Boo!

 

Happy Halloween! (apologies to Richard McGuire & The New Yorker)

Karen Hughes Quits Public Diplomacy Job

The BBC has the story (photo from nl.DanielPipes.org).

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had accepted Ms Hughes's resignation "with a great deal of sadness but also a great deal of happiness for what she has achieved".

Ms Hughes was behind the setting up of "rapid response" public relations units abroad to handle news events.

She also ensured that more Arabic speaking officials were available for interview by Arabic media outlets.

However, polls suggest that the popularity of the US overseas remains low, affected by the aftermath of the Iraq war and the unresolved Israel-Palestinian conflict in particular.

Speaking after her resignation was announced, Ms Hughes said she felt she had fulfilled her mission "by transforming public diplomacy and making it a national security priority central to everything we do in government".

Ms Hughes intends to leave the state department by the end of the year, probably in mid-December.

My Neighbor, Barack Obama...

Today's New York Times reported that Barack Obama lived at West 109th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in 1981, while attending Columbia University. At that time, I lived at 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue--in the apartment next door to now-famous writer Michael Pollan and his then-wife, Judith. So, it was interesting to read that the neighborhood was apparently considered too tough for Obama, who moved to the Upper East Side, to East 94th Street. Of course, after Mayor Giuliani got finished, West 109th and 110th Streets were very nice addresses. What does it mean?

Not much, I guess, except that some of Obama's New York acquaintances of the period have accused him of "embellishing" his story of life in New York. According to the Times, a blog called AnalyzeThis pointed out some of Obama's stretchers--and argues they disqualify him as a moral force for good:

And yet I’m disappointed. Barack’s story may be true, but many of the facts are not. His larger narrative purpose requires him to embellish his role. I don’t buy it. Just as I can’t be inspired by Steve Jobs now that I know how dishonest he is, I can’t listen uncritically to Barack Obama now that I know he’s willing to bend the facts to his purpose.

Once, when I applied for a marketing job at a big accounting firm, my then-supervisor called HR to say that I had exaggerated something on my resume. I didn’t agree, but I also didn’t get the job. But when Barack Obama invents facts in a book ranked No. 8 on the NY Times nonfiction list, it not only fails to be noticed but it helps elevate him into the national political pantheon.

Laura Bush 's Submission

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick interprets Laura Bush's abaya photo-op in Saudi Arabia as a symbolic surrender to Islamist extremism by the American First Lady (ht LGF):

But then Mrs. Bush went to Saudi Arabia and the symbolic message of the previous day was superseded and lost when she donned an abaya herself and had her picture taken with other abaya-clad women. The symbolic message of those photographs also couldn't have been clearer. By donning an abaya, Mrs. Bush symbolically accepted the legitimacy of the system of subjugating women that the garment embodies, (or disembodies). Understanding this, conservative media outlets in the US criticized her angrily.

Sunday morning, Mrs. Bush sought to answer her critics in an interview with Fox News. Unfortunately, her remarks compounded the damage. Mrs. Bush said, "These women do not see covering as some sort of subjugation of women, this group of women that I was with. That's their culture. That's their tradition. That's a religious choice of theirs."

It is true that this is their culture. And it is also their tradition. But it is not their choice. Their culture and tradition are predicated on denying them the choice of whether or not to wear a garment that denies them their identity just as it denies them the right to make any choices about their lives. The Saudi women's assertions of satisfaction with their plight were no more credible than statements by hostages in support of their captors.

As the First Lady, Laura Bush is an American symbol. By having her picture taken wearing an abaya in Saudi Arabia - the epicenter of Islamic totalitarian misogyny - Mrs. Bush diminished that symbol. In so doing, she weakened the causes of freedom and liberty which America has fought since its founding to secure and defend at home and throughout the world.

