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Obama’s Cairo’s speech: A compilation of views

Obama’s Cairo’s speech: A compilation of views
by Sol Salbe

Barak Obama’s Cairo speech to the Muslim world has generated a huge amount of commentary. The following is intended as an overview some of the more interesting points raised.

A recurring theme in the discussion, from both friends and opponents of Obama is that it is only words. What counts are the deeds. But as Richard Silverstein wrote in his blog:

Now, there may be some out there who are not believers when it comes to Obama. They may say that this is all words and only deeds matter. And they would be right. But in all my decades of life I’ve come to understand that words lead to deeds. Words come first. Without them there can be no action.

Silverstein notes Obama’s use of the word of Palestine, rather than a “future Palestinian State. It will be much more difficult for the Palestinians’ opponents to argue that there is no such country as Palestine. Others have noted many other nuances of the language. The president talked a about Israel as a Jewish Homeland, rather than a Jewish state. He too takes the point of view that the nature of the state of Israel is something for Israelis to determine. That certainly pulled the rug from the Barak-Netanyahu insistence on the Palestinians recognising Israel as a Jewish state as either a pre-condition or an outcome of any peace negotiations.

As many observers have observed the words terror, terrorism or terrorist were totally missing form the speech.

By speaking of Palestinian resistance (while opposing violent methods pursued towards that aim) Barak Obama has changed the entire paradigm. By comparing it to the civil-rights struggle by US back and the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa he has overnight legitimatised that resistance. For the past decade or so he official Israeli line has been that Israel, like the West is opposed by people motivated by religious fanaticism. Those who persist in this line of argument are going to find that a large proportion of their audience is not going to take seriously. The mainstream has been lost to this kind of argument.

Even-handedness

Among other notions in his speech Obama introduced a new kind of even-handedness to the US relations with Israeli and Palestinians. Friendly relations are no longer automatic. “America will align its policies with those who seek peace – Israelis, Palestinians or Arabs," he said. Everyone will be judged on their records and it will be Washington who will decide who is seeking peace, not Israel. Akiva Eldar explained further in Haaretz:

Obama left Egypt with two tablets of the commandments - one for Jews and the other for Muslims. He left no room for doubt: An Israel that continues to discriminate against Palestinians and prevent them from exercising their rights to self-determination and freedom of movement cannot expect affirmative action from the US.

Eldar also noted some powerful comments in the speech:

Obama placed violence against Israel on a par with the settlements and the humiliation of Palestinians in the territories. He spoke in the same breath about the struggle of Palestinians who lost their homes more than 60 years ago and the struggle of African slaves in the U.S. The Israelis could see themselves in the sentence that mentioned the apartheid state of South Africa.

Critics

There is no point going over the pro-settler and Israeli Right’s critique of the speech. Their attacks on the “nigger-boy” and posters of Obama with in a Keffiyeh are not going to earn them any friends, and in fact will alienate all but their most hard-line supporters. Referring to President Hussein who has tricked 72 per cent of US Jews to vote for him is going to just as counter productive.

Some Palestinian critics as well pro-Palestinian and left-wing supporters concentrated their attention on the negative points. Obama was indeed less than honest in suggesting that the ANC never used violence in South Africa. There was certainly a lack of candour in telling others not to use violence while pursuing wars. As a letter writer pointed out in the Sydney Morning Herald the idea that violence does not succeed in gaining national liberation would have probably been news to George Washington.

Probably the most intellectually rigorous of these critics was Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada in his Comment is Free contribution in the Guardian, which is worth reading, even if like me, you disagree with a lot of it.

But even if one were to accept every single one of Abunimah’s criticism it is still a matter of looking at the empty half of the glass rather then the full half. The point is that the glass is not static. Six months ago it wasn’t empty – it had a negative quantity in it! One needs to look at the context and dynamics of the glass. Barak Obama went as far any US President could go and then some. And nothing illustrates that better than the issues of settlements. The point was hammered in the speech. Some like Israeli blogger Ami Isseroff thought they noted an ungrammatical formulation:

There was at least one great departure from traditional US policy, couched in most peculiar and ungrammatical language, but clear enough:

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

It is hard to believe that a document that was gone though with a fine toothcomb and in which every word was subject to consultation would contain an ungrammatical formulation. I tend to go along with South Jerusalem’s Gershom Gorenberg:

The wording here is either a bit sloppy, or deliberately ambiguous. He’s saying construction must stop. Is he also saying that settlement as such must end, that settlements must be evacuated? I suspect that settler leaders heard it that way. For once (it had to happen), they’re right. The president is telling them that he opposes not just the next house, but the entire enterprise.

