Israel Matzav

NY Times opinion writer to speak at fundraiser for Iranian government shill

Anti-Israel New York Times columnist Roger Cohen is going to be speaking at a fundraiser for the National Iranian American Council - the de facto representative of the Iranian regime in the United States. This is from the first link.

You are cordially invited to attend NIAC’s Bay Area Fundraiser on Saturday, November 15th (just 9 days before a potential U.S.-Iran nuclear deal!) featuring keynote addresses by Roger Cohen from the New York Times and Kamran Elahian, an entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Global Catalyst Partners and Bridge 2014.

We are in a crucial time in U.S.-Iran relations. With only days left to reach a nuclear deal with the six major powers, this is the time to be counted. Join us in standing up for diplomacy and peace. It’s the only way to avoid war – and to help create space for the pro-democracy and human rights movements in Iran.

In other news at the Times, opinion section editor Matt Seaton explains why the paper won't address 'Palestinian' racism. 

His comments were made in response to Tamar Sternthal, an analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) who sarcastically mocked Seaten after he posted a link to a Times column accusing Israel of racism.

She wrote, “no kidding! @nytopinion hasn’t devoted a piece to Israeli racism in a whole month!” to which Seaton replied: “it’s equal opportunity opinion over here; aim to give voice to all sides of a debate over time.” Sternthal then asked, “So we can expect two hit pieces in the next month about Palestinian racism?”

“Sure,” Seaton said, “soon as they have sovereign state to discriminate with. Meanwhile, expect piece from cabinet min. on why they won’t.”

Other Twitter users chimed into the conversation, with one asking if the New York Times will also refrain from covering ISIS militants because they also don’t have a sovereign state.

For those of you who still insist on getting your news from the Times, it's time to get another source.  They are hopelessly biased.

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Iranian nuclear threat, New York Times, Roger Cohen

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:14 PM 1 comments

A way to please Roger Cohen and the Neturei Karta

Both Roger Cohen and the Neturei Karta should be pleased. Iranian Jews came out on Tuesday to denounce Zionism and to demonstrate in favor of their country's pursuit of nuclear weapons. I'm sure they were (not) all there voluntarily....

Demonstrators held the Torah and banners with statements in English, Hebrew and Farsi in support of Iran's nuclear negotiators, and performed mass religious ceremonies, Iranian PressTV reported.

"Iranian monotheists are proud of supreme leader fatwa for prohibition of mass killing weapons," the banners read.

“We, the Iranian Jews, announce our full support for Iran’s negotiating team in the talks with the P5+1 and advise the other party to seize this opportunity,” a statement issued by the Jewish community in Iran read.

The statement added that the Iranian Jews "insist on standing by their Muslim brothers in defending the right to use peaceful nuclear energy for scientific and economic progress of Iran."
The statement also included a denouncement of Zionism, saying that it "has nothing to do with Judaism."

Isn't it amazing that they're free to demonstrate in Iran? (If you believe that, you are a useful idiot) 

Labels: anti-Zionism, Iranian nuclear threat, Neturei Karta, Roger Cohen

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:51 PM 0 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Wednesday, October 24.

1) Not responding
Earlier this week Lee Smith wrote America's 40 year embassy crisis. Ben Affleck's movie "Argo" about the Iranian takeover of the American embassy in Tehran prompted the article. In short, American diplomatic personnel have often been targets of hostile elements and America - under both Democratic and Republican presidents - has failed to respond. Here are a few examples from Smith's list:

• In February 1973, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Black September faction assassinated the U.S. Ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel, and Deputy Chief of Mission George Curtis Moore. The terrorists broke into the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, which was hosting a party, separated the Americans and a Belgian diplomat from the rest of the guests and demanded the release of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, and other Palestinians held in European and Israeli jails. When the Nixon Administration refused to negotiate, the Palestinians, according to one account, opened fire on their hostages, “from the floor upward, to prolong their agony of their victims by striking them first in the feet and legs, before administering the coup de grace.” ...
• In June 1976, a different Palestinian faction kidnapped the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Francis E. Meloy, Jr. along with Robert O. Waring, the U.S. economic counselor. When Soviet diplomats were taken in Beirut during the 15-year-long civil war, Moscow took swift and brutal action against the families of the kidnappers. But after Meloy and Waring’s bullet-riddled corpses were found dumped on the side of the road, Washington did nothing.
• In February 1979, under President Carter, the American Ambassador to Afghanistan Adolph Dubs was killed in an exchange of gunfire between Afghan security forces and the Muslim extremists who kidnapped him. Again, the Americans failed to respond in kind.

Similarly, yesterday Bret Stephens wrote about Iran's unrequited war:

Here's a list of the American victims of Iranian aggression: The 17 Americans killed in April 1983 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad Organization, later known as Hezbollah. The 241 U.S. servicemen killed by Islamic Jihad at the Marine barracks in Beirut on Oct. 23, 1983. Master Chief Robert Dean Stethem, beaten to death in June 1985 by a Hezbollah terrorist in Beirut aboard TWA flight 847. William Francis Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, tortured to death by Hezbollah that same month. Marine Col. William Higgins, taken hostage in 1988 while serving with U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and hanged by Hezbollah sometime later. The 19 U.S. Air Force personnel killed in June 1996 in the Khobar Towers bombing, for which several members of Saudi Hezbollah were indicted in U.S. federal court.
And then there are the thousands of U.S. troops killed by improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most lethal IEDs were manufactured in Iran for the purpose of killing Americans.
Let's also not forget the 52 American diplomats held hostage in Tehran for 444 days; the hostaging in Lebanon of Americans such as Thomas Sutherland and Terry Anderson; the de facto hostaging of American backpackers Sarah Shourd for 14 months and of her companions Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer for more than two years; the capricious imprisonment of Iranian-Americans visiting Iran such as Kian Tajbakhsh, Haleh Esfandiari and Roxana Saberi; the mysterious disappearance and apparent hostaging in 2007 of former FBI agent Robert Levinson; and the current imprisonment—under a suspended death sentence—of former U.S. Marine and defense contractor Amir Hekmati.

Both Smith and Stephens point out that the perpetrators of many instances of violence against Americans and American interests often goes without response. If those who attacked Americans and the countries or powers that harbored them, knew that there would definitely be a price to pay, they might be less inclined to attack in the first place.

