Thursday, the rabbi tries to defend himself (and fails miserably)
Greetings from Paris Charles De Gaulle where once again it is a travel day.
It was a crazy weekend, so I didn't get to post this, but on Thursday someone shared with me a long email received from Rabbi Neil Blumofe of Austin, Texas, trying to defend the itinerary for his 'even-handed' Israel trip that included a visit to the tomb of the father of terrorism.
The email is way too long to post in its entirety, but I want to post part of it and comment. The full email is embedded below.
In our tradition, we have intractable enemies. While we blot out Haman's
name on Purim, we do so as we articulate it. We must find allies and
must not retreat into absolute positions. To be present somewhere is not
to pay homage -- rather it is to say we are still here, reclaiming the
memories of those who Arafat and his followers murdered, and educating
others about the continuing dangers of his legacy. This tomb is a
propaganda tool that is used to shore up mindless support for our
dehumanization. In turn, not to discuss this stymies dialogue, which
leads to our peril. Let us not fall into this trap. To think otherwise
empowers our real enemies and continues to drive us apart, intensifying
our systemic, historical traumas.
Yes, the tomb is a propaganda tool, so why would you visit it? If you want to visit a place to prove the point that 'we are still here,' visit Auschwitz. Remind your congregants what happened when Jews had no place to flee, when there was no State of Israel, and when the British - in competition with France for the second biggest anti-Semites in Europe after the Germans - barred the doors to keep Arafat's uncle (the Mufti al-Husseini) happy. That's saying 'we're still here' - not visiting the tomb of a terrorist that you admit is a propaganda tool.
What dialogue is the rabbi afraid of 'stymieing' if he does not go to Arafat's tomb? Dialogue with the 'Palestinians'? Has the rabbi elected himself Prime Minister of Israel? Why is it that no Israeli government minister and no non-Arab Knesset member would dream of visiting Arafat's tomb except in an IDF tank? Maybe it's because nearly all Israelis - even the Left - understand that paying homage to Arafat, even if it would be 'identifying with the other,' would do precisely nothing to advance the 'peace process'?
Day after day, I speak to people who are concerned about the slackening
of support, and the growing difficulty of advocacy for Israel in our
charged, polarized political climate. We see the dangerous way that the
repugnant BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, and Sanction) movement has made
incursions on our college campuses and I applaud and support those on
these front lines, directly beating back these efforts that seek to
delegitimize Israel and dehumanize our Israeli brothers and sisters.
I'm glad to hear that. But if that's the case, why do you feel the need to cooperate with many of the groups that fund the BDS movement?
I believe that we must do something too. We must learn the language of
those with whom we disagree -- especially those with whom we most
profoundly disagree. We must see the narratives, symbols, and myths --
and question them. We must develop a more sophisticated, critical
understanding of the world around us, as opposed to reducing our
justified fears to an "us versus them" mentality. We must learn to think
for ourselves and not accept whatever we may read that encourages
embitterment and distance. We must learn to have more informed, examined
opinions and hear competing voices so we may be more fully confident
and present in our own story.
The problem is that the average Jew in America - and even many in Israel - have no idea what 'our own story' is. The very suggestion that the 'Palestinians' have an ancient connection to the land of Israel, or that their connection is anywhere near as longstanding as ours, is simply farcical. You've read Tanach. Do you believe it? Where were the 'Palestinians' during the time of the Tanach? Do you think it's acceptable for them to pretend that the Temples just didn't exist? You know they did. Are we obligated to listen to every narrative regardless of how ridiculous it is? Are we required to accord credibility to every narrative?
By the way, have you ever read Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial?
I am sorry that a proposed stop in an internal draft document has caused
such furor. While it was a point of conversation within a larger
itinerary, I certainly do not seek public controversy and upon
reflection, I see it as a misstep in what I was seeking to accomplish.
What I think the rabbi might have missed is that the stop was just one point - the most outrageous one and the easiest one around which to rally opposition - in a very problematic itinerary.
Here's the full email:
Tuesday the rabbi's congregants conducted a witch hunt?
Yehuda Kurtzer, director of the Shalom Hartman Institute in the United States, published a lengthy and whiny piece in the Times of Israel complaining about the 'witch hunts' that are allegedly being conducted against 'my friend and colleague Rabbi Neil Blumofe — a great rabbi, leader, and
lover of Zion — was brutally smeared and defamed due to a perfidious
interpretation of how he built the itinerary for a congregational trip
to Israel.' That's a story I covered here.
For those who have forgotten, Blumofe canceled the itinerary, and promised that a new one would be issued that would not include a stop at Arafat's grave. Kurtzer brushes over that:
Rabbi Blumofe has expressed his regret for the decision to have his
synagogue stop at Arafat’s grave, as well as for the circulating widely
of a complicated itinerary that — taken out of context — was
misrepresented as the manifestation of an insidious agenda. One could
well imagine an aggrieved congregant who trusted Rabbi Blumofe’s
character taking issue with some of the trip’s content, express the
grievance, and then bring about a positive change. Once the grievance is
translated into the public sphere, however, even the capacity to bring
about change on the issue begins to decline.
The problem is that while the congregant who publicly took issue with Blumofe chose to focus on the Arafat stop - the most outrageous item - there was plenty more on the itinerary that a true 'lover of Zion' would find objectionable. Look at the itinerary above, and tell me that it doesn't reek of a political agenda that doesn't reflect 'love of Zion.' Look at the 'extra' descriptions in the entries for June 8 and June 13. Note the lack of politics in the June 14 and 15 descriptions. Which sounds more like 'If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium'?
This evening, I received by email the following reply to the Kurtzer article from Sloan Rachmuth, one of the people who demolished an attempt by a rabbi in Raleigh, North Carolina to visit Arafat's tomb (covered originally here):
Rabbi K - why the rabbinical panicked hysteria in the face of communal opposition? Here you decry public objections to percieved rabbinical toʿevahs as "witch hunts." But in a marketplace of ideas this is called "opposition."
