UC Irvine Cancels Nonie Darwish Speech

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under and the Times of Israel.}

Front Page Magazine reports the following:

On the heels of Brandeis University’s controversial decision to rescind an honorary degree to women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, organizers of a week-long pro-Israel event called iFest, which is currently underway at the University of California, Irvine, say they have been forced to cancel a scheduled speech by Nonie Darwish, a prominent pro-Israel speaker. Lead iFest organizer Daniel Narvy, president of the campus group Anteaters for Israel (AFI), who will be joining the Israeli Defense Forces this summer, says Orange County Hillel was primarily responsible for the cancellation and that the incident is another example of Hillel’s marginalization of Narvy due to his conservative and traditional views.

Nonie Darwish is the founder and president of FormerMuslimsUnited, an advocacy group for Islamic apostates, and Arabs for Israel, an organization that promotes a positive outlook among Arabs toward the Jewish State and advocates for peace in the region. Darwish was born and raised in Egypt during the most tumultuous period of the Arab-Israeli conflict and is the daughter of Col. Mustafa Hafez, former head of Egyptian intelligence in the Sinai and Gaza, who led multiple operations against Israel during the 1950s. Due to his activities, Darwish’s father was killed by the Israeli military in 1956 by a mail bomb when she was 8 years old, which greatly impacted her negative views toward the Jewish State.

Nonie Darwish is among the prominent anti-Jihadists writing today and should therefore be supported.

Progressive western Jews must get beyond the cowardly fear of being called "racist" or "Islamophobic" if they oppose the movement of political Islam.  Islam is Islam and so long as it does not seek to impose itself upon the rest of us then I have no grievance, but when Islam is the heart of a political movement - which it most certainly is - then it becomes a problem for all of us who are not both Muslim and male.

This is why Barack Obama's support for the Muslim Brotherhood is such a betrayal of his own alleged values, not to mention a betrayal of the United States, itself, given the fact that the Brotherhood is also the parent organization of both Hamas and al-Qaeda.

The late, great Barry Rubin certainly understood this.

What I think is that western Jews need, like Israeli Jews, to learn how to stand up in favor of our own best interests.  Western Jews seem to favor everyone but themselves and their people.  That is, progressive-left western Jews are profoundly in favor of women's rights and Gay rights and the rights of all minority groups, except their own.

I am suddenly put to mind of Milton Himmelfarb's famous aphorism that "Jews earn like Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans."

It is not very politically-correct terminology these days, but it is still very apt.

What I see - and I know, of course, that many Jewish progressives would vehemently disagree - is a western Jewish community in the process of dividing itself along political lines around the State of Israel.  On the one hand we have the left-leaning Jewish western majority which tends to blame Israel for the conflict.  That is, the left-leaning western majority of Jews tends to think that the real problem is that Israel is occupying the "Palestinians" and until such a time as the Jews of the Middle East cease this "Occupation" then it will continue to receive the world's reproach and the rebuke of the BDS movement.

In my view, the real problem is one of perception.  Progressive-left western Jews tend to believe that the Jews of the Middle East are persecuting the local Arabs and that this represents a very significant infringement upon human rights and it is an infringement that the world-wide Jewish community is largely responsible for because we allow it to continue.

Among those of us who participated in progressive-left western politics, this is the message pounded into our skulls on a daily basis by our supposed allies and colleagues.  Ultimately our friends on the left either condemn us for persecuting the innocent, "indigenous Palestinians" or are entirely indifferent to the struggles of the tiny Jewish minority in the Middle East, which is generally the case.

Among western intellectuals and political people, considering Israel is not the same as considering Japan or, say, France.   Among western opinionaters Israel is considered something of a shabby demon and many within the western progressive-left would not be the least bit sorry to see the country either destroyed in a brutally violent confrontation with the hostile Arab majority or simply dismantled into yet another non-Jewish, anti-American, anti-Western, majority Arab state.

What I think is that Jews throughout the world should stand up unequivocally behind our brothers and sisters in Israel because if we do not, no one else will.  That much is certain.

This does not mean that we should be uncritical.  I am, in fact, highly critical of Israel and am absolutely horrified that a Likud government under Benjamin Netanyahu actually released the murderers of Jews from Israeli prisons.  My disgust with this behavior is so profound that I considered giving up pro-Israel advocacy, entirely.  Why should any of us stand up for the Jews in the Middle East when their own government will not stand up for themselves?

