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November 6 quotes of the week
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Iran's purported response to IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei's plan should not have come as a surprise to anyone. . . . The tactic though has been the same all along: Appear to be saying Yes, when it's really going to be a No in the end. The Yes is to show that the Iranians are listening receptively, to demonstrate that they are stepping away from their previous defiant approach -- but they are only waiting for a "break out" opportunity. "It's the same old tricks," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency, said at an EU Summit in Brussels. "A back-and-forth for further talks."
The Iranian government wants to test President Barack Obama's resolve. In a recent trip to Iran, everyone was asking me, "How serious a type is this Obama fellow?" On one occasion, when I replied that Obama's presidency has opened a "fast closing window of opportunity," one high-ranking official told me, "You can be sure we'll find a way around him as we did before."
Mea Cyrus, “Same old tricks,” Tehran Bureau, October 31, 2009
This month, J Street faced a major test of its "pro-Israel" mantle when the United Nations Human Rights Council released its "Goldstone Report" on alleged war crimes during last year's Gaza War. Practically every major pro-Israel and Jewish organization--including the liberal National Jewish Democratic Council--has condemned the report. Yet J Street has thus far been reluctant to do so. When Reform Judaism leader Rabbi Eric Yoffie stood before the conference and condemned the report, he was greeted with both applause and booing. . .
And so there is a fork in J Street, and it's unclear which direction the group will take. If the organization wants to be a serious political player, it will have no choice but to alienate many of its fervent supporters--particularly those who are largely animated by their imagined victimization at the hands of the Israel lobby and are fundamentally disdainful of the Zionist project. If these elements are not pushed away, J Street will not be seeing much traffic.
James Kirchak, “The Fork in J Street,” The New Republic, October 31, 2009
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday that he is urging his government not to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority until the PA withdraws its international legal complaints over alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The real question is why Lieberman is having trouble convincing his cabinet colleagues of this position.
These complaints have only one purpose: to hamstring Israel’s ability to defend itself against Palestinian terror by making it fear that any defensive military operation will land its political and military leadership in the dock. . . .
Yet even as he seeks to abolish Israel’s right to self-defense, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is also giving his imprimatur to terror attacks on Israel: last month, he accepted a proposed reconciliation agreement with Hamas that not only did not require Hamas to halt anti-Israel terror but explicitly obligated the PA security services to “respect the Palestinian people’s right to resist.” Since “resistance” is the well-known Palestinian code word for anti-Israel terror, that translates as requiring PA forces “to respect the Palestinian people’s right to perpetrate anti-Israel terror” — or. in other words, not to interfere when they do so. (Hamas, incidentally, has not yet signed the document; it is still holding out for more concessions.) . . .
In short, this looks remarkably like a deliberately strategy for war on Israel. And Israel should be calling Abbas on it rather than keeping up the pretense that he is a “partner for peace” with whom it is eager to negotiate.
Evelyn Gordon, “Abbas’s War Strategy,” Commentary Contentions, November 1, 2009
Were the UN to vote today on the creation of Israel, the motion would fail. The outcome of November 29, 1947 would not be repeated, for the world has decided that Israel was a mistake. No other country anywhere is subjected to debate as to whether it should exist. And that is the fact that matters more than any other.
Daniel Gordis, “Anything you say can and will be used against you,” Jerusalem Post, November 5, 2009
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