Carnegie-Mellon's Top Blogs

Here (ht Michelle Malkin):

k PA score Blog NP IL OLO OLA
1 0.1283 http://instapundit.com 4593 4636 1890 5255
2 0.1822 http://donsurber.blogspot.com 1534 1206 679 3495
3 0.2224 http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com 924 576 888 2701
4 0.2592 http://www.watcherofweasels.com 261 941 1733 3630
5 0.2923 http://michellemalkin.com 1839 12642 1179 6323
6 0.3152 http://blogometer.nationaljournal.com 189 2313 3669 9272
7 0.3353 http://themodulator.org 475 717 1844 4944
8 0.3508 http://www.bloggersblog.com 895 247 1244 10201
9 0.3654 http://www.boingboing.net 5776 6337 1024 6183
10 0.3778 http://atrios.blogspot.com 4682 3205 795 3102

Rudy Wins World Series in 4 Games

Hizzoner called the Series for the Boston Red Sox--while Hilary dithered and refused to take sides. Which makes Giuliani a winner, too...

Nicolas Sarkozy Bests Lesley Stahl

Sarkozy insulte une journaliste américaine
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A New Translation of Bunin

Leila Ruckenstein's review of Graham Hettlinger's COLLECTED STORIES OF IVAN BUNIN in today's Washington Post Book Review is a good one:

It is both shameful and understandable that few Americans know the writings of Ivan Bunin. Although he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1933, his works were banned in his native Russia until after his death in 1953, and for decades he labored, sometimes in extreme poverty, in exile in France. Also, his prose is notoriously difficult to translate; as Graham Hettlinger notes in an illuminating introduction to this volume, Bunin is acclaimed for his short stories but always called himself a poet.

Fortunately, Hettlinger's fluid new translations should help us rediscover an author who, like Chekhov, evocatively portrayed the vanishing world of Russia's large estates after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Born in 1870, Bunin witnessed as a child the disintegration of his aristocratic family's own estate. After the 1917 Revolution, he fled the Bolsheviks, never to return. Written between 1900 and 1944, almost all of the 35 stories in this collection -- ranging from imagistic sketches and folk legends to tales of obsessive love and eroticism -- are aching recreations of Bunin's homeland.

You can buy it here, from Amazon.com:

The Mysterious Death of Charles Jordan

I received a copy of an email from Raymond Lloyd in my inbox today with this subject line: "2008 centenary of Charles Jordan: question to Czech President Vaclav Klaus":

Will the Czech Republic celebrate the 100th anniversary on 7 February 2008 of the birth of Charles Jordan, the Father of Refugees found dead in Prague on 20 August 1967, by highlighting the generosity of the nascent Czechoslovak democracy in permitting the transit of 250 000 Jews from 1945 to 1948, a noble role subsequently obscured by the soviets forcing your post-1948 communist regime to spearhead the worst state persecution of Jewish leaders in Europe after the holocaust?

Raymond LLOYD
Editor & Publisher The Parity Democrat Westminster
www.shequality.org

Note for the file: The Czechoslovak action was at least as generous as that of Austria in 1956-1957 in allowing the transit of 200 000 Hungarians fleeing soviet totalitarianism, a relief action on which I wrote the official report of the then League of Red Cross Societies.

Who was Charles Jordan? I wondered. Thanks to google, I found out in a few seconds--and think the information is well worth sharing. It turns out that there is a 2004 Czech documentary film produced by Petr Bok and written by Martin Smok, titled Between a Star and a Crescent--Father of the Refugees, that apparently has re-ignited interest in this case. Here is a link to an item on a Czech expatriate website that gives a hint of the unsolved mystery:

In what could only be termed a compelling whodunnit if it weren’t so true, the Jordan case — if you’ve never heard of it before — is replete with heaps of Cold War drama, irresistible honey traps, and all manner of no-man’s-land intrigue. The details of Jordan’s sudden disappearance and death read like a perfect spy novel, with the former Československo living up to its reputation as the quintessential spook’s den.

