From enlightenment into darkness at Oxford and Cambridge

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
09 February '10

From the blog of the Community Security Trust – the self-defence organisation of the British Jewish community:

Last night Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, spoke at the Oxford Union. A meeting that was frequently disrupted by members of the audience reached its low point when one person shouted “Kill the Jews” in Arabic, before being thrown out of the meeting.

... There is a detailed account of the meeting on The edge of where? blog, which has this revealing vignette about the attitude of at least one person in the audience:

Outside the debating chamber, all the while, protestors were shouting ‘free free Palestine from the river to the sea’. When Ayalon argued that this chant amounted to a call for Israel’s destruction, and asked where Israeli Jews would have to go for Palestine to be free ‘from the river to the sea’, the woman sitting next to me said ‘back to where they came from!’ I couldn’t resist and had to ask her where exactly it was that she expected Jews to go ‘back to’, to which she replied, ‘well you’re in England, you appear to be doing fine’. I didn’t think it worthwhile to point out that actually my grandparents ‘came from’ Poland and Czechoslovakia, and that the reason I am in England today is that in the 1930s they were not ‘doing fine’ in the countries they ‘came from’.

This follows the disinviting by Cambridge Israel Society of the Israeli historian Benny Morris, one-time darling of the left for his revisionist history of David Ben Gurion but now apparently a non-person because he tells the truth about the Arab threat to Israel.

(Read full story)

Related: 2 Press Releases: Oxford Union to take disciplinary action against students who disrupted Deputy FM Ayalon. Ayalon looking into possibility of pressing charges against student who shouted "Slaughter the Jews" at Oxford Union event
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'Judenrein' Middle East views Jews unfavourably

Bataween
Point of No Return
10 February '10

With only some 4,000 Jews still living in Arab countries, we are now seeing the practical results of a judenrein Arab world: 90 percent of the Middle East views Jews unfavourably. Hardly surprising: Arabs no longer have no personal contact with Jews. The only images they see are the negative propaganda on their TV screens - evil Israelis killing children or mutilating Gentiles, or devious hook-nosed black hats from Brooklyn conspiring to rule the world. The only people who have a favourable view of Jews are those Arabs who still live among Jews - Israeli Arabs. The Jerusalem Post reports:

"The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes survey conducted last year paints a worrying picture of attitudes towards Jews in the Middle East.

"In the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed, views of Jews were overwhelmingly unfavorable. Nearly all in Jordan (97 percent), the Palestinian territories (97%) and Egypt (95%) held an unfavorable view. Similarly, 98% of Lebanese expressed an unfavorable opinion of Jews, including 98% among both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, as well as 97% of Lebanese Christians.

"By contrast, only 35% of Israeli Arabs expressed a negative opinion of Jews, while 56% voiced a favorable opinion.

"The survey was conducted between May 18 to June 16, 2009.

"The sample size of each of the countries surveyed was over 1,000 people and the margin of error was 3%. Results for the surveys in these nations are based on face-to-face interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. All surveys are based on national samples, except in Pakistan where the sample was disproportionately urban.

(Read full article)
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The new pioneers

An exclusive interview with Yuval and Tamar Marcus, residents of Shimon Hatzadik in Sheikh Jarrah.


Peggy Cidor
In Jerusalem/JPost
05 February '10

For the past few weeks, the small Sheikh Jarrah playground (built through a grant by the Jerusalem Foundation) on Nablus Road, facing the entrance to the Shimon Hatzadik Cave, has become the stage for a weekly demonstration held by a wide range of left-wing activists and human rights organizations. On Friday afternoons, largely radical groups gather on the right side of the street. On the opposite side stands an ever-growing group of policemen. In between, whether driving or walking to the nearby mosque, Arab residents stare at the two groups with a glint of cynicism but mostly with indifference. The demonstration is a protest against the ongoing establishment of Jewish families in the neighborhood, which is considered a major obstacle to the division of Jerusalem in eventual negotiations.

Two weeks ago, the police arrested more than 20 of the Jewish demonstrators, among them Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and former head of the Open House. For many, that was considered crossing a red line by the police. As a result, the following week a much larger group – more than 300 people – turned up to show their support for the demonstrators, as well as their anger at what they consider a harsh attitude toward them by the police. Slogans, catcalls, placards and, as of this week, a group of drummers are turning the Friday demonstrations at Sheikh Jarrah into a new tradition.



During all this time the Jewish residents of the neighborhood, those who raised the ire of the protesters in the first place, have not been seen or registered any reaction, even though some of the slogans and placards are directed at them, such as “Settlers = Thieves.” In fact, not one of the 17 families installed in the tiny neighborhood situated between the commemorative stone for the victims of the Hadassah convoy during the War of Independence on the upper side of the street and the mosque near the American Colony hotel – three compounds of houses in all – ever show up, even speak to the media or express their position in any way.

For the past 10 years, since Jewish residents first began to move into the neighborhood, few have agreed to speak to the press. But this week, Yuval Marcus and his wife, Tamar, opened their home to In Jerusalem and agreed to talk about how it feels to live in an Arab neighborhood (“We feel rather secure here”), how they feel about the ever-growing demonstrations on Fridays (“We are not so aware of them”) and to say a few things about their connection to the Land and how they understand the term “pioneers” today.

How long have you been living here?

Yuval: We’ve been here for four and a half years. We arrived here as a young couple, and our two children were born here. We are both from here, Jerusalem.

What brought you to live here?

Yuval: It’s a simple ideological decision. We both strongly believe that settling in Jerusalem is something essential for Am Yisrael [the Jewish people]. We came here because it is crucial for our sovereignty over Jerusalem. After 1967, this area was totally devoid of Jews, and it is crucial to create a continuity of Jewish presence here. It is important on a national Jewish level, much more than personal consideration. And thus, though I am not happy about Arab families evacuated and living in the streets [though they built here without permits], this seems to me much more important.

(Read full interview)

Related: The Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik Neighborhood - The U.S.-Israeli Dispute over Building in Jerusalem
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How Adam Lowther learned to stop worrying and love the (Iranian) bomb

Fresnozionism.org
09 February '10

The most frightening thing about this mind-numbingly wrongheaded op-ed in the NY Times (“Iran’s Two-Edged Bomb“) is the line at the end that describes the author:

Adam B. Lowther is a defense analyst at the Air Force Research Institute.

Let’s hope that he wrote this as a result of a bar-room bet on the gullibility of the Times, because we really don’t want anyone basing policy on this. In that spirit, let’s look at the five reasons that Dr. Lowther thinks the Iranian nuclear bomb has an upside:

Reason 1:

Iran’s development of nuclear weapons would give the United States an opportunity to finally defeat violent Sunni-Arab terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Here’s why: a nuclear Iran is primarily a threat to its neighbors, not the United States. Thus Washington could offer regional security — primarily, a Middle East nuclear umbrella — in exchange for economic, political and social reforms in the autocratic Arab regimes responsible for breeding the discontent that led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The US cannot provide ‘regional security’ when all it can offer is nuclear retaliation. So when Iran, which already controls Syria and Lebanon and will soon control Iraq, pushes to raise oil prices and threatens to unleash Hizballah, for example, what do we do? Nuke them? Iran knows that the US cannot afford to get bogged down in another conventional war.

Even if we could provide security, the ‘deal’ Lowther proposes will not help defeat Sunni terrorism, for the following reasons:

(Read full post)
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The Middle East Comes to Irvine

Jeffrey Goldberg
The Atlantic
09 February '10

Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., tried to give a speech at UC Irvine but was shouted down by Muslim protesters, who apparently weren't equipped to argue with Oren, just drive him from the stage. All this is par for the course, but I did find this one bit of information amusing:

The Muslim Student Union said in its statement: "We strongly condemn the university for cosponsoring, and therefore, inadvertently supporting the ambassador of a state that is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined."

To the Muslim Student Union, the fact that the UN Human Rights Council has condemned Israel more than all the other countries of the world combined means that Israel is worse than all the other countries of the world combined. To more rational, less prejudiced people, this fact means that the UN Human Rights Council is not a serious organization, but one under the control of dictators and despots. (See: Banned Speech: The UN Council That Created the Goldstone Report)

Related Article/Video: 12 arrested for disrupting Israeli ambassador
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Will $40 Million US Tax Dollars Subsidize UN Agency That Tolerates Teaching Martyrdom to Palestinian Kids?

Heather Robinson
Huffington Report
07 February '10

Last week the United States announced an initial contribution of $40 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency dedicated to providing food, jobs and education in the Palestinian territories. According to a U.S. State Department press release, the money will "provide critical health, education, and humanitarian services to 4.7 million Palestinians across the region."

This United Nations agency, which receives the largest share of its funding from the U.S. taxpayer, has in recent years come under fire due to at least one of its employees' admission that it employs members of Hamas.

Last month, due to concerns Hamas had infiltrated UNRWA, the Canadian government quietly decided to redirect funding away from the agency; instead, the $300 million in aid Canada has pledged to the Palestinians for the next five years will go to food aid and the support of the Palestinian justice system in an effort to help the Palestinians build a civil society.

Perhaps the U.S. should follow Canada's lead.

In recent years, watchdog organizations have shined a light on the content of books in schools in the Palestinian territories - and what they illuminated was a consistent pattern of propaganda denying Israel's right to exist, dehumanizing Israelis and Jews, and lacking any concrete perspective that would point towards a nonviolent resolution of the conflict, such as a two-state solution. UNRWA schools use the same text books as those that are used in Palestinian schools run by the Palestinian Authority - and by Hamas.


While not part of the original article I have added this as a current example of children's media from Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Feb. 5, 2010

(Read full article)

Remembering one victim of Arab terror

Six years ago, Yehuda Haim got on a bus to work one sunny February morning in Jerusalem, and paid with his life.


David Bedein
Op-Ed/JPost
08 February '10

Friday marks six years to the day, according to the Hebrew calendar, since a Jerusalem grocer, Yehuda Haim, was murdered on a bus that Arab terrorists blew up in Jerusalem.

Ever since the restaurant at the Beit Agron Press Center in Jerusalem closed in 2001 because of declining tourism, Haim’s sandwich business at the corner grocery store had been booming for reporters. Yehuda would make each reporter a pre-prepared sandwich with fresh bread and any condiments the customer would ask for.

For me, he knew exactly how many pickles I liked with my tuna fish, and just how I liked my egg salad. And he carefully cut each fresh vegetable to order. I had a special need, since I would wash my hands at Beit Agron and make the blessing over the bread only when I got to the store. I became used to hearing Yehuda’s “amen” to the first bite in my sandwich, before he would fill it with his goodies for me yet again.

One Sunday morning, on the bus to work, passing the old Jerusalem train station, the bus in front of ours blew to bits. The first instinct was to run to the bus, don the proverbial press badge and grab a camera to report the event, snapping shots and getting them to the wires in real time. Not knowing at the time that one of the bodies flung from the bus window was Yehuda Haim, who was on his way to work.

The names of the victims were solemnly announced on the radio news, including that of Yehuda Haim.

All I could think about was Yehuda’s smiling face on Friday, when he said “amen” to my blessing on a tuna bagel, when he wished a good Shabbat to three reporters who came by his store.

His smiling face was turned by an Arab terrorist into lifeless body parts on Derech Hebron. That day at lunch, I had lost my lunch partner. Maybe Yehuda would say amen to my blessing from heaven for that day’s bagel, I thought.

(Read full story)
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An American Ambassador in Syria

JINSA Report #962
09 February '10

Middle East envoy George Mitchell announced on a recent visit to Syria that the United States would be returning an ambassador to Damascus. A U.S. official in Damascus told a German press agency that the ambassador, "will help change Syria's attitude in the region in order to ensure stability and security. Washington hopes that Syria will play an essential role in eliminating U.S. concerns regarding its attitude in the region."

Mr. Mitchell, according to the BBC, did not appear to expect a breakthrough with Syria (that is a relief!), but does seem to have encouraged Syria to believe the United States is willing to listen to its concerns (that is NOT a relief!).

But why? Mitchell said he had told Bashar Assad that President Obama was "determined to facilitate a truly comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace... If we are to succeed, we will need Arabs and Israelis alike to work with us... We will welcome the full co-operation of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic in this historic endeavor."

The Obama Administration, often accused of having plans too far-reaching to be realistic, is quite short-sighted when it comes to the Middle East. While peace between Arabs and Israelis alike is to be ardently wished for (and if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, but that's another story) the region is much larger than Syria's interest in regaining the Golan Heights and an illegal toehold on the Sea of Galilee. Syria is fully an Iranian proxy and a fulcrum of anti-Western disturbance across the entire region.

This is, after all, the Syria that recently completed the humbling of pro-Western Lebanese president Saad Hariri, who now has Hezbollah in his cabinet and an independent Hezbollah army-supplied increasingly openly by Syria-in the south of his erstwhile country. And this is the Syria that appears to have transferred mobile surface-to-surface missiles to Hezbollah under the nose of UNIFIL. [That would be the UNIFIL whose outgoing commander told Ha'aretz that he was not empowered to talk to Hezbollah or patrol the Syria-Lebanon border to stop smuggling and didn't solve the problem of Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israel, but otherwise thought he did a great job.] This is the Syria that American military sources say still harbors al Qaeda, and the Syria that supports Hamas in Gaza. This is the Syria that has improved ties with an increasingly Islamist and Iran-oriented Turkey. And the Syria that was described by a senior American official in December as having traces of highly processed Iranian plutonium at the Syrian-North Korean facility bombed by Israel two years ago.