2) Missing from the debate

A "news analysis" in the New York Times claims that Foreign Policy Debate’s Omissions Highlight Skewed Worldview. The article is mostly critical of the candidates for not discussing the issues that the writer, Steven Erlanger, deemed important. The problem is that he doesn't mention the moderator, Bob Schieffer, who chose which questions to ask thus shaping the debate. However the article, really was less about what was really important (and arguments could surely be made that many important issues were addressed superficially) but what was really important for Erlanger's worldview. For example, regarding the Middle East, Erlanger writes:

There was no mention, let alone discussion, of the role of Turkey or its dilemma as a Muslim nation sharing a border with Syria, no discussion of the aging royal family of Saudi Arabia and its sponsorship of radical and conservative Islam, no mention of Somalia or Islamist threats to allies like Jordan and Morocco. There was a glancing reference to the Palestinians, but no discussion of their divisions, of the role of Hamas, of the separate status of Gaza, of the weakening grip of Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement, of what might happen if and when Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, leaves the scene.
And there was no criticism of Israel, its settlements or its occupation of the West Bank. Mr. Romney did say that Mr. Obama had not visited Israel as president even after his 2009 visit to Cairo in which he pledged a new era in relations with the Muslim world.
Mr. Obama responded with descriptions of an earlier visit as a legislator, but Mr. Romney missed an opportunity to respond tartly, for even top Obama aides concede that failing to go quickly to Israel after Cairo to make a similar speech and then calling for a “settlement freeze” in East Jerusalem, instead of in the larger West Bank, were errors.

Note that for Erlanger the problem with Saudi Arabia is its support "of radical and conservative Islam" but doesn't use the same terms to describe Turkey. He mentions Hamas without mentioning its continued terror war against Israel.

Of course, Erlanger still thinks that the "occupation" needs to be criticized. Even here, he sort of defends the President from criticisms he's received for his condemnation of Israeli settlements by pointing out that Obama's aides agree that he shouldn't have focused on criticizing building in Jerusalem. (At the time of Vice President Biden's visit, the New York Times in its reporting and editorials was quite supportive of the President's making an issue of apartment building in Ramat Shlomo.)

Erlanger makes too much of the omissions. For better or worse, whichever candidate is elected in two weeks will deal with everything he needs to. Debates are shows to give us a sense of the candidates. This "news analysis" is simply a rant because issues that are important to the New York Times were not addressed in the way that editors and reporters of that paper would have liked them to be.

3) Just work with them

Writing with his usual blinders on, a few days ago Roger Cohen wrote Working with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Still, I would argue that the United States has made the right choice; that this new policy of engagement with even extreme currents of political Islam in the Middle East is salutary; that the model should be extended; and that indeed the Obama administration had little choice. To keep doing the same thing when it does not work is one definition of madness.
What is the alternative to supporting Morsi and the Brotherhood and urging them to be inclusive in the new Egypt? Well, the United States could cut them off and hope they fail — but I can think of no surer way to guarantee radicalization and aggravate the very tendencies the West wants to avoid as a poverty-stricken Egypt goes into an economic tailspin. The same would be true of any attempt to install the armed forces again, with the difference that there would also be bloodshed.
The United States tried Middle Eastern repression in the name of stability for decades: What it got was terrorism-breeding societies of frustrated Arabs under tyrants. (Mohammed Atta came from Cairo.) The Brotherhood narrowly won a free and fair election. If they fail, throw them out next time. That’s democracy.

Is it tyranny that bred terrorism? Is it poverty? (Mohammed Atta came from a solid middle class background.)  It is rather ideology. And it is the ideology espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood may be better at hiding its true beliefs and may have adulterated some beliefs in the pursuit of political power, but its extreme views are the views of the terrorists who have declared war on us.

Of course, if the Muslim Brotherhood actually adopted politically moderate positions despite their ideology, it would be worthwhile to engage them. But what if they are adopting or threatening to adopt positions at odds with American interests, why not cut them off? It wouldn't be because the United wanted them to fail, but because they chose to take American aid and then kick sand in our face.

One hallmark of democracy is a free press. President Morsi has shut down a number of media outlets he didn't like. Given its control of much of society and its organization, the Muslim Brotherhood really doesn't need to worry about the next election. With people like Roger Cohen apologizing for them (just as he did for the Iranian regime) it will make their suppression of democracy that much easier.

But there's another danger that the Muslim Brotherhood presents. Just after the Emir of Kuwait handed Hamas a major diplomatic victory by visiting Gaza, Hamas launched another round of attacks against Israel. Barry Rubin gives some context to this escalation:

There are two important factors in this latest offensive. First, the attacks from Hamas and the smaller groups it allows to operate from the Gaza Strip are increasing. Second, an emboldened Hamas is now more directly involved in these operations.
This trend is a direct result of the fact that Hamas now feels secure in that its Muslim Brotherhood allies are governing Egypt and allowing more, and apparently more advanced, military equipment to enter the Gaza Strip.
The danger is that as the Brotherhood consolidates power in Cairo and Hamas becomes even more confident it will at some point open a war against Israel. Such a conflict would bring even more Brotherhood-Hamas cooperation and such things as escalated attacks across the Egypt-Israel border and the entry of Egyptian volunteers into the fighting. An Egyptian army that has been purged by the Brotherhood regime will not pose an independent barrier to such a situation, which could lead to Cairo being dragged into war with Israel.

Cohen's thesis of the temperate nature of the Muslim Brotherhood were obsolete before the pixels were illuminated on the screen. Hamas's latest escalation is further proof of how asinine his analysis is.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Egypt, Hamas rockets, Iran, Iranian hostage crisis, Middle East Media Sampler, Mitt Romney, Muslim Brotherhood, New York Times, Roger Cohen, Soccer Dad

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:15 AM 1 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, August 17.

1) Unbalanced analysis

The New York Times has an editorial President Morsi's rebalancing act:

Much is obscure about Egyptian politics, but the new president seems to be shrewdly, and carefully, exploiting a militant attack on the Sinai Peninsula two weeks ago to assert civilian control. For months, the anatagonisms between the Army and Mr. Morsi’s party, the Muslim Brotherhood, seemed likely to keep the country roiled. The question now is whether Mr. Morsi’s adroit maneuverings will lead to a credible power-sharing deal acceptable to the Army, elected leaders and ordinary Egyptians that allows the country’s democratic transition to move forward.
Sixteen Egyptian soldiers were killed in the Sinai incident, which fueled criticism of the Army and gave Mr. Morsi an opening for change. He fired the leader of military intelligence and several other security chiefs. Then, on Sunday, he replaced Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who ran the post-Mubarak ruling military council, and his chief of staff. All signs point to a back-room deal with a younger generation of officers who appear to have tired of Field Marshal Tantawi and had also come to believe that the Army should focus on defending the country instead of competing with popularly elected leaders.

Despite a later reference to "heavy-handed tactics to restrict the media,"the editorial, on the whole, supports Morsi's efforts to consolidate power in his own hands.