Opposition to these two rabbis occurred when they took a stand by publicly advertising (for money) a trip they had each planned, which included meeting with pro-Hammas groups topped off with a tribute to Arafat's grave to "understand his legacy." Our opposition to the actions of these two rabbis is not a withchunt, but a marketplace reaction best described by Newton's Law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
And this reaction did not happen overnight. Members in both the Norh carolina and Texas communities wrote letters and had persoanl meetings with these rabbis months before the media learned of these two controveries. We sought to understand why these rabbis would lead delegations from our states that clearly endorsed a pro-terror, anti-Israel message. The rabbis igored us, they refused to answer our questions on more than a dozen occasions.
Rabbi Solomon in Raleigh has now gone on the attack against us, publicly shaming us as haters and "right-wing extremists" and demands we shut up and stop asking questions about the trip. Rabbi Solomon recently implored the community in his shul to do whatever it takes to silence his opposition (us).
Was Rabbi Solomon's reaction here in Raleigh also a with hunt? Or opposition?
To great credit of Rabbis Solomon and Blumofe, they raise their voices in opposition to issues of civil righs violations here in the south. They both understand that they have a resposibility to raise their moral voices to the markeplace of ideas regarding racial justice and equality. These rabbis know that taking a stand has its rewards and, sometimes, opposition.
By taking the premeditated action to plan, promote, and now defend a trip with a pro-terror narrative while Israel and the world is seeing extremist terror first-hand; these two rabbis are experiencing opposition. Not a witch hunt.
In case you were wondering about Yehuda Kurtzer's pedigree... I asked. He is the son of former US Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer, who was twice called a Yehudon ('little Jew') a decade ago, and who had a lengthy history of interfering in Israel's internal affairs during his term here (same link).
My recent emails concerning
your activities, including planning a trip to Yasser Arafat’s tomb, have
started a conversation that I hope will produce good results for the
community.
As a Rabbi in Raleigh, you are in a position
of great influence to both the local Jewish community and our non-Jewish
neighbors. After the responses I have received, I know that I am one of
many people in the community that have concerns about your activities
that unfairly criticize the state of Israel.
You ask the
Jewish National Fund to adhere to the “Moses Standard” of transparency.
You write, “If Moses could ensure that all his financial records were
fully transparent, then we should expect nothing less from a Jewish
organization like the JNF which has held our people’s sacred trust for
over 100 years. Why should the JNF be afraid to share where our money
goes after it leaves the little blue box?” (Documents, page 59) Can we hold you to the same standard and ask for your response to the following questions?
What
purpose does your visit of Arafat’s tomb serve? What is Arafat’s
legacy? Why can’t you find time in a 10 day trip to visit Yad Vashem or
Har Herzl in Jerusalem when you plan on going to the Mahmoud Darwish
Museum? (Documents, page 16) A bonus question, who is Mahmoud Darwish
and why does he have a museum that you want to visit?
In
a related question on your itinerary, you write “Ascend the Temple
Mount for a tour of the precinct and have a question and answer session
with a local Muslim imam.” I see no mention of the Western Wall (Kotel),
the holiest site in the world for Jews. Do you plan to let your trip
participants pray at the Western Wall and possibly meet a local rabbi?
If not, why not?
How do you answer your own
question to the JNF, “Will my money strengthen Israel’s democracy and
civil society? Will it move us closer to peace?”
Are
you aware of the relationship between your tour operator, Mejdi, and
its links to pro-Hamas support groups such as Holy Land Trust? Reverend
Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, currently with Mejdi Tours, was a senior member of
the World Vision NGO. World Vision was just accused of funneling
millions of dollars to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Coincidence? (page 57)
My good friend Ronit Bart lives next to the border of Gaza. (see video) Over
the last 12 years their community has had to live with daily rocket
attacks and terror tunnels from terrorists that are trying to hurt her
and her family. What can the State of Israel do to these terrorists so
there will be peace? How have your actions helped with this effort?
As
someone who has lived in the Raleigh community for 32 years, I would
like nothing more than a cohesive Jewish community that works together
to guarantee a safe Israel and a good future for our children and
grandchildren in Israel, in the United States and ideally, everywhere in
the world.
I ask the community to review the information I have assembled
and come to their own conclusions. I also ask that the community
forward this email to friends and family who share my concern. I updated
the file with an article from The Washington Post (page 57) and your
request to the Jewish National Fund (page 59). In addition, the
previous two emails are included at the end.
Rabbi Solomon, I look forward to hearing from you directly and sharing your responses. I can be reached at raleighjew@gmail.com.
Sincerely, Steven Rosenberg
Through all of this, Steven is now a friend of a friend of a friend (someone I know who is from that area introduced me to someone on Facebook who knows him).
On Wednesday, Steven sent someone in New York, who has me on his mailing list, an email that he describes as "the most incredible letter of support yet!!"
And indeed it may well be. The writer of the letter below is RB, who "was born & raised in Raleigh. In fact, Beth Meyer Synagogue [Rabbi Solomon's synagogue] is named after her grandfather, Meyer Dworsky!" (I have redacted all email addresses from this email, but I have them all).
Dear Friends,
Please forgive the group email.
I am forwarding to you an email that I sent to the BMS Board and to
Rabbi Solomon. I want you to be aware of my decision to suspend my
affiliation with Beth Meyer. I regret that this decision will probably
affect how often we see each other, but it need not
mean that we'll stop being involved in each other's lives.
I love each of you.
R
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: RB
Date: Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 12:21 AM
Subject: Suspension of Affiliation with Beth Meyer Synagogue
To: Eric Lamb
Cc: Rabbi Eric Solomon
Dear Members of the Board of Trustees:
With deep sadness, I am notifying the BMS Board of Trustees of my
decision to suspend my affiliation with Beth Meyer Synagogue. I hope
that this decision will not be construed as an attack leveled against
the Board or any of Beth Meyer's rabbis because I am
truly grateful for the spiritual, educational, and social experiences
that were the consequence of membership in a thriving congregation led
by insightful, empathetic, energetic rabbis; gifted and giving lay
leaders, and an effective governing board.
So whence comes my decision to give up -- at this time --
my BMS membership?
Although I respect and admire Rabbi Solomon and
although, until recently, I have not been troubled by the gulf between
some of his viewpoints and mine, Rabbi Solomon's decision to
encourage Jews to sign up for a trip that includes a visit to Yasser
Arafat's grave altered my view of our differences.
Responding to
problematic situations, I typically engage in
on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand inner dialogues and exchanges.
