Israel Derangement Syndrome

11/19/2009

Arab oil money 1, British Israel Lobby 0

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: Anti-Semitism, Israel, Lockerbie bomber — Meryl Yourish @ 4:30 pm

The Channel 4 “documentary” on The Israel Lobby, vigorously defended by its authors as not in any way antisemitic, is yet another example of the Israeli Double Standard. The specter of Jewish control over Britain’s politicians is so hideously scary, that the authors simply had to understand why a British politician, speaking to a group called The Conservative Friends of Israel, did not mention the Gaza War. Hm. Let’s think. “Friends of Israel,” not “Friends of Fictional Place Known as Palestine” might have been the reason. But here, in their own words, is what they found:

Afterwards, we resolved to ask the question: what are the rules of British political behaviour that cause the Tory leader,his mass of MPs and parliamentary candidates to flock to the Friends of Israel lunch in the year of the Gaza invasion? And what are the rules of media discourse that ensure such an event passes without even being noticed?

During an investigation lasting several months, we have been able to reach several important conclusions. We maintain there is indeed a pro-Israel lobby in Britain. It is extremely well-connected and well-funded, and works through all the main political parties.

It’s the British version of Walt & Mearsheimer. But here, in my opinion, is the single action that blows “The Israel Lobby” meme in Britain out of the water:

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

“The Israel Lobby” contributes money to British politicians and supposedly affects the U.K.’s actions toward Israel. Yet the U.K. refused to vote on the Goldstone report, is refusing to sell arms and spare parts to the IDF for certain items, constantly chides Israel regarding the current situation, and British media (particularly the Guardian) regularly excoriates Israel. In the meantime, Muammar Ghaddafi offers BP an oil deal, and the Lockerbie bomber, who murdered 270 people, including 11 people on the ground in the U.K., goes free.

Tell me again how powerful The Israel Lobby is in the U.K., because I could really use a good laugh.

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11/12/2009

A handy guide to German and Israeli walls

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Meryl Yourish @ 10:30 am

Since there are so many idiots out there who cannot tell the difference between the Berlin Wall and Israel’s security fence, here’s a handy guide to tell the difference. This post is dedicated to the anti-Semitic morons like Steve Bell, who definitely need it.

**Comparing the Berlin Wall to Israel’s security fence**
Berlin Wall		Security Fence
Built to keep people inside Communist East Germany		Built to keep terrorists outside of Israel
3.5 million Germans escaped from Communist East Germany prior to building the wall		75% of suicide bombers came from areas that were not barricaded at all prior to building the fence
200 Germans died trying to escape over the wall		293 Israelis died in terrorist attacks prior to building the fence
Wall was torn down in 1989 as the Soviet Union was dying		Fence was erected in 2003 as Israelis were dying
After the wall fell, Germany was reunified		11 months after the fence was begun, terrorist attacks dropped by more than 90%
		Terrorist leaders declared that the fence made terror attacks harder to carry out
		There has not been a successful suicide bombing attack carried out across the security fence

I know it’s really difficult telling the difference between a wall that was built to prevent civilians from being murdered, and a wall that was built to keep civilians from escaping their miserable lives in Communist East Germany, but somehow, people should just slog through and figure out a way to tell the difference. Or they can just draw anti-Semitic cartoons that would be at home in the pages of Der Sturmer, which find their way now into the pages of British mainstream newspapers and magazines (among others).

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11/09/2009

Monday Snark News Briefs

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Terrorism — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

I do not think that word means what you think it means: The Turkish Prime Minister says he’d be more comfortable talking to the Sudanese president responsible for the genocide in Darfur than he would be talking to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Why? Because “A Muslim could not commit genocide.” Yes, really. The Turkey-Israel relationship, she is over. And good riddance to bad rubbish, if that’s the way the Turks think. Of course, it is. Because they never committed genocide against the Armenians. Oh, no. It was a civil war, you see, that wound up murdering a million and a half Armenians.

The frequent kassam attacks return: I guess there’s going to be a Goldstone 2, because if the terrorists keep this up, Netanyahu will likely send in the troops again. The constant drip-drip-drip of rocket fire can only be taken for so long.

Make peace with us or we’ll kill you: It’s the Arab way. The Palestinians threaten it, the Syrians threaten it—it’s only a matter of time before more countries jump on the bandwagon. It’s good to see that the Obama outreach to Syria is also paying dividends—this was in Assad’s speech to the OIC.

Jordan’s “moderate” king: The time for peace is now or never. That is starting to be an absolutely familiar refrain these days. Except I’ve heard it a whole bunch of times. “If we don’t make peace soon, there will not be peace for decades! Or forever!” But here is the most hypocritical piece of garbage uttered by the man whose father destroyed Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem:

“The Israelis must understand Jerusalem’s standing among the Arabs, the Muslims and the Christians, and should not play with fire.”

Like he gives a damn about Christians. Notice what’s missing from that statement, though? A man truly bent on peace and understanding would say something along the lines that Jerusalem is holy to all three faiths and must be adminstered accordingly.

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11/08/2009

When you’re serious about the Middle East, stop living in the past

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Media Bias — Tags: Thomas Friedman — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

Thomas Freidman, today relives one of his greatest hits on Israel. In an op-ed entitled “Call White House, Ask for Barack,” Friedman writes:

Today, the Arabs, Israel and the Palestinians are clearly not feeling enough pain to do anything hard for peace with each other — a mood best summed up by a phrase making the rounds at the State Department: The Palestinian leadership “wants a deal with Israel without any negotiations” and Israel’s leadership “wants negotiations with the Palestinians without any deal.”

It is obvious that this Israeli government believes it can have peace with the Palestinians and keep the West Bank, this Palestinian Authority still can’t decide whether to reconcile with the Jewish state or criminalize it and this Hamas leadership would rather let Palestinians live forever in the hellish squalor that is Gaza than give up its crazy fantasy of an Islamic Republic in Palestine.

Don’t get me wrong. I agree with Friedman’s central premise that peace isn’t just around the corner. And he is also correct that the United States ought not to be making the peace process its central focus in the Middle East.

What I object to, is his characterization of Israel as being uninterested in peace. Israel, near as I can tell doesn’t possess the complete “West Bank,” as he calls it, having ceded the major cities there to the Palestinians during the 1990’s. Israel has taken quite a few significant steps for peace since 1993. But let’s go back to the scene of Friedman’s crime. (i.e. what the “Call Barack” line refers to.)

In 1990 then Secretary of State, James Baker expressed his frustration with the Israeli government. His pique was dutifully reported by the then New York Times diplomatic correspondent, Thomas Friedman.

If such new thinking is not forthcoming ”quickly” from Israel, Mr. Baker cautioned, then the Bush Administration is simply going to disengage from Middle East diplomacy. Washington, he suggested, will adopt the attitude that could be summed up as ”call us when you are serious about peace.”

To drive home that point to the Israelis, the Secretary of State gave them President Bush’s White House telephone number.

”I have to tell you that everybody over there should know that the telephone number is 1-202-456-1414,” Mr. Baker said. ”When you’re serious about peace, call us.”

(I believe that I’ve read the Friedman fed Baker the line about calling the White House, but have found no documentation of the charge.)

But continue reading the article.

In its coalition agreement, the new Israeli Government stipulated that Israel would not negotiate directly or indirectly with anyone affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization. It also excluded from the negotiations any Palestinians who are residents of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

Washington, as well as Israel’s Labor Party, has argued that to get Palestinians to accept negotiations, those Palestinians who are residents of both Jerusalem and the occupied territories should be allowed to take part, as well as those who might identify with the P.L.O. but have no formal affiliation with the organization.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir added an additional condition: that Palestinian negotiators must formally embrace Israel’s idea that negotiations would be about autonomy for the occupied territories and nothing more, before talks could begin. The American position is that the talks should open with a discussion about autonomy, but then eventually move on to issues of final status.

Understand some things. In 1990, the only people in Israel who were advocating for a Palestinian state were those on the far left. Now even the supposedly “hawkish” Israeli Prime Ministers, Binyamin Netanyahu is working from that premise. In 1990, the discussion as to whether or not to negotiate with Palestinians affiliated with the PLO – there was virtually no one in Israel who, nineteen years ago, approved of negotiating with the PLO itself.

But these taboos have fallen by the wayside. The PLO is in charges of Palestinians living in “the West Bank.” The more extreme Hamas rules Gaza. And Israel is no closer to peace than it was back in 1990. In the name of peace, Israel has given the PLO land, money and even weapons. In the name of peace of the PLO has taken them, but made neither reciprocal nor concrete contributions to the “peace process.”

As Israel ceded territory to the PLO, the PLO under Yasser Arafat used its newfound freedom to create a “suicide factory” in the territories he controlled.

And after rejected Ehud Barak’s peace offer in 2000 at Camp David, Arafat launched a new war against Israel, that killed thousands until Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield to destroy the terror infrastructure Arafat built even whill being hailed as a “peace partner.” But how did Friedman react to the terror war that Arafat launched in 2000? This is what he wrote in “Arafat’s War.”

Mr. Arafat had a dilemma: make some compromises, build on Mr. Barak’s opening bid and try to get it closer to 100 percent ? and regain the moral high ground that way ? or provoke the Israelis into brutalizing Palestinians again, and regain the moral high ground that way. Mr. Arafat chose the latter. So instead of responding to Mr. Barak’s peacemaking overture, he and his boys responded to Ariel Sharon’s peace- destroying provocation. In short, the Palestinians could not deal with Barak, so they had to turn him into Sharon. And they did.

Of course, the Palestinians couldn’t explain it in those terms, so instead they unfurled all the old complaints about the brutality of the continued Israeli occupation and settlement- building. Frankly, the Israeli checkpoints and continued settlement- building are oppressive. But what the Palestinians and Arabs refuse to acknowledge is that today’s Israeli prime minister was offering them a dignified exit. It was far from perfect for Palestinians, but it was a proposal that, with the right approach, could have been built upon and widened. Imagine if when Mr. Sharon visited the Temple Mount, Mr. Arafat had ordered his people to welcome him with open arms and say, “When this area is under Palestinian sovereignty, every Jew will be welcome, even you, Mr. Sharon.” Imagine the impact that would have had on Israelis.

