Paul Kedrosky has taken a look at the fact that guestbloggers are not able to stem the sharp declines in blog traffic during the month of August. His conclusion is that even before the temporary hosts took over a site, traffic declined. That appears to be a correct analysis, look for instance at Peaktalk's 2005 numbers when I continued to blog throughout most of August:

Together with January/December when I do actually take a real break, August is just a terribly slow month. And not just in the blogosphere, business in my experience too suffers from the summer heat. Enjoy it while it lasts. The heat I mean.

At the end of November the Dutch will go to the polls for a general election and this week a number of parties on the right launched their platforms. My initial take can be found in a column for PJM Politics Central, here.

It was only a matter of time before a noted writer would take on the Van Gogh murder for a book, and it is Ian Buruma’s Murder in Amsterdam that will hit stores early next month. LA Weekly's Brendan Bernhard has taken a look, and he is not overly enthusiastic:

Readers of Murder in Amsterdam are likely to close the book with a heavy heart. One reason is that the problem it addresses, the emergence of militant Islam as a divisive political/religious force in the West, is not going to go away soon. Another is that, though full of learning and skilled if tepid reporting, Buruma’s book often feels muddled, ungenerous and confusing. There is plenty of scholarship on display, but no compelling point of view.

There is, however, an off-putting strain of snobbery. Buruma, an Asia specialist and the author of Inventing Japan, Anglomania and, most recently, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies, grew up in Holland but left it as a young man in the 1970s. Now a New Yorker, he clearly feels he’s gone on to bigger and better things. He rarely misses a chance to take a swipe at some aspect of Dutch life, whether it’s the “dank and gray” area of the Hague he was raised in or the “arrogance” of the great national soccer teams of the 1970s and ’80s

Interesting. Not sure if I come across as an arrogant former Dutchman, but if I do, let me know. Then there's this:

Learned and informative as it is, there is something distinctly feeble about this book. It draws to a close with a description of Dutch soccer fans on a train, decked out clownishly in nationalist orange garb, jumping up and down “with a fervor that blurred the borderlines between ecstasy and fury.” Buruma buries his face in a newspaper and tries to pretend he’s not there. “Don’t you love Holland?” one boorish fan bellows at him. (An honest answer might have been “Actually, no, dude. I’m an International Man of History.”) But of this World Cup–style bellicosity, Buruma then goes on to say, “It was a return to an invented country, no more real than a modern Dutch Muslim’s fantasy of the pure world of the Prophet. Both fantasies contain the seeds of destruction.”

Odd. I haven’t read the book and so I am reluctant to comment at this stage, but as soon as I have I will do my review. In the meantime feel free to browse the Van Gogh archives, there's sufficient material there to compile another book about the murdered moviemaker.

Remember Rumsfeld’s Old Europe vs. New Europe? Well, today in Brussels the new and old parts of the continent met when Polish Prime-Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski came calling on EU President Manuel Barroso, apparently to mend some fences as the new Europeans are not exactly on the same page as the older Europeans:

Poland’s European credentials have been damaged by talk of restoring the death penalty, attacks on the independence of the central bank, arguments with its former foe Germany, and bans by some cities on gay pride parades.

EU officials are concerned over Warsaw’s perceived lack of engagement in European affairs, and protection of state industries such as banking and shipbuilding.

Mr Kaczynski’s pro-European overture will not go as far as supporting the revival of the moribund constitutional treaty. He said reviving it would be a blow to the sovereignty of France and the Netherlands, which rejected the document in referendums last year.

So Kaczynski is carving out a role for Poland that is not exactly aligned with conventional thinking in Brussels, providing a useful check on centralist tendencies in the capital of Europe.

Also, it would appear from the above that some of the former Soviet satellites are leapfrogging the various stages Western Europe went through after World War II to emerge as socially conservative, free trading nations that are not adverse to let the state meddle in the economy while playing to the differences between the US and Europe. Sounds familiar? It reminds me of another emerging nation.

NOTE: Of course, there is one other similarity: family ties. Poland is run by twin brothers, one is PM, the other president.

Without much effort I could give you a fairly long list of the great benefits of living in the small kingdom nestled between France and The Netherlands, having grown up about an hour driving from its northern border. Great food, low taxes and unrestricted pub hours come to mind, working from memory.

Those of you have followed the free speech constraints encountered by the well-read Brussels Journal may be familiar with what WSJ’s Bret Stephens calls Belgium’s lesser charms. In case you haven’t read his OpinionJournal piece, it’s a crash course about Belgium’s political and social challenges.

Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club has written an excellent essay for PJ Media on why reason needs to be subsidiary to faith when fighting a war. It echoes many of my favorite themes and directly addresses the issue as to why the West is so poorly positioned to face the jihadist threat.

At AEI. Here is one of her first essays, which outlines the crucial role women have to play in reforming Muslim communities. Key excerpt:

European policy-makers have not yet understood the huge potential of liberating Muslim women. They are squandering the single best opportunity they have to make Muslim integration a success within one generation. Morally, governments need to eradicate violence against women in Europe. This would make clear to fundamentalists that Europeans take their constitutions seriously. Now, most abusers simply think that Western rhetoric about the equality of men and women is cowardly and hypocritical, since Western governments tolerate the abuse of millions of Muslim women when they're told it's in the name of freedom of religion.

I think she hits an important point and, more importantly, a pragmatic solution that can help integrate Muslim communities into European societies. And yes, Hirsi Ali herself is a living example that liberated Muslim women can actually make a difference in moving the often difficult lives of unintegrated and isolated Muslims forward. The shame of course is that her own liberation was cut short and that the platform she had been given as a member of Dutch parliament was essentially taken away from her. She was driven out of Europe and that bitterness is echoed in the conclusion of her argument:

What a waste that Europe is blind to this golden opportunity that lies at its feet.

Thankfully, one noted American think tank kept its eyes open.

NOTE
More on Hirsi Ali here.

While everyone is pre-occupied today with the forced conversion of the two released Fox journalists, it may be worthwhile to point to the increasing rate of voluntary conversions. From Time Magazine there is this absolutely must-read piece about westerners converting to Islam. It’s a topic I have touched on before and the phenomenon may not be as mind-boggling as it initially sounds. Affluent western societies have created a class of people looking for answers that somehow can not be found in freedom and individuality and, as it happens, there is a creed that does provide some of these answers:

But one common refrain is that in an increasingly secular world in which society's rules get looser by the day, Islam provides a detailed moral map covering everything from friendships to protecting the environment. And for Western youths, taking up Islam can also serve as an outlet for rebellion. A majority of converts, especially in Western Europe, are in their late teens or 20s. "Islam is a kind of refuge for those who are downtrodden and disenfranchised because it has become the religion of the oppressed," says Farhad Khosrokhavar, a Paris professor and the author of several books on Muslim extremism. "Previously--say, 20 years ago--they may have chosen communism or gone to leftist ideologies. Now Islam is the religion of those who fight against imperialism, who are treated unjustly by the arrogant Western societies and so on."

While I am open to jokes about this, the “moral map” argument is one that can not be dismissed that easily, especially in Europe which is far more secular and disoriented than the US and Canada. The outcome of a conflict between two competing ideological strains is often determined by the strength and coherence of each and I suspect that a religion that has submerged the individual in favor of a powerful group dogma will stand a good chance of having the upper hand when confronted with loosely organized self-serving individuals.

Sorry to resume blogging on such a pessimistic note. Communism could be defeated by demonstrating the benefits of wealth and freedom, but the grassroots of our new enemy isn’t particularly interested in either.

Tonight the Emmy’s are handed out, you can review the list of nominees here. Normally this is not exactly a Peaktalk item, but neighbor and friend Clara George is up for one in the category "Outstanding Made For Television Movie", as producer of Flight 93, the made for TV movie about United 93 that preceded, well, United 93. We're keeping our fingers crossed for her.

UPDATE: Alas, the award went to "The Girl In The Café"

Yes, I had prepared a “light blogging ahead” warning, but forgot to actually post it before I took off for the countryside, my apologies. An impression of my week away below.

It appears that I wasn’t the only blogger holidaying out in a Canadian red state: Roger Simon spent some time in Alberta, the Dorsman family traveled north to visit the Blackwater Spruce Ranch in central British Columbia like they did last year. And our hosts Dale and Yvonne Dunn did everything to let us enjoy horseback riding, wilderness, ranch life and their excellent cuisine which given their line of work meant lots of beef, the type which you won’t find at your average butcher. Again, if this is your kind of holiday then this is your address, probably one of the best of its kind in North America.

Given the ranch’s remote location I was put on a harsh diet of no news, no internet and lots of sleep, all of which should help contribute to a refreshing start now that the summer is drawing to an end and life will start to get back to normal. Of course, some impressions:

The stables as seen through the eyes of my four-year old daughter Maeve after getting hold of the camera. As you will see, wildlife is part of the scene here and I can attest to having encountered one moose and calf, a black bear and numerous deer. For a big city person like myself, still major news.

