Henry Olsen CMC '83 Delivers Introduction to Chris Christie AEI Speech

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is a rising political talent. Henry Olsen, vice president of AEI and CMC '83, delivers a solid introduction to one of the best political speeches in quite some time.

Counsul General Jacob Dayan Lectures on Mid East At Scripps College

It tells you everything you need to know about the sorry state of affairs that is our Middle East program that Dayan was invited by Scripps College's EU Center and not Claremont McKenna's Middle East program. I guess we'd rather have the Syrian ambassador than the Israeli consulate. Insofar as I could tell there were few Arabic students present to hear the other side. Too bad.  What follows are my notes. They are not for quotation, but only for general knowledge.


Here they are from 12:00 PM at Scripps College.

Jacob Dayan, Counsul general

Military intelligence in IDF

Athens and Washington, spent time 

Regional security affairs, opening negotiations with Syria.

Israel's “point of view about what is going on in Egypt, Tunisia, and other parts of the world.”

There are no threats in the Middle East; there is only challenges.

The nature of confrontation – between countries, last twenty or thirty years, confrontation between countries and terrorist organizations.

Hizbullah and Hamas. Nature of confrontation in the world. Those terrorist organizations – share the same ideology. Islamic fundamentalism.

In the last decade, Arab countries – Communism, secular nationalism, pan-Arabism have all faded away. A major ideology stepped in is Islamic fundamentalism. Doesn’t mean that the vast majority of Muslims or Arabs support Islamic fundamentalism.

The third major change is that the conventional threat is diminishing. The use of terror and development of nuclear capabilities. The common denominator is Iran.

How it relates and affects and has a connection with Egypt and Tunisia: it’s very hard. If we are trying to find communalities, this is a very interesting phenomenon. The U.N. development report, Arab scholars. Every year they are publishing what is the situation in the Arab world. Endemic poverty. Egyptian figures - $5 a day.

What’s to blame for the revolutions: The economic meltdown. Price of food or price of oil. Direct result. Many of the people that live in Egypt or Tunisia. The relatives tell them that there is an alternative. The economic situation is much better. The social network were able to communicate at the same time. The communalities. A democratic revolution – BUT – a region with no democracies but one and no history of democracy in the Middle East.

There is a lot of hypocrisy. We are an imperfect country. Show me a perfect one.

Iranian President said he supported Israel being wiped out, said he supported wiping out Israel; he sad he denied the holocaust, but when he said that there are no homosexual in Iran that he became persona non grata.

a.      

No democracy and no history of democracy. Vacuum of ideologies. Islamic fundamentalism. Turkey was until recently an exception. Attaturk 70 0r 80 years changed the face of Turkey. An Islamic party slowly changed the country. Huge secular opposition in Turkey.

c.       In order to have a sustainable democracy you have to have a strong middle class or even a middle class. This is the backbone of any democracy. This is the problem with those countries. They don’t have middle class. We have only one concern and one interest. The peace treaty.  

d

.      No Egyptian or no Israeli soldier died on that front in three decades. Respect the peace treaty.

e.       Iran is trying to gain the hegemony in the regime.

They are happy because Mubarak was an enemy of Iran. Iran is trying to enter. So what is Israel going to do about that? Iran is first and foremost an American issue. If Iran achieves nuclear capabilities, the 21^st century is going to look different.

The NPT – regime. If two kids are quarreling, you always have a responsible adult telling them to behave. The U.S. will lose that. Israel’s interest is to have a very strong US. Ben Gurion to visit Kennedy. Waldorf Astoria in New York. Accompanied ben gurion. Your people have done so much for me. Be a good and strong president for the United States. You represent our values. A weak United States, even a perception of a weak United States, will undermine the whole region. This is becoming in question in the region.

2^nd. Reason. This unwritten agreement with the gulf and the west. They give us energy; we give them security. Such a process of radicalism in the region. First and foremost an American issue. The 21^st century is going to be completely different and not for the good if this endeavor does not succeed.

One more issue which is important. We share the same coalition, strategic cooperation.

1.      Shared values. Military cooperation. American soldiers don’t have to be deployed there. In the 1970s, when Syria wanted to invade Jordan. It was enough to have one phone call to move our forces up to the border to make sure that Syria does not invade Jordan. We are developing military capabilities and sharing military intelligence. Working with Raytheon to defend American and Israeli soldiers. A country the size of New Jersey, 7 million people. 20^th largest economic partner of US, more companies listed in the NASDAQ, more than the entire EU, Japan, and South Korea. Israel has more patents listed here per capita than China, Russia and India together. Most of them are in medical devices. Israel saves more people per capita than any other country.

2.      Arabic is an official language. 3 of the vice chairs are Arabs. Muslim institutions have sovereignty in family law. Israel is the only country in the world that brought people from slavery into freedom. Body guard immigrated from Ethiopia. “I don’t know a perfect country.” If I had to choose a different place than Israel, I would choose the United States because of the values that we share, what we are, and what we represent.

