Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 04, 2015

Universal Human Rights versus The Multicultural Ideal (Mike Lumish)

There is an unspoken contradiction at the heart of western-left ideology that is eroding liberal values, rocking solidarity among the larger coalition, and undermining the integrity of the movement, as a whole.

Those of you familiar with my material know that I tend to focus on the progressive-left betrayal of its Jewish constituency along with the failure of its own central ideals.

A big part of that betrayal and failure is around the acceptance of political Islam as a rational player on the world stage. If it holds, this will be a significant Obama administration legacy. It is not that the Obama administration is the first American administration to sit down, on some level, with Islamists. This is obviously not the case. Rather, what distinguishes the Obama administration from the previous administrations is the enthusiasm and commitment brought to normalizing political Islam for world diplomacy and world consumption.

The Obama administration publicly supported the Muslim Brotherhood. The progressive movement supported the Obama administration. And the Jewish Left supported the progressive movement. In this way, even many on the Jewish Left end up supporting an American president who gave billions of dollars, as well as F-16 fighter jets and Abrams tanks, to a political organization, within a larger movement, that swears to overrun Jerusalem and murder the Jews.

Some will argue that the Obama administration opposes political Islam because it opposes the Islamic State (IS), but the Obama administration also supported the Muslim Brotherhood which is the father organization of Hamas and al-Qaeda.

So, the question that I am asking myself is, how is it that so much of the Left could end up supporting repressive, homophobic, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, authoritarian regimes while turning their backs on the only country in the region where women have equality of opportunity and where Gay people can live without fear of persecution? I am hardly the first person to raise this question, but it is a good question and one that liberals need brought to their attention if they wish to have anything resembling integrity in terms of their foreign policies.

There are any number of ways to approach this topic, but I want to speak to it from the perspective of ideology.

The twin pillars of progressive-left ideology today are those of universal human rights and the multicultural ideal. Universal human rights means that our objective should be to advance social justice throughout the planet. We want people to live in freedom with governments devoted to democracy and to the well-being of their own people, everywhere. That is the broad meaning of universal human rights and it is, in fact, a noble goal.

Western progressives also believe in the multicultural ideal.

People from different cultures should be able to live cheek-by-jowl throughout the world in harmony and peace. Such a live-and-let-live arrangement would enrich all cultures through harmonious interaction and the sharing of cultural products. This is not an old-timey "melting pot" notion, but a popular contemporary outlook grounded in mutual respect for cultural distinctions.

While all of this sounds very nice, it simply has not worked out very well, unfortunately.

This is true mainly because Muslim communities, via the Islamist influence, particularly in Europe, are having none of it. European Islamists, if not the majority of Muslim immigrants into Europe, despise European culture and values and, make no mistake, universal human rights is unquestionable a western value.

Furthermore, European Islamists do not want to live under European sovereignty. What they want is cultural and legal independence from their countries of residence and these factors are beginning to rend European society as Islamists attack non-Muslims, and particularly Jews, throughout western Europe.

Those who lean toward the multicultural ideal generally find it better to let other cultures simply be what they are, but they do so with an uneasy conscience - if they have a conscience - and to the detriment of their twin ideal, that of universal human rights.

Thus the entire western Left ideological edifice struggles with itself and the multicultural ideal has won out in this more-or-less unacknowledged contest taking place just beneath the political surface.

Part of the problem is that the multicultural ideal is bolstered by people's experiences in the real world while universal human rights, as applied to people half a world away, is something of an abstraction. That is, as more and more of us are living in multi-ethnic communities the need for a live-and-let live attitude toward those communities is direct and immediate. However, the need to send in troops to save the Yazidi from the savages of the Islamic State (IS) or to insist upon women's rights in the Middle East, for two quick examples, is not immediate and is not usually of local community concern.

Whatever the reasons for the fact that the multicultural ideal has won out in its contest for the hearts and minds of progressives over universal human rights, however, no one should doubt that it has happened.

Let me give you a few examples.

Feminism, for one, is dead or dying and multiculturalism killed it or helped kill it.

Just ask Professor Phyllis Chesler. She'll tell you.

Feminism, as a political movement, gave up not only on universal human rights, but even on the rights of women outside of the white liberal west, almost entirely. In the 1990s feminists were perfectly comfortable speaking out against the Taliban and encouraging governments to take necessary action to ease the plight of abused women in the Middle East.

Those days are largely gone. Now we have prominent feminists like Naomi Wolf telling us that the burka actually represents sexual freedom for Muslim women. She wrote in a 2008 piece:

It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling - toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.

I see.

So feminists have been telling one another that Islam is not oppressive of women in part because Islam's most privileged women tell naive and well-meaning westerners like Naomi Wolf that Islam is just terrific for women. Besides, who are these white, western, wealthy, women to tell women of color how they should feel about their own cultures? By what arrogant non-existent imperative do the daughters of the imperialist west have any right to tell non-white people what to do or think?

