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Posted by David Gerstman on August 07, 2014 19 Comments
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told the U.S. Ambassador to Israel "not to ever second guess me again" when it comes to Hamas, after Hamas' refusal and eventual breach of ceasefire agreements. Did he have a point? The international community in its zeal to solve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians makes plenty of suggestions about what needs to be done. One would think that with the number of suggestions it's made that have backfired, it would learn a little humility and perhaps listen a little bit more to Israel when it comes to Hamas. For example, in a recent column, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen called the Israel-Palestinian conflict an "obscenity." At the end of the column he made a suggestion as to how to go about ending the conflict.
Real reconciliation can only come on the basis of an ironclad commitment to nonviolence and to holding of free and fair elections, the first since 2006. Good Palestinian governance, unity and nonviolence constitute the path to making a free state of Palestine irrefutable. The longer Hamas fights this, the greater its betrayal of its people.
What happened in those "free and fair elections" in 2006? Hamas won and established its political legitimacy among Palestinians. A year and a half later it violently forced Fatah out of Gaza and established a stranglehold on the territory. With its newly found freedom to operate it launched thousands of rockets into Israel forcing three wars. But how and why did Hamas, a terrorist organization with a genocidal charter come to participate in those elections? International pressure, including pressure from the Bush administration, forced Israel to drop its objections to Hamas' participation. In retrospect that pressure doesn't look so good. After Fatah and Hamas announced their unity deal earlier this year, Elliott Abrams, who was a member of the administration, recalled:
The last parliamentary elections were held in 2006, and there was a major dispute about whether Hamas should be allowed to run. Abbas then argued strongly and successfully (in that he persuaded Washington to back off) that an election without Hamas would be illegitimate: He would be barring his only real opponent, in the manner of all Arab dictators. We in the Bush administration made the wrong call and sided with Abbas, over Israeli objections. As Condoleezza Rice wrote in her memoirs, “In retrospect, we should have insisted that every party disarm as a condition for participating in the vote.” She was right, for several reasons.
Subsequent developments have shown Israel's objections to having Hamas run in those election to be valid.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 07, 2014 8 Comments
I have argued strenuously against the academic boycott of Israel, led by people like Steven Salaita, on a number of grounds. Not the least of those grounds is that academics who insist on violating the academic freedom of Israelis and those who wish to interact with Israelis do damage to the system in its entirety. That is one of the reasons why the American Association of University Professors, numerous university associations, and over 250 University Presidents issued statements opposing the academic boycott of Israel passed by the American Studies Association in December 2013. There is a related point to how academic boycotts have a negative ripple effect. On what ground do the academic boycotters of Israel claim their own academic freedom if they are so quick to deny it to others? Because they think they are right? What if the people who want to boycott the boycotters believe just as firmly in their own correctness? Now you can see why universities reacted so swiftly in rejecting the academic boycott -- it's easy to start, but hard to stop. As posted earlier, Inside Higher Ed reports that Salaita allegedly was denied an offer at U. Illinois at at Urbana-Champaign because of his tweets. I don't know if that's true, if it was the anti-Israeli views expressed in the tweets, or if it was that the tweets arguably presented Salaita as an unhinged and unstable demagogue who would bring disrepute on his institution and intimidate his students; or any or none of the above. Many of those rushing to Salaita's defense on the ground of academic freedom, however, themselves are among the worst violators of academic freedom through the anti-Israel academic boycott. They would turn away a Dean or representative of an Israeli academic institution, would bar joint programs and research, and even cooperation in journal publications.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 07, 2014 41 Comments
While over 700 journalists were covering the Gaza conflict, few paid attention to the mass slaughter in Iraq of the Yazidi, who are on the verge of a true genocide at the hands of ISIS. Finally the impending massacre is getting coverage, but it may be too late. The Washington Post reported two days ago:
Stranded on a barren mountaintop, thousands of minority Iraqis are faced with a bleak choice: descend and risk slaughter at the hands of the encircled Sunni extremists or sit tight and risk dying of thirst. Humanitarian agencies said Tuesday that between 10,000 and 40,000 civilians remain trapped on Mount Sinjar since being driven out of surrounding villages and the town of Sinjar two days earlier. But the mountain that had looked like a refuge is becoming a graveyard for their children. Unable to dig deep into the rocky mountainside, displaced families said they have buried young and elderly victims of the harsh conditions in shallow graves, their bodies covered with stones. Iraqi government planes attempted to airdrop bottled water to the mountain on Monday night but reached few of those marooned.... Most of those who fled Sinjar are from the minority Yazidi sect, which melds parts of ancient Zoroastrianism with Christianity and Islam. They are considered by the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State to be devil worshippers and apostates.
WaPo updates today:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 07, 2014 5 Comments

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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 06, 2014 15 Comments
Democratic operative Kathy Groob tweeted a handful of racist tweets about Senator McConnell's wife. Outrage ensued and Groob apologized and then deleted her Twitter account. Fox News reports:

A Democratic operative deleted her Twitter account Monday following a series of what some called racist remarks about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao.

Chao, former U.S. Labor Secretary under President George W. Bush, is Asian.

Kathy Groob, who describes herself as an “advocate for women in politics,” sent a series of tweets related to Chao at a political event Saturday.

According to WKMS, Groob sent the tweets in response to comments McConnell made at the event, in which he referred to his wife as "the only Kentucky woman who served in a president’s cabinet."

Following widespread criticism from her own party, Groob later apologized for her “poor choice of words” and deleted her Twitter account.

