Federal Judiciary

Clear and present danger, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

Benjamin Netanyahu is of course not a perfect politician or leader, but I?m glad he is Israel?s prime minister at this hour, if only for this reason: He puts things as they are. Listen to this, in case you haven?t heard it yet:

?Iran?s leaders are barreling toward developing a nuclear weapon, and openly declaring their desire to destroy Israel. In the face of these repeated pledges to remove the Jewish state from the earth, we encounter in the best case a limp reaction, and even that is fading. We do not hear the necessary rejection, no harsh denunciation, no outcry. The world is carrying on as usual, and there are those who direct their fire at us, at Israel.?

Yes. That about sums it up, doesn?t it? We encounter in the best case a limp reaction, and even that is fading. I find those words kind of haunting.

And, you know, I wouldn?t be so disgusted at Obama?s treatment of Netanyahu -- and therefore of Israel -- if he didn?t bow all the time to Arab kings and Communist bosses.

One more word: Everyone is candid about evil dictatorships after they have done their worst and been brought down. Who ever said a good or defensive word about the Nazis after 1945? But Netanyahu is willing to tell the truth about Iran before that regime does it worst. Because afterward -- who cares?

Above, I wrote, ?. . . Obama?s treatment of Netanyahu -- and therefore of Israel -- . . .? Why did I write that? Well, because Netanyahu is a democratic leader, heading a government elected by the citizens of his country. King Abdullah (either one of them, actually) and Hu Jintao -- no.

I am looking at a picture of Obama embracing Lula da Silva. Two quick thoughts: Bill Buckley once said to Jesse Jackson (I?m paraphrasing), ?When you wished long life to Fidel Castro, were you wishing a short life to his prisoners?? (Actually, a shorter life could be more merciful for them.) Silva is a very devoted friend of the Castro brothers and their dictatorship. In recent days, he has been especially callous about the death of the political prisoner Orlando Zapata. When our president embraces Silva, is he, in a sense, flipping the bird at dissidents in dungeons?

Also -- speaking of WFB -- he once wrote a column entitled ?For Moderation in Osculation.? I believe he wrote it after President Carter dubbed Brezhnev in Vienna. (?Osculation? is a fun word, and, often, practice.)

I have mentioned Manuchehr Honarmand in Impromptus before. He is the Iranian exile journalist who operates www.Khaandaniha.com, a ?Voice of Democratic Iran.? The site has been hacked and disabled several times in the past -- by the Iranian government, it seems clear. But the site is now on a stronger technological footing, I?m happy to tell you. And Honarmand is having an effect -- otherwise the regime wouldn?t be so concerned.

I wrote about him in the March 8 National Review. That piece is called ?An Iranian?s Life: How an exile journalist has coped with the currents of his time.? To find it, go here. Honarmand has indeed had to deal with currents. As I say in that piece, he ?has had an eventful life, an all too eventful one.?

He was exiled by the Khomeinist revolution, of course -- many people were. Later, he was in Abu Dhabi, running his own restaurant. They burned it down. ?They?? Agents of the Iranian government, Honarmand feels sure, though there is no proof.

He next thought to go to Canada. So he paid $15,000 for four false visas, to be carried by his wife, him, and their two daughters. To get to Canada, the family had to travel through the Belgrade airport, during Communist days. They were found out at the airport. Leaving everything behind, they made a run for it -- into the city, where they located their contact. Who smuggled them into Holland.

The year 2000 was a lousy one -- the Honarmands? younger daughter was killed in a car crash. She was sixteen. Their older daughter has Down syndrome and still lives in Holland.

In 2002, Honarmand found himself in Venezuela -- interesting story. Ghastly story too. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Chávez regime, which has very, very close ties to the gang in Tehran. Honarmand spent two years in a notorious, beastly prison called Los Teques. He saw everything, mainly murder. Constant murder. He himself survived ?by money,? as he puts it: by paying off all those who had to be paid off.

In Holland again, he worked for the Persian-language radio station set up and funded by the Dutch government. But he tangled with the director, who was very cozy with Tehran: flying back and forth and so on. No opponent of the regime could do that. Honarmand resigned, kicking up a fuss.

And then the Islamists began to harass and hound him -- the same way they did Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- and he had to flee Holland, his adoptive country, the country of his citizenship. Honarmand believes that Holland is a goner: too weak, culturally and spiritually, to resist engulfment by Islamists.

Honarmand is now in a country whose identity he prefers not to broadcast. He has done so much running, so much dodging . . .

One of the themes of David Pryce-Jones?s career-long writing -- his articles and books -- is displacement: People should have had one kind of life, but war or persecution displaced them, and they were forced to have a much different one. (DP-J has had a personal taste of this: born in Vienna in 1936, two years before the Anschluss.) Honarmand, born in 1946, should have had a pleasant life in his native country. ?Before the revolution,? he told me, ?I was a normal guy. I was earning a living.? But then the world turned upside down -- or was turned upside down by brutes.

