Category: America

After Canceling Concert, Lopez Faces Possible Suit

A hotel in Cyprus said it might sue Jennifer Lopez, below, after the singer withdrew from a scheduled concert for fear that it would be construed as making a political statement, Agence France-Presse reported. Ms. Lopez was to perform at the Cratos Premium hotel and casino complex in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus on July 24, an event that Greek Cypriots have said would further polarize the country, which has been divided since the 1970s and whose northern region is recognized only by Turkey. Ms. Lopez’s representatives said last week that she would not perform the concert, citing “sensitivity to the political realities of the region.” But Murat Bozoglu, chief executive of the company that runs Cratos Premium, told Agence France-Presse that Ms. Lopez’s contract for the show had not been canceled. “If she does not show up for the concert, we will begin a procedure in the courts to claim $35 to $40 million in damages,” Mr. Bozoglu said.

The New York Times

July 13, 2010
Jewish criticism of Israel

Op-ed: While criticizing Israel, US Jews must beware of biased agendas around them

Yoel Meltzer

When American Jews are confronted with actions of the Jewish state that they believe to be wrong or immoral, do they have the right to publicly criticize Israel? Moreover, assuming for a moment that they have the right, should they exercise it? In other words, is their criticism actually helping Israel or is it only providing ammunition for our enemies to further harm Israel?

While American Jews are faced with such difficult questions, not surprisingly their counterparts in Israel are strongly against Diaspora Jewry publicly criticizing Israel in any shape or form. In addition, feeling increasingly threatened and ostracized, Israel now more than ever expects to receive strong support from Diaspora Jewry, especially from the large and powerful American Jewish community.

What then is the proper path to follow? For starters, since the Jewish nation is comprised of every Jew and the land of Israel, eretz yisrael, belongs to every Jew, then certainly American Jews can speak their mind about events in Israel. No one is suggesting that these two cornerstones of our tradition, namely that all Jews have an intrinsic connection with each other as well as with a common land, be tinkered with. However, since we don’t live in a bubble and the situation is obviously more complex, the subject needs to be further analyzed from both sides of the coin.

From the Israeli perspective, one argument frequently heard is that American Jews should not speak out against Israel since they have little or no understanding of the reality of life in the Middle East. Bluntly stated, Israel’s neighbors are not Canada and Mexico. This line of thinking helps explain why many left-leaning Israeli Jews are frequently very different from their American counterparts.

Unlike a Jew living in America, the typical left-wing Israeli has to deal with army service, wars and terrorist attacks. Thus, although he may support certain policies that are considered left-wing, he usually doesn’t do this out of a naïve belief that Jews and Arabs will soon become best of friends or that relinquishing more land will actually bring an end to the region’s hostilities.

Another common assumption in Israel is that those American Jews who feel uncomfortable about Israeli actions or policies are probably struggling with their own Jewish identity. With assimilation ravaging American Jewry, it’s only natural that one’s Jewish identity frequently takes backstage to other identities that are a part of one’s psychological makeup. For this reason, it should come as no surprise that the most steadfast supporters of Israel usually come from Jews who are more traditional since for them the Jewish component is a dominant factor of their identity.

Finally, on a psychological level some claim that Israeli activities that appear harsh or unjust would make an American Jew with a relatively weak Jewish identity feel uncomfortable in his non-Jewish environment. Thus, by criticizing Israel perhaps he is subconsciously trying to be accepted by the non-Jewish world around him.

These are some of the claims from the Israeli angle, in addition to the ubiquitous “if you don’t live here, don’t tell us what to do” claim.

Nonetheless, in spite of any truth that these arguments may contain, as previously stated American Jews have the right to express their beliefs. True, perhaps they should ask themselves why they are criticizing – to honestly help Israel or to merely alleviate their own uncomfortable situation – but this is a side issue. The point is they can criticize.

Non-Jewish morality

Having said all that, perhaps there is something else going on here. Unlike the Middle Eastern culture that has an aspect of tribal affiliation and less internal criticism, American culture is hypothetically based upon an objective pursuit of truth and justice. Therefore, being influenced by the surrounding culture, American Jews tend to give precedence to what they consider the pursuit of truth and justice as opposed to simply granting unconditional loyalty to other Jews.

On the surface this is quite a noble quality, one worthy of exporting to the rest of humanity. However, this otherwise praiseworthy approach also contains two potential flaws. One is the assumption of objectivity and the second is the very understanding of such terms as “truth” and “justice”.

The combined effect today of both the media and the many powerful public relations, marketing and advertising firms is arguably more influential than ever before in shaping the mindset of the average person. Together with this powerful group there is the academic world with its own unique ability to penetrate all sorts of ideas into society.