Eric Trager, who actually knows something about Egypt, is less optimistic in Egypt's New President Moves against Democracy:

Based on the evidence to date, Egypt's president will use his expanded power to advance the Muslim Brotherhood's radically intolerant domestic agenda.
Consider the editors he appointed to lead Egypt's two largest state-run newspapers. The new editor of Al-Ahram is an old Mubarak regime hack who called last year's uprising "foreign funded" and lost his column in 2010 for writing anti-Christian articles. The new editor of Gomhoriya shut down a conference on religious freedoms in 2008 and called for the murder of a well-known Bahai activist in 2009. The new editor of Al-Akhbar recently censored an article that criticized the Brotherhood.
Meanwhile, Mr. Morsi's newly appointed defense minister, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, admitted that the military had subjected female activists to "virginity tests" in its brutal crackdown on Tahrir Square protests in March 2011. In its first major move against dissenters, the Morsi regime this month began prosecuting the editor of Al-Dustour, a private daily, for "harming the president through phrases and wording punishable by law."

Trager also predicts that this will adversely affect Egypt's relations towards the United States.

2) What Israel needs from American and why it might not get it

Ron Ben Yishai writes in Israel demands from Obama (via memeorandum) :

So what, according to the official, must the US do to prevent Israeli warplanes from taking off en route to Iran? First of all, Obama must repeat, publicly (at the UN General Assembly for instance), that the US will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and that Israel has a right to defend itself, independently. Jerusalem would view such a statement as a virtual commitment by the US to act, militarily if needed, and would likely cause Israel to reconsider the unilateral military option.
...
Israel is also demanding that Washington inform Iran that if significant progress in the negotiations with the P5+1 group (the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) is not made within the next two weeks, the talks will be suspended. The reason: As long as the negotiations persist, the Iranians will remain certain that they are immune to an attack or additional drastic economic measures and will continue to buy time in order to enrich uranium to a level of 20%. Israel has also suggested that the US present Iran with an ultimatum: Suspend the efforts to refine uranium to 20% during the negotiations, or we will quit the talks. We won’t negotiate while you advance towards nuclear "breakout" capability.
Israel is also urging the US and the European Union to increase the direct economic pressure on Iran. Government officials in Jerusalem have admitted that the sanctions are very effective, but they claim that the Iranian military nuclear program is advancing faster than the sanctions' "hourglass." Therefore, they assert, Washington must impose a complete boycott on countries and institutions that conduct business with Iran's central bank (such as India, Turkey and China) and cancel the exemptions given to countries such as South Korea and Japan, which are permitted to purchase oil from Tehran.

Lee Smith explains why Israel and the United States currently don't see eye to eye on Iran, or on other security issues in the Middle East, in the Israeli-American Divide:

Over the last six decades, the U.S.-Israel relationship has had less to do with the personal inclinations of American and Israeli leaders than with the particular events that have cemented the alliance. From the Cold War and the need to protect the vast energy resources flowing through the Persian Gulf, culminating with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the strategic realities of the Middle East have kept Israel and the United States tied at the hip. That’s changing.
For Israel, everything looks like a runaway trailer truck in the rear-view mirror. From the loss of Turkey as an ally, to the prospect of chemical weapons getting loose in the middle of Syria’s civil war, to say nothing of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, Israel sees nothing but one potential crisis after another.
That’s not so for the United States. From the point of view of the Obama Administration, the Middle East is much calmer than it has been in at least a decade. American troops are out of Iraq and on their way out of Afghanistan. What has Jerusalem on edge is, from Washington’s perspective, perfectly manageable. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is destined to be ousted without any U.S. investment; Turkey, though difficult to manage, is still a NATO ally; and it is going to be easier to deter and contain the Iranians than it was the Soviet Union. The current situation in Egypt is only the most striking illustration of the growing Israeli-American divide.

If Smith's analysis holds up, it would suggest that this divide would persist somewhat even if Romney wins the election in November.

3) Scratch that

In his Israel's Iran Itch, the alliterative Roger Cohen urges Prime Minister Netanyahu not to attack Iran unilaterally.

Netanyahu will accede to Cohen's request because:
a) Cohen is a well known intelligence expert who has concluded that Iran is nowhere near to developing a nuclear weapon
b) Cohen is a well known political expert who has concluded that political damage from such an attack would outweigh any possible benefits
c) Cohen is a well known military expert who has concluded that military damage from such an attack would outweigh any possible benefits
d) Cohen is known as a harsh critic of the Iranian regime and believes that such an attack would be counterproductive to the end of ousting that regime
e) Cohen is known as a staunch friend of Israel, who never criticizes Israel gratuitously
f) Cohen is a very good friend of Netanyahu and has the Prime Minister's ear on many important topics
g) Cohen is a top notch columnist for the New York Times with many knowledgeable sources, who is in possession of more relevant strategic information about Iran's nuclear capability than Netanyahu is
h) None of the above

Israeli newspapers are full of reports that home-front preparedness is inadequate. Only 53 percent of Israelis, they say, have gas masks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just appointed Avi Dichter, a former head of Shin Bet — the Israeli equivalent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation — as the new home-front minister to address these concerns.
Dichter, by the way, has joined a host of former security and intelligence chiefs in saying that for Israel to lead an offensive against Iran would be a “total mistake.”

Is it possible that Dichter has changed his mind and that's why he's joined the government. In any case, some of the former security and intelligence chiefs who have disagreed with the idea of striking at Iran, all also have axes to grind with Netanyahu.

Of course the reason Israel may be strengthening the home front is because of the increased volatility on its borders, including the fact that Syria's Assad, who possesses chemical weapons is being challenged and that the Sinai is increasingly becoming a hostile front against Israel. In addition since their wars with Israel in 2006 and 2009 respectively, Hezbollah and Hamas have greatly increased their ability to strike at Israel. In other words Israel is faced with plenty of threats on the home front even if it doesn't strike at Iran.

But for Cohen Israel must sit tight and rely on America.

Labels: Egypt, Egyptian army, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Middle East Media Sampler, Mohammed Morsy, P 5+1, Roger Cohen, Soccer Dad, US-Israel relationship

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:40 PM 1 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, February 14.