That is a question that, perhaps, Netanyahu, himself, should ponder.

Proud to Be a Zionist - 5774 Edition

Michael L.

The Elder and I have partnered up in a certain kind of way.

He has allowed me to publish some of my material on Sundays at the Elder of Ziyon blog and to publish some of his material here.

He wrote the original version of this essay around 2002 and has been modifying it since then.

Here is this year's edition:

Every year, the State of Israel seems to be up against yet another unsolvable crisis. These have ranged from wars to suicide bombings to terror rockets to facing the prospect of nuclear-armed enemies. This year the threats are more political, but no less concerning, as haters of Israel attempt to move forward with their decades-old attempts to delegitimize Israel.

Yet, here she is, 66 years old and more beautiful than she was at birth.

In prayers every morning Jews recite a phrase praising G-d, describing Him as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית - He who continually renews the act of Creation. In other words, the Jewish concept of G-d has him in an active role keeping the universe running, and as such it is appropriate to praise Him.

It is a little hard to conceptualize this idea, that the very laws of physics, that the world rotating and revolving around the sun is not automatic, but only occurs due to the constant will of G-d. But perhaps it is easier to understand this phrase if we apply it to the modern state of Israel.

Every single day that the Jewish state continues to exist cannot be explained adequately with historical or social or military reasons. Which means that we are witnessing a miracle every day.

When we step back and look at the big picture, Israel is something to be very proud of.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it. 

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like - and possibly more than - any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during its war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards are too high and end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keeps trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the people that the enemy is hiding behind. This is not done because of pressure from "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains incredibly high moral standards. It would be so easy for Israelis to say that since the world will accuse them of atrocities anyway, then why bother with holding to such standards - but young Israeli soldiers do, day in and day out. The rare exceptions prove the rule.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war situation.

I am proud of how Israel responds to seemingly intractable problems. In the early days of the intifada there seemed to be no solution - but the IDF found one, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to practically none today. The enemy has not stopped trying, and if Israel hadn't acted decisively things would look like Iraq or Afghanistan today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous. 

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right. 

Today's battles are completely different. They are battles against Israel's very legitimacy. Jews know something about being singled out, about being judged with double standards. They have been attacked for being too rich and too poor, too successful and too needy, too capitalist and too socialist, too religious and too secular, too insular and too integrated. These same wildly inconsistent attacks are now targeting the Jewish state. Israel will survive and thrive, just as Jews themselves have, despite these attacks.

And the best survival technique is success.

Israel has succeeded and continues to succeed in its many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, incredible leadership in high-tech and the environment, world class universities and culture. Practically every computer and mobile phone being built today includes technology and innovations from a single small Middle Eastern country. A tiny nation, under constant siege, with almost no natural resources besides breathtaking beauty, has used its brains - and strength - to build a modern success story. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming.

And they are indeed starting to dream. The internal struggles throughout the Arab world are, in many ways, a subconscious cry from Israel's neighbors to be more like the Jewish state. Despite the constant incitement against Israel in their media, ordinary Arabs know that Israel treats its minorities with more respect, and gives them more civil rights, than Arab nations give their own Arab citizens.

I am proud that the vast majority of Americans support Israel as I do, and that the rabid haters we see on the Internet and on college campuses are the aberration.

The word "Zionist" is not an epithet - it is a compliment.

Yet if one looks up the word "Zionist" on Google Images - which I just did - we get virtually nothing but hatred.

In the west this hatred is primarily coming from the progressive-left.

What puzzles me is why so many Jewish people promote a political movement that reviles their own children.

A Little Reminder from Hamas

Michael L.

 

What really makes this Hamas video extra-special is that they thought to use Hatikva as the background music.

We must finally come to the obvious conclusion that these people are no partners for peace but deadly enemies who need to be treated as such.  This does not just include Hamas, but Fatah, the PLO, and the Palestinian Authority.

There has been some recent hoopla in the news concerning American Senator Rand Paul and a bill to cut US funding to the PA unless it recognizes Israel as a Jewish state and meets other commonsensical conditions, such as abiding to past negotiated agreements.

AIPAC opposes this measure because it is believed that Israel needs the PA to administer the Arab majority territories.

What I would argue is that while it is obviously true that if the Arab governments, including the local Arab governments, had organized themselves in a manner within which to cooperate and work with their Jewish neighbors, that would have been terrific.

