I've been thinking a bit about BDS lately. I started reading a book about BDS on campus by Andrew Pessin and Doron Ben-Atar and I gave a vehement rebuttal to those who believe that boycotting Israel is somehow related to justice for Palestinians.
.Over the weekend my thoughts distilled into this simple and accurate message which I tweeted:
In liberal circles, there is nothing more heinous that a hate group. And the FBI as well as other organizations define discriminating against Israelis as hate.
A hate group is a social group that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, nation, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other designated sector of society. According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a hate group's "primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization."
The Southern Poverty Law Center defines hate groups as those that "... have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."
Any group that supports BDS goals that Israelis, no matter what political stripe, must be boycotted, is by every definition a hate group. One doesn't need to get into the argument of whether it is antisemitism or not - BDS by its own words fit the definition of a hate group against citizens and institutions that happen to be located in Israel.
The idea that BDS equals hate is a message that needs to be repeated over and over again, much the same way BDS itself repeats that Israel is an apartheid state. In this case, however, the statement is true.
A simple look at how unhinged the BDSers get when, say, an Israeli wins a song competition, shows that the movement has nothing to do with helping Palestinians and everything to do with lunatic, deep seated hate.
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The Forward recently published two fascinating articles on
Syria. Both articles are fairly long and include a lot of very interesting
information that isn’t easily available elsewhere, but the two pieces are also
noteworthy because they were written by Elizabeth Tsurkov,
an Israeli with (far-)left views who can’t have found it easy to write what she
did.
I think it’s worthwhile to mark some highlights – not least
because the articles also show that this are not the best of times for people
like Ali Abunimah, who make their living demonizing Israel.
The more recent of the two columns has the straightforward title
“The Left Only Cares About Palestinians When It Can Blame Israel” – which is of
course something we all have been saying for a long time. But I think it’s
still amazing to finally hear it from the far-left.
In the opening paragraphs, Tsurkov describes the devastation
recently visited on the Palestinian Yarmouk “refugee” camp near Damascus, and
when you read it, you immediately realize that if anything even remotely
similar was done by Israel in Gaza, the global media would cover it non-stop as
top news.
Just consider this one sentence: “The airstrikes and
shelling have not stopped for two weeks, preventing rescuers from retrieving
the rotting corpses.”
I haven’t done a scientific study, but I’m pretty sure that
the global media were much more interested in Israel’s efforts to prevent
Palestinian rioters from breaching the border fence in Gaza than in what
happened at the Yarmouk camp.
It’s always the same old story: #NoJewsNoNews – and the
title of the piece should perhaps have been: “The Left And The Media Only Care
About Palestinians When They Can Blame Israel.”
To her credit, Tsurkov highlights the hypocrisy of activists
very clearly [my emphasis]:
“The silence surrounding the
brutalization of an entire Palestinian population exposes something few have
spoken about: that pro-Palestinian sentiment is often just anti-Israel or
anti-American sentiment dressed up in disguise. And when it comes to
Syria’s starving, dying Palestinian population, the pro-Palestine left is
nowhere to be seen.”
“It’s a glaring double-standard:
When Palestinians in Gaza endure Israeli airstrikes and a decade-long blockade,
their suffering galvanizes mass protests in Western capitals. When Palestinians
in Syria and Syrians are being bombed and starved, the anti-Imperialist Left
either goes silent, or even worse, stands on the side of the oppressor.”
“’There are no ‘Pro-Palestine’
people. They don’t exist,’ a Palestinian Syrian from Daraa, whose family was
displaced from Haifa during the 1948 war, told me. ‘We Palestinians of Syria
have been killed, tortured, bombed, and displaced by the Assad regime and we’ve
had no support from the so-called ‘pro-Palestine activists’ whatsoever ….We
happen to be the wrong Palestinians!’”
Tsurkov’s other piece has the title
“How Israel Won Over The Syrian People” – which is overstating it considerably.
Yet, it’s a fascinating piece that opens with the reactions to an Amnesty
International video about Ahed Tamimi on a popular Syrian news group on
Facebook. As Tsurkov puts it: “most of the group’s members — all of them Syrian
— reacted dismissively.”
One apparently typical comment was: “If the Syrian army was
like the Israeli army, no one [i.e. no Syrian] would have been displaced from
their home …If [Tamimi] had raised her head in front of a Syrian soldier, he
would have field executed her.”
Another fascinating story told by Tsurkov is this:
“On April 17, 2018, when
Palestinians mark Prisoner’s Day, a popular Syrian opposition website decided
to mark the occasion by posting an infographic comparing Israeli prisons and
those of the Assad regime.
The infographic shows that while
7,000 Palestinians are incarcerated in Israel, 220,000 Syrians are held in
regime detention facilities. According to the infographic, 210 Palestinians
have died in Israeli prisons since 1967, while 65,000 Syrians have died in
regime detention over the past seven years.”
