Bassam Tawil: The Real Meaning Of 'Pro-Palestinian'
Inviting Hamas and PIJ officials to participate in such events shows that the real aim of the so-called pro-Palestinian groups is not to help the Palestinians, but to incite and spread hate and libels against the only democracy in the Middle East: Israel.Guardian blames Amercian Jews for...fill in the blank
[I]t sends a message to the Palestinians that the students and professors at the universities around the world support terrorism as a means to kill Jews and destroy Israel.
The participation of the terror leaders in the "Israel Apartheid Week" shows that the real intention of the anti-Israel groups on campus is not to criticize Israel, but to eliminate it.
If the "pro-Palestinian" groups really cared about the Palestinians, they would be speaking out against the repressive measures and human rights violations perpetrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
It is hard to see how support for a mass murderer such as Soleimani and Iran's proxy terror groups – Hamas, PIJ and Hezbollah – does anything good for the Palestinians. On the contrary, those who are empowering these terrorists are doing a massive disservice to the Palestinians, especially those who continue to suffer under the rule of Hamas and PIJ in the Gaza Strip.
Instead of building schools and hospitals for their people, Hamas and PIJ are investing millions of dollars in smuggling and manufacturing weapons and digging tunnels that would be used to infiltrate Israel and kill Jews. Instead of improving the living conditions of their people, Hamas and PIJ leaders are imposing new taxes and leading comfortable lives in Qatar, Lebanon and other countries. Instead of bringing democracy and freedom of speech to their people, the terror groups are arresting and intimidating journalists, human rights activists and political opponents.
All these violations are, needless to say, of no concern to the so-called "pro-Palestinian" students on the campuses. Have these students ever denounced Hamas for suppressing public freedoms and depriving its people of a good life? No. Will these students ever call out the Palestinian leadership for the financial corruption and persecution of political opponents and critics? No.
The "pro-Palestinian" individuals and groups might also understand that by siding with Hamas and PIJ, they are harming, not helping, the same people -- the Palestinians -- they claim to support.
The silence of the "pro-Palestinian" students towards these arrests actually causes harm to Palestinians: it allows Hamas to continue its brutality without having to worry about negative reactions from the international community.
The real "pro-Palestinian" advocates are those who want to see a good life for the Palestinians, not those who encourage them to embrace terror groups.
First, regarding McGreal’s claims that the Tikvah Fund is influencing efforts at overhauling the judiciary, we were unable to find any evidence of their involvement in judicial reform, so we reached out to Amiad Cohen, CEO of the Israeli-based Tikvah Fund, who flatly denied the claim. He told CAMERA UK in a phone call earlier that the Israeli and US wings of the organisation “are not involved in any way, politically or financially, with the legislation to reform Israel’s judiciary”. (We’ve complained to Guardian editors asking for a correction.)BBC Two’s ‘The Holy Land and Us’ chooses narrative over history
However, in addition to getting his facts about the Tikvah Fund and judcial reform wrong, McGreal’s characterisation of Elliott Abrams as “one of the intellectual architects of the invasion of Iraq” is inaccurate.
It also evokes antisemitic tropes poular at the time of the US-led 2003 invasion which blamed the Israel lobby and/or Jews within the US government for the war, despite the fact that all the major players in the administration of George W. Bush were non-Jews. This includes Bush himself, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
Abrams, who is Jewish, was not – unlike Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice – one of the principle decision makers in the White House in 2003, working as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of the National Security Council for Near East and North African affairs at the time. Though Abrams strongly supported the war, McGreal’s characterisation of him as the war’s “intellectual architect” erroneously suggests a level of influence similar, for instance, to George F. Kennan’s role in formulating the Cold War policy known as “containment” which was adopted by President Harry Truman.
Abrams’ influence, by contrast, within Bush’s administration in the decision to launch the Iraq war was, by nearly all accounts, close to non-existent.
The Guardian, as our readers of course know, has a history of depicting Jews has having ‘too much’ power, including the power to control, or apply outsized influence on, non-Jewish political leaders – getting them to make putatively destructive decisisons they wouldn’t normally have made. McGreal’s farcical depiction of Abrams as the brains behind the most contentious US military adventure since Vietnam is another example of the outlet’s embrace of this toxic narrative.
While Agha tells viewers that part of her family moved to a place called Dalhamiya in the mid to late nineteenth century, no mention is made of the history of that village of tenant farmers in the Jordan Valley. Following the First Egyptian-Ottoman War (1831 – 1833), the conquering Egyptians established four villages in the Jordan Valley with the aim of settling their own countrymen there, one of which was Dalhamiya. After the Ottomans retook power in 1840, those villages were abandoned by their Egyptian settler inhabitants. At least part of Dalahamiya’s lands were sold to the Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association (PICA) and Kibbutz Ashdot Ya’akov was established there in the 1930s.
When Sarah Agha visits the site of Dalhamiya in episode two of the series she speculates that her ancestors may have left their homes due to the evacuation of the Arab population of Tiberias in April 1948 by British forces after the Haganah “seized control” of the town. Agha’s account of course does not include any mention of the Arab attacks which preceded the evacuation that was requested by the Arab forces themselves.
Although Agha’s local guide tells her that “the Jordanian army asked the people of Dalhamiya to move” ahead of the invasions in that area by Iraqi and Syrian forces, Agha declares herself “sceptical” and goes on to object to the fact that people who evacuated themselves to an enemy country were “not allowed to come back”.
That motif of passive Palestinians ‘forced out’ – with remarkably very little explanation of the invasions by Arab forces before and after May 1948 or the part played by Palestinian fighters – is repeated in the two additional stories from the Palestinian side.
The BBC’s original press release promoting this series stated:
“Rather than presenting a comprehensive history, the series lets the human stories of the time speak for themselves, enabling viewers to reach a richer understanding of the divisions that have lasted to this day.”
Indeed, no effort was made to present the comprehensive history which includes the fact that during Ottoman and British rule over the region, people such as Sarah Agha’s ancestors moved from other countries and regions to settle in the area. Barely any mention is made of the ancient Jewish communities in places such as Jerusalem, Tsfat, Tiberias and Hebron which predated Jewish immigration from elsewhere.
Hence, the overall result of the framing presented in this series portrays Palestinians as wronged and passive victims who lost land, homes, money and status (while ignoring the topic of the Arabs who did not leave), whereas Jews are presented as immigrants (rather than refugees), however unfortunate, who came from elsewhere to seek “sanctuary” and “build something new”.
By employing that selective framing, the BBC taps into the narrative of “competing stories” which in fact actively hinders audience understanding of the history and “the divisions that have lasted to this day”.