Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Hamas war profiteering (Middle East News Watch)

Middle East News Watch took some news reports about Hamas from CNN and Al Jazeera, removed the gratuitous references to Israel as the source of all evil, and came up with a real news story of the type you are not likely to see or notice in the flotsam of anti-Israel bias:

It just goes to show that the facts are out there but it requires a lot of digging to find them.

Today's staged photo and bias by AP

Here is a classic case of AP not only staging a photo, but of implying that it shows something that it does not, and as a bonus throwing in some very skewed facts as background:

A Palestinian child walks near rubble in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, Monday, June 21, 2010. Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, pressed ahead Monday with a contentious plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes, that were illegally built, to make room for a tourist center that Palestinians fear would tighten Israel's grip on the city's contested eastern sector. The contested site, called al-Bustan, is a section of the larger neighborhood of Silwan, which is home to some 50,000 Palestinians and 70 Jewish families.

First of all, the photo itself. Did the photographer just happen to find a Palestinian child playing in some rubble in Jerusalem, or did she direct him to go there? Hard to say, but of course many photographs from wire services involve the photographer telling the subjects where to stand or where to look.

Secondly, is this rubble of a Palestinian Arab home demolished by Israel? If it is, was the home built legally? Maybe it was a garage built illegally next to a home that is still there? Or maybe it has nothing to do with any demolition altogether? AP needed a photo to illustrate a story about Israel's plans to demolish illegally built homes - where the Jerusalem municipality cooperated with the residents in those plans:

Back in March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pressured Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to hold up the plan so authorities could consult with Palestinians who would lose their homes — a delay that appeared to be aimed at fending off criticism from the U.S.

"Now, after fine-tuning the plan and seeking more cooperation with the residents as far as their needs and improving the quality of their lives, the municipality is ready to submit the plans for the first stage of approval," said Barkat's spokesman, Stephan Miller, before the city's planning commission agreed to the plan.

So the picture does not illustrate anything at all to do with the story, but its very existence is meant to give the reader a visceral disgust at Israeli actions.

Thirdly, the background, where it mentions that Arab residents outnumber Jewish residents of Silwan by such a large number. Assuming the facts are true, notice the attempt to make the numbers even more lopsided: 50,000 people to 70 families: each Jewish family in Silwan could easily have, conservatively, six members (probably more), but AP doesn't want to say "50,000 to 450" because that extra order of magnitude makes it look that much worse, and it makes the idea of evicting Jews out of their legal homes much more palatable since there appear to be so few of them.

Fourthly, the choice of background facts that AP used. It could have mentioned that Jerusalem also approved the building of hundreds of Arab homes in Silwan; or that the word "Silwan" comes from the Greek "Siloam" which comes from the Hebrew Shiloah, or that Yemeni Jews had built many stone homes there in the 19th century and were chased out by the 1936-9 Arab riots - and their homes taken over by Arabs.

Any of those facts would also have been accurate background information, but they would not have fit the narrative that AP wants its readers to accept.

These are just examples of bias in the photo caption. The accompanying article has much worse distortions and omissions, such as the fact that the Jerusalem municipality is at the same time legalizing some 723 Arab homes!

(By the way, the photographer herself, Tara Todras-Whitehill, does not seem to be guilty of bias - she has some very nice and sympathetic photos of Jews in Israel in her portfolio.)

h/t Callie

The UNHRC should be abolished (Joo-Liz and Zvi)

Two good comments on my post about UN Watch, first from Joo-Liz:

I have heard Hillel Neuer speak at a campus visit last year, and he firmly believes in the work that he does.

As he put it, the UNGA has the "Power of the Purse" (finances/aid/budgeting), the UNSC has the "Power of the Boots" (actual interventions), and the UNHRC has the "Power of 'Name and Shame'".

To open societies that are used to criticism, free press, and that are constantly held to account, the power granted to the UNHRC seems rather impotent, but to despotic regimes that systematically shutdown opposition voices, it is a truly frightening thing.

The whole hi-jacking of the Human Rights Council by all the human rights abusers is a strategic alliance on their parts, to prevent the power of the Council from being turned against them. To that end, he described a whole litany of outrageous activities being carried out, including the use of GONGOs (Government-Operated NGOs) and numerous other deceptive tactics... most notably from our perspective -- the stacking of the agenda against Israel and the West so that there quite literally isn't enough time in the working schedule each year to deal with any of the other abuses occurring around the world.

I think from that perspective, every opportunity he has to speak to the council and call them out on their hypocrisy is beneficial. Especially when later publicized on YouTube and with press releases like these.

And from Zvi:

The UNHRC should be abolished.