There
are, however, times when I realize that, for me, there is only one
hand. My feelings about any Jew's visit to Arafat's grave are such that
I can say, without hesitation, "I object to this choice, and there is
no other hand."
Some connections survive upsetting circumstances; and without being a
member, I still expect to feel connected to the Beth Meyer congregation.
With hopes for peace and understanding,
RB
In the meantime, JTA, the voice of knee-jerk American 'Jewish' liberalism, reports that Truah, the organization to which Rabbi Solomon belongs, is making a habit of tours to Judea and Samaria led by Breaking the Silence.
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, which represents 1,800
North American rabbis and their constituents, and Breaking the Silence,
IDF veterans who speak out about their service in the West Bank and Gaza
and advocate against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, are
sponsoring “Go and See” trips for Jewish groups as part of their Israel
itineraries.
The aim is to “empower more American Jews to meet both Palestinians
and IDF veterans who have served in the territories, to listen deeply to
their narratives, and to bring these perspectives into working toward a
better future for Israelis and Palestinians,” according to a news
release Wednesday.
Breaking the Silence has often come under fire
in Israel from the political right and center for testimonies, some
published anonymously, that accuse the Israeli military of excessive
force and corruption.
T’ruah will facilitate the groups during and after the program with
the aim of engaging participants in Jewish learning related to the
issues, according to the release. Breaking the Silence staff will share
their perspectives on how the occupation affects Israelis and
Palestinians.
“Of the thousands of American Jews who travel to Israel each year,
only a tiny number visit Palestinian areas of the West Bank or hear from
Palestinians,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of T’ruah.
“Go and See” will help those who take part to see the “effects of the
ongoing occupation and understanding that it is damaging the lives and
souls of both Palestinians and Israelis,” said Yuli Novak, executive
director of Breaking the Silence.
The groups have already partnered on a trip to Hebron.
It is time - indeed it is long past time - for the Jewish community abroad to stop beating their breasts with guilt over the fact that we cannot reach a denouement with the 'Palestinians,' to awaken to the reality that we face here in Israel every day, and to take action to ensure the survival of the State of Israel rather than joining our enemies. Truah and its ilk will not ensure Jewish survival. We must take responsibility for doing so.
As to Rabbi Solomon, here's hoping that more of his congregants see the light.
Tuesday, the rabbi brought Breaking the Silence to his shul
You will recall that last week, I posted about a rabbi in Raleigh, North Carolina who is running a 'behind the scenes' tour of Israel designed to indoctrinate congregants with the 'Palestinian' narrative.
It has now come out that (a) the same rabbi took a group to meet Breaking the Silence (see more below on this organization) three weeks ago and (b) the rabbi's wife is the 'rabbi' at a local Hillel.
The following came to me by email.
As you know, Eric Solomon is running a rabidly anti-Israel,
pro-terror trip out of Beth Meyer in March that he's actually selling in
his
own shul.
New development: I learned that Eric and Jenny Solomon co-chaired a trip in Israel July 4th for Breaking the Silence with
the goal of bringing the movement to local communities. http://www.truah.org/rabbisday.html
This isn't J Street or Jewish Voice for Peace, Breaking
the Silence is the most virulently racist, anti-Semitic group
operating.
They have just openly accused Israeli Jews of poisoning the drinking
water of Arabs! Israel has identified this group as an enemy and has
taken actions to protect Israeli citizens and Jews abroad from their
harm.
Problem: Jenny Solomon is the new Rabbi at NC
Hillel. I interviewed her today and she told me her role was to
"educate, provide spiritual guidance, and shape the Jewish identity of
university students." Jenny also told me that she 100% supports
Breaking the Silence.
So we have 2 rabbis in multiple Jewish institutions
promoting anti-semetic, pro-terror education to children and adults
young and old. This is not an exaggeration - this is the situation.
Along with others, I am involved in coordinating an
international response including one from Israel. I ask you to please
alert everyone in the community about the situation. And, what can
be done here? Raleigh is now forming a response.
Eric is now trying to pretend he is pro-Israel to let this blow over but it won't go away.
J.
Sloan Rachmuth
For those who are not familiar with Breaking the Silence....
German University course: Israelis harvest 'Palestinian' organs
Those of you who thought that German anti-Semitism died in Hitler's bunker were sadly mistaken.
I am currently reading German reporter Tuvia 'Tobi' Tenenbaum's Catch the Jew, in which Tenenbaum, who grew up as an Israeli Haredi, poses as a German reporter to gain access to 'Palestinians' and self-hating Jews. One of the things that's striking about the book is how much of the 'Palestinians' day-to-day activities are financed by European government NGO's (yes, that's why we just adopted an NGO law), and how many of those NGO's are financed by Germans.
Why?
Because many Germans, including those in power, have never forgotten Hitler's aspirations. Here's more proof.
“Our sons were robbed of their organs,” was the title of a part of the
seminar’s course material, Rebecca Seidler, an academic who blew the
whistle on the anti-Israel material, told the weekly German-Jewish
newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine Zeitung in a Thursday article.
The paper reported that the University of Applied Sciences and Arts
(HAWK) offers a course on “The Social Situation of Youths in Palestine,”
which contains the allegedly anti-Semitic material.
After reviewing the content of the course, Seidler, who was
slated to conduct the seminar, complained to the university’s
management. The Dean of the faculty of Social Work and Health, Christa
Paulini, dismissed Seidler’s criticism in a telephone conversation as
being overly-sensitive.
Seidler told the JAZ that
material showed “a picture of a genocide on the Palestinians, an ethnic
cleansing as well as a complete disenfranchisement of Palestinians by
Israel.”
The seminar syllabus also covered the “victims of torture in Israeli prisons,” said Seidler. The JAZ wrote the seminar conveyed “anti-Semitic stereotypes.”
Jerusalem Post press queries to the HAWK media
department on Sunday were not immediately returned. The HAWK instructor
Ibtissam Köhler prepared the seminar material, which also contained an
anti-Israel essay from a right-wing extremist magazine titled “Compact.”
The seminar was slated for the semester 2015/2016. It is unclear how long the HAWK has conducted anti-Israel seminars.
The HAWK is located in Hildesheim, a small city in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany, with a population of nearly 100,000.
