Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 25, 2019

10/25 Links Pt1: 25 years on, Israel and Jordan ignore peace treaty anniversary; Israeli Security Officials Warn of Looming Iranian Threat; Arms Embargo on Iran Due to Expire in 2020

From Ian:

Colder than ever: 25 years on, Israel and Jordan ignore peace treaty anniversary

Twenty-five years ago, on October 26, 1994, Israel and Jordan ended decades of enmity and bloody wars when they signed a “Treaty of Peace” in the Arava Valley on the Israeli side of the border.

The next day, before King Hussein flew back to Amman, his Royal Jordanian plane, escorted by Israeli F-15 jets, circled over Jerusalem several times. The king and his wife were said to have been very moved as they looked at the Old City from above.

Nearly five years later, in January 1999, the king visited Israel again, and when he left, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to honor the monarch by having two Israel Air Force fighter planes escort his aircraft in what the Foreign Ministry at the time called “a special salute fly-past.”

Royal visits have long since stopped, and so have grand gestures celebrating the bilateral relationship.

Netanyahu is again prime minister, but a quarter century after the historic peace agreement between the Jewish state and the Hashemite Kingdom was signed neither country is doing anything remotely significant to celebrate the historic milestone.

Among the Jordanian public, the so-called Wadi Araba Treaty was always largely regarded with resentment and suspicion. “It is a cold peace, and our relationship is getting colder,” Hussein’s son and heir King Abdullah II acknowledged in an interview 10 years ago.

But even Israel, where the accord is widely appreciated, and where the government often cites its peace with the Hashemite Kingdom as a blueprint for future interest-based agreements with other Arab states, has not organized any events to mark the anniversary.

Book Review: Spies in the Basement

The prime minister’s chief of staff asked me to mark off Oct. 26. “Leave it free. Don’t make any appointments that day,” he instructed.

“It’s a long time off,” I said. “The Messiah might arrive between now and then.”

“Did you hear what I said?” his voice bellowed, and Halevy added that just as I had kept silent in London, so must I seal my lips now. “Not a word to your wife or friends, Be’er,” Haber commanded.

Chapter 4. A few months later the news arrived with great fanfare: Peace with Jordan! A treaty with the Hashemite Kingdom would be signed at the Arava Valley border crossing on Oct. 26, 1994. The very date Haber had told me to reserve in my diary! Things began to become a bit clearer, but I hadn’t heard a thing from him or his office. At 2 a.m. on the night between the 24th and 25th of October a military police motorcycle screeched to a halt in front of our home, just like in an old thriller. The courier hand delivered an envelope from the prime minister, addressed to my “eyes only,” with a personal invitation to the Peace Treaty ceremony.

Epilogue. Standing by the edge of the stage, before the ceremony began, Efraim Halevy was once again engrossed in whispered conversation with the short, solid, broad-shouldered, mustachioed, Levantine-looking man. The very same man I had seen him with 15 years earlier in the London basement. It was Crown Prince Hassan bin Talal, brother of King Hussein. His back was a bit more stooped, and his hair now had a touch of gray. As soon as I could get Halevy alone I approached him with a warm greeting. He asked why I thought he and Haber had found me worthy of an invitation to this historic event, which capped countless secret meetings held over many years. “Why, indeed?” I answered his question with one of my own, in inimitable Jewish fashion. Halevy answered, “Because on that very day in London you were witness to the first contact between me and Prince Hassan, and on that afternoon at Café Apropos you caught me fresh from my return from Amman where the king and his brother and I settled on the date to sign the peace treaty. Since I didn’t want to inform the prime minister by telephone—everything was still secret, and you know how things leak—I made a date to pass the information via Eitan, who lives near the café. By fate’s guiding hand you were there at the start and also at the finish line. That’s why we thought it was only right to invite you to be here today.”

What Jordan’s plans for Naharayim mean for the Israelis near the border

Although the loss of Naharayim is painful, he has focused on what he considers to be the most important element here – that the peace has held between Israel and Jordan.

“It is a good relationship. We will not allow anyone to harm this relationship. When the ceremonies end and the politicians leave, we will still go out and work in the fields, and the Jordanians farmers will go out and work in their fields,” Grinbaum said.
Both sides will have to work together and share scarce resources, such as water.