The problem is that many of the people who have the power to influence are heavily biased when it comes to Israel. For instance, I remember being fed seemingly endless Edward Said and Noam Chomsky while working on my master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies. Although a small minority of students sensed that something was wrong and that the studies were biased, most did not have the tools to argue with our well published and seemingly brilliant political science professor. For the majority of the students, the professor’s words were simply accepted as irrefutable truth.

The point is that there are many intelligent and powerful people, be it in the media or in the academic world, with a very biased approach when it comes to Israel and through their positions of influence they easily blow away the assumed theory of objectivity.

The second problem is frequently just an outgrowth of the first problem since it is people with an agenda that often shape our understanding of what constitutes truth and justice or right and wrong when assessing Israel. Moreover, even in the best-case scenario where this is not happening, the basic understandings that most American Jews have of these concepts usually come from non-Jewish sources. Although occasionally these are similar to Jewish concepts of morality, sometimes they’re not.

Thus rather than judging the Jewish State based upon the rich tradition of Jewish morality and ethics, Israel is ironically being judged by good-intentioned Jews according to non-Jewish morality.

To summarize, American Jews definitely have the right to express their opinion regarding the Jewish State since Israel, like any nation, is certainly not absolved from criticism. However, while continuing with the pursuit of the lofty ideals mentioned above, American Jews need to be more cognizant of the fact that both their understanding of these very ideals and of the actual events that transpire in Israel are frequently influenced by people with a very clear and biased agenda.

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3917694,00.html, 11.07.2010

July 13, 2010
Leveretts shout, Israel and the lobby are pushing us to war with Iran

by PHILIP WEISS

This smart piece on Netanyahu and the lobby pushing for Iranian war is savagely titled: “Who Will Be Blamed for a U.S. Attack on Iran?” Hillary Mann Leverett and Flynt Leverett make the distinction between the “Jewish community”‘s non-responsibility for the last disaster, Iraq, and the “pro-Israel intellectuals,” including Ken Pollack and the neocons (guilty). (Yes but how many precincts of the Jewish community gave these stupid ideas aid and comfort, including the Union for Reform Judaism?)

The message of the Leveretts overall seems to be “Shout it from the rooftops now, while there’s still time. Israel wants the U.S. to attack Iran. This is Netanyahu’s wish, the wish of his government, above all, and of American Likud promoters and agents. And if it happens, the disaster will have been brought to us by Israel.” The boldface emphasis is theirs:

At least in theory, Obama could say “no” to Netanyahu’s exhortations—but that “no” would become public knowledge within roughly 15 minutes of its ostensibly private delivery. And, if our assessment of timing is correct, Obama’s “no” would become public knowledge as the President’s re-election bid is gearing up in a serious way.

If Obama says anything other than “no” to Netanyahu, the United States will be committed to military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets. A U.S. attack on Iran would almost certainly result in a much broader confrontation between the United States and the Islamic Republic—with residual U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq at high risk, the strategic outcomes from our military adventures in both of those countries in even deeper jeopardy, profoundly negative effects on the global economy, and international perceptions that reckless and “rogue” U.S. behavior in the strategically vital Middle East was an idiosyncratic feature of George W. Bush’s presidency forever shattered. These eminently foreseeable consequences would have a devastating impact on America’s standing in one of the world’s most important regions.

Some critics of the American invasion of Iraq argue that this decision reflected undue influence by Israel and parts of the pro-Israel community in the United States. As individuals who served at the White House on the National Security Council staff in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, we saw no evidence that Israeli officials and leaders of the American Jewish community (as opposed to some pro-Israel intellectuals like the Saban Center’s Ken Pollack and neoconservative policymakers in the Bush Administration) goaded the United States into invading Iraq. However, if Washington initiates war with Iran over the nuclear issue, it will be primarily in response to pressure from Israel and the more Likudnik parts of the pro-Israel community in the United States. And those actors will bear a significant share of the blame for the consequences of that war.

https://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/leveretts-shout-israel-and-the-lobby-are-pushing-us-to-war-with-iran/, 12 July 2010

July 13, 2010
Review of Stephen Kinzer’s “Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future”

By John Lancaster

By Stephen Kinzer

Times. 274 pp. $26

For the title of his new book, Stephen Kinzer borrows the latest diplomatic fad word — “reset” — in calling for a makeover of U.S. policy in the Middle East. I know what you’re thinking: Oh no. Not another book on — fill in the blank (American missteps in Iraq, the Israel lobby, Saudi oil politics, etc.). While Kinzer touches on several such themes, his main thesis is more provocative: The path to a stable Middle East runs not through Israel and traditional Arab allies but through Turkey and Iran. Therein lie the book’s strengths as well as its main weakness.

