Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 01, 2012

Israel, High Tech Superpower (video)

Nice to see this making it to the mainstream media.

(h/t Yoel)

Sky News: "Advanced" Iranian plans to attack Jewish, Western targets in Turkey

From Sky News:

Intelligence agencies are searching for members of a secret Iranian network of assassins under orders to attack Jewish, Israeli and Western targets in Turkey.

According to intelligence sources, the organisation behind the attack is known as Unit 400, a secret part of the al Quds Brigade, which falls under the direct command of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader.

"Unit 400 of the Qods Force has been developing in the last few months a standing operating procedure for carrying out an attack in Turkey against western targets as well as Israeli and Jewish. It is our firm assessment that these procedures are in a very advanced stage, and that the intention is to act on the plans very soon," an intelligence source told Sky News.

There is also evidence that Unit 400 has been given instructions to carry out more frequent and more daring 'terror' attacks around the world as a demonstration of 'Iran's asymmetric power' - in the face of the growing threat of Israeli or American air strikes on its alleged nuclear weapons programme, the sources said.

The sources named a senior officer in Unit 400 as being a key Iranian agent who "has been working up plans for potential attacks in European countries".

"Unit 400 is a top-secret "special ops" unit within the elite overseas wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force (IRGC-QF). It plans and carries out terror attacks on external targets, and provides material support to foreign militia groups, at the direct behest of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This is in accordance with the regime's core strategic considerations about how best to challenge perceived enemies in Israel and the west - through asymmetric warfare - and to cope with mounting international pressure over its nuclear programme," a secret study by a foreign intelligence agency said.

Several international intelligence sources confirmed that Ali Khamenei controlled the Quds Force through his close ally Qassem Suleiman.

"He runs the whole thing - directly. [Mahmoud] Ahmedinajad [the Iranian president] makes all the noise and gets the attention but it's the Supreme Leader who is in charge of what is going on especially when it comes to international operations," said a senior intelligence official.

Turkey has been the scene of at least two attempts against Israeli targets in recent years - in 2009, 2010, and in 2011 when six Turkish civilians were injured during an attack blamed on Unit 400 on the Israeli consul in Istanbul.

Unit 400 is also identified in the document as being behind the failed plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to Washington using Mexican drug mafia last year.

The commanders of Unit 400 have been identified as Hamed Abdellahi and Majid Alavi who is a former deputy minister in Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

"[The] Supreme Leader makes a decision to conduct an attack, the Unit activates a cell to perform it and recruits foreign agents as required… Training is sometimes given in Iran, as was the case prior to an attempted attack on the Israeli consul in Istanbul in 2011, and additional countries in the Middle East and Europe are used in order to blur Iran's connection to the attack," an intelligence document obtained by Sky says.

"The overall picture is one of an organisation which reaches out across the globe to commit carefully planned terror attacks of its own accord, as well as to arm proxy groups that will do so on its behest."

Hamas celebrates anniversary of Haifa restaurant bombing

Hamas newspaper Palestine Times has a featured article celebrating the ten year anniversary of the bombing of the Arab-owned Matza restaurant in Haifa, that killed 16 Israeli civilians. The article includes photos of the bomber as well as of the devastation to the restaurant, whose roof collapsed from the force of the explosion.

The article claims that the bomber intended to blow himself up in the nearby Grand Canyon shopping center but the security there made him change his plans to the nearby restaurant filled with Israeli families enjoying their Passover vacation.

From the New York Times:

The Matza restaurant was one of those rare places in Israel where Jews felt they could find refuge in the company of Arabs.

But it turned out, none of them were safe. Although the restaurant's proprietors and many of its staff members are Arabs, a suicide bomber from the Islamic group Hamas walked through the door today and detonated his charge in the middle of the room, blasting screws and other shrapnel into people eating a late lunch.

He killed himself and 14 others, blowing the roof off the restaurant and spraying blood against the chrome table legs and glass out into the parking lot.

Witnesses described a wreckage of burning bodies and jumbled furniture, in which one woman bent over a wounded son, beside the bodies of her husband and another child. The dead included Israeli Arabs, the police said, but the authorities were still trying to identify some of the remains tonight.

