NGO Monitor
The New Israel Fund’s role in funding and promoting anti-Israel campaigns, as documented in NGO Monitor’s research reports, is generating increasing criticism from Israelis. On July 16, 2010, Ma’ariv’s Ben-Dror Yemini devoted his column to “Shlomit,” a social change activist who works for an NGO providing services in the Israeli-Arab sector. In June, Shlomit attended a leadership training seminar run by Shatil (an NIF program), and sponsored by the Ford Israel Fund (a partnership between NIF and Ford Foundation). The 20 participants were all from NIF-funded organizations, including a “significant presence...from the Palestinian cause” represented by NGOs such as Mossawa, Sikkuy, Amnesty-Israel, and Neve Shalom.
In a letter to NIF CEO Daniel Sokatch (reproduced below), Shlomit wrote that some of the participants were activists “who want to annihilate the State without ruling out violent means, who believe that the State of Israel was born out of sin and who apologize for its existence, who loathe Israel and its symbols...who devote their lives and efforts towards turning Israel into a bi or multi-national country...They also equate Israel’s actions with those of Nazi Germany” (emphasis original). These radical views were expressed during the course of the seminar.
Yemini’s article describes how Shlomit expressed her concerns to NIF, but received no response until after Ma’ariv contacted NIF officials.
(The translation of Shlomit’s letter was provided by Ben-Dror Yemini. Ben-Dror Yemini’s article and NIF’s response were translated by NGO Monitor, and have not been approved by Yemini or NIF.)
Shlomit’s letter
NIF’s response
Demonization: An Inside Look
Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma'ariv, July 16, 2010
“I found myself with human rights activists who reject Israel’s right to exist. Who are striving for the destruction of Israel. Do NIF donors know that their money is funding the destruction of the state?”
These are the experiences of someone who works at a non-profit organization, an NIF grantee, who returned from a leadership seminar horrified at what she saw.
The following is difficult, almost inconceivable. This is insider testimony on what is taking place under the auspicies of the NIF. Everything that was written about it in the preceding months is insignificant compared to the reality. Yes, of course, NIF supports social organizations. It contributes to society. Because what is printed below is written by a central activist at one of the social organizations that receives support from NIF, let’s call her Shlomit. She is not a right-wing activist, just the opposite. She defines herself as “left-wing, Zionist, and religious.” She supports criticism of Israel. She works among Arabs because of her belief in equality. But it became clear to her that the story with NIF is entirely different.
About a month ago, Shlomit had a difficult experience at a conference run by Shatil (a branch of NIF). This caused her crisis. She couldn’t sleep for nights. She turned to me. I advised her to talk to the heads of NIF, to get their response. She contacted them. Long weeks went by, and no one bothered to respond. They remembered that she existed only after Ma’ariv contacted them. What is published here are Shlomit’s words. Following that, the response from NIF is provided.
Shlomit’s letter
Dear Mr. Sokatch
I am writing this letter to you in a very personal manner despite not actually knowing you personally. It is not an official letter launching a complaint, nor is it a letter of accusation or a request. Rather it is a letter expressing a pain which I have found no other way to express. I would like to apologize up front for the length but I feel it is necessary in order to explain the full succession of events without sparing any details, thus providing as full a picture as possible. I would also like to stress that I am representing myself and not any organization or specific group of people.
My name is Shlomit. I am 36 years old and live in Israel. I am married to a British immigrant and have 3 children. I have been a social activist in several organizations for social change throughout my entire professional life. In the past I have served as the spokesperson for an organization promoting women’s rights and am currently managing the unit for social change in an organization which operates within the field of disabilities. As far as my political beliefs go, I would define myself as religious left-wing and in the previous elections I voted for Meimad under the leadership of Rabbi Melchior.
I grew up in a Zionistic home where my father was an emissary for the Jewish Agency in and I, too, went as an emissary for the Jewish Agency. My Zionist education along with the liberal world outlook on which I was raised led me to devote both my professional and personal life towards building a more righteous and just Israeli society: I was amongst the first people to set up the women's council in my city and I helped to form a community that integrates both religious and secular families. Perhaps my most significant achievement to date is establishing a social centre. This community model has been adopted by the welfare office for parents of children that have special needs and a similar centre is currently being built in east Jerusalem. Within my professional framework, I have always been aided and assisted by the services of "Shatil" from the outset. As a spokesperson, I was assisted by an intern from the "Everett scholarship" and also received advisory services from "Shatil" in many areas. About 2 years ago I set up a social change division for the purpose of empowering parents and families of special needs children in Israel. A significant portion of our work as well as the organization's budget goes towards developing leadership and services for the Arab sectors in the Negev, Jerusalem, the triangle and the Galil. At present I have the help of another successful intern from the "Everett scholarship" via Shatil and am thus very connected to "Shatil", the Fund and its people. This has been my professional scope over the last decade.
The report of the "Im Tirzu” movement created somewhat of a shockwave amongst me and my colleagues. On the one hand, we thought that if there was an element of truth in it then the Fund should do some soul-searching and we assumed they would. However, we were not prepared to cast aspersions on our loyalty to the Fund and to Shatil. The people of Shatil are after all our people too - activists for social change and the third sector, whose purpose is to build a more just and egalitarian Israel. In addition, for someone who has been raised and educated by professor Alice Shalvi, her being involved in the management of the
Fund meant an automatic certificate of Kashrut to me. This is the reason why, when my manager suggested I attend a leadership program run by an American institution catering for managers and leaders for social change, I did not hesitate. I knew that the possibility of receiving a scholarship for a week in the desert along with fellow activists, with professional guidance from America, and that would ultimately create a group of quality colleagues was an opportunity for empowerment and growth. I was so elated and grateful that they were willing to invest in me in such a way.
There were several qualification stages leading up to the program which I passed successfully and once the final list of participants had been compiled, I realized that I was the only representative for the disabilities. There was another representative for the environment but the most significant presence came from the Palestinian cause: Amnesty International, Sikkuy (The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel), AJEEC (Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation), Neve Shalom, Itach (Women Lawyers for Social Justice), Moussawa(Advocacy for Arab Citizens in Israel) and others. There weren't any representatives, for example, for the absorption of Ethiopian and Russian immigrants. Nor were there any representatives for pluralistic Judaism. At the time, this did not seem problematic apart from the fact that I was the only person representing the disabilities – a field which transcends political views or affiliation. I was slightly apprehensive that the political would be ever-present within the group but did not give it too much thought.
And then, days before the program was to commence, the incident occurred with the flotilla heading for Gaza. The flotilla episode was much like the disengagement from Gaza, in the way that it divided Israeli society and beckoned you to choose a specific side of the argument. However, in this case, unlike the Disengagement plan which was complex and traumatic and which made me change my mind daily, there was no doubt in my mind as to whose side I was on. One of the marines, who was seriously wounded, is close to my family and I was convinced that he and his fellow soldiers were misled, and ultimately did the best they could do to prevent harming any of the passengers. It was only due to their resourcefulness that they were not killed or kidnapped. Our reality is so complex and causes us to constantly evaluate and re-assess our government's policies, but here there was no doubt that I was on the side of the soldiers. This gave way to more apprehension regarding the trip to the desert. I did not want to find myself in the minority or having to constantly defend myself against the other participants. I was worried about how the incident would influence the mood of the program but I still wanted to attend as I had been so looking forward to it.
When the convener of the course sent out an email I became even more apprehensive as it was addressed to the "community of human rights activists". I felt as if there was a call for a united voice of all the participants and so I decided to reply to her in an honest email expressing my worries. She was amazing and calmed me down by explaining that there would be room for everyone to voice their opinion and that it was vital that my opinion be heard too. She also stressed that the contents of this program were about personal leadership and that the politics would be left outside the scope. I decided to go.
That turned out to be a mistake.
It has now been two weeks since the program ended and I am still struggling to get back into routine both at home and at work. The level of the shake-up I experienced was so powerful that it led me to write this letter especially to you. I found myself in the desert under laboratory conditions, cut off from the world, cut off from Internet, with Palestinian and Jewish human rights activists who negated the State of Israel's existence. With people who want to annihilate the State without ruling out violent means, who believe that the State of Israel was born out of sin and who apologize for its existence, who loathe Israel and its symbols, who justify harming Israel, its soldiers and all its institutions, who devote their lives and efforts towards turning Israel into a bi or multi-national country. In fact the above is inaccura te. These people are fighting for one nationality alone – Palestinian. These same people oppose communal or civil national service for Arabs within the State. They also equate Israel's actions with those of Nazi Germany.
It should be said that not everyone said all these things. Some said part of them while others remained silent and those that remained silent did not seem to be offended by what was being said. I would have preferred not having to write about this so bluntly but then I would be erring in describing to you what actually happened throughout the week. The American mentors, who were excellent, also seemed to be under the impression that the key issue for our group was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and their tutorials were presented accordingly.
By Monday evening of the course, I could no longer hold back and decided to approach the tutors. First, though, I consulted with a prominent woman in the world of social change and in particular the disabilities and who is considered politically centrist-left, in order to determine whether my reaction was normal. The situation where I had to distance myself from a group of people whom I thought of as colleagues was very difficult. It was hard to hear the constant denouncing and loathing of the existence of the IDF, when back home, all of my friends irrespective of their political views, had left their families and small children at home (and will continue to do so) to join fellow soldiers in the protection of Israel from missiles that were being fired on its citizens. It was also hard to hear the hatred towards a country that to me represented one of the biggest miracles and acts of justice that mankind has ever known. I could not tolerate being in an atmosphere where my Jewish identity was being paralyzed in a way that I had never felt before in my life. Needless to say, she was shocked by the things I had told her and after encouraging me, she recommended I express my feelings to the tutors. I then turned to them and with tears in my eyes and tried to explain the hurt that I was feeling.
"I love my country" I cried. "I don't always agree with everything that my government decides, but I love the country and its symbols. I have devoted my life to building it. Every social activity I have ever undertaken has been motivated by Zionism especially for equal rights and developing amenities for Arab society. Over here I wouldn't dare exclaim out aloud that that I have a strong Jewish identity and that I am a proud Jew and Zionist. This was how life was in the 1930s just like my late grandmother used to describe it".
The tutors were stunned by what I told them and tried to persuade me to stay on until Tuesday afternoon but said they would respect my decision if I chose to leave. On Tuesday morning they discussed dealing with triggers and conflicts and I chose to deal with my situation by staying on until the end.
I think the whole experience was far more difficult for me than it was for the others, because they were all amazing people and leaders who were doing everything for the causes that they believed in. It was difficult not to admire them. Since I have been home, I have not been able to sleep well. I have been playing this week over and over in my mind trying to find what hurt me and what shocked me. I have to say that this was an excellent program with a wonderful content. The overall mood amongst the participants was one of accepting and empowering. Were it not for the presence of politics, we all would have had so much in common. But the radical left was so present in the room that it seemed obvious that everyone was speaking in one voice. All the sentences began with "we" and not "I". It seemed like no issue was complex nor were there different views regarding the issue. The IDF was a conquering army, Israel was a colonial state, only the Palestinians suffered and this was the only real issue at heart.
It has been two weeks since and I am still disturbed by what I have experienced. I have decided to write to you to try and get some answers. The thought that the Fund is walking in that spirit was unbearable for me. Do the supporters of the Fund have any idea that the numerous organizations benefiting from its support and counsel are putting all their effort into negating Israel as a Jewish and democratic state? Is the Fund itself openly working towards removing the "Jewishness" from the State? Is the Fund trying to turn Israel into a country for all her inhabitants alongside a Palestinian state? Is the Fund backing the fact that the aim of the Palestinian society sector within "Shatil" is to strengthen the expression of the Palestinian nation, and that on the Jewish side of the spectrum the aim is to strengthen freedom of religion and not Jewish identity and the national expression of the Jews in their homeland? Is the Fund backing the fact that Shatil's sector for immigrant absorption is dealing just with that and not promoting or legitimizing immigration? I cannot help but wonder why the Fund defines its political right limitations (for example, the advert looking for social activists for the Golan Heights was postponed by the notice board of Shatil), but does not restrict its political left: for example, denouncing any form of violence or violation of the law by organizations and their activists.
Are you aware of this "atmosphere" amongst the leaders of organizations which the Fund supports? Can the Fund give coverage to the issue of loathing and denouncing Israel and its institutions? I have never participated in struggles or protests, only with building and developing. My allegiance to the Fund and Shatil was uncompromising after the publication of the report. I was their strongest defender and I absolutely identified with their goals and activities. I can say unequivocally, that this has been one of the main causes of the feelings of my feelings of late. I am not complaining about specific people. I am actually not complaining at all. It is the right of every person, organization, group of organizations and the fund that supports them to act according to what they deem correct as well as set their own goal, as long as all of this is clear and known to their supporters and activists. But I cannot let what I have experienced pass by knowing that there is a possibility that the "creature" is turning against its "creator". I feel that you, as manager of the Fund,
would want to hear and know these things. Perhaps the Fund and all of its leaders should currently be hearing this voice not from a high perch of criticism but rather from its legitimacy in the eyes of social activists such as me. In the eyes of people who up until today, thought that they belonged to the liberal left but cannot be part of it or its activities anymore without feeling that they are harming their existence as Jews in a Jewish state. I know that your previous home was the Jewish federation of San Francisco and I also know that one of the aims, amongst others, of this organization, is to strengthen Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. This is a good enough reason for me to believe that you still represent this vital goal today. These are tough times to be an Israeli both at home and abroad. I as an Israeli Jew, who believes in "Tikun Olam" and trying to build a more just and egalitarian society and who has devoted and will continue to devote her efforts to achieve this goal, could not carry on in life without writing this letter to you with all its honesty and pain.
I hope to hear from you soon,
All my regards,
Shlomit
Israel
Weeks passed. Shlomit waited for a reply. Nothing. No one at NIF, it seems, thought that she deserved a serious reply. Only after Ma’ariv contacted NIF was a response given. Here it is:
“The Rockwood program is a prestigious international program for the development of social leadership that is based on the many years of experience and expertise of the Rockwood Institute in this field. The leadership seminar in the desert was the first attempt to harness the expertise and knowledge of the Rockwood Institute for the bettering of overall society in Israel. The program is based on an open discussion among the participants in both a wide forum and in small working groups, which allow for the sincere personal expression of the participants in a pluralistic, intimate and secure setting. Over the course of the program the participants give voice their personal opinions on a wide variety of topics.
