Answer Number One to the Namavaran Network Corporation

Mike L.

I agreed to do an e-mail interview with a Mr. Iman Soleimani of the Namavaran Network Corporation, which is an Iranian media outlet that is clearly hostile to the Jewish State of Israel.  He has eight questions that I will take one by one over the course of the next week, or so.  My expectation is that, much like this interview by Mr. Soleimani, it will be published verbatim.

Here is the first question:

1- Who are Zionist and what are the Zionist lobbies in US policy?

 A "Zionist" is anyone, from the latter part of the nineteenth century through the middle part of the twentieth century, who worked for the establishment of a Jewish state on historically Jewish land in what was a small slice of Ottoman territory before their defeat by the European powers during World War I.

I do not, actually, consider myself a Zionist at all given the fact that the movement fulfilled its purpose in 1948.  A better question, perhaps, is what do enemies of the Jewish people and the Jewish State mean when they use that word?  In the vocabulary of contemporary anti-Zionists the word "Zionist" means a racist, imperialistic, colonialist, apartheid-loving, Arab-hating, pro-Israel militarist.  This is what that word means to those with an irrational disdain for the Jewish people and for Jewish sovereignty on Jewish land.

The word "Zionist," within the anti-Zionist lexicon, has become a toxic epithet that is spit at Jewish people who care about the well-being of the tiny Jewish minority among the hostile Arab and Muslim majority in the Middle East.

As for "Zionist lobbies," they are weak.  The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the strongest among them, but AIPAC does little more than encourage comity between the government and people of Israel and the government and people of the United States.  If "Zionist lobbies" had any actual power over the US government then the United States would have recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel long ago.

This obsessive concern among racist anti-Zionists - both western and Islamic - concerning the "Zionist lobby" or the "Jewish lobby" or the "Israel lobby" is an anti-Semitic hangover from an earlier era that was given new life by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their 2007 book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

What Mearsheimer and Walt (shamefully) did was resurrect the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a form that is user-friendly for the contemporary west.  In the early-middle of the twentieth century this defamation helped bring about the Holocaust in which one third of the entire Jewish population on the planet was slaughtered, including almost the entirety of my father's side of the family.

I have considerable faith that it will not have a similar effect in the twenty-first century and much of that faith is due to the fact of Israel, itself.  Unlike one hundred years ago, the Jewish people are now in a position to defend ourselves and defend ourselves we will.

The Indigenous Argument

Ziontruth

The argument for denying the Jewish nation their rights to political sovereignty on the Land of Israel a.k.a. Palestine is based today principally on the claim that there is an indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian nation whom the Jews have dispossessed, and one of the stronger (IMO) refutations of this is the counter-argument that there is today no nation indigenous to Palestine other than the Jewish nation. This clash of views may raise a cogent meta-question: Does the term “indigenous” have any objective meaning at all? Or, to put it another way, is there more to the clash than an ideological assault on Zionism and the Zionist response to it?

I contend that the term “indigenous” has significance beyond the subjective. That said, I will concede two points:

1. The term has a relative, not absolute, meaning; we can objectively point out that a certain nation is indigenous to a land, but we can only do so in a context. That by itself explains why lovers of exactitude are reluctant to embrace such a term.
2. There are many arguments for the rightness of Zionism; my choice of the indigenous argument over the others is indeed motivated by the prevalence of the “Zionists dispossessed the indigenous Palestinians” claim of the anti-Zionists.

The rest of the article will follow from these two points.

A Relatively Descriptive Term

Some may scoff at the term “indigenous people” on the grounds that it can mean anything one wants it to mean. While this is not so, it is easy to see how it is possible to reach such a conclusion: There is no absolute definition of the term as in more solid history, let alone the hard sciences, and the way the Progressive Left selectively applies the term “indigenous” also makes it seem arbitrary. I will deal with the significance of the second issue later; the first issue to be understood is that the term is meaningful but not absolute—it has a relative meaning.

Who, for example, are the indigenes of Britain? The answer depends on the context of the question. In the sense that the Celts had populated the island for thousands of years before the Germanic Anglo-Saxons invaded, conquered and pushed the Celts aside, the Celts are the indigenous British while the Germanic peoples are colonists. However, in the present-day context it is considered that the descendants of both the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons are indigenous British, while the modern colonists are the third-world immigrants of the last few decades. The Anglo-Saxons are colonists relative to the Celts, while the arrivals from the former overseas possessions of Britain are colonists relative to both Celts and Anglo-Saxons.

