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Contents: Weekly Quotes | Short Takes | On Topic Links
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MEDIA-OCRITY OF THE WEEK: RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, SEPT. 11, 2013, ARGUING AGAINST ANY POSSIBLE USE OF U.S. FORCE IN SYRIA, WROTE “We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.” (New York Times, Sept. 11, 2013)
Russia Enabled by West’s Foreign Policies of Vacillation, Uncertainty: Andrew Coyne, National Post, Mar. 4, 2014
Obama Calls Retreat: William Kristol, Weekly Standard, March 2014
With Civil War Looming, Ukrainians Agree on One Thing: No One Knows What’s Next: Batya Ungar-Sargon, Tablet, Mar. 5, 2014
Barack Obama’s Jimmy Carter Moment: George Will, National Post, Mar. 4, 2014
WEEKLY QUOTES
“We stand on the side of the Ukrainian people.” —Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, who met on the ground with Kiev’s new leadership the same day the country’s new interior minister accused Russia of “armed invasion” in its southern Crimea region. “We stand for peace, prosperity, security and freedom. We expect the Russian Federation to honor the commitments it made in the Budapest Declaration [committing to Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty], and we certainly don’t apologize for standing with the Ukrainian people in their struggle for freedom.” (Globe & Mail, Feb. 28, 2014)
“I would like to indicate Crimea is territory of Ukraine despite the presence of Russian military…any attempt by the Russian military to grab Crimea will have no success at all. Give us some time.” —Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the new Ukrainian prime minister, saying his country would never accept Russia’s seizure of Crimea, although he conceded that his government had no military means of resisting. (Telegraph, Mar. 3, 2014)
“You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text.” —U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” condemning Russia’s “incredible act of aggression” in Ukraine. (Reuters, Mar. 2, 2014).
“These brave Ukrainians took to the streets in order to stand peacefully against tyranny and to demand democracy. So instead, they were met with snipers, who picked them off one after the other as people of courage, notwithstanding the bullets, went out to get them, dragged them to safety, give them comfort, expose themselves.” —Kerry, at a news conference reported by The New York Times. He added “they raised their voices for dignity and for freedom, but what they stood for so bravely I say with full conviction will never be stolen by bullets or by invasions…it cannot be silenced by thugs from rooftops. It is universal. It’s unmistakable. It is called freedom. It is clear that Russia has been working hard to create a pretext for being able to invade further,” Kerry said. “It is not appropriate to invade a country, and at the end of a barrel of a gun dictate what you are trying to achieve. That is not 21st-century, G8, major nation behavior.” (National Post, Mar. 4, 2014)
[The situation in Ukraine is] “the ultimate result of a feckless foreign policy in which nobody believes in America’s strength any more.”—Republican Senator John McCain, speaking to a pro-Israel lobby group on Monday. McCain added that “the President of the United States believes the Cold War is over. That’s fine, it’s over. But Putin doesn’t believe it’s over.” (Globe & Mail, Mar. 3, 2014)
“Every time the President goes on national television and threatens Putin or anyone like Putin, everybody’s eyes roll, including mine,” —Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, on CNN’s State of the Union show Sunday. Graham added: “We have a weak and indecisive president that invites aggression.” (Globe & Mail, Mar. 2, 2014)
“There comes a point where you can’t manage this any more, and then you start having to make very difficult choices.” —U.S. President Barack Obama, in an interview with Bloomberg, warning of the consequences of what he called Israel’s “continued aggressive settlement construction.” Obama continued, “do you [Israel] resign yourself to what amounts to a permanent occupation of the West Bank? … Do you place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions?” If Palestinians believe a Palestinian state is no longer within reach, warned the President, then international reaction in the form of boycotts, divestment and sanctions could well grow. In such an event, “our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited,” he said.
