Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

US offers to push Israel under bus. PLO says it isn't enough.

The U.S. informed Arab governments Tuesday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body "does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity," a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal.

But the Palestinian's rejected the American offer following a meeting late Wednesdy of Arab representatives and said it is planning to press for a vote on its resolution Friday, according officials familar with the issue. The decision to reject the American offer raised the prospects that the Obama adminstration may cast its first ever veto in the U.N. Security Council.

Still, the U.S. offer signaled a renewed willingness to seek a way out of the current impasse, even if it requires breaking with its key ally and joining others in the council in sending a strong message to Israel to stop its construction of new settlements. The Palestinian delegation, along with the council's Arab member Lebanon, have asked the council's president this evening to schedule a meeting on Friday. But it remained unclear whether the Palestinian move today is simply a negotiating tactic aimed at extracting a better deal from the United States.

It is nice to see that the UN Security Council can now safely ignore uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria, Libya, and Iran and put the priorities back where they properly belong: on some family living in Ma'ale Adumim who want to add a bathroom to their house.

Omri Ceren at Commentary acerbically writes:

In a way, this is a natural follow-up to the administration’s bumbling in Egypt, where they managed to alienate all parties in the Middle East except the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, and Iran’s assorted proxies. This gesture won’t win us any lasting goodwill from Arab elites. WikiLeaks showed that they care far more about geopolitical stability than they do about the settlements, such that the spectacle of the White House abandoning a second ally for the second week in a row would be met with worried chagrin, regardless of what they say out loud.

More to the point, and by now out of genuine curiosity: who exactly does the Obama administration envision having as a Middle East ally, say, six months from now? Strategic administration leaks about the Egypt crisis have already signaled a renewed chill in the U.S.-Israeli relationship. U.S. backing for a UN resolution wouldn’t detonate the alliance — military-to-military ties are too strong for that — but it would be the end of cooperation between this White House and this Israeli government, a government that a militarily and now diplomatically besieged Israeli public would rally behind.

And that’s before we get to how our UN mission, representing the world’s only hyperpower, seems to believe that “bargaining” means “getting progressively closer to the other side’s position.” We’re negotiating with the likes of Libya and the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon over whether we should protect one of our last Middle East allies against a biased UN lynch mob. It’s almost difficult to believe that the Iranians, per J.E. Dyer’s must-read post, are at this very moment literally sailing their way into regional hegemony.

(That J. E. Dyer link is indeed must-read, but I don't think I'll have a chance to blog about it.)

An email correspondent, who is not a fan of Israeli settlements, has an interesting perspective:

As I see this resolution, at WORST it REITERATES the US position, namely that it "does not accept the legitimacy of CONTINUED Israeli settlement activity." This is problematic for the Arabs in multiple ways. First, it does NOT declare pre-existing settlements as illegitimate, only "continued" activity. Second, it offers no actionable items. Third, it would invalidate Palestinian attempts at recognition either of statehood or borders, both of which at least some of their leadership hope to accomplish or at least use as leverage. This resolution would accomplish nothing for the Arabs. If they were to accept it as binding, they would be insane.

The real idiocy here is that the Obama Administration proposed it. The only result of this asinine proposal is that relations between Israel and the US will become further strained and America will be seen as an even worse friend of its only ally in the region, having just abandoned another, Egypt. The Arab nations almost certainly laughed the US representative right out of the room. The Palestinians may even feel offended by this resolution. This administration clearly just doesn't get it.

Richard Falk's defense of Khomeini, 1979

From Bret Stephens in the WSJ:

It's what the good people on West 40th Street like to call a "Times Classic." On Feb. 16, 1979, the New York Times ran a lengthy op-ed by Richard Falk, a professor of international law at Princeton, under the headline "Trusting Khomeini."

"The depiction of [Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false," wrote Mr. Falk. "What is also encouraging is that his entourage of close advisers is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals."

After carrying on in this vein for a few paragraphs, the professor concluded: "Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics, Iran may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third-world country."

Whoops.

The Times is at it again. Last week, the paper published an op-ed from Essam El-Errian, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Guidance Council, who offered this soothing take on his organization: "We aim to achieve reform and rights for all: not just for the Muslim Brotherhood, not just for Muslims, but for all Egyptians." Concurring with that view, Times reporter Nicholas Kulish wrote on Feb. 4 that members of the Brotherhood "come across as civic-minded people of faith."

Here are the relevant parts of Falk's sunny prognosis for a wonderfully tolerant Islamic Republic:

How wrong can you be?

And yet this joker is still respected as if his opinions have any passing resemblance to reality.

A lawyer destroys the Turkey flotilla conclusions

I posted last week about the published conclusions of the Turkey flotilla report, but did not look at the legal issues they brought up. A well-known expert on international law emailed me and wrote his first impressions of the report conclusions:

The report appears not to have been carefully proofread because it not only contradicts itself, it also indicates possible war crimes by the passengers. For example:

19. Israeli soldiers fast-roped down to the Mavi Marmara from helicopters. Three were subdued by the passengers. They were taken to the lower decks where they were treated for their non-lethal injuries.

21. The shooting spree of the Israeli soldiers continued in spite of the white flags waved by the passengers and multilingual surrender announcements made over the ship’s PA system.