According to Tsurkov, the remarkable shift in attitudes towards
Israel is largely due to the humanitarian assistance and medical treatment
Israel has provided to Syrians. However, as Tsurkov emphasizes, Syrians also
changed their views because of Israeli strikes on the Assad regime and on
Hezbollah and Iranian targets in Syria. Even though most Syrians who oppose
Assad understand that Israeli strikes are conducted according to Israel’s interests,
“they are still pleased to see the regime and its allies humiliated and
diminished.”
What I found most amazing is that according to Tsurkov,
Israeli strikes “are seen as such a morale boost that opposition media activists
and journalists have, at times, knowingly spread fake news about them to lift
the spirits of the opposition that has suffered one loss after another since
the Russian intervention in late 2015.”
Another important point I was not really aware of is that Syrian
opposition supporters have apparently increasingly negative views of
Palestinians, because
“all but one Palestinian armed
group [in Syria] have fought on the side of the regime as auxiliary militias.
These Palestinian pro-regime militias are responsible for grave human rights
violations, including the siege of the Palestinian Yarmouk camp south of
Damascus by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command,
which resulted in the death by starvation of dozens of people. Liwaa’ al-Quds
(“the Jerusalem Brigade”) is infamous for its abuses of civilians, looting and
war-profiteering in regime-controlled areas such as Aleppo city and eastern
Ghouta.”
Yet, one should not underestimate the effects of decades of
indoctrination. As Tsurkov points out towards the end, “even Syrians expressing
admiration for Israel are quick to believe conspiracy theories about its
motivations, plans and actions.”
She also relates that during a research trip to southern
Turkey, she “was peppered with questions from activists, rebel and community
leaders about why Israel supports the Assad regime and prevents his removal.
Although no evidence exists publicly to support this claim, many pro-opposition
Syrians believe that Israel convinced the Obama administration to keep Assad in
power because Assad kept the border quiet with Israel, despite the occupation
of the Golan.”
Isn’t it truly depressing to think that there are people who
blame Israel for Obama’s eagerness to appease the mullahs by letting them have
their way in Syria so that he would get his Iran deal?
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The media coverage of terror group Hamas’ deliberately-crafted border assault on Israel has been egregious: from CNN to MSNBC to The New York Times, mainstream outlets have acted as propaganda vehicles for one of the worst regimes on the planet. Hamas has spent weeks ginning up attacks on the border with the Gaza Strip — an area completely controlled by Hamas, which was elected to power in 2006 after Israel’s withdrawal from the area — and yet the media treat Israel as the aggressor.
That’s insane.
Here’s the proof.
First, meet senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahhar.
He explains openly on Al Jazeera (translation via MEMRI):
When you are in possession of weapons that were able to withstand the occupation in the wars of 2006, 2008, 2012, and 2014, when you have weapons that are being wielded by men who were able to prevent the strongest army in the region from entering the Gaza Strip for 51 days, and were able to capture or kill soldiers of that army is this really ‘peaceful resistance’? This is not peaceful resistance. Has the option [of armed struggle] diminished? No. On the contrary, it is growing and developing. … So when we talk about peaceful resistance, we are deceiving the public. This is peaceful resistance bolstered by a military force and by security agencies and enjoying tremendous popular support. … This deception does not fool the Palestinian public.
Senior Hamas Official Mahmoud Al-Zahhar on Gaza Protests: This Is Not Peaceful Resistance, It Is Supported by Our Weapons pic.twitter.com/aut0Q7SPD9
On Tuesday, the New York Daily News ran with another of its desperate appeals for circulation. This time, it blamed Ivanka Trump for Hamas-generated violence in the Gaza Strip.
The cover featured a grinning Ivanka, dressed to the nines, at the inauguration of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. But instead of her gesturing to the placard featured on the new embassy, the Daily News photoshopped in a photo of a wounded Palestinian on the Gaza border — so now Ivanka was gesturing at Palestinian suffering, a smile spread broadly across her face. The headline: “DADDY’S LITTLE GHOUL.”
This is absolutely abhorrent. It’s also reflective of the media coverage of both the Trump administration and Israel overall. The media have been repeating Hamas propaganda — and, presumably, they know it. They’ve been claiming that Israel is killing “protesters,” even though these are Hamas-led riots. They’ve been claiming that Israel has been targeting civilians, when it is clear this is not the case. And now they’re claiming that the Trump administration is to blame. The Washington Post headlined, “Israelis kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza protesting U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem.”
The violence in the Gaza Strip has been ongoing for weeks, and has been entirely orchestrated by Hamas. Palestinians, including Hamas terrorists, have been throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli troops, as well as explosive devices and stones; they’ve been burning tires and attempting to cut through the border fence with wirecutters. The Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Ronen Manelis, says Hamas is paying families to protest, and that they have intelligence that Hamas seeks to kidnap an Israeli soldier.
