The liberal-left religion and its disciples - Dror Eydar

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by Dror Eydar

The incessant warnings that "democracy is in danger" are a proven method used by the liberal-left, which has turned into a religion.

A left-wing demonstration in Tel Aviv
Photo: Gideon Markowicz 

1.

We are in the middle of a historic changing of the guard – we are witnessing the exit of a withering elite that still retains significant influence over certain power centers and the advent of an emerging new elite, most of which has yet to fully comprehend the weight of its newfound responsibility. This process represents a massive shift for those who, until rather recently, were taught that others, not they, dictate norms of thought, behavior and governance. Quite often, in order to gain independence, one must question that which came before and perhaps rebel against the fundamental and accepted norms. It is imperative to cut the apron strings of the previous ideology for the purpose of shaping an independent ideology as a new, legitimate elite – one that will influence not only the outcome of the elections but also public opinion and culture.

It is important to accept the fact that any significant change in the old world order will be met with powerful resistance from the members of the old elite. The resistance won't prevent the change, but it is important to go beyond legislation and governance, and establish an intellectual, ideological and cultural foundation as well. The new elite must listen carefully to the threats and insults made by the opposite camp, because they reveal the most painful places at the heart of the struggle over the identity of our people and our state.

2.

Of all the threats and insults coming from the opposite camp, the most oft-repeated refrain is that "democracy is in danger." So let's examine this claim. Democracy is not just rule of the people by the people, it is a system that allows individuals with opposing views and values to co-exist. In a democracy, individuals make minor compromises on their personal freedoms and accept the decisions of the majority in order to enjoy the many benefits that the state provides: ownership rights, freedom of expression and religion and the right to life.

Democracy is also good for the minority, more than any other system of government. In a democracy, the minority can protest against the majority in the city square. It can try to convince the majority and, of course, establish small minority parties that take advantage of the delicate political dance that the system dictates to achieve sectoral victories. That is the direction that our wise sages tried to take us when they taught us to pray for the welfare of the government. Because if not for its rule, "people would swallow each other alive."

In this regard, democracy is a tool. It is a framework where all the opinions and views can compete for the public's support, and then, by way of parliamentary elections and later by majority legislation, decisions can be made. Democracy is a tool that lets the people decide which values they want to adopt and which values they want to reject.

When people throw the warning that "democracy is in danger" around, they don't mean this democracy. They are referring to a different democracy – let's call it the liberal-left democracy. The aim of this liberal-left democracy is to turn the actual democracy from a decision-making tool of compromise into a value-laden ideology, rife with categorical directives. The liberal-left democracy is actually a secular religion that sees itself as "humanist" and engages in behavior very similar to conventional religion – it has temples, priests and religious authorities. Its disciples accept its principles as absolute truth, and anyone who questions this truth is excommunicated and burned at the virtual stake. Like with traditional religions, the degree of faith among the liberals' religion varies widely – some are more traditional, some are less resolute, and some are dangerous fanatics.

3.

The problem is that when you turn democracy the tool into a religion or ideology it gives rise to the kind of totalitarianism that contradicts the very idea of democracy. When the liberal democracy is presented as the only option, all other ideologies are, by default, presented as heretic and wrong. But if the liberal ideology were to be presented as one desired option among many competing ideologies, its supporters would have to fight for its continued existence, just like everyone else, and everyone would acknowledge the legitimacy of rival ideologies.

Incidentally, when was the last time anyone heard the Left not just give lip service but actually, honestly acknowledge the legitimacy of the Right's efforts to advance the conservative ideology? I made every effort to recall such an acknowledgement but all I came up with were insults, condescending attitudes and comparisons to the worst regimes in history.

So why are things the way they are today? Because the Left perceives its liberalism as an absolute imperative, without which democracy would collapse. Because of this perception, the democratic debate has become an existential battle, in which the Left delegitimizes rival ideologies and calls them a threat to democracy. The war against any rival ideology is unrelenting, presented as an attempt to defend democracy. This breeds political correctness – not for the purpose of protecting the minorities but rather to be used as a weapon to silence the majority. It also breeds the violence and silencing tactics experienced by anyone with right-wing or conservative views on the predominantly, almost homogeneous left-wing Western campuses.

No one ever wonders why the church doesn't employ Jewish rabbis or Muslim qadis. So does it come as any surprise that the disciples of the liberal-left church admits (almost) only people who share its views? Institutions of higher learning in Israel are funded by the state, so why does the state allow them to behave as though these institutions belong exclusively to them? But the media, which is expected to be critical of the monolithic homogeny in the academia and should be demanding greater freedom of thought, is, in reality, also horrifyingly homogeneous and behaves in the exact same way. Think of them as a religious establishment – it may ease your frustration.

4.

The same left-wing liberal institution demands the separation of religion and state and vehemently rejects any religious overtones in any public sphere. It also urges the separation of the nationality from the state and opposes the right of the Jewish people to anchor in law their right to self-determination in their only homeland. Their fear of religious coercion drives them, but don't they coerce themselves? Don't they force their values on others? Any democratic agreement includes some degree of coercion from one side or another. The thing is that the disciples of the liberal-left religion think of their worldview as the only and absolute truth, thereby rejecting any other worldview, including the religious one. That's how the norm was established that one set of values is considered democracy and another set of values is considered the enemy of democracy.

Several years ago, the Supreme Court considered allowing the reunification of married couples in which an Israeli Arab and a Palestinian were separated by geography. The court almost approved it. Had this reunification statute been approved, it would have seen Israel comply with the deceptive Palestinian demand for a "right of return." In  the court, the proponents of the reunification cited the basic law defending Human Dignity and Liberty. But what about the nation's dignity and liberty? The religious authorities of the liberal-left reject the state's rights as an invalid consideration.

Ultimately, the petition for reunification was short one vote. It was denied on security considerations. Both the proponents and the opponents only took individual rights into consideration – the right to dignity, under the broad interpretation of former Chief Justice Aharon Barak, and the right to life, as interpreted by the majority of the justices. In all fairness, the justices who rejected the petition did not have the nation-state law in their arsenal back then.

