Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 13, 2018

Does @Haaretzcom have any professional standards at all? Clearly, Nir Gontarz doesn't.

Even for Haaretz, the interview that Nir Gontarz transcribed with Major Avichay Adraee, head of Arabic communications for the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, has nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with advocacy.

Instead of a normal interview, Gontarz transcribes every word of phone conversation he had with Adraee. He thinks it makes Adraee look bad. Instead, it makes Gontarz look very, very bad.

I saw what you wrote on Twitter.

About what?

About the honor of the Arab woman, who shouldn’t go out to demonstrate but stay at home and look after the children.

I didn’t write that she shouldn’t go out to demonstrate, I wrote that she shouldn’t go to terror demonstrations and throw rocks. The picture there made it very clear what the intention was.

I’m more interested in the second part: Did you really recommend that Arab women look after the house and children?

No, what I’m saying is that I quoted from what the Prophet Mohammed said what the woman I’ll translate it for you he says that a good woman is a woman who has honor, and a woman who has the interest of her home and her children at heart. That what interests her is the interest of her home and her children so she can be a good example for them. And in contrast, the bad woman is one who behaves selfishly and doesn’t set an example and is not um a mark of honor to the society from which she comes.

Adraee quoted the Quran about the role of the Muslim woman and pointed out that it is opposed to the idea of a woman throwing rocks. Being that his entire job is psyops, this is quite appropriate for his audience.

But Gontarz has no clue:

So you agree with the Prophet Mohammed, if you’re quoting him in this context.

What does it matter if I agree with the Prophet Mohammed?.

Gontarz, not realizing that he made no point whatsoever, goes on:

You also tweeted that burning tires is a non-Muslim act.

What Allah said, what’s written in Sura Verse 56 It says that Allah commands the believers not to harm the world that he created.

That that’s not environmentally friendly.

The Prophet Mohammed also said that the Muslim should plant trees, guard the soil, plant it, care for all living things and so on. And that it’s not environmentally friendly what burning tires do to the environment, to the soil, to the world that was created, that it goes against everything that’s written in the holy books.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the IDF pointing out to Muslims that they are violating their own holy book, just like there is nothing wrong with quoting international law. But Gontarz thinks this is evil.

He asks a series of questions (I'm not bothering with Adraee's answers, because the questions are what Gontarz wants the readers to read, not Adraee's responses:

Tell me, what exactly is this job you’ve taken upon yourself to interpret the Koran for them, as to how a woman should behave and how a Muslim should behave? Is this as a private person, or in the name of an IDF that is now also becoming an educator and Koran analyst for the Palestinians? This is the IDF’s job? You don’t think it’s a little patronizing for the Jewish officer from the occupying army to be teaching the Arabs how they should behave?

The colonialists and occupiers have always taught the “children” the “proper” way to behave.

To me your quotes read as if you’re a propagandist for the army. Not a spokesman. You’re a propagandist for the army.

Do you think it’s dignified for an Israeli officer to be teaching the Arab civilians who are under occupation or blockade how they should behave as Muslims? To be saying that a Muslim woman’s honor requires modesty?

As an Israeli citizen, I’m embarrassed by what you’re doing. You represent the cliché of occupation.

Last question: Should a Jewish woman also stay home and look after the children?

Gontarz, who reveals that he has no interest in any journalistic integrity or objectivity, nor in listening to his interviewees words, is complaining that the IDF spokesperson is not doing his job properly.

There is only one person in this article who is acting unprofessionally, and it sure isn't Adraee.

By the way, Gontarz publishes all his articles as full interview transcripts, including "How are you?" He interviewed a senior Hamas spokesperson about the "Great Return March" before it began, and had nothing at all critical to say about Hamas.

In fact, he said that they way Hamas described it, "It sounds like Woodstock."

It wasn't a sarcastic comment.

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Ruth Wisse
Professor of Yiddish Literature, Havard

Israel has been in for vicious criticism recently over its response to the violent Arab March of Return.

Hamas sent about 30,000 soldiers, and families of soldiers, to challenge the integrity of the fence between Israel and Gaza. They have also burned thousands of tires near that fence creating a local environmental catastrophe.

About seventeen people were killed in the first wave of this little adventure-slash-picnic and, according to some sources, about seven hundred people were shot by the IDF.

{This statistic, by the way, is difficult to believe. If the IDF shot up over seven hundred people there would definitely be more than seventeen, or so, dead.}

Simultaneously, Israelis are in an uproar over their version of the Middle East / African immigration crisis.

There are about 38,000 illegal immigrants from Africa in the country who have created their own little ghetto in south Tel Aviv. Some are calling that neighborhood "Little Africa." The high-pitched, table-pounding debate within Israel is about just what to do with these people.

The right-wing wants them deported because they are illegal immigrants and the left-wing wants them to move in with your grandmother.

In recent months it looked as if the Netanyahu government might deport them back to Africa, but a deal was struck through the offices of the United Nations wherein Western countries would take in half of those illegal immigrants and Israel would assimilate the other half. My sense is that this was a compromise that most on both sides of the argument could live with.

Needless to say, Netanyahu canceled the deal and now no one is happy. The left-wing in Israel is screaming from the rafters that this is cruel because all refugees deserve - as a friend of mine put it -"to have their specific, individual case heard by a fair system of refugee determination."

Meanwhile the right-wing is upset because of Netanyahu's unreliability and flip-flop-o'mania.

As the criticism of Israel begins to ramp-up in this current developing season of Israel Hatred, it is important to keep in mind some very wise words from Harvard Professor of Yiddish literature Ruth Wisse who, I assume, will forgive me for paraphrasing.

In a lecture a few years ago she used a metaphor to criticize the friendly critics of Israel who just wish that Israel was a more moral country. These are the kind of people who genuinely regret that Israel fails to be a Light Unto the Nations and who champion Tikkun Olam.

Professor Wisse asks us to consider the following scenario:

Let us imagine that you own a house in a particular neighborhood and one day a friendly neighbor dropped by for a beer and chit-chat on a hot summer Sunday afternoon. This is a guy who lives just down the street, who you know by first name, and who you've been more-or-less friendly with for years.

Suppose this neighbor suggested, as you're settin' on the porch, that you really needed to clean up your yard and house a bit because things are getting a little messy. He's talking as a friend to a friend and in an entirely non-hostile manner. You know, the yard needs a little weed-whacking and there is still that broken window in the second bedroom that must be replaced.

