While everyone in Israel is angling for position now that Olmert has gotten a 0% popularity rating and Nasrallah is singing nyeh nyeh nyeh boo boo, I’m watching Gaza to see what’s going on among Israel’s putative partners for peace.
Here’s what’s going on: al Qaeda (or someone affliated with it, or involved in al Qaeda-type thinking) is pressuring Hamas, as evidenced by a Guardian story about abducted BBC journalist Alan Johnston. Apparently Haniyeh is in negotiations with Johnston’s kidnappers [e.a.]:
The letters from Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh have sought to “clarify to these people [the kidnappers] that this issue doesn’t serve the interest of our people, and the Muslims,” said the aide, Ahmed Youssef. …
Youssef said the kidnappers had not demanded any ransom and suggested they were a militant Muslim group.
“Money is not the issue. The issue is an incorrect understanding of Islam, how to deal with foreigners in general, an incorrect understanding of Islam among some,” he said.
Youssef declined to discuss the kidnappers’ identities or ideology. “Any discussions about it will harm this issue,” he said.
For what it’s worth, Abbas also released a quote:
“We know where the journalist is, and we want to preserve his life and we want to save him, and this needs time,” Abbas was quoted as saying by the official Wafa news agency.
They seem to be afraid to say anything more for fear that Johnston will be killed by his kidnappers.
You’ll note that just a couple of days ago, al Qaeda was publicly provoking and goading Hamas. From a story published in the L.A. Times:
An Al Qaeda leader called on the Palestinian group Hamas to fight Israel with “bombs and fire.”
“Where is revenge, where are the bombs, where is the fire?” Abu Yahya al-Libi asked members of the military wing of Hamas in a video posted on a website used by Islamist militant groups.
Al Qaeda views Hamas as a moderate group that has compromised the rights of Palestinians for political gains.
A war of words between Hamas and al Qaeda has been going on for a while. Here’s one story from mid-March:
Hamas to al-Qaeda: Stop baseless accusations
Fury in Hamas after al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri ‘eulogizes’ the movement, saying it has surrendered and betrayed its principles. Hamas: ‘We will not forsake a single grain of the sand of Palestine’
Here’s another story from mid-April:
‘Al-Qaeda operating in Gaza’
PA security officials say global jihad group targeting Palestinian leaders, secular Muslims
Al-Qaeda is operating in the Gaza Strip and previously attempted to assassinate Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other top leaders from Abbas’ Fatah party, according to Palestinian security officials.
Can it be any more obvious that al Qaeda is operating with total impunity in Gaza, where there are currently no Western reporters?
Can it be any more obvious that al Qaeda took Johnston hostage as leverage against Hamas, which has been deemed to be not sufficiently Islamic to suit al Qaeda? that al Qaeda is now trying to hijack the Palestinian cause, for its own ends?
I last wrote about “al Qaeda-type thinking” in Gaza a few weeks ago. That phrase ran in both the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune on April 16.
No one has picked up on it since. Because they’re afraid that Johnston will be killed by his kidnappers. That’s how terrorism works: it’s extortion.
I’m sorry to be back to blogging. It was so much nicer to lose myself in the sights of downtown Manhattan for my impromptu photo project.
But no one else is writing about this—there’s a virtual news blackout—so it falls to me to document what I’ve been able to put together.
Distance usually helps clarify that which was murky.
I’ve made some minor edits*** to “What am I documenting?” … if you’re interested.
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*** Why is this important? Because unclear writing is evidence of unclear thinking. And since I spend a lot of time on this blog pointing out the logical flaws in the arguments of others, it is only right that I try to keep my own house clean.
For those of you who like to pore over such things, although I can’t imagine why you would want to, here’s a reprint of my original post:
| 1800 |
2007-04-29
8:40:20 pm |
what am I documenting? |
My son borrowed my camera the other day.
“What are you documenting?” he asked when he saw the pictures I’d taken.
Good question. I’m not quite sure, except to say that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction—in this case, the bold and fast-paced transformation of a formerly sleepy neighborhood via striking (and sometimes strikingly incongruous) architectural statements (some of which are artful and most of which are gut-wrenchingly bad) have propelled me out into the streets of Lower Manhattan with my camera. When the inevitability of change gets in your face every time you walk out your door, it seems like a natural reaction to want to document those changes.
There is nothing conservative about me. I come from a long line of rebels. I am not afraid of change—as long as the rush to change isn’t so great that we are tempted to throw out all of the old to make way for all of the new.
So: I have taken to documenting the changes in my backyard. It’s an accompaniment to the hints of changes that I’ve picking up in the culture but cannot possibly document because of the dizzying pace of change.
Wolfowitz will no doubt be gone from the World Bank soon enough, but it will be on his terms, not theirs.
