Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

06/13 Links Pt2: Boycotting Gal Gadot. Antisemitic, discriminatory. BDS in action; The Irrelevance of Antisemitism

From Ian:

Shunned anti-Semitism film shown for 24 hours only at Bild website

A new much discussed documentary on European anti-Semitism has been leaked on the website of the Bild Zeitung, Germany’s biggest newspaper. The leak, whose source remains anonymous, is illegal.
Titled “Chosen and Excluded – Jew Hatred in Europe,” the film by German producers Joachim Schröder and Sophie Hafner covers the various forms of Jew hatred that prevail in contemporary Europe. Although it was approved by network editors, for the past five months it has been withheld from the public by the Franco-German public TV networks Arte, which owns its broadcasting rights.
One of the reasons given for the highly controversial decision to shun the movie, which was commissioned by the German public WDR network on behalf of its partner station Arte, was that it would include too much footage from Israel. The documentary also includes a segment on anti-Semitic Israel bashing, which, as the film strikingly shows, is often supported by tax-funded European NGOs.
The public TV channels’ refusal to broadcast the film has been harshly criticized by public figures, among them scholars, politicians and artists who acclaimed the documentary. Now Bild is leaking a web link to the film for 24 hours, beginning Monday night and ending Tuesday at midnight.

Antisemitismus in Europa (Dokumentation neu) ARTE (h/t Gastwirt)

David Collier: Boycotting Gal Gadot. Antisemitic, discriminatory. BDS in action

Gal Gadot is the new ‘Wonder Woman’. Gal Gadot is also a proud Israeli. Gal’s nationality, religion and political opinion are hers to hold. BDS once again shows that it is little more than a Jew hating lynch mob, that everyone with a conscience should refuse to engage with.
It isn’t surprising that Lebanon wanted to boycott the Wonder Woman movie. The Arab boycott against Israel existed decades before the Arab Palestinians were even recognised as a separate people. Arab nations have always had a problem with advertising successful Israelis and Gal Gadot is a very successful Israeli. When you want to spread the propaganda that your enemy is the devil incarnate, it doesn’t help when Israeli citizens are successful scientists, sports people, academics and movie stars. Boycott makes the intended distortion easier.
Jordan’s suggested boycott of the movie is less understandable. After all, is there any point in Israel signing peace treaties with these nations? Perhaps for some of the Arab nations, the boycott is an excuse. After all, having Gal Gadot as a champion on screens in a deeply misogynistic society presents its own internal difficulties. Boycott is perhaps a back-door method of rejecting female-positive messages within the movie.
I always argue that the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement is hypocritical and deeply antisemitic. I compare it to a lynch mob, ruled by the evil intent of those at the front. It does not matter if you are a social justice warrior, fooled into believing BDS is some meaningful humanitarian escapade. All you are doing is empowering the mobsters. After all, as a movement gains momentum, it doesn’t constantly need your permission to act.
We have to be thankful that as a mob that is driven by uncontrollable hate, BDS activists often show us exactly how hypocritical, discriminatory and antisemitic they are. Which brings us to the boycott of Gal Gadot. This an image from the Palestine Project:

The Irrelevance of Antisemitism

Whereas other forms of racism tend to demean people because of their race, ethnicity or sexuality the Jews are hated because they are considered omnipotent therefore responsible for all the evils of the world.
But the antisemitism expressed by members of the British Labour Party didn’t stop the electorate voting for them in their millions. Even on election day a woman was filmed at a polling booth in a Jewish area calling on people to vote Labour “to get the Jews out.”
And in the end the Jews were powerless to help themselves. In the end the leader who brought all this antisemitic controversy with him to the fore was returned with more seats than his ethnically Jewish predecessor. I suppose it’s testament to the faith British Jewry has in the British people that they assumed the reporting of incidents of antisemitism would disgust their fellow citizens enough to put them off Corbyn. Instead we’ve seen many come to believe that the reports of antisemitism are a “plot” to “smear” the exalted leader Corbyn to hold him back.
All this reminds me of a statement made by a demonstrator attempting to prevent Hen Mazzig from speaking at UCL in Central London. While standing in a crowd of screaming demonstrators who were just appalled that a small group of Jews might want to hear a talk by an Israeli officer in the IDF she said “in the 21st century we don’t need no Jewish majority state”. Of course this whole sordid affair demonstrated perfectly why, even in the twenty first century, we do.
Many people lecture Jews about what they’re allowed to believe, what they’re allowed to be offended by, what they’re allowed to be concerned by, what does and does not constitute antisemitism against them and few are listening to what Jews are saying about it. Furthermore many people are shocked and appalled, not by the antisemitism, but by the attempts by Jews to defend against it. “Smear” they shout, “plot” they scream. motivated by their own twisted morality they go to great lengths to scream from the rooftops that there’s no antisemitism, that it just doesn’t exist, it’s a conspiracy don’t you know!

As the Arab world continues its about-face concerning Hamas, new stories are coming out:

ABU DHABI // Emirates Red Crescent staff came under attack from Israel in response to Hamas fire from a Gaza hospital where they were working, the charity’s secretary general said at the Crown Prince’s Majlis on Monday night.

Mohammed Al Falahi said his organisation felt sacrificed after Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, fired on Israelis from the field hospital bringing retaliation from the Israelis.

Mr Al Falahi said the charity had coordinated with the Red Cross to distribute aid in Gaza during the 2014 conflict "and we asked them to liaise with the Israeli forces so they don’t strike us".

"While we were in the field hospital that the UAE built, we were surprised by – and this is the first that we have announced this – someone from Hamas instigating Israeli forces by launching locally made rockets from the field hospital", he said.