“This is the most important thing,” he added. “There is no holiness in the land. Life is much more important than the land.”
Fifty years ago, Jordanians stood on the other side and shot at Israelis. Now the lights twinkle peacefully on the other side at night, he said.
So if leaving Naharayim is the painful price that has to be paid to maintain the peace, he is willing to pay it.

But, he added, there is a cautionary note here for those considering the details of a future peace plan with the Palestinians.
“I believe that the late King Hussein and the late Yitzhak Rabin, both of whom are not with us, when they signed the peace agreement in 1994, they never imagined that after 25 years [Naharayim] would become an issue,” he said.

When it comes to the Trump administration’s “Deal of the Century,” he said, people should ask themselves: If we do a great deal today, who will know what will happen 25 years from now?

“Consider what you sign and with whom,” he said, adding that Naharayim “should be a lesson for all of us.”

Here is Husam Zomlot, the PLO representative in the UK (who calls himself the "Ambassador of Palestine at the UK,") discussing how the Palestinians never wanted a two state solution next to a Jewish state.

Two states, he says, was merely a concession to the international community, but it is not a Palestinian desire. The entire land is solely theirs, and Jews have no rights there.

This is not usually said in English. Usually in English the Palestinians claim they want to live in peace with Israel. But now they are officially admitting that they never even wanted that; their real desire (as polls have shown) is to have a single Arab state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, and the two state idea was merely a stage towards that end.

(This was at the Pearson Global Forum in Berlin earlier this month.)

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Earlier this week we reported on the case of a Palestinian man who just completed his conversion to Judaism who was then, on the even of Yom Kippur, arrested and imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority on Yom Kippur and reportedly tortured.

I found two small Israeli NGOs working to help this man. One is B'Tzalmo, which works for equal rights for all concentrating on religious Jews in Israeli courts, and the other is Itim, which works to help people (including converts) navigate through Israel rabbinical bureaucracy.

One would think that this case would appeal to the larger human rights organizations working in Israel - Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, Amnesty International, Rabbis for Human Rights, Yesh Din. All these groups are pro-Palestinian, and here is a Palestinian who is being oppressed simply because of his beliefs.

Yet when B'Tzalmo asked for help from these organizations, they refused.

These organizations either don't care about human rights, or they don't consider Jews to be fully human.

All they need to do is a single tweet to defend a man who is being persecuted for his beliefs. A Palestinian, no less. Public pressure from any major human rights organization will shame the PA into releasing them.

But they refuse, even when asked.

The hypocrisy of the so called "human rights" community is disgusting.

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"Pro-Israel" J-Street releases another poll with laughably biased questions

J-Street released a really unprofessional survey on Democratic voters' attitudes towards Israel and the Palestinians.

The questions are so biased as to be laughable.

For example:

People often talk about being pro-Israel. Do you think someone can be critical of Israeli
government policies and still be pro-Israel?
Total
Yes.........................................................................................81
No ..........................................................................................13
(Don't know/refused) ..............................................................5

I'm actually surprised at the 13%. Every thinking person, right or left, agrees that someone can be critical of Israeli policies and still pro-Israel. J-Street, of course, is critical of virtually every Israeli government policy. If they would have asked "Do you think someone can have thousands of anti-Israel tweets and not a single pro-Israel tweet, and still be pro-Israel?" then the answer would not have pleased them, because that is what J-Street is.

Similarly, J-Street worded this question not to illuminate but to pretend that their opinions are mainstream, asking whether voters would be more likely to choose "A candidate who says he or she strongly supports Israel, and the United States must stand behind all of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's policies." Who thinks that?

Here's another loaded question that proves that J-Street themselves have no idea why anyone should support Israel:

Please tell me which statement comes closest to your own point of view, even if neither is exactly right.
1.The United States should act as a fair and impartial broker in order to achieve a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.
2. The United States should side with Israel during peace negotiations because Israel is our democratic ally and needs our support against a world that isolates them.

Is that the only reason why Americans support Israel?

Why didn't J-Street try this statement?