But let's say that, in truth, your house is the best-kept house in the neighborhood. The houses surrounding your house and those nearby are obnoxious wrecks. Yards are entirely overgrown like jungles. Roofs are caving in.

Neighbor kids are running around with slingshots, but no pants.

And let's say that you've always wanted to live peaceably with these neighbors, yet they throw rocks through your windows and threaten violence and death upon your family.

What would you think of your friend's advice to trim your weeds under those circumstances?

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04/13 Links Pt1: Palestinian "March of Return" Seeks to Undo the Reality of Israel; Totten: The Case for Bombing Assad;Is Jordan about to fall apart?

From Ian:

Palestinian "March of Return" Seeks to Undo the Reality of Israel

Had the Arabs accepted the 1947 UN partition plan, there would have been two states - the larger one Palestine, the smaller one Israel. The Jewish leaders accepted the proposal, reluctantly, but the Arabs rejected it and chose to launch a war that, despite all odds, resulted in the creation of the Jewish state. Seven decades later, the major stumbling block to peace remains Arab resistance to a Jewish state in the region, regardless of its borders.

The "March of Return" is not just an effort to mourn the Arab defeat but an attempt to undo it. Rather than face the reality of Israel, Hamas seeks to destroy it through violent means. Despite claims that the border protests are peaceful, the goal is to break through the physical barrier and wreak havoc on Israel's citizens.

Most Israelis hate the violence but are not ready to allow the state's borders to be breached so that their sworn enemies can come in and kill them. What country would?

While I have much empathy for Gazans who live in poverty, they should be venting against Hamas, which spends precious resources on digging tunnels and stocking up on rockets to attack Israel rather than attending to the needs of its people.

After the Holocaust and the decimation of the great majority of European Jews, the Jewish leaders of Palestine wept but did not whine. They proclaimed a state and fought valiantly to make it a reality. Palestinian leaders lost that war of aggression and still blame everyone but themselves for their predicament.

In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, one side seeks peace and pursues the future with optimism, despite serious challenges, while the other seeks revenge and focuses on the past with bitterness and regret.

Official Palestinian TV Broadcasts Holocaust Denial

Two days before Holocaust Remembrance Day, an official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV channel broadcasted claims that Jews “colluded with Hitler.”

On April 10, 2018, PA TV aired an interview with Hani Abu Zeid, a Palestinian political analyst and commentator. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit that translates Arabic, Persian and Russian media, reported on the incident:

Hani Abu Zeid: "The [Israeli] soldier, the officers behind him, and even the Israeli war [sic] minister, and above him, Netanyahu should stand trial as war criminals. The accumulation of cases, one after the other... The Israelis will end up shedding tears of blood [out of regret] for their current conduct. They used to cry about the false Holocaust in the days of Hitler, the scope of which was not that large. I'd like to point out..."

Interviewer: "The [Holocaust] is a lie that they spread worldwide."

Hani Abu Zeid: "Yes, it was a lie, and many Israelis, or many Jews, colluded with Hitler, so that he would facilitate the bringing of settlers to Palestine."

As the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has noted: “Holocaust denial and minimization or distortion of the facts of the Holocaust is a form of antisemitism.”

Yet, Holocaust denial remains commonplace in much of the Arab world, including in Palestinian society and culture. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, for example, claimed in his doctoral dissertation—done under Soviet auspices—that the Holocaust was exaggerated.

What is the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Really About and How Will it End

Dr. Einat Wilf, former member of Israel's Parliament (Knesset), giving a definitive explanation as to the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how it will end.

I received a very amusing email from the senate campaign of Jerome Segal, a professor who has been espousing the J-Street philosophy for many years before J-Street existed.

But he's unhappy with them now - because they won't endorse him:

Two alternative Jewish lobbies, the Jewish Peace Lobby and J-Street are locked in a conflict that may dominate the upcoming J-Street National Conference.

The issue is one of the keynote speakers: Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland.

The President of the Jewish Peace Lobby, Jerome Segal, himself a member of J-Street has challenged Cardin in the June Primary for the Democratic nomination.

Cardin is AIPAC's most prominent ally in the Senate. Segal says he has adopted the "big dog" strategy: to take down mega-lobbies like AIPAC and the NRA, go right at the "big dog" pulling the sleigh and send him into retirement.

Recent polling data by John Zogby Strategies suggests Segal could have an upset victory if he has substantial funding and a bit of luck. Last week luck started coming his way when the largest Palestinian newspaper, Al Quds, endorsed his candidacy. This kind of thing has never happened in the Arab world.

Yes - Jerome Segal considers an endorsement from a Palestinian newspaper to be fantastic news!

Segal had been counting on a J-street endorsement and funding. J-Street has 200,000 members and just $25 each would be $5 million, enough, in Segal's eyes to win.

If Segal expected J-Street to ask its members to give $5 million to his doomed campaign, he is completely crazy. The largest amount J-Street gave to any candidate in 2016 was $341,000, to Russ Feingold (who lost.)

Segal has a point that he is more ideologically aligned to J-Street than Ben Cardin, but J-Street is happy that Cardin is a Democrat and J-Street is far more interested in defeating Republicans than in inter-Democrat infighting.

J-Street, however, has declined to endorse Segal, and will not support his campaign financially. Not only have they given Cardin, a key AIPAC figure in the Senate, a keynote, they have refused to allow Segal to speak at the conference altogether.

In response Segal has prepared a glossy 20-page booklet, "Has J-Street Lost Its Way?" 3000 copies are now being printed and will be given to all attendees and press at the conference.

