New NY Times Jerusalem bureau chief's first column portrays Israel as repressive
For those of you who thought Jodi Rudoren was difficult, you may yet find yourself pining for her return. Meet Peter Baker, the New York Times' new Jerusalem bureau chief, whose first column is, to put it mildly, troubling.
Baker's first story went all over the map, mixing religion, politics and freedom of expression in a dishonest effort to portray Israel as a repressive society, and Culture Minister Miri Regev (who, as far as I know, is secular) as a religious fascist.
This is from the first link.
More substantively problematic was the incomplete and deceptive
framing of Minister Regev’s efforts related to taxpayer funding of
cultural events. Readers might assume her actions as characterized by
Baker compel Orwellian public expressions of fealty to the state.
But the "Loyalty in Culture" legislation seeks to remove public
funding for extreme anti-Israel projects. It permits a retroactive
reduction in the budget for "actions against the principles of the
state." Among these are cultural events that entail: "Denying the
existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state;
incitement to racism, violence, and terror; support for an armed
struggle or terror act by a hostile country or terror organization
against the State of Israel; marking Independence Day as a day of
mourning; an act of vandalism or physical degradation that dishonors the
country’s flag or state emblem."
The Minister is calling for what she terms "freedom in funding" along
with freedom of expression. She and those who support passage of the
law believe Israel is free not to fund cultural events that promote
terror, incite racism, denigrate Independence Day and so on.
That makes perfect sense to this Republican. Let the Arabs mourn their 'naqba' all they want, but why does the State of Israel have to pay for it? The answer is, we shouldn't. And it's not like the Times doesn't know it.
In a related story from January 2016, another Times piece
cited criticism of Regev’s initiatives but, importantly, also provided a
balancing counter-voice. Reporter Steve Erlanger wrote:
"... Mr. Leibler, The Jerusalem Post columnist, defended Ms.
Regev and Mr. Bennett as trying to ‘restore a climate that nurtures love
of Israel and promotes pride in Jewish heritage’ after years when
‘far-leftists, postmodernists and even post-Zionists took over the
Education Ministry.’"
That’s a piece of information that readers deserve to have. Readers
must hope that going forward they will get some sense of the full
context – even if the reporter’s default viewpoint is to fault Israel.
If this is the foot on which Baker has chosen to get off, one has to wonder how much objectivity we can expect from him going forward.
In 1961, they knew how to solve the 'Palestinian problem'
Here's an amazing 1961 Atlantic piece (would the Atlantic even publish something like this today @JeffreyGoldberg) written by a woman I am told is Ernest Hemmingway's ex-wife (thanks @soccerdhg) who took a tour of eight 'Palestinian refugee camps' in 1961.
Here's the money quote (in more ways than one) (Hat Tip: @zlando).
On this warlike note, we left. My guide had seemed a sober contented
fellow until our little meeting, whereupon he sounded like a politician
running recklessly for office. He then astonished me again.
"It
can all be solved with money," he said. "Now the people have nothing in
their mouths but words, so they talk. Money fills the mouth too. If
every man got a thousand dollars for each member of his family, for
compensation to have lost his country, and he could be a citizen in any
Arab country he likes, he would not think of Palestine any more. Then he
could start a new life and be rich and happy. And those who really do
own something in Palestine must be paid for what they had there. But
those are not many. Most had nothing, only work."
It could - and probably still can - all be solved with money (although probably more today than 55 years ago). But of course no one - especially UNRWA - has any interest in solving it with money. And so, unlike any other refugees in the world, the 'Palestinians' continue to fester in camps... except for the ones who have escaped to the West.
Read the whole thing (I'm still reading it myself). And keep in mind that it was written six years BEFORE Israel 'occupied' the 'West Bank' and Gaza, so obviously that's not the problem.
Great news: 'Nakba museum' of Jew hatred opening in Washington DC
A sign of the times?
Given that they've raised $70 of their $14,000 goal, perhaps it's premature to describe the Museum of Jew Hatred (known as the 'Nakba Museum') as 'opening in Washington DC. Or perhaps the alarm should be sounded in the hope of nipping this project in the bud (Hat Tip: Bad Blue).
This is the norming of hatred and legitimizing the big lie.
In 2011, Bshara Nassar
participated in a New Story Leadership program that brought together
young Israelis and Palestinians in a powerful learning experience. The
program took 18 participants to the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum which certainly seemed like an appropriate site for reflection.
However, he realized that there was not a museum dedicated to showing
the suffering of the Palestinian people. Although the program aspired to
fairly expose participants to the historical underpinnings of the
Israeli and Palestinian narratives on modern history, Nassar realized
that it was missing a key element of the Palestinian experience – which
inspired him to create the Nakba Museum, which is live online and will
open its first physical exhibit in Washington, D.C. this June…..
I wonder whether President Hussein Obama will show up for the opening.
Israel's President, Reuven Rivlin, will conduct a ceremony at his residence on Sunday marking the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries. Ben Dror Yemini explains.
The Knesset decided
only this year to set aside a special day, November 30, to mark the
Jewish Nakba. Most school children in Israel know about what was done to
the Jews of Kishinev and also about what was done to the Jews in Deir
Yassin.
But most Israeli students don't know about Jewish Nakba. They don't
know about a long series of pogroms and massacres perpetrated against
Jews in most Arab countries. The Kishinev pogroms in 1906 claimed the
lives of 29 Jews. A year later, in pogroms in Morocco, 50 Jews were
murdered in the city of Settat, and another 30 were killed in
Casablanca.
How many high school students know about them? And how many know
about the pogrom in Aden in 1948 in which 82 Jews were murdered? And how
many know about the hundreds more who were killed during that period in
Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Libya only because they were Jews?
The "narratives" have taken control of the university campuses and
school system. On their behalf, Israeli students are told "the other
side's version of the story." Not that one should belittle the pain of
the Palestinians. God forbid. The thing is that there is nothing unique
about the Palestinian story in particular. People fled. Some were
deported too. But where were things any different?
