Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 03, 2012

Infographic: Mahmoud Abbas' Political Empire

People don't quite get the relationship between Fatah, the PLO and the PA. Here it is in a nutshell, and one man controls them all:

Democracy, Palestinian Arab style!

US throwing Israel under a bus?

This report from YNet, if true, is really bad news:

The United States has indirectly informed Iran, via two European nations, that it would not back an Israeli strike against the country's nuclear facilities, as long as Tehran refrains from attacking American interests in the Persian Gulf, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.

According to the report, Washington used covert back-channels in Europe to clarify that the US does not intend to back Israel in a strike that may spark a regional conflict.

In return, Washington reportedly expects Iran to steer clear of strategic American assets in the Persian Gulf, such as military bases and aircraft carriers.

Israeli officials reported an unprecedented low in the two nations' defense ties, which stems from the Obama administration's desire to warn Israel against mounting an uncoordinated attack on Iran.

This comes on the heels of the US' very public scaling back of a joint military exercise with Israel:

The United States has reduced the size of a joint military exercise with Israel that was originally billed as being of unprecedented size, TIME Magazine reported Friday, citing "well-placed sources in both countries." The reduction, although officially attributed to budgetary restrictions, the scaling back of the exercise was put into the context of Washington's opposition to a military attack on Iran's nuclear program.

The annual exercise, Austere Challenge 12, was originally slated to include some 5,000 US troops, according to TIME. Instead, the United States will send anywhere between 1,200 and 1,500 troops, TIME reported.

Washington will still send the Patriot missile defense systems it planned to, but the crews that man them will not arrive, TIME reported.

And that in turn came while US General Martin Dempsey said he doesn't want to be "complicit" with an Israeli strike on Iran.

Even dovish Ha'aretz' Chemi Shalev slammed that remark, saying that effectively the US was goading Israel into a unilateral strike:

If I didn’t know any better I would assume that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey is trying to goad Israel into attacking Iran. Otherwise, why would he go to such great lengths to try and persuade them that Israel is on its own and can rely only on itself?

Because that is the net effect of Dempsey’s statements in London last week, especially his yet-to-be-properly-explained use of the word “complicit” as in "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it.” Complicit? As in what – war crimes?

Even if one accepts the validity of Dempsey’s assertion that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would “delay and not destroy” Iran’s nuclear program, and even if one understands the need for him to spell out the Administration’s belief that such an attack would “thwart” the “international coalition” – whatever that means – his use of the word “complicit” is somewhere on the scale between unfortunate and way out of line. And to make matters worse, despite the days that have passed, it has yet to be explained or retracted or apologized for, as the Wall Street Journal correctly pointed out in its Friday editorial.

[O]ver the past few days, the [Israeli] public has been bombarded by discouraging news that cannot but harden its attitude. After the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that confirmed Israel’s worst fears about Tehran’s accelerated nuclear drive; after the disappointing pilgrimage of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and other world leaders to Tehran, and the ludicrous endorsement of Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear programs by the 120 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM); after the reports of the U.S. decision to scale down, for whatever reason, its participation in the joint Austere Challenge 12 military exercise; after all of these blows, Dempsey’s spiteful choice of word was a virtual coup de grace. The much-abused cliché “the whole world is against us” was driven home, as was Hillel’s guidance – mistakenly attributed in the GOP platform to their own elder, Ronald Reagan – “if I am not for myself, who will be?”

Perhaps Dempsey suffers from the same chronic misunderstanding of Israeli public opinion that afflicts many others in the Administration, including the White House. Administration officials have possibly misinterpreted the superficial newspaper headlines that “most Israelis are opposed to an attack on Iran”. Perhaps they mistakenly believe that by upping the ante and maintaining the pressure, they are strengthening the hand of those opposed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s efforts to convince the Israeli cabinet that time has run out. Perhaps they are paying too much attention to pundits in both countries who claim that the U.S. needs to “bare its teeth” in order to get its point across.

If so, they are misreading the situation. Most Israelis, in fact, are not opposed to a military attack on Iran at all. Most Israelis are convinced, in fact, rightly or wrongly, that military force is the only way that the Iranian nuclear drive can be stopped. The number of Israelis who support an Israeli attack now together with those who prefer an American attack later combine to form an overwhelming and unassailable majority.

But most Israelis are rightly afraid of the consequences, especially if they decide to go it alone. And they know full well that the U.S. will do a much better job. So as long as they believe that there is an outside chance that the U.S. might carry out the task, or at least lend its formidable hand to an Israeli strike, they are willing to give more time to diplomacy and sanctions. As long as they believe that when push comes to shove, the U.S. will “have Israel’s back”, as President Obama has promised, they will continue to press Netanyahu and his cabinet to accommodate the Administration and to give peace a chance, if Washington really insists.

Dempsey’s harsh language may very well be understood by Israeli decision makers as a shot across the bow that cannot be ignored, but the popular interpretation will be that Israel cannot rely on the U.S. and needs to take matters into its own hands.

