Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Partisanship in the face of tragedy

One of the most distressing parts about watching the news and reading blogs is how partisanship trumps clear thinking. A catastrophe like Katrina only highlights this problem.

People who are otherwise very smart will automatically blame and demonize "the other side" no matter what the issue is. Irrational hatred almost always beats intelligence.

Taking Katrina as an example, the blame game started immediately - somehow it was Bush's fault. When the tragedy was only a day old, Kyoto was the reason to blame Bush; now it is the delays in getting aid to the victims. But the Bush-haters were foing to blame him and Republicans no matter what happened.

As I write these words, I have no idea whether New Orleans' mayor and Louisiana's governor are Republican or Democratic. But from seeing other disasters over the years, it is clear to me that the local and state authorities are the first people that need to make decisions - and that is how it should be. Imagine the outcry that would happen if the Federal government would take over responsibility for every disaster over the objections of the town and state! Picture the criticism that would have rained down had Bush unilaterally imposed martial law on New York City after 9-11!

No, during 9-11, New York City had competent leadership. From seeing him rant and rave on TV, New Orleans had no leader. I am also not seeing any effective leadership from the governor. We are seeing results now that the military has taken over - no other institution on the planet has as much experience in quickly building an infrastructure from scratch - but no one can doubt that there were unacceptable delays in getting aid to those who need help. There is plenty of blame to go around, and very few people who care more about truly finding out the real reasons for the problems instead of assigning blame to whomever they are hating this year.

There is just as much irrational hatred and partisanship on the red side of the divide. There is as little thought behind knee-jerk hatred of George Bush as there is behind visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton. To be sure, there is plenty to criticize about both of those people, but throughout the blue-red divide most of the criticism is emotional, with intellectual underpinnings coming only as an afterthought. Both sides will latch onto strange conspiracy theories and never let go. And it is also somewhat understandable that the party in power will be criticized more while the ruling party can afford to act above it all, so the smug self-congratulatory tone that the right sometimes shows is also misplaced - they were blaming Bill Clinton for everything not so long ago.

Perhaps the funniest and most egregious example where partisanship overruled even the fundamental philosophies of each party was during the 2000 election fiasco, when Republicans who are all for states' rights and limiting the power of the federal government were forced to argue the exact opposite to the Supreme Court; and Democrats all of a sudden became the states' best friends. Ironically, a truly ideological right-leaning Supreme Court would have been far less likely to help make Bush president.

Right now the nation faces an unprecedented challenge. Energy that goes towards irrational and unthinking blame would be far better used in coming up with ways to help the victims of Katrina.

Today's Palestinian Police Phunnies

More hilarity from those whom the Palestinians look up to "to protect and serve."

Palestinian policemen in the Gaza Strip rioted on Sunday, demanding a pay increase. An estimated 200 policemen blocked Gaza’s main coastal road, fired their weapons into the air and burned tires. They claimed other policemen had received raises and they wanted them, too.

Muslim 'pogrom' against Christians in West Bank

This happened yesterday and I still cannot find a single non-Israeli news source that mentions this.

More evidence that the world expects Palestinians to act like animals; honor killings and rioting is just the same ol' same ol'. For some reason the liberal media does not notice how incredibly bigoted it is to not expect Arabs or Muslims to act like civilized human beings.

Israeli Jews are expected to act in a manner way beyond the standard of morality expected for Western nations, and Palestinian Arabs are expected to act like subhumans. Ironically, both parties live up to their expectations very well.

I am also curious if Presbyterians will protest the desecration of Christian symbols by Muslims at all.

Efforts were underway on Sunday to calm the situation in this Christian village east of Ramallah after an attack by hundreds of Muslim men from nearby villages left many houses and vehicles torched.

The 'pogrom' began on Saturday night and lasted until the early hours of Sunday, when Palestinian Authority security forces interfered to disperse the attackers. Residents said several houses were looted and many families were forced to flee to Ramallah and other Christian villages.

The attack on the village of 1,500 was triggered by the murder of a Muslim woman from the nearby village of Deir Jarir earlier this week. The woman, according to Palestinian security sources, was apparently murdered by members of her family for having had a romance with a Christian man from Taybeh.