#21 says passengers waved white flags, while #19 acknowledges that passengers attacked Israeli soldiers as they boarded (“Israeli soldiers … were subdued by the passengers). If these were the same passengers, and the white flags came before or during the attacks on soldiers, the passengers committed the war crime of perfidy.

#40 also demonstrates extreme sloppiness:

40. Israel’s ultimate objective through its "blockade" has been to punish the people of the Gaza Strip for supporting Hamas. This is why Israel chose in 2007 to impose a "blockade" although there were other options, and to persistently maintain it even though it did not yield its purported military objectives.

The naval blockade was declared and imposed in January 2009, not 2007. Plainly, since the Turks do not even know when the blockade was imposed, they have no knowledge about its motives, and have no basis for their false claim that “Israel’s ultimate objective through its "blockade" has been to punish the people of the Gaza Strip for supporting Hamas.” Indeed, from #40, it appears that the only “evidence” the Turks have in support of the claim is the (false) “fact” that Israel imposed the blockade in 2007.

The report’s legal conclusions are contradictory as well as being wrong in several places.

E.g., the report says that blockades are only lawful in international conflict (not true – blockades have been imposed in non-international conflicts, see e.g., http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704025304575284210429984110.html); the report says that hamas-israel is a non-international conflict (probably true); and that Israel belligerently occupies Gaza. Now, not only is this last statement obviously wrong (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1577324), if it were true it would mean that Hamas-Israel is an international conflict, because there can be no belligerent occupation without an international conflict or the occupation of a foreign state’s territory.

35. The "blockade" was also unlawful in its implementation and practice.

36. The "blockade"s "open-ended" nature did not comply with mandatory notification requirements under customary international law, particularly those relating to duration and extent.

37. The "blockade" was unlawful as it was not reasonable, proportional or necessary.

38. The "blockade" was excessive in the damage it inflicted on the population of the Gaza Strip in comparison to the expected military advantage.

39. The "blockade" was unlawful as it constituted collective punishment of the entire civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

The conclusions in 35-39 are simply wrong, but to argue it would be necessary to see more of the report.

42. Under customary international law, vessels carrying humanitarian aid cannot be lawfully attacked.

#42 is wrong no matter what the report says. The carrying of “humanitarian aid” does not render a vessel immune from boarding or inspection, or give it a right to run a blockade. Even if the ship’s content were properly understood as humanitarian, the ship still had the duty to allow itself to be boarded, and its refusal to cooperate with Israeli forces made it a legitimate belligerent target.

There are other bits of legal puffery, like 43-45.

The same kinds of errors and inconsistencies plague the factual findings and the mixed law-fact findings.

For example, #4 states that "Prior to the convoy’s departure, an understanding was reached among Turkish, Israeli and American officials that the convoy would eventually steer towards the Egyptian port of Al-Arish, when faced with compelling opposition. Events demonstrated that Israel did not abide by this understanding." If there was an understanding that the convoy would steer toward El Arish, it clearly was not honored, but the failure to abide by the understanding was obviously the convoy's and not Israel.

#5 states that "No attempt was made by the Israeli forces to visit and search the vessels before taking any other action." Israel was not under any obligation to visit and search the vessels once it determined their aim was to violate the blockade. What is more, it did demand a tow to port for inspection, which the Mavi Marmara resisted.

13. Prior to their attack, the Israeli forces did not proceed with standard warning practices, i.e. firing across the bow, to indicate an imminent use of force.

17. The Israeli forces opened fire with live ammunition from the zodiacs and helicopters onto the passengers on deck, resulting in the first casualties.

20. Israeli soldiers shot indiscriminately, killing and wounding passengers, once on the upper deck.

#13 is plainly a lie. So is #17. And so is #20. The Turks should be challenged to provide evidence for this slander.

16. The Israeli military did not at any time pause to re-assess the situation with a view to consider the least violent options in face of the passengers’ self-defence.

#16 is a mixture of lie and faulty legal analysis. The passengers did not engage in self-defense as they had no legal right to use force to repel Israelis boarding the ship. Once the passengers used force, they ceased to be protected civilians and became legitimate targets against which Israeli soldiers had a right of self-defense. Israel had no obligation to give the passengers time to continue their attack on the soldiers.

19. Israeli soldiers fast-roped down to the Mavi Marmara from helicopters. Three were subdued by the passengers. They were taken to the lower decks where they were treated for their non-lethal injuries.

#19 demonstrates that in fact the passengers did take a direct part in hostilities (they “subdued” Israeli soldiers) making those doing the “subduing” legitimate targets.

Thomas Friedman's fantasy - and Egyptian reality

My latest post on NewsRealBlog looks at Thomas Friedman column in today's NYT.

Excerpt:

Friedman has fallen hook, line and sinker for the Arab lie that they give the West that Arabs are only anti-Israel because of the “occupation.” In Egypt, it is pure, old-fashioned Jew-hatred that drives anti-Israel sentiment.

And that Jew-hatred is not state-sponsored. Egypt has worked to publicly give the impression that it treasured its Jewish minority and history. It recently renovated historic synagogues and annually allows Jewish pilgrims to visit the gravesite of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira every January.

While some of the Egyptian media will sometimes have anti-Semitic articles and TV shows, it does not appear that this is coming from the state — but from the people themselves, including Egypt’s so-called liberal opposition.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t SoccerDad for alerting me to the Friedman article)

Andrew Sullivan, another Israel hater who cannot read

I am being increasingly convinced that Israel-haters have lost all ability to read leaked memos without having their Zio-sirens interfering with their ability to comprehend basic English.

