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Category Archives: Palestinian Culture
How not to save Israel: Response to Gershom Gorenberg
A friend asked me what I thought of the following piece by Gershom Gorenberg published by Slate. Disclosure: Gorenberg and I were once close friends. He was a regular at the Center for Millennial Studies, when wrote his book End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. He even asked me once to substitute for him at an NIF [!] function in New York – before I knew what I was dealing with (more on that below).
For a formal review of the book by Lazar Berman, who used to post at the Augean Stables, see “The Unmaking of Gershom Gorenberg.”
Fisked below.
How to Save Israel
The three steps that could rescue it from endless conflict and international ostracism.
By Gershom Gorenberg|Posted Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011, at 6:59 AM ETFor Israel to establish itself again as a liberal democracy, it must make three changes.
It’s pretty revealing that Gorenberg thinks Israel needs to establish itself again as a “liberal democracy.” He apparently thinks that the first round ended in 1967. That means that the key moment in a democracy – when an opposition group can be voted into power – which occurred for the first time in 1977, doesn’t even count, along with the in some cases excessive commitment to radical democratic principles of Aharon Barak’s Supreme Court (1978-2006). As will become apparent later on, this schema has a great deal to do with his moral perfectionism and, tangentially I think, his concern for what others think, an aspect of his thought revealed in his concern about “international ostracism.”
The following is adapted from Gershom Gorenberg’s new book The Unmaking of Israel. Read the earlier excerpts about why, exactly, Israel ended up losing most of its Arab population in 1948 and about why a new kind of old-time Judaism has taken hold in Israel.
I write from an Israel with a divided soul. It is not only defined by its contradictions; it is at risk of being torn apart by them. It is a country with uncertain borders and a government that ignores its own laws. Its democratic ideals, much as they have helped shape its history, or on the verge of being remembered among the false political promises of 20th-century ideologies.
The risks Gorenberg identifies (see below) are only some of the risks Israel runs, but which he tends to ignore, not the least, the risks embedded in the suggestions he has to make for resolving the contradictions. “On the verge of being remembered among the false political promises of 20th century ideologies”?! Is this a reference to Nazism and Communism? Historically this is ludicrous – unless Gorenberg sees Israel becoming a totalitarian state sometime soon. Only in terms of the kind of post-colonial anti-Zionism of say, Tony Judt or Phillip Weiss, it does make sense.
What will Israel be in five years, or 20? Will it be the Second Israeli Republic, a thriving democracy within smaller borders? Or a pariah state where one ethnic group rules over another? Or a territory marked on the map, between the river and the sea, where the state has been replaced by two warring communities? Will it be the hub of the Jewish world, or a place that most Jews abroad prefer not to think about? The answers depend on what Israel does now.
I have an Israeli friend, a good liberal who supported Oslo despite the information he was getting about the malevolent intentions of the PA, who admitted to me that after the outbreak of the Second Intifada (in other words, after the Palestinians got out of their Trojan horse and showed their real hand), that the hardest thing for him to realize is that “it’s not in our hands.”
Gorenberg has yet to realize that. For him, everything is in Israel’s hands, and if only they’d do what he told them, then they’d have peace, a liberal democracy, the moral high ground, and the world would once again like and admire them (or at least not stigmatize them as pariahs). As a result, he is a prime candidate for “masochistic omnipotence complex” (MOS) ie, it’s all our fault and if only we could be better [a liberal democracy] then we could fix everything.
As a result, Gorenberg is susceptible to framing the conflict in terms of the “four dimensional Israeli, two- (or one-) dimensional Palestinian“. Since I rarely agree with Phillip Weiss, let me note that he points out the same lack of any real interest in Palestinians on Gorenberg’s part. This was, by the way, my critique of the play NIF staged in NYC which I commented on in Gorenberg’s place: four dimensional Jews ruminating and churning their guilt in a void filled with fantasies of Palestinian peace-makers whom extremist Jews try to assassinate.
For Israel to establish itself again as a liberal democracy, it must make three changes. First, it must end the settlement enterprise, end the occupation, and find a peaceful way to partition the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.
What on earth leads Gorenberg to think that this “peaceful way to partition” is possible? When he says “stop the occupation” he presumably means retreat to the Green line (the ’49 armistice lines). When the Palestinian leadership – “secular” and religious – says occupation, they mean the shore line. Does Gorenberg think that ending the settlement enterprise and the occupation will lead to a peaceful partition, rather than to a resumption of war with Israel in a weaker position? Has he considered that possibility?
ASMEA Talk: Pallywood, Muhammad al Durah and Cognitive Warfare in the 21st Century
Pallywood, Muhammad al Durah and Cognitive Warfare in the 21st Century
Richard Landes, Boston University
ASMEA Conference, Washington DC, November 4, 2011
I’d like to make two arguments. First, that the image of the IDF as child-killers is the product of a constant campaign of Arab/Palestinian cognitive warfare in which the Western mainstream news media has played a critical role in conveying this disinformation as news; second, that such a state of affairs has had a devastating impact on our ability to understand the conflict and leading to serious errors in judgment.
Let’s take what I would argue is at once a paradigmatic case, and, at the same time, the most terrible case, that of Muhammad al Durah, the 12-year old Palestinian boy who became the icon of the second intifadah, even as he should be an icon of the destructive incompetence of the MSNM.
On September 30, 2000, Charles Enderlin of France2 received the following footage from his long-time cameraman in Gaza, Talal abu Rahmah.
It was accompanied by the following narrative from Talal:
- The boy and the father took cover during an exchange of fire.
- The Israelis fired for 40 minutes at the boy who was hit and lay bleeding for 20 minutes while the Israelis fired – bullets like rain – at any ambulance that tried to take him away.
- They targeted and killed the boy deliberately.
Let me present what I think Charles Enderlin should have done were he a serious journalist merely on the basis of what he had before him. There are at least three issues that should have aroused his doubts.
Annals of Demopathy, No. 743,987,044
The Palestinian Authority has accused Palestinian Media Watch (which translates their Arab material into Western languages) of… wait for it… “incitement.”
Let’s not confuse Palestinian children with reality: They are the true victims, nothing else matters
In the sometimes it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry category. This just in from the indefatigable chronicler of Palestinian madness and its enablers, Itamar Marcus:
UNRWA workers “adamantly opposed” to Holocaust education that will ”confuse the thinking” of children
by Itamar MarcusThe following is the article in the official PA daily:
Headline: “The [UNRWA Workers'] Union emphasized its opposition to teaching the Holocaust of the Jews as part of the curriculum in the [UNRWA] Agency’s schools…”
“The [UNRWA] Workers’ Union emphasized its adamant opposition to teaching the Holocaust of the Jews within the educational curriculum of UNRWA schools, as part of the topic of human rights. The union said, ‘We emphasize our adamant opposition to confusing the thinking of our students’ by means of Holocaust studies in the human rights study curriculum, and emphasize study of the history of Palestine and the acts of massacre which have been carried out against Palestinians, the most recent of which was the war against Gaza.’