The idea that a human rights body (UNHRC) may have membership rules that permit the world's most repressive regimes to be seated as decision-making members is absurd.

The UNHRC includes some of the world's worst abusers of human rights. The following list includes Freedom House scores (2-14, with 2 being "free" and 14 representing the world's most repressive dictatorships):

Libya: 14
Saudi Arabia: 13
Cuba: 13
China: 13
Cameroon: 12
...

A so-called human rights council that seats Libya, Saudi Arabia and Cuba as members is a fraud perpetrated upon the people of the world.

The UN does perform some valid functions, its political structure clearly renders it incapable of performing as a human rights policeman. It has demonstrated this through two iterations of "human rights councils," both of which have been hijacked by blocs of anti-Israel countries and reduced to political attack dogs that serve no useful human rights function.

The UN is the wrong forum for identifying and dealing with human rights abuses. Repressive dictatorships, frequently acting as a bloc and intimidating less interested countries, use the UNHRC to prevent criticism of their own actions and advance anti-democratic agendas such as suppression of free speech (under the guise of combating Islamophobia) or preventing Israel from defending its citizens. The UN provides a false aura of respectability and impartiality that makes such activities dangerous.

The UNHRC should be abolished. If democratic nations that support human rights wish to create a truly authoritative Human Rights Commission, they are always free to do so, just as they have created other democracy-only organizations in the past (the EU being an example). But such an organization MUST include strict rules that allow ONLY countries meeting some basic level of respect for human rights to participate. Such an organization will not be perfect (we see EU members attacking Israel every day, even when they have their "facts" wrong), but there is at least a ghost of a chance that it will address anti-Uzbek pogroms in Kyrgyzstan, genocide in the Sudan, the starvation of Yemenis, extreme levels of religious repression in Saudi Arabia, North Korea's systematic starvation of its people and so on. Such an organization will have much more moral authority than the UNHRC. The countries that comprise it will at least have a clue what due process means, even if some of them are still dodgy, and they will have less invested in protecting themselves from investigation and more invested in addressing the rights of people around the world. They will be countries that practice human rights at home.

The UNHRC will never, ever act against extreme human rights abuses. Instead, it will perform its primary task: distracting everyone from real problems by attacking Israel. Western countries should refuse to play this vicious little game anymore.

The UNHRC should be abolished.

Exit programme for Islamists set up by Germany

What if you are a Muslim militant in Germany but don't want to continue your life as an extremist? Germany provides a solution:

Germany aims to tackle a growing threat from Islamic extremists with an exit programme modelled on assistance for repentant neo-Nazis, authorities said yesterday.

“We plan to offer a hotline and a website for people who have fallen under the influence of fundamentalists or Islamists,” Heinz Fromm, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the domestic intelligence agency, told reporters.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told the news conference that the service would be available in a few weeks’ time.

Militants wanting to turn their backs on extremism will be put in contact with “trained personnel who are capable of offering help to people in German but also in Arabic or Turkish,” Fromm said.

“We think it will be a useful effort, even though it is modest, to take a preventative approach to this problem,” de Maiziere said.

According to Fromm’s agency in its annual report, there are 29 Islamist extremist organisations in Germany, with 36,000 members at the end of 2009 - 1,500 more than the year before. Some 200 Germans or foreigners living in Germany have spent time in Pakistan with the intention of receiving paramilitary training by Islamist groups. Authorities have concrete evidence that 65 of them underwent such training, the agency said.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution launched a similar programme for right-wing extremists in 2001.

It said it has received about 1,040 calls to the hotline since it was established, about 300 of them from former extremists seeking help. About 120 of them have received or are receiving “intensive assistance” in reorienting their lives, the office’s website said.

Hezbollah member, PalArab, Turk, Saudis killed in US drone strike

From the Earth Times:

Peshawar, Pakistan - A major Lebanese terrorist released by the German government five years ago has been killed in a US drone attack in Pakistan's tribal region, Pakistani intelligence sources said on Sunday.

Mohammed Ali Hamadi died when a missile fired by a CIA-operated unmanned drone aircraft destroyed a compound in North Waziristan, a known hub of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, on Saturday.

"Altogether 16 militants died in the drone attack and 11 of them were foreigners," said a Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The term foreigner is used to refer to al- Qaeda associated operatives of Arab and Central Asian origin.

"We have identified those who were killed and among them is Mohammad Ali Hamadi," added the official.

Another intelligence official who also sought anonymity verified the death of Hamadi.

Hamadi, 46, is an alleged member of the Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah. He was sentenced by a West German court in 1987 for 19 years for skyjacking a Trans World Airlines flight in 1985. One US Navy diver was killed in the hostage-taking event.

