Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 24, 2007

"Collaborators"

I've just finished a truly intriguing book. It is called Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948 and is the product of what is clearly a daring mind, that is the mind of Hillel Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The book bears two blurbs: one from Zachary Lockman, director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies at N.Y.U., who last appeared in the news as a signatory to the international petition calling on universities and colleges to boycott Israeli academics. The second blurb was by Tom Segev, an Israeli version of Alexander Cockburn: "all that the home country has ever done is evil." So be assured, Cohen's study is not a Zionist tract. It reads as a scrupulous account of a searing collective experience of the Arabs of Palestine up to Israeli independence.

The facts as mustered by Cohen show that what he calls "collaboration" was a widespread phenomenon across classes and political groupings. Some individuals, even many, were motivated by monetary emoluments from the Jews. But this did not seem to be the underpinning of Arab opposition to their own ultra-nationalist -under the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin Husseini, actually fascist- leadership which specialized in assassinations but could not mount much more than marauding expeditions. Neither was active sympathy with the Zionists a disproportionate allegiance of the Christian Arabs of Palestine. What we learn about the three decades after General Allenby conquered Jerusalem from the Ottomans was that the nationalist impulse among the local Arabs was not one impulse at all, but fissured and, in any case, intrinsically weak. The elites of the Arab Higher Commission sold their lands to the Zionists; many Arab professionals worked with the Zionists; many ordinary Arabs found deeper sympathy among the Jews than among their own effendi. So they did not much view their routine cooperation with Jews and Jewish associations as disloyal. Palestine Arab nationalism was a minority sentiment. It did not cohere and its cement, such as it was, was fear. Perhaps seeing how weak Husseini faction was and how powerful the Zionists seemed, those Arabs who opposed the "resistance" by selling land or sharing intelligence felt their actions were more realistic than the hard-liners. Who now can say that they were not? The "collaborators," called by others the "traitors," Cohen insists, "viewed themselves as loyal Palestinian Arabs, more loyal than the national leaders."

I just ordered this book. My own research seems to support this thesis, that a significant number of Palestinian Arabs supported the Zionists and despised the Mufti and his henchmen, and that many did not want to be dragged into a war in 1948.

It is interesting that the same fear that Palestinian Arabs had in the 1930s against publicly opposing the Mufti exists today in a more institutionalized form: the death penalty for selling land to Jews, the threats against anyone wanting to co-exist with Israel, and the underlying fear that stops would-be critics from saying anything out loud, even extending to journalists who work in the territories.

The end of the Christian community in Gaza

From AP:

Gaza's tiny Christian community is keeping a low profile during Christmas this year, traumatized by the killing of a prominent activist after the Islamic Hamas group's takeover of the coastal territory.
Few Christmas trees are on display, churches are holding austere services and hundreds of Christians hope to travel to the West Bank to celebrate the holiday in Bethlehem. Many say they don't plan on returning to Gaza.

"We have a very sad Christmas," said Essam Farah, acting pastor of Gaza's Baptist Church, which has canceled its annual children's party because of the grim atmosphere.

About 3,000 Christians live in Gaza, an overwhelmingly conservative Muslim society of 1.5 million people. The two religions have generally had cordial relations over the years.

That relationship has been shaken since Hamas seized control of Gaza last June, and especially following the recent death of 32-year-old Rami Ayyad.

Note how al-AP cannot even find a way to say that this is a one-way street, only that the "relationship has been shaken" as if the Christians are partially to blame.

Ayyad, a member of the Baptist Church, managed Gaza's only Christian bookstore and was involved in many charitable activities. He was found shot in the head, his body thrown on a Gaza street in early October, 10 hours after he was kidnapped from the store.

He regularly received death threats from people angry about his perceived missionary work — a rarity among Gaza's Christians — and the store was firebombed six months before the kidnapping....
At the Baptist Church on Sunday, just 10 people attended the regular weekly prayer service, down from an average of 70. There was no Christmas tree in sight.

Farah said the church's full-time pastor, along with his family and 12 employees of Ayyad's store, have relocated to the West Bank to wait out the tense atmosphere. Farah said he prayed for forgiveness and love among Muslims and Christians.

Community leaders say an unprecedented number of Christian families are already migrating from Gaza — rattled by the religious tensions and tough economic sanctions Israel imposed on the area after the Hamas takeover.

While no official statistics were available, the signs of the flight are evident. Rev. Manuel Musallem, head of Gaza's Roman Catholic church, said he alone knows of seven families that sold their properties and left the area, and 15 more are preparing to do the same.

Musallem blamed Israeli sanctions and excessive violence in Gaza for the flight.

