Sunday, November 01, 2015

.@Amnesty again believes Arab "witnesses" and ignores other evidence (update)

Amnesty International has issued another anti-Israel report, only days after their last one, this one claiming that Israeli "settlers" in Hebron are wantonly attacking Palestinians.

"In the space of less than a month, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in Hebron have escalated from what was already an unacceptably high level," the report says in a call-out.

The entire report gives exactly two examples of such attacks - in a month when there are daily attacks against Israelis in Hebron.

The one that takes up the bulk of the evidence is this one:

On the morning of 17 October, 18-year-old Hebron resident Fadel al-Qawasmeh was walking to work when he was shot and killed by an Israeli civilian. The Israeli military claim that he had a knife and intended to stab the Israeli civilian but have released no evidence to support these claims, despite the fact that al-Shuhada Street, where the incident took place, is heavily monitored by video cameras operated by Israeli forces.

Shortly before he was shot, Fadel al-Qawasmeh had passed through Checkpoint 56 on al-Shuhada Street, which separates the section of Hebron ostensibly under Palestinian control from the Old City where illegal Israeli settlements are located. Amnesty International researchers present at the checkpoint the day before and after the shooting observed Israeli soldiers ordering people to remove items from their pockets and pass through the metal detector multiple times. Young men were particularly thoroughly searched, making it highly unlikely that Fadel al-Qawasmeh would have been able to smuggle a knife through.

A resident of a house on al-Shuhada Street, a few metres away from the scene of the shooting, told Amnesty International that as he was coming down the stairs of his home, he saw a young man being stopped by Israeli soldiers and turned back towards the checkpoint. He then reported seeing an Israeli civilian dressed in white, who had been standing next to the soldiers, follow the man up the road before shooting him at least three times in the head and back. He told Amnesty International that Fadel al-Qawasmeh had nothing in his hands, and all the shots were fired from behind.

Interviewed separately, a resident of another house on al-Shuhada Street who was watching from a balcony said that she saw an Israeli civilian of the same description holding a firearm in the moments before the shooting, and that she had heard him cursing the Palestinian youth. She did not see or hear any indications that the Palestinian youth was threatening anyone.

There is a video in the aftermath of the incident, but I haven't found any beforehand to corroborate the stories.

Here is what Fadel looked like:

Commenter Bob Knot found a different photo of Fadel al-Qawasmeh: It is certainly the same person.

What an amazing coincidence that here is another person that Amnesty says was an innocent victim, accusing Israeli authorities of lying when they said he had a knife, and we end up finding photos showing that they both had an affinity for stabbing knives!

Yes, this isn't proof that Qawasmeh attacked the Jew. But unless every resident of Hebron is in the habit of photographing themselves with knives, it seems like a hell of a coincidence that the person shot by the Jew just happens to be one who poses for photos with a knife in a stabbing position.

More evidence that Qawasmeh was the attacker comes from this Fatah martyr poster posted by a family member of his on the day of the incident, before the "innocent victim" meme started:

The poster quotes a pro-Jihad Koranic message, and then says "It is with great pride and glory the Palestinian National Liberation Movement - Fatah, Central Hebron Area announces the (martyrdom) of the heroic shahid Fadhl Muhammad Qawasme."

The Facebook caption said "The morning is fragrant with the perfume of the martyrs of the revolution."

It is obvious that the family's (and others') initial reaction was that of course Fadel attacked the Israeli. Only when the propaganda value of re-casting him as an innocent victim became obvious did the narrative change.

Amnesty never bothers to find any evidence that contradicts what it wants to find.

(h/t Ibn Bouros)

UPDATE: According to this page, Fadel lived on Shuhada Street itself, where he would not be subject to as many checkpoints. Amnesty assumes that he must have passed through some but it is not true. (h/t Bob K)

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Palestinian Arabs flew swastikas to celebrate Mohammed's birthday in 1937

Saeb Erekat said recently that "Palestinian efforts against the Nazi regime are a deep-rooted part of our history."

From the New York Times, May 23, 1937:

From JTA, also May 23, 1937:

Nazi flags and pictures of Hitler and Mussolini were being displayed by many Arab shops in the Old City today in connection with the celebration of Mohammed’s birthday.

Arab children thronged the teeming section’s narrow, winding streets, shouting: “Death to the High Commissioner (Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope)! Death to the Jews!”