That is a very good question.

But, you can easily see how multicultural sympathies erode the will to stand up for universal human rights, in this case the rights of women throughout the Muslim world.

A similar argument can be made for the GBLT movement and its abandonment of Gay people throughout that part of the world, even as it castigates Israel, the only country throughout the region that is friendly toward people such as themselves.

Finally, the triumph of the multicultural ideal over that of universal human rights has had a terrible effect on the relationship between Jewish liberals and the western-left. At least partially due to the multicultural ethos many western liberals fear criticizing Arab societies - and fear being called "racist" if they do so - and this has opened space for anti-Semitic anti-Zionists to join the ranks of the progressives in exceedingly vocal ways thereby driving the conversation of the Arab-Israel conflict within left-wing venues.

There are only two groups of people free from the protection of multiculturalism within the western-left, white people and Jewish people. I, of course, happen to be both.

If the western-left wishes to remain true to its alleged values and if it wishes to maintain the loyalty and support of its various constituencies than it will need to find a way to balance the multicultural ideal with its alleged support for universal human rights.

Speaking strictly for myself, I do not see it happening, and am thus more than happy to distance myself from a political movement that supports political Islam - the single most violently racist political movement on the planet today - even as it hypocritically preaches to the rest us about anti-racism.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

How the Arabs added specifically anti-Israel language to the Rome Statute of the ICC

The list of war crimes enumerated in Rome Statute of the ICC includes a section that is directly aimed at Israel, and no one else.

From The International Criminal Court: the making of the Rome Statute : issues, negotiations and results by Roy S. K. Lee

Article 8(2)(b)(viii), on deportation and transfer of population, also generated extensive discussions. The provision now reads:

The transfer. directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory.
The grave breach of “unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful continement" is already reflected in Article 8(l)(a)(vii). The violation in Article 8(2)(b)(vii) is based on the broader provision in Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, now recognized as a grave breach in Article 85(4)(a) of Additional Protocol 1. The scope of these prohibitions is broader, as they govern not only the transfer of population of the occupied territory to other parts of that occupied territory or to places outside the occupied territory. but also the transfer by the occupying power of parts of its own civilian population into occupied territory. The latter aspect was politically controversial during the negotiations. Israel was not a party to the Additional Protocol l, largely because of this provision, and emphatically disagreed that this aspect was part of customary international law. It stood, however, rather isolated in this position and was supported, to a certain extent, only by the United States.

During the December 1997 session, this provision generated heated debates, as a result of which four options were submitted for discussion at the Rome Conference.‘°' At Rome, it soon became clear that a large majority of delegations preferred a provision based on the wording of the Additional Protocol. However. the Arab delegations wanted to adapt this language. in order to make clear that an occupying power is not only responsible for this act if it deliberately organizes the transfer of its own population into occupied territory, but also if it does not take effective steps to prevent the population itself from organizing such a transfer. After some negotiations, the words “directly or indirectly" were added to this provision.

In other words,the drafting committee caved to Arab demands to expand the scope of existing international law specifically against a single state - a state that most of them were technically at war with..

Just for context, here are other crimes that the Rome Statute considers exactly as heinous as the crime of allowing one's citizens to voluntarily move to disputed territory:

* Intentionally attacking innocent civilians
* Intentionally attacking official people involved in humanitarian or peacekeeping missions
* Killing people who have surrendered
* Intentionally attacking churches, hospitals or museums for no military reason
* Subjecting the enemy to medical experiments or mutilation
* "Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy..."
* Intentionally starving civilians

Israel commented at the time:

Israel has reluctantly cast a negative vote. It fails to comprehend why it has been considered necessary to insert into the list of the most heinous and grievous war crimes the action of transferring population into occupied territory. The exigencies of lack of time and intense political and public pressure have obliged the Conference to by-pass very basic sovereign prerogatives to which we are entitled in drafting international conventions, in favour of finishing the work and achieving a Statute on a come-what-may basis. We continue to hope that the Court will indeed serve the lofty objectives for the attainment of which it is being established.

The deck is stacked against Israel at the ICC because its foundational document was partially the result of political, specifically anti-Israel move by her enemies.

A court whose rules are created not for the purposes of justice but for the purpose of revenge against a single state is flawed from the start.

Why is "Palestine"'s ICC application retroactive to June 13, 2014?

Here is the letter from Mahmoud Abbas to the ICC:

Why is the application requesting it to be effective retroactively to June 13, 2014?

Because on June 12, 2014, Palestinian Arab terrorists kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teens, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah, from the supposed territory of "Palestine" which they claim to be part of "Palestine."

Which is a war crime under the Rome Statute.

So Mahmoud Abbas is saying that the application should only be retroactive to June 13, when Israeli forces started to frantically look for the teens still hoped to be alive. Because he isn't interested in justice - but he is interested in protecting his Hamas partner from being indicted for a war crime that they brag about..

The cynicism is breathtaking.

