Progressive-Left Jews and Progressive-Left Enemies of the Jewish People

Karam

Progressive-left enemies of the Jewish people have thrust liberal Jews into the position in which they can choose to be progressive or they can choose to favor Israel, but they cannot choose both. The reason for this is not that supporting Israel violates progressive principles, but because the progressives, themselves, are abandoning the Jewish people in favor of their Palestinian-Arab enemies. Despite our long-standing support for the progressive movement, and our centrality in the history of that movement, the progressive-left has betrayed the Jews.

Since Israel successfully defended itself from genocidal Arab aggression in the 6 Day War, western progressives portray the Jewish state as a “colonialist, racist” villain. We see this day in and day out throughout progressive media. Anti-Semitic anti-Zionist leftists tell Jewish progressives that they are apologists for racism, colonialism, apartheid, imperialism, oppression, genocide, and outright murder.

It is true, of course, that only a small percentage of western progressives are hate-filled, acidic anti-Zionists of the type that we find on places like Daily Kos. The problem is that the rest of the progressive community has accepted anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of the larger coalition and are, day after day, convincing themselves that the anti-Zionists are right. It is for this reason that Jewish progressives are being slowly, but surely, demonized and pushed out of the progressive movement.

One of the mistakes that pro-Israel progressive Jews are making, therefore, is in continuing to support a political movement that doesn't care if we live or die. How can any Jewish person who cares about Israel simultaneously support a political movement which seeks to erode the legitimacy of that country or dissolve it as a Jewish state? Every time that a progressive Jew donates money to a progressive cause, or otherwise supports the progressive movement, they are supporting and bolstering people who ally themselves with those who salivate after Israel’s destruction.

This is the first horrendous Jewish liberal mistake. How ridiculous must one be to support people who have no interest whatsoever in supporting you? It is, quite simply, moronic. I wish that it were not so, but it is so and pretending otherwise only supports Israel's enemies. And this leads us to another horrendous liberal Jewish mistake. We have absolutely got to stop thinking that progressive preferences ipso facto represent the truth. It simply doesn’t work that way. A terrific recent example of this is when presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said that the Palestinians are an “invented” people. This is, of course, true of all peoples, but the difference is that the Palestinians are, as a people, the most recent addition to the community of nations and were, therefore, “invented” only within living memory. The truth of this is not dependent upon one’s politics, but upon the facts of history. If I am wrong, then I am sure that someone can hand me a text of “The History of the Palestinian People in the 18th Century.”

No one can possibly do so because there was no “Palestinian people” in the 18th century, nor, in fact, through most of the 20th.

It is also true that the “Palestinians” were born from the greater Arab nation as a weapon against the movement for Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. Were there no Israel, were there no Zionism, then today there would be no Palestinian people. Period. Even Rashid Khalidi acknowledges that the driving force behind Palestinian nationalism was Arab opposition to Jewish self-determination. The mistake that liberal Jews are making is in bolstering Arab claims to Jewish land by catering to this fantasy of a "Palestinian" presence in Israel since "time immemorial."

Does this mean that the Palestinians are not a people? Of course, not. What it means is that their claims on Israeli land are paper thin. Does this mean that the Palestinians should not have a state? Again, of course, not. While there are no people on the planet less deserving of a state then the genocidal Palestinians, they should get one, nonetheless, in order to eliminate their bogus claims on Israel. In the meantime, liberal Jews who care about the state of Israel do themselves no favors by pretending that "Palestinians" have a long and ancient history on Jewish land.

They don’t and anyone who says otherwise is either lying, ignorant, or malicious.

Pick two out of three.

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Bulldozing Jewish History

Karam

Our friend Giulio Meotti has some words:

Threatened by Arab countries, Israeli authorities just closed the Mughabri Bridge, preventing Jews and Christians from entering Temple Mount. Historically it should be noted that only under Israeli rule was the site open for everyone, Muslims, Christians and Jews. The Waqf is now attempting to deliberately destroy all archaeological evidence of Jewish claims to this site, while using terror and intimidation to impose its exclusive claim to Temple Mount.

The Waqf has removed every sign of ancient Jewish presence at the site. At the entrance, a Waqf sign says “The Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard and everything in it is Islamic property.” Today Jews are barred from praying on the Mount and are not even allowed to carry any holy articles with them. With Muslim observers supervising visits, Israeli police have frequently arrested Jews for various violations, such as singing or reciting a prayer even in a whisper.

This week, a Jewish woman was arrested following claims by police and Waqf officials that they noticed she was praying on Temple Mount. Why is it a crime for a Jew to mention God’s name on Temple Mount? And why is the State of Israel complicit in enforcing this anti-Semitic rule?

European autocrats and the global media are also trying to downplay the Jewish connection to the site. Jewish archeologist Gabi Barkai stated that “it’s a lie more terrible than the denial of the Holocaust, yet connected to it.” UN and EU funded textbooks in the Palestinian areas all repeat the canard denying any Jewish legitimacy in the “Noble Sanctuary.”

The World Council of Churches, the largest umbrella for the Protestant Churches, in its “Promised Land” conference in Switzerland denied any Jewish connection with the Mount. Recently, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, just asked to place some Israeli holy places around Temple Mount under Vatican or international authority...

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama’s plan also designates the Old City as an “international zone.”

Is commentary even necessary?

Today we're off to Haifa.

Cross-Posted at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers

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Richard Silverstein gets fooled, takes pride in getting fooled

DOODAD

(hat tip Harry's Place)

I suspect most of us know what an unwholesome guy Dickie Silverstein is based on his hate of Israel and love of Hamas et al. That's why it is so funny that he fell for a trap set up by blogger Aussie Dave. The whole thing is too long to quote here so I suggest you read it. Basically, Aussie Dave set up Silverstein by posting false clues knowing Silverstein would then try and out Aussie's REAL name and address. Silverstein did exactly that. Had the info been true it would have exposed Aussie and his family to the crazies out there and put them in harm's way. Is it any wonder that Silverstein is known in the community as the Kapo?

Obama Gives Hugo Et Al Cancer

 DOODAD

Israel Matzav reports that Hugo Chavez figures Americans have been giving him and other Latin American leaders cancer.

"Although he said he did not want to make "reckless" accusations, President Hugo Chávez on Wednesday hinted that the cancer that he and four other Latin American presidents have suffered or are suffering may have been caused by a "technology developed by the United States." "It seems very strange that cancer has hit (Paraguayan President Fernando) Lugo, (Brazilian President) Dilma (Rousseff), then me, and within a few days (Brazilian former president Luis Inácio) Lula (da Silva), and now (Argentinean President) Cristina (Fernández de Kirchner)," Chávez said at the ceremony of Christmas and New Year salutation to the Armed Forces. "It would be hardly surprising that they have developed a technology to induce cancer and that it is known only 50 years later." Venezuela's Head of State based his suspicions on the tests and experiments with chemical weapons that the US Army secretly conducted in Guatemala in the fifties. Finally, Chávez asked his counterparts in Ecuador and Bolivia, Rafael Correa and Evo Morales, respectively, to take care of their health."

This should put to rest any idea that Obama is a Commie. Also, since Bibi et al have not contracted cancer obviously Obama does love Israel.

/snark

Democracy Derangement Syndrome

DOODAD

Anti-Israeli forces have been having a field-day with the suggestion that Israel's democracy is falling apart. Even normally Pro-Israeli forces from the left have been swept up in this accusation (although it is surely due to their hatred of the right wing rather than any anti-Israel sentiment.)  Here, Barry Rubin questions the reality of the accusation.


"It is truly amazing how anti-Israel forces generate so many false stories every day. At a time when revolutionary Islamists are taking over most Middle Eastern countries and the democracy dream in the region is collapsing, one would think that the main threat and evil force in the region is Israel. After all, we live in a time when Thomas Friedman, court jester for Middle East issues, can openly write antisemitic canards in the New York Times (the Israel lobby bought a standing ovation for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Congress!). What is even more remarkable is how new anti-Israel themes are generated without any evidence whatsoever.

The new one is the idea that Israel, and its democracy, are in danger (moderate version) due to internal extremism or are (radical version) falling apart altogether. At least two new commercially published books make this claim, as do scores of articles and even a speech by the secretary of state. The New York Times publishes an op-ed saying that gays are persecuted in Israel while, of course, they aren’t but are murdered in every other county in the region. Yet what actual evidence can be accumulated for all of this campaign?