If President Obama wishes to dissociate himself from his army commander’s tone, explicitly or not, his upcoming speech at the Democratic National Convention provides a good and possibly last opportunity. If he continues to maintain his excessively low profile, as he has until now, many Israelis will be persuaded that he too does not wish to be “complicit”, and that Israel must take its fate into its own hands, before it’s too late.

And this is from the WSJ article mentioned:

The irony for the Administration is that its head-in-the-sand performance is why many Israeli decision-makers believe they had better strike sooner than later. Not only is there waning confidence that Mr. Obama is prepared to take military action on his own, but there's also a fear that a re-elected President Obama will take a much harsher line on an Israeli attack than he would before the first Tuesday in November.

If Gen. Dempsey or Administration officials really wanted to avert an Israeli strike, they would seek to reassure Jerusalem that the U.S. is under no illusions about the mullahs' nuclear goals—or about their proximity to achieving them. They're doing the opposite.

Since coming to office, Obama Administration policy toward Israel has alternated between animus and incompetence. We don't know what motivated Gen. Dempsey's outburst, but a President who really had Israel's back would publicly contradict it.

Indeed, it appears that the administration is remarkably tone-deaf in understanding how Israelis think and how to reassure them. Nothing symbolizes this more than sending Patriot missile systems to Israel- without sending the support teams necessary to man them.

Finally, even AP realizes that Iran's public statements against developing nuclear weapons doesn't preclude them building them except for the last screw.

Iran could be shaping its nuclear ambitions after Japan, which has the full scope of nuclear technology - including the presumed ability to produce warhead-grade material - but has stopped short of actually producing a weapon. It creates, in effect, a de facto nuclear power with all the parts but just not pieced together.

More than two years ago, Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani essentially embraced Tokyo's nuclear model during a visit to Japan that included a stop in Nagasaki, of the two cities destroyed by American atomic bombs World War II.

Larijani met with Japanese officials and praised the country's nuclear program as a symbol of a third path that dates back to the 1970s, when then Japanese Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata told reporters that Japan “certainly” could possess nuclear arms “but has not made them.”

The major difference, however, is Israel and other U.S. allies, such as Saudi Arabia. They would have to adapt to a huge balance-of-power shift with Iran on the doorstep of having nuclear arms.

Following Japan's path would allow Iran to push their nuclear technology to the limit while being able to claim it has adhered to its international pledge not to develop a bomb.

Yoel Guzansky, an Iranian affairs expert for Israel's Institute of National Security Studies, believes Iran could be adopting a Japan-style policy to reach a “nuclear threshold.”

“Israeli can't live with the uncertainty of a nuclear threshold state,” he said. “Iran could push over (to weapons capability) at any given moment.”

This is where Iran might seek seams in the unity of the West and its allies: Could some live with an almost-armed Iran rather than risk a war that could send oil prices skyrocketing and risk spilling conflict across the region?

This official Iranian ambiguity seems to be enough to split the West between those who see things clearly and those who want to keep their heads in the sand.

The tragedy is that the US, from all indications, seems to be moving to the latter category.

Shana Tova from the Technion (video)

Kippa "flashmob" in Germany against anti-semitism

The best story of the week.

From Berliner-Zeitung:

More than a hundred demonstrators protested against anti-Semitism in Charlottenburg. Most participants wore a yarmulke - the traditional Jewish head covering. The reason was the attack on a Berlin rabbi last Wednesday in the Schöneberg district of Berlin.

After the attack on a Berlin rabbi over a hundred people in Charlottenburg staged a spontaneous demonstration protesting against anti-Semitism. In the so-called flash mob participants moved silently from the Fasanenstraße to KaDeWe department store on the Kurfürstendamm. A majority of the protesters wore it the traditional Jewish head covering.

Police said they were notified of the event shortly beforehand. "But everything remained peaceful," said a spokesman. On Facebook, the organizers had called for the action. "We do not want people on our streets are attacked because they identify themselves as visibly Jewish," they wrote on their website.

Last Wednesday, the rabbi was in the Schöneberg district of Berlin surrounded by several young people, beaten and insulted.

Abba Eban and Ivory Soap

A funny exchange in the UN from the debates that led to Security Council Resolution 242:

Mr. DAOUDY (Syria): Day by day it becomes increasingly clear that that aggression was precisely calculated and planned in advance as if by a computer. The numerous statements of high-ranking Israel spokesmen, quoted on many occasions, confirm this, if ever confirmation be needed. But let me quote an illuminating paragraph concerning what transpired with regard to the total mobilization of Israel forces for the definite purpose of aggression. This is taken from a book entitled Six Days in June by Robert J. Donovan and the staff of the Los Angeles Times, which was written especially to glorify the so-called heroic deeds of Israel:

"Robert C. Toth, Los Angeles Times correspondent in Israel, was able to circumvent military censorship on the scope of the Israel mobilization before hostilities. To keep the extent of the call-up secret, Israel said it had undertaken 'partial mobilization'. Censors would pass no other phrase. Deep in a story on war preparations filed three days before the fighting began, Toth inserted the phrase, 'Israel's partial mobilization was Ivory-pure.' The story cleared. On the foreign desk in Los Angeles, editors quickly realized Toth was referring to the Ivory soap slogan--99 and 44/100ths per cent pure--and rewrote Toth's lead paragraph to say that Israel was 'fully mobilized'."
Thus any doubt which may still be entertained by anyone regarding the identity of the real aggressor is removed, even by sources sympathetic to the Israel point of view.

