Tuesday, August 04, 2009
The Myth of Moderate Palestinians
reading but their August 09 issue is particularly good. Here are some items
from it (full issue is here: http://mideastoutpost.com/) :
Paved With Good Intentions
Ruth King
I am not a Torah scholar, but having consulted with experts and scoured the
Decalogue and the 613 additional commandments codified in the eighth century, I
can report with confidence that among the hundreds of "shalts" and "shalt nots"
there are none that command Jews to be Democrats or liberals or to love their
enemies better than themselves. You could be excused for not knowing this,
given the number of political groupies who cloak themselves in "religious"
palaver when their politically correct doctrines are challenged.
The most misused and overused clich? is Tikkun Olam, translated as "repairing
the world." The phrase originated in classical rabbinic literature and is found
in kabbalah, a major strand of Jewish mysticism whose famous exponent was the
16th-century Rabbi Isaac Luria. It is now used to promote the cult of global
warming, universal health care and assorted other "progressive" policies,
especially those inimical to Israel's survival. Incidentally, one of the
directors of the seditious group "J" Street which acts as shill for President
Obama's anti-Israel policies is named Isaac Luria. Well what's in a name? The
director is called "Ben-Ami" which means son of my people.
Groups like "J" Street were founded on anti-Israel premises. More alarming are
the formerly mainstream organizations which have veered precipitously to the
left. For example, Hadassah is the world's largest volunteer women's
organization with a sterling record of hands-on support for Israel. Hadassah
sent the first group of public health nurses to Palestine in 1913. It
established nurseries, schools, health centers and major hospitals. Its members
were active in the rescue movement which saved thousands of children from the
Nazis. With Israel's independence Hadassah played an outsize role in the
ingathering which brought the wretched survivors of Europe and the Arab states
to Israel, providing housing, medical care, counseling and language and
vocational training.
However, as younger women active in the 1970s anti-war movement took over, the
focus changed to trendy domestic issues such as abortion, gay and lesbian
rights, embryonic stem cell research, a "green" planet, and "social justice and
civil rights" as seen through the prism of the far left of the Democratic
party. It is not only that this has nothing to do with specifically Jewish
concerns. "Social justice" issues, thus defined, are the mainstay of
Israel-hating groups—to take Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as
well known examples.
The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith is another former powerhouse that
fell to the left. Founded in 1943, the B'nai B'rith is the oldest Jewish
service and communal organization in the world. It founded the ADL in 1913 "to
stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law,
the defamation of the Jewish people." The great influx of refugees from Eastern
Europe had intensified latent anti-Semitism. Libels of Jews as "money lenders"
and criminals were widespread; clubs were formed to exclude them; even boycotts
of businesses gained traction; and financial and academic institutions
established quotas to limit Jewish participation.
Through education, public relations and the courts, the ADL rose to the
challenge of taking on defamers of Jews. The ADL was also strongly supportive
of Israel and after 1967 closely monitored anti-Vietnam and other leftist
protests which degenerated into stealth-bashing of Israel. The ADL maintained
the most thorough archives of United Nations depredations, anti-Semitic
cartoons and editorials in the Arab press, media assaults and libels against
Israel. Within the President's Conference, the ADL was foremost in resisting
the pressures of left-wing anti Israel groups.
What happened?
Why did the ADL turn from opposing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda to
insulting people like Dennis Prager as "intolerant, misinformed and downright
un-American" for insisting that. Moslem Congressman Keith Ellison take the oath
of office on a Bible, not the Koran? (The worst the ADL could find to say about
Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University was that it was "a charade of
half-answers and obfuscation.")
Why does the ADL slam the heroic Geert Wilders, who has put his life on the
line for the West, for "Islamophobia," while remaining silent on the genocidal
intentions toward Jews of "the religion of peace"? Why have they defamed the
Evangelicals who are Israel's most stalwart supporters while schmoozing with
and empathizing with the "hurt feelings" of those who want to behead all
infidels? In its zeal to empty the public square of any and all religious
content, the ADL has gone so far as to criticize the placement of the Ten
Commandments on public property and Bibles in public schools.
In a hard-hitting column Ann Coulter skewered the ADL: "The survival of Israel
is inextricably linked to the survival of the Republican Party and its
evangelical base. And yet the ADL viciously attacks conservatives, implying
that there is some genetic anti-Semitism among right-wingers in order to hide
the fact that anti-Semites are the ADL's best friends—the defeatists in
Congress, the people who tried to drive Joe Lieberman from office, the hoodlums
on college campuses who riot at any criticism of Muslim terrorists and identify
Israel as an imperialist aggressor, and liberal college faculties calling for
'anti-apartheid' boycotts of Israel. The Democratic Party sleeps with
anti-Semites every night, but groups like the ADL love to play-act their
bravery at battling ghosts, as if it's the 1920s and they are still fighting
quotas at Harvard."