Arabs in Haifa and Jaffa prepared for the birthday celebrations, scheduled for today and tomorrow, by proclaiming a work stoppage and organizing demonstrations.

The Government Education Department issued orders prohibiting Arab pupils to participate in the demonstrations. Arabs newspapers, however, are urging the pupils to disobey.

10/31 Links: IS claims it brought down Russian plane; IAF targets Hezbollah assets in Syria

From Ian:

Islamic State in Egypt claims it brought down Russian plane; 224 dead

The Islamic State terror group in Egypt claimed responsibility for bringing down a Russian passenger plane on Saturday carrying 224 people. Russian authorities, however, rejected the claim.
IS in Egypt, Wilayat Sinaa (formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis) published the claim of responsibility hours after the plane, traveling from from the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh back to St. Petersburg, crashed in the Sinai Peninsula with 217 passengers and 7 crew members on board.
“The soldiers of the caliphate succeeded in bringing down a Russian plane in Sinai,” said the statement in Arabic circulated on social media. “More than 220 Crusaders were on board. All were killed, praise God.”
“Know, oh Russians and those allied with you, that you have no place in the land of Muslims…and the dozens of victims that you kill ever y day with your raids in the land of Sham [Syria] will be the cause of all your future misery. And know, also that we will kill you just like you kill us,” a statement in French said.
IS later issued video footage purportedly showing the plane being hit.

IDF coordinating with Russia, Egypt to help locate Russian plane crash in Sinai

An IDF spokesperson said Saturday that the army is coordinating with both Russia and Egypt to help locate the remnants of a Russian plane that crashed in the Sinai earlier in the day.
The IDF sent out surveillance aircraft to comb the area where the plane is believed to have crash landed. The IDF added that it would be ready to offer further assistance to Russia and Egypt if necessary.
In addition, Magen David Adom offered 30 of its ambulances and its air lift helicopters to assist Egyptian first responders following reports that there were still survivors at the crash site.
However, it was later reported that no survivors were found at the scene.

Reports: IAF targets Hezbollah assets in Syria

The Lebanese and Syrian media said Saturday that Israel Air Force warplanes have attacked targets in Syria linked to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. Reports varied, however, on the exact targets and location of the strikes.
According to a report on the Lebanese Debate website, six IAF jets carried out the strike over the Qalamoun Mountains region of western Syria, and targeted weapons that were headed for Hezbollah, Channel 10 said.
Syrian opposition groups, for their part, claimed Israeli planes had attacked targets in the Damascus area, in two strikes in areas where Hezbollah and pro-Assad forces were centered.
Syrian media, however, said that Israeli warplanes hit several Hezbollah targets in southern Syria.
Israel’s defense establishment declined to comment on the reports of the strikes, which would be the first since Russia boosted its involvement in the Syrian civil war.

A Victim of Palestinian Terror: Richard Lakin

On October 13th Richard Lakin got on a bus in Jerusalem. Two Palestinian terrorists boarded the bus and attacked the passengers with knives and a gun. Two Israelis were killed in this attack and Richard was severely wounded. He died of his wounds 2 weeks after the terror attack. Richard's wife and his granddaughter share their memories of him and recall the series of events from the scene of the murderous attack:

10/30 Links Pt2: Israel Is Beyond Logic; Those well educated and despicable anti-Semites

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Academic Freedom Opposed by "Who"?