Segal's campaign site has a foreign policy section. Here it is in its entirety:

FOREIGN POLICY
1. Cardin is a vehicle of AIPAC, the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, only second to the NRA in its influence over Congress. AIPAC carries the agenda of Bibi Netanyahu, for Israel and, unfortunately, too often for the United States as well. Twenty-nine years ago, I founded the Jewish Peace Lobby (www.jewishpeacelobby.org) as an alternative vision of what it means to be pro-Israeli. This campaign is the first time we, or anyone, has challenged AIPAC electorally, and challenged their tight grip on Congressional action on all things directly or indirectly related to Israel.
2. AIPAC/Cardin defends and shelters the aggressive settlement activity of the current Israeli government. This is destroying the possibility of the two-state solution, and thus, necessitates an Israeli choice between being a Jewish state or being a democracy. It is clear that democracy is losing in that contest. This is a heart breaking tragedy, and must be fought with all we have got.
3. Secondly, Cardin, again aligned with AIPAC, joined with all 54 Republican Senators in opposing the Iran Nuclear agreement negotiated by the Obama Administration. President Obama told us that the choice was either between the nuclear deal or the use of force against Iran. Bibi wanted an American attack. John Kerry confirmed this publicly a month ago. In effect, Ben Cardin voted for war against Iran. Anything he says to the contrary is BS.
4. Cardin, in his blank-check support of any Israeli government policy introduced legislation that would felonize (up to 20 years in jail) any American who joined and supported a boycott of the Israeli settlements, if that boycott was called by the United Nations or any of our European allies. The ACLU has condemned this as un-Constitutional, as has my excellent Congressman, Jamie Raskin, formerly a Professor of Constitutional Law.
Further, I join the Congressional Black Caucus in calling on Israel to halt the deportation of African refugees seeking asylum in Israel. Of course, Israel has to have control of its borders, but as a country that calls itself the Nation State of the Jewish People, Israel must be true to our people's historical experience. We must remember Exodus 22:21 "And a stranger shalt thou not wrong, neither shalt thou oppress him; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."

Not a word about Syria or Russia or China or Iraq. His entire foreign policy is aimed against the government of a single nation: Israel.

He really is exactly like J-Street - only much dumber.

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Someone in Gaza is making lots of money manufacturing Israeli flags

Today's Gaza riots have the theme of burning the Israeli flag and raising the Palestinian flag.

Photos show that the Israeli flags they are burning are not close to what the real Israeli flag looks like - the blue stripes reach the border of the flag and the Star of David, perhaps symbolically and perhaps antisemitically, is broken up.

They couldn't have imported these flags from Israel, which means that somewhere in Gaza, someone is manufacturing hundreds of Israeli flags to burn.

Which brings to mind this German satirical video I once added subtitles to:

Meanwhile, women in Gaza are joining the festivities by painting their shoes as Israeli flags.

I don't know, it looks sort of fashionable to me.

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The dangers to Israeli citizens from the Gaza riots (that the media doesn't bother to explain)

Peter Lerner tweeted:

What the @NYT misses about the #GazaReturnMarch at the border fence.
The 5 protest camps are staging grounds for the violent riots.
Every camp is approx. 3000 Meters from the closest Israeli community.
The fence is the last line of defense! https://t.co/ueRdVXXby2 pic.twitter.com/oLE3mmTSjf
— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) April 13, 2018

But the problem is arguably worse, because the entire border is susceptible to infiltration during the weekly riots, not just the areas where Gazans are gathering. Here are some satellite images showing how close Israeli communities are from Gaza - a short walk away in many cases.

Nahal Oz is about 800 meters from the border.

These four communities - from the top, Kisufim, Ein Hashlosha, Nirim and Nir Oz - are between 1-2 miles from the border.

The Kerem Shalom kibbutz is exactly on the border with Gaza.

Here's the thing. Only three weeks ago, a mere days before the first "Great Return March," Hamas held military exercises that were centered on kidnapping Israelis. Their exercises were centered on kidnapping Israeli soldiers, but their tunnel placement and the fact that they are holding Israeli citizens, today, as hostages show that they want to kidnap civilians as well.

Who is running these riots? Hamas!

The media that is blaming Israel for defending its borders is still completely missing the story.

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04/12 Links Pt2: Holocaust Remembrance Day 2018; Ben Shapiro: Why Israel?; Survey exposes American ignorance about Holocaust; Abusing Anne Frank's memory

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: Why Israel?

Last week, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on his own people. The government of Israel responded to that atrocity, as well as Iran’s use of Syria as a thoroughfare for weapons transfers to terrorist groups like Hamas, by bombing Syria’s T4 airbase. The media responded by castigating Israel: for example, the Associated Press headlined, “Tensions ratchet up as Israel blamed for Syria missile strike,” and accompanied that story with a photo of suffering Syrian children targeted by Assad, making it seem that Israel had targeted the children.

That media treatment was no surprise — the week before, the terrorist group Hamas used large-scale protests against Israel on the Gaza border as a cover for terrorist attacks on Israeli troops. When Israeli troops responded with force, the media falsely suggested that Israel had indiscriminately fired into the crowd. Meanwhile, reporters touted the story of a supposed photographer killed by Israeli forces; it turns out that the photographer was a known Hamas officer.

A few weeks earlier and some 2,000 miles away in France, 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll was stabbed 11 times and her body set on fire by a Muslim neighbor who knew her well, and had convictions for rape and sexual assault. In 2017, there were 92 violent anti-Semitic incidents in France, a 28 percent year-on-year increase.

Moving across the English Channel, Israel’s Labor Party finally was forced to cut ties completely with the leader of the U.K.’s Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime anti-Semite who has routinely made nice with terrorists and defended open Jew-hatred in public. And, of course, in the United States, the alt-right’s anti-Semitism continues to make public discourse more crude and the Women’s March continues to make nice with anti-Semites such as Louis Farrakhan.

In other words, there is a reason for Israel to exist.

JPost Editorial: The Holocaust and Assad

If Syria, Russia and Iran are right and Israel did in fact carry out an attack on a Syrian air base a day and a half after Bashar Assad’s regime used chlorine gas against civilians in a Damascus suburb, the Jewish state should be proud.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, as Israel commemorates the destruction of European Jewry at the hands of Nazi Germany and its allies in Vichy France, Austria, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine and elsewhere, it is essential for the world – and the Assad regime – to know that indiscriminate acts of barbarism will not be tolerated.

US President Donald Trump was exercising a healthy moral sense when he responded strongly on his Twitter account to the atrocity committed by Assad’s regime against Syrians in Douma, including women and children.

“President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay.”

Trump’s Tweet should be followed up by military action and it should be backed by all civilized countries, particularly the nations of the European continent on which the Holocaust was carried out. (Russia, which prides itself so much on having destroyed Nazism during World War II, is now protecting the Assad regime and spreading lies that poison gas was not used in Douma.) The point of the military action is not to change the course of the civil war in Syria. Rather, the point of a combined US, European military strike that causes significant damage to the Assad regime’s military capabilities is to make a moral statement and, one hopes, to deter Syria from using poison gas against anyone in the future.

What makes the Syrian use of chlorine gas all the more despicable is that it was motivated not by desperation but by depravity. Assad, with the backing of Russia and Iran, has all but won the civil war. Forces loyal to him have surrounded Douma.