The claims made in the article do not at all reflect what took place at the program, according to testimonies from the 19 other participants, including the CEO of Sikkuy, Ron Gerlitz; the CEO of Agenda, Anat Sargusti; and three women on staff, who did not hear any of what was allegedly said, certainly not the promotion of the destruction of the State of Israel. The program did not at all focus on political aspects, and did not include any content or instruction of the type described in the letter. And in any event, such opinions in no way reflect the position of the Rockwwod Institue or Shatil. Nonetheless, we cannot take responsibility for every passing comment that Shlomit claims to have heard or that she was exposed to.
The CEO of NIF in the US replied to Shlomit regarding her petition. (Note: This is not accurate. He answered, but only after Ma’ariv contacted him – Yemini.) We regret that Shlomit left with a negative impression after the program, since all the other participants that were there returned from the program with a positive and empowering impression.”
This was Shlomit’s letter and NIF’s response.
NIF doesn't quite get it
Following the letter, I spoke with several NIF officials. This time it is I who is turning to you, NIF. You tried to tell me that there was a misunderstanding, that Shlomit was certainly mistaken. Sure. NIF- no one understands you. When you say that you are for a Jewish democratic state, but you support organizations that work with all their might against a Jewish democratic state- no one understands you. When you say that you do not participate in the campaign to boycott Israel, but you fund organizations that support the boycott- no one understands you. When you say that you do not participate in the demonization of Israel, but your president says that “Israel is carrying out a massacre”- no one understands you.
Now Shlomit too does not understand NIF. At least she is in good company. She understands perfectly. You, NIF, are having trouble understanding. Even when you recognize Jewish self-determination (and that’s only the moderate ones among you), it comes out very forced, mere lip service. What is most important to you is to expose the atrocities you claim Jews are perpetrating against Arabs, in Israel and the territories.
You are not bothered by the fact that your activities, which could have been worthy, have become part of a different campaign, one that is much larger, whose essence is not human rights but the rejection of the right of the Jews to a state. You are like an ambulance rushing to help someone injured in a car crash who runs over several hundred people on the way. And the ambulance driver doesn’t understand what they want from him- “Me? But, my motives were pure.”
How much longer will you hide under the umbrella of human rights, when the overarching umbrella is one which rejects rights? The vast majority of organizations in the world which deal with this issue, and with which you are a partner, work, usually openly, for the destruction of the State of Israel. Sometimes it’s hidden behind pretty words like “a multi-national state” or “a state of all its citizens,” with the goal in actuality being “the right of return.” The problem is that you – yes, you – grant them legitimacy. You know that within these groups there are antisemites. But for some reason this doesn’t bother you. The result is obvious. In order to prevent a small injustice, you are taking part in the creation of a horrific one.
Shlomit, like many others, came to you to battle against injustices. You drag her, and many others, into taking part in a new atrocity: the destruction of the State of Israel as a Jewish democratic state. And when she wakes up and realizes that she doesn’t want to take part- you are suprised. If you were busy dealing with injustices, which certainly do exist, many would be with you and with Shlomit. But you insist on being “useful idiots” in the service of the campaign to destroy Israel. Many of you have good, even excellent intentions for an equal society, human rights. Does that justify your association with the global coalition of Hamas-Taliban-human rights groups?
If the reputation of human rights is irreparably stained, it is your doing. Not Shlomit’s. She went to a conference for rights activists. She found herself in the midst of a campaign to eliminate her very being. Instead of defaming her, or crying about persecution, McCarthyism, and fascism – take a look in the mirror. It is not too late.
To Shlomit:
You have tough times ahead of you. They will mark you as a right-wing clueless fascist, as a traitor to their camp. I’ve experienced this. This is their strategy. At a certain point, when it becomes clear that Ruth Gavison, Amnon Rubinstein, Shlomo Avineri, Gadi Taub, Alex Yakobson, Ben Caspit, and many others are right-wing fascists, maybe they’ll begin to sober up. Indeed, this is what they do to all those who think that Israel was not born in sin, and that it does not ceaselessly commit crimes, and that it has the right to defend itself.
They do this to everyone who strays from the ranks. Indeed, there was not one word directed at them that they did not turn into incitement, McCarthyism, and fascism. The ideals of freedom of expression and pluralism are on their lips, but the sword of Bolshevism is in their hands. They are in love with the idea of criticism, but they delegitimize every criticism.
Not all of them, Shlomit. There are honest and sincere people among them. You are not alone. Indeed, you love the people that were with you there, despite not liking what was said there. If the decent people understand that you are not the enemy, and if that causes them to begin, just begin, a self-critique, then you did the right thing.
Gita Sahgal had a similar experience when she came out against Amnesty, in which she held a senior position. She revealed things from inside. She paid a heavy personal price. She instigated a fundamental debate. Months have passed and she knows she did the right thing. Many at Amnesty and other human rights organizations have given her support. You too did the right thing. Now we are left to see if human rights activists, the honest and decent ones among them, will also do the right thing. You passed the test. Now it is their turn.
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Netanyahu: Talks to begin in August
JPOST.COM STAFF
08/01/2010 11:27
PM says direct negotiations with Palestinians will start in two weeks.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced at a ministerial meeting Sunday that direct negotiations with the Palestinians will begin by the middle of August.
Netanyahu added that at this point he had received any Palestinian peace program. "There is no change in settlement freeze conditions," added Netanyahu.
Netanyahu's comments come after Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the Palestinians are proposing a detailed peace plan proposal that covers all the core issues.
Erekat stated that this proposal is the best one to date and covers issues such as Jerusalem, borders and refugees.
"We presented the proposal to [US Middle East envoy] George Mitchell over two months ago so that he would offer it to [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu, however we still haven't received any answers.
Erekat refused to reveal the details of the plan but said that the Palestinians do not want to disqualify Netanyhau as a partner for peace.
" I hope that [Netanyahu] will be a partner to peace so that we can reach a solution involving two states for two nations," the chief negotiator said.
Erekat also mentioned the letter that US President Barack Obama sent to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas saying that if the Palestinians don't enter direct talks then relations with Washington will be damaged.
"The letter did not contain threats, he requested that we enter into direct talks and stand shoulder to shoulder so that we can reach a two state solution," Erekat added.
Erekat expressed his opposition to rockets being targeted at Israel from Gaza.
"We have always opposed the launching of rockets towards Israel, we want a cease fire with the eventual goal of an end to the conflict," Erekat said.
Abukhater Doesn't Know His History And So Neither Do the Readers of the LA Times
My Right Word
In his LATimes blog, Maher Abukhater reports on this story headlined:
JERUSALEM: Jewish settlers occupy Palestinian
house in the Old City
"Palestinian"?
Well, yes, there were "40 Palestinian residents of the building [who] were attending a wedding celebration" and yes, "the Qirrish family [are] longtime inhabitants of the site" but "the building had been purchased by the Jewish settler group Ateret Cohanim...from its original Palestinian owners". However, who built the house originally? The first owners?
Well, the AFP news service, one of the top five and quite accessible by Internet, makes it clear who built the house originally:-
He added that the house had originally been built by a wealthy Jewish family in the 19th century and said the latest acquisition was part of a "return" of Jews to the city.
So, it really was a Jewish house that was lost to the Arabs when they ethnically cleansed the Old City all through the late 1930s during the Revolt and in 1948, when the Jordan Legion illegally occupied the city.
And Abukhater is a failure as a journalist.
In his LATimes blog, Maher Abukhater reports on this story headlined:
JERUSALEM: Jewish settlers occupy Palestinian
house in the Old City
"Palestinian"?
Well, yes, there were "40 Palestinian residents of the building [who] were attending a wedding celebration" and yes, "the Qirrish family [are] longtime inhabitants of the site" but "the building had been purchased by the Jewish settler group Ateret Cohanim...from its original Palestinian owners". However, who built the house originally? The first owners?
Well, the AFP news service, one of the top five and quite accessible by Internet, makes it clear who built the house originally:-
He added that the house had originally been built by a wealthy Jewish family in the 19th century and said the latest acquisition was part of a "return" of Jews to the city.
So, it really was a Jewish house that was lost to the Arabs when they ethnically cleansed the Old City all through the late 1930s during the Revolt and in 1948, when the Jordan Legion illegally occupied the city.
And Abukhater is a failure as a journalist.
Media again not doing their job...
The following is the unreported story that is the larger narrative-the media has chosen not to tell you-ask them WHY?
Lebanon's Palestinian refugees
Omar al-Issawi, Al Jazeera
In 1948 hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from or forced to flee their homeland in the wake of the creation of the state of Israel.
While some were forced out by armed Israeli militias - perhaps the most notorious being the Irgun and Stern gangs - others fled in the belief Arab armies would defeat those Jewish forces fighting for independence and that they would then be able to return home.
There are thousands of Palestinian refugees across the globe, many of whom settled in neighbouring Arab countries including Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Not to mention those Palestinians classed as refugees within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
However, of all the Palestinian refugees in the Arab world, it is those who have taken shelter in Lebanon who have suffered the most.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) the international body set up to ensure the welfare of Palestinian refugees, the highest percentage of Palestinian refugees who are living in abject poverty reside in Lebanon.
There are about 400,000 officially registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, or approximately 10 per cent of the population. Just under half of the refugees continue to live in camps.
The issue of "naturalisation" of Palestinian refugees has often been used as a political card in Lebanon, a small country built on a delicate confessional balance.
Due to the sensitivity of the issue, there has been no official census in Lebanon since 1932 that could determine the number of Christians and Muslims of various sects.
Mostly Sunni Muslims, the Palestinian refugees are seen as a potential boon to Lebanese Muslim political aspirations, especially Sunni ones.
Civil war
And indeed, when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was based in Lebanon between 1972 and 1982, it threw its lot behind the Muslim-dominated leftist forces that were engaged in civil war against the Christian-led right.
However, the PLO, under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, resolutely rejected the idea of Lebanon becoming a state for the dispossessed Palestinians.
Palestinian refugee camps have been repeatedly attacked by various forces [ITN]
While those Palestinians resident in Syria and Jordan, for example, do not enjoy the benefits of full citizenship, they do have access to education, healthcare and employment.
Conversely, Lebanon stands accused of not being the gracious host to the Palestinians that Arab tradition dictates.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Palestinian refugee camps were under stringent Lebanese security control. For instance, travel from one camp to another was restricted and even reading newspapers in public was banned.
Today, Palestinians in Lebanon continue to suffer from draconian measures which the Lebanese state claims are there to prevent them from becoming permanent guests.
As recently as 2005, Palestinian refugees were banned from taking up employment in 70 professions. Today, the number of restricted professions stands at 20 and includes senior medical, legal and engineering careers.
Massacres
While these restrictions were recently eased, applicants must have a valid work permit and membership of the appropriate professional representative body. Both are beyond the financial means of most Palestinian refugees.
A major bone of contention for Lebanese nationals has been the fact that armed Palestinian groups continue to thrive in the refugee camps.
Many Lebanese believe the presence of armed Palestinians on Lebanese soil is a potential flashpoint and point to the clashes at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Northern Lebanon as a case in point.
"According to journalist Robert Fisk, the Camps War was worse than the Sabra and Shatila massacre"
Between May and September of 2007, Nahr al-Bared was the scene of a brutal conflict between the radical Fatah al-Islam group and the Lebanese army.
However, Nahr al-Bared was an exception to the rule, with the major refugee camps such as Ain al-Helweh falling under a shared sphere of influence among Fatah, Hamas and other Palestinian groups with strong grassroots support.
Indeed, the Palestinians themselves point out that their own security fears and a history of violence - including wholesale massacres - perpetrated in the camps is a major reason why Palestinians continue to bear arms.
In 1976, Lebanese Christian militiamen overran the Tal al-Zaatar refugee camp in East Beirut and massacred or expelled all of its residents.
Six years later, Israeli forces facilitated the entry of Lebanese Christian militiamen into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in West Beirut. That massacre claimed the lives of about 800 residents of the camps.
Camps War
Between 1985 and 1989, Lebanon was the scene of what became known as the Camps War, when Pro-Syrian militiamen from Amal, a Lebanese Shia movement, and anti-Arafat factions laid siege to Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut and the South.
Palestinian refugees suffered grim atrocities, and according to journalist Robert Fisk, the Camps War was worse than the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
Today, on the eve of parliamentary elections, Palestinians in Lebanon are conveniently forgotten.
The battle lines have been drawn and they are along strictly Lebanese lines, with each political faction hurling accusations at each other and bringing into play the regional and international influences of Washington, Tel Aviv, Tehran and Damascus.
About 800 refugee camp residents were killed in the Sabra and Shatila massacre [Reuters]
But many analysts point out that Lebanon ignores the plight of the Palestinians on its territory at its own peril.
Walk into Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, Ain al-Helweh, at midday and you are struck by the number of school age children in the streets, many going to and from their UNRWA schools as they cannot attend state schools.
Palestinians in Lebanon are also banned from seeking state healthcare, owning property and even bringing in building materials into the refugee camps.
However, the future of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will be among the first items on the agenda of Lebanon's new parliament.
The Sabra Shatila Foundation, after consultation with human rights organisations including International Lawyers Sans Frontieres and members of Lebanon's legislature, will table a draft law in parliament which promises, in the words of the foundation, to: "erase, in one vote, decades of illegal and immoral treatment of more than 10 per cent of Lebanon's population".
The draft text reads: "Be it enacted by the Chamber of Deputies ... that all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon shall immediately acquire, receive and enjoy the full faith and credit of all civil rights possessed by Lebanese citizens except citizenship or naturalisation."
The alternative can only mean that Lebanon's refugee camps will be a hotbed for further frustration and disappointment for their residents, and could well prove to be a fertile breeding ground for future extremism.
NJDC sides/sided with J Street over ECI
Ted Belman
Washington Jewish Week
Adam Kredo
SECOND UPDATE: NJDC’s David Harris calls me back to rescind his words about J Street’s bipartisan nature. See bottom of post.
UPDATED with response from J Street at bottom.
The controversial new pro-Israel outfit, Emergency Committee for Israel “is playing with fire,” says David Harris, president and CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, which recently released a “fact sheet” aimed at exposing what it says are ECI’s “dangerous” smear tactics.
ECI – founded earlier this month by neoconservatives and evangelical Christians – has been warring with J Street over the Pennsylvania Senate race, and both groups have sought to gain the upper hand by placing Israel front and center. However, ECI, says Harris, has gone too far in its attacks on Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak.