That, as a socialist, is certainly what Ben-Gurion wanted.  As it is, however, the local Arabs organized themselves in a manner designed to harass Jewish people on Jewish land and that seeks the elimination of Jewish sovereignty and self-defense on that land.

The only question, this being the case, is what should the Israeli government do about a people who represent not only 20 percent of the citizenry of the country, but who also represent our former masters and rulers for 1,300 years?

Let us not forget that the Jewish people lived under second and third-class non-citizenship, within the Islamic system of dhimmitude, beneath the boot of Arab-Muslim imperial rule on our own land.

1,300 years.

I understand, of course, that dhimmitude was, in some places and times better and in some places and times worse, but it was never better for Jews than was Jim Crow a joyous experience for black people in the United States and it lasted far, far longer.

If anti-Semitic Arabs and their "progressive" anti-Zionist allies in the west think that the Jews should feel guilty about freeing ourselves from oppression then they can... fuggedaboutit... as my friends in Jersey might say.

I might use slightly different language.

{A Big Tip 'O the Kippa to our friend the Elder of Ziyon.}

Norman Has Some Words and My Latest Piece for the Elder

Michael L.

I very much hope that Norman F will forgive me for simply stealing his writings and front-paging them on Israel Thrives, because that is precisely what this post is.

Laurie and I have been up around Mount Shasta for the last week with friends and we just returned.  This is the tippity-top of northern California and it is nothing but vast gorges with rivers running through and tall mountains covered with pine trees.

And rainbow trout.

I caught eleven, but have now decided upon a strict catch-and-release policy.

In any case, this is what Norman has to say concerning my last piece for the Elder entitled, The Palestinian Colonization of the Progressive Jewish Mind.

Mike,

You've already read the last thread today about the US accusations Israel doesn't want peace - it fits in with the current view its Israel's responsibility to make amends to the Arabs; its not the Arabs' duty to make amends for their genocidal warfare against the Jewish people perpetrated by them since the time of Mohammed. Islam stands guilty of a crime against humanity and against peace by persecuting the Jewish people down through the ages and placing them in conditions guaranteed to effectuate their destruction. The current campaign against the State Of Israel is simply more or less this age-old Muslim campaign against the very existence of the Jewish people now pursued as a nation in their ancient national homeland - Israel.

And who do the unnamed US diplomats making these reprehensible accusations side with? Not with the Jews who were and the victims of the Islamic crusade against them; they openly side with their enemies whose commitment to the extirpation of Jewish existence that began with the dawn of Islam continues to this very day. What has changed is not the Arab dream of eliminating the Jews from Dar Islam; what has changed are the tactics to attain it. In a word, the Palestinian Arab claim of national self-determination is not to have their own state but to establish one as a Trojan Horse to upend and subvert the Jewish right to national self-determination. They reject peace unless Israel agrees to an open-ended conflict that down the road will result in its destruction. This is more or less the state of affairs today.

Now we know the real roots of why peace in the Middle East is impossible. What has happened in the last twenty years even as the Arabs have become more obdurate and have rejected peace with the Jewish people and Zionism on the people to people level, is that astonishingly and correspondingly, hostility to the Jews and Israel has zoomed to unprecedented levels in the West and especially on the Jewish/Israeli Left. It matters not that Israel has done every thing it can to settle a conflict to which there is no real solution in sight. The Jews must be vilified, threatened and ultimately punished for not making it easier for Islam and the Arabs to do away with them in due time. Put it another way, the real reason for the hatred of the Jews and Israel that gained respectability in the West is not due to any desire for peace but to return the Jews to the state to which they were previously subject.

That's not just been the goal of Islam and the Arabs; it has also been the goal of Edom - Europe/America and Christianity over the centuries. They both see Jewish equality and the notion the Jewish people have a national existence in the human family as intolerable. Now we begin to understand the prejudices, obsession and bias against Israel in the fulmination of unnamed American diplomats against the Jewish State. Israel is not within the sovereign rights of the Jewish people to maintain; the Jewish State exists solely at the sufferance and convenience of its enemies and well-meaning friends and the Jews must do what they're told - or face the consequences. This is the true meaning of the US diplomats' ugly outburst - rooted in age old anti-Semitism and the notion that the Jews have no right of their own to defend their independence and their freedom. Its not and has never been about peace.