In any event, the ruthless murder of civilians is rarely if ever a deciding factor in war. In World War II the Axis powers were responsible for the vast majority of deaths – as well as for a disproportionately high rate of civilian killings, in part due to the Holocaust – yet their defeat was total and relatively speedy once the US entered the war.

Assad, apparently emboldened by Trump’s declaration that the US plans to pull its troops out of Syria, believed that the world would stand by in indifference, as it has in the past when he used barrel bombs containing chlorine against civilians.

Perhaps Assad also thought that the Trump administration’s decision a year ago this month to fire Tomahawk missiles at Syrian army bases in response to his use of Sarin gas was a blip and that the US under a fickle Trump, who was now in the mood for retreat, would not act again alone among the nations.

Perhaps he also thought that the US and other nations would make a distinction between the chlorine gas used this week and sarin, the nerve gas developed by the Nazis during World War II.

Aliyah, IDF-style - part 4 (Ziesel R. and her dad)

After another too-long absence on these pages, Ziesel R. - the young woman originally from the US who joined the IDF as a lone soldier earlier this year - has resumed telling us her story.

____________________________________________________

I would like to begin by apologizing for not posting a blog in six months. I’m sure you all understand that was due to the rigorous training that I went through.

Let’s take a look at my combat training that began 6 months ago. It was an extremely intense time with many days spent in the shetach (field). Almost every soldier is given something that they specialize in during training. I was given the Negev. The Negev is a machine gun weighing in at about 17 pounds. We did a week course on how to use it properly. It was a difficult week but I completed it nonetheless. One night they woke us up at 3 a.m. with a hakpatza (emergency drill) and had us all crawl about 250 meters with the Negev on difficult terrain. This was probably the most challenging thing that I’ve had to do in my service but I was very proud of myself for completing that difficult task.

After a couple more months of intense training we finished and received our kumta (beret). My father flew in for the ceremony which was sadly canceled while he was on the plane. (My father wrote an amazing article about his time with me in Israel that I suggest everyone read (posted below*). Having him in Israel was exciting and I finally got a taste of what it’s like to not be a lone soldier. A lot was going on at the same time he was in Israel. Unfortunately the Negev caused a lot of strain on my back. After combat training I jumped at the opportunity to volunteer to switch my specialty and take the combat medics course which began a couple days prior to my dad’s arrival. I was delighted to have been accepted to the course but faced a lot of difficulties. My commanders in the course were unaccommodating and made the course difficult for me. Fortunately I had four friends that did the course before me and spent a lot of time both on the phone and in person helping me. I also had a mashakit aliyah (someone whose job in the army is to help immigrants with understanding material). This ended up not being enough with commanders that were not interested in helping me. Ultimately I ended up switching to another medics course with different commanders. The way the medics course works is that almost every week a new course begins making switching to another course easy for someone like me. Switching courses ended up being the best decision. I loved my commanders and the head commander. I also really enjoyed the people I was with. It really reminded me how even when things look down it almost always ends up being for the better.

Toward the end of the three month medics course my mother and younger sister came for a visit. Fortunately my commanders were amazing and gave me ample time to spend with my family. Also while they were here I got my Israeli driving license which was very exciting. Again I got the taste of what it’s like to not be a lone soldier. Although they left, the memories we made together were incredible and now was time to focus on finishing my course.

I finished the course with great grades and went back to the life of a combat soldier. During this time, I also moved to Kibbutz Beerot Yitzchak. I haven’t been there long but am very happy there. My unit is based next to the Jordanian border. I rejoined them but returned with a better attitude. I was only there for a few weeks before finally receiving permission to take leave. I booked plane tickets about 14 hours before getting on a plane to visit my family and friends in America. I’ve been in America for about a week and half now and will be here for a month. It is great being back and seeing everyone but at the same time I miss Israel. America will always be where I grew up but Israel is home.

____________________________________________________

Here is the post written by Ziesel's father in December:

Is it possible to celebrate Chanukah and not think of our modern day Maccabees who protect and defend Israel and the Jewish people the world over? Probably few with children serving in the IDF especially Lone Soldier parents who may not see their Maccabee children but for brief visits with sometimes more than a year in between. Particularly difficult are the various graduation ceremonies (tekes) recognizing milestones in the military that families are invited to. To be sure other relatives, friends, host families and their Lone Soldier pals are there for them. As we used to say ‘lone but not lonely’. But it isn’t the same.

A huge amount of thanks and gratitude to Nefesh B’Nefesh and EL AL the airlines of Israel for organizing and subsidizing a parent trip to Israel to attend a tekes for their Lone Soldier child. Nefesh B’Nefesh and EL AL recognize the importance of a parent attending a highlight tekes for the morale of the whole family and can sustain a soldier for a long way between parent visits.

The army, not so much.Neither I nor my Lone Soldier, Ziesel, attended a tekes during my trip (through no fault of Nefesh B’Nefesh and EL AL who worked overtime to make it happen).

To ‘make it happen’ was no mean feat. Anyone who knows the IDF only from ‘Operation Thunderbolt-the raid on Entebbe’, may be surprised to learn that the army doesn’t always have its- I will avoid the military term and say- ducks in a row. We reckoned ‘around Thanksgiving’. An official invitation was issued on 8 November for the tekes 23 November allowing a week for organizing work, family and scheduling flights (thanks again NBN and EL AL). No sooner had I landed that I discovered the tekes was canceled. Before I could be disappointed about that I learned my solider volunteered for and was accepted to the combat medic course. She was now on a completely different base and under new command (a lot can happen midflight). As proud as I was of her initiative, as an IDF Lone Solider veteran I was a little disconcerted because I knew that the permission she received for leave to spend time with me from her previous command was nullified. It was now up to the new command. A new lobbying effort began. I knew how it would seem, “Hi, I’m your new soldier. You don’t know me very well but can I have the first week of the course off?”

So, rather than meeting my daughter on a parade ground with bands and speeches accompanying receiving her new beret identifying her as a combat solder in the Arayot HaYarden Brigade with advanced training, we reunited at the Beer Sheva bus station.

Any disappointments that may have been,were melted away with hugs and kisses. Had she changed? She was the same beautiful, intelligent, articulate, poised, confident young woman we said farewell to a year ago- only more so. And way Israeli with mad Hebrew skills and an M-16. She introduced me to a couple of her friends from the course. “Is she a good solider?” I asked them in Hebrew. “Yes. Of course. The best.” I told her she was the ‘real deal’. “What does that mean?”, she asked. “It means if your plan was to come to Israel, make Aliyah and be a soldier in the IDF, you have done it, 100%” (100% is army slang for “100%”).

