EclectEcon

Cited by Bloomberg. let's face it: sex and violence sell

There was an uptick in traffic to The EclectEcon recently. I looked to see what it was, and saw there was considerable traffic sent here from a blog posting at Bloomberg.com. And what article was cited there? A strange one that told about a prof at Columbia who linked sex and the US invasion of Iraq.

In such a strategy, Iraqis are posited by American super-masculine fighter-bomber pilots as women and feminised men to be penetrated by the missiles and bombs ejected from American warplanes.

I'd even forgotten about that posting, but it must have stuck in someone's mind (actually it was pretty high on the Google search list).

Is Chuck Hagel an Anti-Semite?

Probably. My internet correspondent MA sent me this link. Here is an excerpt:

[T]o my knowledge, no one has ever argued that anyone who criticizes Israel, for its foreign policies or otherwise, is an anti-Semite. Similarly, no one argues that anyone who criticizes the government of Poland, say, must be bigoted against Poles.

This red herring is used to obscure what really does happen: there are a considerable number of people, of whom Hagel appears to be one, who are obsessed with Israel, and not in a good way. Against all evidence, they assert that Israel’s accommodating the Palestinians is the key to peace in the entire Middle Eastern region if not the whole Arab world. History tells us that the supposed centrality of Israeli-Palestinian relations to everything that goes on within 2,000 miles is a fantasy, yet the fantasy persists in men like Chuck Hagel. If only Israel would yield to the Palestinians, then everything else would fall into place.

This obsession with Israel is usually combined with a hyper-critical attitude toward its conduct. The Tutus can slaughter a million Hutsis–or was it the other way around?–and hardly anyone appears to care. If Chuck Hagel ever commented on that particular bloodbath, or if he was especially bothered when a million people were killed in the Iran-Iraq war, I never heard about it. But let Israel defend itself against thousands of rocket attacks and assorted other terrorist threats, and let an Israeli bomb fall near a school because that’s where the terrorists locate their rocket launchers, and my Lord! You would think the world is coming to an end. This strange imbalance, which we see in people like Chuck Hagel, must have a cause somewhere.

 

Related articles

If Being Anti-Israel Isn't Anti-Semitic, It's Mighty Close

The Holocaust: Polish Guilt. Polish Sorrow

Thoughts On Anti-Semitism, Prompted by Hagel and Others

Chuck Hagel, anti-Semite?

Jewish Groups Must End Silence on Hagel

Colin Powell: It's 'disgraceful' to play anti-Semitic card against Hagel

These Are Not Just a Few Wackos; These Are Gubmnt Leaders

Whenever you read or hear things like this, you wonder how on earth Israel could survive if it didn't have a strong military and a strong determination.

 A key figure in Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's government called the Holocaust a hoax cooked up by U.S. intelligence operatives and claimed the 6 million Jews who were killed by Nazis simply moved to the U.S.

The outrageous claims, by Fathi Shihab-Eddim, a senior figure close to President Morsi who is now responsible for appointing the editors of all state-run Egyptian newspapers, came as the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, and also as the U.S. continues to assess its relationship with the increasingly radical Arab state.

“The myth of the Holocaust is an industry that America invented,” Shihab-Eddim said, leaving no room for doubt that the Egyptian government -- like Iran's -- has at the very least significant elements that deny one of history's best documented genocides.

“U.S. intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it [the Holocaust] to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany, and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb,” Shihab-Eddim said.

See how moderate Egypt's leaders are? They blame America, not Jews, for the "myth" of the Holocaust!

Remember that next time someone calls Egypt or the Muslim Brotherhood anti-semitic.

If Being Anti-Israel Isn't Anti-Semitic, It's Mighty Close

Melanie Phillips has yet another terrific column (ht MA):

[T]he fact is that Israel is not trying to exterminate the Palestinians – indeed how could this possibly be the case, since the Palestinian population has more than quadrupled since the rebirth of Israel in 1948. Nor are the Israelis oppressing the Palestinians, who have benefited from some of the highest rises in GDP and lowest child mortality ratios in the Middle East.

