The Left Doesn't Care About Palestinians

{Cross-Posted at My Left Wing.}

A casual reader of the left political blogs, such as Daily Kos or the Huffington Post, might get the idea that the progressive-left cares about the Palestinian people. Such a reader would be wholly mistaken. The last thing in this world that the western progressive-left cares about are universal human rights and that definitely goes for the human rights of the Palestinians.

The western left has no interest in human rights and it certainly has no interest in the human rights of the Palestinian people. This is one of those obvious truths that we are supposed to ignore. I keep stumbling upon more and more of these... more and more obvious truths that the ideologically blinded will not allow themselves to consider.

My assertion is easily demonstrated. It has two parts. The first is that the left cares not about universal human rights. The second assertion, which follows from the first, is that the left does not care about the universal human rights of the Palestinian people. Let's take the first part, my claim that the left doesn't care about universal human rights.

I would suggest that if the left did care about universal human rights than we would see activist members of the progressive-left promoting the human rights of Tibetans and Darfurans and Congolese on the major left-wing political blogs... but we do not. On websites such as Daily Kos and the Huffington Post there is virtual silence on the Chinese occupation of Tibet or the truly brutal genocides in Darfur and the Congo. {The Congo, in particular, is horrifying with some 5.5 million dead over the last decade. 5.5 million.}

That the left is virtually silent on these matters demonstrates their lack of interest in human rights. This should be obvious to anyone who doesn't view politics as a team sport. This should be obvious to anyone who is not blinded by partisanship. And it most certainly should be obvious to anyone who cares about the Jewish people, given the fact that Israel is constantly (and hypocritically) hounded on the left over matters of human rights.

That the western progressive-left cares not a whit about the Palestinians is demonstrated from the fact that they only speak up on behalf of Palestinians when Palestinians are in conflict with Jews, but never when they are in conflict with non-Jews. One would think that among the self-proclaimed western defenders of the Palestinian people, that violations of Palestinian human rights, or civil liberties, would be of interest no matter who is doing that violating. One would be wrong, however. They only speak up when they can paint Jews as the villain. They are almost entirely silent otherwise.

Here is a specific example currently in the press. Some young Palestinian Muslim in the West Bank spoofed the Koran on Facebook and is now very deep in the doo-doo among his fellow Palestinians. They've got him locked up for this heinous crime.

In his hometown, the reaction seems to be one of uniform fury. Many here say that if he does not repent, he should spend the rest of his life in jail.

“Everyone is a Muslim here, so everyone is against what he did,” said Alaa Jarar, 20, who described himself as not particularly pious. “People are mad at him and will not respect the Palestinian Authority if he is released. Maybe he is a Mossad agent working for Israel.”

Sure. He could be Mossad. Why the hell not? But for those of us who live in the reality-based world, we might wonder why it is that the left remains silent on this case and the multitudes of ones like it. Why is that when Iran hangs gay people from cranes the left is almost always silent? Why is it that when Saudi Arabia arrests women for the crime of getting raped, western feminists mainly keep a sock in it? And how is it that western-left advocates for the Palestinian people only care about those people when Jews are involved?

How is that?

I submit that it is because the western progressive-left does not really care about either universal human rights, nor the well-being of the Palestinian people.

And I say this as someone who comes out of the progressive-left.

{Sad, but true.}

The New York Times article notes:

Palestinian human rights groups in the West Bank have so far remained silent about Mr. Hasayin’s arrest.

Of course they are silent. There's nothing here to pin on Israel.

Landmarks

As my positions on Israel continue to evolve "landmarks" frequently present themselves. One such landmark, for me personally, anyway, was the Mavi Marmara incident. What most caught my attention about the flotilla-thing was that it was clearly a case in which western leftists literally, physically, and economically, joined with actual Jihadis in attacking Jews. That is what we saw. The Mavi Marmara was a Turkish vessel carrying people, as we saw on video, who wished for martyrdom in a violent confrontation with Jews and they were aided and abetted by western secular leftists. It was the first time that I really came to understand there is, in fact, a Left-Jihadi alliance at work. This is not to say that all leftists are part of that alliance, but that there is a segment of the western progressive left that supports Jihadis over Jews.