We had a wonderful Jerusalem Shabbat together with my older daughter and son-in-law at their Har Nof apartment. Motzai Shabbat she and I headed to Ibim, the immigrant absorption village she now calls home. Ziesel wanted to be closer to base if she didn’t get any additional leave. I was given the 5 shekel tour of Ibim- about 4 minutes. I was more focused on the placement of bomb shelters than the laundry and dining hall. Ibim is spitting distance to Sderot. As a parent you may tell your child “don’t play in the street” or “avoid walking alone at night (even if you have an M16)”. Add “be aware of the nearest bomb shelter and keep your ‘go bag’ squared away”. It’s not a kvetch but advice from experience. Both her mom and I were living in Israel during the Persian Gulf War.

I met some of the other Lone Solders. In my mind, exceptional young people. The culture of the IDF places enormous responsibility on extraordinarily young people. They are poised, professional and more than a little nonchalant. The social atmosphere was NCSYish- kosher fraternity/sorority but with fewer bad decisions. Ziesel made it clear from the start, “don’t touch the M16” but one of my young brothers let me check out the Tavor. Very cool would be an understatement. One of her friends dropped of her new kumta. New style for the mixed combat units: khaki background, dark brown tendrils over medium brown splotches. Looks cooler than it sounds. She acted less than enthusiastic but wasted little time changing out her generic O.D. one.

In some ways the best part of the visit was doing normal things that might belie we hadn’t seen each other in a year. Laundry, grocery shopping and picking up custom boot liners designed to relieve the tendonitis caused by carrying heavy loads quickly over long distance i.e. what combat soldiers do the most (by normal I meant normal Israeli things).

Good news! Leave permitted til Thursday (would just one more Shabbat cause the army to collapse?). So, back to Jerusalem and my turn to be the tour guide. First the Gush Katif Museum. I had some artifacts to deliver: some pictures of when I volunteered with some friends at Kibbutz Netzarim just before Operation Desert Storm. Within eyesight of her current residence beautiful and growing communities were exchanged for terror, destruction and rockets toward her and her neighbors.

Walking through Jerusalem I spied a sign for Michael Levin Lone Soldier Center. While my daughter begged off, (even though she is a trained killer it’s somehow gratifying to know she fears the possibility of being embarrassed by her dad) I was excited to see that which I heard so much about but did not exist in my time. I found a warm and homey space that was a cross between a dormitory common area and the living room of that house where everyone hangs out, with a very enthusiastic staff. I would have found it very inviting back in the day. On the way out we were offered a delicious cake to take for Shabbat. It was comforting to know that such a resource existed for my soldier.

We arranged to meet my older daughter at the Ammunition Hill Museum. As the year comes to a close most of us have forgotten that we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the victory of the Six-Day War in June. Ammunition Hill is significant to me because many years ago on a day trip while volunteering with Sar-el this is where I decided to begin my journey to becoming a soldier. I gave my daughters a complete historical reenactment of the battle and its context to the access of the old city and Temple Mount. Plus a tutorial on trench warfare (no extra charge and thanks, girls, for being polite while dad geeked out).

Some things can mean more than a tekes. Even before we got to Jerusalem the poor girl couldn’t stand still for one second without being complimented on her new kumta. Our day for visiting the Kotel was no exception. On the way she needed to stop for a few things (soldiers always need a few things). We happened upon a tiny cobbler’s booth along Yaffo Street. He was an older guy with an apron stained with dyes, polish and glue. There were belts, shoelaces and some other accessories but covered with dust. It made me wonder how long it had been since his last sale. With his help we found the cordovan colored polish that matched my daughter’s boots and the small applicator brushes that would pack into her already overstuffed industrial sized backpack. “How much?” I asked in Hebrew taking out my wallet (visiting parents always pay). “No” he said refusing payment “not for a soldier”. His gesture of appreciation was one of the highlights of my trip. I hugged him. Somehow his sacrifice comforted me knowing that, tekes or no, my daughter’s contribution was appreciated by the people who really counted. After stopping for a bite to eat we picked up a couple sufganyot and brought them to him as a token of appreciation. He of course refused but this was my turn to insist.

On to the Kotel. It is just time for the afternoon prayers and the wide Plaza is filled with worshipers and tourists. But first we have to go through security which my daughter bypasses because she’s in uniform and armed. There is a small formation of newer army recruits getting instructions from their young commanders before they are released for lunch. The tourists are enthralled as if they were the very soldiers that liberated Jerusalem in 1967. I do not take praying at the Kotel for granted. That even a single Jewish person could be here is an open miracle.

It’s time to leave but we’re making little progress. The tourists don’t allow my daughter any rest. Who wouldn’t want to take their picture with the pretty girl soldier with the fancy beret and an M-16? She’s happy to oblige. I make a (bad) joke that after the Army she can work in Times Square dressed as Wonder Woman taking pictures with tourists.

It would be satisfying and triumphant to leave on that pleasant scene but disingenuous. Leaving Israel is mostly bitter and never sweet. Efforts to extend leave until after Shabbat have failed. Tonight we go to Ibim so that tomorrow I can accompany Ziesel to her base. She tells me I don’t have to but of course I wouldn’t have it otherwise. In the morning she suggests we part at Beer Sheva station reminding me half joking that I won’t be permitted on base. I, (only) half joke that there should be no reason why not, reminding her I was a soldier while holding up a Ziploc sandwich bag with my old and faded IDF document (ID, discharge and fortunately never needed POW record). If she was impressed she didn’t let on.

The trip to the base was somber. In Beer Sheva we had the breakfast of an Israeli soldier on the move: bourekas and coffee. From Beer Sheva to the base there may have been tears (trained killer indeed). We parted as we met -- with hugs and kisses. One last in-person Shabbat bracha. I watched my little girl lug her heavy soldier’s pack until my view is obscured by trees, fencing and buildings. My trip back to Jerusalem was less sad. At least we were still in the same country for a little while longer and I reflected on our time together and how much I appreciated those who made the trip possible.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

What can or should be done in response to the continuing Syrian bloodbath? And who, if anyone, should do it?

In a NY Times column, Max Fisher has described “America’s Three Bad Options in Syria” (he leaves out the fourth bad one, which is doing nothing).