The ADL's poster boy is Alan Dershowitz, once a defender of Jews and Israel at
Harvard and the b?te noir of Jhimmi Carter, who feared debating him. His
obsession with abortions, climate-warming hysteria, and other multi-culty trash
has rendered him a pathetic hero worshipper of Obama and the Democratic party
and a loud and articulate defamer of Christian friends of Israel.
What is going on?
People like Dershowitz, along with the leaders of most of the mainstream Jewish
organizations, somehow got the idea that blending with the left and dabbling in
"progressive" politics was good for the Jewish future. They bought into the
idea that they were furthering Jewish interests but now the idea has them in
its grip. To the left, which increasingly flirts with outright anti-Semitism,
they are irrelevant. As defenders of Israel they are useless. Indeed, by their
support of the left they wind up in the same place as Israel's most malevolent
detractors, the J Streets, Tikkuns and New Israel Funds, driving away friends
and gratifying enemies.
As the old saw has it, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Twenty Questions
Herbert Zweibon
Twenty Questions was a popular television panel show from 1949 to 1955. A
person chose a subject, not known to the panel, which then had twenty
questions, answered yes or no, to reach the correct answer. We offer our own
adapted 20 Questions, directed to Prime Minister Netanyahu, asking how he plans
to deal with the ramifications of the (Demilitarized) Two State Solution.
1. In the year prior to signing the Oslo agreements, Israeli intelligence
experts did a study for the Labor government of 200 agreements that Arafat's
PLO had signed over the years and found that he had honored none of them. What
makes you believe "this time" will be any different?
2. How are you going to prevent an influx of sophisticated weapons into the
"demilitarized" state? And please don't insult our intelligence by saying
foreign "monitors" are going to stop it.
3. How are you going to prevent the firing of missiles at airplanes going in
and out of Ben Gurion airport? One downed plane will mean the end of
international carriers flying to Israel.
4. How do you prevent the training and equipping of a Palestinian army in
another Arab state?
5. How do you propose to deal with demands by Israeli Arabs in the Galilee,
where they are a majority, to join the Palestinian state?
6. How will you respond to Hamas or Hezbollah taking over "demilitarized"
Palestine?
7. How do you deal with the loss of political support from Bible-believing
Christians in the United States, your last important source of support in a
world filled with irrational hatred of Israel?
8. How will you cope with the depletion and destruction of the mountain aquifer
on which Israel depends for water?
9. How do you restore the morale of Israelis after the shock of forfeiting
Jerusalem and all claims to the heartland of the Jewish people?
10. How do you envisage expelling 500,000 Jews from their homes on the "wrong"
side of the Green Line (including East Jerusalem)?
11. How do you pay for their resettlement, given that Israel has still not
managed to recompense and resettle the 10,000 Jews it expelled from their homes
in Gaza?
12. How do you stem the flood of Israelis leaving the country in the wake of
this demoralization?
13. How do you defend a country whose width is the distance between New York's
JFK and LaGuardia airports??
14. How do you defend the coastal plain when a Palestinian state controls the
mountain ranges that dominate it?
15. Are you now preparing to give the Golan Heights to Syria and destroy its
Jewish communities?
16. How do you deal with the loss of ability to engage in "hot pursuit" in a
sovereign Palestine?
17. How do you prevent foreign armies entering Palestine when you don't control
the entry points?
18. How do you propose to recoup the loss in business investment and tourism?
19. Do you plan to recognize two Palestinian states, Gazastan and Palestine?
20. The PA, like Hamas, has made clear it insists on the Right to Return. How
will you deal with these demands for a "one state solution" after you have
forfeited your claims to the historic Land of Israel and given up so many of
your strategic advantages?
We will be astounded if you can come up with a rational answer to any of these
questions. And under those circumstances, it is, to quote Edgar Allen Poe,
"much of Madness, and more of Sin" to embark—or pretend to embark—on a "two
state solution."
It's Official! Guinness Book Declares Palestine Demilitarized Zone, Most
Militarized Region On The Planet
David Isaac
"The second principle is demilitarization. Any area in Palestinian hands has to
be demilitarized, with ironclad security measures. Without this condition,
there is a real fear that there will be an armed Palestinian state which will
become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza." -- Benjamin
Netanyahu, Bar-Ilan University speech, June, 14, 2009.
