I am the son of Michelle Schatzman.

Unfortunately, my mother passed away recently, last Friday in the early morning after a six-year battle with cancer. Her service is on Tuesday in Paris.

I know my mother was active on your website and appreciated your writing.

I know all of the regular commenters here will miss Michelle’s participation greatly, but surely not so much as her family and friends. Condolences to them, may they be spared any more sorrow for a long time

If anyone in Paris is able to attend her service, please let me know and I’ll get you in touch with her son.

As a memento of her contribution, this was her last substantive comments here:

Another consideration: it is much better to fight people who think like Hezbollah and Hamas, if you can enlist in an army whose job it is to fight them. If your main choice is to hide when you walk around with a soccer cap above the kippa and whatever tricks you can imagine or to be beaten, the choice is pretty obvious, isn’t it?

By the way, my feelers tell me that jewish intellectuals who identify to judaism are much more solid and trustable for a republican point of view than non jewish intellectuals or jewish intellectuals with no attachment to judaicity.

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The Guardian’s anti-Israel Jews, and a letter to my teenage nephew
August 11, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: Antisemitism, Antony Lerman, Comment is Free, Guardian, Hamas, Hezbollah, Nazi Analogies, Neve Gordon, Richard Silverstein, Seth Freedman, Theobald Jew | by Adam Levick

CiF’s Jewish Israel defamers

When joining the team here at CiF Watch, and attempting to understand why Jewish writers for the Guardian are often among the most vociferous in expressing their contempt for Israel, and so willing to demonize the state’s Jewish supporters, I had to get up to speed on the term “Theobald Jew.”

I soon learned that:

According to the Benedictine monk Thomas of Monmouth in his The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich (1173), it was an apostate Jew, a certain Theobald, who, swore that Jews had killed twelve-year old William, a tanner’s apprentice, to fulfill their “Passover blood ritual” in the fateful year of 1144—the first recorded such episode in a long line of murderous defamations.

The CiF contributors I refer to include Naomi Klein, Neve Gordon, Richard Silverstein, Antony Lerman, Seth Freedman, Tony Greenstein, among others. These Jewish writers don’t merely critique Israeli policy, but routinely engage in hyperbole, vitriol, and gross distortions. Their rhetoric is often spewed with hate towards the Jewish state, all but ignoring the behavior of her enemies - the terrorist and reactionary movements who openly seek her annihilation. Such commentators often infer that the democratic Jewish state (the most progressive nation, by far, in the region) is almost always in the wrong, is usually motivated by a hideous malevolence, and represents a national movement which they, as Jews, are ashamed to be associated with.

Freedman, for instance, has suggested that Israel is a theocracy – one which is on moral par with Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda. Gordon has on several occasions accused Israel of ethnic cleansing - once advancing such an ugly calumny in the radical anti-Zionist magazine, Counterpunch. Tony Greenstein has ardently defended the ugly comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany, typically advanced by extremists. Richard Silverstein has called the behavior of Israelis serving in the IDF “subhuman“, and has defended Hamas from “charges” that they are an extremist movement. Naomi Klein actually accused Israel of being so cruel and sadistic as to “bury children alive in their homes.”

While, for the Guardian, employing the services of Theobald Jews serves to inoculate them from charges of anti-Semitism, such Jewish writers, in return, receive the progressive and universalist credentials they so eagerly seek.

The Misnomer of the “Self-Hating Jew”

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Despite the careful “he said … she said” approach of the mainstream news media about the clash along the Lebanese-Israeli border this week, events are quite clear: Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were deliberately ambushed by Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).

In an outdoor press conference held at a lookout point above the Lebanese border where the incident occurred, Ilan Diksteyn, the deputy commander of the Israeli brigade, explained what happened. The IDF had notified the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) of its intentions and complied with multiple requests to delay a routine job that should have started early in the morning and didn’t get going till midday.

According to Diksteyn, he had personally walked the border with the UNIFIL commander and identified all the trees and shrubs they intended to cut down, all approved of as being located on the Israeli side of the border by the UNIFIL commander. The key tree was some 200 meters from the Blue Line, so there was not the most remote possibility that Israel trespassed on Lebanese territory. The IDF even set out the crane without a man in it, just to demonstrate their intentions beforehand.

But no sooner did they put a man in the unit and lift him over the fence than a sniper shot and killed the commanding officer of the unit who was away from the border and observing from a distance. Despite claiming they fired first in the air, and that Israel initiated the hostilities, an LAF spokesman eventually asserted their right “to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty.”

The Israelis claim this was an ambush by units of the Lebanese Armed Forces. And as such, this was an unprecedented new level of aggression. Even the normally cautious UNIFIL, which the previous day had restricted itself to calling for calm and announcing its intention to investigate, eventually — and exceptionally — sided with Israel’s claim that the tree was on their side of the border. Even the Lebanese admit they carried out an ambush.

