When the 'peace process' and a 'Palestinian state' are your religion
Greetings once again from Boston, where the local time is 5:09 pm as I start this post.
I learned in a yeshiva that shall remain nameless in 1979-80 (okay, some of my readers know which one it was, but please don't mention it in comments or I'll delete them). The yeshiva was unusually open in terms of the viewpoints that were tolerated by the Roshei Yeshiva (heads of the yeshiva). An apocryphal store from the year before I arrived would perhaps be the best illustration.
The year before I arrived, one of the Roshei Yeshiva stood up and spoke out in favor of the then pending Camp David accords with Egypt, pursuant to which Israel was going to return every last inch of Sinai to the Egyptian aggressors from which it had captured Sinai 11-12 years earlier. There was an argument about what the Rosh Yeshiva was saying, and one of the other rabbis stood up and started screaming at him in the Beit Midrash (study hall). That Rosh Yeshiva passed away a bit more than a year ago. His eldest son is today one of the Roshei Yeshiva. The rabbi who stood up and screamed at him is also one of the Roshei Yeshiva today.
Perhaps that will explain to some of you how it could be that Rabbi Donniel Hartman (then known as Danny) and I both studied in the same yeshiva at the same time. I did not know him well, but even then I had heard of the Sholom Hartman Institute founded by his father. I wonder which of us got the yeshiva's openness correctly. This statement seems like an overstep to the yeshiva's philosophy in my book, for reasons I will explain below.
Donniel Hartman, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute in
Jerusalem and an Orthodox rabbi, focused his part on the Israeli side of
the conflict.
Hartman said he dreams of a time where he can live side-by-side with the Palestinian state in peace and security.
Change must be made, he said, as fear of the unknown can begin to define and warp an individual’s existence.
“We also have to unequivocally stop acting in such a way that
undermines each other’s hopes,” he said. “If the deepest hopes of the
Palestinians and my hope for them is to be a free people living as
sovereign in sovereign state, side-by-side with Israel, any action which
undermines the fulfillment or the completion of that dream has to cease
to be.
“It is not simply enough for me to declare my commitment
to a Palestinian state, anything I do that undermines that possibility
has to become forbidden either as a political position, let alone as a
political platform or political action.”
The emphasis is mine.
Really? If defending Jews anywhere means no 'Palestinian state,' that means no defending Jews anywhere? Not in my Talmud and not in my Rambam (for starters).
While the yeshiva in which we studied was quite open, it was still well within Torah boundaries. I find it hard to believe that the Roshei Yeshiva - today or in my times - would have placed the value of a 'Palestinian state' on a pedestal above the Torah. In fact, I'm sure they would not.
The beginning of the end of Leftist domination of Israel's Foreign Ministry?
In the past week, there have been two significant appointments to Israel's foreign ministry that have the potential to change the foreign ministry's longtime Leftist slant. Keep in mind as you read this that Prime Minister Netanyahu did not appoint a foreign minister and that it was previously thought that he was holding the position open in the hope that Avigdor Lieberman or Dore Gold would eventually join the government.
First,
she’s a novice who has never held any executive branch position before,
yet will now exercise de facto control over one of the cabinet’s most
important ministries. Technically, she serves under Netanyahu, who
retained the foreign affairs portfolio for himself. But since Netanyahu
already has a full-time job as prime minister, she will largely run the
ministry.
Second, she’s one of the most hawkish members of Netanyahu’s coalition and an outspoken opponent of Palestinian statehood. As The Jerusalem Post’s diplomatic correspondent, Herb Keinon, put it, “Hotovely represents the opposite of everything much of the world...wants to see in Israel.”
Third,
in contrast to appointees like Miri Regev or Haim Katz, whose power
bases within Likud were simply too strong for Netanyahu to ignore,
Hotovely’s support inside the party is tenuous; in the last primary, she
barely scraped into the 20th slot. Nor is she known as one of the
premier’s own loyalists. Thus he was under no political compulsion to
reward her with such a lofty post.
Finally,
there were plenty of other candidates who would seemingly have been
more suitable, including the one many American Jews undoubtedly hoped to
see there: former ambassador to Washington and current Kulanu MK
Michael Oren.
Indeed, Hotovely’s main qualification for the post – aside from being pretty, personable and reportedly speaking excellent English
– would seem to be that she constitutes no threat to Netanyahu, who
notoriously squelches anyone he does consider a potential political
threat.
That’s why so many ambitious Likudniks eventually quit the party
to run their own parties (see Moshe Kahlon, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor
Liberman).
Gordon goes on to make a case for Hotovely being the one to shift the Foreign Ministry's focus away from the West and toward Africa and Latin America. And while I agree with Gordon that there's little hope of Europe ever taking our side again in the diplomatic courts of the world for the foreseeable future, I believe that there's a lot more that Hotovely can accomplish than just keeping countries like Rwanda and Nigeria on our side.
Sunday was perhaps the first indication that Netanyahu intends to have Hotovely remake the foreign ministry and the diplomatic corps: Netanyahu summarily fired the Director General and appointed his longtime confidante Dore Gold to be Director General of the Ministry and to work directly under Hotovely.
Gold, a former ambassador to the United Nations and currently head of
the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, will be working under Deputy
Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who was told about the appointment
just prior to it being made public. He replaces Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, a
veteran ministry employee who started out in its administrative track
and then moved to the diplomatic side.
...
[Former Foreign Minister Avigdor] Liberman commented on the appointment, saying that while it was
Netanyahu’s prerogative to appoint his own man to this post,
appointments at the ministry are not ways to give out favors or settle
scores. He also said that “it needs to be clear that new appointments
or changes are not a replacement for clear policy.”
