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Jonathan Tobin writes in The Day the War on America Began:

Exactly 20 years ago on this date, a terrorist attack at the World Trade Center took the lives of six people and injured more than a thousand others. The tragedy shocked the nation but, as with other al-Qaeda attacks in the years that followed, the WTC bombing did not alter the country’s basic approach to Islamist terrorism. For the next eight and a half years, the United States carried on with a business-as-usual attitude toward the subject. The lack of urgency applied to the subject, as well as the disorganized and sometimes slap-dash nature of the security establishment’s counter-terrorist operations, led to the far greater tragedy of September 11, 2001 when al-Qaeda managed to accomplish what it failed to do in 1993: knock down the towers and slaughter thousands.

All these years after 9/11 and the tracking down and killing of Osama bin Laden, are there any further lessons to be drawn from that initial tragedy? To listen to the chattering classes, you would think the answer is a definitive no. Few are marking this anniversary and even fewer seem to think there is anything more to be said about what we no longer call the war on terror. But as much as many of us may wish to consign this anniversary to the realm of the history books, the lessons of the day the war on America began still need to be heeded. 

The truth is that the war on America didn’t begin with the first World Trade Center bombing. It began two and a half years earlier. El Sayyid Nosair was an associate of those who carried out the bombing. He also was the killer of Rabbi Meir Kahane.

In the wake of the World Trade Center bombing, the New York Times reported Trade Center Blast Prompts Kahane Case Review:

It was not clear to what extent the disciplinary action and the reopening of the Kahane investigation were part of an effort to pressure Mr. Nosair to divulge information that could help in the bombing case. A senior law-enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, maintained that Mr. Nosair had been thrust into the bombing investigation because of his contacts with others under investigation.

Federal agents, meanwhile, continued to trace the flow of foreign money into bank accounts of two of the arrested suspects, Mohammed A. Salameh, a 25-year-old illegal immigrant who was born in the West Bank, and Nidal A. Ayyad, 25, a chemical engineer who was born in Kuwait.

…

Throughout the Nosair investigation, Chief Borrelli has insisted that the assassination was the work of a gunman acting alone. While he said yesterday that he remains convinced that no one else was directly involved in the killing, he allowed for the first time that Mr. Nosair might have been involved in a terrorist organization that had ordered the rabbi executed for his hard-line approach toward Palestinians in Israel. 

It took two and a half years until Nosair’s connection to others was investigated. Until the World Trade Center attack, authorities insisted that the Kahane murder was an isolated incident.

However as the New York Times reported a few months later in RENO SEES GROWING EVIDENCE AND MAKES CALL; New Charges Give U.S. 2d Chance to Try Kahane Suspect:

And when Mr. Nosair was arrested on Nov. 5 in the Kahane shooting, a search of his home in Cliffside Park, N.J., turned up formulas for the construction of bombs, political tracts and documents, video and audio tapes advocating the destruction of symbolic statues, tall buildings and buildings of political significance, the indictment said.

Investigators have said that the reams of materials, all in Arabic, sat in boxes untranslated until the bombing of the World Trade Center, and that the emergence of associates of Mr. Nosair as suspects led them to reopen the Kahane case. 

Think about that. There was potential evidence at Nosair’s house but no authorities bothered translating it. There was an assumption that Rabbi Kahane had brought his fate upon himself. It is incredible that many documents at Nosair’s house were not analyzed. Had authorities done that they might have prevented the first World Trade Center bombing!

And yet despite this, there are those who think that authorities are too aggressive in seeking to prevent terrorism. Matthew Continetti recently wrote in the Matter in Handschu:

Elshafay, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to five years in federal prison in 2007. Siraj is serving a 30-year sentence. Their conspiracy is just one of the 16 known terrorist plots against New York City that have been foiled in the decade since nearly 3,000 men, women, and children were murdered in Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001. Hard to argue, it would seem, with the NYPD’s 12 years of keeping its city safe.

But people do argue, intensely, and with a lack of proportion and context that is simply mindboggling. Consider: For years now, the February 9 New York Times editorial page breathlessly informed readers, New York police officers, “deploying an army of spies,” have been “spying on law-abiding Muslims” and “targeting Muslim groups because of their religious affiliation, not because they present any risk.” Such is the allegation of a motion lawyers connected with the New York Civil Liberties Union filed in federal court in early February. “New York City police,” the motion details, “routinely selected Muslim groups for surveillance and infiltration.” Which is “more than ample reason,” concludes the Times, “to be concerned about possible overreach and unconstitutional activity.”

…

At issue are the so-called Handschu Guidelines, an unwieldy set of judicial protocols that limit NYPD surveillance of “political activity.” These guidelines, named after Black Panther attorney Barbara Handschu, are the result of a class action filed against the police in 1971 and settled in 1985. “No other police department in the country is bound by these rules,” notes former director of NYPD intelligence analysis Mitchell Silber. And no other police department in the country has had to deal with such a persistent and adaptive terrorist threat, while assuring critics in activist groups and the media that no, sorry, martial law has not been imposed on the five boroughs. A federal judge recognized as much in 2003 when he modified the Handschu Guidelines to allow the NYPD freedom to uncover and disrupt incipient plots.

The scrutiny given the NYPD would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous. There is still a hesitance among certain elites to acknowledge religious based violence, when the perpetrators are Muslims. Tobin is correct when he writes:

All these years after 9/11 and the tracking down and killing of Osama bin Laden, are there any further lessons to be drawn from that initial tragedy? To listen to the chattering classes, you would think the answer is a definitive no. Few are marking this anniversary and even fewer seem to think there is anything more to be said about what we no longer call the war on terror. But as much as many of us may wish to consign this anniversary to the realm of the history books, the lessons of the day the war on America began still need to be heeded.

My only disagreement with him is that February 26, 1993 reflected one of those unheeded lessons.

2) Iran vs. Israel

Yesterday I cited a New York Times report that the Al Aqsa Martyr brigades claimed credit for the recent rocket fired into Israel breaking the three month old ceasefire that ended Operation Pillar of Defense. However taking credit (and whatever that reflects) is not the same thing as being responsible. Avi Isacharoff reports for the Tower, Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps Operating in Gaza; Grad Rocket Fired at Israel:

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps are currently in the Gaza Strip, high-level Palestinian security sources tell The Tower.