[Union chairman, Suheil] Al-Hindi, explained to France Press, that UNRWA ‘approved teaching the Holocaust…’ but [the teaching] has not yet started.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 14, 2011].
It’s hard to know what’s more racist, the hatred of Israel and the Jews, or the belief that Palestinian children are too stupid to hold more than one idea in the mind at the same time, and are therefore really only good for hate-mongering propaganda and cannon fodder.
This, or course, is the same UN that is about to award Syria with a chair on the UN “Human Rights” Council.
Does Burston really think it’s legitimate to view BDS as Tikkun Olam?
(My apologies for taking so long to post this. I wanted feedback from friends on my treatment of Tikkun Olam which is not an area of any expertise for me. I wrote this during the Thanksgiving break, but only post it now. I do think, however, that the issue I treat here is not going away.)
A good friend sent me the following piece by Bradley Burston with the comment: “It expresses how I feel.” I find it so pervasively flawed that I have difficulty taking it seriously. But if my friend can (and he’s one of the smartest people I know), then I have to, and it does raise, however poorly, a whole range of key issues. So, with great reluctance (because there are more interesting texts to sink one’s teeth into), I fisk below.
First, a brief introductory note: One of the key contentions of Burston and the people he likes (J-Street, Jewish Voices for Peace, Young Jews for Peace, etc.) is that a) they love Israel and b) they know the best way to peace which, since Israel won’t take that path, they must force upon her. Now all these groups locate along the “left” political spectrum differently. NIF disapproves of BDS but funds groups who do; J-Street disapproves of BDS even if they associate with people who do; Jewish Voices for Peace and Emily Schaeffer (below) support BDS in many forms.
Whatever the details, each of these groups believes that they must pressure Israel to leave the occupied territories out of a combination of moral passion – the Israel they love should set a moral example to the world – and peaceful intentions – they know their formula for peace will work.
Now some people, myself included, see the situation very differently. On moral matters, howevermuch we may share concerns about the occupation and dominion over another people harms both Palestinians and Israelis, we have difficulty with a moral equivalence, that ends up as a moral inversion, with the profound condescension and bigotry it involves in its abysmally low standards for the Palestinians, and the inversely exacting standards to which it holds Israel. The result – people, Jews! – for whom Israel is the new Nazi. And even as such people are morally reckless in their accusations of Israel, they echo and reinforce genocidal hatreds among the most base of the enemies of the Jews.
On the practical level, many of us feel that while making concessions and apologizing is a splendid way to begin a process of reconciliation, that only works in cases where the other side also seeks resolution, and responds in kind. In some cases, conflicts are not only unresponsive to such an approach, but literally allergic: rather than a peace process it produces a war process. Indeed, given how often and consistently Palestinian (and more broadly Arab) leaders have seized upon Israeli concessions to press for more and on Israeli confessions to reaffirm a demonizing narrative, it’s dubious that under the best of circumstances, Palestinian political players would respond to an Israeli withdrawal to the ’67 borders with a shift to peace.
On the contrary, any such move most likely will strengthen those in the Palestinian camp who argue that any withdrawal should be part of a “Phased plan” to destroy Israel and use any and every pretext to keep the war alive. Any observer who dismisses even this possibility – the favorite line is either, “you’re paranoid,” or “oh, you think they only understand violence.” – is either in ignorance or denial of the discourse that prevails in Palestinian political culture today.
And so, if under the best of conditions withdrawing to the ’67 lines could backfire, how much the more likely that the voices of attack will grow louder if Israel finds itself compelled as a result of becoming the object of universal execration (BDS) and pressure from its only powerful ally, the United States, to withdraw. The naïveté of such a formula is only matched by the aggressiveness with which it gets implemented. A formula for war: si vis bellum para pacem.
The fact that groups can argue that the US should force Israel to make these concessions without any serious discussion of the necessary massive reciprocity from Palestinians (especially when it comes to incitement to hatred and violence), raises serious doubts among many about their realism, and given their recklessness in insisting that virtually any means to get there are legitimate, it raises for us serious doubts about their responsibility.
As far as I can make out, Burston has no idea what I’m talking about. He’s like the New Yorker cartoon of a Manhattanite’s view of the USA. When he looks at the landscape of this debate, all he sees are him and his like-minded friends “doing the right thing,” while the opposition is at the other end of the spectrum – messianic rabbis and their neo-con partners who will not part with an inch of the land, even if God himself told them to do so. And nothing in between.
He encases his simplistic dualism in the antimony “Jews of the Gate” vs. “Jews of the Wall.” This fisking comes from someone who thinks that both of his categories are poorly conceived; and that the real issues are entirely different from the ones upon which he focuses.
Thanksgiving, Tikkun Olam, and U.S. Jews breaking the Israel barrier By Bradley Burston
[Part 2 of a series on U.S. Jews emotionally divesting from Israel. In part, a journal of a recent West Coast speaking tour hosted by J Street]
Norah: It reminds me of this part of Judaism that I really like. It’s called Tikkun Olam. It says that the world is broken into pieces, and that it’s everybody’s job to find them and put them back together again.
Nick: Well, maybe we’re the pieces. And maybe we’re not supposed to find the pieces. Maybe we are the pieces. “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” (Columbia Pictures, 2008)
It’s hard not to read this as a spoof of the trivial use to which a mystical concept like tikkun olam has been put in new “new-age” spirituality. Not having seen the movie, I don’t know if this is an homage to “Deep Thoughts,” but Burston seems to offer them up as his credo. Indeed, Nick’s version – people! – stands behind the full line-up of comments he makes throughout this piece. So it’s probably worth a short comment on this deep and now deeply problematic notion that has set our moral compasses awry in the 21st century.
Eye for an Eye: On the moral chasm in the Arab-Israeli conflict
People who like to bait Jews enjoy accusing them of taking “an eye for an eye” in their fight with the Palestinians, despite its profound misunderstanding of the original source. (I argue that it’s also a indicator of equality before the law: unlike other law codes, Israelite law does not recognize aristocratic privilege in its “wergeld/manprice.”)
