NOVANEWS
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National park land-grabs from two East Jerusalem neighborhoods
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Spouse of ‘NYT’ correspondent calls on Israeli gov’t to wage ‘war’ on int’l threat to its image
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Emergency Committee for Israel goes after Ron Paul
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3-year-old arrested, leftist writer interrogated — another day in the ‘Jewish and democratic’ state
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The story every American should know – The barbaric legacy of the US invasion of Iraq
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Preparing for ‘Internet terror to strike’
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Char the pepper! Diane Shammas shares her secret maftoul and muhammara recipes
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NPR political expert calls Joe Lieberman a ‘moderate’ — unlike Republican extremists
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Under pressure from smear campaign, Center for American Progress abandoned assertion that Israel lobby is pushing war with Iran
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Catholics won’t warm up to Santorum’s pro-war mindset
National park land-grabs from two East Jerusalem neighborhoods
Jan 06, 2012
Allison Deger

National park/nature reserves. (Map: Settlement Watch East Jerusalem)
Last week, Israel opened a new checkpoint, ramped up plans to cut the West Bank in half, andstripped up to 70,000 Palestinians of their Jerusalem IDs. This week, Israel is taking another step in purging East Jerusalem of its Palestinians– with a national park.
The Jerusalem municipality announced plans for Mount Scopus Slopes National Park, land-grabbing 750 dunams (nearly 200 acres) from the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Al-Isawiyyah and Al-Tur. The reserve was approved by the Jerusalem District Planning Committee last April, but only now were the plans made public.
The land grab can take place in part because both Al-Isawiyyah and Al-Tur are on privately-owned land. And, in general, Palestinians live on private land, while Jewish Israelis live on state land. In this two-tiered system, Palestinians are constantly at risk from Israeli planners. When land is re-zoned to a national park, structures such as homes, and even roads are open for demolition.
The new national park will also create a barrier between Al-Isawiyyah and Al-Tur. As of now, there is open access between the two neighborhoods. The national park, however, will not interfere with transportation to settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank–because the tunnel road to Ma’ale Adumim runs under the Palestinian land.
Bimkom, an Israeli “planning rights” NGO, worked with the residents of Al-Isawiyyah to help expand housing construction in the village. While working with Al-Isawiyyah, Bimkom discovered the Nature and Parks Authority was simultaneously working with the municipality to re-zone a chunk of the Palestinian village. Bimkom architect Efrat Cohen-Bar said:
The Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem are crowded and they suffer from neglect and extreme shortage of public infrastructure. The residents are in desperate need of space by means of which they can improve their quality of life, even if slightly. The designation of land as a national park is a powerful and unjustified planning tool that is harmful for the population of East Jerusalem.
Together, Bimkom and Al-Isawiyyah attempted to reach an agreement with the municipality on land use, mitigating the land grab. However, the District Planning Committee rejected the proposal and went ahead with a more substantial land grab. Bimkom notes there are additional advantages to the Jerusalem municipalities:
The first advantage is that the declaration of an area as a national park does not require land expropriation and, as a result, it does not entail compensation of land owners. The second advantage is manifested by the fact that the responsibility for development and enforcement is transferred from the municipal authority to the National Planning Authority (NPA).
Meaning, not only does the land grab narrow the amount of space Palestinians can live on, but the city is also is absolved of obligations to pay for anything, such as road repairs, or the education of any children living on the re-zoned land. National parks are advantageous on many fronts!
In East Jerusalem there are eight nature reserves in place or planned, totaling about 35% of East Jerusalem. These areas were at one time under Palestinian control; however, Palestinians no longer have the legal right to the land or a direct channel to appeal the confiscation. Local district committees make the decisions to re-designate the land. But once the new permit is issued, grievances can only be addressed to the National Planning Authority. It is nearly impossible to reverse the status of a nature reserve.

‘Ayn Hawd, re-zoned a nature reserve in 1974. (Photo: New Internationalist)
There is only one case where the Israeli government reversed a decision to re-zone Palestinian land as a nature reserve. In 1974 ‘Ayn Hawd al-Jadidah, a Palestinian village near Haifa (where Palestinians who were forced out of their original village of ‘Ayn Hawd relocated after the Nakba) was re-zoned as a nature reserve. This change in status rendered the village “unrecognized.” The village was then barred from legal access to water, electricity, and sanitation. Even paved roads inside the village became illegal. This same status of “unrecognized,” now applies to the homes in Al-Isawiyyah and Al-Tur, situated in the area now zoned for a national park.