On August 16, 1967, Charles Jordan was allegedly staying at the famous Esplanade Hotel just off today’s Wilsonova street at the head of Wenceslas Square. He told his wife that he would be stepping out to grab a newspaper, but never returned.
His body was found four days later floating in the Vltava River, the possible victim of a handful of potential perpetrators; some likely, others more fanciful.

A 2004 documentary co-authored by local Martin Šmok called “Between a Star and a Crescent — Father of the Refugees” gets into the shady details of Jordan’s disappearance.

It raises the controversial theory that Jordan had perhaps come to the former Czechoslovakia in 1967 as part of his efforts in attempting to ease the settling of Palestinian war refugees in Arab lands following the 1967 Six-Day War.

Recently, the US Joint Distribution Committe (JDC) lobbied US Secretary of State Condi Rice to assist in the JDC’s efforts to pressure the Czech government and several US Arab allies (namely, Egypt) into opening up the Jordan case files and making accessible the personalities from the era.

Here's a link to Dinah Spritzer's special investigation for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

At least one person alive today knew about the comings and goings of the Egyptians in Prague in 1967, and for the first time she spoke to a journalist during an extensive interview with JTA.

She was an StB informant who worked for Talaat, the Egyptian Embassy official and United Arab Airlines chief. According to her StB file, she was ordered by the Czech spy agency to seduce him and gather information on his activities.

As explained in the file, her mission was to provoke contacts between the Egyptians and Israelis in Prague by expanding operations "from the office of the object into the bedroom of the object." The informant was to offer the Egyptian secret service information about Israelis in Prague and then offer Israelis information about Czechoslovak arms shipments to Egypt.

The informant told JTA, on condition of anonymity, that she had no knowledge of Jordan until contacted by the UDV in 2004. That is surprising, as she worked for Arabs at the time of Jordan's death, when presumably there would have been much talk in Arab circles about a rare murder of an American Jew in Prague.

StB files also show that the spy agency briefly questioned the informant in 1967 about the whereabouts of her employer concerning the Jordan case.

According to Smok, since the questioning was cursory, it leaves open the possibility that the StB was aware of who was involved in Jordan's death. The JDC leader had visited the U.S. Embassy and the Prague Jewish Community during his stay, something that should not have gone unnoticed by the secret police.

Arguing against StB involvement in Jordan's death, the UDV says the spy agency would not have carried out such a significant act without the direction of the Soviet Union, which the UDV believes had no reason to eliminate Jordan and thus create further tension with the West.

Within this web of sex and spy agencies, is there more to be investigated?

Smok went so far as to assert that the United States and Israeli intelligence agencies knew much more about Jordan than they were sharing with their Czech counterparts, a conjecture that's hard to prove.

Michalkova of the UDV said the U.S. agencies had been cooperative, although oddly the FBI sent a note saying it had concluded Jordan had died as the result of an accident, a theory neither the UDV nor anyone even vaguely familiar with the case accepts.

Israel had not responded to repeated requests for information, according to Michalkova, who noted that as late as 2005 the Czech interior minister was asking for assistance from his Israeli counterpart, to no avail. The Israeli Prime Minister's Office, to whom the intelligence services report, told JTA it was looking into the matter.

Czech and Israeli intelligence sources told JTA they found the UDV claim bizarre, since the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, currently has an intensive and excellent relationship with its Czech counterpart.

The sources noted that although the Mossad may not have wanted to work directly with the UDV, it does not mean it didn't share what it knew about Jordan or Arab activity in Prague in 1967 with Czech authorities interested in the case.

On the Czech side Tomas Kraus, chairman of the Czech Federation of Jewish Communities, echoed the sentiment of many Czech, Israeli and American sources.

"There are a million theories," Kraus said, "but I don't think we can ever get to the bottom of it."

He added that "a U.S.-led investigation couldn't hurt."

