The limits of PC: The forbidden group must come out of the closet.

 

by Ami Isseroff

 

A wonderful age of tolerance has dawned in our time. For most of the inhabitants of the Western world, the bad old days of bigotry and narrow-mindedness are gone.

The multicultural pluralistic politically correct society accepts almost everyone for what they are, and listens respectfully to their opinions. Discrimination against women is forbidden and frowned upon. People of all colors and creeds and nationalities, and with all manner of political beliefs, are respected, listened to and accepted for who they are and what they do. There is only one exception.

The wave of tolerance has spread to every corner of society. The standard bearer of conservative political values in the United States today is a woman - Sarah Palin. Gay people, who once had to hide their secret or face jail terms, have come out of the closet and serve as officials in Europe and the United States. They may even as ministers in churches. African Americans, once called "n****r," are closer than ever to being accepted as true equals in American society. An African American was even elected president.

Practically every creed and every political belief has gained respectability. Adherents of Mao and Stalin can argue their points of view alongside Social Democrats and Christian Democrats. Nobody reminds them of the millions of people who were murdered in the Soviet Union or Maoist China and of all the human misery caused by their "scientific" beliefs.. Let bygones be bygones.

Islamis accepted as a respectable creed, the religion of peace. The president of the United States has said so. Discrimination against people just because they are Muslims is rightly forbidden. Nobody assumes that all Muslims are terrorists or bigots or wife beaters. News reports from Muslim and Arab governments and press are treated with respect, and the Muslim point of view is heard and respected 'round the world.

Even terrorists and advocates of terror get a break. We must negotiate with Iran, accept Iran into the family of nations. Never mind if they sent their terrorist agents to murder US soldiers and violated the immunity of diplomats. Never mind if they are plotting to take over the Middle East. Dialogue with Iran is politically correct. Apologists explain that "militants" are practicing "resistance." Suicide bombers are billed as "altruists" by British professors. Jihad is thought to be not such a bad thing and is preached freely in the capitals of Europe. Respectable organizations recommend recognition of groups like the Hezbollah and the Hamas, who are welcome in many capitals of the world, and get a favorable press from major news media. A conference of such "resisters" was recently held in Beirut, under the auspices of the United Nations.

It is even OK to be Jewish in many circles of society, though Jew remains a bad word.  There is only one political group that is beyond the pale of "politically correct" and outside the bounds of the pluralistic multicultural society: : Zionists. Abortion rights groups and anti-abortionists can lobby for their causes, as can gun manufacturers, those opposed to firearms, Muslim groups and Palestinians. For Zionists, it is forbidden. The pro-Israel "Zionist lobby" conjures up images of a sinister conspiracy to subvert America, worse than anything dreamed up by the Cominform. An entire book and many articles, mostly fiction though not sold as such, have been written about the alleged role of the Zionist lobby in starting the Iraq war and other nefarious deeds. Not a shred of real evidence is offered in any of them, but "everyone knows" it must be true, and it is believed by respected professors and journalists and their students and audiences.

For Zionism and Zionist Israelis there is no quarter and no hope at all. Zionists are blamed for every ill of the world, and accused of every crime including eating babies, poisoning children and killing people to steal their organs for illegal transplant trade. None of this flood of baseless calumny is considered impolite, intolerant or not "politically correct." Zionists are the only group you can seriously dump on in intelligent society without being considered a boor and a bigot.

When a Zionist attempts to speak at a UN meeting, he is silenced. If a Zionist goes to an international conference at Annapolis, sponsored by the United States, he or she must enter by the service entrance, an institution created to separate domestics, menial laborers and other "inferiors" from "respectable" people. Nobody would shake their hands either. We may be about to see more of the same humiliating treatment in a different setting, again under the auspices of the United States, which claims an "unbreakable bond" with Israel. The Palestinian Arabs will not sit in the same room with Zionists, so the United States is trying to arrange "proximity talks." The evil Zionists will sit in one room, and the righteous "moderate" former (?) terrorists of the PLO will sit in another room and formulate their demands. The entire world thinks this is a great concession to the evil, racist, imperialist and colonialist Zionists. What will they talk about? Zionist concessions to the Palestinian Arabs.

If a Zionist product turns up in certain countries, there can be an international scandal. It doesn't bother anyone. In fact, "progressive" groups are working to widen the boycott of Zionists.

If a person admits to being a Zionist, nobody will listen to his or her opinion or version of the facts - it must be "Zionist propaganda." The same is true of news items that originate from "Zionist" sources. If Al Jazeera writes that Zionists committed war crimes in Gaza it is accepted as a fact, even if Al Jazeera also reported that the United States had used atomic weapons in Iraq. Time Magazine and Newsweek then headline fantastic tales of Zionist atrocities in Gaza.

If, on the other hand, the "Zionists" report that they captured a ship bearing a cargo of illicit Iranian arms, and show the arms, marked with the marks of the manufacturers in Iran and bound for the Hezbollah terrorists, it is ignored. It is "Zionist propaganda." At most, it will get a back page headline that states that "Israel claimed that the arms were manufactured in Iran" "Israel claimed that the arms were bound for Hezbollah." Nobody believes it. Nobody will listen to the "tales" of Zionists.

At parties and social gatherings, it is OK to say that you are gay, that you favor Scientology or flat earth theory, that you are a Maoist or a supporter of "rights" for Hamas. You can announce that you believe in anything at all. Say that you are a Zionist however, and the room will become silent. People will change the subject and move away from you. It's not your deodorant.

Everywhere in the world, Zionists have gone to earth, hiding in the closet, avoiding the pernicious Z-word or at most masquerading as "pro-Israel." The BDS (Boycott, Divestment Sanctions) group condemns "imperialism, colonialism and Zionism," and presumably also pedophilia and necrophilia, though the latter are not mentioned. The Friends Society approves of this program and joins the BDS in their demonstrations in support of the Hamas. It doesn't matter what Zionists really do or what they really think, just as it didn't matter who Paul Robeson was in the bad old days. He had the wrong skin color and that was enough. It didn't matter what George Washington Carver did, he could not be served in the white section of an Alabama cafe. It doesn't matter what Zionist scientists invent, or how many children are saved by Zionist cardiologists who give their time to Save a Child's Heart, or how many people regain their sight thanks to the "international Zionists" of Eye from Zion.They are still Zionists.