The Christian leaders in the area have consistently dhimmified themselves to avoid ever, ever mentioning the obvious: that it is the Muslims that are persecuting them, not the Jews. Every similar article shows that the individual people being interviewed invariably say they are scared for their lives by Islamic terror, every single "leader" invariably says that it is Israeli policy. And no wire service has the guts to follow up on the obvious lies.

"In previous years we didn't see this rate of migration," Musallem said. "Now, exit is not on individual basis. Whole families are leaving, selling their cars, homes and all their properties."

The signs of despair are evident at Ayyad's home. Posters declaring him a "martyr of Jesus" hang on the walls. There is no Christmas tree this year.

Must be Israel's fault.

Ayyad's older brother, 35-year old Ibrahim, said his 6-year old son, Khedr, was nagged in school about his uncle's murder. Muslim schoolmates call him "infidel."

Must be Israel's fault.

Ayyad's wife, Pauline, 29, left for Bethlehem a month ago with her two children. She said their 3-year-old son, George, has been shattered by his father's death.

"I tell him Papa Noel (Santa Claus) is coming to see you, and he tells me he wants Papa Rami," she said tearfully during a telephone interview.

Must be Israel's fault.

Pauline, who is seven months pregnant, said she plans to come back to Gaza for the birth.

But many Christians privately said they would use their travel permits to leave Gaza for good, even if that means remaining in the West Bank as illegal residents. Israeli security officials said they were permitting 400 Gaza Christians to travel through Israel to Bethlehem for Christmas.

A family of four, refusing to be identified for fear their permits would be revoked, have sold their house and car and packed their bags. The wife has transferred her job to the West Bank and enrolled her son and daughter in school there. "We fear what is to come," said the husband.

Must be Israel's fault.

A distant relative of Ayyad, Fouad, said he also is packing up. He said his father, a guard at a local church, was stopped recently by unknown bearded men who put a gun to his head before he was rescued by passers-by.

Must be Israel's fault.

"We don't know why it happened," the 20-year-old police officer said. "We can't be sure how they (Muslims) think anymore."

Those who are staying are trying to limit the risks. Nazek Surri, a Roman Catholic, walked out from Sunday's service with a Muslim-style scarf covering her head.

"We have to respect the atmosphere we are living in. We have to go with the trend," she said.

Must be Israel's fault.

The Christian community in Gaza is almost gone, directly because of religious persecution. But since the persecutors are Muslim, stories like this are few and far between.

UPDATE: The BBC is even more accepting of Rev. Musallem's claims (h/t Backspin):

Manawel Musallam - priest, headmaster and Gazan - is a rotund, avuncular man, fond of wearing berets.

I have come to his office to ask how Christians in Gaza were faring on this, their first Christmas under the full internal control of Hamas.

"You media people!" Father Musallam boomed at me when I first poked my head around his door.

"Hamas this, Hamas that. You think we Christians are shaking in our ghettos in Gaza? That we're going to beg you British or the Americans or the Vatican to rescue us?" he asked.

"Rescue us from what? From where? This is our home."

..You see," Fr Musallam told me, as he gazed indulgently at the goings-on on stage. "Our identity is a multi-layered one."

"Of course, I am a Christian believer, but politically I am a Palestinian Muslim. I resist Israel's military occupation, obviously not with weapons.

"The Jihad can never be mine but with my words, my sermons, I am a Palestinian priest."

HH CXLVI

The latest, and slightly late, edition of Haveil Havalim is now up at Soccer Dad. This 146th edition includes two of my postings, Rocking the Casbah and Good News from Israel21c.

Check it out!

Egyptian columnist explains rationale for PalArab "right of return"

While perusing the Al-Ahram al-Arabi magazine (see previous post), I came upon this article written by Abdulrazzaq Aldahish (autotranslated, cleaned up a bit):

What would happen if about ten million Palestinians demanded Israeli citizenship with the abolition of the [Zionist] racist laws?

The Israelis themselves constantly claim that they oasis of democracy among Arab dictatorships.

Voters choose the president and the government and members of Knesset.

The electors can decide to retain the name 'Israel' or rename it to the State of Palestine.

Once again, it is made very clear that the entire point of "returning" is the destruction of Israel, and that creating a Palestinian Arab state on less than 100% of the Western-drawn boundaries of Palestine is unacceptable.

And remember again that historic Palestine includes lands on the east bank of the Jordan but there are no Arabs who dare to suggest that the state of "Palestine" includes those lands. Somehow, by sheer coincidence, the only part of "Palestine" that they worry about for a Palestinian Arab state is the part that Jews happen to be controlling. Whenever they claim that the Green Line borders is only 22% of "Palestine" they never include the Trans-Jordanian part of that land - some 3800 square miles, much larger than the West Bank and Gaza combined.

Ripping off the Elder?