The Knesset had a bill to supervise foreign money received by non-government organizations, a law not so dissimilar from those in Western democracies. And? And? What else happened? Well, nothing at all.

Oh yes, a bus driver took it upon himself to tell a woman to sit in the back of a bus because her sitting elsewhere might disturb Haredi men. She took it to court and, of course, won. A Haredi man in a town spit at an eight-year-old girl, apparently he belongs to some extreme sect or is somewhat disturbed. Even the strictest reading of Jewish law does not justify such an action. There were huge demonstrations against the actions of this one person or tiny sect. President Shimon Peres publicly called for protests and Jerusalem’s police chief asked rabbis to condemn such behavior. The state and the public is clearly against any violation of democratic norms......."

'Ron Paul wishes Israel didn't exist'

DOODAD

No wonder some Kossacks like this guy.

"Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul negates Israel's right to exist, Eric Dondero, who served as a senior aide to the 76-year-old Texas congressman for over 12 years, said on Monday.

In a blog posted in Rightwing News, Dondero said that while Paul was, in his opinion, neither a racist nor an anti-Semite, he is very much anti-Israel...according to Dondero, the elderly congressman "wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all."

The congressman's former aide insists in his blog that Paul expressed the controversial sentiment "numerous times in our private conversations." Paul's view, he said, "is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the America taxpayer. He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs."

No surprises here. Sounds like many a Kossack we have heard from over the years.

UPDATE

Link to original article where Paul is described as believing:

"he strenuously does not believe the United States had any business getting involved in fighting Hitler in WWII. He expressed to me countless times, that “saving the Jews,” was absolutely none of our business."

Rolling Out

Karam



Well, I am outa here, folks.

As Laurie and I get ready to hit the road, I am pondering some writing ideas, both short term and longer term. In the short term, I think I may write about how the Obama administration's hositility toward Israel and general failure in foreign policy may lead to a significant split in the American Jewish community. On the longer project, I will probably write on the administration's failure in regards the Arab war against the Jews from the beginning of his administration until the present moment.

However, before I do any of that, let me leave you with a Barry Rubin quote from an article that he published at the Jerusalem Post, yesterday:

Perhaps the most incredible aspect of all this is the numerous attempts by the Obama administration and its apologists –including Jews – to pretend that its policy is really good for Israel. Over and over again such people and their writings always ignore the regional strategic aspect of the damage that it is doing.

So what if the US government gives Israel military aid, which mostly consists of maintaining old programs? The Obama administration is building up the threat Israel faces to unprecedented levels. “I love Israel” statements don’t solve this huge strategic problem.

Indeed, the "regional strategic aspect." It doesn't much matter to me how many high-ranking Israeli officials say nice things about Barack Obama. And the fact that Israel and the United States maintain a high level of military cooperation is not surprising. What is surprising, or at least disappointing, is that the administration, like the progressive-left more generally, is turning a blind eye to the rise of the Jihad throughout the Middle East. What the administration should be doing about this very serious development is open to question, discussion, and debate, but what is not open to much question is the fact that this administration is simply denying reality.

There is no recognition that the "Arab Spring" is really the "Islamist Spring" and the administration is apparently standing by its contention that the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamist forces in the region, is something akin to the American Revolution and / or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

I would like to suggest that Obama is probably just a tad mistaken on that question and that there is nothing to indicate that he has even the slightest awareness of this mistake.

Well, the Jewish people have been around for over 3,500 years and I feel reasonably confident that we will survive this administration, as well.

And, with that, I am off.

Laurie and I head to Israel for a little while in our Quest for the World's Best Falafel. Some say Gina's in Tel Aviv while others insist upon Moshiko's in Jerusalem. We shall see, but I am still pulling for my friendly local food-truck guy at the Grand Lake farmer's market in Oakland.

We shall see.

(Cross-Posted at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers)

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Kossacks Who Stand Up For Hamas

DOODAD

Why do Kossacks hate Bibi more than Hamas? Sure seems like they do when you look at the dKos diary titled
IP: Bibi now says he WILL NOT have talks on peace unless he determines who represents Palestinians.

Sigh. Same old crowd with the same old  message. It's all Bibi's fault. Hamas was ELECTED...bla bla bla bla. Never mind that Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization dedicated to the end of Israel; some Kossacks have their back. And some wonder why I hate that swamp.

And a Very Merry Christmas to All

Karam

I like Christmas.

When I was a kid I would basically celebrate both, often spending Christmas morning with Christian neighbors and their kids.

I come out of the Reform tradition, for me it was all just one Big Holiday Season and I loved it.

Peace.

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Obama's Support Tanking Among Jews (And Others)

Karam

A Gallup poll from September shows that Barack Obama's support among Jewish people has dropped 29 points since January 2009.

This reflects decline of support across the board and not merely with Jewish people. Among the general population support for Barack Obama has declined 25 points, from 66 percent to 41 percent.

My impression has been that Barack Obama will likely win next year's election, in part because the Republican field is something other than inspiring. Nonetheless, with disgust toward the president rising in all quarters, perhaps I am wrong to think that Obama is a shoo-in.

Speaking strictly for myself, I would vote for a hot pastrami sandwich on rye, with mustard, onion, and melted swiss, before I would vote for Obama, again. That much is certain.

Nobody who feels that they have the right to dictate where Jews may or may not live in Jerusalem can possibly deserve the support of the Jewish people.

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Still More Dr. Rubin Discussing Obama's Capitulation to Radical Islam

Karam



Here

"Clinton claims:

'Not all Islamists are alike. Turkey and Iran are both governed by parties with religious roots, but their models and behavior are radically different. There are plenty of political parties with religious affiliations—Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim—that respect the rules of democratic politics. The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong. They do it in this country every day.'

Let’s review

–True, Not all Muslims are alike but all Islamists are alike.

–By the same token, not all Russians are alike but all Communists under Lenin and Stalin were alike.

-And, not all Germans were alike but all Nazis were alike.

–Not all organizations composed of Caucasians are alike but all members of the Ku Klux Klan are alike.

–The fact that European Christian Democratic and Israeli religious parties respect the rules of democratic politics has no connection with whether the Muslim Brotherhood will do so.

Is that clear?

What’s striking about the administration’s position is the lack of the most basic logic. True, a political party with religious affiliations might “respect the rules of democratic politics.” But that doesn’t mean parties favoring a Sharia state in which, say, Muslims who convert to another religion are sentenced to death, fall into that category. There is no proof that Islamist parties “respect the rules of democratic politics” except their willingness to run in elections. The Nazis and Communists also ran in elections. So what?

And what is a moderate Muslim? He might be a conservative traditionalist; liberal reformer; Kurdish or Berber nationalist; tribal loyalist; etc. But that doesn’t apply to an Islamist, someone who wants to fundamentally transform the existing society into one governed by Sharia law under a hardline interpretation, wiping of Israel off the map, subordinating Christians and women; and driving Western influence out of the region.

Winning an election and forming a government is only the first step. What does that government do? It passes laws that enforce an Islamist conception of society; puts its people into the bureaucracy, rewards imams who are radical and fires those who are moderate; rewrites textbooks and what appears on the media, chooses judges and the commanders of the armed forces; and sponsors terrorism against other states.

It would be something else completely for the U.S. government to say: We will accept the Muslim Brotherhood in government if it takes power in an election, but we will do everything possible to stop that from happening. That would be a proper U.S. interests’ policy.

Clinton did set some conditions but in no way hinted that any Islamist party might violate them:

'Parties committed to democracy must reject violence; they must abide by the rule of law and respect the freedoms of speech, religion, association, and assembly; they must respect the rights of women and minorities; they must let go of power if defeated at the polls; and in a region with deep divisions within and between religions, they cannot be the spark that starts a conflagration. In other words, what parties call themselves is less important to us than what they actually do.'

Where to begin?

–The Islamists do not reject violence. The Muslim Brotherhood supports terrorism against Israel, Americans, and Iraqi Shia. It will soon be backing violence, at least covertly, against Christians, secularists, and others. That is their doctrine.

–Abide by the rule of law. Well, they will democratically change the law into a repressive dictatorship. The Communists and fascist regimes also had laws that they enforced

–Freedom of speech. No speech that criticizes Islam, their interpretation of Islam, or themselves, as we already see in Turkey where a former general was just sentenced to prison on the charge of having criticized the judgment in conversation with a villager.