The notion that the hurt feelings of the minority should outweigh the majority's right to self-determination is blatantly undemocratic, because it forcibly imposes the minority's wishes on the majority. This is particularly true since the opposition to the nation-state law among the Israeli Arab population is not driven by a demand for equality – equality already exists – it is driven only by the fundamental objection to define Israel as a Jewish state.

In any case, the disciples of the liberal-left faith believe that a state must not impose religious or nationalist norms on the individual, and they wish to sever these legal decisions from ideology (except their own). But how is that possible, when the legislative body, the Knesset, is made up of ideology-based parties, some of which are religious, that represent Israeli society? Their solution is to transfer the decisions into the hands of an "impartial" team of experts, free of ideological considerations, that confronts the issues only on a purely technical or legal level. That's how the Supreme Court became the overarching legislative branch in addition to being the legal branch, and we were sent 2,500 years back in time to the era of Plato who crowned the philosopher king. Karl Popper cast Plato as a proto-fascist. In the language of our day: an enlightened dictatorship. An elite that wants to thrive and to ensure a plurality of views needs to restore the democracy to its lean, initial format and allow the people to decide what's best for them.

Dror Eydar

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/10/12/the-liberal-left-religion-and-its-disciples/

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Is the anti-Israel tide in Europe starting to turn? - Ariel Kahana

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by Ariel Kahana

Support for Israel in EU nations has grown from 38% to 43%, while anti-Israel feeling has fallen from 30% to 29%, Foreign Ministry finds

Surveys conducted by the Foreign Ministry in major ‎European countries show a clear rise in support for ‎Israel, Israel Hayom learned Thursday.‎

The polls found a rising trend of support for Israel in Germany, ‎Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, which for many years were hubs of hostility toward Israel.‎

The surveys were conducted in 2017 and the Foreign ‎Ministry has spent recent months analyzing ‎them.

It said the positive trend that emerged from ‎the polls is consistent with the findings of other, more recent polls.

For the surveys, samples of ‎‎1,000 individuals in most European ‎countries were questioned in two stages, at the beginning of 2017 ‎and again at the end of the year. The ministry said the surveys were conducted by specialist polling institutes in each country and respondents were not told the polls were for the Israeli government.  ‎

The surveys avoided political issues such as the ‎Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the Iranian threat, asking: "Would ‎you define your attitude toward the State of Israel ‎as sympathetic or unsympathetic?"‎

In Germany, currently the strongest country in the ‎European Union, ‎sympathy for Israel rose by 2% through the year to reach 41%. ‎At the same time, antipathy to Israel fell from 35% ‎to 31%.‎

The U.K. showed a dramatic change through the year: While at the beginning of the year, 32% of Britons were ‎sympathetic to Israel and 39% ‎were unsympathetic, later in the year, support for Israel rose to 40%, while lack of support fell to 33%. ‎

In Spain, 40% supported ‎Israel compared to 32% who did not. In Portugal, 48% ‎ were sympathetic to Israel and 30% were not. ‎

In Romania, support for Israel grew from 49% to 56% through the year, ‎while the number those who were not sympathetic remained steady ‎at 17%.‎

Overall, the ‎European Union as a whole marked a 5% increase in ‎sympathy for Israel and a 1% drop in antipathy to Israel through the year, with the number of Europeans sympathetic to Israel rising from 38% to 43% and the number of Europeans unsympathetic to Israel falling from 30% to 29%. ‎

A Foreign Ministry official said the turnaround in European attitudes ‎to Israel was the result of a combination of ‎factors that are preoccupying the EU and sidelining foreign affairs including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as the refugee crisis in Europe, tensions with ‎the Trump administration in the United States, and concerns over Brexit, the U.K.'s pending exit from the 28-member bloc.

‎"In the past, the EU associated 'the Middle East' ‎with Israel automatically. Today, when you say 'the ‎Middle East,' the average European thinks about Syria ‎and the refugees," the official said. ‎

Another factor is the decline of mainstream media ‎and the rise of social media, where Israel can ‎present unfiltered facts that cannot be ignored or ‎distorted by politically biased media outlets. ‎

A third reason is that the EU "has come to realize ‎that Israel is an asset," the official said. ‎

‎"We're seeing the same thing all over the continent: The ‎European public has come to see Israel as synonymous ‎with its strengths, such as cutting-edge technology, ‎smart agriculture, the cyber industry and ‎intelligence prowess.

‎"Israel greatly benefited from several global ‎changes. For over a decade, we at ‎the Foreign Ministry have been making a systematic ‎effort to showcase Israel's advantages, which is also ‎part of the prime minister's policy of opening up to ‎other arenas: Africa, Asia and Latin America.

‎"Now, after many years, we can see this effort ‎bearing fruit not only in terms of public opinion ‎but also in the economic and political ties that we ‎are developing," he said.

Ariel Kahana

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/10/12/is-the-anti-israel-tide-in-europe-starting-to-turn/

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Why Is the Middle East Studies Association Trying to Stop the Online Publication of Islamic State Documents? - Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

Considering the enormous media attention their fate has garnered, why should the general public be denied the right to examine the materials to determine for themselves how sound the original reporting and analyses were? 