The convict was released on parole in 2005 by German authorities, after which Hamadi is believed to have returned to Lebanon. In 2006, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) put his name on its list of most wanted terrorists.

Pakistani intelligence officials said that Hamadi traveled to Afghanistan to fight NATO troops in November 2009 and joined the Central Asia-based al-Qaeda linked terrorist group Jamaat al-Jihad al-Islami, which is believed to have recruited many Turkish and German nationals.

In March 2010, Hamadi came to Pakistan's North Waziristan district, from where al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters conduct cross- border attacks on international forces in Afghanistan, to join colleagues based there.

"Hamadi and his comrades were in a meeting to plan further attacks in Afghanistan when the drone strike took place," a Pakistani intelligence official said.

Among the other killed were: Atif bin Saeed, believed to be a close associate of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden; Turkish national Abdul Waheed al-Turkey; Saudi citizens Abdul Hamam and Brother Gul (a nick name); and Palestinian national Abdul Wali.

This shows that Al Qaeda embraces diversity. It happily accepts help from Hezbollah Lebanese, Palestinian Arabs, Saudis and Turks.

I think that they should be rewarded for their progressive thinking.

Only one thing bothers me. President Obama has changed the focus of the fight against Islamic terror into a fight against al Qaeda alone, as he said in his Oval Office speech last week:

Abroad, our brave men and women in uniform are taking the fight to al Qaeda wherever it exists.

And three weeks before that, he made it very clear that al Qaeda is the enemy, not radical or political Islam:

More than anything else, though, our success will be claimed by who we are as a country. This is more important than ever, given the nature of the challenges that we face. Our campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and to defeat al Qaeda is part of an international effort that is necessary and just.

But this is a different kind of war. There will be no simple moment of surrender to mark the journey's end - no armistice, no banner headline. ...We see the potential duration of this struggle in al Qaeda's gross distortions of Islam, their disrespect for human life, and their attempt to prey upon fear and hatred and prejudice.

Does this mean he will apologize to Hezbollah, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the PA for the killing of non-al Qaeda members? It sounds like the US violated the principle of proportionality, that we all know is a cornerstone of international humanitarian law.The drones should not have attacked until it was known for certain that only al Qaeda members would be killed - because the other people were just innocent members of the great religion of Islam whose beliefs were being grossly distorted by their hosts.

UN Watch - in the belly of the beast

From UN Watch:

As the UN Human Rights Council completed its 4th year, delegates heard testimony from UN Watch on the past 12 months of council reactions to violations worldwide.

The Past Year: Inaction and Double Standards
UN Human Rights Council, 14th Session,
Delivered by Executive Director Hillel Neuer, 15 June 2010
Mr. President, in Article 1 of the Vienna Declaration, the States assembled here committed to protect all human rights. Is the Council living up to this obligation? Focusing thematically on the right to life, let us consider one example from each of the past 12 months:

• June 2009—Tehran. Hundreds of thousands gather peacefully to protest a questionable election. The government responds with brutality. Dozens are killed, hundreds injured, thousands arrested.
• July—China. Troops fire on Uighur protesters; 200 killed, 1700 injured.
• August—Russia. Two aid workers killed in Chechnya, government complicity suspected.
• September—Yemen. Government warplanes bomb a refugee camp, killing 80.

This Council’s response? Silence.

• October—Iraq. A terrorist attacks a mosque, killing the imam and 14 others.
• November—The Phillipines. Fifty-seven opposition activists massacred.
• December—Iran. Renewed protests meet with bullets, beatings and arrests; 10 killed.
• January—Pakistan. One hundred and eighty-two civilians killed in 42 attacks.

This Council’s response? Silence.

• February—Afghanistan. A Taliban attack kills 18, injuring 32, including doctors.
• March—Nigeria. 500 Christians slaughtered in religious killings.
• April—Kyrgyzstan. Troops fire on demonstrators; 84 killed.
• Finally, May. Libya executes 18 foreigners, without due process.

Mr. President, faced with these and other gross violations of the Vienna Declaration, what was this council’s standard response? Silence. No resolutions; no urgent sessions; no investigations. Nothing.

Yet two weeks ago, when Israel defended itself against violent Jihadists on the so-called humanitarian flotilla, we witnessed another standard—a double standard.
Suddenly the council sprang into action, with an urgent debate, a resolution condemning Israel, and yet another investigation where the guilty verdict was declared in advance.
Meanwhile, in this session, not a single resolution has been adopted for 191 other countries.