The attack shocked both Arabs and Jews, who felt that the restaurant was a haven. ''Everyone knew this was an Arab restaurant, and we were not afraid,'' said Zeghain Amar, an Israeli Arab whose father, the Matza's cashier, was wounded. ''We had excellent relations between Arabs and Jews -- regular customers. I'm very, very upset.''

The victims:

Ron family
Aviel Ron, 54, of Haifa
Anat Ron, 21, of Haifa
Ofer Ron, 18, of Haifa

Koren family
Shimon Koren, 55, of Haifa
Ran Koren, 18, of Haifa
Gal Koren, 15, of Haifa

Shiran family
Adi Shiran, 17, of Haifa
Shimon Shiran, 57, of Haifa – died of his injuries on April 11, 2009 after remaining hospitalized for seven years.

Additional victims
Suheil Adawi, 32, of Turan
Dov Chernobroda, 67, of Haifa
Moshe Levin, 52, of Haifa
Danielle Menchel, 22, of Haifa
Orly Ofir, 16, of Haifa
Ya'akov Shani, 53, of Haifa
Daniel Carlos Wegman, 50, of Haifa
Carlos Yerushalmi, 52, of Karkur – died of his injuries on April 1, 2002

Interestingly, this happened right at the beginning of Israel's Operation Defensive Shield that was meant to stop such attacks. The New York Times quoted Israeli "experts" as to how it is impossible to stop suicide bombings:

Many Israeli commentators are wondering how it will stop suicide attackers, who are now striking almost anywhere, among religious Jews, secular Jews and now even Israeli Arabs. The attackers have been men and women, young and old, Palestinian and even, in one case, an Israeli Arab.

Nahum Barnea, the respected columnist for the newspaper Yediot Ahronot, wrote today that Palestinian terrorism was becoming ''a popular sport, the grand aspiration of thousands of young Palestinian girls and boys.

''You can kill, deport and deter professionals,'' he added. ''There is no military way to fight suicide bombers.''

We know now that Israel did stop the suicide bombings, with a combination of offensive thrusts into terrorist enclaves, a huge push to improve intelligence, and the building of the security fence.

The "experts" were wrong, which is a good thing to keep in mind when you read analyses today about how other things are supposedly impossible as well.

Official Malaysian sermon: Jews are a "brutal race" and Muslims' main enemy

From the Malaysian Insider:

The Federal Territories’ official sermon today [March 30] told Muslims Jews are their main enemy as proven by their ego and murderous acts.

The Friday sermon, delivered at lunchtime in mosques across the capital city, said Muslims must “free your brethren in Palestine from the grasp of Zionist rule and economic siege by donating money, food, medicine and whatever is suitable.”

“Firstly, Muslims must understand Jews are the main enemy to Muslims as proven by their egotistical behaviour and murders performed by them,” said the sermon prepared by the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department (JAWI).

It called on “community leaders and NGOs to intensify activities that increase awareness and understanding to the public about the importance of al-Quds (Jerusalem),” referring to the city that is sacred to Jews, Muslims and also Christians.

“The honour of al-Quds and the al-Aqsa mosque must be defended by all Muslims as it is holy land that is blessed,” the sermon added.

The sermon is online. (PDF) Besides quoting the famous Hadith on how the rocks and trees will help Muslims slaughter Jews, it says:

The Jews are a brutal race continually developing series of violence in this holy land....Why we have never felt challenged by the arrogance and Jewish ego against this blessed land? Did not our heart break out in anger against those who insult Islam? Have we forgotten, with Quranic verses above that curse the Jewish people as hostile, who torture and kill Muslims then, now and forever? Why we still do not realize the above atrocities committed by the Jewish people?

Muslims must first understand that the Jews are the main enemy of Muslims as proven by their egoistic attitude and murders committed by them.