Why would the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the primary umbrella organization for the field of Middle East studies, oppose the New York Times partnering with George Washington University (GWU)’s Program On Extremism to produce a public archive of the thousands of Islamic State (ISIS) documents the newspaper retrieved from northern Iraq? 
Analysis based on solid evidence, after all, is far superior to speculation and guesswork that may be proven erroneous. While there are many media articles about ISIS and propaganda material from the group itself, there is a deficiency of internal documents in the open-source realm for researchers to use in order to understand the inner workings of ISIS’s state project during the peak of its power. 
I have a personal stake in this debate: as a researcher of Iraqi origin, I have aimed to help scholars and others with my own archive of over 1,000 ISIS documents. My work inspired Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi, who obtained the collection for the newspaper, and I helped her verify many of the documents in question.
Yet MESA has launched self-righteous fulminations against the Times and Callimachi. Initially, it sent a letter to the paper criticizing it for referring to the documents in its articles, declaring that creating a public database of them is “unacceptable,” and insisting the documents be returned immediately to “the appropriate Iraqi authorities.” After the Times and GWU’s Program on Extremism announced their partnership, MESA sent a letter to GWU dubbing the project “problematic” and repeating its opposition to an open access database.
While MESA’s letters raised a legitimate point about the need to redact names of civilians from the documents, its main critique revealed deep-seated anti-Western biases. The Western identity of the reporter, newspaper, and institution working on the documents were unacceptable. MESA went so far as to characterize Callimachi’s obtaining the documents as a pillaging of cultural heritage in violation of international law, because “only legally designated representatives of the Iraqi state” should “control the disposition of any documents.” Similarly, MESA objected to the paper’s plans to create a public database of the documents partly because there are “no clear plans to return them to a repository that will be accessible to all Iraqis.”
MESA’s narrative is simplistic and short-sighted and unjustly implies that the Times engaged in criminal activity. There have been no “legally designated representatives” of state entities in the field to authorize or reject the collection of ISIS documents by journalists. In Northern Iraq, the de facto authority was the Iraqi security forces with whom the Times’s reporter was embedded. On occasion those forces granted permission to take papers simply because they did not deem them vital for intelligence efforts. Documents listing names of ISIS personnel, for instance, are of far more interest to security forces than those outlining the structure of a dismantled ISIS bureaucracy in a liberated area. Furthermore, some documents would have been destroyed had there been no third-party interest in collecting them. In other instances, documents were recovered from locales and buildings that had otherwise been overlooked. Were it not for the New York Times’s efforts, those documents would likely have been lost forever.
In my case, I collected as many ISIS documents as possible from the group’s former zone of control in the North Aleppo countryside in Northern Syria. That area is now controlled by local Syrian rebels under a Turkish occupation force. Should I give my collection to the Syrian government in Damascus, or perhaps the Turkish government in Ankara?
It is unclear how MESA thinks a repository accessible to all Iraqis will be created if there is no publicly accessible online database. Owing to the outcry from MESA and others, the paper is giving the original documents to the Iraqi government, at the latter’s request. Yet we are not dealing with a government known for bureaucratic efficiency. Beset with problems such as reconstruction in liberated areas and protests in the south against poor public services, the Iraqi government is very unlikely to create a repository of ISIS documents accessible to all Iraqis. 
An open-access online database addresses this problem, yet MESA decries this obvious solution. Why should the study of these documents online be restricted? Considering the enormous media attention their fate has garnered, why should the general public be denied the right to examine the materials to determine for themselves how sound the original reporting and analyses were? 
MESA should drop its affectation of moral superiority and carefully examine the documents for itself so as to pose legitimate research questions. Did the Times, for instance, select certain documents to support favored conclusions? Was the paper taking the documents too much at face value? These and other important questions can be addressed only by a transparent and open debate. But MESA would rather restrict access to a privileged elite of researchers, as was the case with the Ba’ath Party documents taken from Iraq after 2003.
It is unlikely MESA would have protested had a regional Middle Eastern news outlet taken the ISIS documents from Iraq and reported on them. (Their failure to protest my own work also illustrates this selective outrage.) MESA’s real objection is that a Western outlet tracked down the documents and published the reports—an intellectually vacuous form of identity politics reflecting MESA’s biases that have gained far too much currency in academia. However MESA spins it, the Times and Callimachi have greatly contributed to our ability to research the history of ISIS. The planned public archive of documents will only strengthen that contribution.
 

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a research fellow at the Middle East Forum. This article was sponsored by Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/articles/2018/why-is-the-middle-east-studies-association-trying

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New York Times reportedly roiled by ‘staff rebellion’ - Thomas Lifson

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by Thomas Lifson

Now that Pinch Sulzberger and his stuffed moose are gone... maybe a safe space room with coloring books and puppies to hug?

The arch-rival of the New York Times, the New York Post, gleefully reports:

The New York Times is scrambling to quell a staff rebellion at its metro desk after the section’s editor, Cliff Levy, unleashed a blistering email to staffers last week, saying the section had “lost its footing” and was in need of “urgent” change.
The News Guild of New York, which represents the 40-plus journalists in the section, called Levy’s memo a “public fragging” by Times management and said his offer of “voluntary” buyouts as the section became more web-focused was “an unexpected threat to our journalism and our jobs.”

At issue is the lack of emphasis on the digital edition, as this earlier report on the memo indicated:

“Our department remains grounded in a print approach and a print sensibility, often seemingly clinging to the idea that longstanding practices should be enough to get by in the digital era,” Levy wrote.
He said the journalists in the section “must think much more intensely about how we are engaging readers (and listeners and viewers) on our digital platforms.”
“In evaluating your work, I will be focusing much more on the ability of metro reporters and editors to engage audiences,” Levy added.
And then came the kicker: “We’ll be offering buyouts for Guild-represented reporters and editors who have been on Metro for at least one year,” he said.

Almost uniquely (the Wall Street Journal is the other major exception) among the nation’s newspapers, the Times has managed to draw significant revenue from the online subscription model. In this necessary transition – necessary because print circulation and ad revenue are steadily and steeply declining – the Times has benefitted from becoming the de facto leader of the anti-Trump faction. Trump haters across the nation are able to gorge themselves on a daily diet of anti-Trump articles, and I suspect that this is behind the growth in online subscriptions.

The metro section, concentrating on local news, probably does not get as many clicks from digital subscribers as the political, international, and other sections of the paper that are more able to marinate readers  daily in Trump hatred.

The imperative to “engage readers” means getting them to share material with others via email and social media posting, as well as contribute to the comments sections.

