Category: The Dish

A reader writes:

I’m confident that you’ll hear from many on this, but I must take issue with today’s “The View From Your Window” picture listing Har Homa: (a) as a settlement; (b) in "Palestine."  My objections are as follows: 1) "Palestine": Currently there is no State of Palestine.  The name of the territory administered by the Palestinian Authority is the "Palestinian Territories," not Palestine.  So even if I was to concede (and I don’t; see #2 below) that Har Homa was not in Jerusalem, Israel, it would be in the Palestinian Territories, not a State of Palestine.

2) “Settlement”:  While certainly there are settlements in the West Bank (such as Ariel, Beit El, Efrat, etc.), Har Homa is not one of them.  Its 460 acres is entirely within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem.

Therefore it is not a “settlement,” but a neighborhood of Jerusalem. It is true that Har Homa was built upon the part of Jerusalem that was ruled by Jordan until 1967; however, these parts of Jerusalem have been annexed by Israel (in contrast to the West Bank, which has not been annexed).  Other such parts of Jerusalem include the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.  By designating Har Homa a settlement in “Palestine,” you by default also designate the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter as “settlements” in “Palestine.”

It should also be noted that Har Homa is not in Arab East Jerusalem (it is rather in Southern Jerusalem) and that is not built upon formerly Arab-owned land. Rather most of the land was expropriated from Jews to build the neighborhood.  No homeowners, Jewish or Arab, were displaced by construction.  Also, construction was approved by Shimon Peres, hardly a hawkish figure in Israeli politics!  Finally, during construction, the U.S. repeatedly vetoed United Nations resolutions calling for a halt to construction.

One final note:  I do not believe that that this picture is even the view from anyone’s window in the first place.  It appears to be a picture of the neighborhood from afar (either from a point in the Judean desert for from the outskirts of Bethlehem, I guess) and not from anyone’s window.  My hunch is that someone submitted this picture, with the designations “settlement” and “Palestine” to make a political point.

Hugh Hewitt’s stand-in bids farewell. He’s headed to the Weekly Standard. I’ll miss him, although my seriousness in this respect is questionable.

Another sign of some African-Americans’ hostility to Obama. This blow has got to hurt. Did Bill get to him?

From Newsweek:

Editor’s Note: In our print edition, several captions for the photographs accompanying this report were inadvertently transposed. Martin Kramer’s photograph is identified as Norman Podhoretz; Daniel Pipes’s photograph is identified as Kramer; Peter Berkowitz’s photograph is identified as Pipes; Nile Gardiner’s photograph is identified as Berkowitz’s and Podhoretz’s photograph is identified as Gardiner’s. NEWSWEEK regrets the errors.

I hear all sorts of stories of internal warfare at the CIA over the order to subject prisoners to treatment more suitable to the Soviet Union than the United States. Ken Silverstein adds this nugget:

[I]t turns out that a former senior CIA legal official quit in protest over the administration’s use of “enhanced interrogations.” This official, whose name I have promised not to publish, previously worked as a deputy IG for investigations under Frederick Hitz, who served as CIA IG between 1990 and 1998. From there, the official moved on the CIA’s Office of General Counsel.

What’s interesting is that this official was generally known as something of a hardliner. I haven’t been able to pin down the date of his departure, which may have occurred a year ago or more. However, the sources tell me he couldn’t stomach what he deemed to be abuses by the Bush Administration and stepped down from his post.

                                                                                                              

It may have been a hoax.

Marc Ambinder gives Clinton’s arguments a fair hearing.

A reader writes:

So, you doubt Man-Bear-Pig?

And yet, mankind has known of this menace since at least 13,000 BC. How do you explain THAT?

(OK, so it says he’s half-stag half-man –  same difference – MAN-BEAR-PIG!!!)

A fascinating study finds that poor urban kids do no better in private than in public high schools, when all other factors are taken into account. The exception? Catholic parochial schools, run by the Jesuits, with considerable autonomy. It doesn’t surprise me.

Well, the good news from the Shiite population has to be balanced by the grim UN report – delayed till after last month’s Congressional debate at the request of Ambassador Ryan Crocker. It’s grueling. The treatment of prisoners in Iraq is now almost as bad as under Saddam, and it is ultimately America’s responsibility:

Among the most serious issues raised in the report is the treatment of detainees. The U.N. agency found that as of June, 44,325 detainees were in Iraqi or U.S. custody, an increase of nearly 4,000 people since April. Many of them, it said, remained in detention for months without having their cases reviewed or with limited access to legal counsel. The report also expressed concerns about overcrowding and poor hygiene in detention centers, particularly pretrial holding cells run by the Interior Ministry in Baghdad. The agency said it "remained gravely concerned at continuing reports of the widespread and routine torture or ill-treatment of detainees."

"In addition to routine beatings with hosepipes, cables and other implements, the methods cited included prolonged suspension from the limbs in contorted and painful positions for extended periods, sometimes resulting in dislocation of the joints; electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body; the breaking of limbs; forcing detainees to sit on sharp objects, causing serious injury and heightening the risk of infection; and severe burns to parts of the body through the application of heated implements," the report said.

If any of us who supported the war had been told this would be the result four years later, we would surely have said: not on these terms, not by these methods.