It doesn't matter how much aid the Zionists or the "Tel Aviv government" give to disaster victims in Haiti or Turkey or Kosovo, regardless of whether those people support Israel or Zionism. "Zionism" is a dirty word, and Zionists are thought to be in the moral category of Nazis and are in fact compared to Nazis. The very word "Zionism" conjures up the worst associations: racism, colonialism, apartheid, imperialism. A retired SS Obersturmbahnfuhrer may get fairer treatment in the foreign press than an IDF officer. Former Nazi officers are presumed innocent until proven guilty, a courtesy not afforded to Zionist "war criminals" in many publications.

It doesn't matter how many Palestinian Arabs are treated in Israeli hospitals, or how much humanitarian aid Zionists give to Gaza. It makes no difference how many Zionists demonstrate for peace. Zionists are Zionists. They must be boycotted and ostracized. A Zionist, in the popular imagination, is a person with horns and a tail, a religious fanatic who wants to bring about the end of the world (never mind that Zionism is a secular ideology either).

The president of the United States, who has made so many eloquent pleas on behalf of the religion of Islam, would not dare to urge the world to accept Zionists as human beings, to listen to what we have to say as equals. The discrimination is institutionalized and is not confined to Arab countries. Israel is probably the only major country that has never yet had a rotating seat in the UN Security Council. "Everybody knows" that "Zionism is Racism" even if the odious UN resolution on that subject was repealed. The repeal too, is ascribed to a dark Zionist conspiracy. Zionists are held responsible for the terror bombings of 9-11 and the terror attacks in Mumbai, even if Muslim terrorists confessed proudly to perpetrating them.

San Francisco, the home of gay pride and Politically Correct ideas, the supposed bastion of tolerance and multicultural pluralism, is paradoxically probably the worst place in the United States to be a Zionist. Can you imagine a "Zionist Pride" parade in San Francisco?

"Zionism," which should be a source of pride to all its supporters - Jews and non-Jews, has instead been turned into an affliction that no-one dares to speak its name, worse than the "C" word. This has happened because of the work of a small group of dedicated bigots, fanatics and terrorists, who never lose an opportunity to blacken Zionism and Zionists with every calumny. They have managed to make their bigotry and hate respectable and accepted, because you and I let them do it.

Don't you think it is time to end the witch hunt against Zionists? I am proud to be a Zionist. I am proud of the Zionist tradition of construction and renewal, of defense of the rights of the Jewish people, and of Tikkun Olam (social justice) around the world. I am proud of the country that we built from scratch, against tremendous odds, and the new lease on life that we have given to our people. I am proud of the kibbutzim as an ongoing experiment in social justice and democracy. I am proud that Israeli Arabs have more freedom and more protection under the law than Arabs do in any other country in the Middle East. Aren't you? I am proud that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where no members of any religion are treated as dhimmi - second class citizens. I am proud of the fact that Israel is the only country in the world that has more trees today than it did a century ago - a consequence of the "Zionist plot." I am a Proud Zionist. Aren't you?

If you are afraid to stand up for what you believe, you are not free. You can't hide what you are forever. I am not afraid to say I am a Zionist. How about you?

It is time to tell the world, "We are proud to be Zionists. Zionism is not what you think it is. It is not about eating babies and poisoning wells. It is a progressive national movement like any other. and it has done wonderful things!"

Please help us end the persecution of Zionism. Zionists have to come out of the closet. If we don't stand up for what we believe, nobody else will. Read the Israel Advocacy Handbook to learn the Zionist side of the story. Spread the word for "Zionist Pride." Join the Facebook Zionism Cause ( http://apps.facebook.com/causes/causes/73516 ) and invite others - help us explain to people what Zionism is really about.

As for the rest of you, you may disagree. After listening respectfully, you may believe that Jews are not entitled to a homeland of our own- that it is too much of an inconvenience to the world, or that it causes too much strife. We cannot force you to support us. If you disagree, blame us only for what is really our fault and what we really believe - in the right to self-determination of the Jewish people. Don't make us out to be racists or imperialists or colonialists, body snatchers or baby eaters or initiators of wars in Iraq. Don't lock us out of the room and out of legitimate public discourse. We ask only that you grant us the same rights and the same hearing, the same legitimacy and respect that you grant so willingly to advocates of flat earth theory, Jihadism, Maoism and any other group or political movement that you may or may not support.

.

 

Ami Isseroff

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Punishing the Innocent Instead of the Guilty.

by Evelyn Gordon

You have to admire Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s negotiating savvy. Someone less shrewd might have assumed that with the whole world seemingly desperate to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks, the party that refused would be penalized. Abbas correctly calculated that by refusing to talk, he could reap concrete benefits even before negotiations began.

He has already secured a 10-month settlement freeze from Israel. Initially, that was supposed to be matched by gestures toward normalization from Arab states. But the Arab states refused; Washington declined to press; and in the end, Israel gave something for nothing.

Yet Abbas still said no. So now the world is busily seeking more unilateral Israeli concessions to entice him to the table. Haaretz reported today that at a Quartet meeting last Wednesday, the European Union and Russia proposed demanding that Israel allow Orient House (the PA’s de facto foreign ministry) and other PA government offices to reopen in East Jerusalem. That is effectively a demand that Israel concede Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem even before the talks begin: while embassies are located in foreign countries, government offices are usually located in one’s own.

U.S. envoy George Mitchell, in his PBS interview earlier this month, declared that Washington was also seeking additional Israeli concessions to lure Abbas to the table. “What we have suggested to the Israelis is a series of steps and actions that they could take that would encourage President Abbas to enter the discussions,” he said, though declining to specify.