There are two ways to look at it. Because of all that Syria does out of the conviction that its alliance with Iran (and North Korea) makes it more important in the region than would otherwise be the case, the United States should send an ambassador back to show that we take its concerns seriously. Or, conversely, the United States could support those countries who find themselves under threat from an irredentist Syria; namely Iraq, Jordan, Israel and what remains of democratic Lebanon.

The Obama Administration has chosen the former. We ask again, why?

Archive of past JINSA Reports
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How Iranian shells reach the Mideast’s seashores

Tony Badran
NOW Lebanon
09 February '10

The recent assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai has been described as another episode in an ongoing shadow war between Israel and Islamist groups, particularly Hamas and Hezbollah. However, the Mabhouh incident also shed light on another shadowy enterprise underpinning the destabilization of the Middle East and Iran’s quest for regional hegemony, namely Tehran’s smuggling of arms.

One of the details to emerge from the Mabhouh killing was that he played a key role in smuggling “special weapons” to Gaza, and that his trip to Dubai was related to this task. Dubai has long been a hub for Iran’s arms supply efforts to the region. Last year, for instance, the Emirati authorities stopped an Iran-bound ship, the ANL Australia, which was carrying 10 containers of North Korean weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and components for thousands of short-range rockets.

In recent years, Iranian maritime smuggling of arms has evolved exponentially in the Gulf, across to East Africa and the Red Sea, as well as in the eastern Mediterranean. The networks extend to several hotspots in the region and include Iranian allies and proxies, all of which are used as assets or levers in Iran’s efforts to advance its interests in the Middle East.

The smuggling networks span from the Bandar Abbas port in Iran, across to Yemen’s Aden and Al-Hudaydah ports, the Aseb port in Eritrea, and Sudan’s Port Sudan. The 2002 Karine-A affair, in which Israel intercepted a Palestinian vessel apparently carrying Iranian weapons for Palestinian combatants in Gaza, was a harbinger. The ship used ports in Sudan and Yemen, before heading up the Red Sea, where it was seized.

Last March, a convoy of arms smugglers was bombed, presumably by the Israel Air Force, as it drove from Sudan to Egypt, carrying what some speculated were Iranian Fajr missiles intended for Hamas. Those killed in the strike included Sudanese, Ethiopians and Eritreans, and their route was regularly used by smugglers moving weapons into Egypt. The operation exemplified the complex methods employed by Iran to move weapons into the Sinai, then into Gaza through the Rafah tunnels.

(Read full article)
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The Great Absentee-Ballot Debate

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
09 February '10

A perennial Israeli debate erupted anew yesterday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he supported a proposal to extend the franchise to Israelis living abroad. What makes this debate so baffling is that both sides are partly right — meaning it should be easy to strike a compromise somewhere in the middle. But in 62 years, it hasn’t happened.

The proposal put forth by Netanyahu’s largest coalition partner, Yisrael Beiteinu, would allow absentee ballots for anyone who has held a valid Israeli passport for the past 10 years — about 500,000 people. And opponents are right that this is far too broad. First, in terms of sheer numbers, that constitutes 7 percent of the total population and fully 10 percent of eligible voters — a far higher proportion than is the norm in other countries that allow absentee voting.

Moreover, many of the 500,000 people in question have been living abroad full-time for many years. Indeed, you can have a valid Israeli passport for 10 years without setting foot in the country that entire time. Thus people who are not living in Israel and whose daily lives are unaffected by the country’s policies would have a disproportionate impact on the outcome of any election.

This is particularly problematic because Israel is a country at war. Overseas residents are not the ones who will suffer daily rocket fire if a territorial pullout goes wrong, nor will their sons’ lives be at risk if the government launches a military operation. Thus it is completely inappropriate to give them a major voice in electing those who will make such decisions.

(Read full post)
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Palestinians: The New Peace Talks, What Fatah Can Deliver

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
09 February '10

Although the Palestinian Authority appears to have softened its position regarding the resumption of peace talks with Israel, it is wrong to assume that it has also changed its stance on major issues such as Jerusalem, refugees, borders and settlements.

Thanks to the ongoing incitement and indoctrination in the Palestinian and Arab media, the Palestinians have been radicalized to a point where any talk about making concessions to Israel is automatically associated with "high treason." Sadly, we have reached a point where many Palestinians and other Arabs are convinced that the only language that Israel understands is force, and that this is the only way to extract concessions from the Jewish state.

Fatah today is weaker than it it was a few years ago, largely thanks to Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's refusal to allow the party free and unlimited access to the Palestinian Authority coffers. Fayyad, in a move that has enraged many senior Fatah leaders, has also kept Fatah members away from high positions in the Palestinian cabinet in the West Bank. Some Fatah officials have even accused Fayyad of being part of a US-Israeli-European conspiracy to eliminate Fatah for once and for all so that he could have exclusive control over the affairs of the Palestinians.

Even if Mahmoud Abbas were to sign a peace agreement with Israel tomorrow, his chances of implementing it, or even marketing it, are almost non-existent. He has lost control over the Gaza Strip, and cannot even visit his home or office there. In the West Bank, he has limited control and a serious credibility problem. Add to this the fact that many Palestinians view him as a puppet in the hands of the US and Israel.

Moreover, Abbas himself knows that a majority of Palestinians would not accept, at least for now, anything less than 100% of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem. Abbas's status today does not allow him it sign any agreement with Israel that would include any concessions. Abbas would not be able to accept anything less than what his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, rejected at the botched Camp David summit in the summer of 2000. If, back then, Arafat was offered, say, 95% of the territories and turned it down, who is Abbas to agree to anything less than that? In fact, no Palestinian leader would be able, at least not in the foreseeable future, to accept anything less than 100%.

(Read full article)
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Letter to the Reform movement

Fresnozionism.org
08 February '10

I’m a member of a Reform Jewish congregation. I wrote the following letter to Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union for Reform Judaism, and Rabbi David Saperstein, head of its “Religious Action Center”. I also sent a copy to our rabbi and the president of the congregation. If you are a Reform Jew in the US, you should do the same:

February 8, 2010

Dear Rabbi Saperstein and Rabbi Yoffie,

I was shocked to see that the Reform Movement – in the person of Rabbi Saperstein – has leapt to the defense of the New Israel Fund (NIF), after it was revealed that almost all of the negative ‘evidence’ from Israeli sources in the slanderous Goldstone report came from 16 NIF-supported non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Although this incident has propelled the NIF into the public eye in Israel, the fact is that the NIF, with its annual budget of $32 million, has been funding numerous groups which are part of the ongoing campaign against the Jewish state for years. The independent organization NGO Monitor wrote,

(Read full letter)
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Why Israel is Losing the Military and Media Wars

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
(Originally posted
22 September '09)

(I took a look at this for the first time today, and as things have not changed, it seemed a worthwhile and relevant post)

Every now and then bewildered Israeli politicians and outreach professionals call conferences to wonder why the Hasbara is failing and why Israel can't get its story across. They are given the usual advice of hiring more PR firms, finding innovative ways to get the message through, using the internet in smarter ways and of course that all time favorite, rebranding Israel. Naturally they follow this advice, only to call another conference a year later wondering why nothing has changed.

The answer is simple enough. Defensive PR, like defensive warfare, never works. And Israeli PR and Israeli warfare has been on the defensive for decades now. If you break down Israel's message to a single sentence, it's "We didn't do any of the things we're accused of." That is the kind of message you expect to hear from criminal defendants, and it's a message that impresses no one. The only thing it does is produce a debate about the validity of the accusations themselves, which is to PR what Stalingrad was to the Russian front.

The recent Aftonbladet case represents a classic scenario that demonstrates why Israel's defensive PR is doomed to fail over and over again. The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet published an article claiming that Israeli soldiers were killing Palestinian Arabs in order to harvest their organs. The Israeli government pointed out that the article presented no evidence whatsoever, that no such thing had ever happened and demanded a retraction from the newspaper and condemnation of it by the Swedish government. The only thing Israel accomplished was to popularize the false allegation thus creating a debate over whether or not Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian Arabs to harvest their organs. Pleased by his newfound fame, the author of the article has only escalated his allegations and gone on to do a tour of the Arab world. Leftist propagandists can only watch the fallout and chuckle, because once again Israel has been suckered into playing the mug's game of defensive PR.

Defensive warfare of any kind is reactive. For the last few decades Israel has run itself ragged because it has been reactive. And by reactive I mean that Israel keeps responding to attacks against it, rather than taking the offensive. In the Six Day War, Israel responded to Nasser's planned assault, by preempting him and taking the offensive. The result was Israel's finest hour. In the Yom Kippur War, Israel waited and watched, and was nearly destroyed.

(Read full article)
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NIF-Funded NGOs: Goldstone's Building Blocks

NGO Monitor
09 February '10

The New Israel Fund (NIF) and its grantees have been widely criticized for their involvement in the Goldstone report. This preliminary report presents an overview of how NIF-funded NGOs contributed to and endorsed the Goldstone process. Also included are brief summaries of the activities of 20 NGOs funded by NIF.

The Goldstone report referenced B’Tselem more than 56 times; Adalah, 38; and Breaking the Silence, 27.

Many of these citations referred to speculative issues unrelated to the conflict in Gaza, seeking to brand Israeli democracy as “repressive” and to widen the scope of the condemnations.

Since the initial publication of the Goldstone report on September 15, 2009, NIF-funded NGOs – including B’Tselem, ACRI, Gisha, PHR-I, and Yesh Din – have continued to support Goldstone and lobby the governments of the United States, the European Union, and others to legitimize the report’s extreme biases and endorse its recommendations.

In response to the controversy over their support for Goldstone, these NGOs and the NIF launched an offensive against critics. NIF supporters accuse NGO Monitor of “silenc[ing] expression,” and being “extremist,” “incendiary,” the “rotten fruit of Israeli democracy,” and “McCarthyite.”

In addition to involvement with Goldstone, several NGOs funded by NIF, including Adalah, campaign against the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish democratic state. Others, such as Mossawa and Coalition of Women for Peace, are active in worldwide boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting Israel.

The political impact of NIF-supported NGOs, based on NIF’s annual budget of $32 million, is bolstered by additional funds from European governments and church groups that allocate funds to the same recipient organizations.

Click here to read the full report.

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The Hamas Conundrum

Michael Herzog
Foreign Affairs
08 February '10

In the four years since it swept Palestinian parliamentary elections, Hamas has neither moderated its policies nor adopted democratic principles. Constantly torn between its ideology as an Islamist jihadi movement and its responsibilities as a governing authority in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has proven unwilling to transform itself. The result has been an ongoing ideological and political crisis for Hamas and, more generally, the Palestinian Authority. Last October, Hamas was faced with the challenge of new elections mandated by Palestinian law and set for January by the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction is Hamas’ chief rival. Hamas’ reaction was to ban any voting from taking place in Gaza. Consequently, Abbas postponed the elections indefinitely, sparking heated debate with Hamas over the legitimacy of his continued tenure as president.

Soon after Hamas’ 2006 electoral victory, I identified some conditions necessary for co-opting ideologically extreme and violent political movements (“Can Hamas Be Tamed?” March/April 2006). I argued that Hamas was unlikely to become more moderate in the foreseeable future, primarily because there was neither a strong Palestinian government nor a viable political center capable of containing and co-opting the group. Unfortunately, this has proven to be true -- and it remains so today.

After winning the 2006 election, Hamas immediately began grappling with various conflicting pressures. The Israeli government, which evacuated its citizens and military from Gaza in 2005, reacted strongly -- militarily, economically, and diplomatically -- to the continued firing of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, first by factions other than Hamas and later by Hamas itself. Meanwhile, immediately after Hamas’ electoral victory, the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia) demanded that Hamas, in order to gain international legitimacy, commit to nonviolence, recognize Israel, and accept previous agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. All the while, Hamas felt a domestic imperative to secure Palestinian national unity. In the face of these pressures, it consistently tried to govern without moderating its ideology. It remained dedicated to “resistance” and to Israel’s destruction -- and therefore opposed to any concept of a real peace process.

(Read full article)
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12 arrested for disrupting Israeli ambassador

Orange County Register
Gary Robbins
08 February '10

Twelve people were arrested this evening during a raucous lecture at UC Irvine where Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren came to talk about U.S.-Israel relations. Oren was interrupted 10 times while trying to give his speech before 500 people at the UCI Student Center, where there was heavy security. Oren took a 20 minute break after the fourth protest, asked for hospitality and resumed his speech, only to be interrupted again by young men yelling at him every few minutes. Many members of the audience also applauded Oren.



After the 10th interruption, several dozens students who opposed Oren’s talk got up and walked out and staged a protest outside. It is not clear whether they were members of the UCI Muslim Student Union, which issued an email earlier in the day condemning Oren’s appearance on campus.