The United States should side with Israel because Israel shares American liberal values, giving rights to minorities, women and LGBT who are oppressed in Arab countries. Israel has offered to live in peace with its Arab neighbors multiple times yet the Palestinians have rejected every single plan. An "even handed" approach rewards Palestinian intransigence.

How would liberals answer that one? After all, only one side has liberal values and has shown a real desire for peace - but J-Street will never point that out.

The fact is that J-Street knows that most respondents don't know squat about the Middle East so it phrases questions to lead the ignorant to the conclusions they want.

While 61% of the respondents said that they followed news about Israel "very" or "somewhat" closely, only 9% said that they were very familiar with what BDS was about. If you don't know what BDS is, you aren't following the news. Meaning that the vast majority of Democratic voters do not follow the Middle East closely at all, but they think they know what they are talking about.

J-Street uses this ignorance to create a poll that provides the answers they pre-determine within the questions themselves.

Professional pollster Steve Miller called this "shitty polling and incoherent questions."

In the annals of shitty polling and incoherent questions lies this slide https://t.co/pvYnJGrsoN
— Steve Miller (@SteveMiller202) October 22, 2019

Why did J-Street release this poll, taken in May, now? Because it wants to use the results to pretend that it is mainstream ahead of its conference next week. The poll is meant to do one thing only: to make J-Street look good.

Anyone who reports on the poll as if it actually reflects reality is ignorant or knowingly deceptive.

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10/24 Links Pt2: Seth Mandel: Disempowered; Messi, Argentina’s national soccer team to play in Israel in November; NYU Panel Seeks To Delegitimize Jewish History

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Disempowered

Review of 'The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir' by Samantha Power

It surprised no one, least of all U.S. intelligence agencies. As Joby Warrick reported in the Washington Post the following week, “U.S. spy agencies recorded each step in the alleged chemical attack, from the extensive preparations to the launching of rockets to the after-action assessments by Syrian officials.” The administration had no doubt now, and no plausible deniability either.

Obama was now convinced he had to strike Syria. But he had a problem of his own making: UN inspectors were on the ground. So the president waited. And as he waited, he got cold feet and started looking for a way out. He chose to put the matter in the hands of Congress—he needed no authorization for strikes, he said, but wouldn’t strike without congressional say-so. No real strategy to persuade even Democrats in Congress was set forth. And there was, Power writes, no Plan B.

In the end, Obama’s desperation to be bailed out of action led him to agree to a joint U.S.-Russian plan to rid Syria of the chemical weapons. It was a sham. Assad hid some weapons from inspectors and continued bombing civilians with chemicals that were left off the list. Obama rewarded Assad and Vladimir Putin by ceding them the playing field conclusively. Power looks back on one administration meeting after the August chemical attacks:

What I did not know in that Saturday meeting was that this would end up being the only time Obama would seriously contemplate using military force against the Assad regime. We would have countless meetings and debates on Syria over the next three and a half years, but he would never again consider taking the kind of risk he had been prepared to bear in the immediate aftermath of the August 21st attack.

And why wouldn’t he ever again consider it? Because he had undertaken to strike a deal with Assad’s patron in Tehran and to reorganize American alliances to allow Iran and Russia to fill the vacuum of U.S. influence in the region, a vacuum that Obama specifically aimed to create. As Frederic Hof, a U.S. envoy to Syria in 2012, put it: “To complicate the ability of Iran’s man in Syria to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity would have placed at risk nuclear negotiations aimed ultimately at dissolving American relationships of trust and confidence with key regional powers.”

Power never realized that she wasn’t there to be heeded. Rather, she was there to be silenced. Obama’s conduct of U.S. foreign policy required the coopting of his critics. He found a way to let the world burn without running afoul of Samantha Power’s network of interventionist scolds: Make Power the public face of doing nothing.

Book review: A respectable fig leaf

A key problem is denialism. As Stellman points out, “Anti-Zionists are very sensitive when charged with antisemitism.” Anti-Zionists protest their revulsion against all forms of racism and, in an ironic twist, accuse their accusers of conspiring against them “to shut down criticism of Israel.”

