Since Menachem Begin, the man who has arguably done the most to shape Israel's foreign policy is Ariel Sharon. Anybody who opposed Sharon is either dead (Yitzhak Rabin) or so marginalized as to be insignificant. Sharon's motto, the driving force for all Israeli foreign policy initiatives since 2001, has been "peace through security". The ideal that peace can be unilaterally imposed through overwhelming force.

In Gideon Levy's editorial, What the right has to offer, he says

The right has to come up with some answers now. All the despairing leftists and the new and confused enlistees in the right must stop and ask themselves: What exactly is the developing right actually offering? While in Syria, for example, they are thinking about the long term, and its president Bashar Assad has a vision for future generations to make Israel surrender, the Israeli discourse is characterized by total evasion of any long-term thinking. At most, the talk is about tomorrow. There's a reason for this: the Israeli right has no solutions. For the long term, there are only two real possibilities: transfer, or an end to the occupation. The sane right still rejects transfer, and ending the occupation is not its way. Since there is no other way, the right cannot offer anything beyond the next war. The demand for long-term solutions, therefore, is an urgent one.

Unfortunately, Mr Levy could just as easily been describing our own leadership in the US. I don't see how we have any chance at making progress in the ME until we start talking directly with Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizbullah. Otherwise, as Levy has pointed out, the only thing our current policy offers is the next war.

Interestingly, Israel does not trust the Lebanese army now, after bombing the crap out of them, and does not want the Lebanese army on its own border.

Hezbollahs effort against Israel was pretty much nonexistent or minimal for six years, and in this recent war, seemed dedicated to defending Lebanon and counterstriking against Israel.

Your continuing contention that Israel withdrew from Lebanon seems quixotic to me. The evidence is that Israel in withdrawing its troops from occupation of most Lebanese territory, did not withdraw from interference and incursions into Lebanon.

I agree with a lot of your points. Especially the last one, which isn't made enough. Occupation breeds extreemism.

However:

Bottom line: Israel is still Israel and religious extremists -- no matter where, no matter which "faith" -- are the scourge of the planet.

Sure, I think that most people reading this would rather live in Tel Aviv than Tehran, but thats only one scale on which to compare Israel to Hezbollah.

Who has killed more children in the last month?

I don't ask that question to say that Hezbollah is good. By almost any measure that you might care to judge them (outside of their military and social services), they fall far short. And what Israel did in Lebanon doesn't even begin to approach the scale of what the US is doing in Iraq. True.

However, when I read about Qana my immediate thought wasn't "At least the pilot who dropped the bomb supports gay rights."

Hezbollah's point is not to impress you or anyone else in the West, but to further strengthen their position in Lebanon - something which Israel and the US have helped a great deal.

Any solution that does not address the basic tenets of guerilla or asymetrical warfare does not even deserve to be considered. The inherent foolishness of the idea that if only we/they would just drop another 10,000 bombs or occupy just a bit more territory is beyond belief.

I highly recommend a dailykos diary that nicely summarizes the problems faced by the US in Iraq and Israel in Lebanon.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/31/172013/456

No good deed goes unpunished

Enough already with the two scales solution.

After the recent war of choice and widespread Israeli promises of more to come, Israel can be judged according to the yardstick of nations she aspires to join.

Break the rules? Pay the price.

"Qana is terrible but since my own country has committed and commits far greater crimes in Iraq I can't be quite as judgemental."

My reaction is quite different. I am as judgmental about Israeli crimes as American (hopefully as Hezbollah too). I do not see any reasons why the crimes of Bush which we reject should inhibit us from criticizing the actions of other nations..

Hezbollah ran Christians on its slate of candidates.
Cut the CRAP!

I am too tired to think about Angleton. Talk about the stuff of nightmares -- and I don't think he was an evil man. In his job, you are supposed to be paranoid.

It's a little hearkening that the trolls are fading into the background, and some objective military information can help give perspective on some of these threads, without getting overly technical.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"What would we be saying if Hizbullah kidnapped the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and launched a daring raid inside Israel to disrupt a U.S. effort to resupply the Israeli Defense Force"
........................
UNBELIEVABLE! The left is simply unable to distinquish between a terrorist group and a sovereign democratic nation defending itself. You speak here as if a terrorist group has as much right to arms as a sovereign nation state, or that Israel has no more right to be armed than a terrorist entity bent on mass murdering innocents. Can Larry Johnson's above statement be a greater example of the moral confusion that pervades the left?