But Obama did not stop at his speech. He has been on message in regard to the settlements both before and after speech. And he received support on this account from President Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Merkel of Germany. His Secretary of State Hilary Clinton reinforced the message. Haaretz reported:

Dov Weisglass, chief of staff to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, wrote in an op-ed piece published this week in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily that the Bush administration had secretly agreed to expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank within their existing boundaries.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Clinton sought to undercut Weisglass' argument, saying there was no acknowledgment of any such agreement in the official negotiating record between Israel and the Bush administration.

"There is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreements. If they did occur, which of course people say they did, they did not become part of the official position of the United States government."

The context issue was also highlighted by one of Israel most senior reporters Ben Caspit of Ma’ariv (Hebrew):

Shortly before he met Defense Minister Ehud Barak, special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell met in New York with a prominent Jewish leader. In the nature of things, the conversation focused on the developing confrontation between the two new administrations in Washington and in Jerusalem. “Our policy is simple,” Mitchell said, summing up the statements in a single sentence. “The Israelis lied to us all these years. And now it’s over.”

[Emphasis added.]

To me it seems as if US pressure on the issue is increasing even if it is only summed up in words so far.

There is a delicious irony in the person whom the Israelis blame for this US attitude: " Binyamin Netanyahu’s associates believe that our main foe in the White House is Rahm Emanuel."

Yossi Verter in Haaretz had more to say on this very subject:

Netanyahu has told people that no matter what he says to Obama, it will never satisfy the American president and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who in Netanyahu's circle is already being depicted as the "great Satan."

Emanuel’s appointment was greeted by many on the left as Obama’s first betrayal. May be there is a lesson here: Things are not always what they seem in politics…

Another lesson was outlined by American-Israeli writer Bernard Avishai. Speaking about the settlers and their supporters in Israeli politics he wrote:

In the end they will have to be confronted. But though the end cannot be allowed to seem far away, the end is not the beginning. Why push people into a corner before showing them the corner – before showing them also the people who will be pushing with you? Why not take things in their natural sequence which allows everybody to adjust to the new reality?

For Israel the outcome is clear enough as Haaretz’s Aluf Benn explained:

Having proclaimed this loud and clear, there is no way that Obama can still agree to "natural growth" and other tricks designed to increase construction in the settlements. Now his credibility is on the line. It's his word against Israel's resolve to keep building. And this means that if Obama does exhibit the patience with which he promised to deal with the conflict, Israel will be facing a political crisis and a serious internal rift.

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Let's not forget the crusaders

Or even this denomination. I seem to recall they were in occupation for a while too.

Fiona: Still having problems, Geoff - can you please resend the link?

Fiona does this work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT21GuPJ4vA&feature=related

Richard:  Ummm.. yes and no.. does Andre Rieu work for anybody?

Last word

I want to put on the record my sincere thanks to Michael Park for sharing with us his experience and knowledge on the subject of smoking fish and roe. I have printed off his posts and will be keeping them. If you doubt the value of this wisdom just try Googling it. I have. A frustrating waste of time. Cheap port, brine, caramel and raw sugar? Of course!

On the other matter under discussion here, this is the last word I have to say on the subject. Or maybe this is a better version of the last word. Whatever. Let's not argue over denomination.

Fiona: Geoff, I cannot get your links to open. Could you please check them and resend?

The winds of change

Michael Park: "The corrupt US puppet Mohammed Reza Shah recognised the power of this historical legacy when he celebrated 2,500 years of the Persian Empire in 1971."

A scam is only a scam, when one isn't involved. Otherwise it's business. The first rule of every successful international relationship.

The problem here is that Mousavi,  bloke the west - or more accurately its media - paints as the progressive good guy, is actually a fundamentalist reformer. He is far more conservative than he is painted.

He certainly isn't the Patron Saint of Love and Tenderness. I doubt any rational person is under that impression. Can he get the business done? That's the question.

All governments (dictators) have their core supporters and their core detractors, with the great unwashed masses squarely on one side of the middle or the other. They're the game breakers.

It's a quid pro quo: whilst you're offering, you're receiving. When there's no more on offer, the caravan moves on. People do things from their own bias and for no other reason. My dictator is better than your dictator is a game I left behind long ago - with my "highly impressive" youthful looks and charm.

If I were say twenty-five, on the way up, and in Iran, I'd be all about dump the chump. You want, you have got to get, and sometimes that means walking over the top of liabilities. And that appears to be just what the youth of Iran (engine room) is going to do. As those who went before, and those who will come later have always done.

