Elvis (yellow) Costello boycotts Israel, becomes “a silent partner in someone else’s mistake”

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
21 May '10

A very nice piece today from David Horovitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post, on rock legend Elvis Costello’s decision to boycott Israel.

Horovitz writes the article in the form of an open letter, and pretty much hits every right note on this the latest indictment of Europe’s long and inexorable slide into barbarism over Israel and the Jews. Costello’s decision to cancel a series of concerts in Israel was announced on his website thus:

“It is a matter of instinct and conscience. It has been necessary to dial out the falsehoods of propaganda, the double game and hysterical language of politics, the vanity and self-righteousness of public communiqués from cranks in order to eventually sift through my own conflicted thoughts.” [Meaning?]

“I have come to the following conclusions,” he says. ” One must at least consider any rational argument that comes before the appeal of more desperate means. Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it. [Meaning?]

“I cannot imagine receiving another invitation to perform in Israel, which is a matter of regret but I can imagine a better time when I would not be writing this. With the hope for peace and understanding. Elvis Costello.”

Oh dear, oh dear. All of this can be summarised in a single paragraph: “I’m a coward who fears to stand up to the braying crowds calling for Israel’s isolation. I am incapable of independent thinking. I simply cannot deal with the moral and civilisational issues that the Israel-Palestine conflict throws up. I do not understand democracy. I do not understand terrorism. I have decided to take the easy and painless path of conformity rather than to stand up for what is right”.

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For Israel, the moment of truth is now

Ted Belman
Israpundit
05 December 09

This analysis ignores the possibility that the choice exercised by Netanyahu with the agreement of Yaalon and Begin is the best short term policy. They are privy to much that we are totally unaware of.

According to David Horovitz, editor of JPOST, The Battle of Wills has begun. He is referring of course to the will of the settlers to resist the freeze and the will of the international community to impose it.

Although Netanyahu was at pains to assure the settlers that after the ten months are over, construction will resume as before. Begin went so far as to emphasize that the amount of construction would return to what it was before Olmert instituted a defacto freeze last summer. But no one is buying it.

To modify the old Cat Stevens song, the first halt is the hardest. Ten months from now, Iran will likely be a more urgent threat; internal Palestinian rivalries will be still more acute, possibly following Hamas electoral successes; the international community will probably be yet more critical of Israel and still more supportive of unilateral Palestinian moves to statehood; and American pressure for positive Israeli measures will be even more intense. For all Netanyahu’s protestations to the contrary, it is hard to conceive that, 10 months from now, the man who gave us 2009’s West Bank Moratorium would resist 2010’s Moratorium II.

Netanyahu argues that this painful decision was in the “wider national interest”. That’s the rational. But he doesn’t tell us in what way. Perhaps he is referring to international resolve to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. Although Obama is now talking about stronger sanctions in January, that’s a far cry from bombing Iran while there is still time. Or perhaps he is thinking of avoiding the Tools of Persuasion that could be applied.

He also argues that this freeze was necessary to get Abbas to return to negotiations. This doesn’t make sense. He could have said as soon as Abbas returns to negotiations we will institute a 10 month freeze. That would make mores sense but in either case why would Abbas return to negotiations? With the current freeze he could stay away for nine months letting Israel suffer and then return to negotiations with the conditions that so long as negotiations are ongoing, the freeze must continue. In the latter situation he would not return to negotiation that are certain to end in ten months.

(Continue article)

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Questions people are afraid to ask Salam Fayyad

David Bedein/Arlene Kushner
JPost/Opinion
28 November 09

In his column of November 20, "Salam Fayyad builds Palestine," Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief David Horovitz describes "two staunch Jewish supporters of Israel" - Sen. Joe Lieberman, former vice presidential candidate, and Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee - "nodding their encouragement" at a recent Ramallah press conference, where Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad explained how he was preparing Palestinians for statehood. The piece goes on to outline a Palestinian state in formation, regarding security forces, the economy and civic institutions, with an optimistic sense of what the PA is achieving.

Regrettably, Lieberman and Berman did not use the press conference to raise some troublesome questions.

Since these American elected officials let that opportunity pass, perhaps it was Horovitz's journalistic responsibility to explore these matters, to offer a more balanced picture. Instead, he alluded to "staunch supporters of Israel nodding their agreement" - conveying the notion that, except for some technical problems, all is well.

Questions that Lieberman, Berman or Horovitz could have asked would have included:

• Renunciation of the PLO state of war with Israel.

The charter of Fatah - the predominant element in the PLO and the PA - to this day continues to call for the destruction of Israel. Written in 1964, before Israel controlled the West Bank and Gaza, it uses the term "Palestine" to refer exclusively to Israel within the Green Line. The charter declares that "Liberating Palestine is a national obligation," and that "Armed public revolution is the inevitable method" for doing so. This cannot be dismissed as an irrelevant anachronism. Last August, Fatah held its first General Congress in 20 years. Hope was held out for a charter revision, with violence officially renounced, but it never happened. Instead, Fatah continued to unambiguously embrace "armed resistance" to liberate Palestine. Why is this so?

• Cessation of incitement via changes in PA-produced textbooks.

(Continue reading...)
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