But nobody worries about enticing Israel to the table, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past nine months endlessly proclaiming his eagerness to resume talks. Hence Washington felt no need to press Arab states to reciprocate for the settlement freeze, nor did the Quartet feel a need to reward Israel for this gesture.

The U.S. did try to secure a Quartet statement praising the freeze in November, but Russia reportedly refused. Why? Washington’s draft included a call for renewed talks aimed at reconciling both sides’ goals, and described Israel’s goal as a “Jewish state” in borders that, inter alia, “reflect the developments” that have occurred since 1967. Russia said it opposed both defining Israel as a Jewish state and adapting the border to the settlement blocs, and therefore refused to acknowledge these as legitimate Israeli goals. Thus even as the EU and Russia publicly support Palestinian final-status demands on borders and Jerusalem, the Quartet has deemed Israel’s demands so illegitimate that they don’t even deserve mention as aspirations.

So here’s the bottom line: because Abbas is being recalcitrant, the world is punishing Israel by demanding more concessions from it. That’s a highly ineffective way to run negotiations, since it encourages further recalcitrance rather than compromise. But if that’s how the Quartet wants to run things, Israel needs to start playing this game, too.

Hence, instead of constantly declaring his eagerness for talks, Netanyahu must start setting his own conditions for renewed negotiations. Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state might be a good place to start.

 

Evelyn Gordon

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Blaming Israel First.

 

by Peter Berkowitz

 

Business as usual at the U.N.

 

With the possible exception of the U.S. armed forces, no military in the history of warfare has made greater efforts in the face of grave national security threats to avoid the use of force or has tried harder, when obliged to fight, to protect noncombatants than the Israel Defense Forces. With the possible exception of the U.S. armed forces, no military has investigated itself as rigorously as the IDF. With the possible exception of the U.S. judiciary, no courts have done more to hold their military accountable than Israel's. And with the possible exception of America, no democracy has gone further in wartime to legitimize dissent than Israel.

 

 

No military in the history of warfare has tried harder, when obliged to fight, to protect noncombatants than the Israel Defense Forces.

 

It is therefore a bitter irony, fraught with consequences for the legitimacy of international law, that -- with the same possible exception -- no country's military, judiciary, and democracy have been the target of greater vilification for alleged human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity than Israel's.

 

The continuing controversy over the Goldstone Report is a case in point.

 

In April 2009, the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council appointed Richard Goldstone, judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, to head a mission to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.

 

On September 15, the mission released its 575-page report. The bulk was devoted to alleged Israeli misconduct in Operation Cast Lead, which aimed to stop the more than 12,000 rockets and mortars fired over eight years by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups at civilian targets in southern Israel. The report firmly and in vivid detail accused the Jewish state of human rights violations, war crimes, and "actions" that "might justify a competent court finding that crimes against humanity have been committed." Tentatively and briefly, the report also found that "it may be that the Palestinian combatants did not at all times adequately distinguish themselves from the civilian population" and that Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians "would constitute war crimes, and may amount to crimes against humanity."

 

The document recommended that the Security Council require Israel and Palestinian authorities to report, within six months, on the investigations and prosecutions international law obliged them to carry out. Should Israel fail to make good progress, the report recommended that the Security Council refer the mission's allegations to the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court. The report's recommendations concerning the Palestinian authorities were decidedly more tepid.

 

On November 3, the U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 344-36, passed a nonbinding resolution rejecting the report as "irredeemably biased." Two days later, the U.N. General Assembly, by a vote of 114-18, adopted the report and sent it to the Security Council.

 

 

The Goldstone Report hands Islamic extremists another propaganda victory.

 

The Security Council has declined to take action. But damage has been done. By pervasively insinuating that Israel is no better than, and in some respects worse than, the terrorists it battles, the Goldstone Report hands Islamic extremists another propaganda victory. Credulous European and American intellectual and political elites have already casually imbibed the opinion that Israel deliberately attacked civilian targets to terrorize Palestinians and destroy the foundations of civilian life in Gaza.

 

Goldstone's mission was suspect in Israel's eyes from the outset. The Human Rights Council that commissioned it is disreputable. It includes among its 48 members China, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia; notwithstanding the gross violations of human rights of which many of its members are guilty, it has made a priority of condemning Israel. In addition, statements about Operation Cast Lead and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict made before their appointments by two of Goldstone's three mission colleagues -- Christine Chinkin, professor of international law at the London School of Economics, and Hina Jilani, advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan -- could reasonably be seen as prejudging Israel's guilt. And from the General Assembly's 1975 resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism to the International Court of Justice's 2004 ruling that Israel's security barrier violated international law and must be dismantled, Israel has learned to expect from international bodies hypocrisy, slander, and scorn for its security.

 

Consequently, the Israeli government's decision not to cooperate with Goldstone, while still controversial in Israel, was understandable. The mission's mammoth report, written in unseemly haste, confirmed Israel's doubts.

 

A careful reading thoroughly discredits the Goldstone Report. So demonstrated Hebrew

University philosophy professor and New York University law professor Moshe Halbertal, a distinguished man of the Israeli left who helped draft the IDF's ethics code, in a devastating New Republic critique. Here, three examples of the report's biased and unscrupulous analysis must suffice.

 

- First, it presents as settled that, despite completely withdrawing from Gaza in 2005, Israel remains under international law an occupying power with attendant obligations because it controls Gaza's borders. In reality, the legal question is very much in dispute. Israel's famously progressive and activist Supreme Court has ruled that the country no longer occupies Gaza. And as Col. (Ret.) Daniel Reisner, former head of the IDF's International Law Department, pointed out to me, even the International Committee of the Red Cross considers the question to be difficult and unresolved.

 

- Second, the report blames Israel for causing humanitarian suffering by imposing a blockade on Gaza. In the process it dismisses the heroic efforts the IDF made in the midst of last winter's military operation that increased food, medicine, and fuel entering Gaza. Nor does it examine Hamas's theft of these humanitarian supplies or exploitation of Israel's daily humanitarian pauses to launch rockets at civilians in Israel and attack the IDF in Gaza. And the report fails to note that Egypt controls Gaza's western border, imposing restrictions more severe than Israel's -- this although the mission itself entered Gaza through the Egyptian-administered Rafah crossing.