But that would have been an act of statesmanship and real peaceful intentions, and Mr. Arafat, it’s now clear, possesses neither. He prefers to play the victim rather than the statesman. This explosion of violence would be totally understandable if the Palestinians had no alternative. But that was not the case. What’s new here is not the violence, but the context. It came in the context of a serious Israeli peace overture, which Mr. Arafat has chosen to spurn. That’s why this is Arafat’s war. That’s its real name.

Not everything here is wrong or outrageous, but Charles Krauthammer identifies the underlying problem with Friedman’s observation.

We are now at Phase Two. This is the war Arafat has coveted all his life: the war against Israel from within Palestine. He tried first to make war from Jordan and was expelled in 1970. He then tried to make war from Lebanon and was expelled in 1982. And then in 1993, the miracle: Israel itself, in a fit of reckless high-mindedness unparalleled in the annals of diplomacy, brought him back to Palestine, gave him control of 98 percent of the Palestinian population, armed his 40,000 “police” (i.e. army), and granted him international legitimacy, foreign aid, and the territorial base of every city in the West Bank and Gaza.

Yet there are still observers in the West who remain puzzled by Arafat’s war. Taken in by Oslo for the entire eight years, the New York Times’ Tom Friedman, for example, now rationalizes the collapse of his illusions by characterizing Arafat’s war as senseless and self-defeating, “a grievous error” and an “idiotic uprising.”

This analysis is sheer nonsense. The war is the war Arafat always wanted. He has just seen Israel, facing guerrilla war in Lebanon, abjectly surrender and withdraw unilaterally. And now, after a year of his own guerrilla war within Palestine, the balance of forces with Israel has shifted dramatically in his favor.

Why was Friedman surprised? Had he not been paying to attention to Arafat’s perfidies over the previous 7 years? And yet Friedman thought it was conceivable that Arafat would see Barak’s proposal and make a counteroffer. Friedman refused to believe what happened since Oslo. He always figured that if Israel made enough concessions it would achieve peace. He accepted no evidence to the contrary.

Still even after that point, now nine years later, he still argues that Israel isn’t serious in peace. I notice that he didn’t write a column earlier this year after lame duck Israeli Prime Minister Olmert made an offer even more generous Camp David to “moderate” PA President Abbaas that was summarily rejected! Friedman who invested so much ink, pixels and prestige to (then) Crown Prince Abdullah’s peace ultimatum saying that it was significant (though the Saudi was vague about Arab commitments to Israel) refused to acknowledge a concrete Israeli peace offer that still didn’t bring peace.

That’s because no amount of land will satisfy the Palestinians, as long as Israel still exists. That has not changed in the sixteen years since Arafat and Rabin signed the Oslo Accords. Rather than acknowledge the sea change in Israeli politics that has occurred since then, Friedman chooses to retreat into his comfortable “plague on both their houses” approach. Sorry but all Friedman is doing, is validating the continued Palestinian rejection of Israel, ensuring that peace will remain remote.

Maybe one day Friedman will come to his senses. But for now he remains stuck in the glorious past when he was the Secretary of State’s favorite stenographer.

Related: see Meryl tomorrow (11/09/09).

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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11/06/2009

Boycotting Israeli universities: A self-imposed death sentence

Filed under: Israel Derangement Syndrome, World — Meryl Yourish @ 11:30 am

Norway’s second-largest university is considering boycotting Israeli academics. And if they do, here is what they will be boycotting:

Israeli scientists have identified a substance that can kill cancerous cells without harming healthy ones, paving the way for more effective cancer treatment.

The findings by researchers at Tel Aviv University and Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, were published in the current issue of the international peer-reviewed journal Breast Cancer Research.

“We actually found the Achilles heel of the cancer cell,” said Prof. Malka Cohen-Armon from Tel Aviv University, who headed the research team. “As soon as you can target cancerous cells without killing healthy ones, you can produce medications that would cause a lot less suffering to the patient. We can even give a much more aggressive treatment without worrying about harming healthy tissues.”

Feel free, Norway, to boycott the possible cure for cancer. Perhaps in turn, Israel will find it hard to ship this medicine to Norway, and to all of the other nations that boycott Israel.

Of course not. Because that’s not what Jews do. That’s what the enemies of Jews do. And I count among the enemies of Jews those nations, companies, and groups that take part in boycotting the Jewish state. It’s not anti-Zionism.

The letter claims that Israeli universities and other institutions of higher education “have played a key role in the policy of oppression” that the signatories claim exists in Israel. It goes on to say that “Israel goes against all the ideals of open universities and academic freedom.”

Really? In Saudi Arabia, men and women are unable to take classes together. In Iran and Egypt, students are arrested and imprisoned for speaking their minds about the current governments. In Israel, Arabs and Israelis work side by side in universities all over the country. It isn’t Israel that goes against the ideals of open universities and academic freedom.

But sure, Norwegians, go ahead—boycott Israeli universities. It’s not like they’re coming up with a cure for cancer or anything like that.

Oh. Wait.

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11/05/2009

Gold vs. Goldstone

Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

Thursday at five. This is my reminder post. You can watch a webcast from Brandeis, live, at the link.

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11/03/2009

“Slap in the face”

Filed under: American Scene, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Hillary Clinton — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

Meryl noticed this yesterday. (See the end of the post.)

Barry Rubin summarized the administration’s efforts in the Middle East like this:

The president of the United States has said that he wants talks resumed immediately and believes it possible to make a breakthrough. The Palestinian leadership is thwarting him on both points. In other words, they are responsible for the failure of a major U.S. policy.

So when the administration, specifically, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton points this out and it brings howls of protest from the Arab world what is the administration’s response?

The New York Times:

Arab officials expressed alarm that the United States seemed to be easing pressure on Israel after Mrs. Clinton said in Jerusalem on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal of restrained settlement building was better than anything previous Israeli governments had offered.

Mrs. Clinton said the administration would not stop pushing Mr. Netanyahu to do more. But she said that in trying to revive a stalled peace process, she wanted to offer Israel encouragement for moving in the right direction, even if that movement fell short of what the United States wanted.

“I will offer positive reinforcement to the parties when I believe they are taking steps that support the objective of reaching a two-state solution,” she said here, on the eve of a conference of Arab and Western countries. “I will also push them as I have in public and private to do even more.”

The Washington Post:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to soothe Arab uneasiness Monday over weekend statements she made praising the Israeli government’s offer to “restrain” growth in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying it “falls far short” of the Obama administration’s hopes and is “not enough.”

Reflecting her concern over the Arab reaction, Clinton decided to extend her week-long trip to the region, scheduled to end Tuesday, with a previously unplanned stop in Cairo on Wednesday to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On Sunday, Egypt backed the Palestinian stance that negotiations cannot resume until Israel stops all settlement construction.

Clinton insisted that the administration still considers settlement activity on disputed territory “illegitimate” and advocates a freeze. But she repeated at a news conference here that Israel’s offer was “unprecedented” and that it “holds the promise of moving a step closer to a two-state solution.”

So faced with Arab displeasure, the administration backtracked. But the Washington Post observed:

Clinton’s comments represented a shift in the dynamics since Obama took office, with initial pressure on Israel giving way over the past several weeks to apparent impatience over the refusal of Palestinian officials to resume peace talks in the absence of a settlement freeze.

And the NYT quoted Arab League Secretary General, Amr Moussa:

Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, urged the administration not to accept what he called a “slap in the face” by Israel. He said he hoped the Americans would “try hard and in a firmer way.”

And how would you characterize the official Palestinian response to Secretary of State Clinton’s remarks in Israel?

“Why, Mrs. Hillary? How much did the Zionists pay you as a bribe?” taunted an article in today’s edition of Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which is controlled by the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

That’s the “moderate” Palestinian response. And check out the cartoon. The Arab world actually slapped the administration in the face and the administration meekly backs down. The Palestinians, supported by the Arab world, show that they’re uninterested in peace and the administration simply tolerates it.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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11/01/2009

Conceived in sin

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Richard Goldstone — Soccerdad @ 12:00 pm

According to Al Jazeera, the impetus for the Goldstone Commission report came from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). (h/t My Right Word)

Al Jazeera: The UN’s Goldstone report has been in the headlines in the past few weeks – not without controversy – and has brought to light the conduct of the Israelis and Hamas during the war on Gaza earlier in the year. Does the OIC see this as a step forward in recognising what transpired during that war and in bringing the plight of the Palestinians to the fore on an international scale?

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu: Let me first start by completing the story of the history of the Goldstone report. What I would like to put on record is that the OIC was the initiator of this process.

On January 3, during the attacks on Gaza, we convened the executive committee of the OIC on a ministerial level. It was decided that the OIC group in Geneva should ask the Human Rights Council to convene and consider the possibility of sending a fact-finding mission to Gaza.

The OIC was instrumental in getting through this resolution and thanks to the good offices of Ms Pilay, the UN high commissioner, that she formed this fact-finding mission headed by Judge Goldstone.

On October 8, I visited Geneva and had a meeting with OIC ambassadors and the high commissioner. We revived the process again and the Goldstone report has been approved by the rights council.

Now as for the prospects of the Goldstone report, I think the first thing to mention here is that the acceptance and approval of the report by the UN’s human rights council is itself testimony of the world’s public opinion about what happened in Gaza.

This report has certain operative paragraphs which aim to determine who is responsible for the massacres and destruction – illegally and in flagrant violation of humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war.

I think now the OIC and the international community should work hand-in-hand to implement the proposals made in the Goldstone report.

The OIC, it should be remembered, opposed the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. In other words, in the view of the OIC international law is war by other means. It is an instrument to be used for its members’ benefit or ignored if inconvenient.