–Freedom of religion. No building or repair of churches, no equality of treatment for Christians. In Turkey a great historic church is now being converted into a mosque.

–Association and assembly. Even now, look what happens if Christians try to demonstrate in Cairo.

–Respect the rights of women and minorities. Laws will be changed to take away women’s rights because Sharia will govern.

–And what will the U.S. government do if these democratic practices don’t happen? Might it ot be too late?"

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I find this all very unusual. On the one hand we have an organization, The Muslim Brotherhood, the granddaddy of the Radical Jihad, virtually taking over the country of Egypt, which is, of course, one of the most important countries in the Middle East. The Brotherhood has an ideological provenance that goes to the Koran, but also to Nazi Germany. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. It is thus a genocidal organization.

On the other hand we have an administration that is complicit in the rise of the Jihad in the Middle East. It should be clear by this point to all that the current US administration has no real concern about preventing a Sharia take over throughout the entire area. The Muslim Middle East is rank with homophobia, gender apartheid, and genocidal Jew hatred and the US Secretary of State believes that standing against this kind of malice is insulting toward Muslims.

And, finally, on the third hand we have a political movement in the US out of which the president came, i.e., the progressive movement, that has not the strength of stomach to even discuss the fact that it is implicitly supporting a movement that stands in direct opposition to everything that it allegedly stands for. The progressive movement tells the world that it supports Gay rights, yet this movement has abandoned Gay people in the Middle East entirely.

The progressive movement tells the world that it supports women's rights, yet this movement has abandoned women in the Middle East entirely.

The progressive movement also tells the world that it is anti-racist, yet it constantly displays a condescension toward people of color, particularly Arabs, and tends to blame Jews for the attacks against us.

What is most galling, however, is that the progressive movement, as a rule, is so painfully politically correct that they cannot even bring themselves to honestly discuss what is the single most significant foreign policy development since the end of the Cold War. The fact that the Jihad is taking over country after country in the Middle East is treated as irrelevant. Part of the reason for this, of course, is that the Obama administration has sent a signal that they are OK with these developments, despite the genocidal nature of the Jihad.

And, of course, merely to even the raise the issue, as I am doing here, marks one as a "racist" or an "Islamophobe" or a hard-line right-wing warmonger.  In other words, if an imam screams for the blood of Jews in a mosque and I say, "Hey, that imam is calling for the murder of Jews" it makes me the bad guy in the self-righteous, morally vacuous world of the progressive-left.

What a shame.

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The University of Pennsylvania Rejects BDS

Karam

Penn Statement on Planned BDS Conference

University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann:

A campus student group, Penn BDS, is planning a national conference in February that will encourage boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

This is not an event sponsored by the University. The event is being sponsored by a registered student group, as is permitted of any student group on campus.

The University of Pennsylvania has clearly stated on numerous occasions that it does not support sanctions or boycotts against Israel. Indeed, Penn has important and successful scholarly collaborations with Israeli institutions that touch on many areas of our academic enterprise.

Penn has always supported free expression and the free exchange of ideas. These are essential elements of a great university. These principles apply to this event, as they would any other student event, whether or not we agree with or condone the message BDS seeks to communicate.

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Seems reasonable enough to me. The university rejects the BDS and a few students get to a hold an anti-Israel hate-fest. What counts, though, is that the university, via the office of the president of that school, has made a stand.

Oh, and by the way, "Gutmann," huh? University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann.

Well, I guess this is why it is good that we make little Jewish kids study hard.

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Dr. Rubin and Obama's Capitulation to Radical Islam, Continued

Karam




Dr. Rubin writes:

"It (the Obama administration - editor's note) has also sided with the enemies of the PA, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. It has sided with the enemies of democratic forces in Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Lebanon. Indeed, the U.S. government is working to empower the most dangerous enemies of democracy in the Middle East.

What’s especially remarkable is that this strategy is based on no evidence. All Clinton can cite is a single case—Turkey—that proves the exact opposite of what the Obama Administration claims.

Here are five examples on the other side:

–The Oslo peace process was based on the belief that the radical nationalist PLO would be moderated by being given power, guns, and money. Has the result been peace and moderation?

–The U.S. government favored the participation of Hamas in the Palestinian election. It won and then staged a coup. Today Gaza is ruled by a radical regime that foments war on Israel and openly proclaims its intention to commit genocide on Jews.

–Hizballah participated in the Lebanese elections, won, and while it cannot institute a Shia Islamist regime in a country where 70 percent aren’t Shia Muslims and its opponents are armed, it is doing all it can to make that country a dictatorship that will attack Israel when it thinks the timing is right.

–In Egypt, we have seen the descent into anarchy and violence; the persecution of Christians, the unleashing of fanaticism. Where is the debate in the Muslim Brotherhood to indicate moderation? Where is the renunciation of past extremism? Where is the reinterpretation of Islamic texts to justify a totally different worldview? These things don’t exist.

–Turkey, the great role model, is seeing democracy wane as the Islamists arrest their enemies, take over the media, and adopt an anti-Western foreign policy that backs radical Islamists elsewhere.

March of folly indeed. This is a sprint."

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The problem here is not that the Obama administration should be expected to dictate the outcomes of the various riots and uprisings that comprise the Islamist Spring, but the very least we should expect from the President of the United States is some recognition that what is currently going on throughout the Arab world is something other than the Civil Rights Movement in the US circa the 1950s.

It is beyond obvious that Obama was ridiculously wrong when he suggested that the revolt in Tunisia was in any way comparable either to the Revolution of '76 or to Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement. It's fairly mind-boggling that he made that suggestion because anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew to wait before making any proclamations about the nature of these movements.

At the time, I did not know that the "Arab Spring" would actually be the "Islamist Spring," but I certainly knew enough to withhold judgment until things began to pan out. What I do not understand is why Barack Obama, who they tell us is a pretty bright guy, did not have the basic commonsense to wait before declaring the rise of the Jihad to be a good thing and he still has not corrected himself.

The first thing that needs to be done now is simply to acknowledge the error and begin to figure out how we, the United States and the west, intends to deal with the fact that the entire Arab Middle East seems to be going for the Jihad. That it is happening is beyond doubt, but what, if anything to do about it is a question that is being entirely ignored, particularly on the progressive-left and seemingly within the Obama administration, as well.

Noticing this development is neither right-wing nor left-wing, neither conservative nor liberal, but strictly commonsensical.

There are, by the way, reasons why the political left has stuck its head in the sand viz-a-viz the Jihad. Part of it has to do with social pressure and political correctness and part of it has to do with the Bush administration using its trademarked War on Terror to bolster its own political fortunes and to move funds in various directions for the purposes of corporate enrichment.

But, again, if George W. Bush says that it's raining, this does not mean that small children and ponies are prancing in the sunshine.

If some on the political right, such as, for example, Pamela Geller, are too strident in ringing the fire bell on this issue, the progressive-left is essentially a corpse. Neither the movement, nor the President of the United States, is on this issue, which is a shame considering that it is, in fact, the foremost foreign policy question facing the world today.

Yet they choose to keep their eyes, mouths, and ears almost entirely shut.

And that being the case, it should be fairly obvious that this president is not serving the country very well... and this, too, must be acknowledged.

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"It’s Official: Obama Administration Promotes Islamist Regimes; Insists They are Moderate"

Karam



By Barry Rubin (Nov 8, 2011)

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech justifying Obama Administration Middle East policy changes everything. True, it isn’t surprising. I’ve been writing for almost three years about how the current U.S. government thinks this way.

Do not underestimate this speech’s importance. It isn’t a reluctant acceptance that Islamists might win elections and take over coutries. It is an enthusiastic endorsement of that idea.

But now there can be no doubt that Obama’s Middle East policy is engaged in what might be the biggest blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy. Millions of people will bemoan it as delivering their countries into the grip of repressive dictatorships.

The speech can be summarized as follows:

Islamist regimes—at least those whose “behavior” is proper–are good. If Islamists exercise political power they will be moderate. Thus, the United States will not merely tolerate but will actually support Islamists taking power.

The Obama Administration is now on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah, and the Taliban (“moderate” wing). It is the equivalent of an American government telling you that Communism and fascism are no threat because they can be tamed by participating in elections and being in power.