 

- Third, the report accuses Israel of violating the laws of war by killing more than 200 civilian Palestinian police officers. In so accusing, the report relied heavily on Palestinian testimony and ignored or dismissed openly available information showing that Hamas also assigned the police a military role and ordered them, in the event of a ground operation, to fight the IDF.

 

More generally, the Goldstone Report suffers from fatal methodological flaws. While subjecting Israeli accounts of wartime operations to hyper-exacting scrutiny and relentless skepticism, it routinely accepts Palestinian testimony of alleged Israel crimes at face value, rarely if ever wondering whether Gazans regarded representations to the mission as acts of resistance. This is of a piece with the report's systematic failure to give due attention, as the laws of armed conflict direct, to military necessity, which in this case means the precautions feasible for reasonable IDF commanders to make in the harsh conditions of urban warfare against an enemy relentlessly striving to blur the distinction between civilians and combatants.

 

 

The Goldstone Report barely mentions Hamas and glosses over the terrorism to which it is devoted.

 

Finally, while the Goldstone Report goes to extravagant and irrelevant lengths to put Israel's Gaza operation in context by discussing the larger sweep of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it barely mentions Hamas and glosses over the terrorism to which it is devoted. To understand Israel's operation, however, it is crucial to grasp Hamas's frequently reiterated determination to wage jihad to destroy Israel. It is also vital to appreciate that Hamas blatantly violates the laws of armed conflict by deliberately transforming Gaza City and other densely populated areas into military bases. From these locations, using its own people as human shields, Hamas launches its rockets and mortars at Israel's civilian population -- ensuring that Israeli operations aimed at ending those attacks will make Israel a killer of Palestinian civilians.

 

No doubt, like all armies, the IDF made errors in Operation Cast Lead. And in the infernal smoke and fire of asymmetric urban warfare its soldiers and officers may have committed crimes. In the short term, Israel's Military Advocate General's Corps continues to investigate allegations and to pursue substantial ones. A military task force established to examine the Goldstone Report's allegations headed by Brigadier General Yuval Halamish expects to publish its findings at the end of January.

 

The long-term stakes, according to General Halamish, are high: "The fundamental problem applies not just to Israel but to all democratic nations --if they accept the Goldstone Report's approach and conclusions, they will not be able to fight terror."

 

 

Peter Berkowitz

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Cairo's plan B .

 

 by  Gamal A. G. Soltan

No more ad hoc arrangements. This is the message Egypt is sending to Hamas and the other relevant parties by setting up a fortified barrier along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian move marks the end of an era in Egypt's policy toward Gaza and Hamas. In 2005, when Israel was getting ready to evacuate Gaza, Egypt demanded that the Israeli redeployment include the border region or "philadelphi strip" separating Egypt from Gaza. This was the first time since 1967 that Egypt had a direct land link with a Palestinian territory with no Israeli mediation. Egypt sought maximum possible maneuverability in conducting its relations with the narrow Gaza Strip. The arrangements made in 2005 helped enhance Egypt's role in Palestinian politics.

Developments in the ensuing years, however, have rendered Gaza a liability rather than an asset. Following Hamas' victory in Palestine's legislative elections of 2006 and the Islamists' takeover in Gaza the following year, Hamas became Egypt's neighbor. While Egypt's border with Gaza granted Cairo effective leverage against the radical Islamic organization, Hamas was also given an opportunity to press Egypt in exchange.

The past two years have witnessed complex maneuvers between Egypt and the Hamas government in Gaza. While Egypt has tried to accommodate Hamas so that Palestinian unity could be restored, Hamas sought to consolidate its grip on power in Gaza and enhance its position in Palestinian politics. Egypt employed tactics of cooptation and containment while Hamas was buying time, hoping it could exploit opportunities as they arose.

The Egyptian strategy reached deadlock when Hamas defied Cairo's efforts to reconcile rival Palestinian factions. Hamas' ability to balance its commitments toward its radical allies in Tehran and Damascus with the need to avoid alienating its big neighbor came to an end: Egypt chose not to continue the game of running in circles in its relations with Hamas. It was Hamas' reluctance that provoked Egypt to change course. Hamas' policy made it look as if it were taking Egypt for granted; Cairo realized the time had come to send Hamas a strong message.

For the past year, Egypt has been determined to put an end to Hamas' tunnels enterprise. It sought to address the standing issues in Gaza so that it could take its relations with Hamas to the next level. Egypt mediated between Israel and Hamas toward renewal of a ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners. These along with Palestinian reconciliation talks were designed to help stabilize the situation in Gaza so that Egypt could improve border security at a low political cost. Egypt sought a successful conclusion of the three mediated tracks of talks so that the situation in Gaza could be normalized until the time came for a final peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel.

The months-long negotiations, however, did not produce any positive results. Even though various parties shared responsibility for their failure, it was Hamas that was most reluctant to demonstrate the needed flexibility.

Egypt had to choose between proceeding with its plan to secure its Gaza border or putting the plan on hold until the situation in Gaza stabilized. But postponement of border security plans would play into Hamas' hands and allow a Palestinian faction to have a say in Egypt's security plans. The Egyptian decision was to go ahead with the border security barrier regardless of the situation in Gaza.

Thus the failure of national reconciliation talks in Gaza prompted Egypt to begin applying plan B in its dealings with Hamas. The new policy includes less accommodation and more pressure. Partly tolerating the tunnels had been an integral aspect of the earlier policy of accommodation. Shutting them down is an important instrument for forcing Hamas to deal seriously with hard realities. Egypt's harsh policy toward the Viva Palestina convoy is also part of the new policy. No more will such convoys be allowed; all aid supplies should be channeled through Egyptian official channels. This is Egypt's new policy regarding politically motivated convoys of humanitarian aid.

