Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, November 06, 2010

UNRWA chief asks for machine guns to protect himself in Gaza

The defense establishment has taken the unusual step of granting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency approval to take four weapons into Gaza. The weapons, submachine guns, are to serve the security detail guarding the heads of the agency in Gaza.

The request to bring in the weapons was made three years ago and approved last week.

The director of UNRWA's activities in Gaza, John Ging, said on his website that his life is in constant danger and he needs more suitable protection than the handguns his bodyguards had been carrying.

The UN body asked for German Heckler and Koch submachine guns for UNRWA's commissioner general, Filippo Grandi, and for Ging.

The organization told Israeli security officials that its personnel are being threatened by Hamas representatives. UNRWA operates 221 schools in Gaza and dozens of medical centers, employment centers and women's help centers.

More than a million refugees and their descendents are registered with UNRWA, which operates eight refugee camps in Gaza.

In March 2007, gunmen fired at Ging's convoy and he escaped without injury. In the summer of 2007, armed men again attacked him, in Rafah, killing one.

Ging supports unsupervised flotillas to break the blockade of Gaza, which would be able to bring all the weapons he might need.

So why didn't he ask his Hamas buddies to smuggle in some submachine guns for his team?

Latest Latma (11/5/10)

The centerpiece sketch is more for Israelis (a spoof of the Leftist "peace" anthem) but not bad.

Arab "peace plans" of the 1970s

I just stumbled onto these...

From March, 1972 (click to enlarge):

King Hussein suggests a semi-autonomous Palestinian Arab state on the land that Israel would give him on West Bank, confederated with Jordan. And he helpfully adds that any other Palestinian territory Jordan eventually won from Israel would become a part of the West Bank state, saying that "the federation can include any part of Palestine we can liberate - Haifa, for instance."

I guess when Israel wins land in a war, it is an illegal occupation; when Arabs do, it automatically becomes a legal part of an expanded state.

From December, 1974 (click to enlarge):

Egypt's plan was simple: if Israel wants peace, it must stop all immigration and all population growth. For 50 years.

Sound absurd? Well, going back to 1949 armistice lines is just as absurd - but by dint of repetition, it has become conventional wisdom.

Israelis, Australian almost lynched in Jerusalem

You know how Arabs are frightened for their lives when they accidentally drive through Jewish neighborhoods in Israel?

No?

Three students from the central city of Givatayim and their Australian friend will never forget their nightly drive to Jerusalem's city center. The three, who picked up the young woman from the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus, almost paid with their lives after taking a wrong turn.

"There were four of us in the car, and we planned to sit in a quiet pub on Ben-Yehuda Street and talk," the driver, Assaf Ben-Ari, told Ynet on Friday morning. "There were no signs, and since we don't live in the area we didn't know how to turn back. We took a right turn on one of the curves and found ourselves on a one-way road in an unfamiliar area."

...The group had no choice and continued driving according to the instructions, and found themselves in the heart of the neighborhood of Issawiya. They decided to turn back, but were shocked to discover that the road had been blocked.

"I don't know how they managed, but only two minutes later they set up a barrier which included a barbed-wire fence, chairs, and iron pipes. We were in shock. We suddenly heard an explosion sound in the back, and saw the boy and the adult who we spoke to throwing bricks at us."

The car's rear windowpane was smashed, and young men began coming out of the neighborhood houses and throwing stones at the vehicle....Meanwhile, "the entire neighborhood woke up and dozens of young men gathered next to us and waited for us with sticks and stones. I considered escaping from the vehicle or even hiding until the police arrived, but I knew we wouldn't stand a chance if they found us outside the car. Several minutes later we were surrounded, and I realized that I must drive my car into the barrier if I want to get out of here alive."

At that moment, he began driving fast while being hit with stones and iron pipes from all directions. "I pressed the gas pedal with all my might, and simply drove into the barrier at 110 kilometers an hour. The barbed-wire fence was caught under the wheels and dragged along. There were sparks in the air."

After crossing the first barrier, the group was shocked to discover a second trap. "Several meters ahead they placed a row of taxis attached to each other in order to prevent us from passing. Luckily, we managed to get through a small gap between the pavement and the wall, a moment before another taxi arrived to close us in."

At the same time, three Border Guard jeeps arrived in the area and ensured that there were no injuries. According to the police, "The fighters dispersed the rioters and the matter has been handed over to the minority department."

"It was like entering a nightmare. They had a look of murder in their eyes," the driver said after the incident. "Had we stayed there one more minute we wouldn't be alive anymore. It wasn't just an attempt to stone us, but an intentional desire to lynch us only several meters way from the university."

We have to understand how an oppressed minority would want to trap and terrorize four civilians who accidentally wandered into their neighborhood. I'm sure that British gentiles are equally frightened to drive through Golders' Green and Brooklyn Hispanics are terrified to drive through Flatbush.