Thus, the Obama Administration has openly sided with Israel’s enemies. I don’t mean the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Saudi Arabia. That would be tolerable. We’re talking here about openly genocidal, antisemitic groups."

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The Hillary Clinton speech that Professor Rubin refers to is one that she gave last fall wherein she said the following:

“Not all Islamists are alike. Turkey and Iran are both governed by parties with religious roots, but their models and behavior are radically different. There are plenty of political parties with religious affiliations—Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim—that respect the rules of democratic politics. The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong. They do it in this country every day.”

The Obama administration, according to Professor Rubin, is now on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood and, essentially, the Radical Jihad more generally.

One must wonder why this would be? Does the Obama administration want to promote the Islamist tendency in the Arab world? I doubt it. It's not that Obama wants to see the rise of al-Sharia, Muslim religious law, it's that as a progressive he doesn't see it as a problem, period. In a certain way his attitude is reflective of the progressive movement, more generally.

Because the Muslims of the Middle East are an oppressed people, or so the narrative goes, we, as kind-hearted, well-meaning, progressive westerners, must condescend to their desires even if those desires include the oppression of women, Jews, and Gays. Multiculturalism is more important than universal human rights and therefore if Egypt and Turkey and Tunisia and Morocco and Libya go the genocidal Radical Jihadi route... well?... who are we to say "no"?

And it is in this way that the Obama administration, wanting nothing but the best for everyone, sells the Jewish state directly down the river.

In any event, we are in fact seeing the rise of Radical Islam in the Muslim world and this is going to be viewed by historians as a very important part of the Obama administration's legacy. The Obama administration will go down in history as the American government under which Iran developed nuclear weaponry and in which political Islam finally came into its own as a world power.

Any political movement that succeeds in taking over the governments of so many countries must be seen as a world power and it is under the Obama administration that after so many decades Radical Islam (or political Islamism, or whatever terminology one might want to use) has come to the fore in the Arab world.

Sayyid Qutb, one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood and the author of such estimable works as, "Our Struggle Against the Jews" must be very, very happy in whatever warm climate he may currently reside within.

What we need to do, however, as people who care about the Jewish state and the Jewish people is hold this administration responsible for its behavior. It's not merely that the Obama administration is allowing the rise of the Jihad, but it is positively encouraging it.

As Jewish people we need to know when to stand up and make our voices heard. We need to be able to stand up and say "NO" to an administration that would so easily point a gun at our heads. Is that line hyperbolic? Sure. Is it false? Not really. The developments that we are now seeing in the Arab world represent an obvious threat to the Jewish people because we are so outnumbered and because the Jihad, which this administration has bolstered, is genocidal in nature.

This is a big, big problem, but do not expect western progressives, Zionist or otherwise, to yank their heads out of the sand long enough to object.

They won't and I say this as someone who came out of that movement.

There is tremendous social pressure within progressive and liberal circles to remain silent on this question. Anyone who so much as refers to this development is lambasted as a fascist or a racist. They will throw everything that they have at you for even discussing this material.

It's a terrible shame, really, particularly given how many progressives are Jewish, but the only thing that we can do is face reality as it is and as it is right now the Arab world is seething with a genocidal intention that outweighs anything that we've seen previously. We do not need to go running around like chickens with our heads cut off, but we absolutely must acknowledge the obvious.

And even that seems too much to ask sometimes.

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Report: Saudi Textbooks Teach Annihilation of Jews

Doodad

Well, they are still at it in the Arab world; educating their youth to annihilate Jews.

"State-funded books in Saudi Arabia continue to teach kids that 'hour (of judgment) won't come until Muslims fight Jews and kill them,' Fox News reports

The news network, which was able to obtain translated copies of the recently-printed books from the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, DC, said that the books teaches ninth graders that the annihilation of Jews is imperative...."The hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them," one part reads. "There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

The books also target homosexuals and recommend amputations for  thieves.

And some people think there will be peace. Yeah, and Hell will freeze over. Oh wait, perhaps there will be peace when all those Jews are killed off and Israel is wiped out. Silly me, I have been looking at this whole peace thing the wrong way.

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Barack Obama and the Rise of the Radical Jihad

Karam



One of the best analysts of the ongoing Arab war against the Jews, although I do not know that he would put it quite in those terms, is Professor Barry Rubin of Rubin Reports.  Dr. Rubin is "a professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, the Director of the Global Research and International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, and a Senior Fellow at the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism. Rubin has written and edited more than 40 books on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, with publishers including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge University Press."

Last November 8, Rubin published an article entitled, "It’s Official: Obama Administration Promotes Islamist Regimes; Insists They are Moderate." I want to go through this article slowly over the coming days because it seems obvious to me that one of the major screw-ups of the Obama administration has been in the welcoming of the rise of the Radical Jihad during the early weeks and months of the misnamed "Arab Spring." There is little doubt that the "Arab Spring" is really either the "Islamist Spring" or perhaps the "Arab Winter," but what it is not shaping up to be is a widespread movement for secular democracy in the Arab world.  The "Facebook Kids," or whatever they were dubbed at the time, fizzled to no one's great surprise.

Instead what we are getting are politicians, like Obama, and any number of newspapers or journals suggesting that the Jihad maybe isn't so bad, after all. The Muslim Brotherhood is a "moderate" organization we are told by high level Obama officials like Eric Holder.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggests that some Islamists are better than others and that therefore some Jihadis are OK.

Needless to say, this trend in Obama's foreign policy is a catastrophe as it legitimizes the Jihad and therefore also, by necessity, legitimizes Jihadi genocidal Jew hatred. This was not Obama's intention, merely his effect, and it is one of the major reasons why we need to work against his reelection. Jews are running for the hills out of the Democratic Party and this president may prove dangerous to the Jewish state, if not the Jewish people, if he wins a second term.

No US president who stands by and watches as Iran goes nuclear and urges the rise of Radical Islam in the Middle East can possibly be considered a president that is good either for America or for the Jewish people.  Could that not possibly be more obvious?

Anyway, on to Professor Rubin tomorrow.

Heck, I may end up writing some of this on a plane, because Laurie and I head to Israel within the coming week.

Happy Chanukah to all.

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'Abbas putting extremist murderers on pedestal'

Doodad

Well, dear old peace partner Abbas is at it again, loving up to terrorists.

"Netanyahu slams Abbas after he meets 11 prisoners freed in Schalit deal in Turkey, among them terrorist Amna Muna. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was "disappointed" by what he termed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's "unfortunate decision" to meet with freed Palestinian terrorist Amna Muna in Turkey on Wednesday. Abbas met with Muna along with ten other Palestinians freed and exiled to Turkey as part of the deal to release kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in October. Muna, the so-called "Internet Murderer" was serving a life sentence for luring 16-year-old Ofir Rahum to Ramallah where he was murdered in 2001.....The PA president, according to a statement released by his office, "praised the prisoners for remaining steadfast in the face of Israeli wardens' mastery."

No doubt streets will be named after them soon; but, it is settlers/Hilltop Youth  that are the problem, right? You can expect to hear NOTHING about this from the UN or Obama et al. They know who is really to blame; Israel. It makes me ill. This disgusting charade that Abbas is interested in peace must stop.

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Was Obama Right to Support the Radical Jihad?

Karam



This is an important question for the upcoming election.

Should the American president support the genocidal Jihad or oppose it? The reason for my concern is that I do not believe that the progressive movement is opposed to the Nazi-inspired Islamist movement. What is a greater danger to the Jewish people... I wonder to myself aloud... Orthodox Jewry or genocidal Jihadis?

Or is it more or less equivalent?

My suspicion is that the genocidal Jihadis, that is the millions of Muslims who favor martyrdom in the killing of Jews and infidels, are probably a little more problematic than are some conservative Jews in Israel. I could be wrong about that... and I realize that it is "Islamophobic" for Jewish people to concern ourselves with an Islamic ideology that would like to see us dead... but I very much suspect that those who want to kill Jews might be a tad more worrisome than Jews, themselves, even of the sexist Orthodox variety. When Barack Obama took office radical Islam could boast the control of the Gaza strip, Lebanon, and Iran (and perhaps Darfur), but now this violently anti-Semitic movement is in the process of taking over the entire Middle East with the blessing of the president of the United States who told the world that they were the contemporary equivalent of the founding fathers or Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement.