Nor are the Israelis behaving inhumanely; it is the Palestinians who are committing crimes against humanity by targeting Israeli innocents for mass murder without remission, both from Gaza and from the West Bank. It is the Palestinians, in the West Bank as well as Gaza, who are brainwashed from the cradle to hate Jews and to believe that murdering Israelis is their highest glory. Which they have been doing in Israel and before that in Palestine for more than a century – despite the fact that, as the international community laid down in binding treaty in 1920, the Jews alone had the inalienable and historic right to settle throughout Palestine, including not just present-day Israel but also the West Bank and Gaza.

Moreover, while the Jews accepted proposals for a Palestinian state first made in the 1930s and then in 1947, and while the Israelis offered them more than 95 per cent of the possible land for a state in 2000 and 2008, the Palestinians responded merely by murdering more Jews.

Despite all this, Israel behaves towards its genocidal Palestinian attackers with a humanity that is seen in no other conflict on the planet. Despite the rocket attacks and constant smuggling of ever more fearsome weapons to be aimed at its civilians, it allows humanitarian supplies into Gaza; despite the constant plotting in the West Bank to kill more Israelis, it allows Palestinians to work in Israel, and treats Palestinians from both the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israelis in Israeli hospitals. Yes of course there is Palestinian hardship caused by the checkpoints and security barrier. But the only reason these exist is to prevent Palestinians killing yet more Israelis. If the Palestinians and their Arab and Iranian backers stopped trying to wipe Israel off the map, there would be peace tomorrow.

 

Israel and Gaza what about all the rockets?

Reading the mainstream media, you'd think the Israeli attack on Gaza was largely unprovoked. For instance, the Trono Globe and Mail writes, "Slaying of Hamas commander threatens fragile Middle East peace". Or see what Melanie Phillips has to say about it here.

Fortunately the internet provides other sources which point out that there had been a massive increase in rocket attacks from Gaza to southern Israel over the past few days:

U.S. Condemns Hamas Rocket Fire
Deputy State Department Spokesperson Mark C. Toner said Wednesday: "We strongly condemn the barrage of rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel, and we regret the death and injury of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians caused by the ensuing violence. There is no justification for the violence that Hamas and other terrorist organizations are employing against the people of Israel. We call on those responsible to stop these cowardly acts immediately. We support Israel's right to defend itself, and we encourage Israel to continue to take every effort to avoid civilian casualties."
    "Hamas claims to have the best interests of the Palestinian people at heart, yet it continues to engage in violence that is counterproductive to the Palestinian cause. Attacking Israel on! a near daily basis does nothing to help Palestinians in Gaza or to move the Palestinian people any closer to achieving self-determination."  (U.S. State Department)
    See also State Department Sides with Israel in New Hamas War - Josh Rogin (Foreign Policy)
    See also Prime Minister Netanyahu Speaks with President Obama
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with President Barack Obama and expressed his deep appreciation for President Obama's support of Israel's right to defend itself. (Prime Minister's Office)
    See also Canada Condemns Hamas, Stands with Israel
"We fundamentally ! believe that Israel has the right to defend itself and its citizens from terrorist threats," Rick Roth, a spokesman for Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, said in a statement. "Far too often, the Jewish people find themselves on the front lines in the struggle against terrorism."  (AP-CBC News)

And in the link provided above, Melanie Phillips rightly says,

...let’s get this clear: in the mindset of the BBC and Foreign Office, 120-plus rockets in four days is not an escalation of violence or attempted mass murder; but a targeted strike to kill two individuals who have been organising such attacks, in order to prevent them from organising any more, is an escalation. What kind of hideously warped perspective is this?...

... as far as much of the British media and wretched Foreign Office are concerned, Israel is the only country on earth which is not entitled to defend its people against attack. Does anyone think that if Britain had sustained a rocket barrage of 120 rockets in four days, let alone nearly 800 in a year or more than 5000 in six years, it would not have been at war long ago? But in the British establishment mind, Israel can never be a victim, only an aggressor.

Apparently The Globe has the same warped perspective as the BBC and the British Foreign Office. Pity.