Strange, but true.

Another landmark has taken place just recently. With the current failure of the peace talks, a failure that anyone with a pulse saw coming many months ago, the left, including much of the Jewish left, blames Israel for that failure. This shows me that Jewish liberals are generally weak in their support for the Jewish state. There are things that Israel can be blamed for and things that Israel cannot be blamed for. One of the things that Israel cannot be blamed for is the failure of current negotiations. The reason that Israel cannot be blamed for the failure of negotiations is because it was not the Israelis who refused to negotiate, but the Palestinians who refused to do so.

When Netanyahu first came into office he called for negotiations without preconditions. The Palestinians refused. As a compromise in order to demonstrate good faith, Israel instituted a ten-month settlement freeze in the hopes of bringing the Palestinians to the table, but the Palestinians still refused to negotiate. Now that the settlement freeze is over they are demanding an extension of the freeze, despite the fact that they would neither negotiate throughout most of the period of the freeze, nor negotiate without the freeze. But the bottom line is that Israel called for negotiations while the Palestinians rejected negotiations.
And, yet, many Jewish "progressives" blame Israel for the failure of those negotiations. Does that make even the least little bit of sense? How can Israel be at fault when it was the Palestinians who refused to negotiate whether there was settlement-building or not?

To the extent that Jewish progressives blame Israel on this question is the extent to which those individuals suffer from what I call Jewish Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome, of course, means taking on the political outlooks of one's captors. Jewish Stockholm Syndrome is when Jewish people, whether supporters of Israel or not, ingest the so-called "Palestinian narrative" and view the I-P conflict, at least in some measure, through that narrative.

At the heart of the Palestinian narrative is perpetual Israeli guilt and perfect Palestinian innocence. When Jewish supporters of Israel blame the failure of negotiations on Israel they are expressing something that is not only irrational, but that fits the Palestinian narrative of never-ending Israeli guilt.

They thus suffer from Jewish Stockholm Syndrome.

As with so much else, it's obvious, but they'll never see it or acknowledge it.

The Long Arab-Jewish War (1920 to the Present)

One way of looking at the conflict in the Middle East is as a single ongoing war between Arabs and Jews. If we think of it this way we can then break it down into its various overlapping phases and trends. It is, by the way, an Arab-Jewish war. It is not merely an Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the Arab combatants are not limited to the Palestinians. Nor is it merely an Arab-Israeli conflict because neither the combatants, nor the victims, on the Jewish side are limited to Israelis. I thus conceive of it as an Arab-Jewish war, despite the fact that Iran is a combatant and Iran is not an Arab country. In the broader scope of things, however, and until fairly recently, Iran was only a minor combatant. We could call it a Muslim-Jewish War, but that would be too broad a characterization.

The Phases of the Long War:

Phase 1, 1920 - 1947: Riots and Massacres

Phase 2, November 1947 - April 1948: The Civil War in Palestine

Phase 3, 1948 - 1973: Conventional Warfare

Phase 4, 1964 - Present: The Terror War

Phase 5, 1975 - Present: The Delegitimization Effort

This last phase, the delegitimization phase, has overtaken the Terror War as the primary means of combating the Jews of the Middle East. This delegitimization process takes several interconnected forms including the attempts by Palestinians to negate Jewish history in the region (for example, Arafat's claim that the Jews never had their Temple in Jerusalem). The BDS movement seeks to delegitimize Israel in preparation for its eventual dissolution. The "progressive" political blogs, like Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, spread hatred. The United Nations, of course, is united in nothing so much as its efforts to perpetually condemn Israel while ignoring human rights violations the world over. Jewish students are regularly berated as "racist" on American and European college campuses if they dare to speak up for Jewish self-determination. The NGOs use lawfare in an effort to criminalize Jewish self-defense. And let's not forget Pallywood, of course.

