"Unless" war is necessary? -- or until?

Like Peter Beinart, I'm mildly heartened by evidence that "Obama's backbone vis Bibi [is] proving infectious" on Capitol Hill.  Yet  I'm troubled by a perhaps random note in Barney Frank's otherwise forceful message to Bibi to back off (as reported by the Hill's Julian Pecquet):

Michael Oren v. Michael Oren on Israel-US relations

Suffering from a bit of dis-Oren-tation regarding the view of the U.S. from Israel.  From Friday's Jerusalem Post:

In a 90-minute conversation he conducted this week with the editorial board of The Jerusalem Post, one of the key messages Oren the diplomat tried to get across was that relations with the US are not as bad as most people like to think.



True, there was a huge dustup during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit here in March; the US acquiesced in signing off on a UN NPT document that singled out Israel in May; and Washington in June wasn’t as robust in its support of Israel at the UN during the Gaza flotilla episode as some would have liked. But, Oren insisted, the sky over the US-Israeli relationship is not falling.


In fact, he said, running against the grain of conventional wisdom, the Obama administration was “as good if not better” on Israel than “many previous administrations,” and Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, often portrayed in the Israeli media as the “bad guy” on Israel issues in the White House, was actually “a great asset.”



“There are disagreements, I’m not going to be Pollyannaish,” the personable and animated Oren said. “But there are two qualifiers you have to attach. One, we have had disagreements with other administrations in the past, and the litmus test with the relationship is not whether there are disagreements, but how you approach the disagreements.”

Now, today's hot tip in Haaretz (via Laura Rozen):

Trouble with the children of Israel

During the years when peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians were a live hope, I recall periodic bloodcurdling stories about the indoctrination of children on the West Bank, inciting hatred of Israel and antisemitism.  A far-from-disinterested but well documented precis (dated 2001) is here.

Now comes disturbing news from the other side of the divide -- not of systematic indoctrination, but of a progressive hardening of attitudes after decades of war. From the Jerusalem Post:

A new Ma’agar Mohot poll has produced somewhat disturbing findings regarding the attitudes of Jewish Israeli schoolchildren about Arab Israelis.

According to the poll, taken among 536 15-18-year-olds, 50 percent of Jewish Israeli schoolchildren believe that Arab Israelis should not be granted rights equal to their Jewish counterparts.

Furthermore, 56 percent of Jewish Israeli schoolchildren surveyed said Arab Israelis should be prevented from running for Knesset, while 50% of the Jewish youngsters who defined themselves as religious said they believe the “Death to Arabs” slogan was legitimate.

The Minister for Minority affairs expresses distress, but also unwittingly frames the perhaps unresolvable paradox of a democracy that places a premium on ethnic/religious identity: 

....Avishai Braverman called the results of the survey “most severe.”

“I believe that it’s the result of ignorance and a campaign of incitement that has been with us a long time,” he said, calling for “meaningful” educational activities to allow the different ethnic communities in Israel to better understand each other. “We came here to set up a Jewish state, but it’s also a state for all its citizens."

Well, that's an interesting idea, but I don't know whether people in the region will go for it.

Ahmadinejad bait

Ahmadinejad, following in the august footsteps of the Ayatollah Khomeini, is fond of blaming all of Iran's woes on Israeli-led machinations.  But of course the paranoid often have reason (and generate reason) to be paranoid, and demonized enemies do act as enemies.

The Jersusalem Post reports that an Egyptian paper has lionized the head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, for effective covert action against Iran on various fronts: 

Without Mossad director Meir Dagan, the Iranian nuclear program would have been successfully completed years ago, Egyptian daily Al-Ahram claimed in an op-ed published Saturday.

"Over the past seven years, he has worked in silence, away from the media," the op-ed read. "He has dealt painful blows to the Iranian nuclear program … he is the Superman of the Jewish state."

Among the steps taken by Dagan against Teheran, Al-Ahram listed diplomatic action to embarrass the Islamic republic, action to fuel opposition protests, assassinations and covert attacks against nuclear facilities.

Iran kills 7 lawyers representing detainees: Jerusalem Post

In a particularly brazen assault on the rule of law, the Iranian regime is murdering and executing lawyers representing those jailed during the post-election protests, according to the Jerusalem Post -- beating some to death in prison, hanging others on trumped-up drug charges.

"The government is targeting lawyers - and as a result, many have stopped representing protesters."

How accurate is the Jerusalem Post's reporting on Iran? On July 1, the paper reported that six Mousavi supporters had been hanged in Mashhad. That report seems neither to have been echoed nor denied by other mainstream sources.