What about the American Indians? It is agreed that they are the indigenous peoples of America, despite the fact that it is well known today that they too are arrivals to America from the outside, although much further in the past than the Europeans in America, and by way of the Bering Straits rather than the Atlantic Ocean. The priority in time, as well as the fact of having a culture (or remains of it—more than you can say for the Arabs pretending to be “Palestinians”) that is tied to the land, are the reasons for calling the descendants of Siberians in America indigenous. Were America to be settled once again by a new nation from abroad, both American Indians and the descendants of European arrivals (and of African slaves) would be indigenous in relation to the new invaders.

We can see that the term “indigenous” is not devoid of meaning; but because of its relative sense, it is less precise than classifiers would like it to be. All attempts at defining “indigenous” in absolute terms have either been foiled by too many exceptions or have proven to be subjective, teaching us more about the user than the people referred to. One proposal to use the term “autochthonous,” meaning “sprung from the soil,” has been raised but solves nothing at all; it particularly fails on the common-sense ground that, well, human beings do not normally grow out of the soil (maybe into, but not out of). It is futile to square the circle; better accept that “indigenous” is a relative term and deal with it from that standpoint.

Bringing this relative term to the question of Palestine, we might now ask which nation passes. The Canaanites would be the indigenous Palestinians if they still meaningfully existed, but they have not survived culturally. Even if some of the speakers of Arabic in Palestine are genetically descended from the Canaanites, they are not meaningfully Canaanite because it is culture, not genetics, that makes a distinct nation. The oldest nation extant having a cultural connection to the land, a real, not imaginary one, is the Jewish nation. Runners-up would be the Samaritans, who are an ancient Palestinian nation too but later arrivals than the Jews. The Arabic-speakers are fully within the cultural and linguistic milieu of the Arab nation, in Palestine as in Iraq and Morocco; this makes them colonists in all lands outside the Arabian Peninsula, where they are the indigenes.

By now the readers may be frustrated by the depth of the terminological discussion and its application. They may well ask why this matter is so important that it needs to be delved into in such detail. The answer is that, for the Progressive Left, the term “indigenous” has a significance far beyond being a descriptive term.

A Morally Prescriptive Term

The Progressive Left does not freely allot the term “indigenous” to a nation, even when the case for it is overwhelming. The decision to call one nation indigenous and deny that status to another rests on political expedience, for the term “indigenous” in Progressive Leftist usage is quite apart from a description—it carries with it a moral dictum. To be accorded the status of “indigenous people” by the Progressive Left is to be handed a Moral Authority card, a certificate of Moral Absolution that grants the people in question the right to do things that the Progressive Left claims to stand against. Were this certificate put into formal writing, here is how it would read:

We, Progressives of the world, hereby give You, (name of nation), as the Indigenous People of (name of land), the Moral Authority to engage in acts that are criminal for Colonists to engage in. Included herewith is the agreement that Your wars against Colonists shall be called resistance, that Your war crimes against Colonists shall be called reaction to oppression, that Your bigotry and even racism against Colonists shall be blamed on the Colonists, that Your acts of terrorism against Colonists shall be considered as weapons of the weak, and that should You even engage in genocide against the Colonists, that shall be excused and blamed on the Colonists’ intransigence. Granted to You herein is Moral Absolution: Your crimes are not crimes, Your ethnic cleansing is not ethnic cleansing, Your atrocities are not atrocities, Your hatred is not hatred, Your bloodlust is not bloodlust and Your slaughter of innocents is neither slaughter nor are they innocents.

It is important to understand the impact of this unwritten agreement. Once the Progressive Leftists have labeled the one party “indigenous” and the other “colonists,” this is how they will judge the conflict between them. There will be no fairness toward the “colonist” side, and conversely, the worst acts of the “indigenous” side will be given a justification, and one that blames the “colonist” victims (who are never called victims, of course) at that.

The Progressive Left having decided that the Jews in the Land of Israel are “colonists” and the Arabs are the “indigenous Palestinians,” this is exactly what we see. The moral prescription overrides all—this explains why the Progressive Left anti-Zionists stand with Hamas despite the latter being a theocratic organization whose values are all diametrically opposed to what Progressives profess to stand for. So too in the news, on the Arab “indigenous Palestinian” side, the world gets to see women and children in their homes, while the same news “reports” show only soldiers or screaming men on the Jewish “colonist” side. The narrative feeds itself.

Let me be blunt: The portrayal of the Jewish–Arab Conflict as one between “Zionist colonizers” and “indigenous Palestinians” is, through the mindset of the Progressive Left, a wholesale license to murder Israeli Jews. They will deny it, of course; they will say, “A total lie! We do not condone hurting Israeli civilians.” Which is true, they don’t—they only make excuses as to how the Israeli Jews deserved it, how they made the “Palestinians” do it, when it happens. Over the years, through the trickling of this subtle message in the media, the world is primed to view the murder of Israeli Jews as comeuppance. That alone is the reason why the false narrative of the anti-Zionists needs to be struck at its root.

