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Toronto Star Fixates on Fake Number of Palestinian Refugees, Despite Correction

Daled Amos - Tue, 17/05/2016 - 16:01
CAMERA has prompted a correction by The Toronto Star in its article about Artist Ai Weiwei’s refugee documentary takes him to Gaza.

They write Toronto Star Corrects Inflated Number of Palestinian Refugees:
CAMERA has prompted correction of a Toronto Star photo caption which grossly inflated the number of Palestinians displaced in the 1948 war. The erroneous caption last week had stated:
The number of Palestinians who were displaced during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s establishment is estimated at more than five million people.


Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei with his film crew in Gaza.(Khalil Hamra / Associated Press)
In fact, in an article investigating the question How Many Palestinian Arab Refugees Were There?, historian Efraim Karsh's detailed analysis puts the number of Palestinian refugees as being at most 600,000.

So, if you are The Toronto Star and acknowledge that CAMERA is correct and the number of Palestinian refugees was 600,000 and not 5,000,000 -- what do you do?

Do you correct the caption to read:
The number of Palestinians who were displaced during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s establishment is estimated at six hundred thousand peopleNot if you are The Toronto Star.

Instead, the new corrected caption still used the "5,000,000" number and now reads:
The number of Palestinians who were displaced during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s establishment, along with their descendants (emphasis added) is estimated at more than five million peopleThe text does bring the caption in line with the article itself which from the start made the point that by counting the descendants of Palestinian Arabs you reach 5,000,000 refugees. But the question is how accurate is such a statement, since the refugee count of no other people includes descendants to inflate their numbers.

More importantly, the article continues to impress the 5 million number upon the reader instead of using the more accurate 600 thousand one -- and leaving out the fact that the vast majority of those "refugees" today are in fact descendants.

On the other hand, the article does leave the reader with an insight into the dishonesty of the count of Palestinian refugees -- albeit unintentionally.

The end of the article reads:
Correction: A photo caption accompanying a photo with this article was edited from a previous version to make clear that the number Palestinians displaced during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s establishment includes their decedents (emphasis added).This emphasizes a point CAMERA makes in Why Palestinians Still Live in Refugee Camps:
There is also incentive never to report deaths of people considered to be refugees – since the rations for the deceased would be discontinued.I suppose we should be glad that The Toronto Star at least got that right.

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Bernie Sanders Has Family Living in Israel -- Just Like Hamas Terrorist Leader Haniyeh

Daled Amos - Fri, 15/04/2016 - 06:48
Update: Sanders suspends Jewish outreach director who blasted Israel, Netanyahu

Just how does one prove their pro-Israel credentials these days, especially if you are a politician looking for the Jewish vote?

Well, if you are Bernie Sanders you might be expected to have an easier time than most.

During the Bernie Sanders interview with The Daily News Editorial Board, he certainly did seem to hit all the right notes, and then some:
  • “Here’s the main point that I want to make. I lived in Israel. I have family in Israel. I believe 100% not only in Israel’s right to exist, a right to exist in peace and security without having to face terrorist attacks..."

  • "Israel will make their own decisions. They are a government, an independent nation..."

  • “There are going to be demands being made of the Palestinian folks as well...for a start, the absolute condemnation of all terrorist attacks. The idea that in Gaza there were buildings being used to construct missiles and bombs and tunnels, that is not where foreign aid should go. Foreign aid should go to housing and schools, not the development of bombs and missiles.”
Anthony Delmundo / New York Daily News Speaking with Sanders
One could question how much weight having family in Israel should carry -- after all, Hamas terrorist leader Ismail Haniyeh has three sisters secretly living in Israel as full citizens -- and 35 years ago, he used to visit his sisters in Israel as well. Of course, Haniyeh does not go around bragging about this. That's probably because Ismail does travel in different political circles than Bernie.

Then again, during that same interview, Sanders found another way to outdo Hamas, saying that
my recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. Does that sound right? I don't have it in my number...but I think it's over 10,000. My understanding is that a whole lot of apartment houses were leveled. Hospitals, I think, were bombed. So yeah, I do believe and I don't think I'm alone in believing that Israel's force was more indiscriminate than it should have been.The Sanders number of "over 10,000" civilians killed exceeds the Hamas figure of 1,617 civilians killed. According to the UN the number was 1,462 civilians killed, and Israel estimates the number of Gazan civilians killed as 762.

Odd.

As Varda Epstein writes, If You Love Israel You Don’t Exaggerate Civilian Deaths by a Factor of Ten. Nor do you allow yourself to be ignorant of what was happening at those schools and hospitals in Gaza and what Israel did to minimize casualties there.

And if you love Israel, you generally don't hire people to be in charge of Jewish outreach who hate Israel.

It turns out that the Sanders campaign’s newly hired Jewish outreach director condemned Israeli PM Netanyahu as a mass-murderer:


Zimmerman later cleaned up her post, substituting the words "politician" and "Shame on you" where appropriate.

In her favor, when she rounded up the number of Gazans killed, Zimmerman did not exaggerate as much as Sanders did.

Sanders does seem a bit tone deaf when it comes to Israel. Take for example the incident at the Apollo Theater when Bernie Sanders was challenged with an antisemitic statement:
“As you know,” opened the questioner, “the Zionist Jews–and I don’t mean to offend anybody–they run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign.” As this unfolded, Sanders began wagging his finger in dissent, and interjected to deem “Zionist Jews” a “bad phrase.” His interlocutor, pressed to articulate a question, concluded by saying, “What is your affiliation to your Jewish community? That’s all I’m asking.”

“No, no, no, that’s not what you’re asking,” Sanders quickly replied, in a nod to the question’s underlying prejudice. “I am proud to be Jewish,” he declared, to cheers from the audience. But then Sanders did something odd. Rather than using the question as a teaching moment to address and rebuke its anti-Semitic underpinnings, Sanders instead immediately pivoted to his stump speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Talking about Zionism and Israel,” he said, “I am a strong defender of Israel, but I also believe that we have got to pay attention to the needs of the Palestinian people.” He never challenged the actual contents of the question, let alone labeled it anti-Semitic.While there may be valid reasons to try to explain his reluctance to address this antisemitic slander head on, the fact remains that Sanders did not address the comment and failed to take advantage of the moment. Instead, he changed the topic to Israel in order to push his claim of balance by blaming both Israel and the Palestinians equally.

Bernie Sanders does not make an issue of his Jewishness, and that is fine. Nor is he the most outspoken defender of Israel -- and that is OK too. But when he addresses Israel as a political issue in his run for for presidential nomination, Sanders should not be given a pass on his stands and statements on Israel. The fact he lived on a kibbutz for a few months in 1963 or that he has family there is not relevant.

But what Bernie Sanders says about Israel, that he hires people who accuse Israel of mass murder and how he hides behind the issue of Israel rather than address antisemitic slanders -- that is relevant.
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James Joyce, Van Gogh, and The Unique Use of US Customs To Make Their Work Legal

Daled Amos - Mon, 21/03/2016 - 18:31
Here I am in the hospital, after hurting my knee, and my roommate is a 92 year old retired professor of literature who can describe at length the background and details of the lives of past literary figures.

Like James Joyce.


Portrait of James Joyce by Patrick Tuohy. Credit: Wiki Commons
Joyce's novel Ulysses was controversial because some of its passages were considered to be pornographic and so it was banned in the United States in 1921 for obscenity, based on an 1868 English case where the test for obscenity was
whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.That is how matters stood until Bennett Cerf, one of the founders of Random House decided he wanted to publish Joyce's novel in 1933. In order to challenge the ban on Ulysses and clear the way for the publication without being prosecuted, Cerf imported a copy of the French edition of Ulysses and actually arranged to have it seized by the US Customs.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy.

First, despite the fact that he was warned about the book in advance, the Customs official didn't want to seize it because "everybody brings that in."

Even then, the United States Attorney took seven months before he finally decided he wanted to go ahead.

Finally, the case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses came before Judge John Munro Woolsey, who found that Ulysses was not written with pornographic intent and did not have the "leer of the sensualist." On the question of whether the novel itself was pornographic, basing himself on Joyce's use of 'stream of conscious', Woolsey stated that
[i]n respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of [Joyce's] characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.Random House started publishing Ulysses in January 1934.

This case reminds me of the case of a Van Gogh painting discussed by Rudolf Flesch in his book The Art of Clear Thinking.

I think the 2 cases are similar -- see if you agree.

In 1949, William Goetz -- a Hollywood executive -- bought a Van Gogh painting called "Study by Candlelight," only to have Van Gogh's nephew claim the painting was a fake. Worse yet, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York assembled a group of experts who agreed it was a forgery.

Study By Candlelight, by Van Gogh (maybe)
What to do?

Goetz shipped the painting back to Europe.

Then he had 'A Study by Candlelight' brought back into the United States.

When it went through US Customs, as expected, because the painting was not considered to be an authentic Van Gogh, but just a forgery, customs duty was demanded. Goetz of course refused to pay because he considered it an original. So the case was handed over to the detectives of the Treasury Department.

Which was Goetz's plan all along.

The way Flesch describes it
The detectives analyzed everything the jury of experts had analyzed before. But they focused on one thing the four art experts had paid no attention to whatever: the meaning of the Japanese inscriptions. Three Japanese experts were called in and promptly found some typical mistakes a European would make; what's more, they found those same mistakes in other Japanese inscriptions by Van Gogh whose authenticity was known.On the basis of this analysis, the Treasury Department decided that Goetz was the owner of an authentic Van Gogh after all -- although an article from USA Today, tracing the history of the debate over Van Gogh's 'Study By Candlelight" notes that the controversy over the painting continues.

In any case, here are 2 cases -- albeit over half a century ago -- of using US Customs to trigger legal cases in order to validate works of art and literature.

It's not the kind of thing I normally blog about, but I found it interesting.
And I hope that you did too.

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Hamas Terrorists Exploits Arabs in the West Bank As Well As Those in Gaza

Daled Amos - Fri, 18/03/2016 - 13:40
When Evelyn Gordon asks Are Palestinian Stabbings Ending?, she points out that the Palestinian stabbing attacks will continue only so long as the perceived reward outweighs the cost.

And the numbers indicate that a turnaround has begun. Thus:
in a poll taken just three months ago, fully 67 percent of Palestinians supported the stabbing attacks, including 57 percent of West Bank residents. Yet in the latest poll, not only did overall support fall to 56 percent but, in the West Bank, 54 percent of respondents opposed the stabbings.Gordon explains that this cost of the stabbings -- to the West Bank Arabs -- is three-fold:

  • The stabbings are devastating the Palestinian economy. According to Arab merchants, since the start of the stabbings in October, 35% of Arab businesses in East Jerusalem have been closed -- and it is likely the effect on the West Bank as a whole has been similar.

  • The economic impact of the stabbings to Israel has been negligible. During the first 3 months of attacks, Israel’s economy rose by 3.9% -- an improvement over the previous nine months.

  • Every Palestinian attacker has been captured or killed, with the number of Palestinians killed during attacks on Israelis equal to roughly five times the number of Israeli fatalities. With the certainty of death or imprisonment, there is a limit to how many people are willing to volunteer for these attacks.
And that cost to West Bank Arabs is the key to why in Gaza, where they have not been providing these "lone-wolf" attackers, they have not had to face the consequences for the attacks, and therefore 79% of them favor continuing those attacks. Meanwhile, by contrast, the West Bank is the source of most of these attacks, feels the repercussions of them and within three months public opinion has gone from 57% in favor to 54% opposed.

This allows Hamas to continue to incite hatred and terrorist attacks against Israel without having to face any of the consequences.

Screenshot of Hamas video encouraging stabbing of Jews
Of course, such exploitation by the Hamas terrorists is not new, as they regularly exploit the Gazans under their rule as well.