Today, he got a ringing endorsement in the NYT from the Nigerian politician Nuhu Ribadu:
Over the last two years, Mr. Wolfowitz has effectively directed the bank’s energies toward fighting poverty and improving human life. He is a champion of using international development institutions to deal with some of the world’s major problems. And he has been a steadfast supporter of the efforts of African organizations to rescue our people from the scourge of misrule, which leads to poverty, disease and early death. …
When disgruntled lawmakers here tried to cut off our financing and shut down critical aspects of our operation, a World Bank grant of $5 million allowed us to bring to closure important cases of political corruption involving key members of Nigeria’s ruling elite, including members of the executive branch and Parliament.
In this fucked-up world, where the dedicated and driven are burned at the stake
and the mind-bogglingly ignorant, crass, and incompetent
are offered countless venues in which to strut their very wrong stuff (really, Rosie?), just for the sake of our amusement (because Infotainment Rules), it is refreshing to watch Wolfowitz, a dignified human being, take a three-week-long pounding and still have the stuff to stand up for himself:
The goal of this smear campaign, I believe, is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that I am an ineffective leader and must step down for that reason alone, even if the ethics charges are unwarranted,” he said. “I, for one, will not give in to such tactics. And I will not resign in the face of a plainly bogus charge of conflict of interest.”
And I for one enjoy hearing him call out certain of his enemies by name
Wolfowitz’s defense was striking in that it singled out three longtime bank officials as having specifically ordered him to handle Riza’s compensation package himself in 2005. He said they were Roberto Danino, the general counsel; Xavier Coll, vice president for human resources; and Ad Melkert, head of the bank board’s ethics committee.
and to clarify the actions he took:
“…In working to resolve the potential conflict of interest that was created by my and Ms. Riza’s relationship, I acted, transparently, sought and received guidance from the bank’s ethics committee, and conducted myself in good faith in accordance with that guidance,” he said. Riza’s salary, in excess of $190,000, is in the same range as that drawn by about 1,000 other bank employees, Wolfowitz said.
Indeed, Wolfowitz’s final point was most interesting. It was elaborated upon in a New York Sun piece that throws light on the gravy train that is known as the World Bank.
A closer look at bank pay packages suggests that the trouble here is not that Ms. Riza gets a “girlfriend” salary, a mysterious wage not quite tethered to market reality. It is that World Bank staffers also do — and almost all without spending a minute alone with the bank’s embattled president.
The bank’s administrative budget is $1 billion a year. It employs well over 10,000 people. Thousands of others consult.
The bank doesn’t publish current salaries. But according to its annual report for 2006, a senior professional, or “G” level employee, starts at $92,230 and can go up to $167,860, a little more than the $165,200 for a member of the 110th Congress. A manager, or “H” level staffer, can make $226,650. This was the category for which Ms. Riza was on the shortlist.
There are aproximately 1,000 H level staff at the bank. So the portrayal of Ms. Riza as receiving compensation unheard of is inaccurate.
The next salary level, “I,” includes directors or senior advisers, who earn up to $268,650. There are more than 200 of these, and they supervise many others. Mr. Wolfowitz stirred ire by bringing two allies into the bank at salaries of, reportedly, $240,000 and $250,000. He may have misstepped in the execution, but the “I” data suggest those pay levels were not out of line.
Move up a tier to the 25 or so professionals, the “J” level employees, or vice presidents: Top salary, $289,540. Senior vice presidents and managing directors who have made it to the “K” class received as much as $311,000. The president’s pay, when you include expenses, lands in the mid-$400,000 range.
In other words, Mr. Wolfowitz is paid like the American president, a foundation head, or a not-very-good securities analyst.
Of course you may not want to take this at face value, since the New York Sun, where this story ran, was recently smeared by Gawker as a “Zionist daily rag.” And the otherwise decent-seeming but always hostile to Israel Robert Wright, he of bloggingheads.tv fame, voiced similar disapproval by referring to the Sun as a “neocon paper.”
There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.***
I’m stumped and, as I said, tired. But even if I have nothing illuminating to say, I’m still reading the papers and the blogs and watching some of the infotainment that passes for news. Now that I’ve lifted the self-imposed pressure to produce, on average, four posts a day, I find myself gaining a bit of perspective and maybe seeing more of the forest.Time will tell. Check back.
Also: I took another 20 pictures this morning. I’m sure to post more of them by tomorrow.
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***Thank you, Buffalo Springfield, for the lyrics.
and here it is in context
Canal and Renwick Streets
Half-measures are not my thing. Yesterday, I took 116 pictures for my photo project without a name.
This is how the old and the new can live side by side in harmony:
and here it is in context:
way west on Spring Street, by the river, April 30, 2007
