“UDI” Campaign - Canadian Institute for Jewish Research

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ISRAFAX
September 21, 2011
Rosh Hashana 5772, Tishrei
Volume XXIII, Number 272
COMBATTING THE DELEGITIMATION OF ISRAEL
CIJR’S 4TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE NOVEMBER 6, 2011
P.O. Box 175, Station H, Montreal, Quebec H3G 2K7 Tel: (514) 486-5544
Fax: (514) 486-8284 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.isranet.org
ISRAFAX
Editorial
Obama, the Delegitimation of Israel, and
the Palestinians’ UN “UDI” Campaign
FREDERICK KRANTZ
Then Satan said:
This beleaguered soul—[Israel]
How can I subdue him?
He has courage and skill
And weapons and ingenuity and judgment.
And he said: I will not take his strength.
Nor fetter nor restrain him
I will not weaken his will
Nor dampen his spirit.
This will I do: Dull his brain
Until he forgets that justice is his.
—Nathan Alterman, [d. 1970.]
The Palestinians were among the first to realize
that, in a media age, you can win on other battlefields. Stone-throwing youths have won more victories for Palestine—at least in the European
press and on North American campuses—than the
Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies ever did.
—Mark Steyn (2011).
As looming fall’s first reds stain summer’s fading greens, the
Egyptian Army is clearing the now bothersome “freedom” protesters out of Tahrir Square, and the Syrian bloodbath body
count passes 2,200. The media have so far largely ignored the
Palestinians’ proclaimed September 20 “Unilateral Declaration
of Independence,” but that will soon change, and this critically
important event soon will take stage center. Hence, why it is
being undertaken, and how it plays out, needs careful attention,
and relating to the ongoing pro-Palestinian delegitimation campaign against Israel.
This campaign, increasingly strident since the openly antisemitic denunciations of Israel at the first, 2001, UN Durban
Human Rights conference, has since been playing out on a global scale. It is being elaborated on campuses in Europe and North
America, among NGOs and European government agencies, in
the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council and subsequent (and again upcoming) “Durban” gatherings, and in
much of the American, and especially European, media.
The delegitimation campaign seeks to analogize democratic,
Jewish Israel to pre-independence apartheid South Africa.If the
obscene analogy works—if the anti-Israel ideological drumbeat
on campuses, in “progressive” magazines and journals and in
much of the media is successful, and enough major states then
agree that “the occupation”, Israel’s self-defense in the Gaza
“Cast Lead” incursion, and its actions against the Gaza blockade
flotillas transgress international law and the Geneva Convention—then Israel and its government, like that of pre-Mandela
South Africa, can be deemed illegitimate and hence subject to
international sanctions and embargoes.
If Israel were then to resist such international pressures, refusing to negotiate with the Palestinians on the disadvantageous
“international community” terms
Continued on Page 4
2 – September 21, 2011
Book Review
Local History, Transnational Memory
in the Romanian Holocaust
VALENTINA GLAJAR & JEANINE TEODORESCU
(PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, MARCH 2011.)
In the memory of beloved Malca, z’l
“I tell you there is No law! Therefore, without any formality,
entirely at your discretion, if it is necessary, shoot with machine
guns.”—Marshal Ion Antonescu, quoted in Transnistria: The
Forgotten Cemetery, by Julius S. Fisher, p. 33, New York:
Thomas Yoseloff, 1969.
“Besides Germany itself, Romania was thus the only country
which implemented all the steps of the destruction process, from
definitions to killings.”—The Destruction of the European Jews,
by Raul Hilberg, p. 485.
On June 25-26, 1996, the Canadian Institute for Jewish
Research sponsored my attendance in Washington at the first
International Scholars Conference on the fate of Romanian Jews
under Antonescu’s regime. Fifteen scholars from five countries
addressed the still largely unknown case of the Romanian Holocaust, which claimed 350-400,000 Jewish victims.
Like the Conference in Washington, the book under review
aims to shed light on the Romanian Holocaust, which took place
between 1939-1944.
As a Holocaust survivor, I can testify that in the early 1980s
most of the Jewish studies university professors in Montreal, had
little or no knowledge regarding the tragedy that befell Romanian
Jews. In fact, I recall once attending a lecture at a Montreal university given by a well-known professor. When I raised the issue
of the Romanian Holocaust, his reply was shocking: “To my
knowledge, there was no Holocaust in Romania!”
The volume under review is a clear answer to all those still
questioning or minimizing the horrors of this undeniable catastrophe. The book, a wide-ranging selecContinued on Page 10
tion of historical accounts of the
ISRAFAX EDITORIAL BOARD
Editor .............................. Frederick Krantz
Associate Editors ............. Julien Bauer
.......................................... David Pariser
.......................................... Ira Robinson
.......................................... Harold M. Waller
Research Chairman .......... Baruch Cohen
Publications Chairman..... Charles Bybelezer
Executive Assistant.......... Yvonne Margo
Layout & Design.............. France Normandeau
ISRAFAX is the research publication of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research,
an independent and non-partisan non-profit educational foundation devoted to the
study of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. It provides CIJR members
with key data and a digest of international analysis and opinion on relevant issues.
We welcome your letters, comments and materials, which can be faxed or e-mailed (see
cover) N.B.: PLEASE SEE CIJR’S NEW WEBSITE at WWW.ISRANET.ORG.
THIS ISSUE
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EDITORIAL
BOOK REVIEW
SHORT TAKES & WEEKLY QUOTES
BOYCOTTING THE BOYCOTTERS—ISRAEL FIGHTS BACK
DELEGITIMATION (“APARTHEID”) PREPARES WAY
FOR ISRAEL’S DESTRUCTION
DOUBLE-STANDARDS AND SHIPS OF FOOLS
NON-JEWISH JEWS & THE DELEGITIMATION OF ISRAEL
ISRAEL AS “ANTI-CHRIST”: THE MYTH OF ZIONIST RACISM
“J-STREET”: THE SCANDAL OF JEWISH ANTI-ISRAELISM
THE NECESSITY OF ISRAEL
ISSN # 1193-7246
SHORT TAKES & WEEKLY QUOTES
Charles Bybelezer
6 IN 10 PALESTINIANS REJECT 2STATE SOLUTION, SURVEY FINDS—
(Jerusalem) According to a survey of Palestinians by American pollster Stanley Greenberg,
only one in three Palestinians accepts two states
for two peoples as the solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, with 61% rejecting it outright. When asked about the fate of Jerusalem,
92% of respondents said that the city should be
the capital of Palestine only.… The study also
found that 62% of Palestinians support kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage.…
When given a quotation from the Hamas Charter, 73% agreed about the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones and trees. (Jerusalem Post,
July 15.)
IRAN
CLAIMS
PROGRESS
ON
NUCLEAR
PROGRAM—(Washington)
Moves by Iran to deploy more-advanced centrifuges for the production of nuclear fuel have
raised new concerns that Tehran could significantly shorten the time it would need to produce
nuclear weapons. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has notified United Nations
inspectors that it has begun deploying what are
described as second- and third-generation centrifuges at its uranium-enrichment facilities in
the city of Natanz. The more-advanced centrifuges, called IR-2Ms and IR-4s, are believed
to be capable of enriching uranium at rates three
times as fast as those Tehran currently uses.
(Wall Street Journal, August 4.)
ANTI-SEMITISM GROWING THREAT
ON CAMPUSES: INQUIRY—(Toronto)
According to the findings of The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism,
anti-Semitism on Canadian university campuses is a growing threat and the Canadian government needs to do more to tackle hate crimes
against Jews. Former Liberal MP Mario Silva,
who chaired the hearings, said he was especially disturbed to hear how many Jewish university students felt intimidated or unsafe on campus
in light of events such as Israeli Apartheid
Week, which the coalition considers to be antiSemitic. (National Post, July 7.)
