November 29, 2010 | 2:01 pm

Ahmadinejad on the WikiLeaked diplomatic cables

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is never shy to spy Western conspiracy against the Islamic Republic, and the leaked diplomatic cables, which showed some Arab leaders true feelings toward Iran, were no exception. From The New York Times:

Mr. Ahmadinejad said at a news conference on Monday that Iran’s relations with its neighbors would not be damaged by the reports.

“Regional countries are all friends with each other. Such mischief will have no impact on the relations of countries,” he said, according to Reuters.

“Some part of the American government produced these documents,” he said. “We don’t think this information was leaked. We think it was organized to be released on a regular basis and they are pursuing political goals.”

News reports quoted Mr. Ahmadinejad as calling the documents “worthless” and without “legal value.”

The Times’ blog The lede has more reactions from Ahmadinejad and leaders around the world.

November 29, 2010 | 11:35 am

Chanukah Electronica goes mainstream

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There are a lot of ways to spell Hanukkah. Even the “Honika Electronica” video (above) and JConnect’s Chanukah Electronica party next Wednesday at The Joint off Pico choose different variations—and far as I can tell both center around the comedy of Eric Schwartz.

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November 28, 2010 | 11:44 pm

WikiLeaks, diplomatic embarrassment and Mideast peace

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I haven’t had time yet to look through any of the confidential diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks unleashed onto the Internet today. (Considering my finals schedule, i don’t see myself having much time to peruse until, oh, Dec. 17, about 5 p.m.) But the gist of the story as reported by my most-trusted media is that there documents were incredibly revealing when it comes to the way the United States maintains relationships abroad and, of primary interest to readers of this blog, the details contained therein could be very harmful to diplomatic relations in the Muslim world.

Here’s what the Wall Street Journal had to say:

Among activities detailed in the documents was the extensive, and increasingly successful, push by the U.S. for an international consensus to confront Iran’s nuclear program. Five newspapers obtained early access to the documents, which had been gathered by the website WikiLeaks.

The cables showed how some Arab leaders were largely in sync with Israel to support greater financial penalties, if not military operations, against Iran unless it abandons its nuclear ambitions. Regarding Iran, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah was portrayed in an April 2008 memo as having told the U.S. “to cut off the head of the snake.”

The cables showed the Obama administration working to get skeptical European states to back more-biting sanctions against Tehran, and also working to forestall United Nations vetoes of the effort by China and Russia.

Read the rest of that here. The New York Times, which was one of the five papers that agreed to WikiLeaks conditions (I imagine not much more than a typical embargo) and received prior viewing of the cables, promises that in coming days it will provide a lot, lot more depth to some of the most explosive revelations. Here’s a few:

* A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, “if the local media got word of the fuel removal, ‘they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,’ he argued.”

(skip)

* Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)

(skip)

* Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar’s security service was “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals,” the cable said.

What did the diplomatic cables reveal about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? William Daroff pointed me to this story from The Investigative Project on Terrorism:

The Israeli government asked the Palestinian Authority if it would take control of the Gaza Strip in the lead-up to Operation Cast Lead. Hamas will accept a negotiated peace based upon the 1967 borders, although not publicly. And the U.S. government is seeking information on foreign funding of terrorism—in particular from Venezuela and Turkey.

YNet highlights some other details here. What else are people seeing?

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November 28, 2010 | 10:43 pm

Leslie Nielsen and Jewish sports legends

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

When I was reporting a story about Jordan Farmar and basketball’s Jewish history, there was one oft-repeated joke. The delivery was always a little different, but the gist was the same: That a book about Jewish athletes would be the shortest book ever written.

The delivery was done best in “Airplane”:

Flight attendant: Would you like something to read?
Passenger: Do you have anything light?
Flight attendant: How about this leaflet, “Famous Jewish Sports Legends?”

One of the stars of that movie was Leslie Nielsen, whom I knew better from the “Naked Gun” films. Nielsen died today at 84. RIP, Lt. Drebin.

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November 28, 2010 | 12:58 pm

Palestinian Pentecostals

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice uploaded a video to YouTube this month about Pentecostals in Palestine. You can imagine the angle it takes, beginning with a guy who says that “we don’t hear about this in the West—never heard of this wall, never heard of the refugee camps, never heard of the settlements.” That’s hard to believe.