1) The Istanbul Process and Hamza Kashgari

The New York Times reported Saudi Writer Is Deported Over Posts on Prophet:

The journalist, Hamza Kashgari, had been detained by the Malaysian police since Thursday, when he was stopped at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at the request of the Saudi government. Mr. Kashgari, a newspaper columnist based in Jidda, had fled Saudi Arabia amid public outrage after he wrote about an imaginary meeting with the Prophet Muhammad in a series of posts on Twitter, according to news reports.
...
The Saudi king has reportedly called for his arrest, and many in the religiously conservative country have accused him of blasphemy, a capital offense in Saudi Arabia.
Muhammad Afiq Bin Mohamad Noor, the Malaysian lawyer hired by Mr. Kashgari’s family, said he obtained an interim court order from the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Sunday afternoon that would have prevented the authorities from deporting Mr. Kashgari. He only discovered later on Sunday, when he spoke to an immigration officer at the Kuala Lumpur airport, that Mr. Kashgari had already been deported on a private Saudi jet.

This incident - of a Saudi national who had escaped Saudi Arabia only to be extradited by a different Muslim nation - ought to raise questions as to why the United States is involved in the Istanbul Process, which would criminalize defamation of religion internationally. This question is even more serious, because it has been charged (and denied) that Interpol played a role in Kashgari's identification and capture.

Back in December, Nina Shea wrote about the problems with the Istanbul Process advocated by the OIC and apparently encouraged by the State Department. Among the problems was:

It offered a transnational venue for the OIC to reintroduce its anti-defamation push, just as the issue had been laid to rest at the United Nations. The administration erred in viewing resolution 16/18 as a meeting of minds between the OIC and America on freedoms of religion and speech.
In Istanbul, Clinton asserted that the United States does not want to see speech restrictions — but her conference announcement immediately reignited OIC demands for the West to punish anti-Islamic speech.
As the OIC reported it: “The upcoming [Washington] meetings . . . [will] help in enacting domestic laws for the countries involved in the issue, as well as formulating international laws preventing inciting hatred resulting from the continued defamation of religions.”

The end of this process would be an international regimen for prosecuting anyone who could be said to be defaming Islam. Think about the fatwa against Salman Rushdie with the force of international law behind it.

2) The bliss of ignorance

Roger Cohen has written an important column called the Dilemmas of Islamic Power:

Major American Islamic organizations, their agendas often supported by clueless liberal publications (like the increasingly unserious New York Times), have in general made uncritical defense of Islam — rather than constructive criticism — the cornerstone of their policies and viewed deviation from the ever-refreshed victimhood narrative as unacceptable dissent. A recent New York Times editorial called a film that was critical of extreme Islam, a "hateful film."

No, that is not what Cohen wrote. He wrote the Dilemmas of Jewish Power:

Yet, as Beinart chronicles, major American Jewish organizations, their agendas often swayed by a few wealthy donors (like the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson), have in general made uncritical defense of Israel — rather than constructive criticism — the cornerstone of their policies and viewed deviation from the ever-refreshed victimhood narrative as unacceptable dissent. He quotes Abraham Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League: “Israeli democracy should decide; American Jews should support.”

Except that much criticism of Israel is not constructive, as Cohen, in his ignorance demonstrates in subsequent paragraphs.

Such prescriptions worked for an embattled little Israel and a generation of Holocaust survivors; they fall short today. “In their support for a halt to settlement growth and their comfort with public criticism of Israeli policy,” Beinart writes, “the mass of American Jews are to the left of the organizations that speak in their name, organizations that almost always oppose U.S. pressure on Israeli leaders and blame the Palestinians almost exclusively for the lack of Middle East peace.”
Blaming Palestinians — for disunity, for grandstanding, for seeking not the 1967 lines but Israel’s disappearance — is easy enough, although increasingly an exercise in misrepresentation of the major Palestinian shifts under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
The blame game would, however, be far more credible if the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had shown the least interest in peace; it has not. Subsidized West Bank settlement expansion continues, a claim in concrete to the land Netanyahu calls Judea and Samaria.

Granted, the mistakes in these quoted paragraphs would not be known to someone who only reads the New York Times for news on the Middle East, so maybe Cohen could be forgiven for his ignorance. However, since he has such a major platform, he ought to have done a bit more research.

The mass of American Jews are not "to the left" of organizations speaking in their name. If they were J-Street wouldn't have been reduced to a political footnote three years after its founding.

A few days after another agreement Fatah / Hamas agreement relegating Salam Fayyad to irrelevance it is amazing that Cohen appeals to "major shifts" under Fayyad. True, the Fatah / Hamas agreement may not actually come to fruition, but it is a sign of Fayyad's marginalization and reflects that he really had no political base in the first place. Even now Barry Rubin points out that Fatah's official new Facebook page denies Israel's right to exist and praises terrorists.

Finally as Jackson Diehl has shown it is not Netanayhu but Abbas, who has systematically refused to abide by any American initiatives to further the peace process.

Beinart's thesis makes a lot of sense if one is ignorant about what is going on. But when the true story is known Beinart and Cohen are simply engaged in calumny against Israel and its supporters, especially Israel's Jewish supporters. It is they who embrace a hateful canard.

3) The attacks in India and Georgia

In Ha'aretz, Anshel Pfeffer suggests a reason why the Israeli embassies in India and Georgia were targeted (h/t Israel Matzav):

Hezbollah's and Iran's focus therefore has been centered on Israeli representations abroad. Attempts to attack targets in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and most recently Thailand were nipped in the bud through close cooperation between Israeli intelligence and the local security services. A Hezbollah cell operating in Western Europe was also apprehended last year before it could launch an operation. Two years ago, a shooting at cars carrying Israeli diplomats in Jordan resulted in no casualties.
There were multiple intelligence warnings of a pending attack - and the recent assassinations of nuclear scientists in Tehran and mysterious explosions at various Iranian installations only added impetus. The twin locations, India and Georgia, are countries where Israel has close relationships with the local political leaderships and especially with the defense establishments. They are also countries where the security forces are not in total control of wide regions and borders.

Jackson Diehl considers an aspect of India's relationship with Iran and concludes that the attack may be a sign of desperation:

According to news service reports, a man on a motorcycle stuck a bomb on the van of the wife of an Israeli military attache as she drove to pick up her children from school. Israeli reports said she was moderately injured by shrapnel, and several Indians in her van also suffered injuries.
Remarkably, the attack took place within a few hundred meters of the offices of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who just last week was resisting pressure from the United States to cut back on Indian purchases of Iranian oil. As Europe had applied an embargo on oil purchases, and even China has cut back, India has recently become Iran’s largest customer. It has even reportedly worked out barter arrangements to pay for continuing oil deliveries so that its banks are not exposed to U.S. sanctions.
Having suffered repeated major terrorist attacks by Islamic militants in recent years, India takes terrorism very seriously. It is unlikely to respond mildly if today’s attack can be traced to Iran or to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia which serves as Iran’s proxy in countries around the world.

