War and peace

This is a good first step:

The United States and five other world powers announced a landmark accord Sunday morning that would temporarily freeze Iran’s nuclear program and lay the foundation for a more sweeping agreement.

It was the first time in nearly a decade of talks, US officials said, that an international agreement had been reached to halt much of Iran’s nuclear program and roll some elements of it back.

The aim of the accord, which is to last six months, is to give international negotiators time to pursue a more comprehensive accord that would ratchet back much of Iran’s nuclear program and ensure that it could only be used for peaceful purposes.

As always, whether this is a good thing will depend on later actions, but talking is always better than war. The US and Iran do not trust each other (for good reasons on both sides) so this will be difficult, but again it’s better than war. This statement takes me back:

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s economic minister and a key member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, said, “if a nuclear suitcase blows up in New York or Madrid five years from now, it will be because of the deal that was signed this morning.”

“If there will be a deal which would allow Iran to have the ability to ‘break out’ and build a bomb within six weeks, we cannot sit idly by in this situation, and we will examine all the options,” Bennett told Israel’s Channel 2 on Saturday night.

This is Condoleezza Rice saying, with respect to Iraq, that we can’t let the let the smoking gun be a nuclear blast, it is the idea of preemptive war–which worked so well in Iraq. I’m sure Netanyahu would support developments between China and Japan:

The Chinese government on Saturday claimed the right to identify, monitor, and possibly take military action against aircraft that enter a newly declared “air defense identification zone,” which covers sea and islands also claimed by Japan and threatens to escalate an already tense dispute over some of the maritime territory.

The move appeared to be another step in China’s efforts to intensify pressure on Japan over Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that are at the heart of the dispute.

Now there’s some good old fashioned saber rattling.

No preconditions except ours

Palestine is now  a nonmember observer state in the UN. The US and Israel both worked against this and explained why:

Susan E. Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, was dismissive of the entire exercise. ‘‘Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade,’’ she said. ‘‘And the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.’’

There has been absolutely no progress in the past few years despite what Abbas has done so I’m not sure what prospects she’s talking about. And it’s all the Palestinians fault anyway:

‘‘Three months ago, Israel’s prime minister stood in this very hall and extended his hand in peace to President Abbas,’’ Prosor said. ‘‘He reiterated that his goal was to create a solution of two states for two peoples, where a demilitarized Palestinian state will recognize Israel as a Jewish state.’’

Now today:

Israel approved the construction of 3,000 homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, a government official said Friday, in what appeared to be a defiant response to the Palestinians’ successful United Nations recognition bid.

…

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to negotiate with Israeli while settlement construction continues in occupied territories.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said negotiations must begin without preconditions.

There are two things to think about here: first, this is not an aberration–Israel has continued to build settlements despite protests by Abbas and the UN; second, notice the contradiction that is always present when Israel talks about preconditions: they say “a demilitarized Palestinian state will recognize Israel as a Jewish state” in other words Israel has preconditions but Palestinians are not allowed to have preconditions for the talks. I wonder why Abbas has a problem with that?

Israel and the Palestinians

Farah Stockman has an interesting point:

Hamas’s rockets resulted in a ceasefire that eased the Israeli blockade on Gaza, giving Hamas a victory to claim. The crisis also produced a flurry of attention and high-level visitors to Gaza from the Muslim world. Fatah basically got ignored.

Meanwhile, Abbas has precious few victories to tout after years of stalemated peace talks. And his statehood bid already seems headed for disaster. Members of Congress have threatened to cut US aid if Abbas goes ahead. Voices in Israel are calling for punishment, including starving Abbas’s government of import duties, annexing parts of the West Bank, or even finding a way to kick Abbas out of power. Israel’s right-wing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has called Abbas’s strategy at the UN “diplomatic terrorism.”

Is it any wonder that Hamas is getting more popular? If Abbas is a “diplomatic terrorist,” why not just vote for the real thing?