Avi Issacharoff writes that Hamas uses tax money, donations from well-meaning countries eager to ease hardship for Gazans, to fund its military build-up

A prime example is the homes being built for the approximately 17,000 families whose homes were destroyed during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. The homes are being donated by Qatar and a new neighborhood, paid for by Qatar, is being named "Hamad City" in honor of the father of the present ruler of Qatar. Hamas created a lottery to select residents for the 1,040 new units.

So far, so good.

The catch is that Hamas requires the winners to pay $40,000, claiming either that the money is needed for connecting the apartments to water and electricity or that the money is being used as a donation for those still homeless. Considering the rate of unemployment in Gaza and that the average person makes $174 a month, the price is stiff.

The bottom line is that Hamas will be making $36 million off of Qatar's generosity.

And Hamas exploitation of Gaza does not stop there:
  • When Israeli security forces return the vessels of Gazan fishermen who go beyond the permitted fishing boundary, over smuggling concerns, the fisherman are forced to pay a tax to Hamas to get their boats back.

    Times of Israel. Illustrative: Fishing vessels are moored at Gaza City's harbor on
    August 18, 2014. (AFP/Roberto Schmidt)
  • Gazans are also required to pay a tax to Hamas whenever they need help from the police -- this despite the fact that salaries of the police are being paid by Iran.


  • Payment is required of Gazans who need a doctor's note in order to receive emergency medical treatment either in the West Bank or in Israel. For good measure, Hamas uses these people for transferring money or messages to their operatives in the West Bank.
Hamas does quite well for itself off of the suffering of their own people -- leading to an article on the billionaire leaders of Hamas as examined in a TheTower.org article on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Terrorists.

Ismail Haniyeh (R) and Hamas associates on Haniyeh’s private plane
on the way to Qatar. Source: Breaking Israel News
The Hamas terrorists who lead the government continue to benefit from the people of Gaza under their rule. Their exploitation of the people extends beyond times of war, when they use the people as human shields to protect rockets and mortars -- using concrete and other supplies to build tunnels to protect weapons instead of bunkers to protect Gazans during the wars they start. Even in times of peace, Hamas never fails to find a way to milk the people of Gaza for all they are worth. And now Hamas is only too happy to incite terrorist attacks against Israel -- attacks that will be carried out by Arabs in the West Bank, where the consequences will be felt.

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In Blooper, State Department Spokesman Claims Demolitions in Southern Israel Prevent A Two-State Solution

Daled Amos - Tue, 15/03/2016 - 19:20
In southern Israel, the problem of the Bedouin homes there is a complex problem, combining the issue of Bedouin claims with the Western media's willingness to unquestioningly publish them and the European Union to honor them.

Legal Insurrection discusses Negev Bedouin problems – real and imagined and Akiva Bigman discusses in an article for The Tower why the Bedouin's claims to the Negev are outrageous.

A central claim of the Bedouin is that they are indigenous to the Negev, thus deserving of special consideration and rights under international law.

Bedouin village in the Negev. Photo: Nati Shohat / Flash90 

While the EU is more than happy to accept this as fact, there is research by Havatzelet Yahel and Seth J. Frantzman explaining why the Bedouin are not indigenous to the Negev and that in fact “most of [the Bedouin tribes] arrived fairly recently, during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, from the deserts of Arabia, Transjordan, Sinai, and Egypt.” Although Bedouin tribes did reside in the area before then, the Ottoman Empire’s tax records from the 16th century indicate that that Bedouin tribes living in the Negev back then are related to those tribes living there today.

So what do the Bedouin tribes in the Negev have to do with Judea and Samaria -- the "West Bank" -- and the Two-State Solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs?

Absolutely nothing.

However, Israel's demolition of illegal houses is not limited to the Bedouins -- nor to the Arabs. So when he hears a question about alleged illegal demolition of homes in the Negev, State Department Spokesman John Kirby quickly opens his notes to get the right phrases, but in the process gets the entire context wrong and explains how Israeli demolition of homes in the West Bank have a negative impact on peace:



Despite the fact that Israel demolishes homes illegally built by Jews, just as it demolishes homes illegally built by Arabs, the topic of the state demolishing homes is a sensitive and controversial topic. It is a topic so sensitive, that the mere mention of it welcomes the kind of well-used boilerplate platitudes that Mr. Kirby is so quick to bring out. It is an honest mistake confusing house demolitions in the Negev with those in the West Bank.

Others, both in the media and in the West, are not so careful.

Hat tip: Regavim Advocacy Project


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The Three Ways Israel Faces Isolation -- Yet Succeeds In Making Friends and Influencing People

Daled Amos - Wed, 09/03/2016 - 15:24
I'm unmoved by the hand-wringing over Israel's "isolation." When I came to the country 30 years ago, Israel had no relations with the USSR (and Eastern Europe), China, and India. There was no foreign investment and a UN General Assembly resolution still stood, condemning Zionism as racism. It will take more than a Cairo mob, a truculent Turk, and another UN resolution to make me feel "isolated."
Middle East expert Martin Kramer, quoted by Todd Warnick in The "Isolation" Canard

For decades, claims are periodically trotted out that Israel -- by virtue of its actions -- is being faced with the threat of being isolated.

In describing Jerusalem's Decreasing Isolation, Efraim Inbar delineates 3 ways to measure a county's isolation:

  • The number of states that have diplomatic relations with a particular country. 
  • Membership in international governmental organizations and agencies. 
  • The amount of negative attention a state receives in international forums and public opinion. 
The claim that Israel is isolated on account of lacking friends and allies on the international stage is constantly being debunked. Just this week, Arsen Ostrovsky wrote that Israel not as isolated as many people think.

He notes that on Monday alone:
  • Netanyahu met the new Egyptian Ambassador, after a three year absence, and relations between Israel and Egypt are at a recent all-time high.
  • PM Netanyahu also announced a trip to Kenya and Africa, following the Kenyan President’s successful visit last week
  • The Knesset launched a new Israel-Africa caucus to strengthen ties with Israel, after Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed was quoted as saying that most African countries “see Israel as a very close friend.”
  • Both a senior delegation from the Bundestag, as well as the Italian Defense minister, visited Israel.
  • There are reports that Israel and Turkey are on the verge of normalizing diplomatic relations
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with new Egyptian Ambassador
Hazem Khairat in Jerusalem, February 29, 2016. (photo credit:KOBI GIDEON/GPO)
That is just within a 24 hour span on Monday.Ostrovsky notes Israel's other diplomatic successes over the longer term:
  • Trade relations with India, China and Japan are at record high
  • The Governments of Britain and Canada as well as the EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini have strongly denounced the BDS Movement, with a number of states in the US doing likewise
  • Israel has been forming close strategic ties with Greece and Cyprus
  • Israel continues to have strong diplomatic relations with Germany, where Netanyahu and Chancellor Merkel recently headed government meetings.
  • Relations with Russia are good, with cooperation on the situation in Syria
  • The threat of ISIS has improved relations between Israel and the Sunni Arab states.
Obviously, things are not nearly as good when you turn your attention to Israel's involvement with international agencies and organizations:  there are always problems at the UN, and Israel has problems with the EU, especially in connection with the labeling of Israeli products from Judea and Samaria ("The West Bank"). Getting back to Inbar, who was writing in 2013, he contends that while Israel's relations with the UN have not improved -- they have not gotten worse either. In fact, Israeli diplomats feel that in some ways, the UN has actually become less hostile.

After becoming a temporary member of the Western European and Other States Group in 2000, Israel became more integrated into the UN and has more involved in its agencies. Jerusalem has hosted UN-sponsored conferences and its international aid agency, Mashav, is supported by both the UN and other international agencies. In May 2010, Israel was also admitted to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, consisting of the 33 most developed countries in the world committed to democracy and the market economy. Israel is also an associate member of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), ensuring Israel's involvement in scientific projects in Europe.

Prime Minister Netanyahu (third from left) joined hands in Paris with leaders
(left to right) Andrus Ansip, Estonia; Felipe Larrain, Chile; Silvio Berlusconi, Italy;
Borut Pahor, Slovenia, and Angel Gurría, secretary general of the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development, when Israel was formally admitted
into the exclusive organization. Credit: MEF
Inbar notes that "Israel's enhanced position is based on European perceptions of its own self-interest rather than ideological alignment."

International forums and public opinion are another matter, what with the attempt to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it as an apartheid regime. The success of this 'Durban strategy' is not clear, with the effectiveness of the BDS movement debatable at best. Inbar suggests that some of Israel's isolation is the result of the Obama administration, specifically the diminishing clout of the US during his term as president.

Also of concern is the escalation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism on college campuses, not only because of the increase of the  phenomenon itself, but because of the lack of a strong response from the college and university heads as well. Yet even here, the fight on campuses is being joined. BDS campaigns there have not been as successful as in the past, with the defeat of divestment resolutions now making headlines.

Israel is not isolated.

Saying that obviously does not mean the threat of isolation does not exist. It does exist, and on all three levels -- diplomatic relations with other countries, international governmental organizations and agencies and  in international forums and public opinion. However, Israel is making headway in all three areas.

Yet, Israel to some extent will probably always fulfill the words of Balaam, who called the Jewish nation "a people that dwells alone".



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3 Examples Of The Growing Trend To Label Stories Of Campus Antisemtism As "Crying Wolf"

Daled Amos - Tue, 01/03/2016 - 15:49
There seems to be a new trend developing in the face of the growing incidents of antisemitism reported on college campuses -- outright denial along with claims that such reports are mere exaggeration.

Take Vassar for example, where the president of Vassar, Catharine Hill claims social media misrepresents tensions as incidents of antisemitism.

What kind of "tensions"?

Legal Insurrection has been tracking the spread and increasing appearance of antisemitism on college campuses. At Vassar, here are some examples:

  • In 2014 Jewish students were mocked and jeered by a crowd of students and faculty at a campus-wide forum

  • A class involving a trip to Israel and the West Bank was picketed, forcing a professor to cross a picket line of shouting students

  • Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) posted a Nazi cartoon on social media, and pro-Israel displays were vandalized.

  • Recently, a Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign was kicked off by SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace, followed by an event sponsored by the faculty where Israel was accused of  experiments to “stunt” Palestinian bodies

  • In response to a pro-Israel post by the Vasser Jewish Student Union on Facebook, a student replied "F*ck Jews" via Yik Yak

  • SJP promoted the sale of t-shirts honoring Palestinian terrorist Leila Khalid, the first female plane hijacker:

Catalog image of shirt honoring Palestinian terrorist Leila Khalid,
the first female plane hijacker. Credit: Legal Insurrection

The New York Post reported on antisemitic attacks at another campus just a few days ago, under the headline ‘Jew haters’ spread fear at CUNY colleges, with the following list
  • At John Jay College, which specializes in criminal justice, Jewish students have been the target of so many slurs that at lease three have transferred. One John Jay administrator responded to a Jewish student’s concerns by saying, “What are these white kids complaining about?” (emphasis added)

  • On Nov. 12 at Hunter College, during a demonstration for free tuition, Jewish students were denounced as “racist sons of bitches,” “fascists” and “Nazis” and were greeted with comments such as “Jews out of CUNY.” One student tweeted at the time, “Full-blown anti-Semitism allowed at my college . . . I witnessed this and froze in fear.”

  • At Brooklyn College, the pro-Palestinian group disrupted a faculty meeting last week and called a professor wearing a yarmulka a “Zionist pig.” Brooklyn College slammed the “hateful” comments and the disruption.

  • At The College of Staten Island, a pro-Palestinian demonstrator told a Jewish student last November, “I don’t hug murderers.” Swastikas also defaced the college’s desks and walls.
ZOA President Morton Klein is quoted as commenting that CUNY was not doing enough, and that the “hateful, anti-Semitic and violence-inciting conduct” of SJP needed to be addressed in order to protect the safety of the Jewish students:
Such bigotry would never be tolerated by CUNY if it were being directed against another ethnic, racial or other targeted group,” Klein wrote. “CUNY should not be tolerating it when the bigotry is directed against Jews.Jews are not immune at Oxford University either, contrary to the attempt to whitewash what is happening there. UK Media Watch debunks a letter in the Guardian that accuses those who complain about antisemitism as merely "crying wolf." This, in the face of these incidents at Oxford:
  • Members of the Labour Club’s committee have been known to sing the song “Rockets over Tel Aviv” and have specifically expressed support for Hamas’ tactic of launching indiscriminate attacks against Israel’s Jewish citizens.