Making the crisis more acute is the absence of the stuffed moose that former publisher Pinch Sulzberger used to bring to staff meetings. Back in the days when the Jayson Blair scandal was rocking the Times, as Seth Mnookin reported in his book Hard News: (hat tip: Gawker)

The Sulzberger dynasty, which has kept the leadership of the Times a hereditary monarchy even longer than Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea, needs to come up with something to soothe the freaked-out journalists. Maybe a safe space room with coloring books and puppies to hug.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/new_york_times_reportedly_roiled_by_staff_rebellion.html

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Israel has exclusive rights to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, government publication asserts - Yori Yalon

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by Yori Yalon

Book by Jerusalem Affairs ‎and Heritage Ministry presents arguments by some of the world's top jurists, refuting allegations that Israeli presence in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria violates international law

The cover of a compilation asserting Israeli sovereignty over 
Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria

A new government publication states, for the first ‎time, that Israel has an exclusive right to Jerusalem ‎and Judea and ‎Samaria. ‎

The book, titled "Israel's Right as of Jerusalem and ‎Judea and Samaria," is a compilation of materials ‎and lectures first presented at a Jerusalem Affairs ‎and Heritage Ministry symposium last year, which was ‎attended by some of the world's leading jurists and ‎diplomats. ‎

The symposium, led by Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage ‎Minister Zeev Elkin, was held as part of the ‎ministry's international program to bolster ‎Jerusalem's status as Israel's capital.‎

The book has been printed in several hundred copies, ‎to be distributed in Israel's missions worldwide and ‎to top foreign diplomats, jurists and leaders of ‎public opinion.‎

The ministry said this was the first time a book ‎dealing with the issue of Israeli sovereignty over ‎Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria has been published.‎

‎"For years, we have had to tolerate the false ‎message that Israel's very presence in reunified ‎Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria are a violation of ‎international law," said ministry Director General ‎Ran Yishai. ‎

‎"The world's top jurists have refuted this notion, ‎but they have been all but silenced by a pro-Arab campaign ‎using false legal arguments to justify international ‎bodies and countries' anti-Israeli policy," he said.

‎"Now, the State of Israel has put together arguments ‎by some of the world's greatest legal experts, ‎including by some who have personally shaped ‎international law, that prove Israel is in the right ‎even when faced with legal bullying in the ‎international arena," Yishai concluded. ‎

Yori Yalon

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/10/11/israel-has-exclusive-rights-to-jerusalem-judea-and-samaria-government-publication-asserts/

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Arab political incorrectness on the Palestinian issue - Yoram Ettinger

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by Yoram Ettinger

The Arab countries have much more urgent concerns than the "Palestinian" problem.

While Iraq delivers staunchly pro-Palestinian talk, a 2017 Iraqi law has reversed Saddam Hussein’s pro-Palestinian policy, depriving Palestinians (including those born in Iraq) of free education, healthcare, travel documents and employment in state institutions.

While Jordan calls for sweeping Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, and while the Hashemite regime has absorbed over one million Syrian refugees, Amman stopped (since 2012) admitting Palestinian refugees from Syria. Furthermore, the significantly enhanced trilateral Jordan-US-Israel strategic cooperation has become a major artery of the Hashemite regime’s national and homeland security.

While Egypt urges Israel to satisfy Palestinian demands, Egypt-Israel strategic cooperation, especially (but not only) in the area of counter-terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza, has surged unprecedentedly.

While there is no progress on the Israel-Palestinian front, Saudi Arabia and all other pro-US Arab Gulf States have substantially expanded military and commercial cooperation with Israel. Riyadh has never considered the Palestinian issue a top geo-strategic priority – except its generous talk, but no walk – as demonstrated from 1979-1989 by its $1BN annual aid to the anti-Soviet Islamic campaign in Afghanistan, compared with $100MN annual aid to the PLO.  Also, while UNRWA highlighted a “$50MN landmark contribution by Saudi Arabia” on behalf of Palestinian refugees, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman put it in realistic perspective by purchasing a 440ft-long yacht for $588MN and a Leonardo da Vinci painting for $450MN. 

Once again, Middle East reality defies Western conventional wisdom.

Moreover, contrary to Western conventional wisdom, Palestinians benefit much more from Western support than from the support extended – and usually avoided – by Arabs.

Arab leaders have always showered Palestinians with an abundance of positive talk, but never with positive walk, as highlighted in the aftermath of the 1948-49 Arab-Israel War, when Jordan and Egypt occupied Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza.  Rather than transferring these areas to Palestinian control, Jordan and Egypt aggressively squelched Palestinian political and educational activities there.

Furthermore, Arab regimes have not flexed their military or economic muscles during Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, such as the 1982 Israel-PLO war in Lebanon, the First and Second Intifada (1987-1992 and 2000-2005 respectively) and the three Israel-Hamas wars in Gaza (2009, 2012 and 2014).  In fact, notwithstanding their public rhetoric, most Arab policy-makers consider the Palestinians, in general, and Hamas, in particular, as clear and present threats to regional stability and their own regimes, and wish that Israel would deal with Palestinian terrorism more decisively.

In 2018, the Palestinian issue is relegated further down the scale of Arab priorities, against the backdrop of the intensifying lethal threats – to each pro-US Arab regime – posed by the imperialistic, megalomaniacal Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Sunni terrorist derivatives (e.g., ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas) and Erdogan’s Turkey. These threats, which have placed a sharp machete at the throat of every Arab regime, have been unrelated to the Palestinian issue.

In 2018, there have been hundreds of televised reports from Gaza, top-heavy on Israeli military response to Palestinian terrorists, who fly fire-kites and explosive-balloons into Israeli communities. However, there have been minimal reports on Arab solidarity with the Palestinians.  Arab regimes and the Arab Street have been preoccupied with the domestic and regional tectonic, destabilizing ripple effects of the Arab Tsunami (superficially addressed as the “Arab Spring”), which have been leveraged by Islamic Sunni terrorists, as well as by Iran’s Ayatollahs in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen and the oil-rich and Shiite-populated Al-Hassa and Al-Qatif regions of Saudi Arabia.