(h/t Elder of Lobby)

Israel's departing Press Office director lets loose

The Jerusalem Post has an amazing interview with the outgoing director of the Israel's Government Press Office, Danny Seaman. It is way too long to reproduce here but here are some highlights:

Part of my problem with the foreign press – and I’ve been accused of being combative and feisty in fighting them – is that you have journalists coming in here not having the faintest idea of what is going on.

They live off what they get from their colleagues; they meet certain people who come from the same social-economic background; they live off of one newspaper, Haaretz. They don’t make an effort. When you have a conversation with them, you find that they have a complete lack of knowledge of the elementary issues.

This didn’t used to be the case.

Journalists from the ’70s, ’80s, who were here during the beginning of the ’90s, were very knowledgeable, very experienced. This is a different generation.

The narrative has shifted. They’ll adopt the Palestinian narrative. That has become the bon ton. They’ll talk about “the Palestinian right of return.” There is no such thing. They talk about what the Palestinians call “Israel’s violations of Oslo.” What exactly are they talking about? They have no knowledge about the facts.

Today, if you bring in, say, an expert on international law [to hold a briefing for foreign journalists], they delegitimize the person based on what they perceive to be his political opinions. This is unacceptable, especially for a journalist. We the people, in a democratic society, rely on them to provide us with the information for us to make an educated decision on a particular issue. In this case, many journalists are failing in their duty. The media outfits that employ them are giving them automatic backing. And when the media doesn’t exercise its checks and balances, they’re failing in their job.

...Israel is always active. Other things just “happen.” Missiles “rain down” on Israel. But where Israel is concerned, and I’m quoting from some media reports, they even adopt Nazi terminology: “Israel's blitzkrieg.”

Always using negatives and very aggressive terms.

By contrast, the suffering Israel endures is always caused by some obscure [force]. It’s never quite clear what’s happening, and who is responsible. The number of ways that Israel is depicted negatively is, astoundingly, much greater than with Hizbullah. Hizbullah is a terrorist organization! It is considered so by every country in the world, including the United Nations. [Yet I found foreign media] to be taking their word, their narrative as fact.

For the war in Gaza about 400 additional reporters showed up here. They seem to have no knowledge of what is going on. They don’t understand what they’re seeing.

They don’t understand urban warfare. They’ll see some phosphorus or they’ll see some smoke, and they’ll immediately adapt [what they’re told about it] without understanding from the military perspective why it’s being done. [In Gaza, they were fed] misinformation, and they gave credibility to sources who time and time again have been disproved, sources who are very credible in the Western world, such as doctors.

In the Western world doctors are given a very particular [credibility].

But that same attitude was given to Palestinian doctors, and more than once they deliberately misled and lied to the journalists. And instead of the journalists saying, “Ok, once, twice. The third time they’re not going to be lying to me anymore,” they keep turning to these sources.

Some journalists did the job they were supposed to be doing, and went to objective experts and asked them about false claims [that Israel was using illegal weaponry, or had weaponry that purportedly melted the skin, or that Israeli weaponry was causing] these kinds of injuries. [One specific reporter] did the legitimate thing. He went and he asked an expert. And he was told, “What you’re talking about is science fiction.

These weapons don’t exist.” So, in this case, the story should have been over. But no, he reports [the false allegation and the firm dismissal], giving legitimacy to the actual accusation.

You want to compare that to something? Go back to the old blood libel.

Imagine the Jews are being accused now of using blood to make matza.

Some of the foreign media would “go to the experts,” maybe one of these cooking shows on television, who’d dismiss the idea, of course.

But the very report itself would give legitimacy to this absurd kind of accusation. Some people watching would say, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire, so there must be some truth to it.” [The foreign media] would not do this to any other country.

The Palestinians are not stupid.

They have 20-30 years of experience of telling the journalists how high to jump. They know what makes modern media tick.

[With inexperienced journalists going into the West Bank], you’re taking somebody who doesn’t know the history. They’re moving from Israeli society, where we do everything to maintain normalcy.

You’ll have a suicide bombing in the morning, and by late afternoon there’s no indication of it any more. With the Palestinians, the moment you cross over, at the roadblock, people automatically have a negative reaction to the figures of authority. I get complaints [from journalists] saying there’s no human contact [between soldiers and Palestinians at checkpoints].

I try to explain to them there’s no human contact because when there was human contact, some [terrorists] saw that as an Achilles’ Heel and attacked the Israeli soldiers [at the checkpoints]. We’re trying to protect our lives. It’s the same with the security barrier. We protect our lives.