Mr. EBAN (Israel): It is very difficult for me to reply to the address of the Syrian representative without taking the level of this debate below the level that it has reached. I am a much less assiduous reader than he is of the Los Angeles Times, and I know very little about the qualities of Ivory soap. Nor do I feel that I have to analyse again the address of mine to which he took exception. I said what I said on Monday [1375th meeting], and I have noted the reports of what I have said throughout the world, and I am content that Israel's meaning is clear.

The Syrian representative began with a long and rather sinister description of the fact that Israel armed forces were mobilized in the first days of June. Of course the Cabinet of which I am a member ordered mobilization in the early days of June. Ninety thousand Egyptian troops in the Sinai; 45,000 poised on the Syrian heights; the entire Jordan army in order of battle; all surrounding airfields with operation orders about targets for attack; a complete naval blockade of our southern frontiers: if, in these conditions, Israel mobilized its forces for defense, this simply proves that the Israel Government was possessed of a normal sanity.

Mr. DAOUDY (Syria): Apparently my reference to Robert J. Donovan's book called Six Days in June, which I have here in my hand, was not to the liking of the Foreign Minister of Israel. But that book was not written by an Arab, nor is it considered to be pro-Arab. That book, which is being sold in New York by the thousands, was written precisely to propagate the Israel point of view and is definitely a pro-Israel book. Naturally, the Israel authorities do not like the fact that the Los Angeles Times correspondent was able to convey to his paper, despite the Israel censorship, the fact that Israel had totally mobilized its troops while the Israel authorities were deceiving the world in stating that there was no mobilization whatsoever. Whether Mr. Eban reads the Los Angeles Times or not is beside the point. I can assure him that I have no special knowledge of Ivory soap or the slogans put out by the Ivory soap company. My stay in this country has been very short, and he should know better about these things in view of the fact that his stay has been much longer and he has very intimate and very valuable connections in this country.

Iran covers up Star of David at airport. Swastikas are OK, though.

Two years ago, I noted that Google Earth images of Mehrabad International Airport in Iran showed what appeared to be a Star of David on its roof:

Iranian media were aghast, claiming that Israeli engineers had built the building for the Shah and demanded that this hated symbol be removed.

More recent satellite images show that the star has indeed been covered up:

Another victory of the Islamic Republic over the Zionist enemy!

This mimics the similar brouhaha over dozens of six-pointed stars found on the dome in Revolution Square, in Tehran, which was similarly destroyed.

But while six-pointed stars associated with Judaism are anathema to Iranian leaders, other patterns - like this set of four swastikas at Islamic Azad University - don't seem to bother them so much:

Sunday links

From Ian:

Netanyahu: Time for world to set 'clear red lines' for Iran

PM says at cabinet meeting that sanctions hurting Iranian economy but not deterring Tehran's nuclear advance; decries lack of protest at "anti-Semitic rants" of Iranian leadership during NAM conference.
"I think that the truth must be told," Netanyahu continued. "The international community is not putting down a clear red line to Iran, and Iran is not seeing international determination to stop its nuclear program."
Until the Iranians see a clear red line and this determination, he said, they will not stop moving their nuclear program forward. "Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon," he declared.

J'lem puzzled by Dempsey comment on Iran strike

Dempsey said he did not want to be 'complicit' in strike; Israeli source says comment doesn't represent White House position.

The futility of relying on the international community By ISI LEIBLER

"Ultimately, the bottom line is that we must not succumb to pressures from those seeking to deter us from taking steps to thwart threats to our survival. Nor should we be tempted to rely on undertakings from other, “friendly” nations. We have learned from bitter experience, that when the chips are down we must rely on ourselves. As Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon recently stated “the righteous work may be done by others, but we have to prepare as if no one else will do it for us”.

German Jews slam Muslims for anti-Semitism

"After a Berlin rabbi and his young daughter were assaulted, the president of Germany’s Jewish community on Friday called on the country’s Muslim associations to tackle anti-Semitism within their communities and urged Jews to continue wearing kippot in public."

Photo fraud: CNN resurrects the Rachel Corrie libel

"Now, nine years later, with the Israeli court verdict, CNN still hasn’t learned its lesson. Due either to anti-Israel bias or to pure sloppiness, CNN continues to use the megaphone photos, promoting the libel of Israel intentionally murdering Americans."