The Washington Post editorialized at the time:

To be sure, some human rights groups have alleged crimes by Israeli forces in Gaza. But, according to Palestinian accounts, 1,409 people were killed during the offensive, of whom a substantial number were armed Hamas fighters. In contrast, the United Nations has reported more than 300,000 civilian deaths in Darfur as a result of the genocidal campaign sponsored by Mr. Bashir. Scores of villages have been systematically burned, and thousands of women systematically raped. Mr. Bashir responded to the ICC’s arrest warrant last month by expelling international aid groups from Darfur. The result has been growing food and water shortages and new epidemics, according to the Enough Project.

Regardless of this blatant hypocrisy, Israel Matzav points out:

But the key figure in this article has nothing to do with Israel: The OIC is the second largest intergovernmental body after the UN. So long as internationalists (like Barack Obama) try to govern the world on the basis of ‘one country, one vote,’ there will always be an automatic majority against Israel and Jews everywhere.

So if someone has ambitions in the milieu of international organizations, playing along is a great way to get ahead. And who better than a Jew, someone who could provide a fig leaf to this ugly conspiracy to vilify Israel?

A number of reports on the Goldstone commission describe Judge Goldstone, as “respected,” but perhaps “ambitious” might be a better description. South African ex-pat Douglas Davis explains (h/t/ Barry Rubin):

‘Oh yes,’ says a former senior colleague who was close to Goldstone for many years. ‘We believed he saw himself as a future secretary-general of the United Nations. At the time Boutros Boutros-Ghali held the post, so it seemed a logical progression for Goldstone to become Richard Richard.’

It might appear unkind to doubt the purity of Goldstone’s motives in joining the human rights industry, poignantly as Israel’s excoriator-in-chief. But he is, it seems, regarded by colleagues who knew him well as an opportunist. And the record suggests they might be right. There is nothing in Goldstone’s biography to imply he was destined to become a hero of the people, let alone a human rights champion. During his career he has executed some canny intellectual and ideological manoeuvres, leveraging past accomplishments to propel himself further up the pole of seniority and celebrity.

While many of his countrymen were fighting against apartheid, Goldstone was loftily administering South Africa’s laws from the bench of the Supreme Court. The impression that he was at least ‘friendly’ towards the Nationalists gained weight when he was elevated to the appellate division.

That’s not to say that he didn’t adapt when he saw change coming.

Then, just as apartheid was reaching tipping point, Goldstone jumped. He became chairman of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, a position he used to publicise the evils of apartheid and promote a new African National Congress-friendly persona (he refused to investigate ‘public violence and intimidation’ by the ANC).

Goldstone was on the road to redemption. With Mandela in power, he slid seamlessly onto the bench of the new South Africa’s highest court. Yet this was still not the summit of his ambitions. He was ready to burst onto the international stage, and in August 1994, he was appointed chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for both the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He had become a global brand.

So if Judge Goldstone is really Richard Richard, everything makes sense. Accepting the mission formulated by the OIC, is one sure way to get ahead in the world of unelected international politicians. However many times Goldstone piously claims that it his special responsibility as a Jew to investigate war crimes -

Judge Richard Goldstone, who headed the UN commission that investigated Operation Cast Lead said that he is saddened that Jews around the world feel that because he himself is a Jew that he should not investigate Israel. Goldstone said that as a Jew, he feels that he has a larger responsibility than most to investigate war crimes.

- in accepting his mandate from the UNHRC and OIC, he has violated tenets of Judaism such as judging fairly and standing up to a corrupt majority.

The latest revelations show that the point of the Goldstone Commission was to vilify Israel. Goldstone’s accepting of it had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with advancement.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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10/29/2009

Briefly

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel Derangement Syndrome, News Briefs, Religion, Terrorism — Meryl Yourish @ 12:30 pm

You can’t make this stuff up dept.: Okay, let’s be clear. When Israelis protested to the Turks that their portrayal of IDF soldiers as bloodthirsty murderers and rapists, the Turks said that it wasn’t meant to be harmful, and that they really love Israelis. Really. But when the Palestinians complained that it portrayed them in a negative light (the Palestinians murdered women the soldiers raped, in “honor” killings, well, that was enough to get the “content advisor” to resign in outrage. Of course, this makes perfect sense in a nation where 53% say they wouldn’t want a Jew for a neighbor, and where the Turks are cozying up to Iran and Islamists have essentially won the day.

Don’t worry, it won’t be determined an anti-Semitic attack: Two Jews were shot in the legs inside a synagogue in Los Angeles this morning, but I’m sure it will be determined that it wasn’t anti-Semitism. Violent attacks on Jews in America seem to always be the work of a lone, crazy gunman. I guess we should be happy this guy was not only crazy, but a lousy shot.

But he’s not a Democrat, so no one will care: Gunshots were fired at Lou Dobbs’ home while his wife was standing outside. So, someone who doesn’t like Dobbs’ stance on immigration tried to kill his wife? Nice. This is what you would call a case of domestic terrorism. The gunshot followed a series of threatening phone calls.

Religion of tolerance confiscates bibles: But yes, Islam is tolerant of other faiths. Just ask them. They’re confiscating the bibles because they referred to God as Allah. I’m trying to think if there has ever been a case where Israel confiscated bibles or korans. Hm. Thinking… no, give me a minute, I’m sure I’ll find an example… uh, no. I’m out.

Saudi Arabia joins the seventeenth century: The King had to step in and cancel a medieval punishment, but hey, those Saudis are really modernizing. They’re not going to give a woman 60 lashes with a whip for having worked on a television show where a man talked about sex. Except she had nothing to do with that show. The man, meantime, was sentenced to a prison term, plus lashes. So maybe the Saudis aren’t quite out of the fourteenth century yet. I wouldn’t know… when did Christians flog people for talking about sex in public?

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10/28/2009

Ignoring a decade

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: J-Street — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Matthew Yglesias (via memeorandum):

I was debating with Jon Chait at a J Street panel this morning on the subject of “what does it mean to be pro-Israel?” As expected, we disagreed on a number of points, most of which I was right on and he was wrong on. But one thing he said in his opening remarks that I really disagreed with was that there was an ambiguity running through the J Street constituency as to whether the group was or should be pro-Israel at all.

That just struck me as kind of nuts. My J Street button said “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace.” It’s not a subtle aspect of the messaging. But when we moved to the Q&A time it became clear that a number of people in the audience really were quite uncomfortable self-defining as “pro-Israel” in any sense and that others are uncomfortable with the basic Zionist concept of a Jewish national state. I was, of course, aware that those views existed but it had seemed to me that it was clear that that wasn’t what J Street is there to advocate for. Apparently, though, it wasn’t clear to everyone.

So Yglesias was surprised that folks who came to J-Street’s conference didn’t want to be considered pro-Israel? Why would that be? Here’s Spencer Ackerman’s view on the topic:

I don’t really have any interest in affixing a label to people that they don’t embrace themselves. But I think the answer is that it would be shortsighted to view them outside the “pro-Israel” community. If Israel doesn’t get out of the West Bank soon, demographic realities will force Israel to make the most painful existential choice of its life: whether to abandon Jewish democracy or whether to abandon Jewish statehood in favor of a binational homeland. Both of these options, in fundamental ways, represent the end of Israel. Not from an Iranian nuclear weapon. Not from a super-empowered Palestinian intifada. But from political failure and international diplomatic failure, the end of Israel can, actually, be achieved.

In other words, then, it is pro-Israel to demand that Israel make concessions to an enemy who still denies its right to exist. But this is what’s really problematic with Ackerman’s formulation: Israel’s legitimacy rests on the ability of the Palestinians to create a state. Worse, there seems to be no test for the legitimacy of Palestine. For Ackerman the creation of an Islamist Palestine would not have to answer the same “existential” question as Israel would. In other words Israel’s legitimacy would be defined by its enemies; Palestine’s legitimacy is a given.

Perhaps Ackerman would have an argument twenty years ago, but since Israel has abandoned Gaza and the major cities of Judea and Samaria, there is no demographic threat. There is only a Palestinian failure to create a state. Ackerman prefers to put an impossible onus on Israel. That’s not “pro-Israel” by any definition.

In Yglesias at JStreet David Bernstein writes:

I perfectly understand the difficulty that one could have with these ideas, because when in my twenties, I remember arguing with members of the older generation that they were too paranoid about anti-Semitism, that Israel needs to be much more flexible to achieve a peace accord, and that the murderous rhetoric about Israel emanating from the Arab world and elsewhere would go away once the parties all recognized their rational self-interest and came to a peace deal. It took many years, and, among other things, an intifada that involved a remarkable number of “progressive” Western intellectuals apologizing for, or even justifying, blowing up kids in pizza parlors in response to a serious peace offer from Israel, and a series of modern-day blood libels in Europe during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 to realize that I had been extremely naive. It’s not that I’ve given up hope; but I learned to take what seemed to a younger me like pure craziness that couldn’t possibly be serious-such as the continuing popularity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Muslim world-very seriously.

This is an excellent synopsis of the past decade. And yet, there are those who don’t accept it. Yes the J-Street crowd pretends that none of this happens and that Israel is at the heart of the failure to achieve peace in the Middle East. Never mind, for example, that the Palestinians still don’t accept a Jewish right to a state.

Bernstein’s generous to the J-Streeter’s and their fellow travelers. He doesn’t think that they are anti-Israel. I don’t see how someone could witness the events in the Middle East since 2000 and still put the onus of compromise on Israel and still be pro-Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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10/27/2009

Wear the label proudly

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: J-Street — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

David Bernstein offers some friendly advice to J-Street. I certainly agree with his advice. However, I disagree with one of his premises.

Second, from approximately 1988 to Fall 2000, I held views on the Arab-Israeli conflict that would put me comfortably in the mainstream of the JStreeters. Events in the Summer and Fall of 2000 led me to change my views, but I understand where many JStreeters are coming from, and I don’t think their views should be dismissed as “anti-Israel.”