  • One Labour Club member stated specifically that it was “not antisemitic” to allege the existence of a “New York – Tel Aviv axis” that rigs elections, and said that “we should be aware of the influence wielded over elections by high net-worth Jewish individuals”. He also stated that it was “not antisemitic” to allege the existence of an international Jewish conspiracy, even though he did not endorse the idea himself.

  • One Labour Club committee member stated that all Jews should be expected to publicly denounce Zionism and the State of Israel, and that nobody should associate with any Jew who fails to do so.

  • Several individuals, some who have been on the Labour Club committee, repeatedly used the word “Zio” (a word normally only found on neo-Nazi websites) to refer to Jewish students.

  • Several Labour Club members have alleged that US foreign policy is under the control of the “Zionist Lobby” and when asked if by “Zionist” they simply meant “Jewish” they did not answer.

  • One member of the Labour Club was formally disciplined by their College for organising a group of students to harass a Jewish student and to shout “filthy Zionist” whenever they saw her.

  • In a public discussion on the Labour Club’s Facebook group, one member argued that Hamas was justified in its policy of killing Jewish civilians and claimed that all Jews were legitimate targets. Several other members, including two former Labour Club co-chairs and one then on committee, defended the member as making “a legitimate point clumsily expressed”.

  • Two Labour Club members argued that Jenny Tonge, a peer expelled from the Liberal Democrats over antisemitism, should be encouraged to join the Labour Party.
Ignoring these very real incidents of antisemtism and incitement at Oxford, the writers of the letter go on to lecture:
Those who deliberately confuse antisemitism and anti-Zionism give comfort and aid to the real antisemites in our society. Like the boy who cried wolf, they ensure that if antisemitism does rear its ugly head, people will assume that this is just another false accusation. And therein lies the essence of this growing trend to deflect reports of antisemitism by claiming that Jews are merely overreacting.

Thus we have another claim of overreacting -- this time by Haaretz, about Crying wolf on campus anti-Semitism: The Vassar College talk was no blood libel, claiming that
Jasbir Puar's claim that Israel harvested Palestinian body parts was irresponsible and unsubstantiated – but it wasn't anti-Semitism.What is unclear is whether those who defend these antisemitic attacks would respond the same way if they were directed against any other group. Contrary to others on campus, who are deemed deserving of safe places from microaggressions, Jews are expected to quietly submit to macroaggressions - to all the accusations, intimidation and assaults that are thrown at them. Something heinous is brewing on college campuses, and the one thing Jews cannot and will not be is silent.

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The UN Resolution Equating Zionism With Racism Has Roots In The Cold War in 1965

Daled Amos - Sun, 28/02/2016 - 19:01
Joel Fishman writes that UN Resolution 3379, claiming that Zionism is a form of racism, did not just appear out of nowhere. Though passed in 1975, the roots of the UN resolution equating Zionism with racism can be found in the UN in 1964. Back then, the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities was engaged in discussions aimed at recognizing Antisemitism as a form of racism -- along with apartheid and Nazism.

At the time, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency had the story of what happened next:
Russia Asks U.N. to Condemn Zionism Along with Anti-semitism, Nazism

The Soviet Union called formally upon the United Nations today to condemn Zionism along with anti-Semitism, Nazism and neo-Nazism as a policy of “colonialism and race hatred.” The step was taken in the General Assembly’s Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee where a draft convention was being debated calling for the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.
UN General Assembly (November 1965) UN Photo/TC
The amendment introduced by the US and Brazil, according to which the states would “condemn anti-Semitism and shall take action as appropriate for its speedy eradication in territories subject to their jurisdiction” would not see the light of day.

Instead, it would be replaced with:
“States parties condemn anti-Semitism, Zionism, Nazism, neo-Nazism and all other forms of the policy and ideology of colonialism, national and race hatred and exclusiveness and shall take action as appropriate for the speedy eradication of those misanthropic ideas and practices in the territories subject to their jurisdiction.In the end, Russia's ploy served its purpose. A different amendment was proposed by Greece and Hungary, removing all reference to any specific kind of discrimination.

In her article "Equating Zionism with Racism: The 1965 Precedent", Dr. Ofra Friesel outlines the various motives that surrounded the push both for and against the amendment condemning Antisemitism as racism:
  • The United States wanted to include the issue of religious persecution with racial discrimination in order to deflect international attention away from African-Americans discrimination -- and focus it instead towards the persecution of religious groups in Soviet Russia
  • Soviet Russia wanted to protect itself from international criticism, while at the same time keeping international public opinion focused on the problem of race relations inside the US
  • Israel and Jewish organizations also wanted to use the mention of religious persecution in order to criticize the USSR -- for its persecution of Jews.
  • African and Asian countries did not want to be sidetracked by the issue of religious persecution. They were more concerned with racial discrimination
  • Arab countries saw a religious persecution clause as an attempt to protect Israeli and Jewish interests
If accurate, the US and the USSR appear to have been using their particular amendments to embarrass each other. Thus, it could even be that this time around, the real target of the USSR in thwarting the original amendment by attacking Zionism was the US, and not Israel.

According to Dr. Yochanan Manor, while they occasionally claimed that Zionist leaders cooperated with the Nazis, Soviet Russia did not accuse Zionism of being racist -- instead defining Zionism as chauvinistic, bourgeois and reactionary. They reserved the term "racist" for the non-Slavic national movements which attempted to form ties with ethnic movements outside of the USSR, in an attempt to discredit them.

That all changed in 1967, after the Six Day War, when the Soviets saw the influence of the war on Jewish nationalism.

By 1971, Yakov Malik, the Soviet ambassador was openly lecturing the UN Security Council that Zionism was parallel to Fascism, and the UN was well on its way to UN Resolution 3379, just 4 years later.

Though repealed in 1991, UN Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism served its purpose. It tagged Zionism, and by extension -- Israel, with a slur that continues to be exploited by both virulent anti-Israel critics and by antisemites. While the association may have initially been utilized to thwart the US, ultimately it has been a tool against Israel and will continue to be resorted to by those who deny Israel's right to exist.
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Steven Salaita's Academic Activism Against Israel Leaves No Stone Unturned

Daled Amos - Wed, 24/02/2016 - 15:53
"Moreover, all journalism is a form of activism. Every journalistic choice necessarily embraces highly subjective assumptions — cultural, political or nationalistic — and serves the interests of one faction or another."
Glenn Greenwald, quoted in "Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News?"

If the future of journalism really is that it will be reduced to emotional assumptions instead of fact-based assertions, we can also ask if that is the future of other formerly respected endeavors as well.

Take for instance Steven Salaita, described by Wikipedia as an American scholar, author and public speaker currently holding the Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut.


Steven Salaita Credit: Alalam News Network
Surely being a scholar means that this Salaita is a smart fellow -- that's what a scholar is, no?
Maybe not.

When I did an online search for "scholar," I got the following:
Apparently, it is passe and downright archaic to say that someone who is called a scholar is actually smart or educated. Instead of being defined by what he is, a scholar today apparently is defined by the position he holds. Also a scholar is distinguished. And what distinguishes Salaita?

Here are 3 snapshots of the many tweets by Salaita about Israel (Hat tip: Legal Insurrection, who has many more of Salaita's tweets):





One definition of a "distinguished" person is one who "commands respect" -- obviously, that is not what we are dealing with here.

Salaita was recently among a number of speakers at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London.

UK Media Watch covered the Apartheid Week panel hosted at SOAS, and Salaita made himself at home.

Among his claims:
He said that “humanising Palestinians undermines the Zionist project” and so Zionists associate Palestinians with Hitler and “have a fear of binationalism which is actual democracy” (this drew huge applause and cheers).This claim Israeli demonization is quickly debunked by a look at the EoZ posters for "Apartheid Week", which features poster of prominent Arabs in Israel, including in the Israeli army, judiciary and Knesset -- and check out Elder of Ziyon's post for many, many more such posters.




Salaita also claimed that
“Israel directs so much of its violence at children and takes more Palestinian land for water and agriculture”.Unlike Hamas, which instigates terrorist attacks on unarmed civilians, Israel has only attacked Hamas in response to terror attacks. Even then, Israel does not target civilians, let alone children. Israellycool notes that during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, Israel's care in avoiding children was supported by the Gaza Health Ministry-based list of casualties featured on Al Jazeera

Israellycool put together a chart based on that list:


That chart clearly shows that the Al Jazeera list indicates that to the degree that any age group was targeted, it was the age group associated with terrorists.

As for Salaita's claim about water, myths about the water issue are addressed in The Myth of the Thirsty Palestinian.

A third claim by Salaita is his whitewashing of Palestinians throwing stones:
He then mused on the symbolism of Palestinians throwing stones. He said there’s a miniscule chance of harm from stones (although tell that to the family of Asher Palmer who was killed along with his one year old son when a Palestinian thrown rock smashed through their car windscreen).

He said Israelis see stone-throwing as “an act of rejection” and that “stones assume primordial importance and an existential anxiety”.The Palmers are not the only casualties of stone-throwing Palestinian Arabs. According to Wikipedia, "at least 14 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian stone throwing, including 3 Arabs mistaken for Jews."

And a look at the long history of Arabs throwing stones at Jews indicates that anxiety has nothing to do with it.

In 1955, S. D. Goitein, in his book Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts Through the Ages, wrote:
In former times--and in remote places even today--it was common for Muslim schoolboys to stone Jews. When the Turks conquered Yemen in 1872, an envoy was sent from the Chief Rabbi of Istanbul to inquire what grievance the Yemenite Jews had against their neighbors. It is indicative that the first thing of which they complained was this molestation by the schoolboys. But when the Turkish Governor asked an assembly of notables to stop this nuisance,there arose an old doctor of Muslim law and explained that this stone-throwing at Jews was an age-old custom (in Arabic 'Ada) and therefore it was unlawful to forbid it. [p. 76, emphasis added]In the book Eight years in Asia and Africa from 1846-1855, Israel Joseph Benjamin includes among the multiple indignities regularly suffered by Jews at the hands of the Muslims of Persia:
Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity, and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mob with stones and dirt.[p 212]Andrew Bostom gives another example in The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History:
  • The British Jerusalem Consul, James Finn, reported in 1858 about the dangers faced by Jews in then-Palestine in the city of Hebron:
    The rural district is left entirely to peasant Sheikhs, with one responsible over the rest.The streets of the town were paraded by fanatic Dervishes—and during my stay there a Jewish house was forcibly entered by night, iron bars of the window broken, and heavy stones thrown by invisible hands at every person approaching the place to afford help. One of the Members of the Council affirmed that they were not obliged to obey orders from the Pasha’s deputy—and another declared his right derived from time immemorial in his family, to enter Jewish houses, and take toll or contributions any time without giving account. [p 89]
Contrary to Salaita, the "primordial importance" of stone throwing was as a means to persecute Jews, who then --- and now -- are the ones who are feeling the "existential anxiety.”

Whether in journalism or academia, taking a profession that used to be respected for honoring truth and twisting it into a form of activism inevitably leads to subjective conclusions, error and outright sloppiness. Regardless of whether it is inevitable or not, even if what one writes, reports or teaches serves the interests of a particular faction that should not be an excuse for tossing out all sense of propriety and standards.

