Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 09, 2021

Cartoon of the Day: The right side of history

04/09 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Israel: The necessary superpower; David Singer: Israel’s voting system needs urgent reform; Ruthie Blum: Abbas’s snubs work like a charm on Biden

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Israel: The necessary superpower

Appeasement is a symptom of profound cultural demoralization, caused by a loss of national self-belief and faith in the future. That process has been going on in the West ever since the Holocaust delivered the devastating message that there was something rotten at the very heart of Western high culture.

The most important proof of this demoralization is the birthrate in America and Europe, which is either below or barely the rate at which the indigenous population can reproduce itself. In other words, the West is literally dying out.

By contrast, Israel is emerging from the pandemic at a world-beating rate – its economy strong and resilient, and crucially, its birthrate healthy and high.

This is because Israel actually believes in itself. Sure, it has a ludicrously dysfunctional political culture, currently illustrated once again by its post-election gridlock and absence of a functioning government. It is also disfigured by deep social divisions between secular and religious communities, and subversive elements who regard the very idea of a Jewish state as anathema.

But the vast majority of Israel's public understands that its core value is the preservation of life and liberty and doing good in the world. It is a society built on redemption and hope, and in dramatic contrast to the death-spiral gripping America and Europe, it is relentlessly focused on its survival.

The Arab world has come to understand that all this is of priceless value – not just for Israel but for itself, too. It sees that Israel actually takes out its enemies. It is increasingly realizing that the country most likely to defend Arab interests against Iran is not America but Israel, the Arabs' new and unlikely ally.

As America falters and Western societies break apart, might this become Israel's century?

The Tikvah Podcast: Mohammed Alyahya on Two Competing Visions of Power in the Middle East

This week, the Biden administration officially began multilateral negotiations with Iran, in hopes of re-entering some form of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the so-called Iran nuclear deal.

The debate over the deal is one of the most contentious in contemporary American foreign policy, and reveals a genuine conflict of visions. Supporters of the deal, including prominent officials in the Biden administration, tend to view the Middle East as consumed by an eternal conflict between the Sunni states of the Gulf, led by Saudi Arabia, and the Shia allies led by Iran. Opponents of the deal tend to think that the central regional faultline is not Shia Iran vs. Sunni Saudi Arabia, but instead the American-led alliance structure—including Saudi Arabia and Israel—against Iran and its regional proxies.

That’s the view of this week’s podcast guest, Mohammed Alyahya, the editor of Al Arabiya‘s English edition. He, who is based in Dubai and grew up in Saudi Arabia, explains the central paradigms at the heart of Middle East politics, and he outlines what the Biden administration should and shouldn’t do when confronting Iran and the threat it poses to America and the regional order.

David Singer: Israel’s voting system needs urgent reform

A million or more Israelis did not vote in each of the four indecisive elections held in the last two years – costing Israel an estimated $4.24 billion - whilst causing political upheaval and electoral instability as a result.

The Central Elections Committee (CEC) sets out how Israel’s electoral system works:
“Israel has an electoral system based on nation-wide proportional representation. In other words, the number of seats that each list receives in the Knesset - the House of Representatives - is proportional to the number of votes it received…the only limitation placed on a list which participated in the elections that can keep it from being elected is that it must pass the qualifying threshold, which is currently 3.25%.”

The CEC explains the historical background for this unique voting system:
“The State of Israel inherited the rigid system of proportional representation from the political system of the yishuv (the organized Jewish community) in mandatory times. This system was based on the zeal with which the various political parties - in which ideology and personalities played a major role - fought to preserve their independence. The justification given for the large number of parties resulting from the system was, that in a period in which major, far-reaching and rapid changes were still taking place in the population make-up as a result of immigration, it was important to enable maximal representation for various groups and opinions.”

What was appropriate during the Mandate for Palestine (1920 – 1948) is clearly not working now.

The following highlights why Israel’s electoral system needs urgent reform:

Ruthie Blum: Abbas’s snubs work like a charm on Biden

Abbas’s gall is not new and has served the P.A. ruler well with the international community, which has elevated him to ill-deserved heights. This is due to an unfounded, knee-jerk opposition to Israel, not to the way in which he rules his own people, who view him with disdain and outrage.

Nor is American appeasement of petty tyrants a novelty; certainly not among those, like Biden and many of his appointees, who served under former President Barack Obama. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s verbal abuse of former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during nuclear negotiations—so loud and disrespectful that even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered him to tone it down—comes to mind in this context.

Trump put a temporary stop to such supplication. Ramallah, like Tehran, responded by spewing rhetoric, but feared suffering the consequences of Washington’s wrath. One key basis for the trepidation was financial.

True, sanctions didn’t stop the P.A. from paying terrorists’ hefty salaries or prevent Iran from keeping its centrifuges spinning. The withholding of cash has, however, made life more difficult for both regimes.

Emboldened by the old sheriff’s posse being back in town, each has been testing Washington’s limits. So far, there don’t seem to be too many.

In fact, the Biden administration’s allocation of $90 million in aid to the P.A. ($15 million in “coronavirus relief” and another $75 million for the Palestinians to regain “trust” in the United States) comes weeks after Abbas rejected Blinken’s telephone overture. Talk about a return to Obama’s proud “leadership from behind.”

Whether Abbas and his governing Fatah faction survive the fast-approaching elections—slated for the Palestinian Legislative Council on May 22, for the P.A. presidency on July 31 and for the Palestinian National Council on Aug. 31—remains to be seen. Still, what’s already clear to him and any potential successor is the path to Uncle Sam’s purse and heart strings.

Here's an amusing story from Iran's PressTV:

A group of dozens of international human rights activists has warned against the promotion of the left-wing Zionism, which seeks to colonize popular solidarity with the Palestinian people through presenting them as a helpless nation and attacking the resistance front against the Tel Aviv regime.

The campaigners, in an open letter addressed to the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), warned the non-governmental organization against the decision to opt former Australian journalist and television presenter Sophie McNeill as the keynote speaker during its upcoming event, scheduled for May 23.

The activists highlighted that McNeill has encouraged the “Palestinians as victims” line at the same time as she has ferociously been attacking the anti-Israel resistance front.

They went on to describe her as a Western apologist, who attacks the resistance bloc in order to defend Washington’s divide and rule strategy, US-led military invasions, and attempts to either destroy or balkanize Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

The activists said McNeill now works as a researcher for the so-called Human Rights Watch (HRW), whose executive director is a prominent liberal Zionist and he frantically tries to conceal the apartheid nature of the Israeli regime by a humane mask.

Human Rights Watch regularly makes moral equivalence between Israeli massacres and resistance mounted by Palestinian groups in the face of the Tel Aviv regime’s acts of aggression, they argued.