I do find the socialist media amusing in regards to Iran. The problem for them is of course America and Israel. Take those two out of the equation and apparently it's natural for humans to want the life of an ignorant pleb.

Of course American interests would be wanting Iranian changes! It's in their interest. I happen to think it's also in Iran's interest - another topic though. There's no fairness rules in love and war - never was, never will be. Any youth out there (you still have some hope), hear this and hear it now or you too may be doomed with a life in one of these socialist outfits.

And it isn't the path of success stories.

No, you can't fool the children of the revolution

Michael Park"The Iranian President is looking increasingly irrelevant due to the fact that the new US President and his administration won't get into the same playground. The former administration never quite twigged to the fact that it was the Iranian's playground."

Somebody from the State Department should have told GW that a Persian guy invented chess. No seriously, mixing domestic and international politics isn't a very long-term bright idea. The two work best very seperate from each other.

You would no doubt find that the professionals in the State Department (as opposed to the political idiots of all shades), have held a similar view about Iran for half a century.

Scratch an Iranian and you'll find the majority are well aware of their historical heritage going back through Sassanid, Parthian and Achaemenid eras. Many will venture the view that one day this latest invasion - the "Arab invasion" - will fail and Iran will be returned. 

And when you scratch an Iranian of the Persian extraction - best not call him an Arab.

There comes a time in every boy's life when he becomes a man. And that time means it's time to get yours. The youth (not so young now) of Iran naturally want theirs, and there's lots of them. Lifestyles enjoyed by those in the much smaller Gulf States wouldn't be helping with their fragile confidence in the nutty government (economic imbeciles, I might add). There will be change; when and what change will occur, I don't know. A "smart America" should easily deal with it, and find honest benefits. That is after all the American ideal.

A back to business Iran may never love Israel or America for that matter. That doesn't mean that they need to have a problem with one or both. It's simply a matter of priorities.

Now what would be better than Iran never getting the "bomb"? Answer: A reasonably friendly Iran that has the bomb. I seem to remember such a thing almost came to pass a couple of decades ago. This will definitely not be happening in the short-term; however, anything beyond is very possible.

It's generally a good idea NOT to blow up possible future friends and business buddies. And of course the blowing up part was never a risk. California has the largest American-Persian population outside of Tehran, and a rather successful population I might add, as it is all over North America.

There just isn't and there never was the juice to "wipe Iran of the map". 

It's all about time, isn't everything? And the good ship America isn't going anywhere, so waiting, shouldn't be a problem. Patience brings with it its own rewards.

A new Great King?

And when you scratch an Iranian of the Persian extraction - best not call him an Arab.

Absolutely. Try as it might, the recidivist religous regime has not, nor can it, erase that long cultural heritage. They gather and they speak Parsi and they read their Fedowsi wherein that ancient language - going back to the Achaemenids - is preserved. All this is counter to the Arab/Islamic holders of power.

The corrupt US puppet Mohammed Reza Shah recognised the power of this historical legacy when he celebrated 2,500 years of the Persian Empire in 1971. This grandiose celebration was held amid the ruins of Persepolis. Persepolis, of course, was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire; the Rome before Rome. It was also the city that Alexander (the "great") felt disposed to hand over to his his army to plunder and rape whilst he burnt down the palace complex. As it was a symbol and propaganda writ large for the Achaemenids, so it was to be again in 1971.

Interestingly the clerical class in Iran seem to be split on this current "revolution". Although the entrenched power - and therefore resistant to any change - some are denouncing the result and the president. Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri has claimed that "no one in their right mind can believe" the result. Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was instrumental in the '79 Revolution, has claimed that the clerical class shoud "resist" the election outcome. This bloke was originally slated to be Khomeini's successor. It seems some might see a chage in the air and may go with it.

The problem here is that Mousavi,  bloke the west - or more accurately its media - paints as the progressive good guy, is actually a fundamentalist reformer. He is far more conservative than he is painted. If the clerics - or a substantial number of them - support his cause then it is likely that they will hijack this "revolution" (if that's what we're seeing) as they did the '79 one.

I agree that a "back to business Iran" may never "like" Israel or the US but it will deal with them. I'm certain the US doesn't necessarily "like" the Russians or China but relations are based on sane dialogue rather than histrionic claptrap. 

Father Park

Offside at the breakdown! Ref! Ref!

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam - at places like Al-Azhar University - that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Not to mention the copying of the classical Greco-roman source materials that preserved same.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

As Sol Salbe noted, by that line Obama differentiates between a “Jewish homeland” and a “Jewish state”. Not everyone involved does. The Likud and Netanyahu do not for instance. Note that Netanyahu demands that Palestinians recognise Israel “as a Jewish state before talking about two states for two peoples" as a senior official in Netanyahu's office quoted Netanyahu telling Obama's special envoy.