(Read full article)

Hours earlier, UCI’s Muslim Student Union said in an email today that its members “condemn and oppose the presence of Michael Oren, the ambassador of Israel to the United States, on our campus today. We resent that the Law School and the Political Science Department on our campus have agreed to cosponsor a public figure who represents a state that continues to break international and humanitarian law and is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined.”

Related viewing: Obsessive and Compulsive, The Obsession with Israel
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Benny Morris: Banned at Cambridge University Out of Fear. Who’s Next?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
08 February '10

Jake Witzenfeld, president of Cambridge University's Israel Society, canceled a talk by Benny Morris, an Israeli scholar, apologizing for any "unintended offense." "I decided to cancel for fear of the Israel Society being portrayed as a mouthpiece of Islamophobia," he said. "We understand that whilst Professor Benny Morris' contribution to history is highly respectable and significant, his personal views are, regrettably, deeply offensive to many....”

Mr. Witzenfeld should resign his position immediately since by leading a pro-Israel group he will no doubt be portrayed as all sorts of slanderous things and give offense to people. After all, the existence of Israel itself is “offensive” to many Muslims and others, which is not a reason for wiping it out, presumably. As Witzenfeld might know, pro-Israel groups have been banned on British campuses before and perhaps this is what he fears.

As for giving offense, his cowardice offends me, if that's his criterion for making decisions. Hopefully, someone less fearful can be found to head the society.

I have known Benny Morris for many years, including at a time when he was on the far left and we disagreed on just about everything, through the time that he has shifted position as a result of the trauma—felt by all Israelis—over the failure of the 1990s peace process. These experiences underlined the fact that certain more self-blaming and optimistic ideas about politics in Arabic-speaking and Muslim-majority societies didn’t work. Professor Morris adjusted to that reality, as did many other Israelis and others. Come to think of it, that was Israel's equivalent of September 11.

(Read full post)
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Israel on Canadian college campuses; an up-hill battle

Noam Bedein
Sderot Media Center
04 February '10

Presenting the human side of Sderot, Israel and the western Negev would seem innocuous enough, as it is the only region in the western world where rockets and missiles target a civilian population. The people of southern Israel have their own story to share.

Yet after a 13-day coast-to-coast visit to Canadian college campuses, organized by Hillel Canada and the CIJA umbrella organization of Canadian Jewry, it would seem that even Sderot residents must fight for their legitimate right to live in the land of Israel.

The purpose of this trip was to balance the after-effects of the “Gaza narrative”, exactly one year after Israel's 21-day Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

On Canadian college campuses, the challenge became to justify the very existence of the city of Sderot.

This was best exemplified by an article published in a Winnipeg student newspaper, penned by a Palestinian-Canadian sociology student. This student amazingly attacked the credibility of another student for sharing her experiences visiting Sderot. This student had described her shock at the ’15 second’ alarm, known as the “Color Red,” which warns Sderot residents of only a few seconds to escape to safety from the time the missile is fired from Gaza to the time it explodes in Sderot.

The Palestinian student showed little sympathy for Sderot under fire:



“ 'Sderot’ is actually a settlement on the Palestinian land of Najd, an illegally occupied territory stolen from Palestinians. It is a town created on the ashes of an ethnically cleansed and defaced Palestinian village....You want to talk about ‘terror’? Najd’s Palestinian villagers were expelled on May 13th, 1948 by Israeli forces before Israel was even declared a state.”

Here is a well-educated student born in Canada, with Palestinian descent, that calls the Israeli town of Sderot an illegitimate “settlement” constructed on the ruins of an Arab village abandoned during the 1948 war. Indeed this same student makes no acknowledgement of the historical fact that between 1951-1953, the Jews that settled in Sderot were from among the 850,000 Jews expelled in masses from Arab countries in the Middle East. During and after the 1948 war, 670,000 Palestinian Arab refugees were fled or forced from their homes.

Indeed, this Canadian-Palestinian college student was not the first to rationalize the thousands of aerial attacks and terrorizing of Sderot and southern Israel civilians.

Rami Khouri alarmed at Knesset refugees bill

Bataween
Point of No Return
08 February '10

Reports that the Knesset is due shortly to pass a bill recognising the rights of Jewish refugees seem to have attracted little media coverage, still less comment. But one man has been sitting up and taking notice - the Palestinian commentator Rami G Khouri, writing in the Beirut Daily Star. This is what he has to say. My comment follows:

"The complexity of applying a single standard of law and morality to both sides – the critical foundation on which any successful diplomacy must proceed in the Palestinian-Israeli and wider Arab-Israeli conflict – was raised in the second development that caught my eye this week: a draft bill in the Israeli Parliament to compensate Jews who were forced out of or who fled Arab countries after the establishment of Israel in 1948.

"Among the arguments for the bill before the Immigration and Absorption Committee on Tuesday were references to a February 2008 US House of Representatives resolution saying that the United States should demand that Jewish refugees be acknowledged and treated in the same way as Palestinian refugees. The Israeli bill also demands compensation for Jewish communal properties, like synagogues and cemeteries.

"The prevalent Israeli aim in this bill is not to resolve all refugee cases fairly, but to claim that a “population exchange” between Palestinians and Jewish Israelis occurred in 1948. The point is to underline that the Palestinians have no more claims as refugees and, therefore, that there is nothing to be resolved.

(Read full article)
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Who's demonizing who?

Ben-Dror Yemini
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost
07 February '10

The New Israel Fund is angry. It thinks that it is okay to cooperate with the Goldstone commission, even though it was formed by an automatic majority of the benighted countries that control the UN Human Rights Council. The NIF thinks it is okay that Israel cooperate with the commission, even though there is no country in the free world that supported its formation. It thinks it is ok to disseminate unsubstantial accusations against Israel. It thinks it is okay to take part in the demonization campaign being staged by certain NGOs. And it is absolutely legitimate, in a democratic country, to do all these things.

But there is something else that is also legitimate: To reveal the truth about the fund and the groups that falsely claim to be “human rights” organizations. If some of the political organizations supported by the fund do not recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state – don’t cry human rights.

Tell the truth: the denial of rights is to Jews only. The Palestinians have a right to a state of their own, as do the Croats, the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Slovaks and other nations – but not the Jews.

The New Israel Fund provides support (though not funding – editor, JPost), for example, the Zochrot organization. This is a nonprofit organization that openly strives to destroy Israel by means of the “right of return.” Not that there is any such right, and not that there ever was another precedent for a mass “return” after a population swap in the wake of war – but this does not bother the New Israel Fund. It will always jump in under the slogan of “human rights.”

All this doesn’t mean Israel is exempt from criticism. After all, out of the hundreds of allegations, there are a few of substance. But if many sane people loathe the human rights organizations, it’s not because they loathe human rights. Just the opposite. It’s because the sane majority is fed up with ‘human rights’ becoming the weapon of benighted forces.

(Read full article)
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You Know What’s a Human-Rights Violation?

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
08 February '10

Criticizing anti-Zionist NGOs, that’s what. In what is apparently not a parody, Human Rights Watch has issued a press release about the New Israel Fund controversy, apparently in the belief that making the association between the two groups explicit will help the NIF:

(New York, February 7, 2010) – The growing harshness of attacks by Israeli government officials on nongovernmental organizations poses a real threat to civil society in Israel, Human Rights Watch said today.

The most recent attacks center on the New Israel Fund (NIF). …

“What we’re seeing in Israel is a greater official intolerance of dissent,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. … “A clear pattern of official efforts to suppress voices critical of government policy is emerging.”

Note that HRW has done zero investigation into the clear pattern of official efforts to murder democracy activists by the Iranian regime. However, a thoroughly democratic debate in Israel about NGOs sends the group into hysterics about “threats to civil society.”

Aren’t there some actual dissenters in the Middle East who are actually being attacked who Human Rights Watch could pay attention to?
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Back in the saddle

NOW Lebanon
New Opinion
08 February '10

(Once again, good insights from NOW Lebanon)

Syria is back in the Lebanese saddle. The feeling must be good after all these years, because already its politicians are talking about Lebanon as if it were a local province, and using all tools at their disposal, including a high-profile American journalist, to position their country as the voice of moderation in the region.

Damascus has also been indulging in a bit of saber rattling with its old enemy in Tel Aviv. This would be of less concern to the Lebanese if the threat to open a new front in South Lebanon had not been part of the message, and if Walid Jumblatt, for so long a stalwart supporter of Lebanese self-determination, had not pledged unstinting support for the Syrian regime in such an event.

It was Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem who fired the opening broadside late last week by announcing that Syria was ready for either war or peace. “Do not test the resolve of Syria,” he warned. “You Israelis, you know that war at this time will reach your cities. If such a war breaks out... it will indeed be total war, whether it begins in South Lebanon or Syria.”

It is clear that Damascus is tightening the screws in trying to get Tel Aviv to the negotiation table, but the inclusion of Lebanon in the threat is as galling as it is shameless. We wonder what Lebanese Foreign Minister Ali Shami (the irony of his name should not be lost on us) might have to say about the fact that it was his opposite number in Damascus and not he who is briefing the world on matters of Lebanese foreign policy. Indeed one wonders what the Lebanese people might have to say about a Syrian minister threatening to take their country into a war with Israel.

President Bashar al-Assad sought to clarify Mouallem’s statement over the weekend by telling Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who at long last received his invitation to Damascus, that Syria is committed to “stand by Lebanon’s government and people against any Israeli aggression.” It was too little too late. The damage has been done. It is clear from the Israeli response to the heightening of tensions which country it sees calling the shots; and it was not because of what it said, but what it failed to mention that should worry us most.

“Israel aspires to reach peace with all its neighbors,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. “We did so with Egypt and Jordan, and we aspire to do so with Syria and the Palestinians.” Hang on, Bibi. What about Lebanon? Is it that you do not want peace with your northern neighbor or is it simply that you already see Lebanon as back in the Baathist fold?

(Read full article)
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Why the Truth Constitutes “Incitement”

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
08 February '10

As Noah noted, the New Israel Fund controversy is laying bare just how warped the “human rights” community’s definition of human rights is. But it has also showcased two particularly Israeli variants of this disease: that freedom of information constitutes “incitement,” and that freedom of speech requires financing speech you oppose. The NIF’s Israeli president, former Meretz MK Naomi Chazan, demonstrated both in response to the Im Tirtzu organization’s report that 92 percent of the anti-Israel information in the Goldstone Report came from Israeli groups funded by the NIF.

Neither Chazan nor her American parent organization has disputed Im Tirtzu’s findings: they do not deny that the NIF grantees supplied the material in question to a UN inquiry into last year’s war in Gaza, nor do they deny the Goldstone Commission’s use of it. On the contrary, Chazan said she was “ever so proud to be a symbol of Israeli democracy,” while the NIF’s American CEO, Daniel Sokatch, told the Forward that the grantees bolstered “Israel’s moral fiber and its values” by “tell[ing] the truth.”

If so, why was Chazan so upset over the revelation of the NIF’s contribution to this achievement that when the Knesset announced it wanted more information on the subject — a Knesset committee said it would establish a subcommittee to examine foreign funding of Israeli nonprofits, and one MK even advocated a parliamentary inquiry commission — she responded by accusing the Knesset of trying to “fan incitement”? Since when has the search for, and dissemination of, truthful information constituted incitement?

(Read full post)
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Palestine's 'economic miracle'

Immense amount of international donations inflate Palestinians' disposable income


Avi Trengo
Israel Opinion/Ynet
07 February '10

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been crowned as "the Palestinian Ben-Gurion at the recent Herzliya Conference. However, there is a great gap between the achievements attributed to him and his abilities in practice.

Fayyad is credited with changing the corrupt PA apparatus, but even in the financial realm where his expertise lies, his abilities are mostly manifested through the drafting of impressive documents as well as fundraising.

Meanwhile, the absurdity inherent in his statements regarding "Palestinian independence within two years" is clear to anyone familiar with the Palestinian economy. Fayyad is a former World Bank official, but even on the financial front his deeds are far from the image he has nurtured.

The Palestinian economy is the only place in the world where the per capita GDP is less than half the disposable income per capita. This is the result of three factors:

1. The Palestinians barely produce anything. Most of their GDP comes from government expenditures by the PA itself.

2. The Palestinians receive immense sums donated by the world.

3. Tax collection is almost unheard of, aside from the taxes collected (for Fayyad) by the Israeli government, which provides the PA with NIS 450 million (roughly $120 million) monthly; this comprises about 40% of the PA's budget.

The result is clear: Low GDP, but high disposable income. Indeed, it's an economic miracle.

(Read full article)
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BMJ's Selective Editing

While the online version includes positive material, why is it missing from the medical publication's print edition?


Honest Reporting
Media Critique
08 February '10

The tragic story of Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian obstetrician and gynecologist whose three daughters and niece were killed by Israeli fire during the Gaza conflict, featured prominently in Israeli and world media at the time and subsequently.