This is significant. In the fall of 2000, the policies advocated by the Israeli peace camp were shown – by events – to be mistaken. Prof. Bernstein, when he witnessed the same events – the so-called “Aqsa intifada, Hezbollah’s cross border attack – and adjusted his views accordingly. The J-Street folks did not and now still believe that the only the thing that prevents peace in the Middle East is Israeli intransigence. If after 2000, someone still figures that Israel is mostly or even largely to blame for the failure of the peace process, he is no friend of Israel.

And even if I weren’t calling J-Street “anti-Israel,” the organization has a knack for demonstrating its true leanings. Yesterday at the supposedly unaffiliated J-Street bloggers panel, a pro-Israel attendee was thrown out by security. So much for J-Street’s claim that it is looking for debate.

Stavis, a paid conference attendee (after all, Jeremy Ben-Ami stated that they welcome those who disagree), was in the back of the room filming (as were many others). Some time in, apparently recognizing a member of his enemies list, Silverstein springs up and can be seen in the video crossing the room to get security. He then approaches Stavis, who is doing nothing and causing no disruption whatsoever, to tell him security is going to kick him out.

He is then approached by a J Street official, Amy Spitalnick, Press and New Media Associate, who can be heard telling him he has to leave. The video ends at that point as, Stavis tells me, she grabbed at the camera.

And while J-Street (or specifically Jeremy Ben Ami) denied any connection between the organization and the bloggers’ panel, Michael Goldfarb observed:

The “independent” blogger panel at J Street’s conference can only be described as clownish. The panel consisted mostly of crackpots and self-described anti-Zionists and “one-staters” (J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami calls the one-state solution a “nightmare,” but it seems to be the dream of many of the organization’s supporters). Though J Street tried to distance itself from the panel by describing it as an “unofficial” and “independent” event, the bloggers used one of the rooms otherwise reserved for conference events, a podium in the front had a J Street placard on it, and a J Street banner hung on the back wall of the room.

And if it wasn’t enough that J-Street was promoting a group of unapologetic anti-Zionists, one of the organizations affiliates has decided that it will officially do away with the “pro-Israel” label. (h/t Elder of Ziyon)

“We don’t want to isolate people because they don’t feel quite so comfortable with ‘pro-Israel,’ so we say ‘pro-peace,’” said American University junior Lauren Barr of the “J Street U” slogan, “but behind that is ‘pro-Israel.’”

Barr, secretary of the J Street U student board that decided the slogan’s terminology, explained that on campus, “people feel alienated when the conversation revolves around a connection to Israel only, because people feel connected to Palestine, people feel connected to social justice, people feel connected to the Middle East.”

Martin Peretz wonders about the possible political repercussions J-Street will suffer.

Well, they did invite J Street, and now they are stuck with the damage. The J Streeters went around identifying themselves as Obama’s people in the crowd. I suppose that was good for them. But it was not good for Obama. The fact is that, by this past weekend, when J-Street launched its D.C. fest, it was already seen in the public mind as a bunch of nut cases and very much anti-Israel in the very substantive sense. It was callous about Iran’s nuclear threat to Israel, was against sanctions, supported negotiations with Hamas, which even the E.U. disdained. Moreover, it refuses to recognize that one obstacle to a two-state solution is that neither the Palestinians nor the other Arabs can even contemplate security guarantees to Israel.

Mr. President: You courted a friend. Now you have him. Woe is you.

My advice to J-Street, is: if you still insist that Israel is largely or mainly at fault for the failure of the Middle East peace process, if you give a platform to an anti-Zionist group and if you feel that calling yourself “pro-Israel” will hinder your recruitment efforts, you are anti-Israel. It’s your label. Wear it proudly.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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10/23/2009

Briefs

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Media Bias — Tags: Egypt, Israel — Meryl Yourish @ 10:00 am

The delegitimization of Israel continues: San Francisco idiots interrupt Ehud Olmert’s speech with repeated cries of “war criminal.” Best protester line: “I’m not against free speech, but this is not free speech.” Got it? His interruptions are free speech. Ehud Olmert speaking? Not free speech. Cell phone video at the link. Also moans and groans of the free speechnick protester, who is probably charging the police who walked him out with brutality.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt: George Mitchell says it’s too early to say that the Obama administration’s attempt to bulldoze Israel into giving concessions to the Palestinian—er, I mean, peace negotiations—has failed. You know, it’s really not.

Oh, yeah, like that’ll work: Don’t think that the truth means a thing in the world’s bias against Israel. Bringing foreign journalists into the tunnels under the Western Wall to prove that Israel isn’t digging under the wall to destroy al-aqsa? Feh. Who are you going to believe, them or the Palestinians’ lying mouths?

Egypt bans Israeli doctors, then un-bans them: It’s so good to know that Egypt is at peace with Israel, because then they’d never do anything as stupid as ban Israeli researchers from a long-planned breast cancer conference in Egypt. Oh, wait. They did. However, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure pushed until the Egyptians un-banned Israelis. Good for them. (Not the Egyptians. They’re asshats.)

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Gaza report’s author is really full of himself

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: Judge Goldstone — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

Today the New York Times reports Gaza Report Author Asks U.S. to Clarify Concerns. The article is flawed for what it gets wrong and for its failure to scrutinize any of Justice Goldstone’s self-aggrandizing claims.

What’s wrong with the first paragraph?

Richard Goldstone, the lead author of a United Nations report that found evidence of war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas during last winter’s Gaza war, challenged the Obama administration in an interview broadcast Thursday to explain what it has called serious concerns about his report.

Except as Hamas observed, the Goldstone commission did not explicitly mention that Hamas was guilty of war crimes. Besides, even if the report did mention Hamas, the mention of war crimes committed against Israel was negligible. The balance suggested in the news story was in no way reflected in the report.

The report found evidence that some Israeli soldiers had intentionally killed Palestinian civilians during the three-week conflict in violation of the laws of war. It described the Israeli military assault on Gaza as “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

It also said there was evidence that the Palestinian militant rocket attacks on towns in southern Israel constituted war crimes.

How Goldstone could conclude that Israel’s goal was to “punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population” is beyond me. That is precisely the behavior that Israel was responding too. After eight years of provocation. (h/t OyVey Blog) And especially after Israel no longer occupied Gaza. But of course, one of the flaws, of the report was to ignore the provocations of Hamas. If he really needs an Obama administration to explain that, his willful blindness is beyond belief.

As far as evidence that “rocket attacks” against Israel are war crimes, none is needed. The action is self-evidently a war crime.

“People generally don’t like to be accused of criminal activity, so it didn’t surprise me that there was criticism, even strong criticism, and it has come from both sides,” Mr. Goldstone said in the interview. “But I do regret the extremes to which some of the criticism has gone and the fact that it has been so personalized.”

He then lashed out at his detractors, saying, “I’ve no doubt, many of the critics — I would say the overwhelmingly majority of the critics — haven’t read the report. And, you know, what proves that, I think, is the level of criticism doesn’t go to the substance of the report. There still haven’t been responses to the really serious allegations that are made.”

As noted above, there wasn’t strong criticism from Hamas. Hamas loved the report. Goldstone is being disingenuous here. And of course, the “personalized” nature of the attacks has been in response to the smug self-righteousness he wraps himself in.

Enough time has elapsed since Goldstone released his report for plenty of substantive critiques to have appeared. Presumably, he is computer literate enough to do some searches and find those critiques and respond. The way Goldstone has wandered from media outlet to media outlet feigning outrage that someone would not take his word as gospel and asking others to point out the flaws in the report, positively begs for mockery.

And I take exception to his conclusion that many of his critics haven’t read the report. I have not read the whole report. I’ve read sections. And I’ve concluded that Goldstone drew his conclusions before his investigation and tailored the narrative to fit those conclusions. Frankly I’m offended that Goldstone’s been too lazy to seek out and respond to the substantive critiques that he – falsely – laments do not exist.

But the most damning critique of Goldstone, came from Goldstone himself. This is what he told the Forward.

For all that gathered information, though, he said, “We had to do the best we could with the material we had. If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.”

Goldstone emphasized that his conclusion that war crimes had been committed was always intended as conditional. He still hopes that independent investigations carried out by Israel and the Palestinians will use the allegations as, he said, “a useful road map.”

Goldstone himself said that he proved nothing – nothing that could stand up in court – and yet he demands that Israel take his accusations as convictions that must be disproved. That Goldstone simultaneously refuses to stand by his report and demands that it be taken seriously makes his position untenable.

Finally, let’s take read a section of the Goldstone report. (.pdf) It is the part about whether Israel provided sufficient warning to civilians to get out of harms way. And nearly every single one of Israel’s efforts were deemed insufficient.

535. While noting the statements of the significant efforts made by the Israeli armed forces to issue warnings, the sole question for the Mission to consider at this point is whether the different kinds of warnings issued can be considered as sufficiently effective in the circumstances to constitute compliance with article 57 (2) (c).

536. The Mission accepts that the warnings issued by the Israeli armed forces in some cases encouraged numbers of people to flee and get out of harm’s way in respect of the ground invasion, but this is not sufficient to consider them as generally effective.

537. The Mission considers that some of the leaflets with specific warnings, such as those that
Israel indicates were issued in Rafah and al-Shujaeiyah, may be regarded as effective. However, the Mission does not consider that general messages telling people to leave wherever they were and go to city centres, in the particular circumstances of this military campaign, meet the threshold of effectiveness.

538. The Mission regards some specific telephone calls to have provided effective warnings but treats with caution the figure of 165,000 calls made. Without sufficient information to know how many of these were specific, it cannot say to what extent such efforts might be regarded as
effective.

539. The Mission does not consider the technique of firing missiles into or on top of buildings as capable of being described as a warning, much less an effective warning. It is a dangerous practice and in essence constitutes a form of attack rather than a warning.

540. The Mission is also mindful of several incidents it has investigated where civilians were killed or otherwise harmed and met with humiliation and degrading treatment by Israeli soldiers, while fleeing from locations about which some form of warning was issued. The effectiveness of the warnings has to be assessed in the light of the overall circumstances that prevailed and the subjective view of conditions that the civilians concerned would take in deciding upon their response to the warning.