They further noted that McNeill repeatedly made US-HRW-crafted allegations about the use of barrel bomb and chemical warfare in Syria in order to incriminate the Damascus government as well as Syrian government troops, and prolong the Syrian conflict.

Calling Sophie McNeill and the head of HRW Ken Roth "Zionists" is pretty funny. Both have been in the forefront of demonizing Israel.

Of course the names of these "activists" aren't mentioned, and I couldn't find this open letter anywhere, which means that these "international human rights activists" are Iran, which is angry that both of them criticize Iran and Syria. (The full article makes that clearer, with praise from these "activists" for Hezbollah and Iranian terrorists.)

Merriam Webster says Israel was a "kingdom in ancient Palestine"

The World History Encyclopedia gives a brief account of how the region in the eastern Mediterranean became known as Palestine:

By the time Rome appeared in the land it was long known as Judea, a term taken from the ancient Kingdom of Judah which had been destroyed by the Babylonians. It was also referred to, however, as Palestine and, after the Bar-Kochba Revolt of 132-136 CE, the Roman emperor Hadrian renamed the region Syria-Palaestina to punish the Jewish people for their insurrection (by naming it after their two traditional enemies, the Syrians and the Philistines).

The very term "Palestine" is meant to be an insult to Jews.

This is why it is offensive to see the word used today as a generic term.

The Merriam Webster dictionary uses the term "ancient Palestine" often, referring to topics that pre-dated the word Palestine.

From Merriam Webster's online dictionary:

This is jarring and anachronistic.

Here, the three examples used could all have used the word "Israel" or "Judea:"

Sometimes it appears that the dictionary is going out of its way to avoid the words "Israel" or "Judea:"

Of course, the people who brought the first fruits would have looked blankly at you if you asked them what Palestine was. This definition is almost purposely vague when it could have far more clearly said "ancient Judea" or "ancient Israel."

This is offensive.

I don't believe that this usage of Palestine is meant to be offensive. The term "Palestine" before the 20th century was almost invariably associated with the areas controlled by the Jewish people in Biblical times, which means that the offensive Roman term stuck and lost much of its repugnance. It was just another word for ancient Israel, as these maps from 1741 and 1897 show:

But lexicographers will be the first ones to tell you that languages change and acceptable usages change. The way modern antisemites use "Palestine" is intended, as with the Romans, to be a way to erase the Jewish nation from the map.

The way the word "Palestine" was used before the 20th century was clearly not meant to be offensive even if that was the original intent of the term. Today, however, enemies of Israel have been co-opting that word as if it refers to an ancient Arab political entity, and not to the areas of biblical Jewish rule, hence the constant use of the misnomer "historic Palestine" to refer to the modern borders created for the British Mandate less than a century ago. There is no map of Palestine before 1920 that adheres to those borders, as the maps above show.

And this is where Merriam-Webster makes its biggest mistakes:

If Palestine is a "region," then the population is about 11 million - because Israel would be included. That first sentence conflates the so-called "state of Palestine" with its historic use, and is flat out wrong.

The boundaries it mentions are essentially the British Mandate borders, which as I've shown are not even close to what was considered Palestine before 1920. No map included the Negev, all the maps included parts of the east bank of the Jordan and Lebanon, you cannot find one that used the Jordan River as a boundary.

Merriam Webster has re-written the definition to adhere to politically correct thinking of a relationship between the modern concept of an Arab Palestinian political entity and how the term has been used for 1800 years - as a (poor) synonym for Judea.

Modern antisemites have renewed what the Romans did: use the word "Palestine" to destroy the concept of a Jewish political entity. It is the responsibility of dictionaries to understand this subtext and not to compound the offense.

(h/t Susan Z)

The Al Talaqi Association, which works to promote diversity and tolerance in Tunisia, has issued a statement of solidarity with Tunisia Jews who have been the subject of recent antisemitic attacks.

According to the press release, some Jews were subjected to attacks and violations of their dignity. It kept track of many incidents.

They include the almost-fatal beating of a ten-year-old child, an attempted murder of a 16-year-old girl, and a Jewish man who was assaulted inside his house by another man who screamed at him, "Get out ffrom our country!"

Also, a Jewish merchant was beaten near a highway by an assailant, who pulled off his pants and taunted him, asking onlookers "Do you want to see a Jew?"

The organization said that all Tunisians must reject all forms of discrimination against minorities, defend a culture of tolerance, and reject the culture of extremism, violence, racism and hatred.

I had never seen any of these incidents mentioned in Arabic media.

04/08 Links Pt2: Holocaust Remembrance Day: We can't let our past be our children's future; Holocaust truths left out of the history texts; Monsey Chanukah Machete Attacker Declared Unfit for Trial

From Ian:

Torchlighters on Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day 2021

Each year, six Holocaust survivors are chosen to light torches at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which began Wednesday evening, in memory of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.

- Manya Bigunov was born in 1927 in the Ukrainian city of Teplyk. In July 1941, the Germans occupied Teplyk and sent residents to forced labor. She escaped from one of the labor camps and survived in the Bershad ghetto in Transnistria. After the war, Manya filled dozens of Yad Vashem's Pages of Testimony commemorating the people of Teplyk. In 1992, she immigrated to Israel.

- Yossi Chen was born in 1936 in Lachwa, Poland (now Belarus). On Passover eve 1942, all the town's Jews were ordered to move into the ghetto. In August 1942, the Jews learned that the ghetto residents were about to be murdered and an uprising broke out in full cooperation with the ghetto Jewish council, the Judenrat. While the majority of the Jews who tried to flee were shot and killed, six-year-old Yossi fled to the forests. Yossi and his father hid in haystacks, swamps and forests, drank water from swamps and ate berries until they found the partisans. In July 1947, the two boarded the Exodus illegal immigrant ship.

- Sara Fishman was born in 1927 in what is today Neresnytsya, Ukraine. When Sara and her sisters arrived in Auschwitz, one of the prisoners threw a stone at them with a note attached. The note read that the smoke they saw from the chimney was their parents. Later she was sent to forced labor outside Auschwitz and then to Bergen-Belsen. In 1949 she immigrated to Israel and served in the IDF during the War of Independence.

- Halina Friedman was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1933. In the Warsaw ghetto, her parents worked in a factory that repaired uniforms for the German Army, and Halina was placed in a kindergarten for the workers' children. In 1942, the children were taken out and shot by machine gun. Halina fell, but was not injured. She lay among the dozens of dead children, covered in their blood. Only at night did she return home. She escaped when the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out in 1943 and for 18 months was hidden in a bunker at the home of two Polish people, Jerzy Kozminski and his stepmother Teresa Kozminska, who were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1965.