On Saturday night, I did what I often do - I looked through the auto-translated Arabic press to see if there was anything interesting to blog. An article in Ma'an about an Arafat aide admitting that Yasir Arafat had headed the Black September Organization fit the bill, and as I've done dozens of times before I posted my "scoop."

Unlike most times, though, this was noticed by a very popular blog, Little Green Footballs, and as a result I received some 2500 page hits.

Since I am not a native Arabic speaker I sometimes make small mistakes in interpreting the autotranslation. I wrote that the Arafat aide was writing a series of articles for the Al-Ahram newspaper about Arafat and Black September; in fact, as Ma'an later mentioned in its own English edition, the magazine Al-Ahram al-Arabi will publish excerpts of the aide's new autobiography which will be published as a book. These were two relatively minor mistakes (the name of the magazine vs. the Al-Ahram newspaper, and the exact circumstances of the publication) that didn't change the fundamental nature of the story but that I would have preferred to have cited accurately to begin with.

Now, Arutz-7 has published its own version of the story under the byline Hana Levi Julian:

The Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency reported Sunday that Marwan Kanafani is expected to publish the series of articles in the Egyptian Al Ahram newspaper.

So Arutz-7 repeated both of my mistakes; it didn't bother to check the Arabic Ma'an even though it presumably has access to Arabic-speakers; and it didn't credit me (which would be forgivable if it had independently checked the sources and found out the correct details.)

These are the trials of being a news blogger - not taken seriously enough to be considered a journalist, but considered accurate enough to quote without even verifying the facts.

If Arutz-7 had bothered to check the sources, it might have been able to trace back to the original Al-Ahram al-Arabi article about this from December 15. It may have noticed the curious fact that Ma'an didn't bother mentioning the Olympic massacre but only Black September's involvement in the assassination of the Jordanian prime minister; yet the original article did mention Munich. (This shows a little about Ma'an's bias.)

But why bother doing original research when you have bloggers?

David Raab's Salt Shaker (Barbara Sofer)

From JPost:

You never know when you'll need a salt shaker, David Raab thought as he slipped into his pocket the little dispenser that came with the packaged meal. His family was returning from a glorious summer in Israel on TWA flight 741. His dad, a rabbi in Trenton, New Jersey, had already returned home to perform a wedding, but his mom and the five kids stayed until the last moment before the 1970 school year began.
Raab, 17, with a toothy John Kennedy smile, was the oldest. He couldn't wait to show his classmates the IDF greens he'd bought and was flying home in.
The September 6 flight would stop for refueling and to pick up passengers in Athens and Frankfurt. Raab changed from his army pants into shorts.
Soon after they left Frankfurt, two passengers rushed down the aisle from the back of the plane carrying hand grenades and a pistol. They entered the cockpit.
"This is your new captain speaking," a woman's voice said over the intercom. The plane was changing direction. Raab's first emotion was a teenager's excitement. He would be part of history. He was an American on an American plane. What could happen to him? What did happen was the subject of a talk this week in Jerusalem to mark the publication of Terror in Black September (Palgrave Macmillan), the book that's been percolating in David Raab for 37 years. Raab is married, a father and a grandfather, but he has a tremor in his voice when he describes his three weeks of captivity.
September 11, 2001 wasn't the first four-plane hijacking. On September 6, 1970, terrorists also targeted four planes. An hour after Raab's plane touched down on a deserted desert strip in Jordan, Raab saw a fireball racing toward it.