[Visiting journalists] don’t see it that way. They experience what it is like to be a Palestinian to a certain degree. When they come to our side, you have to start with the historical explanations. It’s very hard, because the life we have here seems very similar to their lives at home. They don’t understand the day-to-day things that we go through.

Read the whole thing.
(h/t Daled Amos via email)

Church claims it is being evicted because of support for Israel

From TheJC:

A Zionist Christian group says it will take legal action to fight eviction from its premises because it supports Israel.

Father's House, a small church group of 40 people based in the Welsh village of Gwernymynydd, near Mold, says this is the first case of a Christian church being evicted from a public village building because of its beliefs.

In May, the group received an eviction letter from the village centre from which it has run church services for 11 years. The centre gave the group six months to leave and said: "There has also been great concern expressed about the content of your website, and the very controversial views it contains. The Village Centre Committee does not wish to be associated with your views."

The website contains news and editorials about anti-Israel activity.

Father's House pastor Mike Fryer, a former National Crime Squad detective who studied at Yad Vashem in Israel, said the eviction was discriminatory under the Equality Act as it is connected to the group's beliefs. No-one from the Village Centre Management Committee was available for comment, but they have previously said the decision was taken because they wanted to use the church's weekly booking for children's parties and other events.

The church website is liberally decorated with stars of David and menorahs. It is not merely pro-Israel; it identifies strongly with the Judaism that they say early Christians practiced and with todays' Jews. It is clearly not close to a mainstream church, as it celebrates Jewish holidays and says

These Feast days are appointed by God Himself and He commanded us to keep them sacred. However they were removed from Christian practice in the 4th Century as a direct result of hatred towards the Jews, giving a victory to paganism over The Church. The Gentile Bishops of the day replaced The Lord's Feasts with pagan feast days in order to isolate the Jewish people. As a result, The Church has become the main persecutor of the Jews throughout history. We at Father’s House have been called to stand in the gap and repent for these sins and their consequences, including murder - during the Crusades, the Inquisitions and the Holocaust.

A flyer from the Home Front Command

At Oyvagoy, Israelinurse writes a post about a flyer that everyone in Israel received last week detailing what to do in case of a rocket attack.

The flyer included a picture showing how many seconds you have to take cover once you hear the sirens:

For the pale green area directly surrounding the Gaza Strip, including Sderot: 15 seconds.

For the pale blue area after that, including Ashkelon: 30 seconds.

For the purple zone, including Ashdod: 45 seconds.

For the darker green area after that, which includes Be’er Sheva: 60 seconds.

The darker orange region which includes Dimona and Jerusalem: 3 minutes.

The paler orange region including Tel Aviv and Netanya: 2 minutes.

The beige area including Hadera and Haifa: 60 seconds.

The yellow area which includes Haifa, Nazareth and Tzfat: 30 seconds.

And finally my region – the red one – which doesn’t have a time-frame; it just says ‘immediate entry to refuge’.

So next time some Hamas or Hizbollah apologist tells you about the ‘home-made rockets’ or ‘firecrackers’, ask them to close their eyes and count to 15, imagining that this is the maximum time available to them to gather up their children, pets or ageing relatives and get them to relative safety.

Which child would they grab first? How would they negotiate the stairs if they lived in a top-storey apartment? How would they cope with disabled, blind or deaf members of the family? What if they were at work and their children home alone?

To them it will still remain a theoretical exercise, but for millions of Israelis these are just some of the real questions which have to be answered; real decisions which have to be made – in a matter of seconds.

Zvi adds:

If you live outside of Israel, then I also recommend doing something else. On your phone or in your house, have a friend or family member set your alarm for a random time during the day or night. Don't look at it. Go about your normal daily business. When you hear the alarm go off, try to figure out what you would do if you had to get to a bomb shelter or secure room within 15 seconds. If you can do it SAFELY, actually try to make your way to such a place within 15 seconds.

What would you do if you were taking a shower when the alert went off?
What would you do if you were taking a sick child to the hospital?
What would you do if you were walking your dog?
What would you do if you were sleeping?
What would you do if you were desperate to use the restroom?
What would you do if you were playing with your young children at the park? (Sderot parks do have bomb shelters)
What would you do if you were helping an elderly or injured relative?
What would you do if the person standing next to you did not speak the language and did not understand what was going on?
What would you do if you were out in the middle of a field, weeding?
What would you do if you were davening - and among 200 other people in the shul, many of whom are kids and some of whom are seniors who can't move quickly?

What would you do if you were trying to change a flat tire by the side of the road?
What would you do if you were giving birth?

What would you do, in 15 seconds, to save your life or the lives of your loved ones?

If you do this, why not add in the comments section a report about what happened?