And yet, the Jewish Nakba vanished into thin air, despite the fact
that it was far more severe. After all, the Jews of the Arab states
didn't declare war on the Arab countries; they didn't have a leader like
the Mufti who was planning and plotting to eradicate all the Arabs –
every last one. On the contrary, they were peaceful citizens wherever
they were.
* * *
Let's set the record straight. The disintegration of the empires,
beginning with the Ottoman, through to the Austro-Hungarian, and on to
the British, intensified the demand on the part of various peoples for
self-determination – no more multi-ethnic states under imperial rule,
but nations with a sense of independent identity instead. Some would
call it an imaginary heritage, but that's not important.
The result was huge waves of population transfers, beginning in 1912
and through to the years following World War II. Around 52 million
people underwent the experience, including tens of millions in the
period after the war.
Millions of Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians, Turks, Greeks,
Bulgarians, Romanians, Indians, Pakistanis and more and more were forced
to leave their birthplaces to make way for national entities, old and
new. One would be hard pressed to find a single conflict during the
period in question that did not end without a population exchange.
And the same happened
in the Jewish-Arab conflict too. When the Peel Commission decided in
1937 on a population exchange, one of the reasons it offered to support
its decision was the fact that the Iraqis had carried out against the
Assyrian minority, despite earlier assurances to safeguard their rights.
The population exchanges between Greece and Turkey also served as a
backdrop for the commission's decision. At the time, this was the
position held by statesmen, scholars and intellectuals. Furthermore, in
1930, the Permanent Court of International Justice, the highest
international judicial instance at the time, approved population
transfers by force when it ruled that the purpose of mass population
transfers was to "more effectively aid the process of pacification of
the Near East."
We Jews have a real self-destructive streak. I find it amazing that this even has to be said, but Jewish Home MK Ayelet Shaked has asked Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai to cancel a 'film festival.' A naqba 'film festival.'
Habayit Hayehudi faction chairwoman MK Ayelet
Shaked implored Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai on Thursday to cancel an
upcoming film festival focusing on the Nakba, the Arabic term meaning
"catastrophe" that Palestinians and Israeli Arabs use to describe the
creation of the Palestinian refugee problem during Israel's War of
Independence.
"I was shocked to discover that Tel Aviv
Municipality was helping produce an anti-Zionist film festival at the
Tel Aviv Cinematheque. A review of the event's line-up clearly shows
that the films represented at the festival are of an anti-Zionist
nature," said Shaked.
The festival at Tel Aviv's art-house
Cinematheque theater, titled "48 mm -- International Film Festival on
Nakba and Return," began on Thursday. According to the theater's
website, the purpose of the festival is to "show films dealing with the
Palestinian Nakba and the return of refugees."
The festival is showing both full-length films produced
domestically by Palestinians and abroad, as well as a series of short
films produced by Israelis and Palestinians, covering themes related to
the Nakba. It will run until Saturday.
Israel's municipalities get funding from the central government. Tel Aviv ought to lose as much as this 'film festival' cost. This is disgraceful.
Israel's 5th column favors new intifada but still wants to collect benefits from state
Many people refer to 'Israeli Arabs' as Israel's 5th column, and with good reason. They want all the social welfare benefits of being part of the Jewish state with none of the obligations. When I say 'obligations,' I'm not referring to the army or national service or anything like that. I'm referring to the most basic concept of 'do no harm.' Given the opportunity, most 'Israeli Arabs' would likely do us much harm, which has to make you wonder what they think would happen to all those benefits if God forbid they succeeded.
According to the report, the product of a joint venture between the
university and the Israel Democracy Institute, 62% of Arab citizens feel
it is impossible to trust most Jews, and 71% think the government
treats them as second-class citizens.
The report stated that Arab
distress over the current situation was expressed in the finding that
59% agreed with the statement that “it is justified that the
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip start a third Intifada if
the political stalemate continues,” and the agreement of 58% that “it is
justified that Arab citizens in Israel begin an Intifada of their own
if their situation does not improve significantly.”
It also found
that 73% of Israeli Arabs prefer that Arab political parties would join a
coalition government, and a majority believe that their leaders truly
represent them.
That last byte is important because it's long been known that the 'Israeli Arab' leadership is more extreme than its constituency, but many pundits have claimed that the leadership is not representative of how 'Israeli Arabs' really think of the state. Apparently, most 'Israeli Arabs' don't agree.
Smooha has been charting Arab opinion since 1976.
Everyone in
academia is saying that the Arabs and Jews are on a collision course, he
said, adding that “it is avoidable, but it depends on the government’s
policies.”
He said Israeli Arabs are interested in receiving the
benefits that the state provides them – stability, democracy, services
and so on. Therefore, he concludes, they are still interested “in
playing by the rules.”
The Arab leadership is more critical of
Israel than the Arab public, which is “much more pragmatic than their
leaders,” Smooha said.
He noted that even though a large majority
of Israeli Arabs support Arab parties joining the coalition, no Arab
party today would join the government.
Due to this gap, many Arabs are not participating in the political process, he said.
...
Regarding the establishment of the State of Israel, 82% of Arabs
accuse the Jews of committing the Nakba (catastrophe of Israel’s
independence) and 48% said they have participated in Nakba commemoration
events.
Around 70% of Arab respondents said Israel was not
justified in maintaining a Jewish majority and 55% would prefer to live
in Israel rather than in any other country. Some 78% fear a grave
violation of their rights and 68% fear a population transfer.
Some
48% would vote in a referendum for a constitution that “defines Israel
as a Jewish and democratic state and guarantees full citizenship rights
to Arabs,” a drop from 71% in 2006.
Still, 42% favor living in Jewish neighborhoods and 37% would prefer their children go to Jewish schools.
Smooha
noted differences within the Arab population, saying Druse definitely
had the most positive views of Israel and that the Beduin were becoming
more religious and affiliated with the Islamic Movement.
Obama's advisor on his post-American foreign policy and suicide bomber go on strike
The Tribal Update brings you Obama's advisor discussing his great foreign policy successes, Jamil and Awad and the suicide bomber strike in Gaza, and MK Zehava Gal On marks the Nakba.
