Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 16, 2007

Notable postings

The value of perspective at Treppenwitz
Analyzing the Mecca agreement at Yourish
Cappuccinos for Peace at Soccer Dad
Followup on Post-Academic Freedom at My Right Word

An oldie but a goodie: The Gaza Arab "state" of 1948

Looking through the logs, I see that someone from France found my blog by Googling "gaza arab government 1948." They found this post from December 2005 which unfortunately had lost all its graphics. I just restored them, and the article shows yet again that there is nothing new under the sun.

In brief: in 1948, the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem set up his own government in Gaza, complete with a flag. It was recognized by Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen.

When Israel counterattacked Egypt in late 1948, half the cabinet resigned and all of them bravely fled to Cairo.

It was such a spectacular failure that no Palestinian Arab mentions this original and only "Palestinian state" today out of embarrassment.

14 weeks in a row

For the fourteenth consecutive week, more Palestinian Arabs were killed by their own people than by Israel. This week's score is about 5-2 (following PCHR's Friday-to-Thursday counting, and reflecting an uncertainty of exactly when two women murdered their own infants over the past weekend.)

Answering Joseph Massad

Joseph Massad, an associate professor at Columbia University, wrote an article for Al-Ahram Weekly and reprinted at Electronic Intifada about Israel's "racism." Since he is far brighter than the typical Neanderthal that writes for EI it is worthwhile to review his argument and show that not only is Israel not racist, but his claims amount to a form of anti-Semitism.

His thesis is laid out in the first two paragraphs:

Israel's struggle for peace is a sincere one. In fact, Israel desires to live at peace not only with its neighbours, but also and especially with its own Palestinian population, and with Palestinians whose lands its military occupies by force. Israel's desire for peace is not only rhetorical but also substantive and deeply psychological. With few exceptions, prominent Zionist leaders since the inception of colonial Zionism have desired to establish peace with the Palestinians and other Arabs whose lands they slated for colonisation and settlement. The only thing Israel has asked for, and continues to ask for in order to end the state of war with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours, is that all recognise its right to be a racist state that discriminates by law against Palestinians and other Arabs and grants differential legal rights and privileges to its own Jewish citizens and to all other Jews anywhere. The resistance that the Palestinian people and other Arabs have launched against Israel's right to be a racist state is what continues to stand between Israel and the peace for which it has struggled and to which it has been committed for decades. Indeed, this resistance is nothing less than the "New anti- Semitism".

Israel is willing to do anything to convince Palestinians and other Arabs of why it needs and deserves to have the right to be racist. Even at the level of theory, and before it began to realise itself on the ground, the Zionist colonial project sought different means by which it could convince the people whose lands it wanted to steal and against whom it wanted to discriminate to accept as understandable its need to be racist. All it required was that the Palestinians "recognise its right to exist" as a racist state. Military methods were by no means the only persuasive tools available; there were others, including economic and cultural incentives. Zionism from the start offered some Palestinians financial benefits if they would accede to its demand that it should have the right to be racist. Indeed, the State of Israel still does. Many Palestinian officials in the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation have been offered and have accepted numerous financial incentives to recognise this crucial Israeli need. Those among the Palestinians who regrettably continue to resist are being penalised for their intransigence by economic choking and starvation, supplemented by regular bombardment and raids, as well as international isolation. These persuasive methods, Israel hopes, will finally convince a recalcitrant population to recognise the dire need of Israel to be a racist state. After all, Israeli racism only manifests in its flag, its national anthem, and a bunch of laws that are necessary to safeguard Jewish privilege, including the Law of Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the State's Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law (1952), the Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), the Construction and Building Law (1965), and the 2002 temporary law banning marriage between Israelis and Palestinians of the occupied territories.

Notice how Massad states Israel's racism as a fact, and only later does he make his argument. The argument is fundamentally that since Israel is meant to be a Jewish state it is by definition racist against non-Jews, and he brings as proof various laws and national symbols that mean to maintain Israel as a Jewish state.

The rest of his long and articulate article boils down to some strawman arguments as to why Israelis believe that they have the right to be racist.

Nevertheless, he does make his argument, and the crux of the issue is that it is impossible to have a Jewish state that is not racist, by definition.

First of all, the professor's use of the word "racist" is faulty and he knows this quite well. Racism is discrimination based on race, and of course neither Jews nor Arabs form a race. A good portion of Jews in Israel are descended from Arab Jews. The word is nothing but an inflammatory rhetorical device and his use of it is as absurd as those who redefine anti-Semitism as "hating Semites."

His argument would be much stronger, more accurate and not nearly as inflammatory if he used the word "discriminatory." But since that word can apply to pretty much every nation and clearly defined ethnic, racial, religious or gender group on the planet, he purposefully chooses to use a word that forces a more visceral reaction from the reader. Notice how his entire argument loses its punch if you substitute "discriminatory" for "racist" - he is not arguing based on facts, he is inciting. This is more than dishonest.