The pilot on hijacked Swiss Air flight number 100 from Zurich had just barely stopped close behind them. The desert dust sucked into the engines had burst into flames. Pan Am 93 from Amsterdam was diverted to Egypt.
Only the captain of the fourth plane, El Al 219 from Amsterdam, managed to disarm the two terrorists who boarded with a gun and hand grenades. A sudden nose dive knocked Lebanese Laila Khaled and Nicaraguan Patrick Arguello off balance. Three days later, BOAC 775 from Bahrain was hijacked, too.
RAAB'S MOOD turned from thrill to trepidation when he learned that the hijackers were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and they were headed to the salt flats of Dawson's Field in Jordan. Raab jettisoned his IDF shirt.
Most of the passengers were sent to hotels.
Luggage was searched. The terrorists were seeking Israelis, but found none. In their place, the Diaspora Jews were left in the desert, surrounded by machinegun-toting terrorists as the sun set. His mother, Sara, was repeatedly interrogated because of the membership card in her wallet: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America.
After four stifling days on the plane, Raab was ordered off. His mother's pleas were useless. "We looked at each other, and we condensed the hours of being together that we deserved to have throughout our lifetimes, as mother and child, into a short moment," Raab said. He was shaking so hard he nearly fell from the wooden ladder propped at the plane's exit. Ten men had been selected. Raab thought they would be shot, but instead a van took them to a refugee camp near Amman where they were locked in a small room.
They huddled on the floor. Any time they raised their voices, the guards threatened. Friday night came. Ten men, nearly a minyan. One turned out to be Christian. Quietly, in their crowded cell, they recited Shabbat prayers to themselves, welcoming what they assumed could be their last Sabbath ever. The special psalm for the month of Elul consoled him: "If an enemy camps around me I shall not be afraid... believe in God and your heart will become strong..."
No wine for Kiddush. But when you have no wine, says the Talmud, make Kiddush on bread. The terrorists had given them pita.
On Shabbat, we dip our bread in salt to remind us of the sacrifices of old.
Suddenly Raab remembered the saltshaker in his shorts pocket.
Joy and hope coursed through him. The others cheered. He'd never understood just how much tradition could lend comfort and strength.
AFTER 21 days in captivity, David Raab was released. His mother and siblings had been freed earlier and had returned to the US. The terrorists blew up the empty planes in the desert. They were never punished. Laila Khaled, incredibly was released by the British, and currently is a schoolteacher in Jordan. But in the midst of the crisis, the furious King Hussein began the internal war that Palestinians call "Black September" and many Jordanians call "White September" because they forced the terrorists out of their country.
On September 28, after a stress-filled meeting about the situation in Jordan, Gamal Abdel Nasser died of a heart attack. Anwar Sadat became president of Egypt. In Syria, Hafez Assad took over after a failed Syrian attack on Jordan during King Hussein's war with the terrorists. For the first time, Israel entered a strategic alliance with the United States when Israel agreed to the US request to help out the embattled Jordanian king.
The world would never be quite the same. Not for airplane passengers, either.
After meeting president Richard Nixon, David Raab went back to high school. Today he's a management consultant and he's become the proud Israeli that the terrorists were seeking on his plane. Salt, he's apt to point out, is a symbol of the covenant, the enduring and unbreakable bonds of the Jewish people and the creator.

Adventures in Arabic auto-translation: "Resistance Missiles"

The Palestine Today Arabic webpage has a story about how Israel is putting 100 million shekels to protect hospitals from "resistance missiles."

The main emotion that shows through about the ability of Palestinian Arabs to terrorize Israeli citizens, and threaten hospitals, is pride:

Minister announced strategic threats, Israel, Our Home Party leader Avigdor Lieberman, today, Sunday, that his party approved the submission of 100 million shekels view immunized four hospitals vulnerable to rocket Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah missiles.

It is noteworthy that the Palestinian resistance missiles have created a state of terror in Israeli society, and confusion in the Israeli government, which accused her of negligence in the protection of the missiles, that arrived in the community to ask the Israeli government to resign for failure to deter those missiles.

They are so darn tickled that they manage to terrorize ordinary citizens! A great, honorable Arab victory against the Zionist dogs, by being able to shoot rockets at defenseless schools and hospitals with impunity, so much so that they force the hated Zionists to spend money to save lives. For a people who love death, this is what its all about.

Number 600

Finally, after a week of anticipation, the 600th Palestinian Arab to die from internal violence in 2007 (by my count) has been identified. Fittingly, it was from a "work accident":

The General Commander of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed group affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP, Mu'in Al-Masri aged 40 died on Saturday night of his wounds sustained in an internal explosion in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip months ago, Ma'an's reporter said.

Ma'an helpfully adds a picture of the unfortunate terrorist:

This late entry for the Splodie Awards is a fitting way to top off a record-breaking year of intra-Pali violence.

The Israel lobby and Western shared values

Egypt's Al Ahram recently published an op-ed, republished in Al-Arabiya, about the challenges the Arab world has in trying to come up with its own version of the "Zionist lobby." The author, Ayman El-Amir, starts off with "what everybody knows":

Ask any Arab politician, diplomat, foreign policy guru, media practitioner, political activist or Arab-American of any vocation about the secret of Israel's iron grip hold on the formulation and direction of U.S. foreign policy, and the answer comes directly: it's the Zionist lobby. Hundreds of articles, books and debates have been published about the mythical powers of this lobby, how it can make or break careers in the U.S. Congress, the junkets it organizes for high-profile or rising journalists, business leaders and promising young political apprentices to Israel.

Its intimidating influence on senators and congressmen, media magnates, academia, the intelligence community, its fund-raising activities and, above all, its deep and public infiltration of the Pentagon -- the dwelling of the Olympians who run the American war machine -- are all a matter of record. What this lobby has done over the past 40 years to dovetail Israeli interests into U.S. foreign policy, and sometimes make them superior to U.S. concerns, is stupendous. One of its many successes has been the neutralization of any Arab counter-lobby. And the Arabs are watching helplessly.