The Arab preoccupation with do-or-die threats and challenges – not with the Palestinian issue – has been reflected in the non-realization of Arab financial assistance to the Palestinian cause, announced in bombastic forums, but has subsequently all but evaporated.

Most significantly, while the Palestinian/PLO track record has been replete with anti-Arab terrorism and anti-Arab subversion and the training of international terrorist organizations, Israel has been increasingly perceived – by the pro-US Arab countries – as the most effective life insurance agent in the region.  Hence, the unprecedented enhancement of their geo-strategic and economic cooperation with Israel.

Will Western policy-makers, academia and media learn proper lessons from past critical errors in assessing Middle East developments, or will they persist in repeating – rather than avoiding – past mistakes, which would entail severe financial and national security cost?!


Yoram Ettinger

Source: http://theettingerreport.com/arab-political-incorrectness-on-the-palestinian-issue/

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Syria Receives Anti-Aircraft System From Russia - Ari Lieberman

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by Ari Lieberman

But Israel is prepared.

On July 30, 1970 during the height of the War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel, Israeli fighter jets –Mirages and F-4E Phantoms – tangled with Soviet-piloted MiG-21s over Egyptian airspace. In the four minute dogfight that ensued, the Israeli Air Force shot down five of the MiGs while the rest of the Red formation scattered. The engagement brought Israel to the brink of war with a superpower.

Israeli-Russian relations have markedly improved since those tense Cold War years. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Vladimir Putin have developed an excellent relationship based on personal friendship and shared interests.  Netanyahu was one of only two Western leaders to attend Russia’s Victory Day Parade this year and Putin was the first Russian president to ever visit the Jewish State. In 2012, Putin returned to Israel as a guest of honor at a state dinner and inaugurated a monument to Soviet soldiers who defeated Nazi Germany. During Operation Protective Edge, Putin voiced support for Israel in its quest to protect its citizens from Hamas terrorism.

Despite the warming of ties, Israel’s military brass and political echelons viewed Russia’s military intervention on behalf of the outlaw Assad regime warily. Given the proximity of Russian forces to Syrian and Iranian positions, the Israelis were rightly concerned over the prospect of an accidental engagement between Israeli and Russian militaries. Consequently, Israel and Russia developed and effective de-confliction mechanism aimed at avoiding such unintended engagements.

For the most part, this arrangement worked well but on the night of September 17, it went disastrously wrong. At approximately 10 p.m. four Israeli F-16 Sufa fighter-bombers launched a precision strike from Lebanese airspace at a weapons-linked facility in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, obliterating it. The attack was part of Israel’s relentless campaign of thwarting arms transfers to Hezbollah and Iranian entrenchment in Syria

The Syrians responded by wildly firing a number of anti-aircraft missiles. Syrian air defense units continued launching missiles even after the attack subsided. During the course of their unfocused response, the Syrians inadvertently shot down a Russian Ilyushin-20M “Coot-A” surveillance and control aircraft off the Syrian coast killing all 15 Russian personnel aboard. It was reported that several Syrian air defense personnel were arrested following the shoot-down.

Israel immediately expressed regret for the loss and sent a response team to Moscow to explain that fault for the downing rested squarely with incompetent Syrian air defense units. Putin appeared to accept the Israeli explanation and apology, and referred to the incident as an “unfortunate accident.” But shortly thereafter, Russia’s Ministry of Defense assumed a less conciliatory approach, which rejected Israel’s explanation and referred to the manner in which Israel carried out its strike as “criminal negligence.” The MoD even accused Israel of utilizing the Ilyushin as cover to mask the presence of IAF fighters.

The contradictory Russian response can best be explained by competing Russian political and military interests. Putin wants to maintain good relations with Israel while Russia’s MoD wants to demonstrate that it’s doing everything it can to back its overseas troops.

In response to the accident, Russia announced that it would deliver to the Syrian army the S-300 air defense system which would significantly enhance Syria’s air defense capabilities. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the delivery, which included 49 pieces of equipment, was completed on October 1. Russia’s MoD also announced that it would take three months to train the Syrians.

The Russians, not known for their magnanimity, announced that they provided the system to their Syrian allies free of charge but it is still unclear what variant of the S-300 was delivered. According to the Russian propaganda outlet RT, it was the more advanced S-300VM model while the defense blog The War Zone suggested that it was S-300PMU-2, Russia’s export version of the S-300. In addition to the delivery of the S-300, Russia also reportedly delivered a suite of electronic warfare equipment aimed at protecting anti-aircraft sites by jamming radars.

So what do these ominous developments portend for Israel and its efforts to thwart Iranian arms trafficking to Hezbollah and Iranian entrenchment? And how will these developments affect Israeli-Russian relations?

With respect to the latter, it is highly unlikely that Israeli-Russian ties will be adversely affected by this momentary blip. Both Israel and Russia have an interest in maintaining good ties and both have an interest in seeing Iranian expansion in Syria checked, albeit for different reasons. Moreover, visits by high-level Russian leaders to Israel have not been impeded as evidenced by the fact that Russia’s deputy prime minister, Maxim Akimov, is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday. Nevertheless as General Joseph Votel, who heads the US Central Command noted, the transfer of the S-300 platform to the Syrian army represents a “needless escalation” and cover for nefarious Syrian and Iranian activities.

It is also highly unlikely that Israel will cease its operations over Syria. Israel’s quest to thwart Iranian aggression represents a paramount strategic objective. Israel has already conducted over 200 strikes in Syria and has likely carried out a number of covert operations as well. Indeed, a day prior to the September 17 attack, Israel blew up an Iranian Boeing 747 containing weapons destined for Hezbollah at Damascus International Airport.

The S-300, with its 124 mile range, advanced radar and anti-jamming systems, and ability to track multiple targets simultaneously certainly presents challenges to the IAF’s freedom of action but it is a virtual certainty that the Israelis have already developed counter-measures to this formidable weapon system. As The War Zone notes “Israel has also already gained significant insight into the capabilities of the S-300 system specifically by participating in training exercises that feature older variants in Greece.”