It is that time of year again. News arrives of 343 "university teachers" who signed a letter pledging that henceforth they will not cooperate with Israeli academic institutions. Their joint letter took up a full page today in Britain's left-wing Guardian newspaper (where else?) and has caused almost no stir in Britain. It comes days after a letter signed by 150 leading British writers, musicians and others -- including JK Rowling, Simon Schama and Hilary Mantel -- opposed any and all such boycotts against Israel, and pointed out that in the eyes of most people, intellectual and cultural exchange is a good thing.
The anti-boycott letter was signed by some of Britain's leading intellectuals. The main response to the pro-boycott letter, however, may well be, "Who?" Who knew, for instance, that Israel -- or any state -- would be diminished if it could not gain from the wisdom of Professor Alex Callinicos, one of Britain's most obscure Marxist academics? He is the author of numerous interminable tracts; his efforts to bring his thoughts into mainstream politics reached their summit during his involvement with the Socialist Worker's Party, an entity too extreme even for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party. As almost nobody in Britain wants Prof. Callinicos's thoughts, why would anybody in Israel be begging for them?
Or consider another figure on the letter, one Professor Jane Hardy who teaches at the University of Hertfordshire. It would come as a great surprise to most people in Britain -- and possibly to many people in Hertfordshire -- that such an institution exists. But a quick internet search reveals that it does, and that until 1992 it was known as "Hatfield Polytechnic." So what are the students in Israel unilaterally going to lose the right to know, thanks to the stance taken by Professor Hardy? Well, her own profile page says, "My research and publications on regional development, and the gender and class impacts of change have been underpinned by a concern with the lives of ordinary people and how they have contested neoliberalism." One tries to be polite, of course, but it is worth pointing out that this kind of "study" has never been helpful in finding a place in the job-market for British students (apart, possibly, in furthering their studies in low-grade academia). Why the withdrawal of Prof. Hardy's research on regional development, gender and class in a Hertfordshire context should be such a loss to students in Israel, one is at a loss to guess.

Those well educated and despicable anti-Semites

The Guardian, the leading British leftist newspaper, just published an appeal to sever any ties with Israeli universities. The appeal has been signed by 350 professors working in UK academia.
These BDS supporters are the grandchildren of those Max Weinreich called “Hitler’s Professors”.
If Italy’s Fascism had writers and philosophers such as Gabriel D’Annunzio, Luigi Pirandello, Giovanni Gentile and Tommaso Marinetti, Hitler’s Nazism had an even greater list of talents: Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, Gottfried Benn, Ernst Jünger, Mircea Eliade, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Ernst von Karajan, Knut Hamsun, Emile Cioran and Louis Ferdinand Celine.
The best of European culture embraced Nazism just as today it is embracing new anti-Semitism. The cowardice of the intellectuals, academics and men of letters on the “Jewish question” is repeated today on the issue of Israel.
Henry Rousso called it “Le Syndrome de Vichy”. The reference is to France under Nazi occupation, when the cream of Paris’ writers continued their work, pleasing the Germans, getting favors, condemning the Jews to death by their indifference and hypocrisy.

Israel Is Beyond Logic

There’s only one place in the world where history, archaeology, empirical science, psychology and journalistic integrity don’t apply: Israel.
Consider that we live in a world that recognizes the claim of Palestinian Arabs to what they consider their homeland (which can be backed and documented for at best several hundred years — for the small percentage of those Arabs that didn’t arrive throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as transient Bedouins or marauding tribes), while ignoring the Jewish people’s documented connection to Israel that’s almost four millennia old. If the Torah were taken by the world merely as a historical document, and history supposedly mattered to the world, then the Jews of Israel should be considered the oldest landowners alive. But history doesn’t matter in Israel.
Consider that the world recognizes the antiquity of Haram al-Sharif — the al-Aqsa Mosque (Temple Mount) — as the third-holiest site for Muslims and its centrality to Palestinian nationalistic yearning. And yet, this same world readily overlooks the archaeological digs that unearthed pieces of pottery and scrolls that prove absolutely the ancient and continuous connection between the Land of Israel and the Jewish People. With a world so passive to practical proof, the Palestinians (since Arafat and the mufti before him) have audaciously claimed that there’s no connection between the Jews and Yerushalayim, specifically the Temple Mount. As if the al-Aqsa mosque isn’t very clearly sitting atop the Western Wall that archaeologists have “scientifically proven” (through carbon dating) to belong to the ancient Israelite temple as originally mentioned — where else? — in the Torah. So the world believes in archaeology that dates back to the 7th century C.E. but not as far as the 9th century B.C.E.? Archaeology, it seems, is meaningless when the digs prove too Jewish. (h/t Cliff)

Win-win (poster)

Posted on Twitter this morning:

.@UNRWA teacher likes her Hamas terrorists very young

An UNRWA teacher on Facebook shares her favorite baby picture:

10/30 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Rabin's true legacy; Melanie Phillips: Netanyahu’s mufti firestorm