The Iranians, according to our security sources, are experts in missile production, and are in Gaza to help Hamas and Islamic Jihad develop long-range missiles. Israeli security and political officials declined to elaborate, telling The Tower only that this isn’t the first time delegates from Tehran had entered the Hamas-controlled territory.
…
This morning’s rocket attack was apparently not carried out by Hamas, but by its rival Islamic Jihad, a smaller organization believed to be largely, if not entirely, under Iran’s control. Two weeks ago one of Islamic Jihad’s leaders in the West Bank, Sheikh Bassam al-Saadi, told TheTower his group enjoys “warm and positive” ties with the Islamic republic. There are also reports in Arabic media that Fatah has claimed responsibility.

While it doesn’t prove that the IRGC was behind the Grad attack, the presence of the IRGC in Gaza is notable as Israel (apparently) recently killed an IRGC commander in Syria. It would appear that Iran – nuclear weapons or not – is attempting to project its power against Israel by its proxies.

3) Has the New York Times ever tried this? 

Simply Jews and Honest Reporting note an excellent tactic employed by the New York Daily News. Pesach Benson of Honest Reporting explains:

Here’s something I never saw before: After Omar Barghouti was given op-ed space in the NY Daily News to explain the BDS movement, the paper itself slammed Barghouti with a staff-ed.

It’s one thing to present dueling op-eds. But responding with a sharply worded staff editorial — which represents the paper’s official view — is much stronger. I also liked the staff-ed’s style. Bloggers would refer to the point-by-point refutations as a fisking.

A few years ago in defending the New York Times for publishing an op-ed by a Hamas spokesman, the paper then-public editor wrote The Danger of the One Sided Debate:

Op-ed pages should be open especially to controversial ideas, because that’s the way a free society decides what’s right and what’s wrong for itself. Good ideas prosper in the sunshine of healthy debate, and the bad ones wither. Left hidden out of sight and unchallenged, the bad ones can grow like poisonous mushrooms.

This was silly on a number of levels. Fundamentally the problem is that the New York Times, if it is one-sided any way, it one-sided against Israel. The New York Times doesn’t shine light on extreme anti-Israel opinions as much as it reinforces them.

The behavior of New York Daily News is an admirable counterpoint to the dishonesty of the New York Times.

1) Why are they staying away? 

Yesterday the New York Times reported Syrian Opposition’s Complaints Shadow Kerry’s First Official Trip:

Mr. Kerry and foreign ministers from Europe and the Middle East are scheduled to meet in Rome on Thursday with opponents of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, including Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, who leads the opposition. But they are threatening to boycott the conference to protest what they see as fainthearted international support.

To try to rescue the meeting, Robert S. Ford, the American ambassador to Syria and chief envoy to the opposition, was sent to Cairo on Sunday to implore opposition leaders to attend the session in Rome.

Today, the Times reports Kerry Vows Not to Leave Syria Rebels ‘Dangling in the Wind’:

After the Syrian opposition signaled that it would boycott the Rome conference to protest what it sees as negligible help from Western nations, Mr. Kerry called Moaz al-Khatib, the leader of the Syrian opposition coalition, and persuaded him to attend. Vice President Joseph R. Biden called Mr. Khatib later to thank him for agreeing to go and to emphasize the importance of the meeting.

American officials have said that their goal in supporting the Syrian resistance is to build up its leverage in the hope that Mr. Assad will agree to yield power and a political transition can be negotiated to end the nearly two-year-old conflict.

Why does it appear that the Syrian rebels erre reticent to meet with the new Secretary of State? Could it be that it wasn’t so long ago, that then Sen. Kerry was pretty close with Syrian President Assad? Phillip Smyth sent me links to two news stories.

In 2009 the Associate Press reported Kerry to travel to Syria to meet Assad:

Kerry spokesman Frederick Jones said Wednesday that the senator will be part of a congressional delegation headed to the Middle East, stopping in both Israel and Syria. Jones called the meeting planned between Kerry and Assad “part of a continuing dialogue he’s had with the Syrian government.”

Jones said the Obama administration is aware of Kerry’s plans, and the State Department is helping arrange the trip.

Kerry traveled to Syria in late 2006 where he said he told Assad he had serious concerns about the flow of “money, weapons and terrorists” through the country into Iraq and Lebanon. Other senators, including Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, made similar trips despite the Bush administration saying such visits were inappropriate.

And in 2010 the AP reported U.S. Sen. Kerry: Syria is committed to peace:

United States Senator John Kerry said Thursday that Syria is committed to achieving peace in the Middle East and is essential to the process.

“Syria is an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region,” Kerry said.

However, the Democratic senator, who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters after a three-hour meeting with Syiran President Bashar Assad in Damascus that Washington is concerned about the flow of weapons from Syria to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Kerry’s very public support of Assad and his good intention may not make him the ideal interlocutor with Syrian rebels. Briefly that’s the point Jonathan Schanzer makes here.

2) To what end

The New York Times is reporting Saudis Step Up Help for Rebels in Syria With Croatian Arms:

Saudi Arabia has financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to antigovernment fighters in Syria in a drive to break the bloody stalemate that has allowed President Bashar al-Assad to cling to power, according to American and Western officials familiar with the purchases.

…

The action also signals the recognition among the rebels’ Arab and Western backers that the opposition’s success in pushing Mr. Assad’s military from much of Syria’s northern countryside by the middle of last year gave way to a slow, grinding campaign in which the opposition remains outgunned and the human costs continue to climb.

Washington’s role in the shipments, if any, is not clear. Officials in Europe and the United States, including those at the Central Intelligence Agency, cited the sensitivity of the shipments and declined to comment publicly.

In the Wall Street Journal, Rachel Kleinfield makes the case for (America) arming the Syrian rebels (available in full through the link here.):

Why arm Syrian rebels? Let’s start with Iran. The faster Syrian dictator Bashar Assad falls, the faster Iran loses its closest ally in the region and its main conduit for shipping weapons to terrorist groups that attack Israel and other U.S. allies. A Syria without Assad will further isolate Iran and could help force it to the nuclear negotiating table.

Second, the war in Syria is destabilizing an already volatile region. Armed conflict has spilled into Iraq and Turkey. Refugees are creating tension in Jordan, Lebanon and other neighboring states. Syria’s chemical weapons are hard to track—and the longer the civil war rages, the greater the risk that Assad will use them on his own people, or that they end up in the hands of terrorists.

Meanwhile, the rebels aren’t waiting for Washington to decide. They are getting arms where they can—often from private individuals and Gulf countries that support the most radical Islamists within the rebel factions.

Jonathan Spyer, just returned from a reporting trip to Syria tells Ricochet:

Judith: So is it a foregone conclusion that a victorious rebellion will mean an Islamist Syria?