Time for the mandatory apologetic section:

Of course, you must understand, this isn't anti-semitism. Of course not. No way. There is no reason for Muslim leaders to denounce this sermon because it is so self-evidently true and only against Zionists. Jews are well-respected in Islam. In fact, labeling this anti-semitic is a form of Islamophobia, which is a huge problem worldwide that must be fought tirelessly. There is no connection between sermons like this and attacks on Jews which never happen and are exaggerated. Muslims are the victims when Jews are attacked by supposed Muslims. And Jews aren't ever attacked by real Muslims anyway. Every attack on Jews is really orchestrated by Israel in order to make people hate Muslims. It's a well-documented plot. Oh, look, Jews are building apartments!

(h/t Ian)

Springtime: Muslims take full control of Alexandria's Jewish community

An important exclusive at Point of No Return:

The Jewish community in Alexandria no longer runs its own affairs, a member of a prominent Jewish family has discovered on a visit to Egypt in March.

Point of No Return has learnt that the Muslim former doorman of the Nebi Daniel synagogue has taken over the leadership of the community from Yousef Gaon. Abdel Nabi collects the community's rents, has a new car and is living well.

A visitor from England who is related to the family which financed the building of the Nebi Daniel synagogue wrote to associations of Jews from Egypt to describe an episode at the synagogue which left him 'shaking with rage'.

The visitor needed the original death certificate of one of his uncles. He had always obtained these certificates without a problem. On this occasion, Abdel Nabi, who initially had greeted the visitor warmly on account of the 'bakshish' he had habitually given him, intruded into the visitor's conversation with Gaon and asked to see a document which proved his relationship with his relative.

"My temperature was rising but I said nothing since I had the copy of a Elam Warassa, a successoral document of my family," the visitor wrote in his letter." Seeing that Gaon had no reaction and gritting my teeth, I showed the document to Abdel Nabi."

- Ah ! he said without even reading the document, this is a copy, I need the original.

The visitor confronted Gaon for an explanation: "Ah!" the erstwhile leader said, "I am nothing now in this office. Abdel Nabi is the government’s eyes and ears. He directs everything and I can’t say anything. I have resigned but the powers that be don’t accept my resignation. I’m sorry, I cannot help you."

Yousef Gaon, a Jewish convert to Islam, had himself caused controversy when he became head of the community. The Nebi Daniel synagogue is the flagship of the Jewish community of Egypt. The affairs of the Jewish community in Cairo are managed by Mrs Carmen Weinstein, who is in her eighties.

The Alexandria community: 20 women and three men

Last year, Yousef Gaon was quoted as saying that the Jews in Alexandria are safe after the revolution and have no desire to leave.

GMJ organizer furiously backtracks on"'two million" claim

Last Monday:

Two million Arab and international protesters will march toward the borders of Israel and take part in activities designed to highlight Jerusalem’s Arab character on Friday, the event organizer claims.

Ribhi Haloum, general coordinator of the “Global March to Jerusalem,” said in a press statement that volunteers from 80 countries will take part in the march. Jordan and Lebanon will send protesters to the border, whereas Egypt will organize a solidarity marathon from Cairo University to the pyramids in Giza and a large rally at Al-Azhar University.

Now that the marches are over and they missed their goal by at least 99.8%, Haloum has changed his tune:

Organizers of the Global March to Jerusalem commemorating Land Day say the march on Friday made big strides as most of its goals were realized.

General coordinator of the march Ribhi Halloum told Ma’an from Jordan that the organizers put forward three major goals....

The organizers, added Halloum, do not pay great attention to the number of participants in the rallies, but rather to the number of countries joining the protests, as that reflects the support for Palestine.

By the way, the goals that he says that the organizers set for the marches are not mentioned on the GM2J website. In fact, one of their main goals mentioned there is

We aim to make this march a turning point in the nature of the confrontation, with the occupation having to face millions of protesters and demonstrators demanding Freedom for Palestine and its capitol Jerusalem.

I love how they change their goals after the fact to save face.

Mustafa Barghouti was injured by Arabs, not the IDF

During Friday's Land Day protests in Qalandia, member of parliament Mustafa Barghouti was injured - and, of course, he blamed Israel for what he described as a tear-gas canister hitting him.

The IDF denied the report.

As reported in Ma'an:

On Saturday, the aide told Ma'an he was injured by a tear-gas canister fired by Israeli forces. She said the police were informed of the circumstances during their visit to the hospital.