I'd like to add that if a Palestinian Arab state would be established on or near the 1949 armistice lines, even if it is supposedly "demilitarized," even if the PA promises on the lives of their mothers that they will never use weapons against their Israeli peace partners, all of Jerusalem and surround areas would turn red and Tel Aviv and Netanya would probably go from a "two minute" zone to a 30-second zone - as "Palestine" would only be nine kilometers away.

Because there is nothing that Israel could do in that scenario to stop Palestinian Arab terror groups from building or smuggling in rockets anyway.

Keep in in mind also that there are still a few rockets being fired every week, even during this "calm."

AP reporters don't know the basics

AP has an article about the possibility that Jews could live in a Palestinian Arab state:

It has become an article of faith in the Israeli-Palestinian equation: Israel's withdrawal from occupied lands must be accompanied by a removal of Jewish settlers.

But perhaps there's another option.

Although it's hardly mainstream thinking, voices on both sides are quietly contemplating an alternative: Perhaps some Jews can live in a future Palestine, even if only in small numbers, the way Arabs live in Israel.

AP's bias is evident in this article, making it appear that in such a scenario the only problem is Jews, and also maybe perhaps the possibility that Arabs could just start massacring the leftover Jews:

The problem, of course, is that most settlers have no desire to live under Palestinian rule — and in fact moved to the West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. Others are radicals who could well prove problem citizens.

The antipathy is generally mutual: Palestinians tend to think that the settlers' presence there is a violation of international agreements against colonizing occupied land. They are widely hated, and it is easily conceivable that they might suffer discrimination and even vigilante violence without protection of the Israeli military.

Look at how AP formulates their conception of why Jews move to Judea and Samaria - to prevent a Palestinian Arab state. This is exactly the Arab narrative, that Jews' entire existence in the Middle East is somehow meant to insult and humiliate Arabs, rather than to live peacefully in the land that their ancestors lived in.

The fact is that most "settlers" moved to their homes because there was no reason not to. Prices were lower, the quality of life was higher, their government helped build some of the towns, and no Israeli government has ever said that they would return to the 1949 armistice lines - and neither does UN resolution 242. If you ask them why they moved there, most would simply say that it is part of Israel. None of them would say "I moved here with my family to prevent a Palestinian Arab state."

AP also writes, as shown above, "Perhaps some Jews can live in a future Palestine, even if only in small numbers, the way Arabs live in Israel."

About 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. There are some 4.5 million Arabs in the territories. In order to have the same "small number" of Jews in a Palestinian Arab state, there would have to be be a million Jews in "Palestine!" That means that the number of "setters" would have to double or quadruple, depending on whether Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem would be included in "Palestine."

But in AP's world, Arabs in Israel are a tiny, presumably persecuted minority, living in smaller numbers than Jews in the West Bank!

Finally, AP does not seem to realize that some Palestinian Arab leaders are a bit, shall we say, against the idea of even a single Jew - let alone Israeli - living in "Palestine." No, that little bit of obstructionism and intransigence is not on AP's radar. The main obstacles to peace are, always, the Jews.

Hamas building a newer, bigger mall in Gaza

Firas Press reports that Hamass is planning to build Gaza's largest mall in the heart of Gaza City.

It will be built on a 44 dunam (10 acre) site in the Saraya compound, which was a Hamas (formerly Fatah) police/military base that was blown to smithereens during Cast Lead.

Of course, as everyone knows, the mall will be filled with products but empty of customers. While the old Gaza meme was one of of starvation and humanitarian crisis, the new meme is that there are plenty of goods in Gaza, no one can afford to buy them. Gaza is apparently filled with really dumb shop-owners who keep buying products that they cannot possibly sell.

Dubai's police chief: "Mossad tried to kill me!"

The Chief Police Clown of Dubai just can't shut up, but since he ran out of things to say about six months ago, now he's just making stuff up as he goes along.

Al Quds al-Arabi reports on his latest claims.

Even though Canada denied that they had arrested anyone associated with the assassination of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, Lieutenant-General Dahi Khalfan Tamim insists that his information is more accurate. In fact, now he knows that not only did Canada arrest one of the Mossad spies, but after the arrest he (escaped? and) went to safety in the United States!

Normally, that would be enough bizarre theories for one interview, but Lt-Gen Dahi has more:

He says that Mabhouh was not on his way to Iran, but rather to China. Moreover, Mabhouh in previous visits to Dubai (remember, with a false passport) never went to Iran afterwards.

But wait - there's more!

Dahi also says that the Mossad is really, really, really angry at him for his fantastic police work that has yet to result in a single arrest directly connected to the murder. They are so mad, they tried to kill him as well! Unfortunately, no details are forthcoming on this claim. I'm sure that the team of would-be assassins are in Dubai jail right now, since Khalfan obviously foiled the plot.