We saw plenty of examples with the Palestine Papers, but here's one from Andrew Sullivan on a Wikileaks cable.

First, the paragraph in question from the August 2008 memo:

Regarding the Tahdiya, Hacham said Barak stressed that while it was not permanent, for the time being it was holding. There have been a number of violations of the ceasefire on the Gaza side, but Palestinian factions other than Hamas were responsible. Hacham said the Israelis assess that Hamas is making a serious effort to convince the other factions not to launch rockets or mortars. Israel remains concerned by Hamas' ongoing efforts to use the Tahdiya to increase their strength, and at some point, military action will have to be put back on the table. The Israelis reluctantly admit that the Tahdiya has served to further consolidate Hamas' grip on Gaza, but it has brought a large measure of peace and quiet to Israeli communities near Gaza.

The bolded sentence is what gets Andrew Sullivan up in a tizzy, as he quotes another English-impaired analyst, Daniel Luban:

The memo does not say that the Israelis believe “military action will have to be put back on the table” because at some point Hamas will break the ceasefire, but rather because Hamas would like to maintain the ceasefire to strengthen its position. Thus if the memo accurately reflects the Israeli government’s thinking, it would appear that the Israelis were, from relatively early on, contemplating breaking the ceasefire in order to cut Hamas off at the knees.

Um, no.

The memo states the quite obvious fact that Hamas was using the calm to import huge quantities of weapons into Gaza through the Rafah tunnels. That's what "increasing their strength" means. And, for those whose memories manage to reach all the way back to 2008, that was a major concern on the Israeli side at the time.

Now, why would Hamas need to import so many new rockets and explosives and RPGs and anti-tank missiles? Who could they be considering using them against? Hmmm, another toughie.

The memo is quoting Israeli officials as saying that there will inevitably be a military conflict between Hamas and Israel because Hamas is building up its strength to strike at Israel at some point in the future, and the tinderbox will ignite.

It does not in the least bit say that Israel is planning to break the ceasefire to attack Hamas. In fact, the memo itself states in the very next sentence that things were relatively better in the Negev communities because of the calm - so only an anti-Israel bigot can interpret the sentence as saying that Israel was planning to attack Hamas and force residents of Sderot to sleep in bomb shelters again.

But Sullivan seizes on this poor excuse for analysis by Luban as being indisputably true.

Sullivan's source Luban also says:

The rockets only resumed in earnest after Israel broke the truce with aNov. 4 raid that left six Palestinians dead; because the raid coincided with the US presidential elections, it was barely reported in the US media.

His source that it was "barely reported in the US media?" IPS News, an extremely anti-Israel publication. Here's what it said:

Consumed by coverage of the Nov. 4 presidential election, U.S. mainstream media ignored a key Israeli military attack on a Hamas target that some Palestinians claim marked the effective end of the ceasefire between the two sides and set the stage for the current round of bloodletting.

While the major U.S. news wire Associated Press (AP) reported that the attack, in which six members of Hamas's military wing were killed by Israeli ground forces, threatened the ceasefire, its report was carried by only a handful of small newspapers around the country.

So according to Luban's source, only AP reported the strike, and it was ignored by the major media.

This is, of course, a lie. A three minute search shows that Reuters, the New York Times, the LA Times and other major media printed the story.

So Sullivan relies on an analyst that relies on a lying anti-Israel news source to buttress his conspiracy-minded thesis that Israel had preplanned an Election Day attack against innocent Hamas members. A source who misinterprets basic English to slam Israel based on evidence that doesn't exist.

Now, that's journalism!

(h/t Aaron)

Afternoon linkdump

True Israel runs down the anti-peace treaty statements from Egypt's army and opposition.

The Washington Post (via YNet) says that Stuxnet did not slow down the Iranian nuclear program as much as we had been hearing.

Saeb Erekat blames the World Zionist Organization for helping force him out of a job. Wow...can we get Abbas to resign next?

Saudi Arabia withdrew extremist books from its schools - including books written by the founder of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

A Gaza journalist was "summoned for questioning" by Hamas, which means that he'll behave like a good boy from now on.

IsraeliGirl shows how you can support the Israel Philharmonic in a scheduled performance in New York's Carnegie Hall that will be protested by the usual bunch of Israel-hating drones.

The New York Post is reporting that CBS reporter Lara Logan was sexually abused and seriously injured in Cairo bya "pro-democracy" crowd who called her a Jew.

Iran is calling on a pro-government, anti-protester protest for Friday. The Iranian media has all but ignored the anti-government protests earlier this week.

An Israeli company is making a splash in the soda world.

Not only democracy advocates are celebrating Mubarak's fall

From the Hamas Palestine Times website....

Here is sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, singing of his joy at the fall of Mubarak.

Qaradawi, one of the most influential Islamic clerics with a popular TV show on Al Jazeera, supports suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

The only freedom he cares about is the freedom to create a caliphate without government interference.

Iranian military parade follies

From a photo essay of an Iranian military parade celebrating the anniversary of their revolution.

If you have an erection that lasts more than four hours, please seek medical attention.

An awe-inspiring display of pure masculine power.