In the truck - me with sunglasses – on our way to Titetown lake.

Titetown Lake, civilization miles and miles away.

Irene and Pieter and their horses during a five hour trailride doing parts of the Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail.

Colts. Beautiful colts.

Via Michael Totten comes this nugget:

On the heels of what it views as a Hizbullah victory against the Jewish state, Syria is forming its own Hizbullah-like guerilla organization to fight Israel in hopes of "liberating" the Golan Heights, an official from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Ba'ath party told WorldNetDaily yesterday.

Well, let's see. As Leon de Winter comments these ventures do not exactly have a great track record:

Syria's latest addition to the world of terror is the Front for the Liberation of the Golan: "We know from history guerilla resistance works against Israel," commented a Baath party official. He couldn't be more wrong. Just look at how much the Palestinians have lost since they chose the path of armed resistance to Jewish settlement more than a hundred years ago: and each time the violence flares up they lose a little more.

To which I would add, be careful with experiments like these Bashar. They have a habit to turn against and replace their creator.

I have been remiss in giving you my take on the UN mandated ceasefire and it may be late now that everyone else has circulated his or her usually dire predictions. Yes, the pessimists are correct that this is nothing more than an intermission bound to get a bloody sequel, but that doesn’t mean it is necessarily bad that hostilities have been suspended for now. There are two key reasons for that.

First, the Israelis desperately needed a break as it had become next to impossible for Ehud Olmert to align his cabinet and his troops to carry out a cohesive and decisive battlefield plan. The break now offered by the ceasefire will allow the Israelis to look inward for whatever time they’re allowed to, and maybe test the correctness of letting an untested leader with a one-issue political mandate decide its fate. Yes, I did applaud Kadima at one point, and like many others neglected to acknowledge that its platform and success was almost entirely based on the reputation and credibility of just one man, Ariel Sharon. In the hands of his successor it proved to be a dangerous gamble that many Israelis surely would not want to replicate at this juncture.

The second reason really is focused on Lebanon and the international community and can be construed as a sort of last chance for both. Deliver us Hezbollah, deploy a strong multinational force bearing in mind that the both the Lebanese and others failed in the implementation of UN resolution 1559. It’s a gauntlet and if no one picks it up the Israelis will be fully justified to move into its northern neighbor with a decisive and lethal new plan, if the prerequisite political parameters are in place for that.

Based on these two points I can’t really deplore the ceasefire, the way some others do. Nor can I comprehend the theory that this resolution is the equivalent of Munich 1938, which is a ludicrous comparison that doesn’t even merit serious consideration. Yet, I do agree with the pessimists that this round of fighting has put Israel - and by extension its immediate allies - in a difficult spot. Both need to recalibrate and get ready for the next round, taking account of the reinvigorated engine in Tehran which is now driving the process. None of that will be easy, but both will be very necessary.

Yes, there is little Dutch news to report on this summer, but expect that to change when the election campaign will switch into gear early September. In the meantime, check out the impressions and photos from this Portland blogger who is visiting Amsterdam. Keep scrolling.

Well, I am not the only one who has figured out that business air travel is slated for some major disruption in the form of open source air travel or by simply staying at home and conduct meetings from a safe and convenient distance. Paul Kedrosky and Seth Godin argue that air travel has indeed reached a tipping point.

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Like many others I am relieved to see an arrest in the JonBenet Ramsey case and like many others I too believed that it was the parents who either murdered her or clumsily covered up a domestic accident. Not true as it appears now.

Still, there continues to be a stain of guilt that will be attached to the Ramseys forever, no matter how compelling the evidence that has now been uncovered. Parents who showcase their six-year old daughter in beauty pageants and who feel it completely appropriate to dress her up like a tart set themselves up for some fierce moral condemnation and quite possibly deliver an open invitation to commit the sort of horrendous crime that ended JonBenet’s short life. It’s odd that out of all the press and media reactions today, very few focused on this crucial and rather disgusting aspect of the entire affair. And no, there can be no exonerating explanation by the family as to JonBenet’s consent of being part of beauty pageants for kids. Six year olds generally do not have the mental bandwidth to understand that these events border on a form of child exploitation that have somehow achieved a bizarre measure of acceptability in American culture.