The Likud party also clearly claims the Israeli settlements in Palestinian land “a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. The Likud party is committed to a Jewish state and whilst it might be claimed that the demand for “Greater Israel” or the “Land of Israel” (Eratz Israel) has been dropped by current realists, the above would indicate that is not the case.

There is a difference. The state of Israel implicitly carries the notion of a secular “European” or “Western” state. The ideal of a “Jewish state” just as implicitly carries the notion of a state based in religious ideals. Further, just what defines the “Land of Israel”? Obviously not the United Nations or any twentieth century declaration. The “Land of Israel” is defined only in the Jewish Bible. This is the land promised the Jews (to Abraham) by some “skygod” and delivered via Moses, Joshua and the other great heroes of the establishment of the Land of Israel. It is churlish to state otherwise.

Professor Daniel J.Elazar, writing for the Jewish Centre for Public Affairs which he founded, rejects the notions of modern reified statehood when applied to the “Jewish State”. This is because Jews do not historically conceive of statehood in the “western” or “European” fashion:

Three other factors force the rejection of European conceptions of statehood in favor of a conception more appropriate to the Israeli situation: (1) Israelis the state of the Jewish people. (2) Israelis only one of the states in Eretz Israel. (3) Israel as a state is a compound polity.

The professor goes on to argue that statehood for the Jewish people is a notion firmly rooted in the Bible and is a relationship of the people and their God:

The chief reason for the classic Jewish rejection of state sovereignty in its European form rests with the strong belief that ultimate sovereignty reposes in God alone and that humans exercise delegated powers under the terms of God's covenants which give the people an effective share in the exercise of sovereign powers. The edah is the primary delegatee of the power to govern the Jewish people, acting either as a whole or in conjunction with officers and institutions which it establishes under God's providence. Together, the edah, its officers, and God establish regimes through subsidiary covenants under the terms of the original covenant between God and Israel as embodied in the Torah. Under such a system there can be no reified state.

And it is only under such a “state” that the “mitzvot (the commandments of God in the Jewish Bible) in their completeness” can be fulfilled. The professor describes the basis of the Jewish polity as a “partnership of its members”. Further the “ultimate constitutional basis of that partnership is the covenant that tradition records as having been made between God and the twelve tribes of Israel at Sinai”. Thus the Jewish state claims an “unassailable right” to Eretz Israel or “the Land of the Israel”.

Now lest it be spuriously claimed that this is some ABC trickery, “tricky word play” or drawn from some “extremist group’s” mantra represented as mainstream, JCPA was, until recently, chaired by Dr. Dore Gold, former advisor to Netanyahu during his previous stint in the top job and more recently ambassador to the UN.

Clearly extremist. Is Netanyahu’s seeming abandonment of Likud policy (the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel) lasting?

On another aspect of Obama’s speech:

The obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them - and all of us - to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence […] It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

Indeed. Those settlements began after the Six Day War and were in their conception “military outposts” of the occupation. They still are. Like the many Alexandrias throughout Bactria/Sogdia (modern Afghanistan) planted the Macedonian foot and sought to secure territory, so do these.

By the way, I'm not Korean if it helps. I do, though, drink soju...

Father Park

The notion of a secular, Western, European state

Michael Park: "Jews do not historically conceive of statehood in the “western” or “European” fashion." And: "There is a difference. The state of Israel implicitly carries the notion of a secular “European” or “Western” state. The ideal of a “Jewish state” just as implicitly carries the notion of a state based in religious ideals."

I think I get this. You mean like Switzerland whose Cantons still support "official religions" with taxes? Or Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway all of which have constitionally entrenched state churches?

Or perhaps you mean the dear old Republic of Ireland which has a constitution the preamble of which begins:

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,

We, the people of Éire,

Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial etc etc ..."

Or perhaps you mean the UK which, the last time I looked, had a venerable "unwritten" constitution that not only had an official religion but merged the offfices of the head of state with the head of the religion and absolutely prohibited a Roman Catholic from being head of state? And therefore in Australia, Canada and New Zealand as well?

Is this the 'notion of a secular “European” or “Western” state' you have in mind which you say a "state" of Israel implicitly carries? As opposed to,say, a "Jewish state" which implicity carries some kind of a notion of a presumably non-secular, non-Western, non-European state?

Or what? Could it just be that you do not know what the words "Jew" or "Jewish" mean. If so you would hardly be on your own.

Of herrings and coming in from the side...