Everyone loves a circus!

I'm sorry, but all-caps Zapf Chancery breaks every design rule known to man.

Western radical liberals care more about "Palestine" than Arabs

A great op-ed in The Australian by Brendan O'Neill:

"UNTIL the Palestinians are given back their rights we're going to have instability throughout the Middle East," declared John Pilger on ABC1's Q & A last night. "That is central to everything."

Yet, one of the most striking things about the uprising in Egypt was the lack of pro-Palestine placards. As Egypt-watcher Amr Hamzawy put it, in Tahrir Square and elsewhere there were no signs saying "death to Israel, America and global imperialism" or "together to free Palestine". Instead, this revolt was about Egyptian people's own freedom and living conditions.

Yet on the pro-Egypt demonstration in London on Saturday, there was a sea of Palestine placards. "Free Palestine", they said, and "End the Israeli occupation". The speakers had trouble getting the audience excited about events in Egypt, having to say on more than one occasion: "Come on London, you can shout louder than that!" Yet every mention of the word Palestine induced a kind of Pavlovian excitability among the attendees. They cheered when the P-word was uttered, chanting: "Free, free Palestine!"

This reveals something important about the Palestine issue. In recent years it has moved from the realm of Arab radicalism, where Egyptians and other peoples frequently demanded the creation of a Palestinian state, and has instead become almost the exclusive property of Western middle-class radicals, such as Pilger.

Emptied of its nationalist vigour and militancy, the Palestine problem, it seems, is now of little immediate interest to protesting Arabs and is instead the ultimate cause celebre for Western liberal campaigners who like nothing more than having a victimised people they can coo over.

The power and allure of Palestine in Western radical circles is extraordinary. Palestine is the only issue they get excited about. But there is nothing progressive in their pro-Palestine fervour. It is not driven by future-oriented demands for economic development in a Palestinian homeland in the West Bank or Gaza. Instead it is driven by a view of Palestinians as the ultimate victims, the hapless and pathetic children of the new world order, who need kindly, wizened Westerners to protect them from Big Bad Israel.

Today's pro-Palestine leftism is more anthropological than political. It treats Palestinians less as a people who ought to have certain democratic rights and more as an intriguing tribe to be prodded and preserved. Some Western radicals have even adopted the fashions of their favourite tribe. Step on to any university campus in the West, or join any left-wing march, and you'll see concerned-looking youths wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, a politically correct version of blacking up.

This is the politics of pity rather than solidarity. Groups of Western middle-class youth have taken Palestinian pity holidays in the West Bank and Gaza. They turn up and marvel at the dignity of this beautiful besieged people, like those wives of old Victorian colonialists who discovered they rather liked the African tribes they had been sent to Christianise. "I've never met people like the Palestinians. They're the strongest people I've ever met", gushed British peace activist Kate Burton, who hit the headlines in 2006 after being kidnapped by a Palestinian faction in Gaza....

...Palestinian pitiers have no time to think about the inconvenient fact that Hamas is an intolerant political entity that has no time for gay rights or women's equality. Instead, everything gets reduced to a Narnia-style story of wicked witches v happy fauns, because this is ultimately about providing vacuous-feeling Westerners with some much-needed momentum in their lives, not about untangling a messy political reality.

It's very revealing that Palestine has become less important for Arabs and of the utmost symbolic importance for Western radicals at exactly the same time. With the Palestinian people somewhat deflated, the Palestine issue can become perfect political fodder for the victim-oriented, fancy-dress radicals of the modern West.

(h/t Barry Rubin via email)

Here's 15 of Mubarak's billions

This document, apparently from a Swiss bank, is going around the Arabic web. It appears to show Hosni Mubarak deposited about 15,600 kg of platinum in a Swiss bank only one year after entering office:

According to this document, the value of the platinum was nearly $15 billion.

(CAVEAT: I'm having trouble reconciling the numbers; I think that 15K kg of platinum is worth only about $1 billion today, but the only other way I can read the fuzzy document is that he deposited 15 million kg, which would have been worth more than $170 billion at the time and a trillion dollars today - platinum was at $358 a troy ounce in December 1982. So perhaps this document is forged.)

Given that Egypt does not have much of an oil economy, and assuming this document is legit, this sure makes it look like he was stealing from his people, big time.

Palestine Papers: Erekat admits he's a liar

I missed this little gem that was picked up by Foreign Policy a couple of weeks ago - another Palestine Paper conversation that inexplicably did not make it into The Guardian or Al Jazeera..

In a meeting between Saeb Erekat and Yossi Gal from Israel's foreign ministry, the conversation starts this way:

SE: How have you been?
YG: Not too bad, can't complain, how about you?
SE: I'm lying, I've been lying for the last weeks.
YG: Between jogging?
SE: No, no, lying, lying. I was in Cairo, I was in Jordan, I was in America. Everybody is asking me what is going on Israel, what is Olmert going to do?
YG: And you are telling everyone we are on the verge of success.
SE: And I always tell them this is an internal Israeli matter, a domestic Israeli matter and I keep lying. If somebody sneezes in Tel-Aviv, I get the flu in Jericho, and I have to lie. So that's my last week -- all lies.
YG: As a professor of negotiations, you know that white lies are allowed now and then.
SE: I'm not complaining, I'm admitting -- and sometimes I don't feel like lying.
YG: Well, around this table we won't be lying.

