Free Republic

Nov. 14, 2005 14:29 | Updated Nov. 14, 2005 20:24 Labor ministers sign resignation letters By SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL AND GIL HOFFMAN Netanyhau and Peretz, future rivals for top post? Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski [file] In a move signifying their support for Labor Party head Amir Peretz, all eight Labor Party ministers submitted to Peretz letters of resignation from the government Monday evening as per his request. In order for the resignations to take effect, the letters must be submitted to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Peretz, who refused to comment on the resignations, was expected to lead his party out of...

Nov. 14, 2005 18:38 | Updated Nov. 14, 2005 18:45 Peretz fronts bill to pay off settlers By SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL In a move that stirred controversy among MKs of all parties, newly elected Labor Party chairman Amir Peretz submitted a Knesset bill Monday that would grant compensation to West Bank settlements where 60% of the residents left voluntarily. In a statement accompanying the bill Peretz wrote that he intended to create "incentives for the continuation of voluntary evacuation of the Israeli citizens located in Judea and Samaria.” "[The disengagement] was a concrete example of the nation's ability to establish...

Peretz ready to bolt coalition New Labor chairman asks party members to prepare resignation letters Attila Somfalvi Labor Chairman Amir Peretz is preparing resignation letters with the signatures of Labor party ministers, to be used as a bargaining chip during his scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday.Peretz and Peres Photo: Yaron Brenner Aides to Peretz say the move will prevent the prime minister from preemptively sacking Labor party ministers by citing any number of pretexts. A Peretz source also said the Prime Minister's Office has attempted to arrange a meeting between the newly elected Labor party chairman...

I am back from some exacting days in Gaza and will write next week in TNR about why my experience there was so searing and what it told me about the future of the West Bank. It was a primary event of contemporary history in one of the most punishing conflicts in the world. But in today's world, the coverage of primary events is itself a primary event; and so before I collect my thoughts and impressions of what I saw in the Gazan sands, I want to take care of some less dramatic but nonetheless important business.

<p>Seymour Hersh, whose famously inventive journalism has won him lots of prizes and a new lease on journalistic life as The New Yorker's crusading Beltway gumshoe, has done a laying on of hands with Michael Isikoff, the prime author of the nuclear tidbit that appeared in the May 9 issue of Newsweek about the desecration of the Koran by American interrogators at Guantánamo. Hersh this week asserted that Isikoff "does that magic thing that's so obvious but that nobody does: he reads before he writes." Nobody does? It may not come as news to critical readers of Hersh's work that he finds something arresting about the notion that you should read before you write. But what is really risible about his pronouncement is that, in this matter, apparently, reading before writing is precisely what Isikoff did not do. He seems never to have read any official document stating that any American official anywhere during the present war against Islamic terrorists abused the sacred book of the Muslims.</p>

Martin Peretz, a principal owner, chairman, and editor in chief of The New Republic (TNR) magazine, that Liberal bastion, is an authentic, even quintessential Liberal himself. For a number of months now, he has been fingering the worn, tattered fringes of his Liberal cloak and discovering what a threadbare garment it is. In February, Mr. Peretz published in TNR a quite remarkable essay declaring that Liberalism, his only intellectual/political home for all his adult life "... is now bookless and dying. ... Liberalism now needs to be liberated from many of its own illusions and delusions. Let's hope we still...

Roughly one week before Howard Dean declared Republicans "brain-dead," the long-time editor-in-chief of the intellectual flagship of Democratic Party liberalism, Martin Peretz of The New Republic, declared such liberalism "bookless and dying." As if to add insult to the introspective injuries inflicted by Peretz, the cover of the magazine’s 90th anniversary issue depicts six historically prominent liberals with a floor being sawed out from underneath them, the youngest of whom, Martin Luther King Jr., died 37 years ago. Beyond the intentional and unintentional symbolism of such a cover, the symposium contained therein reminds us once again of the ideological confusion...

See yesterday's discussion thread on this very interesting admission from the New Republic http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1345678/posts

I think it was John Kenneth Galbraith, speaking in the early 1960s, the high point of post-New Deal liberalism, who pronounced conservatism dead. Conservatism, he said, was "bookless," a characteristic Galbraithian, which is to say Olympian, verdict. Without books, there are no ideas. And it is true: American conservatism was, at the time, a congeries of cranky prejudices, a closed church with an archaic doctrine proclaimed by spoiled swells. William F. Buckley Jr. comes to mind, and a few others whose names will now resonate with almost nobody. Take as just one instance Russell Kirk, an especially prominent conservative intellectual...

Four days after the election, Democratic partisan and comedian Garrison Keillor announced on his national radio show that he was recovering from his Election Day shock by embracing a new purpose: "to pass a constitutional amendment to take the right to vote away from born-again Christians." Amid laughter and applause from his audience, Keillor said, "Born-again people are citizens of heaven," not of America. "If you feel that … tribulation and suffering are just the natural conditions of life, that higher education is vanity, that there is only one book that you need to read … if you feel that...

