Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 31, 2011

Hasbara 2.0 - why the Israel haters are winning today

Since it was frustrating trying to figure out what to post here and what to post at my NewsRealBlog gig, I decided to start to document my ideas about Hasbara 2.0 that I spoke about in December.

So I will be running a continuing series on hasbara there.

The first installment, an introduction, is up now.

Check it out!

"Israel shocked at Obama's 'betrayal' of Mubarak"

From Reuters:

If Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is toppled, Israel will lose one of its very few friends in a hostile neighborhood and President Barack Obama will bear a large share of the blame, Israeli pundits said on Monday.

Political commentators expressed shock at how the United States as well as its major European allies appeared to be ready to dump a staunch strategic ally of three decades, simply to conform to the current ideology of political correctness.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told ministers of the Jewish state to make no comment on the political cliffhanger in Cairo, to avoid inflaming an already explosive situation. But Israel's President Shimon Peres is not a minister.

"We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak," he said on Monday. He then switched to the past tense. "I don't say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East."

Newspaper columnists were far more blunt.

One comment by Aviad Pohoryles in the daily Maariv was entitled "A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam." It accused Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks.

Who is advising them, he asked, "to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president ... an almost lone voice of sanity in a Middle East?"

"The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations ... is painfully naive."

"The question is, do we think Obama is reliable or not," said an Israeli official, who declined to be named.

"Right now it doesn't look so. That is a question resonating across the region not just in Israel."

Writing in Haaretz, Ari Shavit said Obama had betrayed "a moderate Egyptian president who remained loyal to the United States, promoted stability and encouraged moderation."

To win popular Arab opinion, Obama was risking America's status as a superpower and reliable ally.

"Throughout Asia, Africa and South America, leaders are now looking at what is going on between Washington and Cairo. Everyone grasps the message: "America's word is worthless ... America has lost it."

Although perhaps the quoted Israelis are being slightly too generous to a despot, the larger point is very important: If Middle East leaders, especially Arab leaders, do not believe that the US is behind them anymore, then the idea of a domino effect of Arab regimes being replaced by potentially much worse Islamist regimes becomes much closer to reality.

Not only that, but if Arab leaders no longer perceive the US as protecting them, they will seek another country for them to orbit. Like, say, Iran.

No one is saying that it is easy for the US to publicly support a dictator whose country is now seemingly against him. But now the US is not acting like a leader at all.

Here is one possible idea that would be true to both democratic ideals and minimize the chances for an Islamist takeover of Egypt.

The US should pressure Mubarak to embark on a five-year program of increasing freedoms. Get rid of the "state of emergency" that Egypt has been under since 1967 and start to implement a concrete plan of action to open up Egypt to the marketplace of ideas - with a specific timetable.

Only after five years of freedom can one even hope for an electorate that can sort through the alternatives intelligently. It would also take that long for new political parties to have the chance to grow and get organized, gain supporters and money.

Then the real elections can take place, in a new, democratic Egypt, where no one is afraid that their words can get them killed.

Rushing into uncharted waters now has disaster written all over it. This is a vacuum that the US can fill if it acts skillfully and forcefully. But is there the will?

(h/t Zach N)

UNRWA report on Pal. poverty in Lebanon flies under the radar

On December 31, UNRWA released a major report that goes into detail of the poverty and unemployment for Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon.

Here are some important parts:

6.6% are extremely poor i.e they cannot meet their essential daily food needs (compared to 1.7% amongst Lebanese).
66.4% of Palestine refugees in Lebanon are poor i.e cannot meet their basic food and nonfood needs (compared to 35% amongst Lebanese).
56% of Palestinians are jobless
38% of the working age population are employed
2/3 of Palestinians employed in elementary occupations (like street vendors, work in construction, agriculture) are poor
Of the 425,000 Lebanese "refugees" registered with UNRWA since 1948, only 260,000-280,000 currently reside in Lebanon. The difference is apparently from some 200,000 who have fled Lebanon, mostly for Europe.

Lebanese vehemently oppose the naturalization of Palestinians into Lebanese. Such Tawteen (naturalization) is also strongly rejected by the Palestinians, who insist on their right to return to Palestine. The Lebanese position on return to Palestine is sometimes used to justify discriminatory policies against the Palestinian refugees, and their legal status even after 60 years remains that of foreigners. This has resulted in restrictive policies with regard to the social, economic, and civil rights of the Palestinians (Hanafi & Tiltnes 2008)

Tawteen is the scarecrow that has been used within sections of Lebanese society to generate public phobia against according civil rights to Palestinians. Indeed through editorials in key Lebanese newspapers (alNahar, al-Akhbar, al-Safīr, and L’Orient-Le Jour), Lebanese political groups accuse each other of promoting Tawteen, an act tantamount to treason. For instance, the front-page headline of the Lebanese daily al-Akhbār, read on 2 July 2007 “The program of al-Barid Camp reconstruction is the beginning of Tawteen”. Others (including religious authorities) consider the mere talk of the Palestinians’ right to work as being the first step towards Tawteen. Any debate about civil and economic rights starts by affirming that the objective should not be Tawteen, to the point that initiatives on according long-term rights to Palestinians come to be substituted with short-term interventions on humanitarian or security grounds.