Not that Mahmoud Abbas is alone in this cynical use of dates to frame Israel as being guilty of war crimes without context.

The exact same thing was done by William Schabas, chair of the UNHRC investigation into the events of last summer - a mandate that explicitly excludes the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens but that includes Israel's response to the kidnappings by choosing to only investigate events from June 13th. .

Fatah claims that "skull" image was not done by them. OK, how about these?

And if you believe this one....

The political faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas distanced itself from an image of skulls adorned with Jewish stars posted on its official Facebook page.

The image, posted Wednesday on the Fatah Facebook page, also displays a rifle, the Fatah flag and the words “lingering on your skulls.” It was posted on the occasion of Fatah’s 50th anniversary.

A spokesman for Fatah told CNN on Friday that the group was not responsible for the image.

“Fatah did not design this image,” Mahmoud al-Aloul said, who added that the person who posted it “is currently being asked to remove it. The image and the text do not reflect the opinions of Fatah.”

The image was removed after al-Aloul’s comments were made to CNN.

OK, then lets see what else is posted on the official Fatah Facebook page.

December 13:

December 15:

November 19:

November 19 (Fatah claims they are against rocket attacks)::

November 18, celebrating the Haf Nof synagogue murderers:

November 2:("non-violence")

August 2, one of the Fatah terrorists killed in Gaza when Fatah supposedly doesn't support violence anymore:

A parade of the "dismantled" Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terror group in Qalandia, West Bank:

There are hundreds of photos that celebrate terror attacks, that say that Israel shouldn't exist, that glorify terror, that incite violence, that incite antisemitism.

Are these the official Fatah position? (Of course they are.) Will CNN ask them about that? (Of course not, they don't have piles of skulls so they are acceptable discourse for Israel's "peace partner.")

01/03 Links: Pro-Israel Student Activist Chloe Valdary Receives Death Threat; The Arabs are Semites fallacy

From Ian:

Gerard Henderson: There is no war between Israel and a nonexistent nation

Australia’s decision to vote in agreement with the US in the Security Council on the Jordanian resolution is not an example of Tony Abbott slavishly following Obama. Not at all. Australia has been a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist within secure borders since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Also, the policy has been essentially bipartisan.
Australia’s support for Israel started when Labor’s Ben Chifley was prime minister. It continued after December 1949 under the Coalition prime ministers Robert Menzies, Harold Holt, John Gorton and William McMahon. Gough Whitlam was not as friendly to Israel as his predecessors, but his government lasted only three years. Malcolm Fraser is one of Israel’s most high-profile critics. But he did not manifest such a position during his nearly eight years as prime minister. Labor prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating were supportive of Israel, as was John Howard. Kevin Rudd essentially continued this position, as did Julia Gillard.
Viewed in this light, the position taken by the Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister reflects established policy. Moreover, it makes good sense.
It is fashionable among the left intelligentsia in the West to blame Israel for all the problems in the Middle East. However, the appalling civil war in Syria, which has seen about 200,000 Muslims killed by other Muslims, has nothing to do with Israel. Currently, authorities in Jerusalem want to see reconstruction in Gaza following Israel’s recent war with Hamas aimed at destroying missile sites and attack tunnels on the Israel-Gaza border. Neither Egypt nor the PA is supportive of this proposal, due to the hostility of the governments in Cairo and Ramallah to Hamas.
It is likely that the tension in the Middle East, as it affects Israel, will continue for some time. A long-term settlement seems a long way off. But this does not suggest a war between Israel and the Palestinians as depicted by O’Connor.
About 20 per cent of Israel’s population is made up of Muslims and Christians. Both groups enjoy full democratic rights. What’s more, as Arab-Israeli citizen Khaled Abu Toameh pointed out in The Australian yesterday, there is a lack of democracy in the PA areas on the West Bank — particularly with reference to female critics of Abbas.
While in Israel, I visited the Ziv hospital close to the Lebanese-Syrian borders, where Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and other minorities work together. Here, Melbourne-born doctor Michael Harari looks after victims of the Syrian civil war who have been brought to the hospital by the Israel Defence Force. There were adult male and child victims. According to Harari, no one asks details about the patients. They receive the best attention possible. At the Ziv hospital, there is no war between Israelis and Palestinians or, indeed, Syrians. It’s a symbol of hope in a troubled region.

Pro-Israel Student Activist Chloe Valdary Receives Death Threat

Pro-Israel student activist Chloe Valdary received a death threat via a YouTube video titled "Pro Israel Chloe Valdary Murdered!"
The brief video was posted Dec. 31 by "Jackson Carter." Beneath Carter's post is the following statement:
"Rest in peace Chloe Valdary, no way burn in hell be' yatch. You make me black and ashamed. If there is any justice in the world you'll get yours and then some!"
The six-second video features ominous images, including a woman lying in a hospital bed, the words "Bang ya dead!" and a photo of Valdary holding an Israeli flag. It ends with the statement "The Planetary Patriot is here." (The epithet "Planetary Patriot" appears in some of his other videos.)