So here we find ourselves in Geoff's fish store. And what a resplendent store it is. I see its specialty is herring: fresh, smoked and, especially, red. Perhaps I should reply with a few rollmops?

That post has been up since lunchtime Thursday and, one strongly suspects, tasking you. This is the best you can come up, Geoff? A bouillabaisse of herring? One might have thought you'd have dealt with someone "obviously drunk" somewhat better.

Let's see now, I wrote:

The history of the region - Coele-Syria - includes many tribal groups of which what are now known as the "Jews" are but one. Yet it is this group - on the basis of a fundamental reading of the Torah (Pentateuch) - that lay sole claim to the area due to their "military" feats aided by god.

To which you, Mr Pahoff, in your usual sweet prose, responded:

I have never met a Jew who has made or supported any claim of this sort, in any literal sense whatsoever, based on religious grounds. Not one. Not even religious Jews. Some kind of skygod dividing up real estate among the nations? […] I'll bet the house nor has Michael Park met a Jew who has made such an empty headed claim. I'm sure they exist. There are fringe ratbags and intellectual defectives among all peoples and nations. But to suggest this thinking was or is mainstream is just bloody ignorance or worse.

Of course we note the usual imputations of terribly sinister motives.

I then when on to clarify my observation at which time Mr Pahoff turned away from the breakdown and made his usual representations to the ref. Deciding that this issue should be sorted out somewhat more clearly, I went to the “horse’s mouth” and found the information I posted on the Likud, Netanyahu and the Jewish Centre for Public Affairs sites. Clearly the Likud demands recognition of the “unassailable right of Jews to the “Land of Israel” (Eretz Israel). These – the Land of Israel and the “Jewish State” – are clearly explained by Professor Elazar in his paper on the JCPA site. Mind you, it wouldn’t take much to understand that the “Land of Israel”, as a concept, is nowhere defined other than in the bible. Most fishmongers would know that, even those specialising in herring.

In response Geoff Pahoff replies with a load of herring that in no way addresses the point. I note that none of the herrings – sorry, states – he throws up lay any claim to Eretz Israel. None of them seems to lay ancestral claim – on a religious basis – for any territory outside of their borders. I note no Swiss “settlements” in Italy or France.

When penalised for coming in from the side, claiming irrelevancies such as you were "on your feet" won't help.

I would suggest, Geoff, that you might like to address the actual statements made and the evidence supplied. That you might read read about the “unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel” that the Likud stands for. While you're at it, go read the definition of that concept.

I understand, given your herring chucking, that it might not be conducive to the regular line of belittlement, insinuation and ridicule but it really was the point.

Alternatively, you could appeal to the referee and ask to have me penalised for having the temerity to push (the actual point) in the scrum. That only happens in rugby league though...

Father Park

Common ground. Food!

Do you know where we can get any half decent smoked herring in the part of the world I live? Serious? Herring salad? Decent rollmops?  

I can get some pretty good smoked mullet roe from an old Greek deli retail outlet near the Mater hospiital in Brisbane but it costs a bloody fortune. Like $130 a kilo or something outrageous.. Do you know where we can get a better deal? Anywhere?

A bouillabaisse of herring? Yum. Recipe please?

Put it in your pipe

I can get some pretty good smoked mullet roe from an old Greek deliretail outlet near the Mater hospiital in Brisbane but it costs abloody fortune. Like $130 a kilo or something outrageous.. Do you knowwhere we can get a better deal? Anywhere?

Smoke your own: 3.5lt of water; 500g salt; 100-200g raw sugar; half litre of cheap port (the cardboard type, "brick red" in clour,  with "caramel and colour E103 added").

Soak the roe, dry and smoke in a webber. Low coals (8-10 each side) and some decent hickory out to do it.

Should be plenty of mullet roe about at present. Works marvellously with trout and other suitable fish...

Father Park

Ta! Time, tide and webber

Done!

How long do you reckon?

In the old days I remember they used to keep a ten yard  covered channel or tunnel on a near by vacant lot  burning and smoking for 24 hours or longer irrespective of weather. They took turns getting up through the night.

The hard way I guess. How long with a Webber? 

Cold or hot?

 That, my dear Geoffrey, would be "cold" smoking. What used to be done for cod (before chemicals and colouring).

The time depends upon the sze.  I have to admit to not having smoked roe. Thinking about it, such may be quite "salty" enough without brining. Experimenatation will provide answers I'd guess. Try one brined and one not.

