Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts

Sunday, February 19, 2017


"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche 
"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." - H.P. Lovecraft

Welcome to the new American moment of rising white nationalism, anarchist violence in the streets, and an irate progressive-left that refuses to reconcile itself to the fact of a Donald Trump presidency.

It is not merely that the Left disagrees with Trump on policy issues, it is that they have aggregated that hatred into the core of the sun for the purpose of creating nuclear fusion.

This is a level of domestic collective political hostility that no living American has seen before and nobody knows what it will produce beyond getting an autistic white kid tortured in Chicago, among other such imbecilic acts of identity politics-based violence and cruelty.

One would have to travel back to early 1860s Savannah, Georgia to gloriously revel in this degree of rancor for the President of the United States and for people of the wrong color.

When I was a kid the Left despised Richard Nixon and when he died in 1994 Hunter S. Thompson wrote an obituary for The Atlantic that twisted the knife even in death. In "He Was a Crook," Thompson wrote:
I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.
But even Nixon, despite the secret bombing of Cambodia, was not as reviled as Donald J. Trump is today.

In college many of my friends did not much like Ronald Reagan, either, but we did not dress head-to-toe in black - almost like tight-fitting burkas, if you think about it - and then form ourselves into "black blocs" for the purpose of beating the holy hell out of perfectly innocent people in the streets.

And that is precisely what we saw when Milo Yiannapolous dropped by UC Berkeley on his "Dangerous Faggot Tour."

And then, of course, there was George W. Bush, the "Cowboy President" who allegedly robbed Al Gore of his rightful ascension and who followed in George Sr.'s footsteps by dragging the United States into more pointless warring in the Middle East. So we bitched and we moaned and we cried and we marched and some of us even went to Midland, Texas to say hello to Cindy Sheehan at "Camp Casey" not far from W.'s ranch.


Nazis, Klansmen, and Fascists

So, why does the disdain for Trump seem so much more angry and intense than these other examples of famous American presidential loathing? It is in part because while those who dislike Trump are loudly spreading their hatred, the rest of the country is quietly going about its daily business. Recent polling shows that something close to 50 percent of Americans actually favor the temporary ban from the countries of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya. My assumption is that, like all rational westerners, these people take the rise of political Islam seriously. Some of them follow the news of the immigration crisis in Europe. 

One would not get this sense from the overall mainstream media, nor the alternative media, because the drumbeat of fear and loathing is so relentless one would surely think that almost every ethically-decent American considers the temporary ban as on some moral par with the unjust internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II.

So, why have so many Americans gone stone-cold crazy? Why are so many otherwise normal and intelligent people bursting with horror at this particular political moment?

The reason has to do with Nazis, Klansmen, and fascists.

Homophobes, Islamophobes, and Antisemites.

Sexists, Transphobes, and all other manner of benighted Arkansas pig farmers.

That's why.

When The Enemy - as embodied by the hideous yammering visage of Donald Trump - represents the very worst that unearthly existence can manifest then there are no ethical limits on behavior in beating back the terrible cosmic menace. A righteous moral stance cannot include mere disapproval or protest, but full on resistance by any means necessary... however bloody, hypocritical, or devoid of simple human decency.

And if Democrats and progressives prefer not to get their hands dirty, that's what the Boys in Black are for. Perhaps if they curb-stomp enough Trumpeteers it will serve as notice to the rest to stay out of sight and keep their white-bread, humanist-individualist, Judeo-Christian yaps shut.

And make no mistake, Trump did not magically transform into Zombie Hitler - or the monster of your choice - through his own behavior.

He was transmogrified into Zombie Hitler by a Democratic Party leadership that had grown so confident, fat, and self-satisfied that only a spectral fascist could possibly stall their well-meaning efforts to change America into a semi-socialist enclave of sneauxflakes and drones. If the Democrats decided that they are "the good people" and the Republicans are "the bad people" then they decided that Donald Trump is Cthulhu, a multi-tentacled, insatiable, monstrosity from the Deep... or a Zombie Nazi... choose whichever you like.

And this is why the self-righteous Idiots in Black took to the streets of UC Berkeley to beat the holy hell out of Trump supporters at the Milo event.

What else can you do to a supporter of fascism other than kick its head in in an anti-free-speech riot in the place most famous as home of the Free Speech Movement?


Race, Gender, Class

In the years between the end of the Vietnam War and the present, the progressive-left (or what political youtube icon Dave Rubin refers to as the "regressive-left") took the best ideas that American politics has to offer and turned them into mierda.

Questions of racial, gendered, and economic-class injustices go directly to the heart of the western political experience. From a liberal humanist perspective there is nothing more important than treating human beings as individuals with rights rather than as some annoying or frightening member of an othered group to be treated like dirt.