01/02 Links Pt2: Does the Israeli Left actually live here?; Anett Haskia: I am not a traitor

From Ian:

Anett Haskia: I am not a traitor

People often ask me: “But how many other Israeli Arabs support Israeli like you do?” All one needs to answer this question is to take a look at the latest polls on how many Israeli Arabs would live in a Palestinian state as opposed to Israel, to realize that if given the opportunity, the silent Israeli Arab majority would openly come out in support of Israel. Nearly every Israeli Arab would prefer to live in Israel over a Palestinian state and just 30 percent come out to vote for Arab parties in Knesset elections. The Arab-Israeli electorate has lost all faith in Arab MKs who do not represent their interests (when was the last time an Arab MK supported a bill to protect battered Arab women trying to flee their abusive husbands or took up the rights of child brides?!).
It comes down to this: the Arab MKs are the real traitors – not me. While I’m running for the Bayit Yehudi candidates list first and foremost in order to serve the best interests of Israeli Arabs, they’re creating further divisions in our society. We’re really no different from anyone else.
We want to lead quiet lives, earning a dignified living to support our families. The vast majority of us want to live in peace with the Jews without suffering from prejudice and discrimination. The Arab MKs want something entirely different. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

David Weinberg: A crystal ball on 2015

One year ago, I forecast -- accurately -- that in 2014 U.S. President Barack Obama would continue to fudge the nuclear issue with Iran. I also foresaw that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would agree to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's formula for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines, but that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would cut and run from the negotiations at the last moment. Easy predictions.
But I was wrong in expecting to see the hero of the social protest movement Professor Manuel Trajtenberg join Moshe Kahlon's new political party. Instead, he recently joined the ranks of Labor. I was also wrong in hoping and praying to see Natan Sharansky named the president of Israel, instead of Reuven Rivlin.
Looking into my crystal ball for the year ahead, this is what I see:

Top 10 Non-Jews Positively Influencing the Jewish Future, 2014

Five years have now passed since I first published my annual list of non-Jews who are worthy of recognition for their positive impact on Jewish lives and the Jewish state.
Looking back, it is fascinating to see how the list has evolved, with some personalities fading from prominence and others emerging to take their place. Some have remained constant throughout the years.
As I have pointed out in the past, my choices are by no means scientific and are primarily intended to prompt interest in this unique group of individuals. Hailing from various countries, ethnic backgrounds and religious groups, the list includes heads of state, business tycoons and spiritual and political leaders. While some of their contributions came through effort and sacrifice, for others they seemed like second nature, but all are surely worthy of our recognition. As such, I present my fifth annual list of the “Top 10 Non-Jews Positively Influencing the Jewish Future.”

Giles Fraser is quite anti-Israel. , But his latest column in The Guardian unwittingly reveals something interesting about his Arab (Christian) friends in the West Bank:

Liberation theology is back in business. After decades of official censure (including from the present pope, in earlier guise), the big narrative of Christian theology is once again one of liberation for the poor and the oppressed. Salvation is not some private transaction between the individual and God, it is a public story in which the oppressed find freedom in the here and now.

Theology, so liberation theologians insist, is a practical business and not an intellectual exercise. This is Jesus as half Marx and half Moses. Forget academic theory, angels dancing on pins, sterile arguments about God’s existence, the church’s obsession with clothes and buildings. Instead, think praxis: good news to the poor, freedom to the captive, sight to the blind. Doing is believing. And from the favelas of São Paulo to the shantytowns of Johannesburg, it rejuvenated Christianity by returning to its revolutionary roots.

So why was it that these Palestinian Christians were having none of it? We were sitting in a cafe in Ramallah, close by the Kalandia checkpoint. Despite the fact that my Palestinian friends were constantly on the lookout for hermeneutic resources that might aid in the struggle against Israeli occupation, they seemed extremely reluctant to align themselves with liberation theology.

It was only when we started talking about Moses that the scales fell from my eyes. From a western perspective, the Exodus story is the primary text of the biblical cry of freedom. The African slaves who sang spirituals in the cotton fields of America would link their suffering to that of the Jews under Ramses II. Thus, for instance, they sang: “Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt’s land, Tell ole Pharaoh To let my people go.”

But from a Palestinian perspective, one person’s liberation is another’s slavery. The very story African slaves told each other as the story of their anticipated liberation is, according to Palestinians, at the root of their current occupation. The slaves come out of Egypt and into a land promised them by God. And, for Palestinians, this promise is responsible for their military subjugation, for walls and settlements.

Fraser almost gets it right. It isn't that Palestinians associate God's promise to the Jews with "settlements." It is that they cannot admit even to themselves that Jews ever lived in the Land of Israel because that means that they are the ones who are on someone else's land.