On the other hand Col. Richard Kemp a military commander with actual experience in urban combat, reviewed Israel’s procedures for warning civilians and concluded.

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy’s hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.

And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

(emphasis mine)

Faced with a choice of using their own judgments to condemn Israel, or take the word of an expert and exonerate Israel, Goldstone’s commission chose the former.

The chutzpah of this self-important man to claim that his critics have not read his report or addressed its substance is amazing. Those of us who have read it – or even parts of his report – are amazed at how flimsy his proofs are in contrast with the importance he and his allies attach to his shoddy work.

It’s almost as if he didn’t read his own report.

See this takedown of a similar Goldstone sobfest.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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10/20/2009

HRW founder blasts HRW

Filed under: Gaza, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Meryl Yourish @ 9:30 am

In an astonishing op-ed in the New York Times, the founder of Human Rights Watch resoundingly criticizes HRW’s anti-Israel bias.

When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 countries, most of them closed societies. Now the organization, with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.

Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East. The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.

There’s so much to choose from, it’s almost impossible to excerpt.

Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.

Read it all. And the countdown to Bernstein’s criticism of HRW being dismissed because he is Jewish in 3, 2, 1….

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10/15/2009

Why Abbas is failing

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Mahmoud Abbas — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

The Washington Post describes how Mahmoud Abbas has lost popularity.

First there was the failure to achieve a cost free advantage.

Obama named Mitchell as his peace envoy just one day after taking office in an effort to demonstrate to Arabs and Europeans that he was deeply invested in achieving a peace deal. Mitchell was given instructions to set the stage for talks by negotiating a package deal that included an Israeli settlement freeze and incremental steps by Arab states toward normalization of relations with Israel.

But the settlement push backfired. It raised hopes among Palestinians, who began to demand nothing less than a full freeze, and led to severe tensions in U.S.-Israeli relations. Obama abruptly shifted course last month at the three-way meeting, calling for immediate talks, but it has since become apparent that both sides were dug in.

Then there was a sign of moderation:

At Palestinian insistence, the U.N. Human Rights Council is scheduled to debate the war crimes report Thursday — a discussion that two weeks ago the Palestinian Authority had agreed, at U.S. insistence, to put off for six months.

That delay proved to be a critical misstep for Abbas, undermining his political standing at home and his ability to lead Palestinian society into new negotiations with the Israelis.

What does the Goldstone Commission report have to do with the peace process? My guess is that the Palestinians are so used to using “international law” as leverage in negotiations with Israel, many of them are eager to press their advantage with Goldstone. Netanyahu isn’t buying though. It’s an interesting ploy. A movement that gained its popularity through terrorism, (”If they do such terrible things, their situation must be unbearable”) uses international to gain advantages in negotiations.

Additionally instead of preparing his people for peace even the “moderate” Abbas (as he’s mischaracterized in the Washington Post report) officially perpetuates Israel as the enemy.

So instead of taking advantage of the most sympathetic administration towards their cause in a decade or more, the Palestinians have instead decided to blame the Obama administration for failing to get the results they want. As Barry Rubin observes:

Now if the Palestinian Authority and Fatah aren’t happy with Obama they are going to have a very difficult time ever finding a U.S. government they like.

And even given this attitude, their “job” is to court the U.S. government, give it incentives to help them, show they are compromising in order to win its favor, and prove they can deliver benefits for American interest. But they have no concept of such a strategy.

“Concrete benefits” of the peace process for the Palestinians mean more Israeli concessions with no moderation on their part. Having convinced themselves that the benefits were coming to them with President Obama in office – and with no effort on their own – are now disappointed. Of course, Abbas gets blamed for his one act of moderation, but that’s a function of the immoderate nature of Palestinian politics.

If he really were seeking peace and statehood, Abbas would be successful. But bashing Israel
is his overriding interest. Given that, peace talks will get nowhere.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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10/09/2009

Gaddafi Jewish too now? Oh boy…

Filed under: Humor, Israel Derangement Syndrome — SnoopyTheGoon @ 8:00 am

The ink on the latest “revelations” about Mahmoud the Mad’s Jewish roots has barely dried and evaporated (after all it was a canard, created, most probably, by his political rivals). And here we are on the brink of another scandal: the Maariv article (in Hebrew) tells a story about the Jewish mom who produced Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, that unique, albeit a bit deranged, offspring.

Maariv received a corroboration by one of the female relatives that Qadaffi’s mother’s name was Rosella (Rosalla?) Tamas. When Rosella was 18, she acquainted and married a Muslim man. One of the offsprings of the marriage was Muammar.

The article goes into further details of the genealogy of Tamas family. Suffice to say that, according to it, Muammar has quite a few close relatives in Ramat Gan, where he will be warmly received, no doubt.

Well, I am not sure the King of Kings is considering repatriation at the moment, but the story clears up at least one of the question marks: the uncertainty about his name: Gaddafi, Qadaffi, Gadhaffi, etc. etc.

And, of course, Elders have lost a valuable agent, once his true identity was revealed, but his usefulness was in doubt lately anyway…

Jet lag my foot…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

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10/05/2009

Why did Israel jail the pregnant woman?

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: Gilad Shalit — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

The media likes to boast that they are the “first rough draft of history.” Part of that claim is that they are disinterested parties just reporting the facts as they are. Rafael Broch of Just Journalism had an excellent op-ed in Ha’aretz demonstrating the falseness of that claim.

But the media is more active than we may realize, and journalists profoundly affect what we understand about international law. One way is through the language that journalists popularise in their reports and broadcasts.

The first reference to war crimes by the British press in relation to the Gaza conflict came less than 48 hours into Israel’s operation. It was a quotation from a Hezbollah militant in Lebanon, claiming the assault was a “war crime and represents genocide”.

What is most interesting is not the readiness of the journalist to include war crimes allegations in his report so soon, but that the journalist saw it fit to quote the legal judgement of an avowed enemy. Somewhere in the mind of the journalist is the logic that these soundbytes convey drama and sell papers.

And so every Israeli self-defense is subject to a filter, which suggests that each such action might well be a violation worthy of condemnation if not punishment.

Consider the other side of the coin. On Friday Israel released twenty female security prisoners in exhange for a video of captured soldier, Gilad Schalit. Schalit has been held for three years and not allowed any visits by the Red Cross. How did the Associated Press orient its story? On the plight of the prisoners!

Women make up only a tiny minority of more than 7,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, but they often pay a high personal price for what has largely been a supporting role in the Palestinian uprising.

Some have raised babies behind bars, and others have watched their families torn apart in their absence.

Now notice in these opening paragraphs there’s nothing about what the women may have done to deserve incarceration. It’s as if the Israelis arbitrarily picked the women off the street.

Fatima Ziq, 41, was pregnant when she was arrested in May 2007 as an alleged accomplice in a foiled suicide bombing. She returns to Gaza City with a toddler — her ninth child — who has known only prison life.

Zhour Hamdan, 45, was a married mother of eight when she was picked up in 2003, also as an accomplice in an aborted bombing. Her husband has remarried, and her children were forced to fend for themselves.

“Our mother was the heart of our family,” said one of her daughters, Neveen, 22. “When she was arrested, our entire life changed.”

“Alleged accomplice?” Was she not tried and convicted? And the only reason she’s being released is because the action she abetted was unsuccessful. Does the article ask what kind of society impels pregnant women to be actively involved in the destruction of innocents?

As far as Zhour Hamdan, was she abandoned by husband because of her absence or on account of her age? If her husband abandoned their children too, what does that say about her husband?

But if glossing over the crimes the women were involved in wasn’t bad enough, the AP goes further:

The release of prisoners is an emotional issue for both sides.

Palestinians view the prisoners as heroes fighting Israeli occupation at great personal cost, and virtually every Palestinian family has current or former detainees in its midst.

In contrast, many Israelis see the inmates as terrorists.

Israelis “see” these inmates as terrorists? Please. They are, by definition, terrorists. They attempted to kill civilians. Their success in doing so isn’t really relevant to what they are. It’s not a subjective judgment. That Palestinian society views them as heroes, says something about the society and about the apologists who glorify the terrorism.

The Israeli public is divided over whether to release large numbers of prisoners in exchange for Israeli captives. Some argue that such releases only drive up the cost of future exchanges and increase the dangers of future attacks.

“Some argue?” Well it’s more than an argument. It’s documented that a portion of those terrorists who are released early return to terrorism and innocents again pay the price.

As Meryl noted, there have been other articles of this ilk about Gilad Schalit or more generally.

The media may claim that they report the news, but what they report is a narrative, shaped by ideology. It has the effect of shaping opinion to fit the views of “journalists” and advocating for their preferred causes. It is generally not what we would consider “news.”

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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10/01/2009

“Can this trash”

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: United Nations — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

The New York Times has a completely unremarkable account of Tuesday’s proceedings. Apparently neither Dr. Siderer’s testimony nor Cuba’s plea for “freedom of expression” were noteworthy to the Times reporter.

Interestingly neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post have featured an unsigned editorial on the Goldstone commission. However, yesterday the NY Daily News had an excellent editorial on the topic.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner yesterday condemned the report’s claim that the Israeli military intended to terrorize. He attacked Goldstone’s failure to hold Hamas to account for using Palestinian civilians as human shields. And he exposed Goldstone’s outrageously lopsided call on Israel to stop using certain munitions – while saying nothing about Hamas’ indiscriminate firing of rockets.

The council, whose members include Cuba, China and Saudi Arabia, will now consider acting on the report, with many urging referral to the Security Council for prosecution by the International Criminal Court. The U.S. must lead the opposition – and must win.