HAWK’s
president Christiane Dienel told the German wire service DPA on Friday
that an ethics commission examined the seminar and it in “no way
propagates anti-Semitic or anti-Israel content.”
JPost discovers 'exclusively' that only Left-wing NGO's receive money from foreign governments - UPDATED
JPost is shocked, just shocked, to discover that nearly all the NGO's being targeted by the new NGO transparency bill being debated in the Knesset are Leftist.
On Thursday, The Post exclusively obtained the list of NGOs
which show that 23 out of the 25 organizations are left-wing, with only
two being centrist or non-affiliated. There are no right-wing
organizations.
The Justice Ministry bill in question, which
returned to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on
Wednesday after passing a first reading in the plenum, requires any NGO
receiving more than half its funding from a foreign political entity
identify itself as such in any publications and any meetings with public
officials, and has been controversial because most of the organizations
under the bill’s purview were predicted to be left-wing. The list,
obtained on Thursday, confirms that that suspicion.
...
The organizations listed included, B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, the
Economic Cooperation Foundation, Yesh Din and The Public Committee
Against Torture in Israel. According to the Justice Ministry report,
Yesh Din, for example, receives NIS 4.7 million of its NIS 5.3 million
budget from foreign political entities. B’Tselem gets NIS 6.2 million of
its NIS 9 million budget from foreign sources as well.
On Wednesday, Nonprofits Registrar representative Yafit Shemer
told the Knesset committee that the legislation on transparency for
organizations getting most of their budgets from foreign governments
will affect 27 NGOs.
Committee chairman Nissan Slomiansky (Bayit
Yehudi) prohibited Shemer from presenting the list to the MKs, arguing
that he wants the bill to be “clean” of being drafted in a way that
would target specific NGOs, sparking vocal debate among lawmakers. The
Justice Ministry did not respond to requests for the list.
The reason the Left needs funding from foreign governments is because most Israelis have turned Right after the Oslo debacle, and will not support Leftist NGO's.
But don't worry. This bill will eventually go to the Supreme Court which will undoubtedly find an excuse to strike it down. Maybe then we can have a rational discussion about the balance of powers and the Supreme Court's dictatorship in this country. But probably not.
Funny how no one bothered to interview Professor Gerald Steinberg, the director of NGO Monitor and the country's leading expert on this issue, for this article.
UPDATE 4:31 PM
Professor Steinberg is quoted in an earlier article on this issue.
NGO Monitor President Prof. Gerald Steinberg said donations of more
than NIS 100m. per year from foreign governments “distort Israeli
democracy and dangerously damage its sovereignty.”
But this
should be mitigated by dialogue with lawmakers in Europe, many of whom
oppose their government’s donations to political organizations.
Of course, those European lawmakers seem to be having trouble stopping those contributions....
Oh and here is another interesting tidbit from that earlier article.
Also on Wednesday, the Knesset approved in a preliminary reading the
“V15 bill,” meant to make American- style Super PACs illegal. The
measure proposed by MK Yoav Kisch (Likud) would limit political
organizations’ ability to raise funds in an election year by making the
limitations on NGOs involved in elections similar to those on a
political party.
The legislation is nicknamed “V15” after an
organization that campaigned against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
in the last election using advanced data methods to target voters
door-to-door.
In an editorial in Sunday's editions, the Washington Post blasts a bill proposed by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) which would force disclosure of foreign government funding of Israeli NGO's.
The proposed law, introduced by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, was
approved by a cabinet committee Dec. 27 and sent to the Knesset, where
it faces additional debate and votes. It would apply to those
organizations that receive more than half their funding from “foreign government entities.”
The groups would be required to identify themselves as principally
funded from overseas in any public communications and in interactions
with government officials, and they would have to list the sources of
funding in reports. Members of the groups would also be required to wear
a special badge when present in the Knesset, with their name and the
name of the NGO. This is now a requirement of lobbyists. Violations could result in stiff fines.
Apparently the Post has never heard of a US law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This was lifted from a Facebook page.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted in 1938. FARA is a
disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign
principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic
public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as
well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those
activities. Disclosure of the required information facilitates
evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements
and activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign
agents. The FARA Registration Unit of the Counterintelligence and Export
Control Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) is
responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Act.
Most of the groups that would be forced to register in Israel are Leftist groups which are funded by foreign governments. The Post itself notes that most Rightist groups will not be affected because their foreign funding comes mostly from individuals.
The Post blinds itself to the difference between the pernicious influence of a foreign government which acts out of its own self-interest and those of an individual who in any event is unlikely to be an actor in foreign relations. Hopefully Israel's Knesset will be smart enough to ignore the Post and see the difference - just like Congress did nearly 80 years ago.
The bill is definitely not a danger to Israeli democracy.
Four Dutch NGO's - including the local branch of Oxfam - are laying off significant portions of their staff. But note where their activities are being cut back: In countries like Sudan and Rwanda where such activities are critical. Note where they're not being cut back: In 'Palestine' or 'Palestinian territories' where they're more political advocacy than humanitarian (Hat Tip: Mike P).
Minister Lilianne Ploumen of Foreign Trade and Development
Cooperation announced the cuts earlier this year. From January 1st 2016
the development aid organizations will be losing more than 80 percent of
their government subsidy, going from about 50 million euros per year to
between 7 and 15 million euros per year.
The Minister wants to limit subsidies to initiatives that helps
people in third world countries defend their rights – something she
calls “lobbying and advocacy”. She therefore largely stopped the subsidy
for normal development, such as helping small farmers in Africa break
into the local market. She called the cuts “painful”. But according to
Ploumen, the world has changed and the importance of official
development funds for the development of a country is decreasing. “It is
also no longer the only funding stream”, she said when she presented
the new policy, according to the Volkskrant. “Businesses now contribute
in many ways. The concept of development aid will eventually disappear.”
This translates into layoffs for the four large development aid
organizations. Hivos will be laying off 50 of its 145 employees at the
Dutch office, Oxfam Novib will be laying off about 75 of its 325,
Cordaid 69 of its 250 and Icco will lose 175 of its 350 employees. The
organizations will also stop funding to projects all over the world next
year. Hivos will be withdrawing support from, among others, a project
to stop female genital mutilation in Iraqi Kurdistan – a project that is
internationally regarded as successful. Icco is withdrawing from South
Africa, Colombia, Peru and Brazil. Oxfam Novib is stopping all
initiatives in Bangladesh, Rwanda, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
According to the four development aid organizations, focusing only on
lobbying and advocacy is a risky strategy. “You only have legitimacy to
lobby and advocate for something if you’re already active in the
place”, Marinus Verweij, director of Icco, said to the Volkskrant.