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Rabin's true legacy

Abbas’s actions at the UN this week, where he called for the world to protect the Palestinians from Israel while back at home he simultaneously continued his calls for Palestinians to take up knives and take to the wheel of their cars to murder Israelis, cannot come as a surprise.
They are of a piece with the PLO’s previous diplomatic machinations from 2000 to 2003 in the wake of its terrorist war against Israel.
Those machinations led the US to form the so-called Quartet with the UN, Russia and the EU and embrace the road map for peace, the most anti-Israel diplomatic document to have ever seen the light of day, in 2003.
Today Abbas uses terrorism at home to convince the UN to dictate the terms of Israeli surrender in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to the PLO.
Abbas and Arafat succeeded 12 years ago and may succeed today for a number of reasons beyond Israel’s control, but also for one reason that Israel does control.
Abbas is able to succeed at the UN in part because Israel refuses to acknowledge that there never was a peace process. Arafat lied to us, and to the world, about his intentions, and we lied to ourselves about the nature of the Palestinian war against us. So long as we continue to play along with this tired charade, we will be unable to conceive and implement a diplomatic defense that is coherent and effective against the mountains of lies and murder on which the PLO has based its war against Israel for the past 55 years.
Israel contributes to the PLO’s diplomatic success at the UN because it refuses to do what Rabin recognized was necessary 20 years ago.
Rather than learn from his record, Israel has spent the past 20 years distorting his record.
The time has come to do justice to Rabin and end the Oslo process once and for all.

Vic Rosenthal: If you live in the Middle East, act like it

Yesterday, international talks on the ‘crisis’ (funny word, since it’s been going on for several years) in Syria were scheduled to start in Vienna.
Participating will be at least Russia, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. CNN reports that “18 nations, plus the European Union, were invited to the meeting.”
I don’t need to tell you which particular nation, which just happens to border on Syria, which has been hit recently by ordinance fired from Syria, and which has a great stake in the outcome of events there, was not invited.
In the case of the Syria talks, Israel should demand, loudly, to be included. If the US or anyone would prefer not, then they should be forced to publicly explain just why they are taking this racist (because that is what it is) position.
The editors of Ha’aretz and the tiny elite that they serve don’t think Israel ought to be a Middle Eastern country. They would pick it up and fly it to Canada if they could. But it is, and it should act like one.
Shabbat shalom to everyone!

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Blasts UNRWA, Praises UN Watch for Exposing Antisemitic Incitement

Knesset Education Committee slams incitement in Palestinian schools

Palestinian Media Watch director Itamar Marcus presented his organization’s report on Palestinian Authority education, which assessed the prominent educational messages that could impact peace with Israel.
The report documents that in formal and informal educational frameworks, killers of Israelis are portrayed as heroes and role models, and that children are taught that Israel will eventually be replaced by “Palestine.”
At least 25 Palestinian Authority schools are named after terrorists; three are named after Dalal Mughrabi, who led the most lethal terrorist attack in Israeli history in 1978, killing 37 civilians, 12 of them children.
Marcus showed the MKs a film from PA television, in which a student expressed pride “to attend the Dalal Mughrabi School, which bears this pioneering name,” and another student said her “life’s ambition is to reach the level that the martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi reached.”
Another clip from televised news in the PA showed a boy saying he learned in school to “fight the Jews, kill them and defeat them,” and another told children that Jews are “Satan with a tail.”
The report also contains chapters on incitement in Palestinian textbooks, educational materials glorifying Hitler, and the PA policy of blocking joint peace-building activities between Palestinian and Israeli children.
Marcus explained that the messages Palestinian children are receiving are nationalist – that Israel is not legitimate on any borders and its existence since 1948 is an occupation – and anti-Semitic – that Jews are evil by nature, descendants of monkeys and pigs, and fated to be killed by Muslims.

Egyptian TV host and historian agree that burning is the only solution for Jews

From MEMRI:

(h/t Yoel)

.@Amnesty director incredulous that Arab "witnesses" might lie

A Twitter thread between Amnesty Middle East Director Philip Luther and an apparent EoZ fan:

Luther didn't answer about the amazing coincidence.

But in the end, Luther cannot spot Palestinian lies because he is part of an organization that lies all the time. I tweeted to him one provable lie showing that Amnesty's Gaza Platform inflated the number of dead Gaza civilians by 200 even if you accept UN figures:

.@philipluther @Amnesty lies, says at least 1665 civilians killed in Gaza 2014, UN(!) says 1462. (Truth is lower.) pic.twitter.com/LQVZTMUeeO
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) October 30, 2015

What is amazing is that the congenital anti-Israel UN showed far more intellectual honesty than Amnesty.