But Steven Salaita apparently doesn't feel that way.
At least in Lebanon, home of Hezbollah, he can find a faction that appreciates his "work".
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MEQ: Efraim Karsh: Obama's Middle East Delusions

Daled Amos - Tue, 23/02/2016 - 15:38
The following by Efraim Karsh is reposted here with the permission of The Middle East Forum:


Obama's Middle East Delusions
by Efraim Karsh
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2016 (view PDF)




Iran's nuclear facility in Arak. Tehran's quest for nuclear weapons is, perhaps, the foremost threat to Middle Eastern stability, if not to world peace, in the foreseeable future. President Obama's policies have allowed Iran to move ever closer to producing nuclear weapons.As the only person to have won the Nobel Peace Prize on the basis of sheer hope rather than actual achievement, Barack Hussein Obama could be expected to do everything within his power to vindicate this unprecedented show of trust. Instead he has presided over a clueless foreign policy that has not only exacerbated ongoing regional conflicts but made the world a far more dangerous place. Nowhere has this phenomenon been more starkly demonstrated than in the Middle East where the Nobel laureate has abetted Tehran's drive for regional hegemony and brought the regime within a stone's throw of nuclear weapons; driven Iraq and Libya to the verge of disintegration; expedited the surge of Islamist terrorism; exacerbated the Syrian civil war and its attendant refugee problem; made the intractable Palestinian-Israeli conflict almost irresolvable; and plunged Washington's regional influence and prestige to unprecedented depths,[1] paving the road in grand style to Russia's resurgence.

Duped by the MullahsConsider Tehran's quest for nuclear weapons, perhaps the foremost threat to Middle Eastern stability, if not to world peace, in the foreseeable future. In a sharp break from the Bush administration's attempts to coerce the mullahs to desist from this relentless drive, which culminated in five U.N. Security Council resolutions imposing a string of escalating economic sanctions,[2]Obama opted for the road of "engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect"[3] with the presumptuous aim of mending the 30-year-long U.S.-Iranian breach and reintegrating the Islamist regime in Tehran into the international system.



President Obama is interviewed on al-Arabiya network, January 27, 2009. Two months later, in a videotaped greeting on the occasion of the Iranian new year, he reassured Iranians of his commitment "to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us." Obama's appeasing demeanor cast him as weak and indecisive.
In his first major presidential interview, given to the al-Arabiya TV network a week after inauguration, Obama promised that if the mullahs agreed "to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us." Two months later, in a videotaped greeting on the occasion of the Iranian new year, he reassured them of his commitment "to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us," claiming that reciprocating this "new beginning" would win Tehran substantial international gains and "demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization."[4] He amplified this claim in his celebrated June 2009 Cairo address to the Muslim world going out of his way to empathize with Iran's supposed nuclear sensibilities.[5]

Rather than win him the mullahs' goodwill and admiration, Obama's appeasing demeanor cast him as weak and indecisive, and this image was further reinforced by his knee jerk response to their brutal suppression of popular protest over the rigging of the June 2009 Iranian presidential elections. That the U.S. president—who had made a point in his inaugural address to dismiss "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent" as being "on the wrong side of history" and who lectured Muslim regimes throughout the world of the need to rule "through consent, not coercion"[6]—remained conspicuously aloof in the face of the flagrant violation of these very principles did not pass unnoticed. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demanded Washington's apology for its supposed meddling in the elections while Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, ridiculed Obama for privately courting Tehran while censuring it in public. "The U.S. president said that we were waiting for the day when people would take to the streets," he stated in a Friday sermon. "At the same time, they write letters saying that they want to have ties and that they respect the Islamic Republic. Which are we to believe?"[7]

Iran's supreme leader ridiculed Obama for privately courting Tehran while censuring it in public.Khamene'i was not the only one baffled by Obama's real intentions. In a secret memorandum to top White House officials on January 4, 2010, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that "the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran's steady progress toward nuclear capability." He was particularly alarmed by the absence of an effective strategy to prevent Tehran from amassing all the major parts of a nuclear bomb—fuel, designs and detonators—while stopping just short of assembling a fully operational weapon, thus remaining within the bounds of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) while becoming a "virtual" nuclear power. "If their policy is to go to the threshold but not assemble a nuclear weapon, how do you tell that they have not assembled?" he cautioned in a nationwide television interview. "I don't actually know how you would verify that."[8]

Apparently unperturbed by this danger, in 2011, Obama passed a secret message to Khamene'i (via Oman's Sultan Qaboos) expressing readiness for nuclear talks based on a U.S. recognition of a nuclear Iran.[9] As Tehran was unimpressed, the president was forced to authorize harsh sanctions at the end of the year. But he did so with the utmost reluctance under heavy congressional pressure and with the Damocles sword of a preventive Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities hovering over his head.[10] While the European Union followed suit with similar measures that further afflicted the Iranian economy, Obama refrained from carrying the sanctions to their logical conclusion, instead capitalizing on the August 2013 inauguration of the supposedly-moderate Hassan Rouhani as president to offer an olive branch to the mullahs. This approach culminated in the interim agreement of November 24, 2013, known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), between Iran and the great powers—France, Germany, Britain, Russia, China, and the United States (or P5+1 as they are commonly known)—whereby Tehran agreed to curb some of its nuclear activities for a period of six months (e.g., to stop enriching uranium beyond 5 percent) in return for some $7 billion in sanctions relief.[11]

No sooner had the ink dried on the accord than it transpired that for the Islamist regime it was but a clever ploy to loosen the economic noose around Iran while holding fast to its nuclear ambitions. "In this agreement, the right of [the] Iranian nation to enrich uranium was accepted by [the] world powers," Rouhani told his subjects in a nationwide television broadcast. "With this agreement ... the architecture of sanctions will begin to break down." Two months later, as the JPOA was about to come into effect after two more months of haggling, Rouhani described the accord as "big-power surrender to the great Iranian nation" and pledged to defend Iranian rights and interests in the ensuing negotiations over the country's nuclear future.[12] While Western commentators and diplomats whitewashed this assertion as a ploy to deflect domestic criticism, Tehran did not moderate its stance regarding the permanent settlement thus forcing the extension of the designated negotiating period by another four months to November 24, 2014.

Why should it have acted differently at a time when the Western powers were bending over backward to reach an agreement even if this failed to address the problem it was designed to solve? This was evidenced among other examples by the U.S. administration's obstruction of congressional legislation authorizing new sanctions in the event of noncompliance with the JPOA; by the rapid breakdown of Tehran's diplomatic isolation and economic strangulation;[13] and by the apparent readiness to leave substantial parts of Iran's nuclear infrastructure intact thus allowing it to resume its nuclear weapons drive at will.[14]

The Obama administration showed a distinct lack of appetite for the military option against Iran.Above all, despite its lip service to leaving "all options on the table," the Obama administration not only showed a distinct lack of appetite for the military option but went out of its way to forestall a preventive Israeli strike, especially in 2010-12 when it seemed to be in the cards.[15] Indeed, as the extended deadline for nuclear negotiations loomed large, the mullahs were reportedly mulling over a U.S. proposal that would allow them to keep many of their enrichment centrifuges intact in return for a reduction in their stockpile of low-enriched uranium, thus prolonging the time needed for building a nuclear weapon but not eliminating this possibility altogether as demanded by the Israelis and the U.S. president himself for that matter.[16]

As if to dispel any doubts about his appeasing intentions, in mid-October 2014, without telling any of Washington's regional allies, and at a time when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s director general warned that "we cannot provide assurance that all material in Iran is in peaceful purposes," Obama passed yet another secret letter to Khamene'i proposing U.S.-Iranian military collaboration against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) after the conclusion of a nuclear agreement—only to be peremptorily told that "Iran will not accept having an [uranium] enrichment program that is nominal or decorative."[17] Small wonder that the November 2014 deadline had to be extended yet again, this time for a longer period of seven months to June 24, 2015.

When the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was eventually pronounced on July 14, 2015, it contained a string of glaring loopholes enabling Tehran to seamlessly sail to nuclear weapons after ten to fifteen years at the latest. These included, among other things, acquiescence in Iran's right to continue enrichment activities and to retain up to 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges (and a smaller number of newer centrifuges) to this end. It also provided for deeply flawed monitoring measures such as a two-week notice for verification of "the absence of undeclared nuclear materials or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA" and non-interference "with Iranian military or other national security activities," including a reported secret permission to Iran to inspect the Parchin military base where it had experimented with nuclear weaponization.[18]

Small wonder, therefore, that thousands of jubilant Iranians took to the streets to celebrate the JCPOA's announcement while Rouhani triumphantly declared that "this is the day on which all the large countries and the superpowers in the world have officially recognized Iran's nuclear activities."

He further elaborated on Tehran's four goals in the negotiations:
The first goal was to continue the nuclear capabilities, the nuclear technology, and even the nuclear activity within Iran. The second goal was to lift the mistaken, oppressive, and inhumane sanctions. The third goal was to remove all the U.N. Security Council resolutions that we view as illegal. The fourth goal was to remove the Iranian nuclear dossier from Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter and from the Security Council in general. In today's agreement, in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, all four goals have been achieved.[19]Destabilizing Iraq

Islamists parade through Fallujah. With the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in December 2011, the country that was left behind was anything but a "sovereign, stable, and self-reliant" state as Obama claimed. Some two years later, in January 2014, ISIS captured Anbar's capital of Ramadi (though parts of it were subsequently retaken by the government) and the key city of Fallujah, where U.S. forces had fought two bitter battles a decade earlier.
In fairness to Obama, the Iranian fiasco was not wholly of his making but was largely a corollary of Washington's ongoing entanglement in Iraq, which diminished its appetite for fresh foreign engagements. Yet the president's ingrained and highly publicized aversion to the use of force in pursuit of foreign policy goals undoubtedly made a bad situation worse, not merely by effectively eliminating the military option—the ultimate barrier to Tehran's nuclear quest—but by creating a power vacuum in Iraq that brought the country to the verge of disintegration. For although it was President Bush who delineated the U.S. exit strategy in his November 2008 status of forces agreement (SOFA) with the Iraqi government, Obama's eagerness to make good his electoral promise to leave Iraq within eighteen months led to a rushed departure in total disregard of its detrimental consequences.

By the August 31, 2010 deadline for the completion of the withdrawal's first stage (i.e., removal of all fighting brigades from Iraq), it had become evident that the country was beset by renewed anarchy with parliament failing to form a government in the wake of the latest elections, near-daily terror attacks exacting scores of fatalities, and dilapidated public services stirring widespread restiveness. Ignoring this grim reality, Obama went out of his way to present the Iraq withdrawal as a "powerful reminder" of the "renewed American leadership in the world" and boasted of "leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq" ruled by "a representative government that was elected by its people."[20]

In fact, the Iraq that was left behind was anything but a "sovereign, stable and self-reliant" state. Rather it was a hopelessly polarized society oppressed by a sectarian and brutal Shiite regime that retained power through ruthless, underhanded methods in the face of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's electoral defeat and used it to restore the all-too-familiar pattern of one-man rule characterizing Iraq since its inception.