“They’re using Israel solely as a partisan wedge issue and they’re employing tactics that have been decried by the organized Jewish community and the government of Israel – and those are the facts.”
But isn’t J Street also guilty of using Israel as a wedge issue in the race?
Harris disagrees.
“J Street and other groups are bi-partisan in their approach, first of all,” he explained. “This range of Jewish community organizations traffics in facts, and they represent the mainstream of views within the American Jewish community, although individual Jew are free to disagree with them.”
Some observers, however, thought the NJDC’s fact sheet went a bit too far. Similar criticism, they said, should be leveled against J Street — which hasn’t exactly been mum about its liberal trending political views.
Said one Jewish Democrat active in the pro-Israel community: “When I saw the fact sheet, I was struck by the fact that most of the attacks [NJDC] made against ECI were equally applicable to J Street. There’s no question J Street has politicized the issue of support for Israel in a way that’s unhelpful to the U.S.Israel relationship.”
The source, who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record, said the fact sheet was a blindly partisan document. “It’s striking that NJDC can only look to their right when waging this attack and not to the left. ECI and J Street are clearly both outside the mainstream Democratic party, and as a consensus organization, I’d think NJDC would find equal fault in these two groups when it comes [to politicizing] Israel.”
Michael Goldfarb, a spokesperson for ECI, said the NJDC is making itself look ridiculous as it seeks to score political points.
“I was puzzled to see what is explicitly a partisan organization coming after a non partisan pro-Israel group,” Goldfarb said. “If NJDC is concerned about the proliferation of pro-Israel groups than I don’t quite understand what their mission is. Maybe I’m confused.”
Goldfarb also took issue with a portion of the NJDC’s fact sheet that states: “Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael B. Oren has expressed deep concern over the increasing use of support for Israel as a partisan issue in American domestic politics.”
Oren’s statement, Goldfarb maintains, actually came in response to J Street’s ongoing politicization of Israel, and was made before ECI even existed. (In December, Oren found himself in hot water after publicly calling J Street “a unique problem,” and saying the group is “significantly out of the mainstream.” He apologized, and has since been on better terms with the group.)
NJDC’s Harris says Goldfarb is wrong.
The fact sheet references a May 4 meeting in which Oren generally stated his concern that support for Israel is increasingly being used as a partisan weapon.
Misinformation, added Harris, is exactly why NJDC issued a fact sheet.
ECI’s “irresponsible tactics work,” he said. “taking out negative, patently false ads that threaten to shatter bi-partisan consensus on the U.S.-Israel relationship works. It’s effective.”
UPDATE: Jeremy Ben Ami, J Street’s founder, responded to this blog with a statement about his group’s “non-partisan” approach.
“J Street’s purpose is clear and non-partisan: to advance a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that brings peace and security to Israel and its neighbors,” he said in a statement to me. “Attempts by Republican political operatives to shift elections toward candidates they support but who have poor records on Israel like Pat Toomey are transparent and bound to backfire.”
Upon Learning of Ben-Ami’s partisan pot shot, Harris immediately responded: “NJDC would not label a candidate like Pat Toomey as having ‘a poor record on Israel.’ We think it is destructive to the bipartisan nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship to tear down those who are Israel supporters, whether from the left or from the right.”
Washington Jewish Week
Adam Kredo
SECOND UPDATE: NJDC’s David Harris calls me back to rescind his words about J Street’s bipartisan nature. See bottom of post.
UPDATED with response from J Street at bottom.
The controversial new pro-Israel outfit, Emergency Committee for Israel “is playing with fire,” says David Harris, president and CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, which recently released a “fact sheet” aimed at exposing what it says are ECI’s “dangerous” smear tactics.
ECI – founded earlier this month by neoconservatives and evangelical Christians – has been warring with J Street over the Pennsylvania Senate race, and both groups have sought to gain the upper hand by placing Israel front and center. However, ECI, says Harris, has gone too far in its attacks on Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak.
“They’re using Israel solely as a partisan wedge issue and they’re employing tactics that have been decried by the organized Jewish community and the government of Israel – and those are the facts.”
But isn’t J Street also guilty of using Israel as a wedge issue in the race?
Harris disagrees.
“J Street and other groups are bi-partisan in their approach, first of all,” he explained. “This range of Jewish community organizations traffics in facts, and they represent the mainstream of views within the American Jewish community, although individual Jew are free to disagree with them.”
Some observers, however, thought the NJDC’s fact sheet went a bit too far. Similar criticism, they said, should be leveled against J Street — which hasn’t exactly been mum about its liberal trending political views.
Said one Jewish Democrat active in the pro-Israel community: “When I saw the fact sheet, I was struck by the fact that most of the attacks [NJDC] made against ECI were equally applicable to J Street. There’s no question J Street has politicized the issue of support for Israel in a way that’s unhelpful to the U.S.Israel relationship.”
The source, who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record, said the fact sheet was a blindly partisan document. “It’s striking that NJDC can only look to their right when waging this attack and not to the left. ECI and J Street are clearly both outside the mainstream Democratic party, and as a consensus organization, I’d think NJDC would find equal fault in these two groups when it comes [to politicizing] Israel.”
Michael Goldfarb, a spokesperson for ECI, said the NJDC is making itself look ridiculous as it seeks to score political points.
“I was puzzled to see what is explicitly a partisan organization coming after a non partisan pro-Israel group,” Goldfarb said. “If NJDC is concerned about the proliferation of pro-Israel groups than I don’t quite understand what their mission is. Maybe I’m confused.”
Goldfarb also took issue with a portion of the NJDC’s fact sheet that states: “Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael B. Oren has expressed deep concern over the increasing use of support for Israel as a partisan issue in American domestic politics.”
Oren’s statement, Goldfarb maintains, actually came in response to J Street’s ongoing politicization of Israel, and was made before ECI even existed. (In December, Oren found himself in hot water after publicly calling J Street “a unique problem,” and saying the group is “significantly out of the mainstream.” He apologized, and has since been on better terms with the group.)
NJDC’s Harris says Goldfarb is wrong.
The fact sheet references a May 4 meeting in which Oren generally stated his concern that support for Israel is increasingly being used as a partisan weapon.
Misinformation, added Harris, is exactly why NJDC issued a fact sheet.
ECI’s “irresponsible tactics work,” he said. “taking out negative, patently false ads that threaten to shatter bi-partisan consensus on the U.S.-Israel relationship works. It’s effective.”
UPDATE: Jeremy Ben Ami, J Street’s founder, responded to this blog with a statement about his group’s “non-partisan” approach.
“J Street’s purpose is clear and non-partisan: to advance a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that brings peace and security to Israel and its neighbors,” he said in a statement to me. “Attempts by Republican political operatives to shift elections toward candidates they support but who have poor records on Israel like Pat Toomey are transparent and bound to backfire.”
Upon Learning of Ben-Ami’s partisan pot shot, Harris immediately responded: “NJDC would not label a candidate like Pat Toomey as having ‘a poor record on Israel.’ We think it is destructive to the bipartisan nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship to tear down those who are Israel supporters, whether from the left or from the right.”
US and PA Trade Warnings Over Direct Talks
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A7 News
The Obama administration and the Palestinian Authority are trading warnings over direct talks with Israel for the proposed new Arab country in place of a united Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Sunday morning used the impasse to score diplomatic points and tell Likud ministers that direct talks will begin in two weeks. The PA has not hinted it is ready to sit down with Israel After U.S. President Barack Obama threatened PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas he would remove American support for a new PA state if Abbas does not agree to sit down with Prime Minister Netanyahu, without pre-conditions, PA officials cautioned the United States. They said that American and Western pressures are undermining the credibility of the PA in the eyes of Arabs.
PA intellectual Hanan Ashrawi told the London-based Al Quds newspaper, “The pressure was tantamount to extortion.” She added that the Obama administration suggested that financial aid to the Arab world may be reduced if Abbas does not drop his condition for direct talks, namely that Israel continue the building freeze on homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria.
With the direct talks having been fruitless and President Obama’s Democratic party headed for heavy losses in the Congressional elections, the American government has shown increasing determination to force direct talks despite saying that the PA and Israel ultimately have the last word.
The State Department has sidestepped direct questions by reporters asking about a letter from Arab officials to the U.S. government in which a request was made for American guarantees for a freeze on Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and other issues.
U.S. State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley tried to present the letter as a positive development. “I don’t feel comfortable laying out the contents of the letter,” he said. “It was a supportive letter. It was supportive of the role of the United States in this process. And we will be responding to those ideas in the coming days."
Asked if the government can accommodate the contents of the letter, Crowley did not address the question directly and simply stated, "Well, again, we have spent the last few months trying to establish a strong basis for negotiations to proceed…. We want to see them get into direct negotiations as quickly as possible, and we’re – that’s – that will be our focus in the coming days."
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon gave full support for PA demands Friday by supporting not only a renewal of the building freeze but also for extending it to include Jewish housing in areas of Jerusalem claimed by the PA to be the home of its future capital.
The Arab League last week, in a diplomatic move apparently aimed at placating President Obama, ostensibly supported direct talks, but virtually all mainstream media only parenthetically added that it in effect the statement echoed Abbas' position.
Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, who chaired the meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo, said, "Of course, there is agreement, but agreement over the principles of what will be discussed and the manner of the direct negotiations."
He also added that it is up to Abbas to decide when to agree to talks.
Meanwhile, Israeli media put forth their own agenda. Yediot Acharonot, the country’s largest paid daily, reported Sunday that President Shimon Peres “is optimistic” that the issue of direct talks will result in the center-left Kadima party's joining the coalition government.
President Peres is scheduled to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt Sunday. After headlining the suggestion of a new coalition government, the newspaper did not back up the report and added in its last sentence, “Sources in Kadima, Livni's party, said the reports of negotiations on the establishment of a unity government are false.”
The Haaretz newspaper, which has campaigned strongly against a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria and united Jerusalem, quoted PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat as saying that the PA offered a proposal to U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell that was more generous than was presented to former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
However, Olmert has said several times that the PA never responded to his peace proposal, complete with maps.
The London Telegraph reported Sunday that “Western officials, as well as a number of independent observers,” believe that Abbas will agree to direct talks without the pre-condition for a building freeze.
There is virtual no support in the Arab world and media for what would appear as “surrender” to President Obama.
The Arab Al-Ahram weekly edition reported Sunday President Obama is “bullying” Abbas. “The PA and Israel have been holding indirect ‘proximity talks for several weeks,” it stated. “However, leaks suggest that very little progress -- if any -- has been made. This fact is frustrating the Palestinians and making them view with suspicion further talks, direct or indirect, in the absence of clear guarantees as to how the ‘endgame' would look like.
“Palestinian sources revealed that Abbas complained to President Obama recently that a growing number of the Palestinian intelligentsia were pressuring him to abandon the two-state strategy because very little land was left for the creation of a viable Palestinian state.”
No-win journalism
Melanie Phillips
When I saw today’s story about Shimon Peres in the Sunday Telegraph, I blanched. Under the headline
Fury as Israel president claims English are ‘anti-semitic’the story states:
Israel's president has accused the English of being anti-semitic and claimed that MPs pander to Muslim voters. Shimon Peres said England was ‘deeply pro-Arab ... and anti-Israeli’, adding: ‘They always worked against us.’ He added: ‘There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary.’ His remarks, made in an interview on a Jewish website, provoked anger from senior MPs and Jewish leaders who said the 87-year-old president had ‘got it wrong’.
I blanched for two reasons. First, although Jew-hatred is certainly part of the English historical story, so too is philosemitism, as well as just plain indifference towards Jews; and although Jew-hatred is undoubtedly a crucial, if itself complex, part of the mix, the anti-Israel bigotry currently consuming Britain is the product of a confluence of a number of factors. So such a blanket denunciation of the English themselves -- as opposed to the discourse, which is a different matter -- would be quite wrong. And second, it is a favourite device of the Israel-bashers to fend off criticism by falsely accusing all those who defend Israel of claiming in turn that its accusers are all ‘antisemites’. So to find Israel’s President saying something quite so false and damaging was dismaying.
But Peres did not say this in these bald terms at all. The Sunday Telegraph had picked up on an interview he had given on the on-line Jewish magazine Tablet with Israeli historian Benny Morris. This is the salient part of the interview in full (Morris’s questions are in bold type):
Our next big problem is England. There are several million Muslim voters. And for many members of parliament, that’s the difference between getting elected and not getting elected. And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment. They abstained in the [pro-Zionist] 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution, despite [issuing the pro-Zionist] Balfour Declaration [in 1917]. They maintained an arms embargo against us [in the 1950s]; they had a defense treaty with Jordan; they always worked against us.
But England changed after the 1940s and 1950s. They supported us in 1967, there was Harold Brown and Mrs. Thatcher [who were pro-Israeli].
There is also support for Israel today [on the British right].
But in Labor there was always a deep pro-Israeli current.
But [the late 1940s prime minister and Labor leader Clement] Attlee was [anti-Israel].
Anyway, this [pro-Israeli current] vanished because they think the Palestinians are the underdog. In their eyes the Arabs are the underdog. Even though this is irrational. Take the Gaza Strip. We unilaterally evacuated the Gaza Strip [in 2005]. We evacuated 8,000 settlers and it was very difficult, after mobilizing 47,000 policemen [and soldiers]. It cost us $2.5 billion in compensation. We left the Gaza Strip completely. Why did they fire rockets at us, for years they fired rockets at us. Why?
Maybe because they don’t like us?
Peres: You fire rockets at everyone you don’t like? For eight years they fired and we refrained from retaliating. When they fired at us, the British didn’t say a word.
Maybe it is anti-Semitism?
Yes, there is also anti-Semitism. There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary. But with Germany relations are pretty good, as with Italy and France.
But there is erosion of public pro-Israel sentiment—at the universities, in the press. I’m not talking about the governments.
I’ll tell you why. On television there is an asymmetry that can’t be corrected. What the terrorists do is never broadcast. Only the response is broadcast. And then critics charge: “This is disproportionate.” You don’t see the terrorist act. When a lawful nation fights a lawless nation there is a problem in the media. When an open regime fights a secret regime there is a problem.