The fundamental purpose of movements for ethnic and gendered freedom was to relieve all of us of the burden of never-ending bigoted and unjust animosities. In Martin Luther King's iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, that was the dream.

But no sooner had this dream approached reality than the Left turned it into a weapon and betrayed its core values in doing so.

And this is where Hillary Clinton, her "basket of deplorables," and some ridiculous grinning green frog named Pepe, comes into the story.

During the campaign, and much to Bernie Sanders' ongoing annoyance, the drums of race and gender beat considerably harder and louder than those of economic class. Activists in the Democratic Party and the progressive-left who wanted to challenge the allegedly brutal, racist, white, patriarchal, imperialist, rape-culture of America were torn between Hillary's neo-liberalism and Sanders' anti-capitalism.

So, when Hillary, who we all knew was going to get the nomination despite Sanders' admirable challenge, decided to smack Trump around with Breitbart and white nationalism she unleashed The Fear into the American population on a national scale. The next thing that we knew Facebook and Twitter and God-Knows-What-All overflowed with rumors of gun-toting, Republican-voting, Nazi-sympathizing, angry, white guys prowling the streets of America as swastikas popped up all over the media like psilocybin mushrooms after a good rain.

The fact that there are no actual Nazis, Klansmen or fascists within the ranks of American power was not about to stop a good case of mass hysteria, however, so Team Hillary dug up Richard Spencer, tied Spencer to Breitbart, and threw both into the face of Donald Trump.

And they did so even as Milo darted between American university campuses humiliating idiots and referring to Trump as "Daddy." It is thus not difficult to see just why they would despise the guy and thereby smear him as a Nazi.

The truth, however, is that this sort of manichean, black-and-white, Good versus Evil, partisan politics is ripping this country to pieces. It's harming families and friendships.

Of course, if it makes people happy, they should continue spitting the hate.

I may find it interesting in a perverse and twisted kind of way, but it's certainly not doing the country any good.


Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.








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Thursday, February 16, 2017


 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column


Wednesday, February 15. Prime Minister Netanyahu is in Washington, and will meet President Trump later today. At the same time, the American media is hyperventilating after the forced resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, over something to do with his contacts with Russia. I say this, because right now, nothing is clear – not what Flynn actually did and not why Trump fired him. All options, from Flynn truly conspiring with the Kremlin, to this being the beginning of a putsch against Trump orchestrated by the CIA and/or former Obama Administration officials, are open.

Poor Bibi, who would really like to talk about Iran, Syria and the Palestinians! Trump’s mind will not be on the Middle East if he thinks that his presidency is in danger (which in my opinion it is).

Bibi should understand Trump’s position quite well, since he himself is the object of a prolonged and vicious media and legal witch hunt, which I discussed in this column last week. This is apparently the fashion in modern “democratic” politics today: when you have a leader that powerful elites dislike but who is also so popular with the average voter that he can’t be defeated at the polls, then tie him up with a firehose-stream of accusations and scandals. If you can get him entangled in sticky legal spider-webs, so much the better (this is harder to do in the US, where an American president has much more power than an Israeli Prime Minister).

Personally, I believe Bibi when he says, “they won’t find anything because there is nothing.” But I also believe that he could be indicted for “nothing.” At least he is safe in the US for a few days, even if Trump gives him an expensive cigar or two.

The parallels between the precarious situations of Trump and Netanyahu are interesting, even though they are personally so different – and although Trump has been in office for less than a month, compared to Netanyahu’s multiple terms as Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister.

Both were elected in fair elections in which they defeated lackluster opponents. Nevertheless, both enjoy strong support from their bases and appealed enough to independent voters to win. Both are strongly, even viciously, opposed by a majority of media outlets and personalities, and by academic and artistic elites in their home countries; and both are considered enemies by the international Left. The previous American administration even tried to intervene in Israel’s recent elections against Netanyahu, and some of the same people may be involved in the effort to damage Trump.

Trump’s and Bibi’s opposition became used to wielding power, and did not give up the taste for it (although they have certainly had enough time to do so in Israel), and will use any means they can get away with to get it back from the leader that they view as an illegitimate usurper.

But now is a particularly inconvenient time for these two nations to be tied up by internal strife. It’s a cliché, but it’s true that the world is at a historical inflection point. America is the only power strong enough to stand up to the forces of darkness that are threatening to overtake Western civilization; and Israel is on the front line of this struggle. 

Iran/Hezbollah, North Korea, Da’esh, the Muslim Brotherhood – these are the real threats. Putin might be one too. It is vitally important that the leaders of our nations focus on them, rather than on domestic insurrections by spoiled elites.

