Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, April 18, 2019

Passover and the freedom of the Jews (Forest Rain)

There are two kinds of people who hate strong Jews: your run-of-the-mill Jew haters (classical antisemites) and colonized Jews.

2000 years of living as unwelcome guests in other people’s lands have taken a toll on the Jewish People. Putting your head down, being quiet in the face of abuse and minimizing signs of Jewishness have become habits, so deeply ingrained that many fail to recognize their existence. Judaism upholds the sanctity of life and, because of this, actions taken by Jews to hide their Jewishness in order to survive were approved. Even religious traditions were changed in order to adapt to the realities of living in places where it was not necessarily a good idea to be “too Jewish” – for example lighting and placing the Hanukah candles inside the home rather than in a public place where everyone passing by can see.

The re-establishment of the Jewish State led to a new alignment of powers. Now the classical antisemites can direct their Jew hatred at the Jewish State rather than their Jewish neighbors. The oldest hatred has been reborn with modern branding: “I don’t hate Jews, I just hate Israel.” Or, an even more sophisticated version: “I don’t hate Jews or Israelis, I just hate the Israeli government.”

For colonized Jews the statements are different. The fact that these are said by Jews and seem more “nuanced” makes them harder for most people to address: “I love Israel, that’s why I hate the policies of the Israeli government.” Or “Why does Israel have to make waves and cause problems? Why was it necessary to move the embassy to Jerusalem? Pass the Nation State Law? Those things were obvious and just upset people.”

Colonized Jews hate being told that they are colonized. The idea that the culture of the land in which they live dominated and swallowed up their Jewish identity is repugnant. Historically Jews have preferred to believe that are happily integrated and welcome in the society in which they live (“I’m not Jewish, I’m a German of the Mosaic faith”). Historically it has been non-Jewish neighbors who taught Jews otherwise.

Colonization is a harsh definition, it is more common to hear the softer terminology: “diaspora mentality” which means having the mentality of a scattered people, living at the mercy of others. In other words, this is the mentality of people who are not sovereign and lack the power to determine their own fate.

It is important to note that while Jews who live in the diaspora are more likely to have a diaspora mentality, there are plenty of Israelis with the same mindset.

This terminology enrages those who it most aptly describes.

I believe this rage comes from fear because it leads to the necessity of making a terrifying choice: become a proud, public Jew and risk being ostracized and any hate or violence that could ensue or allow your identity to become completely erased.

It is hard to be hated, pushed aside and seen as “the other.” Over the centuries many Jews sought to appease the haters by abandoning their Jewishness. Although it is not something that is discussed I believe, somewhere deep down, it is understood that those who chose the “easy route” eventually disappeared while appeasement does not actually diffuse hate – in fact it increases animosity and disrespect of those willing to abase themselves in this way.

Israel just re-elected Prime Mister Benjamin Netanyahu, for his fifth term. How could one man be so hated and yet so loved?

In my opinion this seemingly paradoxical situation is a result of both supporters and haters seeing him in the same way – only one likes what he represents and the other does not. Netanyahu is the embodiment of a strong and unapologetic Jewish State, something that is repugnant to Jew haters and scary for colonized Jews, afraid of having attention drawn to their Jewishness.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Linda Sarsour, Robert Francis O'Rourke ("Beto"), any of the American Jewish organizations or rival Israeli politicians who denounce Netanyahu as “racist” and “not representative of the Israeli people.” The Israeli people elected Netanyahu over and over and accusing him of evil qualities, is by extension, an accusation of all his voters. Over and over Jew haters and “progressive” Jews alike ignore the fact that it is the Israeli people who chose this man to represent the Jewish State. To them this is incomprehensible, he most have “stolen” the elections, tricked the public somehow... Israelis must be racist or just stupid…

In Israel we are told of the widening divide between us and diaspora Jews. Usually this is said in an accusatory fashion, as if somehow we are to blame.

Jews of diaspora mentality, Americans and many Israelis, were horrified when Netanyahu publically denounced the policies of the Obama administration, particularly his speech against the Iran deal in the US Congress. They insisted it would be safer for Israel to bow down, go along to get along.

Jews of diaspora mentality were horrified when Netanyahu enraged the French following the 2015 terror attack in the Hyperkascher by telling the Jews of France that he represents them too and Israel is waiting for them with open arms.

Jews of diaspora mentality (including some of my own relatives) were terrified of “triggering” violence by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

On the other hand, strong Jews who have shed the shackles of colonization are frustrated that Netanyahu has not implemented bolder policies.

It should be obvious, not something that takes exceptional courage, to implement Israeli sovereignty on all of Israel and equally apply the law to all of her citizens. It should be obvious, not a political calculation of “how much we can upset the world” that attacks on Israeli civilians are utterly unacceptable and must be squashed with swift and inescapable might. Jews should be able to pray freely in the holiest place to the Jewish People which happens to be located in the heart of the capital of the Jewish State. Isn’t that obvious?

A sovereign nation owes no explanations to foreign “masters” or patrons.

Passover is the holiday of Jewish freedom, the historical moment when the world learned that slaves do not have to remain slaves forever. Israel’s national anthem speaks of the “2000 year old hope to be a free nation, in our own land.” The hope still remains because we are not yet completely free.

Usually when we speak of not yet being free, we refer to the need to fight our would-be killers. I say that freedom of the Jews will come when our Jewish brothers and sisters shake off their fear of being who we are. The divide of the diaspora is not an issue of Israeli policies, it is a lack of acceptance of Jewish freedom and sovereignty.

It is the shackles of the mind that are truly preventing freedom. No matter what Jews of diaspora mentality (or the world powers) say, we will not willingly join them in their bondage but our hands are outstretched to pull them into freedom.

“Next year in Jerusalem, rebuilt!” is the end of the Passover Haggadah because THAT is the true end of the journey from slavery to freedom.

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Like other liberal Jewish groups, Rabbis for Human Rights feels it is necessary to water down the Haggadah by trying to make it apply to whatever their current cause of the month is.

I was a little surprised to see that one of their additional texts (on asylum seekers) quoted the decidedly non-progressive Menachem Begin:

...and within our State, justice will be the supreme ruler, ruling even over the rulers. There will be no tyranny. There will be functionaries who serve society, rather than tyrannize it. There will be no parasitism. There will be no exploitation. There will be in our home no person, citizen or foreigner, who is hungry, lacking a roof, clothing or basic education. "Remember that you were a stranger in the Land of Egypt" – this supreme commandment will determine our relations with our neighbors. And "Justice, justice you shall pursue" – this supreme commandment will determine our relations, one person unto his comrade.
-Menachem Begin, "Voice of Zion Fighting, "Radio broadcast at founding of state on Saturday night, 5 Iyar / 15 May 1948

I looked up the Begin speech, and it is incredible.

