Augean Stables

Debbie Schlussel has a fascinating post on the Michigan Judge, Paul Paruk, who stood his ground — despite the potential consequences for his career — against creeping Islamism. His deeds contrast notably with those of a particularly craven (or sadistic?) German judge who ruled that, since Arabs live in a culture of violence and the Quran approves of wife-beating, Arab husbands can legitimately beat their wives in Germany. Shades of Sweden’s Minister of Justice on Muslim hate-speech. (Hat tip: Antidhimmi)

March 29, 2007

Islam v. Judge Paruk: In Litigation Jihad, Frivolous Niqab Lawsuit Ignores Basic Law

By Debbie Schlussel

The litigation jihad on behalf of sharia (Islamic law) continues.

Last year, I wrote about courageous Hamtramck, Michigan Judge Paul J. Paruk. Judge Paruk presided over a case in which the Plaintiff, Ginnah Muhammad, wears a niqab–a full Islamic face veil, in which only the eyes are visible.

Muhammad, a convert to Islam and a Black Muslim, was asked by Judge Paruk to remove her niqab in order to testify. She refused, and her case, therefore, resulted in a judgment against her. Judge Paruk stated that he needed to see to her face to determine the truthfulness of her testimony. Since Muhammad refused to remove the veil, she was not allowed to testify and lost her case.

Yesterday, a litigious Muslim attorney and Hezbollah supporter, Nabih Ayad (who frequently represents Islamic terrorists and illegal aliens), sued Judge Paruk on Muhammad’s behalf in federal court.

Ginnah Muhammad in her Niqab [note the heavy eye make-up… looks like “I Dream of Genie.” — rl]

Ginnah with Terrorist Lawyer Nabih Ayad

That a judge and jury be able to fully assess a witness’ testimony and gauge his/her truthfulness is a standard precept taught not just in law school, but in high school law classes. Niqabs have been used to hide all sorts of things. Fawzi Mustapha Assi, who smuggled weaponry to Hezbollah, escaped the U.S. wearing a niqab to cross the Detroit border to Canada.

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Bradley Burston, a columnist for Ha-Aretz, a “Progressive Zionist” with a taste for even-handedness, has just written a courageous column on the misguided silence of the politically correct “left.”

Muslim atrocities, Muslim victims, our silence

By Bradley Burston

As Jews, we learn not to talk about it. We’re taught, from an early age, that it’s not our business. As leftists, we’re taught to interpret it in the broader context, as the understandable outgrowth of occupation, of colonialism, of Western oppression.

So this month, when a Palestinian toddler named Hassan Abu Nada was killed in the crossfire of a Hamas-Fatah gunfight in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lehiya, we said nothing. His grandmother was wounded. This was none of our affair.

Just as in December, when Palestinians gunned down three children of a Fatah security chief, boys aged three to nine on their way to school. We knew better than to pass judgment, protest on their behalf, raise our voices.

Just as we kept our opinions to ourselves when, in a Frankfurt court, a Muslim woman whose Muslim husband beat her and threatened to kill her, was denied a divorce. Judge Christa Datz-Winter ruled that “the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives,” The New York Times reported. “The Koran, she wrote, sanctions such physical abuse.”

Just as every morning, when the news of a fresh act of moral obscenity reaches us from Iraq, we swallow hard and shut up. On Sunday, for example, when a Sunni Muslim mosque was stormed, its minaret blown to pieces, and the structure set ablaze, in apparent retaliation for a suicide truck bombing the beside a Shiite mosque the day before.

Muslims should be able to worship without other Muslims blowing them to mist. Muslim children should be able to go to school and back without other Muslims shattering their bodies with automatic fire. Muslim women should be able to live their lives without worrying that their husbands are within their rights to beat them and threaten to kill them.

And we, as non-Muslims, should be able to say something about it.

Not a simple issue. Especially for those of us Jews and leftists who were educated at places like Berkeley, where we received our degrees in Selective Blindness, with a minor in Understanding the Roots of Violence when practiced by Muslims.

We were taught to sniff out, publicize, and condemn every instance of racism, violence, injustice, and humiliation practiced by Israeli Jews against Palestinian Muslims. And that was as it should be.