His argument is simple: 1) Limited, punitive strikes are ineffectual; 2) escalating aid to Assad’s enemies can easily be matched and exceeded by Iran and Russia; and 3) an intervention that actually collapsed Assad’s government would throw the region into chaos, costing even millions more lives, and risk a military confrontation with Russia.

He doesn’t discuss the consequences of doing nothing. I suspect this might actually shorten the active conflict, since it would result in Assad reasserting control over much of the country, and Iran and Russia becoming the de facto ruling powers in the region. But this is also a bad option, because while it might reduce the bloodletting in the very short term, it would set the stage for future very severe conflicts, which could include Europe and the US (and definitely would include Israel).

There is another option that needs to be considered. It’s based on the understanding that today there is one source of most of the conflict in the Middle East (and it is not the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, which has always been only a proxy for the ambitions of Israel’s larger neighbors or the struggle between the US and Russia).

That source is the Iranian ambition to export its revolutionary Shiite Islamism to the world, and to establish a caliphate in the Middle East. Iran is well on her way to doing so. She has effective control of Lebanon through her Hezbollah subsidiary, she controls the central government and much of the territory of Iraq, and she is able to do almost whatever she wants in Syria (the ‘almost’ is thanks to Israel). Iran also threatens the vital Bab al-Mandeb strait, through her influence on the Houthi regime in Yemen (almost all trade between the EU and Asia passes through Bab al-Mandeb, as does as much as 30% of the oil produced in the Gulf).

The Iranian regime has done all this relatively cheaply and with conventional means. When it obtains a nuclear umbrella, we can expect it to be an order of magnitude more dangerous. It is presently developing missiles that will place Europe under threat of nuclear attack. ICBMs that can reach the US will be the next step.

ISIS, al-Qaeda and similar groups are far less dangerous. They are at most terrorist militias which could easily be crushed by the West (which instead has allowed Iran to use them as an excuse to gain control of parts of Iraq and Syria).

The option that I am proposing is what former King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia advised the US to do back in 2008: to “cut off the head the snake.”

Abdullah may have meant only to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, but I am suggesting that in addition, the present regime should be overthrown and opposition elements helped to take over.

With Iran out of the equation, the Syrian problem is not solved, but at least simplified. The best solution at this point would be a partition that would keep the various religious and ethnic groups away from each other’s throats. Clearly the present situation in Syria in which a Sunni majority is ruled by a small Alawi minority has shown itself to be unworkable.

While Russia can project power there with its air force, it cannot afford to send a large number of ground troops – until now, the cannon fodder has been provided by Iran’s Hezbollah ally and its Iraqi Shiite militias, which will lose their support when the snake is dead. Both Russia and Assad would find themselves much more prepared to compromise when the Iranian muscle has been taken away.

Other conflicts would also lose impetus. Hezbollah, Israel’s most dangerous enemy in the short term, would waste away. Hamas would lose its major source of financial support. Although the Palestinian desire to destroy Israel won’t disappear, the loss of Iranian support will mean fewer hot wars, which may pave the way for eventual reconciliation. The conflict in Yemen also will become amenable to solution without Iranian support for the Houthis.

Iran’s fingerprints have been found on terrorist attacks all over the world, including Latin America and Europe. Hezbollah is heavily involved in illegal drug and weapons trafficking. No other single country is responsible for as much mischief and violence around the world as Iran, and it is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power.

The example of Iraq is often used to argue that attempts at regime change can have unexpected and sometimes unpleasant consequences. There is no doubt that this is true, and that such an enterprise is very risky. But there were clear mistakes made in Iraq: the “de-Baathification” purge of the armed forces, government and civil service, which left no one competent to run essential services; the lack of planning for a temporary occupation regime and police force; the belief that if a tyranny was removed and elections held, democracy would automatically take hold; and of course the biggie – the failure to understand that Iran would walk into the vacuum created by overthrowing Saddam.

The Iranian people are relatively well-educated and cultured. Iran does have home-grown opposition factions that could replace the mullahs that rule the country. The difficult problem would be dealing with the Revolutionary Guard and its paramilitary Basij, who are loyal to the present regime and would resist its overthrow.

Any successful regime change would have to be accomplished by empowering the opposition and supporting its takeover from the present regime. It would need to be accomplished with as little damage to non-military infrastructure as possible. Nevertheless, there would certainly be some military confrontations with the Revolutionary Guard. But the approach taken in Iraq – smashing the country to smithereens and then trying to rebuild it from the ground up – failed there and would fail here as well.

The Western powers that would need to do this would have to push over the old regime, and stand aside – even if what replaces it is not entirely to their liking.

Yes, it would be a risky endeavor. The mullahs could be replaced by something worse (but at least it wouldn’t have an advanced nuclear weapons program). I think, though, that the potential benefits – for the region, for the Iranian people, and for the civilized world – make it a risk worth taking.

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04/12 Links Pt1: PMW: The PA’s Nazi sympathies; Abbas: Palestinians and Jordanians are One People in Two States; Congress Demands State Dept. Release ‘Game Changer’ Report on Myth of Palestinian Refugees

From Ian:

PMW: The PA’s Nazi sympathies

Over the years, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented numerous expressions of Nazi sympathies by PA and Fatah leaders. Admiration of Hitler is one part of the Palestinian Holocaust denial and distortion.

Some expressions of sympathy are blatant, while others are more subliminal. The following are some examples:
Senior Fatah official: "Hitler was not ‎morally corrupt. He was daring"‎
Senior Fatah official Fatah Central Committee Member Tawfik Tirawi argued that Hitler was not morally corrupt, but rather “daring,” in a TV interview. Tirawi’s approach even offended the Palestinian interviewer who chose to quickly change the topic:

Tirawi: "Let us talk logically. Hitler was not ‎morally corrupt. He was daring." (Emphasis added -Ed.‎)
Ma'an host: "Is that the way to talk? I say: Let's drink some tea and take a break. It ‎would be a pity to be put in jail because of this interview. We will drink tea and take a ‎break. Let's leave Hitler."‎
[Ma’an (independent Palestinian news agency), Jan. 19, 2016]

PA schools named after Nazi collaborators

Alongside the 31 PA schools PMW has documented that are named after terrorists including murderers such as Dalal Mughrabi, the PA also named three schools after Nazi collaborators. One school was a result named after Nazi collaborator and war criminal Amin Al-Husseini and two others named after Nazi collaborator Hassan Salameh.