It is true that Begin had a very refined sense of morality. I only recently discovered that he was very much against the Israeli practice of administrative detention without trial, against either Arabs or Jews, an opinion that Rabbis for Human Rights no doubt shares. He was also against applying martial law to Arabs, a law enforced by Israel's Labor Party until 1966. Begin's first act in office was to welcome 66 Vietnamese "boat people" and award them citizenship. It is unclear how Begin would have dealt with tens of thousands of asylum seekers, but almost certainly he would have agonized over the decision.

However, this speech by Menachem Begin also made it clear that while Israel must treat friends and residents well, it must treat enemies with no mercy.

And yet, even before our state is able to establish its normal governing institutions, it is compelled to fight, or rather, to continue to fight satanic enemies and blood-thirsty mercenaries, on land, in the air and on the sea. ... We are surrounded by enemies who long for our destruction. Our one-day old state is set up in the midst of the flames of battle. And the very first pillar of our state must therefore be victory, total victory, in the war which is raging all over the country. For this victory, without which we shall have neither freedom nor life, we need arms; weapons of all sorts, in order to strike the enemies, in order to disperse the invaders, in order to free the entire length and breadth of the country from its would-be destroyers. But in addition to these arms, each and every one of us has need of another weapon, a spiritual weapon, the weapon of unflinching endurance in face of attacks from the air; in face of grievous casualties; in face of local disasters and temporary defeats; unflinching resistance to threats and cajolery.

In his speech he also said "Our soldiers will unfurl that flag over the Tower of David and we will yet plow the fields of the Gilead." Gilead is in - Jordan! Begin was insisting that the original British mandate area be the Land of Israel, before it was partitioned into "Palestine" and "Transjordan."

I don't think Rabbis for Human Rights would like that!

Here is the entire Begin speech, which is not easy to find on the Internet.

Citizens of the Hebrew Homeland, Soldiers of Israel, Hebrew Youth, Sisters and Brothers in Zion!

After many years of underground warfare, years of persecution and moral and physical suffering, the rebels against the oppressors stand before you, with a blessing of thanks on their lips and a prayer in their hearts. The blessing is the age-old blessing with which our fathers and our forefathers have always greeted Holy Days. It was with this blessing that they used to taste any fruit for the first time in the season. Today is truly a holiday, a Holy Day, and a new fruit is visible before our very eyes.

The Hebrew Revolt of 1944-1948 has been blessed with success—the first Hebrew revolt since the Hasmonea insurrection that has ended in victory. The rule of oppression in our country has been beaten, uprooted; it has crumbled and been dispersed. The State of Israel has arisen in bloody battle. The high way for the mass return to Zion has been cast up. The foundation has been laid—but only the foundation—for true independence.

One phase of the battle for freedom, for the return of the entire People of Israel to its homeland, for the restoration of the whole Land of Israel to its God-covenanted owners, has ended. But only one phase. We should recall that this event has occurred after 70 generations of dispersion and unending wandering of an unarmed people and after a period of almost total destruction of the Jew as Jew. Thus, although our suffering is not yet over, it is our right and our obligation to proffer thanks to the Rock of Israel and His Redeemer for all the miracles that have been done this day, as in those times.

We therefore can say with full heart and soul on this first day of our liberation from the British occupier: Blessed is He who has sustained us and enabled us to have reached this time. The State of Israel has arisen. And it has risen ‘Only Thus’:—through blood, through fire, with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with sufferings and with sacrifices. It could not have been otherwise.

And yet, even before our state is able to establish its normal governing institutions, it is compelled to fight, or rather, to continue to fight satanic enemies and blood-thirsty mercenaries, on land, in the air and on the sea. In these circumstances, the warning sounded by the Philosopher-President Thomas Masaryk to the Czechoslovak nation when it attained its freedom after 300 years of slavery, has a special significance for us. In 1918, when Masaryk stepped out on to the Wilson railway station in Prague, he warned his cheering countrymen: ‘It is difficult to set up a state; it is even more difficult to keep it going’.

In truth, it has been difficult for us to set up our state. Tens of generations, and millions of wanderers, from one land of massacre to another, were needed; it was necessary that there be exile, burning at the stake and torture in the dungeons; we had to suffer agonizing disillusionments; we needed the warnings—though they often went unheeded—of prophets and seers; we needed the sweat and toil of generations of pioneers and builders; we had to have an uprising of rebels to crush the enemy; we had to have the gallows, the banishments beyond seas, the prisons and the cages in the deserts—all this was necessary that we might reach the present stage where 600,000 Jews are in the Homeland, where the direct rule of oppression has been driven out and Hebrew independence declared in at least part of the country, the whole of which is ours.

It has been difficult to create our state. But it will be even more difficult to keep it going. We are surrounded by enemies who long for our destruction. And that same oppressor, who has been defeated by us directly, is trying indirectly to make us surrender with the aid of mercenaries from the south, the north and the east. Our one-day old state is set up in the midst of the flames of battle. And the very first pillar of our state must therefore be victory, total victory, in the war which is raging all over the country.

For this victory, without which we shall have neither freedom nor life, we need arms; weapons of all sorts, in order to strike the enemies, in order to disperse the invaders, in order to free the entire length and breadth of the country from its would-be destroyers. But in addition to these arms, each and everyone of us has need of another weapon, a spiritual weapon, the weapon of unflinching endurance in face of attacks from the air; in face of grievous casualties; in face of local disasters and temporary defeats; unflinching resistance to threats and cajolery. If, within the coming days and weeks, we can put on this whole armor of an undying nation in resurrection, we shall in the meantime receive the blessed arms with which to drive off the enemy and bring freedom and peace to our nation and country.

But, even after emerging victorious from this campaign—and victorious we shall be—we shall still have to exert superhuman efforts in order to remain independent, in order to free our country. First of all, it will be necessary to increase and strengthen the fighting arm of Israel, without which there can be no freedom and no survival for our Homeland. Our Jewish army should be, and must be, one of the best trained and equipped of the world’s military forces. In modern warfare, it is not quantity that counts but brainpower and spirit are the determining factors. All of our youth proved that they possess this spirit—those of the Hagana, the Lehi, the Irgun, youth that no other nation has merited. Indeed, no generation since Bar-Kochba and until the Bilu pioneers has seen such spirit.