In that
regard, one government source said, Gold was the perfect candidate
because he had a direct line to Netanyahu, and his interlocutors would
know that when he speaks, he is speaking for Netanyahu and with
authority.
“This will give him power and make him relevant,” the official said, noting that Ben-Sheetrit never enjoyed that status.
The
American-born Gold is considered one of Netanyahu’s top foreign policy
advisers. He served as one of his foreign policy advisers starting in
1996, during the prime minister’s first term in office, being appointed
the following year as ambassador to the UN, where he served until
1999. In 2014, he became an “outside” consultant in the Prime
Minister’s Office.
In recent years, Gold has accompanied
Netanyahu on many of his trips to Washington and the UN, and over the
years has been one of Israel’s foremost unofficial spokesmen, speaking
in the media and at conferences around the world on Israeli policy. He
is often sought out by journalists and diplomats because of his
knowledge of the issues, and because he is considered to be close to
Netanyahu, thus reflecting his thinking.
He has also been very active in lobbying policy-makers on behalf of “defensible borders” for Israel.
Hotovely
spoke with Gold after the appointment and issued a statement, saying
that with his rich experience in the international arena, the former UN
ambassador could contribute to furthering Israel’s position in the
world.
For those of you who have forgotten, 'defensible borders' mean that any 'Palestinian state' would be severely truncated.
Dore Gold has done the State of Israel a great service by forcing us to
focus on concrete things that we want out of the 'peace process.' Dore
is fond of pointing out that when you ask a 'Palestinian' what he wants
from the 'peace process,' he will tell you that he wants a 'Palestinian
state' in the areas that are outside Israel's '1967 borders' (for now),
whose capital is Jerusalem. If you ask an Israeli Jew what he wants from
the 'peace process,' he will tell you 'peace.'
Dore is changing
that paradigm. One of the things he believes that Israeli Jews can and
should be demanding from the 'peace process' is defensible borders. His
organization, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has put together a
collection of essays that sets out in concrete terms what defensible
borders mean. The collection is called Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace. It's reviewed by Lee Smith in Tablet Magazine.
The book Israel’s Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace
is a collection published this year under the auspices of the JCPA with
essays about security and diplomacy by leading figures in Israel’s
security establishment, like Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, former
head of IDF intelligence, and Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan, former IDF deputy
chief of staff and a former national security adviser to Prime Ministers
Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. The volume’s findings represent a broad
consensus across the Israeli political spectrum, and the fact that
Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon—former IDF chief of staff and currently the vice
prime minister—wrote the introduction is evidence that the ideas have
won approval at the highest political levels.
The book pushes
three common ideas, some likely to add to the friction between
Washington and Jerusalem: First, Israel, must not withdraw to the 1949
armistice lines; second, Israel needs defensible borders; third, Israel
must rely on itself to defend itself and not on foreign forces as
proposed by U.S. national security adviser Gen. James Jones, who has talked openly about replacing the IDF with international forces in the West Bank.
The
insistence that Israel must retain the ability to defend its own
borders—a basic attribute of national sovereignty—is the least
controversial element of Gold’s blueprint. The issue is not merely the
inglorious record of U.N. peacekeeping forces—from Sinai to Bosnia and
Lebanon—but also the fact that the international community rarely sends
its blue helmets into the middle of a real shooting war, which is what
the West Bank would become if an IDF withdrawal left Hamas and Fatah at
each other’s throats and eager to gain credit for launching terror
attacks on Israel.
The concept of defensible borders is closely
tied to the drawing of 1949 armistice lines, commonly and incorrectly
known as the 1967 borders. As Gold explains in his contribution to the
volume, successive U.S. administrations since Lyndon Johnson’s have all
recognized the danger in Israel withdrawing to those borders. George
Shultz, one of President Ronald Reagan’s secretaries of State, explained
that “Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders,”
and the Clinton Administration reaffirmed the Reagan White House’s
concept of defensible borders. However, it was during Clinton’s Camp
David negotiations that then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak abandoned
the idea of defensible borders in the hope of a radical breakthrough
with Yasser Arafat. With the outbreak of the Second Intifada and peace
nowhere in the offing, the George W. Bush Administration pledged not to
hold the Israelis to the Clinton parameters and returned to the
traditional U.S. position. “It is unrealistic to expect that the outcome
of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the
armistice lines of 1949,” reads an April 14, 2004 letter from Bush to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
How will this play out in the field? One indication might be this link I received in an email this morning from JCC Watch's Richard Allen.
The UJA-Federation’s top brass have been twisting the arms of
Israel’s diplomatic corps to provide cover for supporting the New Israel
Fund marching in the Israel Day Parade, according to emails obtained by
JCCWatch.
The strategy to use the Foreign Ministry as their beard came to an
uncomfortable public end last week, when the Spokesman for the Israeli
Consulate in New York had to make a statement to deny what UJA-Federation
CEO Eric Goldstein had told Talkline Communications radio host Zev
Brenner on March 30. In an appearance on the show, Goldstein said, twice
actually, that “the government of Israel, the Consul General’s office,
very much, emphatically, want us to allow these groups to continue to march.”
The consulate spokesman told Arutz Sheva last week
that at “no point did any of the parade’s organizers consult with the
Consulate or with someone acting on its behalf regarding the New Israel
Fund’s participation.” The newspaper quoted the spokesman directly as
saying, “never, ever, did the Consul-General, or someone on his behalf,
or any of the Consulate’s employees, say anything favoring the NIF’s
participation, either explicitly or implicitly, in a hinted manner or in
public, in secret or openly.”