We discuss below that the recent changes in labor regulations are no exception to this pattern. The only common ground between the various Lebanese political parties is the use of Tawteen as taboo. Throughout this debate the individual Palestinian is invisible. The deployment of bio-politics by humanitarian organizations (regarding Palestinians as bodies to be fed and sheltered without political existence) is one end of the spectrum and the Tawteen discourse is the other end. For those participating in such a discourse, the Palestinians are mere figures, demographic artifacts and a transient political mass waiting for return. Between humanitarian discourse in the zones of emergency on the one hand, and the Tawteen discourse on the other, the rights-based and entitlement approach for the Palestinians as individuals and collectives, as refugees but also as citizen-refugees with civil and economic rights, as well as the right to the city, is lost.

Accounts from Palestinian camp dwellers in Lebanon show that they refer to themselves as the “forgotten people”, feeling that they live in a hostile environment where basic human rights, including the right to work, have no effective means of representation or protection.

The part about how naturalization is strongly rejected by Lebanese Palestinians is a lie, as I have documented that every time a loophole opened up in Lebanese naturalization laws to allow Palestinian Arabs to become citizens, tens of thousands of them rushed to do so. Not only that, but the authors know it to be a lie because they mention one of those circumstances in footnote 18, saying "There were supposedly at least 25,000 Palestinians, the majority Christian, among those who received Lebanese citizenship in 1994. S. Haddad, “Sectarian Attitudes as a Function of the Palestinian Presence in Lebanon,” Arab Studies Quarterly 22 (2000), pp.81-100)"

Even with its flaws, this document is important in that it details exactly how there is endemic discrimination against Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon and the horrid results.

Yet I cannot find any UNRWA press release that summarizes the findings or any public calls to action.

It is almost like UNRWA wants to bury this report for fear of making waves. They only mentioned it peripherally as part of a list of January accomplishments but it never received its own press release, very strange for a report of over 100 pages.

(The paper indirectly damns the Palestinian Authority for not doing something about Palestinian Arabs in camps in the West Bank. It points out that only in the West Bank and Lebanon is there a significant difference in poverty rates between PalArabs living in the camps and living outside, and it attributes this to the fact that only in Lebanon and under the PA are the camps "closed" and not integrated with surrounding towns. This is not the case in Syria and Jordan, where the camps are more like suburbs. In Lebanon, of course, there is also societal discrimination against Palestinian Arabs which partially account for their unemployment and therefore poverty, but the idea that the PA is keeping the Palestinian Arabs who are in camps on a lower social status is something that requires further study - and UNRWA sure won't do it.)

Today's Jew-hatred courtesy of Google News and Veterans Today

At this time, the most anti-semitic site (by far) that is indexed on Google News is called "Veterans Today." (Sorry, I won't link to this trash. But it is easy enough to find.)

Here's a taste of today's entry:

The uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen are the inevitable results of the J-factor, which destroys everything. As I was told by a Saudi army general many years ago, all Arab countries are secretly controlled by Israel, including his own. (I hadn’t known back then that the Saudi “royal family” are themselves descendants of converts to Islam from Judaism and my partner didn’t tell me.) It is Jewish control of Arab countries that was the exact reason the Russian Jews were forced into the region following WWI: to destabilize Arabs and eventually control their huge oil resources....

The word “Jew” has become just as odious in the public mind as “kike,” and just as taboo. Jews dislike the use of the word by non-Jews. Jews behave as if they are guilty of something and try to avoid being named in public what they are. They prefer to be called “Jewish,” and that word itself should be spoken softly and reverently. Gentiles, not wishing to offend, obliged them for several decades after World War II for only one reason, and that was the Holocaust (the H-factor). The Jewish position was, if you use the word “Jew” or are disrespectful to us in any way, we assume you harbor sympathies with what the Nazis of Germany did to us. Disrespect would be in tying us to organized crime or to Communism or to any form of disloyalty.

Just as we used to do with the previous record holder of anti-semitism on Google News (The People's Voice) it is time to complain to Google about this site.

The offensive URL is http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/01/31/76001/ .

Hamas has no problem with movie theatres. Well, maybe a little.