(h/t tweet by jmalsin)

Libya already has protests before "Day of Wrath"

Here's a video of a demonstration in Libya that occurred yesterday. It started off as a protest by families of arrestees in Benghazi but soon others joined in.

Tomorrow there is a much larger demonstration planned, with a lot of input from Libyans who live outside the country, calling for Gaddafi to step down.

(h/t Missing Peace)

Reform rabbi dismantles Richard Falk

I blogged about the execrable Richard Falk's essay about Jewish identity, where he concluded that Jews who care about the welfare of their fellow Jews are pretty much doomed to be racists, last month.

Falk gets lots of adoring comments on his blog, as well as some explicitly anti-semitic comments that he does not respond to.

A reform rabbi, Ira Youdovin, writes a thoughtful response that is too good to be relegated to an almost dead comment thread on a little-read blog. While I do not agree with everything in the comment, it shows quite well what a sick self-hating quasi-Jew Falk is:

Despite his annoying habit of calling Israelis Nazis, I have never accused Prof. Falk of being a self-hating Jew. While his animus toward Israel is apparent, I have no way of determining if it stems from an animus toward Judaism and the Jewish tradition, which is the defining characteristic of a “self-hating Jew,” of from something else. But now that he has revealed his thoughts about Jewish identity, I may have to revise my assessment.

Prof. Falk’s problem is not only with Judaism. He disdains faith communities per se, defaming them as “tribes,” whose doctrine “unconsciously and indirectly gives rise to the murderous mentality of warfare and gives a moral and religious edge to many forms of persecution, culminating in a variety of inquisitions.” Had he been born an Episcopalian, he might be beating up on the Archbishop of Canterbury. But as his essay is entitled On Jewish Identity, we must explore the evidence he brings in applying these sweeping generalizations to Judaism.

Astonishingly for a scholar of Prof. Falk’s stature and reputation, he cites precious little evidence. He mentions the “often bloody exploits of the ancient Israelites.” But those atrocities occurred in the ancient middle east, where “bloody exploits” was standard operating procedure for almost everyone. This doesn’t excuse the atrocities reported in Scripture, but it does make them unexceptionable. Some balance is achieved through praise for the “moral clarity of Old Testament prophets,” and Rabbi Hillel’s version of the Golden Rule—a forerunner of Jesus’ more famous version. The historical screen then goes dark until we are propelled into Prof. Falk’s familiar riff on the evils of contemporary Israel.

In the process, he ignores a formative period of two millennia during which Judaism evolved from a temple-based sacrificial cult to a prayer and study-centered religion. If one wants to learn about Jewish identity, that’s where one has to look. But Prof. Falk doesn’t. Although I’m not an academician, I think that a student submitting a paper entitled “On Jewish Identity” with so little supporting material would, or should, receive a failing mark, even in this era of grade inflation.

My hunch is the omission of Jewish references stems from the inconvenient truth that Prof. Falk knows very little about his subject. Perhaps he doesn’t want to know. Even a cursory study of Jewish history discredits many of the sweeping generalizations he employs to dismiss and defame Jewish identity.

Exhibit A: Prof. Falk maintains that being committed to one faith precludes “being open and receptive to the insight and wisdom of other traditions.” In fact, Jewish history demonstrates precisely the opposite. Early biblical books, including Genesis, reflect the theology and symbolism of the Akkadians and other peoples of the ancient middle east. Later books, such as Ecclesiastes, are clearly influenced by Greek philosophy. The Mishna, which was completed around 225 CE, organizes biblical legislation into categories, a format learned from the Romans. Recent scholarship has discovered an on-going dialogue between the rabbis and church fathers covering several centuries. Both sides shared ideas which each adopted and built into its separate theology. Maimonides, perhaps the greatest of all rabbis, was an Aristotelian who sought to reconcile traditional Jewish teaching with wisdom he learned from Muslim scholars during the era of Convivencia in Medieval Spain. Reform Judaism is a product of the Enlightenment. Zionism was nurtured in the intellectual soil of Romanticism. Walk into many synagogues today and you’ll find classes and spiritual exercises in yoga, meditation and other practices taken from eastern religions. The list of things borrowed and things lent is endless.

Exhibit B: Prof. Falk dismisses as “benevolent and temporary” the Jewish self-understanding that being a Chosen People bestows no privileged status, but is a mandate to pursue social justice. The historical record refutes the “benevolent and temporary” caveat. Jews have always pursued social justice, following a commandment articulated in the Book of Deuteronomy. Here inAmerica, where Jews at long last have the opportunity to participate in the larger society as full citizens, we have been leaders and workers in the pursuit of equal rights and freedom for all. And Israel, despite its flaws, remains the one democracy in the Middle East, albeit an imperfect one.

To be sure, there are Jews in Israel, the United States and everywhere who are guilty as charged. They are especially visible in certain West Bank settlements where a desire to subjugate the Palestinians prevails. But they constitute a small minority. To extrapolate a community-wide character from their aberrant (and abhorrent) behavior is polemic, not scholarship.

