Morning Report: December 10, 2004

Sharon wins Knesset majority, new coalition. According to the latest bulletin from Debka: 'Sharon is now set to build a new government coalition with Knesset majority. After fierce contest, Israel’s ruling Likud voted Thursday 62% - 38% to grant Sharon a mandate for boosting his minority cabinet by co-opting Labor and ultra-religious parties. Dispute in Labor between two former prime ministers, chairman Peres and challenger Barak, has also been settled with an agreement to hold leadership primaries on June 29. This argument threatened to hold Labor back from joining the Sharon government.' (Debka)

White House warns IRI on Iraq interference. The Bush administration cautioned the Iran regime against attempting to destabilize Iraq, according to this AP item: 'Bush talked about Iran in meetings Monday with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Ghazi al-Yawer, the interim Iraqi president, both Sunni Muslims. Iran and Syria joined other nations at an international conference on Iraq last month at the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh in pledging to contribute to Iraq's stability and to prevent terrorists from coming into Iraq, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. The communique also called on all parties to tighten border controls. "We expect them to abide by that commitment," McClellan said. "Iraq has talked to Iran about these issues," the spokesman said. "We've made our views very clear to Iran, as well as others, and we continue to call on Iran to act in a responsible way and be helpful as the Iraqi people move forward on building a brighter future." (AP via Free Iran)

Most Germans see Israelis as Nazis, poll says. Jerusalem Post: 'Six decades after the mass extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany, more than 50 percent of Germans believe that Israel's present-day treatment of the Palestinians is similar to what the Nazis did to the Jews during World War II, a German survey released this weekend shows. 51 percent of respondents said that there is not much of a difference between what Israel is doing to the Palestinians today and what the Nazis did to the Jews during the Holocaust, compared to 49% who disagreed with such a comparison, according to the poll carried out by Germany's University of Bielefeld. The survey also found that 68 percent of Germans believe that Israel is waging a "war of extermination" against the Palestinians, while some 32% disagreed with such a statement.' (Jerusalem Post via Roger L. Simon)

Japan adopts new defense doctrine. Japan has officially adopted a new defense doctrine which recognizes China and North Korea as threats. The policy change also eases restrictions on certain weapons. Details available from Stratfor. (Strategic Forecasting)

New at "Pacific Memories"

In which my father decides not to write about flying fish.

The troops' mess was a melancholy affair. When the ship rolled, which it did about every eight or ten seconds, any semi-liquid food in the serving kettles, such as stewed tomatoes, would splash over and drift around on the floor. Likewise, trays, like boats broken loose from their moorings, would slide about on the long tables until reaching the end. Then, usually with half-eaten dinners, they would crash to the floor. I really sympathized with the harrassed K.P.'s on that trip. They could not keep the floor clean so long as chow was being served, and the floor was strewn with food, som that had not been eaten, some that already had. Movement over this floor in the conventional way, i.e., erectly and with sure steps, was dismally difficult. The place was in that desperate sort of confusion you might see in a Laurel and Hardy picture or hear depicted in Dukas's "The Sourcerer's Apprentice."

For me, there was always fascination in watching the ocean. I think it was not so much in the varying waves and hues as in the expectation of seeing something different, some abrupt change in the seascape - an unscheduled appearance of land, for instance. I enjoyed the Pacific most when it was the rich, wonderful, almost unbelievable blue which it was so often when I saw it. There seemed to be a total absence of greenness in it - just pure blue.

When we got into warmer waters we began seeing flying fish. They are pretty little things which shoot up out of the water and glide for a remarkable distance. They are an iridescent greenish-blue, and remind one of swallows as they skim over the water. I got a sort of poetical feeling, and thought I ought to do something about it, but after remembering that Kipling had written some rather famous lines about flying fish, I decided that anything I wrote about them might seem trite or superfluous, even if I was nowhere near Mandalay at the time. So I stifled the impulse. The next occasion I had to write verse on a ship was one night on the President Coolidge on the way from Auckland to Suva. On that occasion, the subject happened to be phosphorescence in the water. I shall leave it to someone else to decide whether phosphorescence is as worthy a subject of a poem as are flying fishes, as Kipling calls them.

Read the whole post at my father's warblog, Pacific Memories, along with all the gritty details of life aboard the U.S.S. President Monroe in 1942. His anthology of soldiers' poetry is also posted there.

I've also posted his reminiscence of his mother (Edith Cavannaugh McLintock, a singer originally from Savannah, Georgia) at Urban Renewal, where I'm collecting his poetry and other writing.

Class Essay

Edited from a paper I wrote for an undergraduate class. The book 'Uprooting Racism' by Paul Kivel was one of the principal texts.

Political Correctness

On page 60 of Uprooting Racism, Paul Kivel alleges that the phrase “politically correct” is a racially coded phrase, and therefore should be avoided. I believe that political fashion, or “correctness”, can indeed be wrongly adduced to rationalize the use of derogatory language; but it does not follow that “political correctness” – in the sense of intellectually and morally stultifying liberal dogma – does not exist, or that it is not a problem. It does, and it is.

...

[The full text of this post can now be found at my Portfolio under Reflections on Paul Kivel.]

Department of Wayward Relatives

I don't know whether I'm related to this fellow.

I'm not sure I want to know.

Woo hoo

I've added BlogRolling to my sidebar. Yup, Dreams Into Lightning is gettin' all high-tech and stuff ...

"Democracy for the Middle East"

A recent addition to my blogroll is the site Democracy for the Middle East, which promotes just that. It's also a great resource for information on neoconservative thought, and has some great articles and links on Leo Strauss. DFME also has an introduction to Leo Strauss here.