Don't take my word for it. Read this article that I quoted from in 2011 from by former PLO negotiator Ahmad Samih Khalidi, describing why believing in the Biblical story is antithetical to the core beliefs of Palestinian arabs, and therefore must be rejected:

[I]f Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, then the lands that it occupies today (and perhaps more, for there are as yet no borders to this “homeland”) belong to this people by way of right. And if these lands rightfully comprise the Jewish homeland, then the Arab presence there becomes historically aberrant and contingent; the Palestinians effectively become historic interlopers and trespassers—a transient presence on someone else’s national soil.

This is not a moot or exaggerated point. It touches on the very core of the conflict and its genesis. Indeed, it is the heart of the Zionist claim to Palestine: Palestine belongs to the Jews and their right to the land is antecedent and superior to that of the Arabs. This is what Zionism is all about, and what justifies both the Jewish return to the land and the dispossession of its Arab inhabitants.

Clearly, this is not the Palestinian Arab narrative, nor can it be. Palestinians do not believe that the historical Jewish presence in and connection to the land entail a superior claim to it. Palestine as our homeland was established in the course of over fifteen hundred years of continuous Arab-Muslim presence; it was only by superior force and colonial machination that we were eventually dispossessed of it. For us to adopt the Zionist narrative would mean that the homes that our forefathers built, the land that they tilled for centuries, and the sanctuaries they built and prayed at were not really ours at all, and that our defense of them was morally flawed and wrongful: we had no right to any of these to begin with.

The Biblical story from the Exodus through Joshua, David and Solomon - a story that the Quran largely accepts - undercuts the very foundation of Palestinianism. They know that, and this discomfort (and in the case of Arab Christians, cognitive dissonance) must be buried and pushed aside and forgotten.

A film like the Ridley Scott epic, as bad as it sounds like it is, still includes the basic storyline of a Jewish people chosen by God to be brought out of slavery and into the Promised Land - promised by none other than God Himself. And that is unacceptable.

So of course that cannot relate to the story of the Jews - because it undercuts and annuls their entire narrative.

This also explains why the discredited Khazare theory is so popular among Arabs - it is a very loose peg to hang their narrative on by claiming that ancient Jews have nothing to do with modern Jews. Similarly, it explains why Palestinian Christians embrace replacement theology, because that means that God's promise to the Jews is no longer relevant.

Defending their narrative is the driving force behind their beliefs, and truth is their enemy.

01/02 Links Pt1: Young Israeli Firebombing Victim’s Condition Improving; Hamas: Abbas can't join ICC

From Ian:

Young Israeli Firebombing Victim’s Condition Improving

Doctors treating 11-year-old Ayala Shapira, severely burned in a Palestinian firebombing attack last week, have brought her back to partial consciousness, Israel’s NRG News reported Thursday.
Ayala and her father, Avner, were driving home from enrichment lessons at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv to their community of El Matan in northern Samaria late Thursday night, when two Palestinians ambushed the vehicle, with one hurling a firebomb through her open window.
Shapira suffered third-degree burns to 30-40 percent of her body, including her face and chest, despite her father managing to get her out of the burning vehicle and carry her into their community, several hundred meters away.
On Thursday, her doctors decided to lower the dosage of anesthetic she was being given intravenously to numb the pain of her burns. As a result, Ayala entered a partially alert state, and can respond to her environment but has yet to speak, and is still on a respirator.
Doctors at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv said she has a “long, complicated,” rehabilitation ahead due to her life-threatening injuries. (h/t Jewess)

Israeli security center publishes names of 50 killed terrorists 'concealed by Hamas'

An Israeli defense analysis center on Thursday released the names of 50 Gazan terrorists killed in combat with Israel this summer, whose identities were kept by Hamas from Palestinian casualty lists.
The Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said all of the combatant casualties were members of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzadin Kassam Brigades.
“The names did not show up on other casualty lists publicized by organizations affiliated with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority,” said the center, which is a part of the Israeli Intelligence and Heritage Commemoration Center, founded by leading members of the Israeli intelligence community.
According to the study, 52% of Palestinian casualties from the conflict were terrorists and 48% civilians.
A report released on Thursday said the newly identified combatant casualties belonged one of the following categories: some were terrorists left behind in Israel after being killed in fire fights with IDF units during the summer war; others were terrorists buried in tunnels or the ruins of buildings bombed by the IDF; and others were terrorists who died of their wounds in hospital and were not identified during hostilities.