Similarly, Terror Wonk sees the attack as a sign of diminished capabilities of Hezbollah:

The silver lining on this unfortunate event is that it is a further proof of Hezbollah’s loss of the ability to carry out long-range terror attacks. While it has been generally assumed the Hezbollah is one of the most capable terrorist groups this morning was its first successful operation outside of Lebanon since 1996. Hezbollah has certainly had the motivation to carry out major terror attacks, particularly to avenge the assassination of its operations chief, the arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh. In the past I have argued that extensive international intelligence efforts against Hezbollah have taken a heavy toll, restricting their ability to carry out complex attacks abroad.
While this morning’s attack was a tragedy it is a far cry from the devastating attacks Hezbollah launched in Argentina or against the Khobar Towers (or its initial attacks against the US Embassy and Marine Barracks in Lebanon.) Hezbollah has also assassinated its enemies, but the targets were carefully chosen – this morning’s attacks were more akin to targets of opportunity.
It is of course possible that Hezbollah was merely holding its fire, that these were shots across the bow rather then full-fledged strikes. But the fact that a revenge attack for the Mughniyeh killing has only come four years does little to suggest that Hezbollah has maintained its once formidable international network. None of this is to suggest, that Hezbollah as been defanged. The efforts needed to keep Hezbollah international terror capabilities in check are essential - if they were not present the organization would probably be able to resume high-level attacks.

4) Israeli aid for Syrians?

I was struck by this observation from Daniel Pipes:

My favorite statement summing up the past year's complexities: The IDF has prepared humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees in a buffer zone between Syrian- and Israeli-controlled territory, including thousands from the ruling Alawite sect, prompting Israel's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, to muse: "I am not sure all the Alawites will run toward Israel," but many will do so.

Then there was this fascinating clip on MEMRI:

Adnan Al-'Ar'our: Good people, this is shameful, by Allah. Good people, we don't want any weapons from you. All we want is for you to treat the wounded and open up your hospitals. Have your hearts become that cruel? Have you become such cowards? Open up your hospitals. Give us money to buy shrouds.
[…] Good people, there is an unwritten law with regard to treating the wounded. I think we should even appeal to Israel. Maybe that would be easier. Perhaps they would give us… If it is possible, we appeal to them to treat the wounded.
Interviewer: But would the Syrian army allow the wounded safe passage through the Golan?
Adnan Al-'Ar'our: Not, it would not.

Labels: Abu Mazen, freedom of religion, Georgia, Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, Hezbullah, India, Islam, Jewish, Middle East Media Sampler, Roger Cohen, Saudi Arabia, Soccer Dad, Syrian uprising

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:45 PM 1 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, December 6.

1) Home on the op-ed page

Roger Cohen weighs in on the recently aborted Israeli campaign designed to encourage yordim (Israeli expatriates) to return to Israel in Come Home to Israel. Observing that PM Netanyahu quickly pulled the campaign when confronted by Israeli diplomats, Cohen wonders:

My second reaction is that if Netanyahu could show a fraction of the nimbleness evident when American Jews are offended in instances where Turks are offended (by the killing of their citizens in international waters), or where President Barack Obama is offended (by ongoing settlement expansion in the West Bank against his express request), or where Egyptians are offended (by Israel’s dismissal of their democratic aspirations), then Israel would be in a better, less isolated place today.

Cohen's need to believe Israel is at fault is so strong he cites three examples which are true in the opinion pages of the New York Times, but not to those who are informed.

Claire Berlinski quoted an Israeli official on what prevented the agreement, which, according to a Turkish journalist was 95% complete. (h/t Elder of Ziyon):

Turkey, however, did not guarantee that "Turkish citizens and their legal representatives would not take legal action against Israel." It agreed to promise not to prosecute Israelis, but explained it could commit itself on behalf of private citizens in Turkey or abroad. This made some Israelis suspicious: what would happen if we endorsed the deal, and then had to face suits by members of the Turkish public, maybe even with covert assistance by the government? What guarantee did we have that the "deal" would actually end all claims and enable Israel and Turkey to reconcile and restart their relationship? This suspicion grew stronger in light of Turkey's insistence that the text should state that Israeli soldiers killed activists "intentionally." Why insist on this admission of guilt if not to enable legal action? As Gürsel himself says, this text which the Israeli government was supposed to approve was not completely agreed upon by Turkey, because they still wanted to include the intentionality wording. Even if the Israeli government had approved the draft, it would have left us with Turkish disavowal and discontent.
Another condition set forth by the Turks, and agreed to by Israel, was shelving the Palmer Report. Strange that Gürsel should say nothing of this, since he starts his discussion with the meaning of the Report to Turkey. The Turks were very keen on making the report disappear …
Finally, when it all came down to a discussion in the Israeli Cabinet, it wasn't just Lieberman who was reluctant to approve the whole package deal. Others, too, did not exactly trust Erdoğan, and raised doubts as to his real intentions: what would we get in return for the (indirect) apology, the compensations and the shelving of the report? Restoring ties with Ankara and an "end of conflict." But what if, after all was said and done, Erdoğan would claim that not all of his conditions were met? That Israel did not fulfill the requirements? All of a sudden, he speaks about lifting the siege on Gaza as a condition – but it was never mentioned in the negotiations nor in the draft! How easily it could have served as a pretext not to restore ties. And as for taking legal action against Israelis, well … With the intentionality clause still open, and with Turkey's non-commitment to stop private suits, and with the Palmer Report scrapped, where would it all lead us? Certainly not to an end of conflict, but rather to a further deterioration, with us in an inferior position.

In other words, Turkey was making last minute demands, something no rational negotiator would tolerate. The failure to come to an agreement was due to a last minute display of bad faith by Turkey, not to a lack of Israeli "nimbleness."

By the way, this account is consistent wit reporting in Cohen's paper, the New York Times. Back in August, Isabel Kershner reported:

The Israeli official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Turks kept adding conditions for a reconciliation, raising uncertainty in Mr. Netanyahu’s government over whether they were sincere and whether they would consider the case closed even if a deal were reached.

President Obama did indeed take offense at PM Netanyahu's actions, but Jackson Diehl shows that Netanyahu largely acquiesced to Obama's requests.

Though Netanyahu has recently allowed new settlement construction, it mostly has been in neighborhoods that Palestinian leders have already conceded will be part of Israel in a final settlement. This week he told his cabinet that West Bank outposts declared illegal by the Israeli Supreme Court would be uprooted.
In other words, Netanyahu has been an occasionally difficult but ultimately cooperative partner. He can be accused of moving too slowly and offering too little, but not of failing to heed American initiatives. And Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas? For nine of the ten months of the Israeli settlement moratorium he refused Obama’s appeals to begin negotiations; after two meetings, he returned to his intransigence. Rejecting a personal appeal from Obama, he took his bid for statehood to the United Nations, where he may yet force the United States to use its Security Council veto.