First, its strengths: A former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, Kinzer argues persuasively that despite their very different governments — one friendly and free, the other hostile and theocratic — both Turkey and Iran are host to vibrant democratic traditions that make them natural long-term partners of the United States. He deftly interweaves the stories of the Iranian and Turkish democracy movements, whose roots are deeper than most Americans realize.

For example, Kinzer shows how recent anti-government protests in Iran are part of a continuum that dates at least to 1906, when popular fury toward a decadent monarchy led to the creation of Iran’s first parliament. Of particular interest is the story of Howard Baskerville, a young Princeton graduate from Nebraska who was teaching in Tabriz when the ancient city was besieged by royalist forces seeking to crush the new democracy. Baskerville sided with the democrats and died while leading schoolboys into battle in 1909. “Today Howard Baskerville is an honored figure in Iran,” Kinzer writes. “Schools and streets have been named after him. His bust, cast in bronze,” holds a place of honor in Tabriz. Who knew?

The account is typical of Kinzer’s lively, character-driven approach to history. Mustafa Kemal — also known as Ataturk, the charismatic army officer who is regarded as the founder of modern Turkey — is depicted as an alcoholic and libertine whose conquests included a teenage Zsa Zsa Gabor, or so she later claimed. More substantively, Kinzer describes a ruler so bent on purging the Turkish state of religious influence that he ordered civil servants to shed their traditional fezzes in favor of Western-style bowler hats. In that and other ways, Kemal had much in common with Reza Shah Pahlavi, the rough-hewn soldier who seized power in Iran in 1921. Despite their autocratic styles, both rulers were relentless modernizers who promoted education and women’s rights — and in doing so, Kinzer argues, helped create the conditions that allowed democratic ideals to germinate. The two countries “developed national identities shaped by the Enlightenment as well as Islam,” Kinzer writes. “This was a new synthesis. It invigorated Turkey and Iran and set them starkly apart from the countries around them.”

After decades of instability and military rule, Turkey, a NATO member, has capitalized on its democratic potential and has even moved haltingly toward membership in the European Union. For that, Kinzer assigns much credit to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, whose Islamist leanings belie the view that Islam and democracy are incompatible. “Democracy has become Turkey’s only alternative,” Kinzer writes. “Even pious Muslims recognize, accept, and celebrate this.”

Iran, of course, is another story. That is at least partly the fault of the United States, whose role in ousting the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 forms an important part of Kinzer’s narrative (and the focus of one of his previous books). The coup restored the Pahlavi dynasty. It also set the stage for the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the decades of U.S.-Iranian enmity that have followed. But Kinzer still finds reasons for hope. Even now, he writes, “Iran is the only Muslim country in the world where most people are reliably pro-American. This pro-American sentiment in Iran is a priceless strategic asset for the United States.”

Kinzer’s take on Iran and Turkey is fresh and well-informed, but he stumbles when he plays policymaker. His plea for a more conciliatory approach to Iran sounds a bit fanciful at a time of rising tensions over its nuclear program. And besides, haven’t we tried that already? Nor is there anything particularly new about Kinzer’s call for a recalibration of U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia and Israel. For example, he is hardly the first to urge a tougher approach to Israel, a chorus that has only grown louder since Israel’s disastrous commando raid on a flotilla trying to breach its naval blockade of Gaza in May. In Kinzer’s view, it’s time for the Obama administration to “impose” a peace settlement on Israel and the Palestinians, but he doesn’t explain quite how it should do this, other than presiding over “a coercive version of the smoke-filled room.” After the riches of the book’s first half, I found myself wishing that Kinzer had dispensed with the think-tank musings (and bullet points) and stuck to his strengths as a journalist and historian.

John Lancaster is a former Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070902109.html, July 11, 2010

July 11, 2010
Frog’s foam fashions fuel

Krista D. Zanolli, Contributing Editor, [email protected]

With the inevitable decline of fossil fuels, the race is on to discover renewable energy solutions. As an alternative, researchers from the University of Cincinnati have found a way to convert solar energy and carbon dioxide into sugars to create new forms of biofuel.

The natural process of photosynthesis involves plants taking energy from the sun and carbon from the air and converting them into sugars. It’s those converted sugars that make biofuels like ethanol and bioethanol viable alternatives to fossil fuels. The problem is that the cost of growing and processing crops for biofuel production reduces efficiency rates to as low as 5 percent.

University of Cincinnati researchers are finding ways to take energy from the sun and carbon from the air to create new forms of biofuel, thanks to a semitropical frog species. Courtesy of the University of Cincinnati.

The researchers now say that they have fashioned an artificial photosynthetic material that can convert solar energy and carbon dioxide into sugars with an efficiency rate approaching 96 percent. And, oddly enough, they owe their inspiration to the nesting habits of a subtropical frog – the Tungara.