Ahead of Israel's 65th Independence Day, Latma's band sings about
bringing back the country, North Korean dicatator Kim Jong Un comes to
the studio for an interview to set out his demands, and the Palestinian
Minister of Uncontrollable Rage, Tawil Fadiha explains why Israel is
actually worse than Nazi Germany and more like Costa Rica.
Let's go to the videotape.
And yes, I had to silence the video for the song, but it looked pretty cool.
Obama has surrendered the Middle East to our enemies. That follows his religion of third-world socialism, which grew out of Lenin's war ideology. Obama's bio-dad in Kenya was a third-world socialist, which is why El Presidente wrote Dreams from My Father. Obama Senior lost a political battle with Jyomo Kenyatta, but Obama still clings bitterly to that old post-colonial socialism. For Obama, an "organic revolution" is better than moderation. ("Organic revolution" is what he called it in an argument with Hillary in the White House.) Just make things worse, and by some miracle they will get better.
Obama is historic -- not because he is our first black president, but because he is the first president who believes in a war ideology. Abraham Lincoln did not believe in war, and neither did George Washington or FDR. Normal Americans don't, but Obama believes in class warfare, racial warfare, ideological warfare, religious warfare. This is Jerry Wright and Louis Farrakhan thinking. How could it not be? When you spend 20 years learning at the feet of Jerry Wright, you can't think outside of that box.
Egypt is now in the hands of throwbacks to the 7th century. Iran and the rest are rushing to get nukes -- it's all organic to Barry.
For sixty years the United States has been the good cop in the Middle East. We have mediated between Arabs and Israel, and we have accomplished much.
Obama had a huge window of opportunity to knock down Iranian nuclear facilities in the last four years, when Iran had no bomb and no long-range missiles. The U.S. had the power to do that. We did it four times in the last twenty years.
But Obama refused.
That window of opportunity has now slammed shut. If we end up fighting Iran, they will be armed to the teeth, because we lost the chance to pre-empt them.
We are now "negotiating" with Persian rug-sellers in Iran, when they have us at a huge disadvantage. This is nuts. It's a formula for surrender.
This is nakba for real.
The liberal PR machine is now working overtime to cover up the truth. But don't be taken in, please. The libs are going to announce a phony peace with Iran, just like Bill Clinton announced a phony peace with North Korea. Bill Clinton won his second term with smoke and mirrors, but the Norks went ahead and made nukes and ICBMs anyway. Surprise! Clinton didn't care that they violated promises made to him. He figured they would anyway, and he could sucker the voters. And he did.
So expect an "Obama Made Peace in the Middle East!" headline any day.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, March 4. 1) Confronting the real Naqba
Critics of Israel like to show their sophistication by referring to the creation of Israel and displacement of Palestinians as the "naqba." However, as Barry Rubin wrote a few weeks ago, the original meaning of "naqba" was much different:
Constantine Zurayk was vice-president of the American University of Beirut. His book was entitled The Meaning of the Disaster. Here’s the key passage: “Seven Arab states declare war on Zionism in Palestine, stop impotent before it and turn on their heels. The representatives of the Arabs deliver fiery speeches in the highest government forums, warning what the Arab states and peoples will do if this or that decision be enacted. Declarations fall like bombs from the mouths of officials at the meetings of the Arab League, but when action becomes necessary, the fire is still and quiet, and steel and iron are rusted and twisted, quick to bend and disintegrate.” This is the old style of Arab discourse. Zurayk openly acknowledged the Arab states rejected all compromise, made ferocious threats, and invaded the new state of Israel to destroy it. For him, the “nakba” taught that they needed to modernize and democratize their system. Only thoroughgoing reform could fix the shortcomings of the Arabic-speaking world. What happened instead was another 55 years of the same thing, followed by this new era opening last year which will probably also bring a half-century of the same thing. Nakba has become the opposite of what Zurayk wanted it to be: Blaming your opponent rather than acknowledging your own shortcomings and fixing them.
Two recent articles highlighted the Arab folly of blaming Israel first. One is Let us compare Assad to Israel by Tariq Alhomayed, which first appeared in Asharq al-Awsat and was reprinted in Ya Libnan!:
Let us pause here in front of this state of mad dictatorship, and compare it with what Israel has committed against us in recent times, and I say recent times as we are talking about the last 5 years, particularly the Lebanon and Gaza wars. The entire world rushes to stop Israel’s aggressions against Lebanon in 2006, and this war ended after approximately two months, claiming the lives of 1,200 Lebanese. The same thing applies to the Gaza war, which had approximately the same death toll. In both wars, the public opinion in the Arab world rushed to take action, whilst counterfeit “friends of Israel” lists were issued, masterminded by the al-Assad regime; indeed a number of Arab politicians attempted to exploit this tragedy, most prominently the al-Assad regime. However we did not hear anybody ask – even now – why did these wars happen? Whose interests did these wars, and more, serve? Who was responsible for this? Today, in the case of al-Assad, we have seen the Syrian forces brutally killing their own people on our television screens over the past year – not two months – whilst the death toll stands at more than 8,000 and the tyrant of Damascus’s troops have destroyed mosques, tortured and assassinated children, as well as women and the elderly, simply in order to allow al-Assad to cling to power. Despite all this, we find some countries, politicians, media organizations and figures, who are procrastinating; it is as if we – as Arabs – are saying that if the killer is also an Arab, then this is something that we can accept, however if he is an Israeli, then we must all move as one to put an end to this! This is a saddening and shameful state of affairs, particularly when somebody like Hassan Nasrallah shamelessly comes out to defend al-Assad! Therefore, if we compare al-Assad to Israel we will discover the extent of the growing hypocrisy in our region, and one of the most important sources of this is the al-Assad regime, both the regime of the father and the son, which have survived based on the lie of the resistance, and others. Therefore, one of the advantages of the departure of this tyrant will serve to root out hypocrisy in our region, as its most prominent symbol is the al-Assad regime.