SHALIT BILLBOARD GOING UP IN
L.A.—(New York) A massive billboard calling
attention to the plight of captive Israeli soldier
Gilad Shalit has been put in Los Angeles. The
billboard features a large photograph of Shalit
and reads, “I was kidnapped by Hamas on June
25, 2006. I have been held hostage.… Free
Gilad Shalit.” Gal Sitty, 28, raised $7,000 to
erect the billboard. (JTA, August 7.)
“[The cartoon] is manifestly anti-Semitic and, before a worldwide Internet
audience, incites hatred against Jews as well as against Americans.”—Hillel
Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, in a letter to U.N. high commissioner for
human rights Navi Pillay, condemning the Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on Palestinian rights, Richard Falk, for posting a vehemently anti-semitic cartoon on his blog. The cartoon depicts a dog wearing a yarmulke marked
with a Star of David devouring a bloody human carcass. Falk responded by saying: “Maybe I do not understand the cartoon.… It may be in bad taste to an
extent I had not earlier appreciated, but I certainly didn’t realize that it
could be viewed as anti-Semitic, and still do not realize.” Falk has previously
called Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians “a holocaust-in-the-making.”
(JTA, July 7.)
“Khaled Mouammar, President of the Canadian Arab Federation, has always
had some fairly unhinged attitudes toward Israel. So maybe I shouldn’t be
surprised that he is now distributing an article with the subject line “Possible
Israeli Connection to Oslo Attacks.” The article…concludes as follows:
‘Increasingly, it looks like [the] Mossad’s fingerprints are all over [the Norway killings].… They’re experts at these type operations, using convenient
stooges for plausible deniability.… Spread the word, and keep the pressure on
Israel and its Washington paymaster/partner, masters of mass murder
crimes.”—Excerpts from a Jonathan Kay article, entitled “President of Canadian
Arab Federation spreads conspiracy theory that Norway attack was Israel’s handiwork,” describing an article written and distributed by Khaled Mouammar, president of the Canadian Arab Federation. (National Post, July 26.)
“Flotilla Folk want to be human rights heroes without really putting themselves in harm’s way. So they don’t go to help the victims of the brutal regimes
in Syria, Iran, the Congo or Darfur. Instead, they choose to fight Israel
because they know it strictly follows Western humanitarian standards and the
rule of law.… Flotilla Folk share a basic philosophy: They believe that the way
to bring peace to the Middle East is through acts of civil disobedience that will
get media attention, not through encouraging negotiations between Israelis
and Palestinians.… They think it is okay to ignore the fact that Hamas is an
Iranian proxy, and that Hamas’s founding document calls for the murder of
Jews, the “obliteration” of Israel and its replacement with a fundamentalist
theocracy that opposes all the freedoms and social justice values for which the
Flotilla Folk claim to stand.… And they act as though it is okay to ignore the
hate-filled incitement that saturates Palestinian society.…”—Excerpts from an
article written by Roth Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs, entitled
“What do ‘Flotilla Folk’ do?”, exposing the double standards of flotilla “activists,”
who condemn democratic Israel while ignoring the crimes against humanity committed by the Hamas and other terrorist organizations. (Jerusalem Post, July 25.)
“Iran is very directly supporting extremist Shia groups which are killing our
troops, and there’s no reason…for me to believe that they’re going to stop that
as our numbers come down.”—U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, confirming that Iran is providing Iraqi Shi’ite groups with hightech weapons, which are being used to kill U.S. troops in Iraq, and affirming that
any agreement to keep US troops in Iraq beyond the end of the year “has to be
done in conjunction with control of Iran in that regard.” All US troops are
scheduled to withdraw from Iraq by Dec. 31. (Reuters, July 8.)
“I believe that he lost all sense of humanity.”—UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon, describing Syrian dictator Basha al-Assad’s violent crackdown on protestors, and comparing the ongoing suppression to the 1982 massacre in Hama of 20,
000 innocents perpetrated by Assad’s father. (National Post, August 3.)
Israfax – September 21, 2011 – 3
ISRAFAX
Continued from Page 2
threatening its security and sovereignty, then further, concrete
steps could be taken, which would severely weaken the Jewish
state, and even threaten its very existence. For instance, Security Council and General Assembly majorities—with either passive or active US support (an eventuality we shall return to)—
could enact measures choking off its key trade with Europe or
blocking foreign and military aid from the U.S.
Persistent Israeli resistance could even see direct “international community” intervention (stationing UN forces along the
West Bank pre-1967 [i.e., 1949] “borders”, withdrawing the
American troops still policing the Sinai border with Egypt, and
so on).
The goal of the “anti-Zionist” delegitimation movement,
which long predates the current Palestinian “UDI” gambit, is
severely to weaken Israel, by first turning it into an international (indeed, the only) pariah state and then, ultimately, to cause
its collapse. Such a collapse could be effected through a combined external energizing of a series of crises, eventuating in a
renewed Arab onslaught, and internal reinforcing of a severe,
debilitating, and ultimately paralyzing political-ideological division.
Hence the delegitimation campaign, which is absorbing much
pro-Palestinian energy and to which significant funds are clearly being devoted, must be understood not as some kind of frivolous extreme-left political psychotherapy or irrelevant campus
fringe play-acting, but as a serious and coordinated part of the
larger strategy of continued Arab opposition to the very existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.
Which is where the Palestinian “Unilateral Declaration of
Independence”, now scheduled for September 20, 2011 at the
UN, comes in. Piggy-backing on US President Obama’s grandstanding “peace process” demands, that Israel cease expanding
“settlements” and that the pre-Six Days War 1967 “borders”
serve as the basis for negotiation, the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas
broke off direct negotiations with Israel. Declaring that there
could be no negotiations until “settlement” construction was
entirely stopped (never heretofore an impediment to IsraeliPalestinian talks), Abbas came up with a new strategy: avoiding
the Oslo Accord-mandated direct negotiations entirely, and
moving instead directly to a “UDI”.
This gambit, if successful, would enable a Palestinian state to
come existence without recognizing the political-juridical legitimacy of Israel. Not incidentally, it also provides the Palestinians with an “out” insofar as one of Israel’s fundamental
demands for any peace treaty is concerned, recognition as a
Jewish state. This seemingly self-evident reality (clearly
expressed in the language of the 1947 UN Palestine partition
vote, which Israel accepted and the Arabs rejected) has consistently been repudiated by the Palestinians. And this rejection is
key, for it clearly implies a lack of a commitment to a “twostate”—one Palestinian Arab, one Jewish—political solution:
recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would rule out, for instance,
the supposed “right of return” of millions of Palestinian
“refugees.” Still part of the PLO Charter, and consistently
defended by Mahmoud Abbas (let alone Hamas), such a
“return” would, if allowed, swamp Jewish Israel.
The working assumption about a UDI until very recently has
been that it would, surely, be vetoed in the Security Council by
the United States, Israel’s main ally, certainly by Germany, currently a non-permanent member, and probably by Great Britain
4 – September 21, 2011
and France as well (that Russia and China, the remaining permanent members of the Security Council, would abstain, or perhaps even support the UDI, was a given).
Such a veto would not, of course, block a potential General
Assembly vote, where the Palestinians have a built-in Arab
bloc/Latin American/Third World majority, but such an affirmation, while not without propaganda value, has no constitutive
value—only a unanimous Security Council vote can approve a
new state. (Indeed, a General Assembly majority had already
approved a Palestinian state, in 1988, to no practical effect.)
Here a number of recent possibilities must be faced. While
Germany’s Angela Merkel has stated that Germany would not
vote for a Palestinian state, Bundestag election- and foreign-policy related pressures might yet lead to an abstention; and the
closer to the vote we get, the more possible pro-votes by the
French and British, ever vigilant to curry Arab favor, become.
Further, and much more importantly, America under Obama,
who has been currying Arab and Muslim opinion ever since his
Cairo Address, and whose pressure on Israel in the first place
led to the Palestinian withdrawal from talks and Abbas’ UDI
policy, is far from rock-solid in its anti-UDI Security Council
stance.
