All that ink spilled and pixels wasted to gush over Mahmoud Abbas' talk at the UN where he claimed that the Palestinian government would recognize Israel. Unfortunately, Hamas won't cooperate. Besides, Abbas never really meant it in the first place according to his spokesman. We hate to say we told you so.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said Friday he will not head a government that recognizes Israel, striking a potential blow to President Mahmoud Abbas' attempts to create a national unity government.
Haniyeh spoke a day after Abbas indicated at the United Nations that a coalition government of Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement would recognize the Jewish state.
"I personally will not head any government that recognizes Israel," Haniyeh said in a mosque sermon in Gaza City, laying out his group's position in coalition talks with Abbas.
However, Haniyeh said Hamas is ready to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War — and to honor a long-term truce with Israel.
"We support establishing a Palestinian state in the land of 1967 at this stage, but in return for a cease-fire, not recognition," Haniyeh said.
Abbas was still in New York and couldn't be immediately reached for comment on Haniyeh's remarks. A close adviser, Nabil Amr, clarified that the Palestinian president would not ask Hamas to explicitly recognize Israel, but to abide by Palestine Liberation Organization agreements that recognize the Jewish state.
"We expect Hamas to agree to this," Amr said.
Oh well. Abbas got his good press and it's right back to business as usual.
Daniel Drezner is not buying the line others are taking on Mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the UN. He does not see it as a PR victory. He does not agree that Mahmoud is giving an"impressive" performance.
Color me mostly unimpressed. Ahmadinejad gets points for staying on message and not losing his temper. However, I judge whether someone has put in a good political performance based on whether they manage to persuade others of the merits of their worldview.
Looking at Gwertzman's account, I did not see that. Instead, I see Ahmadinejad getting pilloried by Matin Indyk, Brent Scowcroft, and Kenneth Roth — not exactly a homogenous bunch. Which might explain Ahmadinejad's truculence at the end:
As the meeting drew to a close, the Iranian leader observed, “In the beginning of the session you said you are independent, and I accepted that. But everything you said seems to come from the government perspective.” Haass responded that there had been no advance coordination among the Council participants and that “the aim was to expose you to views of a broad range of Americans. It would be wrong for you to leave this meeting thinking that you heard unrepresentative views.”
Like Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad might be able to stoke his own supporters, but he seems to excel even more at creating and unifying his adversaries.
That is a hugely important point. If people are too blind to see the hate this man stands for and are somehow charmed by his performance then they have a problem. Mad Mahmoud and his sidekick Mini Me Chavez are two sides of the same coin. They are both thugs who want worldly power. We should not be impressed with such people.
The media gets it wrong again. The editorials about the deal reached yesterday between the White House and the Senators who were blocking terrorism legislation (led by John McCain) are extremely unhappy that "abuse" will continue.
THE GOOD NEWS about the agreement reached yesterday between the Bush administration and Republican senators on the detention, interrogation and trial of accused terrorists is that Congress will not — as President Bush had demanded — pass legislation that formally reinterprets U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Nor will the Senate explicitly endorse the administration's use of interrogation techniques that most of the world regards as cruel and inhumane, if not as outright torture. Trials of accused terrorists will be fairer than the commission system outlawed in June by the Supreme Court.
The bad news is that Mr. Bush, as he made clear yesterday, intends to continue using the CIA to secretly detain and abuse certain terrorist suspects. He will do so by issuing his own interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in an executive order and by relying on questionable Justice Department opinions that authorize such practices as exposing prisoners to hypothermia and prolonged sleep deprivation. Under the compromise agreed to yesterday, Congress would recognize his authority to take these steps and prevent prisoners from appealing them to U.S. courts. The bill would also immunize CIA personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses and protect those who in the past violated U.S. law against war crimes.
The New York Times is, of course, even more strident. They both blame Bush, of course. They both charge that the US will be violating the Geneva Conventions.They both blame the Bush administration. In actuality, both editorials give a pass to the "principled stand" that McCain and company took.
That "principled stand" boils down to a complete washing of hands of any meaningful Congressional involvement in any of this. The media is letting them off the hook, too.
Mr. Bush wanted Congress to formally approve these practices and to declare them consistent with the Geneva Conventions. It will not. But it will not stop him either, if the legislation is passed in the form agreed on yesterday. Mr. Bush will go down in history for his embrace of torture and bear responsibility for the enormous damage that has caused.
They continue to attack using harsh and loaded language that is not at all accurate. All they are doing here is giving more misinformation that America's enemies can point to. What the administration is doing is not torture, nor is it violation of the Geneva Conventions. The Conventions desperately need to be amended to address the reality of institutionalized illegal combatants - which is what we are really dealing with.
World news | Gaius Friday, 22 September , 2006 | 
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