With the unquestioned support of most of the world(’s dictatorships), the Goldstone Commission’s report is likely to be passed on to the UN General Assembly. The United States has an obligation to stand by Israel and ensure that no diplomatic harm befalls Israel on its account.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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09/18/2009

The Goldstone standard

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Judge Goldstone — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

In his initial report about the Goldstone Commission report, Colum Lynch of the Washington Post wrote:

He cited one incident in which Israeli forces allegedly fired a mortar shell through the door of a mosque in Gaza City during a religious service attended by several hundred worshipers, killing 15 and injuring others. He said there was no evidence to suggest that the mosque had been occupied by militants or had been used to store weapons.

And indeed this is what’s claimed in the report in its “factual findings” (page 237 of the .pdf) of the case|:

835. There has been no suggestion that the al-Maqadmah mosque was being used at that time to launch rockets, store weapons or shelter combatants.465 Since it does not appear from the testimonies of the incident or the inspection of the site that any other damage was done in the area at that time, the Mission concludes that what occurred was an isolated strike and not in connection with an ongoing battle or exchange of fire.

In other words the Goldstone commission’s “factual” finding was that Israel arbitrarily fired at a mosque killing at least 15 people.

However, Jonathan D. Halevi did a little digging. There might be a reason that there was “no suggestion” that the al-Maqadmah mosque did not “shelter combatants.” The commission never bothered to ask.

Many of the questions were irrelevant and unconnected to the circumstances of the event. The commission members did not ask about armed men in the mosque, whether it was used for military purposes or incited worshippers to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel. They did not ask if there were weapons in the mosque, if armed men were operating near the mosque, whether Hamas and its Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades controlled the mosque and used it to recruit operatives, or the identity of the casualties and their organizational affiliation (including members of the al-Silawi family).

An examination of freely accessible Palestinian sources shows that the casualties in this incident were terrorist operatives and included members of the al-Silawi family, who were represented to the commission as innocent civilians.

Halevi goes on to list the active members of Hamas who were targeted and killed in the attack as Ibrahim Moussa Issa al-Silawi, Omar Abd al-Hafez Moussa al-Silawi (Abu Souheib), Sayid Salah Sayid Batah, Ahmed Hamad Hassan Abu Ita, Muhanad Ibrahim al-Tanani (Abu Islam), Rajah Nahad Rajah Ziyyada, and Ahmed Assad Diyab Tabil. The last two were 18 and 16 respectively, which shows that some of those classified as children killed by Israel were actual combatants.

So the Goldstone commission didn’t do basic research. It had a narrative – that Israel attacked and killed civilians recklessly – and couldn’t be bothered to check for anything that might contradict that narrative.

With a little ingenuity and effort as displayed by Elder of Ziyon and his fellow researchers Goldstone could have established the background of Omar al-Silawi without leaving Geneva.

In his op-ed, Judge Goldstone wrote:

I accepted because the mandate of the mission was to look at all parties: Israel; Hamas, which controls Gaza; and other armed Palestinian groups. I accepted because my fellow commissioners are professionals committed to an objective, fact-based investigation.

I noted yesterday that this was dishonest, as Mary Robinson declined to head the commission on grounds that its mandate was one sided. Judge Goldstone’s failure, in this case, to ask the necessary questions or to do the requisite research to establish his facts, shows that Mrs. Robinson was correct. He was effectively charged with establishing Israel’s guilt, and he discharged his duties accordingly.

Crossposted at Yourish.

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09/16/2009

Built on a foundation of sand

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time, Jew Cooties — Tags: Richard Goldstone — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

Avi Bell doubts that the Goldstone report will result in any significant diplomatic damage to Israel however,

The situation in the wake of the Goldstone Report is reminiscent, to some degree, of the international uproar that erupted over the building of the security barrier, particularly the nonbinding ruling of the International Court of Justice demanding that Israel tear down all parts of it that encroached on the West Bank and compensate the Palestinians.

There were no practical implications regarding the judgment, but Israel suffered severely in world public opinion. Barring the unlikely scenario in which the Security Council agrees to turn to the ICC to investigate Israelis on charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity, the damage in this case will be of a similar scope.

And Ron ben Yishai looks at the military implications of the report:

Just as grave is the damage on the legal-military front. The report explicitly rules that the combat methods and armaments utilized by the IDF even prior to Operation Cast Lead, as well as during the campaign, are illegitimate, violate the Geneva Convention, and constitute a war crime. Should the conclusions be adopted by the Security Council and UN secretary general, this will constitute overwhelming de-legitimization to the methods and arms planned by the IDF for future combat should the Israeli home front be attacked with missiles from Lebanon, Syria, or Gaza.

Hence, this marks a first-rate achievement for terror groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas; it may encourage them to keep using the civilian population as a human shield.

Judith Apter Klinghoffer makes a similar argument.

Ben Yishai, also notes that this ruling, if followed might well tie America’s hands when it comes to fighting its war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. This is something that the Obama administration needs to take into account when measuring its response to the commission. This is a point emphasized by Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren:

This is an independent judiciary of a democratic country. I think that, once you start establishing the precedent that democratic countries can’t investigate themselves, I think you’ve got a problem.

I think this report creates a problem not just for Israel, but for all free democracies in the world. It’s a victory for terror. It is a major setback for any country, democratic country that is having to face war against an un-uniformed terrorist organization in a densely populated civilian area. I don’t think the United States would like to see a similar report mounted against its conduct of its operations in Afghanistan.

Elder of Ziyon points out specific problems with the report too. For example he notes that the Goldstone Commission made claims that betrayed an ignorance of international law. In other cases he produced videos that contradicted assertions made by the commission.

Melanie Phillips takes aim at other specific assertions of the Commission such as:

Then there is Goldstone’s treatment of the mortar shelling of al-Fakhura junction in Jabalya next to an UNRWA school. This was the site of the infamous accusation by the UN that Israel had shelled the school itself, killing more than 40 civilians sheltering there. The UN eventually admitted that this was entirely false and the school had not been shelled at all. Israel had instead returned mortar fire at the street next to the school from where firing was still continuing, killing a small number of Hamas terrorists and an even smaller number of civilians who were standing near to the Hamas mortar position.

But Goldstone concludes:

Par 688… The Mission notes that the attack may have been in response to a mortar attack from an armed Palestinian group but considers the credibility of Israel’s position damaged by the series of inconsistencies and factual inaccuracies.

So the fact that Israel was the victim of an incendiary libel by the UN, which said falsely that its school had been hit and inflated the number of casualties — a lie that went round the world inciting hysteria and violence against Israel and Jews — is totally ignored; instead Israel is pilloried for its (undoubtedly) chaotic response as it gradually pieced together what had actually happened.

Reading a number of Goldstone’s statements, it’s clear that he needed to reach certain conclusions and tailored his pronouncements on international law accordingly – whether or not these were correct reading of the law.

Unfortunately, in reports in the MSM, none of these doubts are raised. For example the Washington Post reports:

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the fact-finding mission lacked legitimacy because its mandate was biased against Israel and because it disregarded Hamas’s strategy of using Palestinian civilians as cover during war. Israel refused to cooperate with Goldstone’s panel or to allow its researchers to interview witnesses in southern Israel or Gaza. Researchers, however, were allowed into Gaza through Egypt.

This is a general rebuttal. The Post’s reporter would not have had to dig too deeply to find problematic claims made in the report. Instead he took his role to be that of a mimeograph machine rather than a reporter.

The New York Times does worse:

The Israeli government said it was studying the report, but Gabriela Shalev, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, quickly rejected it, saying it failed to take into account that the operation was in “self-defense.”

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said it had refused to co-operate with the mission, calling it biased from the start.

In Gaza, a spokesman for Hamas said it fired the rockets at Israel to try to defend itself. “We did not intentionally target civilians,” said Ahmed Yousef, a Hamas adviser. “We were targeting military bases, but the primitive weapons make mistakes.”

Palestinian armed groups have launched about 8,000 rockets and mortars into southern Israel since 2001. During the conflict, the report said, they killed 3 Israeli civilians and a soldier, and injured over 900 people.

I suppose that last paragraph might have been meant as a rebuttal to Yousef’s claim, but an explicit rebuttal that Hamas considers all Israelis to be military targets was in order. Furthermore the Times reports:

The panel rejected the Israeli version of events surrounding several of the most contentious episodes of the war.

Israel’s mortar shelling near a United Nations-run school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which was sheltering some 1,300 people, killed 35 and wounded up to 40 people, the report said.

The investigation did not exclude the possibility that Israeli forces were responding to fire from an armed Palestinian group, as Israel claimed, but said that this and similar attacks “cannot meet the test of what a reasonable commander would have determined to be an acceptable loss of civilian life for the military advantage sought.”

But on what grounds did Goldstone dismiss the Israeli claims? As Melanie Phillips pointed out, the initial claims against Israel – made by UN personnel – were disproved. So Goldstone accepted a libel instead of the results of an investigation.

There’s more than a little chutzpah in Goldstone’s recommendation then, that Israel must conduct an investigation within six months. Given the standards that he based much of his report on, the only legitimate investigation will reach the same conclusions he did, regardless of the facts.

Goldstone’s daugher pathetically claims that her father is a Zionist, but if his concern for Israeli Jews is so great why was he uninterested in testimony about the terror they were under? More generally why, then, did he accept a mandate to defame Israel that was so blatant the even Mary Robinson refused the job?

Daled Amos and Israelly Cool! provide roundups of critiques of the report.

Crossposted on Yourish.

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09/15/2009

Garlasco hits the fan

Filed under: Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Marc Garlasco — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

The New York Times finally covers the controversy over Marc Garlasco’s hobby first reported by Mere Rhetoric and reports that he has been suspended from Human Right’s Watch.

The article covers most of the aspects of Garlasco’s collecting and summed up the controversy:

The suspension comes at a time of heightened tension between, on one side, the new Israeli government and its allies on the right, and the other side, human rights organizations that have been critical of Israel. In recent months, the government has pledged an aggressive approach toward the groups to discredit what they argue is bias and error.