While the transfer of the S-300 to the Syrian army certainly doesn’t make things easier for Israel, it will not for a moment prevent Israel from acting resolutely when its security interests are threatened. This is an ongoing Israeli doctrine that is subordinate to no other interest.


Ari Lieberman is an attorney and former prosecutor who has authored numerous articles and publications on matters concerning the Middle East and is considered an authority on geo-political and military developments affecting the region.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271556/syria-receives-anti-aircraft-system-russia-ari-lieberman

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The devastating impact of American non-Jewish Jews - Isi Leibler

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by Isi Leibler

Reform Judaism is the leading denominational group within the Jewish community. Nearly all the rabbis perform intermarriages.

American Jews who are members of the Union for Reform Judaism, formerly the Union Of American Hebrew Congregations at the Western Wall in Jerusalem‏.. 
(photo credit: REUTERS) 

There is no disputing that, except for the vast majority of Orthodox Jews, American Jews and their leaders have distanced themselves from their Jewish identity.

In most cases, this reflects an indifference to global Jewish issues, and often, a deliberate display of contempt toward Israel and its security challenges and the belief that Israeli leaders are not willing to discard an “outdated nationalist ideology.”
 
Many express their Judaism by proclaiming a distorted version of tikkun olam, which many of their rabbis promote as an espousal of liberal and universal policies. They are totally supportive of the Democratic Party, which many Reform rabbis, in effect, promote as the contemporary embodiment of Judaism.

Much of this can be explained by the rapidly changing demographics of American Jews.

Currently, most non-Orthodox American Jews suffer from unprecedented levels of ignorance. The Conservative movement, which fought for Jewish education and sought to maintain Jewish day schools, is today a mere shadow of what it was in the 1950s. It is moving closer to Reform Judaism and the leaders frequently echo the sentiments expressed by radical Reform rabbinical leaders.

Reform Judaism is the leading denominational group within the Jewish community. Nearly all the rabbis perform intermarriages and the figures suggest that the vast majority of Reform couples include one non-Jewish partner. This is consistent with the statistics, which state that, over the past decade, about 80% of non-Orthodox unions were intermarriages.

What exacerbates matters is that the overwhelming majority of Reform Jews only attend synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This issue is addressed in a recent brilliant article in Mosaic by Jack Wertheimer (undoubtedly the most astute analyst of trends within the Jewish community).  

Rabbis are overjoyed to have a unique opportunity on the High Holy Days to address large audiences, but many of them, instead of concentrating on Jewish themes, use the occasion to promote the anti-Trump campaign, often urging their constituents to vote in order to defeat the purported “enemy of democracy,” the “antisemitically inclined” Trump.

An ever-increasing number of these Jews now describe themselves as secular and are utterly ignorant of their Jewish heritage. Their counterparts 50 years ago were quite different. The Shoah and Jewish powerlessness was uppermost in their minds as was their pride in the struggles and achievements of State of Israel, which was providing a haven for persecuted Jews from all corners of the world. Most Jews then regarded Israel as a significant focus of their Jewish identity.

THE SAD reality is that today, the bulk of youngsters from the non-Orthodox sector are what should be described as non-Jewish Jews because their sole link to their people is through Jewish descent – frequently, from only one parent. They have little or no conception of Jewish values or interest in their Jewish heritage.

These Jews not only adhere to but are often at the forefront of the anti-Trump hysteria. Non-Orthodox Jewish organizational leaders – even traditional Zionists – remain silent or cozy up to their liberal constituencies even as President Donald Trump treats Israel better than any previous American president and, for the first time, is publicly exposing Palestinian intransigence, promotion of terrorism and the millions of dollars awarded to killers and their families. These same Jews never raised an eyebrow when President Barack Obama was uttering his outrageous statements morally equating Palestinian terrorists with Israeli defenders.

Nothing symbolized the deterioration of those describing themselves as American Jews more than when 42% of them (initially headed by Reform leader Rabbi Rick Jacobs) opposed Trump’s decision to transfer the US Embassy to Jerusalem – a decision that overjoyed Israelis. Furthermore, this year the General Assembly of Jewish Federations of North America, which when convening in Israel always meets in Jerusalem, has moved the venue to Tel Aviv.

Moreover, at the annual graduation ceremony for Reform rabbis, the guest speaker was the virulently anti-Israel Michael Chabon, who excoriated the Jewish state, stating, “Security is an invention of humanity’s jailers.” He then proceeded to express his opposition to Jewish endogamy and called for intermarriage. Hardly surprising that rabbis educated in such an environment frequently adopt negative attitudes.

More recently, Rabbi Hara Person, chief strategy officer of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis and publisher of its journal, pronounced her “halachic” conclusion that Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults had not been properly investigated and Judaism would not have approved his elevation to the High Court. Is this Judaism?

Of course, there are still a minority of Reform rabbis who are passionate Zionists and unequivocally condemn these trends. Foremost would be Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on New York’s Upper West Side.
This extract from his Yom Kippur sermon is explicit:

“We liberal Jews never seem to speak about Jewish solidarity anymore…. Thus, for many Reform Jews, ‘tikkun olam’ implies everyone in the world except Jews. It is rare to meet an American Reform youth or activist who considers it tikkun olam to assist, say, impoverished Jews in Israel or the former Soviet Union. A Reform tikkun olam mission would more likely travel to a poor African village than a soup kitchen for Jews in Ukraine…. The growing inclination among liberal Jews to de-emphasize Jewish distinctiveness is the greatest threat to liberal Judaism…. In the modern world, those who are not committed to Jewish survival will not survive as Jews.”

There are others sharing these views in the Reform movement, but they represent a shrinking minority and of these, many are obliged to provide their congregants what they want to hear.

IN THE current atmosphere, Jewish identity is submerged by the paranoid hatred against Trump by liberal Jews who continue to mourn his election.