Fatah has basically stopped violence directed at Israel from the West Bank and have gotten nothing for it. Fatah’s one main prerequisite for resuming negotiations is that Israel stop building in the West Bank and they can’t even get that. Abbas is now trying to get Palestinians status upgraded at the UN which Israel is very much against:

“The United Nations General Assembly will pass a one-sided anti-Israel resolution that should come as a surprise to nobody, and certainly not to anyone in Israel,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government. “We always said that the reality was that the Palestinians have an automatic majority in the General Assembly.”

…

Israel has argued that the Palestinian move is a unilateral action that violates peace accords, and that a vote for the resolution — which, according to the draft, “reaffirms the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their state of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967” — will make it harder to negotiate a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Since there has been no progress in negotiations for at least a few years and since they’re not negotiating now, does it really mean anything that Israel says this will make negotiations harder?

DR Congo, Zimbabwe, and Israel

Now that the election season is over, let’s look around the world a bit.

I haven’t looked at the DR Congo and it’s as if no time has passed:

A Congolese regional governor has told the BBC that rebels will not take the main eastern city of Goma, following fierce fighting.

Julien Paluku said that the rebels had telephoned him to say they would be “spending the night” in Goma.

Mr Paluku said 150 rebels had been killed but the rebels disputed these figures, saying no-one had died.

The fighting is the most serious since July in the mostly lawless but resource-rich eastern DR Congo.

Nearly 500,000 people have fled their homes since April when the rebels mutinied from the army.

On the other hand, Zimbabwe is still bad:

At least $2 billion from diamond sales was allegedly stolen from the Marange diamond fields and enriched President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party loyalists and military hierarchy, the report said.

The funds from diamond sales could have turned around the country’s embattled economy, but they have not shown up in the national coffers.

After years of political and economic meltdown, Zimbabwe’s health and education services remain broke.

Finance Minister Biti said in his budget speech he had been promised $600 million from diamond sales but the head of state-run Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, Goodwills Masimirembwa said that figure had to be revised downwards to $150 million due to poor performance of diamond sales affected by Western sanctions.

While Zimbabwe’s entire budget for education for 2012 was $8 million, Mugabe’s party is constructing a $6 million conference hall in the provincial city of Gweru for its annual convention in December.

but the economy is nothing like it was:

But on Thursday Finance Minister Tendai Biti injected a note of stark realism  into his 2013 budget. He downgraded GDP growth estimates for 2012 from 9.4 per  cent in his budget a year ago and 5.6 per cent in mid-year to just 4.4 per  cent.

The outlook for 2013, with growth of 5 per cent, is “gloomy” ,he said, and “blighted by a miscellany of factors that include a deeper global outturn, the  continued capital deficit, financial sector instability, and a poor business  climate.”

H expects growth which averaged over 8 per cent a year since dollarisation of  the economy at the end of 2008 to 2011, to recover somewhat to 6 per cent in  2014-15.

That doesn’t sound that great but the economy is growing and there’s no mention of inflation which was 231 million percent in 2008. There’s an election next year, so that’s when we’ll find out where things stand.

And it looks like there might be another war in Gaza:

Israeli troops took up positions near the Gaza border Friday, and a senior government official said a ground war could be imminent, as Hamas militants continued to lob rockets into Israel and a missile landed near Jerusalem for the first time since 1970.

The missile strikes outside Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel’s main population centers, dramatically raised the stakes in the ongoing standoff between Israel and Hamas, both of which are seeking new footing in a volatile region where the Arab Spring revolutions have empowered populist strains that largely favor the Palestinian cause.

But they’re religious

It seems there’s a war on religion in Israel also:

In a step that could intensify a major rift among Israelis, the defense minister on Tuesday ordered the army to prepare for a universal draft of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.

Many in the insular and rapidly growing community say they would rather go to jail than comply with an end to the decadeslong draft exemptions that have caused increasing outrage in the country.

Since I’m mostly a pacifist, I sympathise with this but again wonder why people who are religious get special treatment. On the other hand, I have no sympathy for this (bold added):

Resentment against the ultra-Orthodox for their exemptions has been growing along with their proportion of the population and political clout, as their parties often hold the balance of power in Israel’s fractious, multiparty political system, winning outsize budgets for their institutions and subsidies for their people, many of whom do not hold jobs.