Khaled Abu Toameh wrote about a visit of Israeli doctors to Ramallah in The Hate Business. Abu Toameh comments on the protests of this visit and the ensuing calls protesting against normalization with Israel:
Some of the Palestinian's top leaders, including ministers and the former mufti of Jerusalem, were among tens of thousands of Palestinians who underwent life-saving surgery in Israeli hospitals over the past two decades. Scores of Palestinian physicians receive training in Israeli hospitals every year and many even seek the assistance of their Israeli colleagues in treating patients who are admitted to Palestinian hospitals. Some Palestinians sold their homes and lands to be able to cover the expenses of being admitted to an Israeli hospital. But instead of welcoming Palestinian-Israeli cooperation in the medical field, some Palestinians are calling for boycotting those who are trying to save the lives of their own patients.
Articles about the Middle East often write about Arab hatred of Israel as if it is a natural state of affairs or justified due to the "occupation." In fact the reporters and pundits who write like this are perpetuating the conflict, not bringing peace any closer. If the so-called Arab spring brings a greater realization that Israel is not the fundamental problem of the Middle East, it will do more to bring peace than the endless iterations of the peace process. It remains to be seen how pervasive critiques such as these will be.
2) Small?
Writing about the release of American aid workers in Egypt, the editors of the Washington Post applaud Egypt's small concession:
The NGOs are in technical violation of an outdated, oppressive law that Hosni Mubarak’s regime never enforced. It requires all NGOs to be registered and obtain government approval for all funding and grants. The groups filed registration papers years ago but never received a response. With the military’s tacit support, a holdover from Mr. Mubarak’s government used the ambiguity to launch a demagogic campaign appealing to Egyptian nationalism in which the groups were accused of working for the CIA and Israel. In isolation, the release of the Americans and other foreigners will reinforce nationalist sentiment and conspiracy theories while endangering the Egyptian individuals and groups left behind. The only proper resolution is for the government to register the NGOs, notify prosecutors that it will no longer cooperate with the prosecution, and modify the defective law. Encouragingly, the Muslim Brotherhood, now the largest party in parliament, has said it supports such a liberalization, though the details remain to be worked out. The generals may suppose that freeing the Americans will be enough to preserve their aid money. It must not be. The Obama administration appears to recognize this: On Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the administration remained concerned about “the ultimate outcome of the legal process” and wanted to see the NGOs registered. Importantly, officials say that no decision will be made on continuing aid until April and that it will be based on a broad assessment of whether Egypt is moving toward democracy, as required by Congress.
The MSM seems to have a problem with the Muslim Brotherhood. Because it is not the old regime, it is automatically deemed as "good" or "moderate" or "reform minded."
In fact, two weeks ago the Muslim Brotherhood threatened to Review Treaty With Israel, in retaliation for a cutoff of American aid to Egypt. In other words the Muslim Brotherhood was siding with the military. So it's support for "liberalization" is posturing to fool those who wish to be fooled by their supposed moderation.
Still what was Egypt's "small" concession? Egypt managed to extort $5 million from the United States and freed their hostages. The rulers still haven't changed a thing.
Amazing. What Abul Naga is saying to all those young Egyptians who marched, protested and died in Tahrir Square in order to gain a voice in their own future is: “You were just the instruments of the C.I.A., the U.S. Congress, Israel and the Jewish lobby. They are the real forces behind the Egyptian revolution — not brave Egyptians with a will of their own.” Not surprisingly, some members of the U.S. Congress are talking about cutting off the $1.3 billion in aid the U.S. gives Egypt’s army if these Americans are actually thrown in prison. Hold off on that. We have to be patient and see this for what, one hopes, it really is: Fayza’s last dance. It is elements of the old regime playing the last cards they have to both undermine the true democratic forces in Egypt and to save themselves by posing as protectors of Egypt’s honor. Egyptians deserve better than this crowd, which is squandering Egypt’s dwindling resources at a critical time and diverting attention from the real challenge facing the country: giving Egypt’s young people what they so clearly hunger for — a real voice in their own future and the educational tools they need to succeed in the modern world. That’s where lasting dignity comes from.
There's something missing in all this. One group has come to the defense of the old regime, threatening to reconsider the Camp David Accords, if the United States (justifiably) cuts its aid to Egypt. That is the Muslim Brotherhood, as David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times reported last week:
The Islamist party that leads the new Egyptian Parliament is threatening to review the 1979 peace treaty with Israel if the United States cuts off aid to the country over a crackdown on American-backed nonprofit groups here. The pact is considered a linchpin of regional stability, and the statements, from at least two senior leaders of the party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, represent the first time that Egyptians have explicitly raised it during an escalating standoff over the crackdown.
Why wouldn't Friedman mention that the Muslim Brotherhood is in cahoots with Mubarak's old cronies?
To not be worried about the theocratic, antipluralistic, anti-women’s-rights, xenophobic strands in these Islamist parties is to be recklessly naïve. But to assume that the Islamists will not be impacted, or moderated, by the responsibilities of power, by the contending new power centers here and by the priority of the public for jobs and clean government is to miss the dynamism of Egyptian politics today.
The blind optimism of the column was readily apparent at the time. Now, the Muslim Brotherhood shows its true colors and Friedman doesn't acknowledge his mistake; he just ignores it and assumes that no one will remember what he wrote just a few weeks ago.
Ayalon is a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and currently a Knesset member representing Yisrael Beitenieu, an ultra-nationalist party that advocates the transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel as part of a political settlement. An avid user of social media -- recognized by Foreign Policy in their who's who of 100 Tweeters in 2011 -- he maintains a personal website in Hebrew and English, including links to his widely viewed and frequently reposted Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. The refugee video alone garnered 37,000 hits within the first two weeks of its release, and currently has over 140,000 views. Ayalon reportedly plans to promote the clips, available in eight languages, globally for use in regular school curricula. The deputy foreign minister has particularly strong appeal among some Christian evangelicals and conservative members of U.S. Congress, with whom he and his party have long cultivated ties and to whom much of his communications appears geared. In short, his effort to influence the narrative on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can have consequences.
To call Yisrael Beiteinu an ultra-nationalist party "that advocates transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel," is deceptive. In its own website, the party describes its policy like this:
The responsibility for primarily Arab areas such as Umm Al-Fahm and the “triangle” will be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. In parallel, Israel will officially annex Jewish areas in Judea and Samaria. Israel is our home; Palestine is theirs.
