Kerry (and Obama) sign off on Europe's delegitimization campaign against Israel
How could Europe have done that? How could Europe have thrown a monkey wrench into US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to get the 'Palestinians' to come to the negotiating table by publicizing its plan to sever Judea and Samaria from the State of Israel? How? It's quite simple. Kerry and Obama signed off on Europe's doing so. Ruthie Blum explains.
Take
Kerry's joint press conference on Wednesday with Jordanian Foreign
Minister Nasser Judeh, following a meeting with the ministerial
delegation assigned by the "Arab League Committee on the Peace
Initiative." Reiterating his mantra about peace being "in everybody's
interest," Kerry went on to disseminate the great lie of all time.
"Many ministers
said to me today ... that the core issue of instability in this region
and in many other parts of the world is the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict," he orated with pathos, indicating his full agreement with the
assessment.
In fact, not a
single Arab-Muslim upheaval -- not Iran's race for a nuclear bomb; not
Syria's chemical-weapon-charged civil war; not Egypt's violent repeat of
its false "democratic" revolution -- nor any strife elsewhere in the
world, is even remotely connected to the "Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
The refusal of
the U.S. to acknowledge, let alone stress, this truism is as dangerous
to American interests as it is to Israel's. Furthermore, it constitutes a
green light to Europe to proceed with its pernicious program to
delegitimize the Jewish state.
If you've been wondering all week why Obama and Kerry have had nothing to say about Europe's new guidelines for trade with Israel, wonder no more. They signed off on them.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Thursday, August 23.
1) Mackey squared
In his entry about the attack of Arab teenagers by Israeli teenagers, Robert Mackey of the New York Times wrote:
Mairav Zonszein, an Israeli-American writer and translator, included a translation of the witness account in a post on the Israeli news blog +972.
Anyone familiar with +972 knows that it isn't a "news" site, but rather an anti-Israel site. By the way the term "anti-Israel" does not exist in Mackey's vocabulary.
Since then he's written about Pamela Geller's provocative ads on San Francisco's public transportation. He has no problem calling those ads "anti-Islam," though more accurately they should be called "anti-Islamic terror." Mackey also took pleasure in observing:
This week, some of the San Francisco ads were edited by Ms. Geller’s opponents to invert their message. An image posted on Facebook on Sunday by an Oakland blogger showed that text was added to the side of one bus so that the ad now reads: “In any war between the colonizer and the colonized, support the oppressed. Support the Palestinian right of return. Defeat racism.”
The irony of that sentiment escapes Mackey. Supporting the Palestinian right of return means supporting the destruction of Israel, which makes it anti-Israel, if not racist. Mackey left the implication unsaid, suggesting that he too supports the right of return.
Worse, later on he refers to the dishonest Metro North ads.
After that ad appeared in stations, a local CBS news reporter spoke to the man who paid it and to the editor of a Jewish newspaper in New York, The Algemeiner. The newspaper editor, Dovid Efune told CBS that the ad was anti-Semitic because “it paints Jews as aggressors, as imperialists — people that are stealing or taking land from others.”
Robert Mackey continues to pass of his work at the New York Times as news reporting though, when dealing with Israel, it is just crude anti-Israel propagandizing.