It’s also a favorite theme of pacifists arguing against retaliation, as, e.g., in the case of 9-11. Gandhi, in what I’m beginning to suspect was not an innocent misreading of the principle, is quoted for saying, “an eye for an eye and pretty soon the whole world is blind.”
Here’s a good illustration of what the phrase means in reality. Nothing quite like an incident like this for clarity about the huge moral chasm that separates Israeli culture from Palestinian.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Israel Treats Palestinian Cancer Patient, Father Goes on Terror Rampage
Posted by Jameel @ The Muqata at 7/19/2010 01:09:00 PMOn the Monday morning of June 14, 2010, an Israeli policeman was killed and three others were injured when Palestinian terrorists opened fire at a police car near the Yehuda/West Bank settlement of Beit Hagai. The officers were making their way to Hebron from the southern city of Beersheba.
The killed officer was identified as Command Sergeant Major Yehoshua (Shuki) Sofer, 39, who had served in the Hebron region for 14 years. (YNET).
This morning, the Shin Bet cleared for publication, that the Shin Bet has arrested a Hamas cell believed to be behind the shooting attack.
The Paradox:
One of the cell’s heads said in his interrogation that just two weeks before he embarked on the attack, his six-year-old daughter was hospitalized in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, where she had a tumor removed from her eye. The operation was funded by an Israeli organization. (YNET)
I’d love some more information here. How did this man talk about the two deeds – his and the Israeli hospital’s?
Hamas Refuses Manipulation Flotilla Aid: My First Report for PJTV
I just produced my first TV news item for PJTV (whose temporary Jerusalem Bureau Chief I’ve just become). They do not permit embeds, so please view the story at their site, leave comments there and constructive criticism here.
In my title to this post I mention an expression from the COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) official who briefed us that fell out of the video report in the editing process. Answering one reporter’s question about how Hamas could ignore these materials sent to the inhabitants (I can’t use the word “citizens”) of Gaza, he replied: “It was never about these goods; it was about the media. It’s not a humanitarian flotilla, it’s a manipulation flotilla.” Dupes and Demopaths anyone?
Omri Ceren of Mere Rhetoric has sent me the following series of posts in which Hamas (and other Palestinian “leaders”) have victimized the Palestinians in order to demonize Israel.
*2006*
Vulgar Palestinian Propaganda Succeeds with International Media – Again!
Palestinians Reject Israeli Humanitarian Efforts – Easier to Demonize Israel That Way
Palestinians Intentionally Create Humanitarian Crisis, Red Cross and Reuters Parrot Their Claims
2007
Hamas Trying To Turn Gaza Into A Humanitarian Disaster – They’re Stopping Gazans From Getting Medical Aid
Hamas Blocks Israeli Food Shipments, Intentionally Starves Gaza
Civilians To Create A Humanitarian Disaster – Again!
UN And “Gaza Businessmen” Agree: It’s Israel’s Fault That Hamas
Has Intentionally Created A Humanitarian Disaster In the Gaza
Strip By Blocking Food and Medical Shipments
AP: Yup, Humanitarian Crisis Intentionally Caused By Hamas Is
Still Israel’s Fault
Hamas Intentionally Creating Humanitarian Disaster In Gaza – Now
They’re Shutting Down The Few Medical Clinics That Are Still
Working
UN Set To Blame Israel For Intentional, Hamas-Engineered
Humanitarian Crisis In Gaza
IDF Colonel: Hamas Creating Humanitarian Crisis. No Kidding.
Palestinians Going Global With Program To Demonize Israel For
Deliberate, Hamas-Engineered Gaza Humanitarian Crisis (Updated:
WaPo Hops On Board)
Hamas Intentionally Creating Humanitarian Crises In Gaza By
Stealing Fuel From Hospitals For Their “Operations” Against Israel
Palestinians Intentionally Creating Humanitarian Crises In Gaza By
Refusing To Accept Israeli Fuel
2008
Hamas Soldiers Tank Up As Israel Restores Full Fuel To Gaza
Palestinians Shut Down Generator To Create Gaza Humanitarian
Crisis, UN Blames Israel
UN: Gazans Have More Than Enough Food, But Lack Of Fruits And
Vegetables Is A Humanitarian Crisis
UN Statement On Gaza Humanitarian Crisis Somehow Misses “Hamas
Intentionally Causing It” Part
Hamas Confiscates Aid Trucks, Promises To Deliver Them Some Time
Later
Breaking: Two Israelis Murdered By Fatah, IJ Terrorists – /While
Supplying Fuel To Gaza/ (UPDATE: Israeli Towns Shelled For Hours
Before And After Attack)
Hamas Creates Humanitarian Crisis By Stealing Fuel For Terrorism,
Preventing Israeli Gas Shipments, And Cutting Off Gaza Civilians.
/Again/. (Plus: International Press, Human Rights Groups Blame
Israel. /Again/)
New Data Confirms Old Data: Blaming Israel For Gaza’s Medical
Collapse Is A Vicious Lie
Fuel Shipments Renewed After UN, EU Blame Israel For Hamas’s
Intentionally Created Humanitarian Crisis
Palestinian Authority: /Of Course/ Gaza Humanitarian Crisis Is
Manufactured By Hamas (Plus: United Nations Still Trying To Blame
Israel)
Evil Israeli Apartheid State Responds To Weekend Rocket Barrages
By Delivering Humanitarian Aid To Gaza
AFP Lede: “Crippling Israeli Blockade”
Evil Israeli Apartheid Regime Responds To Another Day Of Rockets
By Sending Money Into Gaza
Breathless HuffPo Headline About Gazans Eating Grass Contradicted
By Rest Of Headline, Linked Picture, Reality (Plus: Anti-Semitic
Comments Ensue Anyway)
Hamas Now Doing Everything Humanly Possible To Generate Gaza
Civilian Casualties
2009
Gaza Hospitals Overflowing With Hamas Weapons, Palestinian
Vigilante Murder
Confirmed: Gaza Has More Fuel Than Most Of Eastern Europe As
Russia Shuts Down Gas Pipelines
UN Imposes Collective Punishment On Gaza Population In Response To
Hamas Crimes, Suspends Humanitarian Shipments
Hamas Soldiers Threw “Medicine Grenades” At The IDF
2010
Aww… Glut Of Gaza Products Putting Small-Time Smugglers Out Of
Business
UN Officials Hosting Anti-Israel Tours And Media Events In Gaza.