Read the rest (with the links)…

UPDATE: Skype interview with me and Roger Simon about the Lebanese border incident.

Israeli Officers Ambushed on Northern Border
An Israeli soldier was killed, and another wounded, by Lebanese army forces in an apparently pre-planned provocation.
August 3, 2010 -
by Richard Landes

At around 1:30 pm Israel time today (August 3), an exchange of fire took place between Israeli and Lebanese forces along the border. (This map reflects the exact location of the incident.) According to Lebanese sources, the Israelis had gone over the fence and were cutting down a tree growing on Lebanese soil. Lebanese soldiers allegedly fired warning shots in the air and then at the soldiers.

Michel Suleiman, the Lebanese president, issued his own statement denouncing the clash as a violation of UN Resolution 1701 and calling on the Lebanese army to “confront any Israeli aggression, whatever the sacrifices.”

Israeli military sources assert that the work they were doing was routine; that UNIFIL was warned; and that in that place (and many other ones) the fence was deliberately placed inside of Israeli territory so that work on the other side can be conducted without trespassing into Lebanese territory.

Read the rest.

UPDATES:

Omri Ceren, “After Lebanon Border Ambush, Reuters First Out Of The Gate With Demonstrably False Anti-Israel Propaganda,” Mere Rhetoric

Robert Fisk, “Israel-Lebanon tensions flare after skirmish leaves four dead,” The Independent

Ben Cohen, “A deadly game in Lebanon,” Huffington Post

Honest Reporting, “Special Alert: Media Collusion in Lebanon Ambush,” asks about the role of media, not merely Hizbullah journalists, but Reuters and AFP photographers, conveniently there to catch an incident that arose from routine pruning along the border.

Haaretz: Amira Hass’ Ideological Agenda Trumps Journalistic Integrity

Ha’aretz regularly reports on demolitions of Palestinian homes by the Israeli administration and presents its readers with a grim picture of destruction and misery among the Palestinians. In fact, a reader who believes Ha’aretz’s news accounts, trusting that the newspaper actually adheres to journalistic norms of objectivity and accuracy, would be appalled by the situation described.

But Ha’aretz does not follow such journalistic norms. Take for example, Amira Hass’ July 21, 2010 report, entitled “IDF destroys West Bank village after declaring it military zone.” It provides a clear demonstration of how facts can be manipulated through distortions and omissions to present a false picture of events.

Here is a summary of Haas’ article: Israel’s civil administration demolished the homes of 120 men, women and children, who lived and worked – some for decades – in the Jordan Valley village of Farasiya. Before destroying the village, the civil administration cut off the inhabitants’ water supply and forbade the residents to use other water wells in the area belonging to the Mekorot Water Company. But this is not an accurate account of events.

First, there is no registered village in the West Bank called Farasiya. It does not appear in either the census data of the Palestinian Authority or that of the Israelis. What Hass neglected to inform readers was that this was an illegal encampment which, like dozens of illegal settlements and hundreds of illegal buildings throughout Israel, was slated for demolition.

Read the rest of the forensic demolition of this drive-by shooting that parades as “journalism.”

Picture of what Hass claims is a 10-year-old village with 55 structures including a packaging plant.

Note the 800+ Facebook recommendations to Hass’ article. This is classic red meat for the “pacifists” who demonstrate “We are Hamas.”

UPDATE: For another example of hit-and-run journalism, read this analysis of a Huffington Post article and its comments.

Is Obama’s Pressure for Direct Israeli-Palestinian Talks Pushing Region Towards War? (Updated)

Byzantine politics have nothing on negotiation strategies in the Middle East between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Headlines July 29 initially announced that the Arab League — meeting in Cairo and under heavy pressure from the Obama administration — had approved Abbas’ return to direct negotiations with Israel. Comments from Jerusalem, including from Netanyahu, hailed this welcome gesture as a chance to get back on track towards a two-state solution.

All sounds good: the Obama administration applying pressure on the Arab side, the Arabs respond and move forward; Israelis welcome the move.

But to those familiar with the nature of these negotiations, none of this made any sense.

Read the rest at PJMedia

The Operation in Gaza: Factual and Legal Aspects (July 2009)
Gaza Operation Investigations: Update (Jan 2010)
ITIC: Hamas and the Terror Threat from the Gaza Strip (March 2010)
Gaza Operation Investigations: Second Update (July 2010)

I am preparing with others a systematic study comparing Goldstone’s findings with those of the Israeli army. I’ll post up each significant incident in turn.

Right now, I want to suggest reading two pieces, one pro, one contra Goldstone. Comments welcome.