I'm on much firmer footing with fish. What works for trout of 2kg or so will work for any (including Australian "salmon").  There are some trade tricks:

  • The fish should be allowed to brine overnight (12 hrs min)
  • If it's a decent size, poke some holes into the fish adjacent to the backbone with a filleting knife  to facilitate taking up of the brine.
  • It must have time to "dry" (more below)
  • It must smoke slowly.

Fish that this will work well with are trout, Atlantic salamon, slimy mackerel and the like. Tailor too work well but you must catch them - ditto oz salmon: the stuff in the fish shop with guts in has not been "bled" properly and will not cure too well. Blood does not cure and so clean the fish.

Once brined, the fish must be dried. I normaly hang it in something akin to a camp cupboard (the zip up canvass thingys) and let it air until it is "sticky" - like sticky tape. This will be the sugars (port and raw) and is the key to the process.

Once sticky, the fish is placed onto the webber rack (8-10 coals each side) and a decent chunk of hickory loaded onto each pile of coals. Place the lid on and, for say 2kg, give three parts to an hour. the smoke must be kept pumping. With something like a trout one can tell if it's done by pushing against the backbone - the ribcage will move away. Other fish are similar.

If you've ticked all the boxes your trout should be absolutely deep gold in colour. Take the bugger inside and shove it into a fridge (it pays to have an "outside" spare fridge  or beer fridge) - to completely cool. When served the skin, with a sharp knife, should peel away almost like leather.

Decent smiked fish goes well with good shiraz. Most everything does I've noticed...

Roe, I suspect, will be a quicker operation.

Father Park

At least one round of applause

Credit where credit's due.

Obama has done very well with the Iranian situation. He seems to have the Iranian Presidents measure. And good for him.

The President of Iran needs conflict, and that's why he needed Bush. The Iranian President was finished the day Bush finished. He's been rather a forlorn figure looking for a fight ever since. However the election turns out, he's a goner. The nation is divided and the division of strength is all against him. It's a new Iran, with a new generation soon to be in control of the new Iran. A new "pretty Persian face" if you will.

Obama is killing the poor sap with kindness - my wife's preferred method of destruction - and don't I often find out how devastating it can be. Well played.

The Arab invasion

The Iranian President was finished the day Bush finished. He's been rather a forlorn figure looking for a fight ever since. However the election turns out, he's a goner.

With which I'd well and truly agree, Mr Morrella. As you say, the country is well divided and has been for some considerable time. The Iranian President is looking increasingly irrelevant due to the fact that the new US President and his administration won't get into the same playground. The former administration never quite twigged to the fact that it was the Iranian's playground. 

There has always been "opposition" to the hard-line theocracy. Scratch an Iranian and you'll find the majority are well aware of their historical heritage going back through Sassanid, Parthian and Achaemenid eras. Many will venture the view that one day this latest invasion - the "Arab invasion" - will fail and Iran will be returned. 

It's been a while waiting though...

Hello there Fiona. It would appear that, in the view of one of your more obsessed and corrosive commentators hereabouts, I have sobered up long enough to pen a comment. Best go open a Mudgee Black Shiraz to go with tonight's roast beef then eh?

Father Park

Fiona: A splendid idea for Midwinter's Eve, Father Park; please have a glass or three for me too...

America=capitalism=bad=Israel

Trevor Maddock: "If the enormous supply of US money and arms stopped, so would Israel. In this sense, it is more like a US outpost than a state."

Only in accepted popular myth. A place where property and stock prices always eventually rise, and girls can't get pregnant their first time.

The myth was established firstly for Arab pride reasons, understandable after a history of monumental military smackdowns, and of late, for purely western political reasons. Western Socialists see Israel as an extension of America, and as they see America strictly as capitalism, we have our narrative.

The reality is that Israel would survive without America. The reality is that America and Israel have some common interests. The reality is that two nations with common should be on friendly terms. I mean, how else do people(nations) find friends? And friends support their friends, no?

Israel does enjoy some American financial support, and so do many American friends. I wonder how much Australian GDP is saved through American military support. I wonder in dollar terms how that support equates with Israel, Japan, South Korea, parts of Europe etc.

No, the reality is that the nation of Israel is advanced, easily the most advanced nation in the Middle East. Some of the technical advances they've made in what was an earthly desert backwater are amazing. If Cuba (an example of American support punishment) can survive, Israel surely isn't going to have a problem.

Israel enjoys individual support from people all over the world, and some of it's financial. There isn't any reason why this support would cease if American Government support ceased. Arms and weapon technology is available at a price, and not one major dealer has said they wouldn't deal with Israel, and why on earth wouldn’t they deal with Israel?

The only viable solution is a secular state where all people are equal before the law regardless of racial origin and religious affiliation.