3.      Israeli and Palestinian conflict. Vast majority of Israelis support a two state solution. Right and left have disappeared. Vast majority moved to the center. Do the Palestinians really want a state?

4.      Israel was willing to give it back to the Sinai. We believe in peace. It is such a big task to maintain this peace treaty. That would be a negative message to everyone. We do believe in painful compromises; we do believe in sacrifices.

5.      Q – You never mention the Palestinian conflict. Democracy, human rights. Those values are not being respected by the Palestinians. A- Giving our ancestors, go back 3000 years of history. There was only one sovereign state ever. We are putting aside history. It’s important to know the facts. Sometimes I wonder. Between ‘48-67, there was not a single settlement. Do the Palestinians accept the right of Israel to exist? That’s the real question.

6.      We got Hezbollah; now controlling Lebanon. We evacuated all of the settlements. We got another Iranian outpost. When we are negotiating the ideas with the Palestinians. We have to make sure we don’t get a third Iranian outpost. You have to ask yourself – did I criticize the 1000s of missiles, killing their own children. Suicide attacks. There is so much hypocrisy today. The Human Rights Commission works in Geneva – Libya, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. CBS reporter in Egupt. In a future of Palestinian state, 90 percent said we wanted to stay in Israel. Because Israel respects human rights. Speaker of the parliament, supreme court, all women. When you have a leader that kills his own people – Syria.

7.      I don’t see some sort of deterministic move. This is something that can be done, can be changed. Neither of these communities will become the majority.

They, the Arabs, are not educating their children for peace. You want a democracy to protect peace treaties and that involves educating your children about peace. In the Middle East, there are textbooks that teach children if you kill two Israelis and wound two others, how many have you harmed. That’s not peace.

In America , there is a strange and unholy alliance. The Islamic fundamentalist and the far, far, radical left. Israel respects all those human rights. They get together to single out Israel.

You have a few professors. It’s a tough job being at the university. Either you publish or you perish. The fast track of gaining name recognition is bashing Israel.

The syllabus. Edward Said Orientalism. An unbalanced syllabus. Many of the students that study the Middle East. Show me the reality.

Those students that fight Israel have no problem lying or dealing in half truths. They say, “Israel is an apartheid state.” I heard that when I went to Utah Valley University. You didn’t have three black people being the vice speaker in South Africa. These activists deal in lying and using half truths. The way to combat is to do the following:

1.      I invite every one of you to Israel. This is such a vibrant democracy. Fastest growing economy in the Western world. You will see the difference between perception and reality. How they make this world a better place. 9 nobel prize winners. Maybe New Jersey has more, but we have a lot.

2.      Knowledge and information is powerful. Educate yourself and others. Being pro-active.

3.      Sometime you have the thesis before you have the facts. If you have a professor, challenge him on the facts. 

Response to Bassam Frangieh: Chuck DeVore Becomes "Ashamed of Old College"

Former Assemblyman Chuck DeVore and one-time candidate for the U.S. Senate in California wrote the following on my latest post about Bassam Frangieh over at Big Peace. 

I am deeply disappointed with the ongoing degradation of my alma mater.  

First, the new president of Claremont McKenna College decided against a day to reflect on 9-11 when it happened. But, shortly afterward, when a visiting feminist professor secretly trashed her own car with hate speech, then blamed others, Ms. Gann decided to shut down class for a day of mandatory sensitivity reeducation. Later, then police charged the professor with faking the crime, president Gann made no apology for, in effect, blaming the students for a "crime" they didn't commit.  

The hiring of Professor Bassam Frangieh is the last straw. I am becoming ashamed of my old college.

Chavez Propagandist Oliver Stone To Visit Pomona on February 17

Director Oliver Stone will be at Pomona College Thursday night promoting his propaganda film, South of the Border at Edmunds Ballroom at 7PM.

Useful idiot

If you think the charge "propaganda film" is too harsh, consider the damning accusation from an NPR reviewer of all places that Chavez and his allies are treated with "kid gloves" by Stone.

Or consider this from the New York Times:

Initial reviews of “South of the Border” have been tepid. Stephen Holden in The New York Times called it a “provocative, if shallow, exaltation of Latin American socialism,” while Entertainment Weekly described it as “rose-colored agitprop.”

Some of the misinformation that Mr. Stone, who consistently mispronounces Mr. Chávez’s name as Sha-VEZ instead of CHA-vez, inserts into “South of the Border” is relatively benign. A flight from Caracas to La Paz, Bolivia, flies mostly over the Amazon, not the Andes, and the United States does not “import more oil from Venezuela than any other OPEC nation,” a distinction that has belonged to Saudi Arabia during the period 2004-10.