- Zehava Gealel was born in 1935 in The Hague, Netherlands. Dutch police accompanied by Germans arrived to take the family members into custody, but thanks to documents sent by Zehava's grandfather in the U.S., the family members were granted Romanian citizenship and were defined as political prisoners. She was later sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany and then to Bergen-Belsen. For the past 50 years, Zehava has been a nurse at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer in Israel.

- Shmuel Naar was born in 1924 in Thessaloniki, Greece. In March 1943 the city's Jews were deported, mostly to Auschwitz. In January 1945, Shmuel was forced on a death march to Bergen-Belsen. In November 1945, he boarded the Berl Katzenelson illegal immigrant ship bound for Israel. When the ship was discovered by a British destroyer, Shmuel jumped into the icy water and swam to shore. Shmuel fought in the War of Independence and in all the wars of Israel including the Yom Kippur War as a combat medic.

Ronald Lauder: Holocaust Remembrance Day: We can't let our past be our children's future

“We cannot let our past become our children’s future.” These words were spoken by Roman Kent, an Auschwitz survivor on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp. These words are still ringing in my ears. I think about them all the time and they have guided me over the past six years, since I stood at the those terrible gates – gates that saw over one-million Jewish mothers, fathers and so, so many children pass through them. They went into the camp, but they never came out.

Five years after Roman Kent spoke those words, I brought 120 survivors and their families to the same gates for the 75th anniversary of the liberation by the Red Army. For many of them, it was their first time back since those terrible days. For many, it will probably be their last visit.

I was astounded to see their strength as we walked through the camp with their families. I also saw the pain in the faces of their children and grandchildren, who finally understood what they had experienced.

In my keynote address to them at those infamous gates, I talked about what it meant to have these survivors with us and what it meant to me personally. But also present were European leaders and dignitaries from more than 50 countries and I told them directly that they must do everything in their power to make sure that the rise in hatred that we are seeing, must be stopped in their countries. The continent of Europe owes this to the Jewish people.

Since that day, now more than a year and two months ago, I have stayed in touch with them. Sadly, we have already lost ten of them. This past Pesach, we held a Zoom meeting and they told me something that touched me to my core. They said they understood the Pesach story better than most people, because they were slaves themselves. And, perhaps most importantly, they were delivered to freedom.

JPost Editorial: Holocaust Remembrance Day: Remember, appreciate Israel

Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day to remember the alternative, to remember what happened to the Jews in Europe in the previous century, and through that simple act of remembering to better appreciate our lives now in the Jewish state in this century.

President Reuven Rivlin articulated this sentiment well during comments he made Tuesday when giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the mandate to form the next government.

Rivlin related how last week former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak came to the President’s Residence and told his tale of survival as a young boy living behind the wall in the home of a Lithuanian farmer.

Barak, Rivlin said, kept his composure throughout the telling of this harrowing tale, which included the “most terrible and dreadful moments of the selection of children in the ghetto.”

Barak’s voice only wavered, Rivlin recounted, when he described meeting soldiers of the Jewish Brigade wearing a badge of the blue and white flag.

“The State of Israel is not to be taken for granted,” Rivlin said. “We hold – you the citizens of Israel hold – [in hand] the greatest treasure of the Jewish people.”

That the Jewish people should not take the existence of the State of Israel for granted is an obvious sentiment. But, as Menachem Begin once famously quipped, even the obvious needs to be restated from time to time.

It is human nature not to fully appreciate everyday wonders until they are gone: being able to walk, until you can’t; being able to see, until you go blind; being able to bend, until your back goes out.

So, too, it is difficult to appreciate the wonder and miracle of the Jewish state unless you step back and remember what things looked like without it. Holocaust Remembrance Day, among its other messages, commands us to do just that.

Group Holding Soccer Games, Parkour On Temple Mount Worried About Jews Desecrating Place By Praying There (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

soccer ball Jerusalem, April 8 - The Islamic council that administers the plateau they call the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, and which endorses the use of the holy site for sports competitions, day camps, and other non-holy pursuits, aims to preserve the sanctity of the compound by preventing members of the Hebraic faith from engaging in devotional rituals when visiting.

Israel ceded administration of the Temple Mount, site of two ancient Jewish shrines, to the Waqf soon after gaining control of the location from Jordanian hands in June 1967. The Waqf has reciprocated by denying Jews the right to pray, or even look like they are praying, while atop the Mount, lest the venue for almost-daily soccer games, parkour demonstrations, races, dance parties, and other such activities have its holiness compromised by Jews uttering liturgical passages. The threat of violent riots underlies enforcement of those restrictions.

"It's very simple," explained Afr Tayid, a Waqf spokesman. "Jews can't just come here and perform their Talmudic rituals where our own publications boast is the location of two Jewish Temples, and expect us, the guardians of Islamic holiness, not to react by throwing rocks or firebombs, or otherwise trying to hurt Jews for being so presumptuous as to think they can not be under Islamic domination."

"Allah sees Muslims playing soccer as sacred," he continued. "In fact Allah sees anything Muslims do as sacred, which is why it matters not in the least what we do here in the Haram al-Sharif - whereas it matters intensely what Jews do, because Jews. I hope that makes everything clear."

Religious scholars noted that Mr. Tayid's explication of the theological principles in operation dovetails with a broader trend in which Muslims' actions that in other circumstances would qualify as barbaric, murderous, unjust, repressive, or rapacious instead become positive because Muslims are the ones performing those actions. "We see the same thing with, for example, mass rape, mass murder, and enslavement of non-Muslims across territory under control of the Islamic State," observed Wihaf Tawziye. "All the arguments about Islam being a liberating force, especially for women and minorities, go out the window when those women and minorities happen to be on the side that Islamic forces oppose in battle, but that's OK, religiously, because jihad is the Get Out of Prohibitions Free card. It's not just the Sunnis. Look at how Shiite Iran bankrolls and arms the perpetrators of some of the most heinous policies, but hey, it's in the name of Allah, so all's good."

"In the case of Jews," he added, "that just makes it worse. I mean, it's Jews."

04/08 Links Pt1: Israel slams Biden's resumption of UNRWA funding for Palestinians; Eli Lake: Biden Cannot Allow Iran to Keep Its Weapons Program; Israel responds to ICC, says it lacks jurisdiction

From Ian:

Israel slams Biden's resumption of UNRWA funding for Palestinians

US restoration of funding does not included direct financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority. The US Taylor Force Act of 2018 prohibits such direct funding until such time as the PA halts it monthly payments to terrorists and their families. Funding for Palestinian security forces was excluded from that legislation.