As for brainpower, after 120 generations, the creativity of the Hebrew mind is one of the most developed and unlimited. Our military science will be built up on the Jewish mind and will be the world’s best. We will yet achieve strength for we possess the power of the brain.

In order to free our country and maintain our state, we shall need a wise foreign policy. We must turn our declaration of independence into a reality. And we must grasp this fact: that so long as even one British or any other foreign soldier treads the soil of our country, our sovereign independence remains nothing but an aspiration, an aspiration for whose fulfillment we must be ready to fight not only on the battlefront but also in the international arena.

Secondly, we must establish and maintain the principle of reciprocity in our relations with the nations of the world. There must be no self-denigration. There must be reciprocity. Enmity for enmity. Aid for aid. Friendship must be repaid with friendship. We must foster friendship and understanding between us and every nation, great or small, strong or weak, near or far, which recognizes our independence, which aids our national regeneration and which is interested, even as we are, in international justice and peace among nations.

Of no less importance is our internal policy. The first pillar of this policy is the Return to Zion. Ships! For Heaven’s sake, let us have ships! Let us not be [complacent] poisoned with inertia. Let us not talk empty words about absorptive capacity. Let us not make restrictions for the sake of so-called order. Quickly, quickly! Our nation has no time! Bring in hundreds of thousands. If there will not be enough houses, we’ll find tents or even the skies, the blue skies of our land, as a roof. As we have seen from other nations, there is no limit to the sacrifices a fighting nation is prepared to make in order to obtain its homeland and assure its future.

We are now in the midst of a war for survival; and our tomorrow and theirs depend on the quickest concentration of our nation’s exiles. And within our Homeland, justice shall be the supreme ruler, the ruler over all rulers. There must be no tyranny. The Ministers and officials must be the servants of the nation and not their masters. There must be no exploitation. There must be no man within our country—be he citizen or foreigner—compelled to go hungry, to want for a roof over his head or to lack elementary education. ‘Remember you were strangers in the land of Egypt’—this supreme rule must continually light our way in our relations with the strangers within our gates. ‘Righteousness, righteousness shall you pursue’ will be the guiding principle in our relations amongst ourselves.

We will protect our state well, our Israel. It is for these goals and principles, and in the framework of democracy, that the Herut Movement will struggle, arising out of the underground and fashioned by the fighting family, a movement made up of all circles, all exiles, all streams around the flag of the Irgun. The Irgun Zvai Leumi is leaving the underground inside the boundaries of the Hebrew independent state. We went underground, we arose in the underground, under a rule of oppression in order to strike at oppression and to overthrow it. And right well have we struck.

Now, for the time being, we have a Hebrew rule in part of our homeland. And as in this part there will be Hebrew Law—and that is the only rightful law in this country—there is no need for a Hebrew underground. In the State of Israel, we shall be soldiers and builders. And we shall respect it government, for it is our government. We expect that this provisional government and every other government will take care not to surrender to external elements or act in tyranny against internal bodies. The government must protect human and civil rights, without discrimination and favoritism. It shall safeguard the principles of justice and freedom and our house shall shine with fraternity and brotherly love.

The State of Israel has arisen, but we must remember that our country is not yet liberated. The battle continues, and you see now that the words of your Irgun fighters were not vain words: it is Hebrew arms which decide the boundaries of the Hebrew State. So it is now in this battle; so it will be in the future. Our God-given country is a unity, an integral historical and geographical whole. The attempt to dissect it is not only a crime but a blasphemy and an abortion. Whoever does not recognize our natural right to our entire homeland, does not recognize our right to any part of it. And we shall never forego this natural right.

We shall continue to foster the aspiration of full independence. We shall assume the burden of the vision of complete redemption. There can be no distinction between the nation-state and its homeland. That line of differentiation is artificial. This is not irredentism. We refer to five-sixths of our land, land we need to make bloom, land we need for future generations, land we need for security and peace. We will yet fly the flag of freedom, of peace, of progress. Our soldiers will unfurl that flag over the Tower of David and we will yet plow the fields of the Gilead.

Citizens of the Hebrew State, soldiers of Israel, we are in the midst of battles. Difficult days lie ahead of us. Much blood will be spilled. Fortify yourselves. Strengthen your morale. There is no other way. We cannot buy peace from our enemies with appeasement. There is only one kind of ‘peace’ than can be bought— the peace of the graveyard, the peace of Treblinka.

Be brave of spirit and ready for more trials. We shall withstand them. The Lord of Hosts will help us; He will sustain the bravery of the Hebrew youth, the bravery of the Hebrew mothers who, like Hannah, offer their sons on the altar of God. This supreme valor will save us from our enemy and bring us out from slavery to freedom, from the danger of annihilation to safety.

And you, brothers of the fighting family, do you remember how we started? With what we started? You were alone and persecuted, rejected, despised and numbered with transgressors But you fought on with deep faith and did not retreat. You were cast into prison and you were exiled from your country but your spirit was not crushed. You were driven to the gallows but went forth with a song. You have written a glorious page in history. You will not recall past grievances; you will ask for no reward. But for the time-being, let us think of the battle, for only the outcome of the battle will decide our fate and future.

We shall go on our way into battle, soldiers of the Lord of Hosts, inspired by the spirit of our ancient heroes, from the conquerors of Canaan to the Rebels of Judah. We shall be accompanied by the spirit of those who revived our nation, Zeev Benjamin Herzl, Max Nordau, Joseph Trumpeldor and the father of resurrected Hebrew heroism, Zeev Jabotinsky. We shall be accompanied by the spirit of David Raziel, greatest of our Hebrew commanders of our day; and by Dov Gruner, one of the greatest of Hebrew soldiers. We shall be accompanied into battle by the spirit of the heroes of the gallows, the conquerors of death. And we shall be accompanied by the spirit of the millions of our martyrs, our ancestors tortured and burned for their faith, our murdered fathers and butchered mothers, our murdered brothers and strangled children.

And in this battle, we shall break the enemy and bring salvation to our people, tried in the furnace of persecution, thirsting only for freedom, for righteousness and for justice. God, Lord of Israel, protect your soldiers. Grant blessing to their sword that is renewing the covenant that was made between your chosen people and your chosen land. Arise O Lion of Judea for our people, for our land. On to battle. Forward to victory.”

