Elder of Ziyon Daily News

The editorial malpractice of Roger Cohen

Posted: 05 Oct 2013 06:46 PM PDT

In what is perhaps his most remarkable feat, Roger Cohen's latest op-ed for the New York Times - where he critiques Binyamin Netanyahu's speech to the UN last week - gets everything wrong.

Even more remarkably, his main arguments are refuted by the contents of the speech itself. Which means that either Cohen didn't listen to or read the speech itself, or he consciously chose to lie about it.

Op-ed writers of course have more latitude than reporters do, but that latitude does not extend to simply making up facts.

Here we go:

Never has it been more difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to convince the world that, as he put it in 2006: "It's 1938. Iran is Germany." He tried again at the United Nations this week. In a speech that strained for effect, he likened Iran to a 20th-century "radical regime" of "awesome power." That would be the Third Reich.

Netanyahu:

The last century has taught us that when a radical regime with global ambitions gets awesome power, sooner or later, its appetite for aggression knows no bounds. That's the central lesson of the 20th century. Now, we cannot forget it.

Does Cohen disagree that Iran is a radical regime or does he disagree that that its acquisition of nuclear arms would give it "awesome power"? Does he disagree that a nuclear-armed Iran would irrevocably alter the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East? Both of those facts are incontrovertible.

By any sane measure, Bibi is right and Cohen is wrong.

Among those who question this approach is David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee. Referring to the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, he wrote in the Israeli daily Haaretz that, "Simply implying, for instance, that anyone who sits down with Rouhani is a modern-day Neville Chamberlain or Édouard Daladier won't do the trick. To the contrary, it will only give offense and alienate."

When Netanyahu's staunchest supporters — the leaders of the American Jewish community — question his approach to Iran, the Israeli prime minister needs to stop calling Rouhani "a wolf in sheep's clothing," his favored epithet, and start worrying about crying wolf.

At no point in Bibi's speech did he even imply that the world shouldn't talk with Iran. Here is exactly what he said:

So here's what the international community must do. First, keep up the sanctions. If Iran advances its nuclear weapons program during negotiations, strengthen the sanctions.

Second, don't agree to a partial deal. A partial deal would lift international sanctions that have taken years to put in place in exchange for cosmetic concessions that will take only weeks for Iran to reverse. Third, lift the sanctions only when Iran fully dismantles its nuclear weapons program.

My friends,
The international community has Iran on the ropes. If you want to knockout Iran's nuclear weapons program peacefully, don't let up the pressure. Keep it up.

We all want to give diplomacy with Iran a chance to succeed. But when it comes to Iran, the greater the pressure, the greater the chance.

It is Cohen's fantasy that Bibi called for no talks with Iran. Cohen is wrong.

Now, what about David Harris? Did he find Bibi's speech to be problematic, as Cohen implies?

Harris' article was written on September 27. Bibi's speech was October 1.He wasn't condemning Bibi's speech, he was saying his worries about Bibi's possible approach.

Hours after Bibi spoke, Harris enthusiastically praised Bibi's speech, days before Cohen's piece:

AJC Executive Director David Harris praised the Israeli leader's speech.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu delivered today a compelling clarion call for the entire world about Iran," said Harris. "The stakes are very high, with no room for wishful or illusory thinking about Iran's intentions. No one seeks confrontation for confrontation's sake. But until the Iranian regime comes clean on its nuclear program and fully cooperates with the international community, maximum pressure is absolutely necessary. History's lessons on this score could not be clearer."

Cohen could have looked up Harris' comments before he wrote his column. Instead, he chose to misrepresent Harris' opinion written before the speech as if he was critiquing the speech. For this reason alone, Cohen should be fired.

Bibi and Harris are right, Cohen is wrong.

It is not just that the world has now heard from Netanyahu of the imminent danger of a nuclear-armed Iran for a very long time.

In Roger Cohen's world, apparently, getting sick of someone's warning about a threat than could affect literally billions of people gets old after a while. Best to ignore it. Cohen is wrong.

It is not just that Israel has set countless "red lines" that proved permeable.

Doing a New York Times search for the words "red line," "Netanyahu" "Iran" and "nuclear" finds nothing before Bibi's speech exactly one year ago. There has only been one red line. This speech showed that the entire reason Iran has not crossed the only red line Israel has set is because of sanctions. There have been no permeable "red lines." Cohen is lying.