From a Hamas leader, unusual introspection

Breaking ranks with his Islamist political movement, Hamas’s deputy foreign minister Ghazi Hamad has penned a rare op-ed of self-criticism, blaming both Hamas and Fatah’s shortsightedness for “losing Palestine.”
It is not often that a senior Hamas leader, a former chairman of the movement’s border crossings authority, bitterly accuses his group of “clapping with one hand at its festivals, singing of its heroism, listening to itself and describing the other as faltering.” It is even rarer for such a leader to allow his words, published in recent days in Arab media, to be translated for a wider, non-Palestinian audience.
Hamad’s op-ed, “Now I understand how and why the Palestinians lost Palestine,” published here [Times of Israel], is iconoclastic in two meaningful ways. Firstly, it tears the mask off the political deal reached last June between Fatah and Hamas in the form of a unity technocrat government, exposing it as no more than a charade for public consumption.
“Rather than focusing the struggle against the occupation, the struggle has become exclusively intra-Palestinian. It is a struggle in which each of the sides tries to prove that his option is best and the other’s has failed. How long has this battle lasted, undecided? Is it really necessary for us to do this?” he writes.
Secondly, the op-ed points to the shortcomings of Hamas’s policy of “armed resistance and nothing else,” arguing instead that military struggle and smart diplomacy are two essential aspects of a sound Palestinian strategy.
Nonetheless, what he does not do is suggest that “armed resistance” in the Palestinian cause is either morally or practically wrong, and neither does he explicitly suggest any acceptance of Israel.

"12,569 settlers stormed Al Aqsa Mosque in 2014"

The Al Asqa Foundation has been keeping statistics on how many evil "settler" Jews stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque in 2014, and they aren't happy.

According to their count, 12,569 "settlers" visited accompanied by security and police. Including political figures, it counts 14,952 Israelis in total "storming" the area.

This is an increase of 39% in terms of "settlers" visiting in 2013, when only 9,050 visited.

Nearly every Sunday through Thursday saw Jews visiting the site, although the Foundation happily reports that many times it managed to frustrate the settler's evil intentions of performing Talmudic rites or even visiting altogether with their well-planned riots.

Here are a couple of photos they published of the scheming Jewish settlers violently desecrating the mosque, as they see it.

NYT interviews a PFLP terrorist without revealing his history

Jodi Rudoren in the New York Times wrote a fairly interesting piece about the challenges that the PA would have in bringing up charges against Israel in the ICC.

One of the "experts" she interviewed, however, has a relevant history that Rudoren didn't bother to research or reveal:

Some experts say any incidents since the court was created are fair game, while others say the court can deal only with matters since the United Nations General Assembly upgraded Palestine’s status to nonmember observer in 2012, or perhaps only after the Palestinian Authority joins the court in March. Shawan Jabarin, director of the human rights group Al Haq, said the Palestinians would submit a request for retroactive jurisdiction to last June 13, to coincide with the period being considered by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s commission of inquiry.

Mr. Jabarin said the commission, with which Israel has refused to cooperate, would provide an initial report in March that could serve as a road map for the Hague court. Separately, his group and others have been documenting allegations of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, and are working with the Palestinian Authority to prepare complaints about Israeli settlements.

“The crime is not just the rape and the widespread killing or something like that, but also to transfer civilians and to confiscate land and to destroy property,” Mr. Jabarin said. “It’s a different way of rape, it’s a different way of killing, it’s a different way of destruction.”

Forgetting the absurdity of equating building houses with rape and mass murder, Jabarin knows a little bit about terror.

He was, or is, an operative for the PFLP. And Israel's Supreme Court ruled multiple times that the evidence that he continued his terror activities even while pretending to be a "human rights" activist is overwhelming. From Case 1520/09, March 10, 2009, translated at Terrorism-Info:

1) "This is not the first time the appellant has appealed regarding his desire to leave the country. During previous appeals as well as during this one the Court examined classified material presented by the security authorities. All previous appeals were rejected. On June 6, 2007, the Court found that "[t]he appellant is apparently a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, some of his time spent in directing a human rights organization, and some as an activist in an organization which has no qualms regarding murder and attempted murder, which have no relation whatsoever to rights, quite the opposite, which reject the most basic right of all, without which there are no other rights, that is, the right to life..." On July 7, 2008, the Court found that "there is reliable information that the appellant is a senior activist in the Popular Front terrorist organization."

2) "Today the appellant again seeks to leave the country for the purpose of receiving an award from an organization in Holland. His representative requested that in making our decision we take into consideration the need to achieve a proper balance between the concerns voiced by the security authorities – and regarding which the appellant's representative does not have sufficient information because of the privilege protecting the factual material on the one hand – and the basic right of the appellant to freedom of movement on the other. The overall position of the security authorities, in the appellant's opinion, is a violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The appellant claims that what must be taken into consideration is the increased right to movement which those who defend human rights should be allowed to enjoy.

3) "...To that end we met in chambers twice, and at each meeting we held thorough, comprehensive deliberations, examining the possibility to provide an immediate answer for security constraints. We found that the material indicating the appellant's involvement in the activities of terrorist groups is genuine and authoritative. Moreover, additional negative material regarding the appellant came to light after his previous appeal was rejected. This negative foundation confirms the position of the security authorities, according to which preventing the appellant from leaving the country was in punishment for his forbidden activity, but rather the result of relevant security considerations. Thus the Court has not found a way to intervene in the decision given not to permit the appellant to leave the country."

(Jabarin was allowed to leave in February 2013 to visit France.)