“Israel has been doing its part…I regret to say the Palestinians haven’t.” —Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, retorting Obama’s remarks on arriving at the White House prior to two days of meetings in Washington with U.S. and Jewish leaders. (Globe & Mail, Mar. 3, 2014)
“Fair and equal acknowledgement of all refugee populations arising from the Arab-Israeli conflict requires the recognition of Jewish refugees.” —Statement by a spokesman for John Baird, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister. It’s not yet clear what recognition of Jewish refugees will mean in practical terms but at the very least it will be written into Canada’s official policy on the refugee issue and the impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The move makes Canada only the second country outside Israel to recognize the plight of Jews in Arab countries like Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, who were often expelled and their property confiscated without compensation. The U.S. Congress passed a similar resolution in 2008 but it appears to have had limited influence on U.S. foreign policy. (National Post, Mar. 4, 2014)
“All the men from this area are getting guns and asking to fight in Syria, whether they are already members of Hezbollah or not.” —A supporter of Hezbollah, who asked not to be named, sitting in a cafe in Hermel, a town of mainly Shia inhabitants in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley, that has long been a bastion for the secretive Islamist paramilitary group. He added that “we are in a critical situation and we have to fight for the sake of the Shia.” Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Islamist Shia group, is experiencing a surge in recruitment as sectarian conflict spreads from the Syrian civil war, members of the group say. A spate of car bomb attacks against Shia towns and villages in Lebanon has caused an increase in the number of young men volunteering to fight for the group in Syria as the minority sect increasingly sees its own survival as tied to that of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“You step out of your home and you don’t know if you are going to live or die. A bomb might kill you when you are on your way to the shop for groceries. Nowhere is safe.”—Ibrahim, a 67 year old retired engineer. Pitting an almost exclusively Sunni opposition against a Shia regime, the war in Syria is fuelling a dangerous sectarian rancour across the whole region. It is reopening the wounds of a schism dating back 1,400 years between the two Islamic doctrines. For puritanical extremists of both faiths, this is now reason enough to massacre the other with impunity. The attacks are prompting both sides to withdraw into their communities, and rally behind their fighters. (Regina Leader Post, Mar. 3, 2014)
“And this wonderful Cuban paradise government? This is what they support. The dictator Raul Castro just announced he’ll help with whatever the Venezuelan government needs… And if America and its policy-makers aren’t going to be firmly on the side of freedom and liberty, who in the world is? Who on this planet will? If this nation is not firmly on the side of human rights and freedom and the dignity of all people, what nation on the Earth will?” —Senator Marco Rubio, addressing remarks made by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), following Harkin’s recent trip to Cuba. (New York Post, Feb. 28, 2014)
“Unfortunately, antisemitism still exists…It has been alive for more than 2,000 years, and will likely continue living. I thought that the memory of the Holocaust would shame those boasting antisemitic opinions. I was wrong. It still exists in different countries, and it seems people are no longer ashamed to be antisemitic.” —Prof. Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner (1956), political activist, and author of many books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps during the Second World War. “There are anti-Semites who are only anti-Israel,” Wiesel explains. “Once I thought that antisemitism had ended; today it is clear to be that it will probably never end. It might weaken sometimes, but it will continue existing, because in different countries there is no shame in being an anti-Semite. We must remember that antisemitism led to Auschwitz. Without antisemitism there would have been no Auschwitz.” Known as one of the State of Israel’s greatest advocates, Wiesel argues that the fundamental problem is the attitude towards Israel and not antisemitism: “It’s clear to me that one can’t be Jewish without Israel. Religious or non-religious, Zionist or non-Zionist, Ashkenazi or Sephardic – all these will not exist without Israel. The State’s existence is the oxygen of the image and ideas of the new anti-Semitism.” (Ynet News, Jan. 28, 2014)
SHORT TAKES
NATO SUSPENDS MEETINGS WITH RUSSIA (Brussels) —The NATO alliance is suspending all meetings with Russia and reviewing its military ties with Moscow as a result of Vladimir Putin’s refusal to withdraw from Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. “These steps send a clear message: Russia’s actions have consequences,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, told reporters in Brussels Wednesday after a council meeting with Russia. NATO will also increase military assistance to Ukraine, Mr. Rasmussen said, adding that he would meet Thursday with Ukraine’s President. (Globe & Mail, Mar. 5, 2014)