'When her family discovered that she had been involved in a forbidden relationship with a Christian, they apparently forced her to drink poison,' said one source. 'Then they buried her without reporting her death to the relevant authorities.'

When the PA security forces decided to launch an investigation into the woman's death, her family protested for fear that the relationship would be exposed. The family was further infuriated by the decision to exhume the body for autopsy.

The attack on Taybeh is one of the worst against Christians in the West Bank in many years. Residents said it took the PA security forces several hours to reach the village. Others complained that the IDF, which is in charge of overall security in the area, did not answer their desperate calls for immediate help. Taybeh is classified as Area B, where the Palestinians have only civilian control.

"More than 500 Muslim men, chanting Allahu Akbar [God is Great], attacked us at night," said a resident of Taybeh. "They poured kerosene on many buildings and set them on fire. Many of the attackers broke into houses and stole furniture, jewelry and electrical appliances."

With the exception of large numbers of Palestinian policemen, the streets of Taybeh were completely deserted on Sunday as the majority of the residents remained indoors. Many torched cars and littered the streets. At least 16 houses have been gutted by fire and the assailants also destroyed a statue of Virgin Mary.

"It was like a war, they arrived in groups, and many of them were holding clubs," said another resident.

"Some people saw them carrying weapons. They first attacked houses belonging to the Khoury family. Then they went to their relatives. They entered the houses and destroyed everything there. Then they tried to enter the local beer factory, but were repelled by Palestinian security agents. The fire engine arrived five hours later."

UPDATE (1:30 PM EDT) : Small pockets of the world press are finally noticing this outrage. ABC (Australia), Guardian (UK), and Christian Today (UK). And that's it. No US media outlets at all, even Christian ones (at least from what I can find in Google News.)

Israel aids Katrina victims

Israel Sending Emergency Relief Supplies to U.S.

Israel Sending Experts to U.S. to Offer Hurricane Relief Aid

Tulane Med Students Can Attend in Israel

via Daily Alert

Haveil Havalim #35

This blog is mentioned in the latest excellent Haveil Havalim round-up of the best of the Jewish blogosphere. This week's edition is hosted and edited by Ze'ev of Israel Perspectives.

(Notice how I only call it "excellent" when this blog is mentioned!)

Donations for Katrina

Truth Laid Bear is running a "blogathon" this weekend to raise money for hurricane victims. It also has a large list of charities for Katrina.

I registered as one of the many blogs who people are donating in the name of. So if you want to donate to Chabad of Louisiana, click here and then kindly mention it here.

Thanks!

10K

This blog now has 10,000 hits.

It's a bit too soon after my one-year anniversary to get all philosophical. But I will give shout-outs to AbbaGav, Zibbibo, Redneck Texan, and Ze'ev for their nice comments then, in an attempt to pump up their rankings as well.

You might want to check out Blogshares, which is another interesting attempt to rank blogs by popularity. I added a chart on my sidebar to show how my blog has been doing lately in the blog market. People who actually play that market probably have way too much time on their hands, but it is still a cool idea.

The Peculiar Alliance - Neo-Nazis and Islamists (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross)

Hating Jews makes strange bedfellows.

THERE HAVE BEEN rumblings of late about the developing alliance between Islamic radicals and neo-Nazis. In late May, Israeli president Moshe Katzav gave a speech before the German parliament in which he warned, 'Let's not be surprised if terror organizations use neo-Nazis for carrying out terror attacks.' And on August 5, WorldNetDaily reported, 'Neo-Nazi skinheads are working with radical Islamists in a growing unholy alliance that has European law enforcement officials concerned about a new front in the war on terrorism.'

Such an alliance seems unlikely on its face; after all, neo-Nazis view most Muslims as racially inferior, while Islamic extremists believe that neo-Nazis are just another flavor of infidel. However, a closer examination reveals that many white-supremacist groups have expressed solidarity with Islamic terrorists recently, and in turn some white supremacists and far-right Holocaust deniers have found newfound supporters among the Islamists.

Read it all.

Indian reaction to Israel/Pakistan talks

This interesting editorial seems to look at diplomatic relations with Israel as a prize for nations of the Indian subcontinent, with India falling behind in the race.