This video is as biased toward Palestinians as a video by their evangelical counterparts would be biased toward Israel.

All of the comments seem to come from Christians who have very little prior knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which makes them quite impressionable.

One of the more measured comments came from a Guatemalan missionary: “I’ve had to unlearn part of my theology—to be open-minded to hear these pastors, worship with these people and not just think they are all terrorists and killers.”

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November 27, 2010 | 4:57 pm

Portland terror attack foiled

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Another blow for the public image of Somali-born Americans. From The New York Times:

A Somali-born teenager who thought he was detonating a car bomb at a packed Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Ore., was arrested by the authorities on Friday night. Federal agents said that they had spent nearly six months tracking him and setting up a sting operation.

The bomb, which was in a van parked off Pioneer Courthouse Square, was a fake — planted by F.B.I. agents as part of the elaborate sting — but “the threat was very real,” Arthur Balizan, the F.B.I.’s special agent in charge in Oregon, said in a statement released by the Department of Justice. An estimated 10,000 people were at the ceremony on Friday night, the Portland police said.

Mr. Balizan identified the suspect as Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a naturalized United States citizen. He graduated from Westview High School in Beaverton, Ore., a Portland suburb, and had been taking classes at Oregon State in Corvallis until Oct. 6, the university said on Saturday.

Mr. Mohamud was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. “Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale,” Mr. Balizan said.

“At the same time, I want to reassure the people of this community that, at every turn, we denied him the ability to actually carry out the attack,” he added.

True as that may be, another failed terrorism attempt shows how the pace of attacks has picked up.

The Fort Hood massacre. The Christmas Day bomber. The Times Square bomber. The bombs from Yemen.

And those are just the big-ticket incidents. The New York Times notes some lower-profile plots that were foiled. Read the rest here.

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November 27, 2010 | 12:42 pm

Time for time-shifting the holidays?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Time-shifting—it’s not just for watching your favorite sitcom anymore. Or so Bruce Feiler writes in The New York Times:

IT’S that time of year: the endless holiday parade of cooking, shopping, wrapping and congregating that in my family commences the Friday after Thanksgiving, when we sit down for a traditional meal of turkey, stuffing and canned-fruit compote — and concludes, well, the following day when we celebrate all eight nights of Hanukkah in one madcap afternoon.

We began this tradition almost two decades ago, after deciding that flying multiple families across the country twice within the span of a month made little sense. Why not shift Thanksgiving dinner by a day to reduce the hectic-ness, avoid crowded airports and give the biscuits more time to rise? And as long as we were together, why not go ahead and light the Hanukkah candles, sing a few off-key melodies and exchange presents? Among the many benefits of this jury-rigged family occasion: it removes the stress from the high-stress weeks to come.

Naturally, we got some pushback. A rabbi friend scolded me: “You can’t just move Hanukkah to whenever you want. The community is supposed to celebrate together. Your family is not more important than the Jewish people.”

But these days, when so much of life is about relaxing customs in favor of convenience —podcasting your favorite TV show or telecommuting; early voting or the e-mail wedding invitation — why not free holidays from their timeworn shackles and welcome them into the digital age? If a woman can freeze her eggs until she finds the right man, surely she shouldn’t mind if that man brings her chocolates on Feb. 15.

Feiler goes on to explain why this both makes sense and doesn’t violate some cardinal rule of celebrating holidays.

I have to admit that while I’ve never celebrated Thanksgiving on any day but the third Tuesday in November, I do regularly celebrate Christmas a few days early, or late, with either my parents or my in-laws. It rotates every year. And it’s a lot, lot, lot more convenient than trying to squeeze visits to both houses in one day.

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November 25, 2010 | 11:46 am

A Very Slayer Christmas Light Show

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This isn’t quite the original “Christmas lights gone wild,” but this Slayer light performance reminds me that Black Friday is tomorrow and the holidays are here. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

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November 24, 2010 | 8:03 pm

Sex-trafficking charges ripple through Somali community

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It’s hidden, but there is a religious context to this story from The New York Times:

When the girl now identified as Jane Doe 2 came under their control in 2006, at age 12, the Somali Outlaws and the Somali Mafia gangs set a firm rule: Their members could have sex with her for nothing; others had to pay with money or drugs.