It is not just that the Islamic Republic has been an island of stability compared to its neighbors Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ruthless dictatorships with strong leaders are generally stable. Syria and Egypt were stable for decades before their respective revolutions. Does that make them desirable? Cohen is wrong.

It is not just that, as Rouhani's election shows, Iran is no Nazi-like totalitarian state with a single authority but an authoritarian regime subject to liberalizing and repressive waves.

Bibi answered the ridiculous claim that Rouhani's election proves liberalism in the very speech Cohen is attacking:

Presidents of Iran have come and gone. Some presidents were considered moderates, others hardliners. But they've all served that same unforgiving creed, that same unforgetting regime – that creed that is espoused and enforced by the real power in Iran, the dictator known in Iran as the Supreme Leader, first Ayatollah Khomeini and now Ayatollah Khamenei. President Rouhani, like the presidents who came before him is a loyal servant of the regime. He was one of only six candidates the regime permitted to run for office. Nearly 700 other candidates were rejected.

All major decisions in Iran are made by Khamanei. The president reports to the "Supreme Leader." Cohen knows this, and yet he chooses to ignore it. Cohen is wrong.

No, Netanyahu's credibility issue is rooted in the distorted priorities evident in a speech that was Iran-heavy and Palestine-lite. The real challenge to Israel as a Jewish and democratic nation is the failure to achieve a two-state peace with the Palestinians and the prolongation of a West Bank occupation that leaves Israel overseeing millions of disenfranchised Palestinians. ...Iran has long been an effective distraction from the core dilemma of the Jewish state: Palestine. But global impatience with this diversionary strategy is running high.

But Israel, even with the Palestinian issue, is also an "island of stability compared to its neighbors" Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Isn't that important in Cohen's worldview? It sure seemed that way only one paragraph ago.

Additionally, the world is quite impatient with Palestinian Arabs who have been given every chance for peace since Oslo. Arabs are far more interested in Iran than in their Palestinian brethren. Cohen's idea that the Palestinian Arab issue is more important to Israel's future than Iran is fantasy. In other words, Cohen is wrong.

Iran has much to answer for. Rouhani's "Iran poses absolutely no threat to the world or the region" is a preposterous statement. It has hidden aspects of its enrichment program. It has taken American and Israeli lives and attacked U.S. interests, through the Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and other arms of its security apparatus. It has placed odious Israel hatred and America-as-Satan at the core of its revolutionary ideology. President Obama is right to demand transparent, verifiable action for any deal.

What Iran has not done is make a bomb or even, in the view of Western intelligence services, decide to do so.

Here is a time-worn method where columnists pretend to briefly acknowledge another side to the story while sweeping it under the rug. But Bibi's speech gave in great detail the evidence that Iran is hell-bent on creating a military nuclear device as well as how Rouhani bragged about hiding the nuclear program from the West. While Iran may not have greenlighted the building of an actual nuclear device, it is clearly doing everything that would be necessary to build one quickly should it decide to. As David Albright of ISIS testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week:

If Iran decided to produce nuclear explosive materials today, it could use its gas centrifuge program to produce weapon-grade uranium (WGU). However, Iran's fear of military strikes likely deters it at this time from producing WGU or nuclear weapons. However, if its centrifuge plants expand as currently planned, by the middle of 2014 these plants could have enough centrifuges to allow Iran to break out so quickly, namely rapidly produce WGU from its stocks of low enriched uranium, that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would likely not detect this breakout until after Iran had produced enough WGU for one or two nuclear weapons. ISIS calls this a "critical capability."

If the Arak reactor operates, Iran could also create a plutonium pathway to nuclear weapons. This reactor can produce enough plutonium each year for one or two nuclear 2 weapons, heightening concerns that Iran aims to build nuclear weapons. Its operation would needlessly complicate negotiations and increase the risk of military strikes.

If Iran creates the ability to build a bomb in two weeks (the time between IAEA inspections,) the fact that it has not made a decision to build one becomes moot. At that point, nothing can be done to stop it. Cohen's bizarre idea that the two can be decoupled is fantasy, not fact. Cohen is wrong.

(There is plenty of other evidence that Iran's nuclear program is military, but that is outside the scope of this post.)

It is not in Israel's interest to be a spoiler. Limited, highly monitored Iranian enrichment — accepted in principle by Obama but rejected by Netanyahu — is a far better outcome for Israel than going to war with Tehran. But, of course, any deal with Iran would also have to involve a change in the Iranian-American relationship. Israel does not believe that is in its interest, hence some of the bluster.