In 1994 ‘Ayn Hawd was finally re-zoned back to residential use, although it took until 2007 for electricity to reach the village. As ‘Ayn Hawd is the only “model” for villages reversing a re-zoning order, the prospects for Al-Isawiyyah and Al-Tur are almost non-existent. What is clear, is that there is no recourse, no appeals process, no way to contest the expropriation– and no way that Palestinians in East Jerusalem, who live in a home they own, are safe from the Judaization process.
Spouse of ‘NYT’ correspondent calls on Israeli gov’t to wage ‘war’ on int’l threat to its image
Jan 06, 2012
Philip Weiss

Hirsh Goodman
Isabel Kershner, a British-Israeli correspondent for the New York Times in Israel, is married to Hirsh Goodman, a writer who moved from South Africa (where he opposed apartheid), to Israel. His most recent books is The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival, and he writes today in the Jerusalem Post about a “war” Israel must conduct for its image.
Stand back. This one’s a little hot:
Fighting those who seek to channel Israel into a parallel identity with apartheid South Africa with the goal of crippling it through isolation and sanctions is a national imperative. Israel is dependent on trade, allies, imports and support of the world’s democracies currently happy to be identified with Israel in the international arena. Those who proactively work to remove Israel from the family of nations, cast it as a pariah, and place next to North Korea on the axis of evil, want to achieve through manipulation and lies what the Iranians are threatening to do by force: Bring Israel to its knees and, ultimately, make it another short chapter in the tempestuous history of this region…
This is smart, persistent warfare against Israel’s foreign relations, economy, alliances and image, which is amorphous despite its often pinpoint impact, as when senior Israeli officials could not travel to England, for example, and the boycotts and strikes of Israeli products and academics in several parts of the world…
The war to delegitimize Israel can only become more intense with time. The tools for this warfare are constantly improving, free, intellectually challenging and converge to serve a host of Israel’s enemies from anti-Semites to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and had better be clearly understood.
Israel has been very good at fighting its physical battles and its wars. It has managed to contain Iran in a serious way. The attacks against its legitimacy have until now been sporadic and noncoordinated. One of these days, however, someone smart is going to understand the dimensions and potential of this new weapon, and Israel would be very well advised to concentrate its efforts on being prepared. Smart threats require smart responses, and these cannot be found when everyone is dealing with the subject and no one seems to be cooperating.
Obviously the Prime Minister’s Office has to be the leader in this. It has the organizational capacity, the authority and the budget.
A former reporter, Goodman works for a university’s thinktank and would seem to owe his job to the Israel lobby: “Hirsh Goodman is a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University where he directs the Charles and Andrea Bronfman Program on Information Strategy that deals with the interface between policymaking and the media.” (Charles Bronfman and his late wife Andrea founded birthright Israel, paying for young Jews to tour the Jewish state.)
The New York Times’ conflict of interest policy for its reporters states right at the front that spouses can be trouble (boldface mine):
Conflicts of interest, real or apparent, may arise in many areas. They may involve tensions between journalists’ professional obligations to our audience and their relationships with news sources, advocacy groups, advertisers, or competitors; with one another; or with the company or one of its units. And at a time when two-career families are the norm, the civic and professional activities of spouses, household members and other relatives can create conflicts or the appearance of them.
I visited this turf before, the last time Goodman wrote about Israel’s information “war,” in 2010. I went with a cute headline, something about Pillow Talk. But maybe this isn’t so ha-ha? What about if Isabel Kershner had to interview Peter Beinart, who has said that Palestinians under occupation should have the right to vote. Or Omar Barghouti, a leader of the boycott movement. Would these people have an expectation of fairness? Would the reader?
Emergency Committee for Israel goes after Ron Paul
Jan 06, 2012
Adam Horowitz
The Emergency Committee for Israel is running this ad in the South Carolina media market.Ron Kampeas reports it’s first time ECI has targeted a Republican.