The oddly worded distancing of the Consul-General’s office from the
UJA-Federation comes as emails obtained by JCCWatch show Goldstein and
former UJA-Federation president Jerry Levin, indeed, reaching out to
Israeli ambassadors for exactly that kind of cover.
The email trail leading up to Goldstein’s foot-in-mouth routine,
and reproduced below, casts a dark shadow on UJA-Federation leadership
who were able to co-opt important Israel diplomats to publicly boost
their cause of defending the New Israel Fund.
The exposure of Federation efforts to force parade organizers to accept the New Israel Fund, and the disavowal of interference on behalf of the NIF's behalf by the Consulate may have come on a direct order from Hotovely. And if it did, it's long overdue. In the past, I doubt that the Consulate would have issued such a clarification.
Here's hoping that Hotovely and Gold will bring about an end to the Leftist domination of the Foreign Ministry, which goes back to the days of Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni and others. That would be a welcome change.
Sickening: Israel's 'charitable' Left taking election loss out on poor
Reeling from its election loss last week, Israel's 'charitable' Left has identified the enemy: Israel's poor. The Left has decided that since the poor vote for the Likud anyway, the Left will no longer donate to charity.
The latest trend among leftists who were shocked by their defeat at
the polls Tuesday is an apparently spontaneous campaign called “Don't
Give,” which calls on people to stop donating to the poorer Israelis and
the socio-economically weaker regions known as “the periphery,” because
these Israelis insist on voting for Likud, in election after election.
The campaign's name in Hebrew, Lo Latet, is a reference to Latet (“To
Give”), a major charity group that collects donations for the needy.
The campaign started as a Facebook trend, which gathered steam after
it was reported about in the news, and has turned into a Facebook page
with over 3,000 likes.
"As the holiday of Pesach approaches, I would like to remind you that
there are hundreds of people who have no way of celebrating,” wrote one
Lo Latet poster. “It's important that you do not give them a single
shekel.”
He added sarcastically: “After all, elected a government that will
change their situation, so why interfere and ruin things? Happy
holiday!”
"From now on, I want peace of mind,” wrote another poster. “From now
on, it's every one for himself. Don't tell me about minimum wages and
people whose salary doesn't carry them through the month. I don't want
to hear about hungry children or single mothers in distress, about
distressed contract workers, or eroded pensions. Don't preach to me
about 'the people's choice and majority rule', I understand what
democracy is, but from now on, let every person take care of himself.”
Maybe the poor figured out that raising the minimum wage (which was part of Labor's platform) would put more of them out of work. Maybe they figured out that a nuclear Iran and a rocket-laden 'Palestinian state' within firing range of the center of the country would kill all our investments. And maybe - definitely - the Left has shown its true colors as the 'beautiful people' (yefei ha'nefesh in Hebrew) who couldn't care less about anyone but themselves.
Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu's newest campaign ad, which has Israel's Left seething. Among the graphics you'll see on the screen (Hebrew only) is one that says 'The Left will give in to terror.' The bumper sticker on the back of the pickup truck belonging to the Islamic State terrorists says 'Anyone but Bibi.'
The Samaria Revenants Committee has put out a video attacking Israel's Left as collaborators with European (neo) Nazis.
Let's go to the videotape.
Does it go too far? Let's just say that one of the reasons it has caused such an uproar here is that there is a lot of truth to the accusations.... Note that the coin being flipped to each collaborator is a Euro and the Europeans heavily fund Israel's Leftist NGO's.
But I have to say that the Left has gone way out of line in response, accusing the Prime Minister of being behind the video. The revenants are nearly as critical of Netanyahu as they are of the Left.
B'Tslem admits its primary researcher in Judea and Samaria is a Holocaust denier
A month ago, I reported that Atef Abu-Alrub, 'human rights group' B'Tselem's chief source in Judea and Samaria, is a Holocaust denier.
At first, B'Tselem claimed that Abu-Alrub's remarks were 'lies' and were 'taken out of context,' but now they're changing their tune.
[O]n Sunday, a Facebook post by the group pledged to "seriously examine the issue."
"After an [initial] investigation conducted with the researcher, and
in a letter sent to our employees, we established that Mr. Abu feels
'unequivocally that the Holocaust is a 'crime,' was a 'threat against
the Jewish people,' and that Channel 2 translated the words of another speaker who was present," the organization began.
"[However,] a few days ago a video was posted of the full
conversation. Indeed, most of the conversation that was filmed is
translation of a third person [present at the interview]," it continued.
"But, upon watching the video, we saw that it shows that contrary to
the above, the [remarks about the Holocaust] were not translating the
words of a third person, but were made directly by Mr. Abu-Alrub."
"In view of this, we seek to fix our response on this matter,
which was given in good faith and make it clear that we are disgusted,"
it concluded. "B'Tselem is careful in maintaining the
reliability and accuracy of its work and publications. Therefore, we
promise to hold inquiry as soon as possible into the incident and we
will publish the decision as soon as it is made."
I'm shocked. No, not shocked that B'Tselem would use a Holocaust-denying researcher, but shocked that they would admit it and pledge to do something about it. Please - shock me again and actually do something about it.
Oh my... Haaretz op-ed admits that the Left is free to speak in Israel but cannot make a case
An op-ed in Haaretz debunks an op-ed in the New York Times that claims that the Left in Israel has been terrorized into silence.
