The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Talk About Judicial Activism!
“In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition”–headline, New York Times, May 2
Italy Sticks With Cement Shoes
“Pakistan, Libya Agree to Cement Ties”–headline, Daily Times (Pakistan), May 2
Business as Usual
“A Palestinian Authority ‘military court’ on Tuesday sentenced a Palestinian man to death by hanging after finding him guilty of selling land to Jews,” reports the Jerusalem Post:
The man sentenced to death is Anwar Brigith, 59, from the village of Bet Umar, north of Hebron.
The three-judge panel found the defendant guilty of violating PA laws that bar Palestinians from selling property to “the enemy.” In its ruling, the court, which convened in Hebron, said that Brigith had acted in violation of a Palestinian “military law” dating back to 1979, which states that it is forbidden for a Palestinian to sell land to Jews.
The judges also “pointed out that the defendant did not have the right to appeal,” although Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, must approve the execution before it can take place.
These, of course, are the “moderate” Palestinian Arabs. Another moderate Arab regime is the one in Riyadh, whose attitude toward Israel is summed up in this Arab News story:
Saudi Arabia [Thursday] demanded that the US State Department retract a false claim made by one of its senior officials that Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah held talks with Israel’s president last year.
William Burns, undersecretary at the State Department, told a conference on US-Saudi relations in Washington this week that the king spoke with Shimon Peres at a UN conference on dialogue among world religions in New York in November.
Both Peres and King Abdullah attended the UN interfaith meeting and gave speeches, but were not seen talking to each other.
“The comments by the State Department undersecretary are absolutely baseless and made up,” the Saudi Press Agency said, quoting an official Saudi source. “The official source demanded that the State Department retract the news and offer an explanation and clarification of the reasons behind this falsehood that does not serve relations between the two friendly countries.”
Now of course it’s possible that Abdullah and Peres did not meet. Our guess would be that they met informally but did not “hold talks.” But as the Arab News notes, Abdullah is credited with having “proposed the latest Arab peace initiative,” which he’s actually been touting for years. How seriously can anyone take the Saudis as peacemakers if they express outrage at the idea that they would even talk to the other side?
Of course, Arab hostility toward Israel often turns out to be phony, as in this fascinating case recounted by blogger David Hirsh:
Omar Barghouti is one of the leaders of the campaign for the boycott of Israeli universities. He is a founder of PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural boycott of Israel. He says that the boycott of Israel is “a justified form of international intervention . . . [and] an imperative one as well.” He spends his time hectoring anyone who has anything to do with Israeli academia, telling them that they are collaborating with a racist and apartheid regime.
But Barghouti has decided not to boycott Israeli academia himself. He is now enrolled to study for a PhD at Tel Aviv University. What is “imperative” for others is, apparently, not quite so “imperative” for himself.
When an Israeli newspaper asked him for comment he said: “My studies at Tel Aviv University are a personal matter and I have no interest in commenting.”
Israel’s critics are often the same people who spent years denouncing George W. Bush’s antagonistic attitude and are thrilled with Barack Obama’s meliorative rhetoric. How come they are so tolerant of Arab leaders whose statements and actions alike are far more hostile than Bush’s ever were?
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