Mr. President, is the right to life, as guaranteed under the Vienna Declaration, being protected?

No—on the contrary. And millions of victims are paying the price.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I have no idea if Hillel Neuer is making the slightest impact on a thoroughly corrupt organization, or if he is paradoxically enabling them to act as badly as they do since he provides them with the fig leaf of being even-handed. Either way, he deserves kudos for single-handedly taking the fight right to the enemy.

Another recent UN Watch speech:

Mr. President, we meet under the agenda item targeting Israel. There are two things terribly wrong with this disproportionate focus.

First, it is biased. After the item was adopted in 2007, the UK said “the practice of ‘singling out one’ risked undermining the Human Rights Council’s own principles.” France said it was “contrary to non-selectivity.” Canada noted that the Council breached its own principles-of universality, impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity. Targeting any UN member state, said Canada, was “politicized, selective, partial, and subjective.”

But Mr. President, there is something far more pernicious that ought to concern all supporters of human rights.

On 20 June 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized “the Council’s decision to single out only one specific regional item, given the range of human rights violations throughout the entire world.”

These words were never more clear than today.

For the second time in this brief session, we have spent the entire day today discussing alleged violations of Israel, hearing various reports about redundant investigations, all of which are have pre-determined conclusions.

Yet even as we meet, the international community is witnessing a grave and worsening human rights and humanitarian tragedy in Kyrgyzstan.

At least 200 have been slaughtered; 1500 injured; and 100,000 refugees seek to cross the border to escape the violence. The Red Cross warned just now that the humanitarian crisis that is “getting worse by the hour.”

Witnesses report that women and children are being shot as they try to flee, and that bodies litter the city’s streets and many of its destroyed buildings. According to Dilmurad Ishanov, an Uzbek human rights worker in Osh, “They are killing Uzbeks like animals. Almost the whole city is in flames.”

Mr. President, we heard speeches today from Libya, Syria, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, Venezuela, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League.

I ask them: If all human beings are equal, why are you silent today for the victims of Kyrgyzstan?

After you called an urgent debate and investigation for the so-called humanitarian flotilla, why do you not do the same for what everyone agrees is a humanitarian tragedy of colossal proportions?

Mr. President, this agenda item deafens our ears to the cries of human rights victims everywhere.

Morocco "dismantles terrorist network"

From Maktoob:

RABAT - Moroccan security services dismantled Monday a suspected Islamic extremist network headed by a Palestinian national, the interior ministry said.

The network of 11 members led by a Palestinian "planned to commit terrorist acts within the national territory," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the activists involved were Takfirists.

The Takfirist ideology is upheld by a violent Islamist movement forming a tiny minority in Morocco, who argue that society and its rulers have strayed from the true path. Takfirism first appeared in Egypt in the 1970s.

More than 2,000 Islamists have been arrested and sentenced in Morocco since the Casablanca bombings of May 16, 2003. Five separate suicide bomb attacks, the most deadly inside a restaurant, claimed 45 lives, including those of 12 bombers, and wounded many people in the northern port city.

Al Qassam Brigades publishes fawning obituary of Mabhouh

The Al Qassam Brigades, "militant wing" of Hamas, has published a fawning "martyr" obituary for Mahmoud Mabhouh.

Excerpts:

On the fourteenth of the month of February, one thousand nine hundred and sixty-AD, Al-Qassam leader, Mahmoud Abdel-Raouf Mohamed Mabhouh, "Abul Abed," was born...His cries as a baby were to grow up one day and become a thorn in the throat of the Zionists and haunt them, and shake their thrones, and kidnap soldiers and kill them.

Since he was young he loved to hate the occupation, and dreamed that one day he woudl grow up to avenge the Zionists and the Israeli soldiers, perpetrators of the massacres against our people.

The martyr, may God have mercy on him, would exercise constantly, and often frequented by a gym in Jabalya as a bodybuilder. In one of the tournaments he won first place in bodybuilding for the entire Gaza Strip.

The martyr, may God have mercy on him, was held several times in the prisons of the Zionists, also Egyptian prisons. He held in 1986 in Gaza Central Prison (Saraya), and charged with possession of weapons and after release from prisons of the Zionist occupation completed his jihad and continued his pursuit of the Zionist occupation.

The martyr, may God have mercy on him, had since childhood a love of resistance and jihad for the sake of God, and was trained to arms, and in 1986 was detained in Gaza Central Prison for a year on charges of possession of a Kalashnikov, and after his release from prison did not stop his jihad but increased in strength, and increased his relationship with Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Sheikh al-Salah Shehadeh.