I find this to be an interesting comment given that the ultra-Orthodox don’t want to be drafted:

Meir Porush, an ultra-Orthodox leader and a former lawmaker, said drafting his people would unleash a ‘‘civil war.’’

Israel and Palestine

Via Kevin Drum, the Prime Minister of Israel gave an interesting speech to Congress:

The peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan are vital. But they’re not enough. We must also find a way to forge a lasting peace with the Palestinians. Two years ago, I publicly committed to a solution of two states for two peoples: A Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state. 

I am willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace. As the leader of Israel, it is my responsibility to lead my people to peace.

This is not easy for me. I recognize that in a genuine peace, we will be required to give up parts of the Jewish homeland.  In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We are not the British in India.  We are not the Belgians in the Congo.

Netanyahu believes that all of greater Israel is part of Israel and so it’s a big compromise to give up part of it, the problem is that the UN doesn’t agree with this. He also says that Israel is willing to make painful compromises, but then only lists compromises that the Palestinians must make (besides allowing a Palestinian state to exist). Interesting. Perhaps it’s this type of thinking that made him so upset at President Obama when he mostly agreed with him:

For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure.  Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection.  And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.

As for Israel, our friendship is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values.  Our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable.  And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums.  But precisely because of our friendship, it’s important that we tell the truth:  The status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.

The fact is, a growing number of Palestinians live west of the Jordan River.  Technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself.  A region undergoing profound change will lead to populism in which millions of people -– not just one or two leaders — must believe peace is possible.  The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome. The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation.

Now, ultimately, it is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to take action.  No peace can be imposed upon them — not by the United States; not by anybody else.  But endless delay won’t make the problem go away.  What America and the international community can do is to state frankly what everyone knows — a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples:  Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people, each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.

So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear:  a viable Palestine, a secure Israel.  The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine.  We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.  The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state. 

As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself -– by itself -– against any threat.  Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism, to stop the infiltration of weapons, and to provide effective border security.  The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state.  And the duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated.

Look at the major statements here: borders based on the 1967 borders with agreed upon land swaps; no negotiation including Hamas unless they renounce violence and endorse Israel’s right to exist; no unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state; right of Israel to keep troops in the new Palestine state and a non-militarized Palestine; Israel as a Jewish state. These are all things that Netanyahu says he agrees with–in fact I don’t see anything in the speech that he claims he is against and yet Netanyahu was still upset. Interesting.

Israel and Gaza

No matter who you think was in the right in Israel’s attack on the flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, it should be obvious that it’s a public relation disaster.

This is especially confusing given how often this tactic is used. It was used by Gandhi in India, civil rights activists in the US South, and was instrumental in the founding of Israel (via here). Here’s a description of that confrontation:

Captain Ahronovitch was 23 when he took the helm of the Exodus. On July 11, 1947, he picked up the refugees at Sète, in southern France. On July 18, as the ship neared the coast of Palestine, the British Navy intercepted it. Captain Ahronovitch tried to break through, but two British destroyers rammed the ship.

Several hours of fighting followed, with the ship’s passengers spraying fuel oil and throwing smoke bombs, life rafts and whatever else came to hand, down on the British sailors trying to board, The Times reported at the time. Soon the British opened fire. Two immigrants and a crewman on the Exodus were killed; scores more were wounded, many seriously. The ship was towed to Haifa, and from there its passengers were deported, first to France and eventually to Germany, where they were placed in camps near Lübeck.

That sounds similar to here. The idea is to invite confrontation which will then get publicity. If the response is disproportionate then it will elicit sympathy. Think of water hoses and dogs turned on activists, think of the picture in this post. The Israelis must have known this was the reason for the flotilla (which is why this statement is just silly: ‘Israel warned the vessels to abort their mission, describing it as a provocation.’) and should have been prepared. To make matters worse, the raid took place in international waters which (perhaps, I really don’t know the laws here) makes this accurate (bold added):

“This was an attack in international waters on a peaceful mission… This was a clear act of piracy,” he added.