The new policy is a way to make Hamas realize the hard realities of power and geography. Hamas reacted to it with a mixture of reluctance and cooperative gestures. A short-lived period of intensified tension on the Gaza borders was an attempt by Hamas to deter Egypt from carrying out the border security plan. Repeated positive gestures from Hamas leaders and spokesmen regarding the possibility of signing the reconciliation deal with their Fateh rivals in Cairo were also made in an attempt to persuade Egypt not to go ahead with its escalated security plans. These tactics do not appear to be working; Hamas seemingly has to come up with new policy directions.

The tight new controls on the Egypt-Gaza border should redirect Hamas toward paying more attention to the Strip's border with Israel. It is no coincidence that tension is increasing across Gaza's Israel border while Egypt is tightening the screws on Hamas. Escalation with Israel is meant to create circumstances not conducive to completion of Egypt's plan of enhancing its border control.

Driving Hamas into a corner could force the radical Islamic organization into either moderation or new adventures. Plan C will be badly needed should Hamas opt for the latter.

 

 Gamal A. G. Soltan is the director of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Palestinians: "Their Charters Call for Dismantling the Jewish State".

 

by Eli E. Hertz

Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation" is anti-Semitism.

For over 46 years, Turkey has knocked on Europe's door requesting membership in the European Union. The Europeans, however, have been in no rush to invite a Muslim country into their midst, even if it is the most westernized and most democratic Muslim country in the Middle East. To add to it, Turkey is already a strategic partner in NATO and nearly 3 million of its citizens are peaceful and productive immigrants/guest workers in Europe.

Joining the EU, however, demands of Turkey far-reaching political and social reform "on the ground" and "10 to 15 years of negotiations" while the Turks prove democratic changes are "irreversible."

On the other end, U.S. [and the Quartet] yardsticks for the Palestinian Arabs, a hostile society demanding statehood, amount to praise for fabricated non-existent reforms and call to abandon the required incremental progress as clearly stated in the "goal-driven Roadmap."

The end to violence and democratic reform, that Palestinians have yet to begin, is tolerable by the U.S. administration -- all in order to forge the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state within two years, one which will endanger the very survival of a free and democratic Israel and the rest of the free world.

Comparison of the goals and the ramifications of each:

The Turks' goal is membership in the European Union - a political alliance that the Europeans have already stated will have an iron-clad reversibility clause for Turkey if it fails to live up to its commitments.

The Palestinians' goal is sovereignty as a State - status for which there is no reversibility mechanism if 'Palestine' turns into a rogue state - the kind of polity the U.S. is currently grappling with in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and elsewhere.

Logically, the yardsticks of judging readiness and maturity should be at least equal, if not more stringent for the Palestinian Arabs, a society that consciously and purposely sacrifices its own youth for political gain and tactical advantage, with a leadership that champions the murder of Jews and suicide bombers.

Freedom House, a non-sectarian organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt to monitor civil rights around the world, appraised the Palestinian Authority with the lowest possible rating in its 2009 survey - deeming it "Not [a] Free" society. At that level political rights and civil liberties are absent or virtually nonexistent, and people experience severely restricted rights of expression and association - all as a result of the extremely oppressive nature of the regime.

These "realities on the ground" are totally ignored by the EU and the U.S. in their effort to advance immediate Palestinian statehood.

Requiring Israel to cede parts of its land in favour of the Palestinians' empty promises, while their Charters call for the dismantling of the Jewish State, is "applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation."

 

Eli E. Hertz

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Code Red on Code Pink.

 

by Caroline Glick

Talkbacks for this article: 0

Oh the shame of it all. Last month, 1,300 pro-Palestinian activists from the US and Europe came to the region in the name of peace and social justice to demonstrate their solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. Led by the self-declared feminist, antiwar group Code Pink, the demonstrators' plan was to enter Gaza from the Egyptian border at Rafah and deliver "humanitarian aid" to the Hamas terrorist organization.

But it was not to be. Led by Code Pink founder and California Democratic fund-raiser Jodie Evans, the demonstrators were not welcomed by Egyptian authorities. Many were surrounded by riot police and barbed wire as they demonstrated outside the US and French embassies and the UN Development Program's headquarters. Others were barred from leaving their hotels.

Those who managed to escape their hotels and the bullpens outside the embassies were barred from staging night protests in solidarity with Hamas on the Nile. In the end, as the militant Israeli pro-Palestinian activist Amira Hass chronicled in Haaretz last week, all but 100 of them were barred from travelling to Gaza.

The lucky few allowed into the Strip included neither Evans nor her friends, former Weather Underground terror leaders Bernadine Dohrn and William Ayres. But they bore no grudge against Egypt. The Egyptians were mere puppets of the real culprit: Israel. As Evans said, "It's obvious that the only reason for [Egypt's treatment of the demonstrators] is to make Israel happy. Israel is behind the refusal [to allow the demonstrators into Gaza] - what other excuse could there be?"

Dohrn, the woman who has called for a "revolutionary war" to destroy the US, felt that the Egyptian authorities' behavior was nothing but an unfortunate diversion from their mission. As she wrote in a blog post from Cairo, "We find ourselves unwillingly in Cairo, drawn into clashes with authorities and one another on side issues, when what we most want is to keep our eyes on the Palestinian people."

Unfortunately for the lucky 100 who were permitted to enter Hamastan, the diversions didn't end at the Egyptians border. Hamas immediately placed them under siege. The Palestinian champions had planned to enjoy home hospitality from friends in Gaza. But once there they were prohibited from leaving the Hamas-owned Commodore Hotel and from having any contact with local Gazans without a Hamas escort.

Rather than being permitted to judge the situation in Gaza for themselves, they were carted onto Hamas buses and taken on "devastation tours" of what their Hamas tour guides claimed was damage caused by the IDF during Operation Cast Lead. And then these international protesters were forced to participate in a Hamas-organized march to the Erez crossing.