Either Barack Obama is right or Barack Obama is wrong:

There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat. So it was in Tunisia...

So it was in Tunisia... where they just elected a theocratic government that is entirely hostile to the Jews and to the Jewish state. How in this world are we supposed to convince Jewish people that Radical Islam is a good thing and that Barack Obama was right to support it? I suppose that is a question for the 2012 election. How is it that Obama was not tragically wrong about his cheer-leading for the genocidal Jihad?

That's a good question. Another good question is what to do about this little problem?

The first thing, of course, is that it must be acknowledged in the west. You cannot even begin to deal with any kind of problem until such a time as you are willing to acknowledge it. So, that's the first thing. Instead of promoting Jihad, Barack Obama needs to acknowledge it as a problem. Until such a time as the president of the United States takes his head out of the sand, then we can never deal with what is potentially a very, very serious security threat not only to the Jews, but to the west. A nuclear armed Iran, or a nuclear armed terrorist, could easily spell disaster not just to Tel Aviv, but to any of the major capitals of the western world.

That much is obvious. Progressives don't care, but it remains obvious, nonetheless.

Thus, if we want to hold back the spread of the Jihad among the Middle East governments then we must counter the rise of the "strong horse." If Iran gets the bomb then it will be clear to the governments of the Arab Middle East who is in charge. Part of the reason that so many governments are currently going Islamist is because the peoples of the Arab world see who is winning and who is not. We are not. As Iran marches inexorably toward nuclear weapon status it means that the ayatollahs are taking greater and greater leadership in that part of the world.

Thus it should be the highest priority for the US government to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. We can do so if we have the will. The problem is that we do not have the will and a big part of the reason for that is because the progressive-left simply doesn't care if Iran goes nuclear. The Obama administration is, thus, indifferent, as well and a few piddling sanctions from the EU or the US is not going to prevent Iran from going nuclear.

In any case, if we wish to slow or halt the rise of genocidal Islamism then we must prevent Iran from getting nuclear weaponry. There are other things that we can do, involving infiltration and undermining, but stopping Iran from going nuclear needs to be priority one.

But do not look to Barack Obama to accomplish this.

It is clear that he will not.

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Missiles? No comment. Graffiti? Obstacle to peace!

So goes the comment on an article in the JP about the latest UN bashing of Israel. Really, the comment says it all. We all know the UN is obsessed with condemning Israel. We all know the track record. Sure, every once in awhile it will pooh pooh Palestine for missiles but generally criticism is as rare as hen's teeth. Don't ever expect the UN to speak the truth about the real obstacle to peace; Arab/Muslim hatred of Jews and their mere presence on "their," lands.

Israel pulled out of settlements in Gaza and got, not peace, but missiles; LOTS of them. So much for the settlements are the problem theory. Anyone who buys that theory is perpetuating the Narrative; a false Narrative. Listen to what they say in Arabic; look at the flags they produce which show NO Israel. Then you will know what they really want and what the real problem is; Israel itself-the biggest "settlement." I personally will not assist their false narrative by ascribing to the "settlements are the problem," red herring. Neither should anyone. Settlements are an ISSUE to be resolved at final negotiations.

dKos has 2 diaries up on the UN move and they are as you could expect FOR the typical UN blame Israel position and mocking the US for basically saying nothing. ie The US didn't stand up for Israel, merely said nothing. It doesn't surprise me that Kossacks think the US should be like all these other Israel bashing countries. They hate Israel and want their country to as well.

A speech by Yossi Klein Halevi on Threats to Israel and the Jewish People

By oldschooltwentysix

Since I have become more involved and knowledgeable about the Arab-Israeli conflict, I also get to see how others relate to it. My experience is that most people have insufficient knowledge or do not care enough beyond the one fact that there is a conflict and each side should just stop and make peace. If only life were so cut and dried.

Over at Daphne Anson's blog, an important voice from "down under," my attention was drawn to a speech by Yossi Klein Halevi at The David Project. Though some knee-jerk anti Israel crusaders have impugned Daphne Anson's site, I question why a Jew standing up for Israel and against hate and discrimination targeted at Israel and the Jewish people gets them so bent? I suppose they imagine that Jews cannot be victims and that it is impermissible to expose abusers (including themselves) unless one is fighting in "solidarity" for "justice" and Israel is the target.

Halevi's speech was given on November 3, 2011 in Newton, Massachusetts, and concerned delegitimization efforts against Israel and prospects for the future.

According to his bio, Halevi is a contributing editor of The New Republic magazine, and frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of leading American newspapers, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times.

Among his activities, he is active in Middle East reconciliation work, and serves as chairman of Open House, an Arab Israeli-Jewish Israeli center in the town of Ramle, near Tel Aviv. He was one of the founders of the now-defunct Israeli-Palestinian Media Forum, which brought together Israeli and Palestinian journalists.

For those that question The David Project's information, here is his bio at Wikipedia.

In truth, I did not know who Halevi was. Which is nothing new. I am constantly introduced to new people and ideas. I liked what Daphne wrote about the speech, which she named: The Green Flag Of Jihadism Waving In Every Direction; aka Which Existential Threat Keeps You Awake At Night? So, I watched the video and decided to write a post and have embedded it below.

I think Halevi's speech is well worth the time to watch, hear and learn. He not only speaks about delegitimization, but about the Jews as a people, what that means, and the attempts going on to erase Jewish narrative from history, and thus the Jewish people.

He suggests that other religions cannot comprehend that Jewish is more than a religion. If it only was the latter, then how can there be Jewish atheists? Of course, he goes deeper into this and is far more insightful and interesting than anything I offer here. And he provides some valuable advice for both the Left and the Right.

If you have gotten this far, I do hope you will watch the speech, especially if you would like a deeper understanding of the issues. You may not agree with all that he says, but it is important to hear from many sides and to consider a wide range of information, especially for those who believe the simple proposition that both sides are equally at fault and should just stop and make peace.



(Crossposted at oldschooltwentysix)

Hitler Admired in PLO Youth Magazine

Karam

Hitler tells a Palestinian girl in her dream: "I killed them [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation which spreads destruction all over the world."

I would suggest that this kind of thing is literal, not rhetorical, not in jest, but real. And, needless to say, this is just one quick example. I could have come up with literally hundreds of other examples of Arab media bolstering the genocidal Jihadi ambition against Jews.

The Jews of the Middle East are about 5.5 million people strong. They are surrounded by an Arab population of between 300 and 400 million people that, for the most part, does not want them there and that has shown a willingness to incite violence against them. In the early stages of the Arab War Against the Jews of the Middle East they tended to riot and sometimes murder Jews with their bare hands as we saw in Hebron in 1929. In November of 1947 they launched a bloody civil war which the Jews, fresh from the Holocaust, needed to be put down before they could defend themselves from the larger Arab nations.

The '48 war, as Benny Morris would tell you, was motivated by Jihad. It was primarily a religious war because in Muslim theology (al-Sharia) non-Muslims must never hold sovereignty on any land that was at any time under Muslim sovereignty.

The biggest problem that Israel has going forward is obviously not pro-Israel American conservatives like Glenn Beck, nor pro-Israel Israeli conservatives like Avigdor Lieberman, nor even ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews who think that men and women should mainly be segregated in public.

No.

The main problem that Israel has is that there are millions of people around the world who think that it shouldn't exist and who are ready to use violence against it.

Noticing this little fact is neither fascist, nor rhetorical. It is called facing reality. Not reality as we might like it to be, nor reality as progressive ideology likes to suppose, but the cold fact of the genocidal nature of the Radical Jihad which is now rising up from the misnamed "Arab Spring."

Country after country in the Middle East is falling to Islamism as the west sticks its head in the ground, playing ostrich. Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Iran, Lebanon, Darfur, and Gaza. Barack Obama literally told us to view the "Arab Spring" as we might have viewed the American Revolution or Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The negligence and irresponsibility of such a statement is almost criminal. It is so wrong-headed and so unjust that I am frankly amazed that he was able to say it without his tongue falling out of his head entirely.

Here is the direct quote:

There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat. So it was in Tunisia...

Can you imagine if when Hitler was coming to power if FDR told Americans that this was the "German Spring" and that it represented the very best traditions within the progressive movement? Hard to imagine, isn't it?, but this is essentially what Obama has done.