Finally it's not at clear that Egyptians are resentful of Israel due to Israel's insufficient enthusiasm for Egypt's democratic aspirations. Seth Frantzman recently wrote that historically, this just isn't true. Israel, in fact, has hoped for Arab democracy.

However, the historical reality diverges greatly from these claims. In his excellent 2002 book, "David Ben-Gurion, the State of Israel and the Arab World," Zakai Shalom shows that Israeli leadership in the early days of the state hoped that the Arab world would democratize. Ben-Gurion wrote in 1956 that "democratic government is not only government elections but government whose main concern is to provide for the people's basic needs. In nearly every one of the neighboring states a military dictatorship or juntas or federal government exists...The Egyptian people are in need of development, health and education. But a dictatorship that rules by military force, lacking the support and consent of the nation, cannot deal with these matters."
Ben-Gurion understood that Israel's most intractable enemies were the dictators, writing, "The King of Saudi Arabia declared his willingness to sacrifice ten million soldiers in the destruction of Israel. The Egyptian tyrant was somewhat more modest, he spoke of enlisting four million for this goal; for what are four million Egyptians in the eyes of this tyrant?"
Shalom writes that Ben-Gurion "rejected the claim that the absence of democracy in Arab countries should be considered as merely an ‘internal problem' of no import for Israel, for he believed that it held long-range implications for Arab foreign policy."

Israel's fear was not democracy, but that Islamists would take advantage of the vacuum of power, a fear, Barry Rubin notes, that has been realized.

Basically, nationalism has collapsed completely; liberalism is weak; moderate Muslims are few. Radical Islamism is the only game in town. Remember that. No alternative exists to an extremist, repressive, anti-Western, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian ideology. Thank you, President Obama and New York Times!
...the third largest party is the Egyptian bloc which consists mainly of the Free Egyptian Party along with smaller leftist and liberal parties and much of its vote comes from Christians, meaning that the proportion of Egyptian Muslims who voted for Islamist parties is even higher than it appears, say 80 percent by the end of the elections.
Where, you might ask, is the vaunted Facebook kids’ Justice Party and the supposed leader of the reformists, touted by the U.S. government as Egypt’s future leader, Muhammad ElBaradei? Answer: Nowhere.

On these three counts Cohen accepts the prevailing wisdom at the New York Times: Israel is at fault for its isolation. To be sure these pretexts allow Cohen (and his fellow travelers) to shed crocodile tears for the Israel he admires but no longer exists, but they are phony and easily refuted. Israel's nimbleness or lack of same is simply Cohen's excuse for bashing Israel.

While criticizing the ads, David Hazony writes that the reaction to the ads says more about the ads' and Israel's critics, than it says about Israel. I especially liked this:

Many American Jews have so little historical self-awareness, or cultural coherence, that they must express their outrage in places like the Atlantic and the Daily Beast, for fear that otherwise most Jews will not read them. What does that say about Jewish identity in America?

Related thoughts at Israel Matzav and Daled Amos.

2) Is Hezbollah strong or on the ropes?

Shoshana Bryen concludes in Lebanon: Hezbollah Digs In:

While the demise of the Assad regime in Syria would be a setback for the Islamic Republic – and is therefore much to be desired – nothing in Tehran's history indicates that it will allow its enormous investment in Hezbollah to dissipate at the same time. Underground, under cover, quiet and lethal, Hezbollah and its patron Iran are preparing for the next round – whether against Israel or against Lebanon.
Or both.

But Lee Smith recently wrote in Tablet, counter-intuitively, that Hezbollah is Fallible.

But the analysts have gotten it wrong on the bottom line. Though most experts and commentators are making this out to be bad for the CIA—and many current and former U.S. officials believe it is—it’s actually Hezbollah that comes out the big loser.
Hezbollah’s entire prestige is built on the idea that it is a highly disciplined organization that is nearly impossible to infiltrate. Indeed, Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah’s June speech announcing that Hezbollah had rolled up CIA assets was the party’s first public admission that it’d been compromised by hostile services. Hezbollah, said Nasrallah, had the “courage to confront the truth.”
The truth is that no matter how many American spies Hezbollah ultimately captured, being infiltrated by a hostile clandestine service is evidence of weakness. Moreover, as the Cold War showed, uncovering moles may result in tighter security measures, but the fact that they went unnoticed in the first place almost invariably demoralizes any organization built on loyalty and secrecy. In the 1960s and ’70s, paranoia crippled the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, after he became convinced that the agency had been penetrated by Soviet agents. In Hezbollah’s case, the damage will likely be worse, because this incident exposes the utter falsehood of the party of God’s divinely fashioned self-mythology.

Elliot Abrams points to another weakness of Hezbollah that seems to have been exposed:

What happened to those fiery words of yesteryear? Simple: the Syrian uprising. Nasrallah and Hezbollah will be among the great losers if the Assad regime is toppled, along with Iran and of course the Assad clan itself. Without Syrian support and the use of Syria for storage and the delivery of weaponry from Iran, Hezbollah will be weaker.

To be sure Hezbollah has amassed a frightening arsenal as Bryen has documented, but is it possible that a combination of factors has made it politically vulnerable?

3) But they're doing such a good job of it themselves

Richard Baehr offered a thorough rebuttal of Steve Sheffey's Jerusalem Post column at Israel Hayom, How dare you be Jewish and not vote for Obama?
Baehr followed the column up with one criticizing the administration's recent missteps regarding Israel, Three slaps and you're out?
Sheffey termed the criticism of the Obama administration's Middle East policies to be "delegitimizing" the President. Really, given this past weekend's gaffes, there's no need for outsiders to "delegitimize" the President for his handling of Middle East policy, his own administration is doing such a good job of it, with no external help.
Barry Rubin presents a definitive critique of the adminstration's approach to the Middle East in Obama’s Middle East Policy: A Unified Field Theory.