Inevitably, the Israelis hit back. "This shows their [Hamas’s] wicked intentions and how they sacrificed us," Mr Al Falahi said. "They always claim that the enemy targets humanitarian envoys but the betrayal came from them."

He said as the team were leaving Gaza "after having raised the white flag, Hamas accused us of being spies, undercover foreign intelligence who were escaping".

"And apparently they had informed extremist militias in Sinai and Sheikh Zuweid [in Egypt] that there was a group making their way there, so prepare for jihad against them.

"So Muslims fighting Muslims, who were giving humanitarian aid to Muslims. As we stopped at a grocery to buy something to eat, they started shooting at us."

He said the same time they found that the militias had planted landmines in their path a few kilometres farther down the path.

"What hurts is that the betrayal came from our own people," Mr Al Falahi told the majlis.

Not to defend Hamas, but these claims are a bit fishy.

I could not find any mention of the IDF attacking any field hospital, which would have been big news. The UAE facility was in Rafah. I went through the lists of alleged attacks on medical facilities in Rafah and couldn't find any such report.

The story of Hamas tipping off Sinai militants to attack them and lay land mines strains credibility as well.

We know that Hamas fired from, and worked in, the vicinity of other hospitals and that they used ambulances to support terror attacks. Hamas is guilty o fsimilar war crimes many times over. But this story has not yet checked out.

Just because the Arabs are now turning against Hamas doesn't mean that their stories are any more accurate than their stories they make up against Israel.

In this case, the story isn't necessarily one of the UAE Red Crescent making credible allegations against Hamas.

The real story is that the wave of anger in the Gulf against Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood is now a tsunami that allows them to treat Hamas the way they used to treat...Israel.

(h/t John Godly)

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3 years have passed. As I read the words I wrote then, it seems like yesterday. What I felt then comes rushing back and with it, the realization that still people around the world are unable to see these simple truths…

Parents usually have hopes and dreams for their children. Some dream that their children will be more successful than them, have more money, a bigger house… others will tell you “I just want my kids to be happy.”

In the Jewish tradition words and even individual letters are very important. God used words to create the world; Jews are the “People of the Book” (i.e. the bible). This belief is what led Bat Galim and Ophir Shaer to name their son “Gil-Ad”, rather than the more common “Gilad”.
“Gil-Ad” means eternal joy.

The Shaers chose a name that encapsulated their feelings about their son, their hopes for his life. They were very particular about writing his name with a hyphen to differentiate it from the standard bible name “Gilad” and from another word written with the same letters but pronounced differently: galed. “Galed” is a monument, built to honor and preserve the memory of the dead.

How ironic.

On June 12th, 2014 sixteen year old Gil-Ad Shaer was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists, along with Naftali Frenkel (16 yrs) and Eyal Ifrach (19 yrs).

Now the Shaer, Frenkel and Ifrach parents are left to build monuments for their children – tombstones. Galed instead of Gil-Ad.

A few moments after the three boys were abducted Gil-Ad called the police. This 16 year old child had the strength of mind and courage to call for help, to try to save himself and the boys with him. Who can imagine such audacity? Trapped in a car speeding off in the wrong direction, with armed terrorists, Gil-Ad dialed the police and told the operator “I’ve been kidnapped”. The recording of the call documents the crucial moments of the abduction: the call for help, the terrorists shouting at the boys to put their heads down, their hands down, one of the terrorists telling the other “take that (phone) from him”, bullet shots, shouts of pain and one of the terrorists singing. Yes – singing.

Purpose and intention make all the difference in the world. On one hand there are three boys that just wanted to go home. On the other, terrorists who left their homes, intending to kidnap Jews, terrorize and create suffering.

In an interview, the mother of one of the terrorists said that: “If it was her son that kidnapped the three teens she would be proud for the rest of her life.”

One mother wishes eternal joy for her son, Gil-Ad. The other says she finds eternal joy in the knowledge that her son killed the children of three other mothers.

What a difference.

****************************

It is politically correct to say that everyone is the same, all people have the same hopes and dreams for their children, have the same fundamental morals and values but this is just not true. Unfortunately. If that was true, Gil-Ad, Naftali, Eyal and so many others would be alive today. If that was true no Arab would have celebrated the kidnapping and murder of three children. Or be proud that it was their son who committed the murders.

It’s not politically correct to point out the difference. You could ignore them. Pretend they don’t exist. Many do. You could – but it’s very, very dangerous to do so.

Intention and purpose matter.

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06/13 Links Pt1: Dore Gold: Untying the Gordian Knot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Why Won't Abbas Accept "Two States for Two Peoples"?

From Ian:

Dore Gold: Untying the Gordian Knot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

There are 58 Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East. With the implementation of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, 26 of these camps fell under Palestinian control. Yet there was no any indication that a single Palestinian camp was about to be closed. It was clear that the Palestinian Authority wanted these camps to be retained despite the advent of Palestinian self-government. Even the new Palestinian city in the West Bank, Rawabi, was built not for refugees, but rather for upper middle class Palestinians who could afford it.
The only explanation for this behavior was that the Palestinian leadership wanted to keep their grievance with Israel alive. In other words, they wanted to perpetuate the conflict.
The problem of UNRWA is well known among experts on the Arab-Israel conflict.
Nevertheless, the effect of letting this issue fester for generations deserves greater consideration. More than any other issue, leaving the refugee problem intact for the future undermines any possibility of reaching reconciliation between the parties. You cannot resolve a conflict and perpetuate it at the same time.
Until now, international diplomats have overlooked the Palestinian refugee issue, preferring to deal first with other dimensions of the conflict. But the Palestinians’ preparedness to finally resolve this issue is probably the best litmus test of their intentions – of whether they are ready to end the conflict once and for all. If a new peace initiative is to start, it should include at the outset a program to dismantle the refugee camps and promote a massive international effort for the construction of new housing. This initiative should begin in the West Bank but also should include Jordan, which hosts the largest Palestinian refugee population in the world.
Dismantling UNRWA is critical in this effort. It is the international caretaker of the problematic definition of refugee status for the Palestinians, which has allowed this problem to expand continually.
No international convention contains so expansive a definition of refugees. It is astounding that the international community keeps demanding concessions from Israel yet to date has not done anything about the deleterious effects of allowing UNRWA’s definition of Palestinian refugees to persist.