What is astonishing is that this transparent ruse, itself utilizing an antisemitic trope, appears to have worked. At a recent Intelligence Squared debate in London, the motion that “Anti-Zionism is antisemitism” was defeated by a margin of 4-1. Those who applaud that result will be discomfited to read Kaplan and Small’s landmark 2006 study of 5,000 citizens in 10 European countries. Stellman quotes their important finding of a direct statistical correlation between anti-Israel rhetoric and antisemitism: “Even after controlling for numerous potentially confounding factors...anti-Israel sentiment consistently predicts the probability that an individual is antisemitic.”

The sickness that lies at the heart of the current assault on Israel’s legitimacy is laid out in forensic detail by Stellman’s dispassionate, methodologically rigorous approach. The result is this little volume packed with valuable – if often depressing – information presented in a way that activists and scholars alike should find compelling. The short chapters are easy to read, aided by bullet points and a comprehensive index. The final section contains a set of tools specifically designed for use by trainers and educators.

Some of Stellman’s assertions will elicit controversy: is there really any practical difference between “political” and “anti-Israel” anti-Zionism? Both have the same ultimate objective. And are statements lacking nuance, such as “Islam is basically an expansionist religion” and that “Muslims must wage a ‘Jihad’, a ‘Holy War’, until the whole world becomes “Dar al-Islam” appropriate in a text that explores (among other issues) religiously inspired hatred of one group by another?

The evidence for the central thesis of the book – that anti-Zionsim and antisemitism are closely interlinked – is overwhelming. This is an observation with major implications for the discourse around the Arab-Israeli conflict, yet it is one that is rarely discussed or even acknowledged by allegedly “expert” commentators, academics, politicians, NGOs and the media. That lacuna of awareness represents an existential threat to the future of Israel (and, by extension, the Jewish people) and, in consequence, the prospects for peace.

This handbook is an important contribution to the scant but growing literature on anti-Zionism. Stellman has formulated an important response to that vacuum of serious academic thought. In any future edition (and I gather that the Stellman is planning a follow-up book containing new material), it would be helpful to the reader if the author could add a section by tying together the disparate threads of his argument into a small number of key conclusions. Ideally, these would be linked to a series of recommendations as to how activists might develop practical and effective strategies for countering the anti-Zionist threat to Israel, Jews and civilized norms everywhere.

Talk about Anti-Semitism at a College Campus, and the Anti-Semites Will Show Up

At a conference held at Bard College two weeks ago on the subject of “racism and anti-Semitism,” a group of protesters—organized by Students for Justice in Palestine—attempted with some success to disrupt a talk by Ruth Wisse and two (Jewish) discussants. (Wisse, known for speaking her mind forcefully against campus anti-Semitism, thanked the protestors for “providing a demonstration” of the topic at hand.) Administrators and security did little to stop the demonstrators.

While such scenes are hardly remarkable in today’s universities, more notable was the flood of indignant denials from conference participants that followed an article by one of the discussants, Batya Ungar-Sargon, describing what happened. The indignation, perhaps, stemmed from Ungar-Sargon’s willingness to label the demonstrations anti-Semitic. Shany Mor, a professor at Bard and the third participant on the panel, defends Ungar-Sargon’s account and exposes the feeble excuses for the thuggish behavior of the students:

The protest was only against Wisse, I was told repeatedly, even though flyers against all three of us were distributed. This was the reception controversial speakers should expect, I was told, even though there were many far more controversial speakers at the conference. But this is a liberal campus, I was told, and the reception was always going to be worse for controversial speakers from the right than from the left. This was doubly odd, as neither Ungar-Sargon nor I can be fairly imagined as being on the right by anyone’s imagination.

And, while many of the more provocative lectures were not terribly provocative to a left-liberal audience, [others] were. There was a panelist who argued that black underachievement was not due to racism but to fathers. There was a panelist arguing that “chosenness” had distorted Jewish political thought and as such infected later European thought on colonialism. . . . . There was a panelist who argued that certain African and Asian countries might have been better off had they remained under European colonial rule. . . . Some had difficult questions from the audience; many didn’t even have that. None was protested.

This is what makes [one Bard professor’s] claim that the demonstration was motivated by nothing more than the fact that the three panelists “espouse political opinions with which the students disagree” so outrageous. It’s understandable that this is what he might want believe, but it’s verifiably false. The three of us up there on that stage actually have radically different political views from each other, and radically different views on the issue in question at that session. This would have been apparent had a civilized discussion taken place.