Col. Kemp: "IDF is defending border as UK or any other soldiers would"
The media is a knowing accomplice in helping a terrorist group push out its propaganda.
Here is a delightful video of one of those peaceful Palestinians caught on camera walking with crutches to the Israeli border fence. Miracle of miracles, he suddenly walks just fine.
There are lots of people accusing the media of falling for Hamas propaganda. Obviously, several dozen people lost their lives as they tried to storm through the Israeli border with the stated purpose of making their way to Jerusalem to disrupt the opening of the American embassy. And obviously they died because Israeli soldiers shot them. And obviously the media is making a big deal of this.
But no, the media is not falling for propaganda. The media has gone into this as a willful, knowing accomplice with Hamas, a terrorist group. The media has gotten played so much, the media knows exactly what is happening and the media is allowing it to happen. Many of those killed turned out to be directly working with Hamas, a terrorist group. It was that terrorist group that organized the storming of the border knowing people would get killed. It is the media passing by this story suggesting Israel has no other choice but to let people storm its border and oppose an embassy the media itself has a subtle editorial bias against.
There is no campaign to fool the media here. The campaign was waged long ago to get the media on the side of the Palestinians and their terrorist allies. Ever since, the media has just been doing their bidding.
Hamas isn’t merely a terrorist organization committed to murdering Jews, it’s a terrorist organization that urges its own people to become cannon fodder as a means of appealing to Western journalists and intellectuals. The higher the death toll, the happier Hamas will be. And few things have more of a detrimental effect on the Palestinian cause than the media’s asymmetrical coverage of this conflict with the Jews.
Until Palestinians shed their hatred, turn from the Israeli fences, and march towards their own governments, they will remain pawns and saps in a decades-long suicide mission. That’s because no amount of bad press about Israel’s efforts to stop violence coming from Gaza will impel that nation to create a terror state on its borders. It’s untenable, not to mention immoral. We would never contemplate such a thing. Nor would any rational country.
Despite what you’ve heard, the 35,000 Palestinian “demonstrators” massed along the security fence between Israel and Gaza — the ones throwing firebombs and other explosives, burning tires, chucking rocks (if you think these are aren’t deadly, you should see one landing; I have), and those attempting to light fires to burn crops and vegetation — are only ostensibly protesting the United States moving its embassy to Israel’s capital. I know this because Hamas doesn’t accept a U.S. embassy anywhere in Israel, as it doesn’t recognize Israel at all.
Hamas has openly asserted that it’s attempting to create incursions into Israel, and that has absolutely nothing to do with East or West or North or South Jerusalem. For Palestinians this is about the 70th anniversary of Israel — or, as they see it, Nakba. It’s about an ongoing historic effort — an intermittently theocratic or nationalistic effort, depending on the trends — to play victim.
Amid Antisemitic and "Death to Israel" Chants, Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh Vows: We Shall Never Recognize Israel - Scenes from Gaza "Return March" pic.twitter.com/4D8Ko06CVA
The Israeli NGO Gisha, which is dedicated to helping Gazans have "freedom of movement," published a "Frequently Asked Questions" document about the weekly riots at the Gaza border.
What precipitated the current wave of protests in Gaza?
To promote a better understanding of the situation in Gaza, one that goes beyond the provocative, but reductive explanations making headlines in recent weeks, we have compiled key elements of Gisha’s research and professional analysis so as to provide answers to some frequently asked questions about the Gaza Strip.
The weekly demonstrations are called by their organizers the "Great Return March." They make it explicitly clear that the point of the riots is to storm the Gaza fence and enter Israel en masse, in an attempt to publicize the Palestinian "Right of Return" and flood Israel with millions of Palestinians, destroying the Jewish state.
Yet this joke of an NGO does not mention a word about this. Even the name of the riots, "Great Return March," is somehow missing in this "professional analysis.
No, the only reason that the "researchers" at Gisha can find for the riots is - Israeli restrictions on Gaza.
For more than 10 years, residents of Gaza have lived under excessively harsh restrictions on movement implemented through Israel’s closure of the Strip’s land, sea and air space.
Gisha answers the question of "What precipitated the current wave of protests in Gaza?" by taking pains not to mention what the protests are about. The explicit demands of the organizers, and of their Hamas sponsors, are not mentioned:
Regardless of the political affiliation of the protestors, who organized the protest, or the agenda they wish to promote, international law prohibits the use of lethal force against civilians unless they participate directly in acts of hostility or pose a concrete risk to life, and even then, only as a last resort and only to the extent necessary to alleviate the risk
This is not only deceptive - it is demeaning to Palestinians .The very group that claims to want to improve the lives of Gazans is telling their Western audience not to listen to what Gazans themselves say about the protests, but only listen to their own spin. The message being given is that Gazans cannot be trusted to define their own feelings and motivations. The good people at Gisha know Gazans better than Gazans know themselves, and letting Palestinians explain their own point of view would just muddy the crystal-clear anti-Israel waters that Gisha is trying to create.
