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| Elephants fly away on love, from Etsy. |
The "Islamist" Egyptian president
didn't, as it turned out, throw any comedians into prison for the crime of insulting him (what's known in Shariah as
lèse-majesté—oh, excuse me, I guess
that's what you call it in Catholic; turns out Prophet Muhammad didn't [jump]
invent it after all). The Cairo court decided, quite rightly, that the plaintiff in the case, Mahmoud Abul-Enein, a lawyer for the Muslim Brotherhood (to which the president
does not belong) had no standing to bring the action.
President Mohammed Morsi's office distanced itself from the action, citing the "importance of freedom of expression".
The president's Pakistan hat, on the other hand, richly deserved everything that was said about it.
So glad he understands it's just not enough to
tolerate satire, you have to give it some material to work with.
Meanwhile, the "Islamist" Turkish government, as usual,
set an example of how to be civilized—no wonder Israeli officials are consternated.
Mr. Davutoglu, however, appeared to sketch out a more ambitious set of expectations for rebuilding Israeli-Turkish relations, citing several “preconditions,” including the “lifting” of the Israeli embargo on Gaza, which he said should follow the settling of the compensation issue....
As soon as there were progress on the issue of compensation and on the lifting of the embargo, the Turkish official said, “we would press the button to relocate our diplomats in Israel.”
To the consternation of Israeli officials, Mr. Erdogan, whom Mr. Kerry met with on Sunday, is planning to visit Gaza soon. Mr. Erdogan is also scheduled to go to Washington next month to meet with Mr. Obama.
A little over a year ago I posted my famous
Netanyahu divorce joke, on the subject of the Likud idea of what it means to negotiate without preconditions. I was trying to suggest, of course, not so much how they actually think as how it looks to the rest of the world, but it seems more and more likely that they really do think that way:
Israel says it remains committed to negotiations with no preconditions, a position that Mr. Obama appeared to endorse during his visit here.
“From Israel’s point of view, you cannot discuss the borders, let alone finalize borders, without dealing with the core issues of Israel’s legitimacy, its security concerns, and to hear from the Palestinians that the conflict is over,” said a senior Israeli official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity.
There is this
one little precondition, actually: the PA has to sign the agreement in advance. Other than that
everything's on the table.