The Anti-Terror Clarification Act passed that same year had also created stumbling blocks to the provision of humanitarian assistance, but amendments to the legislation remove such impediments.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price clarified for reporters that all funding was legal under American law. “I just want to underscore that all of this aid is absolutely consistent with relevant US law, including those two statutes,” Price said.

Israel, however, took issue with US funding to UNRWA, which Trump had halted because he believes that the organized was flawed and a stumbling bloc to peace.

“The renewal of UNRWA assistance,” the Foreign Ministry said, “must be accompanied by substantial and necessary changes in the nature, goals and conduct of the organization.”

It added that the issue of UNRAW funding had come up in conversation between Israeli and American officials.

Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said he had also warned the State Department of the danger of such activity, particularly without ensuring that “incitement” and “anti-Semitic content” are removed from its educational curriculum.

“Israel is strongly opposed to the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity happening in UNRWA’s facilities,” Erdan said.

"We believe that this UN agency for so-called “refugees” should not exist in its current format. UNRWA schools regularly use materials that incite against Israel and the twisted definition used by the agency to determine who is a “refugee” only perpetuates the conflict.

Blinken, however, specifically mentioned support for UNRWA's education program.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York he hoped the US restoration of funding would sway other countries to do likewise.

“There were a number of countries that had greatly reduced or halted contributions to UNRWA. We hope that the American decision will lead others to rejoin... as UNRWA donors,” Dujarric said.

JCPA: The Palestinian Authority Tries to Bully Israel on the Jerusalem Issue

The PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas ordered the opening of an international campaign regarding the right of east Jerusalem residents to participate in Palestinian parliamentary elections despite the recommendation of senior Fatah figures to postpone the elections.

Mahmoud Abbas went to Germany for medical treatment, and his trip may be intended to prepare public opinion for the possibility of the elections’ postponement.

The PA launched an international campaign against Israel to bully and force it to agree to the participation of east Jerusalem residents in parliamentary elections on May 22, 2021.

At a meeting of the Palestinian government, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh revealed that the Palestinian Authority had sent letters on the issue to the UN, the European Union, the United States, and Russia, explaining that from their perspective, there was no impediment to allowing east Jerusalem residents to participate in the elections as they did in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.

Wasel Abu Yousuf, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, said that the participation of east Jerusalem residents in the parliamentary elections was of great importance when Israel was trying to make the city its unified capital.

Senior PA officials say that the PA wants to use the campaign for the participation of east Jerusalem residents to quash and erase the Trump administration’s declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Eli Lake: Biden Cannot Allow Iran to Keep Its Weapons Program

Because of a last-minute U.S. concession in 2015, Iran never had to disclose the sites in question or other possible military dimensions of its program to the IAEA as a condition for the economic benefits promised in the JCPOA. As a result, the stringent inspection regime imposed by the agreement did not apply to the sites in this weapons program. Iran’s declared nuclear program was monitored, but its undeclared sites were not.

David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a co-author of an upcoming book on the Iranian archive, estimates there are nine sites revealed by the archive. These include facilities designed to build the nuclear core for a weapon and to conduct tests.

“Iran is not building nuclear weapons today,” Albright told me. “But it is preparing to do so. The program is designed to produce nuclear weapons on demand. And it will be able to make those weapons relatively quickly when a decision is made.”

At the very least, this is a major failure of the JCPOA. That deal was supposed to give the world confidence that Iran could not and would not produce a nuclear weapon. That it missed a huge weapons program is a sign of incompetence on the part of the Western countries that negotiated the pact.

More important, this weapons program is a sign of Iran’s duplicity. Even as it negotiated the JCPOA, Iran was not only holding blueprints for a nuclear weapon, but also maintaining a constellation of physical sites where it could eventually build one.

This is what’s wrong with the current talks in Vienna: The best the Biden administration can hope for from these negotiations is Iranian compliance with a flawed bargain. In exchange for that compliance, Araghchi is demanding the U.S. lift the very sanctions that are its best leverage to get Iran to come clean to the IAEA. That’s not a deal any U.S. president should make.

Jewishness is whatever you want it to be - except Jewish nationalism

I tweeted this the other day:

"I express my Jewishness through tikkun olam!"
   "Wonderful!"
"I express mine through old Yiddish plays"
   "Fantastic!"
"Jewish cuisine here!"
   "Amazing!"
"Mine is through Zionism!"
   "How dare you conflate Zionism with Judaism!"

My point is that the anti-Israel crowd loves to talk about their Jewish heritage, which can be anything from eating bagels to researching the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. This is all part of the tapestry of Judaism to them.

But for people who consider Jewish nationalism to be an integral part of their Judaism, suddenly their expansive definition of what Jewishness means hits a brick wall.

They would consider anyone attacking any aspect of their Jewishness to be antisemitic, but attacking the Jewish state or Jewish nationalism isn't antisemitic - on the contrary, they consider it praiseworthy.

As much as they try to pretend that somehow Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism, they cannot seem to explain exactly what their boundaries are for what is Jewish. And for people who accuse others of marginalizing them as Jews, this is more than a little hypocritical.

Pearson textbook fixes anti-Israel bias; Israel haters complain the fixes were all "pro-Israel" - and publisher caves to them

A UK-based textbook publisher has paused the distribution of two Middle East high school books after a report that showed that the books - which were filled with anti-Israel bias - had been changed in a "pro-Israel" direction.

Conflict in the Middle East, c1945-1995 and The Middle East: Conflict, Crisis and Change, 1917-2012, both written by Hilary Brash, were shown to be highly biased against Israel. David Collier wrote a report on just chapter 1 of the second book showing clear bias, and he mentioned some other examples:

• P. 29 refers to terrorists, or Fedayeen, as freedom fighters “depending on one’s point of view.” It is internationally accepted that those who randomly target civilians are terrorists regardless of the cause they are fighting for. Palestinian terrorists and terror groups – like Hamas – wage such attacks against Israeli civilians to this day.
• P. 56 has a reference of PFLP as a “guerrilla group”. In reality, PFLP is an internationally proscribed terror organisation, having been designated as such by the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, and the European Union. It does not recognise Israel and openly calls for its annihilation and is well known for pioneering armed aircraft-hijackings in the late 1960s (one of its most infamous militants being Leila Khaled).
• P. 78 refers to the Coastal Road Massacre and says that Israeli civilians “died” during the shootout. In reality, the Israelis kidnapped by the Palestinian terrorists were murdered by them and not caught in the crossfire, as the book aims to portray; 13 of the victims were children. Furthermore, the passage does not once refer to the Palestinians as terrorists, preferring to call them “militants”.