Addendum: So does the NYTimes, which says, essentially, "It's all Israel's fault for not allowing Hamas to continue its rain of rockets."

Ferocious Israeli Assault on Gaza Kills a Leader of Hamas -- Israel hit at least 20 targets in aerial attacks that killed the military commander of Hamas, damaged Israel's fragile relations with Egypt and escalated the risks of a new war in the Middle East.

Gobekli Tepe

Jack sent me this last week. It's fascinating.

Gobekli Tepe:
The structures on this site were built about 12,000 years ago (10,000 BC) and perhaps intentionally buried with sand about 8,000 years ago.  No one knows who these people were, what the massive buildings were for, or why they were buried.  Just for reference, these structures were built during the last ice age and are more than 7,000 years older than any other structure we have yet discovered on our planet. 

        http://www.wimp.com/unexplainedstructure/ 

I wondered if the whole thing was a hoax, but apparently not. Snopes has no entry for it, and the Wikipaedia entry treats it as legitimate. So does the Smithsonian magazine. What a blow to the common anthropological explanations about human evolution! I realize this probably isn't new for many people, but it is really fun to think about.

Antisemitism in Malaysia:Fulford Takes on Simpson and Burman

Robert Fulford, writing in the National Post, itemizes the antisemitism extant in Malaysia and in the process criticizes columnists Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Burman of the Star. 

It’s only when we grasp the unremitting and mindless hostility of countries such as Malaysia that we begin to understand the pain and difficulty of Israel’s place in the world. This is the context in which we should think about the Harper government’s pro-Israel policy. Israel faces automatic enmity from all the Arab nations, most other Muslim-dominated states and the many organizations in democratic countries that dedicate themselves to showering abuse on Israel (and no one else) in the name of human rights....

Yet many Canadians apparently believe that there is something unfair in this situation, not in the invective heaped on Israel but in Canada’s habit of friendship with the only democracy in the Middle East. It’s argued that this policy has done harm to Canada. Jeffrey Simpson of The Globe and Mail says that because of our attitude to Israel, “Canada’s reputation in the Arab world is mud.” Tony Burman, of the Toronto Star, former head of Al Jazeera English, and now a journalism teacher at Ryerson University, says that our government’s “passionate pro-Israeli stance” has damaged Canada’s reputation throughout the Middle East “after decades of being one of the world’s respected ‘honest brokers’ on Mideast issues.”

Of course there are many reasons for Canada's pro-Israel stances: democracy, constant threats of annhilation, and expulsion of Jews from so many arab and other Muslim countries to name three important ones.

Why SouthWestern Ontario Should Receive Aid from the Rest of the World

I live in the Southwestern portion of the Province of Ontario, Canada. This geographic region has never been a recognized distinct political entity. But it should be, and it should receive aid from everyone else in the world as we continue our struggle for independence and recognition.

Early in the history of this region there were warring tribes, including the Neutrals, the Huron, the Chippewa (Ojibwa?), et al. Later, as other tribes fled the invasions of white settlers, they, too settled in the area, and these newcomers fought murderous wars with the earlier tribes. Then as the British settled the area, there were new various local settlements, all under the rubric of "Upper Canada".

But we never had our own, distinct government in Southwestern Ontario. 

Then, as Quebec passed its onerous language and signage laws, many Anglophones moved to Ontario, especially southwestern Ontario. The influx of people to southwestern Ontario means that we are now a people.

We are not just Ontarians; we have a special identity and we have needs that differ from those in other parts of Ontario specifically and North America in general. We have never been fully assimilated into the rest of Ontario. We are a unique people, and we deserve support and recognition as such.

To that end, I propose the creation of an organization: The Ontario Liberation Authority. The OLA must continue the struggle for our own nationhood and freedom from the rest of Ontario and Canada. 