This is reflected by repeated anti-Trump outbursts by organizations that have traditionally assiduously avoided partisan political issues. The most notorious offender is the Anti-Defamation League, which, since the retirement of Abe Foxman, has effectively become an extension of the Democratic Party and also repeatedly criticizes the policies of the democratically elected government of Israel. At the same time, while the most outrageous anti-democratic behavior and threats of violence are launched against pro-Israel students at virtually all campuses by Muslim and far-left students, the ADL, fearing it will be accused of denying freedom of speech, imposes a curtain of silence or at best mildly rebukes those committing these outrages.

An ever-increasing number of the youth and radical students instigated by professors together with those rebelling against being labeled “High Holy Day” Reform Jews prefer to describe themselves as secular Jews. Judaism and Israel are very low in their priorities. Indeed, some find it socially advantageous to demonstrate their cosmopolitism by condemning Israel and spurning so-called nationalism or ethnic pride.

What is even more outrageous is that American Jewish leaders blame Israel for the erosion of Diaspora relations. The Reform leaders claim that the source of the problem is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s backtrack on the agreement for an egalitarian prayer section at the Western Wall.

Many Israelis were frustrated that Netanyahu caved in to the ultra-Orthodox on this issue. He did so (mistakenly in my opinion) out of fear that the haredim would bring down his government.

This became headline news in America with some rabbis even calling on their members to divest from Israel Bonds. The fact is that most Reform Jews have not even visited Israel and only a miniscule number would have been aware of the issue had their rabbis not frenziedly used this as a tool to berate Israel.

Israel cannot be blamed for the fact that American Jews, especially the younger generation, are distancing themselves from Israel. The fault clearly lies with American Jewish leaders who have failed to invest sufficient resources and have utterly neglected the Jewish education of their children. The rapidly growing number of illiterate Jews deserve to be called non-Jewish Jews.

Little can be done other than a more intensive follow-up on those returning from Birthright trips. But the lethargy of the current Jewish leadership and the reliance on liberal supporters whose paranoid hatred of Trump, even at the expense of Israel, ties their hands. I fear that despite the efforts made by emissaries from the Jewish Agency and other organizations, we should dismiss our illusions and recognize that a large portion of American Jewry is being overrun by non-Jewish Jews.

We must now focus on the significant number of American Jews who are Orthodox and traditional and the considerable number of others who recognize Israel as a crucial factor in their Jewish identity and concentrate on encouraging and strengthening them.
 
Isi Leibler's website can be viewed at wordfromjerusalem.com. He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/CANDIDLY-SPEAKING-The-impact-of-non-Orthodox-Jews-on-America-569114

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Stunning 85-page Google memo 'The Good Censor' leaked to Breitbart - Thomas Lifson

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by Thomas Lifson

Democracy dies in Silicon Valley?

If you are not worried about the power of Google to shape debate and elections according to its leftist political bias, you're not paying attention. I congratulate Breitbart.com for the scoop, and I urge everyone – I am looking at you, President Trump and Congress – to read and ponder the fate of the Republic unless this company is defanged, most likely by antitrust action, but possibly also via civil courts. Breitbart is mum about how it came to possess the memo, but I do recall that Google is being sued over its dismissal of James Damore for insufficient adherence to its own ideology, and the discovery process in that lawsuit is almost certainly underway.

You can download and read the entire memo here. If that is too great a time investment, then read Allum Bokhari's introduction and summary here, including:

An internal company briefing produced by Google and leaked exclusively to Breitbart News argues that due to a variety of factors, including the election of President Trump, the "American tradition" of free speech on the internet is no longer viable. ...
[T]he 85-page briefing, titled "The Good Censor," admits that Google and other tech platforms now "control the majority of online conversations" and have undertaken a "shift towards censorship" in response to unwelcome political events around the world.
The briefing labels the ideal of unfettered free speech on the internet a "utopian narrative" that has been "undermined" by recent global events as well as "bad behavior" on the part of users. ...
It acknowledges that major tech platforms, including Google, Facebook and Twitter initially promised free speech to consumers. "This free speech ideal was instilled in the DNA of the Silicon Valley startups that now control the majority of our online conversations," says the document.
The briefing argues that Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are caught between two incompatible positions, the "unmediated marketplace of ideas" vs. "well-ordered spaces for safety and civility."

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/stunning_85_page_google_memo_the_good_censor_leaked_to_breitbart_.html

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A Tale of Two Women - Dawn Perlmutter

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by Dawn Perlmutter

The differences between Christine Ford and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi woman.

Hysteria was the first mental health illness attributed to women. For centuries it was considered both a common and chronic medical disorder. Female Hysteria was intrinsically intertwined with women’s sexuality and reproductive organs. The origin of the term hysteria stems from the Greek equivalent for uterus ‘hystera’. Symptoms included everything from nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, irritability, loss of appetite, and a "tendency to cause trouble".  Hysteria was the diagnosis for everything that men found mysterious or unmanageable in women and was used as evidence of the instability of the female mind. Many women who were diagnosed with hysteria were forced into insane asylums or to undergo surgical hysterectomies. One of the major triumphs of the feminist movement was to eradicate the diagnosis and stigma of female hysteria.

After centuries of fighting against stereotypes of women as irrational emotional hysterics, Christine Blasey Ford and her cult of feminist victims reestablished the worst stereotypes of women as fragile, defenseless, erratic and unstable. When women were marching for equal rights, equal pay and equal position in society, they did not envision being represented by a woman who is the very personification of female hysteria. Christine Blasey Ford’s fragmented recovered memory of a sexual assault, her 36-year-old ongoing trauma, uncorroborated allegations, childlike affectation, feigned helplessness and alleged irrational fears are a profile in female hysteria.