Back to his argument, framed correctly: is there discrimination in Israel against Arabs? Well, yes, there is. It is not news that there is a tension between the desire for a Jewish state and a desire for a state where all citizens are treated absolutely equally.

What Massad dismisses is the need for a Jewish state:

It is important to stress that this Zionist rationale is correct on all counts if one accepts the proposition of Jewish exceptionalism. Remember that Zionism and Israel are very careful not to generalise the principles that justify Israel's need to be racist but are rather vehement in upholding it as an exceptional principle. It is not that no other people has been oppressed historically, it is that Jews have been oppressed more. It is not that no other people's cultural and physical existence has been threatened; it is that the Jews' cultural and physical existence is threatened more. This quantitative equation is key to why the world, and especially Palestinians, should recognise that Israel needs and deserves to have the right to be a racist state. If the Palestinians, or anyone else, reject this, then they must be committed to the annihilation of the Jewish people physically and culturally, not to mention that they would be standing against the Judeo-Christian God.

Here is one of his straw man arguments. Do Jews deny the right for, say, Kurds or Armenians or any historically oppressed people to have their own state? His thesis of Jewish "exceptionalism" would imply that Jews want only an exclusive Jewish state and that no other people deserve one - a claim that is manifestly absurd.

To deny the right for Jews to have a state of their own, while (in this case, implicitly) allowing other peoples to have their own states, is simply a form of anti-semitism. One can argue that a Jewish state should not have been established in Palestine because of other issues - but this is not Massad's argument. He is the one who is suffering from exceptionalism, by denying only a single group of people the right to have a state where they suffer no discrimination.

If he argues just as strenuously against Saudi Arabia's discriminatory laws, or the fact that the Queen of England is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England or against the fact that many European flags have crosses - then he might not be guilty of the "racism" that he accuses Israel of. But as far as I can tell, his writings on the topic exclusively speak about the Jewish state, not any other group of people.

His answer to this is not an answer - it is simply the use of the word "racism" as a club in the way that he accuses Jews of using the term "anti-semitism:"

As for those among us who insist that no resolution will ever be possible before Israel revokes all its racist laws and does away with all its racist symbols, thus opening the way for a non-racist future for Palestinians and Jews in a decolonised bi-national state, Israel and its apologists have a ready-made response that has redefined the meaning of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is no longer the hatred of and discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group; in the age of Zionism, we are told, anti-Semitism has metamorphosed into something that is more insidious. Today, Israel and its Western defenders insist, genocidal anti-Semitism consists mainly of any attempt to take away and to refuse to uphold the absolute right of Israel to be a racist Jewish state.

His sleight of hand is in never defining "racism" in any meaningful way, and then affixing the reprehensible label exclusively on Jewish Zionists repeatedly. It is a classic example of Arab projection. Forgetting the fact that non-Jews in Israel have more rights than minorities in most nations do (and certainly in Israel's neighbors), ignoring the fact that Israeli Arabs have risen to unimaginable political heights - even without those arguments which he would probably dismiss as apologetics, the fundamental issue remains that Massad denies Jews the rights that he seems to allow all others.

And his repeated misuse of the word "racist" shows clearly that his argument is fundamentally an emotional one clothed in pseudo-rationalism, rather than based on any facts.

Hamas: "Gov't Will Support Resistance"

From the webpage of the Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas "military wing"):

The Palestinian new government will continue to support "resistance," according to excerpts from the new government's platform.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh agreed Wednesday on the make-up of the new government, ending weeks of arguments over the candidate for the powerful interior ministry post.

Our Sources reported that the new platform states that, "The government confirms that the resistance is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people."

It goes onto say that, "halting resistance depends on ending the occupation and achieving freedom and the right of return and independence."

The new government also recognizes that "the key to security and stability in the region is in the ending of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, recognition of the right to Palestinian self-determination."

Thus, the statement confirmed, "the government will work with the international community to end the occupation, and to return the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."

The government "holds fast to the rights of Palestinian refugees, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their land and belongings."

So not only did Hamas completely win in its vision of how the PA should be run, they are bragging about how they can continue terror attacks according to this document.

Stupidly, the Deutche Press Agency backgrounder on this agreement says:

- Section I, clause 4, says the government 'holds on to the right of refugees to return to their land and property.'

The phrase leaves out whether that should be to all of British mandatory Palestine, including what is now Israel, or to a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza only.

As if that is even in doubt.

Arafat's webpage

The first link in the "Palestinian National Information Center" webpage points to the President Arafat Homepage.