Jonathan:Well, I think it is more and more looking that way now. I’m not sure if that was the case right at the beginning. To some degree, what’s happened now — and I stress to some degree, I don’t want to say this is the whole picture, but to some degree what’s happening now is the result of Western policy. The United States clearly wanted to stay out of the whole issue of the Syrian revolution and then the Syrian civil war. What it hoped to do, what it has done, is to effectively contract out the job of arming and supporting the Syrian insurgency to regional players, specifically the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. It’s not surprising, then, that if you contract out the arming of the insurgency to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, what you will get will be an Islamist insurgency. Those will be the kinds of elements which those countries will feel most inclined to support. And that is indeed what they have done, with the result that the insurgency is now very much dominated by Islamists and it’s hard to see, if the rebellion wins, any result other than the emergence of an Islamist Syria of one type or another.

I want to stress that that’s only part of the picture. I don’t want to say that only outside forces have brought this about. Because we must understand I think also that we are living through a particular historical moment in which Sunni Islamism is having its day in country after country across the region. In Egypt, and Tunisia; among the Palestinians, and also in Syria. To a certain extent there’s sort of a bottom — a from-below dynamic here as well. The Islamists have proved to be the most determined fighters. They’ve proved to be the ones most willing to make sacrifices, and they’ve also proved to be among the most honest and non-corrupt of the fighting elements. And as a result of all that, plus the money from outside, both organizations and individuals have gravitated towards them. With the result that the Islamists now very much dominate the military scene among the rebels, and also the political scene.

It isn’t clear from the New York Times report if the United States is, in any way, involved in facilitating the Saudi arms shipments, though the denials suggest that it is. But will helping the rebels allow the United States to influence them in any way? It doesn’t appear so.

3) Ceasefire broken

In the past when a Hamas rocket has been fired into Israel the media use language to describe it as “endangering the ceasefire.” So let’s give the New York Times credit for calling it like it is: Rocket From Gaza Hits Israel, Breaking Cease-Fire:

The Israeli police and military reported that a single Grad rocket landed in a road outside the city of Ashkelon, causing damage but no injuries.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military wing of the Palestinians’ Fatah faction, said in an e-mailed statement that it had fired the rocket in “an initial natural response to the assassination of prisoner Arafat Jaradat,” a 30-year-old Palestinian who died in an Israeli jail on Saturday. The statement also said that Palestinians “should resist their enemy with all available means.”

Palestinian officials have blamed Mr. Jaradat’s death on what they described as “severe torture” during interrogation after his arrest Feb. 21 for throwing rocks at Israeli settlers in November. The Israeli authorities said that an autopsy conducted on Sunday could not determine the cause of death and that the bruising and broken ribs the Palestinians cited as evidence of torture could have been caused by resuscitation efforts.

When the PA incites against Israel, many ignore it. Here, whether or not Abbas told the “military wing” of Fatah to attack or not, his charges – and those echoed my many PA officials – certainly played a role in encouraging this attack. Hamas is calling the report of the rocket “lies,” suggesting that they’re scared of the consequences.

Intifada: then and now

In response to a recent news program in Israel, Col. Jonathan D. Halevi wrote The Palestinian Authority’s Responsibility for the Outbreak of the Second Intifada: Its Own Damning Testimony for the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs. Even now, as Halevi writes:

More than ten years after the outbreak of the Second Intifada, there are still journalists, former security officials, and pundits who raise questions about the role of the Palestinian Authority in the devastating violence during which suicide bombing attacks struck Israel’s major cities, leaving more than a thousand dead and many more permanently maimed.

What he has compiled shows:

This body of material, presented here in an unvarnished way, reveals that Yasser Arafat and important segments of the Palestinian leadership at that time were directly responsible for what happened and no amount of revisionist history can exonerate Arafat for standing behind one of the bloodiest periods in Israel’s modern history.

Halevi of course presented statements of intent. Halevi covers them beginning with the earliest by Imad Falluji and continuing until Suha Arafat’s latest revelations. I’d like to point out two events that often escape scrutiny.

The first was a report in Ha’aretz that was captured by IMRA at the time.

Over the past several weeks, the Palestinian Authority has granted extended vacation leaves to dozens of jailed Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists, among them militants who were involved in serious terror attacks against Israel.Ha’aretz: PA granted dozens of jailed Islamic Jihad, Hamas terrorists “extended vacation” 

This was reported September 18, 2000, ten days before Ariel Sharon walked on the Temple Mount.

Also the first reported casualty of the so called “Aqsa intifada” was David Biri, an 19 year old soldier.

Sgt. David Biri died of wounds sustained in a bombing near Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. Two pipe bombs were detonated electronically by Palestinian terrorists hiding on the side of the road as several civilian cars, escorted by an army jeep, drove by.

Sgt. Biri was killed September 27, a day before Sharon visited the Temple Mount. The manner of his killing showed planning. Clearly there was already a heightened level of organized violence against Israel prior to the official beginning of the so called intifada.

It’s important to remember that the second intifada was not a spontaneous uprising against the occupation but a coordinated campaign of violence against Israel. Now there are suggestions that a new intifada has started.

The New York Times reports Palestinians Dispute Israel’s Findings on a Prisoner’s Death:

“I hold Israel fully responsible for killing Arafat Jaradat,” added Mr. Qaraka, who earlier on Sunday called for an international investigation into the death. “The Israeli story was forged and full of lies.”

The 4,500 Palestinians in Israeli jails refused meals on Sunday to protest Mr. Jaradat’s death, and hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in several cities and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

After days of such demonstrations, which have included violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers and settlers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s special envoy, Isaac Molho, sent a message to the Palestinian leadership on Sunday that Israeli officials described as an “unequivocal demand to restore quiet.” Israel also transferred to the Palestinian Authority $100 million in tax revenue it had been withholding.

Later on the New York Times in full sympathy mode reports:

Few issues resonate more deeply in Palestinian society than the plight of prisoners: about 800,000 have been detained in Israeli jails since 1967, according to Palestinian leaders; Mr. Jaradat was the 203rd to die in that time.

Forget for a moment that 203 out of 800,000 is a very small proportion. (Elder of Ziyon noted that young Palestinians die in Israeli jails at less frequently that young American die anywhere.) Of course Palestinians weren’t simply arrested en masse to fulfill some sadistic need of Israeli officials. They were arrested for violations of the law, often violent terrorist incidents. In fact as the article observed that quite a few in Israeli jails committed their crimes after Oslo; after the Palestinians promised to forswear terror. (Many of these violent terrorists – who would never have been released if they’d been arrested by any other country – were released in the Gilad Shalit deal in late 2011.) But no New York Times reporter would write, “The prisoner issue has deep resonance with Israeli society as many of those incarcerated committed acts of violent and sometimes deadly terror since the signing of the Oslo Accords.” The only statements evoking sympathy are in support of the Palestinian narrative.

