Tamil Suicide Bombing in Sri Lanka

According to this report from Reuters,a female suicide bomber struck a military headqarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

What To Do When Your Cell Phone Breaks

Unless you have insurance, you might be in for a nasty "sticker shock," according to this article in Business Week.

Haaretz: Al Qaeda Sponsored Egypt Bombing

Zev Schiff writes that the Sinai tourist hotel blasts bear the hallmarks of a Bin Laden-style operation:

Al-Qaida was behind yesterday's terror attack in Dahab. Despite Egypt's efforts to halt the organization's activity in the Sinai Peninsula, Al-Qaida clearly continues to operate adjacent to the Israeli border, and is smuggling explosive material from the same area. It emerged recently that Al-Qaida also is trying to set up a base in the Gaza Strip in order to infiltrate into Israel to carry out strikes.

Egyptian authorities recently informed U.S. and international elements that they successfully eliminated an Al-Qaida base in Jabal Hilal, in central Sinai. Egyptian authorities moved large police and special unit forces into the Sinai. After a car carrying two Egyptian officers went over a mine and two men were killed, the special units were put into action and the base was eradicated.

Al-Qaida is believed to be recruiting among the Sinai Bedouin. According to the Egyptian government, intensive efforts have been made in recent months to create employment for the Bedouin there. It has emerged that these efforts have been unable to prevent Al-Qaida's ongoing infiltration into Sinai and the recruitment of new terror cells in the area.

Michelle Malkin Launches Her Own Network

She's calling it Hot Air.com...

Natan Sharansky on George Bush

In today's Wall Street Journal, he praises Bush's democracy agenda, with this caveat:

I myself have not been uncritical of Mr. Bush. Like my teacher, Andrei Sakharov, I agree with the president that promoting democracy is critical for international security. But I believe that too much focus has been placed on holding quick elections, while too little attention has been paid to help build free societies by protecting those freedoms--of conscience, speech, press, religion, etc.--that lie at democracy's core.

I believe that such a mistaken approach is one of the reasons why a terrorist organization such as Hamas could come to power through ostensibly democratic means in a Palestinian society long ruled by fear and intimidation.

I also believe that not enough effort has been made to turn the policy of promoting democracy into a bipartisan effort. The enemies of freedom must know that the commitment of the world's lone superpower to help expand freedom beyond its borders will not depend on the results of the next election.

Orthodox Easter on the Web

Via the Patriarch of Jerusalem's blog...

A Tunisian Liberal Speaks

Rather than supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, I wish the US government would devote its resources to supporting liberals in Arab countries who favor Modernity over the Dark Ages; and the Declaration of the Rights of Man rather than Sha'aria. One example is Neila Charchour Hachicha, founder of Tunisia's Parti Libéral Méditerranéen. I saw her speak in Washington not long ago, making a case against both Islamic fundamentalism and dictatorship at the American Enterprise Institute. Now she is back in Tunisia--and apparently in trouble:

Liberalism will perish unless the White House and its European allies keep up the pressure to keep Arab liberals safe. When Rumsfeld visited Ben Ali in February, he spoke only of strengthening military-to-military ties. But true stability and security requires some degree of freedom. Ben Ali will listen to the outside world if he believes that its warnings are serious. The Quai d'Orsay offered only a timid statement when Tunisian security forces assaulted French journalist Christophe Boltansky for having reported on the Tunisian government's speech crackdown ahead of the World Summit on the Information Society. If outsiders are not even going to stand up for their own citizens, then why should the Tunisian government worry about opposition when they oppress Tunisians? After all, as the Tunisian ambassador to Washington told the American Enterprise Institute, why should Washington worry about "a person of no consequence" like me? The Tunisian government may say we are Islamists — I certainly am not — or cherry-pick statements to convince foreign officials that all opposition is radical, reactionary, or irresponsible. It is an old tactic, and experienced professionals should not fall for it.