So, according to Cohen, Israel is more afraid of warm US-Iran relations than of being blown up. This is projection on Cohen's part, as this op-ed proves that it is Cohen who cares more about appearances than truth, and is more prone to make decisions based on bias than on facts. Cohen is wrong.

In this essay, Cohen is criticizing a speech that was never made and he cannot counter a single point - not one - that was actually in the speech. Which is why he resorts to lies.

In any sane world, Cohen should be ashamed to go out in public after writing such a thoroughly embarrassing article. In any sane world, the Times would let him go because of the danger Cohen's columns bring to its own rapidly sinking reputation.

This piece is not just wrong-headed. It is not just showing that Cohen's opinions are wrong. No, this essay shows that Roger Cohen is guilty of editorial malpractice; he is someone who consciously and willingly ignores facts and makes up his own just to support an unsupportable thesis. A doctor or lawyer or teacher who acted this unprofessionally would be unceremoniously fired after a performance like this. Op-ed writers can and should push their opinions, but they should not have the right to make up their own facts.

10/05 Links: Bibi - Peace Talks Are Going Nowhere, UNESCO Passes 6 Anti-Israel Resolutions

Posted: 05 Oct 2013 05:00 PM PDT

From Ian:

Netanyahu: The Peace Talks Are Going Nowhere

According to a report on Friday in the Maariv daily newspaper, Netanyahu made the comments in closed meetings with the heads of American Jewish organizations.
Netanyahu reportedly repeated his position and that he is ready for a historic compromise with the Palestinian Authority, but added that "the problem was, and still is, their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state."
The Prime Minister, according to Maariv, also said that the Palestinian Authority's ongoing incitement against Israel was another significant obstacle to the possibility of reaching an agreement.

IDF Officers: Rising Arab Violence in Jenin, Qalandiya, Balata, Hebron

Israel Defense Forces officers said three recent incidents of Arab unrest that had to be quelled by soldiers indicate an uptick in violence, mainly from the Jenin refugee camp, Qalandiya, Balata and Hebron, Israel's Ma'ariv daily reported.
"We've seen a steady increase in the activity level of resistance forces in the villages and in the camps," Lt. Col. Itamar Kohl, deputy commander of the Binyamin Brigade, told Ma'ariv. "The more time we remain in the field, the greater the likelihood of a popular local demonstration, what I call 'temporary' disturbance, unplanned without a specific focus that is known in advance."

PA forces raid Jenin refugee camp, arrest Islamic Jihad members

According to reports, some 200 forces descended on the camp and blocked the exits, searching homes, including that of Bassem Al-Saadi, the head of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank. The raid was reported to be one of the Palestinian Authority's biggest security operations in recent years, and highly unusual in terms of scale and area of operation.

UNESCO passes six resolutions condemning Israel

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed six anti-Israel resolutions at the meeting of its executive committee in Paris on Friday, Israel Radio reported.
The organization condemned Israel for not fulfilling an agreement from April to allow a UNESCO delegation to inspect preservation and conservation work at 18 sites in the Old City – six synagogues, six mosques and six churches – in exchange for a Palestinian agreement to postpone five anti-Israel resolutions pending before UNESCO's board meeting that month.
Israel canceled the UNESCO contingent's visit at the last minute in May, saying that the Palestinians had "politicized" the delegation.

Liberman on Iran: 'Better to be alone and stay alive'

Former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman, who currently heads the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Saturday that there's not even a "quarter of a sign" that Iran has slowed its drive to acquire nuclear weapons.
"All international intelligence agencies are aware that nothing has changed," he was quoted by Israel Radio saying.
"Israel is prepared to deal with the Iranian problem. Even if we stand alone. It's better to be alone and stay alive rather than toe the line and go up in flames," he added.

Top 5 Dumbest Roger Cohen Lines (This Week)

Cohen's latest entry is about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to convince the world that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is the smiling face of a bad regime constitute a diversionary tactic to avoid making peace with the Palestinians. It's not a new charge and there are plenty of people who'd agree that more could be done to enable the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. The problem here is that Cohen doesn't seem to think Iran is a threat. And it's very strange to watch his mind work across the page. Here are five examples of some head-scratchers.