And he said that the Mossad isn't so great, anyway. (I guess they aren't if they couldn't even kill him.) You see, the Mossad sent 42 people to kill a single, unarmed man - how hard can that be?

Yes, he said 42. Apparently the number of suspects has been continuing to grow while we weren't looking.

Judea/Samaria's strategic importance - video in English

I just translated the video I linked to a couple of days ago about the strategic importance of Judea and Samaria ("the West Bank") to Israel's security.

I cannot believe that the people who went to the considerable effort to make this video didn't spend an extra hour to make it accessible to the English-speaking world. (Yes, that's how long it took me.)

PLO "ambassador" to US advocates expelling all Jews from "Palestine"

If anyone fits the very picture of a "moderate" Palestinian Arab, it would be the PLO's ambassador to Washington, Maen Rashid Areikat. As Tablet describes him,

A robust, dark-skinned man with salt-and-pepper hair and black-rimmed architect’s glasses, he is a protégé of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who supervised Areikat’s work as director-general of the Negotiations Affairs Department of the PLO. The two men are said to be temperamentally similar and personally close. With his direct manner and relaxed but forceful presence, he seems more like a businessman than a diplomat. It is easy to imagine him traveling through international airports hammering out partnership deals for Hewlett-Packard or SAP, in Europe one day and Dubai the next.

[He was] born in Jericho, on the West Bank, raised under Israeli military occupation, and educated in Arizona (where he received an undergraduate degree in finance and then an MBA.)

Friends and similar in temperament to the reknowned "moderate" PA president? Check.
Acts like a Westerner? Check.
US education? Check.

What's not to love?

Only one, small, niggling problem: The guy is a bigoted liar, and he perfectly represents everything that is wrong about Palestinian Arab leadership.

I won't fisk the entire thing, because he is re-hashing a lot of the usual stuff we've heard before. But here is something that for some reason did not get much coverage.

Q: When you imagine a future Palestinian state, do you imagine it being a place where Jews, if they wish to become Palestinian citizens, could own property, vote in elections, and practice their religion freely?

A: I remember in the mid-’90s, the late [PLO official] Faisal Husseini said repeatedly “OK, if Israelis choose to stay in a future Palestinian state, they are more than welcome to do that. But under one condition: They have to respect and obey Palestinian laws, they cannot be living as Israelis. They have to respect Palestinian laws and abide by them.” When Faisal Husseini died, basically no Palestinian leader has publicly supported the notion that they can stay.

What we are saying is the following: We need to separate. We have to separate. We are in a forced marriage. We need to divorce. After we divorce, and everybody takes a period of time to recoup, rebound, whatever you want to call it, we may consider dating again.

Q: So, you think it would be necessary to first transfer and remove every Jew—

A: Absolutely. No, I’m not saying to transfer every Jew, I’m saying transfer Jews who, after an agreement with Israel, fall under the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state.

Q: Any Jew who is inside the borders of Palestine will have to leave?

A: Absolutely. I think this is a very necessary step, before we can allow the two states to somehow develop their separate national identities, and then maybe open up the doors for all kinds of cultural, social, political, economic exchanges, that freedom of movement of both citizens of Israelis and Palestinians from one area to another. You know you have to think of the day after.

The PLO representative to the US publicly calls to ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes. Not Israelis - Jews.

I think that is called "transfer" and in another context it is considered the most heinous crime imaginable. When right-wing Zionists mention it, they are called "extremists" and "genocidal." When the PLO representative says it, it causes nary a ripple.

This interview was published a week ago!

Earlier in the interview, he said that one reason he doesn't like the idea of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state is because

[Y]ou know that there are between 18 and 20 percent non-Jews who are living in Israel, who are mostly Palestinians, and who are part of the Palestinian people. By accepting the Israeli plan that they are a Jewish state, we are undermining the rights of this minority, who are already suffering discrimination at the hands of the Israeli authorities.

So Areikat is saying that "Palestine" must ethnically cleanse every Jew who lives in its borders, but at the same time calling Israel a Jewish state would somehow cause discrimination against the "Palestinians" who live in Israel. Apparently, ethnic cleansing is OK, but calling a state Jewish is a terrible crime.

Then, Areikat goes into fantasyland:

A: Why should I pay the price for the political movement called Zionism, which said, “It’s time to reclaim parts of Palestinian territory that at one point were home for the kingdom of David, of Israel”—which you and I know was concentrated in the northern part of the West Bank. It never was in Jerusalem, it never was on the coast, it never was in Hebron.

Q: Of course it was in Jerusalem.

A: No.

Q: The City of David is right there.

A: No, I mean, it was from Shechem to the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was never the Palestine that they claim.

The rest of the interview is almost equally ridiculous, and that's the point - Tablet isn't interviewing a construction worker in Ramallah, but a respected Palestinian Arab diplomat who represents his supposed nation to the US.