The White House again stands at a crossroad. Not only in Tunisia but elsewhere in the Arab world, liberals and dissidents are waiting. Without freedom of speech and press, reformers cannot build credibility and legitimacy. Ben Ali should embrace reform, not repel it. We don't ask for much — just the assurance that we will not be abandoned if we ask for freedom of speech. Do not worry about stigma; we are already stigmatized for seeking our rights. U.S. ambassadors throughout the region should not hesitate to meet with members of civil society or stand up for prisoners of conscience, just as they once did in the Soviet Union.

I do not know what they will do to me and my husband in the weeks to come. I hope that Washington, Paris, and human-rights organizations will not allow dissidents to be sacrificed upon the altar of realpolitik. We should not suffer for comments as innocuous as ours, or for speaking out in professional forums in Washington. Those of us who struggle in defense of freedom in Tunisia appreciate the help of the State Department. We hope it will continue, even as the Tunisian regime thumbs its nose at Bush. And regardless of what happens, I hope that you will pray for my family and for all of us in Tunisia.

Bin Laden Endorses Hamas

According to Al Jazeera, Bin Laden has made his support of Hamas perfectly clear:

Aljazeera has aired an audiotape attributed to Osama bin Laden in which he attacks the West for boycotting Hamas and accuses Western governments of waging a "crusader war" against Islam.

In the recording, aired on Sunday, the al-Qaeda leader said the isolation and cutting off of aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government reaffirmed that the West was at war with the Islamic nation.

"The blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves that there is a Zionist crusaders war on Islam," he said.

In the same speech, Bin Laden calls for jihad in Sudan, Chechnya, Pakistan and elsewhere. It will be interesting to see Daniel Pipes analysis of the full transcript, if and when it is made available.

Nobody Listened

Today's Washington Post Opinion section published a list of "bad guys"--dictators and tyrants around the world who should make Americans mad. Of course, Fidel Castro wasn't on the list. Which reminded of this interesting student paper from Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada by Jessica Rincon and Patrick White, sent in by filmmaker Agustin Blazquez:

‘NOBODY LISTENED’ One of Many Cases of Censorship
by Jessica Rincon and Patrick White
Student paper for the Communication Studies Department, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Dictatorships have been known historically to censor people’s freedom of expression. From the communist regimes in the Soviet Union to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and today in modern day Cuba, people are locked up for questioning or disagreeing with the action, views, and or policies of their government. Regardless, people still try to make their voices heard. Nobody Listened is a documentary film that attempts to reveal the truth about one of the world’s most notorious dictators, Fidel Castro. After watching the film and researching the issues that relate to it, we found that this particular film is part of an even bigger issue of censorship that not only involves the censorship in Cuba, but also that of Cuban exiles in the United States of America. We will examine here the various ways that the documentary film Nobody Listened has been censored both in Cuba and in the United States.

Cuba is known to the world for having excellent literacy rates and an outstanding system of health care; however, most civilians consider this a myth created by the revolutionaries, since for decades Cubans have suffered under Castro’s dictatorship. Although some Cubans favor his government, a considerable amount has fled, mainly to the United States, to escape his regime and Cuba’s poor conditions of life. Castro censures people’s freedom of expression by arbitrarily banning any material (book, film, or article) he feels threatens his government principles, such as the declaration of Human Rights or a Cuban exile book, and labels it as “counter-revolutionary.” Since Castro first formed his government, 47 years ago, thousands of political and regular prisoners have been accused of committing crimes. What are considered crimes, as mentioned in the article Against All Hope: A Memoir in Castro’s Gulag, are things like being part of organizations defending Human Rights, sedition, possessing counter-revolutionary or non-authorized material, or if the person has been arrested before and is considered politically active, Castro will find any pretext, such as refusing government officials to fumigate the person’s house with substances she/he is allergic to, to arrest him/her (Valladares 1-2). They were, and are, taken to jails where they endure unthinkable abuses, ranging from horrendous tortures, forced labor and beatings, to “accidental deaths” and executions.

The documentary made by Nestor Almendros and Jorge Ulla, Nobody Listened, touches on these issues, questioning the general state of Human Rights in Cuba. The film is inspired by the book Against all Hope, where the author, Armando Valladares describes the experiences he and other prisoners went through. Nobody Listened is an expository documentary showing a series of people’s testimonies ranging from Castro’s former comrade, to priests and civilians that had been, or had a relative, in at least one of the prisons shown. Their stories are accompanied by footage or pictures supporting their testimonies, and on given occasions, the narrator explains further the images shown.