Mr Paech had been a passenger on the Turkish passenger ship Mavi Marmara where most, if not all, of the deaths occurred.

Of course, Hamas also showed it doesn’t understand publicity. When your adversary has just overreacted and/or shown itself unprepared you do nothing, you do not fire missiles or try to infiltrate.

It’s all said better here.

That’s quick

I’m not going to talk about the problems with negotiations or anything substantial, I just wanted to note this bit:

“I am saying one thing. There will be no freeze in Jerusalem,’’ Netanyahu said. “There should be no preconditions to talks.’’

If you’re going to contradict yourself, you really shouldn’t do so the very next line.

Karzai=Taliban?

It seems that Karzai might care more about getting elected than women’s rights. One of the problems here is:

The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands’ permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands’ permission, and that they cannot refuse their husband sex.

Think about that first bit for a second. The bill has been passed into law and yet it’s not accessible to anyone. What kind of democracy is this?

The defenders of the bill show how bad it is:

Ustad Mohammad Akbari, an MP and the leader of a Hazara political party, said the president had supported the law in order to curry favour among the Hazaras. But he said the law actually protected women’s rights.

“Men and women have equal rights under Islam but there are differences in the way men and women are created. Men are stronger and women are a little bit weaker; even in the west you do not see women working as firefighters.”

Akbari said the law gave a woman the right to refuse sexual intercourse with her husband if she was unwell or had another reasonable “excuse”. And he said a woman would not be obliged to remain in her house if an emergency forced her to leave without permission.

and:

“This bill stipulates lots of leniencies compared to the civic laws that have been around for 40 years. For example, (under the new law) a Shi’ite woman can seek divorce if her husband is not able to feed her or he disappears for a long time,” Balkhi said.

“A Shi’ite woman can go out for medical treatment, to see her parents without the permission of her husband, while this freedom is not enshrined in the civic law,” he said.

These are the defenses? Wow, how bad is it? If this is accurate, pretty bad:

The new law denies Afghan Shi’a women the right to leave their homes except for “legimitate” purposes; forbids women from working or receiving education without their husbands’ express permission; explicitly permits marital rape; diminishes the right of mothers to be their children’s guardians in the event of a divorce; and makes it impossible for wives to inherit houses and land from their husbands – even though husbands may inherit immoveable property from their wives.

Officially this only applies to Shia. I’m hoping this article is correct–I guess we’ll find out on Saturday.

In case you think this wouldn’t happen in a Western country, here’s a bit from Israel:

Two women serve in Israel’s new Cabinet, but some Israelis would rather not see them.

Newspapers aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jewish readers tampered with the inaugural photograph of the Cabinet, erasing ministers Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver.
…
During the election, campaign posters featuring female candidate Tzipi Livni were defaced near ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

Go here for how one newspaper erased women from the picture.

Update: the law isn’t final until it’s published, so the law has not been enacted.

Development in Jerusalem

Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat is in Boston trying to drum up money for the city. And the article says he’s very inclusive:

Working with Weinberg, who’s collaborated with Porter for more than a decade, they formed Startup Jerusalem, a nongovernmental organization that lined up secular and Orthodox Jews as well as Arabs to support the cluster-based economic development plan. Many of those involved are now moving into Barkat’s mayoral administration.

Jerusalem today gets only about 2 million visitors annually, far below the 40 million to 50 million of some other large cities around the world, Barkat said. He said there is room for substantial growth in “medical tourism,” from patients being treated in Jerusalem hospitals, and religious tourism. “We have a one-stop shop for people who want to sample the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim experience,” he said.

They do note one little problem:

Many in Israel, along with the Obama administration in the United States, back a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, creating a Palestinian state that also would have Jerusalem as its capital. Barkat, considered an ally of incoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he tries to separate politics and economic development while favoring a united Jerusalem.

But they don’t note a much bigger problem, how he’s going about this:

Today the 80-year-old patriarch, his extended family and nearly 1,500 neighbors face eviction from their homes in the bustling urban neighborhood so that the municipal government can raze the buildings and expand an archaeological site devoted to Jewish history. Residents of the area, part of the Silwan district, are fighting back peacefully in the streets and the Israeli courts.