He is moderate - compared to many or most of the people he represents. And that is the entire problem with the word "moderate." The West seems to think that we must reward relative moderation, because the alternative is even worse. But when such "moderation" nakedly calls for ethnic cleansing, why should it be rewarded? Shouldn't the absolute bigotry displayed by Palestinian Arab leaders today - when they are trying to impress an American audience no less, in English - indicate that their desired state would be a human rights disaster?

(sorry, don't remember who gave me the link)

UPDATE: See Balfour St. for more.

Report: Modern Arab anti-semitism not because of Israel

Prof. Shmuel Trigano has written a fascinating, and all too short, monograph on the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries in the 20th century.

One of his theses is that the Jew-hatred that became endemic in Arab lands during this time was not a reaction to Zionism, but rather because of the new concept of Arab nationalism and the xenophobia that resulted. He documents that many of the anti-Jewish laws in Arab countries pre-date modern Israel.

Excerpts:

The Jews were isolated from their society by a legal process in many lands.

This was the preliminary stage of their exclusion, which was followed by expulsion. A number of legal measures in various countries illustrate this point.

In Egypt the most articulate evolution occurred. It began with the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), a peace treaty between the Allies and the Ottomans that dismembered the Ottoman Empire and opened the way to the further creation of Arab (and Israeli) states. It addressed the question of nationality in Egypt and can be considered the first infringement of the rights of autochthonous Jews. The notion of belonging to a race (article 105) rather than a nation was introduced, thereby dissociating Jews from the majority of the population of the country. The next step was the nationality laws of 1927 and 1929, which favored jus sanguinis (or right of blood). An Egyptian was from then on defined as somebody who had Arab-Muslim affiliation.

The London Convention (1936) granted Egypt independence under King Farouk, and it was followed by a worsening of the nationality laws. According to additional nationality laws (in 1950, 1951, 1953, and 1956), autochthonous Jews became stateless: 40,000 people were turned into "foreigners" in their own country. In 1956, after the Sinai War, a new dimension was added: Egyptian nationality was taken away from anyone who committed acts in favor of enemy states or states with no relations with Egypt. In practice, all Jews were suspected of dual loyalty. This led ultimately to the accusation that all Jews were Zionists.
...
A number of legal measures imposed restrictions on businesses and associations. Jewish communities and organizations were placed under supervision. Arabic became the sole language of public services.

In Libya, in 1953, Jews were subjected to restrictions and became victims of economic boycotts. The Maccabi sports club was forcibly opened to Arab members in 1954. A decree was issued on 9 May 1957 obliging Libyans with relatives in Israel to register at the Libyan boycott office, even though at that point, 90 percent of the Jews had already left. On 3 December 1958, Tripoli's Jewish community ceased to be an independent entity. Thereafter it was overseen by a state-appointed commissioner. Legal exclusion worsened. In 1960, Jews were prohibited from acquiring new possessions. They were no longer allowed to vote, hold public office, or serve in the army or the police. On 2 April 1960, Alliance Israélite Universelle schools were closed.

Similar developments occurred in Lebanon. As early as 1947, Jewish students were expelled from Beirut University. Jewish "Zionist" organizations (such as the Maccabi sports club) were forbidden. Jews were discharged from public service positions and Jewish youth movements banned.

In Iraq, Jewish history and Hebrew language instruction were prohibited in Jewish schools during the 1920s. Jews were expelled from public service and education in the 1930s. The Jewish schools' curricula were censored in 1932.

In Yemen, sharia law was instated in 1913, worsening the situation of the dhimmi. Decrees specifying forced conversion for orphans were issued between 1922 and 1928, while Jews were excluded from public service positions and the army.

In Syria, real estate purchase was prohibited to Jews in 1947, and Jews began to be discharged from public service positions. In 1967, Muslim principals were appointed to Jewish schools.

In Morocco, after independence in 1956, a process of Arabization of public services began, cutting the Jews off from the larger society. A dahir (decree) Moroccanizing Jewish charitable organizations was issued on 26 November 1958, endangering their freedom.

In Egypt, a long process of discrimination in the public service began in 1929. In 1945-1948, Jews were excluded from the public service. In 1947, Jewish schools were put under surveillance and forced to Arabize and Egyptianize their curricula. Community organizations were forced to submit their member lists to the Egyptian state after May 1948 and until 1950. In 1949, Jews were forbidden to live in the vicinity of King Farouk's palaces.

In Tunisia, a law concerning Judaism (11 July 1958) put an end to Jewish communities, replaced them with temporary "Israelite worship commissions," and suppressed the personal status of the Jews (inherited from the dhimmi status, which obliged the Jews to depend on their religious tribunals for all matters related to their personal status). In Tunisia too, independence (1956) led to the Tunisification of public services.