MEMRI: British MP Galloway: I Support Bashar For The Reason I Supported Saddam (6 min)

Turkey's appeal for safe zone in Syria sputters

Jordan, UN appeal for $700 million to help deal with influx of Syrian refugees

Abu Hamza's son stole £70,000 of gems in armed smash and grab raid on jewellers

Hamza has seven children and in the past his relatives have been arrested for various offences.
Sons Hamza Mustafa Kamel, Mohamed Kamel Mostafa and Mohssin Ghailan were jailed in 2009 for their part in a £1million luxury car scam.

Imam held in blasphemy case after new testimony

ISLAMABAD: A blasphemy case took a bizarre turn here on Saturday when police arrested Khalid Jadoon, a prayer leader who had allegedly put some pages of the holy Quran among the burnt papers to strengthen the case against a Christian girl.

A high-tech bridge between London and Israel

The UK’s TexChange program will bring the spirit of the Start-Up Nation to UK investors and corporations
"Israel’s got the technology, and Britain has the markets — or at least access to them. Why not bring the two together, letting British companies get access to Israeli start-up technology, to bring new products and services to existing and new markets?"

Israeli water power that doesn’t give a dam

The Jerusalem-based company that invented the Wind Tulip unveils a device to create hydroelectricity inside municipal water pipes.

Top 10 Israeli advances against Alzheimer’s disease

Israel’s researchers are making inroads against the devastating and fatal condition through brain science, drugs and memory enhancement.

Israel’s top 45 greatest inventions of all time

A new exhibit pays homage to Israeli ingenuity behind gadgets like the Disk-on-Key, PillCam, solar windows and a space camera.

Another Gaza power crisis is on the horizon, and again it has nothing to do with Israel.

The head of Palestine Electricity Company, Walid Saad Sayel, warns that the Energy Authority owes millions for maintenance of the power plant. While the free fuel from Dubai has been helping keep the plant running, no money has been coming for the provision of equipment and spare parts for maintenance work in the Gaza power plant, as well as payment for the maintenance crews and staff, forcing the plant to stop its generator this week.

He said that both the Hamas and Fatah governments owe money to the company.

Sayel added that the proposed natural gas pipeline from Egypt to Gaza to run the plant would help things considerably. That pipeline would cost between $20-30 million.

Given that Egyptians are suffering from their own energy shortages, it will be interesting to see if that pipeline -if it ever gets built - also gets sabotaged the way that the one to Israel (and Jordan) was, repeatedly, since the Egyptian revolution.

Arab admits poisoning family because he "hates Jews"

From YNet:

A Palestinian man residing in the West Bank village of Beit Furik, near Nablus, was arrested for allegedly poisoning a Raanana family and a police volunteer in October 2011.

Adnan Othman Nasaara, 46, has reportedly admitted to lacing food and drink in the Lerner family home with pesticides, because he "hates Jews."

The police also arrested two other suspects in the case. One has been identified as Hassan Abd el-Rahim, 27, from Tira, who denies involvement in the act. The identity of the second suspect has not been revealed.

According to the police, he admitted his involvement in the case and reenacted it for the investigators.

Police investigator Ilana Kosinovesko told Ynet that in his interrogation, Nasaara said he "hates Jews because they're Jews."

But YNet says something curious:

Major-General Ilan Mor, of Hasharon Subdistrict Police, said that it was unclear whether the suspect was planning to perpetrate similar nationalistically-motivated crimes in the future.

When the criminal admits that he "hates Jews because they are Jews," how can anyone construe his crime as "nationalistically motivated"?

Israel's critics accuse Zionists of bringing up anti-semitism at the drop of a hat, and yet YNet is going out of its way to claim that an admitted anti-semite is really just "pro-Palestinian"!

UPDATE: Hebrew-speaking commenters note that the Hebrew phrase "for nationalistic reasons," על רקע לאומני, is a known euphemism for racial attacks.

The fundamental dishonesty of Judith Butler

Judith Butler, who has been in the news recently because of the controversy over her receiving the Adorno Prize, has also just released a book called "Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism." The blurb describes it in dense Butlerian prose:

Judith Butler follows Edward Said's late suggestion that through a consideration of Palestinian dispossession in relation to Jewish diasporic traditions a new ethos can be forged for a one-state solution. Butler engages Jewish philosophical positions to articulate a critique of political Zionism and its practices of illegitimate state violence, nationalism, and state-sponsored racism. At the same time, she moves beyond communitarian frameworks, including Jewish ones, that fail to arrive at a radical democratic notion of political cohabitation. Butler engages thinkers such as Edward Said, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, and Mahmoud Darwish as she articulates a new political ethic. In her view, it is as important to dispute Israel's claim to represent the Jewish people as it is to show that a narrowly Jewish framework cannot suffice as a basis for an ultimate critique of Zionism. ...