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In an interview with Lori Lowenthal Marcus and Steve Feldman, Steve Erlanger explained that it was not really part of an article on the “lost generation” of Palestinians to do something on the culture of hatred and violence with which the Palestinian leaders — political and religious — abuse that generation. “That’s another story,” he commented evasively. “We’re waiting to read that other story,” his interviewers responded.

I’m sure that Erlanger’s still working hard doing the extensive research necessary to cover the topic, especially since he seems to be a total neophyte on the subject. But in the meantime his next piece was the following account of the “small crowd” of still-leftist Israelis come to hear about the painful experiences of Israeli soldiers forced to maintain “humiliating” checkpoints in the West Bank. Read it through and ask yourself if there’s any knowledge or desire to impart any information on what makes such onerous checkpoints necessary.

Israeli Soldiers Stand Firm, but Duty Wears on the Soul

By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: March 23, 2007
JERUSALEM, March 22 — Some of Jerusalem’s nicest people gathered the other night to listen to a talk by an Israeli soldier troubled by how he and some of his colleagues had behaved in the occupied West Bank.

The small crowd on a rainy evening was a bit disheveled, with lots of untamed hair and sensible shoes. Largely English-speaking, they were generally somewhere on the left of Israel’s wide political spectrum, and they listened earnestly as Mikhael Manekin, 27, spoke quietly about his four years of service with the Golani infantry brigade in the West Bank.

The small — read dwindling — “left” group is not “some of Jerusalem’s nicest people.” They may be nice, but the most outstanding characteristic of them is their commitment to completely unrealistic approaches to the problem. (See below.)
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In an article in the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat on March 26, 2007, the eve of the Arab League summit in Riyadh, liberal author Dr. Mamoun Fandy wrote on the Arabs’ tendency to leave obstructions to development in place rather than remove them, comparing these issues to rocks left in the middle of the road.

In particular, he points to the Palestinian issue as one that has drained the energies of the Arab states for more than 50 years, and calls on the conferees at the summit to remove the demand for the return of Palestinian refugees from the Arab peace initiative in order to arrive at a practical and realistic solution to the Palestinian issue.

The following are excerpts, courtesy of MEMRI:(1)

“For 50 Years the Arabs Have Been Walking Around the Palestinian Issue”

“King ‘Abdallah Bin ‘Abd Al-’Aziz’s initiative has traveled the breadth and width of the Arab states and the world since 2002, until they [i.e. the Arabs] returned to it once more in Riyadh in 2007.

“It was inevitable that the initiative, like every Arab dossier, would tour like this… [The Arabs] have become convinced today that this tour is no solution, and have returned to the land of the 2002 initiative for the Riyadh summit… [But] the basic problem for the [summit] conferees can still be summed up in one word: ‘rock.’

“I am referring to… the boulder placed in the middle of the public road, which is surrounded by the cries of those with a vested interest in its remaining in place.

“In every country in the world, when a rock obstructs a road, the municipality hurries to move it aside to facilitate the flow of traffic. However, in the Arab world, someone throws a rock in the road, and instead of moving it aside, those claiming to be of sound judgment come up with [what they consider] the ideal way to deal with the problem of the rock – namely, placing a sign above it saying “Careful of the Rock.”

“The worst thing is that tending to the rock requires, in the long term, entire institutions – from the workers who man the shifts at night carrying lanterns to light up the sign above the rock, to the construction of an overpass to circumvent the rock, or the digging of an underpass.

“One of the most important responsibilities of the Riyadh summit is to get rid of the rock, instead of placing a warning sign on it and going around it.

“The rocks that stand in the path of our success and our development are many, from all our institutions… to our international relations. But I will be blunt right from the start, and say that leaving the Palestinian issue for 50 years without an ultimate solution is the largest rock blocking the road of Arab development. Either we remove this rock from the road with a fundamental and permanent solution, or else we continue building overpasses and underpasses.

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The case of the Gaza sewage flood is, by now, fairly well known. I comment on a fairly good article by AP reporter Ibrahim Barzak on the affair in order to emphasize some of the lessons it can teach us about the nature of Palestinian suffering.

One of the fundamental question of our coming decade is: Who is responsible for Palestinian suffering. When Hamas fires katyushas into Israel and provokes responses, the MSM has no problem reporting the “fear and loathing” the Israelis inspire in a “victim” people. But whom should Palestinians fear and loath for causing their unbearably humiliating condition?