3-year-old arrested, leftist writer interrogated — another day in the ‘Jewish and democratic’ state
Jan 06, 2012
Max Blumenthal
This post originally appeared in Al-Akhbar English:
3-year-old Geraldine Blingoai was born to non-Jewish migrants. That was her crime.

Geraldine Blingoai (Photo: Ynet)
Yesterday, Blingoai was arrested at her birthday party by officers from the Israel Oz Unit, a division of the police created to target non-Jewish migrants and other violators of Israeli immigration policy (link is to Hebrew article; pardon any translation errors). When Ilan Gilon, a member of Knesset from the left-of-center Meretz Party, attempted to visit Blingoai at a holding facility, his assistant was arrested too.
While Blingoai and her mother await deportation to the Philippines, their friends have “gone underground,” according to the Israel daily Yedioth Aharanot.
In other news, left-wing Israeli blogger Yossi Gurvitz said in a Facebook post (also in Hebrew) that he was interrogated by Israeli police after a right-wing legal foundation complained about his writing. Gurvitz wrote:
Two weeks ago I was questioned on suspicion of incitement. This investigation was politically inspired by a complaint of a political organization, the Legal Forum for Israel, aimed at silencing me. I have not committed a crime and I am convinced that the case [will] be closed. So far, I was not able to report it and I am prevented from expanding on the subject because of police guidelines.
In 2010, I interviewed Legal Forum for the Land of Israel founder Nachi Eyal after his group attempted to pressure Israel’s Attorney General to prosecute another dissident writer, Ilana Hammerman, for bringing Palestinian girls living under occupation to play at Israeli beaches. “Israel will not allow these kinds of things to continue,” Eyal told me.
The story every American should know – The barbaric legacy of the US invasion of Iraq
Jan 06, 2012
Adam Horowitz
Dahr Jamail reports for Al Jazeera English from Iraq:
While the US military has formally withdrawn from Iraq, doctors and residents of Fallujah are blaming weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorous used during two devastating US attacks on Fallujah in 2004 for what are being described as “catastrophic” levels of birth defects and abnormalities.
Dr Samira Alani, a paediatric specialist at Fallujah General Hospital, has taken a personal interest in investigating an explosion of congenital abnormalities that have mushroomed in the wake of the US sieges since 2005.
“We have all kinds of defects now, ranging from congenital heart disease to severe physical abnormalities, both in numbers you cannot imagine,” Alani told Al Jazeera at her office in the hospital, while showing countless photos of shocking birth defects.
As of December 21, Alani, who has worked at the hospital since 1997, told Al Jazeera she had personally logged 677 cases of birth defects since October 2009. Just eight days later when Al Jazeera visited the city on December 29, that number had already risen to 699.
“There are not even medical terms to describe some of these conditions because we’ve never seen them until now,” she said. “So when I describe it all I can do is describe the physical defects, but I’m unable to provide a medical term.”
‘Incompatible with life’
Most of these babies in Fallujah die within 20 to 30 minutes after being born, but not all.
Four-year-old Abdul Jaleel Mohammed was born in October 2007. His clinical diagnosis includes dilation of two heart ventricles, and a growth on his lower back that doctors have not been able to remove.
Abdul has trouble controlling his muscles, struggles to walk, cannot control his bladder, and weakens easily. Doctors told his father, Mohamed Jaleel Abdul Rahim, that his son has severe nervous system problems, and could develop fluid build-up in his brain as he ages, which could prove fatal.
“This is the first instance of something like this in all our family,” Rahim told Al Jazeera. “We lived in an area that was heavily bombed by the Americans in 2004, and a missile landed right in front of our home. What else could cause these health problems besides this?”
Dr Alani told Al Jazeera that in the vast majority of cases she has documented, the family had no prior history of congenital abnormalities.
Alani showed Al Jazeera hundreds of photos of babies born with cleft palates, elongated heads, a baby born with one eye in the centre of its face, overgrown limbs, short limbs, and malformed ears, noses and spines.
She told Al Jazeera of cases of “thanatophoric dysplasia”, an abnormality in bones and the thoracic cage that “render the newborn incompatible with life”.