To recall, Dr Abuelaish, fluent in Hebrew, worked in Israel's Tel Hashomer Hospital and advocated for peace and coexistence. Even after his terrible personal loss, Dr Abuelaish has continued to promote coexistence and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

As the British Medical Journal's online feature (PDF format) on Abuelaish stated:

Even before the interview began it was clear that his warmth for Israelis was still intact. A few moments before getting into the taxi he saw a pregnant Israeli woman, and although he was in a hurry he stopped to ask her when she was due and how the pregnancy was going.

The article describes Abuelaish's plans to create a foundation to enable women from the Middle East to attend university and for an academic campus located in Gaza. It concludes:

Dr Abuelaish is also raising funds for an Israeli institution. At the end of January he will travel to Germany to seek money to build a conference facility at Sheba Medical Center, near Tel Aviv, where he used to work. He envisages a project that will be named in memory of his daughters. For several years Dr Abuelaish worked part time at Sheba on fertility research and treatment projects.

(Read full critique)
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The Most Unethical Act: Losing a War

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary Magazine
07 February '10

(Excellent article. Y.)

Monday night, PBS’s American Experience series will broadcast a new documentary titled The Bombing of Germany, about the strategic-bombing campaign carried out against the Nazis by American forces in World War II. Coming from the liberal-leaning PBS and in an era where denunciations of American military actions — even in the “good war” against Nazi Germany — have become commonplace, it would have been no surprise if this film was yet another revisionist attempt to decry Allied tactics as immoral. This impression is reinforced by the introduction to the film on PBS’s website, which highlights the number of German civilian casualties incurred by Allied bombing and the “defining moments that led the U.S. across a moral divide” that would make it easier to drop a nuclear bomb on Japan. Indeed, the narration heard during the opening moments of The Bombing of Germany goes straight to this conclusion when it says that by the time the war ended, the bombing left “both German cities and America’s lofty ideals in ruins.”

But, fortunately, there is more to this documentary than the facile conclusion that the bombing of Germany was so immoral that it cannot be defended even in a war in which the future of civilization was at stake. By the time the 50-minute film is over, liberals expecting another trashing of America are left with some conclusions that not only reinforce the morality of American tactics during that war but also might affect the way we think about contemporary conflicts.

The story of the bombing offensive is complex. During the war, Britain’s Royal Air Force believed that the key to knocking German war industries was to burn down the cities where the factories existed. From their frame of reference, there was no moral distinction between the factories themselves and the homes of the defense workers who created the material that enabled the Nazi regime to commit the crimes against humanity that made the war a matter of life or death for the free world.

(Read full article)
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Who Rules Iran? Iranian Ambitions

Reza Molavi/K. Luisa Gandolfo
VOLUME XVII: NUMBER 1
Middle East Quarterly
Winter '10

(As February 11th approaches, all signs say that the streets of Iran will be explosive. This paper offers some insight into the dangerous forces at play within the ruling elements of Iran. Y.)

In the 30-year reign of Iran's Islamic Republic, there have been few controversies as serious as the one surrounding the 2009 elections. The votes that brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power for a second term have been challenged, not just on paper, but by citizens taking to the streets in angry protests that have only been quelled by brute force on the part of the establishment. Less well known is the upset that followed Ahmadinejad's nepotistic appointment of Esfandiar Rahim Masha'i, the father of his daughter-in-law, to the post of first vice president. Not long after this, Iran's supreme leader, 'Ali Khamenei, demonstrated his personal authority over the entire political system by forcing Ahmadinejad to reconsider his appointee, leading to Masha'i's dismissal. Masha'i had become controversial for his impolitic references to Israel and America. In a speech at a tourism convention in July 2008, for example, he had observed: "Not only we have no enemy, but we are friends with the American people, with the Israeli people, and we are proud that we are friendly with all the nations in the world."[1]

How did this happen? How did a man holding such views on two countries regarded throughout Iran as the Great and Lesser Satan come to such an important public position? Was something less obvious going on? Why was it so important for Khamenei to risk such a public censure of the president?

It is hard to know just what Masha'i intended by his original remarks since they were overtaken so quickly by condemnation and denial. In themselves, they are of little importance since they clearly did not mark any change in emphasis for Iranian foreign policy. It is the incident in its entirety that is of importance, in what it says about the workings of the regime, above all the relationship between the supreme leader and the president.

(Read full paper)
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Defining “Victory” and “Peace”: How the U.S. and Israel Reject General Sherman’s Solution and Get Blamed Any Way

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
07 Februray '10

“War,” said General William Tecumseh Sherman, “is Hell.” He knew what he was talking about. Sherman’s march through Georgia and into South Carolina at the end of the Civil War helped end the Civil War while destroying a lot of civilian homes, farms, and towns..

His strategy was to inflict such terrible punishment on the South that it would surrender faster, thus saving lives. His men did things shocking to Americans even after such a bloody conflict, burning plantations and destroying everything in their wake. Ironically, though, even Sherman's deeds have been exaggerated.

But Sherman was no mere brute. He was so depressed by the prospect of the Civil War—being among the few who understood how long and bloody it would be—that he had a nervous breakdown at its onset and tried to escape the responsibility of service that he ultimately knew would be impossible for him to avoid. Like other Western generals of his time, and almost up to the present day--but no longer--he simply believed, in his words, "I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early [that is, complete and quick] success."

After the war, Sherman became commander of the U.S. army and about 1870, regarding the Franco-Prussian War but it applies generally:

How are wars won? The preferred way is for one side to see that its own victory is impossible and that it will face much heavier costs by continuing than by surrendering or making peace. By making a deal sooner, the side that’s losing often reasons that it can get better terms.

What do you do, though, if the other side isn’t going to give up? Here’s what Sherman said about the French-German conflict but which also applies to America’s Civil War and many other conflicts as well:

(Read full article)
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An assault of illogic

Fresnozionism.org
06 February '10

The flap over Im Tirtzu’s exposé of the New Israel Fund’s (NIF) support of left-wing Israeli organizations that contributed to the slanderous Goldstone report gets bigger every day.

Naomi Chazan, the fund’s president, was dis-invited from a speaking tour of Australia.

After Chazan threatened to sue the Jerusalem Post, the Post dropped her as a regular columnist.

There are calls in the Knesset to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the NIF and foreign funding of Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

A group of high-ranking reserve officers signed a petition supporting Im Tirtzu against the NIF.

It’s hard to exaggerate the feelings of most Israelis about the Goldstone report, which many see as a modern-day blood libel. Even many members of the so-called ‘peace camp’ feel that the report goes too far in crediting Palestinian accusations against Israel for alleged ‘war crimes’ in Gaza, while downplaying and ignoring real crimes perpetrated by Hamas. So when Im Tirtzu pointed out that the 16 Israeli groups that produced a large majority of the anti-IDF ‘documentation’ — most of which is clearly false — were all grantees of the NIF, there was immediate outrage against the US-based fund.

Supporters of the fund in Israel and the US struck back with an assault of illogic, red herrings, ad hominem arguments and manufactured outrage at Im Tirtzu’s advertisments, but did little to refute the content of its criticism.

(Read full article)
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Benny Morris talk stirs uproar at Cambridge

Jonny Paul
Jewish World/JPost
07 February '10

LONDON – The Israel Society at Cambridge University has succumbed to pressure and canceled a talk by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev historian Benny Morris after protesters accused him of “Islamophobia” and “racism.”

Morris was scheduled to speak to students at the university on Thursday, but following a campaign led by anti-Israel activist Ben White the Israel Society canceled the talk. Instead Morris was invited to speak at an event hosted by the university’s Department of Political and International Studies.

White, who graduated from the university in 2005 and authored the book Israeli Apartheid: A Beginners Guide, set up a protest page on Facebook in which he claimed that “on different occasions, Morris has expressed Islamophobic and racist sentiments towards Arabs and Muslims.”

He added: “We find it offensive and appalling that an official student society would want to invite such an individual.”

Following the Facebook protest, a letter was sent to the student union by the university’s Islamic Society, other students and two staff members from the English Department asking it to take a stand and show it is serious “in opposing bigotry and Islamophobia.” The 15 signatories said Morris’s views were “abhorrent and offensive.

“The issue is hate speech, and the impact of a visit by this individual on the campus’ atmosphere for the student body’s minority groups... His visit is insulting, threatening to Arab and Muslim students in particular and also goes against the spirit of the student union’s stated anti-Islamophobia policy,” the letter read.

Last year, Cambridge’s Palestine Society hosted Abd al-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper. In 2008, Atwan said the terrorist attack on Jerusalem’s Mercaz Harav yeshiva, in which eight students were killed and 15 were wounded, was “justified” as the school was responsible for “hatching Israeli extremists and fundamentalists.”

(Read full article)
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Welfare for Palestinians

Ira Sharkansky
Shark Blog
04 February '10

In several of these notes I have described the United States as a laggard among wealthy democracies in its support of social services. Anti-tax individualism shows itself in one of the lowest indicators among this group of countries for government outlays as a percentage of national resources. President Obama's disappointment in health reform is only the most recent demonstration of a culture unfriendly to government programs. It is most apparent among Republicans, but it is far from absent among Democrats.

Now I am pleased to identify a significant departure from public sector stinginess. The American representative to the Palestine National Authority--Daniel Rubinstein--traveled to Bethlehem and announced another U.S. contribution, this time of $40 million, to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). According to the Palestine News Agency, "The United States is UNRWA's largest bilateral donor. In 2009, the United States provided over $267 million to UNRWA, including $116.2 million to its General Fund, $119.5 million to its West Bank/Gaza emergency programs, $30 million to emergency programs in Lebanon, and $2.2 million to assist other Palestinians in the region." Other Palestinians in the region are mostly those in Syria and Jordan. http://english.wafa.ps/?action=detail&id=13712

Yet another positive note in the story is the openness of the State Department to people with a name like Daniel Rubinstein. The 1940s was a long time ago.

Close to last in aid to its own citizens but first in aid to Palestinians is a mark of some distinction, but not clearly a positive mark. If any people demonstrate the folly of excessive public support it is Palestinians who have lived off their claim of being refugees through four generations and 60 years.

One can argue without end about the facts and the morality as the British Mandate for Palestine became Israel. Who did what, and who rejected what compromises are questions in the dustbin of history, along with who is responsible for African slavery, and which group may claim ownership over each part of North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and other places where migrations and bloody conquests began long before recorded history, and continued through much of the history that has been recorded. One can ponder the responsibility of Arab countries and the United Nations, along with Palestinians themselves and Israel for the maintenance of the refugee phenomenon. While individual Palestinians have left the camps and done well, UNRWA remains a vital part of Palestinian lives and international politics. Dependence is the name of the game, for the organization, the refugees, the politicians of Palestine and those of other countries who accuse only Israel of responsibility.

There is no better demonstration of the American mantra that aid breeds weakness, and cuts off individual initiative before it can develop.

(Read full post)
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Wonderful: Obama Blocking Apache Sales To Israel, "Dismayed" At Use During Cast Lead

Omri
Mere Rhetoric
05 February '10

So perfectly does this fit the "Obama is deepy anti-Israel" narrative that I'm almost inclined to doubt it's true. A story about how the WH is generically hamstringing weapons sales, fair enough. The Pentagon is again dragging its feet on Israel's Joint Strike Fighter requests, because apparently the two year delay created by WH "obstacles" hasn't sufficiently damanged US/Israeli relations. So there's some precedent.

But blocking Apaches that are critical to Israel's urban warfighting because Israel used them to fight an urban war - that's meat a bit too red. And yet, two separate sources:

The administration... is delaying an upgrade project for Israel's military on the grounds that it could be deployed against Palestinian militants. Industry sources said the Defense Department has taken measures to slow down an upgrade of Israel's AH-64 Apache attack helicopter fleet. The sources said at least three Apache helicopters have been awaiting an upgrade at Boeing, the prime contractor... The sources said the delay of the Apache project stemmed from the White House's concern that Israel was rebuilding its military for another war. They said... Obama was dismayed by the widespread use of the Apache and other U.S. platforms during the January 2009 war with the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. "Everything having to do with Israel's Apache fleet has been delayed by the administration," another source said.

(Read full post)
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BDS Avatar?

Divest This!
06 February '10

The best BDS hoax story yet has just arrived from Canada, causing one of those truly “you can’t make this stuff up!” moments.

I spent much of last year chronicling the tendency of boycott and divestment activists to make fraudulent claims of victory, from the academic hoax at Hampshire, to false claims that the financial firms Blackrock or TIAA-CREF or companies like Motorola had made financial decisions for political reasons.

More recently, the forging of signatures on boycott petitions made its debut in the UK, so it was just a matter of time before this practice found its way to North America.

The story actually begins last Fall when a relatively obscure Canadian film maker, John Greyson (also a teacher at York University), pulled his work from the Toronto Film Festival in protest of that festival’s inclusion of movies from Tel Aviv in their celebration of international urban cinema. This action was accompanied by a petition declaring the festival was, in effect, celebrating Tel Aviv and thus the brutality of “The Occupation,” the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza who struggle to live while Tel Avivians make movies, blah, blah, blah.

This non-story got some ink when a collection of celebrities (including Jane Fonda) signed onto the petition, with some of them (again, Jane Fonda) eventually signing off. As usual, supporters of Israel rallied, the press railed at this attempt at censorship masquerading as artistic “solidarity” and Israeli films were the hit of the Festival.