From Cox and Forkum, Hat tip: LGF

Sewage Flood in Northern Gaza Kills 5

Tuesday March 27, 2007 10:01 PM

By IBRAHIM BARZAK

Associated Press Writer

UMM NASER, Gaza Strip (AP) - A huge sewage reservoir in the northern Gaza Strip collapsed Tuesday, killing five people in a frothing cascade of waste and mud that swamped a village and highlighted the desperate need to upgrade Gaza’s overburdened infrastructure.

Rescue crews and Hamas gunmen rushed to the area to search for people feared buried under the sewage and mud. Dressed in wetsuits, they paddled boats through the layer of foam floating on the green and brown rivers of waste. Others waded up to their hips into the sewage.

The noxious smell of waste and dead animals hung in the air.

Angry residents drove reporters away and mobbed government officials. When Interior Minister Hani Kawasmeh arrived to survey the damage, his bodyguards fired in the air to disperse the crowd.

Were these reporters Palestinian or foreign. Why were they driven away? If such a disaster happened in a civil society, locals would rush to the press to complain about their leaders. Did they drive away foreign reporters because they were ashamed? Is that why we have no photos?

It would have been nice to get a report of what the people from the town were saying. What kinds of “hidden transcripts” did such a callous act of incompetence on the part of the government bring to the surface?

In one house, everything from the television to the sink was covered in muck. “We lost everything. Everything was covered by the flood. It’s a disaster,” said Amina Afif, 65, whose shack was destroyed.

Aid officials said plans to build a larger waste treatment facility had been held up for years by perpetual fighting in the area between Israel and Palestinians and donor concerns about political instability. However, construction did not appear to have been affected by international sanctions imposed on the Palestinians after the militant Hamas group’s election victory last year.

This is less than enlightening. Later the journalist will explain why it’s not the fault of the sanctions.

The existing treatment plant in northern Gaza - located just a few hundred yards from the border with Israel - stores waste in seven holding basins. With the burgeoning population producing nearly four times as much waste as the plant could treat, officials have put overflow sewage in the nearby dunes, creating a lake covering nearly 110 acres, the U.N. said.

On Tuesday morning, an earth embankment around one of the seven basins collapsed, sending a wall of sewage crashing into the neighboring village of Umm Naser.

The wave killed two women in their 70s, two toddlers and a teenage girl and injured 35 other people, hospital officials said. More than 200 homes were destroyed, health officials said.

Now where are the pictures of these poor victims? Where are the lengthy interviews with their families? Where is the footage of mothers and daughters wild with grief over their slain family members?
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PMW has recently posted a remarkable piece of Palestinian self-criticism. Since I often tout self-criticism, and as often complain that Palestinians rarely if ever engage in the practice, I want to highlight this remarkable case, and congratulate the courageous and perceptive author, Dr. Nadir Sa’id, Director of Development Studies at Bir Zeit University.

Some Imams incite to
kill women, beat children: PA Academic
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook - March 15, 2007

In an open challenge to Palestinian leadership, Dr. Nadir Sa’id of Bir Zeit University condemned the violence in Palestinian society and placed the blame on the political and religious leaders. He blamed both Fatah and Hamas, including the Prime Minister and others ministers, for hundreds of killings. He condemned some Imams who preach the killing of women and beating of children. He criticized these actions, as well as the hate incitement that has created a Palestinian society permeated with violence. Children have learned that the use of violence achieves power and influence.

This self-criticism is rare in the PA media. If it continues, this is a positive development.

Click here to see Dr. Sa’id’s condemnation of Palestinian leadership

Dr. Nadir Sa’id, director of Development Studies at Bir Zeit University:

“The last months in particular proved without a doubt the existence of political crime [in Palestinian society], and it is related to the attempt to achieve a high level of power, control and influence … The political struggle for rule. One of the primary and clear forms, which draws attention, having powerful and clear influence, and which caused hundreds of deaths, is clearly the crimes committed in the struggle for influence in the [Palestinian] Authority. But there are other types, including the attempt to threaten opposition, threaten those who disagree…

What is important regarding political crime, and especially in the Palestinian situation, is that there is a kind of conspiracy not to punish the criminals. This is the big problem. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in the recent struggle between Fatah and Hamas. First: Who will punish those who facilitated these violent environmental conditions? Who will punish those who gave the orders? Who will punish those who committed [the crimes]? Who will punish the people who remained silent and did not hesitate to justify this type of violence?