Elder of Ziyon, Goldstone: Asymmetric Legal Warfare

Yaniv Reich, New Israeli report on Operation Cast Lead confirms Goldstone report’s main findings

Bibliographical notes to the above piece:

Background Material:

Cotler’s Report: The Danger of a Nuclear, Genocidal, Right Violating Iran (PDF)

Executive Summary

Endorsers (PDF)

Elihu D. Richter and Alex Barnea, “Tehran’s Genocidal Incitement against Israel,” Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009, pp. 45-51.

Op-Ed on the report in Ottowa Citizen.

Cotler Impresses Australian NGOs

The Three Human Rights NGOs Cotler commended for their work:

1) United against a nuclear Iran

2) Stop the Bomb

3) International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

Global Human-Rights NGO Giants and their Critics

Human Rights Watch on Iran

Amnesty International on Iran

NGO Monitor, the major critic of the Human Rights NGOs tendency to pick on democracies.

NGO Monitor’s Critique of HRW:

NGO Monitor’s Critique of Amnesty International:

Aggressive Lack of Solidarity against Iran

Israel ambassador to Portugal reprimanded for Iran comments JPost 7/14/10

Why is German Public Television Courting Ahmadinejad’s Media? The Weekly Standard

Benjamin Weinthal, “Germany’s chance to get serious on sanctions” JPost

Benjamin Weinthal, “Germany robs sanctions of their power” JPost’

Russian and Chinese Support for Teheran

Attacks from the Left:

Richard Silverstein attacks an anti-Iranian NGO – hint, not on content but smear by association)

Norman Finkelstein’s attack on Cotler. Much projection.

While the [Western] NGOs are away, focusing on their own culture’s violations, groups like Hamas will play…

translation here.

Possible Sanctions/Attacks on Iran

AP: Ex-CIA chief: Strike on Iran seems more likely now

Elise Cooper, “Former CIA Director Sets the Record Straight Regarding His Comments on an Iran Attack,” PJMedia

CHARMAINE NORONHA (AP), “Canada imposes tougher sanctions against Iran” Washington Post, July 26, 2010.

EU tightens sanctions over Iran nuclear programme BBC, July 26, 2010

More extensive bibliography of recent articles at The Israel Project.

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 PM

On 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?
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Both point to Taguieff’s work on the Al Durah case as one of the main causes of the silence of the MSNM on his work. I reproduce the two passages on Al Durah below.

Note also an interesting incident in the French Senate during hearings for the new head of France2, in which a Senator put the appointee on the spot about the Al Durah story. This story is covered in still greater detail by the indefatigable Veronique Chemla in which she points out that a) the Senator in question (Plancade) gave the new head of France2 (Pflimlin) Taguieff’s book; and b) that none of the MSNM mentioned Plancade’s intervention. (HT/Eliyahu)

Vladimir Vladimirovitch A Lire

Par ailleurs il décrit et démontre la complicité des médias dans le processus précédent. En s’appuyant noatamment sur l’affaire Al Dourah qui lui permet de décrire par quels processus la classe médiatique, au mépris de toute déontologie, a manifesté sa solidarité avec Charles Enderlin, auteur du reportage contesté dans sa véracité (bien qu’il n’ait pas été présent au moment des faits). Israël ne pouvant être que coupable et les Palestiniens des victimes, il n’était en effet pas possible de revenir sur cette version des faits présentant les soldats israéliens comme des tueurs d’enfants palestiniens sans défense. Pourtant bien des éléments méritent qu’une enquête soit menée sur la validité de ce reportage. Ce qu’ont fait d’ailleurs des journalistes allemands demontant point par point la thèse d’Enderlin.

[Among other things he describes and demonstrates the complicity of the media in the preceding process (i.e., the alliance between the left and the islamists - rl). He emphasizes the al Durah affair to describe the way the “media class” (information professionals - rl), acting in violation of all professional ethics, showed its solidarity with Charles Enderlin, author of the contested report (even though he wasn’t present at the time of the events). Since Israel can only be guilty and the Palestinians only victims, it was impossible to revise this version of events in which the Israeli soldiers were killers of defenseless Palestinian children. And yet many aspects of the case indicate that an investigation be carried out on the validity of the report… which German journalists did, dismantling point by point Enderlin’s contentions.]

Les médias ne présenteront donc pas ce livre. Parce qu’il les met en cause et parce qu’il navigue à contre courant en démontrant que cette nouvelle propagande antijuive dont ils sont les porteurs constitue une arme de l’islamisme non pas contre Israël simplement, mais contre les démocraties. Ouvrage donc iconoclaste.

[The media will therefore not present this book. Because it questions them, and because it sails against the prevailing winds, dhowing that this new anti-Jewish propaganda of which they are the carriers constitutes an arm of Islamism not only aimed at Israel, but against democracies. Therefore, an iconoclastic work.]

Tarnero’s article is longer, published in a relatively new and iconoclastic publication, Causeur, which has taken on the Al Durah case already. Again, I only cite the segment directly concerned with Al Durah.
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