As I write this, the most-emailed post on the New York Times website is a short piece called “How Israel Silences Dissent,” by Mairav Zonszein who, like me, moved to Israel from America where she was born. And like me, she is a leftist and a political activist. Zonszein describes a small group of thugs who mixed it up with Tel Aviv peace demonstrators at the start of the Gaza war, a death threat phoned into a theater against a renowned 75 year old stage actress, Gila Almagor, after a newspaper reported that the grotesque murder and immolation of a Palestinian teen in Jerusalem left her embarrassed to be an Israeli, the cancelling of an endorsement deal for a gifted comedian, Orna Banai, after she expressed sympathy for Gazan kids, and threats against a Haaretz journalist, Gideon Levy, who described Israeli pilots as war criminals. All these, Zonszein wrote, demonstrate “the aggressive silencing of anyone who voices disapproval of Israeli policies or expresses empathy with Palestinians.”
The thing is, they don’t.
Don’t get me wrong; they’re terrible.... My stomach churned when I watched, heard and read all these things, just as Zonszein’s did.
But then, that’s the point: I watched, heard and read all these things. The criticisms reached me. The criticisms of the criticisms reached me. Discussion of the criticism and of the criticisms of the criticisms reached me. No one was silenced. The week after thugs punched three demonstrators, there was another demonstration, this one larger, and protected by more police. The actress, the comedian and the journalist received hours of airtime and hundreds of column inches. The murder of the Palestinian kid in Jerusalem was condemned by multitudes, including the parents of the three Israeli boys who were murdered weeks earlier.
Although most Israelis supported the war in Gaza, especially at the start, there were voices of dissent in all media and especially on the internet....
The simple fact is, a lot of the media, and a lot of academia, and a lot of NGOs and civil society in Israel lean left, and sometimes far left. We have ways of expressing ourselves, and we did express ourselves. I was not intimidated. The thugs did not keep me away from the demonstrations, and did not make me too fearful to bring my kids along. If we’re honest, the dozen right-wing bullies shouting threats infuriated lots of us, but they intimidated no one. Leftist Israelis may not have shown as much anguish or empathy as Zonszein thinks we should have. But that was not because we were aggressively silenced. Perhaps we were too silent, but not because we were silenced.
...
But we haven’t been silenced. We’ve just failed to make our case. For a dozen years, we have failed to win a majority in the Knesset. We have failed to convince other Israelis that the cost of holding onto the occupied territories is greater than the dangers of relinquishing them. In Zonszein’s analysis, this is because a right-wing cabal has shut us up, and there’s little we can do about it.
The truth is, we’ve failed because we’ve failed, and there is a lot we can do about it. Rather than whine in the New York Times about how we’ve been silenced, we need to figure out how to speak to other Israelis so that they will listen. The answer is not to convince readers of the New York Times that Israel is no longer a democracy. The answer is to accept that Israel is a democracy, and that democracy demands that we speak to our fellow citizens and listen to them, that we persuade them rather than dismiss them. Zonszein argues that democratic politics in Israel are hopeless. The fact is, it is in Israeli democracy that our greatest hope lies.
The writer, Noah Efron doesn't seem to acknowledge the possibility that maybe the Left has failed because most Israelis have realized that its ideas are not workable. Ideas don't just fail because they're not well presented - sometimes they fail because they're just plain wrong. But at least he recognizes that the Left has had the opportunity to present its ideas. Maybe one day others on the Left will reach the same epiphany.
B'Tselem is the main
supplier of factual background material thanks to researcher Atef Abu
a-Rub who is also a Holocaust denier. The man is responsible for dozens
of "researches" and reports about the Israeli abuse in the territories.
He is so good at his job that when foreign reporters calls B'Tselem to
visit the territories, it is Abu a-Rub who is sent to serve as their
tour guide and shows them the area through his eyes.
The problem is not Atef Abu a-Rub; the problem is his operators.
His former boss was Lizi Sagie, the organization’s former information
director. Lizi claimed that Israel is responsible for humanity's
greatest atrocities and that it adopted Nazi values. Sagie quit
B'Tselem, but her spirit remained.
Member of B'Tselem public council Hussein Abu Hussein described
Israel as a "big monster that attacks us on a daily basis and nibbles
through our flesh… we all feel like crushing its head, but just talking
will not help, therefore everyone has a role. Atef Abu a-Rub has a role.
He is responsible for a flowing supply of "information" to describe
Israel as a monster.
How much Abu a-Rub's information is worth? According to him, the
mountains adjacent to the Jordan Valley used to be green until the Jews
came and stole the water beneath them. In addition those Jews "kill
dozens in their sleep and tell everyone it's because of the resistance".
But the Jews, he said, manage to hide their evil deeds because they
have a strong media. Yes, that is the man's opinions and the world is
fed with B'Tselem "researches".
This diabolic propaganda is fascinating, because it succeeds in
turning the tables. Holocaust surviving Jews become part of Hamas'
propaganda mechanism that wishes to continue the work of those who were
engaging in extermination of the Jewish people. Abu a-Rub and other
"human rights" activists like him, succeed in creating one of the
biggest scams of recent decades.
On one side stands a terror organization, who is also recognized as
such by the EU and most of the Western powers, and declares regularly,
in the most explicit manner, that its main goal is to annihilate the
Jewish people. Since the Nazi regime there hasn't been such a strong
body, almost a country, with such a diabolical ideology. On the other
side stands Israel who withdrew from the Gaza Strip and begs this reign
of terror to renounce terror and choose prosperity.
But the good Jews, the "Tikkun Olam" followers have really
turned a corner. There is no doubt that Abu a-Rub and the likes of him
have achieved an amazing success. The responsibility of most of it is
his employers; B'Tselem's board which Hussein Abu Hussein is one of its
members.
Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua, who are also sit in B'Tselem board,
have completely different opinions, but them sitting there gives
legitimacy to Abu a-Rub and Abu Hussein's radical views. They are having
a hard time admitting that their organization is not dealing with human
rights, but encourage anti-Semitism; it's not about criticizing
Israel's actions or about healing the world, it's about Jewish support
of fabricated blood libels meant to assist Hamas.
Abu a-Rub's story is taken from a fascinating book called "Catch
the Jew" by Tuvia Tennenbaum. Tennenbaum, a former Israeli, wrote the
book to a German publishing house following a similar journey through
Germany, which was depicted in his book "I Sleep in Hitler's Room" Where
Tuvia posed as a German reporter and toured the realm of the "human
rights kingdom". The results were terrifying.
Tennebaum is a figurative character with figurative writing.
Initially, I thought he was exaggerating, but I was worng. Tennebaum
wasn't only writing, he also documented everything via photos and
recorders. Tennebaum asked from B'Tselem a tour in the territories and
B'tselem sent Atef Abu a-Rub who, off course, told him his 1001 Arabian
Nights tales about the Jews' wrong doings.
It's important to mention that Abu a-Rub also contributes to
Gideon Levy's research, so next time someone is reading this research
they should know that perhaps, occasionally, they point out to things
that needs fixing, but mainly they prove that this is a satanic
propaganda mechanism; it is not clear whether B'Tselem and Levy planned
it that way, but they sure serve as key players in it.
Reporter poses as German, produces video proof of 'Palestinian' and leftist Holocaust deniers
Journalist Tuvia Tenenbaum is known throughout the 'Palestinian Authority' as 'Toby.' The 'Palestinians' and the Leftist internationals were convinced that Toby really was a German and they shared their real views with him.
The video below is Hebrew only - I'm hoping to get an English subtitled version within a couple of days. But I am translating the article from Israel's Channel 2's website into English for all of you. First the video, then the article.
Let's go to the videotape.
And the translation of the article, which summarizes the video.
"The Europeans aren't really familiar with the Middle East dispute and they did not do an investigation. They are coming out of every hole here. They don't want to help, but rather to catch the Jew doing something bad. It comes from hatred," claims Tuvia Tenenbaum. "I didn't lie in this case when I presented myself as a German journalist - I wanted to know what these people think. Even if there had been a conspiracy and it had been the only way to expose the truth, I would have done it, he added.
From the beginning, "Toby" joined a group of young Italians who learned about the dispute in Schchem (Nablus) and in Israel, with funding from the European Union. But the Israeli guide, Itamar Shapira - the brother of the pilot Jonathan Shapira who refused orders and became an extreme Leftist activist - presented himself to the group as "former Jew" and said harsh things against Israel.
During a tour of Yad Vashem, Shapira chose to focus specifically on stories of the massacre at Dir Yassin [the Jenin lie of the 1948 War of Independence. CiJ] and told the young Italians that it's necessary to impose a boycott and sanctions on Israel because "we have to stop an additional Holocaust." Shapira was fired in the past from Yad Vashem after he compared the Holocaust to the Naqba [the Palestinian characterization of the creation of the State of Israel as a catastrophe. CiJ], but today he leads private groups there.
The Palestinian guide who accompanied the group was Ataf Abu Rob, a Palestinian journalist and investigator for B'Tselem who is responsible for several stories published by the [extreme Leftist Haaretz] journalist Gideon Levy. Abu Rob told "Toby" that the Holocaust is "a lie. I don't believe it."
The senior Fatah commander Jibril Rajob also opened his door after he heard about the book that "Toby" planned to publish and told him: "Israel is racist and fascist, it will be isolated like South Africa." Rajoub's close confidantes whispered to Tenenbaum "We are all German, but the only problem is that that we know that General Rommel did not succeed in coming here."
Tenenbaum's book Catch the Jew will be published this week, and he will then not be accepted as a prodigal son in the Palestinian Authority once his cover is blown.
Yad Vashem reacted: "Yad Vashem is careful that the subject of the Holocaust will be presented in detachment from any political agenda. Itamar Shapira was employed in the past as a guide in Yad Vashem and was not careful about these norms, and therefore it was decided about five years ago to terminate him [after he had worked there for three and a half years! CiJ]. Today, we allow outside guides, but we are considering changing this policy."
From B'Tselem the following reaction was received: "B'Tselem condemns any expression of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. The matter will be clarified with the investigator with the full necessary seriousness." Journalist Gideon Levy added: "I traveled to the territories a number of times over the course of the years with Atef Abu Rob. I never conducted political discussions with him and I am not aware of his views. I very much hope that Holocaust denial is not one of them.
Anyone still want to argue that anti-Zionism isn't anti-Semitism? Think about that, Leftist American and European Jews.
Israel Radio broadcaster blasted for saying there won't be peace
Israel Television and Radio reporter Oded Shachar opened his Hakol
Diburim program on 21.7.2014 on Israel Radio Reshet Bet with a short
commentary that there will never be peace. As I have noted in the past, Israel Radio is extremely Leftist. Later in the program he read
the angry responses received by the station. Responding to the
critics, Shachar says he would be willing to give up even on access to
the Western Wall if that's what it took to have peace - but nothing will
get Israel peace.
Let's go to the audio tape (sorry - Hebrew only).
As I have related many times on this blog, seven years or so ago, I heard David Horovitz speak at a synagogue
outside Boston. After the program ended, I went up and introduced
myself. He was already familiar with my blog. I told him that I had no
hope that there would ever be peace with the 'Palestinians.' He told me
that he could not live in Israel if he felt like I feel. I wonder if David and other moderates like him are still hopeful, and what they will do about it if they are not.