The problems with this are that
1) The Israeli government with lumped together with “allies on the right.” Human rights organizations are apparently without ideological bias.
2) It’s suggested that the revelations about Garlasco are part of a campaign by the Israeli government, when there is no evidence that the Garlasco story was in any way pushed by the Israeli government.
3) The bias and error are real. Why not mention Sarah Leah Whitson’s fundraising in Saudi Arabia or Joe Stork’s ideological baggage?

These suggestions and omissions all blur the real issue. Is Human Rights Watch biased against Israel? The answer is unequivocally “yes.”

Whitson, Stork and Garlasco are part of the story. Another part of the story are some of the members of HRW’s board of directors for the Middle East. They include Helena Cobban, Anne Lesch, Phillip Mattar and James Zogby. All these four are anti-Israel (or at least anti-Zionist) to some degree. On the other side there are no members who can be said to be strongly pro-Israel. So there’s no effective counterweight in HRW’s Middle East Board of Directors against the documented anti-Israel biases of its staff.

This isn’t about Israel and its “right wing” allies, it’s about the corruption of HRW. The Times doesn’t seem to get it.

For more please check Elder of Ziyon, NGO monitor and memeorandum.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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09/14/2009

Turki stuffing

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Turki al-Faisal — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

A few months we had an excuse:

“The ambition to bring the Saudis on board has been disappointed,” said one Western diplomat based in Riyadh, who asked not to be identified because of the delicate nature of the debate. “I think it would be quite difficult for the Saudis to lead the way the U.S. is hoping, because any warmth towards Israel would be deeply unpopular with its public.”

“Deeply unpopular?” Since when does the Saudi government care about what’s popular? Do its leaders regularly submit to the polls? Of course not. And when the official media promotes hatred of Israel, would you expect the population to harbor warm feelings towards Israel?

Bahrain’s Crown Prince is correct (h/t The Cable):

Essentially, we have not done a good enough job demonstrating to Israelis how our initiative can form part of a peace between equals in a troubled land holy to three great faiths. Others have been less reticent, recognizing that our success would threaten their vested interest in keeping Palestinians and Israelis at each other’s throats. They want victims to stay victims so they can be manipulated as proxies in a wider game for power. The rest of us — the overwhelming majority — have the opposite interest.

(I don’t agree with everything in the op-ed, but this is a lot more honest than most Arab leaders are.)

Now two months later the New York Times gives Saudi Arabia Prince Turki space to continue the Arab intransigence. Turki writes:

Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, the custodian of its two holy mosques, the world’s energy superpower and the de facto leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds — that is why our recognition is greatly prized by Israel. However, for all those same reasons, the kingdom holds itself to higher standards of justice and law. It must therefore refuse to engage Israel until it ends its illegal occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights as well as Shabaa Farms in Lebanon. For Saudis to take steps toward diplomatic normalization before this land is returned to its rightful owners would undermine international law and turn a blind eye to immorality.

This is arrogant and sanctimonious claptrap. Israel, has, I believe survived and even thrived for 61 years without recognition from the birthplace of Islam. I don’t see any reason for Israel to prize the recognition of the prince and his extended family, and I don’t think that Israel prizes that recognition. Israel prizes peace and since Saudi Arabia is, in many ways, the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds, if it would deign to make peace with Israel, other Arab and Muslim countries would likely follow. But as long as self-righteous tyrants hold sway in Saudi Arabia that will not happen.

I am impressed that the prince adheres to higher standards. So no doubt, he will soon advocate the return of the provinces of Jizan, Asir and Najran.to Yemen. I know that in 1995 that Yemen formally renounced its claims to those territories, but surely, in the name of “higher standards of justice” the prince and his countrymen should show the way.

Furthermore, since the Prince boasts of his country being the guardian of the two holy mosques of Islam, perhaps he should show the way by advocating the sharing of cities of Mecca and Medina just as he demands Israel do to Jerusalem. At the very least he should demand that non-Muslims not be restricted from visiting those cities. Again, in the name of “higher standards” of justice. After all if these standards are not universal then they are merely pretexts, not principles.

If the prince’s arrogance was on display in the paragraph cited above, his dishonesty is readily apparent in the following paragraph.

Today, supporters of Israel cite the outdated 1988 Hamas charter, which called for the destruction of Israel, as evidence of Palestine’s attitude toward a two-state solution, without considering the illegalities of Israel’s own occupation. Israel has never presented any comprehensive formulation of a peace plan. Saudi Arabia, to the contrary, has done so twice: the Fahd peace plan of 1982 and the Abdullah peace initiative of 2002. Both were endorsed by the Arab world, and both were ignored by Israel.

How is the Hamas charter outdated? Hamas still denies Israel’s right to exist. At most, sympathetic journalists can get leaders of Hamas to possibly agree to a temporary ceasefire with Israel – once Israel has returned to its 1948 borders. But even then, there is no commitment to making peace with Israel, just tolerating Israel, until presumably Hamas has armed itself to inflict even more damage on Israel, just as it has done in the past.

I’m sorry if Israel hasn’t produced a plan that meets the Prince’s exacting standards. But Israel signed the Camp David Accords with Egypt, the Oslo Accords with unrepentant PLO and concluded a treaty with Jordan in 1994. So if these neighbors of Israel’s could see to sign treaties (even if not observe them), why do the Saudis insist on being more Muslim than the Imam?

But here’s the thing, Israel has not only signed these documents but it has actually complied with their terms. In other words Israel has matched its words with actions. That means that Israel ceded the Sinai to Egypt, water resources to Jordan and territory to the PA. On the other side neither of these countries nor the PA has reciprocated by allowing any reasonable level of normalization with Israel. In other words:” Israel has given; its “peace partners” have taken and then cynically proclaimed that Israel isn’t doing enough.

Have the Saudi done anything concrete to enhance peace in the Middle East? Did they forgo their discriminatory demand that the Magen David Adom not be accorded the protections of international law? Did they offer to pay the Jewish refugees who were forced from their homes in the Arab world? Nope. The Saudi plans are words, with no meaning attached to them.

In fact the Saudi “peace” plans are very specific in their demands of Israel, they are a lot more vague in what they offer Israel in return. The come off less as peace plans than as ultimatums.

But if Prince Turki is so concerned for the Palestinian then perhaps he should promote their statehood in what is now known as Jordan, invite the Hashemite rulers back to their native Mecca and offer to share power with them. The Hashemite kingdom of what was once Transjordan was a reward given the Abdullah, the great-grandfather of the current king of Jordan as a reward for his help to the British during World War I. Transjordan as it was originally called constituted 78% of what was then the British Mandate for Palestine. So if Prince Turki is truly concerned about the Palestinians there is a lot he could encourage his family, fellow Arabs and coreligionists to do to alleviate their statelessness.

It was eight years ago that 15 of Prince Turki’s countrymen attacked the United States. The Abdullah plan to which Prince Turki refers was a desperate attempt to deflect criticism of his country’s extremism aided and abetted by Thomas Friedman. Prince Turki’s op-ed shows that the “peace” offered by Abdullah, is nothing but words. As Barry Rubin explains:

This can be summarized as: First land, then peace.

If such an intiative would be taken by any country on any other issue in the world, observers would ridicule such an absurd position.

It is, of course, absurd and contrary to UN Resolutions 242 and 338 as well as all the Israel-Palestinian agreements including the Oslo accord of 1993. All of these put obligations on both sides to be implemented simultaneously. No Israeli government would ever agree to such an absurd notion that it gives up all the cards in the hope of then getting something in exchange.

In short, it is a formula for killing the peace process.

Yisrael Medad offers some point by point refutations to the prince.

The deflection strategy would seem to be necessary. (h/t Flopping Aces)

Another witness in Afghanistan said in a sworn statement that in 1998 he had witnessed an emissary for a leading Saudi prince, Turki al-Faisal, hand a check for one billion Saudi riyals (now worth about $267 million) to a top Taliban leader.

The article makes clear that the evidence of Saudi ties to Al Qaeda is largely circumstantial, but there certainly seems to be a lot of it.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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09/11/2009

The Goldstone commission: A kangaroo court report

Filed under: Gaza, Hamas, Israel Derangement Syndrome, United Nations — Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, United Nations — Meryl Yourish @ 10:00 am

In the next couple of weeks, the UN will be releasing the results of the inquiry by Richard Goldstone into what they will determine are war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. Goldstone has been insisting that although the UN mandate was anti-Israel enough that even Mary Robinson turned down an offer to head the commission (yes, really), he will have an evenhanded report on the Gaza war.

This is impossible.

The mandate itself declared that war crimes were committed by Israel. This is a case of a court issuing a guilty verdict before any facts are in.

“Human Rights Council… Decides to dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission”.

This is not a mandate to investigage if war crimes occurred. This is a mandate that states its purpose, and the commission’s responsibility is to document the war crimes that were already declared.

UN Watch has a history of the judges, many of whom are—surprise—biased against Israel.

Christine Chinkin signed a letter dated January 11, 2009, which appeared in The Times, stating: “Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime.”

The jury is already in. Israel is going to be accused of war crimes by a UN commission. And they’re releasing the report sometime during the ten Days of Awe, just for a little extra added insult.

The UN decided the defendant was guilty as charged before examining a single fact. And so the UN’s obsession with Israel continues, and yet another anti-Israel resolution will come of it. Watch for it.

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09/10/2009

When meticulous means exaggerated

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: PCHR — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Helena Cobban writes about the recent casualty figures from Israel’s war against Hamas released by PCHR and B’Tselem.

I dare say that when we see the final report in English from PCHR, they too will be specific about the methodology they used. I have great respect for the careful work and documentary objectivity of the PCHR, which is Palestinian and operates under extremely difficult circumstances from its downtown Gaza headquarters. I would imagine that its researchers have the opportunity to do even more meticulous fieldwork than that done by B’tselem, which is based in Jerusalem and has faced many obstacles placed by the Israeli authorities in being able to get its research teams into Gaza.

“Meticulous” is an interesting way to describe PCHR’s approach. As Elder of Ziyon observed:

We’ve already demonstrated conclusively that literally hundreds of people that the PCHR called “civilian” casualties of Operation Cast Lead were, in fact, terrorists. (And the incredible team of t34zakat, PTWatch and Suzanne are still finding more.)