Alan M. Dershowitz: Why Won't Abbas Accept "Two States for Two Peoples"?

Some of the blame rests on the shoulders of Barack Obama. By applying pressure only to the Israeli side, not to the Palestinians, Obama consistently disincentivized Abbas from embracing the two-states for two-peoples paradigm. This came to a head in December when Obama allowed the U.S. not to veto the inane U.N. Resolution, under which the Western Wall and other historically Jewish sites are not recognized as part of Israel. (Recall that U.N. Resolution 181 mandated a "special international regime for the city of Jerusalem," and Jordan captured it illegally. Israel liberated Jerusalem in 1967, and allowed everybody to go to the Western Wall.)
It is a tragedy that the international community – headed by the U.N. – encourages the Palestinian Authority's rejectionism, rather than pushing it to make the painful compromises that will be needed from both sides in reaching a negotiated two-state outcome. Indeed, just a few days ago the U.N. once again demonstrated that it is a barrier to the peace-process. In his address at the U.N. General Assembly marking the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War and Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank, U.N. Secretary General, Antonio Guterres said:
"In 1947, on the basis of United Nations General Assembly resolution 181, the world recognized the two-state solution and called for the emergence of 'independent Arab and Jewish states.' On 14 May 1948, the State of Israel was born. Almost seven decades later, the world still awaits the birth of an independent Palestinian state."
Guterres failed to acknowledge that "the reason the world still awaits the birth of an independent Palestinian state" is because the Arabs rejected the U.N. partition plan, which would have given them their own state, committing instead to seven decades of undermining Israel's legitimacy.
When the Palestinian leadership and people want their own state more than they want there not to be a state for the Jewish people, the goal of the 1947 U.N. Resolution – two states for two peoples – will be achieved. A good beginning would be for Abbas finally to agree with the U.N. Resolution and say the following words: "I accept the 1947 U.N. Resolution that calls for two states for two peoples." It's not too much to ask from a leader seeking to establish a Palestinian Muslim state.

IDF Blog: 4 Reasons Why Hamas Is A Terror Organization

Hamas formed in late 1987 at the beginning of the First Intifada. The group’s charter calls for establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel and rejects all agreements made between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel.
Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades has conducted terror attacks against Israel since the 1990’s. These attacks have included suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, small-arms attacks, improvised roadside explosives, and rocket attacks.
Even as Hamas carries out terror attacks against Israeli civilians, they attempt to brand themselves as a “legitimate resistance movement”. That just isn’t true.
The definition of terror is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” This is why Hamas’s actions fits that description:
1. Hamas has repeatedly called for the destruction of the State of Israel
It’s right there. Out in the open. They aren’t even trying to hide it. Their founding document explicitly says that their goal is to establish a Palestinian state in the ENTIRE State of Israel.
In Hamas’s new charter, which is said to be more “moderate”, Hamas says “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
Hamas’s leaders haven’t been shy about their goal either. Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of the co-founders of Hamas recently said “If Hamas liberated 99.9% of the land of Palestine, it will not give up on the rest. We cannot religiously, morally or nationally give up on one inch of the land of Palestine.”
Hamas leaders, Imams, and Gazan citizens celebrate terror attacks against Israel. They teach violence in their schools. Parents praise violence in their homes. The result is clear: 75% of the Palestinians in Gaza support attacks against Israelis.
That isn’t what a neighbor looking for a life of peaceful coexistence sounds like.
2. Hamas specifically targets Israeli civilians
Hamas came to the scene during the First Intifada in the mid 1990’s. Targeting civilians has been Hamas’s MO ever since.
Between February and March 1996, Hamas carried out several suicide bus bombings, killing nearly 60 Israelis. From 2000 to 2004, Hamas was responsible for killing almost 400 Israelis and wounding more than 2,000 in 425 attacks. Read that again. 400 Israelis killed. 2,000 wounded. 425 attacks. And that’s all in just four years.
Since 2002, Hamas has spent massive amounts of time, effort, and money building and launching rockets at Israel. In 2016, Hamas spent 120 million dollars on building terror tunnels. In total, Hamas has launched over 11,000 rockets at Israeli population centers. A report written by Amnesty International found that Hamas rocket attacks showed “a flagrant disregard” for civilian lives.
This is the literal definition of terror. If you attempt to target civilians for political goals, you are engaging in terrorism. It’s that simple.

It seems that at long last the West may finally be taking the measure of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

At the end of May, Norway demanded that the Palestinian Authority return the funds for a women's center because it was named for a female terrorist.

Last week, Denmark followed suit by also demanding that their funding for the center be returned.

Also in the beginning of June, Abbas admitted that Trump yelled at him his role in anti-Israel incitement.

Mahmoud Abbas. Credit: Wikipedia

Meanwhile, both Russia and the Czech Republic have recognized Jerusalem (or at least West Jerusalem) as the capital of Israel -- a move that can be seen not only as pro-Israel, but to an extent opposed to Palestinian interests as well.

While there are signs that the West no longer gives Abbas a free ride, what about Hamas?

This year Hamas came out with a new policy document -- and immediately many in the media were claiming it was a new charter, with some going so far as to claim that Hamas no longer called for Israel's destruction. This is not the first time that the media has obediently followed Hamas' lead.