The mayor notes that these are illegal settlements, but:

Jalajel, a retired Jordanian army officer and construction worker, has four sons. When they married and started families, they began applying in the 1970s for permits to build new homes on their half-acre plot.

By then Israeli authorities had become concerned about the rise in Arab population, perceived as a threat to their rule, and had set a goal to limit the number of Arabs in Jerusalem to about one-fourth of the city’s population. Jalajel’s building requests were denied.

So, the buildings are illegal but that’s because Israel has a policy to deny Arabs housing (of course, new Jewish housing is being built like crazy–Barkat supports Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem). Also remember that the buildings may be illegal, but the land being taken is theirs (and has been in the family for hundreds of years).

Israel, Gaza, DR Congo, Somalia, Zimbabwe

• There is talk of an end to the conflict in Gaza. The question is if things will be any better or if anything has been decided. A couple things make me skeptical. This statement by Secretary Rice:

“There is much that can be done to bring Gaza out of the dark of Hamas’s reign and into the light of the very good governance the Palestinian Authority can bring,” she said.

and the fact that Israel might declare a unilateral ceasefire so they don’t have to deal with Hamas both continue the childish strategy of ignoring Hamas, the largest party in Gaza and the winner of the last democratic election. It also ignores the fact that one of the reasons the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) lost that election was they were very corrupt and were seen as ineffective. It would be nice if everyone grew up (Hamas isn’t exactly acting like grown ups either).

• The situation in the DR Congo might be getting better. It seems that there has been a split between rebels and the leader of the splinter group (or the whole group depending on who you ask) says he is willing to work with Congo’s government to battle Hutu fighters. Of course this new leader is known for committing war crimes, so I’ll wait a bit to see how things work out.
• In Zimbabwe, there have been reports of the collapse of the health system (with Mugabe being blamed), a report of widespread torture of human rights workers, and the economy is so bad that the government will introduce a $100 trillion note. Tsvangirai is still trying to negotiate because he has no choice. And yet the South African delegation basically wants Tsvangirai to trust Mugabe:

South Africa, the region’s most powerful nation, is pressing Mr. Tsvangirai to accept the post of prime minister, while Mr. Mugabe stays on as president, and worry later about getting his people out of prison.

“We remain of the view that the agreement should be implemented immediately,” said Thabo Masebe, the spokesman for President Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa.

• Somalia is at another possible turning point. Ethiopian troops have moved out of the country. This is cheered by Somalians and there is talk of peace. Since there hasn’t been a functioning government there since 1992, I think I’ll reserve judgment.

A Pox on both their houses

This shows that both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are contemptible:

Some 280 families — 1,674 people — had been sheltering inside the school, Al Fakhura, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which helps Palestinian refugees and their descendants and which runs the school. Most came from farther north in Gaza, near Beit Lahiya, where the fighting has been intense, an hour’s walk away. They were ordered to evacuate for their safety by Israeli forces, who used leaflets and loudspeakers to get them to leave their homes.

But Al Fakhura, set in the northern part of the densely packed Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City, is in a crowded neighborhood full of Hamas fighters. Israel said that a preliminary investigation showed that mortar fire from the school compound prompted Israeli forces to return fire. The Israeli mortars killed as many as 40 people outside the school; Palestinian hospital officials said Tuesday that 10 of the dead were children and 5 were women.

The particulars might be wrong here, but the general ideas are this: Hamas specifically fires from civilian areas and Israel responds with excessive force. And as usual, both sides are at fault here–it seems that Hamas did fire from near the school and Israel pretends the only options were to fire mortars or do nothing (sending people instead might have allowed the fighters to escape but it also would have meant 40 civilians would still be alive).

Both sides need to just stop. Here are the arguments:

Israel: we needed to invade because Hamas has been sending rockets into Israel for years;

Hamas: we fire into Israel because they are strangling Gaza;

Israel: we need to control the movement of Palestinians because of suicide attacks;

Hamas: we use suicide bombers because Israel continues to take land by settlements and the wall

Now continue these arguments back a thousand years or two.