This isn't a solution or at least won't be in our lifetimes.

There isn't a nation that would grant other nationals voting rights in their elections, and neither should Israel. There's now an Israel and there's a Palestine. It's no longer one and the same nation.

Texans may as well ask for voting rights in the next Mexican election, such a request will be as successful.

Not a wasteland

It was not a desert backwater built by Israel though. They had thriving education, olive industry and other stuff before any Jews got near the joint.

And Israel is the largest donee of US funds every year by thousands of dollars per person.

State Viability & the Two-state Solution

Marilyn Shepherd is correct that the origins of the state of Israel are extraordinary but the real question of its statehood lies not with the pronouncements of some politically manipulated body like the UN but in its sustainability. If the enormous supply of US money and arms stopped, so would Israel. In this sense, it is more like a US outpost than a state.

Israel isn't viable as a state and nor is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vision of a Palestinian state without territorial integrity or the capacity for self-protection. Who was there first doesn't really matter. The only viable solution is a secular state where all people are equal before the law regardless of racial origin and religious affiliation.

Newer, more absurd levels of denial every day

Israel isn't viable as a state?

It's been in existence as a state since 1948.

If you look down this list, you will see that it's been a member state of the United Nations for longer than most modern states have existed.

As if it's not enough to deny that Israel has a right to exist, we are now expected to pretend it never did exist?

Or that it can't exist?

I don't mean to be blunt, but Israel's enemies seem to have an almost limitless capacity to delude themselves. Is it cognitive dissonance?

That alone could go a long way toward explaining their almost implaccable, relentless failures in dealing with Israel.

It really is a totaly bizarre mentality. Right down there with Holocaust denial and Lunar Landing conspiracy theories for plain weirdness.

Richard:  What, Eliot, you didn't believe "Capricorn One" ? 

The supposed walls of Jericho

I don't mean to be blunt, but Israel's enemies seem to have an almost limitless capacity to delude themselves. Is it cognitive dissonance?

No less than its blind and/or unquestioning supporters. But of course this is a one way street: to criticise is to be branded anti......

The history of the region - Coele-Syria - includes many tribal groups of which what are now known as the "Jews" are but one. Yet it is this group - on the basis of a fundamental reading of the Torah (Pentateuch) - that lay sole claim to the area due to their "military" feats aided by god.

The Canaanites, Moabites, Nabataean Arabs, Edomites, Phoenicians and others might choose to disagree. 

In that vein perhaps Iraq should hold sway: Babylon certainly ruled the area by force once. Then again so did the Macedonians, Romans and Egyptians (from Thutomose to Ptolemy).

Father Park

Fiona: Bless me, Father - how nice to see you here again, and contributing some measured historical accuracy to the "debate".

Measured historical accuracy?

"The history of the region - Coele-Syria - includes many tribal groups of which what are now known as the "Jews" are but one. Yet it is this group - on the basis of a fundamental reading of the Torah (Pentateuch) - that lay sole claim to the area due to their "military" feats aided by god."

I have never met a Jew who has made or supported any claim of this sort, in any literal sense whatsoever, based on religious grounds. Not one. Not even religious Jews. Some kind of skygod dividing up real estate among the nations? The notion is too bloody absurd to waste breath on and certainly none of the foundation Zionists had that time or breath to waste.

I'll bet the house nor has Michael Park met a Jew who has made such an empty headed claim.  I'm sure they exist. There are fringe ratbags and intellectual defectives among all peoples and nations. But to suggest this thinking was or is mainstream is just bloody ignorance or worse. Like the ABC and others whose first port of call is one of the extremist settler camps to get the "Israeli view". 

I haven't got time right now to refute the rest of the nonsense in this post. Probably it would be a waste of time anyway. But Fiona? ...'contributing some measured historical accuracy to the "debate".'?

Give us a break for chrissake.

If only you had class, Geoff...

I haven't got time right now to refute the rest of the nonsense in this post.

Possibly due to the fact you'd need to think outside of your foetid and hate-filled box. Truly Geoff, your keypad must be covered in cling wrap to keep the spittle off.

The area now being fought over was, in antiquity, part of Syria - or Coele-Syria. The Achaemenids never felt it necessary to have a satrapy in the trans-Euphrates called Israel: it wasn't that important. To Cyrus they were a people to be placated on his next anabasis (to Egypt - unfortunately he died and so Cambyses did that for him).

The Jews, in the Old Testament, make a great play of their importance in the area - going so far as to give the (oft believed) impression that their population was deported to Mesopotamia after Nebuchadnezzar’s absorption of the area into his empire. Never have such a relative few (the noisiest and most disruptive - for which read the temple priests and ruling elite et al) created such a large legend. One would never guess this was not unusual practice at all in the ancient near east. Mentions of this Jewish "kingdom" are few and far between outside of Jewish sources.