However, while Hamas has denied any connection to the tunnel found underneath 2 UNRWA schools in Gaza, the terrorist group has faced condemnations from the US, Israel and UNRWA -- but nothing more than that.

Of course, what other measures other than condemnation would the West take against Hamas?
After all, the fortunes of Hamas seem to have taken a downturn without any outside help:

o Abbas has made cuts in the salaries of Gazan employees.
o The Palestinian Authority stopped paying Israel to supply electricity to Gaza.
o Israel has gone along and has cut off electricity to Gaza.
o Qatar's isolation among Arab states puts their support of Hamas in jeopardy

But now, in reaction to the discover of the tunnel under the schools, Netanayhu has called for dismanteling UNRWA:

“It is time UNRWA be dismantled and merged with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,” Netanyahu said.

Referring to a meeting he held in Jerusalem on Wednesday with Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, Netanyahu said: “I told her it was time the United Nations re-examine UNRWA's existence.”

While the UN, let along UNRWA itself, is unlikely to willingly go along, the one card that the West holds despite the collective power of the Arab countries and their allies is funding. And while in the past, holding back funding has been more of a threat -- that threat has become something that has begun to be taken a little more seriously.

There are no bold strokes here and only the slightest of promises of a possible turning of a corner.

This is not the first time that there seemed to be a potential for real change and improvement in the Middle East. There was a point when it appeared that George W. Bush was successfully pushing democracy in the Middle East. There was a time when we people spoke optimistically about the Arab Spring.

But for all the unpredictability of the new Trump era, even with the apparent broken promise of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, Israel continues to prove itself less isolated than her enemies like to think. And even as Israel's enemies grow stronger, new alliances are forming in unexpected places.

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Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro tweets, in reaction to a thread on Netanyahu's saying it it time to get rid of UNRWA:

Good thread. I found Israeli officials understandably frustrated w/UNRWA construct, but aware it plays vital role, can't just get rid of it. https://t.co/1M8tjqojLR
— Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) June 11, 2017

It isn't easy to get rid of an entrenched 70 year old bureaucracy - but with some willpower, it is possible. And getting rid of UNRWA will be good for the entire Middle East.

The first and most important thing that needs to be done is to get the Gulf states on board with the plan. The oil-rich states need brainpower and the next generation of workers, and among Arabs, Palestinians are the best educated and hardest working of all Arabs. Dubai and Saudi Arabia want to diversify their economic base beyond oil, and they want to do it if possible with Arab talent. The fit is obvious.

Palestinians have already been instrumental in building much of the Gulf, but they didn't have citizenship rights. It is time for the US to pressure the newly friendly Sunni Gulf states aligning against the Shiites to allow Palestinians from Lebanon, Jordan and Syria - and Gaza! - to immigrate and become citizens. The program would be voluntary but it would be very popular, as past experience with limited granting of citizenship to Palestinians in Egypt and Lebanon show. It is an investment that would pay off for everyone.

The Gulf states can in turn pressure the Arab League to rescind its racist decision from the 1950s to not allow Palestinians to become citizens.

The UN must be pressured by the US and the EU to rid itself of the noxious UNRWA definition of "refugee" that helps no one and only serves to perpetuate a permanent state of victimhood.

In Jordan, the vast majority of Palestinians are already Jordanian citizens. Redirecting the UNRWA budget towards Jordan over a five year period for the purpose of demolishing the camps, building new communities - and naturalizing the Palestinians who aren't citizens - is an idea that is over-ripe. Jordan needs the cash, and to get rid of UNRWA it would be worth it to increase the amount given beyond UNRWA's budget for, say, 5-8 years to allow the full integration of Palestinian camp-dwellers into Jordanian society.

In Syria, nothing much can be done while the country disintegrates. A new Syria could act to get rid of UNRWA camps, but in the meanwhile the many Syrian refugees of Palestinian origin should be immediately placed under the aegis of UNHCR like other refugees and those who qualify for moving to the Gulf should do so. Of course, the portion of UNRWA's budget dedicated to Syrian refugees should go to UNHCR as well for now.

The Palestinian "refugees" in the West Bank should not exist 20 years after self-rule. The entire UNRWA budget for the West Bank should simply be eliminated. The PLO needs to treat all its citizens equally, and that means taking responsibility for them. Let them beg UNRWA's donor nations to help them demolish the camps, build real houses and to make the schools and medical clinics independent.

Now that Hamas is under so much pressure from the Arab world, UNRWA's disappearance from Gaza can nail the coffin shut. Shut down UNRWA in Gaza immediately, forcing Hamas to either find some way to support these "refugees" or forcing them to allow the PA to take over again with the five year UNRWA budget dedicated to Gaza only going to the PA when Hamas capitulates. Moreover, give the option for the people in the camps to move to the West Bank, to Arab countries or even to Europe.

Lebanon is the most intractable problem, because as a country they are more anti-Palestinian than any other in the world. (They would protest that characterization but no country treats Palestinians worse.) As it is, UNRWA already exaggerates the number of "refugees" in Lebanon by nearly 100%. Lebanon should be pressured by the world community and Arab nations themselves to stop putting Palestinians in open-air prisons, allow them the rights to work in any profession and to live wherever they want, to give them real human rights and give them a path to citizenship in the entire Arab world - let them choose where they want to live.

The best way to force the Arab countries to treat their Palestinian "guests" as more than cannon fodder is using the honor/shame system against them. Shame them into treating Palestinians at least as well as any other Arab non-citizen, and give them a path to naturalization.

Now happens to be the perfect time to talk about dismantling UNRWA. And it is over 60 years past the time to finally do something about it.