It is NGO-splaining.
The rest of this document that blames Israel, and only Israel, descends into farce at times. In answer to the question "Why does Gisha place responsibility on Israel and not on Hamas?", after saying how horrible Israel is, it allows that
Hamas, as the de facto government and also as a party to conflict, is subject to international humanitarian and human rights law as well. Its violations of these do not relieve Israel of its obligations.
Which means that this is another question that Gisha raises and does not answer in its own FAQ. If they know that Hamas has the legal obligation towards its own people, then why doesn't Gisha write anything negative about Hamas (unless shamed into it?)
It also blames Israel, and only Israel, for the PLO's decision to block electricity and fuel to Gaza. Why should a FAQ actually mention any facts?
The FAQ goes on to reluctantly mention that Gaza has a border with Egypt that is almost always closed, but it doesn't demand that Egypt do anything, just as it doesn't demand anything of Hamas.
Only Israel is the blame for violent riots that are explicit calls to overrun Israeli territory. That's Gisha's position, and facts are inconvenient things to be swatted away.
I have a question for Gisha to answer in their next FAQ: Why are you afraid to mention the truth about Gaza? The answer, of course, is that their European funders aren't interested in facts or nuance, but in blaming Israel.
That's where the money is.
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The one on the right is Ahmed Adel Mousa Al-Shaer, who was 16 years old. Yes, at least one of the "children" killed yesterday was a member of a terror group.
Here we have photographic evidence that Gaza terror groups recruit children for terror. And that terror groups are hiding in the middle of the protests to prepare acts of terror.
And that Israel isn't killing people randomly.
Which means - more evidence that the media will ignore.
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The Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry said Tuesday morning that a baby was among those killed during violent border clashes along the territory’s border with Israel the previous day, bringing the overall death toll in the day’s bloody events to 58.
The baby died from inhaling tear gas fired at Palestinian protesters, the health ministry said.
Eight-month-old Leila al-Ghandour was exposed to gas fired by Israeli forces east of Gaza City, it said. It was not immediately clear how close to the border fence Ghandour and her family were.
It is entirely possible that Leila died from some other cause and the Hamas-run Health Ministry blamed Israeli actions because Hamas has been desperate to find a child to die at the protests that they can turn into another Mohammed al-Dura. Palestinians know the propaganda value of a dead child, mentioning their names constantly in articles and speeches years after their deaths, while you won't find Israeli leaders and media nowadays mentioning Shalhevet Pass, also eight months old, deliberately murdered in 2001 by a sniper's gunshot to her head while in her baby carriage.
(UPDATE: My conjecture may indeed be true, according to AP.)
A Gaza health official cast doubt Tuesday on initial claims that an 8-month-old baby died from Israeli tear gas fired during mass protests on the Gaza border with Israel.A Gazan doctor told the Associated Press that the baby, Layla Ghandour, had a preexisting medical condition and that he did not believe her death was caused by tear gas. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to disclose medical information to the media.
Assuming the baby indeed died from inhalation of tear gas, though, the fault is entirely Hamas - and her parents.
Who would knowingly take a baby to a war zone where hundreds of people have already been shot?
Who would knowingly take a baby to a place where one knows with 100% certainty that there will be tear gas?
Parents in the US are worried about when to first expose their children to cow's milk and peanuts (and even water!) at that age. At least one set of Gaza parents enthusiastically bring their baby to be exposed to tear gas.
No one in their right mind -not Amnesty, not the EU - can blame Israel for using tear gas to keep people away from its border.
If anyone is to blame for this child's alleged death from tear gas, it is her parents.
Somehow, it seems certain that the narrative from the media will be far different. I doubt that any Western media outlet will say a negative word about the reckless parents - parents whose actions are every bit as reprehensible as those locking their kids in hot cars on a summer day. Such sick parenting is given a pass - because the West expects Palestinians to act like animals, and therefore when they reach that level there is no outrage.
This is a sick society and a sick media that enables it.
Meanwhile, last Friday Palestinians - with Hamas encouragement - attacked the main border crossing for goods into Gaza and burned the pipelines that bring fuel into Gaza along with conveyor belts and other infrastructure.
Just after 6:00 p.m. Friday at the tail end of that day’s mass “March of Return” protest, a group of some 200 Palestinians broke into the Gaza side of the crossing and set fire to the Strip’s only fuel terminal and a conveyor belt used for raw construction materials. Two conveyor belts which brought animal feed into Gaza were also wrecked, according to the deputy director of the crossing.
“The people who came to Kerem Shalom and destroyed the crossing, they didn’t go there by themselves. We know that Hamas sent them,” said the COGAT officer in a conference room in the Gaza Division’s headquarters in Re’im.
The official said that during the attack on Kerem Shalom, Israeli officials watched as rioters ran back and forth between the crossing and a Hamas position a few hundred meters away.