UPDATE: The details remain fishy, so it doesn't look like this case is closed at all. Think about it, even if DNA evidence is conclusive, how would that exonerate the Ramseys involvement given that the murder took place in the basement of their own house? More doubts here.

Interesting Q&A with al-Qaeda expert Peter Bergen on CNN, with a focus on Osama bin Laden and his likely whereabouts. Bergen explains where that could be and why - given that knowledge - he is still able to elude those that want to capture him.

The new Pajamas Media site went up earlier today and it is looking much better and stronger in terms of lay-out, content, links and contributions. Note that Victor Davis Hanson is part of the new team.

David Frum is not very happy either and labels the increased security measures around airports as perverse, as indeed they are. Of course, he has considered a solution:

Another approach: Perhaps if you fly often from New York to London, you might be willing to volunteer a whole mass of information to British Airways in return for a "trusted traveller" card that will allow you to walk on the plane with minimal fuss. Your name might be Omar Abdullah, but if they know that you are 57 years old, director of the Middle East collection at the Metropolitan Museum, own an apartment in Manhattan and a brokerage account at Merrill Lynch, carry a Visa card with a $50,000 limit, fly to London six times a year with tickets paid for by the museum, and so on and so on ... well, they can pretty confidently let you on the plane with minimal formalities.

Nice idea, but it only addresses a part of the problem and I can already picture the abuse and the rapid proliferation of forged “trusted traveler” cards. In the meantime, innovation in the airline industry proceeds swiftly, here is an example of one that has venture finance backing and this one in particular appears to be addressing the affordability aspect:

The Eclipse 500™ is the revolutionary twin-engine jet that's making private jet ownership a reality for more people than ever before. Through innovative technology, modern manufacturing techniques, and pricing models aligned with the high-tech industry, the Eclipse 500 is the lowest price very light jet (VLJ) available, yet features more performance, lower operating costs and the most advanced avionics and electrical system in its class. If owning a jet has been your dream, wake up and smell the jet fuel.

For a mere $1.5 million it's yours, no kidding.

Well, the increased security measures are starting to border on the ridiculous, the notion of having to check in your laptop and even the thought of going transcontinental without a book is just absurd. As I mentioned yesterday we adapt and improve, and we will, but it may well be that in the age of open source there is now a good chance of a fundamental restructure of business travel where the use of small jets or shared leases by a group of companies has good potential to replace the ubiquitous struggle to get on a big ticket commercial airliner.

Business travel has always been somewhat over the top in my opinion, I recall a Hong Kong to Washington, DC, flight where I had to attend a morning meeting that could well have been conducted by way of a conference call. The trip had entertainment value as I got to spent an extra day taking in the DC sights, but the cost-benefit ratio was totally off the charts. And that was in 1999, now with even better, faster and cheaper communication tools at hand there is a compelling argument to improve the bottom line by reducing corporate trips. And post-jihad travel will probably add another signifcant cost by adding longer waiting times at check-in and reducing efficiency if you can no longer use your laptop in the cabin. Not to mention that other cost-benefit analysis where the upside of closing a new deal will have to be weighed against the probability of being blown to smithereens by the jihadist sitting next to you in 5C.

In all seriousness, in an age where we move to smaller, independent and often non-corporate solutions – there’s a guy who wrote a book about that - we may well enter an age where small private jets will no longer be the provenance of the rich and famous. Creative financiers and risk takers will no doubt find a model whereby business travel can increasingly be channeled through small operators that operate light jets and who can offer their clients tailored flight plans. Too bad that Airbus failed to figure that out:

NOTE: Innovation is not something we're going to get out of large airline companies. But rather than confiscating books, cellphones and bottled water they may want to give it a try and consider alternative approaches:

Rafi Ron, former head of security at Tel Aviv, Israel's Ben Gurion Airport, said screeners should focus more on finding suspicious people than on hunting for potential terrorist tools.

"It is extremely difficult for people to disguise the fact they are under tremendous amount of stress, that they are going to kill themselves and a lot of people around them in a short amount of time, and all the other factors that effect their behavior," Ron said.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

The pressure is now on Olmert to deliver and he has just given the go ahead for an expanded ground offensive. Timely as always, Michael Totten is on the scene at the Israel-Lebanon border, so do listen to an exclusive interview with him at Politics Central.