In a piece in Haaretz which is thus far only out in Hebrew, Shlomo Avineri, an icon of the Israeli Left (no, that's not him in the picture - it's our main Leftist dufus), tells readers, "We were incredibly stupid.... We thought they wanted a state, and a two-state solution, but it turns out that they want to destroy Israel, because they cannot/will not accept any form of Jewish national self-determination." As my kids like to say at such times "Boker Tov Eliyahu" (Good morning Elijah).
Of course, Avineri reaches the wrong conclusion (he calls for a redeployment of IDF forces in Judea and Samaria, removing the remainder of the blockade on Gaza, and a thinning of the civilian population by paying Jewish residents to leave Judea and Samaria), but the mea culpa with respect to Oslo and the 'Palestinians' intentions is fascinating.
I have the entire article in Hebrew (it was sent to me by email). I'm translating the key paragraphs below:
The initiators of Oslo and the process' supporters saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a conflict between two national movements, and believed - as I believed - that in direct negotiations between Israel and the PLO, a solution could be found to the territorial and strategic issues that are the source of the dispute between the two movements. It was not simple to persuade Israelis - and even the Labor party - that there was a national movement on the other side, and that although it had terrorist aspects, at heart it is entitled to fulfill its independent national self-definition, just like Zionism. The viewpoints of Golda Meir on the subject ("there is no Palestinian nation") have not been forgotten, and the fact that the initiators of Oslo managed to overcome this tradition of denial, to which even the Labor party was a partner, was an accomplishment.
But the basis of this concept had a mistake. All of those who supported the Oslo process believed that we were talking about a dispute between two national movements, and that the other side felt the same way.
We were mistaken.
The Palestinian side does not believe that we are talking about a dispute between two national movements: It believes that we are talking about a dispute between one national movement - the Palestinian - and a colonial imperialistic entity that will eventually die off. Therefore, the parallel that appears in the Palestinian textbooks is Algeria. It isn't the Israeli presence on the West Bank that is Algeria, but rather the entire Israel is Algeria, and the Israelis will disappear one way or the other, just like the French settlers were expelled from Algeria.
This is the reason why the Palestinian title for the two-state solution is different than the Israeli version. The Israeli stance talks about "two states for two peoples" but in the Palestinian version the phrase "for two peoples" does not appear. It only talks about "two states." If someone thinks that this is just poor phrasing, he should ask his Palestinian counterpart to express an opinion about the "two states for two peoples" version and he will sooner or later get the answer that there is no Jewish people. This is also the reason why the Palestinians refused the version suggested by [John] Kerry "an agreement between two nation states."
The truth is - and every Oslo supporter must recognize it - that in the Palestinian narrative, the Jews are not a people or a nation, but only a religious group, and therefore they are not entitled to a state. This is also the reason for the across-the-board and uncompromising opposition of the Palestinian side to recognizing the State of Israel as the State of the Jewish People. Even those who believe that Benjamin Netanyahu raised the topic only to complicate the negotiations, must contend with the fact that the Palestinian refusal to contend with the topic derives from the simple reason that the Palestinians believe that there is no Jewish people.
The source of the dispute is not borders, settlements or even Jerusalem. And of course, this is connected to the Palestinian refusal to waive the principle of the right of return. There are good reasons to criticize the Netanyahu government's behavior during US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to revive the negotiations, but to ignore these deep-seeded views constitutes a lack of intellectual honesty.
The 'settlers' council' has filed a police complaint for incitement against Leftist icon Amos Oz after Oz referred to 'hilltop youth' as neo-Nazis. They expect Oz to be arrested 'within hours' as happened earlier this week to a Yitzhar woman who advocated throwing stones at Arabs and IDF soldiers. Somehow, I don't think Oz will be arrested....
Representatives of the Binyamin and Samaria Residents Council filed a
complaint with the Israel Police against Amos Oz on Sunday, following
the author's comments that "hilltop youth" were "neo-Nazis", Channel 2
reported.
"The writer's words are serious incitement to racial hatred, and for
that he deserves the Nobel Prize in racism," said the Council.
Executive Director Sagi Keisler said that he expects that police will arrest Oz in the coming hours.
"Following the precedent of Eliraz Fein from Yitzhar,
who wrote similarly unsavory things in the settlement's internal forum
and was arrested immediately afterwards, the police can't ignore the
writer's grave incitement," he said.
Fein was arrested last week after she published a statement
online reading “I am in favor of throwing rocks (at Jews, in terms of
Arabs there of course isn’t any question), even in a situation where
the rock kills a soldier!!!”
Former Labor MK excluded from 'Peace Now' conference because she opposes delegitimizing Israel
Former Labor party MK Einat Wilf was uninvited from a 'Peace Now' conference because in addition to supporting 'territorial compromise' with the 'Palestinians' she also opposes delegitimizing Israel.
Several
weeks ago I was approached by Peace Now to speak at their annual
conference on a panel discussing whether international pressure on
Israel is necessary to promote peace. I was specifically told that my
point of view (which opposes such pressure and certainly the domestic
efforts to invite it) would be very appreciated in this discussion.
Yesterday, I received a call from the head of Peace
Now disinviting me. Even though Yariv Oppenheimer noted that he
personally did not want to disinvite me, he was outnumbered within his
own organization. The reason, he explained, was due to the fact I am a
member of the International Advisory Council of NGO Monitor (along with
other “human rights offenders” such as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie
Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz). Putting aside the way in which dogmatic
thinking seems to blind people to the importance of good manners, and
the inability of those who preach tolerance to hear a point of view that
is not their own, I am issuing the following response:
"If the
Israeli Left has no place for those who support a two-state solution
and who also wage battle against those who seek to delegitimize Israel,
it will not return to lead the country. Leadership is not built through
self-flagellation. Defending Israel and Zionism can and should be part
of supporting peace and a two state solution. Israel is under attack for
its very legitimacy and the human-rights discourse serves various
groups to undermine the foundational idea of Zionism that the Jewish
People have a right to a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland. If
people, whose work for human rights is indisputable such as Elie Wiesel
and Alan Dershowitz, find it proper to fight against the demonization
of Israel, then I am proud to wage this battle with them."