Turkey under the Young Turks (1923-1945) created hard-labor battalions for non-Muslim conscripts in May 1941.

...A series of pogroms and related events, such as riots, arrests, murders of public figures, and destruction of synagogues, occurred while colonial powers and Arab state police looked on passively. That gave the Jews the signal that it was time to leave.

In Egypt, anti-British and anti-Semitic riots broke out in several towns on 2-3 November 1945. Massive arrests occurred on 14-16 May 1948; one thousand Jews were detained and accused of being Zionists. On 2 November 1948, riots and lootings took place in Cairo and on 26 January 1952, "black Saturday" saw riots and acts of violence.

In Turkey, in June-July 1934, pogroms occurred in Thrace.

In Iraq, on 1-2 June 1941, in the Farhoud pogrom in Bagdad, 180 people were killed and 600 injured. In 1948, a wave of official anti-Jewish persecutions, including arrests and considerable fines, took place. ...

In Libya, riots against those living in the Jewish quarters occurred in Tripoli in January 1945. Sixty percent of Jewish possessions were destroyed and 135 people were killed; soldiers acted as accomplices to the rioters. Jews were forced to evacuate. Jews in Hara, Tripoli, and Benghazi were put on remand....

Anti-Semitism would have developed even without the existence of the state of Israel because of Arab-Islamic nationalism, which resulted in xenophobia. In the twentieth century, hostility toward Jews was spreading well before Israel's creation: in Yemen, Syria, Mandatory Palestine, Turkey, and Algeria.

It is the custom to say that Zionism was responsible for this development. But Zionism is to be understood, in the worldview of the Islamic mind, in another perspective. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of intolerant Arab nationalism, long-dominated nations (such as the Armenians and the Jews) sought independence. This was understood by the Arab world as a rebellion not only against the new Arab nation-states but also against Islamic law, which puts non-Muslims in the inferior status of a dominated nation: the dhimmis.

Both the Armenians and the Jews were subjected to violent repression. The former were massacred by the Ottoman Empire in 1894-1895 - around 300,000 victims - and suffered a genocide - 1,200,000 victims - by the Turks in 1908. The latter in Mandatory Palestine suffered pogroms in 1920, 1929, 1936, and 1939. And the Jews in Muslim countries, as we have seen, were forced to leave. Hardly any Jews remain in the abovementioned countries, and the number of Christian Arabs is now dwindling in them as well.

The new Arab anti-Zionism contained classic anti-Semitic policies, as demonstrated by the "Statute of the Jews" that could be compared to the Vichy Statute of the Jews, except that it developed over a long time, in a huge geographical area, and at different periods. Jews were accused of being coresponsible with Israel for the war that the Arab states declared against the new state and then lost. Regardless of their ideological affiliation - communist, nationalist, Zionist, religious, and so on - they were subjected to special laws specifically aimed at Jews. They were expelled from all Arab-Muslim countries because a collective responsibility was imputed to them. This is typical anti-Semitic reasoning.

The Jews from Arab-Muslim countries were powerless. They had no army. They did not take part in the conflict. They were not responsible for triggering hostilities between the Arab states and Israel. That the Yishuv, the quasi-Jewish state that developed in Mandatory Palestine, became a state according to the United Nations Partition Plan was not also responsible for the war except for the scandal of its existence. Instead, the cause of the situation was the intolerance and imperialism of the new Arab states: before these attained independence, there were indeed no such states. Before the Western colonial empires there was another Islamic colonial empire, the Ottoman one. Palestine never existed as a political or cultural entity. The new nation-states - Israel included - were a product of the Western colonial empires and all were "invented." Why were these Jews in Arab countries persecuted and expelled if not as a result of an anti-Semitic ideology and policy? It was a continuation of the traditional Islamic anti-Judaism but defined in reference to the symbol of the rebellion of the Jewish dhimmis: Zionism.

This is a fascinating line of reasoning, but I think it needs to be greatly expanded and organized better, on a country-by-country basis. The paper is a good first step in showing that Arab anti-semitism followed a continuum that more closely corresponded with Arab nationalism/xenophobia than with Zionism.

Pennsylvania acts concerning Holocaust-denying professor

From Inside Higher Ed:

A Pennsylvania English professor whose anti-Israel rhetoric and denial of the Holocaust as a historic certainty have ignited controversy is citing academic freedom as his defense.

Kaukab Siddique, associate professor of English and journalism at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, appeared last month at a pro-Palestinian rally in Washington, where he called the state of Israel illegitimate. “I say to the Muslims, ‘Dear brothers and sisters, unite and rise up against this hydra-headed monster which calls itself Zionism,’ ” he said at a rally on Sept. 3. “Each one of us is their target and we must stand united to defeat, to destroy, to dismantle Israel -- if possible by peaceful means,” he added.