Could you give them a chance to do so, please? I promise that you can have another go in the next election.





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Wednesday, February 15, 2017


What motivates a journalist to slant an article against Israel? This has never seemed a particularly difficult question. But let’s take a look at some of the possibilities. Consider it exercise for the mind. Like doing stretches. How many scenarios can you come up with?

A writer might slant an article against Israel:

·         Because an editor demands he do so and it’s hate on Israel or lose your job.
·         As a forever rebellion against all things Jewish, to spite the Jewish journalist’s parents/upbringing.
·         As an expression of xenophobia
·         Out of ignorance
·         Because of antisemitism
·         Because the Arab journalist’s goal is to acquire Israeli land and this is part of his narrative/agitprop
·         Because of intersectionality, in the case of the leftist writer
·         To get page views and advance one’s career, since hating Israel is ever popular
·         Out of jealousy—the journalist doesn’t really hate Jews, but every time he gets passed over for a promotion, it’s someone Jewish and this is his way of getting back, gosh darnit

If you examine the above list, it boils down to ignorance, the acquisition of goals, or hatred.

Now a journalist who is ignorant is guilty, guilty, guilty of the worst sort of journalism. A writer is supposed to do homework. He’s supposed to track down credible sources in support of what he writes. He is supposed to gather facts. A journalist at a loss to find the data he needs says so or leaves it out of his piece. If he offers a theory because he cannot find cold, hard, data, he says it is a theory.

So no. No excuse for ignorance.

Let’s look at the acquisition of goals. Here we’re talking about someone who maybe doesn’t care one way or the other about Israel, but his newspaper tells him what editorial stance to take and by golly, that’s the position he’s going to adopt, that is if he wants to keep his job at, for instance, the New York Times. Or maybe it’s a writer just starting out and he’s going for sensational, because he wants to make it to the top. What better way to get there than smearing the world’s favorite target? Is this okay, then? Can we say that in the case of professional goals, the ends justify the means?

No. No we can’t. People are supposed to have integrity. Even if it means losing your job or staying stuck in a rut. There are things you can do, and things you can’t. Slanting articles is beyond the pale. 

It’s just wrong.

Perhaps the writer is an Arab journalist who supports a worldwide caliphate for religious reasons? He wants Israel, all of it, as part of the ummah. Or perhaps he is an Arab who has been fed with his mother’s milk the idea that the Jews stole his land. Or maybe the journalist is heavy into all sorts of leftist causes like gay marriage and third-trimester abortion which means that struggling against the imagined “occupation” is just one more leftist cause, indistinguishable from the others, nothing personal, you understand.  

Is this okay? No. It’s not. Any time you have to lie, which is what slanting an article is—a lie—you’re showing that the truth is not in your favor. If it were, you’d use it. Where you instead use media bias as a tool, you need to do some self-examination and do some deep thinking about your values.

And then we come to hatred: is it okay to slant an article because you hate that the entire world hates you for being Jewish and you want to prove you’re not like those other ZIO Jews?

No. It’s not okay to sacrifice your people and smear your land, your inheritance, because you want to be liked, you want to be a citizen of the world. That’s your burden to carry always, and you need to carry it with pride! They hate us because they envy us. They hate us because they can’t supplant us.

Do not choose the wrong side here. Strive to be a mensch! That is all there is, really. Our integrity is who we are in the end.

The other types of hatred that drive people to smear Israel? They don’t bear discussion here. We all know that hatred is an ugly thing that should be repulsed by all good people. Period.




And so it was that when I wrote my piece, Booth and Eglash: A Pathological Hatred of Israel, I felt secure in deciding that Booth and Eglash were motivated by hatred in their Israel-related articles:
When one sees the byline of William Booth and Ruth Eglash on a Washington Post article, what follows, one knows, is going to be a very ugly piece about Israel. There will be the pretense of balance, but the slant will always be there and the direction of that slant will never favor Israel. You read their stuff and you have to wonder what's wrong with them, the authors.  Their regular and willful distortion of the facts must, by design, be born of deep-seated hatred for the Jewish State.
Now if the articles were balanced and at least factually true, we might have given Booth and Eglash a pass. We might have said they are writing what they write for the sake of truth. . . We could have ascribed a certain logic to reporting true but ugly news about Israel, and called the authors "truth seekers."  (Even though nitpicking on Israel is kind of a strange thing to do, considering the slaughter going on next door in, for instance, Syria.)
With Booth and Eglash, however, what you've got is something far from the truth, something  at a distant remove from decency and basic journalistic standards. What you've got instead is two authors pushing a single agenda and passing off selected half-truths as cover for their naked hate of Israel.
It's pathological.
It was a process of elimination. Eglash is Jewish. The Washington Post may be a media outlet that leans to the left, but it does carry articles by Eugene Kontorovich and Jennifer Rubin, who write honestly and positively of Israel.