So is Israel's suicidal Left intolerant or is its intolerant Left suicidal? Anyway, kudos to Wilf for having a brain unlike most of her colleagues on the Left.
“Two days ago a girl was shot or stabbed. That is
not the topic of discussion for today. Four Palestinians were killed in
Kalandiya, too,” Abbas stated.
“We should all condemn murder and
bloodshed of innocents.”
Sounds just like Arafat, doesn't he? But that's not all there is to this story.
Only nine Labor MKs and Hatnua’s David Tsur of
the Knesset Caucus to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict – led by MK Hilik Bar
(Labor) and sponsored by pro-peace NGO One Voice – traveled to Ramallah to meet
Abbas in a conference room featuring a large portrait of Yasser Arafat and a
mural of the Temple Mount.
Several Palestinian officials, including PLO
executive committee secretary Yasser Abed Rabbo and Palestinian Committee for
Interaction with Israeli Society chairman Muhammad Madani, attended the
event.
The PA did not return the caucus’s gesture and hang an Israeli
flag in the Mukata even though a Palestinian flag was hung in the Knesset when
officials visited in July. At the time, Madani said that it would be “logical”
to hang an Israeli flag in the Mukata for the MKs’ visit.
Abbas thanked the MKs for visiting,
saying that meeting Israeli and Jewish leaders helps spread a message of
peace.
You will recall that my friends at LATMA were forced to shut down because of budget issues. Now, they may get a new lease on life because Israel's publicly financed Leftist media has overstepped its boundaries.
LATMA seemed to be in perpetual negotiation with Channels 1 and 2 for a position on the air. Now Channel 1 may have no choice but to broadcast LATMA because it broadcast something that broke all the rules of media bias in public broadcasting.
A new ad for a parody program on Israel Channel One has rightwing
Israelis up in arms. The ad connects the Israeli right in general with
Yigal Amir, who is serving a life sentence after being convicted of
murdering Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin in 1995, and with Baruch
Goldstein, who killed 29 Arabs at the Machpelah Cave in 1994.
The ad shows men dressed up as Amir and Goldstein, and a third man
portrayed as Yona Avrushmi, who threw a hand grenade into a crowd during
1983 rally, killing 36-year old activist Emil Grunzweig. The three are
seen dancing and singing, with lyrics roughly translated as “sometimes I
am a hero and sometimes I am a murderer. Sometimes I am an assassin and
sometimes I am a slaughterer. But no matter what, I am always a right
wing murderer.”
Channel One is the television station of the state-run
Israel Broadcasting Authority. Each year, Israelis who own a television
set must by law pay a hefty fee to finance public broadcasts; the law
allows the IBA to seize property and freeze bank accounts in order to
force Israelis to pay their bill.
As a public broadcaster, the IBA must follow a very precise set of
rules and regulations to ensure that it provides an outlet for all
segments of the population, and to ensure that all points of view are
represented. Recently, for example, the IBA refused to air satirical
pieces produced by the Latma group, claiming that it would be unfair to
show one point of view in satire – that of the right-leaning Latma group
– without having a leftwing counterbalance.
In this case, however, there was no balance for the anti-right
message of the commercial, and no right-wing program or satire is
scheduled to air in the near future to balance the satirical left-wing
content the IBA is presenting.
Zelig Rabinovich, a senior aide to the Director-General of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), told Arutz Sheva, Sunday, that the authority is considering broadcasting the right-wing satire Latma, which otherwise stands to disappear for lack of funds. Rabinovich said the authority would broadcast a satire called Hayehudim Ba'im (The Jews Are Coming), although a sketch portraying right-wing murderers would be pulled as was a promo for the sketch, following a report by Arutz Sheva.
In addition, following contact by Member of Knesset Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi-Jewish Home-New National Religious Party) to Communications Minister Gil'ad Erdan and the IBA, the authority is seeking clarifications about the video, in which three men sing and dance as Yigal Amir - convicted assassin of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yona Avrushmi - convicted of killing Emil Grunzweig by throwing a grenade at a Peace Now rally, and Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Muslims in the Me'arat Hamachpelah Cave of the Patriarchs.
I searched in vain for that anti-Right sketch on YouTube and elsewhere. If anyone has it, please send it by email.
Of course: Israel is to blame for civil war in Syria says....
One thing that has most Israelis breathing a sigh of relief these days is the fact that Ehud Barak did not succeed in giving Syria the Golan Heights in the late 1990's. It was close. The dispute came down to a narrow strip of land on the eastern side of the Kinneret, which prevented the deal from happening.
But not all Israelis are happy that the deal didn't happen. Take, for instance, uber-Leftist columnist Shimon Shiffer of Yedioth Aharonoth. Please, take him....
Despite
all of what has been described above, there are some wise Israelis who
have already decided that Israel is the culprit. One of them is Yedioth
Ahronoth analyst Shimon Shiffer, whose column on Sunday defended U.S.
President Barack Obama's wavering on Syria and continued deliberations
on the matter. Towards the end of the column, Shiffer inserted a passage
that matches the rhetoric of those advocating territorial concessions,
the same people who have until recently wanted Israel to hand the Golan
Heights over to the Assad family, who would in turn provide for Israel's
security needs.