"Hizbullah is minding its own business"
..............
No, hezbollah was NOT minding its own business. It was attempting to be rearmed by Iran and Syria, in violation of UN resolution 1701. But in Larry Johnson's and the left's Orwellian universe, the fact that Israel was attempting to uphold the resolution by preventing a convoy of arms shipments to hezbollah, amounts to Israel itself being in violation of the ceasefire. Yet another example of moral inversion.

hezbollah shielded itself amongst civilians, fired rockets from civilian areas, they are solely to blame for their deaths, end of story.

"Nope. It was a defeat. Israel was forced to withdraw. It did not sit down with Lebanon or Hezbollah and say 'If we do this, as a gesture of good faith, then we expect peace.' Nope, what Israel said was 'Hell with this, we're out of here!"
..............................
Once again I am astonished at the naivete of liberals. You would have Israel sit down and talk with annihilationst, genocidal terrorists? Terrorists don't respond positively to gestures of good faith, they see it as a sign of weakness to be exploited. The leader of hezbollah, nassrallah once said that gathering all the Jews in Israel would save him the trouble of going after them worldwide. Yet you actually think Israel should sit down and negotiate with these nazis as if they were normal human beings that could be reasoned with.

selfinterest?

So you'd rather live in a place where dissidents are tortured, where adolescents monitor to make sure no one violates religious codes, where gay teenagers are executed, where women can only dress the way the like at home....
Not something I'd ever admit to.

PS Have you seen the photo of the two terrified gay teenagers just before they were strung up.

I commend you for you courage and your article is right on! To suggest even the most reasonable criticism of Isreal in an atmosphere where one risks a rapid and rabid attack from those who only understand the conflict in terms of "Isreal is always right" mentality is very brave. Fortunately for us you see the issue from a REAL WORLD perspective. The commenters critical responses to your piece tend to see everything in terms of Good guy vs Bad guy. In their minds they infer they think everybody must think in the same way.Good guys can't be bad and Bad guys can't be good. This is the meme of the wingnuts towards any criticism of Bushbag and his Iraq policys. You make so much sense but in these times like Iraq any dessent is met by condemnation for being a traitor lite and terrorist sympathiser why should it be any different for lebanon.

Ed Beckmann Disabled Viet Vet

I'd rather live in a place where there is a real debate, a struggle to redefine, even to create a civil society.
Iran is ruled by liars, but Israel was founded on a lie.
Which society is more corrupt?

Your hypocrisy is stunning. You've spent years talking to Palestinians. I can only envy their forbearance as they would no doubt envy my freedom to have none!

Go see a Kiarostami movie. Have some tea with Samira Makhmalbaf and her father. Send some money to Shirin Ebadi.
and read

Two states are keeping us from a solution. Can you name them?

 Hezbollah operates in Lebanon, not Israel.  Any conflict over the legal standing of Hezbollah is for the Lebanon government to resolve, not Israel.  If Hezbollah is doing things that the Lebanon government objects to, and objects to strongly enough to attempt to do something about it, then it is that governments responsibility to do something.  If the Lebanon government lacks the popular support to do something about Hezbollah, isn't that a good sign that the Lebanon government is not a representational government?  Maybe limiting the voting power of a large group of Lebanese wasn't a great idea?

Since Hezbollah does operate in Lebanon, and has not been shut down by the Lebanese government, any aggresive act by Hezbollah towards Israel should be assumed by the Israel government to be an act of the Lebanon government.  On that basis Israel had justification for declaring war on Lebanon.  And, that should be adequate justification for Lebanon to make the changes necessary to gain control over Hezbollah.

I'm rambling, I know.  But, rational thought doesn't seem to be relevant when the Middle East is involved. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, LEL 66

MJ, just tell Abbas to do what Ben Gurion did to the Irgun in '47--show them that only one government can have a monopoly on the use of legitimate force and show them that partition is the only solution. Until Abbas is able to do that, there is nobody Israel can strike an enduring deal with in the territories.