“Otherwise it is not credible.”
'Palestinians' to turn to International Criminal Court on Thursday
It's a travel day, so greetings to all of you from the airline lounge in Paris (France, not Texas).
There is supposed to be WiFi on my next flight, and if there is and I stay awake, there may be a few posts today.
The 'Palestinian Authority' (the state that claims it needs a state) is planning to take advantage of the incredibly biased 'investigation' into last summer's Gaza war that was released by the United Nations 'human rights council' on Tuesday by filing a complaint against Israel in the International Criminal Court on Thursday.
According to a senior Palestinian official, Palestinian Foreign
Minister Riyad al-Amliki will present the documents concerning the
results of the fighting in Gaza along with data on the damage caused by
the war, and the damage to the civilian population. He will
additionially provide information on settlement construction over the
past year, as well as the issue of the Palestinian prisoners held in
Israel, with an emphasis on administrative detention.
Since the signing of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court and Palestine's joining
the ICC in April, the Palestinian National Council has prepared
materials on a number of matters with the goal of presenting them to the
ICC, said the senior Palestinian official.
Last month, Fatah central committee member Mohammed Ashtayya told Haaretz that the Palestinian reports were comprehensive and detailed accounts of
Israel's contravention of international law and were intended to
provide the court with a sufficient basis on which to decide whether to
launch investigations.
The reports were compiled by a special committee
established at the beginning of the year to collate all the material
destined for the court. The committee was assisted by international
jurists and advisers.
The Palestinian position has received renewed
support as a result of the release of the Gaza report this week; and PA
officials have said they are being aided by lawyers who specialize in
international law, in order to prepare the documents for the ICC in
expectation that this will speed up the court's decision to open an
investigation against Israel.
We can thank all the anti-Semitic European governments for funding the NGO's that issued this report.
Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the report's release, the 'Palestinians' have been directing their celebratory gunfire from Gaza at Israel....
Second reporter confirms AP ordered staff to shun Steinberg
A second reporter has now confirmed Matti Friedman's charges that the AP ordered its reporters not to interview or quote Professor Gerald Steinberg or NGO Monitor.
Response to the AP Ban on NGO Monitor and Prof. Steinberg
In a November 30 article published in The Atlantic (What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel), former AP journalist Matti Friedman states that, during his time at the AP Jerusalem bureau, reporters had explicit orders “to never quote [NGO Monitor] or its director… Gerald Steinberg. In my time as an AP writer moving through the local conflict, with its myriad lunatics, bigots, and killers, the only person I ever saw subjected to an interview ban was this professor.”
“Matti Friedman’s revelations regarding the efforts to censor NGO Monitor and me as its president are not entirely surprising,” said Professor Gerald Steinberg, president and founder of NGO Monitor. “Based on our experience in publishing detailed research on over 150 NGOs claiming to promote human rights and humanitarian objectives, we are aware of the intense efforts to maintain the NGO ‘halo effect’ and prevent critical debate. While the AP censorship was explicit, we have experienced similar silencing from other media platforms.”
Friedman also highlights the “ethical gray zone of ties between reporters and NGOs” in Israel, where journalists socializing in the same circles as NGO officials, seek employment with NGOs, and adapt to a journalistic culture in which NGOs “are to be quoted, not covered.”
This absence of critical analysis of political NGOs reinforces their biases and the lack of professional methodology. Friedman rightly criticizes, “one of the strangest aspects of coverage…namely, that while international organizations are among the most powerful actors in the Israel story, they are almost never reported on.”
Professor Steinberg continued: “When NGO Monitor was founded following the 2001 NGO Forum of the UN Durban conference, our primary objective was to open debate and provide accountability where none existed, develop systematic checks and balances, and ‘speak truth to NGO power.’ The importance of this mission has grown since then, as has the political influence of NGOs, as well as their funding and media impact, particularly in the Israeli context.”
Still haven't heard any spin on this from al-AP.
And I strongly suspect that most of the other mainstream media had similar 'rules.'
You wonder why the world hates us? Because they're told to hate us by the Leftist elites who run the media.
To make sense of most international journalism from Israel, it is
important first to understand that the news tells us far less about
Israel than about the people writing the news. Journalistic decisions
are made by people who exist in a particular social milieu, one which,
like most social groups, involves a certain uniformity of attitude,
behavior, and even dress (the fashion these days, for those interested,
is less vests with unnecessary pockets than shirts with unnecessary
buttons). These people know each other, meet regularly, exchange
information, and closely watch one another’s work. This helps explain
why a reader looking at articles written by the half-dozen biggest news
providers in the region on a particular day will find that though the
pieces are composed and edited by completely different people and
organizations, they tend to tell the same story.
The best insight into one of the key phenomena at play here comes not
from a local reporter but from the journalist and author Philip
Gourevitch. In Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa, Gourevitch wrote in 2010,
he was struck by the ethical gray zone of ties between reporters and
NGOs. “Too often the press represents humanitarians with unquestioning
admiration,” he observed in The New Yorker. “Why not seek to
keep them honest? Why should our coverage of them look so much like
their own self-representation in fund-raising appeals? Why should we (as
many photojournalists and print reporters do) work for humanitarian
agencies between journalism jobs, helping them with their official
reports and institutional appeals, in a way that we would never consider
doing for corporations, political parties, or government agencies?”
This confusion is very much present in Israel and the Palestinian
territories, where foreign activists are a notable feature of the
landscape, and where international NGOs and numerous arms of the United
Nations are among the most powerful players, wielding billions of
dollars and employing many thousands of foreign and local employees.
Their SUVs dominate sections of East Jerusalem and their expense
accounts keep Ramallah afloat. They provide reporters with social
circles, romantic partners, and alternative employment—a fact that is
more important to reporters now than it has ever been, given the
disintegration of many newspapers and the shoestring nature of their
Internet successors.