An Israeli military spokeswoman disputed Barghouti's account and said he was attacked by other Palestinians. He was "trying to convince youth in (Qalandiya) to riot," she said on Twitter.

A report on the case released by the police media office said Barghouti was injured in an altercation and taken to hospital. Police opened an investigation to determine the circumstances, the report says.

Barghouti heads the Palestinian National Initiative and is a former presidential candidate.

So what happened? As usual, the IDF seems to be correct and the Palestinian Arab accusers were lying.

From (of all places) Mondoweiss, quoting an account by Jalal Abukhater:

As I arrived to Qalandia, first thing I saw was a large crowd of protesters with most carrying Red PFLP flags and orange PNI [Palestinian National Initiative] flags. As I walked down, I saw Mustafa Barghouti being evacuated into an ambulance at the Qalandia field hospital and Fateh guys were attacking PNI people. As Mustafa entered the ambulance, angry crowds continued to attack Mustafa and his group, a fight broke out between both sides. Mustafa was also beaten inside the ambulance. Weapon used in fighting was sticks which held flags. The ambulance which carried Mustafa had its rear glass broken and it rushed away. A while later I saw PNI organizers calling on all PNI people to leave the demo, clashes continued and hundreds remained present at the demo.

Reason behind all this, according to eye witnesses who were there before I was, is that PNI group acted separately and didn't follow the general plan agreed upon by all groups, and they marched towards the checkpoint rushing during the prayer to beat all other groups and be first there. Also, none of them carried Palestinian flags..all carried PNI flags.

JPost adds a telling detail:

The Palestine News Network reported that Barghouti’s office phoned its editors and requested that they refrain from publishing the news about the assault.

Ah, the truth hurts - so lets resort to censorship.

I cannot count the number of times that I have reported where Palestinian Arabs claim to have witnessed an attack by Israelis where Arabs ended up injured or dead, the IDF denies it, and it turns out the IDF is right.

Yet when these incidents are reported the IDF denial - when mentioned at all - is always stuck around paragraph 12 after the reader already assumes that the Arab witnesses are telling the truth.

Every reporter should put IDF denials in the first paragraph of any report like this, and should note that the IDF's track record on admitting and denying its activities has been pretty good. There certainly has been spin, but the track record for lies belongs, hands down, to the Palestinian Arabs.

(h/t Michael)

Weekend open thread

Go for it.

Latest Latma

Nice bedtime story.

Dog mascot chases real cat during Maccabi Tel Aviv game

From The Daily Mail:

A basketball team's canine mascot needed no help getting into character when a cat strayed onto the court during a televised match.

In a curious take on the age-old pursuit, Maccabi Tel Aviv mascot Donny the Dog sprang into action after the feline appeared during a match against Bnei Hasharon in Israel.

As Maccabi's players attacked their oppponents' end at the Zisman Arena in the city Ramat Gan, eastern Israel, the furry intruder was spotted in the middle of the court.

The skittish cat, no doubt startled by the size 11s of the ball players thundering around him, tried to sprint towards cheerleaders gathered at the Bnei Hasharon end.

But Donny, feeling the spirit of his canine alter-ego, decided to give chase.

Sensing the chase was on, the cat skidded across the court, changing direction to avoid Donny's lunging attempt at a tackle.

(h/t Ian)

Five year old girl forced to marry - in England

From BBC:

A five-year-old girl is thought to have become the UK's youngest victim of forced marriage.

She was one of 400 children to receive assistance from the government's Forced Marriage Unit in the last year.

The figures have emerged as the public consultation into criminalising forced marriage in England, Wales and Northern Ireland comes to an end.

Amy Cumming, joint head of the Forced Marriage Unit, said 29% of the cases it dealt with last year involved minors.

"The youngest of these was actually five years old, so there are children involved in the practice across the school age range," she said.

To protect the child, the authorities have not disclosed details of the case or where the marriage took place.

But the case comes as no surprise to the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO), which deals with more than 100 cases of forced marriage a year.

"We have had clients who are in their very early teens, 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds, the youngest case we had was nine years old," said IKWRO campaigns officer Fionnuala Murphy.