Finally we get this:

Several leaders and commentators warned Sunday that the death, coming amid a severe financial crisis in the West Bank, could lead to extended protests, with most predicting a largely nonviolent movement of civil disobedience like the one Palestinians undertook from 1987 to 1993 rather than the campaign of suicide bombings that began in 2000.

The first intifada was not nonviolent. It was less lethal than the later one. Throwing rocks and firebombs are not nonviolent.

But now there are those who are trying to explain away the current unrest as another spontaneous “non-violent” intifada and justifying it.

Elder of Ziyon, Israelly Cool and Israel Matzav show different forms that this campaign is taking.

Back in December, Khaled Abu Toameh wrote about the rumors he was hearing from the Palestinian Authority and Hamas:

Both Abbas and Hamas see the two events — the war in the Gaza Strip and the UN vote — as “historic achievements” and military and political victories over Israel.

Emboldened by the “victories,” Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal recently reached a secret agreement on the need to launch a “popular intifada” against Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources in Ramallah revealed.

The two men believe that such an intifada at this stage would further isolate Israel and earn the Palestinians even more sympathy in the international arena, the sources said.

Reporters aren’t likely to look past the violence and explain it away, but past experience shows that the violence is likely orchestrated. The events of recent months seem to confirm Abu Toameh’s reporting.

The Tower (an online news site produces by The Israel Project) observes:

Throughout 2012 senior Palestinian leaders – Fatah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – called for Palestinians to launch a third Intifada and resume violent attacks against Israel. And as predicted, recent weeks have seen an uptick in orchestrated demonstrations and public violence among Palestinians targeting Israelis, including lynching attempts that reminded Israelis and observers of the lynchings that marked the beginning of the Second Intifada.

As early as January of this year, military and security sources in Israel were reported to have identified an emerging wave of violence driven in part by Fatah’s failed diplomatic gambits, including those strenuously opposed by President Obama who repeatedly warned of the counterproductive danger of the PA’s unproductive diplomatic maneuvering, and by a deliberate attempt by Fatah leaders to exploit and provoke the frustration they themselves created…

Lynching isn’t usually described as non-violent.

Jonathan Tobin believes that the surge of violence is intended to make an impression on President Obama:

It’s difficult to say yet what exactly will be on President Obama’s mind when he heads to Israel next month, but an all-out push for another futile try to make peace with the Palestinians may not be on the agenda. It’s likely the president will continue his advocacy for a two-state solution, but after more than four years of failure even this administration appears to have gotten the message that any more effort expended on the peace process will be sunk, as it has every other time, by Palestinian intransigence. But the Palestinian Authority, which has ignored every attempt by the Obama White House to tip the diplomatic playing field in their favor, may be planning its own little surprise for the president.

And Honest Reporting ties the current news to the Halevi report.

One theme that has emerged from the reporting is that Hamas and Fatah are in agreement about the escalation of violence. In other words, Abbas, who has failed to come to a power sharing agreement with Hamas, has nonetheless found common ground with Hamas in fighting Israel. What does that say about Israel’s “peace partner?”

1) One last Hagel post

In the Hagel Pinata, Marc Ambinder complains:

Democrats tend to do this as well when Republican presidents nominate people. But Republicans have done it out of pique and spite. And they’ve abdicated their advice and consent function, which, after all, is supposed to help the president govern, and not to force people out of the mainstream who have unorthodox views. Indeed, when you do that, you push people like Chaz Freeman, an incredibly intelligent thinker who was once a top Obama intelligence board nominee, over the edge. You ratify their suspicions that there is only one way to think about Israel.

If Hagel was actually an anti-Semite, we would know, and he wouldn’t have survived the first week of his nomination. He’s not. It’s been interesting to watch Democrats play the game of listening to Hagel’s contrition for not adopting the public pro-Israel consensus that seems to be required of all those who want national office. They know very well what they’re getting: a man who believes that Israel is a strong ally, and also believes that the U.S. needs to push them, our friends, more than they do.

Like so many others Ambinder absurdly reduces opposition to Hagel to a narrow subset of the pro-Israel community, which holds sway over the Republican party.

You would think that Hagel distinguished himself in his hearings. He didn’t. You would think that he has a reputation as being a great strategic thinker. He doesn’t.

(Ambinder thinks that opposition to Freeman sent him “over the edge!” Freeman didn’t get around to disclosing his financial records before withdrawing. I suspect that the foreign ties his records would have shown would have disqualified him.)

Michael Rubin points out that Hagel (and his supporters) wasn’t so prescient about Iran:

As Newsweek’s former diplomatic correspondent, Hirsh is well aware of the full range of facts; he just chooses to ignore them in pursuit of a political agenda and, by so doing, sullies the National Journal. What did Bush know and both Hagel and Hirsh ignore?

• The Karine-A. While Hagel was praising Iran and castigating his President for—gasp—harsh rhetoric, Iran was shipping 50 tons of weaponry to the Palestinian Authority in order to support terrorism and quash the fragile cease-fire.

• Iran’s covert nuclear enrichment facility which was yet to be exposed publicly, but was known in intelligence circles (including presumably the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on which Hagel served) and to the White House.

• North Korea-Iran cooperation of nuclear and missile proliferation is now well established. Iranian and North Korean scientists and nuclear engineers regularly attend each other’s tests and visit each other’s facilities.

Barry Rubin lays out a more general case against Hagel:

First and foremost among these is that he has expressed objectively anti-American views, as was shown, for example, in his agreeing with an al-Jazeera caller who described the United States as an aggressive bully. Anti-Americanism may be fashionable among the U.S. elite today but it is not a good characteristic for a secretary of defense. Aside from everything else, if the United States has always been bad for pursing its interests in the past, why should this secretary of defense compound the sin by championing U.S. interests today?

Second, it is painfully clear — even to his supporters who would never admit it in public — that Hagel doesn’t understand the issues and is incapable of running a huge bureaucracy. Hagel even admitted his incapability in his own defense, boasting that this didn’t matter since he wouldn’t be making any decisions anyway!

Once again, though, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 election advertisement test applies: Who do you want to answer the call at three a.m.? We have before us at this moment a perfect example. The attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, where four Americans were murdered, was dropped into the lap of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. How many Americans might die when Hagel is given the responsibility for action?