Matters came to a head on July 23, 2012, when more than one hundred people were murdered and another 250 injured in Iraq's worst day of violence since 2010. A similar number of people were murdered on September 9, 2012, in retribution for the death sentencing of exiled Sunni vice president Tariq Hashemi (tried and convicted in absentia of operating death squads). By March 2013, most of the country's Sunni areas were mired in violence; by the end of the year, some 7,800 civilians had been murdered, and another 18,000 were wounded, making it Iraq's bloodiest year since 2008.[21] Meanwhile, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, implemented a series of measures—e.g., passing a separate budget, separating the region from the national electricity grid, independently exporting oil via Turkey, and intensifying relations with foreign countries—that significantly enhanced Kurdistan's autonomy and edged it toward statehood.[22]

To make matters worse, a number of jihadist groups, notably the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) capitalized on the swelling protest to style themselves as protectors of the oppressed Sunnis. In January 2014, ISIS captured Anbar's capital of Ramadi (though parts of it were subsequently retaken by the government) and the key city of Fallujah where U.S. forces had fought two bitter battles a decade earlier, and five months later, launched a major offensive in northern and western Iraq. On June 9, the group conquered Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and two days later, captured Tirkit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. By the end of the month, ISIS had established control over many of Iraq's Sunni areas and the Syrian northeastern province of Deir Ezzour; proclaimed a caliphate headed by its leader, Abu Bakr Baghdadi; and changed its name to the Islamic State (IS) to reflect its claim to leadership of the worldwide Muslim community (umma).[23]

Obama presented the Iraq withdrawal as a "powerful reminder" of the "renewed American leadership in the world."When, in August 2014, U.S. fighter planes bombed IS targets in northern Iraq, the organization responded by posting YouTube videos showing the decapitation of two captured U.S. journalists and a British aid worker. Yet while this ghastly PR exercise enticed further European Muslims into IS's ranks and drove the CIA to concede that the group "mustered between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria" (rather than the 10,000 as previously believed),[24] it failed to achieve its intended deterrent goal as the international revulsion sparked by the beheadings drove a grudging Obama to declare that "the U.S. is at war with ISIL in the same way the U.S. is at war with al-Qaeda."[25]
And so it is that four years after triumphantly announcing the end of the Iraq war, the president who had made disengagement from the conflict a key electoral promise and the hallmark of his first term in office found himself sucked again into the Iraqi quagmire. While Obama has thus far managed to avoid deploying U.S. ground forces while somewhat degrading IS's military capabilities (killing some of its top leaders and apparently wounding Baghdadi), the air campaign has neither dimmed the group's appeal to Western Muslims nor prevented it from making substantial gains that further exposed the administration's impotence.
Springtime DelusionsThe failure to anticipate the rise of IS was emblematic of the total incomprehension of the administration (and Western governments more generally) of the real nature of the revolutionary tidal wave that has cascaded across the Middle East since December 2010, toppling in rapid succession the long-reigning Tunisian and Egyptian autocrats, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, and kindling euphoric talk in the West of an "Arab Spring" that would usher in an era of regional democratization.

While Obama claimed that these events "should not have come as a surprise,"[26] Washington was totally overwhelmed by their occurrence and reduced from the outset to the role of a hapless spectator. By the time Obama condemned on January 14, 2011, "the use of violence against citizens peacefully voicing their opinion in Tunisia" and urged "all parties to maintain calm and avoid violence"[27] the crisis had blown over, and Ben Ali had fled the country.

Obama's impact on the subsequent Egyptian crisis was not much greater. To be sure, in an abrupt u-turn from established U.S. policy, he prodded Mubarak to step down so as to initiate a "meaningful" and "peaceful" transition process.[28] Yet this very public betrayal of one of Washington's staunchest regional allies was little more than a quintessential Obama grandstanding aimed at taking credit for events he had not set in motion and over which he had no control. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor and onetime Obama foreign affairs mentor, put it: "The rhetoric is always terribly imperative and categorical: 'You must do this,' 'He must do that,' 'This is unacceptable'... [But] he doesn't strategize. He sermonizes."[29]

Sermonizing was very much in evidence in Obama's May 19, 2011 speech enunciating his vision of the "Arab Spring" where the president had no qualms about telling local leaders how to conduct themselves in the face of the regional turbulence. "The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy," he categorically stated as if the predominantly Islamist rebels had the slightest interest in the idea and as if the Damascus dictator was taking his marching orders from Washington. "President [Bashar al-] Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way."[30]



Obama warned Assad that the use of chemical weapons was a "red line" that could trigger a U.S. military response. When the regime gassed more than a thousand of its citizens to death, Obama grudgingly announced his intention to launch a punitive air strike. But Assad's acceptance of a Russian proposal for dismantling Syria's chemical weapons allowed Obama to call off the strike though the regime managed to maintain much of its chemical arsenal.
In the coming years, Obama was to reiterate this refrain ad nauseam while at the same time doing practically nothing to facilitate its implementation. Time and again, he warned Assad that the use of chemical weapons against the civilian population was a "red line" that could trigger a U.S. military response, only to be repeatedly rebuffed.[31]Even after the regime's gassing to death of more than a thousand of its rebellious subjects forced Obama grudgingly to announce his intention to launch a punitive air strike, he went out of his way to clarify that "this would not be an open-ended intervention" and "would not [involve] boots on the ground."[32] While Assad's acceptance of a Russian proposal for the dismantling of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal allowed Obama to call off the strike while claiming victory, the incident not only ensured the survival of the Syrian regime (and much of its chemical arsenal) but gave it a carte blanche to continue slaughtering its citizens provided this was done with conventional, not chemical, weapons. Indeed, with U.S.-Soviet relations ebbing sharply over the 2014 Ukraine crisis, and IS becoming the foremost international scourge after its public execution of Western hostages, the ongoing Syrian bloodbath has fallen off the Western radar allowing Assad to resume chemical attacks on its subjects with impunity.[33] By way of adding insult to injury, at a time when the astounded U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee was told that the $500 million effort to raise Syrian forces to fight the Islamic State had resulted in the training of "four or five" fighters,[34]newly deployed Russian forces in Syria began an air campaign against alleged IS targets as part of a coordinated effort with Damascus, Tehran, and Baghdad to defeat the jihadist organization.[35]

Western leaders and observers massively downplayed the significance of the regional Islamist surge they unleashed.In a desperate bid to salvage whatever was left of his credibility, in late October 2015 Obama announced the dispatch of up to fifty special operations soldiers to Syria while stressing that they would not be put "on the front lines fighting firefights with ISIL" but would rather "train, advise, and assist" anti-ISIL forces.[36]

Even the Libyan intervention—the first and only military attempt by the Western powers to sway the "Arab Spring" in their idyllic vision—exposed the glaring dissonance between Obama's "imperative and categorical" rhetoric and its timid implementation as the president left it to Paris and London to orchestrate the international intervention on behalf of the fledgling uprising with Washington reduced to "leading from behind." While the intervention overthrew Libya's long reigning dictator Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi—albeit at a far greater effort and cost than expected—the nascent "new Libya" has been a far cry from the showcase, Western-propped, democratized society it was supposed to become. Instead, the collapse of the Qaddafi regime, which had skillfully kept the country's disparate components intact for forty-two years, gave rise to general anarchy with a multitude of mainly Islamist militias, notably IS, controlling various parts of the country and vying for power with the central government as waves of refugees seek to flee the country en route to Europe.[37]

Reluctant to concede that the regional upheavals had never been the liberal awakening they were taken for, Western leaders and observers massively down-played the significance of the Islamist surge they unleashed: denying its very occurrence (as with the U.S. administration's astounding characterization of the Muslim Brotherhood as "largely secular,"[38] which perhaps helps explain its warm embrace of their short-lived rule in Egypt); attributing it to the Islamists' organizational superiority and the secularists' failure to provide compelling alternatives; or predicting the Islamists' inevitable moderation due to their newly-assumed governing responsibilities.[39]

Obama portrayed the "Arab Spring" as an antithesis to Islamism and to the militant brand offered by Osama bin Laden.In his May 2011 speech, Obama portrayed the "Arab Spring" as a regional antithesis to Islamism in general and to the militant brand offered by Osama bin Laden and his ilk in particular. "Bin Laden and his murderous vision won some adherents," he argued. "But even before his death, al-Qaeda was losing its struggle for relevance, as the overwhelming majority of people saw that the slaughter of innocents did not answer their cries for a better life."[40]Small wonder that when a year later, al-Qaeda affiliates attacked the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, killing Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, the administration responded with customary obfuscation. Ignoring both the attack's deliberate timing and a Libyan forewarning of its imminence,[41] U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice described the incident as a spontaneous retort to a U.S.-made, anti-Muslim video clip that spun out of control while White House press secretary Jay Carney argued that "we don't have and did not have concrete evidence to suggest that [the attack] was not in reaction to the film." Obama tacitly amplified this misrepresentation a day after the attack: "We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence." Becoming more explicit in a U.N. address two weeks later, he said, "I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video ... [Yet] there is no video justifying an attack on an Embassy."[42]

This was of course a deliberate misrepresentation. As early as the night of the attack, then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton emailed her daughter that "two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al-Qaeda like group." In an email to the Egyptian prime minister the next day, Clinton was far more forthright, saying that "we know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack, not a protest."[43]

But whatever the administration was prepared to concede in private, it would not acknowledge in public even if this meant lying to the American people (and the world at large). After all, was not al-Qaeda supposed to have faded into oblivion after the killing of its founding leader?
Exacerbating the Arab-Israeli Conflict

In open rebuff of Jerusalem and Washington, Mahmoud Abbas, above, and the Palestinian leadership sought an international imposition of Palestinian statehood without a peace agreement with Israel. In November 2012, Abbas obtained General Assembly recognition of Palestine as a "non-member observer state" to the undisguised dismay of the U.S. administration.
No less disastrous has been Obama's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By the time he took office in January 2009, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had been engaged in fifteen years of negotiations in the framework of the Oslo "peace" process. Within months of his inauguration, the Palestinian leadership, buoyed by his sustained pressure on Jerusalem, dropped all pretenses of seeking a negotiated settlement and opted for an international imposition of Palestinian statehood without a peace agreement with Israel.
When, in June 2009, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu broke with Likud's ideological precept and agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state provided it recognized Israel's Jewish identity (as required by the November 1947 U.N. partition resolution, which the PLO had professed to accept in 1988), Washington did nothing to disabuse the Palestinian leadership of its decades-long rejection of Jewish statehood—the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict—and instead pressured the Israeli government for a complete freeze of building activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This culminated in an Israeli announcement on November 24, 2009, of a ten-month construction freeze aimed at launching "meaningful negotiations to reach a historic peace agreement that would finally end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians."[44]

Nothing of the sort happened. Watching the deepening schism in U.S.-Israeli relations with undisguised glee in anticipation of substantial—and unreciprocated—concessions, the Palestinian leadership dismissed Netanyahu's acceptance of the two-state solution out of hand. Chief peace negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that the prime minister "will have to wait 1,000 years before he finds one Palestinian who will go along with him" while Fatah, the PLO's largest constituent organization and Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas's alma mater, reaffirmed its longstanding commitment to the "armed struggle" (the standard euphemism for violence and terrorism) as "a strategy, not tactic ... in the battle for liberation and for the elimination of the Zionist presence. This struggle will not stop until the Zionist entity is eliminated, and Palestine is liberated."[45]

Nor did Abbas have any qualms about walking away from the negotiations table upon the expiry of the construction freeze in September 2010 in defiance of Obama's buoyant prediction earlier that month that peace could be achieved within a year. Asked by Netanyahu to reconsider, in return for a renewed settlement freeze and recognition of Israel as a national home for the Jewish people, the PA president reiterated his rejection to ever sign "an agreement recognizing a Jewish state" and threatened a unilateral declaration of statehood were the peace process to remain stalled.[46]

Abbas made good on his threat in September 2011 when, in open rebuff of Jerusalem and Washington and in flagrant violation of the Oslo accords that envisaged the attainment of peace through direct negotiations between the two parties, he sought to present Israel with a fait accompli by gaining U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood. Having failed to garner sufficient support at the Security Council, in November 2012, Abbas obtained a General Assembly recognition of Palestine as a "non-member observer state" to the undisguised dismay of the U.S. administration, which condemned the move as "counterproductive" and an obstacle "in the path [to] peace."[47]

The stark warning by Secretary of State John Kerry that "the window for a two-state solution is shutting" made no impression on the Palestinians.[48] To be sure, in apparent deference to Kerry's tireless efforts to jumpstart the stalemated talks, the Palestinians agreed to return to the negotiating table at the end of July 2013. Yet, this was a transparent ploy to drive a wedge between Israel and the U.S. administration, which seemed to have recognized the futility of its first term strategy and adopted a seemingly more conciliatory tone toward Jerusalem. The Palestinians also hoped to lay the groundwork for a renewed unilateral drive for U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood.

This strategy bore the desired fruit before too long. At the end of April 2014, Abbas walked out of the talks yet again, having rallied the Arab League behind his "absolute and decisive rejection to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state," and formed a "unity government" with Hamas. The U.S. administration blamed Israel for the debacle while the EU indicated the possible boycott of Israeli entities that operated beyond the 1967 lines.[49] Three months later, when Israel was grudgingly drawn into a third war with Hamas in five years, the U.S. administration collaborated with Hamas's foremost patrons—Turkey and Qatar—in an attempt to organize a ceasefire amenable to the Islamist terror group; endorsed the suspension of U.S. flights to Israel thus triggering an avalanche of suspensions that left the Jewish state briefly cut off from the rest of the world; and withheld certain weapons supplies in an attempt to rein in Israel's military operations.