They don't make leaders like that any more.

Yes, Begin supported justice and human rights - but for everyone, prioritizing his own people. Too many groups forget that Jews have rights, too.

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A few days ago, many liberal Jewish groups sent a letter to President Trump asking him to act against any Israeli annexation of land in Judea and Samaria.

The groups were the ADL, Ameinu, ARZA, Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform), Jewish Women International, Israel Policy Forum, MERCAZ USA, National Council of Jewish Women, Rabbinical Assembly (Conservative),Union for Reform Judaism and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

Some of the arguments are based on the idea that Netanyahu will annex the entire territory, which is clearly not going to happen which makes it a straw man argument. The demographic threat of annexing the entire territory is real - but if Israel only annexes the settlement blocs near the Green Line, which is a far more likely scenario, there is no demographic threat.

The letter says "We strongly urge you to pledge that any peace initiative your administration proposes will be based upon the principle of a negotiated two-state solution... and to clearly express your opposition to unilateral measures outside of this framework, including annexation by Israel of any territory in the West Bank."

Any areas Israel would annex would remain Israeli under any conceivable two state solution - which means that such an annexation would not jeopardize a two-state solution.

And every day the Palestinian Arabs, with European help, take unilateral measures to grab land in the disputed areas of Area C. They are explicitly trying to sever Maale Adumim from Jerusalem by building illegal villages there, with EU flags prominently displayed and schools ready for photo-ops if and when Israel demolishes them.

Have any of these Jewish groups ever condemned these unilateral moves against a negotiated solution? How come only Israel has to freeze building in areas it intends to keep, but not Palestinians?

"Annexation of the West Bank, whether in whole or in part, could destroy any chance of a negotiated two-state solution between the parties. We believe that it will lead to greater conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, severely undermine, if not entirely eradicate, the successful security coordination between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and galvanize efforts such as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement that are intended to isolate and delegitimize Israel."

These same people asserted that Trump's recognition of Jerusalem would cause an eruption of Arab anger, cause Abbas to cancel security cooperation, and galvanize BDS. Pretty much nothing happened. Saying Israel cannot act in its best interests out of fear of what "experts" say Arabs or Israel haters will do is foolish advice - Israel haters will not change no matter what. The people who signed this letter should know that.

"It will create intense divisions in the United States and make unwavering support for Israel and its security far more difficult to maintain."

Only if liberal Jews refuse to respect what Israel's democratically elected government decides to do. This letter and similar statement from liberal Jewish leaders is what causes division among American Jews, not Israeli actions. These groups clearly do not have any idea how to counter anti-Israel propaganda among their own followers, so instead they are surrendering to pressure Israel into doing that the holy New York Times - which appears to be their Bible - wants it to do.

I had a brief Twitter conversation with Michael Koplow, head of the Israel Policy Forum, over his support of the letter.

EoZ: I thought the demographic problem with annexation was controlling a huge Arab population. If Israel only annexes areas that are predominantly Jewish then the democracy problem goes away, no?

MK: The problem is the assumption that Israel can only annex Jewish areas without eventually having to take control of the whole thing. Area C is 60% of the West Bank - you confident the PA will survive or stick around to take care of the rest?

EoZ: I would bet that any annexation would only be the blocs that would become Israeli in any conceivable peace plan anyway.

MK: I’m sure it will start that way but it’s unlikely to end there

EoZ: Making assumptions about what will inevitably happen if Israel does X has a very, very poor track record.

MK: It’s not about assumptions. Most proponents of annexation have stated that the plan is blocs first, then Area C.

EoZ: Still an assumption. Any annexation would require easy to defend borders. Area C isn't.

MK: I agree entirely on that point.

I was too polite to point out that Koplow had testified to Congress with doomsday predictions about massive riots in the Arab world if the US moves its embassy to Jerusalem. He was wrong then and the same predictions are likely to be wrong now.

The real question is whether Israel has anything to gain by annexing the settlement blocs.

The answer is that it stands to gain exactly what it gains from asserting Israeli control over Jerusalem and the Golan: recognizing facts. Israel is never going to give up the settlement blocs, so why not formalize the obvious? It is counterproductive to allow the Palestinian leaders - and the EU- to believe that the 1967 lines will be the boundaries of a two state solution. As mentioned, Palestinians are creating facts on the ground and have somehow convinced the world that the entire area east of the Green Line is legally theirs, rather than disputed, which all of Area C certainly is. (Oslo has taken Area A out of dispute, and Area B is a grey area.)

Israel can disrupt this false thinking by annexing at least the settlement blocs and having the US recognize it.

Real peace cannot come about without both sides, and the world, facing facts. Major settlement blocs will never be evacuated. Treating them as negotiable should be as ridiculous to world diplomats as treating Ramallah as negotiable would be today.

The brilliance of Trump's Middle East moves is that they are recognizing reality in the face of frightened "experts" who assert, invariably incorrectly, how terrible an idea it is to accept the truth. It happened in Jerusalem, it happened in the Golan, it happened with labeling the IRGC as a terrorist group - all of which are simply supporting what everyone knows. Pretending otherwise to bring parties to the table means that the negotiations are based on fiction, and it is difficult to succeed in making a deal if one or both sides are in fantasy land.

A two-state solution is not possible with the PLO as it currently exists. They have spent their entire time since Oslo working not to build a state but to destroy one. But maybe, down the road, a Palestinian leadership that no longer fantasizes about destroying Israel can arise. The only way that scenario is remotely possible is if they accept that Israel is not going anywhere, and the only way that could happen is by Israel asserting its rights in a consistent, unapologetic and unflinching way.

Annexation of areas that are unquestioningly going to be part of Israel is more likely to bring peace than pretending that Gush Etzion is on the table could ever do.

And guess what? When Israel acts with pride rather than pandering to liberal American Jewish leaders who are in turn pandering to the New York Times, American Jews who are actually proud of their Jewishness will support them. If these liberal groups want to help Israel, they need to instill pride in their flocks, both in Judaism and in Zionism. These leaders need to learn how to answer the questions that Israel's critics hurl at the Jewish state without acting like frightened shtetl Jews. A big reason Israel is losing the support of young American Jews is because their own Jewish role models are too ignorant or cowed to proudly support Israel unequivocally, and to explain why Israel does what it does.