Rahim said many of his relatives that have had babies after 2004 are having problems as well.
“One of them was born and looks like a fish,” Rahim said. “I also personally know of at least three other families who live near us who have these problems also.”
Read the rest of the story here.
Preparing for ‘Internet terror to strike’
Jan 06, 2012
Annie Robbins
News is spreading fast about a cyber attack on Israeli online shoppers this week. A hacker who claims to be a 19 year old Saudi has posted the data of thousands of credit card users online.
Thus far Israeli credit card companies have said that 25,000 numbers were released online. The hacker, who goes by the name of OxOmar, claims to have leaked the information of more than 400,000 Israelis– and says the “Jewish lobby” is hiding the extent of the attack.
Reuters reports this is one of the worst attacks of its kind Israel has ever faced and that concerns are “heightened” because of the potential use of stolen information by Israel’s enemies.
“These matters are worrisome,” Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz told Israel Radio, calling the incident “a sample of the great danger out in cyberspace.”
On the back of the credit card theft, a parliamentary committee has scheduled a session for the coming week to review Israel’s readiness to defend itself from cyber attacks.
“We must prepare to cope with cyber threats in anticipation of any attempts to use Internet terror to strike at Israel,” said lawmaker Ronit Tirosh, the committee chairwoman.
Some newspaper columnists speculated that hackers might be retaliating for recent attacks in Iran, including the mysterious Stuxnet computer virus that snarled its controversial nuclear computer systems.
CNN reports an international investigation to locate the hackers (which it describes as “group”) has begun. From the several reports I’ve read, there’s no firm evidence thus far the cyber attack originates from Saudi Arabia.
It’s hard to gauge the extent of the attack or the repercussions at this juncture, but the implications could be immense.
Yoram Hacohen, the head of the Israeli Law, Information and Technology Authority at the Israeli Ministry of Justice, told CNN in a phone interview Friday he’s more concerned about the private information that was released, not the credit card numbers….The publishing of information such as e-mail addresses, phone numbers, home addresses and passwords could lead to identification theft, he said… some of the information exposed belongs to Jews worldwide, not only Israelis.
Israeli authorities have begun a criminal investigation, including a computer forensic probe to search for electronic evidence to try to locate the group, Hacohen said. The theft of personal information is a criminal act under Israel’s Privacy Protection Law.
He acknowledged that in the digital world, offenders are very difficult to track, and authorities are asking for international help in the matter.
“The peculiar incident we are facing could be a bad joke, a youthful prank, a hate-driven terror attack for beginners or the cellars of the Iranian intelligence in Tehran,” wrote Israeli columnist Ben Caspit in the Maariv newspaper Friday, outlining the difficulties of trying to identify the hackers.
Char the pepper! Diane Shammas shares her secret maftoul and muhammara recipes
Jan 06, 2012
Diane Shammas

Maftoul with roasted butternut Squash. (Photo: Lisa Ann)
After intriguing us with a comment she posted recently, Dr. Diane Shammas offered to share her maftoul (couscous) recipe. She bragged, we asked, and now we can all have Diane’s maftoul. And that’s not all. “I also added muhammara, which I have perfected after many years,” she writes. Muhammara is a red pepper dip.
At my holiday parties and family dinners I made both these dishes and people wanted the recipes especially the butternut squash maftoul one.
The recipes:
I. Maftoul (Couscous) with Roasted Butternut Squash, Parsley, Mint, Pine nuts, Apples, Feta and Spices
The original recipe by Lisa Ann states a serving of 6 but she used a medium-sized butternut squash. I seem to be only able to find the large variety fresh. If you use the whole butternut squash it makes 12 servings or more depending on the serving size. If you buy a whole large butternut squash and want to use all of it, add a 1/4 cup or extra tablespoon to the ingredients. I also added to the recipe spices of turmeric and cumin, which Lisa Ann did not include.