Fact is the "Kingdom of Judea" was one of several to have existed and fallen in the area. The Jews, after all, displaced the Canaanites and Moabites to establish their presence and it was an ongoing matter of "jostling". The Nabataean Arabs, in the late fourth century BC, still ran the bitumen trade out of the Dead Sea region.

Some kind of skygod dividing up real estate among the nations?

Not a "skygod" at all Geoff. Seems that's another example of your "high juvenile" language. Rather, the God of Israel. You see, basic to this is the fact that god (skygod or earthgod or whatever) promised this land to Abraham. Further, he delivered upon that via Moses, Joshua, et al as they displaced the aforementioned tribes to establish their rule in the "Promised Land". If you think this has no bearing, in any way, on Jewish claims of "historic connection" with the holy land you need to think again.

Like the overwhelming majority of Jews, we believe in G-d, Who has brought us back to our Jewish home; the Holy Land of Israel [...] Our aim is to create a genuinely Jewish consciousness in the Land of Israel, motivated by the awareness that our faith and our country are intrinsically woven together.

Night, night Geoff: nurse that hatred and stock up the vitriol; hope the dreams aren't too hate filled.

Father Park

What's a few thousand years between friends?

I object to the tone of this post which is clearly in breach of WD guidelines. What is this? One set of rules for Israel bashers and another for those with the guts to speak out against their silly notions.

The rest of this nonsense is not worth replying to. I will leave it to readers to note the tricky word play. One minute he is referring to modern Jews making claims on the land allegedly based on a "fundamental reading of the Torah". Next he is talking (inaccurately) about the religion of the Jews of antiquity and their claims (Again inaccurately. Again irrelevantly). 

Of couse there are Jewish cultural, historical and national claims. But you do not have to be an adherent of a particular strand of a religion to acknowledge this.

Finally we have the good old  ABC trick. Find an extremist group and misrepresent their views as mainstream.

This sort of thing is straight out dishonest. You might as well find evidence of public burnings of nonbelievers by the medieaval church  and claim the practice is latent in the modern Vatican.

Then again, maybe there might be something to that ...

Standard Pahoff prattle

Seems I'm sober enough to elicit the standard Pahoff piss-offs:

1. "...this post which is clearly in breach of WD guidelines..." (bleat, bleat, REF!! REF!)

2. "The rest of this nonsense is not worth replying to..."

Pahoff then, in contravention of his own expressed logic,  replies.( Do make up your confused mind .Geoff). "Of couse there are Jewish cultural, historical and national claims. But you do not have to be an adherent of a particular strand of a religion to acknowledge this."

Sure as hell helps though doesn't it?

"Finally we have the good old  ABC trick."

You can't think of any other way of denigrating a point Geoff? The claim is clear and concise. It doesn't suit your argument so let's call it an "ABC trick".

You didn't do well in debating at school did you Geoff? Labelling / dismissing and foul language doesn't get you too far outside of  junior high school yard baiting.

Oh, but I forgot, that's the actual level of your debate off this site.

Father Park

Luv at first sight

I really loved Obama's speech. While ostensibly about the middle east, I thought the fundamental principles applied to all disagreements, including but not limited to (i) global warming and (ii) capitalism.

Two phrases that made me (almost) willing to run naked shouting Eureka were:

 "So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred"

"in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors".

PS Paul Morrella, a reason your posts excite me is that while they define differences, they say openly the things we hold in our hearts... 

A hoax Eliot

Perpetrated only by Truman and forced on the world.

The Truman Show

That's some 'hoax', Marilyn. Truman was last president in 1952 - and still Israel is a member of the United Nations, even recognised by Egypt and Jordan.

What explains that?

 

Hard questions

 Eliot , We are obviously making our questions to Mailyn too hard, or she is just not answering.

Yes it is Israel

Marilyn Shepherd, I once asked you "Which part of the words "State of Israel" don't you understand?.  I never got an answer from you.

Why on earth the Palestinians and their toadies cannot understand it is beyond  me. As time goes by people will realise that Obama is just another fraud, talks nice but but does nothing, a bit like Rudd in that way.

Yes it is Palestine

And has been for centuries.   Why on earth the MSM and their toadies still refuse to understand that is beyond me.

Resolution 181 did not expunge Palestine or grant Jews a state in Palestine.

The elephant in the room

You might explain, then, how it is that Israel is a member state of the United Nations.

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