When one watches the movie, one realizes immediately why the film is censored in Cuba. This documentary is completely against the revolution, or better said, against Castro’s government since it reveals the stories of people that have gone through terrible tortures and somehow survived. It questions Cuba’s system of Human Rights and shows the discrepancy between what Castro and his “comrades” say is happening in Cuba versus what is really going on according to the everyday experiences of many Cubans. Castro has a remarkable ability, like any other tyrant, to ignore what the people are going through in his own country. He demonstrates his unwillingness to make things better when he said that “for those who hope for change ‘Let them sit down and keep hoping, because in Cuba there is no need to change a thing’” (Valladares 3).

The documentary also tackles the non-supportive response of Cuba’s government towards its exiles, as in the case with the directors themselves (Ulla and Almendros). This can be seen at the beginning of the movie when Ulla is trying to ask important figures of the government for their contribution, or their thoughts on the situation of Human Rights in Cuba, and they respond, if at all, with ambivalence, evasion or outright refusal to talk to him. Exiles are considered traitors to the country, and therefore, do not deserve any help. Also, it should be kept in mind that obviously exposing the real situation in Cuba is inconvenient for Castro. To this end, the reaction of the people in his government is to be expected.

It is understandable that due to such a dictatorship people who have seen this documentary in Cuba are few and far between, but what about in the United States, a country who prides itself on being the Land of the Free? Well, it seems that in the U.S there is a tacit sense of censorship, an implicit way of making decisions about what is broadcast since they cannot air everything is made in order to make everyone happy, and this is precisely why this documentary and others like it have been rejected. The censorship of the film Nobody Listened is not something that limits itself to films with explicit descriptions of the terrible things that certain people had to go through in Cuban jails, but is actually part of a bigger problem that Cuban American intellectuals face every day.

Although we could not contact Jorge Ulla, and Almendros passed away in 1992, we could get a hold of a friend of Almendros, the filmmaker (Covering Cuba series from one to four) Agustín Blázquez, who provided us with substantial information about the censorship of this type of documentaries, particularly in the United States. For years, intellectual Cuban exiles residing in the U.S have been discriminated against by the people who control the media and the ones in charge of promoting and distributing artists, filmmakers, and writers’ works. As mentioned in Blázquez’s article, Branded by Paradise and Maligned by Exile, there is a herd of “pro-Castro sympathizers in the U.S. media and in the film industry” (3) who, like the dictator they support, react in this way against people who do not share their political beliefs. An example of this is when Nobody Listened was rejected in 1988 by the New York Film Festival, the same festival that rejected Bitter Sugar (Leon Ichazo) and This is Cuba (Chris Hume); which are also films that contain as well controversial information about Castro’s regime. However, this trend did not go unnoticed because of the group of Cuban American filmmakers who protested against this decision, and among these protesters was Ulla. According to Blázquez’s article “Enough is Enough,” the director of the festival, Richard Pena, said that the films are chosen irregardless of their content. This is the same man who said that Improper Conduct, another film by Nestor Almendros, “attacks the stability of the Cuban revolution” (Blázquez 1). No correlation is shown between what the principle of the Festival seems to be and what actually happens at the end. It seems as if films of this sort are destined to receive little or no airtime.

In our conversation with Agustín, he sounded aggravated by the fact that although people like him had spent a great deal of time, money, and effort to produce and direct films with such an important message, and in a country where freedom of expression is so valued, are yet still censored. He felt helpless in relating that everything is about politics and about who controls public broadcasting. According to him, as repeated many times in both his articles and our conversation, a large part of the media and art world in the U.S., which includes filmmakers and festival organizers, are considered political Leftists. This means that in a free country like the United States, they have the right to express their views. At the same time, it is contradictory that precisely this situation is what prevents movies like Nobody Listened from being seen; as was the case with the festivals rejecting it, and the PBS TV stations, which was probably the most blatant form of censorship that has been imposed on the film.