I also am providing a link on how to cut and peel butternut squash as it is tricky. Be careful cutting and carving the squash. The second time around making this recipe I cut my index finger pretty badly even though I was careful and followed the carving instructions –microwaving the whole butternut squash for 3 minutes does help. The contributor to carving a butternut squash found the same problem as I did even using the sharpest vegetable peeler, as other squash carving sites recommend; that is why Morgan O’Connor recommends using a long thin sharp knife on a sturdy carving board with a silicone mat (As O’Connor recommends at ehow.com, you can always buy butternut squash cubes at stores like Trader Joe’s but you sacrifice freshness).
Also, as instructed, a grapefruit knife, which I use all the time, is a simple way to de-seed the squash.
Ingredients for 6 servings (using a medium butternut squash)
1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons lemon zest
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (approximately 2 medium lemons)
1 medium butternut squash (or large if you can’t find medium) peeled and seeded, cut into 1/4 inch –dice
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large red onion, chopped
1 cup of maftoul
I buy organic Palestinian maftoul (not Israeli couscous) at Williams Sonoma because you are supporting the Palestinian Fair Trade Association. If you can’t find a Williams Sonoma or your local Williams Sonoma does not carry it, Canaan Fair Trade is the distributor, and located in Madison, Wisconsin.
Maftoul is composed of whole wheat flour and bulgur (Arabic: burghul). Bulgur is made from different wheat grains (duram wheat), partially boiled and dried. Bulgur comes in sizes 0 to 4. It also is used in kibbeh, tabbouli and some rice pilaf recipes.
Ingredients continued:
2 cinnamon sticks
1 dried bay leaf
2 star anise
1 chopped fresh flat leaf Italian parsley
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 Granny Smith apple, diced (approximately 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup fresh chopped mint
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (if you are making for a vegan can leave out, but it doesn’t taste as good in my opinion)
Dash of turmeric (or if using a whole large butternut squash I put in a tablespoon)
1 -3 teaspoons of cumin (I used a tablespoon as I like the taste and with a large squash)
Cooking Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Toss squash with 2 T olive oil and salt to taste in large baking pan and spread in a single layer. I am always sparing with the salt as I let the guests or family members add more if they want. Roast in oven for 15 minutes until squash is just tender and transfer to a separate bowl. If you have a roasting pan like Le Creuset, the results are better.
3. Cook onion in 1 T olive oil in skillet over medium heat stirring occasionally until golden brown and add to bowl with the squash.
4. Add star anise, bay leaf, cinnamon sticks and vegetable broth to a pot and bring to a boil. Add maftoul, turmeric and cumin and reduce heat to a simmer then cook for approximately 12 minutes until maftoul is tender. Remove star anise, bay leave, and cinnamon sticks, then add couscous to squash and onions in the bowl.
5. Add orange juice, lemon zest, lemon juice, parsley, pine nuts, cranberries, apples, mint and feta to the bowl with squash and onions. Toss and serve at room temperature.
This dish lasts for a few days and it is even better after a day.

Muhammara. (Photo: Tony Tahhan)
II. Muhammara
Muhammara is a Syrian dip that you can also use as a relish for kebabs and shish tawook (grilled chicken), as the Turkish people do. After many trials of making it, either from recipes friends gave me, or retrieved from the internet, it always was missing the right spicy flavor and nutty texture like Moishe’s in the Farmer’s Market at 3rd and Fairfax in Los Angeles. Moishe is actually a Lebanese Armenian that sells Middle Eastern delicacies from his stall at the Farmer’s Market.
The following is the recipe that I adapted from a Lebanese American woman’s website, Taste of Beirut. Using crushed Aleppo pepper and adding extra walnuts at the end of mixing all the ingredients (not originally included in the recipe) seems to do the trick. My cousin’s wife, Rasha, who originally is from Syria, contributed to the recipe by advising me to add the walnuts last while passing the mixture through the food processor.
Ingredients
3 large red bell peppers
4 cloves of garlic (I especially like garlic so I add a couple more)
Walnuts, 1.8 ounces or little less than a 1/4 cup
Ground cumin, 3/4 teaspoon (again I like cumin so I would put in one teaspoon or more if you like)
Pomegranate molasses, I tablespoon + _ teaspoon. Again, if you want a fruitier tart taste add a little more. An Iraqi friend of mine swears by the Pomegranate molasses from Iran, because she claims it is less bitter. I only can seem to find the pomegranate molasses juice made in Lebanon.