It is not often you see nations vying for Israel's affections!

Despite establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992, India deliberately avoided political visits at the highest levels. It took 11 years for an Israeli premier to visit India.

While the President and PM of Israel have visited India, Delhi has been unwilling so far to schedule return visits by either the PM or the President. Despite the fact that the Palestinians have often sought a greater Indian role in promoting the peace process with Israel, the presumed need for domestic political posturing appears to have overwhelmed the strategic sense of the Indian leadership.

While this ideological compulsion appears stronger within the UPA, the NDA too was paralysed by a presumed need to ‘‘balance’’ its ties with Israel and the Arabs.

If the UPA does not get its act together on Israel, Delhi might find Tel Aviv doing the balancing act between India and Pakistan.

More immediately, if the Indian PM and President do not find time to visit Israel, Musharraf could become the first head of government or state from the sub-continent to be serenaded in Israel.

Palestinian Sheikh: Kill the Jews

More lovely words of peace from the Palestinians.

New York – Last week Sheikh Muhammad Ali, deputy director of the Palestinian Clerics Association, said in an interview on Hizbullah’s Al-Manar TV that “we will enter Palestine as conquerors and liberators, not through negotiations, but through Jihad and the Muslim would kill the Jews...we will wipe out the Zionist enemy.” (Translation courtesy of MEMRI)

The following are excerpts from Sheikh Muhammad Ali’s TV interview: “Any land, any piece of land, over which flies the banner of ‘There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger,” and which at a certain point belonged to the Muslims...plundering and occupying such land (by non-Muslims) is forbidden, and it is the duty of all Muslims to do what they can to liberate this land, wherever it may be. ...many precious Muslim lands are under occupation today....Andalusia (Spain) is one example....

“When a piece of Muslim land is occupied, the duty of liberating it falls, first of all, upon the local residents. But when they are too few, or they cannot – it is the duty of the next in line to liberate this land.

“...But if they are unable to do it either, it becomes the duty of all Muslims to do what they can to liberate it. According to the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, not only when an entire homeland is occupied, but when ‘even an inch of Muslim land is occupied, Jihad is a personal duty, a religious obligation incumbent upon everyone....’They must liberate this land – and this is when only an inch is occupied, let alone when it is Palestine, Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa that are occupied.

...”The Prophet Muhammad foretold in a hadith that ‘Judgment Day would come only when the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims would kill the Jews...

...”Allah willing, we will enter [Palestine] as conquerors and liberators, not through negotiations, but through Jihad and resistance, because the Hadith goes: ‘And the Muslims would kill the Jews’ – there is killing involved...

“The Jews acknowledge (that it is only a matter of time that the Muslims will eventually liberate Jerusalem and regain Palestine). They acknowledge this because they find it in their forged torah, in their Talmud.

“Since they believe that the Zionist entity will disappear...They are only trying to stall. They are not trying to establish themselves but to delay the fulfillment of the divine prophecy of the liberation of all of Palestine and the wiping out of the Zionist entity. If the Jews and the Zionist were to leave Palestine now, the war would be over, and the Middle East and the entire world could sigh in relief. But the Jews, these Zionists, are against humanity, not just against Muslims.”

Those pesky Jews, threatening world peace by refusing to die quietly.

Jewish charities for Katrina victims

Union for Reform Judaism’s Disaster Relief Fund
Jewish Hurricane Relief: Chabad-Lubavitch of Louisiana
Orthodox Union
Bnai Brith
Jewish Federations of North America

And don't forget the Red Cross, although their webpage seems to be swamped.

Islamic extremists rejoiced in America's misfortune, giving the storm a military rank and declaring in Internet chatter that ``Private'' Katrina had joined the global jihad. With ``God's help,'' they declared, oil prices would hit US$100 a barrel this year.

UPDATE:

Senior Kuwaiti Official: ‘Katrina is a Wind of Torment and Evil from Allah Sent to This American Empire’

Indictments in plot to attack LA synagogues, National Guard, Israel Consulate

But I thought that Islamists had no problem with Jews, only Israel?

For some reason, as of this morning CAIR has failed to condemn these attempted attacks in the name of Islam. I'm sure there's a good reason.