Here you can find a biography without any mention of his death, an account of his daily chores, and a disturbing photo gallery where we can see the President among his possible lovers:

I especially like his Honors and Awards page, which states in its entirety:

Main Orders & Awards

Nobel Prize with Isaac Rabin and Shimon Peres
Various honorary awards
Honorary Ph.D. degree / the University of Jamaat Islamiya in Haidar Abad, India
Honorary awards by Arab intimates and foreign friends

I may put on my resume, "Various honorary awards from friends."

Arabs for book burning

We mentioned last week about a Palestinian Arab folktale book that was being banned and destroyed by the PalArab Education Ministry, because of some fairly subtle sexual imagery (it also had scatological references, but those were not controversial from what I can tell.)

After this hit the international press, the ministry reversed its decision.

Ma'an News Agency has a poll on its English website asking:

Was the decision to destroy the folk story collection 'Speak Bird, Speak Again'

...sensible to avoid corrupting the youth? 5.56% (5)
...indicative of a necessity for censorship? 1.11% (1)
...a "bad omen" for free speech? 93.33% (84)

Not a huge number of replies, but their English speaking readers are solidly against censorship.

But the question they ask on their Arabic website, and their answers, are a bit different:

Do you support the destruction of the book 'Speak Bird, Speak Again'؟

Yesه 48.52% (7093)
Noافه 43.89% (6416)
Don't knowف 7.59% (1110)

Total votes : 14619

Now, this is obviously not a scientific poll, but on the other hand the only people who can participate are those who have access to the Internet and read the most "moderate" Palestinian Arabic news source. And still a plurality of these more modern Arabic speakers support not only the censorship but the actual destruction of the book!

PalArab unity news

Fatah and Hamas are stumbling slowly towards approving a "unity government." Of course, they are still killing each other.

Yesterday's unity news:

Gaza - Ma'an - As Palestinians edged a step closer to having a national unity government, clashes between the rival factions of Hamas and Fatah erupted again on Wednesday evening in the Gaza Strip, leaving one Fatah militant dead, and nine other Palestinians injured, and 12 abducted.

Medical sources in Gaza have confirmed the death of Muhammad T'emeh, 25, an activist in the Al-Aqsa Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah movement. T'emeh died from wounds he sustained late on Wednesday night in confrontations between members of Fatah and Hamas in Beit Lahiya in the north of the Gaza Strip.

T'emeh was shot in his feet which led to the severing of his arteries. He arrived at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in a serious condition.

Also on Wednesday evening, a series of tit-for-tat abductions took place between the two sides, Fatah and Hamas. 12 people were abducted in total, of whom four were released and eight remain in custody of their rivals. Of the remaining eight abductees, four are from Fatah and four from Hamas.

At the same time, armed clashes raged between the two sides, which led to the injury of nine Palestinians.

Our count of PalArabs violently killed this year by each other now stands at 137.

UPDATE: A 30-year old PalArab was killed in a weapons smuggling tunnel between Egypt and Gaza. 138.

UPDATE 2: Two members of "Palestinian military intelligence" were taken out of their car in Gaza and shot in their heads. One died so far. 139.

French and German universities host Terror U.

In the wake of yesterday's announcement of University of Manchester "twinning" with An-Najah University (a source of terror and "art exhibits" that celebrate blowing up Jews,) today the Arabic Ma'an News says that the University of Frankfurt and a French university are also adding cultural ties with Terror U. Autotranslated:

As part of a cultural exchange Palestinian French-German delegation participated Najah National University in cultural exchange forum, which was organized in each of the universities of Frankfurt in Germany, Berbinieh in France during the period from February 17-March 5, 2007.

Regarding the goal of this partnership Professor Samer Aqrouk it aims to provide information on all the issues of civil society and democratic life, and the issue of citizenship in the Palestinian society and Palestinian immigrants, their whereabouts, their living conditions, as well as the occupation practices and violations against the rights of the Palestinian people exercised, and the separation wall and its impact on the lives of Palestinian rights, as working papers were submitted by the students participants on topics of religion and state (citizenship), and Islam's position on the State-old and new citizens, between religion and international law, and religious freedom in the Arab and Palestinian artists and Palestinian identity, and good governance (good), women in Islam.

He added that during this participation screening of a series of documentary films namely : immigrants in the country, which exposes the suffering of the students at the checkpoints and in particular the students of the An-Najah University, and a Palestinian film reviews occupation practices, and the olive tree, which addresses the issue of how to falsify Palestinian history, as presented to the lives of immigrants living in the Palestinian territories and abroad journey in the search for identity, in addition to the documentaries the university, and the film title (story), which reviews developments of the Palestinian cause since the year 1917 until the year 2005,

Professor Samer it was during the visit to meet with Vice President of the University of Frankfurt, director of cultural relations and external been put forward a set of ideas for future cooperation.