It really comes down to a child’s argument: I’ll stop when you do. You first. No you. … They all need to grow up.

Hamas-Israeli Truce?

This would be good news:

“The Palestinian and Israeli sides have accepted the first stage of a reciprocal and simultaneous period of calm, starting in the Gaza Strip, from 0600 on Thursday,” an unidentified senior Egyptian official told the state news agency MENA.

Mahmoud Zahar, a leader of Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza, confirmed at a news conference there on Tuesday evening that a truce was about to come into effect and would last for six months.

Israel is saying it’s not definite yet, but hopefully it will happen.

Israel and Hamas

In some ways these two quotes about the killing of a family in Gaza show the reason people have a problem with the way Israel is acting:

Maj. Avital Leibovich, the Israeli military’s chief spokeswoman for the foreign press, said that while the army was still investigating, an initial inquiry into the events showed that several Israeli armored personnel carriers had entered the area of Beit Hanoun in what she described as a routine search for rocket launchers, snipers and terrorists.

Two heavily armed men approached the Israelis, she said, leading an Israeli aircraft to fire a missile at them, killing them. On their backs, she said, were rucksacks apparently holding large amounts of explosives, which caused the nearby house to tumble and kill those inside. She said the analysis was based partly on images taken from the air.

…

“We see Hamas as responsible for everything that happens there, for all injuries,” he said while on a tour of an Israeli weapons factory, Israeli radio reported. “The army is acting and will continue to act against Hamas, including inside the Gaza Strip.”

Even if we accept the army’s explanation, it seems to show a bit of overkill–two men are advancing on foot towards armored vehicles and an aircraft fires a missile at them? And the second quote shows a complete disregard for Palestinian civilians.

World News

• It now seems likely that Mugabe either lost or will not get the 50% of the vote needed to avoid a runoff. There seem to be negotiations to get Mugabe to step down. That would be a very good thing.
• The Islamist opposition seems to have taken over a town in Somalia. They have chased government troops out of towns before, but this time they might try to stay. The Islamist came to power in 2006 by working with clan militias, so it’s sometimes hard to say if troops are really part of this movement or just a clan militia.
• The Swiss are getting ready to outlaw the use of cat fur for garments (Italy was the first European government to outlaw it, six years ago). Interesting quote here:

“Switzerland is becoming the place where the most cats are being killed for the import and commerce to sell the cat fur,” Mr. Darbellay said. “We don’t like to be seen this way.”

Really? Does he think some countries wouldn’t mind as being seen as such a place?

• Israel is having problems dealing with Bedouin tribes. Human Rights Watch allege systematic bias against them by the Israeli government (by destroying illegal Bedouin towns, but not Jewish ones; by making them settle in towns that are very poor and have few resources; …). This is a difficult problem. Bedouin tribes (or similar groups) have been travelling through the Mideast and other regions since almost the dawn of civilization, but the modern world isn’t really conducive to such wanderers and the question is how to deal with them. Usually they don’t officially own any land, but they have been using it for generations–the question is how do you deal with them as the number of people (and so need for land) increases? Do you make them settle down and if so, how do you compensate them?
• Bush says that he supports the extension of NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia. What’s interesting is that Russia and some European countries are opposed to this and:

Mr. Yushchenko, whose presidency has been hobbled by political infighting, corruption and tensions with Russia, said that he took heart that support for NATO had steadily climbed in polls — to 33 percent from 17 percent three years ago.

Hmm, do you think Bush is doing this to show that he can be tough on Russia (since he has been accused of being to easy on Putin in the past)? I also don’t quite get this:

Mr. Yushchenko defended his goal of joining NATO, saying collective security was essential to maintaining Ukraine’s sovereignty and overcoming its ethnic divisions, a reference to Russians who favor closer relations with Moscow.

“This is not a policy against somebody,” he said, his demeanor grim compared with Mr. Bush’s. “We’re taking care of our national interest.”

Umm, if ethnic Russians are against joining NATO, how is joining NATO going to overcome ethnic divisions? And if you say NATO is essential to your sovereignty, then doesn’t there have to be someone who is threatening it (and who could that be but Russia)?