The horseshoe (cartoon)

It has been note that the left and right do not exist on the opposite sides of a straight line, but on each prong of a horseshoe, where they get close to meeting at the extremes.

Here's the horseshoe.

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All Knesset Parties Reaffirm Support For/From Sex Offenders As Long As Expedient (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, October 24 - Every delegation to the Knesset restated its acceptance of pedophiles, abusers, polygamists, and other criminals among their backers and decision-makers today, promising to maintain ties and curry favor with such persons unless and until public attention to such relationships renders those ties politically problematic.

Fractured polity notwithstanding, each of the nine factions in Israel's parliament gave its unanimous imprimatur to a statement underlining their individual and collective commitment to sex offenders, whether those offenders occupy prominent positions within the parties, make significant funding contributions thereto, or otherwise wield electoral influence, at least as long as the nature of those individuals' behavior and their relationships to their respective political parties of choice attract negative attention in measures beyond which such relationships will do the party in question more electoral harm than good.

Sex offenders around the country hailed the move, which they characterized as a crucial measure at a time when those who exploit vulnerable victims for lustful satisfaction or for a sense of power face increasing isolation and threats to their continued political influence. "I understand that certain social taboos prevent a full-throated endorsement of our demographic, but we welcome this announcement just the same," stated Rabbi Eliezer Berland, whose endorsement Haredi politicians often seek. "I, for one, commend [Minister of Health and United Torah Judaism MK Yaakov] Litzman for his steadfastness in ignoring the pernicious influence of the wider secular culture that automatically disqualifies a person from public life when credible reports emerge of his sexual misconduct, instead of waiting for the eventual reestablishment of the Sanhedrin to adjudicate such cases and in the meantime acting as if nothing is wrong."

Berland was not alone in singling out Litzman for praise. Malka Leifer, whose extradition Australian authorities have sought so that she may face child sexual abuse charges there, voiced confidence that the minister would continue to frustrate efforts to bring her to justice. "It's a community issue," she explained. "I'm Haredi; he's Haredi; we're in this together, no matter how horrific the things I might have perpetrated or abetted."

Joint List parties expressed appreciation for authorities continuing to ignore the flagrant polygamy of one of its legislators, and the Democratic Union hailed the mainstream media's curious lack of curiosity regarding Ehud Barak's documented associations with the late pedophile and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein; Likud MKs joined their colleagues in showing solidarity with sex offenders, but several privately conveyed regret that no prominent figures from the party's present composition number among the ranks of those with problematic peccadilloes. "[Former President Moshe] Katzav is already out of jail - he's ancient history," lamented one. "We don't have anyone who can compete with the other parties on this front right now, regardless of Bibi's corruption cases."

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10/24 Links Pt1: Hillel Neuer: Another UN blow to human rights; UN Palestinian rights official calls for ban on Israeli settlement products; Turkey’s Pyrrhic victory in Syria

From Ian:

Hillel Neuer: Another UN blow to human rights

In total, as of Jan. 1 more than half of council members will be non-democracies.

Does it matter that the world’s highest human-rights body is being subverted?

It does. The council’s pronouncements and reports are translated into multiple languages and influence the hearts and minds of millions worldwide.

Dictators on the council will continue to ensure that most of the world’s worst abusers enjoy impunity. Violators like China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia have never been the object of a single resolution, urgent session or commission of inquiry.

Instead, Israel is repeatedly singled out for condemnation, the only country targeted under a special agenda item at every meeting. Hamas terrorism is ignored.

Dictators will also make sure to appoint more anti-Western figures like Jean Ziegler, the longest-serving council official, who openly defends the Maduro regime. In 1989, he announced the creation of the Moammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, which over the years was awarded to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan and, in 2002, to Ziegler himself.

After Moammar Khadafy’s Libya was elected to the council in 2010, Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey defended the choice, saying it was “important to keep a dialogue” in order to “improve the human-rights situation across the world.” Yet after regimes like Russia, China and Cuba served on the council for a decade, their repression only got worse.

Sadly, for the foreseeable future at the United Nations, the inmates will be running the asylum.