Law and Disorder - by Martin Peretz Post date: 11.18.04 The Palestinians couldn't hold an orderly, peaceful burial. So why does everyone think they can create an orderly, democratic state? Well, not exactly everybody. At his joint press conference with Tony Blair last week, President Bush addressed the Palestinians, "If you choose not to be helped, if you decide you don't want a free, democratic society, there's nothing we can do." A bit impolitic, perhaps, and more than a bit disappointing to Blair, who wants to pacify a Labour left that is still incensed with his support for the Iraq...

ELECTION 2004 Good Riddance What a pathetic vessel in which to have placed liberalism's hopes! BY MARTY PERETZ Saturday, November 13, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST The American people have plumb busted the hearts of the country's liberal elites, and the sentiments evoked among these elites are not dolorous but actually quite nasty. So much so that they reminded me of a poem by the communist playwright Bertolt Brecht

It is [said]... the only sure winner in American politics is the media.... Maybe not this time. Big Media lost big. But it was more than a loss. It was an abdication of authority. Large media institutions, such as CBS or the New York Times, have been regarded as nothing if not authoritative. In the Information Age, authority is a priceless franchise. But it is this franchise that Big Media, incredibly, has just thrown away. It did so by choosing to go into overt opposition to one party's candidate, a sitting president. It stooped to conquer... National Guard... Abu Ghraib......

QUESTIONS FOR JOHN KERRY. Us and Them by Martin Peretz there was more horrid news out of Iraq this month: evidence that some 300 women and children had each been shot in the head and buried in a mass grave. One hundred fifty-six men were buried nearby in the same killing field. Alas, there are 40 such mass graves that we know of. A team of archaeologists, anthropologists, and technicians has been assembled by the hard-pressed Army Corps of Engineers--which came to the country primarily to bring relief to living Iraqis--and is doing the intricate, grisly work of exhumation. The...

Like many American Jews, I was brought up to believe that if I pulled the Republican lever on the election machine my right hand would wither and, as the Psalmist says, my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth. According to the Bible, of course, these are the feared consequences of forgetting Jerusalem. Now although there are many reasons one might want to vote for John F. Kerry, remembering Jerusalem — remembering to stand up for the state of Israel — is not among them. It is true that Kerry's campaign pronouncements have been unexceptionable from the pro-Zionist...

The tale spun by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson that Iraq did not ever try to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger is now in the process of unraveling. And, of course, the phalanx of anti-war journalists is desperately trying to stop the bust-up. But it can't be done. The flying apart began with two stories in the Financial Times (London), one on June 28, the other on July 4. Relying on information ultimately sourced to three European intelligence services--none of them British and one of them that had monitored clandestine uranium smuggling to Iraq over three years--Mark Huband reported that the...

---SNIP--- I confess: I do not like Sandy Berger; and I have not liked him since the first time we met, long ago during the McGovern campaign, not because of his politics since I more or less shared them then, but for his hauteur. He clearly still has McGovernite politics, which means, in my mind, at least, that he believes there is no international dispute that can't be solved by the U.S. walking away from it. No matter. Still, here's his story about the filched classified materials dealing with the foiled Al Qaeda millennium terrorist bombing plot from the National...

Jan. 5, 2004 Finance, Histadrut sign deal ending civil service strike By TAL MUSCAL More than three months of labor sanctions at government ministries came to an end Monday afternoon when Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Histadrut Chairman MK Amir Peretz shook hands and said their 100-day duel was over. At the Finance Ministry, Netanyahu told reporters that a major triumph of the deal was "the saving of Israeli pensions." "I know you all want to know who won. Without doubt, the Israeli public is the winner. We are pleased with the result, and if the Histadrut is pleased, we...

Dec. 8, 2003 Bibi interrupted at Economic Forum by activists By JPOST.COM STAFF Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, addressing the closing session of the 2003 Economic Forum, was interrupted social activists who accused him of destroying Israeli society, Monday. Netanyahu told audience members that although his economic program was a painful one, it was the only way of returning the economy to growth. He called upon Bank of Israel governor David Klein to continue lowering interest rates, in order to help the business sector - on one hand - and overdrawn lower classes - on the other. Histadrut Chairman Amir Peretz...

Last Update: 24/11/2003 22:53 Netanyahu, Peretz to hold decisive marathon talks By Zohar Blumenkrantz , Zvi Zrahiya and Haim Bior, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service Passengers waiting at the Ben-Gurion International Airport on Sunday, as takeoffs were halted due to a strike. (Nir Kafri) Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded positively on Monday evening to a proposal by Histadrut labor federation leader Amir Peretz to meet on Wednesday and Thursday in the framework of decisive marathon talks aimed at ending 56 days of public sector sanctions. The talks, which will be held in an isolated location, will debate the still unresolved...