2) Efraim squared
There are a couple of articles by two different Efraims worth noting. Efraim Karsh wrote The War against the Jews, which begins:
The sustained anti-Israel de-legitimization campaign is a corollary of the millenarian obsession with the Jews in the Christian and the Muslim worlds. Since Israel is the world's only Jewish state, and since Zionism is the Jewish people's national liberation movement, anti-Zionism—as opposed to criticism of specific Israeli policies or actions—means denial of the Jewish right to national self-determination. Such a discriminatory denial of this basic right to only one nation (and one of the few that can trace their corporate identity and territorial attachment to antiquity) while allowing it to all other groups and communities, however new and tenuous their claim to nationhood, is pure and unadulterated anti-Jewish racism, or anti-Semitism as it is commonly known. By any conceivable standard, Israel has been an extraordinary success story: national rebirth in the ancestral homeland after millennia of exile and dispersion; resuscitation of a dormant biblical language; the creation of a modern, highly educated, technologically advanced, and culturally and economically thriving society, as well as a vibrant liberal democracy in one of the world's least democratic areas. It is a world leader in agricultural, medical, military, and solar energy technologies, among others; a high-tech superpower attracting more venture capital investment per capita than the United States and Europe; home to one of the world's best health systems and philharmonic orchestras, as well as to ten Nobel Prize laureates. And so on and so forth. Why then is Israel the only state in the world whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged while far less successful countries, including numerous "failed states," are considered legitimate and incontestable members of the international community? The answer offered by this article is that this pervasive prejudice against Israel, the only Jewish state to exist since biblical times, is a corollary of the millenarian obsession with the Jews in the Christian and the Muslim worlds.
The article is an extensive list of the hypocrisies evident in the arguments of Israel critics - or perhaps they should be called condemners.
Many of Israel's detractors on the left argue that Israel's democracy is in a state of decline. A closer look shows that Israeli democracy is thriving. A gradual decentralization of power since Likud's rise to the top in 1977 has given more political groups a chance to share power. The judicial system is strong and independent, and fearless in its prosecution of senior politicians. The end of party-affiliated journalism has allowed greater criticism of the government by the Israeli media. Minority groups enjoy greater rights than ever before. The army has become more professional and plays a smaller role in decision-making than before. When taking these factors into consideration, it is clear that Israeli democracy is doing quite well, despite the assertions of the fading left. The frustrated Israeli left that failed to garner support in recent elections has adopted a new strategy. Already before shrinking in the 2009 elections to only 16 Knesset members (represented by Labor and Meretz), several leftist figures decided to turn to external forces "to save Israel from itself" rather than struggle for the hearts and minds of the Israeli people. They argued that Israel's democracy is in danger and tried to mobilize European and American public opinion to pressure Israel in their desired direction. A recent example of this strategy is an opinion piece in The New York Times titled "Israel's Fading Democracy."
How Israel went from underdog to 'oppressor' in 40 years
Michael Oren cites Life Magazine's special edition for Israel's 25th Independence Day in 1973, and wonders what happened to us since?
This year Israel is celebrating . . . a series of accomplishments that have surely exceeded the expectations of its most visionary founders. It is one of the most powerful small nations in history. . . . [It] has tamed an arid wilderness [and] welcomed 1.25 million immigrants. . . . The Israelis themselves did the fighting, the struggling, the sacrificing in order to perform the greatest feat of all—forging a new society . . . in which pride and confidence have replaced the despair engendered by age-long suffering and persecution.
So Life magazine described Israel on the occasion of its 25th birthday in May 1973. In a 92-page special issue, "The Spirit of Israel," the magazine extolled the Jewish state as enlightened, robustly democratic and hip, a land of "astonishing achievement" that dared "to dream the dream and make that dream come alive."
Life told the story of Israel's birth from the Bible through the Holocaust and the battle for independence. "The Arabs' bloodthirsty threats," the editors wrote, "lend a deadly seriousness to the vow: Never Again." Four pages documented "Arab terrorist attacks" and the three paragraphs on the West Bank commended Israeli administrators for respecting "Arab community leaders" and hiring "tens of thousands of Arabs." The word "Palestinian" scarcely appeared.
There was a panoramic portrayal of Jerusalem, described as "the focus of Jewish prayers for 2,000 years" and the nucleus of new Jewish neighborhoods. Life emphasized that in its pre-1967 borders, Israel was "a tiny, parched, scarcely defensible toe-hold." The edition's opening photo shows a father embracing his Israeli-born daughter on an early "settlement," a testament to Israel's birthright to the land.
...
Given all this, why have anti-Israel libels once consigned to hate groups become media mainstays? How can we explain the assertion that an insidious "Israel Lobby" purchases votes in Congress, or that Israel oppresses Christians? Why is Israel's record on gay rights dismissed as camouflage for discrimination against others?