As Hass tells it, in "a slap to many feminist organizers and participants," no Palestinian women were allowed to participate in the march, which "turned into nothing more than a ritual, an opportunity for Hamas cabinet ministers to get decent media coverage in the company of Western demonstrators."

But they didn't really mind. Reacting to her effective imprisonment in the Hamas-owned hotel, one of the demonstrators, an American woman named Poya Pakzad, cooed on her blog that the Commodore Hotel was "the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at, in my life."

Pakzad did complain, however, about what she acknowledged was the "farce" devastation tour she was taken on. She claimed that her Hamas guides were ignorant. In her studied view, they understated the number of Palestinians rendered homeless by the IDF counterterror offensive last year by some 60 percent.

Pakzad is something of a Hass groupie. She wrote that on the bus to Gaza, still smarting from the rough treatment the group received from the Egyptian authorities, Hass "made me realize why I came in the first place: to break the siege!"

Hass's participation in the pro-Hamas propaganda trip is a bit surprising. In November 2008, she was forced to flee from Gaza to Israel after Hamas threatened to kill her. At the time, Hass appealed to the Israeli military - which she has spent the better part of her career bashing - and asked to be allowed to enter Israel from Gaza, after sailing illegally to Gaza from Cyprus on a ferry chartered by the pro-Hamas Free Gaza outfit.

Hass's behavior is actually more revealing than surprising. The truth is that Hass and her fellow demonstrators were willing to be used as media props by Hamas precisely because it isn't the Palestinians' welfare that concerns them. If they cared about the Palestinians they would be demonstrating against Hamas, which prohibited local women from participating in their march to the Israeli border, and which barred non-Hamas members from speaking with them. It would offend their sensitivities that Hamas goons beat women for not covering themselves from head to toe in Islamic potato sacks. It would bother them that Hamas executes its political opponents by among other things throwing them off the roofs of apartment buildings.

The demonstrators did not come to Gaza to demonstrate their support for the Palestinians, but rather their hatred for Israel and for their own Western governments that refuse to join Hamas in its war against Israel. As one of the organizers told Hass as she sat corralled by Egyptian riot police outside the UNDP offices in Cairo, "In our presence here, we are saying that we are not casting the blame on Egypt. The responsibility for the shameless and obscene Israeli siege on Gaza rests squarely with our own countries."

By happily collaborating with Hamas in its propaganda extravaganza, these demonstrators demonstrated that the rights of Palestinians are not their concern. Their concern is waging war against their own societies and against Israel. They are more than happy to have their pictures taken with the likes of Hamas terror master Ismail Haniyeh. And while they will never acknowledge that his organization's terror war against Israel is illegal and immoral, or care that Hamas's founding charter explicitly calls for the genocide of Jewry, they will demonstrate from today till doomsday against their governments' recognition of Israel.

IN THIS, the Free Gaza movement members are but a chip off the old psychopathic block of nearly a century of far-left Western activists whose hatred for their own countries motivated them to hide the crimes of mass murderers from Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong to Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh to Daniel Ortega and Saddam Hussein. As Jamie Glazov chronicles in his recently published book, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror, their attraction to mass murderers - from Stalin to Osama bin Laden - and their concomitant hatred of their own societies "is a secular religion."

These fanatics are usually dismissed as fringe elements. But the truth is that during the late 20th century, the distance between these true believers and the centers of state power has not been very great. Glazov notes, "The tragedy... is that the Left has shaped much of the cultural and political consciousness of our time. The Left's agenda mattered immensely during the Vietnam War: even former North Vietnamese officials have admitted that the antiwar movement in American can take credit for communism's victory in South Vietnam and, therefore, for the tragic bloodbath that followed."

Likewise, these radical movements' extremism today has not marginalized them politically. Since it was formed in 2002, Code Pink has openly sided with US enemies against the US and its allies. Evans and its other leaders have met with Hamas leaders in Gaza and Syria. They have visited with Hizbullah in Lebanon. They have met with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York and Teheran. They have supplied Iranian-backed insurgents in Iraq, and before the US-led invasion in 2003, they organized a solidarity-with-Saddam Hussein mission to Baghdad. And this month, fresh from Egypt and Gaza, Code Pink launched an advertising campaign on the Muslim Brotherhood's English-language Web site.

At home in the US, as documented by Web sites like Big Government and Atlas Shrugs, Code Pink's members have launched psychological warfare operations against American soldiers outside of military bases with the aim of persuading them to desert. They have taunted and frightened children of US servicemen. They have harassed Bush administration officials, their family members and Republican Party leaders.

In Israel, counterparts to Code Pink like Uri Avineri's Gush Shalom acted as human shields to protect Yasser Arafat and his fellow terrorists from the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Anarchists Against the Fence stage violent riots against IDF soldiers every week. Four Mothers successfully compelled the Barak government to surrender south Lebanon to Hizbullah.

Traditionally, the far left's ability to shape national policy in Israel and the US alike has owed largely to the sympathetic coverage they have garnered from fellow-travelling media outlets. In the US, the anti-war movement probably would have failed in its mission of transferring South Vietnam to Communist control if The New York Times and CBS News hadn't supported their efforts. So, too, the Barak government would likely not have withdrawn the IDF from south Lebanon if Four Mothers hadn't been ardently supported by state-owned Israel Radio.

WHILE BOTH the Israeli and American media continue to promote the agendas of far left groups, by among other things, not reporting their open ties to terrorist organizations, today some of these groups have direct access to the halls of power.

Code Pink, for instance, is welcome at the Obama White House. Its leader Evans was an official fund-raiser for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Evans visited the White House after travelling to Gaza last June. While there she met with Hamas leaders who gave her a letter for Obama. Evans met Obama himself at a donor dinner in San Francisco last October where, while standing in front of cameras, she gave him documents she received in Afghanistan, where she met with Taliban officials.

Then, too, among the board members of the Free Gaza movement is former US senator James Abourezk. Abourezk is reputedly close to Obama and according to knowledgeable sources has been a key figure in shaping Obama's policy towards Israel.