Therefore, Eglash has made a choice when she contributes to biased articles about Israel and the choice is not in Israel’s favor. The descriptive language, the lack of context and selective context are too out there to ignore.

Booth? Well, he too, has made a choice that appears to have nothing to do with his getting ahead in his career, since, as noted above, he could have been a Jennifer Rubin or a Eugene Kontorovich writing good and truthful things about a good and truthful nation.

Is everything about Israel good?

Of course not. But we’re not talking about Israel’s warts. We’re talking about MEDIA BIAS.

Here is a recent example of a Booth article to which Ruth Eglash contributed: Netanyahu is Urged Not to Use the Words Palestinian State When He Visits Trump.

The first sentence:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likes to boast to his boisterous cabinet that no one understands the Americans better than he does.
“Likes to boast?” “Boisterous cabinet?”

This piece is not presented as an opinion piece but as a straight news piece about the Middle East. Yet here we have Netanyahu’s character described. He is described as someone boastful, someone who LIKES boasting. And the Knesset is described as “boisterous” like so many ragtag pickpockets sent out into the streets of London by Fagan, to steal and trick the people.

It’s already “Jewy.” If you see what I mean. It's a kind of character assasination.

Does it end there, the bias? If it did, we might give a pass. But no. There’s this:
His education minister and coalition partner, Naftali Bennett, leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party, has pressed him to abandon his tentative commitment to the two-state solution, which Netanyahu first announced in a speech at Bar Ilan University in 2009.
“Tentative commitment?” On what basis the use of the word “tentative” to characterize Netanyahu’s commitment? Is that fact, or is that opinion? Because if it’s fact, there needs to be a link or reference to a source that proves the point. Otherwise, it’s opinion. And if it’s opinion, it doesn’t belong here, in a straight news piece.

So let’s take a look at the text of Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech:
I told President Obama when I was in Washington that if we could agree on the substance, then the terminology would not pose a problem. And here is the substance that I now state clearly:

If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel's security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the State of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state.
We took a look at the actual text, because Booth and Eglash made the assertion, without offering proof. Which already says something. It says they’ve got no good reason to use the word “tentative.” Because if they had a good reason, they would have offered the text of the speech as their source.

As you can see, Bibi was firm. He said, “I now state clearly,” and so forth. There is nothing tentative there. Which is why the source for this contention, this descriptor that slants the piece, is missing. It doesn’t serve their point, their slant.

We could continue to analyze the article in depth, pointing out each descriptor as I did in my earlier piece about Booth’s and Eglash’s bias, but there is a broader point I wish to make.

Back in December, I tweeted the link to my piece about Booth and Eglash only to be virtually bitch-slapped by the managing editor of Honest Reporting.




Plosker tweeted: How can u rationally critique someone's work and then assume it's driven by hate?

This is what I have tried to answer in this week’s column, after seeing several more such collaborative articles from the Washington Post’s Booth and Eglash that betray a bias against Israel.

There are the descriptors (boisterous, boasting, tentative) where none belong. There is selective omission of facts that are needed for context as referenced in my earlier piece on Booth and Eglash. There’s no getting around it. It is what it is. Media bias.

And I don’t see any good reason for media bias whatsoever, especially for such seasoned reporters as Booth and Eglash, working for a media outlet that does have pro-Israel writers among its staff. I don’t have a way to excuse the bias against Israel when I see it. And neither should you.

Media bias. It’s what you use when you’re trying to get ahead, you don’t know better, or you’re filled with hate. And there’s no excuse for any of this.

Whatsoever.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Can you imagine living in exile? Knowing that, although you have lived all your life in one place, as have your parents and maybe even grandparents, you belong to a different land?

The Jewish people lived in exile for centuries. Their religion and traditions did not allow them to forget… Maybe, most of all, it was their neighbors who did not allow them to forget that they belonged to a different land.

Jews in exile yearned for Zion, “the sun-drenched land.” Its fruits became something almost mythological. If someone managed to bring them fruits of the Land, it was like receiving a small miracle, something rare and very precious.

Of course, fruits couldn’t stay fresh on such a long trip. Dates, for example, could be brought from the far away land to the people in exile. This is where the tradition of eating dried fruit on Tu B’shvat began. 

Tu B'Shvat is the new year for trees, celebrated according to the Hebrew calendar, on the 15th of the month of Shvat.