For years, PBS refused to show it, but in 1990 when they finally agreed to broadcast it - better late than never, they cut out about an hour of the two-hour film. This meant that many of the powerful testimonies of torture and suffering where left out. Furthermore, immediately after it ended, PBS aired a pro-Castro documentary entitled The Uncompromising Revolution by Saul Landau. This, according to Blázquez, was something that Ulla and Almendros considered an absolute offence to their work. He shared their opinion and compared it to the unlikely scenario of a movie about the Holocaust being aired, followed directly by a pro-Hitler movie. This is something that would never happen, he said. He also added that by doing so, and by cutting down the film, the message they were intending to send was diluted or had no effect, since the audience was put in “double standard” situation.

After having examined the issue about censorship being applied to the documentary film Nobody Listened, in Cuba it seems inevitable that a film like this one would be censored, judging from the regime under which it is governed. As mentioned earlier, one of the first rights taken away from people living in a dictatorship is freedom of expression. Therefore, it is impossible to show a film like this one under the political conditions in Cuba. On the other hand, the case of censorship in the United States is a different issue. It seems strange that a country not involved with decisions concerning what is broadcast in Cuba, since it is a different country, in its own country when dealing with this issue, trying to sort out between pro-Castro and against-Castro material, they apply a tacit censorship. Because it is such a delicate issue, they should be objective and neutral, but instead they take a biased stance. It would seem more adequate and fair to perhaps still show both side views, as everyone has the right to speak their opinions, but maintaining respect, above all, towards both groups, and leaving it up to the audience to interpret what they see in a considerable space of time.

Going through this investigation has provided deeper insight into the controversial issue of censorship. One sometimes takes for granted freedom of speech in countries like the United States, since we are used to the idea that we are expressing ourselves with minimal or no restraints. However, what seems common sense to us is not necessarily the case for others. In the case of Cuban exiles in the U.S. their films are apparently too controversial to be shown. For us, the fact that the material is controversial and revealing is precisely why it should be shown. We should be prepared to deal with the complexity and conflict in society by acquiring as much information and debating the issues. In this way, overt censorship and heavy biases by those with power amounts to. Our right is to know.


WORKS CITED:
Blázquez, Agustín. Telephone Interview, Feb. 25, 2006

Blázquez, Agustín with collaboration of Jaums Sutton. “Branded by Paradise and Maligned by Exile.” Tyrant Aficionado. 1999, http://home.earthlink.net/~servando/tyrant/women.htm

Blázquez, Agustin, “Enough is Enough.” CubaNet News. http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y96/nov96/6enou.html

“Nobody Listened”. Dir. Nestor Almendros and Jorge Ulla. Perf. Jorge Ulla et al. Cuban Human Rights Film Project and Direct Cinema, 1989

Valladares, Armando. “Against All Hope: A Memoir in Castro’s Gulag.” The Heritage Foundation. 15 March, 2002. Heritage Lecture # 737. http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/HL737.cfm

End of the Line for Nepalese Dynasty?

Writing in The Observer, Randeep Ramesh explains that the current crisis may spell the end of the Shah dynasty of Nepal:

Nepal, strategically situated between India and China, has been either under the Shah kings or dynastic maharajahs since the late 18th century. Democracy has existed for only two short-lived occasions, in 1950 and the 1990s.

The beginning of the end for the last phase of democracy came when the last king, Birendra, and his family were assassinated in the palace by a drunk crown prince. His brother Gyanendra took over and made no secret of his disdain for elected officials.

Whether the monarchy can survive or not remains moot. The answer, say some, may be found in an Nepali legend about King Prithvi Narayan Shah, the founder of the modern Nepali state. The tale goes that he once met a god disguised as a sage who, to test his loyalty, offered him some yoghurt that had been vomited up.

If the king consumed it, the Shah line would have lasted forever. Instead, King Prithvi threw it away, and some fell on his feet. So the dynasty would only last ten generations, one monarch for every toe. Birendra was the 10th Shah king.

Daniel Pipes, Call Your Office...

On the Counterterrorism Blog, Jeffrey Cozzens explains the rationale behind US government support for the Muslim Brotherhood:

Perhaps our fight against the narrative of global jihadism—unquestionably a greater evil—could be bolstered if we enlist the help of the MB. After all, it shares elements of AQ’s exclusive worldview, but its cadres pursue a different path towards establishing Islam.