The answer lies in the systematic delegitimization of the Jewish state. Having failed to destroy Israel by conventional arms and terrorism, Israel's enemies alit on a subtler and more sinister tactic that hampers Israel's ability to defend itself, even to justify its existence.
It began with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's 1974 speech to the U.N., when he received a standing ovation for equating Zionism with racism—a view the U.N. General Assembly endorsed the following year. It gained credibility on college campuses through anti-Israel courses and "Israel Apartheid Weeks." It burgeoned through the boycott of Israeli scholars, artists and athletes, and the embargo of Israeli products. It was perpetuated by journalists who published doctored photos and false Palestinian accounts of Israeli massacres.
Israel must confront the acute dangers of delegitimization as it did armies and bombers in the past. Along with celebrating our technology, pioneering science and medicine, we need to stand by the facts of our past. "The Spirit of Israel" has not diminished since 1973—on the contrary, it has flourished. The state that Life once lionized lives even more vibrantly today.
A friend forwarded to me this email from former? chief 'Palestinian' negotiatorbottle washer Saeb Erekat.
From: saab mohamed saab_er55@yahoo.com To: Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 11:18 AM Subject: from saeb erakat
Press Release July 11, 2011 Palestine Liberation Organization Negotiations Office
Dr. Erakat: “A Knesset vote to make the boycott of Israeli settlement products punishable by law will send a clear message that Israel is not committed to a two–state solution”
Chief Palestinian Negotiator, Dr. Saeb Erekat, strongly condemned a new bill introduced in the Israeli Parliament (the “Knesset”) which would ban all initiatives to boycott the State of Israel, including the boycott of settlement products.
“A Knesset vote to make the boycott of Israeli settlement products punishable by law will send a clear message that Israel is not committed to a two–state solution,” stated Dr. Erekat.
Dr. Erekat called on the international community to take a strong and principled position on the proposed Israeli law: “Under this new bill, Israel would be empowered to sanction those members of the international community who, in keeping with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, refuse to recognize the illegal situation associated with Israel’s settlement enterprise in occupied Palestinian territory.” Dr. Erekat noted that under international law, colonization is a war crime.
Dr. Erekat called on the international community to recognize the State of Palestine on the 1967 border as a way to legitimize Palestine and to stop Israel’s expansionism. “This is not about ‘disputed territories.’ It is about an occupied country and Israel’s attempt to maintain its illegal occupation,” he added. “The Knesset is not only trying to block any return to meaningful negotiations based on the 1967 border, but it is also attempting to make other countries complicit by forcing them to remain silent,” he stated.
Dr. Erekat, who just returned from meetings in Washington, D.C. regarding the State of Palestine’s intention to submit an application for United Nations membership, called on all peace-loving countries to support Palestine’s bid to become a member-state of the UN which he argued will help to protect the territorial integrity of the State of Palestine.
saab_er55@yahoo.com
So Israel passing a law prohibiting Israelis from participating in a boycott of the 'settlements' is going to prevent other countries from boycotting Israel? Maybe this law is even better than I thought it was.
Glenn Beck is here in Israel, and on Monday he addressed the Knesset Aliyah and Absorption Committee, which is trying to deal with those who would delegitimize Israel. Here's partial video of his address. More below the fold.
American news personality Glenn Beck told the Knesset Aliyah and Absorption Committee Monday that the Biblical Esther and Ruth have guided him as he stands up for Israel.
“Esther knew she had no choice but to come out and speak,” he said, referring to Queen Esther’s risking her life to save the Persian Jewish community. "I knew I had no choice but to speak the truth. I came here in 2002, looked for the truth, and when I got home, I received my first death threat."
Speaking of Ruth, a non-Jew who followed her Jewish mother-in-law Naomi from Moab to Israel and then converted, Beck said, “Your people are my people and I will go where you will go. Your G-d is my G-d. I invite the People of Israel to stand with your G-d."