UPDATE: With the passing of the UN resolution it now seems that Olmert's belated grand offensive has only a few days left to run, on Saturday the Lebanese government will vote on it and on Sunday it's the Israeli cabinet that will cast a ballot. No word on Hezbollah, but one can assume that Nabih Berri will have a busy weekend acting as interlocutor between Nasrallah and Siniora. Ed Morrissey has a good analysis of the situation and proclaims the UN Resolution to be a 'mixed bag' with good and bad elements. He's right, but by moving more troops into Lebanon and creating a stage for major operations, Ehud Olmert has ensured that he will be able to effectively manage a number of different post-resolution scenarios. Stay tuned, this weekend is going to be very interesting.

This is ominous:

As the pendulum swung Friday towards the prospect of a diplomatic end to the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict, rather than the military push that earlier appeared likely, commentators in Israel were scrutinizing the implications that the crisis, and any international deal to end it, may have for the future.

Some are already whetting their knives for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. An opinion in the Israeli daily Haaretz on Friday, which likened acceptance of the latest UN ceasefire proposal to 'unconditional ceasefire to Hezbollah,' said Olmert 'cannot remain in the prime minister's office.'

'You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power,' the paper thundered.

Although Haaretz's tone may represent the more hawkish view, questions are being widely asked regarding the government's handling of the crisis.

A poll in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper Friday showed 37 per cent of the 500 people questioned believed Israel would cripple Hezbollah, compared with 40 per cent in a previous survey.

Public support remains high at 66 per cent among those polled for the government's management of the crisis - apart from heavy criticism of how the 'home front' issue has been handled - but the growing media calls for the prime minister's head may represent the first signs of a turn in opinion that may will make the premier a casualty of the war.

We may start thinking in terms of new elections following the implementation of a UN resolution.

An excerpt from yesterday's editorial in the Dutch NRC Handelsblad:

There are limits to the extent an open and democratic society can implement anti-terror measures. The Brits themselves have delivered proof of that with draft legislation that was either rejected or amended. But the call for a tougher approach and more legal powers will increase rather than decrease in the face of sustained terrorist activity. New legislation is in such cases superfluous. If it is the United Kingdom or The Netherlands, precise and successful intelligence activities do not need another layer of legislation that will ultimately obstruct the freedom of innocent citizens.

Or: to what extent are we prepared to protect the lives of those innocents when they step on a plane? Throughout the post 9/11 period I have always approved the ways in which certain security measures were expanded, but there are limits and I believe the NRC Handelsblad is onto something. Watching the extreme security measures on the various international airports today brought home the realization that our open societies are facing a level of turbulence that will now start to affect our day to day lives. And our economies too, oil prices were down yesterday in anticipation of reduced fuel consumption by airline carriers. Social and economic patterns will change considerably in years to come; there can be no doubt about it.

Sure, having to hand over your mineral water before boarding a plane is not a major disruption and our societies are so flexible and open in nature that they can easily absorb terror induced shocks and adapt. Yet the danger exists that indiscriminate security blankets will peel away a layer of freedom and flexibility that will not only take the fun out of activities such as travel, but that turn free citizens into less resilient and ultimately subservient subjects. You won’t hear me recycling the pathetic cliché that in that scenario the “terrorists have won”. Their victory will be marked by turning our magnificent cities into wastelands or by taking us on a religious express carrier back to the Middle Ages. We’re a long way from that and in the meantime we should just not tinker with the core engine of our success: freedom.

Richard Landes was one of the first to meticulously analyze media bias and manipulation and he has just written a comprehensive and must read essay-post on this week’s Reutersgate. It needs to be read in its entirety to be really appreciated, but as a teaser here is one of the better excerpts which essentially explains why Pallywood is, well, Pallywood:

The media and the liberal establishment more broadly, have taken even-handedness to an extreme. If you criticize one side, you criticize the other; if you talk about Muslim religious extremism, you talk about Jewish religious extremism. This attitude is widespread among liberal Zionists, whose almost totemic phrase is, “we too…” Again, such an approach is generous and can lead to reconciliation. But if it doesn’t work that way, it’s important to call a moratorium on such moral pretenses: Jewish religious extremism is not in the same league, nay the same universe as that of Islamic Jihad.

Even-handedness plays a big role in the shutting down of information favorable to the Israelis. One of the more common refrains I heard for MSM folks when I offered them Pallywood and al Durah: “We couldn’t do it just on that.” “Why not?” “We’d have to do something on ways the Israelis manipulate the news.” People often urge me to put up something about Israelis doing some Pallywood-like stunts as a way to show “objectivity and balance” at Second Draft. My answer: When I have a real example.

And while we are at it, more real-life examples come pouring in, here is the most recent one.