The American Psychiatric Association dropped the term female hysteria in 1952. Subsequently, the classification of disorders formerly known as female hysteria have been controversially categorized in other conditions such as schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, conversion disorder, and anxiety attacks. Another condition that was formerly associated with hysteria is referred to as Factitious disorder also known as Munchausen Syndrome and related to Malingering. Malingerers commonly fake psychological disorders such as anxiety and fabricate trauma for a variety of reasons -- most often financial compensation tied to fraud. Munchausen Syndrome is a factitious disorder where people feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma to draw attention, sympathy, or reassurance to themselves. Symptoms include phobias, anxiety disorders, a history of recurrent hospitalization and dramatic, extremely improbable tales of their past experiences. The person often exaggerates or creates symptoms of illnesses to gain attention, sympathy, and/or comfort from medical personnel. In some cases, the person becomes highly knowledgeable about the practice of medicine and can recite and produce symptoms to garner more attention.

Christine Ford received a lot of attention and sympathy when she testified before Congress about her alleged assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.  During her testimony, Ford frequently responded not as a victim but as a physician. When asked by Senator Feinstein about the impact the events had on her, Ford responded:

Well, I think that the sequelae of sexual assault varies by person, so for me personally, anxiety, phobia and PTSD-like symptoms are the types of things that I’ve been coping with. So, more specifically, claustrophobia, panic and that type of thing.

When Senator Feinstein asked her how she was sure it was Judge Kavanaugh that assaulted her, Ford responded:

It’s — just basic memory functions. And also just the level of norepinephrine and epinephrine in the brain that, sort of, as you know, encodes — that neurotransmitter encodes memories into the hippocampus. And so, the trauma-related experience, then, is kind of locked there, whereas other details kind of drift.

The press praised her unusual responses by characterizing her as a research psychologist who appeared as her own expert witness. The reason expert witnesses do not testify on their own behalf is that a court and jury rely on expert witnesses to be disinterested parties, who are not biased and have no motive to fabricate an issue. It never occurred to the media to question Ford's self-diagnosis as the result of a trained political operative or the manifestation of a mental disorder. In fact, people who suffer from factitious disorders often research and study symptoms and diseases, so they can better fake them. Ford has made a career out of studying mental illness, writing prolifically about the long-term impacts of trauma, including trauma related to sexual abuse. She would know exactly how to lie about the symptoms and trauma associated with sexual assault.

There is a significant difference between studying trauma and authentically experiencing it. The genuineness of Christine Ford’s choice of language, affectation and disclosures were questionable. Throughout her entire testimony there was no other person, event, detail, or evidence that corroborated her testimony. Her demeanor and body language appeared rehearsed and coached. The most obvious pretense was her speech pattern. During most of her testimony she used a deliberate and calculated childish voice to project vulnerability and helplessness. When responding to specific questions about her trauma, she spoke in the third person in the guise of an esteemed physician. Survivors of sexual assault do not describe their trauma in the third person nor do they have to read from a written script to remember the details.

One week after Ford’s testimony, Nadia Murad, a 25-year-old Iraqi Yazidi woman was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for her campaign to end wartime sexual violence and to free the Yazidi people who were captured by ISIS terrorists. Murad became the voice and face of women who survived sexual violence by the Islamic State after she escaped sexual slavery. At 19 years old she was captured from her village of Kocho. Six of her brothers and her mother were killed in the massacre. Murad was sold as a sex slave and repeatedly gang raped, tortured and beaten until she escaped. Nadia Murad is a true survivor. By definition survivors do not think of themselves as victims. The differences between Ford and Murad is evident in their own words.

The first time Nadia Murad attempted to escape she was caught and was punished by being gang raped by six of her slave owners guards. She was then subjected to even more abuse as she was passed around to other militants. She described the incident in her memoir, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State:

'Nadia, I told you that if you tried to escape something really bad would happen to you,' … A moment later Morteja, Yahya, Hossam, and the three other guards walked in, staring at me. …As soon as I saw them, I understood what my punishment would be. Morteja was the first to come to the bed. I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. He pushed me down, and there was nothing I could do. After Morteja, another guard raped me. I screamed for my mother and for Khairy, my brother…... My body was covered in filth left by the men ….The bed still smelled like the men who had raped me.

Senator Leahy asked Christine Ford: “What is the strongest memory you have, the strongest memory of the incident, something that you cannot forget?” She answered, “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the laugh — the uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.” Ford’s diagnostic answer of the strongest memory of her alleged sexual assault is being laughed at, while Murad remembers being covered in filth and what her rapists smelled like.

On June 21, 2016, Nadia Murad  testified before members of Congress during the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. The comparison between Ford and Murad is striking. Murad is not reading from a script, nor talking in a childish voice. She does not use medical terms or repeatedly refer to herself as a traumatized victim of sexual assault. She remembers every face, name and smell of her very real multiple serial sexual assaults. She holds her head up high and states that she was raped, sold and abused but wants Congress to know that there are hundreds of other victims and that girls as young as nine also suffered that.

Nadia Murad is a true profile in courage and bravery. Christine Ford is a profile in female hysteria. Murad refused to accept the strict social codes that require women to remain silent and bravely spoke publicly about what she had suffered. She did not remain anonymous to avoid personal pain. She inspired the world to collect and preserve evidence that would allow ISIS militants to be brought to trial.

Christine ford inspired mass hysteria resulting in roving mobs of hysterical women stalking senators in the halls of the capitol screeching about rape like some primal scream group therapy session. Ford inspired women to disrupt the confirmation vote by chanting "Shame! Shame!" like the religious zealots in a Game of Thrones episode. 

Nadia Murad is a remarkable brave woman, a true survivor, a heroine fighting for justice for both men and women and the future of both women’s and human rights. Christine Ford is a professional victim, a throwback to female hysteria, the poster child for the infantilization of women, a disgrace to every woman who fought for women’s rights and an insult to every victim of sexual violence.

Dawn Perlmutter is the Director of the Symbol Intelligence Group and one of the leading subject matter experts (SME) in symbols, symbolic methodologies, unfamiliar customs and ritualistic crimes. She designed and developed Jihad-ID, a symbolic database of the signs, symbols and identifiers of global jihad.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271575/tale-two-women-dawn-perlmutter

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