Here's a Surprise

Norman Finklestein comes out AGAINST the BDS and Occupy crowd (h/t Elder of Ziyon)

Things Students at The University of Regina Should Consider and so should everyone else

The student union at The University of Regina has voted to support a campaign of boycotts, divestiture, and sanctions against Israel. While I will not defend absolutely everything Israel does or has done, here are some things the students there and everyone elsewhere should consider [from Melanie Phillips, "The Algorithm of Malice"]. I have added a number of additional points below this lengthy quote:

There are two big and connected points made by this little video. The first is that the widely-held belief that the Arabs were the only refugees from the Arab war against the newly reconstituted country of Israel (a war which started in 1948 and continues to this day) -- is totally untrue. There were many more Jewish refugees from Arab countries. As a result of the 1948 war, some 500,000 Arabs left Palestine – most of them as a result of having been told to do so by Arab regimes certain of destroying the new Jewish state. [emphasis added] But some 850,000 Jews were then attacked, stripped of their citizenship and ethnically cleansed from their homes in Arab states -- causing the destruction of ancient Jewish communities in those countries which had well predated the arrival of Islam in the Middle East. And what happened to those refugees? They were absorbed without fuss into Israel ..., where they form around half of the population, and into other countries.

The second point which is crucial to an understanding of this conflict is that the Palestinian refugee issue is entirely artificial and bogus.  Not only were the Arabs from Palestine deliberately refused access to other Arab countries [EE: again emphasis added. Note that there was no country called Palestine then. Just Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt in addition to Israel.] in order to turn them – as a UN refugee official admitted – into an open sore as a weapon to be used against Israel. Even more astonishingly, the UN itself was a party to this malevolent strategy.

For it chose to treat the Palestinian Arabs differently from any other refugee group. All other refugees are dealt with by the UN Refugee Agency, whose goal is to re-settle them. But for the Palestinian Arabs, the UN set up the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – whose [apparent] goal was to maintain the Palestinian Arabs as permanent refugees.

To that end, while in every other conflict refugees are defined merely as people who flee their homes, the UN decided that amongst the Palestinian Arabs refugee status would be transmitted from generation to generation. As a result, the number of Palestinian Arab ‘refugees’ has not diminished but risen over the years from 550,000 to 4.7 million. These are the people who are now said to deserve the ‘right of return’ to Israel.

Of course, the idea that 4.2 million of these people are actually refugees is totally absurd. If that standard was applied generally, the entire Jewish diaspora -- not to mention untold millions around the world who have been settled for generations -  could suddenly claim refugee status. ...

Now at long last Israel has begun to realise that yes, incredible as it seems, sentient people do actually believe such lies -- – and that if the free world is to be restored to the axis of reason, they must be countered head-on by the true facts of history. 

So long as there are rockets landing in Israel, so long as there are neighbouring governments pledged to annihilate Israel, and so long as there are terrorists bombing and killing civilians in Israel and threatening the very existence of its citizens, it makes all the sense in the world to me that the Israelis would create checkpoints and barriers. 

Keep in mind, too, that after Israel ceded the Gaza strip to the Palestinian Arabs living in Gaza (forcing the Israelis living there to leave!), much of the infrastructure they left in place was immediately pillaged. And of course the rain of rockets from Gaza continues with Hamas in control in Gaza now. Furthermore, people blamed Israel for the later blockade of Gaza when in fact Egypt participated in it as well. 

Finally, if you want to defend some downtrodden people, consider defending the residents of North Korea, Tibet, southern Sudan and Darfur, Cuba, and even many Venezuelans. But the plight of many Palestinian Arabs is at least as much the result of policies of neighbouring Arab countries who:

1. encouraged them (and mostly their ancestors) to leave Israel in 1948, promising to drive the Jews into the sea. Granted, some Arabs were indeed driven out of Israel, but most left voluntarily expecting to return only a few weeks later.
2. When Jordan, Syria, and Egypt failed in this war, they blamed the Jews for taking the property of those who fled. Furthermore despite their mistaken policies, these governments refused to accept the fleeing Palestinian Arabs as full-fledged citizens, instead forcing them to live in refugee camps.
3. There are tonnes more Arab students in Israeli universities than there are Jews in Arab universities.