In my time in the press corps, I learned that our relationship with
these groups was not journalistic. My colleagues and I did not, that is,
seek to analyze or criticize them. For many foreign journalists, these
were not targets but sources and friends—fellow members, in a sense, of
an informal alliance. This alliance consists of activists and
international staffers from the UN and the NGOs; the Western diplomatic
corps, particularly in East Jerusalem; and foreign reporters. (There is
also a local component, consisting of a small number of Israeli
human-rights activists who are themselves largely funded by European
governments, and Palestinian staffers from the Palestinian Authority,
the NGOs, and the UN.) Mingling occurs at places like the lovely
Oriental courtyard of the American Colony hotel in East Jerusalem, or at
parties held at the British Consulate’s rooftop pool. The dominant
characteristic of nearly all of these people is their transience. They
arrive from somewhere, spend a while living in a peculiar subculture of
expatriates, and then move on.
In these circles, in my experience, a distaste for Israel has come to be
something between an acceptable prejudice and a prerequisite for entry.
I don’t mean a critical approach to Israeli policies or to the
ham-fisted government currently in charge in this country, but a belief
that to some extent the Jews of Israel are a symbol of the world’s ills,
particularly those connected to nationalism, militarism, colonialism,
and racism—an idea quickly becoming one of the central elements of the
“progressive” Western zeitgeist, spreading from the European
left to American college campuses and intellectuals, including
journalists. In this social group, this sentiment is translated into
editorial decisions made by individual reporters and editors covering
Israel, and this, in turn, gives such thinking the means of mass
self-replication.
...
In the aftermath of the three-week Gaza war of 2008-2009, not yet
quite understanding the way things work, I spent a week or so writing a
story about NGOs like Human Rights Watch, whose work on Israel had just
been subject to an unusual public lashing in The New York Times by its own founder, Robert Bernstein. (The Middle East, he wrote,
“is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights
records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more
condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any
other country in the region.”) My article was gentle, all things
considered, beginning like this:
JERUSALEM (AP) _ The prickly relationship between Israel and its
critics in human rights organizations has escalated into an
unprecedented war of words as the fallout from Israel’s Gaza offensive
persists ten months after the fighting ended.
Editors killed the story.
Around this time, a Jerusalem-based group called NGO Monitor was
battling the international organizations condemning Israel after the
Gaza conflict, and though the group was very much a pro-Israel outfit
and by no means an objective observer, it could have offered some
partisan counterpoint in our articles to charges by NGOs that Israel had
committed “war crimes.” But the bureau’s explicit orders to reporters
were to never quote the group or its director, an American-born
professor named Gerald Steinberg. In my time as an AP writer moving
through the local conflict, with its myriad lunatics, bigots, and
killers, the only person I ever saw subjected to an interview ban was
this professor.
When the UN released its controversial Goldstone report on the Gaza
fighting, we at the bureau trumpeted its findings in dozens of articles,
though there was discussion even at the time of the report’s failure to
prove its central charge: that Israel had killed civilians on purpose.
(The director of Israel’s premier human-rights group, B’Tselem, who was
critical of the Israeli operation, told me at the time that this claim
was “a reach given the facts,” an evaluation that was eventually
seconded by the report’s author. “If I had known then what I know now,
the Goldstone Report would have been a different document,” Richard
Goldstone wrote in The Washington Post
in April 2011.) We understood that our job was not to look critically
at the UN report, or any such document, but to publicize it.
Decisions like these are hard to fathom if you believe the foreign
press corps’ role is to explain a complicated story to people far away.
But they make sense if you understand that journalists covering Israel
and the Palestinian territories often don’t see their role that way. The
radio and print journalist Mark Lavie, who has reported from the region
since 1972, was a colleague of mine at the AP, where he was an editor
in the Jerusalem bureau and then in Cairo until his retirement last
year. (It was Lavie who first learned of the Israeli peace offer of late
2008, and was ordered by his superiors to ignore the story.) An
Indiana-born Israeli of moderate politics, he had a long run in
journalism that included several wars and the first Palestinian
intifada, and found little reason to complain about the functioning of
the media.
But things changed in earnest in 2000, with the collapse of peace
efforts and the outbreak of the Second Intifada. Israel accepted
President Bill Clinton’s peace framework that fall and the Palestinians
rejected it, as Clinton made clear.
Nevertheless, Lavie recently told me, the bureau’s editorial line was
still that the conflict was Israel’s fault, and the Palestinians and the
Arab world were blameless. By the end of Lavie’s career, he was editing
Israel copy on the AP’s Middle East regional desk in Cairo, trying to
restore balance and context to stories he thought had little connection
to reality. In his words, he had gone from seeing himself as a proud
member of the international press corps to “the Jew-boy with his finger
in the dike.” He wrote a book, Broken Spring, about his front-row view of the Middle East’s descent into chaos, and retired disillusioned and angry.
Read the whole thing. And yes, he also explains the genesis of that picture at the top of this post.
45% tax on foreign donations to anti-Israel NGO's approved
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation has approved, by an 8-4 margin, a bill that would place a 45% tax on foreign donations to anti-Israel NGO's. The decision has been appealed by 'Justice Minister' Tzipi Livni, meaning that another vote in the committee will have to be taken. Bills that are approved by the Committee have a good chance to become law because they are presumably backed by the governing coalition.
The law is a joint initiative of MK Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) and
MK Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu) and its purpose is "reducing the
involvement of foreign political entities in Israeli democracy, which is
carried out through financial support to NGOs whose actions or goals
deviate grossly from the limits of democratic discourse," according to
the bill.
The bill, once enforced, will impose a 45% tax on foreign donations to seditious NGOs.
Groups affected by the tax would have to meet one of the following
criteria: calling for boycott, divestment, or sanctions (BDS) against
Israel or Israeli citizens; calling for the prosecution of Israeli
soldiers in international courts; denying that Israel is a Jewish
democratic state; incitement to racism; or supporting an armed struggle
by an enemy nation or terror organization against Israel.
Ronen Shoval, Chairman of grassroots Zionist student organization Im
Tirtzu, had sent a strong letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
urging him to support the law earlier this week.