One of the main points brought up by DFME (and by Strauss) is that the United States and Europe have fundamentally different interpretations of liberalism; and in an interesting parallel, the US and Israel have different interpretations of Zionism.

A recent post quoting Rabbi Shmuley Boteach contains the following remarkable statement:

In Israel, one can sense and feel God's holy presence. Thanks largely to evangelical Christians, the same is true today of the United States.

Many religious Jews would consider such a comparison heretical, but not Rabbi Boteach. It is this same reconciliation of the particularizing and universalizing trends in Judaism (and, even more so, in Zionism) that appears to have informed Strauss's political philosophy.

From what I have read of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, I believe Rav Kook's outlook was similar. One of my most important teachers, Rabbi Baruch Melman, expressed a similar idea when he expounded on the symbolism of Sinai and Jerusalem, which represent the universalistic and particularistic aspects of the Jewish worldview. Once the semester ends (finals are next week) I hope to get some serious reading done and post some more on the subject.

As I've argued previously on Dreams Into Lightning, I think one reason the old order finds Judaism (and in particular its political expression, Zionism) so threatening is that, properly understood, it calls for a renunciation of the aggressor/victim paradigm. It calls on us to transcend a basic aspect of human nature - our elemental response to a sense of grievance - and insists that we place the ideal of justice ahead of simple retribution. It asks us to participate in the moral struggle and deal with the challenges of power and freedom. This is the challenge before us - it is our "great work".

Meanwhile, go read Democracy for the Middle East.

Bush: Iraq Elections Must Happen On Schedule

President Bush has refused to back down on holding national elections in Iraq on January 30, 2005, as scheduled. According to news reports, the Chief rejected calls from some political parties for postponing the elections, saying, 'It's time for Iraqi citizens to go to the polls.'

Providing some perspective on the various parties' attempts to delay the vote, Omar at Iraq the Model writes:

Some of these parties cannot think beyond their partisan interests and it seems they want things to calm down in the so-called Sunni triangle so that more Sunnis participate in the elections. This seems like a reasonable demand, but the problem is that they do not seek that as much as they seek to strengthen their own individual and partisan positions.

The Iraqi National Congress also stands firm on the election date:

Delay in holding the elections will be a delay in the restoration of full sovereignty to Iraq. It will also be a delay of withdrawal of foreign troops. The INC upholds that the legitimacy of the Iraqi government is based on the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), which clearly states in Art.2.b.2. that elections must be held no later than 31 January 2004. Moreover, Art. 3 of the TAL reconfirms the January election timetable by stipulating that “likewise, no amendment may be made that could abridge in any way the rights of the Iraqi people…; extend the transitional period beyond the timeframe cited in this Law; delay the holding of elections to a new assembly”. The TAL is also reinforced in United Nations Security Resolution 1546 that also refers to date for the elections which must be respected.

The sooner Iraqis get to take an active role in choosing their own future, the better. The elections should take place as scheduled.

(Besides which, I confess I am a little bit partial to the January 30 date: it's my birthday.)

Iraq Checkpoint

Mohammed at ITM has a great new post about his recent experiences while riding a bus through a dangerous stretch of road near Latifiyah. Passing through first an IP and then and ING checkpoint, the passengers' fear and worry were soon replaced by confidence and trust. Go read the post.

Sudan Campaign Update

The anti-slavery organization iAbolish has opened a new website dedicated specifically to the Sudan campaign. They are currently promoting a starkly worded petition to the UN representatives of China, Russia, Algeria, and Pakistan, asking that they allow the United Nations to take firm action to stop the genocide in Sudan. The petition pointedly notes that several key members of the UN Security Council have lucrative contracts in Sudan. These nations' obstructionist tactics will result in the loss of innocent lives; sign the petition now!

Muslim Zionist Speaks Out

Professor Khaleel Mohammed of San Diego State University is not afraid to speak out in favor of Israel - and he cites the following verse in the Koran for support:

"O my people! enter the land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin." Koran 5:21 (al-Ma'ida)

According to this article in Ha'Aretz, Professor Mohammed stands by his controversial view that the land of Israel is ordained - "katab" in Arabic - for the Jews. ""If Allah katab the Holy Land to the Jews, then it is theirs unless stated otherwise - and it is not stated otherwise in the Koran," he says. In fact, Mohammed explains, the Koran goes on to record that the Jews were punished for their "cowardice" in failing to enter the land at Moses' call, and had to wander 40 years in the wilderness. But "They received punishment for their sins - a prohibition limited in time on their entry to the land. This makes no difference to the principle whereby the land was intended for them."

As for Israel and the Palestinians: "The establishment of the State of Israel is the expression of the fact that the Jews desired to return to their land. The State of Israel was established thanks to the `Jewish jihad,' and the acts of terror that are being carried out by Palestinians inside Israel are not jihad because this is not their land."

Go read the whole article at the link. Hat tip: Ocean Guy.

Muslim Liberals Call for Justice

Three leading Muslim liberals - Jawad Hashim, Shakir al-Nabulsi, and Lafif Lakhdar - have written an open letter to the United Nations calling for strong action against terrorists. The letter, now available in English translation, urges the UN Security Council to establish an "international tribunal to prosecute individuals, groups, or entities including, but not limited to, Muslim clerics, who issue religious edicts (fatwas) inciting terrorist acts."

Go visit Iraq the Model to find out more, and be sure to follow the e-mail link. Dr. Hashim welcomes signatures from people of all religions and nationalities; I've just added my own name - now it's your turn.

France Is a Great Country

... if you've just spent a week in Libya.

Michael J. Totten - agent extraordinaire of the Portland Mukhabarat - is on his way back to Stumptown after a week in the land of "North Africa's Caligula". Meanwhile, he's making the most of his unexpected two-day layover in Paris.