But when he starts talking about the difficulties that Arabs face in building their own lobby, he accidentally stumbles onto a real truth:

So what do Arab governments or peoples have in common with the U.S. that policymakers can take seriously as influential in formulating domestic or foreign policy?

In the U.S., the Arabs are not a solid voting bloc that politicians running for public office weigh carefully in drafting their policy agenda. They are not a significant source of campaign funding; on the contrary, their contributions could be a source of embarrassment for candidates who want to court the Jewish vote, and they all do. Looking at the Arabs on their own turf from a distance could hardly evoke a sense of joy, admiration or partnership for the average American, from the perspective of his or her value system. What shared values can be found in the area of human rights, the rule of law and equality before it, free elections of government and the free will to change it, or respect for the rights of women and their promotion?

Israel, on the other hand, is perceived as the only democracy in the region, not because it is really so, but because there are no other democratic systems in the region to match. Israel's racist policies towards the Palestinians, its brutal occupation and the threat of its nuclear arsenal, appear matters of little concern. In short, to the average American there is nothing in the Arab value system that he or she can identify with, unlike the pro-Western Israeli model.

The author seems to be saying that the main leverage of the Arab lobby is, simply, oil:

From the viewpoint of vital interests, the Arabs should have the strongest influence on US foreign policy, given its concern that oil flows freely to American shores.

Of course, it never occurs to even the more intelligent Arabs that the shared values mentioned are more important than the legendary organizational expertise of the Israel lobby in influencing who Americans identify with.

In spite of present difficulties, a potentially effective Arab special interest group in the U.S. is not impossible. However, it has to be home grown and based on grassroots action. It cannot misrepresent dictatorship as democracy, rigged elections as free and fair, police state tactics as maintaining the rule of law, or the abuse of women as respected traditional values.

So what can the Arabs do?

...the Arabs have placed all their assets in the hands of the US, including their natural resources, the value of their strategic location and the defense of their wealth and territories. They have thus lost any measure of leverage, which is the name of the game.

The answer is, simply, use oil as a weapon.

While El-Amir shows more understanding of the US than the average Arab pundit, he still doesn't get it.

America was built and relies on the same values that Israel demonstrates every day. True, the giant oil companies, the "public" media that they fund, and the State Department will tend to lean towards placating the Arabs because of oil. Yet average Americans are more interested in stopping the US dependence on corrupt, misogynist, Arab kleptocracies and the natural resources they had the dumb luck to be on top of, and they prefer to identify with the brave Zionists who built a vibrant nation from scratch - the Protestant work ethic and the American pioneering spirit being actualized in ways that are otherwise unimaginable.

Not to mention the successes Israel has had in fighting the shared dangers of Islamic and Arab terror.

The people who made their fortunes from oil think that it is Jewish money that is the major influence on American foreign policy, and they just do not get that money is not what Americans admire - it is getting results from a combination of brains and hard work. It is individual effort, not inheriting millions of cubic feet of dead dinosaurs. The Israel lobby benefits from existing American values; the Arab lobby is trying to change those values.

Former aide admits Arafat founded Black September

Ma'an (Arabic) reports that a series of articles being authored by longtime Arafat aide Marwan Kanafani in Egypt's Al Ahram will say that it was Yasir Arafat himself who created the Black September organization in 1970.

Black September was behind many of the highest-profile terror attacks in the early 1970s, including the murder of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tel, the Munich Olympic massacre, the May 1972 hijacking of a Belgian airliner from Vienna, dozens of letter bombs including at one that killed an Israeli politician in London, and the murder of two US diplomats in Khartoum.

The PLO always used Black September for plausible deniability, claiming that the deadliest BSO attacks had nothing to do with them. Although many historians had already made the connection between the two groups, the US State Department wrote a confidential memo in 1973 (released in 1981) showing connections between the groups, and the State Department also had linked Fatah and Arafat directly to the Khartoum murders, this appears to be the first confirmation by someone in Arafat's inner circle that it was Arafat himself who was the founder of Black September and personally in charge of operations.

And we know that the current Palestinian Arab President Mahmoud Abbas was also involved in Black September, specifically in the Munich massacre.

UPDATE: The English-language Ma'an article can be found here.