Then, too, like Evans, Dohrn and her husband, Ayres, are also friendly with the president of the United States. Dohrn and Ayres have been Obama's political patrons since he launched his first campaign for the Illinois state Senate in 1996. In White House visitors' logs, Ayres is listed as having twice visited the building since Obama's inauguration.

Israeli authorities tend to treat groups like Code Pink and its Israeli allies as nothing more than nuisances. Since unlike Egypt and these self-proclaimed human rights champions themselves, Israel actually does care about human rights, it would never occur to anyone to treat these demonstrators as Egypt did. At the same time, the Egyptian authorities' actions were clearly informed by their understanding that, with their ties to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah, Syria and Iran, Code Pink and its friends are active collaborators with the jihad war machine.

With their open ties to our jihadist enemies on the one hand, and their direct line to the White House on the other, Israel ignores them at our peril.

 

Caroline Glick

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Brilliant Defender or Light-Weight? Some problems in the thinking of Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

 

by Barry Rubin

Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, gave a very interesting interview to the alumni magazine of his old college, Columbia University. I analyze some of the points made not to criticize Leiter but to point out some basic ideas held by the people responsible for protecting America and Americans from terrorist attacks.

We might as well begin by the statement I found most disturbing:

"I'm often asked if it's a coincidence that we haven't been attacked since 9/11, and the answer is flatly no."

Not attacked? True, there has been no large-scale September 11 type operation but the number of small attacks or incidents that might represent terrorist attacks has risen very sharply. Like a police department that claims success in fighting crime by reinterpreting the statistics, U.S. officials have systematically classified Islamist terrorist events as something else.

Of course, Leiter's statement sounds ironic in light of the Detroit underpants' bombing but how about the Fort Dix plan, Fort Hood, the apparent preparations to attack Fort Bragg, and the assassination of an army recruiter in Arkansas (there does seem to be a pattern here, doesn't there?), the shooting at the El Al counter in Los Angeles, the murder at the Jewish community center in Spokane (another pattern), and so on?

Perhaps Leiter meant to say there haven't been successful attacks in most cases but that is also not quite true, though it is legitimate for officials like him to claim they have achieved a number of successes.

If the threat is being underrated, however, and terrorist attacks attributed to, say, mental instability, and attacks by individuals are being downplayed, this means the danger to the public is higher.

Leiter attributed the successes to three things; the first two are somewhat ironic after the Detroit operation:

"First, the U.S. government is much better prepared and organized; we share information today in ways that we never thought possible on September 10, 2001. Today, the information that flows through this building is from the CIA, the FBI, the military, DHS, all of them coming together to make sure that we don't have gaps. Second, we've elevated our defenses in ways that simply make it a lot harder for al-Qaida or its sympathizers to get into or operate in the United States. Some of that obviously has negative repercussions — the way in which we screen travelers, and visas and the like."

All of these factors failed in the Detroit case.

The third factor is, "The U.S. government's offensive actions in Afghanistan and in that region have disrupted attacks and al-Qaida's ability to recruit, train, and send people overseas."

This is true but perhaps misunderstands the nature of terrorism. If you are under pressure in Afghanistan, you simply move operations elsewhere, to Yemen for example. Leiter acknowledges this by defining the three areas of greatest concern as the Afghanistan-Pakistan area, Yemen, and Somalia. The last place he adds could see an al-Qaida takeover of the government. That's all reasonable though it is strange he doesn't mention Iraq, perhaps because the administration's line is that this problem has been solved?

What I also find disturbing is his conception of the broader threat:

"More than 50 percent of terrorism victims in 2008 were Muslim, which is a very powerful reminder that this is not about the West being at war with Islam. This is Al-Qaida completely perverting a wonderful, peaceful religion, leading to death and suffering for Muslims in many parts of the world."

He is right about the West not being at war with Islam—I think the first person to say that after September 11 was President George W. Bush. Yet this statement is misleading, too. While more than 50 percent of terrorism victims are Muslims many of these casualties were inflicted by groups that aren't part of al-Qaida.

Of course, it is the government line that the United States is only at war with al-Qaida, and indeed al-Qaida is the main group whose principal priority is attacking the United States. But if the West isn't at war with Islam, isn't it at war with revolutionary Islamist groups that attack U.S. allies, try to destroy American interests, and sometimes also target Americans?

A second problem is that al-Qaida remains very popular among Muslims, especially when it kills infidels. Consider Leiter's main example to prove that followers of a wonderful, peaceful religion cheer on al-Qaida and similar groups:

"In places like Jordan that have experienced horrendous suicide attacks, like the bombing of the wedding in Amman in 2005, we have seen that al-Qaida's message has not resonated, in large part because people understand that al-Qaida does not have a positive message."

But all this says, in effect, is that if al-Qaida kills Muslims that makes it unpopular among Muslims while if it kills non-Muslims it—and other Islamist terrorist groups—becomes more popular.

This isn't an argument that al-Qaida is unpopular, only that it should—like Hamas, Hizballah, and some other groups—focus more on killing non-Muslims. Many Muslim clerics are praised in the West for "opposing" terrorism and saying it is against Islam when they are really only opposing and rejecting terrorism targeted at Muslims.

It reminds me of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying:

"We've admired the way Pakistan has pulled together to go after those elements of the Taliban that are directly threatening them. And I think that the people of Pakistan are so unified now in support of this military action" Consider this bizarrely self-subverting first sentence. Isn't it great, she says, that Pakistan is fighting those Taliban types who are trying to take over the country and kill them. Well, of course they are! Is it hard to understand that they don't want to be murdered and overthrown?

But the problem, of course, is that Pakistan isn't going after those elements of the Taliban that are not "directly threatening" them. In fact, as most recently attested by a freed New York Times reporter who the Taliban had been holding hostage, Pakistani intelligence is helping the Taliban and other terrorists who want to kill Americans or Indians!