Obama State Dept Boosts Their Funding [Video]
Bret Stephens and Israel’s Liberal “Friends”
Bret Stephens has an excellent piece up at the WSJ about the attitude of liberals towards Israel. A few comments sprinkled throughout… (HT/LK)
Israel and Its Liberal ‘Friends’
Why don’t they apply the same tough love to the Palestinians?
By BRET STEPHENSQuestions for liberals: What does it mean to be a friend of Israel? What does it mean to be a friend of the Palestinians? And should the same standards of friendship apply to Israelis and Palestinians alike, or is there a double standard here as well?
It has become the predictable refrain among Israel’s liberal critics that their criticism is, in fact, the deepest form of friendship. Who but a real friend, after all, is willing to tell Israel the hard truths it will not tell itself? Who will remind Israel that it is now the strong party, and that it cannot continue to play the victim and evade the duties of moral judgment and prudential restraint? Above all, who will remind Israel that it cannot go on denying Palestinians their rights, their dignity, and a country they can call their own?
The answer, say people like Peter Beinart, formerly of the New Republic, is people like . . . Peter Beinart. And now that Israel has found itself in another public relations hole thanks to last week’s raid on the Gaza flotilla, Israelis will surely be hearing a lot more from him.
Of course, Beinart is just the current poster-boy. (I still haven’t fisked him, although is article cries out for it. One of the best responses was Noah Pollak’s. But the real flotilla of liberal “friends” is at J-Street.
Now consider what it means for liberals to be friends of the Palestinians.
Rachel Corrie, Again
I have not posted for a long while because I’m madly trying to get my manuscript to the editor by the end of the month, and I much appreciate the fascinating conversations that are taking place in the comment section. Here’s a topic to discuss:
The Upcoming Rachel Corrie Trial: Go After Her Real Killers
An open letter to Rachel Corrie’s parents from an Israeli parent. (Related: And don’t miss Ronald Radosh: A Note to Israel: Try Rachel Corrie’s Accusers.)
March 9, 2010 – by Lenny Ben-David
Jerusalem — Craig and Cindy Corrie, I welcome you to Israel where, I understand, you plan to bring a civil suit before an Israeli court on March 10 “to put on public record,” the British Guardian wrote, “the events that led to [your] daughter Rachel’s death in March 2003.”
I thank God for the well-being of my children and grandchildren, and I cannot imagine the pain and anger you feel over the loss of your daughter, Rachel.
My sons have served as combat soldiers, and may have actually fought on the very ground where your daughter died. The area was laced with tunnels to smuggle weapons and explosives for use against Israelis. My children are Israelis who ride in buses and eat in pizzerias, and by the grace of God they have been spared attacks by the suicide bombers your daughter championed.
Some may see the irony in your using the courts and the free press of Israel in your attempt to pursue and denounce the nation your daughter loathed. I see the tragedy in your allying with the International Solidarity Movement — the very people and organization who led and, in a sense, really pushed Rachel to her death.
According to news accounts, Israel will permit four of Corrie’s colleagues from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) to enter Israel to give testimony on what occurred that day. Actually, I believe it’s a good decision to permit the four into Israel’s jurisdiction where the ISM members could and should be arrested for reckless endangerment, fraud, manslaughter, aiding terrorists, and a host of other charges. The public may also discover who paid for your lawsuit and the expenses of bringing you and ISM witnesses to Israel.
Read the rest, leave comments there, and here.
Personally, I think the big target here should be the ISM, an organization that embodies the moral corruption of the radical left in the 21st century.
Look who’s a fan of the Goldstone Report: Jihadis spell out Cognitive Warfare 101
Elder of Ziyon posted a link to a link to the website of Islamic Jihad al Quds Brigade endorsing enthusiastically the Goldstone Report. Here’s a translation from an Arabic specialist rather than Google translator:
War Media [Office] – Gaza:
16 / 10 / 2009
Translation: Shammai FishmanThe Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine values the great efforts undertaken by the legal institutions and human rights organizations in rallying support and backing for the “Goldstone” report.
Such touching appreciation for the work of the NGOs.
The movement stresses in a statement of which the website of the al-Quds Brigades – War Media [Office] – has obtained a copy of, that the adoption of this report should be considered a victory for the Palestinian people’s will, which rejects the Zio-American dictations, as well as a victory for the blood of the martyrs and the suffering of the wounded heroes and a victory for the forces and organizations that stood in the face of attempts to be withdrawn or disabled.
Unpacked, that means, we’re delighted that our strategy of maximizing death among our own people has been handled by the Western journalists, NGOs and Goldstone in such a way as to hold the Israelis responsible, thus making successful those sacrifices in the service of the cause of destroying Israel.
The movement viewed the success of the vote on the report as “proof of the correctness of its positions with regard to the crime of postponing the previous meeting,” emphasizing that no one had any real justification for that postponement.
In other words, the “excuses” of helping negotiations by not attacking the people we’re supposed to negotiate with, are illegitimate. Because we oppose any negotiations, we’re delighted that the weaponized report has now moved to the next stage.
The view of the Islamic Jihad movement is that the condemnation the Zionist entity and its criminalization is an opportunity that must be followed by the isolation of this criminal entity and the activation of the Arab and Islamic decisions of boycott regionally and internationally. The receiving of Zionist war criminals in the Arab and Islamic states and capitals should be stopped, meetings with them should not take place and the work to bring them to the courts should be continued.
Couldn’t ask them to spell it out better. Note the complete congruency between this strategy and that of Richard Falk.
The statement concluded by warning against continuing negotiations and the political and security meetings with the enemy, because they provide him with a lifeline.
AKA, we the forces of war delight in Goldstone’s work. What a fabulously useful infidel.
Meantime Goldstone took the opportunity of an interview with the BBC to backtrack on his objections to the weaponized UNHRC resolution, here so warmly endorsed.
UPDATE: Shammai Fishman, the translator of the above notes:
I wish to add that the official translation of al-I’lam al-Harbi is Military Media – that apparently is the division of the al-Quds Brigades of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad which runs their media website and press releases.
This document is an example of the English translation of the term:
http://www.saraya.ps/Byan.php?id=2087
This is the main website every link has the logo:
http://saraya.ps/index.php
Anatomy of (Self-)Contempt: Gideon Levy on Netanyahu’s UN Speech
Gideon Levy wrote a piece filled with contempt for Netanyahu’s UN Speech, which I posted last week. Now, having heard and read the speech, I’m amazed at what Levy says, since it barely even accords with the speech. In a sense what Levy has done is illustrate the famous Gary Larson cartoon.
I tried to find the one with the wife yelling at her husband: “You are impossible. If you don’t make the bed right now, I’ll go crazy.” And he hears: “You…me…bed…now…crazy.”