Eric Alterman - another liberal who doesn't get it

In the most recent issue of The Nation, as well as the International Herald Tribune, Eric Alterman laments the fact that while Jews are overwhelmingly liberal, American Zionist organizations tend toward the right:

Today's topic is the paradox - or one of them, anyway - of American Jewish political behavior. No, it's not that hoary old cliché that they "earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans." Rather, it's that they think like enlightened liberals yet allow belligerent right-wingers and neocons who frequently demonize, distort and denounce their values to speak for them in the U.S. political arena.
Don't take my word for it. According to the American Jewish Committee's 2007 survey of American Jewry, released Dec. 11, a majority of Jews in the United States oppose virtually every aspect of the Bush administration/neocon agenda. Not only do they disapprove of the administration's handling of its "campaign against terrorism" (59-31 percent), they believe by a 67-to-27 margin that we should never have invaded Iraq. They are unimpressed by the "surge" - 68 percent say it has either made no difference or made things worse, and by a 57-to-35 percent majority they oppose an attack on Iran, even if it was undertaken "to prevent [Iran] from developing nuclear weapons."

So the survey proves what all of us know - most Jews are liberal. But Alterman gets fuzzy with his next paragraph:

Jews are also impressively sensible when it comes to Israel/Palestine, all things considered. Though barely more than a third think peace is likely anytime soon, and more than 80 percent believe the goal of the Muslim states is to destroy Israel, a 46-to-43 percent plurality continues to support the creation of a Palestinian state.

This is his entire evidence of American Jewish support for a liberal agenda vis a vis Israel. He brushes aside the 80% who think that the Arab states want to destroy Israel to focus on the bare plurality - not majority - who support a PalArab state nevertheless.

In fact, if you look at the survey questions about Israel, you will see that every question save for the one about a Palestinian Arab state fits far better in with the conservative view of the conflict than with the liberal one. Here they are:

9. Do you think there will or will not come a time when Israel and its Arab neighbors will be able to settle their differences and live in peace?
Will 37
Will Not 55
Not Sure 8

10. Do you think that negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can or cannot lead to peace in the foreseeable future?
Can 36
Cannot 55
Not Sure 9

11. Do you think that Israel can or cannot achieve peace with a Hamas-led, Palestinian government?
Can 17
Cannot 74
Not Sure 9

12. In the current situation, do you favor or oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state?
Favor 46
Oppose 43
Not sure 12

13. In the framework of a permanent peace with the Palestinians, should Israel be willing to compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli jurisdiction?
Yes 36
No 58
Not Sure 7

14. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "The goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel."
Agree 82
Disagree 12
Not Sure 6

15. In your opinion, does the United Nations treat Israel fairly or unfairly in its deliberations?
Fairly 27
Unfairly 61
Not Sure 12

These are hardly the numbers that you would expect to see from, say, a poll of all writers for The Nation. Yet Alterman uses this as a pretext on his attack on the mainstream American Zionist organizations:

These views, however, have been obscured in our political discourse by an unholy alliance between conservative-dominated professional Jewish organizations and neoconservative Jewish pundits, aided by pliant and frequently clueless mainstream media that empower these right-wingers to speak for a people with values diametrically opposed to theirs.

Take a look at the agendas of some of the most influential Jewish organizations, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, the Zionist Organization of America and the American Jewish Committee itself: Each has historically associated itself with the hawkish side of the debate - and some have done so even when Israel took the more dovish side (the Jewish equivalent of being holier than the Pope). Forget for a moment the argument over whether what some call "the Lobby" is good or bad for America. My point is that it's bad for the Jews.

Alterman is (seemingly purposefully) conflating the liberalism of American Jews on non-Israel topics with the relative conservatism of these same Jews when it comes to Israel. The poll results above are far more in sync with the organizations listed above than with the majority of liberal leaders.

In large part the trouble lies with the antidemocratic structures of these organizations and the apathy of most Jews with regard to organized Jewish life. Major Jewish groups respond to the demands of their top funders and best-organized constituencies. Most American Jews, however, have little or nothing to do with these groups. According to the AJC survey, while 90 percent of Jews say being Jewish is either "very important" (61 percent) or "fairly important" (29 percent) in their lives, exactly half say they belong to a synagogue or temple. A fraction of this number belong to Jewish political organizations, and the number of major funders is but a tiny percentage of that. As with so much of American life, the far-right minority is better funded and better disciplined than the liberal majority.

This may be true, but Alterman overlooks another salient fact: the more committed that Jews are to Judaism and Israel, the more conservative their views tend to be on that topic. The more committed Jews are the ones who are more likely to become politically active or to give money to organizations they agree with. The "silent majority" are the ones for whom Judaism and Zionism are less important today, the ones who feel that abortion or global warming are more critical issues than Islamic terror or Israel's existence. This may be a fine liberal attitude but it is hardly a "Jewish" one.

These pundits have every right to put forth their views, of course. It's long past time, however, for the mainstream media to recognize just how out of touch they are with the values of the American Jewish mainstream. If not now, when?