A word must be said about Prof. Falk’s self-aggrandizement as one who has succeeded in putting his being human ahead of his being Jewish, so that unfettered by xenophobia, he is able to savor the rites, practices and wisdom of all religions. That’s gratifying, but during my forty years as a rabbi, which should make me a Super Xenophobe, I bet I’ve attended, witnessed and participated in more Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, et al worship services than Prof. Falk, along with a slew of interfaith worship experiences. I have marched, rallied and demonstrated alongside interfaith colleagues for a long list of causes. Several years ago, my partner and I joined with a group drawn from our synagogue and a local Methodist church to rebuild an African American church in rural Alabama that had been destroyed by arson. Contrary to what Prof. Falk believes possible, being a Jew enables me and many others to be better human beings. I can say the same thing about friends who are strongly committed members of other faith communities, but frequently enjoy one another’s rituals, practices and teachings.

Most disturbing is the flagrant disconnect between Prof. Falk’s claim to an “ecumenical and inclusive spiritual identity, and associated ethical and political commitments,” and his work for the United Nations. “Ecumenical” and “inclusive” strongly suggest a deep commitment to even-handedness in addressing ethical and political issues. But the mandate he accepted when becoming Special Rapporteur of the of outrageously misnamed United Nations Human Rights Council is to report only on perceived Israeli violations on the West Bank, while turning a blind eye on Palestinian suicide bombers and the like. That’s akin to refereeing a football game while calling penalties on one side only, especially when there’s no counterpart Rapporteur to monitor the Palestinians.

You read that correctly. In a conflict fraught with extraordinary complexities, where right and wrong exists on both sides, Prof. Falk choose to play an utterly one-sided, prejudicial and destructive role. On the one hand, he tars Judaism with the accusation that its doctrine “unconsciously and indirectly gives rise to the murderous mentality of warfare.” And on the other, he is indifferent to radical Islam as it drives Hamas and HIzbollah. I can’t believe that he’s unaware of this cruel absurdity. Somehow, he manages to live with it, and also with the knowledge that the UN’s interest in him is enhanced by his being Jewish.

As one who has argued frequently and fervently that criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitism, I am appalled by the damage Prof. Falk’s essay does to my case by alleging that perceived Israeli injustices are a natural, even inevitable consequence of what he condemns as an age-old Jewish religious tradition and identity. It’s a straw man on both sides of the equation, but red meat for those who delight in believing the worst about Jews. It’s no accident that the piece has been reprinted by the Intifada-Voice of Palestine website, as well by an e-screed called Foreign Policy Journal whose publisher, Jeremy R. Hammond, recently wrote a piece entitled “The Myth of the United Nations’ Creation of Israel. “

One final thought. Did anyone blanch at Prof. Falk’s proclamation that he is a proud Jew? Huh? Proud of what? Proud of belonging to a “tribe whose religious doctrine gives rise to the murderous mentality of warfare and gives a moral and religious edge to many forms of persecution, culminating in a variety of inquisitions?”

My question as a rabbi is not whether anybody else believes him, but whether he, himself, does. A little soul searching might help him appreciate the toxicity of the things he says about Jewish identity. These insights, in turn, might help him to recognize and understand the prejudice that fuels the toxicity of what he says about Israel.

Rabbi Ira Youdovin
Santa Barbara, CA

Falk gives his typical evasive response:

Dear Rabbi Ira Youdovin:

As you are probably aware, we have common friends here in Santa Barbara, making me particularly sad that you chose to insult me so intensely and unfairly. To begin with I have never equated Israelis with Nazis, and find the accusation odious. Further, I never purported to be doing more than express my sense of my own identity as a Jew in response to allegations that I was self-hating. Further still, I received several communications from rabbis that were much kinder than yours, and even supportive of what I was trying to express. And finally, on the substance of the Israel/Palestine conflict my effort and UN mandate is not to be ‘balanced’ but to be truthful; given the structure of the occupation this is what I have tried to do. Even Richard Goldstone, with lifetime Zionist credentials, fared no better than I have when he entered the no man’s land of responsible criticism of the Israeli occupation policies.

Again, I am disappointed that you did not see fit to attempt even a civil discourse on these matters of obviously deep personal concern to you.

I'll ignore most of Falk's whining but will answer his laughable assertion that I highlighted above. Here is what Falk wrote in 2007:

[I]t is especially painful for me, as an American Jew, to feel compelled to portray the ongoing and intensifying abuse of the Palestinian people by Israel through a reliance on such an inflammatory metaphor as ‘holocaust.’ ...

Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not.

Falk defended the comparison in this BBC interview the following year.

As far as his assertion that he is simply trying to be "truthful" in reporting on human rights violations, he requested that the UNHRC ignore any Palestinian Arab violations of their own people's human rights.

Wikileaks: Russian anti-semitism way down (updated)

Here are sections from a very interesting Wikileaks cable from December 2009:

As the country that a century ago produced "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," saw state-sponsored pogroms that prompted the emigration of millions of Jews under the Tsars, and saw the development of anti-Semitism as a policy under Stalin and his predecessors, Russia for many years was synonymous with anti-Semitism. After the notoriety of both Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union in this area, the collapse of the Soviet Union unleashed yet a new threat to Jews in the form of violent neo-nationalist groups. However, in recent years both societal and official attitudes towards Jews have showed a marked improvement, and contacts of ours in the Jewish community, whose current population is approximately one million, tell us that they have never before felt this comfortable living in Russia. Although occasional incidents of vandalism and attacks still occur, racist groups have shifted their focus from Jews to Central Asian and other dark-skinned immigrants and migrant workers.