(Read full article)
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B’Tselem And Bad Arguments

Eamonn McDonagh
Z-Word Blog
05 February '10

I received an e-mail circular from B’Tselem today about Israel’s policies towards Gaza. The first substantial argument offered is this:

“The siege of Gaza is causing enormous suffering among innocents, and it’s hard to see how that deprivation can be justified,” said Uri Zaki, B’Tselem’s USA Director. “International law, as well as basic human and Israeli values, demands that Israel do its utmost to address its legitimate security concerns without inflicting unnecessary harm to the civilians of Gaza. The current policy doesn’t come close to meeting that standard.” Gazans’ rights to minimal standards of food security, shelter, health, education and to travel are protected under international law. These needs should not be held hostage to security and political issues.

I could quibble about the adjective “enormous” but I won’t. The argument is basically sound. To respond to it, the government of Israel would have to accept its premises, that is, it would have to say that the harm it’s causing to Gazans is not unnecessary and/or that it’s exaggerated and that in any case it’s the only viable option for protecting its security. I’m not saying that any of this is true or false, just that the way B’Tselem sets out its arguments obliges the government of Israel to put its case in terms of human rights.

Now let’s turn to the next set of arguments:

Israel’s closure policy is designed to weaken Hamas’ hostile leadership, to persuade Hamas to cease firing rockets at civilian targets in Israel, and to release Corporal Gilad Shalit. However, the closure has instead harmed Israel’s security by strengthening Hamas and adding to tensions that threaten renewed violence.

(Read full post)
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A Question Goes Unanswered at J Street

Hillels Channel
05 Februrary '10



J Street Prefers Not to Answer
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Just A Reminder: Having Turned Gaza Into A Weapons Factory, Hamas Gearing Up For War [Video]

Omri
Mere Rhetoric
05 February '10

There's an Al Jazeera expose at the bottom of the post, outlining the massive indigenous weapons industry that Hamas is running in the middle of the "world's largest concentration camp" (because that's exactly how Auschwitz was - lots of spare missiles and raw materials just lying around!) They're back to mass weapons production, which as a sheer matter of statistics means a bump in "work accidents." And in the Sinai the Egyptians are literally tripping over huge weapons caches.

And - just as they were doing on the eve of Cast Lead - Hamas is back to strutting around about taking on the IDF:

One year after Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip, the spokesman for Hamas' armed wing said this week that the Islamist group would not shirk away from a new battle with Israel... Israel has said the brigades, which some observers estimate have 25,000 fighters, have been seeking with Syrian and Iranian help to upgrade their rocket capabilities and put the Israeli heartland and the commercial capital of Tel Aviv within range. Abu Ubaida said Hamas had no choice but to improve its arsenal.

(Read full post)
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Rank hypocrisy and transparent double standards

David Harris
In the Trenches/JPost
07 February '10

I know I shouldn't be surprised any longer, but I still can't help it.

In a recent edition of The New York Times, after seeing 25 column inches on page 4 devoted to an article entitled "Israel Rebukes 2 in Attack on U.N. Complex," I read a short news item two pages later. It wasn't quite eight lines long, the fourth of five items under "World Briefing."

Here are the first two (of three) sentences:

A human rights group criticized Jordan on Monday for stripping the citizenship of nearly 3,000 Jordanians of Palestinian origin in recent years. Concerned about increasing numbers of Palestinians, who make up nearly half the population, Jordan began in 2004 revoking the citizenship from Palestinians who do not have Israeli permits to reside in the West Bank."

Apart from the scanty news coverage of what is, after all, an important story - thousands of people losing their citizenship as a country seeks to tilt its delicate demographic balance - there is, of course, another issue.

Apart from the group that blew the whistle on this years-old policy, where is the outcry?

When Israel is accused, however unjustly, of any alleged misdeed against the Palestinians, the din is immediate and deafening. But when fellow Arabs are shown to be inflicting real damage on the Palestinians, there's hardly a peep.

Since the story surfaced nearly a week ago, I've looked in vain for editorials, columns, op-ed pieces, or letters-to-the-editor on the citizenship policy. Couldn't find a thing.

(Read full article)
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A Strategy for reversing the tide of anti-Israeli bigotry

Robin Shepherd
Robin Shepherd Online
07 February '10

Today’s Jerusalem Post runs a commentary by Professor Gil Troy which should be read by anyone who is fed up with the kind of reactive, take-action-only-after-the-roof-has-fallen-in approach that has been a characteristic of pro-Israeli advocacy for far too long.

Troy pegs his piece off this year’s forthcoming “Israeli Apartheid Week” from March 1 to March 14, (yes, that’s right, their intellectual capacities do not even extend to knowing how many days there are in a week!). Events will be held in cities across the world and Troy sensibly suggests that action should be taken to ensure that the organisers and participants do not have things all their own way.

He offers for consideration a three-pronged strategy which he characterises as the “Three P’s”:

First, “Push-back”:

“We will rarely sway with mere facts someone who has swallowed the apartheid libel and drunk the anti-Israel Kool-Aid. Our target is wavering Jewish students and the vast uninformed and uninterested middle. We should play off the radical demonizers, making them look extreme and foolish as we demonstrate our informed commitment, our enlightened passion, the rightness and righteousness of our cause.”

Second, “Position Israel better”:

“The truth is our friend. Israel has compromised - and seen withdrawals from territory and other concessions “rewarded” with violence. Until critics deal with that, they are simply Israel-bashing with no real commitment to peace.”

(Read full article)
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Analysis: Iranian Quickstep: 1 Step Forward, 2 Steps Back

Jonathan Spyer
GLORIA Center
05 February '10


Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week told Iranian state television that "we have no problem sending our enriched uranium abroad." In so doing, Ahmadinejad appeared to agree to the long-standing plan for the export of the greater part of Iran's enriched uranium stocks.

Recent experience with the diplomatic methods of the Islamic Republic of Iran suggests that this statement is the latest instance of Teheran's favored approach to diplomacy. The Iranian tendency is to seek to offset confrontation at the 11th hour by appearing to show flexibility. Once crisis is averted, the regime relies on differences over the details to make sure that nothing actually happens. It is the diplomacy of one step forward, two steps back. Thus is further time bought for the Iranian nuclear program.

The hitherto seemingly inexhaustible international patience at Iranian maneuvering, meanwhile, has recently been showing signs of at last wearing thin. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is the latest convert to the cause of renewed sanctions. Brown said on Tuesday that "What we now, I think, have to do is accept that if Iran will not make some indication that it will take action - we have got to proceed with sanctions."

It remains to be seen if the latest Iranian move will revive the spirits of the advocates of "engagement." Ahmadinejad's statement relates to the IAEA proposal that Iran should ship its low-enriched uranium abroad, where it would be converted into fuel rods for an Iranian research reactor producing medical isotopes.

(Read full article)
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Not all Euro-elites are anti-Israel

Clarice Feldman
American Thinker
05 Februray '10

Catalonian journalist Pilar Rahola breaks with the European elites in offering up a strong defense of Israel.

In a speech too full of smart thinking to be summarized, she defends Israel against its foolish and unfair detractors in European governments and the press:

Orphan of a reasonable left, orphan of serious journalism, orphan of a decent UN, and orphan of a tolerant Islam, Israel suffers the paradigm of the 21st Century: the lack of a solid commitment with the values of liberty. Nothing seems strange. Jewish culture represents, as no other does, the metaphor of a concept of civilization which suffers today attacks on all flanks. You are the thermometer of the world's health. Whenever the World has had totalitarian fever, you have suffered. In the Spanish Middle Ages, in Christian persecutions, in Russian pogroms, in European Fascism, in Islamic fundamentalism. Always, the first enemy of totalitarianism has been the Jew. And, in these times of energy dependency and social uncertainty, Israel embodies, in its own flesh, the eternal Jew.

A pariah nation among nations, for a pariah people among peoples. That is why the antisemitism of the 21st Century has dressed itself with the efficient disguise of anti-Israelism, or its synonym, anti-Zionism. All criticism against Israel is antisemitism? NO. But all present-day antisemitism has turned into prejudice and the demonization of the Jewsih State. New clothes for an old hatred.

Full speech in translation on her website can be read here
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Undeserved Hosannas

Jason Maoz
Contentions/Commentary
05 February '10

* “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. Kill them with your arms, with your hands, with your nails and teeth.”

* “After we perform our duty in liberating the West Bank and Jerusalem, our national duty is to liberate all the Arab territories.”

* “The removal of the Israeli occupation from our occupied land, Palestine, is the first and basic condition for just peace. … The Islamic nation and just believers in any religion or creed will not accept the situation of the … cradle of prophets and divine messages being captive of Zionist occupation.”

Quick — name the Jew hater or vicious enemy of Israel capable of spouting such venom. Arafat? Khadaffi? Ahmadinejad? Actually, the speaker in all three cases was everyone’s favorite Arab moderate, the late King Hussein of Jordan (on, respectively, Radio Amman, June 6, 1967; Radio Amman, Dec. 1, 1973; and Amman Domestic Service, July 11, 1988).

I have this little calendar that lists the names of prominent people who died or were born on each specific date. Seeing that the anniversary of Hussein’s death (Feb. 7, 1999) is upon us brought to mind both the decades of duplicity that defined the king’s life until almost the very end and the Hosannas that have been coming his way for the past 11 years. (The trend continued in two recent, largely positive, biographies.)

(Read full post)
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'Post' stops Chazan column after threat

Jerusalem Post Staff
07 February '10

(Even though New Israel Fund continues to fund numerous organizations who conduct lawfare against Israel, it's elected officials, it's soldiers and citizens, this week it failed in it's efforts to intimidate at least, one newspaper.)

The Jerusalem Post has canceled Naomi Chazan’s biweekly column, after she and the New Israel Fund of which she is president threatened legal action against the paper over a recent advertisement.

The decision was taken by Jerusalem Post management after a legal threat was received at the paper from the NIF and Chazan’s lawyers.

Along with other publications, the Post last Sunday carried an advertisement criticizing Chazan and the New Israel Fund in the context of the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead.

In Friday’s paper, the Post carried an advertisement defending the NIF and Chazan against their critics.
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The New Israel Fund and the next war

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
05 February '10

A regional war may well be approaching. The actions and statements of Iran and its Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian proxies over the past week or so indicate that this is what Israel's enemies are gunning for.

In preparing for this growing threat, Israel's leaders need to consider more than just the military challenges it faces. They must consider the political actors at home and abroad that limit the IDF's ability to fight to victory and develop strategies for neutralizing those actors.

The latest developments are menacing. Last Saturday, Iran's unelected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to open up a new round of hostilities on February 11. Then Wednesday, Iran launched a new missile into space. Israeli and US missile experts claim that the missile launch signals that Iran is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles and building the capacity to launch nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles.

Following the missile launch, Syria's president and foreign minister issued incendiary comments threatening Israel with war. Notably, they did so the same day the US informed Syria of its intention to send an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in five years.

Hamas, for its part, sent barrels of explosives drifting to the Israeli coastline - exposing new ways it can kill us. And Fatah, for its part, decided to kiss Hamas's ring this week. Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath's obsequious visit to Gaza Wednesday was a graphic demonstration of Hamas's preeminence in Palestinian society.

Then there is Hizbullah. In a speech on January 15, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged that the next war will "change the face of the region."

(Read full article)
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Hillary Tilts Talks Even Further Against Israel

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
05 February '10

The New York Times noted today a curious use of wording by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to describe the United States approach to prospective peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Answering a question in a news conference about the possibility of more peace talks, Clinton stated explicitly what the basis of negotiations should be: “Of course, we believe that the 1967 borders, with swaps, should be the focus of the negotiations over borders.”

As the Times reported, this is not a new concept. This notion was at the heart of previous Israeli offers made first by Ehud Barak and then by Ehud Olmert. But what the Times fails to point out is that the Palestinians have always rejected every possible swap, insisting that every inch of the land illegally occupied by Jordan (in the West Bank and Jerusalem) and Egypt (in Gaza) should be part of a Palestinian state. But as the Times does correctly note:

Mrs. Clinton’s mention of them went farther than the Obama administration’s standard script on the Middle East: that the positions of Israel and the Palestinians can be reconciled. Analysts said it could augur a new American emphasis, after a frustrating year in which President Obama failed to jump-start the peace process by pressuring Israel to halt construction of settlements. In particular, Mrs. Clinton’s reference may appeal to the Palestinians, who have long declared that the 1967 borders should be the basis for negotiations.

So far, the Palestinians have refused to restart talks, despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer of negotiations without preconditions. What they want is for the United States to guarantee more Israeli concessions in advance of any talks that would mandate the Jewish state’s surrender of all of this territory, including Jerusalem, without giving up anything in exchange.

(Read full post)
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Israel Threatens Assad with Regime Change

Michael J. Totten
Contentions/Commentary
05 February '10

The Israeli government may be moving beyond its fear and loathing of a Syria governed by somebody other than Bashar Assad. For years, Jerusalem has been careful to avoid doing anything or even saying anything that might destabilize Damascus. But after Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Moallem, threatened Israel this week with a war that would be fought “inside your cities,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman snapped. “Not only will you lose the war,” he said to Assad, “you and your family will no longer be in power.”