Finally, remember that for centuries before World War I, the entire region was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. After WWI, the British had a mandate to govern the middle east and probably botched it (though it is not at all clear that at the time anyone could realistically have done much better, given the mutually exclusive competing claims and factions).

After WWII, the British slowly re-carved the region, creating Israel, among other countries. If the Palestinian and other Arabs of the region had accepted the initial partition of 1947-48, there would be no problem (well, okay, there would be much less of a problem). 

One of the Many Reasons I tend to be Pro-Israel

From this site:

 I can personally testify that in May, 1948, Ben-Gurion's public appeal to the Arabs of Haifa and Jaffa was widely spread and broadcast live and repeated over and again in the streets of these two towns, calling upon the Arabs to accept his outstretched hand in peace, and not to leave their homes and possessions as they were being urged by the Arab Higher Command.

I was in Haifa on 16th May, 1948 and I watched the Arabs as they calmly and joyfully lined up to be taken aboard the British warships to be transported to Egypt and Lebanon. There was no panic as they fully expected to return in a few days to take over all the Jewish property from the massacred Jews, as they were promised by their leaders. They were not "refugees". They considered themselves to be no more than "temporary evacuees" just for a few days, and it was a joyful holiday break for them.

My reading of various sources says that there were indeed a few places where Arabs were driven from their homes by victorious Israelis in the 1948, but those instances were very few and far between. For the most part, though, Israeli Arabs voluntarily left their homes at the urging of the Jordan, Syria, and Egyptian leaders who expected to drive the Jews into the sea. To the extent this history is correct, it seems to me the former Israeli Arabs have a bitter complaint against the former Arab leaders, much more so than against the Israel of today.

Ann Coulter on Mob Riots versus Political Movements

From a Townhall article, quoting Ann Coulter,

The high-water mark of mob behavior, she believes, was the French Revolution. "The American Revolution was a revolution of ideas," she explains. "The idea of a constitutional, representative democracy, based on the consent of the governed, in the form of three competing branches, was revolutionary. The French Revolution -- which hardly deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the American Revolution! -- was a protracted mob action, which mostly consisted of some French people mindlessly beheading other French people. The French Revolution was not inspired by some groundbreaking political manifesto like the Declaration of Independence. It was more like a street riot that got out of control and went on for years because they let it.

This distinction is probably important for understanding the Arab Spring. On the one hand, the revolution of ideas might help many protestors win support from the West; on the other hand, much of the protest action seems more like mob rule, an attempt by a different gang to wrest control from the encumbent gang. I would like to think the US State Department is at least considering this distinction.

Geert Wilders Visited London, Ontario, Yesterday: some quotes and photos

Geert Wilders, outspoken Dutch critic of Islam and producer of the (in)famous film, Fitna, spoke in London, Ontario, last evening, under a cloak of secrecy and surrounded by a wall of security. 

Wilders is a well-known public figure who sees Islam as more of an ideology than a religion. During his talk, he lambasted multiculturalism. Two quotes:

Multiculturalism is the biggest disease in Europe today.

And the reason for that?

Multiculturalism would not have been such a catastrophe if it weren't for Islam.

Because of his views, his public statements, his film, and his policy proposals, Wilders' life is constantly in danger. The organizers of the evening event, the International Free Press Society, refused to advertise the dates and locations of his talks while he is in Canada. Instead, we found out about them through word-of-mouth and then had to register before receiving the information [he does have two more talks planned while he is in Canada, in case you are interested; the information is available at the IFPS website]. 

Accompanying Wilders were about 10 security personnel from The Netherlands; also the RCMP had a large security contingent on hand. We all went through a security check before being admitted to the place where he spoke.

This is just plain wrong. People speaking about religion and ideology should not live in fear for their lives and the lives of their friends and families. 

Geert Wilders:

The warm-up act for Wilders was a dialogue between Ezra Levant (of human rights and freedom of the press fame in Canada) and Sam Solomon, a noted scholar of Islam and Sharia Law; it was mostly an interview of Solomon by Levant. During that interview, Solomon (who converted to Christianity and was at times quite coy about his past) proclaimed,

If you do not hate, you cannot be a complete Muslim.