That is unclear, however the Jewish Virtual Library explains further:
Yisrael Beiteinu is in favor of a peace settlement with the Palestinians but advocates replacing the land-for-peace approach with a mutual exchange of territories and populations under the principle of peace for peace, land for land. The party's manifesto states that "The end result [of a peace settlement with the Palestinians] must not be a state and a half for Palestinians and half a state for the Jews… It would be unjustifiable to create a Palestinian state that would exclude Jews while Israel became a bi-national state with an Arab minority of more than 20 percent of its citizens." The party states that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel.
In other words, both Jews and Arabs who find themselves on the wrong side of the border will be transferred. Only half of that equation is objectionable to Hilal. Of course as we saw at Yamit and Gaza, Israel has transferred Jews in the name of peace.
I suppose there's a little truth in this argument:
In criticizing UNRWA, Ayalon ignores the fact that the agency is not mandated to find solutions for Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's authority, given to it by the UN General Assembly, is limited to providing humanitarian and development assistance. It is true that UNRWA has delivered this assistance for multiple decades, but it is precisely because of UNRWA's role that the refugees have been able to achieve varied degrees of normalization pending a political resolution of their rights. It is for this reason that the Israeli government annually supports the renewal of the agency's mandate at the UN and has opposed the cutting of aid to its general fund. In the video, Ayalon implicitly portrays UNRWA as a resource drain compared to UNHCR -- again ignoring their differences. As a direct service provider for millions of beneficiaries, UNRWA needs staff and money to fulfill its internationally mandated role. UNHCR, on the other hand, typically contracts out service provision for refugees or negotiates socio-economic access with hosting governments. (Frequently unsuccessful in this endeavor, many refugees under UNHCR's authority face extremely dire circumstances, exacerbating protracted conflicts.)
Instead, UNRWA finds a hundred and one ways to perpetuate Palestinian dependency. The interests of the refugees and UNRWA are fatally intertwined; UNRWA is staffed mainly by local Palestinians — more than 23,000 of them — with only about 100 international United Nations professionals. Tellingly, while the U.N. High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) avoid employing locals who are also recipients of agency services, UNRWA does not make this distinction. Terrorism does not exclude one from being a part of UNRWA. In fact, quite the opposite is true: UNRWA-overseen hospitals and clinics routinely employ members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Employing Palestinians for decade after decade and providing them with subsistence-level food aid and rudimentary education are a far cry from giving them usable skills and a positive attitude about creating their own independent economy and viable civic institutions.
These changes had dramatic results. In contrast to all other refugee populations, which diminish in number as people settle down or die, the Palestine refugee population has grown over time. UNRWA acknowledges this bizarre phenomenon: "When the Agency started working in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, 5 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services." Further, according to James G. Lindsay, a former UNRWA general counsel, under UNRWA's definition, that 5 million figure represents only half of those potentially eligible for Palestine refugee status. In other words, rather than diminish 5-fold over six decades, UNRWA has the population of refugees increase almost 7-fold. That number could grow faster yet due to the growing sentiment that female refugees should also pass on their refugee status. Even when, in about 40 years, the last actual refugee from mandatory Palestine dies, pseudo-refugees will continue to proliferate. Thus is the "Palestine refugee" status set to swell indefinitely. Put differently, as Steven J. Rosen of the Middle East Forum notes, "given UNRWA's standards, eventually all humans will be Palestine refugees."
Hilal also writes:
Ayalon's claim that Arab states deny refugees basic rights as demographic warfare against the Jewish state is also out of context. All Arab refugee-hosting countries endorsed the Arab Peace Initiative (API) in 2002 and again in 2007. The API contains an implicit compromise proposal to implement the right of return in a manner sensitive to Israel's demographic interests following Israeli recognition of international principles. As political landscapes shift in the Middle East, so may Arab foreign policies. Ayalon, however, relies on archaic public statements from former pan-Arabist Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser and long-passed UNRWA commissioners. Rather than quoting Arab leaders in 1969 or UN officials from the 1950s, Israeli officials should be honest about where the political conflict on the refugee question lies today.
Hilal apparently realizes the weakness of her argument when she writes that the Arab Peace Initiative contains "an implicit compromise" with Israel. There is nothing explicit about the API except for Israel's obligations. In short it is a recipe for the Arab League to keep changing its demands of Israel in return for ill defined promises. Furthermore, anyone who reads MEMRI knows that the official anti-Israel vitriol of the Arab world is not a thing of the past.
Finally we get to the most offensive part of Hilal's argument:
This leads to the other major assertion advanced in the clip equating Jewish and Palestinian refugees. In 2008, American historian Michael Fischbach published a ground-breaking study on Jewish Property Claims against Arab Governments. Fischbach mined American, Israeli, and British archives to understand the circumstances surrounding the movement of 800,000 Jews from Arab countries across the Middle East and North Africa over a 20-year period following Israel's establishment. His research revealed that Jews left Arab countries for a variety of reasons, with many leaving behind valuable assets that in some cases were seized by Arab governments. Ayalon reminds us of these claims but wrongly suggests that they fit within the rubric of Palestinian-Israeli relations. Jewish property claims should be resolved as a matter of priority, but bi-laterally with responsible Arab governments and according to the same universal norms applicable to Palestinians.
Funny, earlier, when it suited her, Hilal acknowledged the "archaic public statements" of Arab leaders, but she ignores it in this case: On May 16, 1948, a New York Times Headline read “Jews in Grave Danger in all Muslim Lands: Nine Hundred Thousand in Africa and Asia face wrath of their foes.“ The story reported of a law drafted by the Arab League Political Committee “which was intended to govern the legal status of Jewish residents of Arab League countries. Their bank accounts would be frozen and used to finance resistance to 'Zionist ambitions in Palestine.' Jews believed to be active Zionists would be interned and their assets confiscated.“ Pogroms and persecutions, and grave fears for their future, regularly preceded the mass expulsions and exoduses of the Jews, whose ancestors had inhabited these regions from time immemorial. Beginning in 1948, more than 650,000 Jews left their homes in the Arab world to become refugees, and were eventually integrated into Israel, even as the country was being threatened with annihilation by neighboring Arab League states. Since their belongings were confiscated as the price of leaving from their repressive homelands, they arrived in Israel penniless, but they were welcomed and quickly absorbed into Israeli society. Approximately 300,000 more Jews found refuge, and a new homeland, in Europe and the Americas.