1 small onion (I like the white onion as it gives the dip a sweeter taste).
Crushed Aleppo pepper, 1 teaspoon – 3 teaspoon (depending on how hot you want the dip, I like it hot so I put in 1 Tablespoon). You can generally get crushed Aleppo pepper in a Middle Eastern or Arabic store. This season I did not have the time to rush out a half an hour from where I live to the nearest Arabic store so I ordered a lb. of crushed Aleppo pepper on line from My Spice Sage in the Bronx (so for those of you who live in the City this is one of many sources). If you don’t have time to search for Aleppo pepper you can use red chili paste or smoked paprika.
Salt, 1 teaspoon
Extra 1/8 cup of walnuts for the end
Method
1. Place the walnuts in a bowl, add water to cover and soak for one hour.
2. Peel the garlic cloves, chop and place in a mortar with the salt, pound and mash the garlic (if you are not the type to want to mess with a garlic press, I put the garlic cloves in a food processor and then scoop them up and then mash them in a mortar.
3. Wash the peppers and place on a foil-lined cookie sheet under the broiler, turning them every few minutes until the skin is blackened and charred. Blackening the skins just right is a secret in many of these dips like baba ghannoush (eggplant dip), and the Lebanese have perfected this as every home or restaurant I have visited in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine they seem not to char the skin adequately and it gives it a flat taste. You of course want a little red to still peek through so I am not suggesting to totally burn the red bell pepper.
4. After the blackened process has finished, take out the peppers and put them in a plastic bag with a couple of tablespoons of water, close the bag tightly for 10 minutes. Now if the peppers have gotten too watery in the blackening process then add less water, maybe just 1 T is sufficient. Open the bag and peel off the skins of the peppers; cut the peppers open and discard all the seeds and white parts inside, as well as the stem.
5. Peel the onion and cut in quarters.
6. Place the peppers, onion, mashed garlic, drained walnuts, cumin, pomegranate molasses, Aleppo pepper (or if none, chili paste or smoked paprika) and olive oil in the bowl of a food processor. Process for one minute or until the mixture is smooth, yet still thick and with some texture. You don’t want it to be a watery mixture. I would suggest at the end adding an 1/8 cup more of walnuts to the mixture and turning on the food processor for just 2 seconds. This way you will have a crunchier texture to the dip.
Taste to adjust seasonings and transfer the sauce to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate. After it has been refrigerated it should develop a pasty texture. Like many Arabic foods, a day later tastes even better as it allows time for all the ingredients to meld. For those of you who fear that a food processor pulverizes the mixture, the more power to you if you want to manually grind it. I am convinced that in taste and aesthetics, for example, if you are making tabbouli it is better to chop all the ingredients with a knife.
SAHTAYN! (Two Healths to You).
NPR political expert calls Joe Lieberman a ‘moderate’ — unlike Republican extremists
Jan 06, 2012
Philip Weiss

Joe Lieberman
Much of what is wrong– or as the anthropologists say, “culturally bound”– in the mindset of the liberal mainstream media is manifest in a statement by NPR’s “political junkie” Ken Rudinon Morning Edition today:
Jon Huntsman did the old John McCain strategy of missing, bypassing Iowa completely, hoping to make a big deal in New Hampshire. Of course it worked for John McCain, who did it both in 2000 and 2008, won New Hampshire both. He’s also possibly emulating Wesley Clark and Joe Lieberman, other kind of moderate guys–not that Jon Huntsman’s a moderate, but compared to the rest of the field he is– who missed, bypassed Iowa and went to New Hampshire and were never heard from again.
P.S. Re moderate Lieberman’s run in 2004, as Janny Scott reported in the Times:
In the depths of that winter leading into the primaries, Mr. Lieberman was increasingly at odds with the left wing of his party — and much of the party irreconcilably at odds with him.
He had presented himself as the heir to the centrist legacy of former President Bill Clinton, only to be ridiculed by the antiwar left as “Bush Lite.” He attacked fellow Democrats as extremists. He tirelessly defended the war in Iraq to voters too angry about the war to want to listen. Having started the race as the best known candidate, he placed a dismal fifth in the New Hampshire primary. A week later, he quit.
