Likening Israel's [Non-]Violation of Court Injunction to 'Naqba'

Columnist Bradley Burston takes the false charge to a new level

TS..
CAMERA Snapshots..
16 January '13..

Given that the news pages of Ha'aretz are falsely reporting that Israel violated a High Court injunction by evacuating Palestinian protesters from a tent camp in the controversial E-1 area, it comes as no surprise that their Op-Ed columnists are doing no better. Columnist Bradley Burston takes the false charge to a new level, charging that Israel's alleged violation of Justice Neal Hendel's injunction is no less than a "Naqba"(!). He writes that according to Prime Minister Netanyahu the protest camp:

needed to be destroyed despite a High Court order that appeared to give the new villagers six days to remain on the site. But in a peculiarly contemporary reinterpretation of the Naqba, the police announced that the injunction only applied to the tents. The people could be taken out. In the dead of night.

It's a pity that Burston didn't actually read the court injunction before he spouted off hysterical "Naqba" comparisons. The Palestinian protesters' lawyer did read the document, and accurately characterized it. As the Jerusalem Post reported:

Attorney Tawfiq Jabareen who represented the Palestinians explain this to the High Court of Justice when he secured a temporary injunction against the outpost’s removal on Friday.

But the court’s language spoke of the tents, not the people, and added that security factors could shift the decision, Jabareen said.

So it's not just a police claim that the injunction applied only to the tents. In fact, this is the case. For the benefit of Burston and his colleagues, here is the link to Justice Hendel's injunction. The injunction states (CAMERA's translation):

After studying the petition I hereby impose a temporary injunction according to clause 1 -- preventing the evacuation or destruction of tents that were erected by the petitioners on a-Tur lands, east of Kfar al-Azeem, unless an urgent security need arises.

The respondents [the state] will respond to this temporary injunction within six days.

Traditionally, journalists read a court injunction before they report on it. Burston apparently prefers a peculiarly contemporary reinterpretation of journalism.

Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2013/01/haaretzs_burston_likens_israel.html

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CAMERA - Burston, What are Your Numbers?

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
17 November '11

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/11/haaretzs_burston.html

In two recent blog posts, Ha'aretz's Bradley Burston claims that the majority of Israelis oppose Israel's ongoing presence over the Green Line. In shorthand, Burston referred on Friday ("Iran Wins") to "the pro-occupation minority."

Similarly, this week, he writes ("Come Visit Israel. Before it's Gone"):

I want my nephew to know that most Israelis believe that settlements do little other than ruin their lives, stain their country, and block the way to peace.

Granted Israelis have never been polled about their views on settlements using the terminology that Burston provides, that they "ruin their lives, stain their country, and block the way to peace." And the language and framing of a poll question can have a significant impact on the answers. Nevertheless, an in-depth study about Israeli public opinion on territorial withdrawals and the settlements by Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies does not support Burston's assertions.

For instance, the study found that in 2009, only 13 percent of Israelis supported "major territorial concessions." Another 13 percent supported "unilateral disengagement with fewer territorial concessions." On the other hand, 29 supported a "partial agreement with fewer territorial concessions," while 45 percent supported "neither," meaning they opposed any territorial concessions.

Does Burston really think it's legitimate to view BDS as Tikkun Olam?

Solomonia
20 December '10

[The following, by Richard Landes, is crossposted from Augean Stables with minor formatting edits.]


(My apologies for taking so long to post this. I wanted feedback from friends on my treatment of Tikkun Olam which is not an area of any expertise for me. I wrote this during the Thanksgiving break, but only post it now. I do think, however, that the issue I treat here is not going away. RL)

A good friend sent me the following piece by Bradley Burston with the comment: "It expresses how I feel." I find it so pervasively flawed that I have difficulty taking it seriously. But if my friend can (and he's one of the smartest people I know), then I have to, and it does raise, however poorly, a whole range of key issues. So, with great reluctance (because there are more interesting texts to sink one's teeth into), I fisk below.

First, a brief introductory note: One of the key contentions of Burston and the people he likes (J-Street, Jewish Voices for Peace, Young Jews for Peace, etc.) is that a) they love Israel and b) they know the best way to peace which, since Israel won't take that path, they must force upon her. Now all these groups locate along the "left" political spectrum differently. NIF disapproves of BDS but funds groups who do; J-Street disapproves of BDS even if they associate with people who do; Jewish Voices for Peace and Emily Schaeffer (below) support BDS in many forms.

Whatever the details, each of these groups believes that they must pressure Israel to leave the occupied territories out of a combination of moral passion - the Israel they love should set a moral example to the world - and peaceful intentions - they know their formula for peace will work. Now some people, myself included, see the situation very differently. On moral matters, howevermuch we may share concerns about the occupation and dominion over another people harms both Palestinians and Israelis, we have difficulty with a moral equivalence, that ends up as a moral inversion, with the profound condescension and bigotry it involves in its abysmally low standards for the Palestinians, and the inversely exacting standards to which it holds Israel.

(Read full "Does Burston really think it's legitimate to view BDS as Tikkun Olam")

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One question for Bradley Burston

Fresnozionism.org
20 April '10

Bradley Burston published a passionate attack on “The Occupation” yesterday, in honor of Israel’s Independence Day. Here’s some of it:

In a country where polls show that nearly two-thirds of the population would cede the West Bank under a future peace deal, Israelis are hostages to the nightmare scenario of permanent Occupation…

The Occupation has become the greatest single threat to the social fabric of the Jewish state. The Occupation causes division, strife, tension and alienation in Jewish families and Jewish communities the world over.

Nothing causes Israel more diplomatic damage than the Occupation, and its outrider, the siege of Gaza.

Nothing delegitimizes Israel more in the eyes of the world – and in the eyes of many Jews – than the nation’s unwillingness or inability to dismantle and end the Occupation…

What will permanent occupation mean for Israel? Not only that the nation will cease to be a democratic state, disenfranchising millions of Palestinians. In the end, permanent Occupation will see to it that Israel will cease to be a Jewish state as well. Israel will have delegitimized itself out of existence.

It will have knowingly opted for and adopted apartheid, and, in the end, either through democracy or through fire, and, thanks to the Occupation, the world community will see to it that an Arab-ruled Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River will finally come into existence.

I have a question which I hope Burston will answer. Because it is just impossible for me to understand his mindset, or that of others who say the same sort of things. Here it is:

How?

(Read full post)

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Those bleeding-heart journalists

Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking from Jerusalem
03 March '10

In recent weeks, our media has indulged its penchant for masochism, depicting every incident in the most self-deprecating manner. This is exemplified in a column by Bradley Burston on the current homepage of the English edition of Haaretz. Titled “I envy the people who hate Israel,” he relates to real and imaginary blunders committed by our political leaders, and concludes with the breathtaking comment that “my father did not flee the Soviet Union just so that his son could one day have the chance to live in a place just like it.”

I would submit that the publication of such wacky remarks in a purportedly serious Israeli paper highlights the need for soul searching by our bleeding-heart editors.

Burston’s principal example of malfeasance was “our apparent violation of the basic conventions of all civilized states in the Dubai murder.” It is unlikely that the true facts concerning the assassination of the vicious Hamas killer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh will ever be revealed. The information disclosed by the Dubai police smacks of disinformation. It sounds somewhat bizarre for the Mossad to risk 27 agents and then send some of them on to Iran.

Initially, Israeli media reports of the assassination were exuberant. However, when it transpired that foreign passports belonging to Israeli dual nationals had been used, the euphoria evaporated and commentators who had portrayed Mossad chief Meir Dagan as “superman” began calling for his head.

(Read full article )
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