As can be seen from this, Peres first talked about the problem Israel has with England without referring to ‘antisemitism’ at all. When the question was raised, he agreed it played a part. But it is quite clear from his remarks that he ascribes anti-Israelism in England, which he says is not shared by all, to a range of factors – large numbers of Muslim voters, historic pro-Arab feeling, support for the underdog, distorted media coverage – with Jew-hatred included as an afterthought. So for the Sunday Telegraph to say
Israel president claims English are ‘anti-semitic’
and then further to whip up some
fury
over a distorted version of his remarks, and to put this whole inflammatory hype on the front page, no less, is pretty shoddy journalism.
For which there are two possible explanations: malice or sloppiness. It’s possible that this was a malicious attempt to whip up more anti-Israel feeling. But it’s surely more likely that the Daily Telegraph writers elided anti-Israel feeling with Jew-hatred because they themselves think that each flows into the other.
If so, it is really very telling. For the Israel-bashers tell us ad nauseam that to be anti-Israel is not the same as being anti-Jew. Yet when the Israeli President talks about anti-Israel hatred, he is said to be talking about anti-Jewish hatred pure and simple, with no other factors acknowledged.
Thus Israel’s defenders get it in the neck either way. It's what might be called 'no-win' journalism. And only one country is treated to it.
Another crucial point about Turkey further underlines the sheer amoral perversity of David Cameron’s gushing endorsement of that country, analysed below. As Martin Packard, a former UN mediating officer in Cyprus points out in a letter to the Times (£) today, for the past 36 years Turkey has been illegally occupying part of Cyprus:
In advocating Turkish membership of the EU Mr Cameron should remember that Turkey is an invader and illegal occupier of Commonwealth and EU territory, in contravention of numerous UN and EU resolutions. The aim of bringing Turkey into the EU is a sensible and commendable one, but Mr Cameron might best advance Turkey’s cause by persuading it to withdraw its troops from Cyprus.
But all Cameron said about this in his speech was
...we want you to continue to work towards a solution in Cyprus
to help
...convince the doubters
that the case for Turkey's membership of the EU was
indisputable.
It’s also striking, isn’t it, how there are never any Unison or university boycotts of Turkey, or angry demonstrations outside Turkish airline offices, or denunciations of Turkey’s illegal occupation by NGOs or the UN.
For as Leo Rennert observes on American Thinker, noting an ad in the New York Times against the Turkish occupation:
In these 36 years, the ad asserts, Turkey ethnically cleansed from their homes 200,000 Greek Cypriots, killed 6,500 of them, deployed 43,000 occupation troops, brought in 160,000 Turks to cement its occupation, destroyed churches, synagogues and cemeteries, while it continued to oppress Kurds in Turkey.
The ad contrasts these horrors with a pro-Western, anti-terrorism record of the other half of the island where a Greek-Cypriot government recently confiscated Syrian arms destined for Hamas, refused use of Cyprus ports to the Turkish flotilla, while partnering with Greece to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, and worked closely with the U.S. on terrorism issues.
But now Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister has placed himself firmly on the side of the destroyers of human rights and against those who resist tyranny. Some have speculated that he has done so at the behest of Obama, who is keen (of course) for Turkey to join the EU. If so, it would add bitterly ironic reinforcement to the impression that Cameron is a mirror image of his role-model Tony Blair. Blair was styled ‘Bush’s poodle’ for yoking Britain to the White House in the defence of the west. Cameron may have volunteered to be Obama’s poodle, yoking Britain to the White House in the cause of surrendering the west.
When David Cameron became Britain’s Prime Minister, I warned that he would turn out to be even worse than Labour on the related issues of Israel and the global threat from Islamism to Britain and the west. This was because Cameron had no knowledge of or interest in foreign affairs, and so was always likely merely to reflect the most politically expedient views he encountered – which, given the current poisonous attitude within the British establishment and intelligentsia, were likely to push him into appeasing Britain’s mortal enemies in the Islamic world and dumping on Israel, Britain’s strategic ally in that great struggle.
But even I did not foresee just how cynical Cameron would turn out to be -- and how dangerous therefore to the British national interest. Today’s truly shocking and quite astoundingly stupid speech in Turkey has now laid bare the fathomless shallowness and frightening ignorance and idiocy of Britain’s new Prime Minister.
Declaring himself a fervent supporter of Turkey’s bid to join the EU, Cameron declared that those who opposed this bid fell into one of three categories: protectionists; those who believed wrongly in a ‘clash of civilisations’ between east and west, whereas in fact
Turkey can be a great unifier, because instead of choosing between East and West, Turkey has chosen both;
or
those who wilfully misunderstand Islam
because they
... see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version peddled by the extremists.
Astonishingly, Cameron thus totally ignored the fact that Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, is no secular Ataturk but an Islamic extremist; and as a result Turkey is changing from a secular state and strategic ally of the west into an Islamist tyranny and a new strategic enemy of the west. Here is what Turkish political economy professor Dani Rodrik wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal (£):
I no longer recognize Turkey, the country where I was raised and spend most of my time when I am not teaching in the U.S. It wasn't so long ago that the country seemed to be taking significant strides in the direction of human rights and democracy... But more recently, the same government has been responsible for a politics of deception, dirty tricks, fear, and intimidation... It's clear now that Turkey is no longer the liberalizing, emerging democracy under the AKP that it was only a few years ago. It's time the U.S. and Europe stopped treating it as such—both for their own sakes, and for the sake of the Turkish people.
Into which category of prejudice would Cameron place the horrified Professor Rodrik – Turkish protectionist, Turkish culture warrior or Turkish Islamophobe?
Or what about the alliances Erdogan has been forging with Islamic terror regimes such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran – and not forgetting his warm overtures to Russia? Is this what Cameron regards as evidence that Turkey is playing the role of ‘great unifier’ between east and west?
Indeed, Cameron does not see Turkey’s recent meeting with Iran and Brazil as a sinister development. Instead he thinks it furnishes evidence that
It is Turkey that can help us to stop Iran from getting the bomb
and that
We hope that the meeting held in Istanbul between the Turkish, Brazilian and Iranian Foreign Ministers will see Iran move in the right direction.
Please will someone tell me that this is merely the Foreign and Commonwealth Office indulging its sardonic sense of humour?
Alas, clearly not. For on Cameron ploughed into the familiar terrain of Planet Appeasement. Out it came again, the British government line that Islam is a Religion of Peace and that those who are, er, trying to destroy the west are guilty of a
distorted version
of Islam.
So maybe Cameron can enlighten us whether his hero Erdogan -- ally of Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, and who has himself vowed that
Kurdish rebels who seek autonomy from Turkey will ‘drown in their own blood’
-- represents the ‘distorted’ version of Islam, or the ’religion of peace’?
Or perhaps he can tell us whether the Muslim Brotherhood, committed to taking over the non-Islamic and not-Islamic-enough domains through both mass murder and cultural conquest, and whose jurists and scholars are the pre-eminent religious authorities throughout the Islamic world, are propounding a ‘distorted’ version of Islam or the Religion of Peace?
It is of course Cameron himself who is distorting the reality of Islam. For he said:
Third, let me turn to the prejudiced – those who don’t differentiate between real Islam and the extremist version. They don’t understand the values that Islam shares with other religions like Christianity and Judaism that all of these are inherently peaceful religions.
This is just grotesque. Despite the fact that many ordinary Muslims want only to live in peace and prosperity, Islam is a religion of conquest. Its history – with some exceptions -- is overwhelmingly one of violent expansionism, a characteristic suppressed only by colonialism. For Cameron to ignore and even sanitise the persecution by Islam today of Christians, with the burning of churches, ethnic cleansing and killing or forced conversion of Christians across the developing world, is really quite obscene. Does Cameron really think that all these Muslims are peddling a ‘distorted’ version of their religion? (A propos, Christianity too has a history of violence since like Islam it is inherently committed to the conversion of unbelievers. Of the three religions, it is only Judaism which has never sought to convert anyone else and thus never posed a threat to other religious -- or anti-religious -- believers.)
But then, Cameron doesn’t even appear to understand the basis of the civilisation he is supposedly in office to help defend. For he said:
I will always argue that the values of real Islam are not incompatible with the values of Europe, that Europe is defined not by religion, but by values.
Does he really think that Europe's ‘values’ emerged in an act of spontaneous cultural generation? Does he really not grasp that core European ‘values’ – individual freedom, commitment to truth, duty to others, equality of all human beings and so forth – derived from the Bible, the cultural foundation-stone of western society?
Having run up the white flag to the jihad, Cameron then proceeded to deliver a viciously unjust kicking to Israel. It was against Israel -- the front line of the defence of the west against the Islamic onslaught – that Cameron suddenly ratcheted up the aggression:
Let me be clear: the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable. And I have told Prime Minister Netanyahu we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous. Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.
Cameron did not condemn the flotilla, whose lead ship the Mavi Marmara was run by Turkish-backed terrorists who set out -- according to the evidence from their own mouths -- to commit an act of jihadi terrorist aggression against Israel.
He did not condemn those Turkish-backed terrorists on the Mavi Marmara who attempted to lynch and kidnap the Israeli commandos who boarded the boat and who employed no violence at all until they themselves were set upon.
He did not condemn the Turkish-backed terrorists on the Mavi Marmara who, I am reliably informed, slit open the stomach of one of those Israeli commandos and pulled out his guts before throwing him into the sea.
Instead he condemned the Israelis for defending themselves against this barbaric savagery. He backed this up by misrepresenting this self-defence as an attack -- even though the Israelis boarded the Mavi Marmara, as they did the rest of the flotilla with no untoward incident occurring, merely in order to escort it to an Israeli port to search its cargo for weapons.
Cameron then high-handedly declared that
... we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous.
Just who does he think he is? Mighty Mouse, or what?
And then Cameron attacked Israel over Gaza, which he called a ‘prison camp’. This is vile rhetoric, of the kind associated with those attempting to bring Israel down through a process of delegitimisation.
Why did Cameron ignore the evidence of the markets full of produce in Gaza, the restaurants, the Olympic-size swimming pool? Was this ignorance or malice? Why did he ignore the fact that Israel allows hundreds of tons of supplies across its border with Gaza every week?
Has Cameron even looked at a map? Does he not know that Egypt has a border with Gaza which it keeps far more tightly sealed than does Israel? If Gaza is a prison camp, why did he not condemn Egypt for making it so but singled out only Israel?
Why didn’t he condemn the severe travel restrictions on Palestinians imposed by Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon? Why didn’t he condemn Lebanon for denying Palestinians living there the right to own property, qualify for health care, or work in a large number of jobs? And while we’re asking, what about Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, who reportedly begged Obama not to lift the Gaza blockade? Why didn’t Cameron condemn him too for seeking to maintain Gaza as a ‘prison camp’?
Why did Cameron utter no word of condemnation of Hamas for its exterminatory rocket and human bomb attacks on Israelis? Or does he think that to condemn Hamas is also to show prejudice towards the Religion of Peace? Why, if he really thinks Gaza is a prison camp, did he make no condemnation of the Hamas for throwing Gazans off the tops of buildings, using Gazan civilians as human shields and burning their children’s holiday camps down to the ground?
I have said it before: Israel is the litmus test of decency in political discourse. Those who attack Israel are invariably on the wrong side of the global fight to defend civilisation against its destroyers. Not just because of Israel’s place on the geopolitical map. It is because the animus against Israel is based on a wholesale repudiation of reason and the embrace instead of irrationality, bigotry, lies and moral inversion. Defence becomes attack, victim becomes victimiser, right becomes wrong; and vice versa. It is the deranged discourse of Islamic fanaticism and of the Israel-bashing left that marches beneath its black banners. And now it is Cameron’s discourse too.
It is astounding to hear a Conservative Prime Minister mouth such infantile leftism. If it weren’t for Obama’s example, it would be unbelievable that any serious politician could spout such drivel. But here surely is the key to all this. Recently, Cameron declared that Britain was
the junior partner [to America] in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis.
In 1940, of course, America had not yet even entered the war and Britain alone held fascism at bay. So how could Cameron have said something so unbelievably ignorant? Can he really be that stupid?
Hardly, with his Etonian schooling and Oxford First. This was surely not stupidity but cynical callowness of the most extreme and disturbing kind. He wanted to suck up to Obama – and he was prepared even to traduce his own country to do so, by misrepresenting its most iconic and heroic moment of modern times.
I would guess that something similar was at work in his Turkish speech. He doesn’t care about upholding truth over lies, justice over injustice, right over wrong; he will play to any populist gallery. And the appeasement of Islamic aggression and the corresponding demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel play to the ugly mood of bigotry and ignorance now rampant in Britain. As the UK Titanic steadily goes down, Cameron is now on the bridge choosing to conduct the orchestra of hate.
For let’s get this clear: Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister has lauded a Turkish Islamist regime which sponsored an act of terrorism which came close to a declaration of war, while he condemned its victims for defending themselves against the attack. And this from the leader of a country which itself is the Islamists’ principal target and recruiting ground in the west. Far from defending Britain and the west, Cameron is on his knees to their enemies while unleashing the furies upon their strategic ally.
And those furies are raging at home too. As I have previously observed, there is now in Britain a pre-pogrom atmosphere against Israel. Never mind the Guardian -- just look at the comments on Conservative Home to see the hideous face of British bigotry, a hysteria that Cameron’s inflammatory remarks will have done much to stoke even further.
1940 this most definitely is not. Weep for Britain. It has just become even more unsafe – and British politics a lot more disgusting.
Demonizing Israel is bad for the Palestinians
MUDAR ZAHRAN
08/01/2010 05:53
The negative focus on Israel by the global media has harmed the Palestinians’ interests for decades. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the international media have been unhesitant in criticizing the Jewish state on almost everything. This has evolved into a media culture by itself, to the point that many internationally renowned newspapers would have a button labelled “Israel” or “Israeli-Arab conflict” on their Web sites including very little positive content about Israel. Media hostility toward Israel has been mainly focused on its military operations and, in more quiet times, on the living conditions of the Palestinians in Israel.
Amazingly enough, the international media, and particularly the Western ones, pay very little attention to the conditions of the Palestinians living in Arab countries, despite the extreme oppression they have been enduring for decades in most Arab countries.
These Palestinians do not have someone to speak for them in the global media, possibly because a news story about countries other than Israel is less interesting or “sexy” by media standards. This tendency to blame Israel for everything has lead to the development of numerous myths about the situation of the Palestinian there that have provided an excuse to purposely ignore and compromise the human rights of the Palestinian in many Arab countries.
THE EXAMPLES for that are plentiful and sometimes cross the line into tragic comedy. While the world is crying over the Israel-imposed blockade on Gaza, the media, for some unknown reason, choose to deliberately ignore the conditions of the Palestinians living in camps in Lebanon.