Dictators will appoint more scoundrels like Jean Ziegler—the longest-serving council official—who defends the Maduro regime. In 1989 he co-founded the Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, awarded to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan and, in 2002, to Ziegler himself. pic.twitter.com/cKsjkOyLEE
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 24, 2019

UN Palestinian rights official calls for ban on Israeli settlement products

The UN independent expert on human rights in the Palestinian territories on Wednesday called for an international ban on all products made in Israeli settlements, as a step to potentially end Israel’s 52-year-old “illegal occupation” of the West Bank.

Michael Lynk, the Special Rapporteur on Palestinian territories, told the General Assembly’s human rights committee Wednesday that the international community should also issue “a clarion call to the United Nations” to complete and release a database “on businesses engaged in activities related to the illegal settlements.”

Lynk said the international community has a responsibility and a legal obligation to compel Israel to completely end its occupation and remove barriers to self-determination for the Palestinians.

Israel is deeply opposed to a Palestinian-led international boycott movement, which it views as an attack on its very existence. Supporters of the boycotts say they are a non-violent way of protesting Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

The UN Human Rights Council has repeatedly delayed the release of a controversial report about companies doing business in Israeli settlements, which was originally to be published in 2017.

There is a new World Jewish Congress survey of German attitudes towards Jews - and the results are not encouraging.

41% of Germans say that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Germany.

41% also say that Jews talk too much about the Holocaust.

29% say that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the countries in which they live.

26% say Jews have too much economic power, and 24% say Jews have too much power in the international financial markets.

24% also say Jews have too much power over world politics.

24% say that Jews think they are better than other people.

21% say Jews have too much control over the global media landscape.

19% say Jews do not care what happens to anyone else.

12% blame Jews for most wars.

25% said that something like the Holocaust could happen in Germany today, and 38% said it could happen in another European country.

On the other hand, only 16% of Germans admitted to having unfavorable opinions of Jews (meaning that many people with antisemitic attitudes don't believe that they do) - compared to 53% who have unfavorable opinions of Muslims, 23% who have an unfavorable opinion of Christians and 64% who do not like Roma (Gypsies.)

34% don't like Israelis, and 51% don't like Palestinians.

66% say Israel has the right to exist as the Jewish state. But 58% disagree with the statement that Israel is unfairly criticized internationally for its treatment of Palestinians, only 19% agree.

42% say supporters of Israel use the charge of antisemitism to shut down criticism of Israel as opposed to 22% who disagree.

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Fatah Facebook page is back and still promoting terror

Last month it was reported that the Facebook page of Fatah, the political party that dominates the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, was taken down after Palestinian Media Watch documented its explicit support for terror.

Fatah admitted it took down the page because it was worried that Facebook would find it to be promoting terror.

Only a few days later, it returned. And it still pushes a pro-terrorist message.

Yesterday, it published a paean to arch terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, murderer of 38 Jewish civilians including 13 children, calling her the most beautiful girl ever to come out of Lebanon.

It regularly gives biographies of other terrorists; this week featuring two who raided Israeli villages in 1968 from Lebanon and were killed.

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Telegraph India reports that on October 14, students at Jamia Millia Islamia University protested a medical infrastructure expo hosted at the university in which Israel showed some innovations.

The international conference titled "Global Health Zenith Confluence ’19" was seemingly organized by the Faculty of Architecture and Ekistics, which now denies any involvement. When students found out that there was going to be an Israeli presence, they protested.

Five students were being charged with discipline violations for their violent protest. Other students went on strike in solidarity, paralyzing the university.

On Wednesday, the university caved into all their demands. Besides giving amnesty to the students, the demand included an agreement that no Israelis would be allowed to participate in any university program.

Ironically, the students are calling this a victory for "freedom of expression."

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Keeping Our Honor in the Middle East (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

What I’m about to write will probably be off-putting, even offensive to some Western readers. But it’s a subject that is extremely relevant to life in much of the rest of the world, especially in the Middle East. Everyone knows that tribal identity plays an important role here, more so than in the West. And there is a related idea that is no less important.

I’m talking about honor, and what I believe to be the moral imperative to maintain one’s honor and the honor of one’s tribe or nation.