Now the consultation on forced marriage has come to an end, IKWROs hope it will become a criminal offence.

"Our organisation is pro-criminalisation because we believe that it will empower victims to know that this is a crime, to stand up to their parents and to stand up for their own rights and it will enable them to come forward and seek help and say what's happening to me is wrong."

In 2011 the Forced Marriage Unit helped deal with around 1,500 cases, but many more are thought to go unreported.

While it is true that the phenomenon is not limited strictly to Muslims, it is interesting that the entire article does not mention the word "Islam" or "Muslim" once.

(h/t John W.)

972mag attacks Judaism

Yossi Gurvitz of 972mag has written two screeds this week where he claims that an IDF rabbi allows troops to rape enemy women.

In the first article he publishes a query to Rabbi Eyal Qarim, a colonel in the IDF who was not answering in any official IDF capacity, and the rabbi's answer, which makes it look like Qarim is saying that rape is permissible nowadays during wartime. In his second, he ridicules the rabbi's denial, all the while clucking about how he knows how terrible Jewish law is and most of his critics don't know enough Hebrew to be horrified.

What he doesn't tell you is that he completely and purposefully misrepresents the question that is being asked, and the actual question changes how the answer can be understood.

According to Gurwitz, the question was:

Is it allowed in our days [sic] for an IDF soldier, for example, to rape girls during a fight, or is such a thing forbidden?

And the answer was:

The wars of Israel […] are mitzvah wars, in which they differ from the rest of the wars the nations wage among themselves. Since, essentially, a war is not an individual matter, but rather nations wage war as a whole, there are cases in which the personality of the individual is “erased” for the benefit of the whole. And vice versa: sometimes you risk a large unit for the saving of an individual, when it is essential for purposes of morale. One of the important and critical values during war is maintaining the army’s fighting ability […]

As in war the prohibition against risking your life is broken for the benefit of others, so are the prohibitions against immorality and of kashrut. Wine touched by gentiles, consumption of which is prohibited in peacetime, is allowed at war, to maintain the good spirit of the warriors. Consumption of prohibited foods is permitted at war (and some say, even when kosher food is available), to maintain the fitness of the warriors, even though they are prohibited during peacetime. Just so, war removes some of the prohibitions on sexual relations (gilui arayot in the original – YZG), and even though fraternizing with a gentile woman is a very serious matter, it was permitted during wartime (under the specific terms) out of understanding for the hardship endured by the warriors. And since the success of the whole at war is our goal, the Torah permitted the individual to satisfy the evil urge (yetzer ha’ra in the original -YZG), under the conditions mentioned, for the purpose of the success of the whole.

His translation of the answer is accurate - but he knowingly deleted the part of the question that was being answered.

Here is the full question:

I read on this website about the "beautiful woman captive," as well as the laws in the Torah [about her], and my question still remains - in various wars between nations, as the First World War, for example, different nations fought each other, and neither was particularly good for Jews or bad for Jews in particular...but if the [combatants would] conquer a village with Jews and Jewish girls were raped, it is considered, rightly, a disaster and tragedy for the girl and family.

If so, rape in war is considered a horrific thing. How then, as I was told by a rabbi, could a beautiful woman captive be permitted, according to some authorities, even before the process described in the Torah? Do you mean that you surrender to your desire and sleep with her, and only then take her to his house, etc.? This seems contradictory.

After all, if rape of civilians in war is considered shocking, why, apparently, are Jews allowed?

And is it permissible in our times for an IDF soldier, for example, to rape women in warfare, or is that forbidden?

The question was not a soldier asking for permission to rape, as Gurwitz implies. Exactly the opposite.

Now look at Rabbi Qarim's answer. He was answering the question of how the Torah can permit such an act, and Qarim answered that it falls under the category of things that are normally forbidden that are allowed in wartime because victory is a necessity in wartime which subsumes both individual rights and individual responsibilities. He makes clear, twice, that there are very specific conditions and laws that guide a soldier's conduct even when he is overcome with desire in the heat of war.

The point is that Rabbi Qarim was answering the question of how one can justify that the Torah can allow this to happen to begin with. He never answered the question of whether it was allowed today, because the answer is obviously no.