Letter From Israel

  elinor        אלינור   

                                                                                                          

Worrying

A comment recently made about people in the West not having to worry about losing their butchers in suicide bus explosions made me contemplate worrying.  It is personal, local, regional and national.  It is, in fact, universal.

A plane overhead this morning, quietly making its way across a brilliantly blue  sky, covers the width of Israel in about 10 seconds.  Unless we’re at war, the skies over our small town are never disturbed by airplane noises.

So why does a plane cross our quiet sky this morning?  Has Assad decided (in his palpable wisdom) that he’s the one who will finally bring us to destruction?  Did Hezbollah at last accumulate the arsenal that Iran is trying to trans-ship across Syria?  Too bad someone keeps interrupting that flow.

Will the border hold between Syria and the Golan Heights?  Can the IDF stop an incursion there, or one of innumerable Syrian refugees from Jordan? Oh dear.

Both my daughters drive SUVs.  Both have been involved in accidents where their cars were the definite winners.  They assure me that they are as safe as safe can be.  I have had two serious car accidents.  Do their reassurances help assuage my unease?  Not a bit (tfu, tfu, tfu).  And let’s not even talk about lead-footed grandsons learning how to drive on our inconsiderate roads.  I really don’t want to think about that.

I developed a theory a long time ago that we all have a worry space, something like a stomach which, when empty, insists on being refilled.  I have no idea where it is.  I have never investigated this theory—as is, it satisfies my personal disquiet—but I have a feeling it’s pretty much common.  Health concerns feature prominently with haunting apprehension for the humans in your life.  As soon as the tax bill is satisfied, worry shifts to the condition of the plumbing, until that’s fixed and then: The car.  The job.  The dog.  You know what worries you.

Could they be training flights?

So those are the contents of my worry space.  I’m happy to report that there is constant motion within the space; when one worry ceases or is solved, another takes its place.  No need to feel overwhelmed; your worries are safe.

cross posted Geoffff's Joint

The Netzarim Junction Blood Libel -- You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

geoffff

"...peekaboo ..."

Some will say this is no case for levity but sometimes the eternal comedy of the universe just demands a moment of it. Where is Muhammed al-Durah? He would be twenty-four or perhaps twenty-five if he is still alive. I've got no idea. You would have to ask his father or Hamas or perhaps France 2 and they for sure will never tell you. They will take that information to their graves. Apparently it's a French thing. But I've already made an educated guess about where he was on the night of 30 September 2000. He was home with his family watching himself on CNN. Chances are they were eating KFC.  It's finger-lickin' good.

Two days ago an Israeli Government enquiry delivered its report on the affair.  Twelve years after the event. Hallelujah. Better late than never as the Archbishop said to the Inquiry Into Child Abuse In Religious Organisations. (sorry. Australian joke).  First of all he was not shot by the IDF. Ahuh. I recall saying exactly that the first time I saw the clip on the ABC News at about the same time as young Muhammed as we now know was watching himself on CNN and every other station that broadcasts into Gaza. Again and again and again.

There were many reasons to conclude that. It was more convincing the closer you looked at it. This was something else entirely. There was no question about it. 

Nevertheless I was grievously duped. I thought I was looking at something that might be even worse than what we were being invited to perceive. Something sinister beyond  imagination. Something new. It seemed to me the shooting of this child had to be deliberate. And if it wasn't the Israelis who else could it be?

There was no doubt this thing gurgled quickly into a blood libel in classic form but if the killing was deliberate, or even a stage accident, what horror was this?  An ideology with a hold over a population, and a man, the bosses can do this to a son and a regard for human life so scant they do it with a careful plan. A martyrdom operation. To what end? To create a blood libel as ugly as they get to launch a war of racist hatred against Israel and the Jews. 

Was this a snuff film? Probably the only one ever made of the genre that wasn't apocryphal and it was being broadcast into every home in the world with the television news for a purpose that was the antithesis of life itself.

Peekaboo. I see you. That's a childish trick too far. Perhaps Muhammed will debut next week in a heat of the French version of The Voice singing the Brahm's Lullaby and clear up the mystery for all as soon as the court has delivered its verdict on the latest appeal. 

We know now there is not a shred of evidence that the child was killed. He was not shot by anyone; as this blog and others have been saying for twelve months and more. This was  an elaborate and rehearsed hoax that needed the active participation of Hamas, the "Palestinian" foreign press stringers at the scene and especially the France 2 man, the PA police, hospital staff, the extras and "the street" and something else absolutely critical besides. 

For this terrible deception I blame the Australian media but that's only because I'm Australian. Like just about everyone I believed the boy was dead. I bought the prissy explanation that the last seconds of his life were just too terrible to show. No need to see.  We are the ABC and what you are seeing is the best professional journalism your money can buy. Trust us. He's dead. France 2 tells us so. 

