Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Academics for the Appeasement of Terror
Professors for the Appeasement of Terror
In today's Haaretz there is an ad with a petition, placed by a group
calling itself "Gisha" or "Accessibility". The ad then includes the
signatures of 200 lecturers and professors from Israeli academia (and some
PhDs not in academia), demanding that the Israeli government stop
preventing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip moving freely to the West Bank
for purposes of studying and attending classes. The signatures include
many of the familiar extremist Israel haters and "Post-Zionists" in
Israeli academia, plus some fellow travelers.
What are we to make of this call?
Seemingly, it is all innocent enough. These do-gooders and bleeding
hearts just want Gaza students to be able to go attend classes in the West
Bank, indeed - all subject to appropriate security arrangements, they add
explicitly in the petition.
Except for a few things.
First of all, the reason Gaza students are not being allowed to go study
in West Bank "universities" (those "universities" by the way spend far
more time in teaching bomb making and Holocaust Denial than neoclassical
economics or mathematics) for one simple reason. As long as the Hamas in
Gaza is holding the kidnapped Israeli soldier hostage and firing rockets
at Negev civilians every day, Gaza Palestinians are not being permitted to
go about their lives and routines as usual. Until the kidnapped soldier
is returned unharmed and the rocket attacks stopped, as far as Israel is
concerned all of Gaza is under figurative house arrest. (I personally
think they should be LITERALLY under house arrest and confined to their
houses.)
The "academics" signing the petition are all pretending they do not
understand WHY the Gaza students are not being allowed to go about their
student lives in business as usual. Indeed, the very demand by these
people to allow the students free movement and "accessibility" to the West
Bank schools is tantamount to a demand that Israel capitulate and stop all
forms of anti-terror action in Gaza, even non-violent "sanctions" against
the terrorists such as blocking the movement from Gaza to the West Bank.
(In addition, there is fear that in the guise of "free movement",
terrorists and maybe even the kidnapped soldier will be moved.) In other
words, here we have 200 "academics" demanding that Israel abandon all
attempts, other than total capitulation to terrorism, at getting the
kidnapped soldier released.
These same bleeding hearts and do-gooders are also noteworthy in what they
do NOT demand in the same petition. They do not demand the release of the
kidnapped soldier nor the end to Kassam and Katyusha attacks on Israel,
which . if ended . would be all that would be needed to get the travel ban
lifted and would allow all those nice students to go attend West Bank
classes. The signers do not include a proposal that maybe Gaza students
be sent to Egypt or Sudan or Iraq as a substitute for studying in Nablus.
The signers have nothing to say about the academic apartheid in the West
Bank whereby no Jewish students may study at any of the "Palestinian"
schools there, unlike the Ariel College in the West Bank where Palestinian
students are welcomed. No Jew would be admitted in a Palestinian
"university" and anyone showing up would be lynched.
That does not bother the signers. Nor does the frequent participation of
Palestinian "students" in terror atrocities, including suicide bombings.
So the anguish of the 200 academic signers of the petition is highly
restricted and selective.
Meanwhile, a second petition appears in the same issue of Haaretz. It is
a demand for Israel to completely release and end surveillance on
convicted spy and traitor Mordecai Vanunu, who tried to disclose Israeli
nuclear secrets. It assigned by communists and anti-Semites and Israel
bashers from all over the world. But it also includes some signatures by
Israelis. At the top of the list is Professor Moshe Zimmerman, that
post-Zionist history prof from Hebrew University, best known for saying
that all children of Jewish settlers are Hitler Jugend.
By the way, among the signers is the American Friends Service Committee,
the political SWAT team of the "Friends" or Quakers. You know, those
nice people who call one another "Thou" rather than Youse.
It reminded me of an anti-AFSC protest I attended back in the 60s (the
AFSC has been anti-Israel and pro-terror for decades) in which we all
carried signs reading "AFSC - UP THINE!"
2. Ilan Pappe, on the faculty of Haifa University, receiving a salary
from Israeli taxpayers, writes that Israel is conducting genocide against
the Arabs of the Gaza Strip. Really. See
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5656.shtml
Want to know what the Haifa University chiefs think of this?
Ask them:
President of the University of Haifa
Prof. Aaron Ben-Ze.ev
Fax: 972-4-8240281
E-mail: abenzeev@univ.haifa.ac.il
Rector of the University of Haifa
Prof. Yossi Ben-Artzi
Fax: 972-4-8342101
Email: yossib@univ.haifa.ac.il
3. Move On to Anti-Semitism:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24143
4. Ass is Grass:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24170
5. Fighting the Campus PC Stormtroopers:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24176
6. Conspiracism is a Mental Illness:
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/article.jsp?content=20060904_132517_132517
7. Mistakes George W. did NOT make:
http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=23570
8. Israel's Politicized Court System:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154526002153&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
9. The Big Red Hen er I mean Ken:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24248
10. "Leaders":
http://israelnn.com/article.php3?id=6519
11. Interfaith dialogue out of control
By Isi Leibler September 5, 2006
Interfaith is like motherhood and apple pie. Everyone supports it.
But there is one proviso. Dialogue can only work when both parties are
genuinely committed and we avoid making concessions in order to curry
favor that merely create a faade of goodwill but in reality compromise
Jewish dignity, enabling evil to flourish.