What we see now, and this is the basic problem in the culture regarding the culture of violence, is that what has happened, he who killed here and there, is now appointed as a minister in the [Palestinian] National Authority. That is, it is a clear message.

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Daniel Goldhagen has an excellent discussion of the problem of “humiliation” and Jihad. While for polemical reasons he may be dismissive of “humiliation” as an explanation of Arab/Muslim “rage,” his overall point — there’s much more to the problem than “humiliation,” is crucial, especially when it comes to policy options. I’ve highlighted particularly significant passages and added some notes.

Democracy: A Journal of Ideas
Issue #4, Spring 2007

The Humiliation Myth
Humiliation doesn’t explain terrorism; the spread of Political Islam does. A response to Peter Bergen and Michael Lind.
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

As Peter Bergen and Michael Lind ably demonstrate in their recent article [”A Matter of Pride,” Issue #3], the notion that poverty causes terrorism – and that, absent poverty, terrorism would diminish radically – is a fallacy. Indeed, the “myth of deprivation” is so manifestly inadequate that it is worth asking whether its supporters actually believe it or whether, instead of confronting the complexities of terrorism’s causes and the difficulty of combating it, they prefer to mouth a platitudinous perspective that poverty causes all ills and that alleviating poverty (which will not happen soon) cures them.

It’s actually worse: I think most people want to believe that poverty causes terrorism because we Westerners think we have the formula for “curing” the problem thus understood. “Throw money at it.” That’s the French solution with their “lost territories.” Goldhagen’s right that we won’t be alleviating poverty soon the world over. But we think we can solve it in places where we decide to push hard (the so-called “Middle East Marshall Plan”). Of course, when “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” — when we throw money at impoverished cultures that, often, are the product of their terrorist “leaders” — we end up engaging in what Pamela of Atlas Shrugged, in a conversation with David “poverty causes terrorism” Korn in a conversation at the OSM/PJ Media launch called “extortion.”
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In fisking Kristof, I ran across his use of B’Tselem’s statistics. He said:

B’Tselem, a respected Israeli human rights organization, reports that last year Palestinians killed 17 Israeli civilians (including one minor) and six Israeli soldiers. In the same period, B’Tselem said, Israeli forces killed 660 Palestinians, triple the number killed in 2005. Of the Palestinians killed in 2006, half were not taking part in hostilities at the time they were killed, and 141 were minors.

I responded:

B’Tselem is an increasingly criticized human rights organization. They have proven to be as gullible to the claims of victimization from “Palestinian sources” — or as biased — as their sister “human rights” NGOs in the West.

[NB: When I showed a copy of Pallywood to the folks at B’Tselem, the head of the organization told me she couldn’t see what relevance the propensity of Palestinian sources to systematically lie might have for B’Tselem’s work, and her top Arab-Israeli field researcher wanted details on the woman who “gave birth in the car” [from Pierre Rehov’s Road to Jenin so he could investigate another Israeli violation.]

These figures are cooked. All the categories are subject to deconstruction – “not taking part in hostilities at the time they were killed,” “minors,” and above all, “killed by Israelis” – all these identifications are based on taking at face value, testimony that has proved itself radically untrustworthy. Garbag in, garbage out.

Now it’s altogether possible that Kristof, on other topics apparently perceptive, doesn’t know what he’s channeling here. After all, if he read his own paper’s journalist, how would he know about the depth of the hate-speech that drives the devouring maw into which he pushes Israel with his “friendly advice.” Perhaps he trusts his friends in the progressive NGOs to give him reliable information.

But as a professional journalist — indeed here, he presents himself as a counselor — doesn’t he owe us at least due diligence?

Now the Editors of the NY Sun have done (minimal) due diligence, and their comments bear out some of my suspicions:

Aside from the fact that Israel was being attacked by the Palestinians after withdrawing to the 1967 borders of the Gaza Strip, here’s some context that Mr. Kristof left out. B’Tselem is funded by German church groups, the governments of Switzerland and the European Union, and the same Ford Foundation that underwrote the anti-Israel agitation that preceded the United Nations’ Durban conference.