“Then we saw about 10 Hamas people standing at the gates of Kerem Shalom,” he said.
According to the officer, the Hamas members were wearing civilian clothes but directed the events with walkie-talkies, “giving orders — what to do, where to go.”
Israel's response?
A senior officer in the Israeli military’s liaison unit to the Palestinians told reporters on Sunday, "Me and my commanders are breaking our heads trying to figure out how to get medicine into Gaza."
Israel is trying to save lives in Gaza. Hamas is trying to end them.
Everyone with a brain can see this - but the media simply will not put it in those terms, instead implying that Israel is gleefully shooting unarmed Gaza protesters. And people are believing it because few media outlets have the guts to actually tell it like it is.
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Ma'an reports that the committee behind the Gaza riots has decided not to finish them on Tuesday, as originally planned, but to extend them to June 5, the anniversary of Jerusalem's reunification.
The High Coordination Committee for the March of the Return says that the riots will continue as they have been, especially on Fridays.
This committee is the one that called for a general strike in Gaza on Monday and Tuesday, so it must be linked with Hamas or else no one would have listened.
By wanting to have the riots continue, clearly Hamas likes how well they are going.
Meaning that Hamas wants to see more people die.
In the cynical world Hamas lives in, people being shot is a small price to pay for a day of negative media coverage of Israel.
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Fifty-two Palestinians were killed Monday in violent clashes with Israeli forces along the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel, Palestinians said, in a burst of bloodshed that cast a cloud over Israel’s festive inauguration of the new US Embassy in Jerusalem.
It was the deadliest day in Gaza since the devastating cross-border war between the territory’s Hamas rulers and Israel in 2014.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said 52 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,2000 were wounded in the violence, amid the biggest riots and rallies in a weeks-long campaign of protests against Israel.
The Israeli army said around 50,000 Gazans were demonstrating in 12 locations along the border. It said thousands more were gathered at points several hundred meters from the fence.
At around 4 p.m., the time that the US was inaugurating its embassy in Jerusalem, military sources said Hamas-spurred groups were trying to breach the border at several spots along the Gaza fence.
The army said three of those killed were trying to plant explosives at the border fence. In two separate incidents, IDF troops opened fire on gunmen who were trying to shoot them, Hadashot TV said.
The army also said aircraft struck a Hamas post after gunmen there opened fire on troops. There were no injuries among the soldiers. Reports said the IAF also struck five targets in the Jabaliya area.
Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops on the outskirts of Jerusalem and in other locations in the West Bank Monday in the hours leading up to the dedication ceremony for the new US Embassy in the capital.
In addition to protesting the embassy move, Palestinians were marking the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” of Israel’s creation in 1948.
The rioting came as dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces during violent protests on the Israel-Gaza border, among them several terror operatives.
At the Qalandiya crossing, north of Jerusalem, hundreds were marching and throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, who responded with firing live bullets, tear gas and rubber-coated steel pellets. A second clash was reported between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and there were further protests in the West Bank city of Hebron. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Israeli military aircraft dropped leaflets over the Gaza Strip early Monday morning warning Palestinians to keep away from the fence separating the coastal enclave from Israel, the IDF said, ahead of mass demonstrations slated for later in the day.
“A few minutes ago, IDF jets once again distributed leaflets warning against approaching the security fence, attempting to sabotage it or to carry out terror attacks,” the army’s spokesperson office tweeted.
The Arabic leaflets also told residents of the coastal enclave that the Hamas terror group which rules the strip was endangering their lives.
“Hamas is trying to hide its many failures by endangering your lives,” the leaflets said. “At the same time, Hamas is stealing your money and using it to dig tunnels at your expense.”
One leaflet urged residents, “Don’t be puppets in the hands of Hamas.”
The message from Israel was that the people of Gaza deserve better.
“You deserve a better government and a better future,” the leaflets read. “The IDF is warning you against approaching the security fence.”
The last line was a strong warning to keep away from the border. “Do not approach the security fence and do not participate in Hamas’s life-threatening farce,” the army said.
A few years back, I talked about
a branch of philosophy called Pragmatism, the only major philosophical school
of thought to cross from the US to Europe, in the context of this analysis of Saul
Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. Quoting (briefly) from that piece:
“by ‘pragmatic,’ I don’t just mean ‘practical.’
For according to the cornerstone principle of Pragmatism (the so-called ‘Pragmatist Maxim),
reality itself is defined, and thus changeable, by human action in the real
world.
… consider a canonical example of Pragmatic
thinking: why a knife should be considered sharp. According to the
Pragmatist, the knife is sharp NOT because it possesses (or partakes in) some
metaphysical form of “sharpness,” nor because the notion of sharpness can be
measured empirically (through some combination of blade width and hardness, for
example). Rather, a knife is sharp because any rational person seeing one
sitting next to a stick of butter would use the knife to cut the butter, rather
than vice versa. And an irrational person who tried to do the opposite
would necessarily fail.”