In his letter, Shoval brought a quote from former Supreme Court
president Meir Shamgar, who expressed his displeasure regarding the
financing of NGOs by foreign countries. Shamgar stated in 2012, "I think
that support of political bodies by foreign governments is something
that should intimidate any person who believes in true democracy," and
called foreign funding for organizations that are meant to influence the
government "abnormal."
Shaked, who initiated the bill, stated that "it would be too easy to
take the bait and listen to statements which claim that this law
violates democracy in Israel."
"In fact, any person with healthy reasoning and a clear understanding
knows that the opposite is true. In a civilized, democratic country
there are choices which reflect the will of the people and portray,
through voters' decisions, the state's outlook," she continued. "It is
inconceivable that a minority of extremists who don't wish to give a
'mandate' to Israel, and participate in criminal acts of subversion
against the state by financial means from foreign benefactors, will also
receive tax breaks."
"Undermining the sovereignty of the government is tantamount to
failure to respect the will and decision of the people," Shaked
declared. "High taxes on foreign money to organizations that incite
against IDF soldiers and incite to racism are the minimum that the state
can and should do for itself."
Howls of protest coming from Washington, Brussels, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1....
Saudi paper blasts Israel for trying to help Syria refugees
I have done two posts recently about Israelis trying to help Syrian refugees in Jordan. Daniel Greenfield reports that a Saudi newspaper has blasted Israel for those efforts.
Syrian regime loyalists received a gift from Israeli TV
when the latter screened a short film about people labeled “activists”
who risk their lives by entering “hostile territory” in order to support
Syrian refugees.
This is more than enough for “patriots” who are out to protect Arab
rights to take advantage of the plight of Syrian refugees inside and
outside Syria in order to promote the conspiracy theory that attributes
the Syrian revolution to a Zionist/Western scheme.
Just as the column hints at the conspiracy theory that Israel really
supports Syria. Both sides in any Muslim conflict accuse the other of
being a Zionist/Western puppet.
There is a woman whose husband was attacked by Syrian
regime thugs and needs an urgent surgery or else would lose his
eyesight. When she knows that those offering her help are Israelis she
starts crying for she would rather have her husband lose his eyesight
than resort to this kind of help.
…
Is there a cheaper form of blackmail than offering to save a refugee’s eyesight provided that it is done in Israel?
Where else are Israelis supposed to arrange to provide eye surgery for Syrian refugees? Alaska?
In light of the situation in Syria, the volunteers have been working in
full cooperation with democratic secular Syrian groups that have
significant presence on the ground and deliver the organization’s aid to
specific places according to an agreed-on distribution map.
“We
started operating about three weeks following the start of the crisis,
even though back then we didn’t know the extent of the catastrophe yet,”
Yael told the Post.
Through
its activity, which is titled the “IL 4 Syrians” project, the
organization has delivered hundreds of tons of basic food; sanitation
items including soap, toothbrushes, women sanitation kits, toilet paper
and tissues; vital refugee items such as insulating material,
mattresses, blankets, iron sheets to build housing units and water
canteens; and 300,000 dry meals, each meant to feed five people for a
week.
The NGO also delivers emergency medical aid such as
medication, surgical supplies and field surgery tents, designed to
provide as sterile as possible an environment to perform operations.
In
addition, the Israeli team has provided post-trauma care for children
and women, and trained teenage boys to use digital cameras and satellite
transmitters to “take shots that the media will want to see,” while
teaching them to remain untraceable and out of danger.
“We
believe that if the US strike takes place, Assad will use more chemical
weapons,” Yael said. “We are currently fund-raising to purchase some
3,000 special protection kits for Syrian medical teams who work in field
hospitals and clinics in 14 different towns in Syria.”
While it operates undercover, the organization has encountered many challenges due to the difficult situation on the ground.
“The
Muslim Brotherhood there has been distributing aid at mosques, but
there are some people who for certain reasons are not permitted to enter
a mosque,” Yael explained. “The problem is that the Muslim Brotherhood
is fighting anybody who tries to distribute aid in other ways. Some of
the members of those Syrian democratic groups that we are in touch with
got kidnapped and beat up for that.”
Yael added that according to
her sources on the ground, the Assad regime has been cutting supplies
of water in regions affected by the use of chemical weapons. Water is
essential for people in those areas in order to rinse their bodies from
the chemicals, she said.
Since it was founded, the organization has carried out undercover
humanitarian activities in dozens of countries including Sudan,
Pakistan, Myanmar (Burma), Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Iraq.
Your tax dollars at work: US also funding radical Leftist Israeli NGO's
And you thought that it was only European governments that were using taxpayer money to fund radical Israeli NGO's. No. It turns out that the United States of Obama is also funding radical Leftist NGO's in Israel. This is Caroline Glick.
According to the report, in accordance with the NGO Transparency
Law which requires NGOs to report on donations received from foreign
governments, three Israeli NGOs received funding from the US.
Keshev,
a radical leftist "media watchdog" group run by some of Israel's most
outspoken, and radical journalists and writers received NIS 492,452 in
direct aid from the US government. To understand how subversive Keshev
is, it suffices to note that they criticized the Israeli media
for rushing to judgment about Fatah's unity deal with Hamas. That is,
the group the US supports believes we should not criticize Fatah for
joining forces with a genocidal jihadist movement committed to the
obliteration of Israel that is in cahoots with the Iranians.
Through
Catholic Relief Services,the US also gave NIS 220,304 to the
anti-Israel pressure group B'Tselem. The money was used to fund
B'Tselem's video project. B'tselem's video project involves the
distribution of video cameras to Palestinians to film snuff films that
portry Israelis as aggressive bullies who seek to harm the Palestinians
for no reason.
Finally, the US government donated NIS 15,474 through the Foundation for Middle East Peace to the far left internet outlet Social TV.
To a certain degree, Social TV can be -- and has been -- portrayed as
the anti-Zionist answer to Latma, the Hebrew-language media criticism
site that I run. But Latma is wholly funded by private contributors and
foundations.
It would have never occurred to
me to ask a foreign government to fund the project. It never would have
occurred to me to ask a foreign government to get into the media
watchdog game in Israel. But then, from reading the report it is clear
that the aim of the US government is not, in fact to help Israeli media
outlets do a better job reporting on events. Rather, the report
indicates that the US government has decided to use radical Israeli NGOs
to wage political warfare in Israel. The aim of this campaign is to
convince the public that Israel is to blame for the absence of peace
with our neighbors.