A timeline on events in the region from that book that is still online shows the pattern of bias against Jews and Zionism.

Not one mention of Arab aggression against Jews before 1972. The only attack mentioned is the King David Hotel attack - not one mention of the 1929 massacres, the 1936 uprising, the attacks on Jews throughout the period. Nothing about Jews fleeing Europe for their lives before the Holocaust, or the Holocaust itself. Conflicts and wars "break out" - they aren't initiated by Arabs. The PLO is not involved in any terror attacks at all - the only two attacks mentioned are from the PFLP and Black September, which students aren't told was the PLO. It says Arafat renounces terrorism and doesn't mention the terrorism that he directed in the years that followed. And, of course, history only begins in 1917, with no mention of the Jewish presence on and love of the land for three thousand years.

To correct this bias, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and UK Lawyers for Israel met with Pearson in 2019 and worked with them to eliminate this bias. Revised textbooks were released in 2020.

Now, the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, a virulently anti-Israel group, issued their own report written by professors John Chalcraft and James Dickins complaining about the revisions.

In assessing the changes that we found there was one dimension on which almost all of the changes could be arrayed, namely from which perspective the history of Israel/Palestine should be told. In assessing the direction of change we used a simple scheme, based on whether a reasonable, broadly informed person would understand a change to be pro Israeli, pro-Palestinian or neutral between those positions. The terms ‘pro-Israeli’ and ‘pro Palestinian’ are defined in their most generally accepted sense – as characterizing an account which exonerates Israelis or Palestinians from blame, fault or wrongdoing. On this basis we found (a) a small number of changes that are broadly neutral, (b) around half a dozen changes that may be described as mildly pro-Palestinian, and (c) the remainder, the vast majority, that are pro-Israeli. The net effect is that the content and substance of the textbooks has been significantly altered. The RVs are emphatically more pro-Israeli than the OVs.

Obviously, if the books were heavily slanted against Israel, changes to correct the books would be regarded as "pro-Israeli!" That isn't bias - that is a correction to anti-Israel bias.

The authors did not release the full list of changes, but only some cherry-picked ones, with no images of the pages where the changes can be evaluated in context. So when they complain that the word "atrocity" was removed in reference to Deir Yassin, we cannot see whether that word was used in reference to the Hadassah Hospital convoy massacre - or even if that massacre was mentioned at all. Without that context, they make it look like the book is now completely pro-Israel, which seems highly unlikely.

Yet as a result of this biased report, Pearson has again paused the distribution of the book!

Chalcraft and Dickins present themselves in the report as "senior academics in Middle East Studies," yet two minutes of research shows that they are anti-Israel activists who support boycotting Israel. Here is Dickins (right) at an anti-Israel rally:

Dickins also recently promoted a video by airplane hijacker Leila Khaled.

Chalcraft is likewise a proponent of boycotting Israeli universities.

The opinions of those who want to see the Jewish state destroyed can hardly be trusted to be unbiased in their review of textbooks!

And yet Pearson is giving these haters' opinions enough respect as to pause distribution of a book that was painstakingly edited to eliminate the exact sort of bias that these professors have.

Why Arab MKs Hate the State (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

On Tuesday, Israel’s 24^th Knesset was sworn in. They were asked to commit to “…be faithful to the State of Israel and to fulfill with devotion [their] cause in the Knesset.” The majority of them responded “I commit,” but four Arabs and one Jewish communist did not. The Arabs, members of the Hadash (communist) and Balad (“land" parties) said that they would commit to struggle against “occupation and apartheid” or “racism and racists.” The declarations were not accepted and the five were escorted out of the chamber. They will forfeit some privileges of Knesset membership until they make the proper declaration, as specified in the Basic Law for the Knesset. I have not been able to determine if they will also not get paid, although I’m not holding my breath.

This is not anything new. Arab MKs in 2013 left the ceremony before the singing of Israel’s national anthem, Hatikva. Then-MK Hanin Zoabi of the Balad party explained that “as an Arab woman born in this country, the anthem oppresses me and humiliates me.” The song expresses the “Jewish spirit yearning … to be a free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.” Zoabi and other Palestinian nationalists reject the idea of a Jewish state; their official platform calls for a Palestinian state in Judea/Samaria and the “return” of the descendants of the Arab refugees of 1948 to the area of pre-1967 Israel and the establishment of a binational state. They consider themselves the “true owners of the soil,” and so the sentiments expressed in Hatikva are offensive to them.

All the Arab parties and the Arab-Jewish communist party are explicitly anti-Zionist. Balad is funded by Qatar; Mansour Abbas’ Ra’am party – which ironically (and in my opinion, outrageously) may end up supporting a Netanyahu coalition with its votes – is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent and patron of Hamas. The Basic Law for the Knesset says that “negation of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” disqualifies a candidate from standing for election to the Knesset. If it were enforced, probably none of today’s Arab MKs would qualify.

About 20% of Israel’s citizens are Arabs, mostly the descendants of Arabs that did not flee the area that became Israel in 1948. Some are residents of eastern Jerusalem who accepted Israeli citizenship when it was offered after the 1967 war (although most refused and remain permanent residents who can vote in municipal elections but not national ones). Arabs are an essential part of Israel’s economy and cultural life.

And they are not going anywhere. Meir Kahane argued that if they were not removed from the country, they would overtake the Jewish majority demographically; but as time has passed and the Jewish and Arab birthrates have tended to converge, this worry has receded. On the other hand, if it turns out that the political positions of the Arab MKs are representative of the population, then the presence of a large minority that opposes the existence of the Jewish state as such is exceedingly dangerous. Is there in fact such a minority?

It’s not a simple question. Several surveys in recent years show a large majority of Arab citizens of Israel are happy with their lives here, and would not choose to live in another country – certainly not in the Palestinian Authority or Gaza. Surprisingly, a recent poll shows that one-third of them even approve of the performance of PM Netanyahu, whom the Jewish Left constantly accuses of anti-Arab racism.

On the other hand, a large majority assert that they oppose the definition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people as expressed in the Nation-State Law, and would prefer a state of all its citizens. But it seems – and anecdotal evidence supports the idea – that the economic and physical security that they find in Israel overrides ideological considerations.

This situation is not ideal, but is probably the best that can be expected. The ideological disagreement comes from the traditional Palestinian narrative, in which they see themselves as the aboriginal inhabitants of the land who were pushed aside and had their land violently stolen from them by a wave of European Jewish invaders. This story imparts a serious blow to the honor of the Arab community, honor that some of them believe can only be recaptured by the violent expulsion of the invaders. This is sometimes understood as a loss of honor to the Muslim ummah as well, in which case there is a strong religious imperative to regain it. The combination of these beliefs can inflame their holders to commit acts of violence, even suicide terrorism.