While many aspects of reality are dictated by
things beyond human agency (the existence of the sun and mortality, for
example), not everything falls into this category. As just mentioned “sharpness” might not be an
actual thing without the act of human beings interacting with objects in the
world. Similarly, human political agency
creates, rather than just describes,
things and the meaning behind them.
As a simple example, those of you who dislike
manufactured pop music as much as I probably consider the Eurovision Song
Contest (presuming you consider it at all) as a punchline or musical freak show. And, as proud as I am of the Jewish state’s
many, many accomplishments, the victory of a
chicken-warbling circus act at Eurovision ’18 would normally not get onto my shortlist of Israeli gifts to the
world.
But once BDS got into the act, spreading their
bile throughout the Interwebs in hope that they could rally the world to vote
down Netta – Israel’s ultimately successful entrant into this year’s Eurovision
contest – suddenly Eurovision became something it wasn’t before: a global
political referendum on the Jewish state’s place in the world.
Keep in mind that this was not what Eurovision
was created to be, nor were the performers – including Netta – interested in
turning the event into a global vote for or against the their countries. But by making votes against Netta a political act of condemnation, BDS simultaneously
(if inadvertently) turned votes for
her into a political act of support.
Moving onto a more serious example, think about
the impending opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem. Under normal circumstances, this would be an
unremarkable event, one that should have occurred decades ago.
For as long nations have established diplomatic
ties, the location of embassies was not even a point of discussion. If you want to establish diplomatic presence
in the US, the UK or France, for example, your only option would be to build an
embassy in Washington, London or Paris.
The same rule applies to every other state in the world, large and
small: you build your embassy in the other guy’s capital.
But because this normal situation was denied in
one special case, the idea of opening or not opening an embassy in Jerusalem city
became more and more politically significant with each passing year.
If Israel’s foes had not raised this price sky
high, building or moving an embassy in Jerusalem would be as un-newsworthy as
every routine embassy opening in the world.
But this decades-long denial of Israel’s legitimate rights turned the
final, reasonable, and appropriate acceptance of those rights into a new game-changing,
Pragmatic reality.
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Don’t. Just don’t. Sometimes kindly meant words are the worst.
On May 8th Trump pulled out of the disastrous Iran Deal. Almost immediately afterwards Israeli citizens were warned that there would likely be an attack from Iranians based in Syria and communities in the Golan were instructed to make sure their bomb shelters were open.
And they did attack, shooting 20 large missiles at Israel. Thankfully not a single one hit their target and instead the IAF wiped out much of the Iranian infrastructure in Syria in the largest operation in Syria in 40 years. The perfection of the military maneuver, brilliantly timed with the preceding diplomatic efforts was nothing short of stunning.
But I digress.
As soon as friends abroad heard about the instructions to open bomb shelters messages started pouring in saying “stay safe”, speaking of the threat Israelis face with missiles pointed at us.
Kind, caring people, genuinely concerned and yet very annoying.
It took me a while to figure out my reaction. Why should these well intended words grate on my nerves so much? Is it the word “safe” or possibly the word “stay”? One assumes that safety is possible in the reality we live in. The other assumes that we have been safe and can remain so. Both assumptions are completely disconnected from our reality.
I think that’s what aggravated me.
No one seems to understand the tightrope we walk. Either people see Israel as a completely normal country whose citizens live privileged lives or as a dangerous war zone of constant fear and horror. Neither is true. BOTH are true and that is a reality too complicated for most people to comprehend.
We don’t fit in the boxes that suite other people. We are a category unto ourselves.
Israelis live in the shadow of existential threat every single day. We raise kids and go on picnics with our families. We create beautiful art and world changing inventions that improve every aspect of life. We help people in trouble, all over the world, all the time WHILE our own lives are in danger.
We are happy and live life to the maximum - while people are constantly trying to murder us. This isn’t an expression of paranoia or an exaggeration. This is a simple statement of fact. In the same vein, the instruction to open bomb shelters was not a sign of a sudden escalation in danger, it was purely a logical precaution considering the immediacy of the danger that is sometimes a moment away and sometimes happening in the specific moment.
Israelis have been asking themselves when the next war will be since the last one ended. We joke about it and hope that the war won’t ruin our vacation plans (wars seem to have a way of happening in the summer, though not always).
Israelis have been discussing the massive amounts of missiles Hezbollah has received from Iran since the 2006 war. Many people in the north of Israel are certain they heard signs of tunneling underneath their homes (Hamas learned about using tunnels for fighting from Hezbollah, not the other way around). The IDF has been discussing the possibility of evacuating towns in northern Israel when the war starts. It is understood that Hezbollah might succeed in infiltrating the country and taking over an entire town creating a hostage crisis and the necessity for urban battle inside our own country.