In August 2014, the UN claimed a virtually identical number of civilian victims as Amnesty does now, 1,666. In the months since then they actually discovered 200 "civilians" were really terrorists and they modified their statistics accordingly. The real numbers are far lower still, as we've seen from the Meir Amit Center, but at least the UN showed some amount of caring about the truth.

Amnesty, many months later, deliberately used the initial and provably wrong data to build an entire website dedicated to demonizing Israel.

They know very well that they were lying. They know very well that their "researchers" were using garbage data. They've read my many articles about it. And Amnesty has made the conscious decision to allow the lies to remain on their website rather than correct it as they said they would.

So it is very rich that Amnesty, an organization that deliberately chooses not to correct clear lies, is aghast that anyone can accuse Palestinian Arab "eyewitneses" to be lying.

After all, these "witnesses" are saying exactly what Amnesty wants them to say, so they must be reliable, right?

By the way, Israel is bussing hundreds of Gazans to pray in Jerusalem weekly

Palestinian media are reporting that some 200 Gazans went by bus to the Al Aqsa Mosque this orning.

This has been the norm for a few months now.

From Hamas' Al Qassam Martyrs Brigades (English) website:

Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, has welcomed the decision of hundreds of British scholars to boycott Israel. It opined that it reflects the increasing international awareness of Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

In a statement on Tuesday, Hamas's spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called on the peoples of the world to continue its efforts in support of the Palestinian people who is languishing under the Israeli occupation.

The British Guardian newspaper revealed on Tuesday that 343 British scholars from 72 educational institutions signed a letter calling for boycotting Israeli universities due to Israeli violation of the international law and its illegal occupation of the Palestinian land.

According to the letter, the signers declared that they would not accept invitations to visit Israeli academic institutions; act as referees in any of their processes; participate in conferences funded, organized or sponsored by them, or otherwise cooperate with them.

And I don't think that a single one of those academics are the slightest bit uncomfortable that an organization with a genocidal charter supports their efforts as a step in the right direction.

(h/t Irene)

BDSers: "Do as I say..." (poster)

10/29 Links Pt2: Pope: denying Israel’s right to exist is anti-Semitism; Harry Potter & Threats to Israel

From Ian:

Pope says denying Israel’s right to exist is anti-Semitism

Pope Francis marked the 50th anniversary of the turning point in the Catholic Church’s relations with Jews on Wednesday with a sharp condemnation of anti-Semitism, saying attacks on Israel’s right to exist were a form of hatred.
“To attack Jews is anti-Semitism, but an outright attack on the State of Israel is also anti-Semitism,” Francis told a delegation from the World Jewish Congress (WJC). “There may be political disagreements between governments and on political issues, but the State of Israel has every right to exist in safety and prosperity.”
Francis called for greater interfaith collaboration in the face of religious extremism. He devoted his usual Wednesday general audience to explaining to the Catholic faithful in St. Peter’s Square the importance of the “Nostra Aetate,” or “In Our Time” declaration, which revolutionized the church’s relations in particular with Jews.
The statement was one of the most important documents to emerge from the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that brought the church into the modern world. It said Christ’s death could not be attributed to Jews as a whole, recognized the shared spiritual patrimony between Christians and Jews and decried all forms of anti-Semitism.

Netanyahu to Address Liberal Center for American Progress

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak next week at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank that has previously come under fire for its anti-Israel slant.
Netanyahu will address the group on Nov. 10, during his trip to the United States to meet with President Obama, the Huffington Post reported on Tuesday. News of the speech was first reported by Jewish Insider.
Several bloggers affiliated with CAP were accused of promoting anti-Semitic or anti-Israel tropes on social media in 2011 by using the term “Israel firster” and by suggesting that American supporters of Israel had dual loyalty to the Jewish state.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund’s ThinkProgress was also criticized for demonizing Israel.
The think tank initially defended the staffers, but quickly cut ties with one of the bloggers, Zaid Jilani. Others have since left.
Sources said Netanyahu was encouraged by Hillary Clinton donors to speak at a liberal think tank for “political balance,” since he is also keynoting the conservative American Enterprise Institute’s annual dinner next week. The prime minister’s office initially approached CAP, which was founded by Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, to set up an event.
Netanyahu’s decision was met with mild surprise in pro-Israel circles. However, it was also seen as an example of his willingness to speak to a diverse array of audiences. (h/t Alexi)