Quite obviously, based on your comments, YOU have NEVER been to Iran. Computers, FYI, and widely for sale, and so is the latest software. (here's a photo of one place you can go - "Computer Capital" at intersection of Vali-e-Asr and Mirdamad, a 7 storey modern complex filled with computer equipment:

www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Base/1406/Pictures/79.html

In fact, rather than suffering a "shortage of pencils" Iran has experienced a boom in literacy in the last decade (especially among women who now make up over 60% of college students)

"Iranian engineering students ready for 21st century

IEEE magazine
July 1999

To outsiders, Iran seems a country sometimes at odds with the 20th century, but during a recent visit, [U.S.] Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers President Ken Laker found its engineering students ready for the 21st century.

Laker joined Region 8 Director Rolf Remshardt on a four-day visit with the IEEE Iranian section this February. He visited the universities of Tehran and Isfahan as well as a communications research center...

Laker estimated that half the engineering students were women, a far higher percentage than in the west with its emphasis on encouraging women in all fields and particularly surprising in Iran.

"The women students worked as colleagues with the men and were friends," Laker said. "It was a professional relationship but clearly they were working as colleagues as opposed to being separated. A couple of the student branch chairs were women."

MORE: http://web.archive.org/web/19991009060300/http://www.institute.ieee.org/INST/jul99/iran.html

Did Israel declare war on Lebanon? Was there an ultimatum? I'm genuinely curious. Were there declarations of war by either side in 1956, 1967 and 1973?

Roosevelt handled the legal niceties after Pearl Harbour by stating that "a state of war exists between the United States and Japan". Hitler's Germany then declared war on the United States.

Ok, Seth, you just keep giving the benefit of the doubt to the mullahs. I assume you aren't a Jew because, if you were, these lovelies would just as soon kill you as look at you.
Being a Jew, myself, I tend not to cut much slack to those who openly say they want me dead.

Mullahs, right-wing rabbis, crazed Kahane-ites, Pat Robertson, Christian fundies, the BJP in India. AS John Lennon would say, imagine a world without them.

Israel not only didn't declare war on Lebanon, they went out of their way to say they were fighting only Hezbollah.  My point is that it is Lebanon they should have been fighting, if they really want to have an effect on their security concerns about what happens in Lebanon.  Just as we were justified (barely) in invading Afghanistan because Afghanistan harbored al Qaeda which had attacked us, Israel was justified in invading Lebanon because Lebanon harbored Hezbollah which had attacked Israel.  Of course doing something that is justified doesn't mean you gain what you wish to gain by doing so.

Hoppy in Sacramento

So in other words you DON'T actually know anything about this and are relying on Wikipedia?

http://blogs.ya.com/ejecucion/files/irangayteens.jpg

LEL66: Larry, far from being the rogue state in the Middle East, Israel is the only decent, free and democratic state in a region of repressive dictatorships, despots, terrorists, islamic theocracies etc. I should be used to it, but it still continues to amaze me how the leftist mindset operates. It must be something in the wiring of your brains that inverts reality.

Wow! LEL66 makes a very elaborate claim about Israel, so one has to split it into parts.

Israel is decent, free and democratic, and the only one such state in the region. So how to interpret the praise Lebanon got after the "Cedar Revolution"? Lebanon at the very least approximates "free and democratic". So to make LEL66 correct we would need to have Israel decent, and Lebanon not decent. I can list in quick succession blemishes of both Israel and Lebanon but I do not see any objective principle that would allow me to make such conclusion.

However, may be we could inform LEL66 how a "leftist mind operates".

1. "Being decent" is not an immutable characteristic of a person or of a state. This characteristic depends on the conduct. As such, it may change for better and for worse.

2. The second tenet of "leftist" thinking is giving a genuine trouble to non "leftists" (it is not a leftist tenet, but whatever). To wit, evil deeds do not become good if directed at bad people. Thus the "left" is barraged with "so on whose side are you"? Well, on any given day I would rather accept (or extend) a dinner invitation to an Israeli rather than the Palestinian, would the choice be so limited. (The few Lebanese I knew were excellant raconteurs, so this would be a harder choice.) But supporting -- or not -- certain conduct depends on the conduct, not on the person.

3. If persons are similarly described it does not mean that they behave similarly. In particular, "Hezbollah hide behind the civilian population" claim is based on the description of them as "terrorist", and terrorists are supposed to do that. The few more direct descriptions of the fighting described Hezbollah hiding in bunkers that were not co-located with civilian dwellings and making pitched battles with tank units.