Butler considers the rights of the dispossessed, the necessity of plural cohabitation, and the dangers of arbitrary state violence, showing how they can be extended to a critique of Zionism, even when that is not their explicit aim. She revisits and affirms Edward Said's late proposals for a one-state solution within the ethos of binationalism. Butler's startling suggestion: Jewish ethics not only demand a critique of Zionism, but must transcend its exclusive Jewishness in order to realize the ethical and political ideals of living together in radical democracy.

In her book she seems to be trying to use "Jewish ethics" to prove that Zionism is illegitimate. The blurb indicates that she falls short in her quest, so she must recruit Arab thinkers like Said and Darwish to round out her philosophical basis.

And yet she is telling the media that her critiques of Zionism are based on Jewish tradition. As she wrote in her response to the Adorno critics:

In my view, there are strong Jewish traditions, even early Zionist traditions, that value co-habitation and that offer ways to oppose violence of all kinds, including state violence. It is most important that these traditions be valued and animated for our time – they represent diasporic values, struggles for social justice, and the exceedingly important Jewish value of “repairing the world” (Tikkun).

...[I seek] to affirm what is most valuable in Judaism for thinking about contemporary ethics, including the ethical relation to those who are dispossessed of land and rights of self-determination, to those who seek to keep the memory of their oppression alive, to those who seek to live a life that will be, and must be, worthy of being grieved. I contend that these values all derive from important Jewish sources, which is not to say that they are only derived from those sources. But for me, given the history from which I emerge, it is most important as a Jew to speak out against injustice and to struggle against all forms of racism. This does not make me into a self-hating Jew. It makes me into someone who wishes to affirm a Judaism that is not identified with state violence, and that is identified with a broad-based struggle for social justice.

She is saying that her adamant rejection of Israel is solidly based on Jewish sources and the Jewish ethical tradition.

This is an absurd theory.

What Butler is really doing is trying to find a Jewish philosophical framework on which to hang her own hate. And she will twist facts, history, Jewish law, and anything else that gets in the way of her ultimately untenable beliefs.

The first indication that Butler is Jewishly ignorant comes from the quote above, where she talks about "the exceedingly important Jewish value of 'repairing the world' (Tikkun)." The modern concept of "Tikkun Olam" is a purely liberal invention; the words come from Jewish tradition but not how Butler understands it. The phrase is not mentioned once in the Tanach. Its Talmudic formulation has nothing to do with social justice. Perhaps its best definition comes from its most popular usage, in the thrice-daily Aleinu prayer, where it says:

We put our hope in You, the Lord our God, that we may see Your mighty splendor, to remove detestable idolatry from the earth, and false gods will be utterly cut off, to perfect the world through the Almighty's sovereignty; then all humanity will call upon Your name...

Is removing idolatry and seeking a world that accepts the God of Israel something Butler seeks? Of course not. Her concept of "Jewish values" has nothing to do with Judaism and everything to do with shoe-horning today's progressive politics into a Jewish-sounding mold.

Butler's concept of Judaism is not only naive. It is knowingly deceptive.

The first chapter of Butler's book opens with a bizarre theory about Moses that is emblematic of her dishonesty about Judaism:

It came as a surprise to me, and also a gift, to read one of Edward Said’s last books, Freud and the Non-European, not only because of the lively reengagement with the ﬁgure of Moses it contains, but because Moses becomes for him an opportunity to articulate two theses that are, in my view, worth considering. The first is that Moses, an Egyptian, is the founder of the Jewish people, which means that Judaism is not possible without this deﬁning implication in what is Arab.’ Such a formulation challenges hegemonic Ashkenazi deﬁnitions of Jewishness. But it also implies a more diasporic origin for Judaism, which suggests that a fundamental status is accorded the condition by which theJew can not be defined without a relation to the non-Jew. It is not only that, in diaspora, Jews must and do live with non—Jews,and must reflect on how precisely to conduct a life in the midst of religious and cultural heterogeneity, but also that the Jew can never be fully separated from the question of how to live among those who are not Jewish. The ﬁgure of Moses, however, makes an even more emphatic point, namely, that, for some, Jew and Arab are not ﬁnally separable categories, since they are lived and embodied together in the life of the Arab Jew....One key foundational moment for Judaism, the one in which the law is delivered to the people, centers upon a figure for whom there is no lived distinction between Arab and Jew.

The first problem is that Butler (and, apparently, Said) don't even seem to be aware that ancient Egyptians were not Arab.

Beyond that, outside of Cecil B. DeMille, what evidence is there that in Jewish tradition Moses accepts himself as an Egyptian at all?

The answer is, of course, none.

Butler might regard actually looking at Biblical sources to be beneath her in her quest to find reasons for her hate, but I'm not quite so conceited. Here is the description of Moses' upbringing in Pharaoh's palace in Exodus:

And the daughter of Pharaoh ... saw the ark among the flags, and sent her handmaid to fetch it. And she opened it, and saw it, even the child; and behold a boy that wept. And she had compassion on him, and said: 'This is one of the Hebrews' children.' Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter: 'Shall I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?' And Pharaoh's daughter said to her: 'Go.' And the maiden went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her: 'Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.' And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and said: 'Because I drew him out of the water.' And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. ... Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian...