From Ma'an Arabic:

The Minister of Culture in Gaza, Dr. Osama al-Issawi, said that his ministry does not have any objection to the reopening of cinemas in the Gaza Strip, pointing out that there has not been any application to the Ministry to open one so far.

Al-Issawi said in a press statement, "We believe that art is part of the basis of any society, and we encourage arts festivals and special film festivals. We do not have any objection to the reopening of any cinemas."

Then comes the but...

He stressed that [any cinema] should be under the monitoring and control of his ministry to maintain the customs and morals and traditions of Palestinian society.

Which means that al-Issawi wants all movies to be shown in Gaza to look like this classic:

All of Gaza's movie theatres closed in 1987 during the first intifada, and many were burned down.

The Muslim Brotherhood, 1948 (John Roy Carlson)

Last July I linked to some writings by the amazing John Roy Carlson. (Unfortunately, the Google Books link no longer shows large portions of the book I screen-captured.)

Here is a description of the "Moslem Brotherhood" in Egypt that Carlson wrote in 1948, published in the Palestine Post, as part of a larger article about Egypt altogether.

The article goes on to describe Al Azhar University, and ends with the ominous and prophetic words, "The Jew, if left to his own resources in Egypt, is doomed to pogrom and persecution."

The most popular post in my blog over the past few days has not been one of my new posts, but a post from September.

The people viewing that post are finding it from a Google image search for "ElBaradei daughter." (And Google's algorithm for guessing search terms shows that a lot of people are also searching for "ElBaradei daughter swimsuit.")

The September post mentioned that Mohamemd El-Baradei was complaining that Egyptian media was trying to discredit him by publishing pictures of his daughter in a swimsuit and apparently drinking alcohol.

I cannot say why so many people are now doing searches for this image. Is it Muslim Brotherhood supporters who do not want to partner with El Baradei? Is it from El Baradei supporters who want to to discredit the MB? Is it from Mubarak supporters trying to tarnish El Baradei's reputation? I cannot really tell; most of the searches seem to be coming from Europe with a high percentage from German Google.

Headlines from Egyptian media

Tahrir Square protesters say they plan to march Friday to the presidential palace in Heliopolis unless the army makes its stance clear.

Youth-led groups issued a statement calling for all Egyptians to march on the palace, the People's Assembly and the television building, in what they are calling the "Friday of Departure."

They say the army must choose which side they are on: That of the people, or the regime.
---
Al Jazeera reports that six of its reporters have been arrested in Cairo.

The Egyptian government on Sunday forced Al Jazeera's Cairo offices to close and suspended its correspondents' accreditations.

The reporters, who were arrested from their hotel rooms, believe they were arrested on the pretext of reporting without permission.

Dan Nolan, one of the reporters arrested, tweeted that he was being held at an army checkpoint outside the Hilton hotel in Cairo.
---
250,000 protesters in Tahrir Square today, including thousands from trade unions.
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Egyptian actor Omar Sharif calls on Mubarak to step down.
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Egypt stopped all its rail services today. Speculation is that part of the reason is to stop escaping prisoners from getting too far....or perhaps to limit the number of people who can attend the major demonstrations.

Whew!

In the first round of the Pro-Israel Blog Off contest, I had chosen a cartoon to compete against articles by my competition, especially an excellent article called Zionist Football by Life Through My Eyes.

Part of my strategy was based on knowing that one of the judges was Yaakov Kirschen, the cartoonist who makes Dry Bones. (Who is not only brilliant but handsome too, just like the other wise and impartial judges. :) )

In the reader votes, which make up 35% of the total score, I was trounced by 20 percentage points. So I spent much of the week wondering if I'd even make it to the second round.

But the judges liked my entry best, and I ended up winning the round.

This week you can vote on the second part of the first round, with three great blogs competing: CiFWatch, Huffington Post Monitor and Divest This!

Morning links

Here is a great interview with Michael Oren from The Daily Caller.

Israel released a video showing that a Jewish resident of the territories shot a Palestinian Arab youth only after repeatedly being stoned by him.

No More Lies shows that while some Egyptian protesters seem to want genuine democracy, others seem to be motivated by hate for Israel.

Bicom analyzed the "Palestine Papers" released so far, and - surprise! - came up with the same conclusions I did, that Al Jazeera and the Guardian are misrepresenting the published materials.

Challah Hu Akbar sums up an interesting story where J Street falsely claimed to be going on a Birthright trip. Some branches still have the lies on their websites.

Iran is claiming to have caught spies based on the website meant to find information about missing Israeli soldier Ron Arad.