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Columbia University poisoning K-12 teachers with anti-Israel propaganda

From Columbia University's Middle East Institute:

The Middle East Institute (MEI) and Center for Palestine Studies (CPS) at Columbia University are committed to offering K-12 teachers and college-level instructors the tools to both understand and teach critical issues of dispossession, belonging, and citizenship in the context of Palestine/Israel. Many of the issues that arise in this context could be productively integrated into the K-12 and college-level curricula.

CPS and MEI invite you to a teachers workshop held at Columbia University, Saturday June 24, 2017 on citizenship and nationality in Israel/Palestine and its history more broadly. The workshop will focus on the challenges of establishing a state in 1948 that committed itself to be both Jewish and democratic; the status of the Palestinian minority in such a state; and the critical differences between a “homeland,” a “nation,” and a “state”. The workshop will include a set of short readings that will be distributed in advance for discussion.

What could be wrong with an Ivy League university wanting to teach history for K-12 to understand the Middle East?

Nothing - unless it is anti-Israel propaganda, as seems likely from the Center for Palestine Studies.

But we don't need to research the professors or the Center for Palestine Studies behind this initiative to see that it is anti-Israel. We only need to look at the poster advertising the program:

Yes, the graphic being used is The Map That Lies, the thoroughly debunked piece of propaganda that has already prompted MSNBC to apologize for showing it on air and prompted McGraw-Hill to withdraw and destroy an entire textbook that included it because it is a set of indefensible lies.

This isn't education. This is anti-Israel indoctrination.

Too bad Columbia University doesn't have the intellectual honesty to treat this lying set of maps with the same distaste as it would treat any other piece of lying propaganda.

(h/t Andrew)

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06/12 Links Pt2: Judea Pearl: Debating the Morality of the BDS Cult; France: Islamic Antisemitism, French Silence

From Ian:

Judea Pearl: Debating the Morality of the BDS Cult

If the Jewish people ever needed an icon for their sworn enemies — a litmus test that distinguishes those who oppose the core of Israel’s existence from those who have other reasons to criticize the Jewish state — then the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has given it to us. It has managed to galvanize the Jewish community into an unprecedented wave of unity in opposition to this threat.
A May 22 debate sponsored by the UCLA Debate Union was unique, in that the issue was not the effects of BDS’ actions, but the morality of their aims. I took part in this debate, and I would like to share with readers a summary of my arguments. What follows is an edited version of my remarks:
Dear Friends,
I have not spoken to this debate club before, and I am glad to do so on this occasion, because I see it as a historic moment.
For more than 10 years now, we have been witnessing BDS supporters roaming the campus with their megaphones and slander machines, accusing Israel of every imaginable crime, from apartheid to child molesting — accusing, accusing and accusing.
Today, for the first time in the history of UCLA, we see BDS itself on the accused bench, with its deceitful tactics, immoral ideology and anti-peace stance brought to trial.
It is a historic moment.
BDS is not a new phenomenon; it is a brainchild of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, who in April 1936 started the Arab Rejectionist movement (under the auspices of the Arab Higher Committee), and the first thing he did was to launch a boycott of Jewish agricultural products and a general strike against Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine from war-bound Europe.
The 1936 manifesto of the rejectionist movement was very similar to what BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti presented here at UCLA on January 15, 2014. It was brutal in its simplicity: Jews are not entitled to any form of self-determination in any part of Palestine, not even the size of a postage stamp — end of discussion!

France: Islamic Antisemitism, French Silence

The murder of Sarah Halimi is not the first anti-Semitic murder Islamic committed in France in recent years. Twelve years ago, Ilan Halimi was abducted, tortured for three weeks, then savagely murdered by a gang led by an Ivorian Muslim, Youssouf Fofana. In March 2012, Mohamed Merah, a French jihadist who trained in Afghanistan, shot dead Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two sons, Aryeh, 6, and Gabriel, 3, and Miriam Monsonego, 8, in a Jewish school courtyard in Toulouse. In January 2015, in a kosher supermarket east of Paris, Amedy Coulibaly, a man who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic state, murdered four men: Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, and François-Michel Saada.
Each time, the anti-Semitic and Islamic character of the murders was almost completely erased by the French media.
Ilan Halimi's murderers have been described as "teenagers adrift", looking for easy money. Mohamed Merah was originally depicted as a young man frustrated at not being able to join the French army. Amedy Coulibaly was presented as a petty criminal who slipped abruptly towards "radicalization".
The French authorities declare that they mercilessly fight anti-Semitism, but the only anti-Semitism they seem to fight or even denounce is the one emanating from the far-right. During the French presidential election campaign, the Front National and Marine Le Pen were obsessively presented as an absolute danger for French Jews and used as straw-men. Marine Le Pen is not beyond reproach, but she was the only candidate who dared to connect the dots and say that anti-Semitism is rising sharply among French Muslims and leads to murder. Evidence shows that far-right anti-Semitism in France is dying. The files of the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism (BNVCA) document that all of the anti-Semitic attacks committed in France for more than two decades came from Muslims and Islamists. The French authorities know this, but choose to hide it and look in another direction.
None of the French organizations supposedly combatting anti-Semitism talks about Muslim anti-Semitism: therefore, none of them combats it. Talking about Muslim anti-Semitism on French territory can lead one to criminal court. This is what happened recently to intellectuals such as Georges Bensoussan and Pascal Bruckner, among others. The Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) tracks all "Islamically incorrect" statements, asks for penalties and is often successful at getting them. Even organizations that pretend to fight anti-Semitism sometimes join the CCIF in fighting someone who points out Muslim anti-Semitism.