(Indeed, some Israeli insiders believe that the sudden
announcement this month by Israel’s Netanyahu, that he was
ready to negotiate on the basis of the 1967 borders [Obama’s
recent “peace process” suggestion, which Bibi had earlier and
eloquently shot down], if the PA’s Abbas returned to negotiations, was prompted by American threats of Security Council
abstention, or worse, unless Israel relented.)
Obama’s coolness to Israel—the one major US ally he has yet
to grace with a personal visit—and to Netanyahu has been evident since the beginning of his Presidency. Quick to abandon
US—and Israel—ally Hosni Mubarak just as the Egyptian Arab
Spring rebellion began, but slow to move against both Iranian
and Syrian dictators (Israeli enemies), despite popular rebellions
against them, the depth of Obama’s commitment to Israel,
despite much campaign-oriented lip-service, is at best shallow.
Most observers assume he would not risk Jewish, and general U.S. support (opinion polls rank pro-Israel sentiment at
almost 70%) in the fast-approaching U.S. Presidential election.
On the other hand, Obama—facing severe negative economic
and political (Afghanistan, Iraq) pressures—has been steadily
falling in the public opinion polls, and no President facing an
8%+ unemployment rate in November has ever won re-election.
Obama, a highly ideological left-wing Democratic liberal,
has himself said he would rather be right than be re-elected: facing sure defeat in November, 2012, might he perhaps see voting
for a Palestinian State in the Security Council as part of his
political “legacy”, his campaign to “remake” America?
Is it far-fetched, then, to see American Middle East policy
under the Obama Administration meshing with the anti-Israel
delegitimation campaign and its related Palestinian UDI move?
An American President disposed to favor Israel’s Arab enemies at the UN, regardless of domestic electoral consequences,
would indeed be a novum, a radical new political fact. Is such a
conjecture largely a function of Obama’s luke-warm Israel policy, a mistaken conflation of unrelated inferences? Or might it
illuminate a deeply dangerous new reality for Israel and the Jewish people?
(Prof. Krantz is Director of the Canadian Institute
for Jewish Research, and Editor of its Daily Isranet
Briefing and Israfax publications.)
BOYCOTTING THE BOYCOTTERS—ISRAEL FIGHTS BACK
Israel Facing New Wave of
Arab Aggression
MOSHE ARENS
Three waves of aggression have been launched against Israel
during the last 63 years, in attempts by Israel’s enemies to
destroy the Jewish state. The first wave, an attempt to defeat the
Israeli army on the battlefield, began in 1948 and continued, with
interruptions, until 1973. The Yom Kippur War, which was
launched with simultaneous assaults by Syria and Egypt…
caught Israel by surprise, before it had a chance to mobilize its
army reserves, and these armies initially made substantial
advances on both fronts. However, this was to be the last Arab
attempt to challenge Israel on the battlefield. Within three weeks
the Israel Defenses Forces, having called up its reserve units,
crossed the Suez Canal, cut off the Egyptian Third Army and
stood 101 kilometers from Cairo; in the north, Israeli forces were
within artillery range of Damascus.…
With the deployment of their armies no longer a viable option,
Israel’s enemies decided to use the weapon of terror. That was
the second wave of aggression against Israel. The terror weapon
was twofold: rockets launched from a distance against Israeli
population centers, and suicide bombers. With the arrival of the
suicide bombers…the terror weapon, which until then had not
been considered a major threat to Israel’s existence, began to tear
away at the fabric of Israeli society.
The terrorists claimed that what could not be achieved on the
battlefield could be achieved in the streets of Israel’s cities. Many
in Israel insisted that terrorism could not be defeated militarily.
The IDF and the security services proved them wrong with Operation Defensive Shield, in April 2002, when the army entered
Palestinian cities and suppressed the terrorist menace. The terror-
Israel Is Right to Crack Down
on All Boycotts
GERALD M STEINBERG
Since its independence in 1948, Israel has been confronted by
several boycott campaigns.… The objective of this form of warfare was and remains the rejection of the sovereign Jewish nation
state, regardless of boundaries.
In 2001, the Non-Governmental Organizations Forum of the
United Nation’s Durban “World Conference against Racism”
expanded this campaign in the form of the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement. The NGOs at Durban…adopted
a final declaration, sponsored by Palestinians and written during
a preparatory conference in Tehran, calling for “the imposition of
mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, [and]
the full cessation of all links…between all states and Israel.…”
The NGO boycott movement has become a major form of
“soft power” warfare, reinforcing the ongoing security threats
faced by Israel. The language of the BDS campaign reflects its
objectives: referring to all of Israel as “occupied territory” and
exploiting the “apartheid” label, accompanied by crude allegations of “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, and war crimes.…
NGOs involved in BDS also promote the Palestinian narrative,
rocket threat, from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza
Strip, has not been eliminated but Israel is capable of dealing
with it at a time of its choosing.
As it became clear that Israel had overcome both waves of
aggression, its enemies chose another direction. This time it was
a worldwide campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel, an
attempt to make Israel an outcast among the nations, subjecting
it to boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions. This campaign is
gaining momentum.
The first wave of aggression naturally had the support of the
Arab world. The second wave was also supported by Europe’s far
left and various fringe terror organizations. But the global campaign for the delegitimization of Israel will need much broader
support if it is to succeed. It is not very difficult to mobilize such
support, starting with the United Nations. Nearly one third of UN
member states are Muslim countries, assuring an automatic
majority for any anti-Israel resolution at the General Assembly.…
The Quartet, a relatively new forum consisting of the United
States, Russia, the European Union and the UN, has become
another source of pressure against Israel. Add to all these the
many Muslims living in Western Europe, the well-meaning “liberals” who are convinced that they know more about what is
good for Israel than the democratically elected government of the
state—a pressure group that includes a good number of Jews and
even Israelis—and it is clear that a formidable coalition against
Israel already exists.…
Fortunately, Israel has grown strong economically and militarily over the years and should be able to overcome this third wave
of aggression, as it has the first two.
(Haaretz, July 20. Moshe Arens was CIJR’s 23rd Annual
gala "Keynote Speaker" in June--see our website
[www.isranet.org] for a video of this address.)
for example on refugee claims (the so-called “right of return”)
that are inconsistent with the two-state framework necessary for
a stable peace. Similarly, the militant advocacy of a one-state formula—the replacement of Israel by a Palestinian-Arab state—is
part of the BDS agenda.
In this context, recent moves by influential NGOs on the
Israeli left, such as Peace Now and the New Israel Fund, to promote economic and cultural boycotts of communities beyond the
green line (the 1949-1967 ceasefire line) are inseparable from the
BDS movement. While NGO officials refer to “targeted boycotts”, the use of this divisive tactic and symbol blurs the core
distinction between the objectives of the two boycott campaigns.
While the Zionist Israeli left claims to oppose BDS, its use of
selective boycotts adds more weight and recognition to the established BDS “brand-name”, implying that Israeli peace groups are
silent partners.…
In Israel’s political arena, “limited boycotts” will not revive
the left, but rather increase the friction between the ideological
poles and further alienate the centre. For groups claiming to promote peace, boycott campaigns in any form are counterproductive.
(Gerald M. Steinberg, a CIJR Academic Fellow,
is the founder and president of NGO Monitor.
Jewish Chronicle, July 28, 2011)
Israfax – September 21, 2011 – 5
ISRAFAX
DELEGITIMATION (“APARTHEID”) PREPARES WAY FOR ISRAEL’S DESTRUCTION
Israel—An Apartheid State?
DENNIS PRAGER
Next month, the U.N.-sponsored Hate-Israel Festival known as Durban III takes
place.… The great bulk of the conference, like its Durban I and II predecessors, consists of condemning Israel for racism and equating it with an apartheid state. Of the
world’s many great lies, this is among the greatest.…
Israel has nothing in common with an apartheid state, but few people know enough
about Israel—or about apartheid South Africa—to refute the libel. So let’s respond.