The problem is not only that PCHR was unaware of these people’s affiliations. PCHR’s weekly reports during Cast Lead detail a number of specific incidents that show that the organization knew quite well that the dead were terrorists – and chose to categorize them as “civilian” anyway.

“Meticulous” then, apparently means exaggerating the level of destruction caused by Israel. It isn’t surprising that Cobban believes this as there seems to be no libel about Israel that is too silly for her to ignore. Cobban doesn’t even seem to be bothered that the blurring of the lines between terrorist and civilian was a deliberate tactic practiced by her heroes of Hamas.

Daled Amos wonders if the funders of these groups feel that they’re getting their money’s worth. They certainly got their money’s worth from PCHR.

Crossposted on Yourish.

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09/09/2009

When your enemy’s a lightbulb

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: J-Street — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Q. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change.

In defense of their stance on Hamas, J-Street writes (h/t Jennifer Rubin):

We also recognize, however, that one makes peace with one’s enemies not one’s friends. Hamas is a political movement that has an important and significant base of support within Palestinian society and politics. Ultimately, a political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will require Palestinian political reconciliation and we support efforts by third parties to achieve reconciliation and a unity government, whose officials will work within a diplomatic process to achieve an acceptable two-state solution.

That platitude about making peace with one’s enemies is a variation on a statement made by Yitzchak Rabin, and it is highly misleading. You make with your enemies when those enemies are willing to accept you. But if your enemy still maintains a hostile stance, no amount of concessions or recognition are going to lead to peace. This was the fallacy as Yasser Arafat pronounced his support for peace in English to international audiences and simultaneously encouraged his people to reject Israel and embrace terror. Hamas hasn’t even bothered to soften its stance to the rest of the world. Other than certain limited goals, Hamas has earned the right to be shunned.

But what’s disturbing here, is that J-Street – in defending itself no less – puts Palestinian reconciliation was a necessary condition for peace. That means encouraging the superficially moderate Fatah to give the implacable terrorists of Hamas a veto over the peace process. J-Street isn’t just anti-Israel, it’s anti-peace too!

J-Street can claim that it is not anti-Israel, but if after the Israeli withdrawals in 1995 were followed by a wave of terror in 1996; after the Camp David talks were followed by the “Aqsa intifada”; after Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was followed by the strengthening of Hezbollah and the threat to northern Israel and after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza was followed by the strengthening of Hamas and the threat to southern Israel, it’s impossible to argue that what the peace process needs is more American pressure on Israel rather than an Arab change of heart. But it’s pressure on Israel that J-Street advocates. So yes, given the historical record of Israeli concessions and the belligerent response to them, advocating for American pressure for future concessions is objectively anti-Israel.

It’s also interesting that J-Street has adopted the style of its nemesis, AIPAC by presenting its defense in the form of “Myths and Facts.” Of course when the organization itself becomes the focus of its activism – as is the case now with J-Street – it no longer truly advocates anything, it’s simply self absorbed. Yes, perhaps it is time to pack it in.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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09/08/2009

Quote of the day

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: Elliott Abrams — Soccerdad @ 7:00 am

Elliott Abrams in the Washington Post – in response to Jimmy Carter:

Most inaccurate of all, and most bizarre, is Carter’s claim that “a total freeze of settlement expansion is the key” to a peace agreement. Not a halt to terrorism, not the building of Palestinian institutions, not the rule of law in the West Bank, not the end of Hamas rule in Gaza — no, the sole “key” is Israeli settlements. Such a conclusion fits with Carter’s general approach, in which there are no real Palestinians, just victims of Israel. The century of struggle between moderate and radical Palestinians, and the victories of terrorists from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat, are forgotten; the Hamas coup in Gaza is unmentioned; indeed the words “Hamas” and “terrorism” do not appear in Carter’s column. Instead of appealing for support for the serious and practical work of institution-building that the Palestinian Authority has begun, Carter fantasizes about a “nonviolent civil rights struggle” that bears no relationship to the terrorist violence that has plagued Palestinian society, and killed Israelis, for decades. Carter’s portrait demonizes Israelis and, not coincidentally, it infantilizes Palestinians, who are accorded no real responsibility for their fate or future. If this is “the Elders’ view of the Middle East,” we and our friends in that region are fortunate that this group of former officials is no longer in power.

Daled Amos, by the way, provides many more reasons we should be glad that the Elders are no longer in power.

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09/04/2009

Halvorsen’s record

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Kristin Halvorsten — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

A number of outlets have reported that Norway’s pension fund divested its shares of the Israeli technology firm, Elbit. It’s true,as Yaacov Lozowick points out that Norway had divested from a lot of companies ( e.g. Boeing for helping build nuclear weapons; Wal-Mart for Child Labor)

But does this absolve Norway – as Yaacov argues – from the charge of antisemitism? The decision was announced by the Finance Ministry, which is headed by Kristin Halvorsen, who heads Norway Socialist Left party. Halvorsen’s record towards the Middle East indicates that more tahn just sanctimony is in play.

Dormant Norwegian blogger Secular Blasphemy noted in January 2006:

Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen, on the other hand, has just publicly encouraged a total boycott of Israeli goods and services. The foreign department was not informed about this before the campaign hit the press, and was forced to send an official letter to the Israeli embassy to inform them this is not the policy of the Norwegian government. Just one antisemitic minister who believed she could run her own foreign policy.:

Norway’s government (not just Halvorsen) also chose not to treat Hamas as a terrorist group. Mabye it’s sanctimony, or maybe the Norwegian government’s been itching to stick it to Israel for quite a while now.

Actions like this only encourage terrorists and their supporters.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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09/03/2009

Bostrom for a Pulitzer

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Juvenile Scorn — Tags: Donald Bostrom — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

Apparently the reason that the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet decided to publish its false story about the IDF stealing the organs of Palestinians is because the paper’s editor wanted to verify the authenticity of the story. In the United States the rule of journalism is that you’re supposed to check you story before publishing it. (Not that American reporters don’t sometimes make stuff up, but no American editor would boast that he published an unverified story to test its veracity.

Actually I think that the reason that Donald Bostrom wrote the story is because it was a great career move. Look at Charles Enderlein. Not only was his story about Mohammed al-Dura shown to be false, he lost a court case. But now he gets France’s highest honor! There’s no libel of Israel that is too ridiculous to be dismissed and brings fame and fortune to the reporter. Surely Bostrom deserves a Pulitzer for his slander of the Jewish state.

No doubt it will bring him greater prestige than if he reported a real story, like that the Chinese execute prisoners to harvest their organs.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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09/02/2009

Boycott backlash

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Neve Gordon — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

A week and a half ago, Israeli professor Neve Gordon wrote an op-ed in the LA Times calling for a boycott of Israel.

So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren’t citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.

The president of Ben Gurion University, where Gordon teaches, Rivka Carni then circulated a letter criticizing Gordon for his stance. This sent terror supporter Helena Cobban into a tizzy. She accused Carmi of making a “veiled threat” against Gordon – in fact Carmi said explicitly that she would not fire Gordon. At the end of her post Cobban takes another cheap shot at Carmi:

Meanwhile, BGU’s presidency was taken over by Rivka Carmi, a physician. Her commitment to academic freedom seems extremely thin– especially compared with Braverman’s.

Wait a second. On one hand Gordon called on others to join a boycott – including an academic boycott – of Israel. This would have the effect of curtailing academic inquiry. And yet Cobban claims that Carmi is the one with no commitment to academic freedom? It’s a point that Carmi herself made in an op-ed published the other day in the LA Times.

At the same time, by calling on other entities, including academic institutions, to boycott Israel — and effectively, to boycott his own university — Gordon has forfeited his ability to work effectively within the academic setting, with his colleagues in Israel and around the world. After his very public, personal soul-searching in his Op-Ed article, leading to his extreme description of Israel as an “apartheid” state, how can he, in good faith, create the collaborative atmosphere necessary for true academic research and teaching?

The primary effect of Gordon’s Israel-bashing will be to detract from the work of his university. I am a doctor; my professional career has focused on preventing hereditary genetic diseases in the Bedouin Arab community. Today, the laboratory that I founded at Ben-Gurion University is working with Bedouin, Palestinian and Jordanian doctors and researchers to improve the health of Arab children across the region. This is but one of the many Israeli-Arab collaborations — in fields that range from developing advanced water technologies to solar energy, environmental conservation and emergency medicine — that will be compromised here if “collective punishment” for Gordon’s actions or for my opposition to his views is imposed on BGU.

Cobban’s hatred of Israel is so extreme, it blinds her to this obvious point: the boycott of Israel inhibits academic freedom.

More at Media Backspin. Also check out Antisemitism rebranded.

Crosssposted on Soccer Dad.

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09/01/2009

Tuesday Snark News Briefs

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Iran, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: Anti-Semitism, Hamas, Israel — Meryl Yourish @ 10:30 am

Oh, like we didn’t see this coming: The Palestinians are publishing it as if it’s true. The Saudis are pretending that they don’t believe it. But the Iranians? Of course the Jews are stealing Palestinian organs. There’s a Palestinian “eyewitness” who says she saw thousands of bodies taken from hospitals. Funny how that hasn’t been reported until now. But sure, the Iranians are people Obama can negotiate with. Because they’re so sane, and just like us.

Don’t let facts get in the way of my blood libel! The Local publishes an article by a Jewish doctor explaining why the Aflonbadet charge of organ harvesting is not just wrong, but medically impossible. However, that won’t stop asshats like the Media Monitors Network featuring asshats like this insisting that the IDF prove that it doesn’t kill Palestinians to harvest their organs. Honest Reporting sums up the aftermath.

Egypt kills another African, world ignores another non-Israeli-caused death in Gaza. Double standard? The deuce you say!

Ew. Ew. Ew. Okay, Madonna is at least a decent singer. But Justin Timberlake and Madonna? What is Israeli being punished for now?

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