So, the Delegitimization Phase is the current phase of this long war. One thing to note is that some western leftists have actually joined in the fight against the Jews of the Middle East. In fact, the western "progressive" component of the Delegitimization Phase is probably more significant even than Arab efforts. People disagree, however, on how effective the Delegitimization Phase will be. The Divest This! blog does an excellent job of tracking BDS efforts and shows that the BDS movement has been rather feeble, thankfully.

In any case, thinking about the conflict as the Long War helps to keep things in context. When we think about the I-P conflict it is absolutely necessary to hold this larger context in mind so that we can better understand the behavior of both sides. For example, the reason that the Palestinians continually refuse to accept a state next to Israel is because a state next to Israel is not their war aim. That much should be obvious by now.

By the way, I date the Delegitimization Phase from 1975 because it was in that year that the UN passed the "Zionism Equals Racism" resolution, which was the opening salvo. It should also be noted, tho I need to look further into this, that it was the Soviets who probably did the most for laying the propaganda groundwork for this latest phase of the war.

And, make no mistake, propaganda (and thus hyperbole) is the poison arrow of delegitimization... a poison arrow aimed at the hearts and minds of the ignorant and the malicious.

The Gibberish Never Ends

{Cross-Posted at My Left Wing}

The Palestinians have pulled out of direct negotiations because, or so they say, the Israeli settlement construction freeze in the West Bank has concluded.

“Both the governments of Israel and the Palestinian Authority have asked us to continue these discussions in an effort to establish the conditions under which they can continue direct negotiations," Mitchell wrote in a statement posted on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo's website. "They do not want to stop the talks."

How blinkered must one be not to recognize this gibberish as gibberish? For ten months Israel maintained a moratorium on building in the West Bank, yet until the very last moment the Palestinians refused to negotiate. Now that the moratorium has ended they again refuse to negotiate. And we're supposed to believe that the Palestinians are desperate for a negotiated peace and for a state of their own next to Israel? And George Mitchell tells us that both governments want to continue negotiations?

A less blunt person might refer to this as "dissembling." I prefer to call it what it really is, a lie. When Barack Obama came into office he demanded a settlement freeze as a precondition for negotiations. The Palestinians thus pulled out of negotiations. The Israelis then called for negotiations without preconditions, but the Palestinians refused. The Israelis compromised with the 10 month moratorium on building in the West Bank and still the Palestinians refused to negotiate. And now George Mitchell is telling the world that both sides want to negotiate?

So, we are to believe that the Palestinians really, really want to negotiate despite the fact that they refused negotiations before the settlement freeze, and also during the settlement freeze, if the freeze is extended? Oh, that makes sense.

And we are also to believe that the Palestinians long for a state of their own next to Israel, despite the fact that they perpetually reject a state of their own next to Israel and despite the fact that between 1948 and 1967, when the West Bank was occupied by Jordan and Gaza by Egypt, no Palestinian leadership called for a Palestinian state.

Have I mentioned recently that this is a sucker's game?

Well?

It's a sucker's game.

Meanwhile the anti-Zionist left and their Jihadi allies perpetually excoriate Israel. Throughout the Middle East, the Jihadis call literally for the blood of the Jews while the Arab governments continue to incite hatred toward the Jewish state. And even as they do so, the UN writes up resolution after resolution defaming Israel while ignoring atrocious human rights abuses in Darfur and Congo and Chechnya and Iran and Tibet and Saudi Arabia, where they still chop off body parts for the crime of theft. And TIME magazine tells the world that Israelis do not care about peace because they are too busy making money. And on college campuses throughout North American and Europe, Jewish students who support the Jewish state are spat upon and told that they are "racist." And on the liberal blogs, like Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, Israel is perpetually demonized, dehumanized, and demeaned.

And through it all, despite international efforts at Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), Israel continues to crank out microchips and advanced computing software and more and more start-ups, and more and more companies on the Nasdaq, and continues to receive more and more investment capital from abroad.

It's nothing short of remarkable, really.

Good for them.