Obviously, schools are named after people who the PA Ministry of Education sees as role models and aspires for the students to emulate.

Abbas: Palestinians and Jordanians are One People in Two States – Jordan and Palestine.

Addressing the ninth annual Islamic Beit al-Maqdes (the term is borrowed directly from the Hebrew Beit HaMikdash – the Temple) International Conference, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday that his people have been the victims of a conspiracy that started 100 years ago, “since the infamous Balfour Declaration,” and suggested the latest episode in this conspiracy is President Donald Trump’s “sinful declaration in which he alleged that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, defying with this the feelings and beliefs of hundreds of millions of Muslims and Christians and violating international law and resolutions on this matter.”

But it was journalist Khaled Abu Toameh that caught the most important line of Abbas’s speech when he admitted, “Palestinians and Jordanians are one people in two states – Jordan and Palestine. We won’t accept the idea of the transformation of Jordan into a Palestinian homeland.”

Self-identified “Palestinians” make up 85% of Jordan’s population, which makes one wonder, how many more states do the “Palestinians” need?

Palestinians: License to Kill Americans

The ruthless rhetoric the Palestinians are using against the US suggests that they have decided to put the Americans on an equal footing with Israel. They miss the days when the State Department sometimes seemed to be more pro-Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves.

We are talking about the same Palestinian Authority (PA) that continues to receive millions of dollars in US aid annually. The same PA whose security forces are trained and equipped by Americans and Europeans. The same PA that has a "diplomatic mission" in Washington that is actively taking part in the campaign of incitement against the US and its leader.

The anti-US campaign paves the way for terrorists to kill Americans. It feeds into the ideology of the Islamic State terror group, Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, which considers the US the "Great Satan."

Nation that destroyed scores of synagogues lectures Israel on religious sensitivity

Some everyday hypocrisy from Jordan:

Jewish holidays have become occasions for stepped-up tensions at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque complex with extremist Jewish settlers entering the flashpoint site in ever-increasing numbers, a Jordanian official warned Friday.

In a statement carried by Jordan’s official Petra news agency, government spokesman Mohamed al-Momani condemned “provocative and irresponsible” acts by Israel, which, he said, “violate the sanctity of this holy place and provoke the feelings of Muslims”.

“Such acts violate Israel’s obligations under international law as the occupying power in East Jerusalem,” he said.

“International conventions call for respect to be paid to the places of worship of all religions,” al-Momani added.

He urged Israel to immediately halt such provocations and show respect for Al-Aqsa’s historical and religious importance, with reference to Jordan’s supervisory role over East Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites.

We are so used to seeing these sorts of statements that we too often forget how outrageous and sickening they are.

Today, Jews show far more respect for the Temple Mount than Muslims do. To Jews, it is their holiest site to be treated with the utmost respect. To Muslims, it is also a park where kids play soccer and volleyball, summer camps are run also s spot from which hate for Jews is broadcast.

But the hypocrisy goes far beyond that.

Here is the depth of Jordan's supposed respect for religious sites, from JTA, November 2, 1967:

A shocking record of destruction and desecration of Jewish holy places in and around Old Jerusalem during 19 years of Jordanian rule was documented today in the report of an inter-ministerial committee that was appointed after the Six-Day War to determine the state of Jewish shrines in Jordan held territory.
The findings of the committee were summarized by Zerach Warhaftig, Minister of Religious Affairs, at a press conference here. As examples of the wanton disregard of the religious rights of others, Mr. Warhaftig noted the destruction of all but two of the 58 synagogues in the Jewish quarter of the Old City and the almost total destruction of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives which has been in continuous use for more than 2,000 years.
The cemetery was one of the Jewish holy places to which access was promised by the Jordanians in the 1949 armistice agreements although the promise was never observed. Tombstones were carried away for purposes ranging from fortifying mortar positions to building lavatories and the report says, documentary evidence and eye witnesses “make it clear beyond doubt that the desecration of the cemetery was carried out by Jordanian authorities for official purposes.”

The Jordanian Government, according to the report, had placed a special guard at the cemetery, but only to prevent tombstones from being pilfered by private persons. Their use was authorized for building military camps, fortifications, pathways and other installations and the walls of the building that housed the army commanders. Part of the road to the Intercontinental Hotel was paved with tombstones, the report said. And the Jordanians never bothered to remove the remains of the dead.

Israel needs to respond to each and every such statement from Jordan with a demand for an apology and financial compensation for the damage done to synagogues and graves over 19 years of when Jerusalem was Judenrein. It is way past time that Israel remains silent when absurd allegations of desecration are hurled at Jews who politely and respectfully walk on their holiest spot - a place where the entire idea of Islamic sanctity is derived from the Jewish veneration for that area.

Only when every dollar is repaid and a heartfelt apology given will Israel be willing to engage in a discussion of respect for holy places - a discussion where Jordan will still come out poorly, today.

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In Fathom Journal, Cary Nelson and Russell Berman write a detailed and comprehensive refutation of an anti-Israel paper published in Critical Inquiry, a formerly respected academic journal, by Saree Makdisi. But their paper is in fact a strong indictment of liberal arts anti-Israel "scholarship" altogether. The summary:

This lengthy essay by two leading US professors challenges the world of academic publishing. They identify the symptoms of a ‘widespread institutional corruption that extends far beyond the debates over the Middle East’: the move of disciplines and journals from textual interpretation and scholarship to politics and polemic; the fundamental breakdown in the peer review process in the humanities and interpretive social sciences, as publishers with a strong anti-Zionist bias submit manuscripts to highly sympathetic anti-Zionist readers who laud the manuscript’s ‘courage’ and recommend publication, creating an anti-Zionist echo chamber increasingly free from some traditional scholarly controls, including fact-checking; and, not least, the spread of the terminology of a body of theory ‘marshalled in the service of preexisting political convictions’ and taking on ‘the character of sacred incantation’, the mere ‘deployment of its vocabulary’ taken as ‘sufficiently proving the case being made’. Their particular focus is the work of Saree Makdisi, but their target is contemporary academic culture itself.

The authors bring many, many examples of how Makdisi is simply lying (and he knows it.) For example, Makdisi claims that Israel has no laws to protect equal rights; Berman and Nelson show otherwise, introducing their rebuttal this way:

Makdisi underwrites his critique of Israel proper with the claim that Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which commits the state to equality of all citizens without regard to religion, is merely ‘aspirational’ (323) rather than legally binding. Yet prominent Israeli jurists, among them former Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak, believe the Declaration has constitutional status. In any case, calling the Declaration merely aspirational erases its considerable impact on Israeli law and culture. The Declaration’s commitment to equality has frequently been referred to in court decisions.[10] Makdisi imagines that ‘nowhere in Israel law is the right to equality protected’ (309), but an objective reading of Israel’s Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty (1992) proves otherwise, as many rights are thereby guaranteed to all.