Not since hearing about the Raoul Wallenberg mystery have I learned of such a strange disappearance of a Jewish rescuer in the midst of the Cold War. It would be nice if the Kremlin, CIA, and Mossad opened their files on Charles Jordan to help set the record straight.

Magdi Khalil on "Islamophobia"

From The American Thinker:

The term "Islamophobia" is a tool of deception that serves to mislead the world, blackmail the West, terrorize whoever dares to criticize Islam, fuel the anger of Muslim youth, and minimize the danger of Islamic terrorism, in addition to being a threat to the freedoms of thought, creativity and criticism in the West, ultimately the term can serve the interests of the terrorists.

While Tariq Ramadan holds the first place among the promoters of the concept of "Islamophobia", Saad Eddin Ibrahim takes the lead in using the term "Islamist scarecrow". The term is meant for the ears of the West as well, and suggests that the autocratic governments play on the fear of the West that an Islamist rule will be the alternative if those regimes fall, so that by waving this "scarecrow" around, and alluding to the ominous repercussions of reform for Western interests, for non-Muslim minorities, and the Middle East as a whole, they have managed to scare off the West and stall the reform project. Though I agree with my dear friend Prof. Ibrahim that the autocratic regimes in the Middle East have skillfully used this scare tactic to alarm not only the West, but also the non-Muslim minorities in the East, the liberals and women, nonetheless the term itself is inappropriate if not misleading, and plays right into the hands of Islamists and their plans to establish a religious state.

The Islamists should not be compared to a scary looking but harmless scarecrow; they are by no means an empty threat, but rather a genuine menace that alarms the advocates of civil society, who realize that if Political Islam gets its chance to take control of the Middle East, the region will plunge into total darkness. The Islamists would not let go of their detrimental vision of a religious state, and there are two recent cases that support this view: the way Hamas renounced the terms of democracy and went back on its agreement, shattering the Palestinian experience; and the way the Muslim Brotherhood have affected life in Egypt, even though they have no part in the government. Considering that the Muslim Brotherhood's proposed reform project is for a religious state that is governed by scholars concerned with camel urine, where the law submits to shari'a and science to superstition, where national belonging is discarded in favor of religious belonging, and political posts turn into religious assignments, where political power bows down to religious power, and to the instatement of welayat al-faqih (guardianship of the Islamic jurists) that mirrors Iran -- considering that this is only a proposal, one has to wonder how much worse reality will be if they gain the power to implement their vision?

The Islamists are certainly no scarecrows; basically, they are a major obstruction standing in the way of real democracy, citizenship and civil state. They do not endorse the supremacy of the law and a civil constitution that separates state and religion. They do not sanction laws that protect and expand freedoms. They reject genuine equality between Muslims and non-Muslims, and they are engrossed with religious interpretations to the point of complete obsession. Hence, it is reasonable to say that any attempts to defend or bolster their image can only lead to the obliteration of whatever little is left of the civil state to the advantage of an extremely dark religious state.

Yes, the Middle East regimes are autocratic, corrupt and do use the Islamists' card in a dangerous game inside and outside their countries. Nevertheless, to stand by the Islamists is a reckless and extremely risky gamble, and much like "Samson choice", the whole region may not survive its outcome.

Amil Imani on Islamism

From AmilImani.com:

Another thought: let’s separate arguments that impugn Islam on the basis of the (weird to me) liturgical conduct that is required of them. All religions have rituals, but who cares. The real story is not whether they wash their feet, or sign a cross with holy water, or whirl like a Dervish. The issue is how they treat those who disagree with them or stray from their sanctioned behaviors. Islam seeks to conquer the world by force and force all subjects to accept a global Islamic theocracy in which its antisocial policies can be imposed without question or alternative. Violators are cruelly punished. Abrogators are murdered. No wonder the communists love these guys. It’s the same “god,” the god of mandatory surrender of all rights to the State...submission!