This is the new year for the purpose of calculating the age of trees for tithing (See Lev. 19:23-25, which states that fruit from trees may not be eaten during the first three years; the fourth year's fruit is for God, and after that, you can eat the fruit).

It is customary to celebrate the holiday by eating fruit from Israel, particularly a new fruit or one of the Seven Species described in the Bible as being abundant in the land of Israel: wheat, barley, grapes (vines), figs, pomegranates, olives and dates (honey) (Deut. 8:8).

In 1904, Professor Otto Warburg proposed establishing a Zionist Fund for the purpose of planting olive trees in Zion on lands redeemed by KKL-JNF. The Teachers’ Association of Eretz Yisrael turned planting trees in to a national tradition, followed by school children throughout the country.
The Jewish people returned to the land, planted trees and made the desert bloom. Technology and dedication realized the promise of a land “flowing with milk and honey”.  Hills that were barren became green. The fruits of the land grew more abundant and new fruits were cultivated.
Our trees and their fruit are precious. This land gives much – when it is loved.

This year Tu B’Shavat seemed to me a holiday of sad stubbornness.

My beautiful city of Haifa is currently scarred with black patches of land that once were green.
Hills that were covered in trees are now bare. The arson-terrorism that brought fires to my neighborhood, city and in other places across the country just two months ago, has caused scars that will take years to heal.

Thankfully no human lives were lost during the fires. Many homes were lost or terribly damaged. It is difficult to comprehend the loss of memories, family heirlooms, treasures that survived so many other attacks…

Enough anguish is caused by the loss of things that can be replaced with money. How can you replace the irreplaceable?

This Tu B’Shvat new trees and flowers were planted in Haifa. Experts say it will take some 30 years for the trees to grow back to something like what we had before the fires. Their knowledge will guide the replanting to facilitate speedy, healthy new growth, in a way that is best for the land.

The green will spread before the trees grow. New plants will cover the ugly scars terrorism left behind. Our city, that was lovely in its green urbanity by the sea, will be lovely once more.
Tu B’Shvat should not have to be used in this way but it is fitting that it was. Ours is a love story between a people and their land, between a land and its people.

Hate so ferocious that it is willing to burn us out of our homes, killing the fruits of the land and make it barren where it was once green, is not enough to disconnect the People of Israel from Zion.
Exile could not make the People of Israel forget Zion. Terrorism, even terrifying fires, cannot make us give up this land. Like countless times before, we will rebuild, plant new plants and grow better and stronger than ever before.

People can be killed. Trees can be burned. True love lasts forever.





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Monday, February 13, 2017



By Petra Marquardt-Bigman



In a fascinating essay published in Mosaic, Edward Rothstein writes about a recent exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art on “Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven.” According to Rothstein, the exhibition was “sumptuous and ecstatically received,” and Rothstein’s detailed descriptions as well as the glimpses provided at the museum’s website make it easy to imagine that visitors were captivated by the displays and the narrative that was presented.

But as Rothstein demonstrates, the narrative presented in the exhibition (and the catalog) glossed over Jerusalem’s rather bloody medieval history, evoking instead 21st century fantasies of inspiring multi-culturalism. Rothstein argues in chapter IV – which deals with the Met’s failure to adequately present the Jewish connection to Jerusalem (while at the same time ignoring how oppressed Jews were under both Christian and Muslim rule) – that “[n]ot only was no notice taken of these matters but, among the three faiths, a tendentious impulse was at work in the exhibition to celebrate Islam above the other two and, in particular, to claim benignity for Islamic rule.”

According to Rothstein (III), the exhibition presented Christian Crusaders as the primary perpetrators of “Holy War:”

“The Crusader conquest of Jerusalem was, we were to think, a kind of one-off example of ‘extreme ethnic and religious cleansing.’ […] it was the Crusaders who ‘fueled’ the idea of Holy War, turning jihad—until then a concept of spiritual struggle alone—into one of military struggle. So the Crusaders not only introduced Holy War, they also caused Muslim leaders to distort their own religious teachings by adopting a kind of Holy War in response.”

As Rothstein rightly points out:

“If this argument sounds familiar, it should: a similar argument has gained much traction in recent years among those who regard 9/11 and other Islamist terrorist attacks as a form of deserved blowback for prior Western offenses against Muslims. Intent on its own version of this judgment, the exhibition portrayed the Crusaders as both the single exception to, and the primal cause of any further disruption of, the multicultural paradise of medieval Jerusalem.”