LOS ANGELES -- The head of a radical Islamic prison gang and three others were indicted Wednesday on federal charges of planning terrorist attacks against U.S. military facilities, the Israeli Consulate and other Los Angeles-area targets.

The four conspired to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism, kill armed service members and murder foreign officials, among other charges, according to the indictment.

Named in the indictment were Levar Haley Washington, 25, Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, Hammad Riaz Samana, 21, and Kevin James, 29.

Washington, Patterson and Samana _ who attended the same Inglewood mosque _ allegedly conducted surveillance of military facilities, the Israeli Consulate and synagogues in the Los Angeles area as well as Internet research on Jewish holidays. Law enforcement officials have previously said that the military facilities included National Guard sites, though the indictment does not specify.

The attacks were to be carried out with firearms and other weapons at synagogues during Jewish holidays "to maximize the number of casualties," authorities said. Patterson allegedly bought a .223-caliber rifle in July.

In Los Angeles, authorities said the suspects could have attacked as soon as the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday in October.

"Make no mistake about it _ we dodged a bullet here, perhaps many bullets," Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton said at a news conference.

Hasbara needed now more than ever (Zvi Mazel)

Israel has historically done a awful job of explaining its position to the world. It is way past time to start rectifying this.

If only someone would listen....

The old diplomacy is dead
By ZVI MAZEL

You may remember me. I was the Israeli ambassador to Sweden who was confronted with a so-called art installation in Stockholm in January 2004 that glorified suicide bombing. It was a representation of the suicide bomber who murdered 22 innocent people and maimed dozens more gliding serenely on a pool of blood on a little craft labeled "Snow White."

The "art" showed me there are no limits to the lies told against Israel or the hatred of the Jewish people. I also felt we had given up trying to reverse the terrible decline of our image, especially among European public opinion.

And so I decided to damage the display, and shut down the lights illuminating it. Not a very diplomatic step, perhaps, but one that brought the issue into the open and led to a healthy discussion in Sweden and elsewhere. Israel needs a hasbara offensive. While I was an ambassador, I was stunned to discover that many people in Europe - journalists included - are convinced that in 1948 Israel occupied a sovereign Palestinian state in a classic case of colonialism. The generation that witnessed the rebirth of Israel is gradually disappearing and younger people don't know the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So when Arab propaganda speaks about "occupation," it sounds easy to understand why Israel is being asked to terminate this anachronistic situation.

It was not always like that. Until the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel had an information policy that, while not optimal, didn't abandon the field completely to the other side.

But immediately after Oslo, the information department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was shut down; since Israel was presumably on the road to peace, it was not necessary to continue to explain our policies. Unfortunately, the other side had a different idea, and redoubled its propaganda.

It was during the implementation of Oslo that the Arab narrative of the conflict succeeded in flooding campuses, rallying the extreme Left and even capturing the more moderate Left, while Israel was conspicuously absent from the arena. The results were played out in the 2001 Durban conference, when the world ignored Israel's plight and condemned it without considering the facts.

Traditional diplomacy doesn't work anymore. Secret conversations between heads of states and foreign ministers, and the demarches carried out daily by ambassadors and other diplomats are no match for the media's ceaseless torrent of images and information.

One cannot win a war in the media alone, but one can weaken an opponent's messages; one can help change perspectives.

On a governmental level, such efforts are called public diplomacy; the academic world thinks of it as a form of "soft power."

ISRAEL MUST launch a large-scale, proactive campaign of public diplomacy to turn back the tide of anti-Semitic ignorance that is closing in on us. We have to move from our current policy - if you can even call it a policy - of delayed reactions, excuses and apologies to a potent strategy that will challenge the Arabs - taking the battle into their own media and propaganda castles and putting them on the defensive.

We have to face a cluster of factors - from blatant Muslim anti-Semitism, lies and distortion to the new anti-Semitism of European acquiescence, and the negative attitude of the Left with its calls for boycotts and divestment.

We need to tell the truth, publicly and repeatedly: the Arabs themselves are to blame for their underdevelopment, and as long as they ignore basic civil rights their peoples will remain poor and illiterate, a prey to unemployment and illness.

This situation, it needs to be emphasized over and over, has nothing to do with Israel or the conflict in the Middle East.