Third, one could point out that the ultimate choices for Benghazi were with Obama. But that’s also a reason for understanding why Hagel shouldn’t be confirmed. A secretary of defense should not just be a “yes-man.” He should represent an independent point of view and also represent his department’s interests.

It’s hard to avoid the feeling that Hagel’s supporters are motivated by his – I’ll put it nicely – skepticism towards Israel. There really is little else to recommend him.

2) Building his anti-Israel cred one blog post at a time

One of the most anti-Israel “journalists” currently working, is Robert Mackey the lead blogger the New York Times, The Lede. He didn’t disappoint this week with Palestinian Blogger Chips Away at Israel’s Image, One Ill-Advised Instagram at a Time At issue was an Instagram picture taken by an Israel solider showing a Palestinian boy in the crosshairs of his weapon.:

Like the activist bloggers in Syria who are working to undermine their enemies, Mr. Abunimah and his colleagues at the Electronic Intifada scour the Web for material to counter the effort by Israelis who use social media platforms to cast their army’s activities in a positive light.

In an online chat with The Lede on Tuesday, Mr. Abunimah explained that the Electronic Intifada bloggers, “monitor social media content produced by Israelis and Palestinians in the context of the ‘conflict.’ This has proven to be a source of newsworthy content that is often raw and unfiltered by P.R. machinery.”

…

Mr. Abunimah added: “we’re always on the lookout for sock puppetry and astroturfing — that Israel or surrogates may launch P.R. campaigns that are not overtly identified as such. So we look at the output of individuals because we cannot assume that all propaganda is put out with the state’s name on it.” The Electronic Intifada helped uncover one such covert campaign in 2011, in which an Israeli actor pretended to be a disillusioned supporter of the Gaza flotilla movement for a fake video blog post.

Israel’s army usually does act admirably. What Mackey is doing here is sanitizing the efforts of an anti-Israel activist. The fact that the soldier was ostracized speaks of what sort of society Israel is.

Mackey’s credulity contrasts with the treatment reporter Isabel Kershner gave Itamar Marcus on the latter’s efforts to show extremism that pervades Palestinian society.

“Reconciliation comes only after matters have been settled,” said Radwan Abu Ayyash, a veteran Palestinian journalist and former director of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, the parent of the authority’s television and radio stations with headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

“Thinking of Jaffa and Haifa is still there as an old dream, as history,” he said, referring to the Palestinian refugees’ desire to return to the homes they occupied before 1948, “but it is not reality.”

Some Israelis struggle with the practice of monitoring the Palestinian news media, acknowledging the importance of knowing what is being said in Arabic, yet disturbed by how its dissemination is exploited by those not eager to see Israel make concessions.

On the one hand Mackey supports Abuminah’s efforts to generalize about Israeli society from isolated incidents; on the other Kershner attributes ulterior motives to Marcus’s well documented research.

Hezbollah‘s worldwide war against Israel

Gen. Shimon Shapira writes about the recently assassinated Iranian Gen. Hassan Shateri in Lebanon:

Shateri’s importance is indicated by the seniority of the Iranian figures who took part in his funeral ceremony in Tehran before his coffin was brought for burial to his hometown of Semnan. He was given final honors by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, IRGC commander Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, and Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Suleimani (who broke out in tears), along with representatives of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in these two organizations. The aim was to demonstrate the honor and importance that the Islamic Republic attributes to its fighters in Lebanon. The rites for Shateri in Tehran became part of the memorial day for Mughniyeh, and pictures of the two appeared on the same posters.3 Ali Riza Pamahiyan, an associate of Khamenei who had met with the Iranian general a few years earlier at the Iranian embassy in Beirut, linked Shateri and Mughniyeh together: “We are near the days of martyrdom of Imad Moughniya. Our Shateri was no less than Moughniya. He had a special place in the way that he will be missed and his purity. That’s all that can be said, as his secret contribution cannot be mentioned.”4

In a ceremony in Hizbullah’s honor in Tehran, Ali Shirazi, Khamenei’s representative in the Quds Force, threatened Israel that Iran would soon respond to Shateri’s death.5

Despite the mystery surrounding Gen. Shateri and a report that he sat on Hizbullah’s leadership council and was an adviser to Nasrallah, he was not the IRGC commander in Lebanon; that person’s identity is kept secret by Iran and Hizbullah. According to information published in Lebanon, the position is held by Hassan Mehadavi or, in his Persian name, Mohammad Riza Zahadi. The career path of Shateri was in the realm of engineering, of construction, rehabilitation, and fortifications. He spent most of his years in that field – first in the war with Iraq, then in Afghanistan, while after the Second Lebanon War he was sent to oversee the rehabilitation program for southern Lebanon and the Dahiya quarter of Beirut,6 along with projects that enabled Hizbullah to create the independent infrastructure for a state within a state. These included establishing an independent fiber-optic network that gives Iran and Hizbullah a telephone, television, and satellite communication network throughout Lebanon. Shateri also set up a real estate company whose task was to purchase land, sometimes quite sizable tracts, in Christian and Druze villages and thereby extend Hizbullah’s control from its strongholds in the Beqaa Valley to Mount Lebanon on the way to Beirut. He ran a business empire in Lebanon that includes banks, shopping centers, hotels, transportation companies, travel agencies, and radio, television, and press networks.7

Shateri’s role in southern Lebanon recalls a recent analysis by Ron Ben Yishai:

At the same time, the Shiite terror group launched a major social/real-estate project that bolstered its political standing: It purchased lands on the outskirts of the villages, built homes on these lands and offered them to poor Shiite families at bargain prices (to rent or buy), one the condition that at least one rocket launcher would be placed in one of the house’s rooms or in the basement, along with a number of rockets, which will be fired at predetermined targets in Israel when the order is given.

In addition, Hezbollah has set up camouflaged defense positions in villages which contain advanced Russian-made anti-tank missiles it had received from Syria. Hezbollah gunmen have planted large explosive devices along the access roads, and inside the villages structures that were purchased by the organization were converted into arms caches. The Hezbollah gunmen are focusing their efforts on finding ways to hide underground to protect themselves from IDF fire and to prevent Israeli intelligence from tracking them down so they will be able to continue fighting even when IDF forces are nearby.

In this manner some 180 Shiite villages and small towns situated between the Zahrani River and the border with Israel have been converted into fighting zones in which Hezbollah is preparing – above and below ground – for the next conflict with Israel. Hezbollah has some 65,000 rockets and missiles at its disposal.

It’s often commented that terror organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas also offer social services. In this case, the social services are directly tied to Hezbollah’s terror activities.