What Bibi said; what Levy heard:
Netanyahu’s speech / Cheapening the HolocaustPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cheapened the memory of the Holocaust in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. He did so twice. Once, when he brandished proof of the very existence of the Holocaust, as if it needed any, and again when he compared Hamas to the Nazis.
If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, Netanyahu cheapens it. Is there a need of proof, 60 years later? Or, the world might think, is the denier right?
Apparently Levy lives in a universe where Holocaust denial is a mere pecadillo of the extreme loony right. He seems unaware of the growing encroachment of denial — especially among his people’s enemies — or the increasing mainstream credibilty it now receives in places like Spain. Cheapen? Many of the people in that room (a lone Palestinian delegate was still there) think it’s a serious debate, and all who left think the Jews made most of this up.
This purist claim that trying to refute Holocaust denial should be considered cheapening the Holocaust is doubly revolting coming from someone who surely would have no truck with those who make the Holocaust a sacred issue, and on the contrary, whose work is especially appreciated by people who belittle the Holocaust. Indeed, Norman Finkelstein, who regularly dismsses Holocaust-mongering, and compares Israel to the Nazis — something Levy would never do — loves Levy’s column. (One might argue that Finkelstein is to Levy, what Levy is to Netanyahu in the Gary Larson cartoon.)
Ben Dror Yemini vs. Gideon Levy: Fireman vs. Arsonist
Two articles today exemplify the vast differences between sanity and masochism in Israeli journalism, one by Gideon Levy of Ha-aretz expressing sheer contempt for Netanyahu’s speech at the UN, another expressing sheer contempt of Richard Goldstone for being the tool of “the dark side.” I link to the beginning of Levy’s (which I don’t have the time to fisk, but welcome your suggestions), and the full text of Yemini’s which appeared originally in Hebrew in Ma’ariv.
First, the arsonist who, in his glorious ability to “self”-criticize, spews his venom where all who hate his people can come and draw sustenance:
Netanyahu’s speech / Cheapening the HolocaustPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cheapened the memory of the Holocaust in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. He did so twice. Once, when he brandished proof of the very existence of the Holocaust, as if it needed any, and again when he compared Hamas to the Nazis.
If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, Netanyahu cheapens it. Is there a need of proof, 60 years later? Or, the world might think, is the denier right? A Advertisementnd it is doubtful that any historian of stature would buy the comparison the prime minister made between Hamas and the Nazis, or between the London Blitz and the Qassam rockets on Sderot. In the Blitz, 400 German bombers and 600 fighter planes killed 43,000 people and destroyed more than one million homes. Hamas’ Qassams, perhaps the most primitive weapon in the world, have killed 18 people in eight years. Yes, they sowed great terror – but a Blitz?
And if we can compare a poorly equipped terrorist organization to the horrific Nazi killing machine, why should others not compare the Nazis’ behavior to that of Israel Defense Forces soldiers? In both cases, the comparison is baseless and infuriating. Netanyahu began the speech as if he were chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial – Holocaust, Holocaust, Holocaust; his family and his wife’s family…
Now the fire-fighter:
GOLDSTONE IS THE CRIMINAL
(Article by Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma’ariv, 25.9.09, p. B4-5)Let’s start at the end. Richard Goldstone perpetrated a moral crime. Not against the State of Israel but against human rights. He turned them into a weapon for dark regimes. Goldstone was not negligent. He did this with malice.
The criticism that was made in the first days following the report was on the basis of preliminary study. But time passes. And the more that the details of this report are revealed, the more it becomes clear that it is a libel. A libel with legal cover. A libel that was prepared in advance to incriminate the State of Israel, in the service of Libya and Iran. Goldstone willingly took up the loathsome role. He supplied these countries with the goods. The claim that “the discourse of rights” has become the dark forces’ most effective tool is a familiar one. The Goldstone report is the supreme expression of this. Its legal terminology is exemplary. It gushes about international human rights treaties. But it cannot hide the result: It is a libelous indictment of the State of Israel, in the service of the axis of terrorism and evil. Yes, there is marginal – very marginal – lip service regarding criticism of Hamas. Goldstone’s ilk is a sophisticated lot. They now reiterate from every stage, and Goldstone does it well, that they were actually objective. Here, they also leveled criticism at Hamas. How enlightened of them!
Goldstone sold his soul for an endless series of lies. Even Mary Robinson, who is not known as an admirer of Israel, understood that, “This is unfortunately a practice by the [UN Human Rights] Council: adopting resolutions guided not by human rights but by politics. This is very regrettable.” She refused to take the post. Goldstone took it and carried it out with excessive enthusiasm. If international law worked as it should, if the representatives of dark regimes did not have an automatic majority in it, Goldstone would have to stand trial. But this is impossible. And therefore, not only Israel but every moral person, every person for whom human rights are important, must declare Goldstone a criminal. Here is the proof.
Honor-Shame and Abbas’ Dilemma: The Problem of making peace
Khaled abu Toameh has an interesting analysis of the dilemma that Obama’s lates “peace-making” moves have created for Mahmoud Abbas. Although I don’t agree with his analysis, he does point out the central dilemma of the Arabs in dealing with the world — one also highlighted in the response to the failure of Farouk Hosni to become the head of UNESCO. (HT/Lianne)
Sep 24, 2009 1:11 | Updated Sep 24, 2009 1:23
Analysis: Tripartite summit undermines Abbas
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Talkbacks for this article: 5
Article’s topics: Mahmoud Abbas, Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Palestinian AuthorityPalestinian Authority officials in Ramallah have not hidden their disappointment with the tripartite summit that was held in New York and which brought together US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Binymain Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.Photo: AP [file]On Wednesday, the officials said they were not only disappointed with the outcome of the summit which, they noted, did not achieve any breakthrough in the stalled peace talks, but also with the circumstances under which the meeting was arranged.
Even many representatives of Abbas’s Fatah faction voiced their deep disappointment over his agreement to meet with Netanyahu unconditionally. Some went as far as accusing Obama of “humiliating” Abbas by forcing him to meet with Netanyahu against his will and contrary to his pledges.
Note here that anything the Palestinians insist on and is denied them they see as a humiliation. In this case, they want Israel to make major concessions just for the privilege of speaking with Abbas. Anything else — like meeting with no preconditions — they view as a loss. So the zero-sum game here is hard: they want Netanyahu to freeze settlements as a precondition to sitting down. Any compromise, in the honor-shame world, shows weakness.