Palestinians

This is disturbing:

According to the poll, conducted last week with 1,270 Palestinians in face-to-face interviews, 84 percent supported the March 6 attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, one of Israel’s most prominent centers of religious Zionism and ideological wellspring of the settler movement in the West Bank. Mr. Shikaki said that this is the single highest support for an act of violence in his 15 years of polling here. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points

On negotiations between Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Israel, and Mr. Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, 75 percent said they were without benefit and should be terminated. Regarding the thousands of rockets that have been launched on Israeli towns like Sderot and Ashkelon, 64 percent support it.

Obviously, Israel’s current strategy is not working. Hamas is becoming more popular and Abbas less. Will Israel change its strategy?

The World

• Israel is out of Gaza after 2 Israeli troop deaths, 1 Israeli civilian dead, and 116 Palestinians dead. That would be good news (the troops leaving) except nothing was really accomplished, so this will almost certainly be repeated in the near future.
• It seems that the scorched earth policies that Sudan used early in the conflict in Darfur are back. Now that there is a rebel group supported by Chad, the situation is even more dangerous.
• The US has fired missiles into Somalia in support of the government and their Ethiopian backers. Somehow, I don’t think this is going to help the situation (the PR is terrible here–the only time in the last 20 years or so that Somalia was at least semi-stable was when the Islamists were in power. The US then backed the Ethiopian invasion and the country is now ready to have a large conflict driven famine.
• Troops in Ecuador and Venezuala have been moved to the borderof Columbia in response to an attack in Ecuador against FARC by Columbia. This is another case where both sides are wrong: who could support FARC?; Columbia has been very antagonistic.

Israel, Palestine, and Turkey

• Turkey has pulled out of Iraq for now, which is good, but the battles will continue.
• The situation in Gaza has taken a turn for the worse as Hamas has increased its missile attacks (including longer range ones) and now Israel has made a major strike into Gaza killing at least 54 (and at least two Israeli soldiers) and at least 70 have died since Wednesday. I don’t quite see the point from either side: the rockets won’t do any real damage and Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas. It’s almost as if both sides want a war.

Israel and Gaza

The more I think about it, the more the idea in this article makes sense (I looked at it here). The claim made in this article in the NY Times:

When Hamas blew large holes in Gaza’s border with Egypt, allowing thousands of Palestinians a chance to stock up on medicines, food and consumer goods, it also blew a large hole in the Israeli policy, backed by Washington, of squeezing the population of Gaza in the hope that they would turn actively against Hamas.

doesn’t sound right if you notice that Israel didn’t make a huge fuss over this. On the other hand, if you think Israel had two motives (squeezing Gaza and trying to make Egypt take responsibility) then it does.

Gaza and Egypt

I was curious about the toppling of the walls on the border of Gaza and Egypt. Israel is trying to blockade Gaza to punish Hamas for the rockets launched into Israel and yet there has not been much of an outcry against this (and no action by the Israeli military). I think this article gives much of the explanation:

Israel, which occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, has since then clamored, intermittently and often privately, for Egypt to assume greater responsibility for the impoverished coastal strip, or even for Cairo to take control of Gaza. By breaking down the wall and sending Egypt a tidal wave of people pressed to stock up on everyday necessities, Hamas militants – who have been planning the break for weeks, according to local media reports – may have inadvertently brought Israel closer to this goal.

…

Although Israeli officials have registered disappointment with Cairo’s shortcomings in policing their border with the Gaza Strip, there has also been an equally palpable touch of relief in their words, as if the break in the wall effectively re-attaches Gaza to Egypt, which governed it until the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967.

If Gaza is attached to Egypt then the problem of Gaza shifts to them (of course, Egypt wants no part of it). If Gaza was no longer part of Israel, then they would no longer be responsible for the border, they would be no longer responsible for humanitarian issues, and they would be freer to attack (since now it would be a foreign attack if rockets come out of Gaza). There are also downsides (given a more open border with Egypt, more weapons might make it into Gaza), but given the current situation that isn’t as big an impediment as it might have been.