Those that are familiar with my thinking on jihadist terror will not be taken aback by my initial reaction this morning which essentially was, are we in any way surprised? Digesting the details – there is lots of information here – we are circling back to the core patterns of open-source jihadist terror:

1. Initiated primarily by terror cells in Europe with links to the Middle East;
2. Religious in nature;
3. Use of new technologies, or a high degree of innovation.

What does amaze me is the technical sophistication through which the terrorists have managed to put airliners back on the agenda. Increased security and the establishment of a United 93 standard had led many to believe that the next move would most likely not be on passenger airlines. Well, that conclusion was apparently premature and we can only commend the diligence and efficiency of British security forces for neutralizing this very close call with another massacre of innocent lives.

UPDATE: Take note of this analysis:

Israeli al-Qaida expert Reuven Paz also suspects the would-be killers arrested in Britain belong to a "new generation of jihad-seekers," which has taken shape in recent years, especially since the murder of the Islam-critical Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam. These new terrorists are typically "Islamic fundamentalists with a poor Islamic education, but a great deal of motivation for jihad in the sense of terrorism. They're not waiting for al-Qaida to recruit them. They initiate their own operations, in accordance with al-Qaida's strategy," Paz told SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of these potential killers reside in Europe, he assumes.

Yes, there is a competition where you can vote for World Mayor 2006. Scanning the list I could not discover any of my personal favorites - Sam Sullivan didn't make the cut, strange - but you can throw a vote in for Ray Nagin who somehow made it to the final round. If you do that, bear in mind that the competition is looking for the following:

The World Mayor project is now in its third year. As in 2004 and 2005, this year’s World Mayor will again be seeking out mayors who have the vision, passion and skills to make their cities amazing places to live in, work in and visit. The World Mayor project aims to show what outstanding mayors can achieve and raise their profiles.

Nagin did indeed succeed in raising his own and New Orleans' profile, but I am not totally convinced that he should be awarded the title 'World Mayor' for that particular accomplishment. Otherwise, have fun and vote for your favorite mayor.

Ever since the Van Gogh murder I have been hammering on the fact that the conflict with radical Islam is one of religion, where religion is the cohesive and ideological gel that fuels and sustains jihad. Any attempt to give the conflict a political or economic flavor is - while understandable in our very secular and wealth driven world – a totally inadequate explanation. Even the territorial arguments over Palestine are almost irrelevant to the core objectives as defined by the radical strains that have now hijacked Islam.

And so it has been with Hezbollah which prompted Andrew Sullivan yesterday to remark quite convincingly:

This is what happens when religion takes over politics. Rational negotiation becomes impossible; victory becomes a theological mandate; no end becomes feasible except conflict; and in this case, some of the actors actually want that conflict to be apocalyptic. We have to understand the fundamentalist mindset we are grappling with. It is not rational in worldly terms. It is other-worldly - and rational only under those theological constructs. For those reasons, it is the biggest threat to Western freedom since the totalitarianisms of the last century; and easily the most mortal threat to Israel since its founding. It cannot be disarmed or reasoned with; it can only be defeated.

It is therefore that a ceasefire is nothing more than a weak and temporary fix that will neither give Israel the security it needs, nor give Lebanon the peace that it craves. It is another variety of the soft doctors make stinky wounds routine which may reduce the immediate number of casualties, but potentially sets the stage for far larger numbers down the road. The religious-fundamentalist take also makes it abundantly clear why claims that Hezbollah is a participant in Lebanon’s democratic process and a representative of a large part of the Lebanese population are rather problematic. The veil of respectability that Sheik Nasrallah has claimed over the past decade combined with the status accorded to him by his fearful Lebanese counterparts and overseas governments can not exonerate Hezbollah from its true and utterly destructive nature. The subsidiarity of any worldly principles combined with an arms cache that puts the average European nation to shame is aimed at not only the destruction of Israel, it is potent enough to subvert the rather laughable but still viable attempt at fostering democracy in Lebanon.

The other suggestion bandied around was that if we do not negotiate with Hezbollah (and this equally applies to Hamas) and find common ground now, then real chaos and potentially further radicalization will be our and Israel’s due. To that I ask: how much further can things radicalize from here? Is there really any ideology that can trump the religious fanaticism that we are witnessing today?