But if Hezbollah’s “social services” have served as a fig leaf until now, its support of the Assad regime is putting it under new scrutiny. Al Monitor reports on SNC Cites Hezbollah Role in Syria:

According to the Syrian National Council (SNC), members of Hezbollah attacked “three Syrian villages in Kusair, near the Lebanese border, employing heavy weapons openly and under the auspices of the Syrian regime army.” In the same statement, the SNC said it regards Hezbollah’s actions as a “serious threat to Syrian-Lebanese relations and regional peace and security,” adding that the Beirut government has a responsibility to end this “aggression.”
The SNC’s statement came as a Lebanese security source requesting anonymity revealed to Al-Monitor that three Hezbollah members had died in clashes on the northeastern border with Lebanon. The source added that 12 Syrian rebels had been killed in Kusair, which, although in Syria, has a majority Lebanese Shiite population.
Until March 2011, Hezbollah had been the most popular non-Syria organization in the war-torn nation. Posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the organization’s charismatic secretary general, were everywhere. To many Syrians, he was “The Inspirer.”

…
With Hezbollah’s role in Syria being scrutinized, every word, reaction, and dead member mourned has been put under the microscope by the Syrian opposition and its supporters in the region, especially in Lebanon. Pictures once posted in support of Hezbollah’s leaders in some areas have been set on fire, as yesterday’s inspirer has now become a foe and aggressor.

Meanwhile, the results of Bulgaria’s investigation into last year’s Burgas terror attack are increasing pressure on the European Union to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization:

The support of Hezbollah, a powerful political and guerrilla Shi’ite Muslim movement that is armed and funded by Iran, is vital to the authority of Prime Minister Najib Mikati. But Avi Dichter, in Paris to discuss the matter with French officials, told Reuters the EU should blacklist the group because it also drew a large portion of its funds from European capitals and later laundered the money.

“Europe, that’s the real base of Hezbollah … If they won’t be able to gather money or to raise finances in Europe, they are going to be in trouble,” he said, adding the funding came from a network of charities and front-companies.

…

The results of Bulgaria’s investigation into Hezbollah’s alleged involvement in the bus bombing are likely to take weeks or months to deliver.

On another front too, Hezbollah’s international terror activity is being exposed. The New York Times reports Trial Offers Rare Look at Work of Hezbollah in Europe:

Mr. Yaacoub’s testimony offered unaccustomed insights from an active Hezbollah member into the militant group’s secret operations. But it carried potentially greater significance for the European Union, which has thus far resisted following Washington’s lead in declaring the group a terrorist organization. Experts say that a conviction here would substantially raise the pressure on the bloc for such a designation.

“Foreign ministries around Europe are watching this quite closely because many Europeans, particularly the Germans, have laid such a stress on courtroom evidence being the basis for a designation,” said Daniel Benjamin, until December the top counterterrorism official at the State Department, who visited Cyprus last year after the arrest.

Security experts also suspect that Mr. Yaacoub was playing a small but potentially deadly role in a much broader shadow war that has produced what some Israeli and American intelligence officials say were nearly a dozen plots by Iran and Hezbollah against Israel and its allies abroad.

1) The Push for Peace

Walter Russell Mead argues in As Israel goes deeper into Syria and Opportunity for Obama arises:

With Al-Qaeda linked jihadis in the opposition, and Iran and Hezbollah supporting the government, Israel has much to fear and little to hope as the Syria war grinds on. In some ways, Syria is turning into Israel’s ultimate nightmare: WMDs, terrorists and arch-enemy Iran are all mixed up in it together, and there is not much Israel can do to shape events.

President Obama now holds more cards than any American President in a long time: between the nightmare in Syria and the threat in Iran, Israel has never needed support from allies more than it does now. Some flexibility from Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians in exchange for effective American support in these scary times is the kind of bargain Israeli and U.S. diplomats should be looking at now. Much depends on whether the Americans are willing to put enough real support on the table and whether the Israelis on their side can find a way to make concessions on the West Bank that give the U.S. President an incentive to help.

The balance of power in U.S.-Israeli relations is a funny thing. Generally, U.S. presidents can’t twist Israel’s arm very hard because Congress will limit an administration’s effort to cut Israel’s aid or otherwise impose sanctions on it. (For the conspiracy theorists among us, and they are rife on this subject, pro-Israel sentiment in Congress overwhelmingly reflects non-Jewish public opinion rather than “Jewish lobby” power.) On the other hand, while Israel’s American supporters can often block presidential action against the Jewish state, the nature of the American constitutional system means that Congress can’t easily force presidents to take positive action on Israel’s behalf. Right now, that gives President Obama the upper hand. Prime Minister Netanyahu needs help with Syria and he needs help with Iran, and only President Obama can deliver that help. Given the gravity of the situations in Syria and Iran, Israel’s prime minister can probably sell West Bank concessions to security minded voters as a bitter pill that must be swallowed to get the Americans on board.

Coming from a different direction, Daniel Freedman writes in Pushing for peace in the Middle East (h/t In Context):

This brings us back to Kerry’s declaration: One of the difficulties for those looking to maneuver Hamas into accommodation with Israel has been Iran’s patronage of Hamas. Iran had no interest in the group being anything other than leverage it could use against the West.

Today is different because unlike Iran, Hamas’ new patrons — Turkey, Egypt and Qatar — are in fact U.S. allies, with many shared interests. Turkey is a fellow NATO member, Qatar hosts U.S. Central Command in the region and the U.S. has substantial economic, military and diplomatic ties with Egypt.

They also all have incentives to play the mature peacemaker. Egypt needs to calm Western fears about the Muslim Brotherhood; Turkey needs to show that resuming its regional leadership role isn’t a threat to historical rivals; and Qatar’s efforts to sell itself as a positive force in the region and attract the West’s top universities and companies will only be helped by pushing peace.

In the former case, Mead argues that the United States is uniquely positions to exert influence over Israel to pressure it into making peace; in the latter, Freedman argues that sympathetic Islamist governments will press Hamas to make peace with Israel. But is leverage in either really going to make a difference? Even if the leverage outlined in these articles can be used as described, there’s still one thing missing: Mahmoud Abbas.

In What is really blocking the peace process? Khaled Abu Toameh writes:

Even if Mahmoud Abbas agrees to return to the negotiating table with Israel, it is obvious that any agreement he reaches will be automatically rejected by the radicals.

The radicals in this instance are not only Hamas and Islamic Jihad. There are also radicals within Abbas’s Fatah faction — in addition to non-Islamist terror groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

…

The best Obama and Israel can hope for is some kind of an interim agreement with Abbas, who knows that he does not even have a mandate from his people to make concessions to Israel: his term in office expired in 2009.