When, in October 2015, a tidal wave of Palestinian terrorism swept across Israel, Kerry ascribed the eruption to the (non-existent) "massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years" (in fact, by Netanyahu's own admission, his government has built less in West Bank neighborhoods than its immediate precursors) while a State Department spokesman attributed it to Israel's (imaginary) disruption of the status quo on Temple Mount, accusing the Netanyahu government of using "excessive force" to curb Palestinian attacks.[50]

Obama's persistent snub of Washington's longest and most loyal Middle East ally bought him the distrust of most Israelis."The thing about Bibi is, he's a chickenshit," an anonymous senior White House official lambasted the Israeli prime minister. "[H]e won't do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he's interested in is protecting himself from political defeat. He's not [Yitzhak] Rabin; he's not [Ariel] Sharon; he's certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He's got no guts."[51]

Appeasement of one's enemies at the expense of friends whose loyalty can be taken for granted is a common—if unsavory—human trait, and Obama is no exception to this rule. His persistent snub of Washington's longest and most loyal Middle Eastern ally bought him the distrust of most Israelis: At the end of the 2014 Gaza war, only 4 percent of them found the president more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian, compared to 31 percent upon his 2008 election.[52] However, his tireless pandering to the Palestinians ("You will never have an administration as committed ... as this one" he told Abbas[53]) also failed to buy him their sympathy and appreciation. On the eve of the 2012 U.S. elections, a mere 9 percent of Palestinians viewed his reelection favorably, and nearly four times as many thought it would have adverse implications. And as if to add insult to injury, a comprehensive 2013 survey found Palestinians more hostile to America than any other national group with 76 percent considering it an enemy (compared to one percent of Israelis) and only 4 percent viewing it as a partner.[54]
ConclusionAs world attention focuses on the latest spate of Middle East fiascos—from the migrant hordes swamping Europe, to Russia's Syria intervention, to the latest flare-up of Palestinian terrorism—for which the U.S. administration is partly culpable, the Iran nuclear deal will undoubtedly remain Obama's foremost foreign policy folly. For the real issue is not whether the JCPOA irrevocably blocks Tehran's road to the bomb (which it does not), or whether the administration could have attained a better deal (which it could), or even whether no agreement is better than a bad agreement (as initially argued by Obama) or an assured recipe to war (as he later claimed). Rather the question is whether an agreement with a murderous, messianic, Islamist tyranny, reigning over one of the Middle East's most powerful nations and committed to the world-conquering agenda of its founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,[55] should have been sought in the first place.

In a similar way, when seventy-seven years ago British prime minister Neville Chamberlain was about to leave for the German city of Munich to negotiate the agreement that would shortly trigger the worst war in human history, the London Times lauded the move as "water in the wilderness" that would "bring a sense of relief and profound satisfaction to all but the very few for whom any sort of intercourse with a dictator is incomprehensible and anathema."[56]

The problem with this analysis is, of course, that Hitler was no ordinary dictator, who could be bought at the right price, but a maniacal tyrant in control of one of the world's most powerful nations and bent on world domination. Yet while the full extent of Hitler's ambition was rarely recognized at the time, no such vagueness exists with regard to the Islamist regime in Tehran, which in its thirty-six years at the helm has consistently subverted its neighbors, triggered the longest and bloodiest war in the Middle East's modern history (with Iraq, 1980-88), transformed Iran into the world's foremost sponsor of terrorism, and poured billions of dollars into its nuclear weapons program at the expense of the economic wellbeing of ordinary Iranians and at the cost of sustained international isolation.

Hence, while Chamberlain could genuinely believe that the agreement he signed brought "peace for our time,"[57] Obama has been kicking the nuclear can down the road in the clear knowledge that the JCPOA is at best a delay mechanism in the mullahs' steady drive to the bomb. As he admitted in an uncharacteristic moment of candor, "in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point, the breakout times [to nuclear weapons] would have shrunk almost down to zero."[58] At a time when the international community trembles at the infinitely lesser threat of the Islamic State, the implications of this inevitable scenario are too horrendous to contemplate.
Efraim Karsh, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is emeritus professor of Middle East and Mediterranean studies at King's College London and professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University where he is also a senior research associate at the BESA Center for Strategic Studies.[1] See, for example, "Global Opinion of Obama Slips, International Policies Faulted," Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C., June 13, 2012.
[2] U.N. Security Council resolutions 1696 (July 31, 2006); 1737 (Dec. 23, 2006); 1747 (Mar. 24, 2007); 1803 (Mar. 3, 2008); 1835 (Sept. 27, 2008).
[3] The Washington Post, Mar. 21, 2009.
[4] Ibid.; The Times (London), Mar. 21, 2009.
[5] "Remarks by the President on a New Beginning," at Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary [hereafter, OPS], June 4, 2009.
[6] "Text of Barack Obama's Inaugural Address," The New York Times, Jan. 20, 2009.
[7] CBS News, June 24, 2009.
[8] The New York Times, Apr. 18, 2010; Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: W.H. Allen, 2014), pp. 391-3.
[9] Khamene'i's speech, June 23, 2015, in Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special dispatch 6131, Washington, D.C., Aug. 10, 2015; A. Savyon, Y. Carmon and Y. Mansdorf, "Iranian Officials Reveal that Secret Negotiations with U.S. Began in 2011," MEMRI, Inquiry and Analysis, no. 1185, Sept. 16, 2015.
[10] "In Heavy Water: Iran's Nuclear Program, the Risk of War and Lessons from Turkey," Middle East and Europe Report, no. 116, International Crisis Group, Feb. 23, 2012, pp. 11-3.
[11] "Communication dated 27 November 2013 received from the EU High Representative concerning the text of the Joint Plan of Action," International Atomic Energy Agency, INFCIRC/855.
[12] The Guardian (London), Nov. 24, 2013; BBC News, Nov. 24, 2013; Y. Mansharof et al, "The Geneva Joint Plan of Action: How Iran Sees It (1)," MEMRI, Inquiry and Analysis Series Report, no. 1050, Jan. 13, 2014; U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 14, 2014.
[13] See, for example, "The Iran Primer: Western Countries Flood Tehran," United States Institute of Peace, Apr. 29, 2014; Kenneth Katzman, "Iran Sanctions," Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., Oct. 23, 2014, pp. 57-8; Lee Smith, "The Collapse of Sanctions on Iran," The Weekly Standard, Mar. 3, 2013.
[14] Olli Heinonen, The Iranian Nuclear Programme: Practical Parameters for a Credible Long-Term Agreement(London: Henry Jackson Society, 2014), pp. 6-7, 17-8.
[15] Jeffrey Goldberg, "The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here," The Atlantic, Oct. 2014; Haaretz (Tel Aviv), Aug. 21, 2015.
[16] Haaretz, Oct. 16, 2014.
[17] The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 6, 2014; Yukiya Amano, IAEA Director General, "Challenges in Nuclear Verification: The IAEA's Role on the Iranian Nuclear Issue," address at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., Oct. 31, 2014, p. 4; CNSNews.com, Nov. 13, 2014.
[18] See, for example, "Full text of the Iran deal,Politico, July 14, 2015, pp. 1, 6, 27, 29, 42-3; "IAEA Document Reveals: Iran to Carry Out Own Inspection of Suspected Nuclear Site in Parchin,Haaretz, Aug. 19, 2015.
[19] "Iranian President Rouhani Describes Nuclear Deal, Says: The Superpowers Have Officially Recognized a Nuclear Iran," TV Monitor Project, MEMRI, July 21, 2015.
[20] "Weekly Address: Renewing America's Global Leadership," OPS, Oct. 22, 2011; "Remarks by the President and First Lady on the End of the War in Iraq," OPS, Dec. 14, 2011.
[21] "Quarterly Report to the United States Congress," Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Washington, D.C., Apr. 30, 2013, pp. 5-6; "Final Report to the United States Congress," SIGIR, Sept. 9, 2013, pp. 66-7; "Civilian Casualties," United Nations, Iraq; "Toby Dodge: Iraq's renewed political violence—Is the country heading back into civil war?" Manama Voices, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Manama, Bahrain, Dec. 7, 2013; Zachary Laub and Jonathan Masters, "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria," Council on Foreign Relations, New York, Aug. 8, 2014.
[22] "Quarterly Report to the United States Congress," SIGIR, Oct. 30, 2012, pp. 9, 61.
[23] Al-Jazeera (Doha), June 30, 2014; Abdelwahed al-Ansari, "How did 'Islamic State' proclaim caliphate," al-Monitor (Washington, D.C.), July 7, 2014; The Telegraph (London), July 1, 2014.
[24] CNN, Sept. 14, 2014.
[25] "Statement by the President on ISIL," OPS, Sept. 10, 2014; NBC News, Sept. 12, 2014.
[26] "Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa," OPS, May 19, 2011.
[27] "Statement by the President on Events in Tunisia," OPS, Jan. 14, 2011.
[28] "President Obama on Transition in Egypt," OPS, Feb. 1, 2011.
[29] Ryan Lizza, "The Consequentialist: How the Arab Spring Remade Obama's Foreign Policy," The New Yorker, May 2, 2011, p. 34.
[30] "Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa," OPS, May 19, 2011.
[31] "Remarks by the President to the White House Press Corps," OPS, Aug. 20, 2012.
[32] "Statement by the President on Syria," OPS, Aug. 31, 2013.
[33] Brig. Gen. Itai Baron, outgoing head of the IDF's intelligence research department, interview, Israel Hayom (Tel Aviv), Jan. 15, 2015.
[34] The Guardian, Sept. 16, 2015.
[35] Al-Jazeera, Sept. 27, 2015; CNN, Oct. 1, 2015.
[36] "Obama: No U.S. troops on Syria front lines," Al-Jazeera, Nov. 3, 2015.
[37] See Yehudit Ronen, "Libya Descends into Chaos," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2016.
[38] ABC News, Feb. 10, 2011.
[39] See, for example, "Democratic Transition in the Middle East: Between Authoritarianism and Islamism," National Endowment for Democracy, Washington, D.C., July 12, 2012; Samuel Tadros, "Egypt's Elections: Why the Islamists Won," World Affairs Journal, Mar./Apr. 2012; Marc Lynch, "Islamists in a Changing Middle East," Foreign Policy, July 8, 2012; Gregory Gause, III, "The Year the Arab Spring Went Bad," Foreign Policy, Dec. 31, 2012.
[40] "Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa," OPS, May 19, 2011.
[41] The Independent (London), Sept. 18, 2012.
[42] Face the Nation, CBS, Sept. 16, 2012; "Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney 9/18/2012," OPS; Fox News, Sept. 21, 2012; "President Obama on Death of U.S. Embassy Staff in Libya," U.S. Department of State, Sept. 12, 2012; "Transcript: President Obama Talks to the U.N. about Mideast Peace, Iran," ABC News, Sept. 25, 2012.
[43] "These 3 Emails Show What Hillary Was Really Saying about Benghazi,Fox News Insider, Oct. 23, 2015.
[44] Haaretz, Nov. 25, 2009.
[45] Independent Online, June 14, 2009; "Fatah's Sixth General Conference Resolutions: Pursuing Peace Options without Relinquishing Resistance or Right to Armed Struggle," MEMRI, Aug. 13, 2009.
[46] The Jerusalem Post, Nov. 10, Dec. 10, 2010.
[47] CBS News, Nov. 30, 2012.
[48] Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA, New York), Apr. 18, 2013.
[49] Haaretz, Mar. 26, 2014; The Times of Israel (Jerusalem), Apr. 8, 2014; Ben Birnbaum and Amir Tibon, "The Explosive, Inside Story of How John Kerry Built an Israel-Palestine Peace Plan—and Watched It Crumble," The New Republic, July 20, 2014.
[50] "Conversation with Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Professor Graham Allison," Secretary of State John Kerry, Charles Hotel, Cambridge, Mass., U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C., Oct. 13, 2015; "John Kirby Spokesperson, Daily Press Briefing," U.S. Department of State, Oct. 7, 2015; "PM: I have built less in settlements than Olmert, Barak, Sharon,Ynet news.com, Oct. 20, 2015.
[51] USA Today, July 25, 2014; The Washington Post, Aug. 23, 2014; Goldberg, "The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations."
[52] The Jerusalem Post, Oct. 30, 2014.
[53] Birnbaum and Tibon, "How John Kerry Built an Israel-Palestine Peace Plan."
[54] "Palestinian Public opinion poll no. 45," Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Ramallah, Sept. 13-15, 2012; "America's Global Image Remains More Positive than China's. Chapter 1: Attitudes toward the United States," Pew Research Center, May 18, 2013; "Global Opposition to U.S. Surveillance and Drones, but Limited Harm to America's Image," Pew Research Center, May 14, 2014.
[55] As Khomeini put it in his day: "The Iranian revolution is not exclusively that of Iran, because Islam does not belong to any particular people ... We will export our revolution throughout the world because it is an Islamic revolution. The struggle will continue until the calls 'there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah' are echoed all over the world." Farhad Rajaee, Islamic Values and World View: Khomeini on Man, the State and International Politics (Lanham: University of America Press, 1983), pp. 82‑3.
[56] "A Bold Initiative," The Times, Sept. 15, 1938.
[57] "Ovation in London," ibid., Oct. 1, 1938.
[58] "Transcript: President Obama's Full Interview on Iran Nuclear Deal," National Public Radio, Apr. 7, 2015.
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The J Street Version of Israeli History -- Coming To a Jewish School Near You