Of course, Obama is strongly to blame for this situation, since he and his administrators acted at the beginning as if the settlement issue were nonsense that they could put an end to with a sweep of their hand (something like an intifada in the original sense), encouraging the Palestinians to dig in and watch Israel squiirm. When they realized how complex the issue (and hopefully how unbalanced their approach), they left Abbas stranded on a limb he had proudly gone out.
Hamas and Human Shields: Is it a “human shield” if they’re willing?
Here’s the latest posting at the IDF YouTube site.
The combatant calls to a group of kids who appear to be accompanied by an adult woman and they wllingly go to provide cover for him.
This raises 2 points:
1. In terms of Israel getting blasted for collecive punishment, and for not discerning between civilians and miltants — how are you supposed to do that when everyone is involved, some wllingly? In this case the kids and woman are enabling a terrorst to escape after he committed terror act. What is their level of responsibility/involvement? legally? How should Israel respond when Hamas exploits the fact that Israel won’t attack civilians?
2. Is this not proof that Israel doesn’t fire deliberately on civilians. If they did, this tactic would make no sense. Here he exploits the IDF’s unwillingness to incur Palestinian civilian casualties, and yet Goldstone condems them for it.
Note that the Goldstone Commission explicitly addressed this issue with a dismissive sweep of the hand now familiiar to those reading the report. They themselves cite the following video in which a Hamas leader, warned by cell phone by an Israeli intelligence officer that his house will be bombed, acts just as the fellow in the video above. Goldstone’s response:
The Mission notes, however, that the incident occurred in 2007. No such incidents are alleged by the Israeli Government with regard to the military operations that began on 27 December 2008. The Mission received no reports of such incidents from other sources.
Couldn’t have looked very hard. Israel Matsav posts a good example from January 8, 2009:
Notes “the Mission,
475. The Mission is also aware of the public statement by Mr. Fathi Hammad, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, on 29 February 2009, which is adduced as evidence of Hamas’ use of human shields. Mr. Hammad reportedly stated that … the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death seeking. For the Palestinian people, death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the mujahideen excel and the children excel. Accordingly,
476. Although the Mission finds this statement morally repugnant, it does not consider it to constitute evidence that Hamas forced Palestinian civilians to shield military objectives against attack. The Government of Israel has not identified any such cases.
Historians often use this kind of reasoning when the evidence disturbs their argument… “there is no evidence… nothing suggests that… not a shred of evidence supports…” It’s got nothing to do with reality, only with narrative.
Read the rest of Israel Matsav’s analysis.
Finally! An Arab Voice for Resettling the Palestinian Refugees
I’m pretty sure that if you were to take a poll of Americans and ask them, “who put the Palestinian refugees in camps and kept them there to this day?” a large majority would respond, “The Israelis, duh. Why would the Arabs do that to their brethren?” For example, Michael Moore speaks about a visit to the refugee camps in 1988:
Although in my life I had already traveled through Central America, China, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the Middle East. I wasn’t ready for what I saw in the refugee camps in the Occupied Territories. I had never encountered such squalor, debasement, and utter misery. To force human beings to live in these conditions – and do so at the barrel of a gun, for more than forty years — just made no sense. Stupid White Men, p. 178.
Now Moore seems to presume that it’s the Israelis who have done this to the Palestinians. (His next paragraph goes into how badly the Jews have been treated in the past and how sad that they should turn around and do it to someone else — the favorite formula of those attracted to moral Schadenfreude.) He seems to have no awareness that for the first (and critical) half of the Palestinian experience of refugee confinement, it was Arab rulers and Arab guns who kept them in misery, and that once Israel took over they tried to move these unfortunate victims out into decent housing, and it was the Arabs who pushed UN Resolutions insisting that they be returned to the squalor of the camps.
How much more nonsensical is that — it’s the Arabs who want their misery, not the Israelis?
Unless one thinks in terms of Domineering Cognitive Egocentrism, and the Honor-Jihad Paradigm.
I have posted before on the inexcusably ruthless Palestinian and Arab policy of using the refugees from 1948 as hostages, really as sacrificial victims on the altar of Arab irredentist hatred of Israel. The single most constructive move that the world community can do to contribute to peace is test the real intentions of the “moderates” who assure us all that only a fraction of the Palestinian refugees will want to return to Israel once the peace deal has been brokered, by insisting that they start moving those who don’t/won’t want to move back into decent housing… not just in Palestinian territory, but all over the Arab world. And Jimmy Carter can lead the movement as head of Habitat Humanity.
Now, at last, an Arab intellectual, Daoud Al-Shiryan, has tackled this shameful (by modern humanitarian standards) situation. MEMRI provides an extensive translation of passages. H/T oao and Elder of Ziyon
August 11, 2009 No. 2483
Al-Arabiya TV Deputy Secretary-General Calls for Resettlement of Palestinian Refugees
Daoud Al-Shiryan, Al-Hayat columnist and deputy secretary-general of Al-Arabiya TV, recently published several articles criticizing how the Palestinian refugees have been treated by the Arab countries in which they live. He called on these countries to integrate the refugees into their societies and to resettle them before they are forced to do so by the international community.
Objecting to Refugee Resettlement Is Objecting to PeaceIn the first of his articles, published July 15, 2009, Al-Shiryan wrote: “The issue of [refugee] resettlement has begun to preoccupy the Arab countries, which are keeping the Palestinians in depressing prison camps known as Palestinian refugee camps. Although so far no one in the Arab world has called for their resettlement, the refugee problem has now [gained prominence] in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, both on the political arena and in the media. It has [even] become an issue in forming the next Lebanese government. This means that, in its next stage, the peace process is expected to encounter obstacles [on the part of] the Arabs.
“Objecting to [refugee] resettlement is no different than objecting to peace. It is nothing but an unrealistic slogan. The Arabs have agreed to peace, although they realize that there cannot be peace without [refugee] resettlement. But they disregard this fact, viewing the refugee issue as a point of controversy, when it is [actually] a central and key issue in the peace process. The fear [of being accused of renouncing the nationalist] slogans [calling for] struggle, resistance, and casting Israel into the sea – slogans which emerged at the outset of the peace process with Israel – and the link that has been established between the issue [of resettlement] and ethnic and political problems in some [Arab] countries – have [all] become an obstacle to a realistic and honest approach to the issue.
“Arabs who object to the [refugee] resettlement plan contend that they are motivated by their zealous devotion to the Right of Return. But they have not lifted a finger to keep this right alive in the consciousness of the Palestinian ‘detainees’ in the camps of abasement. As a result, this spurious devotion has evoked the opposite reaction: a Palestinian [refugee] now hopes to emigrate to America, Europe, Canada, or Australia in order to escape the hell of the Palestinian refugee camps, which have played a part in killing his will to live.