Combined with yesterday's revelation that Roger Cohen interviewed someone who lied to the new York Times about his brother's terrorist activities, it sure appears that the New York Times is willing to accept the supposed credentials and lie of its Arab interviewees without doing even a modicum of fact-checking.

A lack of skepticism about people who have a long history of lying to the media is a lack of basic journalistic practice. It is a shame that so many respected media outlets like the New York Times uncritically swallow everything they are told by accomplished liars and terrorists.

(h/t NGO Monitor)

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is a designated terrorist organization by the USA, Canada and other countries.

The EU confirmed their designation of the Al Aqsa Brigades as a terror group only this past July.

Yet they are part of Fatah which is headed by PLO head and PA president Mahmoud Abbas.

To be sure, there are offshoots of the group, and no central command. However, one of them this week - on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack - confirmed that they are loyal to Mahmoud Abbas and abide by his decisions.

They are openly recruiting new members, according to this video released in November.

The Al Aqsa Brigades have been known to hold parades even the West Bank openly displaying their weapons, that someone has to pay for - and in the West Bank, the money trail must lead back to Mahmoud Abbas.

Yet for all the hundreds of hours that the US and EU have spent in talks, has anyone ever demanded that Abbas dismantle these terror groups that are loyal to him? Has it ever become a condition for continued aid?

It is one of those issues that everyone knows about yet no one wants to publicize, presumably not to embarrass our wonderful "peace partner" who condones the terrorist group operating under his rule and probably with his funds.

It is touching, how considerate the West is not to openly call out Mahmoud Abbas on his open violation of agreements and his role in keeping a terror organization funded and operational. But it doesn't exactly advance the cause of peace that they pay lip-service to.

Vote for best EoZ post of 2014

The year is over and award season is starting. Here are the nominations for best EoZ post (or series) of the year.

Why HRW is racist

Belgium's new poet laureate not happy I called him an antisemite. Too bad.

"Zionists trying to hide Canaanite-Palestinian civilization"

How PCUSA twists history to justify their hate of Israel

Muslims terrorize Jewish children on Temple Mount

Without understanding Arab/Muslim honor, you cannot understand the Middle East

An open condemnation of the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir

What reporters need to know during Operation Protective Edge

Review of Hamas violations of international law

The Ken Roth series

Fighting the honor/shame culture to save the world

Latest Amnesty report shows ignorance, bias and excuses Hamas war crimes

The entire bogus history of Palestinian Arab nationalism exposed by a stamp

So go ahead and vote! Click on the appropriate button in this form:

01/01 Links Pt2: New study of UN Resolution 242 could alter views of Israeli-Arab conflict

From Ian:

New study of UN Resolution 242 could alter views of Israeli-Arab conflict

As the UN Security Council and International Criminal Court return to focusing on Israel, a new about-to-be published study reveals new sides to UN Resolution 242, recognized as the key UN resolution relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict which could alter how many reveal the issues in dispute especially as regards to borders.
According to an article by Professor Eugene Kontorovich of Northwestern University to be published soon in the Chicago Journal of International Law, a brand new side has emerged in the unending debate over the meaning of UN Resolution 242 which relates, among other things, to setting Israeli borders and withdrawal from territories conquered in 1967.
Kontorovich's study compares UN Resolution 242 to all 18 other UN Security Council resolutions which dealt with territorial withdrawals and finds that the resolution was unique in its ambiguity as to how much territory Israel needs to withdraw from, with other resolutions being explicit about a full withdrawal.
In the article, Kontorovich writes that there has always been a debate as to whether the phrase in UN Resolution 242 "withdrawal from territories" obligates Israel to withdraw from the entire West Bank and Golan Heights, or merely some portion of them as agreed upon in negotiations.

Mordechai Kedar: Summing Up 2014 in the Middle East

The Palestinians are turning to the international stage, trying with all their might to get a recognized state. The Arab world, distracted by problems such as ISIS, has neither the time or the patience to deal with the Palestinian issue, leading the PA to turn to the world for recognition. European politicians are falling over themselves to recognize a Palestinian state so as to please Muslim voters. Israel may find itself facing a Palestinian state – which will without doubt become a Hamas state – just because some unemployment-frightened European politicians vote for establishing that state on the hills of Judea and Samaria, the birthplace of the Jewish people.
The world is still impressed by the existence of a Palestinian nation, created just recently, partly as a result of the idea of some holier-than-thou Israelis. Jerusalem is considered part of the Palestinian state for one reason only – so as to uproot the holy city from the Jewish entity, knowing full well that without Jerusalem, the entire state will cease to exist. The world must awaken, understand the problem and realize that if Israel falls to Islam, Europe will be next - and not much later.
In summary: the year 2014 was a challenging one for Israel, Europe and the rest of the world. These challenges will only get bigger, crises deepen, disputes spread, Iran will obtain nuclear arms, ISIS will grow, America will not have the first place it held until four years ago and Europe will continue sinking under waves of Islamic immigration that are turning European culture into something that is a far cry from liberal values, openness, modernity and democracy.
The challenges facing the state of Israel are becoming more and more complex. Syria's demise has lessened the threat on Israel, but other threats are on the horizon: Iran and ISIS gaining strength on the one side, Europe and America getting weaker and weaker on the other.
The soon to be elected Israeli leadership will have to give its attention to all of them. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Iconoclast Arab supporter of IDF seeks Knesset seat