While most Arabs in Israel are not extremists, the narrative powerfully influences their collective consciousness. Sometimes this is expressed in ways that shock us, as in the recent welcome given to a terrorist who was released after 35 years in prison for the gruesome torture and murder of a young Jewish soldier.

The Palestinian narrative is taught in the Israeli-Arab school system, and by left-wing Jewish and Arab teachers in universities. It pervades Arab culture: theater, poetry, and music reflect it. Although hatred for Jews and the glorification of martyrdom in the service of the cause is not part of official curricula as it is in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority, it is part of the conventional wisdom in Arab communities that anti-Israel terrorists are heroes and heroines even if their actions are thought impractical. And the Palestinian narrative is an essential part of the ideology of Arab intellectuals, including members of the Knesset, whether or not it is connected to a religious, Palestinian nationalist, or pan-Arab message.

Could there be an Arab consciousness that is truly accepting of the fact of a Jewish state, a consciousness that understands that there is nothing fundamentally illegitimate about the state, and one that can see the decision to live as a minority in a state that belongs to someone else as not shameful?

That would require teaching a new understanding of the history of the state that sharply contradicts the existing Palestinian narrative. It would need to take into account the actual history of the Jewish people and the Palestinian Arabs in the region, rather than the myths that have been created for political purposes. It would have to describe the migrations of the various groups that make up today’s Palestinians, and not make up stories about Philistines and Canaanites. It would need to accept that Jews lived in the region for thousands of years, and built a Temple in Jerusalem (and incidentally that Jesus was a Judean). Finally, it would need to drop the ideas that Palestinians are victims of Jewish colonialism, and that they are indigenous and we are not.

Unfortunately, the academics that would teach this version of the story, a version that could be accepted by both Jews and Arabs because it is true, are rare indeed. The post-modern view that all narratives are equally true (or false) is common today. The politicians that would adopt it would be forced to give up political advantage gained by stirring up resentment and hatred, placing them at a disadvantage to those who didn’t (which is why all Arab MKs at least pay lip service to Palestinian nationalism).

I don’t expect this to happen, at least not today with today’s cast of characters, both Jewish and Arab. So the best we can hope for is an increased pragmatism, an understanding that everyday life is more important than ideology. It’s not perfect, but we can live with it.

Mainstream Jewish media knew about the Holocaust in 1942 - but too many didn't want to believe them

Reading mainstream Jewish media from the 1940s is depressing and maddening..

In 1942, Jews already knew to a degree the extent of the Holocaust, of over 1.5 million already killed and millions more in mortal danger.

The front page of the B'nai Brith Messenger, December 4, 1942:

Zionists pleaded for Britain to lift the White Paper, as this April 2, 1943 article shows:

Anti-Zionists wanted the opposite. Just as today, these people claim to be representing Jews in their zeal to allow Jews to be murdered. And just as today, they tried to pretend to be more influential than they were which allowed political leaders to avoid listening to the people who actually wante to save the lives of Jews in Europe.

December 18, 1942:

The saddest and most enraging article I saw, though, comes from someone who simply could not believe that Hitler could possibly be as evil as people were claiming.

Charles Benson, whose "Capital Letter" on Washington DC was syndicated in multiple Jewish newspapers, no doubt felt that he was wise beyond the hysterical Jews who were pleading for millions of their people to be saved. He used an appalling "logic" of a rational Hitler who would never do such a thing as to waste all that Jewish manpower, not to mention that it is completely impossible to murder that many Jews in that short period of time using the most barbaric method he could imagine.

The sarcasm in this article, belittling those who called Hitler a mass murdering monster, is enough to make you want to scream.

December 11, 1942:

04/07 Links Pt2: Teachers’ Union Head Rips Jews in Interview on School Reopening; Houda Nonoo: Commemorating the Holocaust while building a more tolerant Middle East

From Ian:

Teachers’ Union Head Rips Jews in Interview on School Reopening

Union leader Randi Weingarten criticized Jews as "part of the ownership class" dedicated to denying opportunities to others in an interview released on Friday.

Weingarten—who is herself Jewish and draws a six-figure salary as head of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)—took aim at American Jews in an interview with the Jerusalem Post. When asked about parents critical of the AFT's resistance to school reopening, Weingarten took aim squarely at Jewish critics.

"American Jews are now part of the ownership class," Weingarten said. "Jews were immigrants from somewhere else. And they needed the right to have public education. And they needed power to have enough income and wealth for their families that they could put their kids through college and their kids could do better than they have done."

"What I hear when I hear that question is that those who are in the ownership class now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it," she said.

Weingarten's comments come after months of political conflict about whether to reopen school system as vaccinations ramp up and the coronavirus crisis recedes.

A major Jewish advocacy group ripped Weingarten for being "inaccurate and dangerous" in her generalizations about the Jewish community. StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy organization, said the union boss was "out of touch" with the experience of Jewish students and came close to trafficking in anti-Semitism.

"As a non-partisan Israel education organization, StandWithUs takes no position on the debate over when schools should reopen," Roz Rothstein, cofounder and CEO of StandWithUs, said. "We work with many Jewish students and parents in Los Angeles and are extremely disappointed by Randi Weingarten's inaccurate and dangerous generalizations about our community.

Houda Nonoo: Commemorating the Holocaust while building a more tolerant Middle East

Today, we pay tribute to the memory of six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust. Their only crime was that they were Jewish. The heinous atrocities of the Holocaust happened because the world let blatant intolerance seep into our society. Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, those of us in Bahrain commemorate the travesty of the Holocaust while remaining appreciative of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and our government for leading the region in building a more tolerant society.

As a Jew living in the Muslim world, I am often asked if it is safe to be Jewish in Bahrain. My answer is emphatically yes. In fact, when I read the newspaper or turn on the news and see reports of antisemitism on the rise in the United States and Europe, it reminds me how lucky I am to be Jewish in our country. Under His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s leadership, Bahrain has been committed to spreading the culture of peace, dialogue and coexistence. These values of tolerance and coexistence are ingrained within us as children. While many people in the Gulf have recently partaken in different tolerance initiatives, tolerance is part of our very core.

This past October, H.E. Dr. Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, chairman of the board of trustees of the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence, and Elan S. Carr, former US Department of State special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on antisemitism in Washington. The document outlined goals to eradicate antisemitism and promote respect and peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jewish people through education and programs.