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04/17 Links Pt2: Judea Pearl Renounces NYU Distinguished Alumnus Status as School Prepares to Award Students for Justice in Palestine; Shapiro: Criticism of Rep. Ilhan Omar Isn’t Incitement

From Ian:

Judea Pearl Renounces NYU Distinguished Alumnus Status as School Prepares to Award Students for Justice in Palestine

Turing Award winner Judea Pearl has renounced his status as a distinguished alumnus of New York University, following the school’s decision to award its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter — which orchestrated an ongoing boycott of Zionist student clubs — for “extraordinary and positive impact on the University community.”

Pearl, who graduated with a doctoral degree from NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering in 1965, was granted a Distinguished Alumnus Award by the Polytechnic Alumni Association during a campus lecture in 2013 and is currently a chancellor’s professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles. He also leads a foundation named after his late son, journalist Daniel Pearl, who was killed by Islamic terrorists in 2002 while on assignment in Pakistan.

“In the past five years, SJP has resorted to intimidation tactics that have made me, my colleagues and my students unwelcome and unsafe on our own campus,” Pearl wrote in a letter to NYU President Andrew Hamilton. “The decision to confer an award on SJP, renders other NYU awards empty of content, and suspect of reckless selection process.”

Pearl stated that his efforts to engage with university officials over these concerns “have been met with platitudes about ‘free speech’ despite the fact that the US State Department now includes, in its definition of discrimination, intimidation based on race, religion and ethnicity.”

“Mr. President, I have been in academia for close to 50 years, and I know the difference between free speech and campus norms,” he continued. “Entrusted with the mandate of maintaining a climate of learning and mutual respect, your office should distance itself from the SJP selection and explain to the campus why such distancing is necessary. In the absence of a corrective action by your office the academic standing of this university is begging for other voices to call out the Orwellian character of (SJP’s) award.” (h/t MtTB)

Ben Shapiro: Criticism of Rep. Ilhan Omar Isn’t Incitement

That minimization of 9/11—and that’s what it is—resulted in blowback from conservatives. It’s not as though Omar’s history of treating terrorism with kid gloves is anything new, after all. In 2013, Omar did an interview in which she chided one of her professors for treating terrorist groups with horror while failing to do the same to America, England, and the military:
The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘al-Qaeda,’ his shoulders went up. … But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity. You don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the Army’ with the intensity.

In 2016, Omar wrote a letter to a judge asking for lighter sentences for men accused of being Islamic State group recruits, noting that these men merely “chose violence to combat direct marginalization” and calling their recruitment “a consequential mistake” that resulted from “systematic alienation.”

In 2017, Omar wrote for Time magazine: “We must confront that our nation was founded by the genocide of indigenous people and on the backs of slaves, that we maintain global power with the tenor of neocolonialism. … Our national avoidance tactic has been to shift the focus to potential international terrorism.” That’s not exactly a ringing rebuke of international terrorism.

But now Omar is criticizing those who merely quote her as inciting violence. She has claimed that President Donald Trump, who posted a video that juxtaposed footage of 9/11 with her “some people did something” comment, is responsible for an uptick in the number of death threats she has received. Her close friend Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., went so far as to compare Omar to a victim of the Holocaust.

This is immoral in the extreme. Omar isn’t a victim because she’s being criticized. And speech isn’t incitement. Sen. Bernie Sanders wasn’t responsible for the congressional baseball game shooting. Former President Barack Obama wasn’t responsible for the Dallas police shooting. And Trump isn’t responsible for those who send Omar death threats. He’s responsible for criticizing her—rightly, in this case.

Democrats who hide behind the charge of incitement are simply attempting to quash debate. And that’s far more dangerous for the future of America than criticizing a radical politician.

Kgadishi Moloto is the deputy director of the treasury in Gauteng, the economic center of South Africa, a province that includes Johannesburg and Pretoria. He’s also a raving antisemite. When Moloto is not calling for the genocide of the Jewish people by cruel and painful methods, he’s accusing Israel of murdering babies.

Moloto is a Communist. He is heavily invested in the Congress of South African Trade Unions, or Cosatu. Cosatu is allied with the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP) as the Tripartite Alliance.

Guess who!

Moloto retweets every tweet issued by Cosatu along with retweets of anti-Israel calls for action from the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

We’re asking all those who value justice, equality and freedom to #skipAIPAC! @SpeakerPelosi pic.twitter.com/RUvvsaXWl0
— JewishVoiceForPeace (@jvplive) March 20, 2019

When not disseminating hate or preaching the joys of communism, Kgadishi enjoys running in marathons as part of the Gauteng Provincial Treasury team.

Antisemitism is rising, naked and blatant throughout the world. We don’t need polls to see it. Germany's Merkel gave Bibi a talking to about his comments regarding Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. After all, Germany must bear the stain of murdering 6 million Jews. How else can it do this except by maligning Israel and ordering it around?

In South Africa there are people like Kgadishi Moloto who need a scapegoat, someone to hate. They like to point a finger at Israel. And they don’t care about the truth. Perhaps post-Apartheid South Africans also fling mud at Israel to take the weight off their own ugly history, to rise above feelings of inferiority.

Moloto chooses to believe the lies, the false narrative and the propaganda, instead of seeing the truth. Here is the truth: in Israel, Arabs are treated in Israeli hospitals. Arab doctors operate on Jewish patients and Jewish doctors operate on Arab patients. In Israel, Arabs shop side by side with Israelis in Israeli supermarkets, Arabs sit on buses and trains alongside Israelis, and there is an Arab justice serving in Israel’s High Court.

But in Judea and Samaria, Jews are not allowed to enter Arab villages.

It is the same everywhere. Israel must serve as the world’s whipping boy, the one who must always absorb everyone’s shame and the blame, and be an outlet for the world’s frustrations.

And while the world is hating us, it tells us that antisemitism is nothing special, no different than any other hatred. Just one more hatred in the pantheon of hatreds.

Amazing how so many millions of people claim to be descended from holocaust survivors or holocaust victims. It’s become an #islamophobicTrope to some Zionists, and an insult to genuine victims of Nazi Genocide.. We’re all descended from survivors of one holocaust or another. #BDS
— Mary Hughes-Thompson (@Mariapalestina) April 16, 2019

In the U.S., the Democrats have underscored this idea with their resolution. The resolution tells us that hating Jews is no different than hating blacks or gays.

These ideas embolden haters everywhere. People holding government positions like Moloto, and certainly random haters on social media who tell us there is nothing to see here. Nothing at all.