There are good reasons to feel squeamish about the aftermath of regime change, whether it comes at the hands of Israelis or not. The same sectarian monster that stalks Lebanon and Iraq lives just under the floorboards in Syria. The majority of Syria’s people are Sunni Arabs, but 30 percent or so are Christians, Druze, Alawites, or Kurds. Assad himself is an Alawite, as are most of the elite in the ruling Baath Party, the secret police, and the military. Their very survival depends on keeping Syria’s sectarianism suppressed. The country could easily come apart without Assad’s government enforcing domestic peace at the point of a gun. This is a serious problem. It’s not Israel’s problem, but it’s a problem.

The Israelis have been worried about something else: that after Assad, Syria might be governed by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood organization or something that looks a lot like it. There’s no guarantee, though, that the Muslim Brothers would take over. They aren’t in power anywhere else in the Arab world. Even if they do succeed Assad, they couldn’t ramp up the hostility much. Assad’s is already the most hostile Arab government in the world. A replacement regime, especially one dominated by Sunnis rather than by minorities who lack legitimacy and feel they have something to prove, would likely gravitate toward the regional mainstream.

(Read full post)

Hey, NIF! Criticism is a democratic right

It’s strange that groups claiming to be well-versed in human rights seem so unfamiliar with the concept of free speech.


Anne Herzberg
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost
03 February '10

Those who make a full-time pursuit of criticizing others probably should grow thicker skin. Yet the New Israel Fund (NIF) and its NGO grantees have launched a thin-skinned offensive against an Israeli student group that criticized them. And they have dragged NGO Monitor into the fray.

As soon as Im Tirtzu released its report detailing how Israeli human rights organizations contributed to the Goldstone Report, NIF backers unleashed ad hominem attacks against the student group and against NGO Monitor (though we were not involved in the report). NIF has threatened to sue Im Tirtzu and any newspaper that repeats its findings. It also sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu calling NGO Monitor “the rotten fruit of Israeli democracy.”

The record needs to be set straight regarding many troubling aspects of NIF’s combative reaction. To avert criticism of their activities, many of the non-governmental organizations highlighted in Im Tirtzu’s report – such as B’Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel – are promoting the canard that if only Israel had cooperated with Richard Goldstone and his UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza war, his report would not have been as outrageously one-sided as it turned out to be.

In truth, there is no evidence that Israeli participation in the Goldstone mission would have changed the outcome of the widely panned report.

Goldstone’s mission was the product of a political war conducted against Israel in the UN Human Rights Council. Led by some of the world’s most abusive regimes – including China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia – this corrupt body has ignored mass atrocities such as the genocide in Darfur, the slaughter of more than 25,000 Sri Lankans and the forced starvation and enslavement of North Koreans. Indeed, the Goldstone mission was created by the Organization of the Islamic Conference to deflect attention from the horrific abuses of its member states and their supporters. In fact, according to the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Goldstone’s mission was financed by the Arab League.

(Read full article)

That "Cost-Benefit" Thing: How U.S. Intelligence Assessments Misunderstand Iran and Lots More in the Middle East

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
05 February '10

"We continue to judge that Iran's nuclear decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Iran." Dennis Blair, chief of U.S. intelligence in his annual threat assessment report for 2010.

Forget about Nazi analogies or even Stalinist ones. Let's just use some Middle East parallels, formulated fictionally as if they'd come from the Dennis Blair school of thought:

We continue to judge that the Arab world's pursuit of its conflict with Israel is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to bring it to an end in the near future." Annual threat assessment report for 1950.

We continue to judge that Egypt's foreign policy-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the United States a chane to turn it into an ally." Annual threat assessment report for 1952.

We continue to judge that Syrian and Iraqi decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which means these countries will see that friendship with the West has more to offer them than alliance with the USSR, especially given the fact that Communism is in conflict with their religion and way of life." Annual threat assessment report for 1960.

We continue to judge that Egyptian and Syrian decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which means they will not create a crisis leading to war with Israel." Annual threat assessment report for 1967.

(Read full article)

Some more preachin'

Marc Prowisor
Yesha Views
05 February '10

Some more preaching to the Choir…

I attended a “talk” at UCLA, the last of a series regarding Israel. This talk was given by a resident of one of the larger communities in the Shomron, , no stranger to the effort and cause of resettling our homeland, and regarded with esteem in many circles, both in Israel and among the “Choir” outside. The audience was not large, but made varied in religion, religious observance and political views.

My heart was warmed by her talk regarding our world in Yehuda and Shomron, as I know and live in the same world as she does. The talk ended and it was time for questions - the honeymoon was over. Obviously there were the questions from the “choir” which were answered with love and caring, but then came the questions by those whose views had already been hijacked by the “haters” among us. This is where ignorance and arrogance reigned - on both sides.

Many of our “representatives” who speak outside of the country are simply residents, “machers”, activists - they speak with the zeal and love of a land and people that continues to be the flames in our hearts. They represent strength and dedication and they are responsible for having set in motion the wonderful path we are on today in our country.

What many of them do not know is the other side. How do the Arabs think? How does the Left think and why? And the problem which I immediately saw – what do the young non-observant or non-affiliated Jews of the US think?

Simple questions were raised regarding “Palestinian” rights to land, treatment at roadblocks, polarization in Israeli society (raised by an Israeli), and of course the “A” word- apartheid.

(Read full article)
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Nessie and why Obama can’t

Sarah Honig
Another Tack/JPost
05 February '10

Two extraordinary recent events seem entirely unrelated, but they are in actual fact no less than peas in the same proverbial pod. US President Barack Obama of “yes we can” fame confessed that he can’t (impose instant peace on us). A concurrent shock was delivered by reports of the possible (premature?) demise of lovable Nessie – the maybe monster that has made Loch Ness one of the UK’s top tourist attractions. Though ostensibly far-fetched, the connection between the two news bombshells is inexorable.

Obama owned up that his diktat (which he calls “peace” and which he superciliously supposed he could inflict upon us overnight) has so far failed to reinvent the Mideast. Obama, of course, blames Israelis and Arabs equally (for the sake of hallowed postmodernist evenhandedness).

It matters diddly that the most unlikely government in Israel offered concessions that likelier governments had earlier refused to contemplate. It equally matters diddly that the Palestinians under Mahmoud Abbas’s fictional leadership regressed to more intractable positions than they had ever held in all previous negotiation rounds with previous Israeli governments.

Staggeringly, the White House resident has handed out identical demerits regardless of Israel’s compromise of vital interests and Palestinian intransigence on what was beforehand never insisted upon. No differentiation between compliance and obstructionism.

But while Obama spent the past year discovering that “this is just really hard” (we told him so), he evinces remarkable never-say-die spirit. Ever-valiant Obama vows to press ahead with the apparently ever-viable (contrary to all empirical evidence) two-state solution. Despite all clinical indications, Obama maintains that his phantom peace yet lives.

(Read full article)
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BDS State of the Union

Divest This!
03 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

An interesting comprehensive write up of what the BDSers themselves think about the state of their movement was published recently by Australians for Palestine. I’ll likely have more to say about their self analysis in the weeks that follow, although allow a few initial observations:

* Interestingly, outside of the US the BDSers seem to have no problem linking their project with the anti-Israel boycotts that began before the creation of the Jewish state (although they only go back as far as 1936, when Arab boycotts of Jewish businesses can be traced back to the 1920s). Since complying with the Arab boycott is illegal in the US, American boycott/divestment activists have never tried to make this connection, and while (for reasons outlined here) no one in the US has perused a legal strategy against BDS, it’s interesting to see that significant parts of the “movement” consider themselves the heirs of the dubious Arab-boycott legacy.

(Read full post)

More Proof That "Pro-Palestinians" Aren't Really Pro-Palestinian

Proud Zionist
04 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

How does supporting Hamas help the Palestinians? Why does it appear to be only Zionists who try to expose Hamas' corruption, thereby benefitting the moderate Palestinians who don't want to be drawn into Hamas' war games?

In an op-ed in November, Khaled Abu Toameh wrote:

"If anyone is entitled to be called 'pro-Palestinian,' it is those who are publicly campaigning against financial corruption and abuse of human rights by Fatah and Hamas. Those who are trying to change the system from within belong to the real 'pro-Palestinian' camp.
These are the brave people who are standing up to both Fatah and Hamas and calling on them to stop killing each other and start doing something that would improve the living conditions of their constituents...
...The 'pro-Palestinian' activists in the West clearly do not care about reforms and good government in the Palestinian territories. As far as these activists are concerned, delegitimizing Israel and inciting against 'Zionists' are much more important that pushing for an end to financial corruption and violence in Palestinian society."

An incident that recently occurred at Toronto's York University is exactly the problem Toameh is citing.

(Read full post)
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Enderlin hits bottom, keeps digging

Richard Landes
Augean Stables
02 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Enderlin has responded to an article by Reuven Pedatzur which attacked his coverage of the Al Durah story. It’s not online, but here’s a PDF of the “deadwood” version (HT/Barry Nimat) and below a transcript (HT/CAMERA)

Regarding “Mohammed is not dead,” January 24, by Reuven Pedatzur

The claim that there was not a drop of blood at the scene [where Mohammed al-Dura allegedly was killed in 2000] is erroneous. Blood is clearly visible in the videos, and is mentioned in the reports prepared by the hospital that treated Jamal al-Dura, Mohammed’s father.

This is most interesting phrasing. Blood is clearly not visible in the videos. There’s a vague red spot where the boy was allegedly shot in the stomach, but that could (and probably is) a red rag that was previously on his thigh where he was allegedly first hit, and which “blood” in the later scene has miraculously vanished. For a gaping stomach wound from which the boy allegedly bled to death, the absence of blood at the scene is quite striking… even necessitating the adding of blood the next day. (All this evidence is discussed here.)

(Read full response)
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Let's play 'what if'

Karni Eldad
Haaretz
05 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Assume for a moment that you are a Palestinian parent. Assume (really, let your imagination run free) that you are a Palestinian parent who wants peace. You would presumably want to educate your children in the same spirit. So how difficult is it, if it is even possible, for parents who live in the Palestinian Authority today to educate toward nonviolence, tolerance, recognition of the State of Israel and peace?

Sports are generally considered a good thing - a challenging, healthy activity. And that is certainly true of sports tournaments for children. A PA soccer tournament could be both fun and educational - if it were not named for the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi. She is the one who perpetrated the bloody attack on Israel's coastal highway in 1978, which killed 37 Jews.

According to Palestinian Media Watch, a celebration was held on Palestinian television to mark this terrorist's 50th birthday, sponsored by PA President Mahmoud Abbas himself. The event included a party at which a youth orchestra played in Mughrabi's honor. For the last two years, the PA has also run a summer camp named after this "martyr" (no, not Hamas, the PA - the good guys). Abbas funded a computer center named after her, and recently, a square in Ramallah was named for her as well, with Abbas' full backing. How heartwarming.

The PA and its leader, Abbas, are for some reason considered partners in the dream of peace between us and them. But peace, if it is to be true and lasting, must be based on the desire and trust of both sides.

(Read full article)
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New Israel Fund Appearance Cancelled - Consequences

Solomon
Solomonia.com
04 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Whatever the conclusion, at least the NIF is a controversial issue now, and they and their friends are not helping with the tactics they've used in their counterattack: Australian groups cancel Chazan appearances

Former Israeli lawmaker Naomi Chazan's visit to Australia was canceled following allegations that the organization she heads helped provide information for the Goldstone report.

Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, was invited by the Union for Progressive Judaism -- the Australian equivalent of the Reform movement -- to address fund-raisers next week for the United Israel Appeal in Melbourne and Sydney .

(Continue full post)

More consequences? Today's Haaretz Headline: Amid row over contentious ad, Jerusalem Post fires Naomi Chazan of New Israel Fund
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What is a Miss?

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
04 February '10

Palestinians shot a rocket at Israel yesterday. For all intents and purposes, they again missed their target...whatever that might have been this time. Palestinians also launched explosive barrels against Israel's shore lines. For all intents and purposes, they again missed their target...whatever that might have been. The devices - three so far and counting, were all found and neutralized. A miss. Again.

Because this new water warfare is a bit unique, it garners a bit of international attention but for all intents and purposes, the explosives were oh-so-boringly disarmed. No spectacular explosions; no blood; no deaths and so, sadly, no real news as far as much of the world is concerned.

The world is blasé about the rockets that keep raining down on us. Yesterday, another rocket - the 20th rocket in a period of 34 days. The rocket crashed down near a city of 25,000 people. Certainly, Hamas cannot control the rockets - proof in the fact that they keep missing. But...because they cannot be controlled, because they are launched indiscriminately, they bring with them terror.

There is no miss when it comes to terror - and that is the point that must be made.
A miss doesn't make the news but that doesn't mean anything on the scale of what is really important. Twenty times in the last month, close to one million people have been terrorized by rockets.

(Read full article)
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PM Netanyahu's Herzliya Conference Speech: Back From The Security-Centric Precipice?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
04 February '10

I know that one of my predecessors, Ariel Sharon, spoke from this podium about disengagement. Today I would like to speak not of disengagement, but rather of engagement: engagement with our heritage, with Zionism, with our past and with our future here in the land of our forefathers, which is also the land of our children and our grandchildren.