Islam is an example of a belief system that perpetuates both force and fraud, sanctioned and prescribed within its scripture. It has a perfect legacy of bloody conquest and stands as an example of one of the few religions of mankind that mandates violent human death and destruction as a modus operandi (shared with Aztec and Mayan religions). Islam’s founder waged dozens of bloody wars of aggression and spouted ugly and damning diatribes against unbelievers -- Christians and Jews in particular.

Today, the most devout and knowledgeable Muslims are all Jihadists. And other than communist nations, the least free and most impoverished societies, and the places in which there is the greatest difference between rich and poor, are all Muslim nations. The only major religion that still sanctions slavery, the beating of women by men, and forced female circumcision, is Islam. And the Quran specifically encourages bloody, violent, eternal Jihad against unbelievers and requires all devout Muslims to lie “Taqqye-ye,” and wait in readiness to attack with terrorism (sleeper cells are prescribed in the Quran).

“Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.” Qur’an:9:5

Drawings of Leonardo

Recently started a drawing class. When our teacher recommended studying the masters, I was lucky to stumble across this website dedicated to drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Daniel Pipes on the Annapolis Summit

Pipes sounds even more strongly opposed to the proposed Middle East summit meeting in Maryland than Henry Kissinger:

The Bush administration's plans to convene a new round of Israeli-Arab diplomacy on Nov. 26 will, I predict, do substantial damage to American and Israeli interests.

As a rule, successful negotiations require a common aim; in management-labor talks, for example, both sides want to get back to work. When a shared premise is lacking, not only do negotiations usually fail, but they usually do more harm than good. Such is the case in the forthcoming Annapolis, Maryland, talks. One side (Israel) seeks peaceful coexistence while the other (the Arabs) seeks to eliminate its negotiating partner, as evidenced by its violent actions, its voting patterns, replies to polls, political rhetoric, media messages, school textbooks, mosque sermons, wall graffiti, and much else.

Damage will be done should the Israeli government make "painful concessions" and get a cold peace or empty promises in return, as has consistently been the case since 1979. This lop-sided outcome would, once again, boost Arab exhilaration and determination to eliminate the Jewish state.

Giuliani's Policy Guy

Today's Washington Post profiles William Simon, Jr.:

That Forbes and the Giuliani campaign had ever gotten together was largely the work of one man -- a longtime conservative insider and friend of Giuliani's who was once a Republican candidate for governor of California -- Bill Simon. Simon, the Giuliani campaign's policy director, had arranged a lunch at which Giuliani made the case to Forbes that he was the right kind of Republican. "What came through with both Bill and the mayor was that they really got it on the economy and on taxes," Forbes said.

Starting last fall, when Giuliani first called Simon and said he was running for president, Simon, 56, has been more responsible than anyone for Giuliani's policy education, and he has been the agent charged with managing the sometimes eager, sometimes awkward relationship between the former mayor of a liberal city and the conservative establishment.

Well before Giuliani said publicly that he would be a candidate, Simon put him through a rolling seminar that those in the campaign called Simon University, bringing in thinkers to brief Giuliani on key issues. The result is that though many of Giuliani's campaign operatives worked with him when he was mayor, his policy staffers, who have largely been assembled by Simon, come mostly from the think-tank world.

The roster of the seminars was a who's who of conservative intellectuals, and their ideas a menu of conservative thought. There were neoconservatives Norman Podhoretz, John R. Bolton and R. James Woolsey Jr. on foreign policy, as well as less ideological thinkers such as Gen. Anthony C. Zinni and Yale professor Charles Hill; the Hoover Institution's Michael Boskin on taxes and economic policy; Hoover's race scholars Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell; and retired Gen. Jack Keane and the military scholar Frederick W. Kagan, the authors of the Iraq "surge."