CAMPAIGN TO OUST RUSSIA, OTHERS, FROM UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL (Geneva) —On the same day that Russia issued an ultimatum to Ukraine either to hand over Crimea or prepare for a Russian military assault on that sovereign nation, the Russian ambassador to the UN thanked delegates for supporting Russia’s election to the UN Human Rights Council. The ambassador said that vote was “an acknowledgement of our country’s constructive approach to this sphere of multilateral cooperation.” He added, that “the protection of human and civil rights and freedoms is a basic priority.” The response by a coalition of government members, non-governmental organizations and human rights activists was to kick off a global campaign to suspend the memberships of Russia and fellow human rights abusers China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. The four took their seats Monday as the UNHRC’s newest members. (Jewish Press, Mar. 3, 2014)
PUTIN AMONG NOBEL PEACE NOMINEES (Oslo) —Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize – but the conflict in Ukraine is also likely to be on the Nobel committee’s agenda. Committee members who met on Tuesday added their own proposals with a focus on recent turmoil around the globe. “Part of the purpose of the committee’s first meeting is to take into account recent events, and committee members try to anticipate what could be the potential developments in political hotspots,” the Norwegian Nobel Institute’s director, Geir Lundestad, said. Russia seized control of Ukraine’s Crimea region after President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted on February 22, prompting the most serious confrontation between Moscow and the West since the end of the Cold War. (Reuters, Mar. 4, 2014)
ISRAELI NAVY CAPTURES IRANIAN BOAT LOADED WITH SYRIAN MISSILES DESTINED FOR GAZA (Tel Aviv) —Israeli Naval commandos on Wednesday intercepted an Iranian ship in the Red Sea weighed down with missiles that was en route to the Gaza Strip, the IDF said in a statement. The boat, named KLOSC, was stopped by the elite naval commando unit Shayetet 13 as it was heading to Sudan, 1,500 miles from Israel. Once on board the KLOSC Israeli soldiers found cement bags, behind which were hidden dozens of M-302 missiles which, the IDF said, were loaded onto the boat in Iran. The M-302 missile is made in Syria and is based on Iranian technology, Israel’s Walla reported. (Algemeiner, Mar. 5, 2014)
JERUSALEM FIRE DEPARTMENT PREVENTS TERROR ATTACK (Jerusalem) —On Tuesday afternoon Jerusalem fire fighters evacuated dozens of residents from three buildings in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood after multiple gas lines inside the different buildings were found severed. A burning candle and other flammable materials were discovered near one of the cut lines. Police believe the lines were intentionally cut in an attempted terror attack. The gas lines were shut down and the buildings were ventilated. The police are currently investigating the incident, with leads to the adjacent Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber. (Jewish Press, Mar. 4, 2014)
SEVERAL BOMBINGS LEAVE DOZENS DEAD IN IRAQ (Baghdad) —At least 38 people were killed and more than 50 were wounded Thursday in a series of bombings in Iraq, three of them in Shiite areas of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said. The deadliest attack killed 24 people when a bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded in a market where motorcycles are sold in the Sadr City area of Baghdad. (New York Times, Feb. 27, 2014)
VIOLENCE IN IRAQ KILLED 703 IN FEBRUARY, U.N. REPORTS (Baghdad) —Violence across Iraq in February killed 703 people, a death toll higher than the same period a year before as the country faces a rising wave of militant attacks rivaling the sectarian bloodshed that followed the American-led invasion in 2003, the United Nations said Saturday. The figures issued by the United Nations’ mission to Iraq is close to January’s death toll of 733, showing that a surge of violence that began 10 months ago with a government crackdown on a Sunni protest camp is not receding. Last year, Iraq recorded the highest death toll since the worst of the country’s sectarian bloodletting, according to the United Nations, with 8,868 people killed. (New York Times, Mar. 1, 2014)
EGYPTIAN COURT BANS ALL HAMAS ACTIVITIES IN COUNTRY (Cairo) —An Egyptian court on Tuesday banned all Hamas activities in Egypt. Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules the neighboring Gaza Strip, is an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which the authorities have declared a terrorist group and which they have repressed systematically since the army ousted one of its leaders, Mohamed Morsi, from the presidency in July. The Hamas government dismissed the court decision, saying it would only serve Israel’s interests. The military-buttressed authorities now classify Hamas as a significant security risk, accusing it of supporting an Islamist insurgency that has spread quickly since Morsi’s fall, allegations the Palestinian group denies. (Jerusalem Post, Mar. 4, 2014)
SUICIDE BOMBERS STORM PAKISTANI COURT COMPLEX, KILLING 11 (Islamabad) —Two suicide bombers armed with grenades stormed Islamabad’s district court complex Monday morning, killing 11 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan’s capital in several years. The attack, which killed a district court judge, at least three lawyers and the chief constable, occurred less than 24 hours after Pakistan’s government announced that it had agreed to an unconditional one-month cease-fire with the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistani Taliban leaders quickly distanced themselves from the attack. But a former Taliban faction, known as Ahrar-ul-Hind, claimed that it had carried out the attack to show its displeasure with the peace process. (Washington Post, Mar. 3, 2014)
ISLAMIST MILITANTS KILL 31 MORE IN NORTHEAST NIGERIA (Maiduguri) —Islamist insurgents have killed at least 31 people in a village in northeast Nigeria, a lawmaker said on Monday, taking the death toll from three days of attacks to 116 as soldiers struggle to contain raging violence. Insurgents have killed more than 400 people in just over a month, security sources say, making it one of the deadliest periods in the Islamist sect Boko Haram’s insurgency, which began with an uprising in Borno state in 2009. (Reuters, Mar. 3, 2014)