Right now, the Tikkunists of liberal Judaism (and liberal Christianity as well) are running for the exits. According to the philosophy espoused by liberal, humanistic Westerners, the only moral considerations are those that relate to not hurting others and being fair to all. Indeed, many believe that tribalism and nationalism are actually immoral, because they imply treating outsiders and insiders differently.

But in other cultures, there are other principles that are important, in many cases important enough to die – or kill – for. One of them is honor, which refers to the public reputation of a person or tribe for the willingness to do whatever is necessary to defend its property and interests. In the Middle East, a person (or nation) that will not fight to protect their property deserves to lose it.

This is at variance with Western usage of the word. In the West, honor is an objective characteristic of an individual. In the Middle East, it refers to the subjective beliefs of others about an individual, a family, a tribe, or a nation. In the West, honesty is the most important component of honor. In the Middle East, toughness and the willingness to do what you must to protect yourself or your group are what determine the degree of honor you possess.

When you lose honor, which you do by not defending yourself when someone takes something of yours or hurts you in some other way, you put the world at large on notice that it is permissible to hurt you. The consequences of losing your honor include losing your property or your life.

In some Arab societies the concept has expanded to a pathological degree. Insofar as women are considered property, even a hint that the “ownership” of a woman by her own or her husband’s family is compromised is enough to damage the honor of her family. Such cases often have tragic endings, when the woman is murdered by close family members in order to restore the family’s honor. This happens even among well-off, educated Arab citizens of Israel.

I do not suggest that we adopt the hateful pathologies of Arab societies. But many Israelis, particularly the Ashkenazi elite that comprise our decision-making classes, are too quick to trade honor for peace and quiet. Our enemies value honor more than we do. There are countless examples of damaging compromises: we don’t punish terrorists in a manner commensurate with their crimes (i.e., we don’t kill them, and sometimes we even punish our own soldiers for killing them). We don’t retaliate for arson balloons, or sometimes even for rocket attacks.

We allow Arab members of the Knesset to literally call for the destruction of the state, despite a law that says that anyone who does that may not sit in the Knesset (we disqualify right-wing Jewish candidates for less). We selectively enforce laws, tax regulations, etc., in favor of Arab citizens to avoid trouble. We allow our enemies to hold our citizens, dead and alive, captive. And, disgracefully, we have allowed the piecemeal takeover of the Temple Mount and most of the Old City of Jerusalem by the Palestinian Arabs, after the high price in blood that we paid to take them back in 1967.

I could go on and on, but it is always the same: it would be hard, expensive, dangerous, or – very important – make us look bad in the eyes of the West, if we were to protect our honor; and since honor is only subjective, why bother?

But honor is not “only subjective.” In the Middle East, deterrence is not determined only by the size of your army and whether you have nuclear weapons (not that these aren’t important); honor is a big part of it. Why is it possible for Hamas to keep throwing thousands of terrorists at our border fence every Friday, and to burn our fields and forests with impunity? Could it be that the repetition of rocket attacks is due to our policy of attacking empty buildings? When we don’t kill those who are trying to kill us, the message is sent that they should keep trying.

While Israel has great military power at hand, it keeps squandering its honor. When Hillel said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” he was saying that it is morally required to act in one’s own interest, no less so than it is morally wrong to be “for myself alone.” One of the characteristics of moral situations is that moral principles sometimes conflict, and that makes it hard to take decisions in particular cases. In Israel, it often happens that our Western moral sensibility conflicts with Middle Eastern imperatives. Unfortunately, the Western sensibility usually pushes the Middle Eastern one aside. We need to learn to balance these principles before our honor deficit becomes so great that we completely lose the ability to defend ourselves.

We can start by removing those members of the Knesset who despise and incite against the Jewish state, by ensuring that terrorists do not survive to enjoy the benefits paid to them by the Palestinian Authority, by taking back sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the Old City, by making Hamas pay in blood for burning our fields, and so on.

Some will say that this is unjust or illiberal, and perhaps by Western standards – standards growing out of Hellenistic and Christian traditions, which do not factor in honor – they may be correct. But we live in the Middle East, not Seattle or Berkeley, and in this neighborhood you can’t ignore tribe, nationality, or religion – and above all, honor.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.