Moreover, the statistics Mr. Kristof cites don’t include Israelis killed by other Arab terrorists working in league with the Palestinian Arabs and funded by the same Iranian terror master. In 2006, that included 43 Israeli civilians and 117 Israeli soldiers who were killed in the war with Lebanese-based Hezbollah. The B’Tselem statistics do include — but Mr. Kristof omits — the 55 Palestinian Arabs killed in 2006 by other Palestinian Arabs, a figure to which can be added another 84 killed in intramural violence in January and February of 2007.

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Fascinating report on the BBC’s efforts to block public awareness of its biased reporting. Hypocrisy… dishonesty… and… honor-shame. And of course, the loser is… the public, who still don’t know that Israel has been on the frontline of a global Jihad they are already involved in without knowing it. (Hat-tip: JW)

BBC pays £200,000 to ‘cover up report on anti-Israel bias’
by PAUL REVOIR -
Last updated at 21:24pm on 22nd March 2007
Comments (17)

The BBC has been accused of “shameful hypocrisy” over its decision to spend £200,000 blocking a freedom of information request about its reporting in the Middle East.

The corporation, which has itself made extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism, is refusing to release papers about an internal inquiry into whether its reporting has been biased towards Palestine.

BBC chiefs have been accused of wasting thousands of pounds of licence fee payers money trying to cover-up the findings of the so called Balen Report into its journalism in the region, despite the fact that the corporation is funded by the British public.

The corporation is fighting a landmark High Court action, which starts next week, in a bid to prevent the public finding out what is in the review, which is believed to be critical of the BBC’s coverage in the region.

BBC bosses have faced repeated claims that is coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed by a pro-Palestianian bias.

The corporation famously came under fire after middle-east correspondent Barbara Plett revealed that she had cried at the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004.

The BBC’s decision to carry on pursuing the case, despite the fact than the Information Tribunal said it should make the report public, has sparked fury as it flies in the face of claims by BBC chiefs that it is trying to make the corporation more open and transparent.

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Last December, Dan Pipes posted a piece entitled “How the West Could Lose.” It’s the kind of thing that the Europeans can’t even think about much less assess. For an example of how suicidal the Europeans, see Paul Beilin, “The Islamicization of Antwerp” (comments in next post).

Middling souls sustain;
Great souls launch, democracies;
Small ones, destroy them.

How the West Could Lose by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
December 26, 2006

After defeating fascists and communists, can the West now defeat the Islamists?

On the face of it, its military preponderance makes victory seem inevitable. Even if Tehran acquires a nuclear weapon, Islamists have nothing like the military machine the Axis deployed in World War II, nor the Soviet Union during the cold war. What do the Islamists have to compare with the Wehrmacht or the Red Army? The SS or Spetznaz? The Gestapo or the KGB? Or, for that matter, to Auschwitz or the gulag?

Yet, more than a few analysts, including myself, worry that it’s not so simple. Islamists (defined as persons who demand to live by the sacred law of Islam, the Sharia) might in fact do better than the earlier totalitarians. They could even win. That’s because, however strong the Western hardware, its software contains some potentially fatal bugs. Three of them – pacifism, self-hatred, complacency – deserve attention.

Pacifism: Among the educated, the conviction has widely taken hold that “there is no military solution” to current problems, a mantra applied in every Middle East problem – Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, the Kurds, terrorism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. But this pragmatic pacifism overlooks the fact that modern history abounds with military solutions. What were the defeats of the Axis, the United States in Vietnam, or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, if not military solutions?

My favorite is “War is not the answer.” A popular bumper sticker in places like Cambridge. As soon as one suggests that force may be necessary, the conversation is over. “Oh, you’re one of those people who think that they only understand force.” Well no, they understand more than force, but without force, they don’t understand much.

This issue lies at the heart of demopathy: Arabs/Muslims play on our desire to believe that they are “rational” like “us.” And while there are some who do, the culture remains in the place where the vast majority of pre-modern cultures have operated for millennia — “might makes right.” That’s the point of the Caliphate.
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George Soros has a long piece in the New York Review of Books about the critical contribution of AIPAC to our disastrous foreign policy along with some major tilting at Alvin Rosenfeld. He proves himself a thorough and profoundly uninformed disciple of the Politically-Correct Paradigm (PCP1) but, as some have already pointed out, very wealthy people seem to think they can be an expert on every and anything… sort of like Donald Trump.

What’s so worrisome is how hollow – again – all this sounds. Just PCP bytes, strung together like Pallywood footage. If you just squint hard enough, you won’t see just how profoundly misguided the narrative, the analysis, and the recipe for resolving the problem. Even Barack Obama has distanced himself from this silliness.