Lebanon, a country with some of the most hostile forces to Israel, has been holing up Palestinians inside camps for almost 30 years. Those camps do not have any foundations of livelihood or even sanitation and the Palestinians living there are not allowed access to basics such as buying cement to enlarge or repair homes for their growing families. Furthermore, it is difficult for them to work legally, and are even restricted from going out of their camps at certain hours. Compare this to the fact that Palestinian laborers were still able to go to work every day in Israel while Hamas was carrying out an average of one suicide bombing per week a few years ago, and until recently launching missiles daily on southern Israel. Not to mention the fact that Israel allows food items and medications into Gaza if handled through the Palestinian Authority.
The Lebanese atrocities toward the Palestinians have been tolerated by the international community, not only by the media. Today, while some Israeli military commanders have to think twice, in fear of legal consequences, before they visit London or Brussels, well-known Lebanese leaders who had directly participated in mass killings of Palestinian civilians, during and after the Lebanese civil war, are becoming world-respected political figures – Nabih Berri, for example, the leader of Amal Shi’ite militia who enforced a multi-year siege on Palestinian camps, cutting water access and food supplies to them. The Palestinians underBerri’s siege were reported to be consuming rats and dogs to survive. Nonetheless, he has been the undisputed speaker of the Lebanese parliament for a long time. He travels frequently to Europe and criticizes Israel for its “crimes against the Palestinians” on every occasion.
MANY OTHER Arab countries are no different than Lebanon in their ill-treatment and discrimination against the Palestinians. Why do the media choose to ignore those and focus only on Israel? While the security wall being built by Israel has become a symbol of “apartheid” in the global media, they almost never address the actual walls and separation barriers that have been isolating Palestinian refugee camps in Arab countries for decades.
While Palestinians targeted by the IDF are mostly fighters pledging war on Israel, the world swiftly overlooked the Sabra and Shatila massacre in which Lebanese Christian and Shi’ite militiamen butchered thousands of Palestinian women and children. Unsurprisingly, the international media accused Israel of being responsible for the massacre, despite the fact that live testimonies aired by Al-Jazeera satellite television a few years ago show massacre survivors confirming that IDF commanders and soldiers had nothing to do with the killing.
The demonization of Israel by the global media has greatly harmed the Palestinians’ interests for decades and covered up Arab atrocities against them. Furthermore, demonizing Israel has been well-exploited by several Arab dictatorships to direct citizens’ rage against Israel instead of their regimes and also to justify any atrocities they commit in the name of protecting their nations from “the evil Zionists.”
This game has served some of the most notorious Arab dictatorships, and still does today, as any opposition is immediately labelled “a Zionist plot.”
This model had served Gamal Abdel Nasser in ruling Egypt with an iron fist until he died, and was the main line for Saddam Hussein, who was promoting that “Iraq and Palestine are one identical case” in his last years in power.
The global media must be fair in addressing the Palestinians’ suffering in Arab countries and must stop demonizing Israel. It should start focusing on the broader conditions of the Palestinians in the Middle East region.
There is much to see.
The writer, a Jordanian of Palestinian heritage, is a researcher at the University of Bedfordshire.
Obama letter to PA
''http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0710/Report_Obama_letter_to_PA_.html
Reports: Obama letter to PA
President Barack Obama has sent a letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urging that he agree to go into direct talks with the Israelis next month, and warning that if he doesn’t, relations with the United States would be affected, Arabic newspaper Al Hayat and Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv are reporting.
The White House declined to comment Saturday on the reports of an Obama letter or confirm its existence. Ma'ariv sourced confirmation of the letter to the head of the Palestinian negotiating team, Saab Erekat, while Al Hayat cited in detail from what it said was a leaked draft of the letter.
Among the letter's 16 points, the papers said, Obama pledged that if Abbas agreed to go into direct talks, there would be an extension of a partial Israeli West Bank settlement freeze currently due to expire in September.
"It is time to go to direct negotiations with Israel," the letter states, according toAl Hayat. "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to move to direct negotiations in the wake of the meeting held with him."
The letter warns that if Abbas refuses to enter direct talks next month, it will have implications on the relationship between the United States and the Palestinian Authority, and undermine trust in Abbas, the papers state.
Points 15 and 16 concern Israeli obligations and future confidence-building steps, the paper states.
The U.S. may be sensitive about confirming the letter if it seems to reveal confidential understandings it reached with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concerning confidence-building steps under consideration to encourage direct talks, including a possible extension of the West Bank settlement freeze. One Washington Middle East hand told POLITICO that if Abbas agrees to direct talks before September 26th, Netanyahu has agreed that there will be no more settlement building after that.
Similarly, the U.S. seemed reluctant Saturday to be seen as overbearing in its pressure on Abbas to accept direct talks or face an Obama administration less committed to the peace process.
In an interview with Israeli daily Haaretz Saturday night, chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat described the latest Palestinian peace proposal to Israel relayed via U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell as the most far-reaching to date.
One could almost imagine an angry Obama White House calling Erekat to complain Saturday that he had reportedly confirmed the existence of an Obama letter whose details it was understood were supposed to remain confidential.
Erekat also denied to the paper reports that the Obama administration had threatened to penalize the PA if Abbas did not agree to enter direct talks with Israel over a final-status agreement.
Earlier, U.S. officials denied to Haaretz reports that the U.S. had threatened to cut off ties or aid to the Palestinians if they refused direct talks, calling the reports "not true" and "an absurdity." "The United States encourages the talks, it does not threaten," a U.S. official told the paper.
"My guess is that this is more about process: a desire to avoid a crisis over resumption of direct talks in September when the settlement moratorium runs out," veteran U.S. Mideast peace negotiator Aaron David Miller told POLITICO. "Take care of business now, get the Palestinians into direct talks before the deadline, and let it spin out for a couple more months. That would be the smart play. Don't rush toward disaster."
Thanks to D. Amos
Reports: Obama letter to PA
President Barack Obama has sent a letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urging that he agree to go into direct talks with the Israelis next month, and warning that if he doesn’t, relations with the United States would be affected, Arabic newspaper Al Hayat and Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv are reporting.
The White House declined to comment Saturday on the reports of an Obama letter or confirm its existence. Ma'ariv sourced confirmation of the letter to the head of the Palestinian negotiating team, Saab Erekat, while Al Hayat cited in detail from what it said was a leaked draft of the letter.
Among the letter's 16 points, the papers said, Obama pledged that if Abbas agreed to go into direct talks, there would be an extension of a partial Israeli West Bank settlement freeze currently due to expire in September.
"It is time to go to direct negotiations with Israel," the letter states, according toAl Hayat. "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to move to direct negotiations in the wake of the meeting held with him."
The letter warns that if Abbas refuses to enter direct talks next month, it will have implications on the relationship between the United States and the Palestinian Authority, and undermine trust in Abbas, the papers state.
Points 15 and 16 concern Israeli obligations and future confidence-building steps, the paper states.
The U.S. may be sensitive about confirming the letter if it seems to reveal confidential understandings it reached with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concerning confidence-building steps under consideration to encourage direct talks, including a possible extension of the West Bank settlement freeze. One Washington Middle East hand told POLITICO that if Abbas agrees to direct talks before September 26th, Netanyahu has agreed that there will be no more settlement building after that.
Similarly, the U.S. seemed reluctant Saturday to be seen as overbearing in its pressure on Abbas to accept direct talks or face an Obama administration less committed to the peace process.
In an interview with Israeli daily Haaretz Saturday night, chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat described the latest Palestinian peace proposal to Israel relayed via U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell as the most far-reaching to date.
One could almost imagine an angry Obama White House calling Erekat to complain Saturday that he had reportedly confirmed the existence of an Obama letter whose details it was understood were supposed to remain confidential.
Erekat also denied to the paper reports that the Obama administration had threatened to penalize the PA if Abbas did not agree to enter direct talks with Israel over a final-status agreement.
Earlier, U.S. officials denied to Haaretz reports that the U.S. had threatened to cut off ties or aid to the Palestinians if they refused direct talks, calling the reports "not true" and "an absurdity." "The United States encourages the talks, it does not threaten," a U.S. official told the paper.
"My guess is that this is more about process: a desire to avoid a crisis over resumption of direct talks in September when the settlement moratorium runs out," veteran U.S. Mideast peace negotiator Aaron David Miller told POLITICO. "Take care of business now, get the Palestinians into direct talks before the deadline, and let it spin out for a couple more months. That would be the smart play. Don't rush toward disaster."
Thanks to D. Amos
COP: The question of 'Birthright Citizenship'
Cindy Simpson
In a recent interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, Sen. Lindsey Graham, the co-author of a proposed Immigration Reform package, surprised many with his statements on "anchor babies."
Graham said: "Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake...We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen."
Although Graham talked about "changing" the Constitution to outlaw the practice, many experts say the Constitution as written, does not authorize birthright citizenship in the first place. American Thinker reported on this issue a couple of months ago in the article: "A Hole in the Fence of Immigration Reform." The article quoted Mark Cromer's essay, "American Jackpot: The Remaking of America by Birthright Citizenship:"
According to [Constitutional expert Dr. John] Eastman, the real shift in popular perception began to take root in the late 1960s, when the idea that mere birth on American soil alone ensured citizen status. "I have challenged every person who has taken the opposite position to tell me what it was that led to this new notion," he said. "There's not an executive order. There's not a court decision. We just gradually started assuming that birth was enough."
Eastman attributes some of it to our nation's loss of an intrinsic understanding of the language that the framers of the 14th Amendment spoke and used in that era, ergo a century later the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" has been watered down in the collective American consciousness to require little more than an adherence to traffic safety laws.
The AT article further noted:
Another important consideration in any sort of "guest" or "temporary" worker program is the children born to these workers while in America. If these children receive automatic citizenship, the unintended consequence of such a program could be the addition of millions more permanent citizens and, by extension, their families.
George Will, in his March 2010 essay on the subject, opined: "A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil."
Graham, in the midst of the Arizona controversy, has just turned up the temperature.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/the_question_of_birthright_cit.html at July 31, 2010 - 11:07:50 PM CDT
In a recent interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, Sen. Lindsey Graham, the co-author of a proposed Immigration Reform package, surprised many with his statements on "anchor babies."
Graham said: "Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake...We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen."
Although Graham talked about "changing" the Constitution to outlaw the practice, many experts say the Constitution as written, does not authorize birthright citizenship in the first place. American Thinker reported on this issue a couple of months ago in the article: "A Hole in the Fence of Immigration Reform." The article quoted Mark Cromer's essay, "American Jackpot: The Remaking of America by Birthright Citizenship:"
According to [Constitutional expert Dr. John] Eastman, the real shift in popular perception began to take root in the late 1960s, when the idea that mere birth on American soil alone ensured citizen status. "I have challenged every person who has taken the opposite position to tell me what it was that led to this new notion," he said. "There's not an executive order. There's not a court decision. We just gradually started assuming that birth was enough."
Eastman attributes some of it to our nation's loss of an intrinsic understanding of the language that the framers of the 14th Amendment spoke and used in that era, ergo a century later the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" has been watered down in the collective American consciousness to require little more than an adherence to traffic safety laws.
The AT article further noted:
Another important consideration in any sort of "guest" or "temporary" worker program is the children born to these workers while in America. If these children receive automatic citizenship, the unintended consequence of such a program could be the addition of millions more permanent citizens and, by extension, their families.
George Will, in his March 2010 essay on the subject, opined: "A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil."
Graham, in the midst of the Arizona controversy, has just turned up the temperature.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/the_question_of_birthright_cit.html at July 31, 2010 - 11:07:50 PM CDT
Where In The World Is Imam Feisal?
http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/30/imam-faisal-ground-zero-mosque-money-opinions-columnists-claudia-rosett.html?boxes=financechannelforbes
Freedom's Edge
Claudia Rosett
Plans for a $100 million high-rise Islamic Center next to New York's Ground Zero are generating lots of controversy, as well as great distress among families of some of the thousands murdered in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. So one might suppose that the Imam spearheading this project in the name of harmony and dialogue would be more than willing to help allay fears by disclosing down to the last penny where he's getting the money. Instead, Feisal Abdul Rauf--Imam Feisal, to his followers and friends--keeps stonewalling. The questions keep multiplying. One of those questions right now is: Where in the world is Imam Feisal?
Simply locating him this week turned into an intriguing exercise. Feisal Abdul Rauf is chairman of a tax-exempt foundation called the Cordoba Initiative, which is spearheading the nine-figure project to replace a downtown Manhattan building, damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks, with the planned Islamic Center--to be called Cordoba House. Rauf's Cordoba Initiative has an office in upper Manhattan, from which Rauf and his wife, Daisy Kahn, together with a Manhattan real estate developer, made the Cordoba House pitch approved in May by a Manhattan community board.
But when I phoned the New York offices of the Cordoba Initiative on Thursday morning, seeking answers from Rauf about the money, a staffer told me that Rauf is in an undisclosed location somewhere overseas: "He's traveling; he's out of the country."
Could they provide a phone number abroad where I might reach him? No, I was told. He had apparently gone right off the grid: "He's unavailable at this point. He's not feeling well."
When will Rauf be back in the country? Maybe "the end of August, or early September," said his assistant. It seems that Rauf, having chafed old wounds and touched off quite a debate in the U.S., has checked out of the country for the rest of the summer.
However, on Thursday night I did locate the unavailable and traveling Rauf. The Cordoba Initiative also lists an office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Near midnight New York time, which is late morning in Malaysia, I phoned the Kuala Lumpur number and asked for Imam Feisal. A moment later, Rauf was on the line. About 30 seconds after that, having heard that I had questions about his funding, he was suddenly unavailable again. "I'm in an important meeting right now," he said, "I can't take this call." And he was gone.
At both his New York and Kuala Lumpur offices his assistants, at my request, gave me e-mail addresses to which I sent questions. From both places, I have so far received no answers.
It's good to know that whatever Rauf's health problems, he is hale enough to be holding important meetings in Malaysia. But both Rauf and New York authorities now condoning his Cordoba House, such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, might want to consider that before this project rolls ahead, it would be far healthier all around to establish complete transparency about where exactly the money is coming from, and how Rauf is raising it.