Not surprisingly, the most prominent Jewish leaders have scrupulously maintained friendly relations with the GOR. Rabbi Berel Lazar of the Chabad community, one of Russia's two Chief Rabbis, has for years maintained the line that life is good for Russian Jews.

...Other Jewish leaders have confirmed this rosy assessment of official relations. Shayevich told us that "there is no doubt of any kind" that life has significantly improved for Russian Jewry, and that relations with the GOR are "completely different" from those of the Soviet period. He noted that he had just received Hannukah greetings from members of the State Duma, as well as from Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov, who attended Hannukah services at the Synagogue. ...both Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev make a point of publicly sending holiday greetings to Russia's Jewish population, although thus far they have stopped short of donning yarmulkes and attending services themselves. Lazar told us that the overall message is that Jews "are a part of the Russian community."

More substantively, Lazar told us that two years ago, GOR officials brought him a list of anti-Semitic books and publications that they promised to eliminate, and that they had since made good on this promise, based on his people's examination of stores and book expos. In a November 6 conversation, Svetlana Yakimenko, who runs the Jewish women's rights NGO Project Kesher, agreed that "at the official level, the attitude towards Jews is the best ever." She said that the GOR has announced that it will do anything necessary to fight anti-Semitism, and that police have standing orders to close down any known anti-Semitic groups.

Many other Jewish leaders in the NGO world have also striven mightily to establish good relations with the GOR, and the effort has paid dividends. Natalya Rykova, whose Moscow Bureau of Human Rights (MBHR) has such a close relationship with the GOR that she and fellow MBHR denizen Aleksandr Brod inspire disdain among most of the human rights community, has shared with us her chilling memory of emerging from her apartment in the early 90s to see threatening graffiti from the anti-Semitic group Pamyat. MBHR's habit of toadying up to the GOR on matters such as the Georgia conflict and North Caucasus policy is designed to provide its members with iron-clad "cover" against anti-Semites, a point that Rykova readily acknowledges.

Alexander Axelrod of the Jewish Anti-defamation League explained to us on October 23 his belief that, while in the past official anti-Semitism was more of a problem than social anti-Semitism, now it was the other way around. However, he added that he did not see social anti-Semitism as a significant problem at this point. Other contacts agreed that anti-Semitism has become increasingly marginalized in the social sphere. Shayevich said that, although there is still some "street" anti-Semitism, the number of attacks had decreased in the past several years. Lazar asserted that Judaism is now "on a par with other religions" in most people's minds, and said that "if the trend continues, we will be wholly integrated." (Note: Thanks to the 1997 Law on Religions which defined Judaism as one of Russia's four "traditional" religions, Judaism enjoys special status relative to less established religions. End Note.) He described an experiment that he carried out for several days during the Jewish High Holidays in September, in which his employees, clearly dressed as Chabad followers, conducted man-on-the-street interviews regarding people's views of Judaism. According to Lazar, the response was overwhelmingly positive, with very few exceptions. Lazar added that this activity received uniformly friendly media coverage as well, including on state-run television.

Anti-Semitism has been a part of Russian culture for such a long time that it would be unrealistic to expect it to disappear overnight. Russians, including those with entirely friendly attitudes towards Jews, routinely distinguish between a person who is "Russian" and one who is "Jewish," something that would be inappropriate in the United States.

Shayevich noted that economic factors may exacerbate suspicion towards Jews, as the crisis has inflamed xenophobia generally, and public perception of Jews as crafty money-grubbers persists. This perception was not helped by the significant portion of 1990s oligarchs who were Jewish (even though, as Shayevich noted, in the past Jews were often forced to find new, "unofficial" ways to acquire wealth because of official restrictions against them, and the oligarch phenomenon should be viewed in that context). Even some of the apparently positive attitudes towards Jews may at times tie in with this perception, as with the woman who told Lazar's researchers that she "wished she were Jewish, too."

Kesher also alluded to examples of ingrained suspicion towards Jews in society; for example, at a Project Kesher roundtable on tolerance in Orel five years ago, FSB representatives appeared and advised participants not to use the word "Jewish" too loudly. ...

Another factor tipping the GOR and Russians towards a more favorable attitude towards Jews is the palpable warming trend in Russian-Israeli relations. In an April news poll, 52 percent of Russians viewed Israel favorably, a figure slightly less than that in the U.S. (56 percent). As a result of many decades of Russian immigration to Israel, Israel's Russian population, one million, now equals Russia's Jewish population. Israel's current Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, visited Russia in June to great fanfare, with widespread favorable media coverage. Lieberman announced that he felt as if we were "coming home" to Russia (he was born in Moldova), and news reports focused on his use of fluent Russian in his meetings with GOR officials. Back in Russia on December 6, Lieberman praised the visa-free system established last year between Russia and Israel -- which is expected to double the number of Russian tourists traveling to Israel to 400,000 this year -- while Putin said that Israel's Russian community "unites us with you like no other country." Axelrod dismisses the idea that rising anti-Muslim sentiment in Russian society is changing attitudes towards Jews or Israelis, but agrees that Russia is hedging its bets in the region and moving away from Arab or Muslim client states, and that this official attitude is likely percolating down to the societal level....