The MoU states, “His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has made it a top priority for Bahrain to lead the Middle East toward a future of tolerance, mutual respect and cooperation between Muslims and Jews.” Coexistence is something that we feel every day in Bahrain. We recognize how lucky we are to live in a society where respect for all religions – including Judaism – is a top priority. It is something that is inculcated within our children from a young age, and as they become the next generation of leaders in government, academia and business, they bring with them a culture of understanding and tolerance which in turn creates a better society.

Gerald Steinberg: Antisemitism: A unique evil that must not be ignored - opinion

In United Nations frameworks, such as the notorious 2001 Durban conference held under the façade of eliminating racism, and in the sessions of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the insidious drawing of parallels between Israel and the Nazis is a central and frequent theme. When Israel is accused of ethnic cleansing and even genocide, the audience of diplomats and UN employees remains silent – some even nod their heads in agreement.

The same is true for officials of powerful organizations claiming to promote moral principles, such as Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch and the leaders of Amnesty International. And when they are not making the direct comparison, as is often the case, their frequent accusations of Israeli “war crimes” and “collective punishment” create the same message for their audience. As they march closer to their 20-year goal of bringing Israel before the International Criminal Court (the successor to the Nuremberg Tribunal that condemned the Nazi war criminals), the intensity of this repulsive campaign increases. At the same time, the repeated refusal of these individuals and frameworks to include antisemitism on their agendas and to document the renewed hatred speaks volumes.

With the same immoral purpose, the so-called Jerusalem Definition of Antisemitism, which is being marketed cynically as a means of displacing the IHRA text, the rejection of the comparison between Israel and the Nazis is conspicuously absent. Not surprisingly, this campaign is led by some German “intellectuals” on the far Left who obsessively target Israel in the effort to offset the guilt of their parents and grandparents. By seeking to turn the Jews (Israel) into the new Nazis, and the Palestinians into Jews, they are trying to mitigate the evil of the concentration camps and the Final Solution.

But the Nazis and their accomplices did not behave like other conquering armies by blindly pillaging, looting and killing the enemy. Their cold inhuman killing machines stand out as a uniquely calculated form of evil.

Our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, their neighbors and every other victim were killed by monsters who hated them for one reason – because they were Jews. In honoring their memories, we must not be silent when Jews – individually or collectively - are again singled out for the same reasons.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism is supported by:

👉🏻 past & current POTUS
👉🏻 past & current SOS
👉🏻 34 countries
👉🏻 and now countless academics globally

Who DOESN'T support #IHRA?

❌ Sarsour, Tlaib, Omar, Falk, IfNotNow, JVP - the usual bigots#Academics4IHRA #AdoptIHRA pic.twitter.com/T0Lf3uxMsl
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) April 6, 2021

So Yom Hashoah is coming up and I’m in this book club. There’s a scheduling snafu: we’d been set to meet on the eve of Yom Hashoah to discuss The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s story of a creepy and salacious alternate world. The question arose: Should we postpone the meet? Is it appropriate to have book club on that night?

I didn’t think it appropriate to meet on Yom Hashoa, not because it isn't appropriate to have book club on the eve of Yom Hashoah, a day we remember the Final Solution, but because Atwood is an antisemite and antisemitism is what brought about Hitler's (yemach shmo) Final Solution. Which is why I didn’t want to read the book again. I’d read it when it first came out, of course, and loved it and read everything Margaret Atwood wrote thereafter, until she came full out as a violent antisemite who calls for the destruction of the Jewish State.

All this put me in a funny position because the group had decided not to talk or read about politics or Jewish subjects in book club. They aren't intolerant, mind you. They just feel they have enough of that in their daily lives. As one member put it: "What if the point of literature is to rise above our own worlds and see things from a larger perspective?"

Here’s what happened: when all of us had been asked to suggest books, a few months ago, one of the suggested books was The Handmaid's Tale. An anonymous survey was held, and though I voted for a different book, Atwood's book was chosen. In my opinion, we had chosen a book by a horrible antisemite, but I was hesitant to speak out as I knew that politics didn't really belong in the context of this group.

I could have been wrong. Maybe I should have said something. Instead, I shut up, kept my feelings and opinions to myself and rather than give Atwood royalties, I took an old beat up copy of the book from the local library and reread it. I didn't want to bug the book group with my personal bugaboos.

Now, however, some members of the book club were asking the group for input. Well, here is mine: a discussion of this book OR READING IT AT ANY OTHER TIME will never be appropriate, all the more so on Yom Hashoah. Because Atwood has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, framing it as a “holocaust.” Which makes her an antisemite:

As "Egypt" at a Model U.N. in 1956, my high school's delegation had presented the Palestinian case. Why was it fair that the Palestinians, innocent bystanders during the Holocaust, had lost their homes? To which the Model Israel replied, "You don't want Israel to exist." A mere decade after the Camps and the six million obliterated, such a statement was a talk-stopper.

Get it? According to Atwood, Jews stifle free speech with their damned Holocaust.

Next, Atwood says Jews are child-killers accusing Israel of withholding snack foods (there must be a logical progression here somewhere) from civilians who live under Hamas rule in Gaza. :

Having been preoccupied of late with mass extinctions and environmental disasters, and thus having strayed into the Middle-eastern neighbourhood with a mind as open as it could be without being totally vacant, I've come out altered. Child-killing in Gaza? Killing aid-bringers on ships in international waters? Civilians malnourished thanks to the blockade? Forbidding writing paper? Forbidding pizza? How petty and vindictive! Is pizza is a tool of terrorists? Would most Canadians agree? And am I a tool of terrorists for saying this? I think not.

We forbid them pizza, says Atwood. But hey, she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, so it must be true, despite evidence to the contrary:

2/ Chicken pizza at Viola Restaurant, #Gaza beach.
2nd day of #EidAlFitr. Photos of the food uploaded to Instagram before eating, of course! #TheGazaYouDontSee #Gaza4real https://t.co/apTGcEB4wp pic.twitter.com/TWIK4bLU19
— Imshin (@imshin) May 28, 2020

Italiano Pizza-Gaza:

Gaza's Pizzeria:

Pizza Branch-Branch Gaza:

Gaza Grande:

Neapolitana Gaza:

But back to our question: is discussion of a Margaret Atwood book appropriate for Yom Hashoah? No. Nor at any other time.

What follows is Atwood’s op-ed for Haaretz, in full and yes, it does run on and on, a rant. I think we should read most of it, and then never read or discuss her ever again. (Pfffffft, she never existed, evil person. A wannabe latter-day Haman.)

The Shadow Over Israel
by Margaret Atwood
June 2, 2010

"Until Palestine has its own 'legitimized' state within its internationally recognized borders, the Shadow will remain."

This article is part of a special edition of Haaretz, to mark Israel's book week.