We see the true picture now in front of our own eyes and we begin understand why the negative picture of the Jewish people - the Islamic/Arab colonization of the West and leftist Jews abroad and in Israel has become over time a conventional wisdom, an entrenched dogma and virtual article of faith. It follows logically that no matter what Israel does - it cannot change how its seen by the world. The erosion of Jewish moral defenses has resulted in Israel's delegitimization and weakened the ability of the Jewish State to resist powerful forces that seek to secure its eventual destruction. All that's left is to force Israel to sign the terms of its own surrender - being framed of course for its own good. The rest is simply commentary. I don't have any answers as what Israel can do to stop being the victim - that said, understanding what is really happening and telling the truth will get the Jewish people back on the path to ensuring their future.

It wasn't easy in the past or in the present and now we know what to look forward to in the future. The Jewish people and Israel above all should be aware whatever they decide to do - is to recollect the fact the world does not wish them and surviving their enemies and the wrath of the so-called civilized world that has sided with their enemies will be the defining rule of Jewish life as long as the Jews remain a living people in our world. How the Jewish people and Israel cope with it will tell us much about whether the Jewish people maintain their national existence in Israel and whether we will have a Jewish Century to celebrate. In truth, there is no other option, no other alternative. As we all know, when we read the end of the Hebrew Bible, all we do know is the story of the Jewish people will continue. And uniquely, for the first time in Jewish history, the fate of the Jewish nation is no longer in the hands of others, its in the hands of the Jewish people themselves.

This is why fittingly, Israel's national anthem is named Hatikvah - "The Hope." A national dream that has never died, has always endured and which still lives - all embodied in what is Israel today.

Philly.com Phinally Phinds Its Limit

JayinPhiladelphia

And wouldn't you know it?  It's got something to do with Jews.

This highly unfortunate op-ed by Trudy Rubin appeared in print in the big Thursday edition of the Inky, which is generally the only daily edition of our local print paper which I still always buy.

I came home from work on Thursday evening, and left a few comments at the article in response to a few vicious online Jew-haters, of which we are all surely acquainted by now.  One or two of them may have been a little over the line I generally like to maintain, but still.  None of them were particularly ugly.

By Friday morning, all comments disappeared, as I found out upon attempting to respond to one reply I had received overnight.  A few hours later, I checked again, and found that the comments were restored!  Okay, I told myself, let's get back to that soon.

Friday evening, I finally responded to that ugly anti-Zionist's comment.  Immediately upon refreshing, all comments disappeared, and have remained disappeared ever since.

It looks like Philly.com, the site at which comment sections about Little League baseball teams in Bristol or barber shops on the Main Line somehow, semi-comically, immediately turn into extended racist hate-fests (allowed to stand) targeting the current President of the United States of America, has apparently finally found the one thing it will not tolerate.

People strongly defending the Jewish State of Israel.

That is what it is, I guess, but for now, let's take on Trudy's opinion piece.

She leads off with the tired "Butbutbut a couple of Israeli politicians have already used the apartheid smear!!1!"

They're wrong, and they've used a hateful, ignorant smear.  But so what?  This proves nothing more than that Israel society is at least as tolerant of dissent as any other democracy in the world, and far more so than any of its immediate neighbors.

Trudy continues -

"Yet, when Secretary of State John Kerry dared to utter the A-word (apartheid) last week, Israeli and American Jewish leaders slammed him."

That's because he's using a hateful, ignorant smear which does not even come close to applying in reality.  The intent of those who use this word in connection with Israel is that the world's sole Jewish State needs to be destroyed and dismantled, immediately, just like the Apartheid State of South Africa, if even though there are no actual parallels between the two.

To even suggest there are, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, is the very definition of a deeply deranged hatred targeting Jews alone and above all other peoples of the world, because I suppose we of all people should know better, or something like that.

Ms. Rubin continues -

"Within its 1967 boundaries, Israel is a vibrant democracy, and Arab citizens of Israel have the vote. But on the West Bank, around 2.5 million Palestinians live under a totally different system."

Then perhaps those non-Israeli-Arabs should spend less time trying to kill Jews, and more time focusing on building up a state of their own?

Btw, the '1967 boundaries' are actually the 1949 armistice lines, resultant of the previous attempt in which Arabs tried to run Jews into the sea via racist holy war, and also failed.

Not borders.

Though they could have been, if the Arabs had agreed to partition.

Trudy then babbles some more about land control, and movement, blah blah blah.

Again, if those of the Palestinian body politic would simply stop trying to murder Jews, then those restrictions would ease.