I'm sure that the "how to falsify Palestinian history" was a mistranslation but it is more truthful than was intended, especially as they feed their European hosts propaganda about Israeli atrocities.

I always find it interesting that for a people with such a long an illustrious history, the Palestinian Arabs always seem to start their history lessons in the 20th century.

And somehow I doubt that An-Najah mentioned how many of its famed alumni died as "martyrs" while murdering Jews.

More unease over fundamentalist Christian support for Israel

I've mentioned before that I have always been a bit uneasy about the support that fundamentalist Christians give to Israel. As I wrote then:

In fact, there were entire societies in England (and Scotland) dedicated to the conversion of Jews to Christianity, that seemed to reach their greatest influence in the early to middle 19th century.

The conversion aspect of Christian proto-Zionists seemed to die out as the actual reclamation of Jews to biblical Israel accelerated mid-19th century, and it was hardly mentioned publicly by 1900. Nevertheless, this history is enough to make one pause as to the true intent of today's friendly Christian Zionists. The idea of mass conversions of Jews may no longer make sense but the thought of an ulterior motive that lines Israel's fate up more with perceived prophecies than with what is actually good for Israel is not something that is so easy to overlook, despite the many sincere friends that Israel does indeed have today among the Christian Zionists.

Today's Huffington Post has an article about a featured speaker at the AIPAC conference, Pastor John Hagee, leader of "Christians United for Israel." It describes him as an "anti-semitic Holocaust revisionist," and while this appears to me to be a gross exaggeration, there is enough about Pastor Hagee that is troubling enough.

This article seems to lay out most of the arguments against Hagee. Reading it critically, one can seen that many of the complaints are a little contrived - it tends to draw lines between what he has said and what the author assumes believes, in terms of the "rapture" and other Christian end-times theology, where presumably most Jews will be killed in a final apocalyptic battle. The problem that liberals have with Hagee are probably far more against his evangelical and conservative beliefs than against his purported anti-semitism.

For the other side of the story, this article shows the face he puts on for Jewish audiences. He explicitly rejects "replacement theology" and claims to be 100% supportive of Jews as well as Israel.

Nevertheless, enough of what he has said and done - including the fact that he set up a Christian broadcasting station in Israel to preach to Jews - makes it worthwhile to ask the question of whether Israel needs supporters like Hagee, not to mention whether he should be greeted as a hero by AIPAC. Politics may make strange bedfellows but that doesn't mean that one will not regret it in the morning.

University of Manchester twinning with Nablus terror college

From Ma'an News:

Nablus - Ma'an - An-Najah National University in the northern West Bank city of Nablus is preparing to twin with the universities of Manchester and London through cooperation between the student unions in these universities.

The University of Manchester Student Union passed a motion in its entirety on 7 March to go ahead with a twinning agreement with their counterparts at An-Najah University.

An-Najah University is where the infamous exhibit reconstructing the Sbarro's terror attack in Jerusalem was held. Here's a video of that exhibit.

In addition, An-Najah has itself produced a few suicide terrorists and is itself a hotbed of Hamas terror. Besides the disgusting Sbarro's exhibit complete with dismembered limbs and the "kosher" sign, Hamas there re-enacted a suicide bombing in an Afula mall and an attack on a bus that killed 10 - all done by terrorists who attended An-Najah.

Not that these facts would matter much to Manchester.

Today's apartheid news

From the European Jewish Press. Notice the people being quoted:

LONDON (EJP)--- At a landmark conference in London this week leading figures within the British Jewish community explored how to increase charitable donations to Israeli Arabs.

Speaking at the day-long event on Thursday, senior community leaders said boosting the status and prosperity of the Arabs, who make up 20 percent of Israeli society, is vital to the country’s democracy.

Significantly, the event was backed by the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organisation, and the Ministry of Education in Israel.

The Pears Foundation, a Jewish organisation which says it "seeks to promote human and civil rights for all citizens of Israel" organised the event, and said it was designed to bring community leaders together to discuss how best to increase funding to the Arab sector.

...
In a letter to the Pears Foundation ahead of the meeting at London’s Lincoln Centre, Yuli Tamir, the Israeli Education Minister, welcomed the initiative as "enlightened and progressive".

"Israeli leaders have long understood the importance of creating an equal and inclusive society," she wrote.

"Enlightened and progressive initiatives such as this demonstrate the commitment and concern that many Jewish people around the world share with the inhabitants of the State of Israel to create a just, stable and democratic country."

Ze’ev Bielski, executive chairman of the World Zionist Organisation and Jewish Agency, wrote to say: "It is my honour and pleasure to offer my blessings on the occasion of the London symposium on Israeli Arabs.”

Yes - Israeli Jews are raising money from Jews abroad to help out Israeli Arabs.

Isn't that exactly what one would expect from an apartheid state and representatives of a racist religion?