”We have to believe in common decency, link arms, and G-d will do the rest.”
Beck spoke at the committee hearing at the invitation of committee chairman Danny Danon (Likud) and Shas Knesset Member Nissim Ze’ev. The panel wanted to hear Beck’s views on fighting the worldwide campaign trying to make Israel seem illegitimate.
...
Before delivering his message, Beck thanked Dr. Joseph Prager, Dr. Paul Brody and Odeleya Jacobs, three Zionist figures in the United States, for their support.
He said that the demands of the Palestinian Authority are another excuse for the world to continue a centuries-old campaign of anti-Semitism, which he said is “going through the roof. The United States has an economic problem and the Jews will be blamed.”
...
He asked Israelis to join him in Jerusalem on August 24 when he is scheduled to hold a “Restoring Courage” rally, similar to the Restoring Honor really in Washington last year. The rally next month will be views worldwide on at least 700 remote viewing stations.
Time Magazine's Karl Vick goes after Israel again in a piece that's so full of historical inaccuracy that we could start with that and through it dismiss the rest. But there's more. Vick's historical inaccuracy is just a window on his horrific bias against Israel, which comes out later in the article.
Here's Vick on former defenseless defense minister AmirComrade Peretz.
His crime: Serving as minister of defense during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, when civilians were killed along with the Hezbollah fighters Israel was trying to teach a lesson.
Israel wasn't trying to teach anyone a lesson. The incident to which Vick is (apparently) referring happened in Qana, Lebanon in July 2006. On Sunday, July 30, 2006, the IDF attacked a civilian building that was being used by Hezbullah as a munitions depot. The building has a school and residence built directly over it. Hezbullah claimed dozens of civilians were killed in the attack. Israel agreed to stop bombing runs for 48 hours (sound familiar?). Eventually the 'massacre' was proven to be a hoax to which bodies were brought from other locations. Eventually, the entire 'rescue operation' was proven to be staged and directed by someone who became known in the media as 'Green Helmet Guy' .... There was also evidence that Hezbullah placed handicapped children on the roof of the building in anticipation of an IDF response, hoping to increase the number of 'quality' casualties.
So whom was Israel trying to 'teach a lesson'?
Vick on the War of Independence:
Britain is, after all, the country that played the single biggest role in establishing Israel as a state, from the Balfour Declaration to the timely withdrawal of mandate troops in 1948.
You've got to be kidding. The Brits did everything they did to make sure Israel would lose in 1948 short of fighting alongside the Arabs (and they may have done that too). Consider this from the story of Tzfat (Safed), the home of Abu Bluff prior to the 1948 war.
On the eve of the April 16, 1948 British withdrawal from Safed, the mandatory authorities turned over the town's police facilities and Mount Canaan's military fort to the Arabs. They offered to escort all Jews out of town "for their own safety." As in 1929, the Jews refused unequivocally, though memories of the horrific carnage should have inspired more dread among them than among the fleeing Abasses.
In fact, as Mrs. Carl and I saw when we visited there last month, the British turned over the three highest points in the city to the Arabs.
Vick goes on to dismiss the flytilla 'visitors' as "loony visitors" who should have been permitted to "sing, whistle and even raise signs." But is that really all they wanted to do?
And then he discusses the anti-boycott legislation to be voted on in the Knesset on Monday night. Vick dismisses the notion that there is an international attempt to delegitimize Israel.
"De-legitimization" is the the phrase bandied about -- far too frequently for Shlomo Avineri, a former foreign ministry senior official who railed against the practice in Haaretz.
"The truth is there are no significant moves afoot anywhere on Earth to delegitimize Israel," Avineri says. "Israel's government has turned delegitimization - an issue located on the vocal but ephemeral margins of international political discourse - into a problem that must be dealt with. It has thereby granted a marginal, unimportant position a status out of all proportion to its true dimensions."