It is nice that Alterman knows enough about Judaism to quote Pirke Avot, but what he needs to realize is that the people who can do that and support a liberal agenda towards Israel is a very small minority of American Jews, not the vast majority that he seems to believe.

PETA silent on slaughter of millions this week

I have no problem with eating meat, but I do have a problem with hypocrisy. PETA, which goes out of its way to find offense when people hurt animals, is completely silent this week when tens of millions of sheep, camels, and cows are being slaughtered - often in the street, in front of happy crowds of people - in honor of the Eid al-Adha celebration.

Here are some wire-service photos of the happy ritual (I especially like the first one with the animal depicted on the upper-right):

Ironically, the main place one can find serious objections to how the ritual is performed is on an Islamic webpage:

In current time, though, this sacrifice has devolved into a largely empty ritual. Muslim critics have come to recognize that Islamic standards of compassion to animals are violated by efforts to provide sacrificial animals, such as the mass transport of sheep in overcrowded, filthy conditions from Australia. These animals are denied food, water, and medical attention during their lengthy overseas journeys. Such treatment is a clear violation of Islamic teachings.

Snapped Shot has also noted PETA's hypocrisy. Sweetness and Light has more gruesome photos.

Arab News agrees that terrorists are "martyrs"

The Saudi-based Arab News is as moderate a voice as exists in that Islamic country. It has been very critical of the sharia-law excesses in Saudi courts and is equally scornful of the Muttawa, the Saudi religious police.

But even the "moderate" Arabs all agree that Palestinian Arab terrorists are worthy of praise:

Every One of Them Has Martyrs in Family

Inside the walls of the Palestinian camp at Mina [in Saudi Arabia, performing Hajj] there were many mothers yesterday talking about how they lost their sons and daughters under the hands of the Israeli army. Arab News visited their campsite in Mina to listen to their stories of pain and suffering in the Occupied Territories.

...
Muhammad Abu Askar, a pilgrim from the Palestinian Haj group, said that the sadness and suffering he endured under the Israeli occupation couldn’t be described.
“I’ve lost two of my children,” he said. He added, “I am happy that they died serving the Palestinian cause to liberate the country from Israeli occupation. My sons were not like any other sons in any other country, searching for a beautiful car or a beautiful job. They told me that they would not rest until they saw every area of Palestinian soil liberated from the Israeli occupation. One of my sons, Ahmad, 22 years old, was getting ready for marriage when Israeli soldiers shot him. The other one, Muhammad, 18 years old, was killed during an army raid.”
...
Inside the camp, Arab News met with the mother of Muhammad Al-Sharami; the Israeli army killed her son. She started to cry as she was talking about him. She said that he was like any other Palestinian youth who was suffering under the hands of the Zionists. Like any other young man, he wanted to see Palestine liberated.
“I still remember it like yesterday,” she said. “He came to me and greeted me, kissed me on the head. I looked in his eyes and I felt that there was something wrong. A few hours after he left I received the news of his death; he was shot in the head.”
She said that she was not angry at his death; in fact she said she was happy that he died defending his country and she was proud of him. She said that she came for Haj to pray for him.

The story makes it sound like they are going to talk about how Israel is indiscriminately murdering Palestinian Arab children, and yet every example cited was a young man who was trying to kill Jews.

And every example said that the parents were "happy" their kids were dead.

And the moderate Saudis consider every dead terrorist a "martyr" for Allah.

Rocking the Casbah

From JTA:

An Israeli army rabbi is under investigation for putting a mezuzah up in an off-limits area of Hebron.
The rabbi of the military's Judea Brigade was photographed this week putting up a mezuzah in the casbah, or old city of Hebron, accompanied by Chabad supporters.

The Hebron casbah, from where many Palestinian residents have fled during the past six years of violence, is off-limits to Israeli civilians out of concern that settlers might try to squat in its buildings.

Many Israelis say casbah properties were originally Jewish-owned and should be reclaimed.

"This gate is one of several gates through which people enter the casbah," Noam Arnon, a Hebron settler spokesman, told Israel Radio on Thursday. "Chabad wanted to put up a mezuzah, a very welcome act. This, of course, did not bother anyone, particularly not the Arabs."

Following protests by left-wing Israeli groups, the military top brass said the rabbi was under investigation and that the mezuzah had been removed.

The Jerusalem Post adds:

Rabbi Yossi Nachshon, a Chabad emissary in Hebron who helped organize the ceremony, said he did not understand the IDF's extreme reaction.

"The media and the IDF have totally blown the whole thing out of proportion," said Nachshon. "We affixed the mezuza in a place where IDF soldiers are stationed near a Jewish neighborhood. We do these types of things all the time. On the same day we affixed mezuzot in various settlements around the Hebron hills."
Nachshon said that according to Jewish law there was no obligation to affix a mezuzah near the casbah. However, he added that a mezuza was believed to offer protection against physical dangers.
Nachshon said that a Jewish settler had been killed near the scene of the contentious mezuza.