This excerpt, if true, is highly significant. It is important, even critical, to understand Hezbollah as an entity in its own terms, and not as some demonic adversary.

The superficial view is that all you need to know about an adversary is enough to kill him, or stop him. Identify him as the 'other' and then simply learn and confront those tactics and methods. Learning too much might obstruct the quest for war, since other avenues might be opened or at least questionned.

Is Hezbollah explicitly tolerant of Sunnis, Druze and Christians?

Or is it a Shiite fundamentalist organization patterning itself after Khomeini-ism?

That's a very important question.

Is Hezbollah a political organization involved in the day to day political life of the community?

That's also an important question.

The issue is, can Hezbollah be negotiated with. Are they amenable to reason? What do they want? What will they accept? How do we tame them or control them? Is peace possible?

We can't answer these questions without a full and deep understanding of the organization.

Gettysberg has frequently said that Hezbollah seeks the destruction of Israel. Well, what have they said actually, and when did they say it? How valid are these statements? Do these statements exist? Were they translated properly, or was wording manipulated to inflame? Are there counter statements, either contemporaneous or made significantly afterwards?

War has not gone anywhere. I think that as rational creatures, before we start planning or touting the next war, we should stop and think about alternatives. And to really be satisfied as to whether or not there are alternatives, we have to understand Hezbollah better.

exactly. i personally would be thrilled if hezbollah, the palestinians, the ayatollahs, and osama bin laden would convert to secular humanism, but the relative presence of secular humanists on each side is a hell of a way to calibrate one's feelings about a war. i don't really know enough about hezbollah's support for the concept of individual freedom or their personal abilities as raconteurs to know who i'd want to invite to dinner.

the fact is, though, that when israel invaded lebanon upwards of 15,000 lebanese were killed in the fighting, and about 700 israelis. between the israeli withdrawal and the start of hostilities in the last months fewer than a dozen israeli civilians were killed by hezbollah. i don't think we know the toll for the last war, but it was also heavily one-sided.

sure there are technological differences which make the israeli army more efficient killers, but it's hard for me to believe that the side that tends to kill about 10 times more people than its opponents in every conflict is all that morally superior.

The whole afair is being run directly in the collective Amygdala (the Lizard Brain) which isn't impressed at all with logic and reason, Hoppy.  Specifically, the Middle East is located in this part of the brain.

Neoboho

Indeed.

I don't at all doubt that mjrosenberg has a deeply felt and legitimate concern for gay rights, free speech and other liberal values that may or may not be embraced by Hezbollah.

However, I'm more interested in how liberal humanist values are used to mobalize for war. I think that its pretty obvious that all the talk of the Taliban's (very real and very reprehensible) oppression of Afghani women by Bush wasn't out of a deeply held concern for the women of Afghanistan. It was a way of telling us that we're very good people for bombing Afghanistan.

And having lived next door to some members of the Taliban a while back, I'm pretty confident I wouldn't want to have them over for dinner. (Although, I'm sure some of the hostility was my fault. It was in China, there was a Karaoke player in my room - and I guess nobody appreciates being woken up by me drunkenly singing along to Ween at 2AM. But I digress.)

Some people want to pretend that we're in a clash of civilizations, and that our moral superiority justifies doing horrible things to other people. I don't recall any of the Malkins or Huntingtons advocating confronting Iraq with Gandhian non-violence. The day that the IDF marches on Lebanon with candles in their hands singing "We Shall Overcome" we can start to talk about moral superiority. However, when they and Hezbollah are dropping bombs and missiles on eachother, I think its best to talk in terms of who'se blowing what up.

I'd much prefer if the US and Israel demonstrated the superiority of their values by not dropping bombs on other people so readily.

I know I shouldn't cross post but this is worth seeing. It is a typical AIPAC speech delivered by Sen. Clinton.

Note that it calls on Palestinians to do everything for peace and Israel to do nothing. I don't mean to single out Clinton. Boxer, Feinstein, Bayh, and pretty much every Senate Democrat (with the exeption of a few Jewish Dems (Wellstone, Levin and Feingold) have given pretty much the same speech. But this one typifies the genre and demonstrates that those of us desperate to see a secure Israel living in peace with the Palestinians have an uphill struggle ahead of us.