And here's a biography of foreign policy eminence grise Charles Hill, from the Hoover Institution website:

Charles Hill, a career minister in the U.S. Foreign Service, is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Hill was executive aide to former U.S. secretary of state George P. Shultz (1985–89) and served as special consultant on policy to the secretary-general of the United Nations from 1992 to 1996. He is also diplomat in residence and lecturer in International Studies at Yale University.

Among Hill's awards are the Superior Honor Award from the Department of State in 1973 and 1981; the Distinguished Honor Award in 1978; the Presidential Meritorious Service Award in 1986; the Presidential Distinguished Service Award in 1987 and 1989; and the Secretary of State's Medal in 1989. He was granted an honorary doctor of laws degree by Rowan University.

In 1983, Hill was appointed chief of staff of the State Department, following his serving as deputy assistant secretary for the Middle East.

His career took him to the Middle East in 1978, where he was deputy director of the Israel desk; in 1979 he became political counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. In 1981, he was named director of Israel and Arab-Israeli affairs, and in 1982 he served as deputy assistant secretary for the Middle East.

Hill began his career in 1963 as a vice consul in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1964, he became a Chinese-language officer in Taichubg, Taiwan, and in 1966 was appointed as a political officer in Hong Kong. He was mission coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in 1971–1973, and then in the State Department as China cultural exchange negotiator. He was involved in the 1974 Panama Canal negotiations, then became a member of the policy planning staff as a speech writer for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1975.

During 1970, he was a fellow at the Harvard University East Asia Research Center. He was a Clark fellow at Cornell University in 1989.

He received an A.B. degree from Brown University in 1957, a J.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1960, and an M.A. degree in American studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961.

Hill has collaborated with former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on Egypt's Road to Jerusalem, a memoir of the Middle East peace negotiations, and Unvanquished, about U.S. relations with the U.N. in the post–cold war period, both published by Random House. Hill is the editor of the three-volume Papers of U.N. Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali, published by Yale University Press.

Christopher Hitchens v. Dinesh D'Souza

My father sent me a link to this debate on the question: Is Christianity the Problem?. It took place at Cambridge University, video on Richard Dawkins' website.

Big Picture

Saw Le Monde correspondent Corine Lesnes speak at SAIS yesterday evening about "le divorce" of Nicolas Sarkozy, when host Justin Vaisse plugged her blog, Big Picture. Lesnes, a fashionable Frenchwoman of a certain age, well-dressed, well coiffed, and with a big smile, was--bien sur--very catty about Sarkozy, pointing out his low marks at university (he failed his final exam!); his bad French (oooh la la!), his immigrant stock (not exactly news), and his appeals to the right and co-optation of the left (is that supposed to bad?). After bashing Sarkozy for doing everything himself--and all at once to fox his opponents--while sidelining the prime minister (Francois Fillon, according to Wikipedia, although Lesnes did not mention his name), Lesnes then complimented Sarkozy for calling her boss, the director of Le Monde, personally dialing the number on his own phone.

So what's the problem?

Since Lesnes said everyone is talking about Sarkozy's divorce, I went to her blog to find out more. But when I got there, it was even more interesting to this Washingtonian--Lesnes has posts about John Bolton's latest book, and taxis in DC switching from the Zone System (my preference) to Meters (tick, tick, tick while stuck in traffic). And, by the way, Sarkozy is coming to town on November 7th (where's my invitation?).

John Bolton: Bush Will Bomb Iran

John Bolton made his prediction at a lunch with Financial Times Washington bureau chief Edward Luce:

... As we wait for the bill, we finally get round to the subject of Iran. Bolton finishes with a flourish, confidently predicting that George W. Bush will launch a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities before leaving office.

He can’t resist one last European dig. “Four years of European diplomacy have given the Iranians the one asset they could not have purchased – and that was time,” he says, wagging his finger. “And now, irony of ironies, after fiddling around with all this futile diplomacy, we finally have a French president who sounds just like we do on Iran.” C’est la guerre, I think. A sobering conclusion to a sober Anglo-Saxon meal.