France fights 'soft' anti-Semitism, ignores Muslim anti-Semitism

"The French authorities declare that they mercilessly fight anti-Semitism, but the only anti-Semitism they seem to fight or even denounce is the one emanating from the far-right" – which, evidence shows, is dying. So writes Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris and prolific author, adding that all anti-Semitic attacks committed in France for more than the past 20 years were perpetrated by Muslims and Islamists.
"The French authorities know this," writes Millière for Gatestone Institute, "but choose to hide it and look in another direction.
Nine Jews have been murdered by Muslims in four attacks since 2006, and yet each time, "the anti-Semitic and Islamic character of the murders was almost completely erased by the French media," Millière writes.
Even more acutely, none of the French organizations that aim to fight anti-Semitism actually talk about Muslim anti-Semitism, and can therefore not fight it. In fact, some of these organizations even join the CCIF - the Collective against Islamophobia in France - in fighting those who attempt to identify the problem of Muslim anti-Semitism.
Talking about Muslim anti-Semitism on French territory can lead one to criminal court, Millière points out. By way of example, historian Georges Bensoussan was recently put on trial for saying that among "Arab families in France - and everyone knows it but nobody wants to say it - anti-Semitism is imbibed with mother's milk."

Haaretz destroys Haaretz' narrative of "ultra-right wing intransigent Netanyahu"

For the second time in a week, Haaretz has a reluctant exclusive on how Israel's hated, right-wing, war-mongering, intransigent, anti-peace prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has actually been working behind the scenes to try to find a permanent peaceful solution.

Last week it reported that Netanyahu's negotiators accepted an American framework for peace - and Abbas rejected it. Abbas then ignored a later American framework that tilted more his way.

This week Haaretz reports that Netanyahu held a secret meeting with Egyptian leader Sisi along with Labor party leader Isaac Herzog to see if he could put together a coalition government that could make peace.

This doesn't exactly jibe with the way that Haaretz normally reports on Netanyahu and Likud.

But don't worry: Haaretz won't change its reporting just because it has proven its own bias to be wrong.

In this very article about the meeting with Sisi, Haaretz throws in this sentence:

In mid-May, shortly after that meeting, Sissi gave a memorable speech at the dedication of an Egyptian power plant, calling on Palestinians and Israelis to take advantage of “a realistic and great opportunity” and reach an agreement that would end the conflict. He even called on Israeli political parties to agree to the process.
These talks, like the regional initiative, failed due to Netanyahu’s refusal to give the Palestinians what was required.

Not what Palestinians "demanded" -but what Haaretz states as fact is required for peace.

Abbas' intransigence is swept under a rug, while Netanyahu's flexibility is dismissed as just more intransigence. Palestinian demands are "requirements for peace" while Netanyahu's demands for security are just posturing to avoid peace.

Haaretz did some great reporting, but it is so blinded by hate that it cannot even understand what it is writing.

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Playing dumb about BDS at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

According to a recent report published at Tablet, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) has supported “groups working to advance a boycott of the world’s only Jewish state” with “at least $880,000” since 2013, and this support for BDS advocates “is virtually unique among major American institutional funders.”

It is interesting to note in this context that in 2013, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) listed ten of the “worst of the worst” groups engaged in vicious anti-Israel activism that seeks to de-legitimize the Jewish state as “the worst violator of international human rights.” Among the groups listed by the ADL is the misleadingly named Jewish Voice for Peace – which received $140,000 from RBF in 2015.

RBF’s funding for groups dedicated to demonizing the world’s only Jewish state has been repeatedly exposed and criticized. A year ago, Ziva Dahl of the Haym Salomon Center wondered why “the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a premier philanthropy based in Manhattan” would “finance non-governmental organizations intent on annihilating the Jewish state,” but apparently, no one at RBF could be bothered to answer this question.

It seems that Tablet’s Armin Rosen was luckier. As Rosen rightly points out: “RBF has given money to groups that serve mutually reinforcing purposes within the BDS movement’s ecosystem, targeting a variety of publics within a range of political, social, national, and even religious contexts. It is impossible to argue that these grants are being made without the advancement of BDS in mind.” And indeed, RBF’s president Stephen Heintz was only too happy to justify the funding for BDS groups:

“Given that the occupation has continued for 50 years and there have been numerous failed efforts to negotiate peace, we are looking for ways to disrupt this status quo […] and some of our grantees, a relatively small number, are either groups that have officially endorsed the BDS campaign, or undertake some related forms of what we might call economic activism in order to protest the ongoing occupation.”

Right, Mr. Heintz, let’s call it “economic activism” – and let’s recall who was among the first to advocate this kind of “economic activism” as a form of “war by other means” almost 90 years ago. As Professor William Jacobson has pointed out, “BDS is a direct and provable continuation of the Arab anti-Jewish boycotts in the 1920s and 1930s and [the] subsequent Arab League Boycott, restructured through non-governmental entities to evade U.S. anti-boycott legislation and repackaged in the language of ‘social justice’ to appeal to Western liberals.” A JTA report from September 1929 – published a month after the notorious Hebron massacre and the subsequent Arab violence that left 133 Jews dead – reveals the strategy of Haj Amin al-Husseini, who had incited the violence, and who was now advocating the kind of “economic activism” that RBF president Stephen Heintz is happy to support.

Under the title “‘My Hands Are Clean,’ Grand Mufti Asserts in Interview,” the report shows that the man who would eventually become known as “Hitler’s Mufti” felt rather confident that the Jews would soon be forced to leave British Mandate Palestine. He asserted (rightly) that “it is untrue that the world is siding with the Jews” and then proceeded to explain: “We are … assured of the solidarity of the entire Moslem world and have actually offers of armies to help us if necessary. Help is unnecessary. We will win through an economic boycott. The boycott in Moslem countries against Jewish industries is tight and daily growing tighter, until the industries will be broken.” The mufti expected that eventually, the “English friends” of the Jews would be “moved by pity” and would proceed to “remove the last remaining Jews [from British Mandate Palestine] on their battleships.”