And this is exactly what Rabbi Qarim wrote this week in his clarification that Gurwitz disparages

It is obvious that the Torah never permitted raping a woman. The Comely Woman ruling is intended to make the soldier retract his intention of marrying the prisoner, by a series of actions which diminish her beauty and put the emphasis on her personality and grief. If, by the end of the process, he still wishes to marry her, he is obligated to do so by the usual legal manner.

In addition, the whole essence of the ruling was to soften the situation in the barbaric war world of the time, when a soldier might have done what he wished with a captive, and the goal of the ruling is to prevent the soldier from taking the captive as wife during the storm of battle. It is clear that in our times, when the world has progressed to a level of morality when captives are not taken as wives, this ruling is certainly not to be acted on, particularly as it is completely contrary to the ethics and the orders of the military.”

Gurwitz is purposefully twisting the question to make Judaism look monstrous (or, as he says, "Those texts were written mostly in a barbaric period by ignorant people, fuelled by the hatred of mankind which is endemic to Judaism." Is this considered unbiased by 972mag and its funders?) [The article has since been silently changed to tone down that language a little. Original screenshots are available.]

He hypocritically says that "the rabbis did not want their texts to be available for everyone. Control over jargon also grants you some measure of power." And yet he purposefully refused to translate the entire query so his Hebrew-challenged readers could not check his own twisting of the truth to make it look like a rabbi today was supporting raping women captives!

It is possible to question ancient legal rulings in context of today's sensibilities. In fact, such questions should be welcomed. This is exactly what the questioner was doing. There are even widely divergent views within traditional Judaism of exactly how to interpret this passage of the Torah. But Gurwitz is not interested in finding out how Judaism evolves - even Orthodox Judaism, even today - to deal with issues like this. He does not want to know what Jewish law says about contemporary matters. No, he "knows" that it is a sick belief system. He wants to demonize Judaism to as wide an audience as possible, and he is not above resorting to gross deception to accomplish his goal.

And he relies on his audience's unfamiliarity with Hebrew to accomplish his sickening, and truly anti-semitic, agenda.

Neturei Karta "rabbis" insulted and beaten in Jordan "Global March"

YNet says:

Jordanian news sites have reported Friday afternoon that some 20,000 people are participating in a mass procession in Jordan. The protesters gathered at Jesus's baptism site, and are planning to march towards the border with Israel. Increased security presence was reported in the area.

According to reports, participants were yelling "where is the Arab League on Jerusalem?" and waving Jordanian and Palestinian flags alongside signs with anti-Israeli slogans.

Four rabbis from the extremist anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect were also taking part in the march and carried signs reading: "Judaism demands the liberation of Jerusalem and all of Palestine."

Several rally participants expressed anger over the presence of Neturei Karta members, and a verbal altercation erupted between the two groups.

A Google search shows several articles that seem to indicate that the Neturei Karta nuts were actually beaten, quoting the official Petra news agency - but those articles have been updated and scrubbed without any mention of the NK members at all!

One comment remains on the Jordanzad site which scrubbed mention of the group. The commenter said "We Arabs will always calculate wrong .. there are rabbis involved with us against the occupation and we beat them and abuse them, how long will we be this stupid?

Similarly, I found a cache of another article, now scrubbed, that had said "Before the start of ceremonial events were four rabbis of the movement of American Jews 'Neturei Karta' who reject the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the State of Israel from the ground up, beaten and insulted by a group of young participants in the march, before the organizers intervened and expelled the rabbis."

Poor, poor NKidiots. Don't you feel sorry for them, being beaten by the people they love so much?

Anti-Israel gay conference on "Homonationalism and Pinkwashing" at CUNY

From Times of Israel:

An academic conference planned for next year in New York will use Israel’s largely positive record on gay rights to denounce its treatment of Palestinians.

City University of New York last week announced Homonationalism and Pinkwashing, a gathering that will provide “an opportunity to examine Queer Resistance and Complicity globally” — but with a special emphasis on Israel. Hosted by CUNY’s Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, the conference will take Israel to task for “pinkwashing,” a term that accuses the country of promoting its progressive treatment of sexual minorities as a way of diverting attention from its conflict with the Palestinians. “Faced with intensifying criticism and the threat of economic boycott,” the conference website states, “the Israeli government expanded their marketing plan by harnessing Homonationalism to reposition its global image.”