At the same time, we should ask them to condemn terror and stop calling it resistance. We should demand their apology for calling us pigs and monkeys, for stepping on our flag, for all the lies they write about Israel and the Jews. We should analyze their declarations and writings and lay bare their false contentions. We should remind them of their part in promoting slavery in East Africa.

We should urge governments, clerics and intellectuals in Arab countries to search their souls, and not hide behind lip-service condemnations, as some of them did after the bombing in London.

In Europe and America we should ask the media to forgo the tendency to close their eyes to terror - for instance, not one Western paper condemned the abduction and murder of the Egyptian ambassador in Iraq - and to condemn terrorism unequivocally. The time has come to understand that appeasement will not work, and that membership in the Third World doesn't confer a free pass to murder.

Europe should be reminded of its long history of persecution and suffering inflicted on the Jews - well before the Holocaust. Europeans too have some soul searching to do.

The time has come to switch to a proactive campaign. Israel finds itself dangerously isolated, and that isolation could get worse, since I don't believe many of us think the conflict is going to be resolved any time soon.

Moreover, European silence in the face of Arab pretensions only gives the Arabs more courage and fewer incentives to compromise. Arab hatred for Israel is on the rise in spite of the disengagement and the so-called improvement of relations with Egypt.

Two things need to be done. First, Israeli politicians must realize that there is no time to lose; the government must tackle this issue as part of its strategy to end the cruel terrorist war being waged against us.

Second, we need to set up an Arab television station broadcasting news, commentaries and programs that will deliver our case to Arab homes throughout the region.

The writer was a career diplomat for 38 years, and ambassador to Romania, Egypt and Sweden. He retired last year.

Lawyers are good for something!

Notice how hard the Boston Globe tries to spin this as being a bad thing.

WASHINGTON -- A Rhode Island lawyer trying to collect a $116 million terrorism judgment against the Palestinian Authority has obtained a court-ordered freeze on all its US-based assets, severely limiting most Palestinian economic and diplomatic activities in the United States at a critical moment for the fledgling government.

The frozen assets include US holdings in a $1.3 billion Palestinian investment fund meant to finance economic development as well as bank accounts used to pay Palestinian representatives in Washington, according to lawyers and court documents filed in Rhode Island, Washington, D.C., and New York. Also frozen are about $30 million in assets from the Palestinian Monetary Authority, the Palestinian equivalent of the US Federal Reserve.

Providence attorney David Strachman, who is representing the orphaned children of a couple killed in Israel by Palestinian militants, has also initiated a court action to seize and sell the Palestinian-owned building in New York that serves as the Palestine Liberation Organization observer mission to the United Nations.

The aggressive collection effort comes as the Palestinian Authority is struggling to create economic opportunity and set up a viable government. Now, Palestinian officials say, the unpaid claim in the Rhode Island court, resulting from a 2004 ruling, threatens to complicate their efforts to become a credible emerging state.

The second half of the first paragraph could have said "giving hope to dozens of American victims of Palestinian terror."

And perhaps the continued Palestinian support for terror "complicates their efforts to become a credible emerging state" more than the lack of money?

Nah, we cannot expect a reporter to understand such nuance.

UPDATE: SoccerDad tackled this last December, and includes many links to other attempts to get damages for Islamic terrorism in US courtrooms. He also points out the original list of criminals who are the defendants:THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY (A.K.A. “THE PALESTINIAN INTERIM SELF-GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY”); THE PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION; YASSER ARAFAT; JIBRIL RAJOUB; MUHAMMED DAHLAN; AMIN AL-HINDI; TAWFIK TIRAWI; RAZI JABALI; HAMAS – ISLAMIC RESISTANCE MOVEMENT (A.K.A. “HARAKAT AL-MUQAWAMA AL-ISLAMIYYA”) ABDEL RAHMAN ISMAIL ABDEL RAHMAN GHANIMAT; JAMAL ABDEL FATAH TZABICH AL HOR; RAED FAKHRI ABU HAMDIYA; IBRAHIM GHANIMAT; AND IMAN MAHMUD HASSAN FUAD KAFISHE, Defendants.
A veritable who's who!