Human Rights Complex Take 13476: HRW Does Hatchet Job on IDF and (silently) exculpates Hamas
HRW continues its assault on Israel based on methodologies that, were they used in science, would have us still living in the Ptolemean universe (i.e., human rights revolve around the Palestinians). Fortunately, both NGO Monitor and the IDF are responding vigorously.
Begin with what HRW doesn’t want to mention: i.e., that Hamas “operatives” systematically use civilians as shields, including those who wave white flags. Here’s IDF aerial footage from January 7, 2009 showing just such an incident.
Comment: Captured in this aerial footage, a Hamas terrorist plants an IED and then climbs into a house containing uninvolved civilians. Later the civilians and the Hamas terrorist exit the house waiving a white flag, at which point IDF troops approach and arrest the terrorist.
This is just one of many examples of how Hamas uses uninvolved civilians as human shields. This example is particularly egregious since the terrorist used civilians waving a white flag to try to evade IDF soldiers.
Why does the HRW report contain no mention of these Hamas tactics, despite the fact that elsewhere they do acknowledge the problem? I think for two reasons.
1) It takes the moral heat off of Israel. How can you get your back into accusing Israel for shooting at people with white flags when there are combattants hiding among them. (Idem for ambulances, checkpoints, etc.) Exhibit B is the explanation for this twisted morality. Noah Pollak over at Contentions explains how both Sarah Leah Whitson of Saudi notoriety and the author of the report, Joe Stork, have long careers and anti-Israel advocates (“pro-Palestinian” would be too twisted a term for people who have no problem with the Palestinian treatment of their own refugees).
And 2) it raises a huge problem of the validity of the testimony they collect among Palestinians. If Hamas will fire from the midst of civilians, hide behind white-flag toting refugees, and keep them cooped up in areas to which they draw fire, then surely they are not going to be very happy with Palestinians complaining about that behavior. Once HRW grants that such matters go on within the same report in which they present Palestinian evidence as their key source for their allegations, the epistemological house of cards begins to fall.
So exhibit C is an analysis of a particular case which I treated at some length in the aftermath of operation Cast Lead — the tale of the Abed Rabbo family. Here Elder of Ziyon examines the way in which HRW uses testimony whose only value is to document how unreliable Palestinian witnesses tend to be, in order to indict Israeli soldiers.
Finally, NGO Monitor produced its own critique: HRW’s ‘White Flags’ Report Surrenders Morality.
Update: Buzzsawmonkey, a commenter at LGF, posted the following lyrics to be sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage.
Collateral Damage
–with apologies to Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage”The terrorist’s behind the wall
The terrorist’s behind the wall
Setting an IED trap, hoping soldiers will fall
To kill Jews is important over allThe terrorist is in the shed
The terrorist is in the shed
At the first alarm, beneath its roof he fled
He’s trying to sight his cross hairs on your headAnd if Israel’s patience comes at last to end
And if it goes in to clean out the nest
There is no reason, its enemies pretend
You’ll see how loud the NGOs protestThe terrorist is in the house
The terrorist is in the house
He’s got a white flag to cover up his gun
He’ll use the first to hide the other oneThat’s how it goes
As we all know
And it will be whitewashed by NGOsAnd if the tapes show, and clearly reveal
Hamas uses civilian shields
Don’t think they’ll admit lies, or make a clean breast
You’ll see how loud the NGOs protest
Further Update:
Huffington Post treats the subject. Comments indicate a relatively braindead readership.
List of all the blogs posting on this.
No Good Turn…: Linkage, Cognitive Egocentrism and Eisenhower’s Blunder in Suez
I’m reading Makovsky and Ross, Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East on the folly of linkage in the Middle East (i.e., solve [sic] the Arab-Israeli conflict and all the other pieces will fall in place). There’s a particularly illuminating passage on Eisenhower’s insistance that Israel, Britain and France withdraw from the Suez Canal after taking it in response to Nasser’s nationalization of it in 1956.
Eisenhower apparently thought that in so doing he would bring Nasser over to the American’s side, “make friends” as it were with the young, dynamic leader, apparently the leader of a new, modernizing force in the Arab world. America, the anti-imperialist, ready to shake the Zionists out of their conquests — surely Arab nationalists would appreciate that.
Not. Nasser’s response was to become increasingly interested in, and within a couple of years, outright allies of the Soviets — just the nightmare that Eisenhower was hoping to avoid with his strong-handed intervention. The authors conclude:
Eisenhower ultimately regretted the policy he pursued in the Suez Crisis. A decade later, in a meeting with Richard Nixon in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania [where Eisenhower retired], he said his action had prevented Britain and France from playing a constructive role in the Middle East. Nixon recalled, “[Eisenhower] gritted his teeth as he remarked ‘why couldn’t the British and the French have done it more quickly.’ ” Eisenhower went on to observe that U.S. actions to reverse the crisis for Nasser’s benefit “didn’t help as far as the Middle East was concerned. Nasser became even more anti-West and anti-U.S. We agreed that the worst fallout from Suez was that it weakened the will of our best allies, Britain and France, [from playing] a major role in the Middle East or in other areas outside of Europe.”38
Ironically, the same Nixon who at the time was thrilled that the United States had thus distanced itself from the Europeans and Israel would later describe American policy during the Suez Crisis as “the greatest foreign policy blunder the United States has made since the end of World War II.”39 And at the center of it lay the misleading notion of linkage.
While linkage may indeed have been at the center of the policy thinking involved, I’d like to suggest some honor-shame psychology that lay behind Nasser’s behavior that explain why such thinking backfired, something that our current president should certainly take into account.
In the zero-sum world of honor, being indebted to another is a humiliation. This is so widespread a phenomenon, that we have a saying: “No good turn goes unpunished.” A French friend of mine was once asked to explain French anti-Americanism on a TV interview. “The French will never forgive America for saving her twice,” she replied. Nail on head.
For Eisenhower to expect that Nasser would be grateful to the USA for helping save him and his prestige in the Arab world by forcing Israel, Britain and France to back down, misread the dynamics of both Nasser and Arab nationalism.
Speaking of Paranoia and Forgeries, try out this one from the PA
Most people have heard that the PA shut down the al Jazeera office in the West Bank. Indeed, it led the inveterately sarcastic Steven Plaut, after suggesting that Zionists should help the Palestinian boycott movement target anti-Zionist Jews like Daniel Barenboim, to comment:
Since the PLO is now also boycotting al-Jazeera, the prospects for our collaborating with it seem endless!