The martyr, may God have mercy on him, worked with the first group which was founded by Commander Mohammad Sharatha, and was the leader of the members of the military group.

The martyr, may God have mercy on him, was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of two Zionists.

The martyr, may God have mercy on him, did not like to talk a lot, but his face would change when he sees the Zionists and he passionately wanted revenge on the Zionists. This very powerful figure, and martyr, may God have mercy on him, was excellent at secrecy and confidentiality.

It goes on like this for a while, although it does not go into detail on his abduction and murder of two IDF soldiers or his presumed arms deals with Iran. Instead the obituary tells a story of Mabhouh threatening soldiers for enforcing a curfew some years back.

As the latest Latma episode parodies, the world seems to forget that Mabhouh was a terrorist and that his being offed is a good thing.

Target-rich environment: Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, in Syria

From Ma'an:

Palestinian opposition factions, Hizbullah officials and a delegation of Iranians will soon meet in Damascus, the Kuwaiti Al-Anba daily newspaper reported on Monday.

The meeting, according to the anonymous source quoted in the paper, will take place in late June, under official Syrian patronage, in an effort to activate resistance in the region in light of an expected Israeli offensive against Iran or against Hizbullah in Lebanon.

The world doesn't even blink when Iran publicly meets with terror groups. There might be a UN resolution or two against terrorism, I'm not sure.

The last paragraph is enlightening:

As part of an apparent ramp up in relations between Palestinian opposition factions - namely Hamas and Islamic Jihad - in Lebanon and Syria, the groups were reportedly permitted to establish community centers in the refugee camps of southern Lebanon, which had previously been prohibited in favor of involvement from PLO-faction centers, the paper reported.

How much more evidence do you need to see that Lebanon's Cedar Revolution is over? Terror groups can now openly recruit people in Lebanese "refugee" camps - with the apparent approval of the Lebanese; and in direct opposition to the pseudo-moderate Fatah.

I wonder what happened to all those "experts" who used to proclaim that Shiites and Sunnis hated each other so much that their terror groups would never cooperate.

Today's PalArab news: the chess game

A few stories give an indication of the intricate chess game that goes on constantly within Palestinian Arab politics.

A new poll is showing that prime minister Fayyad, who is not associated with Fatah, is becoming more popular. Fayyad worries Fatah because his very existence shows Fatah to be not nearly as moderate and pro-West as it appears in when contrasted with Hamas. Fayyad also seems to be pursuing his policies independently of Fatah.

Mahmoud Abbas said he was considering a visit to Gaza in an effort to break the stalemate between Fatah and Hamas. Any such agreement would, of course, make the PA more radical by definition, as Hamas would not accept Israel's existence even when it is part of the government. On the other hand, if he succeeded, the Palestinian Arabs would be ecstatic and his popularity would skyrocket. He hedged his bets, saying that maybe he would wait until after a reconciliation agreement.

Hamas slammed the idea saying it was propaganda; Islamic Jihad said they would welcome him.

Egypt got nervous about the idea, and is reportedly discouraging Abbas from such a visit, worried that if it is unsuccessful it could set back any chance of reconciliation. On the other hand, Egypt also wants the credit if a reconciliation takes place, as it has been the one pushing hardest on that issue.

Meanwhile, rocket attacks from Gaza are on the increase; one rocket fell short yesterday and hit a residential area. There were other volleys of rockets last week, by the PRC and Islamic Jihad.

The symbiosis of Western guilt and Eastern shame

The WSJ has a fantastic piece that gets to the root of modern anti-Zionism, written by Shelby Steele. I'm reproducing the entire article:

The most interesting voice in all the fallout surrounding the Gaza flotilla incident is that sanctimonious and meddling voice known as "world opinion." At every turn "world opinion," like a school marm, takes offense and condemns Israel for yet another infraction of the world's moral sensibility. And this voice has achieved an international political legitimacy so that even the silliest condemnation of Israel is an opportunity for self-congratulation.

Rock bands now find moral imprimatur in canceling their summer tour stops in Israel (Elvis Costello, the Pixies, the Gorillaz, the Klaxons). A demonstrator at an anti-Israel rally in New York carries a sign depicting the skull and crossbones drawn over the word "Israel." White House correspondent Helen Thomas, in one of the ugliest incarnations of this voice, calls on Jews to move back to Poland. And of course the United Nations and other international organizations smugly pass one condemnatory resolution after another against Israel while the Obama administration either joins in or demurs with a wink.

This is something new in the world, this almost complete segregation of Israel in the community of nations. And if Helen Thomas's remarks were pathetic and ugly, didn't they also point to the end game of this isolation effort: the nullification of Israel's legitimacy as a nation? There is a chilling familiarity in all this. One of the world's oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again.