Irwin Cotler says that what's new here is not the delegitimization but the laundering of delegitimization such as the rubrics of human rights, and anti-racism, which make delegitimization seem like it represents all that is good. They have reframed the Arab-Israeli conflict as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that paints us as the villain for denying the Palestinians self-determination. If you posit Israel as the violator of human rights it becomes the anti-Christ of our times. Palestinianism has become a poster child for human rights. The delegitimization has been mainstreamed by the elites. And then there's the juxtaposition of the end of the Cold War and the movement into Durban I.
At every given moment there is a resolution or similar emanating from the United Nations or one of its forums. These forums are attended by diplomats, media, etc. which creates a critical mass of exposure to delegitimization. These decisions read like legal judgments. The focus is to say that Israel is doing something illegal, which is why they focus on the settlements.
They use international law as cover - known as lawfare. This is the war of delegitimization under international law. Example: universal jurisdiction.
Delegitimization under human rights rubric. E.g Goldstone.
Delegitimization under anti-racism rubric - call Israel an apartheid or Nazi state.
He says we have to turn this paradigm around and make it clear that its radical Islam and tyrannies like Syria that are the real source of apartheid.
Malcolm Hoenlein starts out "I agree." He wonders whether at the other side's conferences they also ask whether they are at fault or whether we are at fault. He says we have to stop thinking about ourselves as grasshoppers (quotes last week's Torah portion). The threat is because Israel is and not because Israel has done something wrong. What Israel represents and the values of the Jewish people are what threaten the delegitimizers. This issue and how we counter this will affect us for generations.
He does not believe this is like the 1930's but there are a lot of signs that raise questions about us. This is like a tumor that grows quietly - it's a cancerous process. What matters is what we do and not what our enemies do. We should not tolerate this. The attack is against the Jewish people and not just against the Jewish state. It's time for us to step back and not question whether it's our responsibility. This is a modern blood libel and Hitler's lies spread much more quickly today than they did in the 1930's. We saw the blueprint for this at Durban I. You can trace this back and see everything from there. Globalization has made this far more complex. There is no place you can go to get justice. This involves every sector of our society.
They're trying to deny us our roots and our right to be in the Jewish state. They take away our past to take away our future. They want to intimidate us and we see kids on campus afraid to let anyone know they're Jews. Incitement cannot be ignored. There's nothing worse than Jews who don't get it, who put their heads in the sands and deny reality. 70 years ago they knew but did not want to know. We can't pretend not to know.
It's time for Jews and supporters of Israel to go on the offense. You can't win a game by just playing defense.
We won't be judged by acts of our enemies but by silence of our friends.
Delegitimizing Israel has nothing to do with the 'occupation.' It has to do with the Jewish state's existence. But that's too subtle a distinction for someone who still believes, 63 years later, that the British did all they could to help us out.
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Samantha Power invite you to "The Delegitimiztion of Israel: An Ongoing Project of Carr Center and Harvard University
The MARO Project and the National Security and Human Rights Program will host Clifford H. Bernath, Senior Advisor for Rule of Law and International Humanitarian Policy for the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (OUSD-Policy) at the Pentagon. Thursday, March 31, 2011, 3:00 pm, Carr Center Conference Room.
Meeting 5 of the Human Rights and Transitional Justice Study Group. Topics: Tribunals & Criminal Prosecutions, Reparations. Wednesday, April 6, 2011, 4:00 pm, HKS Library, G-21A.
Miami conference to address delegitimization of Israel
A conference in Miami on Sunday will attempt to help activists to combat the delegitimization of Israel.
The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation will take part in a national Jewish response to this campaign when it convenes an Israel Summit at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, January 16, 2011 at Jungle Island, 1111 Parrot Jungle Trail, Miami. Program participants will discuss the delegitimization campaign, and learn how to advocate on this vital issue.