According to the Biblical story, Moses never once identified as an Egyptian. He nursed as a Jew and he identified as a Jew when he grew up. (Notably, his step-grandfather Pharaoh also didn't identify him as one of the family, seeking to kill him for murdering a regular Egyptian, rather than covering it up as he would have for his own relative!)

It is telling that Butler uses an Arab to interpret the story in a way that she can twist to fit her pre-existing bias. For Butler, the ideal Jew lives in the Diaspora, without a home; this is what she calls "diasporic values." Yet even the straight Biblical text contradicts her thesis; Moses was always a Jew who was forced to live outside his Land, the one unfulfilled wish of his life. Moses, as a Jew during the first Disapora, sought exactly what real Jews have sought in successive disaporas - to return to Israel, the land of their forefathers.

This is not only a theme of Moses' life, but also of other Biblical figures - there are lengthy narratives of Jacob and Joseph's lives outside Israel and how they tried to maintain their ties to the land, even to the point of making their descendants promise to bury them in Israel.

You would know none of this from reading Butler. She can't be bothered to base her ideals of Judaism in something as prosaic as the Bible, preferring instead Said and Hannah Arendt, (Similarly, Butler cannot be bothered to base her definition of gender on something as distasteful as biology.)

Butler is so conceited (her writing style is meant to show off her supposed brilliance at the expense of clarity) that she cannot be bothered with reality, preferring to reside in the ivory tower of her mind. She as much as admits this in her book:

It may be that binationalism is an impossibility, but that mere fact does not suffice as a reason to be against it.

There is one simple reason why binationalism is an impossibility - it is because the Jews would be slaughtered. But that isn't enough of a reason to be against it!

Don't call her anti-semitic, though. The Jews would only be slaughtered in reality, which is a world Butler seems to find distasteful. In her mind, they would live together with Arabs in wonderful harmony. It's worth the risk, when you are Judith Butler.

Finally, it is notable that Butler's entire book about how Jewish ethics cannot abide war does not mention the actual Biblical conquerors of the Land of Israel once. I imagine that Butler would argue that King David, composer of the Psalms, does not adhere to Jewish values.

If one wants to argue a point on the basis of Jewish ethics or history or religion, then one must at least make an attempt to explain the many counterexamples that prove the opposite. Butler, however, relies on New-Agey concepts far removed from Judaism like "tikkun olam" instead of tackling real Jewish concepts, ethics and history. Again, reality is not her friend.

If the goal of a philosopher is to reveal the truth, then Butler is more like an anti-philosopher - someone who obscures the truth in order to force reality into her bizarre mindset, much of which is filled with irrational hate towards the only Jewish-majority state.

This is why she does not deserve awards or accolades, but rather derision.

Saturday night links

From Ian:

Bolton to Israel: Attack, It's Your Right

Former U.S. Ambassador to UN says Obama will not attack Iran, so Israel has to do it.
"I blame not only Obama, but the [G. W.] Bush administration," he added. "Sanctions are only good if they are comprehensive, swiftly applied and rigorously enforced. Obama has met none of those conditions."

‘Sparks fly’ over US policy on Iran at meeting between Netanyahu and US envoy

Prime minister bashes Obama’s ineffectual stance, US Ambassador Shapiro says he’s misrepresenting president’s position, newspaper claims
“Instead of effectively pressuring Iran, Obama and his people are pressuring us not to attack the nuclear facilities,” he reportedly said. He concluded by saying that the time for diplomacy had run out, the Yedioth report said.

Iran doubles capacity of bunker enrichment plant, ‘significantly’ hampers inspection, IAEA charges

UN nuke agency says Fordo site now contains more than 2,000 centrifuges that can enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels

Ayatollah Khamenei Embraces Occupy Wall Street Movement

He claimed that just as 99% of Americans allegedly battle "against the wealth and power in America," so too the 120 nations of NAM battle against "a faulty international structure" dominated by the U.S. and Israel.

Ahmadinejad, hosting Abbas, offers to mediate reconciliation talks with Hamas

Iranian president boasts ‘We are the only country which has never recognized the Zionist regime’

CIF Watch: ‘Comment is Free’ contributor claims International Solidarity Movement is“non-violent”.

“Just because individual ISM members may not personally fire the weapons which kill and maim Israelis, an organization which aids and abets the Islamist terror groups, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, that intentionally murder innocent Jews is – by definition – a reactionary,
anti-peace, pro-violence movement.
No amount of sophistry or doublespeak can obfuscate this painfully obvious fact.”