Repeatedly over the next three years, in apartments, motel rooms and shopping center bathrooms in Minnesota and Tennessee, the girl performed sexual acts for gang members and paying customers in succession, according to a federal indictment that charged 29 Somalis and Somali-Americans with drawing young girls into prostitution over the last decade, using abuse and threats to keep them in line, and other crimes. The suspects, now aged 19 to 38, sported nicknames like Hollywood, Cash Money and Forehead, prosecutors said.

The allegations of organized trafficking, unsealed this month, were a deep shock for the tens of thousands of Somalis in the Minneapolis area, who fled civil war and famine to build new lives in the United States and now wonder how some of their youths could have strayed so far. Last week, in quiet murmurings over tea and in an emergency public meeting, parents and elders expressed bewilderment and sometimes outrage — anger with the authorities for not acting sooner to stop the criminals, and with themselves for not saving their young.

Can you guess what it is? Does this paragraph help?

The indictment was the latest in a series of jolting revelations starting around 2007, when a spate of deadly shootings in the Twin Cities made it impossible to ignore the emergence of Somali gangs. Then came the discovery that more than 20 men had returned to Somalia to fight for Islamic extremists, bringing what many Somalis feel has been harsh and unfair scrutiny from law enforcement and the news media.

The story makes no mention of whether Muslim members of the Twin Cities’ Somali community were involved in this alleged sex-trafficking ring. But you have to wonder how this news is rippling through mosques and Islamic day schools.

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November 23, 2010 | 3:11 pm

Rabbi Shmuley challenges Christians to rethink Jesus

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

On his blog for The Jewish Journal, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach—you know who I’m talking about—voices his frustration with Jewish ingratitude toward all that evangelical Christians do for Israel.

Good stuff. But then Boteach turns his gaze to the divinity of Jesus, and it’s not clear that he understands why evangelical Christians believe what they do. He writes:

I am well aware of our immense differences with the Christian evangelical community. I would venture to say, with no intention at arrogance, that I have conducted more debates against leading Christian scholars and missionaries, like my friend Dr. Michael Brown, on the Messiahship of Jesus and the evangelical insistence that only Christians go to heaven, than any other American Rabbi over the past decade, most of which are available on YouTube. Jesus was a devout and observant Jew for every day of his life on earth. He ate kosher, honored the Sabbath, donned tefillin, insisted on the indivisible unity of G-d, and fought for the independence of the Jewish nation against brutal oppression of Rome, beliefs for which he was ultimately crucified. It would behoove our Christian brothers and sisters to conclude that they have much more to learn about the authentic historical Jesus from Jews than any misguided attempts at converting them. Indeed, not only must these attempts be emphatically resisted by the Jewish community with overwhelming scholarship, but precisely the opposite is true. Christians must learn from the Jews to reject any deification of Jesus, which he, as a Pharisee, would have seen as the ultimate sacrilege and which is the subject of my upcoming book on the Jewish Jesus. They must follow Jesus as teacher and prophet rather than divinity. Every human being is a child of G-d, and not just Jesus, as the Bible makes clear in Deuteronomy.

Um ... I’m no theologian but the evangelical understanding of Jesus is that Jesus understood himself to be the divine Son of God. Just because someone is publishing a book about the more earthly Jesus doesn’t mean evangelicals should interpret the Bible differently.

Thoughts?

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November 23, 2010 | 11:50 am

Doubling down on latkes, lox and sour cream

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I ate one of those filthy KFC Double Down sandwiches back in the spring. My arteries are still smarting from the experience.

Maybe I should have gone for the Double Down Latke Sandwich. Not familiar? Here’s the recipe:

1 pound potatoes
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 T flour or matzo meal (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper
grapeseed, olive or peanut oil
lox or smoked salmon
crème fraiche or sour cream
chives or green onion, chopped
chopped lettuce, optional

Read the rest of the recipe here and watch Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman make one in the video above.

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November 22, 2010 | 12:22 pm

Talk about a creepy Christmas

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I may never see the holidays in the same light. Visions of sugar plums ... visions of sugar plums ...

Via Failblog, via Tosh.0

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