While many professors engage in anti-Israel rhetoric, Siddique is getting more scrutiny because his September comments prompted critics to unearth past statements that the Holocaust was a “hoax” intended to buttress support for Israel -- a position that the professor didn’t dispute in an interview Monday with Inside Higher Ed.

Siddique maintained that his comments should be placed in the framework of academic freedom, as an example of a questing mind asking tough questions. He also warned of dire consequences if universities can be intimidated by politicians and outside commentators. “That’s freedom of expression going up the smokestack here,” he said.

“I’m not an expert on the Holocaust. If I deny or support it, it doesn’t mean anything,” he said before invoking the firebombing of German cities during World War II and the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples of the moral ambiguity of the war. “We can’t just sit back in judgment and say those guys were bad and we were the good guys,” he said. “I always try to look at both sides…. That’s part of being a professor.”

Siddique cited as scholarly evidence the work of notorious Holocaust denier David Irving, whom a British judge described as an anti-Semitic neo-Nazi sympathizer. “Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence,” High Court Judge Charles Gray wrote in a ruling shooting down Irving’s claim of libel against the historian Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University.

The Siddique case isn't the first one in which a tenured academic has been criticized for questioning whether the Holocaust happened. Northwestern University periodically faces debate over Arthur R. Butz, an associate professor of electrical engineering who is a Holocaust denier, but who has avoided the topic in his classes.

Siddique’s embrace of Holocaust denial could be treated differently because of what he teaches. Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors and a staunch defender of the right of professors to take highly unpopular positions, said that academic freedom protects the professor’s right to criticize both Israeli policy and the moral legitimacy of the Israeli state. Holocaust denial is another matter entirely, said Nelson.

“Were he an engineering professor speaking off campus, it wouldn’t matter,” said Nelson in an e-mail. “The issue is whether his views call into question his professional competence. If he teaches modern literature, which includes Holocaust literature from a great many countries, then Holocaust denial could warrant a competency hearing.”

The Christian Broadcasting Network, which broke the story of Siddique's anti-Israel and anti-semitic opinions last month, reports that the state of Pennsylvania is now scrutinizing him and his school:

[T]he Chairman of the Pennsylvania State Board of Education, Joseph Torsella, is demanding answers--and action--from Lincoln University. Here is a portion of a letter he sent to Nelson just yesterday (read the entire letter here):

Academic freedom and the system of tenure designed to protect it are critical elements of higher education. So a professor expressing personal opinions (even extraordinarily objectionable ones) on current events is one matter, and I understand the need to protect these expressions of speech. Denying the Holocaust-a tragic historical fact-is another matter entirely. It is especially troubling that the professor in question teaches at a state-related university, subsidized by state tax dollars.

In my view, Mr. Siddique's Holocaust denials go directly to his fitness to educate the students in his charge (particularly since I understand that he teaches, among other subjects, a course in journalism). As you know, state regulations (22 Pa. Code section 31.24(b)) governing institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth require that faculty "shall be... qualified to teach in their fields of specialization." While the standards for initiating a review of any faculty member's tenure at any institution are appropriately high, the falsification or purposeful misrepresentation of research data, for example, would certainly occasion such a review. Mr. Siddique's misrepresentations of history are equally grave and consequential, and raise questions about intellectual integrity.

In the interest of clearing the air around these unfortunate accounts, I urge Lincoln to:

1. Formally investigate whether Mr. Siddique is, in fact, "qualified" to teach in light of his denial of the indisputable historical facts;

2. Formally investigate whether Mr. Siddique has used ANY university resources (e.g., office support, email and computer system, research facilities) to convey his personal views or in support of his efforts such as "New Trend Magazine";

3. Communicate the results of those two investigations to the State Board of Education's Council of Higher Education at the earliest possible opportunity; and

4. Make a clear public statement repudiating the substance of Mr. Siddique's views and underscoring that they are in conflict with the university's values and mission.

We'll see what Lincoln University answers.

(h/t Callie)

Freedom of the press, Libyan-style

From Reuters Africa:

The Libyan government has suspended printing of a newspaper controlled by a reformist son of leader Muammar Gaddafi, local media reported, in what could be the latest phase in a power struggle inside the oil exporting state.

The print version of the Oea newspaper, controlled by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, was suspended soon after it published an article calling for a "final assault" on the government which it alleged had failed to tackle corruption, local media said.

"(Prime Minister) Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi has suspended the publication of the weekly Oea," the prime minister's office said in a statement that was printed by three Libyan newspaper websites. It did not give a reason for the suspension.

Can't wait for the UN Human Rights Council, which says it is so very interested in press freedoms, to censure its member Libya.