Amnesty supports a confessed Hezbollah spy

From TheJC:

Amnesty International has put out a Press Notice "urging the Israeli authorities to end their harassment of Palestinian human rights activists" "after a veteran Palestinian campaigner was jailed for nine years earlier today and given an additional one-year suspended sentence. Ameer Makhoul, a longstanding Palestinian activist, was convicted on various counts of having contact with enemies of Israel and espionage after a plea bargain agreement at his trial. He was originally charged with an even more serious offense, "assisting an enemy in war", which could have carried a life sentence, but that was dropped by the prosecution when he agreed to a plea bargain."

........

"Ameer Makhoul is well known for his human rights activism on behalf of Palestinians in Israel and those living under Israeli occupation. We fear that this may be the underlying reason for his imprisonment."

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/digest_info.php?id=3112#head

The truth is here: "On October 27, 2010 Haaretz reported that Ameer Makhoul, the director of Israeli-Arab NGO Ittijah, “confess[ed] to charges of spying, contact with a foreign agent and giving information to the enemy.” Makhoul, as head of Ittijah, has a background of anti-Israel activities characterized by demonisation and hate rhetoric. For example, an Ittijah email during the Gaza war claimed, “the IDF is turning Gaza into kind of an extermination camp, in the full sense of the word and with the full historical relativity.”

Amnesty International in London has had a succession of Israel-bashing speakers such as Ben White. I have offered them Ruvi Ziegler - an Israeli lawyer studying in Oxford who is an expert on the security fence - but they have stonewalled.

Shame on Amnesty International for its Israel-bashing biased agenda.

A Hebrew article shows that he passed on the names of six potential spies for Hezbollah as well as other information that was encrypted - showing that he had something to hide in his "innocent contacts."

But when someone hates Israel and pretends to care about "human rights," it appears that Amnesty will automatically side with him, no matter who it is.

The other "Palestine Papers" from AFP: Did Obama harden the Palestinian Arab position?

From AFP:

Palestinian delegates to 2010 peace talks rejected out of hand Israel's demand to hold on to swathes of West Bank settlements, documents given to AFP on Saturday show.

A discussion paper prepared by the Palestinian side and made available to AFP on condition of anonymity challenges the Israeli assumption that the large blocs of adjacent enclaves where most settlers live would be annexed to Israel in a deal to set up an independent Palestinian state.

The document, dated May 2010, also shoots down a reported Israeli proposal that the Palestinian state take over some Arab villages currently within Israel in exchange.

"We will not entertain swapping Palestinians on either side of the 1967 border," it said.

"Nor will we engage in land swap discussions that use so-called settlement blocs as the point of reference, let alone accept such areas' wholesale annexation."

The document was one of several given to AFP in the wake of publication of documents by television channel Al-Jazeera, which purported to show Palestinian officials prepared to make sweeping concessions to Israel at talks in September 2010.

They restate long-standing Palestinian positions on the sensitive issues of Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees who fled after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

The files released by Al-Jazeera contain minutes of discussions between Israel, the United States and Palestinians, in which Palestinian negotiators offered to cede large parts of east Jerusalem to the Jewish state and conceded that only limited numbers of Palestinian refugees would be able to return home.

The documents obtained by AFP on Saturday say that "The Palestinian state must include adequate land within east Jerusalem for the city's own growth and development. East Jerusalem must also have meaningful territorial, economic and other links with the rest of Palestine."

The papers all carry the disclaimer: "This paper is for discussion purposes only, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."

AFP is not making a copy of this paper available, as far as I can tell, so we have no idea whether the AFP papers aretalking points for before a meeting or minutes of the meeting afterwards, who the meeting was with (in May 2010 there were no peace talks going on, they only happened in September) and, of course, who leaked them.

But if we are to assume that the specific content of both Al Jazeera's and AFP's papers are true (forgetting the context and spin that Al Jazeera and the Guardian have given in misinterpreting the papers) then we can come to some interesting conclusions.

It shows that the Palestinian Arab negotiators were not nearly as serious about reaching an agreement in 2010 as they were in 2008.

Now, what changed between those two dates?

There was a new Israeli government - and there was a new American administration.

Abbas became far more intransigent since Obama entered the White House because he could hardly act more flexible than the most powerful man on Earth was.

And almost certainly this AFP paper was for talks with America, not Israel. While it is difficult to know what Israeli peace proposals were at the time, we can safely assume that they still involved significant concessions if only because Netanyahu has repeated the mantra of "painful compromises for peace" - if he wasn't prepared to offer concessions, it makes no political sense to tell his supporters that they are coming.

Which indicates that it was the White House's actions that hardened the PLO's positions. Certainly it is what caused them to adopt a new strategy adding preconditions before peace talks could resume.

If these papers are true, (which is a big "if,") then the inescapable conclusion is that Obama's initial policy of leaning towards the Palestinian Arab position and publicly pressuring only Israel made peace a far more remote possibility than in was under the Bush administration.