Here are some questions that need answers:
1) Is Rauf's summer trip abroad doubling as a fundraising tour? If it is, and if he is serious about his professed aim of healing American wounds, then surely he shouldn't mind disclosing where exactly he's spending time, whom he's meeting with, and what he's promising as the selling points of his Cordoba House next to where the Twin Towers stood. His proposal to the Manhattan community board was approved in May on grounds that his Islamic Center will include "a 500-seat performing arts center & lecture hall, culinary school, exhibition space, swimming pool, fitness gym, basketball court, restaurant, library, art studios and childcare." Rauf has said in interviews that it will also include a prayer space. One can view that as an Islamic center with a mosque included, or a mosque with a large community center attached. Either way, if Rauf is raising money for this abroad, what's he promising that might persuade foreign donors to lavish millions on such a facility in lower Manhattan? Who's he pitching to? And before he becomes available again in Manhattan, where might his travels over the next month take him?
2) How much money has Rauf actually raised? This is deeply unclear. Some statements emanating from the Cordoba Initiative imply the fundraising has yet to seriously begin; some circumstances suggest it has already begun. What's the real state of play? How much pressure has Rauf put himself under to produce that $100 million to build the center? And that's just for capital investment. What about operating costs? Rauf told the Manhattan community board that his Cordoba House would create 150 full-time and more than 500 part-time jobs. Where and from whom will that money flow?
3) If Rauf is now seeking funding abroad, is his provocative choice of a site just down the block from Ground Zero now helping bring money into his coffers? In other words, is any of his fundraising getting a boost from the high-profile debate and distress generated by his plans? One would hope that Rauf picked the site with the best of intentions. But on the chance that the choice amounts in any way to a cynical fundraising stunt, or even a dangerous appeal to potential donors who have lots of money but no love lost for America, full and regular public disclosure of his backers, prospects, plans and financial books would surely help clarify the situation.
4) Whose show is this, anyway? Rauf's Cordoba Initiative was set up in Colorado in 2004 as a small, tax-exempt foundation. Over the first five years, the Initiative in its U.S. 2008 federal tax return reported receiving donations totaling less than $100,000. Here we are two years later, and the same foundation, hand-in-hand with another hitherto small foundation, the American Society for Muslim Advancement, run by Rauf and his wife out of the same New York office, has hooked up with a real estate developer named Sharif El-Gamal. And, lo! Rauf--currently "unavailable" and huddled in an important meeting in Malaysia--is now the public face of a $100 million project proposing to replace in lower Manhattan some of the "community space" once provided by the vibrant life in and around World Trade Center. Some Americans are left grieving afresh, and many are left guessing, while the mysteries multiply. At least part of the answer lies in such details as where is the money coming from. For that matter, where is Imam Feisal looking for it? And when will he make himself available to tell us all about it?
Claudia Rosett, a journalist in residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.
Freedom's Edge
Claudia Rosett
Plans for a $100 million high-rise Islamic Center next to New York's Ground Zero are generating lots of controversy, as well as great distress among families of some of the thousands murdered in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. So one might suppose that the Imam spearheading this project in the name of harmony and dialogue would be more than willing to help allay fears by disclosing down to the last penny where he's getting the money. Instead, Feisal Abdul Rauf--Imam Feisal, to his followers and friends--keeps stonewalling. The questions keep multiplying. One of those questions right now is: Where in the world is Imam Feisal?
Simply locating him this week turned into an intriguing exercise. Feisal Abdul Rauf is chairman of a tax-exempt foundation called the Cordoba Initiative, which is spearheading the nine-figure project to replace a downtown Manhattan building, damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks, with the planned Islamic Center--to be called Cordoba House. Rauf's Cordoba Initiative has an office in upper Manhattan, from which Rauf and his wife, Daisy Kahn, together with a Manhattan real estate developer, made the Cordoba House pitch approved in May by a Manhattan community board.
But when I phoned the New York offices of the Cordoba Initiative on Thursday morning, seeking answers from Rauf about the money, a staffer told me that Rauf is in an undisclosed location somewhere overseas: "He's traveling; he's out of the country."
Could they provide a phone number abroad where I might reach him? No, I was told. He had apparently gone right off the grid: "He's unavailable at this point. He's not feeling well."
When will Rauf be back in the country? Maybe "the end of August, or early September," said his assistant. It seems that Rauf, having chafed old wounds and touched off quite a debate in the U.S., has checked out of the country for the rest of the summer.
However, on Thursday night I did locate the unavailable and traveling Rauf. The Cordoba Initiative also lists an office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Near midnight New York time, which is late morning in Malaysia, I phoned the Kuala Lumpur number and asked for Imam Feisal. A moment later, Rauf was on the line. About 30 seconds after that, having heard that I had questions about his funding, he was suddenly unavailable again. "I'm in an important meeting right now," he said, "I can't take this call." And he was gone.
At both his New York and Kuala Lumpur offices his assistants, at my request, gave me e-mail addresses to which I sent questions. From both places, I have so far received no answers.
It's good to know that whatever Rauf's health problems, he is hale enough to be holding important meetings in Malaysia. But both Rauf and New York authorities now condoning his Cordoba House, such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, might want to consider that before this project rolls ahead, it would be far healthier all around to establish complete transparency about where exactly the money is coming from, and how Rauf is raising it.
Here are some questions that need answers:
1) Is Rauf's summer trip abroad doubling as a fundraising tour? If it is, and if he is serious about his professed aim of healing American wounds, then surely he shouldn't mind disclosing where exactly he's spending time, whom he's meeting with, and what he's promising as the selling points of his Cordoba House next to where the Twin Towers stood. His proposal to the Manhattan community board was approved in May on grounds that his Islamic Center will include "a 500-seat performing arts center & lecture hall, culinary school, exhibition space, swimming pool, fitness gym, basketball court, restaurant, library, art studios and childcare." Rauf has said in interviews that it will also include a prayer space. One can view that as an Islamic center with a mosque included, or a mosque with a large community center attached. Either way, if Rauf is raising money for this abroad, what's he promising that might persuade foreign donors to lavish millions on such a facility in lower Manhattan? Who's he pitching to? And before he becomes available again in Manhattan, where might his travels over the next month take him?
2) How much money has Rauf actually raised? This is deeply unclear. Some statements emanating from the Cordoba Initiative imply the fundraising has yet to seriously begin; some circumstances suggest it has already begun. What's the real state of play? How much pressure has Rauf put himself under to produce that $100 million to build the center? And that's just for capital investment. What about operating costs? Rauf told the Manhattan community board that his Cordoba House would create 150 full-time and more than 500 part-time jobs. Where and from whom will that money flow?
3) If Rauf is now seeking funding abroad, is his provocative choice of a site just down the block from Ground Zero now helping bring money into his coffers? In other words, is any of his fundraising getting a boost from the high-profile debate and distress generated by his plans? One would hope that Rauf picked the site with the best of intentions. But on the chance that the choice amounts in any way to a cynical fundraising stunt, or even a dangerous appeal to potential donors who have lots of money but no love lost for America, full and regular public disclosure of his backers, prospects, plans and financial books would surely help clarify the situation.
4) Whose show is this, anyway? Rauf's Cordoba Initiative was set up in Colorado in 2004 as a small, tax-exempt foundation. Over the first five years, the Initiative in its U.S. 2008 federal tax return reported receiving donations totaling less than $100,000. Here we are two years later, and the same foundation, hand-in-hand with another hitherto small foundation, the American Society for Muslim Advancement, run by Rauf and his wife out of the same New York office, has hooked up with a real estate developer named Sharif El-Gamal. And, lo! Rauf--currently "unavailable" and huddled in an important meeting in Malaysia--is now the public face of a $100 million project proposing to replace in lower Manhattan some of the "community space" once provided by the vibrant life in and around World Trade Center. Some Americans are left grieving afresh, and many are left guessing, while the mysteries multiply. At least part of the answer lies in such details as where is the money coming from. For that matter, where is Imam Feisal looking for it? And when will he make himself available to tell us all about it?
Claudia Rosett, a journalist in residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.
Illusion and Reality Clash in Lebanon
Jonathan Spyer*
August 1, 2010
http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/08/illusion-and-reality-clash-in-lebanon
Initially, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing the murder of Rafik Hariri focused on Syria. Lately, indications suggest that the main focus is now on Hizbullah.
Tension is currently rising in Lebanon, amid reports that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is to issue indictments in the coming months. The tribunal is tasked with investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Earlier this year, its president, Antonio Cassese, said he expected that indictments would be issued at some stage between September and December. The Hariri tribunal has followed a long and winding path since its formation shortly after the murder, which took place on February 14, 2005. In its initial period, it was expected that its main angle of investigation would focus on the Syrians. Hariri was known as a defender of Lebanese sovereignty and therefore a natural adversary of the Syrian regime.
The latest indications, however, suggest that the main focus of the investigation is now on Hizbullah. This has led some Lebanon watchers to raise the specter of possible renewed civil strife in the country. Others have suggested that the prospect of indictments represents a serious dent in Hizbullah and Iran's power in the country. Neither of these claims, however, holds water.
The first claim rests on the idea that if Hizbullah is indicted for the murder of Rafik Hariri, this will place Saad Hariri - current prime minister and son of the murdered man - on a collision course with it.
But for a civil war, you need two sides. In 2008, it was the effective capitulation of Hariri and his March 14 movement which averted conflict. This time around, Hariri has even fewer options and this makes renewed confrontation less likely.
In a press conference last week, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that he had been personally informed by Hariri that the tribunal would accuse some "undisciplined members" of Hizbullah (i.e. not the movement as a whole) of the murder of his father.
Nasrallah also noted that he had received a personal assurance from Hariri that he would publicly confirm that individual Hizbullah members, rather than the movement itself, were implicated in the murder.
Informed sources suggest that Hizbullah has already selected the individuals it will throw to the wolves if indictments are indeed issued (which is itself not certain).
The men in question are low-level operators reputed to be involved in crime as well as movement activity.
Nasrallah's rare press conference may have indicated that Hizbullah is uncomfortable at the prospect of the indictments. But his name-checking of Hariri also confirmed that he thinks he has little to worry about from the murdered man's son.
The available evidence suggests that he is right. Mustafa Allouche, a former MP from Hariri's March 14 bloc, said last Friday that if the tribunal issued indictments "not backed by proper evidence," then the position of the Hariri movement toward it would change.
Allouche added that Hariri would consider matters in cooperation with Nasrallah to ensure "calm." Hariri is reported to have held a private meeting with Nasrallah in recent days to lay the basis for this cooperation and reassure the Hizbullah leader.
The idea that a group of Hizbullah members decided independently to assassinate Rafik Hariri belongs in the realm of comedy. Hizbullah is a fiercely centralized, disciplined body in which no dissent is brooked. Its militants do not go about pursuing their own political and military policies.
It is made doubly so by the known sophistication of the Hariri murder. The notion that a group of Hizbullah men acting independently could have assembled, planted and detonated the massive explosive device that killed him, without their own movement's knowledge or the knowledge of the Syrian de facto rulers of the country at the time, is without any foundation in reality.
SO WHY IS Saad Hariri apparently bowing before the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah axis that murdered his father? Hariri is a client of the Saudis, and the Saudis, for reasons of their own, are currently engaged in a process of rapprochement with the Syrians. Saudi King Abdullah is due to visit Lebanon this week. The Lebanese prime minister possesses no military power on the ground. A civil war between his supporters and Hizbullah would be exceedingly short, and would rapidly conclude with Hariri's destruction.
As a result, he is carrying out his own slightly macabre courtship dance with the people that killed his father. Syria is quietly rebuilding its power in Lebanon, with no effective pro-Western counter-force to oppose it. Hariri therefore must bow to reality and avoid clashing with Hizbullah and/or Syria over the tribunal.
The Saudi approach in turn is supposed to shore up the troubled Arab diplomatic system by drawing Syria back into it.
Some commentators have claimed to see a silver lining in this. They depict the current situation as representing a weakening of Iran and its Hizbullah client in the face of a new alignment of Syria and Hariri, backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Such a depiction has little foundation. Syria's return to political influence in Lebanon is a product of its alliance with Iran. Its continuation depends on the continued existence of this alliance. So the idea that Syria's new friendship with Hariri portends a significant shift in the balance of power is an illusion. It is a friendship on Syrian terms, made possible by the implicit threat of Iranian-backed muscle. The Syrians will be happy to reap the fruits of their alliance with Iran in the form of renewed political sway in Lebanon. This has no implications for the real Iranian power in the country, or for Syria's alignment with it.
The real power in Lebanon today, whose resources, investment and ambitions dwarf those of the Syrians, is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran exercises its power through its Hizbullah client. Hizbullah, in turn, is able to have the last word in any argument in the country because of its military power on the ground. Hizbullah and its patrons prefer to allow the Lebanese political system and government to exist, and will continue to do so for as long as they do not interfere in their plans.
Iran's plans are region-wide, and it is interested in Lebanon mainly insofar as its control of the southern part of that country allows it to maintain the most active front currently in existence in the Israel- Islamist conflict. Syria is riding back into Lebanon in the form of a minor carriage attached to the Iranian- Hizbullah train.
Against this political-military juggernaut, the conscientious researchers of the SLT can do little. Saudi diplomacy and its Lebanese clients lack the tools to oppose Iran and its allies directly. They are therefore seeking to convince themselves and the world that their strategy of drawing Syria away from Iran is working. It is not.
The US, meanwhile, is engaged in matters elsewhere, and the administration still appears to be in a learning process regarding the ambitions of the Iranled regional axis.
It is against this background that the latest developments in Lebanon should be understood. Neither the SLT, nor Saad Hariri, nor Turkey, nor Saudi Arabia are going to break the power of Iran and its allies in Lebanon. This will be achieved, if it is to be achieved, as a result of the frustration of Iranian plans on a broader, regional level.
*Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Herzliya, Israel
August 1, 2010
http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/08/illusion-and-reality-clash-in-lebanon
Initially, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing the murder of Rafik Hariri focused on Syria. Lately, indications suggest that the main focus is now on Hizbullah.
Tension is currently rising in Lebanon, amid reports that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is to issue indictments in the coming months. The tribunal is tasked with investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Earlier this year, its president, Antonio Cassese, said he expected that indictments would be issued at some stage between September and December. The Hariri tribunal has followed a long and winding path since its formation shortly after the murder, which took place on February 14, 2005. In its initial period, it was expected that its main angle of investigation would focus on the Syrians. Hariri was known as a defender of Lebanese sovereignty and therefore a natural adversary of the Syrian regime.