This pattern is repeated over and over, where Makdisi's assertions are proven to be utterly false, and any decent academic journal should have noticed this. On the contrary, the editor of Critical Inquiry, when inviting a response to Makdisi's essay (but limiting it to only 5000 words,) wrote to one of the authors that Makdisi's essay was

'a serious, well documented scholarly essay,’ by which one can only conclude he meant ‘It has lots of footnotes.’ "But whether either those footnotes or the essay itself, which is rife with undocumented assertion, actually proves anything is another matter. It is also clear that CI, like most humanities journals, apparently has no tradition of fact checking, since a substantial number of Makdisi’s claims cannot survive such a review.

Space doesn't allow me to go into detail on all that Nelson and Berman write, but a single (edited) example with which I was not familiar is enough to show how dishonest anti-Israel academics are:

For Makdisi the real crime begins not with the 1967 war and the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank or even with the Nakba itself. The fundamental violence done was with the establishment of the Jewish state. His essay therefore begins with a symptomatic narrative, the 1986 creation of a new town, Eshchar, in northern Israel, which Makdisi disingenuously identifies as a ‘settlement,’ a term ordinarily reserved for Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Presumably he considers all Israel towns and cities to be settlements in occupied territory. Makdisi contrasts the recognition of Eshchar with four nearby towns that Israel purportedly refused to recognise, but — of the towns he names, Kamane was recognised in 1995, Hussiniyya was recognised in 1996, and Arab al-Nai’m was recognised in 2000, at which point they were eligible for and received the municipal services Makdisi seems to believe they still lack.[23]All three, along with three other Bedouin villages (Ras al-Ein, D’meide, and Wadi Salameh) are members of the Misgav Regional Council, which has a Bedouin Deputy Chair. These are all, as it happens, Bedouin villages, though Makdisi identifies them as Palestinian.[24] It is thus odd that Makdisi insists that the Israeli government ‘adamantly refuses to permit Palestinians to develop a single new town of their own’ (306), although seven recognised new Bedouin towns have been established in the Negev since 1968. They are: Rahat, Hura, Tel as-Sabi, Ara’ra, Lakiya, K’seife, and Shuqib Al-Salam.

The attitude Jewish area residents have displayed toward nearby Bedouin villages for a generation completely discredits the claim of ingrained and persistent racism that Makdisi promotes.

As it happens, we have a mutual friend, a faculty member on this side of the ocean, who lived very near Eshchar (in Eshbal) for a time. She put us in touch with Eshchar’s former local council chairman, and he put us in touch with long-term Bedouin leader Nimer Na’im. They confirmed what we learned: Eshchar had supplied Arab al-Nai’im with access to water in 1993 and helped with other projects such as construction of a kindergarten, but the intensive work for recognition began five years later. Eshchar’s Jewish chairman Yisrael Ne’eman and Bedouin leader Nimer Nai’im walked together across the rocky hilltop their villages share — suitable for grazing but not agriculture — and in June 1998 agreed on a border. The terms were then discussed and approved by Eshchar as a whole. The Eshchar general assembly voted 40-2 to endorse the agreement, with the two dissenters feeling Arab al-Nai’m should have gotten more land than it asked for. The following month Ne’eman, another Eshchar resident, and religious politician Hanan Porat, whose daughter lived in Eshchar, went together to the Ministry of Interior and met with its director general to petition for Arab al-Nai’m to become a permanent village.

Nimer, we should note, was quite angry, calling Makdisi’s account ‘deceitful’ and replete with ‘lies’; he could not understand why someone halfway across the world would be involved in misrepresenting the character of two villages engaged in helping each other. He couldn’t understand why Makdisi did not even bother to contact anyone in the villages to consult with any of the parties involved. Why would someone in the US make up claims about Eshchar and Arab al-Nai’m? It was not easy to explain. Precisely this disregard for facts and for fact-checking starkly displays the methodological insufficiency of such politicised humanities scholarship today.

The two villages have instituted cross-community cooperation, planning, and future development. Since the Bedouin village has less land, their building permits allow construction to up to three stories to compensate vertically, whereas Eshchar is limited to two-story buildings. The two villages see themselves as having carried out a grassroots peace process, and as devoted to ‘good neighbor relations.’ They refuse to define their relationship as one of ‘co-existence’ because coexistence can too easily mean that ‘one party is the rider and the other the donkey.’ Each village keeps its own cultural identity; they agree to disagree when necessary. For Makdisi the story of the villages is one of long-running hatred and discrimination, while for us, it is one of rebirth and reconciliation, of empathy and social responsibility across ethnic lines, a story of hope.

Eshchar prides itself on its heterogeneous community of religious and non-religious Jews of multiple national origin. But Makdisi finds ‘this claim to extraordinary heterogeneity might seem suspiciously homogeneous’ (306).[27]After all, they are all Jews. In other words, they are not really different after all; Jews are all the same, as far as Makdisi is concerned.[28] That would be news to Israelis themselves, who have confronted the challenge of integrating the radically different cultural identities of immigrants from scores of different countries and cultures: Ethiopia, Germany, Iraq, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere.

Because the 800 residents of Eshchar are all Jews, Eshchar in Makdisi’s eyes is ‘an attempt to maintain insular homogeneity against surrounding otherness’ (309). Makdisi is of course employing synecdoche. Eshchar, as he immediately makes clear, stands for Israel as a whole, ‘a colonial settlement implanted on land usurped from its ethnically cleansed indigenous owners’ (309). That the Jews began by purchasing land is irrelevant. That Israel was established with an international mandate from the League of Nations, recognising the historic Jewish connection with the land, and subsequently affirmed in the UN’s founding charter, is irrelevant. Moreover, like South Africa, Makdisi insists, this is a racist enterprise set in what Israelis, so Makdisi insinuates, allegedly take to be an Arab ‘desert of backward, violent, fundamentalist tyranny."

It is a shame that one can't even imagine that the humanities departments of any university will take this essay to heart and start doing basic fact checking against anti-Israel "scholarship." It is simply too ingrained.

(h/t Gerald)

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