Will Daniel Pipes be able to change this policy?

Daniel Pipes Establishes Islamist Watch

More here.

Vallejo Times-Herald: Rumsfeld Must Go

The Rumsfeld kerfuffle isn't going away:

President George W. Bush comes to the neighborhood today with a planned visit to St. Helena, part of a long weekend swing through southern and northern California.

He's here for a little R&R, a bit of fund-raising and a moment to pitch his technology initiative in the Silicon Valley.

It appears a chance to head from the Beltway, to skip out of town and avoid the latest attack on one of his most detrimental, and controversial appointees - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Seven retired generals have come forward in recent weeks to denounce Rumsfeld's ability to manage the war in Iraq. While other retired generals, including Gen. Tommy Franks, former commander of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, are supporting Rumsfeld, the importance of this latest outcry against Rumsfeld's failed leadership cannot be overstated. It is unprecedented, and is bound to have serious effects on Rumsfeld's ability to lead the military.

It is time the president heeded their collective wisdom.

The generals say they are speaking on behalf of the active-duty military people who dare not voice opposition to Rumsfeld out of fear they will lose their jobs. That claim is substantiated. One Washington pundit, based on interviews with military officers, estimates 75 percent of the military leadership want Rumsfeld out.

His policies have failed to bring about any of the president's objectives. A stable Iraq has not been achieved, military experts blame this on Rumsfeld's underestimating the insurgency and going into Iraq with too few troops despite their insistence they were undermanned.

This has allowed a small insurgency to breed and grow to unmanageable levels.

Rumsfeld's arrogance has alienated his troops. He is accused of ignoring seasoned military leaders' advice and warnings, resulting in a stifled atmosphere where there is no longer respect for Rumsfeld's views among the military. Rumsfeld, meanwhile shows respect only for those military leaders who agree with him or don't rock the boat with critical questions. Last week he shrugged off the seven retired military officers' views as so much sour grapes, contending they were not at key strategy meetings that involved much give-and-take.

We don't buy it. It is one thing to encourage questions; it is another to really want them. Rumsfeld has long been known to be condescending toward those who disagree with him, and in military settings such an approach will tend to lead to silence, or at least to grudging agreement where all options aren't fully explored.

Such an approach is dangerous. It can lead to the type of disastrous micro-management Lyndon Johnson used during the Vietnam conflict. It can also lead to similar results in Iraq.

Rumsfeld is not the man for the job, and it is past time the president end his stubborn support for failed leadership.

A View of Gramercy Park in April (2006)

Buy This Book!

Just finished my friend Alice Goldfarb Marquis's biography of Clement Greenberg, The Art Czar. Finished reading it, appropriately, in a guest room at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park South, a magnificent 19th-Century mansion formerly home to New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden. There were announcements of a testimonial dinner for Arthur Gelb, long-time New York Times "culture czar" in the lobby. So, when Marquis' described the incestuous and inbred New York art scene, so inbred that even I desperately tried to find a personal connection--someone I know had been a student of Rosalind Krauss, Greenberg's disciple turned nemesis, and I once delivered a term paper to her downtown loft; I met Hilton Kramer once or twice; gee, Greenberg knew Irving Kristol at Commentary; my cousin went to Syracuse University, etc.--to the incredibly juicy and melodramatic story of alcohol, sex, money, and "Painterly Abstraction" (not "Action Painting," please! That's Harold Rosenberg's heresy). Don't forget Greenberg's former life as a Trotskyist cum Cold Warrior.

At one level aesthetic, at another political, deeply personal, Marquis' book is also about the twin seductions in Greenberg's life--Avant-Garde (aka holiness) and Kitsch (aka sin). Greenberg may have been an art czar, but he was, as Marquis makes clear, also an art rabbi, making Talumudic pronouncements, koshering the work of artists in their studios, and ensuring a moral dimension. Did he strip paint off David Smith's sculptures? Yes, he did--to make them look better.