Most likely it is not the already present ideology, but technology that is the missing part that will complete the journey from Arab nationalism to Baathism to al-Fatah style terror to al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. If the world fails to confront the stateless religious fanaticism that is now enveloping the Middle East (and Europe) we may find ourselves in a far needier spot down the road. And no, I am not advocating an attack on Syria or Iran, but the least we can do now is to ensure the total failure of the grand designs of Hezbollah. Given the group’s ideological potency and unwarranted respectability that will be a hard enough assignment for the free world.

Not really, according to Caroline Glick who is a far better judge than I am when it comes to Israeli domestic policies.

Remember the objections against a monument to remember Theo Van Gogh and how officials changed course after the ensuing debate? Well, the sculpture is ready, almost:

A sculpture in memory of murdered film director Theo van Gogh will be unveiled in Amsterdam's Ooster Park on 7 September. Mayor Job Cohen and district council chairperson Martin Verbeet will attend the ceremony, Oost/Watergraafsmeer district council said on Tuesday. It is not yet known who will unveil the artwork, entitled De Schreeuw (the shout or scream). It was made by Jeroen Henneman and was chosen from a total of 148 submissions.

Let's see if the 'unrest' that the opponents of this project foresaw will materialize.

More here.

Or rather the shifting plates of the political power game and how Israel becomes a vehicle for change. Note what happened last week and which is highly significant:

Liberal power couple Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz have publicly broken with the Liberal Party line on the Middle East crisis and are turning to Prime Minister Stephen Harper because of his support of Israel.

Mr. Schwartz, a confidante of former prime minister Paul Martin and one of Canada's most influential businessmen as the head of Onex Corp., is one of the eight signatories of an advertisement placed in a newspaper in Cornwall, Ont., where the Conservatives are holding caucus meetings.

The ad welcomes the caucus to Cornwall and expresses appreciation to Mr. Harper, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and Conservative MPs for "standing by" Israel. It also lauds other G8 leaders and Australian Prime Minister John Howard for their stands on the war.

And Ms. Reisman is not without influence either as she has a virtual monopoly on book sales in Canada through the Chapters, Indigo and Coles bookstores which she controls. The first thing you have to do when you walk into one of them is to avoid the table with 'Heather’s Picks' which given her political interests I have always looked on with a fair degree of caution. Not sure if we can find Alan Dershowitz on that table now that Reisman has moved along the political spectrum, but you never know.

In any case, it was both encouraging and refreshing to hear that Harper was standing by Israel while his Foreign Affairs minister, Peter McKay, went as far a describing Hezbollah as ‘a cancer’. Even more interesting was the deep confusion that had somehow grasped Canada’s Liberal Party where the current interim-leader preached desperately for Canada to remain neutral, while the various leadership contenders wandered off in all sorts of directions in order to balance a clear moral stand with getting sufficient interest on the left-of-center flank. Notably the purported frontrunner, Michael Ignatieff who was twisting in all directions without staking out a very credible position, something he was so capable of before he moved back to Canada:

Saying nothing is no answer, either. On holiday in Europe, Ignatieff, who is supported by many of the party's pro-Israel activists, remained silent for two weeks before finally taking a stand criticized as too late, too problematic and too impersonal.

This Middle East mess is, of course, the last thing the presumed Liberal front-runner needs. It sucks attention back to his controversial support for the Iraq war, his tortured arguments on torture and his ivory tower background.

Harper will mark six months in office this month and his poll ratings were solidly in positive territory as he moved fast and decisively on a mildly conservative domestic agenda. It is ironically a foreign affairs issue that has now put a few dents into that positive track record as not all Canadians yet fully grasp the essence of what is going on between Israel and Hezbollah. That is most notably the case in notably in the province of Quebec where Harper in the end needs to make inroads to win an outright majority.

Given these dynamics, the opposition is struggling hard to find the right note as they know full well that taking a firm position on Israel and the Middle East is not without risk. But with influential and moneyed forces shifting their interests – and I somehow suspect it is not all about Israel for Schwartz and Reisman - it looks as if a less ambiguous position about the Middle East is now enabled to get more traction in Canada.

UPDATE: More here:

Senator Jerry Grafstein said he has a big problem with Liberals who suggest that Canada has a history of neutrality when it comes to dealing with aggressors such as Hezbollah, and he will encourage those vying to lead his party to clarify their positions and make the war a bigger issue.

“I have a lot of problems with Bill Graham's position and some of the leadership candidates,” he said during an interview about the interim Liberal leader. “We've never been neutralist.”

More or less related
The Dutch and Israel

Good news for the Huffington Post:

A group led by venture capital firm Softbank is investing $5 million in the Huffington Post, an online news site and political blog owned by the pundit Arianna Huffington, The Post has learned.