The 2011 Israel Summit is being co-chaired by Norman Braman and Michael M. Adler, and will feature participation from U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Steve Chabot (R-OH) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). The day will also feature remarks and presentations from Natan Sharansky, the famed Soviet refusenik and now head of the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI); Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the United States; Irwin Cotler, Canadian Parliament member; Professor Alan Dershowitz; William Daroff of the Jewish Federations of North America; Rachel Fish of Brandeis University; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum; Martin Raffel of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; and David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center.
JCRC Chair Regina F. Zelonker said that the summit was a crucial step toward educating our community on how best to advocate for Israel in the face of veiled bigotry.
“The Israel Summit will be the beginning of our Jewish community’s organized response to the insidious and dangerous delegitimization campaign being waged against Israel and, in reality, being waged against each of us,” said Zelonker. “The summit will inform and it will motivate the participants with regard to each person's role in this campaign. Just by attending on January 16, we will make a difference.”
This event is being convened in partnership with the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Consulate General of Israel to Florida and Puerto Rico and the Rabbinical Association of Greater Miami, among many other supporting organizations and individuals.
For more information about the 2011 Israel Summit, email CommunityRelations@JewishMiami.org or call 786.866.8486.
At this point, I'd say that if you want to go and you're not signed up yet, just call or just show up. I just saw this on William Daroff's Twitter feed this morning.
Awesome interview with Melanie Phillips on Israeli television
Here's an interview with British columnist Melanie Phillips that was shown on Israeli television on Friday. The interview is in English and it's awesome.
The center of the deligitimization campaign against Israel
A study carried out on behalf of the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs has concluded that the center of the worldwide delegitimization campaign against Israel is in London (Hat Tip: Daily Alert).
In a report for the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs (JCPA) on the "delegitimisation" movement, published this month, Ehud Rosen has concluded that the boycott campaign against Israel and attempts to arrest Israeli politicians for war crimes are evidence that "Britain has become the main leader of an international effort to deny Israel's right to exist in its current form".
Mr Rosen, who now teaches at Bar-Ilan University, found that the alliance has taken advantage of the UK's political freedoms and legal system to make London its base for its attacks on Israel.
His research into the red-green alliance was carried out while studying for a PhD at London's School of Oriental and African Studies.
He also identified how the anti-Israel movement has entered the mainstream by allying with campaigns against the security crackdown following the events of 9/11 and British involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. This has been aided by alliances with leftist groups such as the Stop the War movement, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Socialist Workers Party and George Galloway's Respect party.
The study details how a senior group of activists from various branches of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East and North Africa allied with a younger generation of Islamists to form a powerful hub of activity centred on the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). This "stronghold of exiled Brotherhood leaders and their sons and daughters" is sometimes known in the Arab media as the London Ikhwan (the Arabic name of the Brotherhood).
...
The findings of the JCPA report echo those of the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank which concluded in a report earlier this month that London had become a "Mecca of delegitimisation".
I guess no one should be surprised at this given that the Prime Minister of Great Britain refers to Gaza as a prison camp and the British government continues to refuse to change its universal jurisdiction law, which subjects Israeli political and military leaders to random arrests in Britain.
President Obama is still trying to reignite the 'peace process.'
U.S. National Security Council Middle East Senior Director Dan Shapiro and David Hale, a deputy of U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell, are expected to meet with Netanyahu aides Isaac Molho, Ron Dermer and Uzi Arad in Jerusalem, and with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior PA officials such as negotiating team leader Saeb Erakat.
Addressing Jewish leaders and senior government officials, Netanyahu said that attacks being made against Israel today aren't based on wars or settlements, but rather are being launched against the existence of the Jewish state.
"There are those who believe that the motive for delegitimization is the policies of one government or another, but they are wrong," said Netanyahu.
"Even if we succeed in achieving peace, the attacks on Israel's legitimacy will continue. This is because their origin isn't based on the events of 1967 or 1948," he added. "The attacks are in opposition to the existence of the Jewish state. We can see throughout history that such attacks have increased particularly when Israel has used its right to defend itself."
If the attacks will continue (which I believe they will), how could we possibly be 'achieving peace'? Hmmm....
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