In a sense, then, Hilal ignores the Nakba. The Jewish one. If her misstatements and misdirections were not enough, she leaves us with one last one:
Ayalon argues in his video that the Palestinian refugees were encouraged to flee by Arab countries, who refused to accept the Jewish state. Though this view is still advanced by Israeli officials, it conflicts with mainstream Israeli understandings. According to a new study from Hebrew University profiled by Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar, "virtually all newspaper articles and research studies from the end of the 1980s to 2004", as well as all history textbooks authorized by the Israel's Ministry of Education since 2000, acknowledge that Palestinian refugees were subject to forcible expulsion. As Eldar noted, "It's a rejection of the [...] narrative that 'there was no expulsion in 1948.'"
This is not a mainstream view. It is the fashionable view of the anti-Israel left.
In order to set the record straight, Efraim Karsh wrote Palestine Betrayed, reviewed here:
Karsh sets the record straight by drawing on Western, United Nations, Israeli, and Soviet documents declassified over the last decade, providing the correct context often missing in the selective focus of the "new historians" and altogether absent in the Palestinian narrative. His detailed examination of the historical records reveals that Israel's establishment was not the main cause of the Palestinian refugee problem and the hardships that the population has faced thereafter. Instead, it was the result of actions taken by the Palestinian Arabs and their leaders. Anger instigated by Arab leaders is the foremost recurring theme in Palestine Betrayed, and Karsh holds the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin Husseini, responsible for the deterioration of neighborly relations between the Arabs and Jews during the Mandate period, and for the eventual "collapse and dispersion of Palestinian Arab society." Hajj Amin, known for his pan-Arab ambitions, "viewed the Palestinians not as a distinct people deserving statehood but as an integral part of a single Arab nation"—with himself as leader, and clean of Jews. To this end, Hajj Amin, an admirer and supporter of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, launched a campaign to demolish the Jewish national revival by enraging his constituents with all the anti-Jewish rhetoric he could find, from verses in the Quran to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Given the sloppiness of Hilal's article, one wonders what the standards of the Atlantic are now. Or if it has any.
The 'Palestinian Authority's official media has begun to present the Oslo accords as a 'tragedy' on a par with Israel's attaining independence in 1948 (known as the Naqba) and with Israel's liberation of the eastern half of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza in 1967 (known as the Naqsa).
Two visual expressions of this message appeared in the last two weeks in the official PA media.
One was a cartoon in the official PA daily, depicting a man preparing a headstone for a grave, who is wondering which date to inscribe to complete the text. The headstone reads:
"The deceased: 'Arab History' [Date of] death..."
The man considers which year to add to the inscription as the year Arab history died. The dates he thinks possible are: "1948, 1967, 1993, 2003, 2008 and 2010."
The dates refer to events considered negative for and by the Arab world. Significantly 1993, the year the Oslo Accords were signed, is included.
1948 - Israel's creation 1967 - The Six Day War 1993 - Signing of Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO 2003 - US invasion of Iraq 2008 - The Gaza War 2010 - Possibly refers to the Flotilla to Gaza that ended in violence
The second visual appeared in a music video of a song encouraging Palestinians to overcome their tragedies. Children are seen sitting around a table drawing. One drawing included in the video shows the dates "1948, 1967, 1993."
You know what? I agree with them. Oslo was a tragedy. It was a tragedy because had the stupid Jews not entered into Oslo, the PLO would have rotted in Tunis and eventually the 'Palestinians' living in Judea and Samaria would have either reached an accommodation with Israel or upped and left. Instead, we are now expected to endanger our security by giving this non-existent 'people' a terror state within shooting range of the hearts of our major cities.
So yes, Oslo was a tragedy. But for us, not for them.
Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) read 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen's op-ed in the New York Times this week and was disappointed.
“I have always had a positive relationship with President Abbas, finding him to be a leader of great sobriety, modesty and dignity. Unlike his predecessor, who had a rather problematic relationship with the truth, Abu Mazen has always struck me as both frank and careful with his words, taking pains to say no more than he could substantiate.
His op-ed piece in the New York Times on Monday thus came as quite a shock. Expecting something perhaps not to my taste, but well-prepared, what I read struck me instead as the literary equivalent of spoiled meat. Laden with wretched falsehoods, glaring omissions and disgusting smears against Israel, the piece was simply unacceptable and indigestible.
Abu Mazen (as President Abbas is known), I always thought, at least had a grip on reality. He might not love the Israelis, but I felt sure he at least recognized them as fellow human beings with rights and needs as legitimate as his own. Yesterday's piece truly represented a sad departure in that he not only called into question the basic obligations the Palestinians undertook as part of the peace process, but worse, presented this withdrawal and his ghastly reunification agreement with Hamas as the fault of the Israelis. Moreover, his misrepresentation of the most basic facts of the Palestinian and Arab rejection of partition, of Israel's establishment, and of the (thankfully) failed effort by the Palestinians and their Arab allies to destroy the new Jewish state all call into question his basic comprehension of how he and the Palestinians wound up where they are.
All true, but why has it taken so long for Ackerman to notice? Why did he ever deem Abu Mazen honest? How did he not know about Abu Mazen's Holocaust denying thesis? How many other members of the US Congress don't know about it? Does the White House know about it? And by the way, why is Israel doing nothing to get the word out?
This ought to be daily required reading for every 'Palestinian.' You know, like Chinese water torture. This is the truth about the 'naqba' - the truth that they cannot face (Hat Tip: Cheryl H).