It is way too long and poor to fisk from start to finish — how much more interesting to read articles that tackle real issues like Goldhagen on humiliation and terrorism (up next) — than this intellectually meager fare. What I do focus on below is the rant within the rant in which Soros tilts at Alvin Rosenfeld. Just understanding how mediocre his argument on this topic will give a taste of the overall, lengthy, diatribe.

What makes this particularly unfortunate is that it comes from the “pen” of a great admirer of the philosopher and scientist Karl Popper, a passionate advocate of the “Open Society” — after which Soros named his “democracy-promoting” Open Society Institute (of which I was a fellow back in the 1990s) — as well as an articulate spokesman for the exegetical modesty of scientists who must always remain open to the possibility that their formulae for understanding the universe may be wrong and need to be subjected to criticism. In this case we have an inability to see the difference between an extraordinarily open society — Israel — and its extraordinarily closed neighbors, on the one hand, and an unquestioning application of a highly questionable paradigm — “Land for Peace” — to a conflict where the contrary paradigm seems most operative — “Land for Jihad.” In pursuing such a misguided framework, and deriving a particularly harsh strategy — force the open society to make huge concessions to the closed societies in the hopes that these latter will keep promises they show no sign of intending to keep — Soros urges on a strategy that turns Israel into a sacrificial lamb (or a test-monkey in a space probe), and threatens terrible damage to the West’s ability to resist Islamism. Nor is he alone in such a foolish approach.

On Israel, America and AIPAC

By George Soros

The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East, one that is liable to have disastrous consequences and is not receiving the attention it should. This time it concerns the Israeli–Palestinian relationship. The Bush administration is actively supporting the Israeli government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, which the US State Department considers a terrorist organization. This precludes any progress toward a peace settlement at a time when progress on the Palestinian problem could help avert a conflagration in the greater Middle East.

You would not know from Soros that Hamas’ charter cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion approvingly (article 32), and invokes a genocidal apocalyptic Hadith about killing every last Jew on the planet (article 7). “Hey. I’m sure they don’t really mean it. You know those Arabs… always exaggerating. They were democratically elected, no? That makes them legitimate representatives, no? We make peace with enemies with whom we negotiate, no?”

Now why would Soros act as if this were not an issue? What’s the purpose of whitewashing Hamas? Does he do his own research? Or does he get fed information by his handlers?

It goes on from there. If you feel like having the most simplistic, dusty Oslo logic thrown in your eyes for many paragraphs, go to the article and read it. It doesn’t get any better than this mediocre rehash in its analysis, all served up with a tone of complete confidence. At one point, he informs us that many don’t understand Hamas, but those (like himself) who do, know that the bad Hamas is in Damascus and the good Hamas, responsive to the Palestinian people who elected it, is in the West Bank and Gaza. One has to wonder how so stunningly gullible a man could have made so much money.
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If you haven’t already, listen to the radio show with Steve Feldman and Lori Marcus in which both Steve Erlanger and I appear in tandem. His interview is a fine example of how someone like Erlanger, confronted with observations and conclusions he has never deigned to discuss in his writings, has almost no refutation. In some cases he agrees, reaffirms and adds to their points. So why does he not talk about these matters? Why does he systematically reinforce the PCP “take” that has Israeli behavior as the causative agent in this conflict?

Even as he has to back peddle, it’s sideways. All of this economic misery dates back to the Intifada of 2000, he points out. But why did we have this self-destructive descent into violence when the Palestinians had their statehood on the negotiating table, a violence which has, in the past 7 years, metastasized and now threatens to engulf the whole world? “Partly because of the violence that came out of the Intifada, and partly Israel’s security measures to counter that violence…” he explains. Good “even handedness.”

But pay close attention. The “even-handedness” is in the hand supposedly concerning the Palestinians: “the violence which came out of the Intifada.” Violence is the subject of the sentence and the agent here, not Palestinians. On the other hand, the agent of the second part is “Israel’s security measures” that respond to this (disembodied) violence (for which – my guess is Erlanger believes – the Israelis are at least half responsible).