(PS I don't refer to the Republicans. Most of them would give this speech too although Chafee, Hagel, Sununu and Lugar most definitely would not.

May 24, 2005
Remarks by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to the 2005 American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference

As Delivered

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Lonny.

Welcome to Washington for this extraordinary AIPAC conference. I'm told that the attendance far surpasses any other conference, and it's always been one of the biggest gatherings that Washington hosts every year. So I congratulate you for being here in these numbers with this energy and enthusiasm.

I also thank my friend Bernice, who has served so well on behalf of AIPAC, and congratulate Howard Friedman, the incoming president. I thank Howard Kohr, your executive director; Amy Friedkin; and everyone who works so hard for AIPAC not just when there is a great gathering, like this conference, but every single day, working with us in the Congress working here in Washington.

I want to take just a few minutes to discuss some of the significant challenges facing the United States, Israel and our world today. As you know better than most, events in the Middle East are absolutely critical to our hope for a safer, more secure world, a world in which every nation is free from the threat of global terrorism. And a strong, lasting relationship between the United States and Israel is essential to our efforts to build that world of peace and security.

As all of us know, our future here in this country is intertwined with the future of Israel and the Middle East. Now there is a lot that we could talk about, and obviously much has been discussed. But in the short period that I have been given the honor of addressing you, I want to start by focusing on our deep and lasting bond between the United States and Israel.

Now, these are bonds that are more than shared interests. These are bonds forged in a common struggle for human rights, for democracy, for freedom. These are bonds that predate the creation of the state of Israel, that really predate the creation of the United States because they are rooted in fundamental beliefs and values about the dignity and rights of men and women to live in freedom, free from fear, free from oppression. And there is no doubt that these incredibly strong bonds and values will remain as the lodestar of our relationship with our democratic friend and ally, Israel.

Now, Israel is not only, however, a friend and ally for us, it is a beacon of what democracy can and should mean. It is, after all, a pluralistic democracy. It is, as many of us know from personal experiences, a very dynamic democracy with many points of view, and those are expressed with great frequency and vigor. So if people in the Middle East are not sure what democracy means, let them look to Israel, which has been and remains a true, faithful democracy.

But we know that the goal, the important, essential goal of a democratizing Middle East is complex, and it is not without risks. A few months ago, I went for the second time to Iraq and Kuwait and Afghanistan and Pakistan, and I returned home with hopefulness about what I had seen and learned, but also with a sense of caution about how we should proceed. In Iraq I saw firsthand the daily challenges confronting the Iraqi people. I met with a number of our troops, the brave young men and women who are on freedom's frontlines in Iraq. I met with our civilian representatives in the embassy and other agencies who are also risking their lives to help the Iraqi people.

And I met with representatives of the former interim Iraqi government and the newly elected Iraqi government, as well as private Iraqi citizens.

Now I came away with several overwhelming impressions. First, no matter what one thinks about events that have unfolded in Iraq, there is no doubt that the American military has performed admirably, with professionalism, and that every young man and woman who wears the uniform of our country deserves our support, whether they be active duty, guard, or reserve troop.

You know, it is on trips like that -- despite the often dangerous circumstances, I wish I could bring every one of my constituents -- all 19 million of them and any others who could come -- to see firsthand. I flew from Baghdad to Fallujah in a Blackhawk helicopter; met with the Marines who had liberated Fallujah from the insurgents and terrorists.

I met with many others of our Marines and soldiers who are committed to their mission to try to bring freedom to the people of Iraq. They, as well as the troops I saw in Kuwait and in Afghanistan, are committed to this fundamental belief that people deserve the right to be free, deserve the right to select their own government, deserve the right to plot and plan for a better future for themselves and their children.

I hope that each of you, as you travel through your states and communities, will make it a point to thank these young people, because they're paying a very high price: 1,600-plus lost their lives; thousands and thousands have returned home grievously injured. Because of the advances in battlefield medicine and the new body armor that our troops wear, many are surviving injuries that would have left previous generations of young men and women dead.

So there is no doubt that America has started down a path, with blood and treasure, to try to create the condition for democracy and freedom in the Middle East -- which has consequences for the entire region, for our security, and certainly for Israel's.

At this critical time in this complicated situation we find ourselves in, I think it's important to recognize the extraordinary stand that Prime Minister Sharon and the democratically elected government of Israel have taken as they face the risks and challenges of disengagement and as they try to deal with the newly elected Palestinian leadership.