The Nakba commemorations are only possible in a culture with no sense of responsibility. A religion which has killed more people and wiped out more cultures than Stalin and Hitler combined, still remains convinced that it is the victim. A victim of their own failed genocidal war. The Nakba is really the Nakbacide. A dream of mass murder that was frustrated when their victims fought back
Had the Israeli War of Independence been fought between local Jews and Arabs, the Nakba circus might not be as bankrupt as it is. But it was actually a war fought between local Jews and the armies of seven Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Syria, overseen by two British commanders. Despite all this, the Arab Muslim invaders still failed to do more than seize half of Jerusalem, and Gaza, Judea and Samaria. And that's what really gnaws at them.
The ugly truth of the Nakba is that it blunted the nationalistic ambitions of Arab Muslims who were dreaming of replacing the Ottoman and British empires. Losing a war to a European world power wouldn't have hurt as much as losing a war to a despised regional minority. A people whose name is an insult in the mouth of every Arab. Yahood. Lower than a dog. Yahood. Transformed into apes and pigs in the Koran. Yahood. Second class citizens in every Muslim country. Who somehow beat back seven Muslim armies and took back their lands that had been conquered by the Caliphs.
But in Muslim culture time never passes. The words, "You Lost a War, Get Over It", have no meaning. Arab Muslims still think Spain is theirs. Every time they see a European army, they mutter about the Crusades. Jews are greeted with chants of "Khaybar ya Yahood" recalling Mohammed's massacre of the Jews, a historical event that is much closer to what the Nakba only claims to be. Nothing is ever forgotten. Old hatreds are nurtured into violent rages that cannot be calmed by any treaty. The purpose of hate is hate. The purpose of Nakba is Nakba.
History is a dead word. The Muslim world has no history. It has pervasive myths that feed the Arab Muslim need for self-glorification and victimization. Muslim history is one long cry of "Mine, Mine, Mine" and "Give it Back". Millions of Arab Muslims believe that they discovered America, that European science was stolen from them, that the entire world used to be Muslim, that the Holocaust was made up, that Neil Armstrong heard the Islamic call to prayer on the moon, that Jacques Cousteau converted to Islam and that the Koran invented light bulbs. The Nakba makes as much sense as any of these.
...
Their fictional Palestinian identity, with its imagined roots in a country they hardly ever lived in, has turned millions of people into the militias of the Arab world. Their flags and chants about statehood hiding the fact that they are nothing more than proxies of countries which deny them citizenship because it makes them into better weapons, not just against Israel, but against each other. When an Arab country wants some thugs to smash in the heads of protesters, some cheap labor or even cheaper reason to get their people all worked up, they bring in the faux Palestinians, with their keffiyahs, their Arab-Socialist tricolor flags and their chronic unemployment.
The historical irony, is that it is the very gullibility of these Arab-Muslims, their willingness to accept a Palestinian identity, that keeps them displaced in the countries they live in. Had they demanded the right to be citizens of Jordan, Syria or Lebanon-- international pressure would have given them a new life. Instead by embracing the dubious honor of continuing the Jihad against the Jews, they trapped themselves in a no man's land of their own making. As long as they remain willing to be killers, sacrificing their own children to the fiery moloch of the bomb vest, then they will be forever pariahs in their own countries.
Sixty three years ago, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy left his home in the Galilean city of Safed. His was a family of means. He studied in elementary school, and then came the naqba [calamity, namely, the founding of the State of Israel - ed.]. At night, his family left by foot from Tzfat, to the Jordan River, where they remained for a month. Then they went to Damascus, and then to their relatives in Jordan, and then they settled in Damascus. That child's story, like that of so many other Palestinians, is mine.
Israelis have been urged to fly the flag on Sunday in response to the 'Palestinian' observance of 'Naqba Day' (Hat Tip: David H).
Intefatigable Shomron Mayor Gershon Mesika is calling on Israeli citizens to fly Israeli flags on their vehicles and homes, as well as post pictures of the Israeli on their Facebook accounts this coming Sunday.
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Mesika’s letter reads as follows:
This Sunday, we will all raise with pride the flag of Israel.
'Nakba Day' is translated into Hebrew as Yom Hashoah [Holocaust Remembrance Day –ed.]. This is how the ‘Palestinian’ Authority leadership has chosen to refer to the establishment of Israel. Indeed, it is not surprising, since at the head of that terror authority is Holocaust denier Abu-Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas –ed.].
This year the Authority is trying to intensify the events of that day, as a propaganda step on the way to their one-side declaration of a state in September.
The hysteria which the PA and its PR people from the far left are trying to inflict on the citizens of Israel is nothing but a balloon filled with hot air.
They too know very well that according to international law, only whoever is controlling an area can establish a state, and to our delight Israel is the one controlling it. Those PR people who are trying to frighten the public in Israel remember well that the UN already voted in 1988 in favour of the establishment of a ‘Palestinian’ state (by a majority of 104 against 2) and Arafat even officially declared it. All this had no meaning since Israel controls most of Judea and Samaria, the cradle of the Jewish people, and protects the whole country from there. (editor's note: the high ground of Judea and Samaria overlooks the entire coast of Israel, its most populated urban area, which, if in other hands, would make this part of Israel vulnerable to primitive rockets).
On Sunday, we will all raise the Israeli flag everywhere: on cars, on our homes and on our Facebook accounts.
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens in cities across the country will raise the flag along with us.
We will raise the flag proudly, and say to the world: Am Yisrael Chai [the people of Israel live].”
Sometime during the course of the Sabbath here, Blogger restored service for Blogspot blogs. For those who don't follow me on Twitter, you may not be aware that Blogspot was down from 10:30 on Thursday night (Israel time) until sometime on Friday evening or Saturday (I have not checked yet when service was restored).
Im Tirtzu, which exposed the participation of groups funded by the New Israel Fund in the Goldstone Report, has published a 70-page booklet that refutes the myth of the ‘naqba,’ the claim that Israel inflicted a catastrophe on the ‘Palestinians’ by means of its birth. The book concludes that if there was a ‘naqba,’ it was self-inflicted.