Robert Lantz, R.I.P.

Talent agent Robert Lantz died last week, aged 93. His passing was noted in Variety, the show business bible, and in the New York Times.

...His constellation included the writers James Baldwin, Lillian Hellman and Carson McCullers; the actors Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Yul Brynner, Montgomery Clift, Myrna Loy and Liv Ullmann; the photographer Arnold Newman, the film director Milos Forman, the playwright Peter Shaffer and the lyricist Alan Jay Lerner.

Clients begat clients: Ms. Taylor introduced him to Mr. Burton, her fifth husband, and Justice William O. Douglas introduced him to Chief Justice Rehnquist....

...Born in Berlin on July 20, 1914, Mr. Lantz dreamed of being an author like his father, a screenwriter in the silent-movie era. He moved to London in 1935, after Hitler came to power, and worked as a story editor for American film companies. Following World War II he came to New York and began a new life representing creative artists: stars of the stage and screen, literary lions and, occasionally, public figures who thought they had a book in them.

Mr. Lantz was one of the last members of an old school: he did not use e-mail or computers. He took 10 percent of his authors’ earnings, not 15 percent, hewing to a tradition widely abandoned in the late 20th century. He made his deals with handshakes.

Interestingly, Robbie Lantz was my first agent. He offered representation after the release of Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?. His office handled negotiations with an Auschwitz survivor who had written a memoir after retiring from the garment business--he wanted me to direct his life story. Lantz was charming, a real Berliner with an accent. His office was dark and modernist, very Continental. Someone I met in New York called him a "collector" of talent, rather than an ordinary agent. We parted ways some time after the deal fell through. When I read his obituary, I thought it was nice to have once been part of Lantz's collection...

Alchemies of the Eye

A plug for an exhibition at New York's Amsterdam Whitney Art Gallery featuring paintings by my cousin, Louise Link Rath. It's called "Alchemies of the Eye," and continues until October 30th. If you can't make it in person to the art gallery in Chelsea, my cousin also has a personal website displaying her artwork.

Henry Kissinger on Condoleeza Rice's Middle East Summit

From the Khaleej Times (UAE):

Arab opinion is far from uniform. At least three points of view are identifiable: a small, dedicated but not very vocal group genuinely believing in co-existence with Israel; a much larger group seeking to destroy Israel by permanent confrontation; an offshoot willing to negotiate with Israel but justifying negotiations domestically as means to destroy the Jewish state in stages. Are the moderate Arab states prepared to expand and strengthen the group committed to genuine co-existence? Will recognition of Israel bring an end to the unrelenting media, governmental and educational campaign in Arab countries that presents Israel as an illegitimate, imperialist, almost criminal interloper in the region?

Several moderate Arab states have been extraordinarily reluctant to come to Annapolis. If they appear, will they treat their presence as their principal contribution for which one-sided pressure in Israel is deemed the appropriate concession?

Even more portentous will be the profound implications for the balance of forces within the Arab world. Moderates there will be less praised for their achievement than accused of having betrayed the Arab cause. The statement of the supreme leader of Iran attacking the Palestinian peace process and warning Arab states not to participate in it is likely to be the beginning of a systematic campaign. The US will be able to sustain the proposed course only if it is prepared to extend long-term support to its Arab partners against the foreseeable onslaught.

The peace process will therefore merge with the generic conflicts of the Middle East. The Annapolis conference cannot be the end of a process; rather, it should lay the groundwork of a new, potentially hopeful phase that will continue into future administrations. But it should not be driven by the US political calendar. If either America's Arab or Israeli friends are asked to take on more than they are able to withstand, there's the risk of another even larger blow-up. A preparatory “solution'' that tears the body politic of the parties apart will prevent ultimate progress. Breaking the psychological back of the US's Israeli ally would only embolden the radicals and thereby destabilise the entire region — whatever contrary arguments conventional wisdom advances.