Harry Potter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

“It’s the story of the recent events in Israel told through the story of the Harry Potter movies,” explains Rachel Lester, who made a viral video clip featuring Harry Potter confronting the existential threats faced by the Jewish State.
“My goal is to make the following issues more relatable to an audience who might not know much about the Middle East conflict: (a) Hamas as a terrorist organization, (b) the biased reactions of world leaders and the media, and (c) the danger that the recently-passed Iran deal poses to Israel and the world.”
The video comes days after Harry Potter author JK Rowling — whose “Harry Potter” books sold 400 million copies and were adapted into the second-highest grossing film series of all time — used Albus Dumbledore, a headmaster of Hogwarts wizarding school in the series, to make a moral point about the need for dialogue and cultural engagement with Israel.

"Winning a Debate With an Israel-Hater" was released earlier this month, and it is a nice addition to anyone's reading list.

Dr. Michael Harris, a member of StandWithUs, sees first hand the anti-Israel protests in the San Francisco Bay area. He brings years of experience to explain how to confront and make fools of the haters.

The book itself is relatively short, more a handbook than a reference work.

The focus of the book is not to explain everything about the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is very specifically to show the audience of any public encounter between pro- and anti-Israel forces that the haters have no consistent position, except hate itself. So therefore he concentrates more on demolishing the actual types of people who mindlessly spout anti-Israel slogans, whom he calls PIDS (People with Israel Derangement Syndrome,)

That being said, there is a short history lesson so that those who want to defend Israel know the basics.

Most of the arguments would be familiar to readers of this blog. But this is not a book on how to fisk the more clever haters who write articles and books.

Harris is somewhat irreverent and brings a light tone to the book. He includes a humorous "Palestinese Lexicon" in one chapter, for example.

Harris shows how to make the haters admit that they really want to destroy Israel, which is enough to win the debate (in the US at least.) He points out hypocrisy in their arguments, and describes how the UN is biased, He smartly tries to stay away from explicitly accusing the haters of anti-semitism. There are chapters about BDS, the "one state solution" and he briefly shows how many of the more visible anti-Israel "intellectuals" are corrupt.

The book is clearly written to use liberal arguments for Israel, which is a good strategy in San Francisco. But it brings up one of its faults,, which is that Harris doesn't go after J-Street, making them look more misguided than evil. (I mentioned that to him and he replied that he agonized over that decision, but this way fit better with the aim of the book.)

I wish the book was better formatted and that it had an index to quickly look up the proper rebuttals to various points. But altogether, while is it a short read, it is a worthwhile book to get.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

The World Zionist Congress met last week for the 37^th time since it was founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. Like many Jewish institutions today, it has become a battleground for the Right and Left. But what happened at the meeting put into clear focus that the struggle is really between Zionism and … something else.

An organization called LAVI introduced a resolution (the English version is here) calling for the recognition of the Jewish people as an indigenous nation:

The bill declared that "the Jewish people is a Semitic people, indigenous to the Land of Israel and seeking international recognition of its indigenous status" …

The proposal argued that "Israel’s contrived Western identity" was not only handing ammunition to its enemies to falsely label Zionism as a "colonialist" project, but that it was also placing an artificial barrier preventing peace between Israel and its other "Semitic" neighbors.

It included a statement that it "does not negate the indigenous status of any other people." Nevertheless, it barely passed, by a vote of 51% of the delegates.

I believe that the essence of Zionism is the assertion that the Jews are an indigenous people to the land of Israel, with indigenous rights (sometimes called aboriginal rights) in the land. In fact, the Jewish people are one of the oldest documented indigenous peoples, with a unique language, culture, religion and history tied directly to the land of Israel.

The resolution refers to the struggle of the Jews to return to the land after displacement by “Roman imperialism,” but it could also have mentioned the conflict between the Jews and the Arab imperialists of the seventh century or the Jordanian and Egyptian ones that invaded the land in 1948.

A moment’s reflection should suffice to show that the narrative by which the Jews suddenly appeared in 1880 or 1948 to dispossess a flourishing ‘Palestinian’ people is nonsense. Jews have been physically present here to some extent since biblical times, and they are the paradigm case of ‘a people’ in history. ‘Palestinians’, on the other hand, are Arabs who are mostly descended from recent arrivals from Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Transjordan. Their specifically ‘Palestinian’ culture developed very recently, in opposition to what they see as the threat of Jewish (non-Arab and non-Muslim) sovereignty. They didn’t even call themselves ‘Palestinians’ until the 1960s; and prior to 1948, ‘Palestinian’ meant ‘Palestinian Jew’.