Outlining just some of the atrocities that were not perpetrated by the Crusaders, Rothstein provides a rather long list of major incidents that were completely ignored in the exhibition:

“no mention was made of the Muslim massacre of Christians in Jerusalem in the 10th century—long before the Crusader conquest. As Eric H. Cline points out in Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel:


‘When the Byzantine armies won a series of victories in the field against the forces of Islam toward the end of May 966 CE, the Muslim governor of Jerusalem—who was also annoyed that his demand for larger bribes had not been met by the patriarch of the city—initiated a series of anti-Christian riots in the city. Once again churches were attacked and burned in Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was looted and was so damaged that its dome collapsed.’ […]

In 1070-71, the Turkic emir Atsiz ibn Uvaq al-Khwarizmi captured the city, and six years later he murdered 3,000 Islamic rebels who had plotted against him, including some who had taken shelter in the al-Aqsa mosque. En route to Jerusalem in 1187, Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, slaughtered Christian communities throughout the Holy Land. Later, in 1229, despite the city’s alleged centrality to Islam and just decades after the fall of the Crusaders, a subsequent Ayyubid ruler offered Jerusalem to Frederick II, the Holy Roman emperor, in return for military assistance against a Muslim rival for power. In 1244, another Ayyubid ruler lost control of Jerusalem to Khawarezmi Turks who murdered much of the city’s population. In 1263, almost at the center of the era covered by the show, the Mamluk general Baibars attacked Acre and other cities held by Crusaders. As the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore relates in Jerusalem: The Biography, Baibars ‘received Frankish ambassadors surrounded by Christian heads, crucified, bisected, and scalped his enemies, and built heads into the walls of fallen towns.’”

As it is hardly possible to convey the breadth of Rothstein’s essay in just a few choice quotes, anyone interested in this excellent deconstruction of yet another effort to sanitize history in the service of current political correctness should really take the time to read this superb piece.

In his concluding section, Rothstein mentions two other critical reviews. One is by Diana Muir Appelbaum, whose observations include the interesting point that there were “a number of magnificent Qurans on exhibit,” conveying the entirely inaccurate idea that Jerusalem is mentioned in the Quran. The other critical review Rothstein cites is by Maureen Mullarkey, who denounced the exhibit as part of the kind of “jihad-by-other-means” that in her view was also promoted by UNESCO:

“The exhibition was fortuitously timed. Installed at the end of September, it opened shortly before UNESCO’s October 13 resolution to override thousands of years of Jewish ties to Jerusalem and negate any exceptional Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. By the time day trippers work their way through the galleries, they will have absorbed impressions that lend credence to the UNESCO directive.
Call it jihad-by-other-means.”


A critical Wall Street Journal op-ed under the title “Rewriting the History of Jerusalem” also noted that both UNESCO and the Met exhibition were attempting “to redefine the capital of Israel as a supranational city to which Muslims, Christians and Jews have equal claim,” rejecting “both efforts” as “equally deluded.”




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A topic alluded to, but not discussed separately, in last year’s extended essay on the strategy and tactics needed to defeat BDS (and other anti-Israel campaigns), is timing.

When teaching my kids to cook, I tell them to treat time as an ingredient that needs to be taken into account during the planning process and “added” when called for, given that messing up timing can screw up your bread dough just as badly as forgetting to add the yeast.

Moving on to more serious business, Gulf War General Norman Schwarzkopf’s habit of wearing two watches illustrated the vital role time plays in warfare where battle and war plans are as much about the clock and calendar as they are about weapons and terrain.  An army not showing up where it is needed is obviously a problem, but no more so than the same army showing up at the right place too late (or even too early). 

The purpose of this site is not to praise anti-Israel propagandists, but with regard to using time as a tool of combat, the BDSholes seem to “get it” better than our side does.  Scheduling propaganda events during Sabbat or the Jewish holidays - while devious and cowardly - does have the intended effect of lowering the number of opponents that can mobilize against them.  Similarly, the Leninist tactic of pushing meetings of decision-making bodies into late hours and then voting in their own agenda after everyone else goes home exhausted - while dishonest and manipulative - does demonstrate the BDSers understanding of how to wield time as a weapon.

Whenever friends of Israel find themselves scrambling to pull together fliers and posters for a rally or debate taking place in a few hours or days, that should be an indication that time (like the initiative) is not on our side. 

Obviously the enemy must be met, and given that we’re not the ones perpetually demanding that third parties condemn our political foes, it’s likely that we’ll be responding to situations created by others more often than we’d like.  But preparing in advance for likely occurrences, such as entirely predictable Israel Apartheid hate-fests cropping up in the Spring, seems like a good use of time in the Fall.   Similarly, snarling up anti-Israel votes in student government through aggressive procedural challenges so that they can’t be voted on during an academic year seems a more effective use of time as a weapon than does a direct confrontation with the enemy at a time and place of their choosing.
Even (scratch that, especially) when you’re riding high politically, timing can mean the difference between small (and often temporary) victories, and long-term real ones. 