Based on the list of proposed topics, conference organizers don’t plan to examine the persecution of gays in the Muslim world, except as it pertains to generating Islamophobia and to “justify military assault” in Iraq and Iran.

Coordinating the gathering is Sarah Schulman, a humanities professor at CUNY’s College of Staten Island. Schulman raised the profile of the “pinkwashing” accusation last fall in a controversial New York Times op-ed, in which she argued that Israel’s “gay soldiers and the relative openness of Tel Aviv” shouldn’t be used to distract attention from “the Palestinians’ insistence on a land to call home.”

Scheduled speakers include Berkeley professor Judith Butler, a veteran of Israeli Apartheid Week, and Haneen Maikey, the director of Palestinian LGBT group alQaws.

AlQaws, which appears to hold its recurring “Palestinian queer party“ in Israel, is headquartered in Jerusalem Open House, a gay center in the Jewish-majority part of the city.

The official description of the conference is a must-read for its pretentious tone and sheer vacuity.

The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies is pleased to announce a conference “Homonationalism and Pinkwashing” to be held April 10-11, 2013 at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in all configurations around the world have always experienced dramatic differences in representation and power. Today, after generations of sacrifice and organization, some LGBT people have won full legal rights with different degrees of implementation. Once hard to imagine, protection from discrimination, full relationship recognition, and inclusion in representation are now daily possibilities for some. In the United States, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have been invited into an equality defined, not by rights, but by the ability to participate openly in immoral wars. The co-opting of some LGBT people by anti-immigrant and in particular anti-Muslim political forces is widespread and growing. Rutgers Professor Jasbir Puar has coined the term “Homonationalism” to define collusion between LGBT people and identification with the nation state, re-enforcement of racial and national boundary, and systems of supremacy ideology no longer interrupted by homophobia. Homonationalism has spread far from its roots in European xenophobia and US militarism to become an increasingly potent tool in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Faced with intensifying criticism and the threat of economic boycott, the Israeli government expanded their marketing plan by harnessing Homonationalism to reposition its global image. The campaign intended "to improve Israel's image through the gay community in Israel," The Jerusalem Post quoted one government supporter of the campaign. This deliberate and highly funded program is what anti-occupation activists have named "Pinkwashing."The campaign not only manipulates the hard-won gains of Israel's gay rights movement, but it also ignores the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations. These groups rightly note that the oppression of Palestinians crosses the boundary of sexuality; as Haneen Maikay, a keynote speaker at our conference and the director of Al Qaws:For Gender and Sexual Diversity in Palestinian Society, said in a recent lecture tour in the United States, "When you go through a checkpoint it does not matter what the sexuality of the soldier is."

Homonationalism and Pinkwashing mark a crucial turning point for Queer Scholars and Activists. This conference provides an opportunity to examine Queer Resistance and Complicity globally, in all of their complexities, with a political maturity that acknowledges the responsibility of access, the activism of necessity, the potential and impossible communities, identifications, solidarities, unities and consequential calls for action. Acknowledging these conditions make it imperative for Activists and Scholars to convene and bring together the theoretical and the applied, repositioning our resources to focus on a rejuvenated Queer future, movement, movements, efforts, actions, organizing and focus towards a vision of freedom that finally includes us all.

Do you get that? Do you see how a nation that doesn't discriminate against gays is to be held accountable by gays because some of its soldiers are gay? Do you understand how the entire concept of national boundaries is inherently immoral? Finally, do you understand that when Activists and Scholars capitalize certain Words, they show how vitally Critical their pretentious and self-contradictory Ideas are?

But wait - it gets better!