Tsevi Mirkin of the Israeli Embassy in Russia told us December 17 that the positive trend in Russian-Israeli relations began in the 1990s, but has especially improved in the past five years. He attributed this to many factors, including the disappearance of "the official Soviet hatred towards Israel." He added that there is a high level of interest in Israel in Russian society, with many Russians having friends, relatives, or classmates there, and that the two countries trade 2 billion USD in products each year. Sadly, Mirkin noted, one other reason for improved views of Israel is racism among Russians; "they see Israel as a 'white' state in a non-white region." He related an encounter he had, as he was entering the Israeli Embassy, with a Russian man who told him, "The Americans don't deserve you guys," and explained that his positive feelings about Israel related to its status as a bulwark against "blacks."

Who would have imagined, even twenty years ago, that Russia could ever be a comfortable place for Jews to practice their religion?

UPDATE: Commenter Vandoren, from Moscow, takes exception to this:

Comparing with pogroms in Czarist Russia and Stalin times it looks good, but we are living in the 21st century! There were always anti-Jewish feelings in Russian public. Ben Lazar whose Russian even worse then my Rnglish is living in another world. Russian Jews don't respect him cuz he's a Putin puppet. And never trust any poll in Russia.

And about Israel. Yes,comparing with UK and other Europe people are mostly pro-israel. It happens because the media in Russia does not demonize Israel; you can hear anti-israel bias only from Euronews and BBC Russian. Only a tiny part of Russian anti-semitism is about Israel and Arabs. Most popular slogans are about that Jews control Russia. Also that all liberals (not British style left-wing) are Jews and they want to destroy the country.

HRW appoints PFLP terrorist as an advisor. Really.

From The Daily Beast:

A Palestinian whom Israel’s Supreme Court has described as a “Jekyll and Hyde” of international terrorism has been appointed by Human Rights Watch (HRW) to its advisory board that oversees the sensitive reporting on Arab-Israeli affairs.

The man at the center of the dispute, Shawan Jabarin, runs the human rights organization Al Haq in Ramallah on the occupied West Bank. In 1985 he belonged to a Birzeit University student group associated with the PFLP, indicted as a terror group, by 30 countries including the U.S., the European Union, and Canada. He was convicted of recruiting members for terrorist training outside Israel and served nine months of a 24-month jail sentence.

After he had served his time in jail, Jabarin was engaged as a field worker by Al Haq. He rose to become Director General in 2006 and has been nominated for several international awards but Israel in 1999 banned him from international travel. Jordan, also, has refused him entry on grounds of security. On Al Haq website Jabarin said he had lost track of the number of times he’d been arrested and detained. He estimated that he’d spent a cumulative eight years in administrative detention and claimed to have been beaten on numerous occasions.

In its 2007 judgment, the Supreme Court found that alongside activity in Al Haq, Jabarin was also a senior figure in the Popular Front terrorist organization: “This petitioner is apparently active as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In part of his activities, he is the director of a human rights organization, and in another part he is an activist in a terrorist organization which does not shy away from acts of murder and attempted murder which have nothing to do with rights, and on the contrary deny the most basic of all human rights, the most fundamental of fundamental right, without which there are no other rights—the right to life.”

Jabarin petitioned the court again in 2008. The court said it could understand the frustration of Jabarin’s lawyers in not being able to see the intelligence against him, but explained that the judges’ own examination of the classified material had led them to two conclusions: “First, that it is reliable information according to which the petitioner is among the senior activists of the Popular Front terrorist organization; second, the divulging of this material to the petitioner involves the exposure of important sources of information, and thus certain harm to national security.”

The Court examined the case a third time in March 2009. It reported that it had twice tried to find “a creative solution” that gave Jabarin some limited freedom of movement but concluded: “We found that the material pointing to the petitioner’s involvement in the activity of terrorist entities is concrete and reliable material. We also found that additional negative material concerning the petitioner has been added even after his previous petition was rejected.”
The judgment emphasized that the ban was not “punishment” for forbidden activity but “due to relevant security considerations.”

Calls over several days to [HRW's Sarah Leah] Whiston were not returned. In a telephone conversation, [HRW's Ken] Roth at first said it was “not true” that Jabarin had been a member of PFLP, then added: “And if he had been, it’s ancient history.” He would not discuss the Supreme Court judgments. In an email, Roth defended the appointment saying Jabarin had had no association with the PFLP or any other political organization since joining the staff of Al Haq in 1987.

In fact, Jabarin was arrested by Israel in 1994 for heading the PFLP - while he was already working for Al Haq.

And in 2003, Israel allowed Jabarin to travel to Jordan - and Jordan refused to let him in because of his terror record.

Al Haq is hardly an unbiased "human rights" organization either. It engages in "lawfare" against Israel. One of the papers on its website justifies terrorism as legal:

[R]esistance against occupation and its arbitrary practices is legitimate under international law, and these acts are considered a part of the Palestinian people‘s resistance and struggle against occupation in order to achieve their right to liberation and independence, the occupation forces call it “terrorism”...

So not only is HRW trying to appoint a terrorist who has been shown to be a credible current threat by Israel's Supreme Court, but they are using his service to a "human rights" organization that supports terror as their main proof that he is not a terrorist!

No wonder that HRW's founder, Robert Bernstein, said, "I am of course shocked but even more saddened that an organization dedicated to the rule of law seems to be deliberately undermining it."

(h/t Alex and Zach)