Daled Amos - Mon, 22/02/2016 - 07:00
J Street's activities extend from politics and advocacy -- to education:
J Street University is circulating a map that restores the Green Line and working to get it into synagogues, Hebrew schools, and summer camps. Good for them. Of course, fighting (nonviolently) over maps is preferable to shooting over the borders of the territories they represent, but there’s no substitute for a one-map solution.Here is the map:

J Street has a lesson plan to go along with the map. I embedded a copy of the lesson plan at the end of the post.

The introduction in the lesson plan introduces what they see as the issue behind maps of Israel today:

The disappearance of the Green Line from our maps is a clear symptom of a larger problem. The vast majority of Jewish Americans, including our communal leaders, claim to support a two-state solution,recognizing that it is the only way to safeguard Israel’s future. Yet we often talk about and teach about Israel in a way that physically erases the Green Line, which forms the basis of that solution. When the Green Line disappears from our maps, it is also eroded from our consciousness.The plan then goes on to describe J Street's goal in a pretty straightforward way:
The goal of this lesson plan is to help learners, 9th graders and up, understand the realities of the status quo in Israel and the Palestinian territory. Recognizing that maps play an important role in reinforcing cultural narratives and national identities for both Israelis and Palestinians, and their supporters, we’ll look at various maps of this area that reflect different hopes, aspirations, and political perspectives.In order to frame those differing perspectives, J Street divides them into 3 groups in terms of whether the Green Line should appear on the map:
  • Why the Green Line should not appear: map labels entire area as Israel
  • Why the Green Line should appear: labeled as "Joint Perspective"
  • Why the Green Line should not appear: map labels entire area as Palestine
Putting aside how the lesson plan organizes and structures how the actual discussion is carried out, there is the larger issue of how J Street frames the issue and the information it intends to pass on to the participants as fact.

On page 10 of the plan, is the section labeled: All About The Green Line, where the overall background on the Green Line is given as "the original armistice line of the 1948 Arab-Israel war." However, J Street writes in their lesson plan that among the consequences is that:
These territories [Gaza and the West Bank] are viewed by the international community as being under “military occupation,” although their status is more complicated within Israel.On the contrary, the fact is that the issue of "military occupation" is complicated -- period, regardless of whether you are Israeli or not. There is legal precedent for saying Gaza is not occupied and arguments that can be made about the West Bank, under control of the Palestinian Authority, as well. One doesn't have to going into details or surrender a balance of views in order to convey the complexity of the the issue of "occupation", but surely it should not be ignored either.

Another J Street claim in the general background of the lesson plan is:
All past negotiations over the future Israeli-Palestinian border have been based on the Green Line with land swaps.Not exactly all negotiations. After all, it was Abbas himself who turned down the idea of land swaps when he declared:  "No to Israel as a Jewish state, no to interim borders, no to land swaps" at the Fifth Fatah Revolutionary Council Convention in December 2010. The lesson plan thus overlooks the fact that the idea of land swaps itself is a new idea: the Palestinian Arabs did not accept the idea of land swaps -- and only "minor" swaps at that -- until 2013.

A final note on the general background section of the lesson plan is in the segment entitled "How Is Israel Blurring The Green Line?" Keep in mind that legally the Green Line is nothing more than an arbitrary armistice line indicating where the fighting stopped in 1948 -- in no way is it a border.

Despite this fact, J Street claims:
  • Since 1967, Israel has politically and economically encourage Jewish settlement over the Green Line
    • This is considered illegal according to Article 49 of the Geneva Convention
Actually, Article 49 of the Geneva Convention specifies the forcible transfer of populations -- a response to the Nazis who conducted massive transfers of people into occupied territories. Also, based on the British Mandate, the area given to the Jews included Judea and Samaria -- the area they were illegally forced to flee, the area that became known as "the West Bank" based on 19 years of Jordanian control. J Street is the blurring the facts, declaring as absolute, what is at best debatable

The lesson plan gives a historical time line in accordance with the Israeli, Palestinian and "Joint Perspective". According to the time line of the "Israel Perspective:
1920-1948: Mandatory Palestine, the British Mandate for Palestine transfers power from military rule to civil rule. The British rule continues to face resistance from both Palestinian and Jewish forces.This is how J Street summarizes how the League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for reconstituting the Jewish homeland. But in fact, the fact sheet does not mention the League of Nations even once, and only uses the word "league" once -- in reference to the Arab League. The students are never told the basis for Britain's Mandate giving it control in then-Palestine. This omission not only denies context to the Arab opposition to the Mandate, but also the Jewish opposition -- which was based on changes made to the Mandate and on opposition to the 1939 White Paper. Surprisingly, mention of White Paper is also omitted from the lesson plan.

 According to the time line of the "Joint Perspective":
  • 1916: Sykes–Picot Agreement, the UK and France promised Arab control over Palestine
    Not true: As someone corrected me, here J Street is confusing the Hussein-McMahon correspondence with the Sykes-Picot Agreement. About the latter, there is no argument and it is not related to the issue. Regarding the former, the claim that Arabs were promised Palestine is hotly debated, and the British government insisted that then-Palestine was not included.

  • 1920s and 1930s: Violent clashes begin, as Jews continued to immigrate to Palestine, Zionist-Arab antagonism boiled over into violent clashes among Jews, the Palestinians, and the British Police.
    So according to J Street, even then it was a cycle of violence? This ignores both the initiation of the Arab massacres of Jews and the long history of Arab persecution of Jews during Ottoman rule

  • 1920-1948: Mandatory Palestine, the British Mandate for Palestine transfers power from military rule to civil rule. The British rule continues to face resistance from both Palestinian and Jewish forces.
    There is no mention of Transjordan, which was cut out of the area originally part of the Palestine Mandate

  • 1949: Armistice Lines are agreed upon. Gaza is under Egyptian control and The West Bank is under Jordanian control. The Green Line is drawn, which will become the basis for any future peace agreement.
    This misleads by implying that Egyptian control over Gaza and Jordanian control over the "West Bank" was internationally recognized, when in fact only Great Britain and Pakistan recognized the annexation as legal. Also, the Green was not the basis for all future peace agreements, since the current peace agreements Israel has with Egypt and Jordan are both based on the British Mandate -- not on the Green Line
In all three perspectives, the lesson plan claims:
1947: UN Resolution 181, partitions Palestine into two states: Arab and Jewish.This is not true. The UN did not create 2 states. After all, the British continued executing the Mandate into 1948. What the resolution did do was recommend a partition, as the resolution itself makes clear.

J Street is entitled to their opinion, but in their rush to push the idea of the centrality of the Green Line, the omission of important facts and the distortion of others prevent the balanced view that they claim as their goal. Instead of a lesson plan about a significant issue affecting Israel, J Street's project has been reduced to propaganda for their political agenda.

Hat tip: AB, for pointing out additional J Street errors.

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Obama Was Right: Time For Israel To Put "Daylight" Between Itself and US -- To Preserve Credibility and Security

Daled Amos - Thu, 18/02/2016 - 16:11
Last year, in the midst of the Iran negotiations that Israel so strenuously opposed, Kerry came out with the claim that not only was the Iran deal actually in Israel's interest, but that continued Israeli opposition to the Iran deal would further isolate her. But increasingly, the more pressing question is not so much whether Israeli  is really isolated from other countries, but rather whether the time has come for Israel to distance itself more from the United States.

Brett Stephens writes that Israel Looks Beyond America -- and is doing so very successfully:

  • This past Sunday, at the Munich Security Conference, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon publicly shook hands with former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal.
  • Last month, Israeli cabinet member Yuval Steinitz went to Abu Dhabi, to be present at the opening of an office at a renewable-energy association.
  • Turkey has indicated a willingness to reestablish ties with Israel. 
  • In October, Indian President Mukherjee was in Israel for a three-day state visit and has indicated that it is about to spend $3 billion on Israeli arms.
  • Last year, in June, Israel and Saudi Arabia revealed they were involved in strategic talks
  • In March, Egyptian President al-Sisi said in a Washington Post interview that he speaks to Netanyahu “a lot.”
  • Japan sees Israel as a model for economic reinvention. 
  • Chinese investment in Israel rose from $70 million in 2010 to hit $2.7 billion last year.
  • Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is urging cooperation on terrorism and refers to Jerusalem as Israel’s “historic capital.”
  • The government of British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced it will move to prevent local councils from passing BDS measures against Israel.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (R) shakes hands with Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal
 at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2016 (Ariel Harmoni/Defense Ministry)
In fact, Netanyahu has been trying to publicize Israel's improved relationship with some countries in the Arab world. Turning around the usual formulation, Netanyahu says that instead of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being the key to peace in the Middle East -- it is the improved Israeli ties with Arab countries that can lead to reaching an agreement with the Palestinian Arabs.

The United States, of course, is still viewed as Israel's primary ally, in terms of support in the UN, as a source of weapons and especially in terms of financial aid. While the stories of friction between Netanyahu and Obama over the years raise questions about the status of the US-Israel relationship, the status quo seems to remain basically unchanged.

But while the issue is usually framed as whether Obama and the US are making changes to the relationship, there are hints that maybe it is time for Israel to be the one distancing itself from the US.

Eli Lake has written that Israelis as well as pro-Israel supporters are supportive of the idea of major decreases in the amount of aid that Israel gets from the US. Noah Pollak of the Emergency Committee for Israel sees support for that aid as providing US leverage over Israeli decisions, as an easy way for politicians to claim to be a friend to Israel -- deserving of political support from the Jewish community and as "easy fodder for critics to claim that the alliance is a burden on the United States or that it’s a one-way street"

Israel's actual need to rely on US military aid is even more questionable. Lake quotes Naftali Bennett, Israel’s minister of economics that “Today, U.S. military aid is roughly 1 percent of Israel’s economy. I think, generally, we need to free ourselves from it."

However, the problem of Israeli reliance on US military aid goes beyond financial considerations.

As doubts about Obama's foreign policy continue, those doubts extend to the ability of the US to enforce the policies it chooses to follow. Caroline Glick writes that Israel cannot afford to continue dependence on US inferior Weapon Systems. She notes a report by Great Britain’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, warning about the erosion of the West's longstanding military technological superiority over Russia, China and other countries.