Fresno Zionism: Rachel Corrie and Evergreen State

“Shockingly, Evergreen State College is proud of her, and offers an annual scholarship in her name:
This [$2,000] scholarship is for students dedicated to gaining a better understanding of the Middle East and to working locally or internationally to further Middle East peace. Applicants must show how they will use their studies to promote human rights and social justice through community activism and/or political advocacy.”
“Areas of interest related to the Middle East may include: Arab culture and Arabic language, US Policy in the Middle East, and peace, justice and conflict resolution studies.”

Air force strikes two terror targets in Gaza

The Israel Air Force struck two terror targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Friday. Direct hits were confirmed. The military was responding to rocket fire on southern Israel from the strip.

Also:

JE Dyer on "Egypt trash talks US; US shows weak on Iran"

BDS: Cultural graffiti

Starting last night, the Batsheva Dance Company is performing in Edinburgh, Scotland. Naturally, the Israel-haters are out in force, both noisily protesting outside and - last night - interrupting the performance three times from inside the theatre.

A number of Israelis refer to the BDS actions against Israeli artists as "cultural terror." I think that is an overstatement, and it also gives them too much credit. In reality, what they do is cultural graffiti.

On the surface, one might think that both graffiti artists and BDSers are motivated to get an important message out to the world. The scrawler on walls is, after all, spending time creating something for people to look at, and the boycotters are noisily chanting for their cause.

But only a little digging finds that both of them are driven not by altruism but by egocentrism. Just as graffiti artists usually emphasize painting their own code names, BDSers are obsessed with their own sense of self-worth. A look at their triumphant tweets shows that they are proud not so much at getting their message out as in bragging about successfully doing something very simple - shouting. Even then, as is often the case, they wildly exaggerate their supposed victories in order to feel important. (They showed great happiness and pride at forcing an Israeli official to use the side door to avoid injury.)

Both the graffiti artists and the BDSers will carefully plan their crimes, coming up with ways to avoid the police and security guards. The fundamental skills needed for both are quite limited - anyone can spray paint and anyone can shout robotic slogans. The fact that some are more talented than others in their space doesn't detract from the basic fact that they are both immensely proud of thinking that they can bypass authority, something that take very little skill.

Another commonality they have is the misguided notion that what they are doing makes a difference. They think that their illicit activities somehow serve a higher purpose, and they ascribe false morality to immoral activities.They regard themselves as having a more refined notion of what is right and wrong than ordinary people. This is again an offshoot of their fundamental egoism.

Related to that is that both groups are so self-centered that they have an utter indifference to the effects their acts have on others. Their actions cost them little but they cost the public a great deal, in extra security as well as in the psychic costs of living in an environment made deliberately uncomfortable by selfish blowhards.

Finally, in both cases, when they do get caught by authorities, they believe that this gives them more credibility in their own communities.

In the end, the self-righteous BDSers are no more than a bunch of kids with paint cans.

Some choice nuggets from Iran's Supreme Leader

The complete text of Ayatollah Khamanei's speech to the NAM summit is online, and it has some doozies:

The UN Security Council has an illogical, unjust and completely undemocratic structure and mechanism. This is a flagrant form of dictatorship, which is antiquated and obsolete and whose expiry date has passed. It is through abusing this improper mechanism that America and its accomplices have managed to disguise their bullying as noble concepts and impose it on the world....Torture and assassination are permissible and completely ignored if they are carried out by America, the Zionists and their puppets.

...The U.S. and its Western allies have armed the usurper Zionist regime with nuclear weapons and created a major threat for this sensitive region. Yet the same deceitful group does not tolerate the peaceful use of nuclear energy by independent countries, and even opposes, with all its strength, the production of nuclear fuel for radiopharmaceuticals and other peaceful and humane purposes. Their pretext is fear of production of nuclear weapons. In the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran, they themselves know that they are lying, but lies are sanctioned by the kind of politics that is completely devoid of the slightest trace of spirituality.

And spiritual people like Khamanei wouldn't lie, would he? I mean, the thousands of centrifuges being built underneath mountains are for medicine, right?

...The summary of this matter is that on the basis of a horrible Western plot and under the direction of England in the 1940s, an independent country with a clear historical identity called “Palestine” has been taken away from its people through the use of weapons, killings and deception and has been given to a group of people the majority of whom are immigrants from European countries.

Well, maybe he'll lie a teensy bit.

...Political and military leaders of the usurping Zionist regime have not avoided any crimes during this time: from killing the people, destroying their homes and farms and arresting and torturing men and women and even their children, to humiliating and insulting that nation and trying to destroy it in order to digest it in the haraam-eating stomach of the Zionist regime, to attacking their refugee camps in Palestine itself and in the neighboring countries where millions of refugees live.

Apparently, Khamanei wants all non-kosher restaurants in Tel Aviv to close down.

Even now after 65 years the same kind of crimes marks the treatment of Palestinians remaining in the occupied territories by the ferocious Zionist wolves.

Doesn't he mean a crossbreed between wolves and pigs?