The female Tungara generates a resistant biofoam nest to protect her fertilized eggs from sunlight, temperature and pathogens until the eggs hatch. The foam is effective because it allows light and air to penetrate while still concentrating the reactants. The foam nests are also resistant to bacteria and fungus and can last up to two weeks. Similarly, the artificial photosynthetic material, which uses plant, bacterial, frog and fungal enzymes trapped within a foam housing, produces sugars from sunlight and carbon dioxide.

The artificial material’s major foam-forming ingredient is the Tungara frog’s surfactant protein Ranaspumin-2. Unlike chemical detergents, the Rsn-2 protein surfactant enables foam formation in low concentrations without disrupting cell membranes.

According to the study published online in Nano Letters, the foam converts light into adenosine triphosphate or ATP (considered the major energy currency of a cell) and then carbon dioxide into sugar using the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle. The ATP synthesis is initiated by the lipid vesicles’ exposure to green light.

“The advantage for our system compared to plants and algae is that all of the captured solar energy is converted to sugars, whereas these organisms must divert a great deal of energy to other functions to maintain life and reproduce,” said David Wendell, research assistant professor and co-author of the study, along with Carlo Montemagno, dean of the college of engineering and applied science, and student Jacob Todd. “Our foam also uses no soil, so food production would not be interrupted, and it can be used in highly enriched carbon dioxide environments, like the exhaust from coal-burning power plants, unlike many natural photosynthetic systems.”

Wendell added that too much carbon dioxide shuts down photosynthesis in natural plant systems, “but ours does not have this limitation due to the bacterial-based photocapture strategy.”

“The system that we have takes carbon out of the atmosphere and uses the sunlight to go and remold the molecules into a fuel – so it’s carbon neutral,” said Montemagno in an interview with Cincinnati public radio station WVXU. “I think the features of what we’ve done allow it to be scalable and commercially deployed. For me the real underlying advantage of this is that we’re demonstrating that we are able to incorporate life processes and make it intrinsic, and that’s what is really magical about this.”

“You can convert the sugars into many different things, including ethanol and other biofuels,” Wendell said. “And it removes carbon dioxide from the air but maintains current arable land for food production.”

“This new technology establishes an economical way of harnessing the physiology of living systems by creating a new generation of functional materials that intrinsically incorporates life processes into its structure,” Montemagno said. “Specifically, in this work it presents a new pathway of harvesting solar energy to produce either oil or food with efficiencies that exceed other biosolar production methodologies. More broadly, it establishes a mechanism for incorporating the functionality found in living systems into systems that we engineer and build.”

The team says the next step will be to try to make the technology feasible for large-scale applications like carbon capture and coal-burning power plants.

“This involves developing a strategy to extract both the lipid shell of the algae (used for biodiesel) and the cytoplasmic contents (the guts), and reusing these proteins in foam,” Wendell said. “We are also looking into other short carbon molecules we can make by altering the enzyme cocktail in the foam.”

“It is a significant step in delivering the promise of nanotechnology,” Montemagno added.

Photonics

July 11, 2010
Turkey asks Iraq, US to hand over Kurdish rebels: report

(AFP) – 11 July 2010

Murat Karayilan

ANKARA — Turkey has asked Iraq, the United States and Iraq’s Kurdish administration to hand over nearly 250 Kurdish rebels operating from rear bases in Iraq, the Hurriyet daily reported Saturday.

The list of 248 includes rebel commanders such as Murat Karayilan, Cemil Bayik and Duran Kalkan, and Ankara wants the handover to be “as soon as possible,” the newspaper said, quoting unnamed senior Turkish officials.

Turkey has also mooted a joint military operation “if necessary,” Hurriyet said.

“The net is tightening,” an official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

According to experts, there are some 2,000 Kurdish rebels holed up in northern Iraq from where they stage attacks on Turkish territory.

However, Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for Iraqi Kurdistan’s peshmerga fighters, could not confirm that the list had been handed over.

“These names are not those of people living officially in the (Kurdistan autonomous) region. They live in Turkey where they undertake their criminal activities,” Yawar told AFP.

“The Kurdistan government can’t arrest them because they are not in the region… We are not part of the problem. We want the problem to be solved peacefully,” he said.

Peshmerga are former Kurdish guerrillas who fought against the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein and led a campaign for autonomy for the Iraqi Kurdish minority in northern parts of the country.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — considered a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community — has been waging a 25-year-old campaign for Kurdish self-rule that has claimed some 45,000 lives.

The PKK has significantly escalated attacks against Turkish targets after jailed rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan said in May that he was abandoning efforts for peace with Turkey and the rebels called off a unilateral truce last month.

Three soldiers and 12 PKK militants were killed in clashes Tuesday.

Turkish General Ilker Basbug, the chief of general staff, last week strongly criticised Iraq’s Kurdish administration for failing to take action against PKK rebels.

July 11, 2010