Lieberman endorsed John McCain for president in 2008.
Under pressure from smear campaign, Center for American Progress abandoned assertion that Israel lobby is pushing war with Iran
Jan 06, 2012
Philip Weiss

Gali Tibbon AFP photograph from Getty Images
The drama of Israel lobbyist Josh Block’s raid on Israel critics inside Democratic Party-linked thinktanks is getting more mainstream attention. Maybe it will finally make the Times?
The story is in the Daily Beast today, with the graphic at left. I haven’t read the piece; but that picture is not helping the Jewish state, honey.
Meantime, Nathan Guttman at the Forward produces a solid piece on Josh Block’s effort to smear the Center for American Progress and Media Matters. Though Guttman ignores the large political question surrounding Block’s raid– the fact that Block, a former AIPAC staffer, worked with Republican neoconservatives to put pressure on the Democratic establishment (yes, explain how that works!)–Guttman gives this bottom line:
The Center for American Progress, a leading progressive policy think tank closely aligned with the Democratic Party, was forced to distance itself from terms such as “apartheid,” referring to Israel, and from claims that the pro-Israeli lobby was pushing for war with Iran, due to a barrage of criticism hurled at the group from Jewish and pro-Israel activists.
But another group, Media Matters, which came under fire for similar statements, has stuck to its guns and is continuing to use the term “Israel firsters,” a reference to hawkish defenders of Israel that is seen as offensive by many in the pro-Israel community….
CAP was founded and is chaired by John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to President Clinton. The center is generally perceived as having close links to the Democratic Party. These ties brought it under the most pressure when Block launched accusations that some of CAP’s staffers were engaging in anti-Israel rhetoric. The group quickly moved to stress its support for Israel and to delete statements seen as controversial.
“We’ve tried to reiterate what our positions are,” said Ken Gude, CAP’s managing director of national security. These views, Gude told the Forward, include “robust support” for the State of Israel. “We have no intention to break with the mainstream,” he added….
Following the Politico story, CAP launched an effort to purge its website and asked staffers to delete offensive remarks from their Twitter feeds. [Journalist Ali] Gharib posted a message: “I do apologize for the crudeness of the flippant Tweet in question,” referring to his reference to Kirk. [“Mark Kirk (R-AIPAC).”]
In contrast, Media Matters, a much smaller organization also seen as close to the Democratic Party, fought back against Block’s accusations. M.J. Rosenberg, the group’s senior writer on foreign policy — and once an AIPAC official himself — defended his use of the term “Israel firster.” The term, he said, was a legitimate one for criticizing those who see the policies of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu as always being right while viewing those of America’s president, Obama, as always wrong.
P.S. My headline is the most important part of this piece. And if mainstream media would only start doing the reporting on who is giving to Romney’s Super PAC and why, and what Obama is doing policy-wise to keep Israel lobby money in the Democratic Party, and why Iran-war-drum-thumper Jeffrey Goldberg is hosting a panel with George Mitchell for the Slimfast-billionaire-funded Dem establishment next week (the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace), then maybe more people, including me, would understand just what financial pressure CAP was under…
Speaking of money, the Forward piece ends with a scholar spanking anyone, including Tom Friedman, who says that Congress is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. I’m ashamed to discover that the words “bought and paid for” are anti-Semitic. I believe Will Rogers’s definition of a politician– “the best looking man money can buy”– is also anti-Semitic? Forward, illuminate.
And as for “Israel firster,” please hold your breath as one of these days Jack Ross and I comb the anti-Zionist archives, from Rabbi Isaac Wise to Hannah Arendt to Rabbi Berger to Theodor Herzl, to show you how double loyalty was on their minds a long time ago. Wait– Herzl!?