Liberal Jewish Suckers

I continue to be flabbergasted at how easily so many liberal Jewish supporters of Israel have allowed themselves to be suckered by the Israeli settlement issue. These so-called "settlers," a word which itself has become a pejorative, are merely Jews living in the place that Jews originally came from. They have set up communities in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, as they would say, for various reasons. Some do so out of a religious commitment to the land of ancient Israel... Eretz Israel. Others live there because housing is less expensive than in Israel proper. And now we are told that the mere presence of Jews living in the West Bank undermines the peace process.

Ridiculous.

I personally do not care whether Jews live there or not. I am not in favor of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Nor do I oppose Jewish settlements in the West Bank. For that matter, I also do not oppose Episcopalians living in Skokie, Illinois, nor Rastafarians living in Kathmandu, Nepal, nor Ethiopians living in Walla Walla, Washington. What we are being told, though, is that Jews living, and thus building, in the West Bank is an impediment to the peace process. This is nonsense. How can the mere presence of Jews in the West Bank prevent Mahmoud Abbas from sitting across the table from Benjamin Netanyahu? All they need to do is agree on Israel's final borders, and thus the borders of the forthcoming Palestinian state, and then those Jews who live in the newly formed state of Palestine will be living under Palestinian rule. Presumably many will leave under those conditions because, or so I guess, most would prefer not to live under Palestinian sovereignty. But should that not be up to them?

Why must any future state of Palestine be Judenrein? Israel does not demand that their Palestinian population pack up and move out, yet not only does Abbas and the PA insist upon the dismantling of Jewish settlements in their areas of jurisdiction, but even liberal American Jews do so. This is not only a form of unjust bigotry, it is, itself, an impediment to the peace process. Let me be clear. It is not Jewish settlements in the West Bank that are an impediment to the peace process, but the insistence that Jews must not be allowed to live, and thus build, in the West Bank that is the impediment to the peace process.

What many people refuse to recognize is that when Barack Obama demanded a freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank he threw any possible negotiated agreement out the window. By demanding something that Netanyahu either would not, or could not, give he assured that Mahmoud Abbas could demand nothing less. In this way Obama tossed a monkey wrench into the works right from the beginning. And what's worse is that he continues to do so because now he is demanding an extension of the freeze.

This is a sucker's game.

If the Palestinians want a state next to Israel all they need to do is accept a state next to Israel. Yet they perpetually refuse and the blame is always laid at Jewish feet. Time and again, decade after decade, the Palestinians are offered state-hood and time and again, decade after decade, they refuse those offers. They always have some alleged reason, of course. None of the offers are ever considered good enough. This time around they are refusing because Jews are living in the West Bank. In other words, they are telling the world that out of ethno-religious bigotry against Jews they cannot negotiate a peace agreement. And what is most remarkable about this is that many, many western liberal Jews find this not unreasonable.

I find it not only unreasonable, but absolutely ridiculous. Of course, you really cannot blame Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership. So long as well-meaning westerners, including many Jews, affirm Palestinian intransigence and racism against Jews as consistent with liberal values, than why should Abbas accept a Jewish presence in any future state of Palestine? In this way the issue becomes a ploy by which the Palestinian leadership can avoid an end to the conflict. It's a stupid and dangerous game that no one can win, but it is a game that Barack Obama has set up, himself, and as soon as he put the pieces in place, American Jews started playing, as well.

Suckers.

Harassing the Jews on Daily Kos: An Introduction

{Cross-Posted at the NewsRealBlog.}



Daily Kos is among the largest political blogs in the world. It has well over 200,000 registered users and, whether anyone likes it or not, has some influence within American politics.  In the 2006 midterm, for example, they raised money for 17 netroots candidates, winning eight races: Jim Webb (VA-Sen), Jon Tester (MT-Sen), Tim Walz (MN-01), Joe Sestak (PA-07), Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23), Patrick Murphy (PA-08), Jerry McNerney (CA-11), and Paul Hodes (NH-02).  

Daily Kos helped drive Joe Lieberman from the Democratic party and the mainstream media promotes Daily Kos through Keith Olbermann. It also, of course, helped give Barack Obama the Presidency - an effort that I helped in, myself.