From Israel’s MySpace page:

Via the Flack, who says:

At a time when the mere mention of Israel unjustly conjures up images of death and destruction, it’s refreshing to see a more truthful depiction of life in that peace-seeking nation. It’s also refreshing to see the government wise-up to the use of digital video to showcase humanity, a tactic its adversaries have long used to showcase inhumanity.

Hamas is feeling pretty good about itself these days. Fatah appears totally cowed, for one thing. Also, Russia is playing footsie. Not that Hamas is impressed.

Yesterday in Moscow, Meshal was cool to the praise he heard from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the PA unity government, and immediately reiterated that Hamas would not recognize Israel. 

What a surprise! It gets even better, though:

“Israel has not yet understood that after the Mecca agreement, the disappearence of Fatah is a matter of time,” a senior Hamas member said behind closed doors this week.

Another senior figure, considered a leader of the pragmatic stream, went even further. “Of all people,” he said, “from you Jews, who have known so many disasters, it should have been expected to be careful not to drown in a sea of Muslims. You might have another Holocaust.” [e.a.]

Jimmy Carter wants Americans to feel sorry for the Palestinians, but this is the public face the Palestinians choose to present to the world: Khaled Mashaal demanding that the West pressure Israel into accepting Hamas’s terms, when he’s not threatening the U.S.:

Mashaal demanded in tougher terms that Washington resume its aid funding: “The American administration’s insistence on the continuation of the blockade will give birth to more hatred toward America not only … on a Palestinian level but on an Arab, Islamic level.”

Russia is ready to deal with Hamas. The EU is on the fence. The U.S. says Hamas must agree to the conditions set by the Quartet. And around and around we go.

If she keeps this up, I just may have to stop making fun of Angelina Jolie, who writes about Darfur in today’s WaPo:

I’ve seen how aid workers and nongovernmental organizations make a difference to people struggling for survival. I can see on workers’ faces the toll their efforts have taken. Sitting among them, I’m amazed by their bravery and resilience. But humanitarian relief alone will never be enough.

Until the killers and their sponsors are prosecuted and punished, violence will continue on a massive scale. Ending it may well require military action. But accountability can also come from international tribunals, measuring the perpetrators against international standards of justice.

Jolie goes on to endorse the ICC’s indictments, and makes a powerful argument against those (nuts) who say that indicting war criminals will do more harm than good:

Some critics of the ICC have said indictments could make the situation worse. The threat of prosecution gives the accused a reason to keep fighting, they argue. Sudanese officials have echoed this argument, saying that the ICC’s involvement, and the implication of their own eventual prosecution, is why they have refused to allow U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur.

It is not clear, though, why we should take Khartoum at its word. And the notion that the threat of ICC indictments has somehow exacerbated the problem doesn’t make sense, given the history of the conflict. Khartoum’s claims aside, would we in America ever accept the logic that we shouldn’t prosecute murderers because the threat of prosecution might provoke them to continue killing?

And Jolie is full of common sense on this issue:

People may disagree on how to intervene — airstrikes, sending troops, sanctions, divestment — but we all should agree that the slaughter must be stopped and the perpetrators brought to justice. … [A]n international court finally exists. It will be as strong as the support we give it. This might be the moment we stop the cycle of violence and end our tolerance for crimes against humanity.

What the worst people in the world fear most is justice. That’s what we should deliver.

Most likely this would sound like liberal mush to Wretchard, who (rightly) points out the absurdity of the notion of the ICC as a “Court of the Future” if it has no power to punish, or even to track down the criminals it indicts in absentia.

But then you read something like I read today—that in all of France, since 1945, only one man has been indicted for collaborating with the Nazis—and, if you’re me, you come around to Angelina’s Jolie’s point of view: nothing is more important than to deliver justice, however imperfect, to “the worst people in the world.”

French university professor Pierre Bayard wants to teach you How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read. (Of course if you went to the typical American academic institution, you probably already know how to do that. He’s talking about the books you want to impress people with.)

Bayard’s silly-sounding book grew out of a not-at-all-silly conclusion, however:

“We are taught only one way of reading,” he said. “Students are told to read the book, then to fill out a form detailing everything they have read. It’s a linear approach that serves to enshrine books. People now come up to me to describe the cultural wounds they suffered at school. ‘You have to read all of Proust.’ They were traumatized.”

“They see culture as a huge wall, as a terrifying specter of ‘knowledge,’” he went on. “But we intellectuals, who are avid readers, know there are many ways of reading a book. You can skim it, you can start and not finish it, you can look at the index. You learn to live with a book.”

So, yes, he conceded, his true aim is actually to make people read more — but with more freedom. “I want people to learn to live with books,” he said. “I want to help people organize their own paths through culture. Also those outside the written word, those who are so attached to the image that it’s difficult to bring them back.”  [e.a.]

A noble goal, and I hope it works. Because reading, in addition to being deeply gratifying, breeds empathy. And that is a quality in very, very short supply these days—which causes no end of problems.

Andrew Sullivan explains:

Andrew, May I ask who or what is the “money” frequently shown as “money quote” on your blog? cheers mum xx

Better him than me!

Politico editor John Harris frames his story about the power of the blue pencil as a cautionary tale—he confesses*** to having coined the devastating term “slow bleed” to describe John Murtha’s losing strategy for forcing Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq:

 With a mixture of pride and remorse, I have a confession: I am the author of the Democratic Party’s “slow-bleed strategy” for ending the war in Iraq.

I had nothing to do with the details of the plan that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) floated two weeks ago. … In retrospect, it probably has already occurred to Murtha and his supporters that from a public relations perspective, “slow-bleed” was not the most winning description. How could they have been so stupid?

That’s where I come in. “Slow bleed” is my phrase.

Read it and weep if you’re in favor of forcing President Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq. On the other hand, nothing could be more illustrative of the ferocious viral power of le mot juste (or injuste) in the Feiler Faster world:

If you Google “slow bleed” and “Murtha,” you get nearly 200,000 hits. Nexis recorded more than a hundred stories in the days after Bresnahan’s article that used the phrase “slow bleed.”

“Slow bleed” was featured on CNN and on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. My former newspaper, The Washington Post, used the phrase the other day as if it were an established part of Washington lexicon, needing neither attribution nor explanation. “Slow bleed” also played a starring role in a parade of House floor speeches by Republicans denouncing Democrats, and in a fundraising letter from Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan. “Slow-bleed is exactly the right name for this incredibly irresponsible and dangerous strategy,” he wrote.

Harris, full of remorse about what he considers a faux pas, details exactly how the sausage was made [e.a.].

As happens all the time in journalism, this was a decision — made on the fly and under deadline — that I would have taken back in the morning. It is Murtha’s job to defend his own policies. But I’d prefer not to hand his opponents ammunition in the form of evocative but loaded language.

Yes, it’s Murtha’s job to sell and/or defend his policies.

And it’s a damn shame that the media and the Republicans ran with Harris’s phrase “slow bleed” as if it had been planted by the devil Frank Luntz himself (see Luntz’s new book, Words That Work—this example is the proof of his pudding, even if he didn’t whip up this particular concoction).

However: why apologize if you are Harris?

The Mea Culpa Mania(TM) sweeping the land is bad enough when it comes to political candidates and celebrities behaving badly. Are writers, editors, journalists, pundits, and bloggers all going to  have to watch and scrutinize and second-guess every word they use, too?

Self-censorship is only a shade different from censorship—and in a free country, it could be argued (and I will), it is even worse.

———

*** Tart thoughts about confessions—the dernier cri—here, from Eli Lake.