In Depth: Iranian espionage plot uncovered by Shin Bet shows a new level of sophistication

This time, it appears that the recruitment and running of the agent was carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's special operations unit (Quds Force), rather than by the Iranian intelligence agency.
Among other things, the role of the Quds Force is to execute terror attacks against Israel and additional targets in the West and in the Middle East. The significance of this is that Mansouri was not sent to Israel to spy and collect intelligence like his predecessors, but rather to establish an infrastructure to carry out terror attacks within Israel.

Slamming US and Israel, Khamenei raps aspects of Rouhani's NY visit

Slamming the US as arrogant, dishonest, untrustworthy, and controlled by Zionists, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday that "some" aspects of President Hassan Rouhani's trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month were "not proper."
"We support the diplomatic initiative of the government and attach importance to its activities in this trip," Khamenei said, but he added that "some of what happened in the New York trip was not proper" — an apparent reference to Rouhani's historic phone conversation with US President Barack Obama.

Rouhani calls for 'time-bound' talks on nuclear program

Hassan Rouhani, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, called for "time-bound" talks on its nuclear program with the West while harshly criticizing US interference in the Middle East in his first speech to the United Nations on Tuesday afternoon.
The speech was a resounding defense of the governing model of the Islamic Republic and a forceful rebuke of its detractors, with many veiled references to the "mistaken" policies of the United States, which has sanctioned Iran punishingly for continuing to develop a nuclear program.

US was so sure it was striking Syria it made 'warning calls' to Israel's leaders

The phone calls, Israel's Channel 2 news revealed Friday, were made shortly after Secretary of State John Kerry on August 31 had accused Bashar Assad's regime of an August 21 chemical weapons attack that killed 1,429 Syrians. Israel's leaders were told explicitly that the US would be taking punitive military action against the Assad regime within 24-48 hours.
The calls were made in accordance with the US promise to give Israel a warning ahead of such an attack, so that it could take steps to defend itself against any potential Syrian retaliation that might target the Jewish state.

Syria's chemical weapons nexus

The bottom line is that even if Russia and Iran did not provide the sarin gas to Syria, their delivery systems are responsible for making it into an operational WMD.
The main achievement of the UN report on the August 21 chemical weapons attacks in Syria is not its indisputable conclusion that sarin nerve gas was used "on a relatively large scale." It is the affirmation in a UN document of the de facto existence of a chemical weapons nexus comprising Syria, Russia and Iran, whose purpose is to support President Bashar Assad's regime as the linchpin of regional resistance to the US and Israel.

Egypt: At Least 5 Dead in Cairo Clashes

At least five people were killed in Cairo on Friday, as thousands of supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi took to the streets nationwide, clashing with security forces.
Supporters of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, who have been protesting to re-install the ousted , clashed with police on the road leading to the pyramids in the suburb of Giza, reported Al Arabiya.

For Egypt's crippled Muslim Brotherhood, protests part of survival strategy under crackdown

The Brotherhood's long-term aim is to preserve the tight-knit, largely secretive structure of cadres, businesses and charities that made it a wealthy political powerhouse. Eventually, many Brotherhood members believe, the interim government will have to back down to ensure stability as it tackles Egypt's multiple woes, particularly the struggling economy.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood vilifies the military

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has sharply criticized the military for ousting the country's Islamist president, comparing its rule to that of Adolf Hitler or Roman emperor Nero.
Thursday's criticism appears designed to whip up support for the Brotherhood and its planned rally on Sunday against the military and its popularly-backed July 3 coup that ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, a longtime leader of the group.

Fox International, Warner Bros Acquire Israeli TV Shows 'False Flag', 'Girlfriends' For U.S. Market

After the success of Showtime Network's "Homeland," based on Israeli series "Hatufim," two more Israeli television programs have been acquired to be reproduced for U.S. audiences, Israel's Globes business daily reported.
Globes said "Shkufim," False Flags, and "Haverot," Girlfriends, were bought by Fox International and Warner Brothers Studios, respectively.

Israeli Scientists Unveil Advances in Aerospace Medicine

A helmet allowing ground control to take over an aircraft should the pilot lose consciousness, an unmanned aerial vehicle evacuating wounded soldiers under fire without endangering lives, and a robotic dog that would assist combat soldiers with moving equipment and evacuating the wounded are among the innovations to be presented during the 61st annual International Congress of Aviation and Space Medicine at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem on Sunday.

יום ראשון, 6 באוקטובר 2013

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