He has no idea. Now we find the real reason that the PA shut down Al Jazeera. The station was blowing the whistle on the secret plot between Sharon, Dahlan and Abbas to assassinate Arafat. Not only that, they have the secret transcripts of the meeting in which it was planned. Here’s a post from the website of the PFLP (Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine).
Comrade Mallouh calls for full and independent investigation into the death of Arafat
Comrade Abdel-Rahim Mallouh, Deputy General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called for a full and independent investigation into the death of former President Yasser Arafat in order to fully determine who is responsible for his death.
Note that it can’t just be that he died from, say, AIDS. It has to be someone’s plot, someone’s fault, and if there’s no investigation that’s proof of a cover-up (not of the embarrassing details of Arafat’s sexual proclivities, but of murder most foul).
Comrade Mallouh called for this commission of inquiry on July 15, 2009 when asked about recent allegations and documents raised by Farouk al-Qaddumi, Fateh general secretary, accusing Mahmoud Abbas and Mohammed Dahlan of conspiring with Israel to eliminate Arafat and other key Palestinian political leaders. He noted that the PFLP has always called for such an investigation and that it is very much needed.
He stated further that no statement had been issued by the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as the committee has not met for over 2 weeks, dismissing recent statements attributed to the Executive Committee denouncing Qaddumi. Comrade Mallouh called for an end to the misuse of the name of the Executive Committee of the PLO in making such statements.
For reference purposes, and because it has not been widely distributed in English, we present the alleged transcript released by Qaddumi below. This is alleged by Qaddumi to be a transcript of a meeting between former Israeli prime minister and war criminal Ariel Sharon, Mahmoud Abbas, Muhammad Dahlan, and a U.S. delegation, that took place in 2003 before the Aqaba summit. Discussion of these allegations is the excuse that was provided in order to shut down Al-Jazeera offices in the West Bank by the PA in Ramallah under Salam Fayyad. In the interests of presenting information to the people, the document is below:
Meeting Transcript
Sharon: I insisted on this meeting before the summit so we can finalize all security matters and put these final touches so as not to encounter any confusion or discrepancies in the future.
Dahlan: If you didn’t ask for this meeting, I would have.
Sharon: To begin with, work must begin on eliminating all the military and political leaders of Hamas, Jihad, Al-Aqsa Brigades and the Popular Front so as to create a state of chaos in their ranks that will allow you to pounce on them easily.
Abu Mazen: In this way, we will inevitably fail. We won’t be able to get rid of them or confront them.
Dissing Barenboim: Taking the Measure of Palestinian “moderation”
Few prominent Jews have been more pro-Palestinian than Argentine-born, German-resident, PA honorary citizen, Daniel Barenboim. Some might call him an alter-juif. But apparently that’s not enough for Palestinian “activists” who want to boycott his appearance in Ramallah.
Pro-PA Conductor Barenboim: Persona Non-Grata in Ramallah
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) A wall-to-wall Palestinian Authority coalition announced its opposition and boycott of the Israeli orchestra conductor, despite his strong pro-Palestinian positions.
The acceptance of Palestinian Authority citizenship, strong support for the PA side in its dispute with Israel, continuing biting criticism of Israel, and Israeli nationalist opposition to him – all this is not enough to enable world-renowned musician Daniel Barenboim to perform in Ramallah without incident.
Barenboim appeared in Ramallah on Wednesday night in a Ramallah hall, conducting the Jewish-Arab orchestra – but a large coalition of PA elements loudly objected and called for a boycott of the event. Among those opposing Barenboim were the PA’s Union of Authors and Poets, the Union of Artists, and those involved in the official PA-wide campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel.
Barenboim, a Jew who once lived in Israel, received Palestinian Authority citizenship in January 2008 in a ceremony in Ramallah, explaining, “I believe that the fate of the Palestinian people is interwoven with that of the Jewish people… We are either blessed or cursed to live with each other, and I prefer the first option.”
Nice example of positive-sum thinking that goes back to God’s promise to Abraham: “those who bless you I will bless; those who curse you, I will curse.”
The noted pianist and conductor caused outrage in Israel even prior to that, refusing to be interviewed by an Army Radio soldier in uniform and insisting on performing compositions of the notorious Nazi icon Richard Wagner despite widespread protests.
Barenboim has also accused the Israeli government of “moral abomination” in its current ongoing defensive war.
Has he called suicide bombing “moral abomination”? Days after a vicious suicide bombing that killed twenty Israeli civilians, he remarked
-
Israel has to reinvent itself, the Palestinian people has to reinvent itself, each in its own way.”
Granted, his comment was without any direct reference to the bombing, but maybe that’s even worse.
Arab Muslims who want Peace: A case study
In a previous post, there was much discussion of the elusive (some would say imaginary) phenomenon of Palestinian Muslims who want to live in peace alongside an independent Jewish state. I post here a blogpost by Ralph Dobrin, an Israeli, on a conversation he had with an Arab construction worker at his home.
July 12, 2009
Jews can learn from it
By Ralph Dobrin
My wife and I recently renovated our bathroom. It’s amazing how much work such a small project involves. It took a lot of hard physical labor, resoluteness and intelligence on the part of the workmen who made it all possible. Three men did most of the work: a pumber called Danny, who brought two other men, both of them Arabs from suburbs in the eastern part of Jerusalem. There was Yusuf, who helped Danny strip away the walls and floor tiles and dismantle the pipes, which were old and corroded; and Hassan laid the floor and wall tiles.
And what a huge effort it was on their part! True, they were paid for their efforts, but nevertheless, I had to appreciate that for a few days of their lives they dedicated their strength, intelligence and and experience to me personally. For a while these three men became a central part in our life. So we cared for them. We cared that they were drinking and eating enough; that they were sufficiently rested from their grueling work from time to time. We weren’t just being nice. After all, if you expect people to do a good job for you, you’ve got to care about their physical well-being.
From time to time we would chat with them. Sometimes we praised their work and occasionally we would ask them to pull out a tile that hadn’t been placed absolutely straight. Each time they obliged very willingly. Yusuf spoke Hebrew fairly well, while Hassan had a little difficulty. My wife and I once had a fairly basic command of Arabic. So we practised our rusty Arabic with them. They seemed very happy that we could converse, albeit very haltingly, in Arabic.
Every day I prepared lunch which we ate together, while chatting about work, family, health and the Israel-Arab conflict. About this latter issue, they said a few things that I didn’t agree with, and I countered calmly, to which they responded calmly.