East Jerusalem - It was a festive atmosphere today in the Palestine State's new
capital. A large crowd gathered along Nablus street singing "Death to Israel!"
as a parade passed by in commemoration of Land Day. The local holiday,
celebrated yearly on March 30, features incursions across the border into
Israel to have picnics and set forest fires.
What makes this year's Land Day special, however, is the parade's unusual Grand
Marshal. Instead of the run-of-the-mill mother of a suicide bomber, it's Jim
McNicholls, editor-in-chief of the Guinness Book of World Records. The
unassuming 5'3" Glasgow native has been invited to verify what Palestinian
State officials have been saying for a long time; that Palestine is the most
militarized region in the world.
"We thought we'd be counting weapons per square mile," said Guinness editor
McNicholls, explaining why it's taken over two years to make the announcement.
"It was more like per square inch."
McNicholls was the center of attention as he waved to the crowd from his float,
a fantastically large piece of dynamite. "We thought of putting him on a giant
spinning top filled with nitroglycerin, but it looked too much like a Jewish
dreidel. Plus it exploded," said Parade Organizer Walid Schmalid. "You can
still see where we assembled it over where Mt. Scopus used to be."
The story behind how Guinness counted the weapons is itself one for the record
books. At first, the company assigned a single representative to tally the
armaments of the newly minted 23rd Arab state. When the official collapsed from
a brain spasm after checking off his 380,000th Qassam rocket, the people at
Guinness recognized their resources were woefully inadequate to the task.
To count the weapons, Guinness realized it would need an army. Luckily, there
was one nearby. Some 50,000 blue-helmeted UN soldiers, police and civilian
personnel were on hand as part of a long-term mission to ensure that Palestine
remain demilitarized, as stipulated in the final status agreement signed
between Israel and the Palestinian Authority three years earlier.
The task of putting the UN peacekeepers to work on a new mission, one which
some said was at odds with their original one, was not a simple matter.
Negotiations went on until McNicholls hit on the idea of putting the UN
peacekeepers themselves in the record book.
"It was the largest UN peacekeeping operation in history. I don't know why I
didn't think of it sooner," McNicholls said. "Most people melt like butter when
you dangle a Guinness record in front of them. The UN was no different."
The UN General Assembly ratified the changed mission in Resolution 2450. French
General Louis de Funes expressed relief once he received his new orders.
"Before, it was embarrassing. There were weapons everywhere. You couldn't take
a step without tripping over an artillery piece," de Funes said. "But what
could I do with 50,000 troops? Stop them?"
The French general beamed with pride as he stood on the podium with various
Arab dignitaries as McNicholls presented them with a plaque certifying the
Palestinian State as the most heavily armed zone on the planet.
The parade ended with the usual barrage of missiles, tank rounds and artillery
shells launched against Israel, one of which accidentally dropped into Ricky
Rukab's ice cream parlor, wiping out the Arab girls inside who were enjoying
Ricky's famous Rocket Pops.
There was an additional note of sadness in the proceedings. Their mission
accomplished, General de Funes and his troops would be leaving Palestine to go
across the border into Israel. The UN troops will now oversee Israel's
demilitarization. According to recently passed UN Resolution 2544, it was
decided that in order to make the two-state solution work, one of the sides
should be demilitarized. If the Arabs wouldn't do it, it would have to be the
Jews.
"This time our mission will succeed," declared General de Funes. "We have
learned many lessons from our efforts here. The first of which is that the
people must want to be demilitarized. The Arabs didn't want it. But from
everything I hear, the Jews do. They are tired of war. They are tired of
fighting. That gives us reason to hope."
McNicholls hitched a ride with the peacekeeping convoy as it made its way to
the border. He was on his way to present still another plaque, this one for
Israel's new Peace Park, once the site of Tel Aviv University. The buildings
were destroyed in a recent rocket attack. Trees, grass and birds were trucked
in before the flames had even died down. It's the fastest built park in the
world, McNicholls says.
David Isaac is a free-lance writer living in California.
2. More proof that Academic Standards are Dead at Ben Gurion University
http://ephemer.al.cl.cam.ac.uk/~gd216/uri/
3. Cut the crap – there are NO moderate Palestinians:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3757017,00.html
4. "Moderate" Fat'h declares that all Israeli cities are occupied Arab lands:
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=1226
Same moderate Fat'h: Will never recognize legitimacy of Israel:
http://israelbehindthenews.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=3686&q=1
Same moderate Fat'h cozying up to Iran:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/132725