Yitzhak Santis reports on the curious silence of non-governmental organizations during the massive 'Palestinian' rocket fire that led up to Operation Pillar of Defense, followed by massive screaming once Israel responded. What's worse, each rocket from the 'Palestinians' that targeted civilians was a war crime, while each precisely targeted Israeli missile (the civilian to combatant kill ratio of less than 1 to 1 is pretty much unprecedented even in modern warfare) was a legitimate response under international law.
In the weeks prior to Operation Pillar of Defense, one such group, the
Oakland-based Jewish Voice for Peace, lost its voice when Hamas and
other terror groups were bombarding southern Israel. JVP was silent as 1
million Israelis were forced into shelters, as dozens were wounded, and
children were traumatized.
Only after the Israel Defense Forces responded was JVP’s laryngitis
cured. In record time, they created a section on their website called
“Take Action for Gaza” complete with links to anti-Israel protests
around the world (at the Nov. 16 San Francisco protest promoted on this
list, “peace activists” chanted “Zionist scum, your time has come”) and a
“Gaza protest toolkit.” The “toolkit” offers downloadable graphics with
slogans like “Another Jew Against Attacks on Civilians. Stop the Bombs.
Stop the Siege. Stop the Blank Check to the Israeli Military with U.S.
Tax Dollars.”
But JVP offers no slogans protesting Hamas war crimes against Israeli civilians.
In a further display of cynically exploiting moral values, JVP’s
official press release explicitly blames the Gaza crisis on Israel. Not
until the statement’s fourth sentence, without naming Hamas or any other
terror group, does JVP “also urge the end of rocket attacks from Gaza
into civilian communities in Israel.” Their statement also holds Israel
responsible “for the well-being and safety of Palestinian civilians in
Gaza.” But JVP fails to hold Hamas responsible for the safety of Israeli
civilians. Nor does JVP’s statement demand that Hamas protect Gazans
situated near weapons depots and launch sites deliberately placed by
Hamas in populated areas.
Amnesty International, which has a history of intense anti-Israeli
ideological bias, was also silent during the weeks of Hamas rocket
attacks. Like JVP, Amnesty released a statement only after the IDF
responded, condemning Israel for placing “civilians in Gaza and southern
Israel at grave risk by re-igniting the armed conflict there.” In this
warped and immoral logic, it is not Hamas that is guilty of war crimes,
but rather the IDF and Israeli officials who are defending their
citizens.
The pattern of silence in the face of Israeli civilian suffering, and
thunderous condemnation when Israel defends its citizens, is repeated
by dozens of other NGOs (primarily funded by the EU, European
governments, and in some cases, the New Israel Fund), such as the
Alternative Information Center, Oxfam International, Physicians for
Human Rights-Israel, Gisha, Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Medical
Aid for Palestinians, BADIL, Sabeel, and many more.
This is nothing new.
...
For these NGOs, the rights of millions of Israelis to live in security
are secondary to their program of undermining Israel’s right to defend
its citizens. In this way these NGOs act, whether by design or by
accident, as the de facto soft power arm for Hamas and its ilk.
But these NGO's are more than just silent. They are anti-Semitic, even if they cynically use the word 'Jewish' in their name. Here's a video of one of their demonstrations.
In this video, a large crowd of Far Left and
Muslim extremists was hyped up into hateful frenzy by anti-Semitic
speakers. A 62-year old man got kicked karate style in the abdomen just
because he was filming the event.
Jerrold Auerbach says it's unimaginable that President Obama will not veto the Kirk amendment, which would require the State Department to differentiate between 'Palestinian refugees' who actually left Israel during 1948-49 and others who currently have 'refugee' status. And if Obama had a line item veto, Auerbach would be right. But Kirk's amendment is part of the US foreign aid package, and in an election year, it is difficult but not impossible to believe that Obama would do something that would so blatantly place his sympathies in the 'Palestinian' camp. After all, Israel is much more popular among American voters than are the 'Palestinians.' Of course, the amendment would first have to make its way through Congress, including the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Other than that, however, this comment by Auerbach is spot on (Hat Tip: Ricky G).
The flip–side of Palestinian demographic distortion is the persistent claim that 5 million homeless “refugees,” scattered throughout the world, enjoy the right of return to their lost homeland (Israel). The United Nations Relief and Works Agency was established in 1948 to provide support for the 750,000 Palestinians (some 30,000 of whom are still living) who lost their homes during Israel’s war of independence in 1948 and either chose to leave or were forced out. It has fed Palestinian grievances by deciding that all 5 million descendants of the original refugees are also eligible for support, now amounting to $1.23 billion annually.
The State Department has long been complicit in this charade. Senator Kirk, a Republican of Illinois, recently inserted in the State Department funding bill an amendment to require the department to provide Congress with the number of Palestinians physically displaced from their homes in 1948, and the number of their descendants administered by UNRWA.
In a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides responded that Kirk’s “proposed amendment would be viewed around the world as the United States acting to prejudge and determine the outcome of this sensitive issue.” The last thing the State Department seems to want is for a decision about American aid to Palestinians, now $400 million annually, to be based on documented evidence of refugee status. This could be embarassing, especially when the Palestinian Authority spends more than $5 million monthly in American funding for the salaries it pays to 5,500 convicted and alleged terrorists imprisoned in Israel
The Kirk amendment has been approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee. But even if Congress ratifies it (unlikely) and President Obama does not veto it (unimaginable), final funding decisions will still rest with the UN.
Human rights organizations compete to provide aid to Palestinians living under Israeli “occupation.” The New Israel Fund, B’tselem, Peace Now, and the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, among an array of like-minded groups, would have many fewer causes to pursue – and to sustain their own organizations – if Palestinians were removed from their roster of victims. As Seth Frantzman wrote in the Jerusalem Post, “the occupation is their raison d’etre and without it they cannot exist.”
The Palestinian scam goes even deeper. Even if there is a State of Palestine, the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon recently acknowledged, Palestinians — including those living in refugee camps inside the new state — “are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.” Why not? Because they would then forfeit their “right of return” to Israel. “Even a [Palestinian] state accepted as a member of the United Nations,” he insisted, “is not the end of the conflict.”
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