The booklet is split into five sections, including, "They [the Arabs] attacked: The responsibility for creating the refugee problem," "They [the Arabs] abandoned: Haifa as an example," and "Since time immemorial? How long have Arab refugees really lived in Israel?" It also includes a long description of atrocities committed by Arabs against Jewish civilians pre-1948 and details what it describes as the support Palestinian society and Palestinian leaders gave to the Nazis during WWII. In addition, it includes a chapter entitled "they were expelled", which describes the expulsion of 900,000 Jews from the Arab and Muslim countries of the Middle East following the founding of the state of Israel.
The pamphlet reads "sadly, in recent years, the Arabs lies have received a platform of legitimacy, also within Israel. Of all places, among the Israeli elite, leaders in academics, culture, or law, who have "brought the idea of the Nakba into the Israeli public sphere."
The pamphlet doesn't try to say that no hardships were suffered by the Arabs who lived in what would later become in the land of Israel, rather that suffering did occur, but it was solely the fault of the Arabs who refused to accept the 1947 UN partition plan.
"Let there be no mistakes. No one is saying that the Arabs of Israel did not experience a disaster at the end of the 1940s; no one is trying to take away their subjective pain. True, Arabs of the land of Israel experienced a tragedy, a nakba in their words, and there is no desire or reason to blur this fact."
"The truth is, that the Palestinians and the Arab states carry 100% of the responsibility for the results of the war. Tragedy? Catastrophe? The blame is all theirs. A home-made catastrophe."
The pamphlet says that the Jewish Yishuv was willing to give up on the West Bank and the East Bank of the Jordan River, but that the Arabs "did not rest. They wanted more, they wanted everything. Their response to the Hebrew compromise was blood, fire, and billows of smoke. Death reared its head, in their cruelty, stupidity, and arrogance that knew no bounds, they brought destruction upon themselves."
The pamphlet continues "the myth of the nakba is an unprecedented and brazen fraud whose sole purpose is to make rewrite history. Under this myth, the attacker becomes the victim, and those defending themselves from massacre – become war criminals."
While the pamphlet doesn’t present exact figures on the demographics of the land of Israel pre-1948, it claims that without a shadow of a doubt the overwhelming majority of the Arabs living within the Green Line were "large groups of immigrants who made their way to Israel from Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen, Sudan, and elsewhere," largely to profit from the development brought to the area by the Zionist enterprise and the British Mandate.
Turkey continues to work for the destruction of the State of Israel
The Turkish terror group IHH, which is closely connected to Prime Minister Erdogan's AKP party, has announced that it will send another flotilla of 'supplies' for the desperate Gazans in the third week of June (Hat Tip: Joshua I).
The flotilla will depart from various European ports, including Marseilles.
The flotilla is being delayed for a month - rather than depart on or around 'Naqba day,' which is Sunday, because there are elections in Turkey in early June.
In the late 1940's and early 1950's, we had a population exchange in our region. But while one half of that exchange - the Arabs fleeing what became the State of Israel - was largely self-inflicted, the other half of that exchange - Jews fleeing Arab countries - happened perilously, with the fleeing Jews forced to leave all of their property and possessions behind. Michelle Huberman describes that Jewish flight here.
It would be nice to believe the myths that they left their homes in pursuit of the Zionist dream, but 95% of my encounters have been with elderly people who have told me the horrors of escaping raging mobs with nothing but a single suitcase in their hand. On May 15th their testimonies will be heard.
Matti Haron will be telling us how his grandfather lived as a Muslim in Iran and even went on pilgrimage to Mecca to hide his Jewish identity. For centuries, Jews were dhimmis, a subjugated minority who could only achieve true equality if they converted to Islam. Many of my North African Muslim friends have told me about having Jewish grandparents. One wonders what percentage of Muslims had Jewish ancestors who chose or were forced to convert to Islam to have an easier life?
Why don’t we know any of these stories? We are told that Jews and Muslims coexisted happily together through the ages. Here in London trying to tell the truth through film showings and testimonies at Jewish events is an uphill struggle. A blogger friend was told by one of our Israel advocacy organizations – “Jews from Arab countries are not sexy news.” She was stunned. “By 'sexy' I suppose he meant topical” she told me, “yet hardly a day goes by without some Palestinian, somewhere, telling how his land was 'stolen by the Zionists', as recently as... 63 years ago. Hardly topical, and yet the news media lap it up.”
It is too late to save the Jewish communities of the Arab world. Hardly any Jews are left. But the turmoil in the Arab world gives us a golden opportunity to press for the rights of all non-Muslim minorities, and to insist on the legitimacy of Israel, which gave safe haven to the beleaguered Jews of the region. As far as the Israel-Arab conflict is concerned, acknowledging that there was suffering on both sides is the key to reconciliation.
Yet there is something that bothers me about Huberman's piece. Huberman refers to the flight of Jews from Arab countries as a naqba (or nakba) an Arabic term that means catastrophe. When Israelis refer to the naqba, they are generally referring to the 'Palestinian' narrative of our war of independence, which sees the founding of the Jewish state as a catastrophe. The 'Palestinian' naqba unfolded very differently than the plight of Jews from Arab countries.
As I noted above, the 'Palestinian' naqba was largely self-inflicted (most of them fled voluntarily). What's worse is that the 'Palestinian' naqba continues to this very day due to the Arab countries' unwillingness to do what Israel has done and to resettle their brethren. Instead, the 'Palestinians' who fled from what is now Israel are held hostage in the vain hope of one day undoing the events of 1947-1949. That so many people are held hostage to a hostile dream born out of hatred is truly a human catastrophe.
For Jews from Arab countries, the 'catastrophe' does not continue. They are resettled here in Israel, and their suffering is not passed on from generation to generation except as stories describing their experiences. They endured a difficult time, but that time did not result in a catastrophe for them. They are - thank God - resettled in their homeland.
If I would call anything a 'Jewish nakba' - as Huberman titles her piece - it would be the plight of the Jews who perished in the Nazi crematoria of Europe, who had no place to go thanks to British connivance with the Arabs that refused to open the gates of the one country of the World that was willing to take those European Jews in and resettle them. That was (and is) a catastrophe, because those Jews, their would-be descendants and their communities are no more.
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