It seems that whenever there’s a change in the Middle East it elicits more calls for a renewed peace process. At this point, it isn’t clear that the Palestinians want a final agreement, so really there’s nothing Israel can do whether or not it is pressured that will bring peace. Nor will pressure on Hamas somehow make peace more likely.
(To his credit, Freedman responded to me on Twitter, though I didn’t find his responses convincing.)

2) More on Prisoner X

In her initial report on Prisoner X, Ben Zygier, New York Times correspondent, Jodi Rudoren gave significant attention to the charge that Zygier had been arrested and held secretly in Israel. It turns out that it wasn’t true that he “disappeared.”

Two subsequent articles on the case, though are reported straightforwardly. Netanyahu defends handling of Prisoner X reports:

“We are not like other countries,” Mr. Netanyahu told his cabinet, in his first public comments on the case of Prisoner X, which made headlines on at least three continents last week. “We are an exemplary democracy and maintain the rights of those under investigation,” he said. “However, we are more threatened and face more challenges; therefore, we must maintain proper activity of our security agencies.”

In the face of growing calls from politicians and the public for investigations into the prisoner’s death and a court order that barred the local news media from reporting about it for more than two years, the prime minister said, “Let the security forces do their work quietly so that we can continue to live in security and tranquillity in the state of Israel.”

Prisoner X, the subject of Israeli news reports in 2010 that were quashed by the broad court order, was identified by an Australian television report last week as Ben Zygier, a 34-year-old lawyer and father of two who grew up in the Melbourne area, immigrated to Israel as a young man, served in the military and may have worked for the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. Arrested in February 2010, and held pending trial on charges that have been described only as serious and relating to national security, Mr. Zygier was considering a plea bargain when he apparently hanged himself with a shirt in the bathroom of his cell.

A later article, Israel Releases Part of Report on Prisoner X’s Death reports:

The judge who conducted the investigation concluded that Mr. Zygier’s death was a suicide and was not “caused by a criminal act,” according to the report. Still, it said, gaps in prison procedures created “a suicidal window of opportunity” that demands further investigation into possible negligence by the authorities, including “the higher echelons.”

“There was no disagreement that a willing act of the deceased is what brought about his suicide,” wrote the judge, Daphna Blatman Kedrai. “But the fact is that the mission of supervising the deceased according to known orders was not carried out.” She added, “There is possible evidence to the guilt of elements in the prison authority in causing the death.”

Still reading these articles, it’s hard to get a sense of what happened. A former Mossad agent, Michael Ross wrote a couple of articles in the Weekly Standard about the case.

In What happened to Prisoner X? Ross speculates:

It is speculation, but I suspect that ASIO approached Zygier during this period and notified him that they had compelling evidence he was a Mossad operative. From here on in, it could be that by using whatever leverage at their disposal, ASIO “turned” Zygier and he essentially became caught between the two services. Perhaps in return for not making the story public, and as a means to protect his family, Zygier elected to spy for Australia reporting on his activities within the Mossad. It may also be conjectured that through some incident, his activities drew the suspicion of the Mossad and his role as a “double” was revealed. It would appear that whatever transpired was as much an embarrassment to Australia as it was for Israel.

In a more recent article, Israel’s media impugns motives of Prisoner X, Ross writes:

In a ham-handed display of armchair expertise consistent with reporting on the Mossad, Haaretz’s Amir Oren continues the paper’s tradition of getting it wrong in a disgraceful piece entitled, “A liar or a blabbermouth? Ben Zygier was not suited to work for the Mossad.” For starters, Oren doesn’t get the terminology correct. Ben Zygier was not an “agent” or a “fighter” but a “combatant,” and yes there is a difference to the initiated. Nobody in the Mossad uses the term “fighter” when discussing the combatant role. Agents, or sources, are the people that Mossad collection officers (case officers) spot, assess, develop, recruit, and handle to provide them with human source intelligence. Combatants are members of an elite cadre of highly trained deep cover operatives that conduct extremely sensitive and often highly dangerous covert operations in the most hostile of milieus. Some of the most successful collection officers and indeed, senior management in the Mossad, are former combatants who like myself, joined Mossad HQ as tenured officers. Other articles have described Zygier as a “support operative.” He was nothing of the sort. He was at the very sharp end of Mossad operations, and from what I am able to ascertain, had a far riskier career than I did. It takes a staggering amount of arrogance to state that Zygier—who operated in the hellholes of the Near East for almost a decade—was not suited to work for the Mossad.

Zygier would have undergone an extremely rigorous recruitment process comprised of many different phases to test his mental and physical suitability as well as his ability to keep his cool and function under extremely stressful circumstances. After his recruitment, Zygier would have completed a combatant’s course (usually on his own facing any number of nameless instructors constantly assessing his performance and mental state while living in isolation) that is lengthy, difficult, and has a high attrition rate. People are not graduated unless they make the grade. Sweeping statements in Oren’s article about the Mossad lowering the bar because of Zygier’s cultural background (read: Australian upbringing) are both insulting and erroneous.

…

The only thing Oren has correct in his article is that whatever transpired between the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Mossad, there was no need to lock him up in solitary confinement. If guilty, Zygier could have been quietly dismissed and sequestered to one of the Mossad’s many safe houses until the issue could be resolved between services. ASIO’s sister service, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, tasked with intelligence collection outside Australia’s borders (and close ally of the Mossad), must be very unhappy with ASIO’s decision to leak the Zygier affair to journalist Jason Koutsoukis in some ill-conceived attempt to punish Israel over a few passports. The resulting damage to the joint Iran issue can be nothing less than catastrophic for everyone.

Ross’s telling removes a lot of the sensationalism of the case. It would appear that Zygier was the victim of bureaucratic infighting in Australia and harsh treatment by Israel. But the malevolence imputed to Israel that was part of the early reporting is gone.

The last refuge of anti-Israel activists

A few weeks ago, the New York Times reported Pro Palestinian speakers attract protests outside. The event at Brooklyn college was a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) event focused on delegitimizing Israel. To read the New York Times account, one doesn’t get a sense of what was controversial about the event:

Controversy had grown over the past week at the Midwood college, where nearly a fifth of the undergraduate population is Jewish, over the event organized by a student group, Students for Justice in Palestine. The college’s political science department agreed to co-sponsor the speakers along with more than two dozen other groups.