We have an obligation as people who care about Israel, and about our fellow Jews, to acknowledge what should be obvious. And what is obvious here, what is obvious today, is that the Radical Jihad is rising and that can only mean violence directed at Jews.

I do not like it any more than do you, but it is they who represent the hardest challenge that Israel faces because the nature of this movement, the Islamist Spring, is genocidal. We can keep our heads in the sand or we can face what is obvious, but in either case the enemy is not our fellow Jews.

Left, right, or center, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, the problem here is not our fellow Jews and saying so does not make one a fascist.

Cross-posted at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers.

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Obama is Not a Friend to Israel or the Jewish People, So Let Him Search His Own Soul

Karam



At a White House meeting in March Obama told a collection of Jewish leaders:

"You must speak to your Israeli friends and relatives and search your souls to determine how badly do you really want peace. Israelis think this peace business is overrated; their life is good, their economy is good, and things are quiet.”

We need to search our souls?

The Jewish people are perhaps the most self-reflective people on the entire planet and no one wants peace more than we do.

And "things are quiet"? Sure. Except for the rocket attacks and the dead Israeli Jews, everything is quiet.

1,300 years of dhimmitude followed by a century of war and Obama is not sure that the Jews want peace? Is he serious?

"Israelis think this peace business is overrated..."

They do, do they?

No one who would say the above can possibly be considered a friend to the Jewish people or to the state of Israel.

That much should be entirely obvious.

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Meet the Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers

Karam

A short while ago I did a panel discussion, along with Volleyboy1 and Michael Harris of Stand With Us, on the influence of the Obama administration viz-a-viz I-P at a synagogue in Berkeley. As a result of that panel discussion I met a number of people involved with various groups, including some folks who participate at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers.

Because I think that it is important to encourage discussion throughout the pro-Israel blogosphere about just what is going on with the liberal acceptance of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism, I want to introduce you guys to that blog.

People who care about the Jewish people and the Jewish state need to come together.

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And This Too is the Progressive Left

Karam

Get back to me when the US sponsors the Taliban (0+ / 0-)

to the tune of $3billion a year and defends the Taliban in the UN every chance it gets, instead of bombing and hounding the Talibans in a 10 year war.

by icemilkcoffee on Sun Dec 18, 2011 at 06:49:44 PM PST

We must face the fact that a significant portion of the Democratic Party and the progressive left is hostile to the Jewish state and friendly toward the Radical Jihad.

We need to say it because it happens to be true.

Lying for peace doesn't work.

Let's defend our families first.

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This is the Progressive-Left

Karam

This is your political movement, not mine.

The fact is that Israel is a country founded on bigotry. Whether you agree it has benefits, perhaps even necessary, or not, a "Jewish state" is no less bigoted than a "Christian state" or a "Hindu state", when only those officially chosen are allowed the primary privileges. - DocGonzo

What compassion DocGonzo must have for the Jewish people. After all, we spent 2,000 years getting our ass kicked all culminating in the Holocaust in which 1/3 of our number were slaughtered because we were the wrong "race."

And, then, when we come together to protect ourselves, morons like this guy declare us to be "racists."

This is a voice of the progressive left. This is not the right-wing, but the left-wing, and it is not an anomaly. On a daily basis people like DocGonzo tell the world how horrific the Jews of the Middle East are.

Racist.

Imperialist.

Colonialist.

Fascist.

Apartheid.

This is what we hear on a daily basis coming from the left.

The progressive movement and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party have embraced anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of the larger coalition and, yet, we put up with it.

We don't have to and I recommend that we stop supporting a political movement in which the defamation of the Jews is seen as OK.

Let's defend our families first.

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"No Thank You" to the New York Times, Twice.

By oldschooltwentysix

The Jerusalem Post had a story yesterday that Prime Minister Netanyahu was invited by the New York Times to write an opinion piece, but respectfully declined. His senior adviser, Ron Dermer, wrote a letter explaining the decision to pass up the opportunity from the "paper of record."

The letter referred initially to an op-ed from Mahmoud Abbas published by the paper in May in which he stated:

"Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened."

According to Dermer, not to mention others, this was demonstrably false.

Then, after providing some other examples, Dermer gets to the heart of the matter:

Not to be accused of cherry-picking to prove a point, I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, “positive” and “negative,” with “negative” meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were “negative.”

The only "positive" piece was penned by Richard Goldstone (of the infamous Goldstone Report), in which he defended Israel against the slanderous charge of Apartheid.

Yet your decision to publish that op-ed came a few months after your paper reportedly rejected Goldstone's previous submission. In that earlier piece, which was ultimately published in the Washington Post, the man who was quoted the world over for alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, fundamentally changed his position. According to the New York Times op-ed page, that was apparently news unfit to print.

Your refusal to publish “positive” pieces about Israel apparently does not stem from a shortage of supply. It was brought to my attention that the Majority Leader and Minority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives jointly submitted an op-ed to your paper in September opposing the Palestinian action at the United Nations and supporting the call of both Israel and the Obama administration for direct negotiations without preconditions. In an age of intense partisanship, one would have thought that strong bipartisan support for Israel on such a timely issue would have made your cut.

Good for Netanyahu for showing that, in this regard, with regard to bias, the NY Times acts much like The Manchester Guardian, winner of the 2011 Dishonest Reporting Award from Honest Reporting.

The second "No thank you" referred to in the title? That was from me! After it started to make most people pay for content, the Times curiously gave me a complimentary subscription. It ends on December 31. Rather than continue, and give this one sided enterprise money to print editorials about Israel at a 95% negative rate, like Netanyahu, I respectfully declined.

(cross posted at oldschooltwentysix)

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Christopher Hitchens Dead at 62

Karam



Hitch is gone.

Whatever anyone might say about Hitchens, he was a true public intellectual.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the Nation Magazine in early 2003, if for no other reason then to listen to Katrina vanden Heuvel and Hitch fight it out over the Iraq War.

I was with Katrina.

Nonetheless, sad to see this guy go.

Peace, please, Christopher Hitchens.

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Jewish Progressives and Kos (Updated)

Karam



I feel bad for Jewish progressives. It cannot be easy being part of a political movement that has absolutely no interest in the well-being of one's own people. That's the situation for liberal Jews who engage in the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party or who participate on progressive-left blogs like Daily Kos or the Huffington Post. Most of the people who run those blogs and who participate on them are not, by any means, racist against Jews. In fact, as I have insisted upon repeatedly, the progressive-left, as a group, as a political movement, is not anti-Semitic. It isn't.

The problem with the progressive-left, and thus the problem for progressive Jews, is that the great majority of progressives or liberals do not really understand anti-Semitism and they could hardly care less. That's the problem. They don't get it and they don't care. And it is for this reason that anti-Semitism tends to flourish in progressive venues. Furthermore, because they don't get it, and generally don't care, the tendency is to circle the wagons when anti-Semitism does come to the fore.

This is one of the major reasons why I, myself, have opted out of the progressive movement and the Democratic party. Instead of dealing with anti-Semitism when it arises the tendency among progressives is to make excuses for it or deny that it is there or simply blame conservatives or Republicans for making much ado about nothing. This is precisely what we saw during the recent Occupy Wall Street nonsense. A few people in the movement were caught on tape screeching about the Jews and when confronted with that material progressives tended to downplay the problem or deny that there is a problem and then blame the messenger rather than honestly dealing with the message.

The result of the entire dynamic, which I have seen time and time again, is that Jewish liberals find themselves the object of disdain among non-Jewish liberals for daring to raise the specter of progressive-left anti-Semitism. Again, it is not that most progressives are anti-Semitic. They aren't. It's that they don't get it, they don't care, and they very much want you to shut the fuck up.

That's the problem and that is why Markos Moulitsos, the owner of Daily Kos, has run into a little issue with the Daily Kos pro-Israel Jewish contingent. One of the pro-Israel Jews on Daily Kos, fizziks, referenced a story about rape in Norway among Muslim immigrants and how, apparently, at least one Norwegian official either somehow blamed it on Israel or suggested that Israelis are getting a hardy laugh out of Norway's increasing problem with Muslim immigrant rape of blondie women.