First, what is an apartheid state? And, does Israel fit that definition?
From 1948 to 1994, South Africa…had an official policy that declared blacks second-class citizens in every aspect of that nation’s life. Among many other prohibitions
on the country’s blacks, they could not vote; could not hold political office; were forced
to reside in certain locations; could not marry whites; and couldn’t even use the same
public restrooms as whites.
Not one of those restrictions applies to Arabs living in Israel. One and a half million
Arabs live in Israel, constituting about 20 percent of the country’s population. They
have the same rights as all other Israeli citizens. They can vote, and they do. They can
serve in the Israeli parliament, and they do. They can own property, businesses, and
work in professions alongside other Israelis, and they do. They can be judges, and they
are. Here’s one telling example: It was an Arab judge on Israel’s supreme court who
sentenced the former president of Israel, a Jew, to jail on a rape charge.
Some other examples of Arabs in Israeli life: Reda Mansour was the youngest
ambassador in Israel’s history.… Ishmael Khaldi was until recently the deputy consul
of Israel in San Francisco; Khaled Abu Toameh is a major journalist with the Jerusalem
Post; Ghaleb Majadele was…a minister in the Israeli Government. They are all Israeli
Arabs. Not one is a Jew.
Arabs in Israel live freer lives than Arabs living anywhere in the Arab world. No
Arab in any Arab country has the civil rights and personal liberty that Arabs in Israel
have. Now one might counter, “Yes, Palestinians who live inside Israel have all these
rights, but what about the Palestinians who live in what are known as the occupied territories? Aren’t they treated differently?”
Yes, of course, they are—they are not citizens of Israel. They are governed by either
the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) or by Hamas. The control Israel has over these people’s lives is largely manifested when they want to enter Israel. Then they are subjected to long lines and strict searches because Israel must weed out potential terrorists.
Otherwise, Israel has little control over the day-to-day life of Palestinians, and was prepared to have no control in 2000 when it agreed to the establishment of an independent
Palestinian state to which it gave 97 percent of the land it had conquered in the 1967
War. The Palestinian response was to unleash an intifada of terror against Israeli civilians.
And what about the security wall that divides Israel and the West Bank? Is that an
example of apartheid? That this is even raised as an issue is remarkable. One might as
well mention the security fence between the United States and Mexico an example of
apartheid. There is no difference between the American wall at its southern border and
the Israeli wall on its eastern border. Both barriers have been built to keep unwanted
people from entering the country.… What appears to bother those who work to delegitimize Israel by calling it an apartheid state is that the barrier has worked. The wall
separating Israel from the West Bank has probably been the most successful terrorismprevention program ever enacted.
So, then, why is Israel called an apartheid state? Because by comparing the freest,
most equitable country in the Middle East to the former South Africa, those who seek
Israel’s demise hope they can persuade uninformed people that Israel doesn’t deserve
to exist just as apartheid South Africa didn’t deserve to exist. Yet, the people who know
better than anyone else what a lie the apartheid accusation is are Israel’s Arabs—which
is why they prefer to live in the Jewish state than in any Arab state.
There are lies, and then there are loathsome lies. “Israel is an apartheid state” is in
the latter category. Its only aim is to hasten the extermination of Israel.
(National Review, August 30, 2011.)
6 – September 21, 2011
“Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of
Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of
gross racial discrimination and
inequality.… The responses made by
South Africa to human rights abuses
emanating from…apartheid…shed[s]
light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can
speak of a just and lasting peace in the
Middle East and an end to its
apartheid policies.”—Former South
African president, Nelson Mandela, in a
letter to NY Times columnist Thomas
Friedman. (March 28, 2001.)
“The present report considers developments relevant to the obligations of
Israel under international law.…
Emphasis is given to the cumulative
impact of Israeli policies in the West
Bank and East Jerusalem arising from
prolonged occupation, which exhibits
features of colonialism and apartheid.…”—Opening lines from a report
compiled for the UN General Assembly by
Richard Falk, “Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in the Palestinian
territories occupied since 1967.” (August
30, 2010.)
“Over time, the apparatus of Israeli
control has become more sophisticated
and effective in affecting Palestinian
life. It’s not exactly like the South
African apartheid. In some respects
it’s not as bad, but in some respects it’s
worse.”—Noam Chomsky, speaking at
Boston University’s “Israel Apartheid
Week”. (March 3, 2010.)
“I’ve been very deeply distressed in my
visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me
so much of what happened to us black
people in South Africa.…”—Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in a Guardian op-ed
entitled “Apartheid in the Holy Land.”
(April 29, 2002.)
For Me, Not For Thee
EMMANUEL NAVON
[On July 14], Bastille Day, the new Republic of South Sudan became a member
state of the United Nations. After being oppressed, massacred and plundered for
decades by Khartoum, the people of South Sudan finally obtained the independent
state they fought for.
Theoretically, the Palestinians should rejoice and ask the UN why they are
denied what the South Sudanese were just granted. Instead, PA President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a letter to Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir (a
man accused of genocide and of crimes against humanity by the International
Criminal Court) to express his opposition to South Sudan’s independence. It’s
called self-determination for me, not for thee.
Just as Abbas was about to reap the gold medal for hypocrisy, Catherine Ashton
broke a new record. After the Knesset passed a law last week that enables Israeli
citizens to bring civil suits against people or organizations instigating anti-Israel
boycotts, the EU foreign policy chief expressed public concern for freedom of
speech in Israel.
It seems Ashton too is now eligible for the gold medal of hypocrisy, because in
Europe anti-Israel boycotting is a criminal offense. In France you can go to jail for
three years and pay a €45,000 fine for trying to impede economic activity out of
political, ethnic, or religious prejudice (Articles 225-1 and 225-2 of the “Code
pénal”).
The French law is more stringent than the one recently passed by the Knesset.
The new Israeli law does not criminalize boycotts. It only allows “citizens to bring
civil suits against persons and organizations that call for economic, cultural or academic boycotts against Israel.…” So the New Israel’s Fund’s statement that the
new law “criminalizes freedom of speech” is false and misleading.…
US law also prohibits anti-Israel boycotts. The Anti-boycott laws under the US
Export Administration Act of 1979 (as amended in August 1999) prohibit American companies from furthering or supporting the boycott of Israel. The penalties
imposed for each violation can be a fine of up to $50,000 or five times the value of
the exports involved (whichever is greater), and imprisonment of up to five years.
It is ironic that the same people in Israel who claim that freedom of speech can
suffer no infringement said the very opposite two weeks ago when the police
arrested Rabbi Dov Lior. We were told at the time that freedom of speech can and
should be curtailed when it borders incitement. True, there is a difference between
incitement and boycotts (though boycotts often turn into incitement). But either
freedom of speech suffers no limitation, or it does. And democracies such as the
United States and France do limit freedom of speech in order to prevent incitement
as well as boycotts. So you are allowed to limit freedom of speech in order to prevent discrimination in America and in France, but not in Israel. It’s called freedom
of speech for me, not for thee.
No less ironic is the fact that the very same people in Israel who said after the
arrest of Rabbi Lior that the law is sacrosanct are now making a point of publicly
defying the law by boycotting Israeli goods produced beyond the “green line.…”
Two weeks ago, the law was sacrosanct. Now, it is a moral duty to break it. It’s
called rule of law for thee, not for me.
So who gets the gold medal for hypocrisy? Mahmoud Abbas, Catherine Ashton,
or MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz)? The contest being so tight, here is a compromise.
Let’s grant French citizenship to Gal-On to deter her from discriminating between
Israeli products for political reasons. Let’s have Catherine Ashton write an essay
on “why civil lawsuits are more dangerous to freedom of speech than criminal
prosecutions.” And let’s appoint Mahmoud Abbas “UN Special Envoy for the Universal Implementation of the two-state solution including, inter alia, in Sudan,
Libya, Lebanon, Morocco, Cyprus, Belgium, Canada, and China.” It’s called making of fool of thee, not of me.