The bid by iconoclast Anett Haskia, a 45-year-old hairdresser and mother of three, comes after she gave a series of bombastic television interviews in support of Israel’s military this summer during its war against Hamas in Gaza. Now she is the lone Arab vying for a spot on the Jewish Home party’s list ahead of its January primary.
Arab citizens of Israel, who make up 20 percent of the country’s population, strongly identify with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. They generally oppose Israeli military actions, do not serve in the Israeli army and complain of deep-seated discrimination.
Haskia’s children, however, voluntarily enlisted in the Israeli army — including one son who served in an elite unit in Gaza during the summer war.
“Just because I was born in the Jewish state doesn’t mean a Jew is better than me,” Haskia recently told The Associated Press in Hebrew. “I sent the children to war, and nobody can tell me that I, Anett, the Arab, am second class.” (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Richard Millett: And I only asked why Jews can’t live next to Palestinians on the West Bank….

The panel consisted of Sara Apps, Campaigns Officer for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Martin “tentacles” Linton, chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, Murad Qureshi, a Labour Party Member of the London Mayoral Assembly and, finally, a representative from the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS – UK).
The panel was chaired by Dr. Dibyesh Anand, Head of Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster.
As ever there were repeated calls from the panel for a boycott of Israeli “settlements”. When it came to the Q&A I raised my arm and asked one simple question:
“Isn’t it racist to call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank especially when considering that 1.7 million Muslim and Christian Arabs reside fairly happily in Israel ?”
Chaos ensued.
I was then referred to as “the enemy” by a man who walked out while giving me a rather unpleasant look. He also said, referring to me, “We are fighting these people”. Here’s the clip:

A number of Arab media outlets published an extended harangue on how evil Jews are.

Dr. Mustafa Yusuf Leddawi, who lives in Gaza, uses the holiday season to say that Jewish rabbis hate Christmas and Christians. How can it be any other way, since Jews persecuted and crucified Jesus? Not only that, but he informs us that Jews tortured early Christians with iron combs, ripped out their limbs, gouged out their eyes and cut off their tongues?

Christians, we are told, know about how much Jews hate them, and about how Jews murder their children to get blood for their matzoh. Even today, Jews are stopping Christians from getting to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas!

There are root causes, of course.

"Jews today are not happy and elated, but they angry and disgruntled and envious and disgusted, and Christians of all denominations know it," Leddawi says. "Jews do not give up their habits, they do not like the goodness of others, nor hopefulness in others."

But some Jews are happy during Christmas season. These are the greedy Jewish businessmen who take advantage of this holiday to earn more money, and sell a lot of products, and take advantage of tourist traffic, renting out their Jew hotels, and promoting their Jew goods, and increasing the income of their airlines, greedy and insatiable, and with their greedy monopolies, and seamy exploitation and ill-treatment of gentiles, reflecting their ugly habits which has caused enlightened Europeans who suffered under these Jews and complained of their behavior, and have tasted the bitterness of Jewish treachery.

Unfortunately some Christians have been brainwashed not to hate Jews, but most Christians are aware of how evil Jews are, and "the Palestinians are hoping to win these honest Christians over to their cause, and to stand by their side, and to support their steadfastness, and support the resistance, as we believe [that Jesus] was the first Palestinian fedayeen, who called to resist injustice to counter the aggression and called for he who does not have a weapon to sell his cloak and buy a sword.

One of the media outlets that published this hate is based in Sweden.
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UPDATE: Bob Knot identified him as a Hamas representative in Lebanon and Syria, see the comments.

Writing in Al Riyadh, Fahd Amir Ahmadi fondly recalls his trip to Mecca as a child to perform Hajj.

During the long bus trip he needed reading material and he chose to read Mein Kampf, with Hitlers photo and the swastika on the cover, causing an Indian Muslim colleague of his father on the bus to smile.

Not that Ahmadi is unaware of the racism in the book. In fact, he points out that it is ironic how popular the book is among many in Third world countries, even though they had no place in Hitler's worldview as non-Aryans. But, he insists, it is still an important book to read to understand Nazi poitical philosophy, just as the works of Karl Marx and Mao Zedong and Adam Smith are important.

Clearly, this liberal Saudi is against censorship. Although I don't know how he would feel about allowing children to watch Exodus: Gods and Kings or Noah, two of the movies censored this year in the Arab world.

As a humorous postscript, Ahmadi adds that he read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the return trip. He doesn't have anything negative to say about that book.