The prime minister -- whom I am pleased to note will follow me to this stage -- and the state of Israel that he has devoted his entire life to serving are taking a tremendous risk.

I believe it is our obligation as friends and supporters and allies of Israel to support Israel's efforts for peace, stability and security. Now, this means doing more than providing Israel with economic aid so that it can remain strong in the face of ongoing threats. We must also demand that President Abbas dismantle the structures of terror that the Palestinian leadership has employed for so long.

You know, in a democracy, even a fledgling democracy, leaders must be held accountable. And President Abbas must be held accountable for the actions taking place under his leadership. I know that you are asking your senators and representatives to sign on to a letter to President Bush about this, and I'm proud to support these efforts because there can be no doubt that as Israel and its democratic government take these steps and we support them, there has to be reciprocity on the other side as well.

And making progress toward peace and security also requires the end of the barrage of hate and incitement that is still officially sanctioned by the Palestinian Authority. Now, I was relieved to learn this week that the Palestinian Authority removed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion from its website. Reportedly, it had been included on the website under the heading "history of Zionism," but what was it doing there in the first place even though we are relieved that it is no longer there?

We must continue to be vigilant about monitoring hate and incitement and anti-Semitism, not only by the Palestinian Authority but throughout the Arab world. Saudi textbooks characterize Jews as wicked. Iranian news reports, obviously representing the opinion of their government, have lent credence to Holocaust deniers. This is an issue that all of us need to be concerned about.

And five years ago, I stood with my friend, Elie Wiesel, to denounce this incitement, this violence, this anti-Semitism in Palestinian textbooks. And I've been working on this issue because to me it is one of those basic issues that -- how do we expect to have a democratically elected Palestinian government if their textbooks are still preaching such hatred, and if we allow this if we allow this dehumanizing rhetoric to go unchallenged. Because what is happening is young minds are being infected with this anti-Semitism, and that is going to run counter to what we hope can happen over the next years as we do work for peace and stability.

So we must continue to shine a bright spotlight on these messages of hatred and these enticements for martyrdom in these textbooks and on the media that take young minds and twist and pervert them and create a new generation of terrorists and insurgents.

About a year and a half ago, I held a hearing with Senator Specter on the Palestinian media, and I confronted the Palestinian Authority representative about this issue, whom we had invited to come and address the Senate committee. I urged him to acknowledge that when it comes to children, whoever those children are, shielding them from hate and violence should be the number one priority of their families and their governments and the entire global community to prevent this hatred from festering.

Using children as pawns in a political process is tantamount to child abuse, and we must say it has to end now!

And, of course, that infection is contagious, and it can spread beyond the Palestinian territories. It can spread into other parts of the Arab world, and it can impact what goes on there.

And of course, one of the areas I am deeply concerned about is Iran, and its pursuit of nuclear weapons, because a nuclear-armed Iran would shake the foundation of global security to its very core. Israel would be most immediately and profoundly threatened by this development, but Israel would not be alone. Knowing of Iran's historic and present ties to terrorist networks, how would we feel, here in America, if the Iranians could start producing nuclear weapons at will? How would the Europeans feel if Iran could start nuclear weapons at will?

So let us be unequivocally clear. A nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable, but it is not just unacceptable to Israel and to the United States. It must be unacceptable to the entire world, starting with the European governments and people.

I know that during your conference and in the lobbying that you will be doing on Capitol Hill, you're trying to draw attention to the threat that is posed by a nuclear Iran. And I commend you for these efforts; this is one of our most serious security and foreign policy priorities. And we need to make working with our allies to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon a top priority.

Now one of the terrorist groups that Iran supports is Hezbollah. And we know that Hezbollah poses a direct and dire risk to the stability of the Middle East. Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon -- which is very good news for the Lebanese people -- also creates an opportunity for Hezbollah to wreak havoc.

So we need to remain vigilant about the terrorist threat and work to stop the flow of support to Hezbollah from Syria and Iran. And we need to convince our European allies of Hezbollah's threat to order in the region and to the civilized world, and convince them to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

And the Europeans must do more to cut off the funding and the fund-raising that goes on in Europe for Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad as soon as possible.