ARMED PROTESTERS STORM LIBYAN PARLIAMENT (Tripoli) —Armed protesters stormed Libya’s parliament building while lawmakers were in session Sunday, trashing furniture, burning the speaker’s chair, and beating at least three lawmakers, deputy speaker Hussein al-Ansari said. The armed protesters who attacked the parliament were calling for the dissolution of the interim body. Late last month, powerful militias have threatened to detain members of parliament, demanding it be dissolved. Earlier in the day, the head of Libya’s election commission and two of its members resigned, state media reported, a day after it released initial results of a vote for the country’s constitutional panel amid violence and boycotts. (Wall Street Journal, Mar. 2, 2014)
SUICIDE BOMBER ATTACKS CAFE IN THE SOMALI CAPITAL (Mogadishu) —A suicide bomber drove a car loaded with explosives into a Mogadishu cafe frequented by members of the security forces on Thursday, killing at least 10 people. The Islamist Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, a spokesman for the group said. Last week, the group’s fighters attacked the president’s palace in Mogadishu, the capital. Although the Shabab’s fighters were driven out of the capital and other major cities in the past two years, they still control parts of the country and have continued to wage a bombing campaign in Mogadishu. (New York Times, Feb. 27, 2014)
CHINA BLAMES SEPARATISTS FOR KNIFE ATTACK (Kunming) —Authorities blamed a slashing rampage that killed 29 people and wounded 143 at a train station in southern China on separatists from the country’s far west and vowed a harsh crackdown. The attackers’ identities have not been confirmed, but evidence at the scene showed that it was “a terrorist attack carried out by Xinjiang separatist forces,” Xinhua said. The far western region of Xinjiang is home to a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule by some members of the Muslim Uighur population, and the government has responded there with heavy-handed security. (Gazette, Mar. 2, 2014)
RICHARD FALK’S WIFE IS TOP NOMINEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL POST (Geneva) —UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon is surely looking forward to the upcoming exit of Richard Falk, the council’s pro-Hamas investigator of “Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law.” After six years, term limits finally require Falk to go. Yet it turns out that Falk may not really be leaving after all: the Human Rights Council is set to appoint his wife and closest collaborator to a similar post at the end of the month, days after Falk makes his final presentation to the plenary. According to a UN document circulated in Geneva, Hilal Elver — a Turkish academic on law and climate change who has been married to Falk for the past 18 years, co-authoring many of his articles — is rated first among three nominees to become the council’s next “Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.” (UN Watch, Mar. 4, 2014)
ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEWS STAGE MASS PROTEST AGAINST ISRAELI DRAFT LAW (Jerusalem) —Hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews held a mass prayer in Jerusalem on Sunday in protest at a bill that would cut their community’s military exemptions and end a tradition upheld since Israel’s foundation. Ultra-Orthodox leaders had called on their men, women and children to attend the protest against new legislation ending the wholesale army exemptions granted to seminary students, which is expected to pass in the coming weeks. The issue is at the heart of an emotional national debate. Most Israeli Jewish men and women are called up for military service when they turn 18, but most ultra-Orthodox Jews are excused from army service. (Reuters, Mar. 2, 2014)
THE LADY IN NUMBER 6 WINS AN OSCAR (Los Angeles) —The spirit of Alice Herz-Sommer must have been hovering over Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre on Sunday night. The Lady in Number 6, the uplifting Montreal-made film focusing on the life and times of Herz-Sommer, won the Oscar for best documentary short. Herz-Sommer, presumed to have been the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor and oldest pianist, passed away at 110 last week in London and was apparently tickling the ivories till nearly the end. She had always attributed her love of life to music. (Montreal Gazette, Mar. 2, 2014)
Russia Enabled by West’s Foreign Policies of Vacillation, Uncertainty: Andrew Coyne, National Post, Mar. 4, 2014—In the runup to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq…the streets of Western cities were filled with millions of protesters, all in the name of international law, national sovereignty, and the preservation of peace.
Obama Calls Retreat: William Kristol, Weekly Standard, March 2014—Kiev is ablaze. Syria is a killing field. The Iranian mullahs aren’t giving up their nuclear weapons capability, and other regimes in the Middle East are preparing to acquire their own.
With Civil War Looming, Ukrainians Agree on One Thing: No One Knows What’s Next: Batya Ungar-Sargon, Tablet, Mar. 5, 2014 —In the past week, it has become clear that the popular ouster of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych marked not the end of a political process that began last November with the outbreak of protests in Kiev, but the transition to a new phase marked by national discord…
Barack Obama’s Jimmy Carter Moment: George Will, National Post, Mar. 4, 2014—One hundred years after a spark in central Europe ignited a conflagration from which the world has not yet recovered, and from which Europe will never recover, armed forces have crossed an international border in central Europe…
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