(Jerusalem Magazine, July 19, 2011. Emmanuel Navon is
an International Relations Lecturer at Tel Aviv University.)
Israfax – September 21, 2011 – 7
ISRAFAX
DOUBLE-STANDARDS AND SHIPS OF FOOLS
Ships and Planes of Fools
Pick Wrong Target
ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
The recent attempts by anti-Israel extremists to break Israel’s
naval blockage of Gaza and to flood Israel’s airports with troublemakers have failed.
The ships of fools, knaves, hypocrites, bigots, and supporters of
terrorism that tried to sail from Greece have…been run aground.…
And those who tried to flood Israel’s airports [have been] deported. The resulting fiasco, which was designed to discredit Israel,
has succeeded only in discrediting the Israel bashers on the boats
and planes by exposing their true purpose.
The alleged purpose of the ships was to feed the starving Arabs
of Gaza. The problem is that the Arabs of Gaza are not starving.
Nor are they in need of outside help.…
In fact, according to news reports, the residents of Gaza are far
better off than the residents of many Arab areas in the Middle
East. Medical care is better, infant mortality is lower, longevity is
higher, employment is increasing, cars are plentiful, food is more
available and the quality of water and air is higher. The Gross
National Product has risen dramatically over the past year.
To be sure, the citizens of Gaza do not have freedom of speech,
freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to dissent or
the ability to join political parties that are out of favor. These limitations are the fault of Hamas, not of Israel.…
So if the fools on the ships were really interested in helping
Arabs who are truly in need of…provisions, they would set sail for
ports in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and other areas of the Middle East.
But these hypocrites have no interest in helping the downtrodden.
Double Standard When Fiends Slain
BRIAN SMITH
On March 22, 2004, a rocket fired from an Israeli helicopter
gunship terminated the life of the terrorist leader Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin. As expected, world reaction was swift and almost unanimous in its condemnation of Israel.
Yassin, a founder of Hamas, was a virulent anti-Israel and antiSemitic demagogue who repeatedly called for the destruction of
the Jewish state. Among his more memorable statements are “reconciliation with the Jews is a crime” and Israel “must disappear
from the map.”
In 1989, Yassin was arrested by the Israelis for masterminding
the abduction and murder of Israeli soldiers and was sentenced to
life imprisonment. However, in 1997 he was released in a prisoner exchange.… In violation of the terms of his release, Yassin
resumed his leadership of Hamas and immediately started a campaign of suicide bombings against Israeli civilian targets. After
years of masterminding several appalling terrorist attacks on
Israel, his reign of terror was finally brought to an end…in 2004.
In a display of unwarranted antipathy to Israel, and a denial of
its right to self-defence, countries of the world united in condemning the Jewish state. A brief survey: The European Union
issued a statement condemning Israel’s “extra-judicial” assassination of Yassin; United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
condemned the assassination as a violation of international law;…
French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Herve Ladsous said [that]
8 – September 21, 2011
Their only interest is in delegitimizing the Jewish state of Israel.
Many of those on the ships actually support the most oppressive
regimes in the Middle East, such as the Syrian regime, which murders its civilians in cold blood; the Iranian regime, which brutally
suppresses dissent; Hezbollah which murders its political opponents; and Hamas which subjugates women and executes gays.…
A common virus among many on these ships is a hatred for
Jews, the Jewish state, America, and the West. Some are selfhaters, because they themselves are Jews, Israelis or Westerners.
Others are Arabs who cannot abide the notion of the Jewish state,
regardless of its size or borders, anywhere in the Middle East.…
These sea and air efforts to delegitimize Israel by applying a
double standard to its actions have failed. There will be others.…
[In] September, [efforts will be made] to use the machinery of
the United Nations…to delegitimize Israel. [This] will include a
vote to recognize the Palestinian state without requiring the Palestinians to sit down and try to negotiate a real peace with Israel. It
will also include [attempts] by the notorious [UN] Human Rights
Council to condemn Israel for virtually everything it’s done since
it came into existence 63 years ago.…
Those who really believe in universal human rights applied
equally to all nations throughout the world should condemn these
efforts to single out Israel for delegitimizing. They should join
with other true supporters of human rights in prioritizing the
human wrongs throughout the world and seeking to confront them
by demanding the application of a single standard.
When a proper standard is universally applied, Israel’s record
on human rights shines in comparison with the records of nations
and groups supported by the fools and hypocrites on these boats
and planes.
(Hudson Institute, July 11, 2011.)
“France condemns…the principle of any extra-judicial execution
as contrary to international law;” British Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw called it an “unlawful killing.…”
In contrast, the same countries, so quick to beat their breasts in
moral outrage at Israel’s actions, have reacted quite differently to
the assassination of Osama bin Laden by the United States: European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, reflecting generally positive reactions among EU leaders, said, “we have woken up to a
more secure world;” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said
“The death of Osama bin Laden…is a watershed moment in our
common global fight against terrorism;” [French] President Nicolas Sarkozy…described his death as “a major blow to international terrorism,” adding that victims of al-Qaida terrorism “received
justice today;…” British Prime Minister David Cameron said that
bin Laden’s death would “bring great relief” around the world.…
Ahmed Yassin was responsible for some 425 brutal and cowardly attacks on Israel civilians carried out by Hamas. At least 377
Israelis were murdered and 2,076 wounded in the 3.5 years preceding his death.… Yet to its great shame, the world laments the
death of the murderer of Jews while lauding the U.S. for assassinating bin Laden.
It is time for the world community to abandon this double standard and to accord to Israel and Jews everywhere the same right
of self-defence that is claimed by every other people on the face
of the globe.
(Montreal Gazette, May 12, 2011.
Prof. Smith [McGill] is a CIJR Academic Fellow.)
NON-JEWISH JEWS & THE DELEGITIMATION OF ISRAEL
Memo to Kibitzers
SARAH HONIG
Israel’s ambassador to Washington is the guest at a prestigious
nationally televised interview series, but is soon set upon by his
particularly pugnacious host. The strikingly prosecutorial interviewer homes in on “the charge that Israel threatens world peace
with a policy of territorial expansion.” He quotes “a major Arab
spokesman” who asserts that “the area of the territories held by
Israel today exceeds by about 40 percent the area of the territories given Israel by the United Nations. Most of this added
area…was taken by force, and should therefore be relinquished
by Israel.”
Ho hum. So what’s the big deal? Aren’t we habitually painted
as insatiable gobblers of Arab land, and aren’t we just as routinely required to cede our “ill-gotten” gains?
True, this could all have been a colossal bore, were it not for
the date of the above face-off. It took place on April 12, 1958,
shortly before Israel’s 10th birthday. And that makes Abba
Eban’s appearance on The Mike Wallace Interview program
supremely important.
Almost every demonizing and delegitimizing canard to which
we have by now grown so inured had already manifested itself
back then. It’s almost as if nothing has changed except incidental
names of protagonists and the fact that Eban’s suave wit and
unflappable poise are no more. Otherwise, what was thrown at
Eban by Wallace (born Myron Leon Wallechinsky to Jewish parents) sounds garden-variety familiar more than 53 years later.
But most of our opinion-molders prefer we not develop a sense
of historical continuity. They have a vested interest in keeping us
from recognizing our travails as a single ongoing saga. Chopping
our past into small, disconnected segments helps distort the big
picture and warp it to fit political agendas.
This can work because we’re a peculiar folk. We’re a nation of
inveterate kibitzers (meddlesome dispensers of unsolicited and
often irrelevant advice). We’re a nation doggedly hankering after
indistinct idealized times-that-were. We’re a nation of chronic
bellyachers, forever bemoaning the present and bully-ragging
whoever we put in charge (but who, obviously, has less sense
than the least among us does).
We’re experts at being argumentative and contrary, which is
perhaps why we already gave our first leader—Moses—such a
hard time, why we could never (thankfully) kowtow to a dictator,
or even unite behind a cohesive religious authority. Any scholarly rabbinical viewpoint invariably sparks raging debate.