The latest indications, however, suggest that the main focus of the investigation is now on Hizbullah. This has led some Lebanon watchers to raise the specter of possible renewed civil strife in the country. Others have suggested that the prospect of indictments represents a serious dent in Hizbullah and Iran's power in the country. Neither of these claims, however, holds water.
The first claim rests on the idea that if Hizbullah is indicted for the murder of Rafik Hariri, this will place Saad Hariri - current prime minister and son of the murdered man - on a collision course with it.
But for a civil war, you need two sides. In 2008, it was the effective capitulation of Hariri and his March 14 movement which averted conflict. This time around, Hariri has even fewer options and this makes renewed confrontation less likely.
In a press conference last week, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that he had been personally informed by Hariri that the tribunal would accuse some "undisciplined members" of Hizbullah (i.e. not the movement as a whole) of the murder of his father.
Nasrallah also noted that he had received a personal assurance from Hariri that he would publicly confirm that individual Hizbullah members, rather than the movement itself, were implicated in the murder.
Informed sources suggest that Hizbullah has already selected the individuals it will throw to the wolves if indictments are indeed issued (which is itself not certain).
The men in question are low-level operators reputed to be involved in crime as well as movement activity.
Nasrallah's rare press conference may have indicated that Hizbullah is uncomfortable at the prospect of the indictments. But his name-checking of Hariri also confirmed that he thinks he has little to worry about from the murdered man's son.
The available evidence suggests that he is right. Mustafa Allouche, a former MP from Hariri's March 14 bloc, said last Friday that if the tribunal issued indictments "not backed by proper evidence," then the position of the Hariri movement toward it would change.
Allouche added that Hariri would consider matters in cooperation with Nasrallah to ensure "calm." Hariri is reported to have held a private meeting with Nasrallah in recent days to lay the basis for this cooperation and reassure the Hizbullah leader.
The idea that a group of Hizbullah members decided independently to assassinate Rafik Hariri belongs in the realm of comedy. Hizbullah is a fiercely centralized, disciplined body in which no dissent is brooked. Its militants do not go about pursuing their own political and military policies.
It is made doubly so by the known sophistication of the Hariri murder. The notion that a group of Hizbullah men acting independently could have assembled, planted and detonated the massive explosive device that killed him, without their own movement's knowledge or the knowledge of the Syrian de facto rulers of the country at the time, is without any foundation in reality.
SO WHY IS Saad Hariri apparently bowing before the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah axis that murdered his father? Hariri is a client of the Saudis, and the Saudis, for reasons of their own, are currently engaged in a process of rapprochement with the Syrians. Saudi King Abdullah is due to visit Lebanon this week. The Lebanese prime minister possesses no military power on the ground. A civil war between his supporters and Hizbullah would be exceedingly short, and would rapidly conclude with Hariri's destruction.
As a result, he is carrying out his own slightly macabre courtship dance with the people that killed his father. Syria is quietly rebuilding its power in Lebanon, with no effective pro-Western counter-force to oppose it. Hariri therefore must bow to reality and avoid clashing with Hizbullah and/or Syria over the tribunal.
The Saudi approach in turn is supposed to shore up the troubled Arab diplomatic system by drawing Syria back into it.
Some commentators have claimed to see a silver lining in this. They depict the current situation as representing a weakening of Iran and its Hizbullah client in the face of a new alignment of Syria and Hariri, backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Such a depiction has little foundation. Syria's return to political influence in Lebanon is a product of its alliance with Iran. Its continuation depends on the continued existence of this alliance. So the idea that Syria's new friendship with Hariri portends a significant shift in the balance of power is an illusion. It is a friendship on Syrian terms, made possible by the implicit threat of Iranian-backed muscle. The Syrians will be happy to reap the fruits of their alliance with Iran in the form of renewed political sway in Lebanon. This has no implications for the real Iranian power in the country, or for Syria's alignment with it.
The real power in Lebanon today, whose resources, investment and ambitions dwarf those of the Syrians, is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran exercises its power through its Hizbullah client. Hizbullah, in turn, is able to have the last word in any argument in the country because of its military power on the ground. Hizbullah and its patrons prefer to allow the Lebanese political system and government to exist, and will continue to do so for as long as they do not interfere in their plans.
Iran's plans are region-wide, and it is interested in Lebanon mainly insofar as its control of the southern part of that country allows it to maintain the most active front currently in existence in the Israel- Islamist conflict. Syria is riding back into Lebanon in the form of a minor carriage attached to the Iranian- Hizbullah train.
Against this political-military juggernaut, the conscientious researchers of the SLT can do little. Saudi diplomacy and its Lebanese clients lack the tools to oppose Iran and its allies directly. They are therefore seeking to convince themselves and the world that their strategy of drawing Syria away from Iran is working. It is not.
The US, meanwhile, is engaged in matters elsewhere, and the administration still appears to be in a learning process regarding the ambitions of the Iranled regional axis.
It is against this background that the latest developments in Lebanon should be understood. Neither the SLT, nor Saad Hariri, nor Turkey, nor Saudi Arabia are going to break the power of Iran and its allies in Lebanon. This will be achieved, if it is to be achieved, as a result of the frustration of Iranian plans on a broader, regional level.
*Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Herzliya, Israel
Hypocrisy’s finest hour
Op-ed: Revelations of West’s crimes in Afghanistan highlight anti-Israel hypocrisy
Shaul Rosenfeld
In an interview with PBS earlier this year, Richard Goldstone was quite amazed by a question regarding the suspicion that he and others may, heaven forbid, adopt a double standard in respect to Israel, compared to their attitude to other states, such as the US for example. Such claims were looked into, Goldstone said without batting an eyelid, adding that the US adopted far-reaching steps in order to protect innocent civilians in Iraq. He further noted that as opposed to Israel's war crimes and vengeful policy in Operation Cast Lead, the Americans made sure to protect innocent civilians, while apologizing in cases where they erred, for example in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
International Organization
Israel: UN probe into flotilla raid pointless / Roni Sofer
Official in Jerusalem says Human Right Council's decision to look into May 31 raid on Gaza-bound Turkish ship shows body 'obsessed with Israel.' Kadima MK: Investigate Shalit's captivity
Full Story
Indeed, why the hell should the “bold apartheid objector” (who, as we may recall, happened to enforce racist laws in the past and send dozens of blacks to the gallows) care about some insignificant, trivialities? For example, the fact that during Operation Just Cause in December 1989, US troops in Panama killed 300 to 1,000 civilians; or that in October 1993, a UN force (mostly comprising US units) killed more than 500 Somali civilians, while “carrying out an operation,” of course.”
Elsewhere, 460 to 2,000 civilians were killed during NATO bombings in Kosovo in 1999; in December 2004, in a campaign against Islamist forces in Iraq’s Fallujah, the Americans killed more than 6,000 civilians and obliterated about 10,000 civilian homes. Yet those who determine Israel’s guilt in advance have no use for such humdrum information.
Meanwhile, such trivialities are not at the top of David Cameron’s agenda either. And so, a day after the disclosure of 92,000 documents showing that coalition forces in Afghanistan killed hundreds of local civilians without reporting it, the new British PM found the time (of course, in Turkish PM Ergodan’s presence) to explain why Israel’s flotilla raid was “completely unacceptable,” why Netanyahu must order a “swift, transparent and rigorous inquiry” into the incident (as if Israel hasn’t done so thus far,) and why Gaza is a “prison camp” (of course, Israel’s “blockade” is at fault.)
Probes reserved for Israel
To Cameron’s credit we can say that he is merely another link in the chain of famed British hypocrisy – ranging from senior academicians, the media under the trusted BBC’s orchestration, and all the way to the cultural and artistic elite.
Nonetheless, one still needs to be more than a complete cynic and hopeless hypocrite to slam Israel a day after the Brits themselves were charged with “slightly” more serious offences than curbing the Gaza flotilla (for example, executions of Afghan civilians without a trial.)
When the spirit we see at the White House (and in Britain) is one of harsh condemnation of the disclosure of classified information, without any hint so far to an American or British need to look into the suspicions emerging from the publication, it’s a little difficult to see Cameron or Obama ordering a “swift, transparent and rigorous inquiry” into Israel’s actions.
As we all know, such probes are reserves for a very certain Mideastern state. It’s as though enlightened democratic leaders, just like “progressive” Muslim dictators (who oppress women, minorities, infidels, and in fact most of their citizenry) have trouble managing their own daily affairs without making clear to Israel how morally corrupt it is and how despicable its actions can be.
As we also know, Orwell’s animal farm was an allegory for the pre-1917 Russia and the post-revolution Soviet Union. Yet in our global farm too, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” of course – for example, the US, Britain, and anything that isn’t Israel in the “unbiased” view of Goldstone, Obama, and Cameron.
In Orwell’s story, the pigs take over the farm and rule it firmly, yet in our own wonderful world - where US presidents bow to primitive kings (such as Saudi King Abdullah) yet constantly criticize the Jewish State, where Jewish judges hang blacks yet preach to Israel, and where British PMs seek to ignore findings on the killings of hundreds of civilians but feel uneasy about stopping anti-Israel flotillas – hypocrites were never doing better.
Dr. Shaul Rosenfeld is a philosophy lecturer
Shaul Rosenfeld
In an interview with PBS earlier this year, Richard Goldstone was quite amazed by a question regarding the suspicion that he and others may, heaven forbid, adopt a double standard in respect to Israel, compared to their attitude to other states, such as the US for example. Such claims were looked into, Goldstone said without batting an eyelid, adding that the US adopted far-reaching steps in order to protect innocent civilians in Iraq. He further noted that as opposed to Israel's war crimes and vengeful policy in Operation Cast Lead, the Americans made sure to protect innocent civilians, while apologizing in cases where they erred, for example in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
International Organization
Israel: UN probe into flotilla raid pointless / Roni Sofer
Official in Jerusalem says Human Right Council's decision to look into May 31 raid on Gaza-bound Turkish ship shows body 'obsessed with Israel.' Kadima MK: Investigate Shalit's captivity
Full Story
Indeed, why the hell should the “bold apartheid objector” (who, as we may recall, happened to enforce racist laws in the past and send dozens of blacks to the gallows) care about some insignificant, trivialities? For example, the fact that during Operation Just Cause in December 1989, US troops in Panama killed 300 to 1,000 civilians; or that in October 1993, a UN force (mostly comprising US units) killed more than 500 Somali civilians, while “carrying out an operation,” of course.”
Elsewhere, 460 to 2,000 civilians were killed during NATO bombings in Kosovo in 1999; in December 2004, in a campaign against Islamist forces in Iraq’s Fallujah, the Americans killed more than 6,000 civilians and obliterated about 10,000 civilian homes. Yet those who determine Israel’s guilt in advance have no use for such humdrum information.
Meanwhile, such trivialities are not at the top of David Cameron’s agenda either. And so, a day after the disclosure of 92,000 documents showing that coalition forces in Afghanistan killed hundreds of local civilians without reporting it, the new British PM found the time (of course, in Turkish PM Ergodan’s presence) to explain why Israel’s flotilla raid was “completely unacceptable,” why Netanyahu must order a “swift, transparent and rigorous inquiry” into the incident (as if Israel hasn’t done so thus far,) and why Gaza is a “prison camp” (of course, Israel’s “blockade” is at fault.)
Probes reserved for Israel
To Cameron’s credit we can say that he is merely another link in the chain of famed British hypocrisy – ranging from senior academicians, the media under the trusted BBC’s orchestration, and all the way to the cultural and artistic elite.
Nonetheless, one still needs to be more than a complete cynic and hopeless hypocrite to slam Israel a day after the Brits themselves were charged with “slightly” more serious offences than curbing the Gaza flotilla (for example, executions of Afghan civilians without a trial.)
When the spirit we see at the White House (and in Britain) is one of harsh condemnation of the disclosure of classified information, without any hint so far to an American or British need to look into the suspicions emerging from the publication, it’s a little difficult to see Cameron or Obama ordering a “swift, transparent and rigorous inquiry” into Israel’s actions.
As we all know, such probes are reserves for a very certain Mideastern state. It’s as though enlightened democratic leaders, just like “progressive” Muslim dictators (who oppress women, minorities, infidels, and in fact most of their citizenry) have trouble managing their own daily affairs without making clear to Israel how morally corrupt it is and how despicable its actions can be.
As we also know, Orwell’s animal farm was an allegory for the pre-1917 Russia and the post-revolution Soviet Union. Yet in our global farm too, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” of course – for example, the US, Britain, and anything that isn’t Israel in the “unbiased” view of Goldstone, Obama, and Cameron.
In Orwell’s story, the pigs take over the farm and rule it firmly, yet in our own wonderful world - where US presidents bow to primitive kings (such as Saudi King Abdullah) yet constantly criticize the Jewish State, where Jewish judges hang blacks yet preach to Israel, and where British PMs seek to ignore findings on the killings of hundreds of civilians but feel uneasy about stopping anti-Israel flotillas – hypocrites were never doing better.
Dr. Shaul Rosenfeld is a philosophy lecturer
Is Israel going to be another khaybar?
August 1, 2010
By batya dagan
Whenever we go to a rally on behalf and in support of Israel we hear the Arabs standing on the other side of the street, chanting, "KHAYBAR KHAYBAR YA YAHOOD." Sometimes they just yell, "KHAYBAR." Most people have no clue what does the word ' KHAYBAR', mean.
When the Arabs, in their protests scream "ITBACH AL YAHOOD," some of us understand the vicious meaning of these two words in Arabic. The word 'ITBACH' means kill. It is very close to the Hebrew word TEVACH, which is slaughter and 'Yahood' is too close to YEHUDI for us, Jews, not to know.
For the Arabs the word 'KHAYBAR' means a lot more than just a name of a place.
Khaybar was a Jewish city during Muhammad times in Arabia. It was full of wealth and it was magnificently beautiful. The Jews of the city found a way to collect rainwater so the desert soil was good for growing food. People from all over Arabia would go to Khaybar to buy fruits and vegetables. There were also merchants in the city who bought and sold merchandise all over the Middle East of then.
There are a few theories why Muhammad wanted to own Khaybar city. Some say he needed the money to finance his conquering agenda. Others say he wanted the Jewish Khaybar tribe to convert to Islam. Maybe the demand to convert was just to veil Muhammad's desire to rob the tribe. One way or the other, the people of Khaybar refused to convert to Mohammed's new religion. Muhammad started a war on the city but the city was a fortress. Mohammed kept on attacking and the city inhabitants pushed back, again and again. The men of the city were strong and brave and were very good at defending their city.