Both Wilders and Solomon are very outspoken critics of Islam.

Here is a photo I took of Solomon and Levant ( all my photos from the event: twelve-times optical zoom, no flash, from about 50 feet away):

The session was introduced by Bjorn Larsen, who recently filmed a documentary about Caledonia, freedom, and property rights and who heads up the IFPS:

One more photo of Wilders, who was extremely engaging and compelling as a speaker:

Leon Ruskin's Message to BBC Correspondent, Jeremy Bowen

Why attack Israel when it is so clear that things have been and are so much worse in nearly(?) all the other countries in the Middle East?

[Introductory note from EE: I have looked for this via Google but haven't been able to find it. It was sent to me by Eva who received it from...from... from.... It has been around. I hope it is legitimate. I don't agree with all of it; just 98.3% of it.]:

Mr Bowen, in your reports on the BBC, you warned us, and the brilliant diplomats warned us. The think tanks warned us. Even the Arab dictators warned us. For decades now, you have all been warning us that if you want "peace in the Middle East," just fix the Palestinian problem.

A recent variation on this theme has been: Just get the Jews to stop building apartments in East Jerusalem and Efrat. Yes, if all those Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem would only "freeze" their construction, then, finally, Palestinian leaders might come to the table and peace might break out.

And what would happen if peace would break out between Jews and Palestinians? Would all those furious Arabs now demonstrating on streets across the Middle East feel any better?

What bloody nonsense.

Has there ever been a greater abuse of the English language in international diplomacy than calling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the "Middle East peace process?" As if there were only two countries in the Middle East.

Even if you absolutely believe in the imperative of creating a Palestinian state, you can't tell me that the single-minded and global obsession with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the expense of the enormous ills in the rest of the Middle East hasn't been idiotic, if not criminally negligent.

While tens of millions of Arabs have been suffering for decades from brutal oppression, while gays have been tortured and writers jailed and women humiliated and dissidents killed, the world -- yes, the world – has obsessed with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As if Palestinians -- the same coddled victims on whom the world has spent billions and who have rejected one peace offer after another -- were the only victims in the Middle East.

As if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has anything to do with the 1,000-year-old bloody conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, or the desire of brutal Arab dictators to stay in power, or the desire of Islamist radicals to bring back the Caliphate, or the economic despair of millions, or simply the absence of free speech or basic human rights throughout the Arab world.

While you and your fellow self-righteous Israel bashers have scrutinized every flaw in Israel's democracy --  waxing hysterical that the Jewish democratic experiment in the world's nastiest neighborhood had turned into an embarrassment -- you have kept your big mouths shut about the oppression of millions of Arabs throughout the Middle East. 

Oh yes, it is now opportune to suddenly villify President Mubarak, previously held up by you as a bastion of democracy, an thanked by President Obama previously " for his willingness to work with us on critical issues, and to help advance the interest of peace and prosperity around the world."

Mr Bowen, you  cried foul in your reports if Israeli Arabs -- who have infinitely more rights and freedoms than any Arabs in the Middle East – had their rights compromised in any way. But if a poet were jailed in Jordan or a gay man were tortured in Egypt or a woman were stoned in Syria, all we heard was screaming silence.  Now suddenly, it is self-serving to expose breaches of human rights in Egypt.

Think of the ridiculous amount of media ink and diplomatic attention and Jeremy Bowen reports that have been poured onto the Israel-Palestinian conflict over the years, while much of the Arab world was suffering and smouldering, and tell me this is not criminal negligence.

I do not ever recall seeing a UN resolution or an international conference in support of Middle Eastern Arabs not named Palestinians  Why?

Of course, now that the Arab volcano has finally erupted, you and all your chronic Israel bashers have suddenly discovered a new cause: Freedom for the poor oppressed Arabs of the Middle East!

Imagine if, instead of putting Israel under your critical and hypocritical microscope, you and your fraternal  world's Israel bashers had taken Israel's imperfect democratic experiment and said to the Arab world: Why don't you try to emulate the Jews? Why don't you give equal rights to your women and gays, just like Israel does? Why don't you give your people the same freedom of speech and freedom to vote that Israel does?