The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage,
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
Climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Recently I was in Israel. The Israelis I met could not have been more welcoming. I saw many impressive accomplishments and creative projects, and talked with many different people. The sun was shining, the waves waving, the flowers were in bloom. Tourists jogged along the beach at Tel Aviv as if everything was normal.

But … there was the Shadow. Why was everything trembling a little, like a mirage? Was it like that moment before a tsunami when the birds fly to the treetops and the animals head for the hills because they can feel it coming?

"Every morning I wake up in fear," someone told me. "That's just self-pity, to excuse what's happening," said someone else. Of course, fear and self-pity can both be real. But by "what's happening," they meant the Shadow.

I'd been told ahead of time that Israelis would try to cover up the Shadow, but instead they talked about it non-stop. Two minutes into any conversation, the Shadow would appear. It's not called the Shadow, it's called "the situation." It haunts everything.

The Shadow is not the Palestinians. The Shadow is Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, linked with Israeli's own fears. The worse the Palestinians are treated in the name of those fears, the bigger the Shadow grows, and then the fears grow with them; and the justifications for the treatment multiply.

The attempts to shut down criticism are ominous, as is the language being used. Once you start calling other people by vermin names such as "vipers," you imply their extermination. To name just one example, such labels were applied wholesale to the Tutsis months before the Rwanda massacre began. Studies have shown that ordinary people can be led to commit horrors if told they'll be acting in self-defense, for "victory," or to benefit mankind.

I'd never been to Israel before, except in the airport. Like a lot of people on the sidelines – not Jewish, not Israeli, not Palestinian, not Muslim – I hadn't followed the "the situation" closely, though, also like most, I'd deplored the violence and wished for a happy ending for all.

Again like most, I'd avoided conversations on this subject because they swiftly became screaming matches. (Why was that? Faced with two undesirable choices, the brain – we're told – chooses one as less evil, pronounces it good, and demonizes the other.)

I did have some distant background. As "Egypt" at a Model U.N. in 1956, my high school's delegation had presented the Palestinian case. Why was it fair that the Palestinians, innocent bystanders during the Holocaust, had lost their homes? To which the Model Israel replied, "You don't want Israel to exist." A mere decade after the Camps and the six million obliterated, such a statement was a talk-stopper.

Then I'd been hired to start a Nature program at a liberal Jewish summer camp. The people were smart, funny, inventive, idealistic. We went in a lot for World Peace and the Brotherhood of Man. I couldn't fit this together with the Model U.N. Palestinian experience. Did these two realities nullify each other? Surely not, and surely the humane Jewish Brotherhood-of-Manners numerous in both the summer camp and in Israel itself would soon sort this conflict out in a fair way.

But they didn't. And they haven't. And it's no longer 1956. The conversation has changed dramatically. I was recently attacked for accepting a cultural prize that such others as Atom Egoyan, Al Gore, Tom Stoppard, Goenawan Mohamad, and Yo-Yo Ma had previously received. This prize was decided upon, not by an instrument of Israeli state power as some would have it, but by a moderate committee within an independent foundation. This group was pitching real democracy, open dialogue, a two-state solution, and reconciliation. Nevertheless, I've now heard every possible negative thing about Israel – in effect, I've had an abrupt and searing immersion course in present-day politics. The whole experience was like learning about cooking by being thrown into the soup pot.

The most virulent language was truly anti-Semitic (as opposed to the label often used to deflect criticism). There were hot debates among activists about whether boycotting Israel would "work," or not; about a one-state or else a two-state solution; about whether a boycott should exclude culture, as it is a bridge, or was that hypocritical dreaming? Was the term "apartheid" appropriate, or just a distraction? What about "de-legitimizing" the State of Israel? Over the decades, the debate had acquired a vocabulary and a set of rituals that those who hadn't hung around universities – as I had not – would simply not grasp.

Some kindly souls, maddened by frustration and injustice, began by screaming at me; but then, deciding I suppose that I was like a toddler who'd wandered into traffic, became very helpful. Others dismissed my citing of International PEN and its cultural-boycott-precluding efforts to free imprisoned writers as irrelevant twaddle. (An opinion cheered by every repressive government, extremist religion, and hard-line political group on the planet, which is why so many fiction writers are banned, jailed, exiled, and shot.)

None of this changes the core nature of the reality, which is that the concept of Israel as a humane and democratic state is in serious trouble. Once a country starts refusing entry to the likes of Noam Chomsky, shutting down the rights of its citizens to use words like "Nakba," and labelling as "anti-Israel" anyone who tries to tell them what they need to know, a police-state clampdown looms. Will it be a betrayal of age-old humane Jewish traditions and the rule of just law, or a turn towards reconciliation and a truly open society?

Time is running out. Opinion in Israel may be hardening, but in the United States things are moving in the opposite direction. Campus activity is increasing; many young Jewish Americans don't want Israel speaking for them. America, snarled in two chaotic wars and facing increasing international anger over Palestine, may well be starting to see Israel not as an asset but as a liability.

Then there are people like me. Having been preoccupied of late with mass extinctions and environmental disasters, and thus having strayed into the Middle-eastern neighbourhood with a mind as open as it could be without being totally vacant, I've come out altered. Child-killing in Gaza? Killing aid-bringers on ships in international waters? Civilians malnourished thanks to the blockade? Forbidding writing paper? Forbidding pizza? How petty and vindictive! Is pizza is a tool of terrorists? Would most Canadians agree? And am I a tool of terrorists for saying this? I think not.

There are many groups in which Israelis and Palestinians work together on issues of common interest, and these show what a positive future might hold; but until the structural problem is fixed and Palestine has its own "legitimized" state within its internationally recognized borders, the Shadow will remain.

"We know what we have to do, to fix it," said many Israelis. "We need to get beyond Us and Them, to We," said a Palestinian. This is the hopeful path. For Israelis and Palestinians both, the region itself is what's now being threatened, as the globe heats up and water vanishes. Two traumas create neither erasure nor invalidation: both are real. And a catastrophe for one would also be a catastrophe for the other.

______________________

[EoZ:] I just want to point out that Atwood's citing her 1956 Model UN experience representing Egypt as defending Palestinians is supremely ironic. The Egyptians in 1956 kept all Palestinians in Gaza by law - they were not allowed to leave the enclave and enter Egypt. The Egyptians cynically created a puppet "government" for Palestinians in Gaza that the entire world dismissed, but it allowed Egypt to pretend to be a champion for Palestinian rights at the same time they were quashing them. In other words, Atwood pretending to represent Egypt in 1956 is similar to her pretending to love Palestinians today - just an excuse to spout hate for Israel.