Then Muhammad had an idea. He would call for a peace treaty. He did just that and of course he got the Jews of khyaybar to agree to a treaty.
A peace agreement was signed (Muhammad who could not read or write probably signed it with his index finger dipped in ink) and the inhabitant of khyaybar let out a big sigh of relief that was heard for miles.
In the morning the Jews, thinking life was back to normal, opened the gates of the city. As soon as the gates were opened, Muhammad and his murderous thugs rushed in. They killed the men and grabbed the women and children to be sold as slaves.
The HADITH - another important book in Islam - describes what happened in Khaybar in these words: "The prophet had their warriors killed, their spring and women taken captive."
Khaybar gave birth to the abomination behavior called TAQIYYA. Muhammad needed to explain his breaking of the treaty with the Jews and he came up with Taqiyya. Muslims are allowed to lie on behalf of Islam.
When the Arabs at the rallies chant, "Khaybar, khaybar ya Yahood" they mean that Israel will be another Khaybar. That she will sign peace treaties with Arabs, who then will use the TAQIYYA tactics to break the treaty and do to Israel what Muhammad did to Khaybar.
A whole new language was created during those awful times. Jews who refused to convert to Islam had to agree to be DHIMMIES, right less people. They also needed to pay JIZIA - a special tax for the right to breathe 'Moslem air.'
After Khaybar Muhammad did horrible things to other Jewish tribes. Most ended up being expelled, if they managed to stay alive. Some people say that the Jews should demand that Saudi Arabia pay Israel for the stolen Jewish property all over Arabia. And that there is a good chance that some of the Saudi oil is in Jewish lands.
To finally answer the question at the header - Israel is not going to be another
Khaybar. NEVER!
End Notes
1. KHAYBAR: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_11088.html
2. Jihad Watch: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16391
3. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khaybar
By batya dagan
Whenever we go to a rally on behalf and in support of Israel we hear the Arabs standing on the other side of the street, chanting, "KHAYBAR KHAYBAR YA YAHOOD." Sometimes they just yell, "KHAYBAR." Most people have no clue what does the word ' KHAYBAR', mean.
When the Arabs, in their protests scream "ITBACH AL YAHOOD," some of us understand the vicious meaning of these two words in Arabic. The word 'ITBACH' means kill. It is very close to the Hebrew word TEVACH, which is slaughter and 'Yahood' is too close to YEHUDI for us, Jews, not to know.
For the Arabs the word 'KHAYBAR' means a lot more than just a name of a place.
Khaybar was a Jewish city during Muhammad times in Arabia. It was full of wealth and it was magnificently beautiful. The Jews of the city found a way to collect rainwater so the desert soil was good for growing food. People from all over Arabia would go to Khaybar to buy fruits and vegetables. There were also merchants in the city who bought and sold merchandise all over the Middle East of then.
There are a few theories why Muhammad wanted to own Khaybar city. Some say he needed the money to finance his conquering agenda. Others say he wanted the Jewish Khaybar tribe to convert to Islam. Maybe the demand to convert was just to veil Muhammad's desire to rob the tribe. One way or the other, the people of Khaybar refused to convert to Mohammed's new religion. Muhammad started a war on the city but the city was a fortress. Mohammed kept on attacking and the city inhabitants pushed back, again and again. The men of the city were strong and brave and were very good at defending their city.
Then Muhammad had an idea. He would call for a peace treaty. He did just that and of course he got the Jews of khyaybar to agree to a treaty.
A peace agreement was signed (Muhammad who could not read or write probably signed it with his index finger dipped in ink) and the inhabitant of khyaybar let out a big sigh of relief that was heard for miles.
In the morning the Jews, thinking life was back to normal, opened the gates of the city. As soon as the gates were opened, Muhammad and his murderous thugs rushed in. They killed the men and grabbed the women and children to be sold as slaves.
The HADITH - another important book in Islam - describes what happened in Khaybar in these words: "The prophet had their warriors killed, their spring and women taken captive."
Khaybar gave birth to the abomination behavior called TAQIYYA. Muhammad needed to explain his breaking of the treaty with the Jews and he came up with Taqiyya. Muslims are allowed to lie on behalf of Islam.
When the Arabs at the rallies chant, "Khaybar, khaybar ya Yahood" they mean that Israel will be another Khaybar. That she will sign peace treaties with Arabs, who then will use the TAQIYYA tactics to break the treaty and do to Israel what Muhammad did to Khaybar.
A whole new language was created during those awful times. Jews who refused to convert to Islam had to agree to be DHIMMIES, right less people. They also needed to pay JIZIA - a special tax for the right to breathe 'Moslem air.'
After Khaybar Muhammad did horrible things to other Jewish tribes. Most ended up being expelled, if they managed to stay alive. Some people say that the Jews should demand that Saudi Arabia pay Israel for the stolen Jewish property all over Arabia. And that there is a good chance that some of the Saudi oil is in Jewish lands.
To finally answer the question at the header - Israel is not going to be another
Khaybar. NEVER!
End Notes
1. KHAYBAR: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_11088.html
2. Jihad Watch: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16391
3. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khaybar
"Heating Up"
Arlene Kushner
It's been fairly quiet on our border with Gaza, until the last couple of days. It was, of course, only a matter of time.
It began on Friday morning when a Grad Katyusha rocket fired from Gaza hit central Ashkelon; thankfully there were no injuries but there was property damage and a number of people were treated for shock (which should not be minimized). We responded with an aerial attack on three different Hamas-connected sites in Gaza: a site where Hamas commandos were trained, a weapons manufacturing warehouse, and rocket-smuggling tunnel. Issa al-Batran, a commander in Hamas's Al-Kassam Brigades, was killed in one of the strikes and eight others were wounded.
~~~~~~~~~~
Hours after the Grad was launched, two mortars landed in the Eshkol Regional Council (which lies roughly south of Ashkelon).
Then tonight, a Kassam hit an educational institution, outside of Sderot, in the Shaar HaNegev Regional Council.
~~~~~~~~~~
Whether this is the beginning of a sustained series of attacks, or will abate, it is too soon to say. Some analysts are connecting this to the prospect of direct talks between Israel and the PA -- that is, an attempt to derail this by stirring up matters.
~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking of those direct talks, news has just broken of a letter that was sent to Abbas by Obama two weeks ago, in which he said, “it is high time to resume direct negotiations with Israel” as Netanyahu “is ready to resume direct negotiations.”
According to a PA official, the letter said that, “Obama will absolutely not accept the rejection of his recommendation to move to direct negotiations and that there will be consequences for such a rejection in the form of a lack of trust in President Abbas and the Palestinian side.” Obama promised that he would work to extend an Israeli freeze on building in Jewish settlements due to expire in September if Abbas resumed direct negotiations. “But in case of a refusal its assistance on that issue will be very limited.”
PA negotiator Saeb Erekat confirmed the existence of this letter to AFP (Agence France Presse).
~~~~~~~~~~
There are several points of interest with regard to this letter. It was, you will note, sent before the Arab League meeting this past week, and may have had something to do with the response of the foreign ministers at that meeting with regard to (ambiguously) signing on for direct talks.
But what has not happened is that Abbas himself was so intimidated by Obama's threats that he jumped to come to the table. There are other things that are frightening him a good deal more, I would say.
What is more, if this report is accurate, it does indicate that Netanyahu has not caved with regard to extending the freeze. Although it tells us (as we have already guessed) that there will be huge pressure on him to do so, should Abbas cave in the end and come to the table.
~~~~~~~~~~
Of course (and also no surprise whatsoever), UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is pumping for a freeze extension. The subject came up when Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with him on Friday.
Said Barak to Ban:
"We are hoping to start direct negotiations with the Palestinians soon, in order to move forward with an agreement which will be based on two nations for two peoples. The negotiations will not be simple, and courageous decisions will be required on our part and the Palestinians...We will need the help of the UN to go forward with the negotiations."
This man needs to be muzzled! Bad enough to speak about the "courageous decisions" we have to make (= going back to the '67 lines), but for him to seek UN "help," with the UN's anti-Israel reputation? We are our own worst enemies. Barak should hang his head in shame. But then, the evidence of the past is that he's shameless.
~~~~~~~~~~
Barak then went into what might be seen as a comedy routine, if it were not so serious. He told Ban that the UN must act to prevent weapons smuggling by Hezbollah and to implement Resolution 1701. Come on! There will be no implementation of that resolution, and it's rather after the fact anyway. Under the nose of UN troops Hezbollah has already re-armed to a strength greater than it had before the Second Lebanon war.
~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, that fine upstanding UN Human Rights Council -- which devotes more time and energy to investigating Israeli human rights "violations" than all of the other human rights violations in the world -- is going to investigate the flotilla incident. Word from our prime minister's office is that we are not likely to cooperate. I would hope not. Not only is the mandate stacked against us, but UN war crimes prosecutor Desmond de Silva, who has been chosen to head the panel, spoke against our actions before his appointment.
At the same time, Ban is pumping for yet another UN investigation.
~~~~~~~~~~
Please see and broadly share "Hypocrisy's finest hour," by Shaul Rosenfeld.
Rosenfeld exposes the world's hypocrisy when it comes to criticism of Israel:
"...during Operation Just Cause in December 1989, US troops in Panama killed 300 to 1,000 civilians...in October 1993, a UN force (mostly comprising US units) killed more than 500 Somali civilians, while 'carrying out an operation,' of course.
"Elsewhere, 460 to 2,000 civilians were killed during NATO bombings in Kosovo in 1999; in December 2004, in a campaign against Islamist forces in Iraq’s Fallujah, the Americans killed more than 6,000 civilians and obliterated about 10,000 civilian homes. Yet those who determine Israel’s guilt in advance have no use for such humdrum information."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3927180,00.html
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
It's been fairly quiet on our border with Gaza, until the last couple of days. It was, of course, only a matter of time.
It began on Friday morning when a Grad Katyusha rocket fired from Gaza hit central Ashkelon; thankfully there were no injuries but there was property damage and a number of people were treated for shock (which should not be minimized). We responded with an aerial attack on three different Hamas-connected sites in Gaza: a site where Hamas commandos were trained, a weapons manufacturing warehouse, and rocket-smuggling tunnel. Issa al-Batran, a commander in Hamas's Al-Kassam Brigades, was killed in one of the strikes and eight others were wounded.
~~~~~~~~~~
Hours after the Grad was launched, two mortars landed in the Eshkol Regional Council (which lies roughly south of Ashkelon).
Then tonight, a Kassam hit an educational institution, outside of Sderot, in the Shaar HaNegev Regional Council.
~~~~~~~~~~
Whether this is the beginning of a sustained series of attacks, or will abate, it is too soon to say. Some analysts are connecting this to the prospect of direct talks between Israel and the PA -- that is, an attempt to derail this by stirring up matters.
~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking of those direct talks, news has just broken of a letter that was sent to Abbas by Obama two weeks ago, in which he said, “it is high time to resume direct negotiations with Israel” as Netanyahu “is ready to resume direct negotiations.”
According to a PA official, the letter said that, “Obama will absolutely not accept the rejection of his recommendation to move to direct negotiations and that there will be consequences for such a rejection in the form of a lack of trust in President Abbas and the Palestinian side.” Obama promised that he would work to extend an Israeli freeze on building in Jewish settlements due to expire in September if Abbas resumed direct negotiations. “But in case of a refusal its assistance on that issue will be very limited.”
PA negotiator Saeb Erekat confirmed the existence of this letter to AFP (Agence France Presse).
~~~~~~~~~~
There are several points of interest with regard to this letter. It was, you will note, sent before the Arab League meeting this past week, and may have had something to do with the response of the foreign ministers at that meeting with regard to (ambiguously) signing on for direct talks.
But what has not happened is that Abbas himself was so intimidated by Obama's threats that he jumped to come to the table. There are other things that are frightening him a good deal more, I would say.
What is more, if this report is accurate, it does indicate that Netanyahu has not caved with regard to extending the freeze. Although it tells us (as we have already guessed) that there will be huge pressure on him to do so, should Abbas cave in the end and come to the table.
~~~~~~~~~~
Of course (and also no surprise whatsoever), UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is pumping for a freeze extension. The subject came up when Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with him on Friday.
Said Barak to Ban:
"We are hoping to start direct negotiations with the Palestinians soon, in order to move forward with an agreement which will be based on two nations for two peoples. The negotiations will not be simple, and courageous decisions will be required on our part and the Palestinians...We will need the help of the UN to go forward with the negotiations."
This man needs to be muzzled! Bad enough to speak about the "courageous decisions" we have to make (= going back to the '67 lines), but for him to seek UN "help," with the UN's anti-Israel reputation? We are our own worst enemies. Barak should hang his head in shame. But then, the evidence of the past is that he's shameless.
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Barak then went into what might be seen as a comedy routine, if it were not so serious. He told Ban that the UN must act to prevent weapons smuggling by Hezbollah and to implement Resolution 1701. Come on! There will be no implementation of that resolution, and it's rather after the fact anyway. Under the nose of UN troops Hezbollah has already re-armed to a strength greater than it had before the Second Lebanon war.
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Meanwhile, that fine upstanding UN Human Rights Council -- which devotes more time and energy to investigating Israeli human rights "violations" than all of the other human rights violations in the world -- is going to investigate the flotilla incident. Word from our prime minister's office is that we are not likely to cooperate. I would hope not. Not only is the mandate stacked against us, but UN war crimes prosecutor Desmond de Silva, who has been chosen to head the panel, spoke against our actions before his appointment.
At the same time, Ban is pumping for yet another UN investigation.
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Please see and broadly share "Hypocrisy's finest hour," by Shaul Rosenfeld.
Rosenfeld exposes the world's hypocrisy when it comes to criticism of Israel:
"...during Operation Just Cause in December 1989, US troops in Panama killed 300 to 1,000 civilians...in October 1993, a UN force (mostly comprising US units) killed more than 500 Somali civilians, while 'carrying out an operation,' of course.
"Elsewhere, 460 to 2,000 civilians were killed during NATO bombings in Kosovo in 1999; in December 2004, in a campaign against Islamist forces in Iraq’s Fallujah, the Americans killed more than 6,000 civilians and obliterated about 10,000 civilian homes. Yet those who determine Israel’s guilt in advance have no use for such humdrum information."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3927180,00.html
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see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
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