The investment comes a little over a year after the launch of the Huffington Post - which then was billed as a celebrity-filled blog but has since evolved in to its own news brand.

And very good news for all other group/news blogging efforts, especially for Pajamas Media/Politics Central which not only serves as an ideological counterweight to the HuffPo but also is establishing itself as a solid provider of news coverage and blog commentary. It should only be a matter of time before the PJ team can access the venture pool again for a decent chunk of change to enable further growth. Of course, I would like to know how Huffington will actually spend this new round investment (more live reporting, more hiring of established commentators?) and what sort of valuation Softbank has given her venture.

It took a day or so, but the story of altered war photos published by Reuters – sourced from freelancer Adnan Hajj whose work is now purged by the news organization – is now getting traction in the mainstream media. I have very little to add to this other than expressing some relief that longtime suspicions about Reuters’ biased reporting can now can be substantiated with some tangible evidence. And although Reuters will try and shift the blame to the various sources it uses in aggregating the news, it has to be very clear that any major news organization like Reuterscan expect to be held to a very high standard of integrity. Even simple negligence can be taken to imply gross negligence or willful manipulation of the facts and Reuters will have to work very hard at recovering from the extensive damage that this affair has inflicted upon its credibility.

The Pajamas team has a comprehensive round-up of the whole affair here and it includes an 18 minute video from my friend Richard Landes about how reports from especially the Middle East are often engineered in order to get a certain point of view across. Remember that the negative attitudes towards Israel and the endless replay of the ‘disproportionate use of force’ argument are fed and being kept alive and kicking by this kind of newsroom manipulation.

UPDATE: Some useful insights from Dan Drezner.

John Hawkins at RWN has organized another edition of Right-Of-Center Bloggers Select Their Favorite People On The Right. Of course, it is hard to attach any far reaching significance to this informal poll, but if you compare the outcome to last year’s results it is pretty evident that George Bush’s star is beginning to wane and that Rudy Giuliani and Condi Rice are on the move. It is no doubt foreshadowing the nomination process for 2008, but it is probably also a yearning for hands-on managerial skill in the White House. Also on moving up on the list, no doubt helped by his recent trenchant commentary on the Israel-Hezbollah war is Charles Krauthammer. Here is my submission to the poll, in random order:

Rudy Giuliani
Victor Davis Hanson
Andrew Sullivan
Michelle Malkin
Charles Krauthammer
John McCain
Peggy Noonan
Condi Rice
David Frum
Glenn Reynolds
Mark Steyn

And to those who argue that Malkin and Sullivan can not possibly be on the same list I say, yes they can. They have more in common than they would both care to admit.

Greg Djerejian (whose blog is a must read in order to get a feeling for a less conventional right-of-centre blog view of the Israel-Hizbollah war) has kindly made an NYT column by Ethan Bronner available that accurately discusses the differences between Sharon and Olmert. As I hinted at last week in Ehud’s War, the current prime minister needs to exert his iron fist in order to withstand any unfavorable comparisons to his immediate predecessor and extend his still relatively young political life. However, I don’t think Olmert overreacted or that Sharon would currently disapprove of his actions, the old master himself however would have handled things differently had he still been around.

Will continue for a while now that Blair is signaling he will stay on for much longer than was expected earlier. As argued here before, a protracted leadership struggle will ultimately be to the detriment of the Labour Party and its chances to win an election under Gordon Brown’s leadership. And this is not helping either:

Tony Blair's domestic problems over his foreign policy will intensify this month when a new political party launched by the families of British soldiers killed in Iraq lays out its plans to contest every by-election and field up to 70 candidates at the next general election.

Reg Keys, who stood against Mr Blair in last year, unveils details of the launch of his party, Spectre, in the Guardian today. His son, Thomas, was killed with five other Royal Military policemen in Iraq in 2003. "We all feel we've been lied to, ignored and, frankly, insulted. But now it's different. Now we're going to make ministers pay with their seats," Mr Keys said. He said the bereaved relatives behind the new party would meet to establish its strategy over the next two weeks.

It is unlikely that Spectre – remember the other group that used the name – will gain meaningful traction as an independent political force, but it will have the ability to cause further ruptures in the Labour Party. If Blair intends to break Margaret Thatcher’s record tenure in office, he will also have to start taking serious note of the merciless regicide that ended her career.

Some useful comments from the Somali-Dutch dissident, and fresh AEI employee here.