This high moral purpose, interestingly, sounds somewhat Victorian from the vantage point of 2006. Today, it seems that Kitsch has triumphed in the Art World. So, Marquis looks back nostalgically to the days of Clement Greenberg--a critic who may not have known much about art, but who certainly knew what he liked. Unlike today, the post-war period was a time when art mattered, and Alice Goldfarb Marquis has done a marvellous job of explaining how and why, through the life of Clement Greenberg.

Bush Loses Face

The heckling of Chinese president Hu Jintao appears to be turning into a mini-crisis. The heckler has been arrested. What's the big deal? From the Chinese side, it is understandable. Someone explained to me that the Chinese leader "lost face" from a cultural standpoint, when the heckler was elevated to the same level as the president, just by being able to heckle.

On the other hand, Americans might see the situation differently. Americans are used to heckling, it is no big deal, it is freedom of speech and democracy in action. People heckled Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, LBJ, Johnson, you name it. So what?

But President Bush's apology to the Chinese leader, especially public statements that Bush apologized, send a bad signal. Rather than celebrating democracy, Bush has apologized for an example of freedom of speech. A lone protester, like at Tienamien Square.

By apologizing when he did not need to, President Bush has lost face. Where Ronald Reagan would have made a joke, Bush has kow-towed.

A Mass Grave in New Jersey

At the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge in New Jersey, next to Fort Mott State Park, lies Finn's Point National Cemetery, which contains the mass grave for some 2,500 Confederate POWs who died while incarcerated at at Ft. Delaware prison on Peach Pit Island during the Civil War. The prison held some 12,000 rebels. It is a sobering site, marked by a large obelisk erected in 1910 over plaques listing two thousand four hundred thirty-six names. There is also a small memorial to Union soldiers who died while on duty as guards, and a special section in a corner for a small number of German POWs who died while in custody at Fort Dix during World War II.

Finn's Point National Cemetery can be reached via I-295, on New Jersey State Road 49 towards Pennsville, NJ, located just before the beginning of the New Jersey Turnpike. Ft. Mott State Park is part of the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail, a new National Park.

Some stanzas from Theodore O'Hara's poem, The Bivouac of the Dead, are posted on cast-iron tablets near the obelisk:

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;
Nor troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shriveled swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed
Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.

New Suicide Bombing in Israel

Haaretz has the story.

The Notice Board at the Evergreen, Alabama Public Library

  

How Stalin Created Israel

It wasn't Harry Truman alone who supported the creation of Israel.Johnson's Russia List's Research and Analytical Supplement runs Stephen D. Shenfield's interesting review of Leonid Mlechin's book, Zachem Stalin sozdal Izrail? [Why Did Stalin Create Israel?] (Moscow: Yauza / EKSMO, 2005):

Did Stalin create Israel? To the extent that any one individual can be held responsible for the creation of a state, it does seem, on the basis of the evidence presented by Mlechin, that Stalin has a better claim than any other individual to this particular honor. Why did he do it? Apparently it was a gamble in the context of the more assertive Soviet foreign policy that followed victory over Nazi Germany, made in the hope of establishing a lasting Soviet presence in the Middle East. It failed, but it can be seen as a precursor of similar and more successful efforts in the post-Stalin era, this time backing the other side in the Israel-Arab conflict. It does show that the standard view of Soviet penetration of the Third World as a post-Stalin development is not quite accurate.

The episode also helps us fill in a broad historical view of the nature of Zionism-Israel as an international phenomenon. What made possible the remarkable rise of the Zionist community from a small and vulnerable minority in Ottoman-ruled Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century to a nuclear-armed regional superpower in that century's last quarter? Many things, to be sure. The Holocaust had a decisive impact. But we should not underplay the significance of the Zionist movement's ideologically flexible and repeatedly successful search for great power patrons. As the relationship with one patron becomes less viable, a new patron is always found:

1. Britain with the Balfour Declaration of 1917, whose Mandate provided a roof for building an autonomous quasi-state (the Yishuv).

2. Stalin's Soviet Union played the crucial role in the creation and initial consolidation of an independent Zionist state.

3. France gave Israel nuclear weapons.

4. US support was crucial in creating a Greater Israel.

5. Next great power patron -- China, perhaps?