"World opinion" labors mightily to make Israel look like South Africa looked in its apartheid era—a nation beyond the moral pale. And it projects onto Israel the same sin that made apartheid South Africa so untouchable: white supremacy. Somehow "world opinion" has moved away from the old 20th century view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a complicated territorial dispute between two long-suffering peoples. Today the world puts its thumb on the scale for the Palestinians by demonizing the stronger and whiter Israel as essentially a colonial power committed to the "occupation" of a beleaguered Third World people.

This is now—figuratively in some quarters and literally in others—the moral template through which Israel is seen. It doesn't matter that much of the world may actually know better. This template has become propriety itself, a form of good manners, a political correctness. Thus it is good manners to be outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza, and it is bad manners to be outraged at Hamas's recent attack on a school because it educated girls, or at the thousands of rockets Hamas has fired into Israeli towns—or even at the fact that Hamas is armed and funded by Iran. The world wants independent investigations of Israel, not of Hamas.

One reason for this is that the entire Western world has suffered from a deficit of moral authority for decades now. Today we in the West are reluctant to use our full military might in war lest we seem imperialistic; we hesitate to enforce our borders lest we seem racist; we are reluctant to ask for assimilation from new immigrants lest we seem xenophobic; and we are pained to give Western Civilization primacy in our educational curricula lest we seem supremacist. Today the West lives on the defensive, the very legitimacy of our modern societies requiring constant dissociation from the sins of the Western past—racism, economic exploitation, imperialism and so on.

When the Israeli commandos boarded that last boat in the flotilla and, after being attacked with metal rods, killed nine of their attackers, they were acting in a world without the moral authority to give them the benefit of the doubt. By appearances they were shock troopers from a largely white First World nation willing to slaughter even "peace activists" in order to enforce a blockade against the impoverished brown people of Gaza. Thus the irony: In the eyes of a morally compromised Western world, the Israelis looked like the Gestapo.

This, of course, is not the reality of modern Israel. Israel does not seek to oppress or occupy—and certainly not to annihilate—the Palestinians in the pursuit of some atavistic Jewish supremacy. But the merest echo of the shameful Western past is enough to chill support for Israel in the West.

The West also lacks the self-assurance to see the Palestinians accurately. Here again it is safer in the white West to see the Palestinians as they advertise themselves—as an "occupied" people denied sovereignty and simple human dignity by a white Western colonizer. The West is simply too vulnerable to the racist stigma to object to this "neo-colonial" characterization.

Our problem in the West is understandable. We don't want to lose more moral authority than we already have. So we choose not to see certain things that are right in front of us. For example, we ignore that the Palestinians—and for that matter much of the Middle East—are driven to militancy and war not by legitimate complaints against Israel or the West but by an internalized sense of inferiority. If the Palestinians got everything they want—a sovereign nation and even, let's say, a nuclear weapon—they would wake the next morning still hounded by a sense of inferiority. For better or for worse, modernity is now the measure of man.

And the quickest cover for inferiority is hatred. The problem is not me; it is them. And in my victimization I enjoy a moral and human grandiosity—no matter how smart and modern my enemy is, I have the innocence that defines victims. I may be poor but my hands are clean. Even my backwardness and poverty only reflect a moral superiority, while my enemy's wealth proves his inhumanity.

In other words, my hatred is my self-esteem. This must have much to do with why Yasser Arafat rejected Ehud Barak's famous Camp David offer of 2000 in which Israel offered more than 90% of what the Palestinians had demanded. To have accepted that offer would have been to forgo hatred as consolation and meaning. Thus it would have plunged the Palestinians—and by implication the broader Muslim world—into a confrontation with their inferiority relative to modernity. Arafat knew that without the Jews to hate an all-defining cohesion would leave the Muslim world. So he said no to peace.

And this recalcitrance in the Muslim world, this attraction to the consolations of hatred, is one of the world's great problems today—whether in the suburbs of Paris and London, or in Kabul and Karachi, or in Queens, N.Y., and Gaza. The fervor for hatred as deliverance may not define the Muslim world, but it has become a drug that consoles elements of that world in the larger competition with the West. This is the problem we in the West have no easy solution to, and we scapegoat Israel—admonish it to behave better—so as not to feel helpless. We see our own vulnerability there.

Steele hits many major themes in this one article: leftist self-loathing, the re-appearance of anti-semitism in the guise of morality, the Arab world's inferiority complex as a driver for its actions, how Arab and Muslim regimes use Israel as a scapegoat to avoid dealing with their own problems and how this feeds into Western guilt.