He is correct in saying that "al-Qaida's ultimate goal is to establish a caliphate across the Middle East, into North Africa, and into parts of Asia, and expel the United States and Westerners and Israel from that caliphate." Yet isn't that a view shared by Iran and many other groups. They might just be going about it in a more clever manner, trying to seize control of their own countries (Egypt, Algeria, Lebanon, Palestinians) rather than targeting America first, even at times using peaceful means like elections.

Perhaps this isn't Leiter's job to identify since he is running the defense of America against terrorist attack rather than the State or Defense department. How does he define the terrorists'motives?

"I wouldn't try to attribute one set of reasons to everyone who identifies with this vision. They have a variety of reasons. American and Western policies have certainly had an influence, as has corruption in their own countries, a lack of what they believe is a true political voice, and a lack of economic opportunity. There are a wide variety of drivers behind why a 19-year-old in Yemen or Somalia or Islamabad or Morocco would identify with al-Qaida."

But what about ideology, an ideology which is underpinned by an interpretation of Islam which doesn't seem so far-fetched given the contents of that religion's texts? And again, al-Qaida is a small group, far exceeded by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hizballah, certain groups in Turkey, or the regimes in Iran and (non-Islamist but pretending to be a paragon of Islamism) Syria.

Leiter hopes that in five years the threat will be diminished because al-Qaida has been weakened, hasn't appealed to more people, while the "U.S. government is simply better at defending itself…and we can do it in a more targeted way that people feel more comfortable with. There are fewer questions about our improperly infringing on people's civil liberties."

I would suspect that the fewer questions might have more to do with the change in the White House rather than any alteration in security measures. As for his point that "al-Qaida's message simply isn't resonating with the world," I think that's misleading. The historic role of al-Qaida was not to lead the movement but to inspire other groups with more flexible strategies to become powerful.

"The U.S. is not at war with Islam," he says, "al-Qaida is at war with Islam." But is that what most Muslims think? He continues:

"The U.S. and Muslim-majority countries throughout the world are actually a partnership, and that partnership involves combating al-Qaida, but also building hope inside those countries. It's about messaging through both words and action; it's providing the aid that can build the schools that can teach the children and create economic opportunity, and showing that our power will be used to help these nations and these people advance in a way that al-Qaida doesn't even pretend to offer."

Yes, the United States and the governments of Muslim-majority countries threatened by al-Qaida—notably Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia but not Iran or Syria or Pakistan—are on the same side. Of course, he still has to explain why Jordan and Saudi Arabia give money and let their citizens go to Iraq to join al-Qaida and kill Americans. Maybe it isn't so simple.

But he is over the edge in talking about how these "partners" are working with the United States to build hope or create better economic conditions. They aren't changing and won't unless Islamists take over and change the regimes which would make things worse. Leiter's descent into fantasy is a bit disturbing. This isn't his jurisdiction but he's reflecting the administration line.

"Build the schools that can teach the children?" But teach them what? There are a lot of schools in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, for example, that teach them basic ideas which prepares the groundwork for Islamists teaching them that what's needed is a revolution and the killing of infidels. That's the kind of simple-minded American development and higher living standards as a solution to everything that renders people like Leiter incapable of understanding the world.

Still, he might be doing a good job at defeating threats within the United States. Let's hope so.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

It's Starting to Look As If The Obama Administration Has Learned Nothing from Its First Year.

 

by Barry Rubin

In the United States, about half the population and most of the policy elite thinks that President Barack Obama’s administration is a great success internationally. The other half doesn’t. A key reason for the first group’s attitude is its obsession with the highly visible popularity issue, the idea that America is more liked in the world. The problem is that, at the same time, it is less respected and that is the factor that counts.

As we move into 2010, with the administration’s first, “learning,” year behind it, a turn toward learning the lessons of that experience is not yet visible. This is especially so on the two most high-profile Middle East issue.

Originally, the administration suggested that it would raise sanctions against Iran in September 2009 if engagement yielded no fruit. Then that was pushed back to the end of 2009. Now we have a new estimate: July 2010. Maybe. And we also have the defining of those sanctions long in advance as ineffective, narrowly—and symbolically—focused on a ruling elite which will never feel any pain as a result.

This, then, is the way the Obama Administration views threats, which will make its adversaries see them as hollow. In a Brussels speech, U.S. ambassador to the European Union William Kennard explained:

"You'll hear over the next six months a lot more about our efforts on sanctions."

Hear about them? Haven’t we been hearing about them for a year? And at the end of six months will we actually see them?

This all makes the following scenario quite imaginable:

Fill in the month; fill in the day; fill in the year: Iran Has Nuclear Weapons

Same month; same day plus one; same year: U.S. announces low-level, ineffective sanctions to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, a parallel scenario is affecting the administration’s “peace process” policy. There are lots of stories in the media. Envoys zig and zag over the map. Meetings are held; plans are hinted at. But none of this matters. None of it.

Here’s the only thing that matters: Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas says he won’t even go to talks unless Israel stops all construction right now, including the apartments being completed and the ones being built in Jerusalem. The news media likes to say that both sides are “defying” the United States. But in fact what Israel is doing was approved by the United States, even highly praised by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Obama’s Administration is urging that negotiations restart based on the fantasy that all the tough issues will be quickly resolved. Resolve borders, security guarantees, recognition of a Jewish state of Israel, end of conflict, settlement of refugees in Palestine, status of Jerusalem, and lots of other incredibly difficult issues? The administration can't even get the two sides to the table!

Here's a basic aspect of the problem. While Israel won’t give up everything Abbas demands in negotiations, Abbas is unprepared to make the slightest concession on anything. First, because he doesn’t want to do so; second, because he is unable to do so, since he lacks a strong base of support; third, because he is afraid to do so because he would lose power, his Fatah movement would splinter, and he might even be overthrown by Hamas.

Therefore, in July 2010, and by January 2011 for that matter, the administration is unlikely to make any progress.

Very possibly the administration will fool the American media by constant activity and claims that it is getting somewhere; somewhat possibly will it fool a large proportion of the American population. But people in the Middle East aren’t fooled at all.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.