4) The woman in the Cobra

Israel Hayom profiles Maj. Maya in This woman's army:

She finished high school when she was 16 years and eight months old, and went to work in a shoe store until she joined the army. “I never dreamed of being a pilot. You have to remember that in the 1990s, girls in the pilots’ course were nothing but a dream. The first call-up order came, they started the sorting process, and asked me whether I wanted to go to the pilots’ course. Working with the machines, flying in the air, sounded interesting to me. I sent in an application. I said, ‘I will move ahead, stage by stage, and see what happens.’”
Her mother says that she signed the permission form allowing her daughter to enter the course with a great deal of fear and weeping. “I am the only child of parents who survived the Holocaust. Maya is also an only child. I could not sleep at night after I signed the form. During the course, I hoped that she would fail. That she would do everything she could to succeed, but that she would fail.”
Three hundred cadets started the course: 290 men and ten women. “I never believed I would graduate at any stage. It was a difficult two-year course, with physical and mental challenges. You have to be naive to think that you will be the one standing on the parade ground at the end, getting your wings. The right technique is to think about the next stage, not about the end.”

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Egypt, Hezbullah, IDF, Middle East Media Sampler, Roger Cohen, Roger Cohen's obsession with Israel, Soccer Dad, Turkey, Yordim

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:42 PM 0 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here is Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, September 6.

1) The Peter Principle in Palestine

Last week Khaled Abu Toameh wrote Failed Leaders Do Not Deserve to Become "Presidents" in which he lambastes Mahmoud Abbas for pursuing the unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) at the UN later this month. (There's a similarly themed article at Comment is Free by Mehdi Hasan. h/t Lynn)

The 76-year-old Abbas, however, is evidently not concerned about the consequences of his UN gamble.
So what if the Americans cut off more than $500 million in annual aid to the Palestinians?
Who cares if many of the Palestinians' friends in Europe are advising Abbas that his initiative would damage the peace process and further complicate the situation in the Middle East?
And who cares if even some Arab countries are opposed to the statehood plan? Just this week it was reported that Jordan's King Abdullah II had advised Abbas to reconsider the statehood bid out of fear that it would result in the loss of the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees.
Like the rest of the Arab regimes, the Jordanians are afraid that a Palestinian state would mean that millions of refugees living in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon would stay in these countries.The refugees do not want to go to a Palestinian state in the 1967 territories.They want to go back to Israel, and this is what the Palestinian Liberation Organization has been demanding. So if the PLO is gone, the refugees will not have anyone to represent their case.

That last paragraph makes me a little uncomfortable as is it sounds much like an argument that Hamas would make. Abu Toameh has followed up that article with another, Why Palestine Will Not Have Peaceful Relations with Israel

How can the Palestinians have diplomatic and peaceful relations with Israel when many are calling on Jordan and Egypt to close down the Israeli embassies in Amman and Cairo and expel the ambassadors?
The Palestinian Authority is now saying that after the UN vote on the proposed Palestinian state, it will start talking with Hamas and other groups about the need to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories.
But can anyone provide guarantees that Hamas, or a more radical group, would not win the vote? In January 2006, many Palestinian Authority officials and Western "experts" assured the Americans and Europeans that Hamas would never win the parliamentary election.
Abbas is well aware of the fact that the state that he is seeking from the UN will have jurisdiction only over those areas in the West Bank that are under his control today.

Both articles present the Palestinian diplomatic efforts in a much different light from the way they are portrayed in the mainstream media.

Jennifer Rubin makes an interesting observation at the end of a column yesterday regarding the Palmer report (h/t Love of the Land):

Not only is this an implicit repudiation of the premises of the Goldstone Report (which, in Operation Cast Lead, portrayed the Israelis as aggressors and Gazans as victims), but it is a powerful argument against granting the Palestinians their request for a declaration of statehood. The government of that new state is co-run by the very terrorists described in the flotilla report as waging war on Israel.
The United Nations is now going to reward Hamas with a declaration (albeit symbolic) that its unity government joins the “international community” of civilized nations? It’s of course preposterous. Neither the United Nations nor anyone else knows how, or even if, the unity government will function. What we do know is that Israel is involved (still) in an ongoing war against terrorists who target Israeli civilians in contravention of international law. Perhaps when it is Israelis’ turn to speak on the resolution, its representatives should hand the microphone over to Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Álvaro Uribe, who can read their informative report to the General Assembly.

There's another side to this observation too. A few months after the Goldstone report, Judge Goldstone himself, said that his investigation wasn't necessary. The Palmer report confirmed that Israel's blockade, despite the chorus of critics, is legal under international law. And now following those two, the Palestinians wish to use international law to achieve their goals. To anyone who is paying attention, Goldstone and Palmer point out the current corruption of the state of international law (at least as practiced by the UN), which should make the UDI even more suspect.

2) Critiquing the critics

David Bernstein of the Volokh conspiracy takes on two of Israel's critics regarding the Palmer report. In the first case he rejects Kevin Jon Heller's assertion that the blockade is illegal.

Because the Report concluded that the Hamas-Israel conflict was an IAC, it didn’t contradict Heller’s argument that if it’s not an IAC, the blockade is illegal under international law. But Heller also, as he acknowledges, “questioned the legality of the blockade” and said that it was not just wrong but that Israel’s claim to be in an IAC with Hamas is wholly implausible. While one Report cannot establish in everyone’s mind the lawfulness of the blockade, surely if an unsympathetic (or at the very least, non-sympathetic) forum like a U.N. commission adopts the Israeli position on IAC, that position cannot be deemed beyond the realm of even plausible argument, and Heller’s analysis is indeed “contradicted.”

In the latter case he reminds us the Juan Cole claimed that the Mavi Marmara was populated by peaceful volunteers. The Palmer report though writes:

Palmer Report: Israeli forces “faced significant, organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers when they boarded the Mavi Marmara requiring them to use force for their own protection. Three soldiers were captured, mistreated, and placed at risk by those passengers. Several others were wounded.”
As I pointed out at the time, Israel relied on faulty intelligence, and should have recalled its forces and started from square one when it became clear that they weren’t facing peaceful “aid volunteers,” but organized, violent fanatics itching for a fight.

Many of Israel's critics were refuted by the Palmer report, yet that aspect of the report seems to have been largely ignored.

3) Burning documents

Anti-Israel blogger and publicity hound, Richard Silverstein must be thrilled that he is once again a principal in a New York Times story, Leak Offers Look at Efforts by U.S. to Spy on Israel (via memeorandum)

I really don't want to give the limelight seeker more attention, but Israel Matzav noted

And by the way, someone in the US Attorney's office in Seattle ought to be looking into prosecuting Silverstein for destroying evidence.

He said he had burned the secret documents in his Seattle backyard after Mr. Leibowitz came under investigation in mid-2009, but he recalled that there were about 200 pages of verbatim records of telephone calls and what seemed to be embassy conversations. He said that in one transcript, Israeli officials discussed their worry that their exchanges might be monitored.

Sounds like destruction of evidence to me.

The guy is an unprincipled egotistical scoundrel; if he gets prosecuted because he boasted of a crime to the New York Times that would be satisfying.