This stilted language that assiduously avoids being clear about Palestinian responsibility for anything negative reminds me of the British CNN reporter talking about Palestinian celebrations for 9-11, which we used in Icon of Hatred. “Palestinian resentment against America for its ongoing support as it is seen of Israel in this conflict, in this Middle Eastern conflict, however while some Palestinians were taking to the streets in apparent celebration….” No need for the “however,” the “while,” the “apparent…” but, along with the explanatory “for its ongoing support of Israel” they all serve to “pull the punches” of this clearly dangerous news report.

You listen to his other excuses for not reporting and tell me what you think.

My friend Antidhimmi thinks that Erlanger, despite his intelligence and like so many other journalists, is a very ordinary person. Like many of the journalists who inform us about the world, he is not up to the serious task before him. He does a third rate job of trying to understand the issues, has extremely limited self-awareness, avoids confrontations, and reports with the pack. So in the long run his intelligence ends up working against us, his intended audience. He packages this mediocre work so well that it looks really professional and thoughtful and defends it with the kind of hollow and evasive excuses he gave on this show, which were a low-key version of the fatuous generalizations about not being intimidated, not having a double standard, and doing a pretty good job which he made in the conference in November. And in this, he resembles the rest of his MSM colleagues far more than any of us can afford. The generation that cannot see Pallywood under their noses.

As to the big question: Why didn’t he report on incitement to hatred in the Palestinian territories? — an issue nicely treated by Ken Levin at Frontpage? – he responds by saying, “well that’s an entirely different article.”

No it isn’t. It’s critical to understanding why a generation has been destroyed and lives in insane hatred and resentment. But let’s grant Erlanger his point, despite how facetious an evasion it is. Okay, Mr. Erlanger, as Steven and Lori then pointed out, “we look forward to seeing the article. Soon.”

I challenge Steven Erlanger formally. I think you don’t write about this material because you’re afraid of what the effect on your contacts within the Palestinian territories would be, your access, and even your safety. I think you can’t write about it, and if you do, it will end up sounding a lot like that CNN reporter reporting on the celebrations of 9-11… although… while… apparent… and especially, all direct response to Israeli behavior.

Go ahead, Steve, prove us wrong. We’re calling you out.

Partly in response to my fisking of Erlanger’s recent piece on the “Lost Generation” of Palestinian youth — a lengthy article that never once addressed the abuse of these children by their brave leadership — Lori Marcus has asked me to be on her program this afternoon:

THE ZOA MIDDLE EAST REPORT
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21.2007
12:00 NOON - 1:00 PM EST
1540 AM - Philadelphia area and
anywhere in the world
(click on “listen live” or on “listen anytime” if you missed us live)

Steve Erlanger, NYT Jerusalem Bureau chief,
will join us as we question him about his coverage of the Middle East,
and particularly his “news”story that ran in the NYT on March 12th:
A GENERATION LOST: The Second Intifada; Years of Strife and Lost Hope Scar Young Palestinian Lives.

Following the interview with Erlanger, we will be joined by Richard Landes,
BU History Professor and an expert on media manipulation. Richard will discuss the various levels of dangers presented by the mainstream media’s portrayal of Israel -
and the NYT is the Mother of all Mainstream Media!

CAIR has responded to recent criticism in the NYT (fisked here), in a way that reminds me of how the hyper-critical Jews responded to getting criticized. No substance — just “YOUR TRYING TO SILENCE ME.” I only cite the opening lines here. Let the masochists go and read more.

CAIR: Attacks Seek to Silence Muslims
Source: Letters to the Editor

CAIR: ADVOCACY GROUP FOR MUSLIMS GETS QUESTIONS

ATTACKS SEEK TO SILENCE MUSLIMS

This New York Times article on the challenges facing the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) exposed the relentless efforts by “a small band of critics” made up of racist right-wing and neo-Zionist extremists who seek to silence and marginalize American Muslims and groups that represent them by exploiting anti-Muslim fears in our nation.

Wow! This is how they handle criticism? Smear the groups that you don’t like? Fear-monger and hate-monger? The ADL may be Zionist. It’s hardly either neo- or extremist. And most of the critics of CAIR, including other Muslims, are not trying to marginalize American Muslims, but groups that, under the guise of defending American Muslims, are actually pursuing theocratic Muslim agendas.

CAIR’s purpose is very clear. It is a grass roots organization that serves as America’s largest and most visible Muslim civil rights group. CAIR is to the Muslim community what the NAACP is to the African-American community or what the ADL is to the Jewish community.