The F-35's that the US insists Israel purchase instead of their F-15's are an even bigger problem.  Because the F-35 relies on the Internet in order to update data files on computers in the US before and after each mission, the planes are open to sabotage. Fiber optic underwater cables are used for that Internet connection, and The New York Times has reported that Russian submarines have been detected near those cables.

A further security issue is the idea of planes that are used by Israel being open to US control and possibly even interference.

Glick suggests a possible solution could be to utilize the changing dynamic of Israeli alliances in the 21st century, as India and Israel are finalizing a series of arms deals that are expected to total $3 billion. That deal is expected to include missile and electronic warfare systems. Glick sees this as the perfect -- and necessary -- opportunity for Israel and India to jointly develop a next generation fighter based on the Israeli prototype of the Lavi jet fighter.

US F-35 Credit: Youtube / Military Online
Obama once famously declared that "When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states." In light of the fact that Obama has succeeded on his own to eroded US credibility -- and ability -- in the eyes of the Arab world, it is in Israel's interests to put some distance between herself and the US, to be less dependent on the US and to take advantage of the various alliances and friendships that are available to it around the world.


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In 1958, Egyptians Laughed At Wearing the Hijab -- Today, Israel Has Sharia Courts

Daled Amos - Tue, 16/02/2016 - 00:26
During a speech in 1958, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser entertained his audience with a story about a meeting he had with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood 5 years earlier. He claimed the first request of the Muslim Brotherhood was to enforce the wearing of the hijab among women. Nasser's response to the leader had his audience roaring with laughter (English subtitles are in yellow at the top of the video).



Today, of course is a very different matter.


Not only is the wearing of the hijab and full burka found all over the Muslim world, but Islamic law itself -- administered by Sharia Courts -- can be found applied in the West as well.

In Europe, official recognition of Sharia Courts does not appear to be that widespread.
Needless to say in countries such as Great Britain, Germany and France, the idea of imposing the authority of Sharia law, albeit only on Muslims, has been controversial.

But there is one non-Muslim country where the use of Islamic courts has been expanded, without an outcry.

Just yesterday, Rivlin welcomes Israel’s new sharia judges in Jerusalem ceremony:
President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday welcomed Israel’s newest qadis (Muslim judges), telling them that the existence of state-supported Muslim religious courts highlights Israel’s commitment to upholding religious freedom and diversity.

“The authority of the sharia courts – as assured by Israeli law — to me reflects the fundamental principle that an attachment to faith, to tradition, to a culture and community, is not solely the issue of the individual,” Rivlin told the seven new qadis, who are appointed to sharia courts across the country, during a ceremony at his official Jerusalem residence.President Reuven Rilvin and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (center front) pose
with new Israeli sharia judges during a ceremony at the President's Residence
 in Jerusalem on Tuesday, February 9, 2016 (Mark Neyman/GPO)
The only limitation is that no women have been appointed as of yet. Last year a bill was proposed by the Zionist Union and Meretz along with the Joint (Arab) List faction to allow female appointees--but it was blocked by ultra-Orthodox ministers who feared it would set a legal precedent that might lead down the road to the appointment of female rabbinical judges in the religious Jewish courts.

Historically, Sharia Courts have always existed in Israel and date back to when the Ottoman Empire exercised control on the area. When the British took over, the courts remained, with jurisdiction limited to personal status issues among Muslims. With the re-establishment of Israel, Sharia Courts were recognized per the Law and Administration Ordinance and the Qadim Appointments Approval Law recognized the jurisdiction of the Qadis who served in the Sharia Courts before the State of Israel was created. Today they are under the authority of the Ministry of Justice.

And while in the West, Sharia Courts are a subject of controversy...

@Ostrov_A Fascinating that while Americans and Europeans are up in arms about this happening in their countries, Israelis couldn't care less— David Ha'ivri (@haivri) February 10, 2016
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Historically, Have Boycotts Ever Really Worked -- And What Does That Mean For BDS and Israel?

Daled Amos - Mon, 15/02/2016 - 18:28
With all the talk of boycotts, especially talk of the BDS movement against Israel, it has been a given that boycotts work. So leave it to Freakonomics to ask the question: Do Boycotts Work?. The entire broadcast is embedded below at the end of this post, but there are some key points worth highlighting.

The podcast starts with the Montgomery Bus Boycott in response to the treatment of Rosa Parks, quoting a political scientist on the difficulty of tracing a causal connection between the boycott and the Supreme Court decision declaring bus segregation to be unconstitutional:
the bus company was ready to cave in early. It was the politicians who held out. The holdout was followed by more and more press coverage, which was followed by the Supreme Court case, which was followed by desegregation of the Montgomery buses. So how much credit should be given to the boycott?
The bus on which en:Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat sparking the
Montgomery Bus Boycott Credit: Rmhermen, Wiki Commons
Another boycott with even more questionable effect is the one carried out against Chic-fil-A, where the boycott led to a pushback -- a buycott -- which had the opposite effect of leading to record-breaking sales numbers for the company. Buycotts have been used to counter boycotts of Israel as well.

Which leads to what is arguably the mother of all boycotts: the boycott against South Africa, which is generally assumed to have had a significant effect on change in that country. After all, the boycotts and divestments called for against South Africa were wide-ranging and intensive. According to Ivo Welch, a professor of economics and finance at the Anderson School at UCLA:
In the early 1980s and before then, it was a very large movement to divest all sorts of holdings and break all sorts of business and sports ties with South Africa. South Africa, at the time, had an apartheid regime that was institutionalized racism and about as abominable as it gets. So there were a lot of protests by students on campuses — at Columbia, which is where I was at the time. There were sit-ins. There was a big movement to divest the pension holdings. Banks actually had to have different requirements if they wanted to invest in South Africa. The tax laws were changed. There were all sorts of coordinated actions that were not just in the United States, but all over the world, all designed to bring the South African regime to its knees. Or to at least have an influence on the perception of the public about South Africa.Credit: Djembayz, Wiki Commons
But Welch is not convinced that boycotts had a significant effect. He was involved in a 1999 study in of the South African boycott that concluded:
In sum, despite the publicity of the boycott and the multitude of divesting companies, political pressure had little visible effect on the financial markets.Why not?

Because despite the public outrage and the apparent vigorousness with which it was pursued, the boycott was never fully enforced and it was relatively easy to get around it. Not only was the divestment movement relatively ineffectual, the South African companies were not really hurt -- the minute one stockholder got rid of his shares, there was always someone else willing to snap them up.

This of course is relevant to the issue of anti-Israel boycotts too, and how effective they can actually be.

Another question of course is how boycotts targeting Israel can have a negative effect on the Palestinian Arabs who are employed by Israeli companies. This can be assessed by comparing to another example of a boycott. During 2003, there was a backlash against the French who refused to support the US during the war to get rid of Saddam Hussein. That is when people referred to French fries as “freedom fries” -- and others starting boycotting Le Cirque, the famous French restaurant in New York.

The problem? The French restaurant was actually owned by Italians. 90% of its employees were New Yorkers, who themselves were from all over the world. The restaurant suppliers were likewise from all over. The boycotters completely missed their target -- and hurt others.

So if the effectiveness of boycotts is so uncertain, why are they still being used as a tool of protest? The answer to that may be pretty straightforward, and have as much to do with those publicizing boycotts as with those actually carrying then out:
boycotts get a lot of attention — they’re a good, easy, spicy story for journalists to cover — which gives the impression that the outrage is larger than it really is.That is why on more than one occasion the BDS has been accused of jumping the gun and bragging about divestments from Israel based on their influence, when in fact purely business considerations were involved.

This smaller impact of boycotts is consistent with the general failure of the anti-Israel BDS movement, where their greatest influence is with institutions driven by emotion as opposed to those whose actions are dictated by rules and results. As Alex Joffee notes, Healthy Institutions Don’t Boycott Israel.
  • Global industries have shown no interest in excluding Israel. Instead investment in Israel is rising, especially from Asia -- and even trade with Europe is continuing.
  • Universities and corporations have not sold their stocks in companies doing business in Israel, such as like Intel or Caterpillar -- claims by the BDS movement to the contrary
  • The backlash against boycotts is growing at the state level, where legislators in Florida, California, Ohio, Illinois and South Carolina are proposing laws to prohibit anti-Israel discrimination by state agencies
  • In Europe, the Conservative Party in Great Britain proposed restrictions on local councils and pension funds from discriminating against Israel based on political grounds.
  • Despite successes where the BDS movement has manipulated the passage of boycott and divestment resolutions by student governments, the university administrations have denounced the resolutions rather than follow suit.
All one has to do is  read the list on UK Media Watch for specific examples of failures of the anti-Israel BDS movement in the political, economic and cultural areas.

This is not to say that boycotts have zero impact or that boycotts directed against specific companies cannot have an effect, but the bottom line is that there is no way to really know how much effect a boycott can have:
Here’s what the evidence seems to suggest: The typical boycott is more smoke than fire. And it doesn’t often seem to financially hurt the targeted company. But, humans being human, and the court of public opinion working as it does, a boycott can color the reputation of a given firm..There is nothing here that is going to dissuade anyone who is intent on boycotting -- or to convince anyone opposing it to just sit back and ignore it.

But by the very least, here is an opportunity to rationally view the history and concept of boycotts without the hype, especially when it comes to the BDS movement against Israel.

Below is the complete podcast.
You can also read the complete transcript of Do Boycotts Work?




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A Call For Death To Jews In Austria, Death Wishes For Clarence Thomas -- Just Good Honest Criticism?

Daled Amos - Sun, 14/02/2016 - 21:36
Antisemitism in Europe reaches a new low when a representative of the law can openly defend the right of someone to openly praise the death of Jews at the hands of the Nazis as a legitimate form of criticism of Israel.

Benjamin Weinthal writes Austrian prosecutor: Call to kill Jews is legal criticism of Israel, noting that a Turkish man posted on his Facebook page a quote falsely attributed to Hitler: "I could have annihilated all the Jews in the world, but I left some of them alive so you will know why I was killing them." -- this in the context of criticism against Israel’s war against Hamas last summer.


Credit: AFP/file

This follows a similar claim after a firebomb attack on a synagogue in Germany. In a verdict delivered last February, a German court ruled that the attack on the synagogue was actually motivated by a desire to bring “attention to the Gaza conflict” and was not Antisemitic. [Hat tip: Aiden Pink]

Stefan Schaden, a member of the advisory board of the Austria-Israel Society remarked:
This position [of the prosecutor] is, unfortunately, becoming more popular. Everything passes as so-called criticism of Israel. Anti-Semitism seems to have been officially abolished. In view of the climate in Europe, it is a dramatic development.There may be more truth to what Schaden said than he realized.

Just over this weekend we are seeing vicious hatred expressed as "criticism" in a way not even related to Antisemitism.

Twitchy has a post featuring a variety of tweets by people on Twitter not just rejoicing in Scalia's death but wishing the same for Clarence Thomas.

Other people on Twitter stopped short of wishing for Thomas's death:
Degenerates--on Twitter--are using "puppet master" #AntoninScalia's death to make hideous, racist slams about Clarence Thomas#LiberalRacism— Larry Elder (@larryelder) February 14, 2016All in the name of criticism?

Peggy Noonan notes a decline in respect for US institutions:
All this goes hand in hand with the general decline of America’s faith in its institutions. We feel less respect for almost all of them—the church, the professions, the presidency, the Supreme Court. The only formal national institution that continues to score high in terms of public respect (72% in the most recent Gallup poll) is the military.This is more than just a lack of respect, it is anger -- and during this presidential campaign it is being channeled into support of one candidate in particular, who is known for flying off the handle and calling people names.

This is more than just being anti-establishment, and it is being seen in more than just the US -- as we  see malevolent attacks launched with increasing ease against a widening array of "enemies," with the same vitriol we see aimed at Jews.

It is irrational.
It is hateful.
It is dangerous.
And it is growing.

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