Now I would like to give a benevolent piece of advice to American politicians who always stood up to defend and support the Zionist regime. So far, this regime has created countless problems for you. It has presented a hateful image of you to the regional peoples, and it has made you look like an accomplice in the crimes of the usurping Zionists. The material and moral costs borne by the American government and people on account of this are staggering, and if this continues, the costs might become even heavier in the future.

If the leaders of Iran would kill themselves and democratic elections would follow, the US would save even more money!

Just a benevolent piece of advice.

Friday links

From Ian:

IDF Blog Palestinian Terrorist Group Graduates Its First Class from New Academy

"The PRC, along with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, tries to enlist and train as many terrorists as they can in order to be able to fire rockets into Israel and fight the Israel Defense Forces. The PRC has established the Shahid Imad Hamad Academy of Military Training for this purpose. This week, the first class graduated from the academy."

Israel’s Right to Exist Not Based Upon UN Resolution

"Jewish rights to the Land of Israel are steeped in four millenia of facts. The right to re-establish a country on the entirety or any portion of this land stems from writ and deed, and from the continual presence of Jewish communities dwelling in the land throughout the epochs. Living descendants of these die-hard, holdout communities are firm links in the chain of generations, and proffer irrefutable proof. Every archaeological Tel and architectural artefact testifies to the truth. All remnants and ruins bear witness. Relics substantiate and place-names verify."

Romney: Obama 'threw Israel under the bus'

As he accepts Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney slams president's Iran policy • Every American is less secure today because Obama failed to slow Iran's nuclear threat ... We're still talking, and Iran’s centrifuges are still spinning, says Romney.

Iraqi Ally of Israel Dispossessed of his Home, he Says by Iraqi PM Maliki

"Former Iraqi Parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi, who in a series of recent interviews with The Algemeiner has spoken of Iran’s alleged bribery of numerous Iraqi officials, says he has received notice from the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he is being dispossessed of his home in Baghdad’s Green Zone."

UN investigator condemns Corrie court ruling

Richard Falk, a UN special rapporteur on human rights says decision "a victory for impunity for Israeli military."

Jimmy Carter calls Corrie ruling ‘unacceptable’

Former US president says decision exonerating IDF in activist’s death ‘confirms a climate of impunity’

[There's that word again! -EoZ]

Pro-Palestinian group offers BDS tour of Australian stores

Sally McGregor, an American podiatrist who founded the Brisbane shop in 1994, said members of the group occupied her store until police were called and eventually moved them on, the newspaper The Australian reported Thursday.
“I am really scared that they will return and damage my business, but I will not be told what I should or should not stock,” she told J-Wire, a local Jewish website.A letter was given to owners of several stores visited by the group, asking them to “stop importing and selling goods from Israel,” according to the Justice for Palestine website.
Danny Lamm, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told The Australian: “These mafia-style tactics have no place in contemporary Australia. The shop owner deserves our admiration and every support for refusing to be stood over.”

LAPD: ‘Active’ Terror Plots Linked To Iran, Hezbollah, ‘Sovereign Citizens’

The Department is currently tracking “government of Iran operatives, Hezbollah, sovereign citizen, homegrown violent extremists, animal rights groups” and others, Downing said.
He added that Iranian or Hezbollah agents may initiate attacks locally if war erupts between the U.S. and Iran.

Muslim Persecution of Christians: July, 2012 by Raymond Ibrahim

Egypt's Salafi Party Objects to Banning Sex Slavery by Raymond Ibrahim

‘June 67 taught them respect’: Heavy-metal Swedes hail the IDF

Hard rockers Sabaton spend their only free day on tour in Israel visiting Ammunition Hill and army base in West Bank

The greenest house in the world?

Students at Ariel University marshal all sorts of techniques to build an environmentally sound abode

Israel Daily Picture Ottoman General at the Damascus Gate 1916
“...the street was full of observant Jews dressed in their Sabbath finery.”

Richard Millett: Paralympics are Go: Israeli team receives warm welcome from home crowd.

And a full-length dramatic film about the Jewish founder of the Paralympics, Sir Ludwig Guttmann:

Also, Iran's translator tampers with Morsi's NAM speech. (h/t O)

Robot gives science lesson at Israeli school

From Digital Journal:

Technology is making a bigger and bigger impact in the classroom and this summer, RoboThespian, a robotic actor, got a summer job as a guest science teacher for a group of grade 5 and 6 students in Israel.

Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, describes RoboThespian as a robot that gestures, has facial expressions and multiple vocal effects. It was purchased by Israel’s National Museum of Science, Technology and Space from British company Engineered Arts Limited back in 2010 for a Robot Zoo exhibition.

Then this month the robot was put to work, giving a live lesson to kids on the science of levers. Prof. Igor Verner of the Technion’s Department of Education in Technology and Science tells the Institute’s magazine Focus, “We’ve just witnessed one of the first ever formal science lessons given by a robot.”

(h/t NoCamels)