The Arabs know that Zionism rests on Jewish peoplehood, and on the connection of the Jewish people to the land – our indigenousness. They know that their moral case to displace us is based on the argument that they are a long-term indigenous people and we are European colonialists. Thus they insist there is no Jewish people, only a religion. Thus they attempt to erase Jewish history in the land – by arrogating Jewish holy sites to themselves and by physically destroying archaeological evidence of the ancient Jewish presence. Their claims may appear ludicrous, but they have been successful in persuading large numbers of people.

But the insistence on our indigenous rights is more than just a response to the Arab attempt to invert reality. It is an answer to the most basic questions that can be asked about Zionism: Why does there need to be a Jewish state? Why not a democratic state of its citizens? And why does it need to be here?

The answers are provided, ironically, by the UN, in its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007, which asserts the right of self-determination as well as the rights to maintain the culture, institutions, religion, and language for indigenous peoples. It grants them the right to live in peace and security, and to not be subjected to genocide or expulsion from their native lands. It calls for them to have free access to their religious sites, and for them to be free from incitement to racial hatred against them.

Zionism is the principle, justified by historical experience, that these rights can be guaranteed for the Jewish people only in a state under Jewish sovereignty.

So why was there so much opposition to the passage of this resolution? After all, it was the World Zionist Congress.

The opposition came from delegates associated with the Union for Reform Judaism (the largest faction among the American delegates), the Conservative Movement, and especially a ‘progressive’ group called Hatikvah which included representatives of J Street, the New Israel Fund, Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, and numerous other left-of-center factions.

Writing on LAVI’s Facebook page, founder Ilan Roth asked,

The fact that so many self-defined Zionists … not only opposed this resolution but also fought for a revote after narrowly losing only causes us to wonder about the fundamental assumptions upon which they are operating. Do they genuinely want to see themselves as white colonialists rather than as Semites?

Why indeed? My suspicion is that the ones farther to the left (like Americans for Peace Now and Ameinu) are ideologically married to the idea that the Jews are colonists and the Arabs indigenous. To believe anything else would violate their post-colonialist conceptual scheme, which would be too cognitively dissonant for them. More moderate delegates may have felt that an assertion that that Jews have a right or connection to the land that Arabs don’t would damage the holy “two-state solution” that they are eternally seeking. Maybe some simply don’t want to make the Arabs morefrustrated and furious than they already are.

I shouldn’t be too hard on the liberal ‘Zionists’ of the WZC, though, because Israel’s own government is schizophrenic about its Zionism. While the government is not talking about indigenousness, they are considering a “Jewish state law” (temporarily on hold) which will add to the Basic Laws – Israel’s substitute for an actual constitution – some kind of statement that while all citizens have civil and political rights, the Jewish people have ‘national rights’. This is intended to balance the ‘Jewish’ and ‘democratic’ characteristics of the state that are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. There is already a Basic Law about democracy, but none about Jewishness.

The same kind of people that think that the Jewish people have indigenous rights also tend to think they have ‘national’ ones, rights to symbols like the national anthem and flag, and the primary national language. A “Basic Law: The Jewish State” might also legitimize a Law of Return for Jews without requiring one for Arabs, justify efforts to increase Jewish aliyah, to teach Tanach and Jewish History in schools, to support synagogues with public funds, and more. It would, its backers hope, prevent concern for Arab rights to erode Jewish ones.

Various formulations of such a law have been proposed, and the Left despises all of them, because in their post-Zionist hearts they don’t believe that Jews and Arabs should be unequal in any way. They might oppose transitioning from a Jewish state with an Arab minority to a ‘state of its citizens’ for practical reasons, but it is a matter of pride for them to at least pretend to be ethnically blind. They don’t see any special reason that Israel should not be like Western Europe or the US in that respect (apparently they haven’t looked at Sweden lately).

One way or another, Israel will have to face the question of whether it will continue to be an expression of the Zionist ideal or try to become a tiny Sweden. I think the answer to which of these is more likely to survive and thrive is obvious.