If they would simply accept a state for themselves in peace, all such 'restrictions' would end.  Period.

Ms. Rubin goes on -

"The ceaseless expansion of Israeli settlements all over the West Bank, along with exclusive settler roads and fences, divides Palestinian areas into disconnected cantons that superficially resemble the former black Bantustans in South Africa."

No, they don't.  Because 1. stop using a Jordanian term ("The West Bank") which is meant to deny and delegitimize Jewish presence on the land where Jews come from, and on which we have resided nonstop for thousands of years.  And 2. your 'settler' obsession 'resembles' no such thing.  Jews on Jewish land are not a foreign minority population oppressing natives.

Also, by claiming that Jews building apartments for themselves anywhere, let alone the land where we come from, is a problem, makes you the bigot, Ms. Rubin.  Nobody else.

Ms. Rubin says -

"So even if Israel's situation differs from South Africa's and lacks the racial laws that defined that country's apartheid system, some parallels can't be avoided. One group dominates and controls another, which lacks political rights."

Oh wait, so I guess this is like "of course Israel isn't really apartheid but just because somebody says it is doesn't mean that he actually said it is and though I support his right to say that it is I admit that it isn't not because I don't want to say that it isn't but I view it as my duty as a far leftist to say that it is even though it isn't and wait I don't know what the hell I'm saying right now but don't you dare criticize Kerry for saying something that other idiots have also said before!"

Ms. Rubin can talk all she wants, in dire terms, about the "collapse of the two-state solution," but I would argue that it's long been proven that the Palestinians are not in the least serious about ever accepting any such thing, and that the two-state solution (which I support) will only realistically come about during my lifetime (I'm in my mid-30's) via unilateral Israeli action.

It has become exceedingly clear that it will never happen as a result of 'negotiations,' especially not while useful idiots like Trudy Rubin and J Street continue to blame everything on Israel and nothing on the Palestinians.

It's time for my fellow liberals to finally come around to the conclusion that enabling Palestinian leadership on continuing their waiting game, towards their own preferred one-state solution, is something we need to stop doing.

"Nothing has furthered comparisons of the Palestinian situation to South Africa more than the Israeli government's promotion of Jewish settlement on the West Bank."

Again, Ms. Rubin, you really need to go back to the drawing board, and think a bit more about your insistence that Jews building homes in any given place is an impediment to peace.  That sounds kind of extremely bigoted, if you ask me.

Here's a thought experiment.  Insert any other ethnicity in such a sentence, and chew on that for a bit.

Ms. Rubin concludes -

"If Kerry's critics are really worried about the A-word, or the BDS campaign, they should be pressing Israel's government to freeze settlement expansion. Dumping on Kerry, a friend of Israel who pressed mightily for a two-state solution, is outrageous - and won't help Israel face the challenges ahead."

Leaving aside for now the questionable characterization of Secretary Kerry as "a friend of Israel," I would once again note that Ms. Rubin's argument seems to entirely be based upon the idea that Jews building homes for themselves somewhere is problematic.  And indeed, is a major impediment to 'peace.'

I would argue that this in itself is an extremely, inherently bigoted proposition.

That people like her can't see this, is what I truly find outrageous.

The closest thing to an official American version of the peace talks

by oldschooltwentysix

So says an article at Ynet, Inside the talks' failure: US officials open up.

It is no surprise that Israel is seen as the culprit, driven by Israeli right-wingers that exercise a malicious approach.

If I was ignorant, I might be left feeling that Mr. Abbas is a distant cousin of Martin Luther King, Jr.

After seeing the view of these Americans, it is hard to ignore the bias against Israel. In this context of prejudice against Israel, which sometimes appears as contempt, perhaps Israelis know better than these Americans what is in the best interest and prosperity of THEIR country.

It is not hard to detect when troubling to see the arrogant tone that the Americans interviewed possessed, especially when one looks at the record of the Obama Administration in foreign affairs. One disaster after another, not to mention the false bluster. Rather than lecture, this seems the gang that could not shoot straight.

I am left to ask, if the construction is almost all to supplement what will be inside Israel, as basically agreed, why is that THE issue?

Why are the Palestinians only seen as virtuous, and as if they have played no role. Perhaps some humanitarian racism at work, to complement the bias?

In any event, the bias reflected creates cognitive dissonance with any claim to be an objective broker.

It sounded a lot like officials at J Street and J Street U gave the interviews.