"I dare to assume,"
Shiffer wrote, "that had the two parties [Israel and Syria] reached an
accord, we would not have witnessed this civil war, whose outcome is
anyone's guess." Eureka! The Syrian conflict is Israel's fault.
Why didn't we pursue
the path Shiffer and his friends had advocated? Why didn't we let the
Golan Heights come under the control of the Assad family and forsake our
security? Had a deal been signed with Assad, the bloody encounters
would have take place right above the Sea of Galilee; no Israeli/Jewish
community would have been safe. Pro-Syrian sleeper cells would become
active, too. This is all just common sense.
But the Left's orthodoxy is still
wedded to the dogma that the conflict with our enemies is mainly about
territory. There are still many among us who accept this folly; they are
awarded airtime and column inches. Jews have always had a knack for
being the devil's advocate.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
I'm passing on verbatim an email I just received from Dan Friedman in New York. Dan has added his own comment at the top.
[The notion that “American pressure” motivates Israel’s many strategic blunders may have held water 25 years ago, but now it’s just a convenient excuse that serves the purpose of various parties in Israel and the Diaspora, on the Left and on the Right. Today, “Friends of Israel” in the USA and elsewhere need to stop patronizing the Jewish state and start treating her like a country strong and smart enough to determine its destiny. In short, a nation which has its own fate in its own hands. What got me to thinking about this was an email from an Israeli I know that just landed in my mail: df]
Israel is NOT different from Sri Lanka as a sovereign state. The fact that we allowed cowards, traitors, liars and associated murderers of Jews in "partnership" de facto with the enemy, is the reason of our predicament.
We have a military...ahem... that can only attack Jews. Pray tell about ONE definitive military operation WON irreversibly by the "idf' since Oslo.
If that is not bad enough they support the release of murderers of Jews. Destroy Jewish farms, homes and detain w/o cause hundreds of Jews.
NO one in the general staff is a true soldier. All are carefully selected political generals working for the unJews. And closely guided by foreign powers in particular their controllers in the US.
Rubber bullets? foam rubber bullets? paint balls?, white paint loaded tank ordnance?
Boulder bombings? Empty shed bombings?
The garbage has found thousands of reasons to allow Iran to advance.
Egypt's military correctly assessed and acted and very much dumped the US at that.
The Jewish people must either grow some or call it a day.
In a few hours we will see what is arguably the most resounding slap against the Jewish people by filthy cowards traitors starting from Peres and Netanyahu and down the line to all the ministeres and Ya'alon and his deviant pseudo generals in and out of uniform in particular.
Only mental basket cases would allow that filth to send our kids as soldiers to risk their lives to detain islamic monsters. And then calmly observe the degenerates up there releasing the murderers by the thousands and educating them in the interim. Only idiots would accede to that.
And you thought President Hussein Obama was a pompous ass. Meet his Secretary of State, John FN Kerry. Kerry is warning American Jewry that the next few days - in which he is seeking to renew 'negotiations' between Israel and the 'Palestinians' that have been suspended for most of President Hussein Obama's presidency - will determine the fate of the Middle East for 'decades.' Really? (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
The coming days will be crucial for both Israelis and Palestinians, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday, warning against the dire implications of failing to reach a two-state solution.
In a speech to the American Jewish Committee, Kerry stressed to a strongly pro-Israel crowd the need for urgent progress on a peace deal ending more than six decades of conflict, providing Israel with regional security and the Palestinians with their long-sought independent state.
"If
we do not succeed now, we may not get another chance," Kerry said about
the peace process, describing it as "hardly a process at all" right
now. "I have heard all of the arguments for why it is too difficult to
end this conflict," he added. "Cynicism has never solved anything. It
has never given birth to a state, and it won't."
Kerry warned that
without a two-state solution, Israel will have to choose between its
Jewish and democratic nature. He also stressed the need to recognize the
fundamental aspirations of the Palestinian people.
In other words, Kerry has bought into the demographic lies perpetuated by Israel's Left and the 'Palestinians,' and is warning that the sky will fall unless we do something to separate from the 'Palestinians.' But the demographic lies are just that: lies. And even if they weren't lies, we aren't going to choose between being Jewish and 'democratic' if making that choice involves committing suicide.
Back to Kerry....
Those who believe the Israeli-Palestinian status quo is sustainable
and that the separation fence will bring security to Israel are "lulling
themselves into a delusion," the U.S. secretary of state said.
"The
absence of peace is perpetual conflict. ... We will find ourselves in a
negative spiral of responses and counter-responses that could literally
slam the door on a two-state solution," he said.
Well, yes, but who says that the 'two-state solution' is the only or the best solution? And why is leaving the status quo worse than committing suicide?
Kerry also warned that Israel would be isolated in the international
arena if the standstill continues. The Palestinians have already begun
considering opting for unilateral efforts at the United Nations, and if
they do so, they will garner more votes than they did last time, when
they sought – and achieved – non-member observer state status, he said.
Furthermore, the eruption of a protest movement in the West Bank would
result in greater deligitimization of Israel, said Kerry, cautioning
against the dire potential of what might happen if the Palestinian
Authority were to collapse.
And Obama and Kerry and Susan Rice and Samantha Power will do all they can to ensure that Israel is isolated in the international arena, because this is the 'most pro-Israel administration evah' and they must ensure that the recalcitrant child does the 'right thing.'
The 'Palestinians' continue to ensure that no negotiations will ever take place by insisting on preconditions that they know Israel cannot and will not ever meet. And Kerry encourages them by putting the onus for failure on Israel and making proclamations that are reminiscent of those made by a small item of poultry.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
