On Saturday, SCAF chief Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi pardoned Nabil, along with 1,959 other prisoners subjected to military trials. Adel al-Mursi, the head of the military prosecution, said that the decision to pardon the detainees was taken to commemorate the revolution's anniversary. He was released on Jan. 24, flashing the "V" for victory signs to photographers as he marched out of prison.

Egypt pardons nearly 2,000 prisoners; Islamists take three quarters of parliament

Sanad's freedom is a litmus test for Egypt's future. So far it is failing miserably.

. . .

We are dealing with a movement that decades ago was illegalized by the Egyptian government. But the Muslim Brotherhood persisted and in the parliamentary election last fall showed their gathering strength. Accordingly, on the same weekend in which Hamas faced economic ostracism, Mubarak announced a postponement by two years of scheduled local elections. This was a visible sign of fright, that democracy was on the move, and that a religious organization which has engaged in violent activities, and is banned, threatens the plans of Mubarak, which were to hand Egypt over to his son. Observers with minimal liberal sensibilities welcome most moves against Mubarak, but not any move against him, because he has stayed outside the clutches of the Islamic totalists and because his country was the first Mideast power to acknowledge and to respect Israeli independence. The prospect of the Muslim Brotherhood overwhelming Egypt and collaborating with the mullahs' Iran reminds us of the risks that democracy can bring.

It is a bitter pill to swallow, to see the United States and Israel forthrightly attempting to subvert democracy in Palestine. But the first law in this sermon is that democracy's fruits sometimes need either to be stillborn or else to be resisted.

In yesterday's PJ Media column promoting his (and LInda Bridges') recently published anthology of Buckley's writings, Roger Kimball wrote:

Literature, said Ezra Pound, is news that stays news. I have met few people better informed about public affairs than Bill Buckley. But his mastery of the day's ephemera was only a prelude to his embrace of the principles that underlay the controversies.

So it would seem.

What happens if there is a peace accord tomorrow, and Israel gives up any claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem? Is the President free to stop listing Israel on the passport?

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Lewin, you were cut off earlier when you were saying this reading doesn't hobble the President in the future.

It says anybody born in -- in Jerusalem can have Israel listed, correct? What happens if there is a peace accord tomorrow, and Israel gives up any claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem? Is the President free to stop listing Israel on the passport?

MR. LEWIN: If -

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Or does he have to wait for Congress to change the law?

MR. LEWIN: I think he does have to wait for Congress to change the law.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So you are hobbling the President with respect to situations that occur frequently -

MR. LEWIN: Well -

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: -- as happened in Egypt, sometimes overnight.

MR. LEWIN: No, but it may in some way, in a very remote possible way -- I mean, I think under those circumstances, if there were a peace treaty and if Jerusalem were handed over to a Palestinian state, I think Congress would repeal the statute.

That's the point. Congress has the power, has the authority under the Constitution to enact laws, and it is Congress that makes the decision even with regard to foreign policy issues.

What happens if there is a peace accord tomorrow, and Israel gives up any claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem? Is the President free to stop listing Israel on the passport?

The Palestinian Authority is set to demand that the Quartet pressure Israel to release prisoners in fulfillment of a pledge made by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, senior Palestinian sources told Haaretz on Monday.

Among the prisoners The PA wants released are Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat. The former is a member of the Fatah leadership, while Saadat is Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Abbas told Time Magazine a few days ago that, in 2008, Olmert promised him that Israel would release prisoners to the PA if a deal went through for the release of Gilad Shalit.

Olmert confirmed to Time that he had made the pledge.

Now the PA wants to present the demand ahead of a possible renewal of negotiations with Israel.

(Via IMRA)  Speaks for itself?

Actually, being from Ha'aretz, no, not quite.  Barghouti is serving five consecutive life sentences plus 40 years for his conviction of three terror attacks in which five Israelis were murdered, and also of attempted murder, membership in a terror organization and conspiring to commit a crime, while Saadat is serving 30 years for the assassination of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi and for his leadership role in the PFLP, a terrorist organization whose failure to murder more Israelis than it has is not due to a lack of trying. 

Ha'aretz left that bit out.

The lesson? To understand grand scale events, stop focusing on individuals -- whether ousted Arab dictators (Tunisia's ben Ali, Egypt's Mubarak, now Libya's Gaddafi) or slain jihadist leaders (Osama bin Laden and the various no-names the administration boasts of killing) -- and start focusing on the forces, the "spirit of the time," in this case, Islam, which creates bin Ladens no less than the tyrannical autocrats who suppress them.

Nor is this approach limited to comprehending the significance of the "Arab Spring." To the many who think that America's problems begin and end with Obama, consider the logic of the following quote, attributed to a Czech newspaper:

The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. ...

He knows of what he speaks.  Read on.

No decent person can fail to be moved by the return of Gilad Shalit to Israel. Few eyes will have been dry at his reunion with his family. Yet it has to be said that ultimately, this deal represents a triumph of heart over head and sentimentality over realism.

The Shalit family did what many of us hope we would have done in similar circumstances - fought a tenacious and brilliant campaign to sustain public pressure on the government to secure their son's release.

It was, however, emotional blackmail - and the Israel government should have resisted it. Shalit came to be regarded as every Israeli's son.

Tragically, however, in the years to come Israel may come to realise that it paid for the life of Gilad Shalit with the blood of further murdered Israelis and the lifelong torment of their families.

Yet no-one should underestimate the extreme difficulty of the decision Netanyahu was forced to take in this case.

In addition, NGO Monitor noted that the agreement to release hundreds of terrorists, responsible for heinous crimes, and tried and convicted according to due process of law, highlights the continued erosion of international legal principles. Instead of serving their time for these convictions, the murderers have been freed under extreme duress and compulsion, adding to the incentives for similar actions in the future. Organizations dedicated to human rights have an obligation to condemn such immoral extortion.

(via IMRA) 

For a list of NGO Monitor's detailed reports on the neglect of Shalit by human rights groups, scroll down.

Nevertheless, it remains true that, in the Old Testament, God commands the Jewish state in the land of Israel to come into being through warfare and violent dispossession of the original inhabitants. Moreover, this command has its roots in the very Covenant of God with Abraham (or rather "Abram" at that time) in the Bible and it thus forms one of the core tenets of Judaism as such, at least as we understand it. No one then can blame Palestinians and descendents of the ancient Canaanites, Jebusites and others who inhabited the land before the Ancient Israelites (as seen in the Bible itself) for a little trepidation as regards what recognising Israel as a "Jewish State" means for them, particularly to certain Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox Jews. No one then can blame Palestinians for asking if recognising Israel as a "Jewish State" means recognising the legitimacy of offensive warfare or violence against them by Israel to take what remains of Palestine from them.

... never actually mentioned 'Jews' or 'Judaism' even once, referred to 'Jewish tradition' only once, and said nothing about the Jewish contribution to American life or anything else. (This is in stark contrast to President Obama's August 2010 Ramadan Message, in which he referred to 'Muslims' six times and to 'Islam' twice, stated that "American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country," and praised "Islam's role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings ... a faith known for great diversity and racial equality").

 

Instead, in his Rosh Hashanah Message, President Obama discussed chiefly general world developments.

That is why my Administration is doing everything we can to promote prosperity here at home and security and peace throughout the world - and that includes reaffirming our commitment to the State of Israel.  While we cannot know all that the New Year will bring, we do know this: the United States will continue to stand with Israel, because the bond between our two nations is unshakable.

... [t]he heartbreaking accounts of lost lives and the images of families and children in Somalia and the Horn of Africa struggling to survive ...