Now, there are many other important and pressing issues that must be on our agenda, but I know that as you travel to the Hill to meet with your representatives and senators, you will be presenting a very thoughtful and compelling analysis of these and other challenges we face. I thank you for not only being willing to stand up for our values and our relationship with Israel, but also to take your responsibilities as citizens seriously, to lobby and to advocate, to persuade and to dissuade, to discuss these critical issues with all who will listen.

We are living at an extraordinary moment in history. There are some days when I am very optimistic, and there are other days, I have to confess, when I'm pessimistic. I guess that just goes with the territory. But what I am absolutely convinced of is that our common values, values shared and exemplified by our country and by Israel, are the right values, the values that everyone should have an opportunity to be exposed to and to understand and, hopefully, to emulate.

There is no other option in the world that, as Tom Friedman said, has been flattened. We can communicate with each other, we can be transported over long distances quickly, we can follow events in other places far away. And therefore, we need to recognize that our struggle, our ongoing struggle for freedom and democracy is the only way that we can ensure that in this shrinking, flattened world, our children will have a chance for peace and security.

We cannot shrink from the duty that this time has imposed upon us. We can have great -- and we should -- great debates and discussions about what are the best ways to proceed and to pursue these common objectives. We need that. We need that debate and discussion because we are in uncharted territory. No one has all the answers, and we need the combined intelligence and good ideas of as many people as possible.

So what you are doing today is not only on behalf of AIPAC, not only on behalf of Israel, not only on behalf of the strong and enduring relationship between the United States and Israel; it is truly on behalf of the kind of world we want for our children and, for those lucky enough, grandchildren.

And we cannot grow weary. This is a long, arduous path. Israel, Israelis, the American Jewish community and the broader diaspora know about this struggle and this path better than most.

So if we resolve not to grow weary, but to pursue these values together, I am ultimately not only optimistic, but confident that the world will see a better and brighter day, and our children will thank us for making it possible.

Thank you all very much. God bless you." Click here to watch Senator Clinton's
speech at AIPAC's Policy Conference

Copyright 2005 by Federal News Service, Inc., Ste. 500, 1000 Vermont Ave, Washington, DC 20005 USA. Federal News Service is a private firm not affiliated with the federal government. No portion of this transcript may be copied, sold or retransmitted without the written authority of Federal News Service, Inc. Copyright is not claimed as to any part of the original work prepared by a United States government officer or employee as a part of that person's official duties. For information on subscribing to the FNS Internet Service at www.fednews.com, please email Jack Graeme at jack@fednews.com or call 1-800-211-4020.

Perhaps it is hard to find number 2 pencil in Teheran. In continental Europe thay are called HB, so if Iranians have the same system...

More seriously, the fact that one can enjoy living in Teheran is not a function of having likable government or being able to buy every single item that we are used to have in USA. It would rather be the function of being able to make a living and enjoy cultural life in spite of somewhat half-hearted efforts of the regime.

You must remeber that these regimes (mildly totalitarian) have certain ideals that are not "be evil". Fundamentalist regime typically want to restore the state of the society from a certain Golden Age period, that in Iran would be in Middle Ages. Luckily, in the Middle Ages Persia was a very advanced society, with arts, sciences, high finance, poetry, culture of wine drinking etc.

I am not saying that restoration of medieval norms is the way to go, but in the Iranian case it is not an utterly suffocating system that is described in Saudi Arabia. The Golden Age there (as perceived today by their fundies) was defined by puritan desert tribes.

------
*about sciences: did you ever wonder about the origin of words like al-gebra, al-gorithm and al-cohol? About finance: the word "cheque" comes from Farsi.

It seems to have been a plot designed in Pakistan, possibly by its dictator. Here's a interesting take published by SAAG in India:

BUSH,BLAIR: THEIR MAN IN ISLAMABAD

The gist is this graf, but Raman's reference to Our Man in Havana is noted:

14. Rashid Rauf may well go down in history as the terrorist, whom nobody wanted to interrogate. The Pakistanis don't want to interrogate him too much lest their duplicity be exposed.The British and the Americans don't want to be in a hurry to interrogate lest their own gullibility be exposed. Moreover, there is a great danger if it comes out that they again let themselves be taken for a ride by Musharraf. Not only will their credibility be in ruins, but they may even face claims for damages from airline companies and passengers, who incurred losses amounting to billions of dollars as a result of the drama staged by the British police.

Neoboho