Move along.

via GIPHY

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You're Not A Real Progressive If You Haven't Reworked The Haggadah To Fit Your Agenda (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

By Shir Dimensha, Professor of Comparative Literature

New York, April 17 - The quantity of self-identifying progressives in our society has grown steadily in recent decades, in volume if not absolute numbers, but the best way to demonstrate one's seriousness in the progressive realm remains to take an ancient Jewish text about individual and national liberation, and reinterpret it to divorce it from its original meaning and replace the Jews of the original with the marginalized group of your choice.

You may have attended all the right BDS rallies and signed all the cool petitions calling for the impeachment of that racist in the White House; you may have submitted a paper exploring the various ways in which beloved children's books actually convey sinister, fascist messages; you may fall to your knees every time you encounter a person of color, and ask how you can atone for the atrocities your ancestors most certainly perpetrated against theirs. None of those, however, reach the same rarefied stratum of progressive credentials as the de-Judaification of the Passover Haggadah.

The specific choice of marginalized population with which to replace Jews in your Haggadah matters less than the very fact of replacement. By removing Jews from the Haggadah, you declare you have arrived at the sine qua non of progressivism: subordinating Jewish concerns, rights, and culture to those of other groups.

Understandably, many observers of this practice elect to replace Jews with groups among whom they count themselves, but many progressives, through no fault of their own, have at least one Jewish parent, and thus, as determined by the high priests of the progressive movement, can never attain pure membership in any such group. The only choice these unfortunate Jews, far removed as they might be from their heritage and traditions, have, remains abject surrender to a culture infused with hate for the Jew. We therefore are witness to the blessed phenomenon of progressive Jews replacing their ancestral people with Palestinians, or Muslims in general, in the Haggadah narrative, the better to prove they belong in the movement.

But whether one composes a Muslim Haggadah, a trans Haggadah, an undocumented immigrant Haggadah, or the anti-Trump Resistance Haggadah, that step provides its creator with impeccable woke credentials: it represents a real-life manifestation of the demonstrator who punched the Nazi who smirked at an indigenous activist who shouted down a right-wing speaker who committed microaggressions against people of color that your ancestors bought as slaves for two zuzim.

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04/17 Links Pt1: Michelle Goldberg’s Free Speech Martyr, Pity the poor terrorist promoter; Jordan in Denial over Trump Plan for Israel in Judea and Samaria

From Ian:

Noah Pollak: Michelle Goldberg’s Free Speech Martyr

In 2007, Barghouti founded, and runs to this day, a Ramallah-based umbrella group called the BDS National Committee that serves as the leading group organizing and promoting BDS outside the United States. The reason Barghouti was barred from entering the U.S. is not because he advocates BDS or Israel’s destruction. There is no speech issue here at all.

The reason he was barred is because the group Barghouti runs includes five U.S.-designated terrorist organizations in its membership: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, and the Popular Front – General Command.

Not only does Barghouti run a group whose membership includes U.S.-designated terrorists, he himself promotes terrorism. You wouldn’t know this reading Goldberg, who claims in her piece that “The BDS movement doesn’t engage in or promote violence.”

Here is a video of Barghouti in 2011 stating, “The media only focuses on one form of resistance, which we’re proud of, we’re not ashamed to have armed resistance [terrorism] as well as peaceful resistance.” This wasn’t a one-off. Barghouti has stated his support for terrorism dozens of times, plainly, openly, publicly, proudly, without euphemism. Click the link and read his quotes endorsing terrorism.

The only good part of the BDS movement is how it is exposing so many progressives as wishful, gullible, or dishonest in their need to paint the anti-Israel cause as respectable.

Omar Barghouti: Israel enlisted Trump to ban me from America

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions founder Omar Barghouti has expressed dismay and confusion over his entry into the United States being refused.

In an op-ed to the UK newspaper The Guardian, Barghouti claimed that "Israel appears to have once again enlisted the Trump administration to do its bidding."

He claimed in the piece that with his "denial of entry, Israel appears to have once again enlisted the Trump administration to do its bidding, this time to repress Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights defenders," he wrote. "They wish to deny lawmakers, journalists and ordinary Americans their right to listen first-hand to a Palestinian human rights advocate calling for ending US complicity in Israel’s crimes against our people."

As a co-founder of the BDS movement "for Palestinian rights," Barghouti said he has "been smeared by the Israeli government and banned from travel repeatedly, including in 2018 when I was prevented from going to Jordan to accompany my late mother during cancer surgery."

"Israel’s intelligence minister threatened me with 'targeted civil elimination,' drawing condemnation from Amnesty International," he wrote. "Their de facto and 'arbitrary travel ban' against me was recently lifted for three months after Amnesty International’s pressure."

Jerusalem court upholds deportation of Human Rights Watch official

The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday upheld a deportation order against Human Rights Watch’s local director and gave him two weeks to leave the country.

The court rejected an appeal by Omar Shakir to remain in the country. The New York-based watchdog has cast his case as a bid to suppress global criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Israel enacted a law in 2017 barring entry to any foreigner who “knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel.” Tuesday’s ruling was the first time the law was applied to someone already residing in the country.

Shakir, a U.S. citizen, has worked as the New York-based group’s Israel and Palestine director since October 2016.

Israel’s interior minister ordered Shakir’s deportation in May 2018, calling him a “boycott activist.”

The court said that Shakir “continues his actions publicly to advance a boycott against Israel, but it’s not on the stages at conferences or in university panels, rather through disseminating his calls to advance boycott primarily through his Twitter account and by other means.”

“The appellant continues to call publicly for a boycott of Israel, or parts of it, while at the same time asking [Israel] to open its doors to him,” said the ruling distributed by the Justice Ministry.

David Singer: Jordan in Denial over Trump Plan for Israel in Judea and Samaria

In a closed-door meeting with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee King Abdullah of Jordan reportedly said the White House had given him
“zero visibility into the most fraught part of their peace plan: how it proposes to divide Israeli and Palestinian territory.”

His Majesty – in complete denial – could not bring himself to call that territory “Judea Samaria and Gaza”

Abdullah has seen Trump ditch the Palestine Liberation Organisation financially and diplomatically over its continuing refusal to negotiate with Israel on any Trump proposal to divide sovereignty in Judea and Samaria between Jews and Arabs.

Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan laid out Jordan’s pivotal role in negotiating any such division in 1980:
“Israel and Jordan are the two Palestinian states envisioned and authorized by the United Nations. Jordan is now recognized in some 80% of the old territory of Palestine. Israel and Jordan are the parties primarily authorized to settle the future of the unallocated territories in accordance with the principles of the mandate and the provisions of Resolutions 242 and 338”

In 1982 duly-elected President Reagan made it clear that peace could not be achieved by the formation of an independent Palestinian state and the United States would not support the establishment of such a state.

Three Myths of Omar Barghouti and BDS (@DaledAmos)

By Daled Amos

Myth #1: Palestinian Arabs launched BDS

On May 25, 2016, a discussion at the University of Westminster featured Gideon Levy from Haaretz, Illan Pappe from the University of Exeter and Ruba Salih from SOAS (London University School of Oriental and African Studies). At one point, on the topic of the leadership -- or lack thereof -- of the Arabs, Pappe made an unexpected admission:

Ruba Salih: “Well, the Palestinians launched the BDS”
Illan Pappe: “Yes, not really but yes. For historical record, yes”
Ruba Salih: “It’s important”
Illan Pappe: “It’s not true but it’s important”

The issue is who started the BDS movement: the Palestinian Arabs or someone else?

In an article in 2010 for The Guardian's Comment is Free, Barghouti claims the BDS movement is 5 years old, tracing its start to the "Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS" on July 9, 2005 -- a declaration that Barghouti was a part of.

Not so fast.

While Omar Barghouti is the face of BDS, the idea of boycotting and isolating Israel actually originated 4 years earlier. On September 2001 in Durban, South Africa, the UN Anti-Racism Conference was held. An NGO human rights forum ran parallel to the conference and ended with a declaration. CNN reported at the time:

The forum's document branded "Israel as a racist apartheid state," and called for the establishment of a U.N. committee to prosecute Israeli war crimes and the complete isolation of Israel as an apartheid state.

The language of the declaration was modified due to the backlash, but the tone was set, and an academic boycott of Israel soon followed.

In April the following year, Steven and Hilary Rose called for an academic boycott of Israel in an open letter to The Guardian. It called for a moratorium on all cultural and research links with Israel.

In June, one of those signers, Mona Baker, a professor of translation studies at the University of Manchester, removed 2 Israeli professors from the editorial boards of 2 journals she owned: Translator and Translation Studies Abstracts. She went on to say that Translator would no longer publish any research by Israeli scholars and would refuse to sell books and journals to Israeli libraries.

Mona Baker Usage as per Creative Commons license

Jon Haber of Divest This! notes similarly, "divestment campaigns at US colleges and universities, Mainline Protestant churches, cities and unions dotting the landscape starting in 2002."

It would take another 2 years before, in 2004, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was formed, with Omar Barghouti listed as 1 of the 8 original founding members:

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was launched in Ramallah in April 2004 by a group of Palestinian academics and intellectuals to join the growing international boycott movement.

Only then, on July 9, 2005, was there a Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS, accompanied by 170 Palestinian political parties, unions, mass movements and NGOs that signed on.

At the top of this list is the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine, also known as PNIF. An article last year, BDS Umbrella Group Linked to Palestinian Terrorist Organizations, noted PNIF's pedigree:

Among PNIF’s members are five different groups designated by the US as terrorist organizations, including Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Popular Front – General Command (PFLP-GC), the Palestine Liberation Front, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)

Jon Haber, of Divest This, already noted the PNIF's terrorist ties back in 2010, suggesting that "it must be much easier for this Islamic Forces Council to get the Palestinian Dentist’s Association to agree to its agenda than vice versa." Actually, it is no more surprising to see Hamas involved in the BDS movement than it is to see them behind the Gaza riots attempting to break through into Israel.

David Collier explains the implications of the BDS movement actually predating Palestinian involvement in it by 4 years:

With a single exchange, Illan Pappe, a master of illusion and deception, basically admits that BDS was created by external forces. Forces that were intent on destroying Israel. The Palestinians did not call for a boycott. BDS is therefore not a response to a non existent call. And therefore all the humanitarian left wing groups that have rallied behind the flag, followed Jew haters, communists and Islamists down a road that doesn’t actually care about the Arab civilians at all.

It is time to tear the entire movement down. The single ethical pillar that could have been used to support a boycott, despite all its other ethical failings, has turned out to be false.

Myth #2: BDS is non-violent

Speaking of deceptions, another is the very idea that the BDS movement is a non-violent humanitarian group.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information notes that Omar Barghouti supports armed terrorist attacks against Israel. It quotes from an interview he did in the November-December 2010 issue of Al-Adab, a Palestinian literary magazine. When asked if he supported ending the "Palestinian armed resistance," Barghouti responded:

"No, we most definitely have a moral and legal right to an armed resistance against the military occupation of our land, even according to international law, as long as we attack legitimate targets, that is, the occupation, settlers [i.e., Israeli civilians] and people who are armed. We don't attack anyone who doesn't fight indiscriminately...the resistance is not an ideology or dogma. We cannot be neutral, but have to think about ways to resist that are suitable for our situation and goals, at every stage [of the struggle against Israel]..."

If Barghouti says that unarmed Israeli civilians are legitimate targets, it is no wonder how violent BDS supporters are on college campuses.

Similarly, the Canary Mission profile on Omar Barghouti features a video where Barghouti endorses "armed resistance." He even goes so far as to falsely claim that such terror attacks are a legal right -- when in fact armed struggle is not supported by international law.

If the face of BDS is going around endorsing violence, no one should be fooled by those who claim that the BDS movement is non-violent or surprised when BDS confrontations turn violent.

Not surprisingly, Barghouti endorses Antisemitic metaphors -- like another Omar we know:

Myth #3: Barghouti as BDS role model

One of Barghouti's more well-known deceptions, actually an evasion, is the fact that as the face of the BDS movement, Barghouti has a degree from Tel Aviv University.

When confronted with this hypocrisy, Barghouti's original response was:

My studies at Tel-Aviv University are a personal matter and I have no interest in commenting.

Faced with the obvious inadequacy of his excuse, Barghouti came up with others.

Maan reports:

In 2009, PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) of whom Barghouti is a founding member, stated that Palestinian citizens of Israel or Palestinians carrying Israeli ID cards have no other possibility than to study in Israeli institutions and as such cannot be asked to join the academic boycott.

During a Q& at a session at Loyola Law School, Barghouti responded:

Oppressed people don’t have a choice of where they go to school.

The problem, of course, is that the issue is with Barghouti himself, not other Palestinian Arabs. He earned a masters in electrical engineering from Columbia University while living in the US for 11 years - where he travels on his speaking tours. Barghouti does have choices.