There is a solution to this problem, but it will not come easily.

Barry Rubin has been in the United States this year after living in Israel for a while. He sent his fourth-grade son to a public school. In this way, he was able to see how badly the education system of the US has declined since he himself was a child. As he puts it:

It's the end of the school year so I should sum up my son's experience in a public school American fourth grade class. Different school districts vary a great deal. But in this one the students basically learned three things in social studies: America has been racist and done a lot of bad things; man-made global warming threatens the future of the planet; and immigration is good.

Abraham Lincoln was never discussed; George Washington got his ten minutes of fame; and Memorial Day was dispensed with with a photocopy of a short Washington Post article giving a brief and general explanation of its significance. No class discussion.

Just after Memorial Day, during a free activity period, a teacher looked in horror at my son's notebook. He was drawing pictures of soldiers. The notebook pages were confiscated with the warning that he should never draw anything like that again.

We ended the year with a discussion of the songs my son's class had studied. They did "America the Beautiful" once but spent a lot of time on "We Shall Overcome." Suddenly, a thought popped into my mind and I asked my son:

"Did you learn the `Star Spangled Banner'?" He looked puzzled.

My daughter helpfully sang, "You know, `Oh, say can you see!'"

He asked, "What's that?"

Too many people nowadays mistake self-esteem and patriotism for hubris and national arrogance. This is exactly the opposite of the truth. Arrogance is an attempt to cover up one's own deficiencies; self-esteem is the ability to objectively look at both one's own good and bad qualities.

Those with self-esteem do not need praise; those with arrogance do. Those with self-esteem have no reason to brag; those with hubris cannot help themselves. People with a sense of self-worth can take accurate criticism and use it to improve themselves; arrogant people take offense and lash out at those who dare "insult" them.

Westerners with the proper amount of self-esteem are proud of who they are and humble enough to admit their mistakes. Those whose sense of guilt overwhelm their sense of pride will look at those same mistakes as proof of that same guilt.

Low self-esteem in the Western world brings on feelings of guilt. In the Eastern world, however, it brings on feelings of shame.

One way to get rid of shame is to shift the blame to others; another way is to use honor as a perversion of the idea of self-esteem. Honor and shame are all about appearances, not reality, so the appearance of honor is seen as identical to self-worth.

Hence we have Arabs filled with shame who will blame the West and especially Israel for all of their problems as a band-aid to avoid their feelings of inferiority. And we have Westerners who happily accept this guilt that they feel anyway.

Guilt and shame are equally pernicious; in this case they are also symbiotic. Eastern shifting of blame to escape shame has a welcome recipient with Western acceptance of responsibility to escape guilt. The guilty Westerners are then more than willing to cut off the parties who are perceived as the ones most guilty - or the ones who actually have pride in their own accomplishments - to assuage their own feelings of guilt.

The problem is that neither the strategy of shifting blame nor of accepting guilt will end up helping either side's feelings of self-worth.

If Israel falls, neither side would be satisfied. There will be another Western target, and another, and then the next. Each side knows their partner's dance steps very well. It is a complex game that is meant to avoid looking at reality. The solution is for both sides to have a true sense of pride - one so strong that criticism is no longer something to be avoided or redirected, but rather to be welcomed as a means of self-improvement.

Patriotism is not evil; it is healthy and should be encouraged. Patriotism does not mean mindless sloganeering, though. Westerners can and should be proud of their culture and ideals, they should raise their children with pride for their way of life, and there is nothing wrong with declaring Western philosophy as superior.

And there is nothing wrong with others doing the same for non-Western philosophies.

The catch is that one has to be able to defend that opinion, not to accept it mindlessly. The only way that this can be done is if we shed the competing armors of guilt and shame and start making ourselves vulnerable to the most frightening weapon of all, the one weapon that both guilt and shame are meant to defend against and deny altogether:

Truth.

Dutch police may employ undercover agents disguised as religious Jews

Haaretz mentions a new Dutch proposal to tackle antisemitism by letting Dutch police go undercover as Jews:

Dutch police may employ undercover agents disguised as religious Jews to expose and arrest violent anti-Semites, a police spokesperson said last week.

The initiative was first proposed by a Dutch Muslim legislator [Ahmed Marcouch, Suz.] in response to reports of frequent attacks against Jews by Moroccan immigrants. Prominent figures from the country’s Jewish community said they supported the plan.
...
The Center for Information and Documentation Israel, an influential nongovernmental watchdog on anti-Semitism, announced on Thursday that it supported the initiative. "It has become common for Jews to hide their skull-caps on the street," said Ronny Naftaniel, who heads the center, known in Holland by its initials, CIDI. He added that Marchouch’s “liberal views have cost him in the past the support of voters from the Moroccan community.”
...
"Hate and anti-Semitism is sometimes can be addressed together through education," explained Marcouch, a leading member in the Jewish-Moroccan Network of Amsterdam – a forum which CIDI and Cohen helped create in 2006 to promote dialog between the two communities.