The tweets that started it all:

Kathy Groob Tweets Elaine Chao Asian not KY

Posted by New Neo on August 06, 2014 35 Comments
Today is the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, with Nagasaki following three days later, and the surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945. To date these two bombs remain---astoundingly enough, considering the nature of our oft-troubled and troubling species---the only nuclear warheads ever detonated over populated areas. Oliver Kamm wrote a while back:
Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome. The bomb was a deliverance for American troops, for prisoners and slave labourers, for those dying of hunger and maltreatment throughout the Japanese empire - and for Japan itself. One of Japan's highest wartime officials, Kido Koichi, later testified that in his view the August surrender prevented 20 million Japanese casualties.
This context always needs to be kept in mind when evaluating any "terrible thing"---and there is no question that the dropping of these bombs was a terrible thing. But critics who are bound and determined to portray the West as evil, marauding, bloodthirsty--- whatever the dreadful adjective du jour might be---are bound and determined to either avoid all context, or to change the true context and replace it with fanciful myth. As Kamm writes, those who want to portray Hiroshima and Nagasaki as American crimes cite evidence of an imminent Japanese surrender that would have happened anyway.

Posted by Andrew Branca on August 06, 2014 69 Comments
UPDATE: I've come across video of Wafer's direct testimony under questioning by defense counsel Cheryl Carpenter. Here you go: Today saw the closing arguments of the murder trial of Detroit homeowner Theodore Wafer in the front porch shooting death of Renisha McBride in the early morning hours of November 2, 2013.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 06, 2014 36 Comments
Dr. Milton Wolf's primary challenge to Kansas Senator Pat Roberts fell shy last night, but by a much closer margin than just about anyone predicted, 48-41. We supported Dr. Wolf, as someone who would help move the Republican Party and the Republic forward, departing from the stale insider Washington, D.C. games. A "scandal" regarding some old Facebook posts of anonymous patient x-rays sapped Wolf's momentum early in the race, and probably cost him some large backers who might otherwise agree with his politics. But as the race progressed, Wolf picked up steam as Roberts faltered and became portrayed as a D.C. insider out of touch, both physically and philosophically, with Kansans. Despite the loss, let's give Dr. Milton Wolf a round of applause for fighting the good fight with enormous odds against him. According to Politico, a key factor -- if not the key factor -- in Roberts' win was help from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the same group that rescued Thad Cochran. The NRSC is an incumbent protection organization, plain and simple. That's its job, help protect Republican incumbents. Period. No matter how bad. No matter the implications for the Party long term. Many people are critical of the NRSC, because they confuse the NRSC's role. Politico reports:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 06, 2014 25 Comments
A new study is claiming that President Obama's controversial "Cash for Clunkers" program negatively impacted the amount of money Americans spent on new cars, and had no overall impact on how many new cars were sold. "Cash for Corollas: When Stimulus Reduces Spending," a new study out of Texas A&M University, suggests that not only did Cash for Clunkers fail to stimulate the new car industry, it also acted at odds with environmental restrictions that eventually contributed to the program's failure. From the abstract:
Cash for Clunkers was a 2009 economic stimulus program aimed at increasing new vehicle spending by subsidizing the replacement of older vehicles. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show the increase in sales during the two month program was completely offset during the following seven to nine months, consistent with previous research. However, we also find the program's fuel efficiency restrictions induced households to purchase more fuel efficient but less expensive vehicles, thereby reducing industry revenues by three billion dollars over the entire nine to eleven month period. This highlights the conflict between the stimulus and environmental objectives of the policy.
In his overview of the "Cash for Corollas" study, AEI's James Pethokoukis notes that the study contradicts the White House's claim that the program would pull from future car sales to increase current demand and overall car sales.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 06, 2014 33 Comments
Anti-Semitism is becoming a pervasive, worldwide problem hinged on anti-Israel attitudes. Australia has seen numerous anti-Israel protests and an increase in anti-Semitic incidents.  A Rabbi visiting from Israel was recently attacked.  Some of the Australian media have engaged in anti-Semitic tropes. In the Bondi area of Sydney, a group of religious Jews recently was attacked: The latest attack was on a school bus used by a Jewish school, from The Daily Telegraph - Australia:

Posted by A.F. Branco on August 05, 2014 3 Comments

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Posted by Andrew Branca on August 05, 2014 55 Comments
Welcome back to the eighth day of the murder trial of Detroit homeowner Theodore Wafer for the shooting death of Renisha McBride on his front porch in the early morning hours of November 2, 2013.

Theodore Wafer Back on Cross-Examination

Wafer was back on cross-examination today, having taken the stand in his own defense yesterday (for details see here: Homeowner Takes the Stand in Detroit Front Porch Murder Trial). Cross examination was continued by Assistant Prosecutor Athina Siringas. Cross had left off yesterday afternoon with a rather low-key playing of interview video of Wafer that day at the Dearborn Heights police station—a rather odd move by the prosecution, as it left the jury to dwell all evening on the rather excellent direct examination by the defense that took place over much of the afternoon. The prosecution touched upon a number of issues over the course of their cross examination of Wafer—indeed, I would argue that they touched upon too many issues, including spending valuable time on some that seem of very questionable utility in obtaining a conviction. Although the prosecution did get to the very important issue of Wafer’s repeated statements that the shooting was an “accident,” they did so for what seemed too brief a period and with too little intensity. The only explanation that comes to mind is that Wafer’s already expressed counter-argument to this avenue of attack was perceived as too robust to be effectively overcome, and thus that a focused attack on this point would be ineffective.
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