?I had gone to a French school,? Honarmand continued, ?and I had a free and liberal spirit. Under the Iranian revolution, I could not fit in for even one hour. At my age, I should be retired somewhere, walking in the park, enjoying myself. I am living as a refugee and . . .?

An eventful life, yes, and an unasked-for one. But he is doing much good, working for the liberation of Iran, so that others can live the kind of life that, by rights, should have been his. You know?

Let?s talk about the Supreme Court for a quick sec. President Obama has another pick coming up. If I were able to question him, I might ask something like, ?When you were in the Senate, you voted against both John Roberts and Samuel Alito. You said they were qualified in traditional ways, but they were conservative -- therefore, in your eyes, they were unfit to serve on the Supreme Court. By your standard, should Republican senators vote against your nominees because they?re liberal??

I?d also like to ask, ?Would you please explain where Sonia Sotomayor is qualified to serve on the Supreme Court but Roberts and Alito are not??

And speaking of questioning the president: Does this president ever hold press conferences? Is he done with them forever? Journalists used to grouse that George W. Bush didn?t hold enough press conferences -- and they were right, in my opinion. I was among the grousers. It would be nice to hear loud grousing about Obama -- who just doesn?t hold press conferences, perhaps because they leave a person . . . you know: Prompter-less.

He did take health-care questions from Fox?s Bret Baier, I recall -- that was commendable.

Tell you something kind of funny -- maybe a little weird. Yesterday, I saw the following headline at The Drudge Report: ?Crist Travels With Electric Fan So He Doesn?t Look ?Sweaty? . . .? And there was a video, here. I thought, ?Well, that makes sense: Governor Christie is a girthy fellow, and . . .? It was not until I watched the video that I discovered I had misread the headline: It was Governor Crist of Florida, not Governor Christie of New Jersey. Crist is one of the thinnest men in public life. I?ll admit he lives in a hot state . . .

A little music? For my latest ?New York Chronicle,? in the current New Criterion, go here. A subscription is required. For my chronicle for March, go here -- subscription not required. But if you see a copy of this splendid journal: I feel sure you?ll want to subscribe. Or at least want to insist that your local library carry it.

Let me tell you a little something about the April chronicle. In it, I mention Jessica Douglas-Home?s work on her great-aunt, Violet Gordon Woodhouse, a harpsichordist who lived from 1872 to 1948. She was known as ?the English Landowska? -- and she led a most colorful life. A few years ago, Roger Scruton composed an opera about her, Violet. Readers will surely know Scruton: essayist, philosopher, conservative lion . . .

As I ask in that chronicle, is there anything this extraordinarily versatile man can?t do? ?It would not be surprising to learn that he had entered the Winter Olympics as a snowboarder.?

Feel like a little more music? For my latest piece in City Arts, go here. It deals with Christian Tetzlaff, the German violinist; L?Etoile, an opéra comique by Chabrier, staged by New York City Opera; and a Carnegie Hall gala featuring Sondra Radvanovsky (the Illinoisian soprano) and Dmitri Hvorostovsky (the Siberian baritone).

Want yet more music? Well, this isn?t really music -- more like a cultural-historical-psychological observation. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Alice Tully Hall (New York), covering a concert by the Borodin Quartet, the venerable Russian ensemble. It was established in 1945 at the Moscow Conservatory; the quartet is still in business, though all the original members are now off the stage.

A program note from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center -- under whose auspices the Borodin was appearing -- said the following:

The career of this ensemble is without parallel in many respects, not the least of which is its flowering as a cultural institution in Russia during times of repression, conflict, and hardship. This quartet, unlike those in the West, faced the possibility of imprisonment for playing certain music not approved by the authorities.

True, and obviously so. But we very, very seldom heard this kind of language when the Soviet Union was a going concern. Do you remember? Those who talked that way were ?poisoning the atmosphere of détente,? and probably longed for war. In any case, once the USSR collapsed, obvious truths became easier to speak.

Which relates somewhat to my comments on Netanyahu and Iran, above, don?t you think?

Earlier this week, Ron Radosh had some thoughts on racism -- chiefly, charges of -- in his blog. He cited an essay of mine in the current NR: ??Worst People?: Some notes on racism and anti-racism in America.? Radosh is absorbing, as always.

Do you recall that, in my Friday Impromptus, I had a note about a tea party in -- gasp -- Ann Arbor, my dear old lefty hometown? This event is to take place on the ?Diag,? the heart of the University of Michigan -- and Left Central, you might say.

Let me share with you a note from a former U of M student -- might make you grin, as it did me:

Jay,

 

You write, ?A tea party on the Diag? Friends, I can?t impress on you the incongruity of this.? But something similar happened once before: I attended a several-hundred-strong rally on the Diag by a group called STUDS (STudents United for Desert Storm). Sadly, the group I co-founded -- PIGS (Politically Incorrect Graduate Students) -- never achieved similar popularity.

PIGS -- good old American ingenuity, and pluck.

See you soon.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on April 14, 2010 (boomark / email).