According to another report from 1948 – which called the mufti “Hitler of the Holy Land” and described him as “a master of terrorism” – al-Husseini explained that “the sword of Islam” had been “unsheathed in Palestine” because the “fighting in Palestine has been inevitable since the first Jew set foot there.”

While the mufti was surely disappointed that his economic boycott and the “unsheathed … sword of Islam” were not able to “remove” the Jews from their ancient homeland during his lifetime, he couldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams that in the 21st century, there would be groups like “Jewish Voice for Peace” celebrating Palestinian terrorists and enthusiastically campaigning for BDS with the generous support of a renowned philanthropic foundation in the US.

Just how cynical the RBF officials responsible for BDS funding are becomes apparent when Rosen asked Ariadne Papagapitos, director of the RBF Peacebuilding Program, “if she understood why some Jews would find it problematic that RBF funded organizations that believed Israel’s existence to be dispensable or undesirable—like JVP, Zochrot, and other pro-BDS grantees do.” According to Rosen, this “didn’t bother” Papagapitos in the least; as she explained: “I think what is most problematic is that there would be a monopoly on the solution or on what the correct approaches are […] And so long as they are striving for the same kind of peaceful and just values or values of justice and peace for the region and for all people, then I think that’s OK, and I don’t see what makes Zochrot or JVP any less Jewish than a different Jewish group.”

The ADL has noted that “JVP uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and to provide the movement with a veneer of legitimacy,” and apparently, Papagapitos is more than happy to hide behind the “shield” provided by JVP. When it comes to Israel, Papagapitos is all for diversity of opinion: who would want “a monopoly on the solution or on what the correct approaches are” when there is an opportunity to fund people who work so hard to make the case that the world’s only Jewish state is too evil to be allowed to exist?

So presumably, Ms. Papagapitos can see nothing wrong with the “solution” favored by prominent BDS advocate Omar Barghouti, who gloated in a programmatic essay published during the murderous Al-Aqsa Intifada at Ali Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada:

“The current phase has all the emblematic properties of what may be considered the final chapter of the Zionist project. We are witnessing the rapid demise of Zionism, and nothing can be done to save it, for Zionism is intent on killing itself. I, for one, support euthanasia.” [Emphasis original]

As far as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund is concerned, people advocating “euthanasia” for Zionism – i.e. for the world’s only Jewish state – are worthy recipients of philanthropic funding: according to Tablet, Al-Shabaka – which lists both BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti and ardent Hamas fan Ali Abunimah as “policy advisors” – has received “$130,000 from RBF since 2013,” and Rosen rightly notes that this sum is “an important backstop for an organization that reported $127,000 in total revenue in its 2014 tax filings.”

The former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks has pointed out that “[in] the middle ages, Jews were hated because of their religion. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, they were hated because of their race. In the twenty first century, they are hated because of their nation state. Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism.” And it’s not so surprising that in the twenty first century, this new anti-Semitism is legitimized as worthy of philanthropic funding – after all, for anti-Semites, “philia,”i.e. love, for “anthropos,”man or mankind, has never included the Jews.

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06/12 Links Pt1: How the Balfour Declaration Became Part of International Law; The occupation festival

From Ian:

Nicholas Rostow: How the Balfour Declaration Became Part of International Law

What has this interesting history to do with today? The mandate system revolutionized colonialism. The victorious allies took control of German colonies and parts of the Ottoman empire as trustees obligated to discharge “a sacred trust of civilization” (as the League of Nations Covenant put it). The goal was self-determination. In the case of the Palestine mandate, that meant Jewish self-determination in a manner that respected the rights of non-Jewish inhabitants. Similar mandates for Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and what became Jordan were intended to result in Arab self-determination.
In legal terms, the mandates were trusts—and so, with the demise of the League of Nations, they were carried forward under the trusteeship system of the United Nations. Specifically, the UN Charter undertook to maintain each mandate until it was replaced by a new agreement between the responsible state and the United Nations. Up to that point, as the UN Charter’s chapter on trusteeships stipulated, nothing “shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.” In other words, where Palestine was concerned, the terms of the League of Nations mandate, incorporating the Balfour Declaration, became part of international law.
In 1945 when the UN Charter was created, the territory of the Palestine mandate theoretically included what is now Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and Jordan. But two decades earlier, in 1922, the British, with League of Nations concurrence, had barred Jewish settlement east of the Jordan River and created the emirate of Trans-Jordan, which eventually became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Thus amended, the Palestine mandate designated only the territory west of the Jordan as the Jewish national home: the same territory, further diminished by the UN partition resolution of 1947, that would become the state of Israel when Britain relinquished its responsibilities as mandatory power in 1948.
Violence between Arabs and Jews, restricted Jewish immigration in the 1930s, World War II and the Holocaust, the establishment of Israel, the June 1967 and October 1973 wars and their consequences—all of these developments and other, more recent ones have changed the demographics and politics in what was the Palestine mandate. But they have not by themselves changed international law.