But other questionable assertions relate to fundamental issues, including Mr. Stone’s contention that human rights, a concern in Latin America since the Jimmy Carter era, is “a new buzz phrase,” used mainly to clobber Mr. Chávez. Mr. Stone argues in the film that Colombia, which “has a far worse human rights record than Venezuela,” gets “a pass in the media that Chávez doesn’t” because of his hostility to the United States.

As Mr. Stone begins to speak, the logo of Human Rights Watch, which closely monitors the situation in both Colombia and Venezuela and has issued tough reports on both, appears on the screen. That would seem to imply that the organization is part of the “political double standard” of which Mr. Stone complains.

“It’s true that many of Chávez’s fiercest critics in Washington have turned a blind eye to Colombia’s appalling human rights record,” said José Miguel Vivanco, director of the group’s Americas division. “But that’s no reason to ignore the serious damage that Chávez has done to human rights and the rule of law in Venezuela,” which includes summarily expelling Mr. Vivanco and an associate, in violation of Venezuelan law, after Human Rights Watch issued a critical report in 2008.

A similarly tendentious attitude pervades Mr. Stone’s treatment of the April 2002 coup that briefly toppled Mr. Chávez. One of the key events in that crisis, perhaps its instigation, was the “Llaguno Bridge Massacre,” in which 19 people were shot to death in circumstances that remain murky, with Chávez supporters blaming the opposition, and vice versa.

Everything I Sent The Board of Trustees on Frangieh Part III

The following is the third document I sent the Board of Trustees regarding Bassam Frangieh and his wife, Aleta Wenger.

In a July 20, 2010 New York Times article comment, Aleta Wenger commended an American movement to do an end run on Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Here’s what she wrote:

I’m against the Israeli blockade of Gaza and do not believe for one minute that the Israelis are allowing in food and medicine, and other commodities, to the level needed by the civilian population. I now have a good cause to support financially, and am very happy that my fellow Americans are interested in joining the blockade movement. Now to see if I can get on that boat. As a retired U.S. foreign service officer now unleashed, I can do and say what I want. Now let’s hear all of your readers tell me how naive I am… but I’m telling you, I’ve truly been there and seen it all… go Gaza flotilla ships go!!! [emphasis mine]

Left unremarked is that that “blockade” is supported by Egypt, as well, as Israel – and that it was in response to the firing of thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israel that the blockade began.
The running of the blockade is not so much about humanitarian supplies, as Greta Berlin, one of the organizers confessed, “is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it’s about breaking Israel’s siege on 1.5 million Palestinians.” For its part, Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh said that it would refuse any aid from Israel-intercepted flotilla, telling the press that “We are not seeking to fill our (bellies), we are looking to break the Israeli siege on Gaza.” If we take Hamas seriously, then they are either deliberately starving their people – or the Israelis are correct – that the goods onboard the flotilla were already readily available in Gaza.

However the Gaza blockades looks, it looks like Aleta Wenger has a deep-seated suspicion of Israel. In an August 4, 2006 comment on Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, she suspected the I.D.F. wanted to bomb a university:

I would like ABC to run a full story on the status of AUB [American University of Beirut], including the hospital, with a status report about the physical plant of the most renowned university in the Arab World. Has AUB also been bombed by the Israelis? Since they are now bombing Christian villages in the north of Lebanon, perhaps AUB is next in line. Shame on the Israelis and I welcome more balanced coverage from ABC on this war. [Emphasis mine]

Without a shred of evidence, she suggests that Israel would bomb a university.

Because Hezbollah Is Such a Peaceful Organization...

The Claremont Port Side wrote last month that "[w]hether Hamas and Hezbollah are murderous, religious-oriented terrorist groups or legitimate resistance groups using violence against Israeli occupation (or some of both) ought to be a topic of debate".


Given the news today that Hezbollah was allegedly planning terrorist attacks in more than half a dozen countries -- and is currently on trial for plotting one in Azerbaijan -- I think it's fair to say that the debate appears rather settled. Just look at this news item from today. 

A travel advisory issued Friday by the National Security Council’s counter-terrorism bureau shed some light on the situation. 

Under the heading of “Concrete Threats,” the warning said the threat of attacks against Israel and Jewish targets abroad had increased. It referenced eight countries specifically: Egypt, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, the Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania and Venezuela. 

Israel’s embassies have been targets in the past. In 2008, a bomb plot was uncovered against the Israeli Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

In 2009, the Los Angeles Times reported that Hezbollah and Iran were behind that plot – which was also believed to have been aimed at avenging Mughniyeh’s assassination. 

Mughniyeh was killed by a car bomb in Damascus on February 12, 2008, as he made his way to a celebration at the Iranian cultural center in the Syrian capital.
In addition to serving as Hezbollah’s chief of military operations, he was also the group’s liaison with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

But hey man, didn't you know? Hezbollah is like, cool, man.