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In characterizing one particular group of neoconservatives, the author observes that “They took words very seriously, believing that they had real consequences.” The remark is an apt one that applies to neocons generally. Indeed, this insistence upon taking words and ideas seriously is chief among the qualities that make writers like Podhoretz, Kristol, Midge Decter, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Walter Laqueur-all of whom figure prominently in this account-so interesting and so formidable. As faithful readers of Commentary-long the leading journal of neoconservatism-know, when neocons engage in intellectual combat, they play for keeps. The game is not for the squeamish or thin-skinned. At the top of their form, neoconservative writers fashion polemics like a military campaign, employing massive force directed at the point of greatest vulnerability. The aim is not to trade blows with the adversary tit-for-tat. It is to overwhelm him. The intended result is not an “exchange” but victory: complete, decisive, and with no prisoners taken.
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[A] unity government should be the final phase before a two-state solution, if indeed one is still possible, not the initial phase. Instead, now is the time to begin dealing differently with Hamas. Talk to it, yes. It’s a terrorist organization, but it controls finite territory on Israel’s borders, hence it must be engaged, like Iran and Syria, without conditions. Forty percent of Israelis already favor such a step.
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Clinton’s stumbling start - The Boston Globe
Considering how pressing the current need for international cooperation on the financial crisis is, I’m not sure I agree with the idea that the Secretary misstepped on this one (see below). I suspect that China pressed their ongoing concern about the U.S. Human Rights Report which will be released this month and that the Secretary’s comments reflected the silliness of an annual dialogue that’s become nearly meaningless because of its rote nature.
“Clinton made another kind of gaffe when she said pressing China on human rights “can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis.” Even if these were her priorities in talks behind closed doors with Chinese officials, her comment sent the wrong message to those officials, to Tibetans and Chinese democrats, and to human rights defenders in China.
Worse yet, Clinton justified her intent to soft-pedal human rights by saying, “We know what they’re going to say, because I’ve had those conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders.” This remark betrays two stunning assumptions: that American protests about human rights abuses have no effect on Chinese authorities, and that US-Chinese cooperation is possible only if the United States kowtows to Beijing’s insistence on what it calls non-interference in its domestic affairs.”
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Lieberman himself flew to Belarus Thursday, thereby quitting the country at a critical stage in the coalition talks. Politicians from across the political spectrum were united in terming this a blatant attempt to flaunt his power: Yisrael Beiteinu, having won 15 seats and become the third-largest party in the Knesset, is the indispensable partner without whom neither Netanyahu nor Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni can form a government. Although the party has a negotiating team, it has no authority to make decisions without Lieberman.
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In short, just at the moment that a new U.S. administration launches a policy aimed at addressing the multiple conflicts of the Middle East with intensive diplomacy, it may find itself with an Israeli partner that rejects negotiations with its neighbors and does its best to push the United States toward military confrontation with Iran and its proxies.
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Historically, embassies and other diplomatic establishments within the United States have served as ready-made safe houses for foreign spies masquerading as diplomats, which is why the 20,000-strong diplomatic community has traditionally commanded the lion’s share of counterintelligence attention. But in America today, there are thousands of foreign-owned commercial establishments, hundreds of thousands of exchange students and visiting academicians, and countless routine trade and financial interactions. Hidden beneath these open and legitimate activities can be darker purposes. With our open, rich society as cover, intelligence officers and their agents can move about freely, develop contacts and operate in the shadows — a point no more lost on foreign spies than it was on the 19 hijackers that September morning in 2001.
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Mitchell did not attempt to talk to Hamas or even visit the Gaza Strip during the visit. Like many others in the West and in the Arab world, he appears to believe it is possible to rebuild Gaza yet ignore its Hamas-led government. His itinerary took him to Ramallah, Cairo, Amman and Riyadh - but not to Damascus. He cancelled a visit to Turkey after a high-level Israeli-Turkish clash at the Davos World Economic Forum - as if this somehow rendered Ankara’s own Middle East mediation efforts, past and future, less relevant. A Mitchell visit to Gaza, Damascus or Ankara would not in any way have betrayed Israel or the administration’s basic undertaking regarding Israel’s security. On the contrary, it would have served them. If Obama and his emissary for Arab-Israel affairs intend to represent a new and refreshing departure in America’s approach to the Middle East, Mitchell’s first visit was not characteristic of this approach. It seemed to reflect attitudes regarding the identity of America’s interlocutors that characterized the Bush era. Let’s hope this is not a harbinger of things to come. Yossi Alpher is a former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and was a senior adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Barak. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons.org, an online newsletter publishing contending views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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The audacious kidnapping and killing of one of the highest-ranking military officers in Mexico drew immediate expressions of outrage from the top echelons of the Mexican government, which pledged to continue the fight against organized crime that took the lives of more than 5,300 people last year. Military leaders, who are increasingly at the front lines of the war against the cartels, vowed not to let Tello’s death go unsolved or unpunished.
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