. our existence depends. on our ability to explain the justness of our path and demonstrate our affinity for our land - first to ourselves and then to others.

. Our purpose today is to reignite the flame, to introduce a new spirit into the blaze of our lives and reconnect with this land - our land - the unique and singular Land of Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Speech at the Herzliya Conference 3 February 2010

Less than a year ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu's Bar Ilan policy speech featured a security-centric approach which saw Israel's requirements for a Palestinian state essentially limited to it being demilitarized.

Last week Netanyahu used Tu Bishvat tree planting photo ops to proclaim that various locations in Judea and Samaria will remain under Israeli control if a deal is indeed cut with the Palestinians.

He planted trees in some major settlement blocs where the argument for keeping the territory is more focused on population figures than on any particularly special historical connection to the locations.

But the speech at the Herzliya Conference relates to a completely different criteria: national history and heritage.

Does our national history and heritage stop at the Green Line?

The opposite is the case.

Does this mean that the Jewish State must have each and every landmark of previous Jewish kingdoms under its control?

I don't know. But, in the least, it turns relinquishing that control into a painful concession rather than a give away to the Arabs that deserves no compensation or consideration.

And while some places might be conceded, this could ultimately be the sign that places like Maarat Hamachpela in Hebron, that have national significance second only to Jerusalem, are off the chopping block.
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The Blame Israel Firsters

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
04 February '10

Jeremy Ben Ami of J Street, James Zogby of the Arab American Institute, and five other “peace” organizations sent a joint letter to President Obama today – to “echo” the McDermott-Ellison letter sent last week by 54 Democrats to the president, blaming Israel for holding Gaza “hostage”:

We are aware that the [sic] Israel links its closure to a cease-fire and release of Gilad Shalit, which Egypt has been pursuing with Hamas. Nevertheless, we urge that, while supporting these efforts, the U.S. should oppose holding Gazans’ right to food, shelter, healthcare, education, and travel hostage to these issues.

Hamas currently rules over Gaza as a result of a military coup; it prefers to hold Gilad Shalit and continue its war against Israel rather than see the closure of Gaza lifted;...

(Read full post)
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Arabs to block Canberra's UN push

Greg Sheriden
The Australian
02 February '10

(Ever wonder about how one gets a seat in the UN Security Council? It comes with a price that until now Australia has refused to pay.)

KEVIN Rudd's bid for a UN Security Council seat has been dealt a severe blow after a warning from the Arab League that it is less likely to succeed because of Australia's support for Israel.

Hashem Yousseff, chief of cabinet for Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa, told The Australian Canberra kept "bad company" at the UN, where it often opposes anti-Israel resolutions in alliance with the US, Canada and small Pacific island states. Australia's support for Israel, he said, was "one of the elements that will be taken into consideration" by the 22-member Arab League in deciding whether to support Australia's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council for the 2013-14 term.

Mr Yousseff said the Arab nations would consider how different candidates affected their interests. "For us, the Arab-Israeli issue is an important part of the consideration."

Canberra has invested huge political, diplomatic and financial resources in its bid for one of 10 non-permanent Security Council seats. But Mr Yousseff's comments indicate it will be difficult for Australia to out-poll the European nations, which are regularly more critical of Israel. Australia has not held a seat on the Security Council for more than 20 years.

Mr Rudd has cast his foreign policy as consisting of three pillars - the US alliance, engagement with Asia and leadership in multilateral organisations. A Security Council seat would be the crowning achievement of the multilateral pillar.

The Security Council seat will be voted on by all 192 UN members. Although the Arab League represents only 22 of them, it often votes at the UN in alliances with the African Union and with the Non-Aligned Movement. Determined opposition from any of these blocs makes an Australian bid unlikely to succeed. It was to avoid blackmail on policy issues such as this that the Howard government abandoned its attempt to win a seat in 1996.

(Read full article)
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Snake Pit, the Sequel: Harvard Identifies Christian "Spoilers"

Parrhesia
JStreetJive.com
04 February '10

In its apparent never-ending cavalcade of visiting, hard- left Israeli scholars, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government rolled out its latest indictment of Israel in a lecture entitled: Until the Messiah Do Us Part: Israel, American Christian Zionism and the Israeli Palestinian Peace Process.

With the global body count exceeding two million at the hands of Sunni and Shia states and terrorist groups, The Kennedy School chooses to focus on the real source of global injustice: The Jewish State. Following Daniel Filc's attack on Israel via its health system, Michal Ben Josef Hirsch expanded Harvard's anti-Israel curriculum last week by a remarkable study pinning the blame for the "Peace Process's" failure on American Christian support for Israel. Let's see...the so-called "Peace Process" has been going on for nearly seventeen years with virtually nothing positive to show other than a tenuous treaty with Jordan.

On the negative side, it can be argued, that the bitter fruit of the "Process" has produced thousands of dead, a genocidal Hamas regime in Gaza and an ever more powerful Iran soon to possess nuclear weapons. All of these gifts were courtesy of the Israeli Left and its precipitous drive to revive a moribund PLO in the person of Yasir Arafat. That's why Bibi Netanyahu is now PM.

(Read full article)

Related article: Harvard's Carr Center: Snake Pit on the Charles
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Kalashnikov children groom young killers

Jonathan Kalmus
Jewish Chronicle
04 February '10

Children are being encouraged by Jihadi terror supporters to say that they will kill Jews, while handling guns, according to Greater Manchester Police.

The revelation came this week as the North West’s Counter Terrorism Unit released a video of children playing with a Kalashnikov. The video was seized from an undisclosed address in Manchester during a raid on terror suspects. Police say the footage and other downloaded material are being used to “groom” children in the North West with terrorist propaganda from an early age

Parts of the video show a child aged around three pointing a semi-automatic handgun, while a girl aged five or six walks into view holding a Kalashnikov. The cameraman is heard repeatedly telling the children “you will kill the Jews” while he also translates the girl’s Arabic exclamation: “I want to kill the infidels.

(Read full article)

The "Reaction"!:

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Thompson: “shocking,” but took pains to stress the “very, very, small proportion” of the Muslim community who espouse these beliefs.

The CST’s Mark Gardner said: “We are keenly aware of how extensive the problem of Jihadi terrorism is in the Greater Manchester area. However, I don’t think the community should overreact by accusing an entire community alongside whom we live, of being some sort of mass terrorist threat. There are problems but we shouldn’t blow them out of proportion.”

Cheetham Hill Councillor Afzal Khan, co-chair of the Manchester Muslim-Jewish Forum. “The vast majority of the Muslim community are horrified at seeing such footage.” he said.
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Financial Times of London's Bias Against Israel Attracts Attention

Cartoon appearing on the Financial Times' Rachman blog

CAMERA/Snapshots
03 February '10

The Financial Times of London (FT) is a prominent business-oriented newspaper with an international reach. Over the years its slanted coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict has attracted notice. Two recent pieces expose the depths of this bias.

Just Journalism, an independent media research group based in the UK, published an investigative report that assesses 121 Financial Times editorials relating to the Middle East over the past year. According to Just Journalism board member Robin Shepherd, "This report demonstrates that the FT has repeatedly disregarded salient facts when it comes to the Middle East and disproportionately blames Israel for the region’s woes."

The report finds that

1. The FT views Israel as primarily responsible for the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while downplaying other factors. Other aggravating factors such as terrorism, disunity within Palestinian ranks and a failure to accept Israel as a Jewish state are downplayed.

2. The prospect of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is referred to in five editorials; yet no Financial Times editorial in 2009 makes reference to the threatening rhetoric from Iran’s President Ahmadinejad against Israel.

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Lebanon's AK-47 index may be pointing to war

Mitchell Prothero
The National (UAE)
03 February '10

BEIRUT // Abu Mahdi spends most of his day sitting in a plastic chair in front of a dilapidated concrete block shack on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs puffing on a water pipe and pouring coffee for a steady stream of visitors and customers that have come to examine his inventory.

Two of his first customers on a cold winter morning are young fighters in their late teens from the militant Shiite movement Hizbollah who are enraptured with a selection of gleaming new 9mm handguns from Belgium, the United States and the Czech Republic.

But these young fighters make only about US$400 (Dh1,500) a month for their work in “The Resistance”, putting the sleek automatic pistols, listed at $2,000 each, well outside their price range.

Although Hizbollah obviously issues military-grade weaponry to its fighters, the boys say only the highest-ranking members – leadership, undercover operatives, bodyguards and security teams – are given pistols, making them a critical, if expensive, status symbol among the youngest fighters, who have been known to take second jobs or save for years just to add private weapons to their inventory.

The group does not buy its weaponry on Lebanon’s back market, according to people familiar with its acquisitions process, but from the international black market. Hizbollah’s arms also come direct from Iran and Syria.

(Read full article)
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Anti-Israel Bias Infects Medical Journals

It's not just the Lancet that sees the world through Palestinianized glasses.


Barbara Kay
Pajamasmedia.com
04 February '10

As all doctors know, untreated gangrene in a single limb can spread quickly through the body and lead to death. The most effective way to halt the progress of gangrene is to cut off the corrupting limb, a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.

As with bodies, so with scientific credibility.

As Phyllis Chesler informed us in these pages on January 24, Lancet, once an impeccable source for authoritative medical research, has in recent years become more and more “Palestinianized.” In the just-published article she cites, “Association between exposure to political violence and intimate-partner violence in the occupied Palestinian territory: a cross-sectional study,” Palestinian husbands were found to be more violent towards their wives as a function of the Israeli “occupation” — “and … the violence increases significantly when the husbands are ‘directly’ as opposed to ‘indirectly’ exposed to political violence.”

Very clever. Being a Palestinian means you get to beat your wife without having to say you’re sorry, because, hey, it’s too bad about all those bruises, but the Israelis made me do it! That the statistics were gathered and the study was funded by the Palestinian Authority should have been a clue to its lack of objectivity. This is propaganda, not research.

It isn’t only Lancet, though. Editorial views in the prestigious British Medical Journal and the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians (recently renamed Clinical Medicine) have revealed a similar pattern of anti-Israel bias.

(Read full article)
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What Is a 'Legitimate' Palestinian Grievance?

Joel B. Pollak
American Thinker
03 February '10

The day after President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address, he was ambushed by a question from an anti-Israel student at a rally in Tampa, Florida:

Why have you not condemned Israel and Egypt's human rights violations against the occupied Palestinian people, and yet we continue to support [Israel and Egypt] financially with billions of dollars coming from our tax dollars?

The president declined to answer directly and was clearly flummoxed, answering with what used to be called a "Bushism": "The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries."

He continued by offering support for Israel's security and the two-state solution, broadly reiterating the stance taken by past presidents and a bipartisan majority in Congress.

Yet there was something new in President Obama's answer.

"Israel has to acknowledge legitimate grievances and interests of the Palestinians," he said, in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel and renunciation of violence.

The term "legitimate grievances" seems innocuous enough. Yet anti-Israel activists have long used it as code for absolutist Palestinian demands, such as the "right of return," which would destroy Israel if implemented.

(Read full article)
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A Moral Evaluation of the Gaza War - Operation Cast Lead

Asa Kasher
Jewish Center for Public Affairs
04 February '10

(For anyone wanting a better understanding of the topic, this is worth the investment of time to read. Y.)

In Israel, a combatant is a citizen in uniform; quite often, he is a conscript or on reserve duty. His state ought to have a compelling reason for jeopardizing his life. The fact that persons involved in terrorism are depicted as non-combatants and that they reside and act in the vicinity of persons not involved in terrorism is not a reason for jeopardizing the combatant's life more than is required under combat conditions.

The ethical doctrine which follows from the IDF Ethics document mandates that, whenever possible, you must warn non-combatants that they are residents of a neighborhood where it is dangerous to stay. In Gaza, the IDF employed a variety of unprecedented efforts meant to minimize injury to non-combatants, including warning leaflets, phone calls, and non-lethal warning fire.

There is no army in the world that will endanger its soldiers in order to avoid hitting the warned neighbors of an enemy or terrorist. Israel should favor the lives of its own soldiers over the lives of the well-warned neighbors of a terrorist when it is operating in a territory that it does not effectively control, because in such territories it does not bear the moral responsibility for properly separating between dangerous individuals and harmless ones.

Proportionality is not a numerical comparison, but an assessment of existing threats and the measures that must be taken in order to avert them. Proportionality is justifiability of the collateral damage on grounds of the military advantage gained.

Compare the Gaza operation to the U.S. Marine operation in Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004. During the operation, about 6,000 Iraqis including 1,200-2,000 insurgents were killed. Of the city's 50,000 buildings, some 10,000 were destroyed, including 60 mosques. Thus, the U.S. left a trail of destruction in Fallujah far greater than anything Israel inflicted on Gaza. Comparing IDF activities to those of military forces of Western democracies is an essential part of any present attempt to use international law.

We in Israel are in a key position in the development of customary international law in this field because we are on the front lines in the fight against terrorism. The more often Western states apply principles that originated in Israel to their own non-traditional conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, then the greater the chance these principles have of becoming a valuable part of international law.