4) Cohen-head

It's hard to come up with new insults for Roger Cohen, though calling him a Zionist agent is pretty clever. his latest Israel Isolates Itself is typical of his work. It's filled with half-truths and distortions. My Right Word and Elder of Ziyon have already fisked it. One point here, Cohen writes:

The Palmer report, leaked to The New York Times last week, is a split-the-difference document, with the Israeli and Turkish members of the panel including notes of dissent. My rough translation of its conclusion would be this message to Israel: You had the right to do it but what you did was way over the top and just plain dumb.

Except this is from a previous Cohen article:

The logic of the Israeli offensive, if there is one, must surely be that Hamas can be so weakened as ultimately to crumble. That is also the logic of the relentless blockade that persisted during the six-month cease-fire despite Israel’s earlier commitment, as part of the deal, to opening border crossings.

In other words he believes the blockade to keep weapons out of Gaza to be wrong. The Palmer report showed that he was wrong. That's more than a split decision; Cohen's premise was knocked out. He possesses neither the good sense nor the humility to acknowledge that he is mistaken.

Labels: diplomatic isolation, Middle East Media Sampler, Palmer Commission, Richard Silverstein, Roger Cohen, Soccer Dad, spying, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:44 PM 0 comments

What Roger Cohen got right

In an earlier post, I told you some of the things Roger Cohen got wrong in his Friday article in the New York Times. Jonathan Tobin writes about the one thing Cohen got right.

But Cohen did get one thing right. He notes in passing that the administration’s latest attempt to pressure Israel failed because “President Barack Obama had virtually no domestic constituency” for his policy. This is absolutely true. The vast majority of Americans, both Jewish and non-Jewish, support the Jewish state and oppose twisting its arm in this manner. That they hold to this belief despite the constant drumbeat of attacks on Israel, such as those by Cohen, his Times colleague Nicholas Kristof, and Peter Beinart, speaks volumes about how marginal J Street still is.

Heh. Read the whole thing.

Labels: J Street, Jonathan Tobin, New York Times, Roger Cohen

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:57 AM 0 comments

What Roger Cohen didn't tell you

Some of you might have seen Roger Cohen's latest J Street sob story on Friday. Yes, it's terrible that the mainstream Jewish community is unable to accept a Soros-funded bunch of stooges for the Obama administration no matter how many times they claim to be pro-Israel. And if we don't think it's terrible, Roger Cohen will keep writing about it anyway - when he's not busy propping up the Ahmadinejad regime in Iran.

Here's how Cohen described what 'happened' to Ira Stup:

Ira Stup was raised in Philadelphia attending Jewish day school and camps. He found his home in the Jewish community and was “intoxicated with Jewish democracy” as framed in the ideals of Israel’s foundation. Now he has returned deeply troubled from a one-year fellowship based in Tel Aviv.

The worst single incident occurred on Ben Yehuda Street in central Jerusalem. Stup, 24, a Columbia graduate, was returning from a rally with a couple of friends carrying a banner that said, “Zionists are not settlers.” A group of religious Jews wearing yarmulkes approached, spat on them and started punching.

“About 20 people saw the whole thing and just watched. They were screaming, ‘You are not real Jews.’ Most of them were American. It was one of the most disappointing moments of my life — you can disagree as much as you want with a banner but to allow violence and not react is outrageous. For me it was a turning point. Nobody previously had said I was not a real Jew.”

Anyone who lives in Jerusalem or has spent any time in Jerusalem knows how implausible this story is. When did it happen? Where in Jerusalem did it happen? Where were the police? (They're everywhere in this city). Perhaps a little of Ira Stup's background will help us solve the mystery.

Ira Stup was a JTS student in the joint program with Bir Zeit on the Hudson who graduated in 2009 (Hat Tip: David K). He's also openly gay. We'll get to why that's relevant in a minute. And he's now employed by J Street U as East Coast coordinator (which Cohen buries at the very end of his article, when it was an important enough fact to be up front).

Here's what Stup has to say about the acceptance of gays in Israel in general and in Jerusalem in particular.

According to Ira Stup, Columbia College ’09 and member of Gayava, a group dedicated to promoting LGBT Jewish life both on campus and in the city as a whole, the social situation for the community within Israel varies upon location. In some places such as Tel Aviv, Stup explains, being “out” can be relatively easy. The city government provides services for the LGBT community. Moreover, there are a number of businesses that cater to the LGBT lifestyle. As British journalist Chas Newkey Burden puts it, “Tel Aviv has a fine gay scene with a number of bars, clubs, saunas, and gay sex shops on its streets.” Also, Tel Aviv has had an annual gay pride parade since 1998, which runs relatively smoothly each year.

Yet in Jerusalem, however, being “out” can prove very difficult. Jerusalem’s sizable Orthodox Jewish population voices intense hostility to homosexuality, and Jerusalem’s annual gay pride parade is a constant point of contention between the Jerusalem Open House, Jerusalem’s lead LGBT advocacy group, and religious authorities. In a tragic example of how much animosity the LGBT community faces in Jerusalem, Time magazine noted that in a “near–miraculous occurrence,” Jerusalem’s Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders—so often at odds—actually agreed to collaborate on one issue: intense opposition to the gay pride parade. Thus, while Israel certainly does have laws that provide for the acceptance of LGBT community, certain sectors of Israeli society still demonstrate a great deal antagonism to the community.

Some of my friends have been looking at some videos all evening. The sign that Cohen describes doesn't show up on any of the videos from the gay pride rally that took place in July in Jerusalem. Of course not, it wasn't relevant. But it does show up in a rally that took place on May 15 in Jerusalem's Zion Square. That rally was a call for Israel's Zionist Left to come back to life. It was the first and last event of its kind - a far bigger dud than the story I just linked made it out to be. Could it be that Stup took part in both rallies and that he was 'attacked' for not being a 'real Jew' after the gay pride rally, but Cohen attributed the attack to the earlier rally? That's far more plausible knowing the way this city works. And it would also explain why it wasn't reported for the last four months or more.

In any event, the best answer I've seen to Roger Cohen's article came in an email from Elliott G:

Stup doesn't want people to say "you are not real Jews." But he can say that certain other people "are not real Zionists." He wants to be able to assign labels and remove labels. But nobody can do it to him. By opposing settlements he can be considered to be opposing the civil, human and national rights of Jews to live beyond the 1949 armistice lines, whereas the Jewish National Home designated by the League of Nations [1922] included Judea-Samaria, Jerusalem, etc.

Indeed.

Labels: Ira Stup, J Street, Roger Cohen

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:19 AM 4 comments