Personally, I suspect that the story is largely hogwash and I do not particularly blame Kos for saying so. In response Kos has yanked ratings privileges from a number of (mainly Jewish) Kossacks who had "uprated" fizziks and is threatening fizziks with a possible banning. None of this would be particularly interesting except for the fact, as is pointed out in the comments beneath Kos's remark, that he lets much worse commentary stand without so much as a peep. Kos, of course, cannot be expected to read everything on that site because it is far too big, but there is no question that one of the major themes within Daily Kos I-P is the anti-Semitic notion that Jews or Zionists or Israelis secretly run the US government via the nefarious offices of AIPAC.

This kind of thing is directly out of the Protocols and is precisely what the Nazis thought about German Jews directly before they slaughtered them.

And this is why the Jews on Daily Kos are getting more and more pissed-off and alienated. They recognize the hypocrisy. They speak out against it and all they get for their troubles is the back of the hand.

So, is Markos an anti-Semite?

The answer to that question is "no." There is nothing in the record to suggest that Markos Moulitsos is in any way an anti-Semite. The problem with Markos is the problem with the progressive-left more generally. They don't get it and they don't care. What they want is for Jewish people who do object to anti-Semitism to shut the fuck up.

Believe me, if you shut the fuck up you will not have a problem.

However, if you insist upon calling out anti-Semitism when it arises you will be viewed as nothing so much as a trouble-maker and a sincere pain in the ass.

Good luck with that, guys.

Speaking for myself, it's really no longer my problem because the progressive-left is no longer my movement... and thank G-d for that.

{Gee, I wonder what it feels like to actually vote for a Republican? I've never had that experience before. As I recently said to a friend, political sands are shifting and old assumptions no longer hold true.}

Time to move on.

Update:

fizziks banned from Daily Kos.

And yet another liberal Jew bites the dust on a liberal website.

They're just knocking us off like flies.



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This is Your Movement, Fellahs

Karam

"It sounds like they are torturing children to me. (0+ / 0-)

Par for the course for all of the racist regimes of Israel. Since ethnic cleansing won't get itself done.

A democratic come back

by Dont Call It on Thu Dec 15, 2011 at 02:32:47 PM PST"

.
.
.

This is not the right-wing, but the left-wing.

This is your movement.

This is a voice of the political movement that you support and he is not an anomaly. Not a day goes by where we do not hear these voices throughout progressive-left media.

He says that it "sounds like" the Jews are torturing children.

He says that Israel is "racist" and seeks "ethnic cleansing."

Now, tell me, just how is this so different from the Jewish defamation in journals like Der Sturmer, prior to the Holocaust?

Don't you recognize that the defamation and demonization of the Jewish state, today, essentially mirrors the defamation and demonization of the Jewish people in that generation? It is in progressive-left venues like Daily Kos wherein we see today's efforts to cast the Jews as evil.

And, yet, you support this political movement, a movement which currently peddles the most horrific anti-Semitic notions and that may very well end up bringing misery to your own family and people.

I just find it sad... not to mention entirely stupid.

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Are Hilltop Youth et al Terrorists?

Doodad

Bibi says no. Our friend Volleyball says yes:

"This said... the Israeli government STILL will not call these extremists terrorists though that is exactly what they are"

I disagree. What they did is bad and they should be punished; just like British youth who rioted and OWS'ers who did bad stuff. No one is calling those people terrorists.

I know what terror looks like. It looks like: 9/11; Leon Klinghoffer; the Fogel Family; Israeli pizza parlors; etc.

Big difference. Let's try and call things by their proper name.

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Are the Palestinians a "Real" People?

Karam



Newt Gingrich's recent impolitic reference to the contemporary invention of the Palestinian people has progressives (aka, faux-liberals) clutching at pearls all over the internet and throughout liberal publications. The funny thing is that virtually no one, outside of some Palestinians, themselves, actually deny that what Newt said was true. Here is the exact quote, again:

Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. We have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab people, and they had the chance to go many places.

This off-the-cuff and inconveniently true comment has people in an absolute tizzy, despite the fact that almost everyone acknowledges that it is largely true. There was never a state of Palestine and there still is no state of Palestine. If the "Palestinians" would finally agree to one then maybe they would get a state. That might be nice.

And, of course, the Palestinians are an invented people. All peoples, all nations, are invented in the sense that they are social constructs or, as Benedict Anderson famously said, "imagined communities." The difference is that the "Palestinian" community was only imagined about a quarter past last Tuesday and was so imagined out of the Long Arab War Against the Jews. This war, which the Arabs launched in the early 1920s, has been ongoing ever since and, thankfully, the Arabs have lost.

They haven't given up the fight, however and, really, why should they? The religion of Islam forbids any land that was at any time Islamic to ever be anything else. This is part of al-Sharia. The Arab conflict with the Jews is thus grounded in theocratically-based race-hatred toward the Jewish people and non-Muslims. Furthermore, given that Arabs outnumber Jews by about 100 to 1, why should they stop fighting? It may be horrific for us, or at least for the half of us surrounded by enemies in the Middle East, but only a tiny percentage of Arabs will pay a significant cost for their ongoing war against the Jewish people.

That tiny percentage is, of course, the "Palestinians" who were created as a people, by Arafat in collusion with the Soviet Union, to be the front-line offensive against Jewish sovereignty on Jewish land. While a few Arab intellectuals and elites early in the twentieth century began the process of Palestinian nationalism, most Palestinians did not consider themselves to be Palestinian until the 1960s, if not the 1970s. Not until Arafat and the Soviets started yammering about the "national liberation of the Palestinian people" did we ever hear of any such Arab people as "Palestinians." before that the "Palestinians" mainly referred to the Jews in that area, which is why the Jerusalem Post used to be called the Palestine Post.

So, what Newt said was largely correct. The Palestinians represent the world's newest nation and they are a nation that emerged out of the greater Arab nation to fight against Jewish sovereignty on historically Jewish land.

What I find most hysterical, however, is just how uncomfortable progressives (faux-liberals) are with anything that resembles the truth unless it bolsters their ideological predispositions. They despise Newt Gingrich not because his claims, in this regard, are false, but because he is the political opposition which therefore must be smeared and demeaned and whose character must be dragged through the mud at every opportunity.

Personally, I find progressive (faux-liberal) smear tactics to be revolting. Heck, I didn't even like it when I was a progressive. Can you believe that these people actually blamed the Tucson shooting last year on Sarah Palin? The cruelty, irresponsibility, and just plain malice of that episode boggled my mind.

In any case, the truth is the truth. Truth is not dependent upon politics. Something doesn't become untrue merely because it is spoken by the political opposition or because it is a politically inconvenient fact. Just because someone like, say, George W. Bush says that it is raining, this does not automatically mean that children and ponies are prancing in the sunshine.

Here's a truth: the Palestinians, like the rest of us, are "invented."

Here's another truth: the Palestinians, unlike the rest of us, were invented only decades ago.

Here's yet another truth: if these people would give up on their Jew Killing Policy then they could raise their children in decency and potential prosperity.

But the truth is just so darn inconvenient isn't it?

Much better to lie for peace despite the fact that those lies... such as the lie that Barack Obama is advancing something that we can call a "peace process"... never actually result in peace.

I say that we tell the truth and see how that serves us.

What Barry Rubin calls "lying for peace" sucks and... here's a news flash... it doesn't work.

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Open Thread

Karam




That's me around 2006 or 2007.

Laurie snapped that shot as we were getting ready to march toward Civic Center in San Francisco in opposition to the wars.

My, how times have changed.

This is before I noticed Swastikas entwined with Stars of David showing up at "peace" rallies.


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Daily Kos Comment of the Day

Karam

"this is a serious question (6+ / 0-)

A woman was executed this week in Saudi Arabia for practicing witchcraft.

That was a deliberate, pre-meditated, state act by a totalitarian government against their own citizens, violating any notion of human rights.

Now certainly, that should qualify as something that should register with those concerned with "A Just Middle East"... shouldn't it? But the group entitled "A Just Middle East" responded with complete silence. So why are the diaries from the group supposedly about "A Just Middle East" concerned only with the I/P conflict, and demonizing Israel?

Even the massacres and torture of children and thousands of others in Syria has gotten no attention from "A Just Middle East". Yes, you republished a diary by someone else, but you didn't write your own. Instead it is all Israel criticism, all the time. There are 200 million people in the middle east, and maybe 8 million of them live in Israel and Palestine. That's 4%.