Given our idiosyncratic predilections, it’s no wonder our
national pastime is kvetching about how much better things used
to be.
For Tzipi Livni, happy days were relatively recent—just
before her nemesis Binyamin Netanyahu defeated her. With verbal hocus-pocus, it’s easy to erase the bad memories of Ehud
Olmert’s failed premiership, in which she played a starring role.
Further to her left, the good times ended on June 4, 1967,
before we won the Six Day War. Israel’s angst-filled peaceniks
yearn for that tiny, imperiled, hemmed-in Israel, which they tell
us was universally loved and admired. Why? Because we were
diminutive, not an ogre empire, not an interloping conquistador,
not an oppressive occupier. As such, nobody could resist our
untainted, wholesome charms.
This is seductive. We all wax nostalgic, which is why we can
all fall for the fable. Hence it’s imperative that we consider
whether we were ever—even as a renascent pioneering people—
the darlings of the civilized world.
Once we make allowances for cumulative historical processes
and the propaganda-amplifying potential of new technologies, it
becomes obvious that the differences we perceive are mostly in
detail rather than substance. The bare essence was uncannily the
same back in the day.
Just get a load of Wallace’s opening salvo: “In its 10 years as
a state, Israel has been involved in repeated violence, major border incidents and two open wars.” The subtext is that there’s
something unsavory and belligerent about Israel, that it’s a troublemaker.
But then Wallace pulled out bigger guns—the Arab refugees:
“Such men as historian Arnold Toynbee have said [that] ‘The evil
deeds committed by the Zionist Jews against the Arabs are comparable to crimes committed against the Jews by the Nazis.’”
Are we shocked? What can be more perversely prevalent in
our existence than Nazi epithets hurled at the country that resisted annihilation merely three years after the Holocaust?
But perhaps we should all memorize Eban’s timeless retort. He
accused Toynbee of “monstrous blasphemy. Here he takes the
massacre of millions…and compares it to the plight of Arab
refugees alive, on their kindred soil…possessed of the supreme
gift of life. The refugee problem is the result of an Arab policy
which created the problem by the invasion of Israel, which perpetuates it,…and which refuses to solve the problem which they
have the full capacity to solve.”
Just as worthy of recall is Eban’s comment about Israel’s
alleged expansionism. He advised everyone “not to lose any sleep
at night worrying about whether the State of Israel is too big.
Really there is nothing more grotesque or eccentric in the international life of our times than the doctrine that little Israel, 8,000
square miles in area, should become even smaller in order that the
vast Arab Empire should still further expand.”
Wallace escalated his provocation: “Mr. Ambassador, do
you…foresee further territorial expansion by Israel?…” Wallace
wouldn’t let go: “Israel benefited territorially from a war, from
armed violence.” Eban was unfazed: “Yes, I’m glad to say that I
hope that whenever countries wage a war of aggression, as the
Arab States did, they should be the losers.…”
The entire exchange reveals the pervasiveness of anti-Israel
mainstream-media bias long before the Six Day War. Although
the Arabs controlled all the territories which Palestinians currently claim for their state, Israel was portrayed, already then, as an
occupier—because it successfully fended off a concerted attack
by seven Arab armies on the day of its birth.
Eban, it needs stressing, was an out-and-out dove. Yet it was
he who on November 5, 1969, told Der Spiegel: “We have openly said that the map will never again be the same as on June 4,
1967. For us, this is a matter of security and of principles. The
June map is for us equivalent to insecurity and danger. I do not
exaggerate when I say that it has for us something of a memory
of Auschwitz.… This is a situation which will never be repeated
in history.”
What was true then remains true still.
(Jerusalem Post, July 8, 2011.)
Israfax – September 21, 2011 – 9
ISRAFAX
ISRAEL AS “ANTI-CHRIST”: THE MYTH OF ZIONIST RACISM
The Myth of Zionist Racism
ROBERT S. WISTRICH
It is almost 10 years since the UN-sponsored World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, inaugurated a new
stage in the history of “anti-racist” anti-Semitism. The Durban
gathering of August 2001, ostensibly devoted to commemorating
the struggle against apartheid, was rapidly transformed by the
assembled NGOs into a raucous hate-fest against Israel.
During the proceedings the Jewish State, to quote Canadian MP
Irwin Cotler, found itself singled out as “a sort of modern-day
geo-political anti-Christ.” A flood of anti-Semitic slanders mixed
with savage criticism of Israel, Iranian-inspired conspiracy theories, leftist anti-Zionism and hecklers ranting at Jews under the
banner of human rights, irrevocably poisoned the atmosphere.
One of the more scandalous and obscene flyers at Durban even
bore a picture of Adolf Hitler with the pointed question: “What
would have happened if I had won? The Good Things. There
would have been no Israel and no Palestinian bloodshed. The rest
is your guess.” The NGO Forum also made sure to insert deliberately relativizing references to genocides in general, holocausts
(with a small “h”) and, above all, to highlight the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians, allegedly perpetrated by Israel. Needless to
say, this abysmal spectacle did not deter the UN from making
Durban the centerpiece for its future “anti-racism” agenda.
Under the circumstances, it was perhaps all too appropriate that
the keynote speaker for Durban II in Geneva (held on April 20,
2009) was none other than the world’s leading Holocaust denier,
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. By some macabre
coincidence he spoke at the UN podium on Hitler’s 120th birthday, which also coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day in
Israel. Brazenly abusing the misplaced honor he had been given,
Ahmadinejad once again vilified Israel as a “totally racist state,”
endlessly ranting on about the “Zionist racist perpetrators of genocide.”
For the Iranian leadership this is most certainly not a matter of
mere rhetoric but a determined geo-political strategy. Hard-core
Holocaust denial is an integral part of its policy to delegitimize
and dismantle the Jewish State. It is also a thumb in the eye of
those nations that helped in its establishment. Some of these more
pro-Israel countries, led by Canada and the United States—followed by Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Poland—publicly refused to participate in the UN antiracism charade. Canada and the US have already indicated that
they will also be absent from the Durban III masquerade planned
for this coming autumn.
In terms of de-legitimization, however, much of the damage
has already been done. During the past decade probably no falsehood has gained greater traction than the big lie that Israel is an
apartheid “racist state”—not only towards the Palestinians but in
relation to the wider world. In retrospect, this canard can be seen
as the greatest single triumph of Soviet propaganda in the mid1970s, when the USSR and the Arab states masterminded the
notorious UN Zionism=Racism resolution.
Since then (and especially after Durban I), the charge has
become solidly entrenched in many Western countries. Despite its
obvious mendacity, it underlies the Boycott, Disinvestment and
Sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel on university campuses in the West and the accompanying “Israel Apartheid Week”
events as well as many of the anti-Israel condemnations by NGOs
10 – September 21, 2011
and in the UN Human Rights Council.
The apartheid analogy and the myth of Zionist racism are classic examples of cynical political warfare aimed purely at stigmatizing or delegitimizing Israel out of existence. Such fabrications
totally disregard the context and content of South African
apartheid, based on an institutionalized discrimination anchored
in a formidable array of strictly enforced racial laws.
From birth to death it was always skin color and statutory race
classification that determined human and civic rights in whitecontrolled South Africa. The black majority (90% of the population) had no right to vote or to be elected; it could not freely
choose its place of residence, work or occupation. Mixed marriages or even sexual relations across the race barrier were criminalized, there were separate benches in parks for whites and
blacks, separate buses, hospitals, libraries, restaurants, as well as
segregated places of entertainment.
Any person even casually acquainted with Israel’s vibrant
democracy knows that there is not even the remotest comparison
between its free and open society and the grim reality of South
African apartheid. But then ideological delegitimization and slanderous misuse of the apartheid analogy is not about the “criticism”
of Israel, let alone “learning the lessons of history” or achieving
freedom for the Palestinians. The objective is not to help solve an
intractable national conflict (made even more difficult by the rise
of Islamic fundamentalism) but to demonize Israel as the embodiment of ultimate “racist evil”—an accusation designed to remove
any moral grounds for its existence.
