraid to do so publicly. Several who have endorsed Khader's views have received threats. Others fear labeling by the radical imams. "If you disagree with the imams you are accused of defending Jyllands-Posten, of being against Islam," said Rabih Azad Ahmed, a Palestinian-born Gellerup resident active in various intercultural initiatives. "Moderate Muslims are stuck in the middle."[48]
The Security Services' Dilemma

While Danes sympathize with the moderate Muslims, the government must still address the radicalism of a segment of the community. No solution is without consequence. PET (Politiets Efterretningstjeneste), Danish domestic intelligence, knows well the goals of the radical imams but may fear alienating them. "I could have raised hell here in Denmark," said Abu Laban in the aftermath of the cartoon controversy, "I could have made the Muslims lash out."[49] Concerned with the immediate goal of avoiding violence inside Denmark, PET still engages with Abu Laban and other radical imams and sometimes praises them. In a controversial interview given in March 2005, Hans Joergen Bonnichsen, the former PET head, accused the media of demonizing the imams whom he praised for their role in calming down the Muslim community during the crisis.[50]

PET's policy of short-term obsequiousness may have long-term repercussions. Radical imams use the authorities' endorsement to boost their own status within the Muslim community, portraying themselves as the only ones who can represent and defend it. At the same time, the imams manipulate the relationship, becoming necessary mediators in any contact between authorities and the Muslim community. When, for example, in June 2006, a small right-wing group organized a provocative anti-Muslim protest inside Gellerup, the police dispatched insufficient numbers and had to resort to the imams' help to stop the local Muslim youth from attacking the protesters. If keeping order within the Muslim community is subcontracted to the imams, the state relinquishes part of its authority on its own soil to the benefit of megalomaniacal imams disloyal to Denmark and its democracy.

There are other reasons to be skeptical about the security services' benign attitude toward radical imams. Tina Magaard, an expert in Islamic literature at the University of Aarhus, analyzed a sermon delivered by Hlayhel in the aftermath of the cartoon saga, in which, according to his Manichean vision of the world, he divided Danish society into good and bad.[51] If Jyllands-Posten, the Danish government, and the People's Party were evil for their roles in the cartoon controversy, PET and Arla, the Aarhus-based food industry giant that condemned the cartoons fearing economic repercussions against its businesses in the Middle East, are praised for solidarity with Muslims. Magaard believes that Hlayhel considers his own position in Denmark to be similar to that of Muhammad in Medina when the Prophet, having limited power at that stage, formed alliances with tribes of polytheists and Jews. PET and Arla, in Hlayhel's vision, are good Danish "tribes" with whom a deal can be made for the greater good of Muslims. But Hlayhel's covenant, like Muhammad's, Magaard warns, is revocable: it will be valid only as long as it serves the Muslims' interest, and circumstances will change as the balance of power shifts.[52]
The Aftermath

It seems that power may be the imams' goal. Since the cartoon saga ended, Hlayhel has thrown his weight behind the construction of a large new mosque inside Gellerup, a project he had previously opposed. Wealthy Saudi businessmen have visited his mosque, attracted by his new notoriety. Since money for the construction of the mosque now comes from foreign sponsors supportive of his politics,[53] Hlayhel stands to benefit more and expand his influence at the expense of those more beholden to the local community. Those moderate and liberal Muslim organizations on the other hand that do not receive foreign largesse struggle to survive. Some receive funding from the city council but often at the expense of accusations of being government puppets.

Like the cartoon controversy, the Danish solution to the dual dilemma of how to empower moderate Muslims without tainting them and how to marginalize radicals without backlash will have repercussions beyond Denmark's border. While some in Europe are watching, many others remain in a state of denial, handicapped by political correctness and self-destructive taboos.

Pernille Ammitzbøll is a journalist with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten. Lorenzo Vidino is an analyst for the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of Al-Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad (Prometheus, 2005).

[1] Spiegel Online, Feb. 8, 2006.
[2] Author interviews with Danish member of parliament, Copenhagen, June 2006.
[3] The Copenhagen Post, Sept. 24, 2004; Berlingske Tidende (Copenhagen), June 3, 2005.
[4] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten (Aarhus), May 3, 2005.
[5] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.
[6] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.
[7] Ekstra Bladet (Copenhagen), Feb. 14, 2006.
[8] Ekstra Bladet, Feb. 15, 2006.
[9] Sept. 30, 2005.
[10] Flemming Rose, "Why I Published Those Cartoons," The Washington Post, Feb. 19, 2006.
[11] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Oct. 9, 2005.
[12] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.
[13] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.
[14] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.
[15] Author interview with Naser Khader, Copenhagen, June 2006.
[16] Analysis of the June 26, 1995 searches of the Viale Jenner mosque, Direzione per le Investigazioni Generali e per le Operazioni Speciali (DIGOS), Sept. 15, 1997.
[17] The Guardian (London), Sept. 24, 2001.
[18] Evan F. Kohlmann, Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network (Oxford: Berg, 2004), pp. 26-7.
[19] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.
[20] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Oct. 9, 2005.
[21] "Muslim Cartoon Row Timeline," BBC News, Feb. 19, 2006.
[22] The Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2006.
[23] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Jan. 16, 2006.
[24] The Copenhagen Post, Oct. 25, 2005.
[25] IslamOnline, Nov. 18, 2005.
[26] The Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2006.
[27] Copy of the booklet is in the possession of the authors.
[28] See, for example, Ahmed Abu Laban, Al-Jazeera television (Doha) interview on DR1, Danish state television, Feb. 3, 2006.
[29] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Jan. 31, 2006; Al-Jazeera, Jan. 29, 2006; BBC News, Jan. 31, 2006.
[30] H.E Prof Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general, Organization of Islamic Conference, press release, Jeddah, Jan. 28, 2006; BBC News, Jan. 31, 2006.
[31] Olivier Guitta, "The Cartoon Jihad," The Weekly Standard, Feb. 20, 2006; The Telegraph (London), Mar. 2, 2006.
[32] BBC News, Feb. 8, 2006.
[33] USA Today, Feb. 17, 2006.
[34] BBC News, Feb. 15, 2006.
[35] CNN.com, Feb. 18, 2006.
[36] Yemen Times (Sana'a), Sept. 26, 2005.
[37] USA Today, Feb. 6, 2006.
[38] Author interviews with Danish member of parliament, Copenhagen, June 2006.
[39] Politiken (Copenhagen), Mar. 9, 2006.
[40] Rose, "Why I Published Those Cartoons."
[41] Author interview with Naser Khader, Copenhagen, June 2006; information available at Khader's website, khader.dk, accessed Sept. 5, 2006.
[42] Ære og Skam (Copenhagen: Borgen,1996).
[43] Naser Khader, "The Ten Commandments of Democracy," khader.dk, accessed Sept. 5, 2006.
[44] Ibid.
[45] The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 13, 2006.
[46] TV-DR1, Danish National Broadcasting Corp., Mar. 25, 2006.
[47] Author interview with Naser Khader, Copenhagen, June 2006.
[48] Author interview with Rabih Azad Ahmed, Aarhus, June 2006.
[49] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 12, 2006.
[50] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Mar. 26, 2006.
[51] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.
[52] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.
[53] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.