Why is "A Just Middle East" defined so narrowly? Obviously, we all know the answer to that, but I would like to have it articulated.

I think it is fraudulent and misleading to call this group "A Just Middle East" when all you do is criticize Israel. Just please be honest and call it the "We don't like Israel" group.

by fizziks on Wed Dec 14, 2011 at 01:59:07 PM PST"

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The reason, of course, is that the progressive-left does not actually care about social justice or human rights.

Haven't we already established this fact?

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The Palestinian Theft of Jewish History

Karam

The Palestinians have been engaging in the theft of Jewish history since the local Arabs became "Palestinians" toward the end of the 20th century. Palestinian Media Watch has been doing considerable archival work on this and below is what they have to say on the matter.

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Rewriting the history of the Land of Israel in order to deny Israel's right to exist is central to Palestinian Authority (PA) policy. Long before it started the PA Terror Campaign (the "Intifada," 2000-2005), the PA was fighting a history war – erasing Jewish history and replacing it with a fabricated Palestinian history. This rewriting has two central goals:

1- Erase the Jewish nation's 3,000 year history in the Land of Israel.

2- Invent ancient Palestinian, Muslim and Arab histories in the land.

The goal of this historical revision as a political strategy was first expressed publicly at a conference of Palestinian historians in 1998, when rewriting history was linked to the political goal of denying Israel's right to exist:

"Dr. Yussuf Alzamili [Chairman History Department, Khan Yunis Educational College] called on all universities and colleges to write the history of Palestine and to guard it, and not to enable the [foreign] implants and enemies to distort it or to legitimize the existence of Jews on this land... [History lecturer Abu Amar] clarified that there is no connection between the ancient generation of Jews and the new generation." [Al-Ayyam, Dec. 4, 1998].

Erasing Jewish history in the land of Israel is followed by the PA’s invention of ancient and modern histories that support its political ideology and claim to the land of Israel. The Holocaust and other aspects of Jewish history are alternately denied, downplayed or distorted. Another distortion is to hide from Palestinians that Jesus was a Jew who lived in the Land of Judea/Israel. PA leaders repeatedly define Jesus as a Palestinian who preached Islam, thus denying not only Jewish history, but also the history and legitimacy of Christianity.

Citing numerous examples, this section will document that these and other historical revisions are an integral part of Palestinian policy and are used to create political ideology.

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I would invite anyone interested in the Palestinian theft of Jewish history to follow the link above to see the numerous examples of how this is done. Palestinian dictator Mahmoud Abbas once said that the Palestinians "are the owners of history." Well, if the Palestinians are the "owners" of history then I guess they can do whatever they want with it, including making stuff up out of whole cloth.

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Good News, Karma

Doodad

"YidWithLid writes that Jewish political organizations that place progressivism before Jewish values are experiencing a significant drop in donations. Two Jewish Organizations that put progressive politics before their mission, the ADL and The AJC have seen their donations plummet during the past five years. Apparently the money is shifting toward single-issue organizations especially Israel advocacy groups.....The organizations on the rise include AIPAC, The Israel Project, and Stand With Us. All Israel advocacy groups."

Looks like we might be winning.

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ZionTruth Has Some Words

Karam

From here.

I am frontpaging this mainly because I applaud Ziontruth's uncompromising defense of the Jewish people. I hope that he doesn't mind, but anyone who posts here must expect for their words to find themselves on the front page now and again.

He's also correct about Arab and Muslim imperialism, a taboo subject among progressives.

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"All peoples are an invention, which is to say that all peoples are a social construction who come to know themselves in time and with a starting point, however vague in our understanding."

Peoples are normally formed through a process of evolution, one so gradual it might take centuries to be perceived. Ethnogenesis happens when a group branches away from its parent bloodline and becomes sufficiently differentiated from it—whether in culture, language or genetics is immaterial—to be considered no longer part of the former whole.

In modern times, it seems a lot of "peoples" have deviated from that norm and instead have been created by human fiat, usually in response to some external force. Africa had had many real peoples before the European conquest, but the various "nations" of Africa today have nothing to them but the borders drawn by none other than the Western powers. In the Middle East the situation is the same, and the faux-Palestinian "nation" is like the Lebanese "nation" in its members having nothing common except opposition to an enemy.

The real nations in the Middle East are as follows (most probably a partial list, but still a wide coverage): Arabs, Circasians, Copts, Druze, Kurds, Jews, Persians, Samaritans and Turks. Those are the nations in the ME formed in ethnogenesis as it has always been in human history, while all the rest are anti-colonial or post-colonial creations. It is quite ironic that the Progressives, of all people, effectively advocate the perpetuation of the damages of Western colonialism with their insistence that the contrived nations are real.

"The Palestinians as a people emerged out of the greater Arab nation in its conflict with the Jews toward the conclusion of the twentieth century."

They didn't emerge. That's exactly the problem: People are calling for their treatment as a real nation, but they fail to see this "nation" does not pass the requirements of such. No "Palestinian Arab" has branched out of the greater Arabian nation any more than there is a "Baltimorian American" nation. Beyond trivialities, nothing in the way of cultural, linguistic or racial differentiation has yet occurred with the Arabs residing in Palestine.

"The American people emerged as a people in our conflict with the English during the 17th century."

The American nation took a long time after 1776 until it really formed national consciousness. In the 18th century there was the proto-concept of a "shining city on a hill," but the whole 19th century had to be spent, with the expansion westward and the Civil War, until there could be something like a stable American national identity. Some historians say (though I don't agree with them) it was only after World War One that American nationalism came to be a serious force.

"In contrast, the Palestinians emerged as a people in their struggle to abort Jewish nationalism."

It would be more accurate to say that's been the goal of Islamic and Arab imperialism from the 1890s onward, when Jews from abroad arrived with no intention to live as dhimmi subjects, but rather as free people. As an imperialist goal does not sit well with world opinion, there needed to be some way of inverting the roles of David and Goliath in this conflict. That's where all the talk about a non-Jewish "Palestinian nation living on the land from time immemorial" ultimately comes. It's a PR stratagem, nothing more, nothing less.

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These Are Your Friends

Karam

Israel will destroy itself. It is inevitable. (0+ / 0-)

The Palestinian birthrate dwarfs that of Israeli Jews. Once the population figures favor Palestinians enough, the Zionist project will finally be over and done with.

by OccupyWallStreetNotPalestine on Mon Dec 12, 2011 at 07:40:12 AM PST

This is a common voice from the progressive-left.

He is looking forward to the demise of Jewish self-defense, something which can only result in rivers of Jewish blood.

This is not a right-winger, but a left-winger.

This is your political movement.

Not mine.

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The Invention of the Palestinian People

Karam



Newt's reference to the "invention" of the Palestinian people has caused quite a shitstorm, yet almost no one is getting the larger point. Of course, Gingrich is correct when he says that the Palestinian people are an invention. It's a simple fact, politically correct nonsense not withstanding. All peoples are an invention, which is to say that all peoples are a social construction who come to know themselves in time and with a starting point, however vague in our understanding.

The Palestinians are no different in this regard. The Palestinians as a people emerged out of the greater Arab nation in its conflict with the Jews toward the conclusion of the twentieth century.

This should not be the least little bit controversial as it happens to be a fact. The Palestinians are not the remnants of the Canaanites and however much Palestinian leadership likes to make up history, the truth is that the Palestinians are a brand new people. Peoples often emerge as a distinct group in conflict with some other group. The American people emerged as a people in our conflict with the English during the 18th century. The Palestinian people emerged as a people in their conflict with the Jews during the 20th century.

The main difference, and from what I can tell thus far I am the only person to reference this fact, is that the Americans emerged as a people in their struggle to create a state for this nation. In contrast, the Palestinians emerged as a people in their struggle to abort Jewish nationalism. The reason that the Palestinians do not have a state for themselves is because that was never their aspiration, which is why they have turned down offer after offer.

The Palestinians, as a people, were born from their efforts to destroy the Jewish national home.

That's a fact. A sad fact, true, but a fact, nonetheless.

Furthermore, as these self-righteous "progressives" point the trembling finger of blame at Newt Gingrich, calling him a racist, it shows the rest of us just how much their conception of truth is based entirely around politics rather than facts.

There is such a thing as truth and it is not dependent upon one's political views.

The Palestinians were "invented." Get over it.

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