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) boasts of the good relations it forged
with the Vatican. But regrettably their public elevation of an apostate
from the Jewish faith is an example of the problem.
Cardinal Lustiger is an honorable man, a Holocaust survivor, and
undoubtedly sincere in his opposition to anti-Semitism. But he remains an
apostate who insists on describing himself as a "fulfilled Jew."
There are legitimate grounds for cooperating with Lustiger but his
repeated presence as a Vatican liaison on Jewish affairs at WJC platforms
(he has now been co-opted as a member of the WJC Policy Council), displays
a lack of dignity and insensitivity to the role Jewish converts to
Christianity assumed in relation to their own people.
It is noteworthy that previous WJC administrations refused to formally
accept apostates as liaisons with the Church.
'They remained silent'
Another example was the silence of the WJC when Pope Benedict XVI failed
to adequately relate to anti-Semitism in Auschwitz, the world's largest
Jewish cemetery, and instead exonerated the German people from the
Holocaust by blaming "a ring of criminals" and falsely asserting that the
objective of the Nazi Final Solution was "to tear up the taproot of the
Christian faith".
Whilst other leading Jewish organizations spoke out forcefully, the WJC,
presumably motivated by a fear of souring their relationship with the
Vatican, remained silent.
An even starker example of the failure of the WJC to speak out was in
relation to the Vatican's recent one-sided condemnations of Israel during
the confrontation with Hizbullah. Despite its purported close ties with
the Vatican the WJC remained silent when the Pope and his spokesmen
provocatively condemned Israel for breaching international law by
"attacking Lebanon, a free and sovereign power".
In a similar vein, the WJC undertook a joint program with the Vatican to
combat AIDS in Africa in conjunction with Caritas, the Catholic
international humanitarian body. But the WJC failed to insist that Caritas
cease excluding Israel from the countries for which visitors to its
website may register.
It is disgraceful for an international Jewish body to tolerate such
prejudice against the Jewish state from a body with whom it partners. Even
the outgoing Catholic head of the Caritas German branch publicly condemned
Caritas for its bias against Israel.
Muddying the waters with Muslims
But the most bizarre aspect of the relationship with the Catholic Church
is the frenzied WJC effort to recruit the Vatican to broker interfaith
dialogue with Moslems. It is surely somewhat surrealistic for Jews to
appeal to Catholics to act as intermediaries for Muslim dialogue.
To further muddy the waters, the WJC made a similar request to German
Chancellor Angela Merkel who must have been bewildered when a Jewish
spokesman pleaded with her to take the lead in the "West's dialogue with
Islam".
But even this pales when compared to the groveling attempts to directly
curry favor with Muslims.
For example, at the height of the violent global hysteria relating to the
Mohammed cartoons, the WJC issued statements condemning the Danish
publisher, without relating to the violent reactions and obscene threats
emanating from Muslim extremists or the vile Nazi-like anti-Semitic
caricatures which dominate the Muslim press.
In a formal release, the WJC's Israel Singer went so far as to state "The
row over the caricatures of Mohammed showed how conflicts can be
unnecessarily provoked." He added the astonishing observation that "99 per
cent of Muslims rejected all forms of violence" and concluded with the
outrageous statement "that is why we have to take action against lunatics
within our own ranks and to look for common ground in dialogue".
Alas, it's not confined to the fringes
The inclination to gloss over reality in order to ingratiate themselves
with Muslims was emulated by the WJC Eurasian section (Euro-Asian Jewish
Congress) in a recent forum in Moscow on "Islam and Judaism".
A delegation of Iranian parliamentarians participated, including the head
of the Iranian Jewish community, who (not surprisingly) endorsed his
government's refusal to recognize Israel. Once again, reality was glossed
over and in the ensuing media exposure not a word was uttered about Iran's
Holocaust denial, the obscene threats to destroy Israel, or the vicious
state-sponsored anti-Semitic campaigns.
Moreover the WJC regional representative informed the Moscow media of
"Iran's willingness to pursue a peaceful dialogue notwithstanding all the
prejudices arising from the current political situation." To add color to
the proceedings, at the same Conference, Moscow Chief Rabbi Shayevitch
assured participants that regional interfaith relations were excellent ?
citing the fact that many of his acquaintances had married Muslims!
It is bad enough when Jewish fringe groups adopt policies which are
inimical to the accepted Jewish approach. However the problem is
compounded when inappropriate statements emanate from those purporting to
represent World Jewry.
Non Jews are frequently confused by the WJC brand name, and mistakenly
regard statements from its spokesman as the authentic expression of world
Jewry.
That confusion was reinforced last week, when in a widely circulated
fundraising letter to potential donors the WJC President announced that an
unnamed Israeli Cabinet Minister had informed him that "At no time in our
history have the State of Israel and the Jewish people needed the
diplomatic efforts of the WJC as they do today".
Interfaith relations must be based on honest and frank dialogue designed
to create goodwill based on shared values. If ingratiating ourselves with
Christians and Muslims becomes an end in itself, the exercise becomes
highly counterproductive. We not only demean ourselves but also send the
wrong messages to Jew and Gentile alike.
12. More on Conspiracy Nuts:
http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=23586
13. Environmental Nuts:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51755