For instance, it’s taken as axiomatic that a new President should press his advantage during the first hundred days of his presidency, shoving through as much game-changing legislation and rule changes as possible before political opponents regroup and figure out ways to thwart the new administration’s agenda.

We’re seeing this now as the new Trump administration continues to issue an avalanche of Executive Orders in order to implement campaign promises (like restricting immigration and walking away from trade agreements) while foes are still in a daze.  But the very aggressiveness of this activity helps give those foes a focal point for resistance. 

For instance, Bill Clinton in 1992 and Barak Obama in 2008 used their victories (which included the Democrats capturing both houses of Congress) to rapidly push through game-changing agendas that did not need to take into account the needs of the Republican minority.  But this very haste led to Republicans retaking Congress two years into each new administration’s first term, becoming the majority and thus an enormous barrier to any new Presidential initiatives. 

Might patience reward the new President (or any President) with longer-lasting legislative (or even cultural) victories vs. controversial administrative decrees?  Hard to tell, but precedent seems to say that “all glory is fleeting” which implies the need for strategies above and beyond “full speed ahead!”
 
There is a lesson here for Israel and her friends abroad.  The replacement of a hostile US administration with a friendly one is an obvious source of relief, but the controversial nature of the new American President means we are faced with yet another multi-faceted challenge which needs to be managed skillfully and strategically.


Some thoughts on what this can include next time.





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Sunday, February 12, 2017



IDF Soldier
There are two points concerning Jews and Israel that I very much want to get across to the politically-inclined.

The first is that the day of the dhimmi is done.

No longer will we allow ourselves to be pushed around as pawns in someone else's political game. Nor will we allow non-Jews, like Barack Obama, to tell us where we may, or may not, be allowed to live within our own ancestral homeland.

The second is that the Oslo process is dead.

It is a corpse. It is a dead albatross around the Jewish neck that is very much in need of removal and burial. I am half a world away and I can still smell the stench.

As a diaspora Jew, I am exceedingly reluctant to tell Israel what to do, but that does not always stop me.

In that spirit, Israel should declare its final borders and remove the IDF to behind those borders. But it should be up to the Israelis to decide what those borders will be because after 2,000 years of European abuse - consecutive with 1,300 years of Arab-Muslim enforced dhimmi status in the Middle East - the Jews have, by any ethical standard, earned the right of self-determination on the land that our people come from.

Anything less is an insult to social justice, universal human rights, and basic concepts of Enlightenment liberalism. It is also a direct kick in the head to the Jewish people and we do not need to put up with it.

Furthermore, and more importantly, it is only the Jews of the Middle East who give a rip about the wellbeing of their children, such as the brave young woman pictured above.

Thus I consider the recent "outpost law" or "regulation bill" a hopeful sign.

As blogger Ruth Lieberman put it:
Yesterday the Israeli Knesset passed the ‘Regulations Bill’ into law. To simplify, this law creates a legal framework for dealing with homes that were built over decades. It provides 125% compensation to absentee owners whose non-residential land was accidentally built on. 
The thing about this law that makes it controversial is that is contested by those who would rather hand over these lands to some independent Arab rule — perhaps the Palestinian Authority but their sincerity has come into question — in a diplomatic solution. But that’s politics, and it has no place in a legal discussion.
Everything, as always, is volatile in that neck of the universe. The Palestinian-Arabs are screaming from the hillsides about dire consequences if Trump moves the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and I am not the least bit confident that he will keep that campaign promise.

And, of course, the major European players are less than happy about the new law.

Raphael Ahren, writing in the Times of Israel, tells us:
Germany on Wednesday harshly criticized Israel for passing the Regulation Law earlier this week, saying the new legislation undermines trust in Israel’s willingness to reach a negotiated peace agreement with the Palestinians.

“The confidence we had in the Israeli government’s commitment to the two-state solution has been profoundly shaken,” a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry in Berlin said in a statement.
In a related article by the Times of Israel we learn that the French are making similar grunting noises:
The French ambassador to Israel on Wednesday said a new law legalizing West Bank outposts built on private Palestinian land damaged Israel’s credibility in the eyes of the international community.

Israel has come under harsh censure since lawmakers passed the Regulation Law Monday, with the UN saying it crossed a “thick red line,” and other members of the international community warning the measure would make peace efforts more difficult.

“This is troubling for the international community, who is wondering if she should trust Israel when Israel says it’s ready to discuss with its neighbor, the Palestinians, to reach an agreement on the two-state solution,” ambassador Hélène Le Gal told Army Radio in an English-language interview.
This, my friends, is a sucker's game and you're the suckers. As we say in poker, if you look around the table and you're not sure who the fish is, it is you.