Those engaged in de-legitimization initiatives—whether Iran,
the Palestinians, Arab states, left-wing militants or members of
Western academic elites—are engaged in propaganda and politicide, not the pursuit of truth.
And while academics, activists and world leaders attempt to
combat this evil, tenaciously pursuing the truth and trying to figure out if and how we can win the war against those who delegitimize Israel (as Canadian MP Cotler and his fellow panelists will
later this month at the third Israeli President’s Conference: Facing
Tomorrow 2011 in Jerusalem,) I believe that the current success
in defaming Israel is but a Pyrrhic victory. Like the repressive
tyrannies and benighted theocracies in the Muslim Middle East,
which are slowly crumbling before our eyes, their days are numbered. We will still be here after they are long gone.
(Ynet News, June 12, 2011. Prof. Robert S. Wistrich, director
of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of
Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
is a CIJR Academic Fellow.)
Book Review — Continued from Page 2
tragedy of the “forgotten” Holocaust, is an excellent presentation
by historians with intimate knowledge of the crimes committed
by the Romanian establishment against Romanian Jews.
The fine work of the editors, Valentine Glajar and Jeanine
Teodorescu, provide the reader with a sound overview of the prevailing anti-semitism in Romania prior to the Holocaust, which
issued first in violence and then, after 1940, in the full-scale
genocide of Romanian Jewry.
This book is a unique and timely presentation focusing on a
“forgotten cemetery.” The authors are deserving of one hearty
“Multumesc!” (Thank you!).
(Baruch Cohen is Research Chairman for the CIJR)
“J-STREET”: THE SCANDAL OF JEWISH ANTI-ISRAELISM
J Street’s Soft Sell for the Uninformed
ISI LEIBLER
Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and president of J Street, has written
a highly misleading book titled “A New Voice for Israel” that portrays himself as a passionate supporter of the Jewish state and a
dedicated Zionist, extolling the virtues of his purportedly “pro
Israel, pro-peace” organization.…
[Ben-Ami] writes that “our generation must fulfill the dream of
Zionism and achieve peace with its neighbors,” but that if a new
war were to break out threatening Israel’s existence, “world Jewry
would without a doubt appropriately rally to the flag.” He supports
a two-state solution (which, subject to national security provisions,
most Israelis today endorse), favors the division of Jerusalem and
opposes settlements. He claims (falsely) that the Jewish establishment muzzles any criticism of Israel. He urges that J Street supporters Walt and Mearsheimer (authors of a book defaming the
Jewish lobby) not be treated in a McCarthyist manner. He considers personal attacks on Richard Goldstone, whom he describes as
a “noble Jew,” counterproductive. He says Israelis should respect
the Palestinian “narrative.”
One may strongly disagree with such viewpoints, but one would
hesitate before calling even such shrill criticism “anti-Israel.” Yet
Ben-Ami’s book is a disingenuous attempt to paint a sanitized,
respectable portrait of an organization whose principal objective is
to undermine the policies of Israel’s democratically elected government.
It does so at a time when the Jewish state is facing existential
threats and undergoing an international campaign of demonization
and delegitimization.
The dividing lines between J Street and mainstream Jewish
groups are not its views, but its efforts to convince Americans to
encourage [U.S.] President Barack Obama to pressure the Israeli
government. It is surely unconscionable for trendy American Jews
to canvass their government to force Israel to act contrary to its
will regarding national security, with potential life-and-death
repercussions. J Street justifies this on the grounds that Israelis
need “tough love,” comparing us to children on drugs who must be
pressured into doing what’s good for them, or impounding the car
keys of a drunken friend.
The blatant dishonesty of Ben-Ami’s stated willingness to back
Israel during war was demonstrated by J Street’s approach to the
Gaza conflict—which united all sections of the Israeli political
spectrum, including the far-Left Meretz. J Street applied moral
equivalence to Israel and Hamas, claiming that “there are many
who recognize elements of truth on both sides of this gaping
divide,” and reproached Israel for launching “a disproportionate
response.” It stated that “we recognize that neither Israelis nor
Palestinians have a monopoly of right and wrong,” and accused
Israelis of “lacking sanity and moderation” in their attitude toward
Hamas.
J Street also supports and finances the candidacy of anti-Israel
congressmen, and constantly campaigns against pro-Israel resolutions in Congress. Immediately following the Fogel family massacre, J Street even opposed a bi-partisan congressional resolution
condemning the PA for anti-Semitic incitement.… It facilitated
meetings on Capitol Hill for Goldstone to promote his discredited
report. Furthermore, in 2009—at the height of the Iran sanctions
debate—Ben-Ami published an article opposing UN sanctions.…
J Street lobbied against a US veto of an anti-Israel resolution at
the UN Security Council, prompting Democratic Congressman
Gary Ackerman to sever ties with the group, quipping that “J
Street is so open minded about what constitutes support for Israel
that its brains have fallen out.” J Street repeatedly slanders
AIPAC and its efforts to generate bi-partisan support for Israeli
governments, labeling it an extreme right-wing body. It warns
American Jews that their “one-sided support of Israel” could lead
to charges of dual loyalties. One of its founding partners and a
member of its advisory board, Daniel Levy, even told a gathering
in Abu Dhabi that the creation of Israel was “an act that was
wrong.…”
Ben-Ami tries to make light of the scandal that exposed him as
a serial liar, obliging him to apologize for having repeatedly
denied that J Street was clandestinely funded by George Soros, a
pathologically anti-Israel Jew. There are other anonymous offshore donors, and evidence that much of J Street’s funding
emanates from sources hostile to Israel, including Arabs.
The list of J Street’s anti-Israel initiatives is endless. Most are
either ignored or played down in Ben-Ami’s misleading book,
which could well serve as a case study of Orwellian double-speak,
topped by the dishonest manner in which it portrays itself as “proIsrael”. It is reminiscent of the “pro-peace” communist front organizations that sought to dupe bleeding-heart liberals into believing
they were promoting peace, whilst in reality they were advancing
the interests of the “Evil Empire.…”
J Street has failed to expand beyond the very narrow band of the
anti-Israel far-Left and naive fellow travelers. It would be an act of
folly to accept it now as part of the Jewish mainstream.
(Jerusalem Post, August 10, 2011. Isi Leibler is
a member of CIJR’s International Board.)
Israfax – September 21, 2011 – 11
ISRAFAX
The Necessity of Israel
Honour Roll
Rabbi Ronnie Cahana
Sabina Citron (Jer.)
CANADIAN INSTITUTE
INSTITUT CANADIEN
DE
FOR
JEWISH RESEARCH
RECHERCHES
SUR LE JUDAÏSME
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Prof. Frederick Krantz, Director
Prof. David Pariser, Associate Director
Joseph Shier, National Chairman
Baruch Cohen, Research Chairman
Irwin G. Beutel, Immediate Past Chairman
Jack Dym, Vice-Chairman
Thomas O. Hecht, Vice-Chairman
Amos Sochaczevski, Vice-Chairman
Evelyn Schachter, Chairman, Young Adult/Youth Board
Naomi Frankenburg, Vancouver Chairman
Joe Schlesinger, Treasurer
Machla Abramovitz
Ori Bauer
Hy Beraznik
Rosanne Beraznik
Rabbi Ronnie Cahana
Jordan Charness
Randy Charness
Ariela Cotler
Manuel Dalfen
Joyce Deitcher
Myer Deitcher
Nathan Elberg
Gerry Feifer
Herb Feifer
Dr. Hy Goldman
Lionel Goldman
Louise Roskies Goldstein
Abigail Hirsch
Linda Israel
Rabbi Asher Jacobson
Lenore Krantz
Ira Kroo
Esther Luftglass
Rabbi Lionel Moses
Lawrence Muscant
Rabbi Reuben Poupko
Ted Quint
Aaron Remer
Kurt Rothschild
Rabbi Adam Scheier
Frank Schlesinger
Edmond Silber
Richard Tozman
Gustava Weiner
Rabbi Michael Whitman
Leonard Wolman
Nathan Yacowar
Dorothy Zalcman-Howard
David Zand
Rabbi Mordecai Zeitz
Gerald N.F. Charness l’’z
Hilda Golick l’’z
Richard Golick l’’z
Michael Herling l’’z
Irving Bob Levitt l’’z
Gisela Tamler l’’z
Edward Winant l’’z
ACADEMIC COUNCIL
Prof. Frederick Krantz, Chairman
Amotz Asa-El (Jerusalem Post)
Prof. Amatzia Baram (Haifa U.)