So it was just a gesture of support for the IDF, a symbolic wish for their safety, not a political act.

But the left-wing reaction was furious:

Peace Now issued a statement calling for Rabbi Peretz and the soldiers who participated in the ceremony to stand trial.

Knesset members also weighed in on the contentious move. MK Ran Cohen (Meretz) said that "this is a thuggish act vis-à-vis Palestinians who have not been able to live their lives for years. Even worse than that, this time it was not only done under IDF auspices but by soldiers who were engaging in severe political provocation."

MK Avshalom Vilan (Meretz) called on Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi to convene a discussion on the matter and deal with the perpetrators "to the fullest extent of the law."

"A uniformed rabbi who participates in an act with lawbreakers disgraces the IDF and should be punished," said Vilan.

Notice anything missing?

Even though it has been a full 24 hours since this event occurred, I have not seen one mention of outrage from any Arab or Muslim about this supposedly outrageous act. The people who riot at the drop of a hat, who obsessively follow Israeli media to find things to offend them, have not said a single word about affixing a small scroll with words of the Torah to the entrance to the old market. I have seen nothing in the Arabic press nor in their English-language press.

Israel's left wing is now more offended on the Arabs' behalf than the Arabs themselves are. Their eagerness to co-opt Arab outrage for their own leftist purposes show that their goal is hardly protecting Arabs as much as it is showing their seething hate for the Right - and religious Jews.

Who else capitalizes "Prophet?"

Out of curiosity, I decided to see if any other Western news outlets capitalize the word "prophet" in the Muslim manner when referring to the Abraham story behind Eid al-Adha, or when referring to Mohammed. Capitalizing "prophet" indicates that the style book of that publication is bending over backwards to accommodate Islam.

So far I've found:

Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette: "Eid ul-Adha commemorates the Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, at God’s command, he said."

EarthTimes (UK): "Al Sheikh Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah Al Ali said in his Eid sermon that Muslims across the world commemorate the sacrifice made by Prophet Abraham as per the order of God."

The Journal News, Lower Hudson, NY: "The festival coincides with the annual hajj, the worldwide pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and commemorates the Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice a son. Muslims believe that son to be Ishmael while the Bible says that Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac."

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "The Eid, one of Islam's major festivals, commemorates the Prophet Abraham's willingness to follow God's will and sacrifice his son, who in the Islamic tradition was Ishmael."

Scoop (New Zealand): "The Ka’bah, House of Allah, built by Prophet Abraham (Ibrahim)[peace be upon him] and his son Ishmael (Isma’il-pbuh) four thousand years ago is the holiest site for the 1.6 billion Muslims all over the world."

East Valley Tribune, Phoenix: During the 30-minute rituals, they prayed in the direction of the sacred seat of their faith in Saudi Arabia, where the Prophet Muhammad was born and lived....The Feast of the Sacrifice commemorates a centerpiece moment for all three major monotheistic faiths, the time the Prophet Abraham (or Ibrahim) was about to sacrifice his son, Isaac (Ishmael), as a burnt offering to show his faith and obedience to God, only to be stopped by an angel and presented a ram to slaughter in his place."

NBC 17, North Carolina: "The holiday, which is also known as the Feast of Festival of Sacrifice, commemorates the Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice everything for God, even his son."

Los Angeles Times: "Badday's comments would prove accurate, capturing the experiences of pilgrims performing a series of rituals, many modeled on the life of the Prophet Abraham."

Toronto Star: "Hajj, for all able-bodied Muslims, is a religious obligation that must be fulfilled in one's lifetime. The week-long journey, which begins tomorrow, involves travelling to cities near Mecca to take part in a number of symbolic rituals re-enacting the struggles faced by the Prophet Abraham and his family as outlined in the Qur'an."

Detroit News: "The Prophet Mohammad cleaned the pagan idols out of the Ka'bah -- the world's oldest house of worship, which the Prophet Abraham constructed in 2000 B.C. -- and established the Muslim hajj, which has continued for more than 1,400 years."

The Record, Waterloo, Ontario: "Eid-ul-Adha, which takes place at the end of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca each year, commemorates the story of the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) and his son Ishmael."

This Is London: "It commemorates the time when the Prophet Ibrahim was willing to sacrifice his son for Allah."

Ha'aretz (quoting Reuters): "At least 1.5 million people are expected to arrive from abroad in Mecca, where pilgrims follow a route around the mountains in line with a tradition established by the Prophet Mohammed. "

AFP: "Hamad had said the plot was revenge for satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed published in European newspapers."