Catholics won’t warm up to Santorum’s pro-war mindset
Jan 06, 2012
Mark Wauck
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Wednesday night’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” was a primer in religion and politics. The astute Matthews repeatedly brought up Rick Santorum’s being Catholic as a crucial part of his strategy in the weeks ahead. Matthews spoke of Santorum’s ability to grab “angry… gritty, gritty Catholics”– conservative Irish and Italian Catholics of the northeast. Matthews’s Catholic talk was echoed by Howard Fineman of Huffpo and Jennifer Donahue of Eisenhower Institute. But is Matthews right? Mark Wauck, a Catholic living in Illinois, not far from Iowa, offered the following analysis:
I think Matthews is talking through his hat. If you look at a county map of Iowa, it was clear that Santorum was taking the rural counties, with their Evangelicals–just what the conventional wisdom said was happening earlier in the week. Meanwhile, Ron Paul was picking up cities along the Mississippi, and especially in the NE. When I checked Wikipedia, it turned out that’s where Catholics are concentrated.
Those Catholics are probably Reagan Dems, or the children of Reagan Dems. I think Paul’s anti-war message resonates with them. The Evangelicals, with their love of Old Testament imagery and their “Christian” Zionism– they’re the war party people. Of course, nowadays there’s a blurring of boundaries, with Catholics influenced by Evangelicals and Evangelicals (wonder of wonders) willing to vote for followers of the Whore of Babylon. Still– Catholics in America aren’t into holy wars, generally speaking.
By far the best map resource on Iowa voters is Iowa Caucus 2012 Results MAP (REAL-TIME DATA). Not only is it color coded by county, but by rolling your mouse pointer over the counties you get a detailed breakdown of the vote.
As you do so, bear in mind Catholic demographics in Iowa (Wikipedia):
[In] the southernmost two tiers of Iowa counties and in other counties in the center of the state, the largest religious group was the United Methodist Church; in the northeast part of the state, including Dubuque and Linn counties (where Cedar Rapids is located), the Catholic Church was the largest; and in ten counties, including three in the northern tier, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was the largest. The study also found rapid growth in Evangelical Christian denominations. Dubuque is home to a Catholic archdiocese, which spans the northeastern section of Iowa.
Notice the reference to Dubuque and Linn counties and to the NE part of the state.
Paul lost both Dubuque and Linn counties–to Romney. However, he finished second in both counties (doing 5 points and 3 points better there compared to his overall totals). Santorum, in third place, was -1 and -4. He fared worse in these Catholic counties!
In fact, throughout the eastern third Paul did very well, getting 27-33% in a range of counties (and 49% in one). All well above his average.
Here was the conventional wisdom:
Watch Dubuque: The county in the northeast corner of the state is heavily Catholic and an area Romney scored well in four years ago. If Rick Santorum isn’t winning here it means the Santorum surge isn’t real or isn’t big enough to matter. The state is 23% Catholic – if Santorum, a pro-life Catholic himself, consolidates the Catholic vote in Dubuque and elsewhere, the Iowa surprise could be a Santorum win.
But that’s not what happened. What happened was that the Evangelicals went to Santorum in a big way, but Santorum came in third in the most heavily Catholic areas. Had he finished even second in most of the Catholic counties he would have won the state going away.
Anecdotally, I hear that Catholics in Iowa tend to be Democratic and liberal. Nevertheless, Santorum will have to show better among Catholics elsewhere to have any real chance. It’s possible that his style has more appeal to Evangelicals than to Catholics. For example, my brother told me that Bill Bennett called Santorum this morning, live on the radio, and Santorum was talking about his “Bible based policies.” I can just about guarantee you that that will go down less well among Catholics than among Evangelicals. But Santorum could find it difficult to walk that back without alienating Evangelicals.
To give you a flavor of how serious Catholics view Santorum, check out Crisis, a Catholic magazine. These are true blue, pro-life Catholics. Here’s what they say about Santorum:
Rayne: What about Rick Santorum?
Franz: If we could vote for him as “President of the United States,” and not “Galactic Overlord,” I might consider it. But when he was out in the political wilderness after getting killed in his last Senate campaign, Santorum recovered his fortunes the same way Gingrich did: On the rubber-chicken warmonger circuit, running around telling neoconservatives how the U.S. needed to gird itself for imminent military action against…. fill in the blank. Iran. Venezuela. Quebec. While I deeply admire Santorum’s embrace of Natural Law principles, and his real understanding of the centrality of the family to society, I think that as a Catholic we have to consider him a dissenter: His policies really reject the Church’s teaching on Just War—which is not, sorry to say, “Just war… just because.”