In Photos: The Story of the Liberation of Jerusalem a Century Ago

On Yom Yerushalayim, which this year falls on May 24, Israel will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem’s unification in June 1967. Marking the climax of a swift defensive victory over the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, the battle for the Holy City resulted in dramatically altering its political, religious, and geographic status.
But this year also marks another anniversary: the centenary of a fierce World War I battle that not only saved Jerusalem from physical destruction but rescued its entire Jewish population from squalor, starvation, plague, exile, and death. In the scope of Jewish history, the liberation of Jerusalem in December 1917 ranks with the salvation holidays of Hanukkah and Purim.
Early in World War I, with the encouragement of its German allies, the Ottoman army in Palestine began preparations to attack British positions along Egypt’s Suez Canal, a critical artery linking Great Britain to its colonies in the east. The attack took place in January 1915.
To bolster their forces, the Turks declared universal conscription in Palestine, a territory that had been under Ottoman control since the late 15th century. Supplies, livestock, and equipment were plundered from the local population. A letter to an American supporter from the American Colony, a community of Christians in Jerusalem, summed up the situation in the city and the country at large:
[The Turkish] government commandeering not only animals but every requirement of life, the wholesale drafting of the manpower, and the dearth of business, since being entirely cut off from communication with the outside world—all of these things [have] brought people to an unbelievable state of poverty.
Jews, who already then constituted a majority in modern Jerusalem, were especially hard hit as Jewish men were rounded up and sent to the front lines. On August 31, 1914, the American ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, sent an urgent telegram to the New York Jewish tycoon Jacob Schiff. “Palestinian Jews facing terrible crisis,” he wrote. “Fifty-thousand dollars . . . needed [to] support families whose breadwinners have entered army.”

Jewish recruits for the 40th (Palestine) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers in Jerusalem, summer 1918. Imperial War Museum Q 12670.

The Lebanese Jewish Housewife Who Spied for Israel

Born in Argentina and raised in Jerusalem, Shulamit Kishik-Cohen—who died last week at the age of one-hundred—was married to a wealthy Jewish businessman in Beirut when she was only seventeen. Her career in intelligence began before Israel became a state and lasted until her arrest in 1961. After the Six-Day War, she was released as part of a prisoner exchange and lived out the rest of her life in Israel. Ofer Aderet writes:
Due to her prominence in the local Jewish community, Kishik-Cohen managed to develop good relations with the Lebanese authorities and to gain the confidence of key people in the country’s leadership. Without ever planning to take such a path, she found she had access to valuable intelligence information. Then, just prior to the outbreak of Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, she began to hear talk of the “extinction of the Jews of the land of Israel,” and knew immediately that it related to military preparations for war against the Jews of Mandatory Palestine. . . .
She contacted officials in the Jewish community in British Mandatory Palestine and offered her services as a spy. In [her memoir], she describes the roundabout way in which she sent her first message to members of the Haganah (the underground, pre-independence army of Palestine’s Jews). She wrote a concealed message, using a method she had learned in the Girl Scouts, in a seemingly innocent-looking letter that on the surface appeared to be asking about how a sick relative was faring. Merchants who worked with her husband in the market in Beirut saw to it that it was passed along, and ultimately it reached its destination in Mandatory Palestine.
The message was understood loud and clear, and a short while later she received her first assignment in her new “profession.” From then until 1961, she operated a spy network that supplied Israel with intelligence information and engaged in smuggling Jews from Arab countries over the Lebanese border into Israel.

Looks like Thom Yorke of Radiohead has joined countless other rockers giving the boycotters the finger, this time from the pages of Rolling Stone magazine (which, apparently, is still published), a turn of events that got me reflecting on previous instances and thoughts regarding BDS and celebrity.

For obvious reasons, BDS hits the newswires whenever it intersects with fame, which is why the “movement” tries to glom onto any publicity (good or ill) related to a rock or movie star (be they up and coming, has been, or never was).

The underlying problem with such an approach is that it equates being newsworthy with being noteworthy. But why should the opinion of a rock guitarist or drummer, no matter how talented, mean more than that of the crossing guard, or the guy working the supermarket checkout counter?

The eloquence of actors makes them a bit trickier to deal with than those who communicate through electric instruments pumped into enormous amplifiers. Keep in mind, however, than even the best paid actors are simply craftsmen, like fine carpenters or chefs. And if they have a reputation as being wiser than members of these other professions, perhaps it is because: (1) their craft is the ability to convincingly deliver clever and articulate dialog; and (2) that dialog is provided to them by teams of writers who hone and polish words to ensure that they are clever and articulate before being placed into an actor’s mouth.

This is a long way of asking whether we should care about which celebrities are or are not choosing to visit Israel this year, or any other year. After all, if a major university or church chose to boycott or divest from Israel, that would imply that the moral weight of these centuries-old institutions was now bearing down in judgment on the Jewish state. But can the same moral weight be assigned to Meg Ryan?

Calibrating Israel’s moral credibility on the whims of pop and movie stars is particularly problematic, given the strategy the BDSers use to get their way, demonstrated by moral blackmail and disruptions Radiohead has had to contend with since announcing their latest Israel gig. In other words, the boycotters have made it clear that they have every intention of making a celebrity’s life hell if they keep their commitments to perform in Israel and have already demonstrated that they will exploit the name of any celebrity who caves into their demands.

Celebrity BDS is clearly part of the boycotter’s “Apartheid Strategy” predicated on the notion that if stars can be made to boycott Israel the way they boycotted Apartheid South Africa, then that will turn Israel into the next South-Africa-like pariah. From this fallacious premise (equivalent to “All dogs are animals, all cats are animals, therefore all dogs are cats.”) the boycotters have constructed a strategy crippled by three fatal flaws:

First, given the high profile of BDS bullying campaigns directed at bands like Radiohead, who can take seriously the claim that any band choosing to skip Israel is taking a moral stance, vs. getting a bunch of harassers off their back?

Second, by turning decisions over whether or not to perform in Israel into political statements, the boycotters themselves created a formula that says the thousands of artists visiting the Jewish state each year must be doing so as defiant demonstrations of support for Israel.

Finally, the whole celebrity boycott plan rests of the assumption that a nation which has withstood invasion, war, terror, economic blockade and decades of propaganda assault to build a vibrant and successful nation are going to buckle because Elvis Costello screws his Israel fans, or Roger Waters say something mean whenever his nurses at the geriatric ward let him near a computer.

In a word, the entire plan is fakakta.

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