Even if he cannot afford to go back to Columbia or elsewhere outside of Israel, there are a number of universities in both the West Bank and Gaza.

Wikipedia has a list -- of both colleges and universities, in the "West Bank" and Gaza.

In the "West Bank":

o An-Najah National University
o Arab American University
o Bethlehem Bible College
o Bethlehem University
o Birzeit University
o Dar Al-Kalima University College of Arts & Culture
o Edward Said National Conservatory of Music
o Hebron University
o Ibrahimieh College
o Khodori Institute, Tulkarm
o Palestine Ahliya University
o Palestine Polytechnic University
o Al-Quds University
o International Academy of Art, Palestine
o Other education and research institutions
o Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem
o Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute
o Palestinian Academic Network
o Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs
o Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education

In Gaza:

o Al-Aqsa University
o Al-Azhar University - Gaza
o Al-Quds Open University
o Gaza University
o Islamic University of Gaza
o Israa University
o Palestine Technical College
o University College of Applied Sciences
o University of Palestine

Yes, there are choices.

And if Barghouti really is concerned, as he claims, that "Palestinian citizens of Israel or Palestinians carrying Israeli ID cards have no other possibility than to study in Israeli institutions" -- there is good news: Arabs now outnumber residents of the territories at the first private Palestinian university in Jenin

Nur and Mohammed are two of the thousands of Israelis Arabs who are getting their higher education in the West Bank. At a time when the number of students attending universities in Israel is dropping, in general (students are also flocking to private colleges instead), a report from the Palestinian Education Ministry, which Haaretz has obtained, shows that the number of Israelis at the university in Jenin has climbed from 36 to 5,294 in a decade.

An organized transportation system takes students from their homes in the Galilee and Little Triangle area of Arab cities in central Israel to the West Bank. In fact, Israeli Arabs now make up a majority of the student body at AAUJ, the first private Palestinian university. Founded in 2000, the institution is located southeast of Jenin in Area A of the West Bank – i.e., under the Palestinian Authority’s full civil and security control.

Barghouti's claim of no options outside of Israel is false.

If you cannot trust Omar Barghouti -- the face of BDS -- to give you an honest answer, what can you expect of other representatives of BDS?

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Israel looks for win-win solutions. Palestinians only want zero-sum wins. Another reason the world cannot understand the Middle East.

This week saw a relatively minor story from Israel's perspective, and one that was heavily reported in Palestinian Arab media.

Arab prisoners went on a hunger strike last week because Israel put cell phone jamming devices in prisons, making illegal cell phones impossible to use. Palestinian Arabs freaked out, claiming that the devices would cause cancer or other illnesses.

The reason cell phones are banned is obvious. Terrorists can plan new attacks from prison. They can recruit new members of terror groups. They can speak via teleconference at terrorist gatherings and incite more hate and violence. Indeed, Israel has evidence of 14 recent attacks planned via illegal prison cell phones.

Instead of telling the prisoners to drop dead from their hunger strike, Israeli prison officials negotiated with them. And they came up with a solution that seems to address all the issues: Israel agreed to install public telephones in the prison wards where the Arab terrorists are kept, and to allow prisoners to make regular calls to first degree relatives that Israeli officials can listen in on.

Israel no longer has a security issue and Arab prisoners are happy they can speak to their families, which makes prisons a safer place for guards as well. This is a win-win situation.

But that is not how Palestinian media is looking at this.

Today is Palestinian Prisoners Day and Palestinian media is saying that the compromise was a "qualitative victory" for them. (Suddenly the fears of the supposed radiation from the cell phone jammers, which presumably will remain in place, have dissipated.)

Palestinian Arabs simply cannot think in terms of cooperation and compromise with Israel. They can only frame this incident as a victory for them - and a loss for Israel.

This is only a minor example of how the entire conflict has gone. For the Palestinian Arabs, perception is more important than reality (a corollary of the honor/shame culture they inhabit) and therefore they cannot accept anything but what can be framed as total victory - and, just as importantly, a total loss for the Jews.

From Israel's perspective, making a concession is evidence of how strong and secure it feels. From the Arab perspective, Israeli concessions is evidence of their weakness in the face of Arab power and resolve. The two attitudes are not compatible except in minor situations like this one where the actual facts can be papered over.

This difference in attitudes is one important reason peace is so difficult. Every time Israel compromises, the Palestinian Arabs assume that this is evidence of weakness, and it invites further demands and concessions. Only Israeli strength minimizes that attitude.

Western insistence on Israeli concessions ignores this dynamic and how they don't make Israel more secure - as they would with a like-minded negotiating partner - but they endanger Israel by making her appear weak to her enemies.

The EU and UN demand Israel act like a modern Western state when negotiating with people who have not evolved psychologically from the days of Mohammed. Israel's strength allows it to make concessions at times - but it has to balance them with the long term effects on how it is perceived by its enemies, not just the immediate easing of tensions.

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EU High Representative/VP Federica Mogherini lies about the Green Line, and no one calls her on it

The EU Parliament Plenary session on US recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory and the possible annexation of the West Bank settlements.

Some right wing MEPs supported Israeli control over the Golan, although most did not. You can watch the debate here:

The statement from High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini was predictably against Israel - and wrong on facts. She referred to the 1949 armistice lines between Israel and Transjordan as "pre-1967 borders," saying, "The EU will recognize changes to the pre-1967 borders only if and when agreed by the parties, including with regard to Jerusalem."

But they were never borders and Palestinians were never officially presumed to own the land on the other side. The entire premise of the Oslo process was that all the land east of the line was disputed, which is why it was subject to negotiation to begin with. It wasn't a border dispute where cartographers could determine where an earlier boundary was, it was a negotiation over who gets what land to create border between the State of Israel and a Palestinian Arab entity, which may or may not have ended up as a state.

Mogherini then redoubles on international law as it applies to borders - borders that are fictional.

"The idea that you can change borders with the use of military force is a dangerous one in Europe, in the Middle East, elsewhere," she said. Yet the 1949 armistice lines were created by war that was started by the Arab side to begin with, and they were never meant to be permanent. UNGC 242 says that Israel has the"right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force," a phrase inserted specifically because the 1949 lines were not secure nor recognized. The Arabs certainly didn't recognize them as borders, and the armistice agreements made that explicit.

There is something wrong where a top EU diplomat can publicly lie about the Green Line and international law and no one even notices.

(h/t Irene)

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