Possible topics we would love to include but are not limited to:

-Expanding our understandings of Queer Resistance and Complicity
-Hindus, Islamaphobia and Queer Emergence [apparently some Queer Adacemics cannot Spell]
-Arab Jews (Mizrachis) and Occupation/Pinkwashing/Diaspora
-Iran, Iraq and the Use of anti-LGBT Persecution to Justify Military Assault
-Transfeminism and the Global LGBT
-Race, Sexuality and the US Military
-Queer and The Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions Movement
-Christian Evangelicals: Differing strategies for Uganda and Israel
-The rise of LGBT wings of European Right Wing Movements
-HRC, GLAAD, and the Gay Corporate Auxilliaries [Again!]
-AIDS, NGO’s and Partnering With Global Pharma
-Homonationalism, Hollywood and Popular Culture
-Pinkwashing and Israeli Queer Cinema

"Pinkwashing" and "homonationalism" as such catchy terms. We need to create a new term to describe people who want to use their sexual orientation as a means to bash states that support them and to support states that bash them.

Homocrites?

(h/t Ian)

British BDSers: "We have no problem with Hebrew, just Israel"

From The Guardian letters section:

We notice with dismay and regret that Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London has invited Israel's National Theatre, Habima, to perform The Merchant of Venice in its Globe to Globe festival this coming May. The general manager of Habima has declared the invitation "an honourable accomplishment for the State of Israel". But Habima has a shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory. Last year, two large Israeli settlements established "halls of culture" and asked Israeli theatre groups to perform there. A number of Israeli theatre professionals – actors, stage directors, playwrights – declared they would not take part.

Habima, however, accepted the invitation with alacrity, and promised the Israeli minister of culture that it would "deal with any problems hindering such performances". By inviting Habima, Shakespeare's Globe is undermining the conscientious Israeli actors and playwrights who have refused to break international law.

The Globe says it wants to "include" the Hebrew language in its festival – we have no problem with that. "Inclusiveness" is a core value of arts policy in Britain, and we support it. But by inviting Habima, the Globe is associating itself with policies of exclusion practised by the Israeli state and endorsed by its national theatre company. We ask the Globe to withdraw the invitation so that the festival is not complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land.

David Aukin producer Poppy Burton-Morgan artistic director, Metta Theatre Leo Butler playwright Niall Buggy actor David Calder actor Jonathan Chadwick director Caryl Churchill playwright Michael Darlow writer, director John Graham Davies actor, writer Trevor Griffiths playwright Annie Firbank actor Paul Freeman actor Matyelok Gibbs actor Tony Graham director Janet Henfrey actor James Ivens artistic director, Flood Theatre Andrew Jarvis actor, director, teacher Neville Jason actor Ursula Jones actor Professor Adah Kay academic, playwright Mike Leigh film-maker, dramatist Sonja Linden playwright, iceandfire theatre Roger Lloyd Pack actor Cherie Lunghi actor Miriam Margolyes actor Kika Markham actor Jonathan Miller director, author and broadcaster Frances Rifkin director Mark Rylance actor Alexei Sayle comedian, writer Farhana Sheikh writer Emma Thompson actor, screenwriter Andy de la Tour actor, director Harriet Walter actor Hilary Westlake director Richard Wilson actor, director Susan Wooldridge actor, writer

So by Habima being willing to perform in front of a group of people - Jews living in their historic homeland -who are vilified and discriminated against worldwide, they are using a "policy of exclusion." But by asking them to be boycotted, that is "inclusiveness."

I was also unaware that performing in a theater in Ariel is a violation of international law. I'd love to see the legal citation for that one.

Especially interesting is their assertion that they have no problem with performances in Hebrew, only from Israel's national theater.

And who are they trying to kid? If the troupe was called the "Anti-Settlement National Theatre" the exact same self-righteous gasbags would write an identical letter decrying the fast that some actors served in the IDF, or don't support boycotting Israel, or something.

Here's a thought experiment. What would happen if a Palestinian Arab theatre in Ramallah would invite Habimah to perform? Would Habimah, those "excluders," accept? Would Palestinian Arabs, those "moderates," allow the performance? Would the director of the theatre get killed? Perhaps then these blowhards can figure out what "politics of exclusion" actually means. Or have they forgotten that it wasn't exactly an Israeli who killed Juliano Mer-Khamis?

There are some known actors and filmmakers there. Perhaps people might want to visit their Facebook pages and let them know that boycotts can go both ways.

(h/t O)