"Oslo" is a way for European governments to twist Jewish arms behind Jewish backs in order to maintain what I call the Non-Peace Process, which, as of the Obama administration, looked something like this:
1) The US and the EU demand negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

2) The parties agree to talk and then the PA, the US, and the EU demand various concessions from Israel for the great privilege of sitting down with the PA's foremost undertaker.

3) Israel fails to meet all the concessions, thus causing the PA to flee negotiations, which they never had any intention of concluding to begin with.

4)  The PA and the EU and the Obama administration place the blame for failure at Jewish feet.

5)  The EU and various European countries announce additional sanctions, thereby essentially joining the anti-Semitic anti-Zionist BDS brigade.

6)  Jihadis seek to murder Jews.
It should be obvious by now that the Palestinian-Arabs have no intention whatsoever in accepting a state for themselves in peace next to Israel. They have turned down every single offer since the Peel Commission of 1937.

There comes a point, therefore, where we must accept that "no means no."

But look what they could have had if they had simply accepted Jewish sovereignty on a miniscule, hatchet-shaped bit of land in north-west Israel eighty years ago.

Merely by saying "yes" the Arabs could have had not only all of "Transjordan" - which, in itself, represented almost three-quarters of the British Mandate of Palestine - but all the rest of Israel, as well, with the tiny exception of that completely indefensible strip of land bordering the Mediterranean.

Even Jerusalem - which the Arabs only care about out of some petty theological need to keep Jews from sovereignty on the central site of our historical heritage - would have been under the control of non-Jews.

Muhammad, it needs to be remembered, never step foot in that city.

Furthermore, the Oslo "peace process" had nothing to do with peace. It was merely a way for the Arabs and the European Union and the Obama administration to justify violence against the Jews of the Middle East because they do not honestly approve of the fact of Israel to begin with. If the Palestinians wanted a state for themselves in peace next to Israel they could have had one many times over, but that is not what they want.

What they want is Israel dead and everyone knows it.

Yet, decade upon decade the tiny Jewish minority in the Middle East make concessions for peace while many within the vast Arab population openly screech for Jewish blood. The West then uses that screeching as a justification for what they believe to be "understandable" violence by local Arabs against regular Jewish Israelis, if not Jews the world over.

For thirteen-hundred years the Jews lived as dhimmis. That is, they lived as second and third-class non-citizens under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperial rule.

Now, with an Israel Hater out of the White House and with Trump, whatever he is, in the White House, it is the time for Israel and for the Jewish people to stand up and declare that the days of desperate Jewish solicitude are over. The enemies of the Jewish people will accuse Israel - and, by extension, world Jewry - of gross immorality in its treatment of the Palestinian-Arabs. And we must not hesitate to hit them back with the truth of their racist hypocrisy every single time.

Israel Haters do not care about social justice or human rights. Is that not obvious? If they did they might look up for a moment at a world roiling with the most horrendous human rights violations all around them. The rest of the Middle East makes Israel look like a human rights Shangri-la.

And, speaking as an American, please keep in mind that jihadi and progressive-left hatred toward the Jews of the Middle East is not limited to the Jews of the Middle East. As Tammi Benjamin of the Amcha Initiative can well attest, our young people are being harassed, sometimes violently, not just on European soil... where it is now commonplace... but on American university campuses, as well. And they do so, in ironic cringe-worthiness, under the banners of social justice and universal human rights.

From the comments:

Yes, German scum hate Israel don't they. A strong Jewish nation is hard to "F" with.


Well, that's a tad strong, but I definitely think that "Mac Abee" gets his point across. Don't you?

Israel is more disappointed you made a law referring to the Western Wall being occupied? That's more shameful.


It is more shameful. Far more shameful. "Eyal Even" is referring to UNSC 2334, which seeks to drive a wedge between the Jewish people and our ancestral homeland. The United Nations has, in fact, decided that not only is Hebron (the home of Abraham and the Tomb of the Patriarchs) "Palestinian" land, but even the Western Wall is now assigned by the United Nations to the greater Arab nation as "occupied Palestinian territory."

The Obama administration not only allowed this vote to pass without a veto, but actually encouraged its passage behind the scenes as a parting "drop dead" to its American Jewish constituency.

Israel should communicate its "German policy" to the Germans as follows:

"What the Jews do with their Land is none of your business. Germany is the last country in the world that needs to instruct the Jewish State as to what is in its best interests. Our best interests are served when Germany's leaders shut up and leave the Jews alone. Mind your own business."


Indeed.

Given the fact that it has elected to commit national suicide, I almost feel bad for Germany... but then that feeling goes away.



Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.










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