If only. Assertions will not do with a record like CAIR’s. It’s not enough to say, “Our critics are Islamophobes and Zionazis.” You’ve got to address substance.

For the record, CAIR unequivocally condemns terror attacks targeting people of all faiths and in all areas of the world.

Alas, only for the record. CAIR can get their folks out to demonstrate against movies depicting Muslims as terrorists — in honor-shame cultures face matters above all — but not to demonstrate against Muslim terrorists. On the contrary, they cheer on Hamas. Condemnations from CAIR of Muslim terror sound a lot like Otto’s apology to Archie in Fish Called Wanda… “I’m sssssssss…., I’m sssssssssh…”

CAIR operates under the strict guidelines of its core values. These values include: support for freedom of religion and freedom of expression, and a commitment to supporting policies that promote dialogue, civil rights and diversity in America and worldwide.

Okay. The rest you can read if you want. The issue here is: are these the words of demopaths or democrats?

Fjordman has a post at Brussels Journal that illustrates many of the themes I’ve tried to emphasize here at Augean Stables, in particular the way that anti-Zionism will be the death of Europe. Sure it feels good to pop those tasty truffles of moral Schadenfreude and point the finger at Israel. But when your cholesterol is at 350 and your arteries are clogging, maybe you can’t afford that indulgence any more. Can Europe go on a resentment-free diet? Can it cast off its ingrained anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism?

Why Europeans Should Support Israel
From the desk of Fjordman on Mon, 2007-03-12 07:49

One of the most frustrating things to watch is the powerful anti-Israeli and sometimes outright anti-Semitic current that is prevalent in too much of Europe’s media. Bat Ye’or’s predictions about Arab anti-Semitism spreading in Europe as the continent’s Islamization and descent into Eurabia continues have so far proved depressingly accurate. This trend needs to be fought, vigorously, by all serious European anti-Jihadists. Not only because it is immoral and unfair to Israelis, which it is, but also because those who assist it are depriving Europeans of the opportunity to fully grasp the threat and understand the nature of the Jihad that is now targeting much of Europe as well.

This is precisely what I mean when I say that anti-Zionism is a form of cultural AIDS: the need to dump on Israel is so strong that a) it makes Europeans an easy channel for Jihadi propaganda, and b) it makes them incapable of recognizing how dangerous their foe, because any admission that Jihad is a ruthless and totalistic enemy would mitigate their ability to dump on Israel for harming innocent Arabs. The sad, obvious, and denied truth is that the two most “medieval” trends in the 21st century go hand in hand — global Jihad and anti-Semitism.
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Nicholas Kristof has published a piece that combines political naïveté with a cloying concern for Israel, and recommends US-assisted suicide. Kristoff is an excellent example of someone who, not understanding the Israeli self-criticism vs. Palestinian demonizing chasm, ignores the latter (like his colleague Erlanger) and uses the former against the Israelis.

Uh oh. Let me guess. He’s going to tell us that there is an opportunity for peace, and that by not pursuing it, we will make things worse for America. Rewarmed Oslo logic: “Land for Peace.” It systematically avoids the painful lessons of the 21st century: “Land for War.” And its advice will produce the opposite of what it claims: harm America, Middle East peace prospects and Israel itself… not to mention the first and constant victims of this misguided policy — the Palestinians.

Within Israel, you hear vitriolic debates in politics and the news media about the use of force and the occupation of Palestinian territories. Yet no major American candidate is willing today to be half as critical of hard-line Israeli government policies as, say, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper.

First, this is not true. Haaretz is one of the more popular sources for Western journalists. But leave it to Kristof to complain that it’s ignored. And to the degree that some of the more grotesque stuff doesn’t come out, there’s excellent reasons. Haaretz is a ferociously “self-critical” newspaper that makes a specialty of the kind of attacks on the government that characterize”masochistic omnipotence complex.” For the West to report this self-criticism as if it were accurate rather than rhetoric would seriously miinform the public. As it is, by presenting even a watered-down version of this self-critical stuff from Haaretz (Gideon Levy, Amira Hass), side-by-side with the “other side” — i.e., demonizing scapegoating claims of Palestinian press (which practice is called even-handed), skews the picture that the Western media present to their audience profoundly. And apparently Kristoff is both a channel and a victim of such disinformation.
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