(Read full article)
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C-SPAN's Washington Journal Caller Problem

Myron Kaplan/Eric Rozenman
CAMERA Media Analysis
03 February '10

C-SPAN hosts are typically overly respectful and too patient as a handful of frequent callers spew invective and falsehoods against Jews and Israel. No other ethnic or religious group or nation is repeatedly vilified on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal 3-hour daily broadcasts. This vilification is enabled if not positively encouraged by C-SPAN‘s receptivity especially the feckless performance of the hosts. Many C-SPAN viewers, perhaps not knowing the facts and not hearing them from network hosts or, often, from guests, are at risk of being influenced by those callers seemingly driven by an obsessive pathological desire to falsely blame major world problems on the Jews and Israel.

This group of egregious frequent callers features a particular pair, a man and woman, plus their sound-alikes, working basically from the same script. For example, on two consecutive days in January, the Washington Journal host for both days, Paul Orgel, listened politely, first on January 1 at 9:51 AM to "Janet from Birmingham, Alabama" and then on January 2 at 7:50 AM to "Carol from Scotsville, Arizona." Janet’s call took place during a segment whose topic was "Social Networking & Political Participation" (no guest was on hand) while the topic for Carol’s call was "Rise of Al-Qaeda in Yemen." The latter time, the guest was Christopher Boucek of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The following video clip (3.5 minutes) contains the Janet/Carol calls:

(Click here for full transcript plus video)
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Fishermen's Tales at the BBC

Honest Reporting/Backspin
04 February '10

The BBC breaks out the violins for Gaza fishermen, who are restricted from sailing too far from the Gaza coast.

But their biggest threat isn't the Israeli navy. It's the terrorists who sent explosive barrels floating onto Israeli shores this week. YNet News writes:

The source stressed that even without Israel's involvement, the explosive barrels could have put Gaza fishermen in danger, had they exploded next to them.

"The terror activists who sent the explosive charges into the sea knew in advance that they could also be hurt. Today of all days, when talking about the Goldstone Report and morality, we must look at what the other side is doing," he said.

Are fishermen complicit in the barrel bombs?

Even if they're not, Hamas has boasted that Iranian rockets are often smuggled by sea.

For most recent Backspin posts click here
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Funds, horns and a thumbs-up from Hell

Fresnozionism.org
03 February '10

In my last post, I wrote about how a Zionist student group in Israel called Im Tirtzu exposed the way a ‘progressive’ American foundation, the New Israel Fund (NIF), supported the Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provided 92% of the negative citations from Israeli sources in the Goldstone report.

Im Tirtzu held a demonstration in front of the home of the NIF President, former Meretz MK Naomi Chazan, and bought full-page ads in Israeli newspapers showing Chazan wearing a rhinoceros-like horn (the Hebrew word for ‘fund’ and ‘horn’ are the same, keren).

Here is the English version that ran in the Jerusalem Post:



NIF and friends are furious. NIF called it a “particularly despicable attack.” Rabbi Brant Rosen, a proud supporter of the anti-Zionist J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace, calls Im Tirtzu a “right-wing ultra-nationalist group” and describes the ad as having “anti-Semitic overtones”. J Street itself said the ad was “reminiscent of propaganda from the darkest days of recent Jewish experience.” Americans for Peace Now uses almost identical language, saying that the campaign is “reminiscent of dark times in our people’s history.” Even the center-left Ron Kampeas said

Call it keren, call it horn, this is an anti-Semitic ad. No getting around it. This makes Naomi Chazan looks like she eats babies for breakfast. For lunch. And dinner. And snacks.

Sorry, but all of these accusations of antisemitism strike me as remarkably stupid.

(Read full article)
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Exposing the New Israel Fund

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
03 Februrary '10

The New Israel Fund finds itself embroiled in controversy, and rightfully so. The philanthropic group has given a great deal of moral support to the Goldstone Report, and even more financial support to the many NGO’s whose job is to manufacture the kind of allegations contained in the Report. Recently a Zionist group called Im Tirtzu released a report documenting the extent of NIF’s funding for what can only be called objectively anti-Israel groups.

This is consistent with NGO’s Monitor’s finding that “In 2008, NIF distributed over $20 million to over 300 NGOs in Israel. Approximately 20% goes to NGOs that engage in political activities related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, including some that reject the legitimacy of Israel as Jewish democratic state, and are active in boycott and similar campaigns.”

And now the Ma’ariv columnist Ben-Dror Yemini has thrown down the gauntlet. Read his important piece, available here in English, below the jump.

(Read full article)
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Israel, the Holocaust and the Survival Lesson

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
03 February '10

Last week's Holocaust Memorial Day, part of that dubious practice in which we assign one day to important events and people, Mothers, Grandmothers, Presidents, Veterans, WW2 and forget them the rest of the time, has come and gone. But the Holocaust itself was long ago co-opted to promote a humanist philosophy of universal tolerance, and in doing so it was universalized and turned into nothing more than another reason we all need to learn to get along.


Some have expressed wonderment that European countries and cities where Muslim persecution and violence is intimidating and driving out Jews at a rate unseen since the 1930's are still going through the farce of holding official ceremonies, nodding at how awful the whole thing was and beaming confidently that it can never happen again. But the humanist hijacking of the Holocaust is only another of the weapons used to promote tolerance toward Muslims, and intolerance toward Jews.

The universalization of the Holocaust was also the dejudaization of the Holocaust, turning the dwindling number of survivors into props in the great international classroom of tolerance, even as rocks are being thrown at their heads by the Muslim beneficiaries of that school of tolerance. All the while the humanist hijackers of the Holocaust who vociferously insist on using the murder of six million Jews as an illustration in their multicultural curriculum, angrily denounce any Jews who actually try to connect the hate toward Jews then and the hate toward Jews no. The same humanists who cynically exploit the Holocaust in their distorted version of history can always be counted on to jump up and denounce Jews for... exploiting the Holocaust.

But the Holocaust does indeed have a very important lesson to teach both Jews and non-Jews. Not the lesson of universal tolerance, but the lesson of the need for individuals and communities to be able to defend themselves.

There are essentially two responses to the Holocaust. The first is the humanist one, which treated the murder of six million as a "teachable moment" in which the world could be led to a great moral awakening that would insure that nothing like it could ever happen again. Ridiculous amounts of Jews and non-Jews in the West accepted it as a given, just as they had accepted it as a given in the 1930's that no such event could ever take place in a civilized country. That faith in human moral evolution was a product of the Enlightenment and for all its pretenses at a higher morality, was based on the arrogant notion that people were becoming progressively more moral, as they became more educated. That correlation was the product of a misplaced faith in culture as morality. The Nazis conclusively demonstrated that technological and cultural sophistication is not indivisible from morality, that one can be a cultured monster after all.

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Palestinian Prime Minister to Israeli Audience: You Make Concessions, We Don't

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
03 February '10

Imagine this. You're prime minister of a regime that isn't yet a state. You are praised in the Western media as a great moderate man of peace. You represent a people who the U.S. president says is in an intolerable situation. You supposedly want a country of your own. Indeed you've announced you will get a state in two years, something conceivable only if your negotiating partner agrees. You're dependent on contributions from Western democratic countries that want you to make a deal. Your rivals have seized almost half the land you want to rule and work tirelessly to overthrow your regime and very possibly to kill you personally.

But here comes a big opportunity.

You are invited by your negotiating partner to its most important meeting of the year. All the other side's top leaders and opinionmakers are listening to you.

And that country's second most powerful leader has just made a very conciliatory speech praising you personally, urging peace, offering concessions, and telling his own people they must be ready to give you a lot.

What do you do?

Make a warm conciliatory, confidence-building speech, showing by substantial offers that you, too, are willing to compromise; stretching out your hand in order to build friendship and ensure you get a country?

Hey, we’re talking about the Palestinians here! And as I say over and over again: anyone who thinks the Palestinian Authority (PA) is going to make peace hasn’t been paying attention to what they say and do.

(Read full article)
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Fighting the Goldstone Process at the UN

P. David Hornik
Pajamasmedia.com
02 February '10

A UN General Assembly vote in November gave Israel (and the Palestinians) three months to investigate “serious violations of international law committed during the conflict in Gaza that broke out in late December 2008.” Israel has now submitted to the UN a 46-page update on its investigations of possible wrongdoings in the war.

The update refutes some of the specific charges of the Goldstone Report, which accuses Israel in particular of war crimes in Gaza, and was the impetus behind the General Assembly vote in the first place. But the document is mainly concerned with establishing that Israel is a responsible democracy whose military is capable of credibly investigating itself, and does so in ways similar to the American, British, Canadian, and Australian militaries.

There is much irony in this, considering the nature of the General Assembly’s vote. Registering 114 in favor, 18 against, and 44 abstentions, in addition to giving Israel and the Palestinians their three-month assignment, it endorsed the Goldstone Report and “requested Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send [it] to the Security Council.”

It’s not only that Israel had already been investigating the war (as the 46-page update details) since two days after it ended, while the Palestinian side had not (and still has not) even begun to do so. It’s also that the 114 ayes were not a parade of accomplished democracies that one would count on to uphold international law or investigate violations of it themselves. Of the 114, the only two full-fledged Western democracies are Portugal and Switzerland. The 114 also include the likes of Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe.

As for the 18 nays — who opposed requiring Israel (and the Palestinians) to submit a report to the General Assembly, or endorsing the Goldstone Report — most are democracies such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States. Among the 44 abstainers are democracies like Belgium, Denmark, France, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK.

In other words, the reason Israel had to submit a document to the UN maintaining that it is a democracy that does not intentionally kill civilians, takes alleged infractions seriously, and investigates them authentically is because dictatorships that make up the bulk of the General Assembly demanded that it do so.

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Arguments "Ad Hominem" and "By Ethnic Identity" in Defense of Goldstone Report

Alan M. Dershowitz
Hudson New York
03 February '10

Even before the Goldstone Report was released, Richard Goldstone was arguing for its credibility by invoking his Jewishness, his Zionism, his daughter’s residence in Israel and his connection to Hebrew University. It was the mirror image of the classic fallacy known as the argument ad hominem, which is defined as follows: A substantive argument should not be rejected solely because of who has offered it.

It follows of course from this fallacy that an argument should also not be accepted because of who offered it.

A close relative of the ad hominem fallacy is what I have called “the argument by ethnic identity,” which I have defined as follows: An anti-Israel argument is made stronger if offered by a Jew. (“See, even a Jews agrees that…)

These are precisely the fallacious arguments being offered in defense of the Goldstone report by Richard Goldstone and his supporters. Goldstone has even elicited his daughter’s help. This is what she has said: “Had Richard Goldstone not served as the head of the UN inquiry into the Gaza War, the accusations against Israel would have been harsher.” She continued. “My father took on the job, for peace, for everyone and also for Israel.” She told the Jerusalem Post, “My dad loves Israel and it wasn’t easy for him to see and hear what happened. I think he heard and saw things he didn’t expect to see and hear….”

The problem is not what Goldstone saw and heard. It’s what he willfully and deliberately refused to see and hear. He refused to watch videotapes, easily accessible on the internet, that show conclusively that Hamas terrorists routinely fired rockets from behind human shields. He refused to credit eye witness reports published by refutable newspapers and even admissions by Hamas leaders. He willfully refused to listen to the testimony of one of the world’s leading experts on how democratic militaries fight asymmetrical warfare against terrorists who hide behind civilians, who said:

(Read full article)
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Hamas' Line of Defence to Goldstone Report

Jonathan Dahohah HaLevi
Shalomlife
02 February '10

Israel has recently delivered to the United Nations Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon its official response to the UN’s fact finding mission to Operation Cast Lead, headed by Judge Richard Goldstone. Hamas’ government is also preparing to submit its official response before the grace period of six months set to the parties by the Goldstone committee is over.

In sharp contrast to the genuine fears expressed by Israel, Hamas does not seem to feel any threat in the legal arena. On the contrary, Hamas demonstrates self confidence based on the understanding that the Goldstone committee strived only to incriminate Israel and all other limited references to the other side were just for lip service without any legal significance. Musa Abu Marzouq, Hamas’ second in command, said in this regard in an interview to Al-Mashahid Al-Siyasi newspaper (December 8, 2009) that “All paragraphs in the Goldstone report convict Israel and totally exonerate Hamas from any misconduct... Likewise, the [Goldstone] report exonerated Hamas from all other accusations mentioned by Israel and even when the [Goldstone] report is dealing with the rockets which were launched from the Gaza Strip it speaks about military groups without naming Hamas.”

Hamas’ line of defence vis-à-vis the Goldstone report has been shaped by a group of Palestinian jurists headed by Diya Al-Din Muhsin Al-Madhoun, former legal adviser to Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas Prime Minister) and today chairman of the Tawtheeq (documentation) organization that was the key factor assigned by Hamas’ government, on which the Goldstone committee relied for sources of information in its fact finding mission. In series of interviews to the media, Madhoun elaborated as follows Hamas’ main legal arguments of its would be response to the Goldstone report assumed to be delivered in the near future to the UN secretary general.

(Read full article)
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