Jewish leaders on and off campus had criticized the college and its president, Karen L. Gould, for sponsoring the talk, which they said helped legitimize the B.D.S. movement, which refers to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. Its goal is to pressure Israel to restore disputed territories and grant equal rights to Palestinians.

Throughout the week, the right to academic freedom served as the backbone to arguments in favor of the college’s sponsorship of the event.

In support of the event there was a New York Times editorial, Litmus tests:

One dispiriting lesson from Chuck Hagel’s nomination for defense secretary is the extent to which the political space for discussing Israel forthrightly is shrinking. Republicans focused on Israel more than anything during his confirmation hearing, but they weren’t seeking to understand his views. All they cared about was bullying him into a rigid position on Israel policy. Enforcing that kind of orthodoxy is not in either America’s or Israel’s interest.

Brooklyn College is facing a similar trial for scheduling an event on Thursday night with two speakers who support an international boycott to force Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories. While this page has criticized Israeli settlements, we do not advocate a boycott. We do, however, strongly defend the decision by the college’s president, Karen Gould, to proceed with the event, despite withering criticism by opponents and threats by at least 10 City Council members to cut financing for the college. Such intimidation chills debate and makes a mockery of the ideals of academic freedom.

Really now. There’s no litmus test being demanded to show if someone is pro-Israel or not. However someone who thinks that American governmental institutions controlled by Israel or who thinks that Israel is illegitimate to the point that it must be boycotted like South Africa was, can safely be said not to be pro-Israel. Furthermore to argue that the BDS movement is simply an anti occupation protest, ignores what BDS leaders really say.

Finally, to support the BDS event, the New York Times published an essay by Stanley Fish, Academic Freedom vindicated in Brooklyn:

Among the cultural institutions a boycott might target are those Israeli universities that are judged to be either actively in league with the government’s policies toward the Palestinians, or complicit with those policies by virtue of remaining silent while they are being implemented. To the charge that a boycott of academic institutions is a violation of academic freedom, B.D.S. supporters reply that because the state of Israel abrogates the academic freedom of Palestinian professors and students (by denying them funding, access and mobility), it is an affirmation, not a derogation, of academic freedom to refrain from engaging in intellectual commerce with Israeli universities. You can’t invoke academic freedom, they say, when you’re denying it to others. So the lines of battle are set with both sides claiming to be academic freedom’s champion, and it is easy to see why a college might be thought to be an appropriate venue for a discussion of the matter.

But a number of New York city politicians didn’t see it that way, and they proceeded to say the predictable wrong things. On Jan. 29, nine members of the Council of the City of New York wrote in a letter to the president of Brooklyn College, Karen L. Gould, to declare that, along with others, they found it “offensive” that the college was giving “official support and sponsorship to speakers who equate terrorists with progressives and the Israeli people with Nazis.” Indeed so offended were they that they reminded Gould, in a tone of unmistakable threat, that as legislators they had many calls on the funds at their disposal, and that by persisting in its plan to host the event, the college risked financial loss: ‘We do not believe this program is what the taxpayers of our city…want their tax money to be spent on.”

The answer to this is simple: taxpayers, through their representatives, decide whether to support a college, but once that decision has been made in the affirmative, taxpayers and their representatives must allow the institution they have created to carry out its mission, which is not to reflect or ratify the ideas the public favors, but to subject all ideas, including those the public dislikes, to the scrutiny of rational deliberation. It can’t be the case that a program or a course must be approved by popular vote before a college can sponsor it or put it in the catalog. What taxpayers have bought when they fund an institution of higher education is the independent judgment of credentialed teachers and scholars. If they wanted an echo chamber that sent their own views back to them, they could have funded a talk-radio show.

Of course the real question whether this was about a free and open exchange of ideas. Lori Lowenthal Marcus reports that pro-Israel supporters were disinvited and expelled from the event.

PRECEDING THE FEB. 7 EVENT Prior to the event there was much heated debate over whether it was appropriate for Brooklyn College, a publicly-funded university, to host the one-sided BDS event at all and whether the political science department should have endorsed and supported it.

The administration issued statements defending the department sponsorship on the basis of academic freedom and the marketplace of ideas. Admitting that the school-sponsored event only offered one side of an extremely controversial and divisive event, these statements claimed there was no suppression of ideas or speech because anyone would be able – and all were encouraged – to “attend, listen and fully debate.” The BDS supporters got the green light from the school and the event took place.

THE CLAIM OF CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS Several pro-Israel students say attempts were made to intentionally block their attendance – some successfully – that non-conforming viewpoints were silenced and that Jewish pro-Israel students were rounded up and thrown out of a “public” event simply for having the “wrong” ideas.

A recording of the event, published by the Algemeiner Journal supports the claim that the pro-Israel students did nothing to disrupt the event.

It appears that those who claim a mantle of academic freedom to promote their anti-Israel agenda, are not so open about debate.

Asaf Romirowsky makes related observations:

Though the political science department referred to the event as a “forum,” only one view – extreme anti-Israel activism – is represented. Professor Butler so despises Israel that she has unapologetically whitewashed Israel’s foes, labeling Hamas and Hezbollah “social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left.”

Barghouti, meanwhile, hypocritically urges Americans to boycott all Israeli professors, as he benefits from these same academics as a student at Tel Aviv University.

…

The BDS double standard smacks of anti-Semitism: Targeting Israel and only Israel, advocates hold the world’s only Jewish state to a far different standard than other democracies, much less Islamic, African, or Latin American dictatorships. Amidst flowery anti-imperialist rhetoric, the movement misleadingly implies that ending specific Israeli policies, generally deemed “apartheid,” would satisfy its backers. In fact, BDS supporters envision the replacement of Israel as a Jewish state with a bi-national, majority Palestinian, entity.

Is calling terrorist organizations “social movements” really an exercise of academic freedom? Recall that  Fish readily accepted the view of BDS that they were really promoting academic freedom by punishing Israel when you read of Barghouti’s academic background. Are Palestinians really denied academic freedom by Israel?

Have we seen editorials in the New York Times condemning Abu Dhabi for its arrest of a professor or questioning whether Saudi influence in the sciences deserves scrutiny? Did the New York Times question the motives of Prince Alwaleed in financing academic institutions, such as Georgetown, and the influence he may have? In these three cases at issue was the academic integrity of different institutions. That’s where issues of academic freedom ought to be raised.

In the case of Brooklyn College at issue was an activist, non-academic event supported by the faculty and administration of the institution. Did they, in any way, taint their academic standards by sponsoring a clearly partisan event? Or does the New York Times believe that the only standard for “academic freedom” is if an academic institution supports anti-Israel activities?