That critical something else needed, apart from the active conspirators themselves, and they were legion, was the open ended acquiescence of France 2 and the rest of the Western media in the narrative. Take the story and run.  It needed the media to consent to being duped and therefore to dupe the rest of us.  This  near perfect media crime had to have a complicit media anxious to take and carry the story and this thing got that in spades. It's almost as if the conspirators at the centre of this evil thing seemed to know they could count on that.

People are still writing books about the Dreyfus Affair and they will be writing books about this affair as well a hundred years from now and for much the same reason. Those who think this will be quietly dropped don't understand Jews. For that reason it is fitting that the legal part of this drama is being played out in the French courts. The imminent decision turns on a narrower legal point than whether this was the outright fraud it obviously is and it will be interesting to see whether the court will grab what wiggle room it can to avoid a politically unpopular decision. Richard Landes certainly has these concerns. 

Whatever happens this will not be the end of it.   

Judicial cowards will always find a way if they have to and perhaps now more than ever. This will be a measure of how far the French legal system has buckled and even decayed under the pressure of this nasty crowd ideology. Perhaps very seriously.  Perhaps not all. There are many closely watching. 

This site provides all the background needed on this affair. The Elder has started collecting al-Dura stamps.   And the excellent CiF Watch has been bringing up the Guardian's disgusting role in this racist libel in excellent detail and ungentlemanly style. Australian media take note. There is a point where being duped becomes willing and another where electing to stay duped crosses to joining the conspiracy. 

cross posted Geoffff's Joint

Oklahoma

I just heard a report about dozens of school children dead.

This is devastation.

Who Flies A Nazi Flag?

Doodad

{Editor's note - I want people to understand that this is sourced to Algemeiner, which is a well-respected pro-Israel journal.  I also want people to understand that this is nothing new.  The Arab residents of Israel supported the German National Socialists during World War II.  This is not a matter of interpretation or of political spin or partisanship.  It is a matter of fact.  Thank you, Doodad. - ML}

Well, Nazis and evidently, now, Palestinians.

A disturbing incident took place Monday morning when Jewish residents of the West Bank villages of Gush Etzion and Kiryat Arba spotted a flag with a swastika flying over the nearby Palestinian Arab town of Beit Omar. 

Uri Arnon, who saw the flag, told Tazpit News Agency: “I felt we were going back 75 years, losing our hold on the land. The Arabs no longer feel the need to hide their murderous tendencies, announcing out loud that they wish to destroy us.”

I can't imagine what those nice bunny like Palestinians were thinking. Maybe it was a mirage.

Say Hello to the Namavaran Network Corporation

Mike L.

I received an email yesterday from someone by the name of Iman Soleimani who apparently is a writer for something called the Namavaran Network Corporation.

The email looked like this:

Dear Mr.Dr. Mike Lumish

NNC ( NAMAVARAN NETWORK CORPORATION ): Our Institute is non-governmental and the research section of it, seeks to obtain a complete understanding of the U.S. and the most important issues. I would like to do an interview with you and ask some questions about "Israel, US and Zionism" via email.

By the way, if you have any questions about our website or the research, you can feel free to contact us. (http://www.nnc-research.com).

I look forward to talk to you about this topic.

Thanks for time and consideration.

Sincerely, Iman Soleimani NNC ( NAMAVARAN NETWORK CORPORATION )

Well, isn't that flattering?

But just who is Iman Soleimani and just what is the the Namavaran Network Corporation?

With just a little bit of research I discovered that Mr. Soleimani is precisely who he says that he is and that NNC is an Iranian media outlet.

If you go to the Namavaran Network Corporation website you will see that it is not exactly a friendly place for Jews who care about the well-being of their fellow Jews in Israel.  Here are some of the front page headlines:

Wall Street is a major operation site of Zionism, but their main base is the City of London

No!  Wall Street and Jews?  I never heard of such a thing!

Zionism is both a political movement and a way of mis-interpreting current events

This piece was written by someone with the familiar sounding name of Eileen Fleming.  That name just rang a bell for me and the Big Orange kept flashing before my eyes.  Yup.  I knew that name sounded familiar!

Most of Americans are unaware of Zionists power

Yes, we're so powerful.  Of course, we can't even get the US government to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but obviously we control everything in sight.

Zionism Is the Main Determinant of US Policy

Anyway, you get the idea.

So, what should I do with this?  Should I agree to some internet interview by a viciously anti-Semitic anti-Zionist Iranian outlet?  It seems pointless to me, but it also might be entertaining - and, y'know, that goes a long way.

I honestly do not know what to make of this, so I solicit your advice.

What do you ladies and gents think?