We are not talking about IF a war happens. The only question is WHEN it will happen.
Iran on our border just made things ten thousand times worse. Thanks to Obama / Kerry / Clinton foreign policy we actually ended up with ISIS, Al Qaeda off shoots AND Iran on our border.
Which threat would you prefer? Even with the threat of ISIS, Hezbollah has been the real danger but they are only a proxy of their master, Iran, a country controlled by ayatollahs whose religious belief dictates that they must wash the world in blood for their messiah to come. What better way to do this than to begin with Israel, the Nation who originally rejected their religion?
Political adversaries can be reasoned with. Religious fanatics are a completely different story. Looking the other way when fanatics, hell bent on wiping another nation off the face of the earth races towards attaining the weapons that will enable them to achieve their goal is nothing short of evil.
Our Prime Minister has been explaining this to the world for years (take a look at this interview from 2006!). Now everyone is being forced to see how right he was all this time.
The possibilities of how horrible the next war could get are so shocking most people just blank out on the very real probabilities. We are talking about so many missiles being shot at once that our missile defense systems will not be able to protect the population, people being trapped in bomb shelters for heaven only knows how long (how does one prepare enough food, water, peace of mind to last that out?), a ground invasion, hostages and probably another front on our southern border with Hezbollah and Hamas attacking in tandem.
Our enemies will not win but the estimates of how many Israelis could die are staggering.
WE know these things when we go to sleep at night, when we get up the next morning trying to figure out how to produce clean water for people in India, cure cancer and save endangered species. We know these things when we laugh at jokes and celebrate winning the Eurovision.
We’re not safe so we can’t “stay safe.” Israel isn’t safe and frankly Jews anywhere else are not safe. Those who believe they are safe live in a comforting illusion that can pop in an instant, with disastrous results. We in Israel at least understand what we are facing… and yet we are not hunkered down in a corner, shaking with fear. THAT seems to be what the world cannot understand.
How is it possible that a nation could be so extraordinarily brave? (Remember - bravery is not the lack of fear, it is being afraid and doing what is necessary despite the fear.)
How could a people so terribly abused be so gracious and bring so much benefit to others, including to their abusers?
How could a people counter so much hate with so much love?
The dichotomy is so extreme it seems inhuman and thus impossible. That is why so many try so hard to “catch the Jew”, to discover some evil that Jews, particularly Israel is committing. The idea that Israel is just as bad as their worst (the Jew is the new Nazi syndrome) is more comforting than accepting and possibly (heaven forbid!) emulating the light of Israel.
Safety is a luxury we don’t have. We don’t expect anyone to provide us with safety. We’re not waiting to be rescued. What would be nice is if, at least, our friends and well-wishers truly understood the reality we live in.
We don’t do “safe”. (Since when have Jews, in the history of the world, actually been safe?!). That’s not what we are here for.
We do love. We protect others. We lead by example. And when we have to do it alone, we do it alone.
Eventually, I believe, others will follow.
In the meantime, don’t tell me to “stay safe.”
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
The U.S. on Monday will officially open its new embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. This will correct a surreal policy whereby, since Israel’s independence 70 years ago, the U.S. and other nations have refused to recognize its sovereignty over its capital city. President Trump announced in December he would reverse the old policy. By moving the embassy he now translates words into deed.
The embassy’s exact location within Jerusalem has gotten much less attention, but it is equally consequential. It will be housed in buildings used by the American Consulate, as well as in an adjacent former hotel purchased by the State Department in 2014. Most of that complex is located on the far side of the armistice line that divided Jerusalem from 1949 to 1967. Thus the embassy site demonstrates that the U.S. not only sees Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but also—consistent with bipartisan calls from Congress—recognizes the city as unified.
The “Green Line” was created in the wake of Israel’s 1948-49 War of Independence. Upon the country’s founding, Jordan and its allies invaded, with the goal of preventing the creation of a Jewish state. Although they failed at that goal, the Arab armies did occupy significant territory when the armistice was called, including what is now widely referred to as the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Jordan subsequently expelled all Jews from the areas under its control.
In 1967, during the Six Day War, Israel recaptured these places. But in the war’s aftermath the United Nations invested the temporary 1949 armistice line with talismanic significance. The U.N. claimed Israel was “occupying” the territory that Jordan had forcibly seized not two decades earlier. Thus the international community came up with a unique demand: Israel had to keep the areas under its control, including East Jerusalem and the Old City, free of Jewish inhabitants. Any move to unify Jerusalem would be considered a war crime.
In international law, armistice lines are not borders; they merely mark breaks in the fighting. The claim that the Green Line created a permanent “Judenrein” zone in the area occupied by Jordan, or that it in any way changed the legal status of the territory on the far side, is unique and illiberal.
By ignoring the armistice line today, the U.S. is showing that it attaches no legal significance to this outdated demarcation. Having an embassy that straddles the Green Line means recognizing as Israel’s capital a unified Jerusalem that includes the Old City and other eastern areas. It means categorically rejecting the notion that Israel has no sovereign claims across the Green Line.
The opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem justifiably is being called a “game changer” and “historic.” Seventy years after the State of Israel was born and 51 years after the reunification of the capital, the US, the only world superpower, is not only recognizing Jerusalem’s integral importance to Israel, the Jewish state, but acting on that recognition.
This sends out several important messages, not least of which is the importance of not giving in to terror.
Some people have voiced opposition to the move on the grounds that it might give rise to a wave of Palestinian or Islamist terrorism in Israel or against Jewish or American targets abroad. Had US President Donald Trump accepted this line of thought, it would have only encouraged and rewarded terrorism instead of diplomacy. In what future scenario can negotiations take place with the Palestinians under a constant threat that they will step up terrorism if they don’t get exactly what they want?
The US Embassy move rights an historic wrong and makes clear the terms of any future peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. It removes from the agenda the question of Israel’s status regarding Jerusalem, which houses its parliament, Supreme Court, President’s Residence, almost all government ministries and, of course, the Jewish holy sites.
It is encouraging to note that now that the US has led the way, other countries are following suit: Guatemala, Paraguay and Honduras are all expected to relocate their embassies to Jerusalem in the near future.
Although European states are lagging, here, too, a change can be seen. According to news reports over the weekend, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic apparently blocked a European Union move to release a statement unanimously condemning the US Embassy move. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA on Saturday published a warning by the Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry that these countries would face “consequences on all levels, especially their relationship with the Arab and Islamic worlds.”
On May 14, 1948, the independent state of Israel was proclaimed as British rule in Palestine came to an end.
The May 15 New York Times reported, “The declaration of the new state by David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the National Council and the first Premier of reborn Israel, was delivered during a simple and solemn ceremony at 4 p.m., and new life was instilled into his people, but from without there was the rumbling of guns, a flashback to other declarations of independence that had not been easily achieved.”
After World War II and the Holocaust, in which six million European Jews were killed, the United Nations moved to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish sections. The United Nations adopted the partition plan in November 1947. This plan outraged Arabs, and sparked a civil war in Palestine. The Palestinian Arabs had greater numbers, but the Israelis were better armed and organized, and were able to overcome the Arabs. During this time, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs chose to or were forced to evacuate their homes.
The violence caused the United States to withdraw its support for partition. However, when Israel declared its independence, the United States immediately recognized the new state. The Times wrote, “In one of the most hopeful periods of their troubled history the Jewish people here gave a sigh of relief and took a new hold on life when they learned that the greatest national power had accepted them into the international fraternity.”
Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, said Monday that the opening of the American Embassy in occupied Jerusalem is a new calamity for the Palestinian people and for international justice and international legitimacy. This unilateral action demonstrates the control of the logic of force and violence and the crushing of all that is legal and humanitarian.
And the sky will rain fire and the Earth will be thrust out of its orbit, turning it into a giant asteroid ready to crash into the sun, obliterating mankind forever.
She added in a press release on behalf of the Executive Committee on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the painful Nakba of Palestine and the opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem, "The Nakba with all its racist connotations is still ongoing. Israel, the occupying power, with the support and participation of the United States, implements its deliberate plans based on judaizing the Palestinian space and place, stealing the land, history, the Palestinian culture and history. "
Forgetting the other obvious lies of Ashrawi, it is past time to look at the Palestinian claim that Israel is "Judaizing" Israel.
Israel has been the center of Jewish prayer and thought since the days of Moses. The archaeological evidence alone (which the Palestinians strenuously deny exists) is overwhelming. Way before Zionism, Jews have made rebuilding Jerusalem the central motif of their prayers. The rocks and stones of Israel are witness to the miracle of the rebirth of the Jewish nation in much of her historic lands.
When Ashrawi and Abbas and the other Palestinian leaders complain about "Judaizing" the Jewish home, they are denying Jewish history, Jewish practice and millennia of Jewish longing.
It goes hand in hand with the Arab claim that Jews are not a nation or a people, but merely a faith.
If "Judaizing" is such a crime, what is Islamicizing? Because the entire religion of Islam is an attempt to supersede Judaism (and to a lesser extent Christianity.) Every single Islamic tenet is a distortion of a Jewish law. Every single Jewish shrine in Israel, bar none, is claimed by Muslims to be their own, even though every single one of them is older than Islam. The mosques on the Temple Mount, at the Cave of the Patriarchs and at Rachel's Tomb were built deliberately to erase Jewish history and claims.
The claim of "Judaizing" is Arabs saying that Jews do not belong in the land that everyone (including the Quran) knows is Jewish. At best, the Jews should be tolerated as second class citizens under a supremacist Islamic ideology and political system.
The claim of "Judaizing" the Holy Land is pure antisemitism. And it is way past time to call this out.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