Prof. Julien Bauer (l’U. du Québec à Mtl.)
Prof. Anne Bayefsky (Columbia U.)
Prof. David Bensoussan (l’U. du Québec à Mtl.)
Prof. Aurel Braun (U. of Toronto)
Prof. Abraham Brodt (Concordia U.)
Prof. Louis H. Feldman (Yeshiva U.)
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld (JCPA)
Yossi Klein Halevi (Shalem Center)
Prof. Mikhail Iossel (Concordia U.))
Prof. Feige Kaplan (McGill U.)
Prof. Robert H. Kargon (Johns Hopkins U.)
Barbara Kay (National Post)
Prof. Richard Landes (Boston U.)
Prof. Seymour Mayne (U. of Ottawa)
Prof. David Menashri (Tel Aviv U.)
Prof. Csaba Nikolenyi (Concordia U.)
Dr. Mordechai Nisan (Hebrew U.)
Prof. Jean Ouellette (l’U. de Montréal)
Prof. David Pariser (Concordia U.)
Prof. Daniel Pipes (Middle East Forum)
Prof. Norrin Ripsman (Concordia U.)
Prof. Ira Robinson (Concordia U.)
Prof. Asaf Romirowsky (Middle East Forum)
Prof. Gad Saad (Concordia U.)
Prof. Philip Carl Salzman (McGill U.)
Prof. Haim Shaked (U. of Miami)
Dr. Gabriel Schoenfeld (Hudson Institute)
Prof. Brian Smith (McGill U.)
Prof. Gerald Steinberg (Bar-Ilan U.)
Prof. Asher Susser (Tel Aviv U.)
Prof. Raphael Vago (Tel Aviv U.)
Prof. Leon Volovici (Hebrew U.)
Prof. Harold Waller (McGill U.)
Ehud Ya’ari (Jerusalem Report)
Prof. Limore Yagil (Haifa U.)
Prof. Sally Zerker (York U.)
Emil Fackenheiml’’z
Elie Kedouriel’’z
Annette Paquotl’’z
CIJR INTERNATIONAL BOARD
Nathan Elberg, Chairman
Moshe Arens
Alan Baker
Yosef Begun
Yehuda Blum
Rabbi Abraham Cooper
Yoram Dinstein
Abraham Foxman
Alan Gerson
Amb. Dan Gillerman
Baruch Gitlis
Arye Globerson
Dame Ida Haendel
Malcolm Hoenlein
Isi Leibler
John Loftus
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Naomi Regan
Andrew Roberts
Kenneth Treister
Robert Wistrich
James Woolsey
Gen. Moshe Yaalon
Clara Balinsky l’’z
Menahem Begin l’’z
Ludmilla Chiriaeff l’’z
Ephraim Katzir l’’z
Eliahu Lankin l’’z
Henry Zvi Weinbergl’’z
12 – September 21, 2011
DAVID SOLWAY
As everyone knows, Israel is the one nation on earth whose right to exist is being constantly questioned and challenged. It is the disproportionate target of the United Nations
Human Rights Council which devotes the majority of its sessions to attacking the Jewish
state while giving the world’s most egregious Human Rights violators a Get Out of Jail Free
card. Israel is subject to a worldwide BDS campaign and to the vicious defamation of Israel
Apartheid Weeks hosted on our morally debased university campuses. The ideology of the
left demonizes Israel as a racist and conquistador nation that must be delegitimized, launching books, blogs, resolutions and flotillas against its very existence. Meanwhile, its Muslim
neighbors have vowed to physically erase it from the map of the world.…
Why should this be so? Are we witnessing the geographic displacement of a millennial
prejudice from the diaspora to the nation, with Israel as the collective incarnation of the
“international Jew”? Is the current assault on Israel merely the contemporary form of the
age-old pogrom? Has the West embarked on a political and economic entente with the petrotyrannies of the Muslim Middle East, selling its soul in the process to a triumphalist
Islam?… The answer to such rhetorical questions is self-evident.
But bigotry and baseless aspersion are never openly admitted. Rather, for antisemites and
anti-Zionists, Israel is regarded as a geopolitical irritant, a historical mistake, an artificial
construct that should never have been established, however validly and legally. For the
Quartet negotiators (the UN, The EU, the United States and Russia), and particularly for
Britain, France and Germany, it is as if UN Resolution 242, guaranteeing “secure and recognized boundaries,” has no legitimate force. For Islam, Israel is an interloper in the region,
despite the indisputable historical fact that Israel and Judea predate the Arab occupation of
the Holy Land by more than a thousand years. For the so-called “realist” school of international relations, Israel is a political liability and therefore ultimately dispensable.…
And yet it may justifiably be claimed that Israel is one of the most necessary countries in
the world. It is, to begin with, a haven for the Jewish people from the world’s ancient antipathy.… It is a testimony to the sense of historical continuity and cultural memory in an age
of temporal dissipation. It is a sign of what is possible when a people gathers together and
pools its intelligence, courage, obstinacy and talent to create a vibrant pluralist democracy
in the midst of ignorance and barbarism. It is the source of innumerable technological, medical and agricultural discoveries and inventions that have immeasurably benefitted the world
at large. It is also an object lesson in how to manage a robust economy.… And it is, of
course, the spearhead of the democratic West in the war against Islamic terror, receiving and
resisting the brunt of the theo-imperialist onslaught against Western institutions, interests
and, indeed, its long-term survival.…
Israel is necessary because it will tell us who and what we are.… It constitutes a catechism for the West, a trial of values and a test of honor and principle—a test which the West
appears to be failing. For the cherubs of political correctness and the fantasists among the
intelligentsia cannot abide what Israel ideally exemplifies: the belief in justice and truth, the
commitment to a genuine historic purpose and the virtue of unapologetic self-affirmation.
This is not to suggest that Israel is without blemish or that it has not been partially infected by the Western proneness to false hope and political myopia—the Oslo travesty, the disengagement from Gaza and the “peace process” mirage are examples of such lapses, among
others.… Nonetheless, there can be no denying that since its founding it has embodied an
ideal of heroism, determination, enterprise and spirit rare, if not unprecedented, in both its
intensity and concentration. In this respect it is like no other nation on earth.
For this reason, the narrow slip of land between the Jordan River, the Judean hills and the
Mediterranean is a kind of litmus strip for the civilization of which it is an intrinsic yet disparate part, to ascertain whether that civilization is viable or deficient, strong or weak,
resilient or bankrupt, capable of integrity or inwardly corroded by spiritual indifference and
intellectual corruption. In other words, the way in which the West responds to Israel and its
ongoing predicaments serves as an infallible indication of civilizational vitality or irremediable decay.
This small nation of six million Jewish citizens—the same number as those who were lost
in the unthinkable infamy of the Shoah—demonstrates, for all its flaws, the pluck and vigor,
the energy, fortitude and tenacity, that seem at present to be in short supply among the major
occidental powers. It is a country that should be celebrated, not condemned; it represents a
model we should be shooting for, not shooting at. For in the last analysis, Israel provides an
image of the possible while at the same time serving as a touchstone of the real.…
(FrontPage, May 3, 2011)