"It is in the family that one needs to be alert, and to eliminate anti-Semitism," Marcouch added. "And the way to do this is through education about what hatred of the other can lead to. Strong police intervention is important because no one must suffer violence, but in parallel we need to inform children so they don't harbor anti-Semitic feelings."

For some odd reason, Haaretz believes that it is necessary to dress up Haredi in order to get reactions (see there headline: Are Dutch police going undercover as Haredi Jews?). Just a kipa alone, however, is sufficient:
(forward to 0:58 as in this program of a last Sunday):

Israeli film banned by French movie chain

A film made by an Israeli immigrant from Russia, called "5 Hours from Paris," ("5 heures de Paris") has been taken off the schedule of the Utopia theatre chain in France.

The chain's director, Anne-Marie Faucon, made the move as a protest against the Israeli raid on the terrorist IHH Mavi Marmara ship.

The film was replaced with a movie about Rachel Corrie.

Pretty much every French website I have seen has been critical of the move. The movie is a light romantic comedy with no political overtones and most French observers feel that Utopia is engaging in censorship. The French Minister of Culture wrote a letter to Utopia expressing his incomprehension and disapproval of the move.

Even Utopia seemed to backtrack a little, as Faucon originally said that she would be happy to screen the film "when the siege of Gaza is over" but the co-founder of Utopia later said that the film will be screened at the chain in July.

The director of the film, Leon Prudovsky, is getting a lot of free publicity out of this.

UPDATE: The New York Times wrote about this the day after I posted. (h/t Samson)

Leftover news items (updated)

Here are some things I didn't get a chance to blog about today:

Jed in the comments pointed me to this Israeli Channel 10 report about the underground trade of Israeli goods to Gaza. This explains all the Hebrew-labeled items in the Gaza supermarkets, but it goes beyond groceries to refrigerators and water coolers.

Firas Press reports that Turkey is now blaming Israel for recent clashes with Kurds over the past few months. Some 10 Turks have been killed in the past week - and 130 Kurds. Sounds disproportionate, no? Where's Goldstone when you need him? (Oh, and the same story says that Turkey is reportedly using Israeli drones to attack the Kurds.)

Firas also quotes Al Hayat about how both Hamas and Fatah are stopping Gazans from traveling. Hamas simply stops them at the border; Fatah is being stingy with passports.

One of Hezbollah's "aid" boats, which may be the "Miryam" ("Mary") that was supposed to have only women passengers, is being stopped from sailing because it has not officially declared its destination.

Ha'aretz profiles Aliza Landes, the head of the IDF's "new media desk" and the person who I contact to ask specific questions and get official statements. She is also the daughter of Richard Landes, of the Augean Stables blog. I met her when I was in Israel in December, and she hosted the IDF blogger trip to the Lebanese and Syrian borders.

The potato battery: Israel saving the world, again

From Engadget:

Researchers in Jerusalem have just announced they've developed super simple, sustainable, organic electric batteries which are powered by treated potatoes. Their findings have just been published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, and detail uses of the batteries in the developing world where infrastructure is lacking. The apparently highly efficient battery is made from zinc and copper electrodes and a potato slice which has been boiled. The act of boiling the potato increased the electric power around 10 fold in comparison to an untreated potato, giving it power for days, and sometimes weeks depending on the conditions. The potato batteries are also, of course, way cheaper than regular commercial cells. The technology has officially been made available free of charge to the developing world.

Not only that, but "Electric Potato" would be a great name for a '60s cover band.

The press release from Yissum Research Development Company also mentions:

Cost analyses showed that the treated potato battery generates energy, which is five to 50 folds cheaper than commercially available 1.5 Volt D cells and Energizer E91 cells, respectively. The clean light powered by this green battery is also at least 6 times more economical than kerosene lamps often used in the developing world.

Thus, the boiled potato or other similarly treated vegetables could provide an immediate, environmental friendly and inexpensive solution to many of the low power energy needs in areas of the world lacking access to electrical infrastructure. The long-keeping humble potatoes in particular are a good energy source since they are produced in 130 countries over a wide range of climates, from temperate zones to the subtropics- more than any other crop worldwide, but corn, and thus available year round almost anywhere.

(h/t LGF)