And offer them the economic opportunities they would get in Israel? Why don't you treat your Jewish and Christian citizens the same way Israel treats its Arab and Christian citizens? Why don't you study how Israel has struggled to balance religion with democracy -- a very difficult but not insurmountable task? Why don't you teach your people that Jews are not the sons of dogs but a noble, ancient people with a 3,000-year connection to the land of Israel?

Yes, imagine if you Israel bashers had spent a fraction of their energy fighting the lies of Arab dictators and defending the rights of millions of oppressed Arabs. Imagine if President Obama had taken one percent of the time he has harped on Jewish settlements to defend the democratic rights of Egyptian Arabs -- which he is suddenly doing now that the volcano has erupted.  Maybe it's just easier to beat up on a free and open society like Israel.

Well, now that the cesspool of human oppression in the Arab world has been opened for all to see, how bad, Mr Bowen, BBC Middle East Editor, is Israel's democracy looking? Don't you wish the Arab world had a modicum of Israel's civil society? Would you still be worrying about "stability in the Middle East?"

You can preach to me all you want about the great Jewish tradition of  self-criticism -- which I believe in -- but right now, when I see poor Arab souls being murdered for the simple act of protesting on the street, I've never felt more proud of being a supporter of the Jewish state.

I do hope that you will take the time to read this message as you shelter from bricks and molotov cocktails, and wonder why Israel alone in the area is able to change administrations without such civil unrest.

Leon Ruskin

Differential Treatments for Different Arab Leaders by Western Leaders

This column by Khaled Abu Toameh highlights what looks like quite different treatment of Arab leaders by the West. 

It took President Barack Obama nine days to condemn Col. Muammar Gaddafi's massacres in Libya as "outrageous" and "unacceptable."

It took the UN Security Council more than a week to hold a closed-door meeting and issue a tempered statement condemning the violence in Libya and calling for its immediate end and for those responsible to be held accountable.

This is the same Libya that was elected to UN Human Rights Council less than a year ago. To be honest, I know of no one who could justify that election. Toameh continues:

But both Obama and the Security Council stopped short of calling for Gaddafi's removal from power for perpetrating atrocities against his own people.

The Europeans have also been cautious in their response to the carnage in Libya. They too have refrained from calling for regime change in Libya.

One can understand why Americans and Europeans are worried about their economic interests in Libya, especially with regard to oil. It is also likely that the West is embarrassed about its relationship with the Libyan dictator who, despite his crimes, was welcomed back into the international community in 2003.

Then, Gaddafi was apparently forgiven for his role in the Lockerbie plane explosion and support for countless terror groups in the Arab and Islamic world. Gaddafi was forgiven because he had agreed to abandon his nuclear ambitions and promised to be good.

... Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seem to be more troubled by the death of 300 Egyptians than the brutal massacring of thousands of Libyans. Obama and Clinton seem to be more worried about construction in Jewish settlements than war crimes and serious human rights violations in the Arab world.

The US Administration and the rest of the international community have once again sent a message to the Arabs that they do not really care about human rights and democracy and that they are ready to sacrifice thousands of Arabs to keep the oil prices as low as ever. Mubarak was unfortunate because his country does not have oil.

Now at least the Arab people know that they can no longer rely on Obama and Clinton to support any of their pro-democracy movements.

For more on the situation in Libya, see this (h/t JY). Now just imagine if, say, in 2003, the US had invaded Libya to "make it safe for democracy and to promote human rights." I doubt the rest of the world would have supported US (and ally) efforts back then.

Alternatively, imagine if the US had invaded Libya instead of Iraq. Do you think the US would have gotten away with doing so and had support from other countries? I doubt it. People would have said the US was after Libya's oil. In that respect, the US was damned if they did, damned if they didn't.

So even though Libya and Gadaffi have perpetrated massive human rights violations, it is perhaps unrealistic to put too much responsibility on the West. 

A Quick Summary of the Protests in the Middle East

The NYTimes has a piece with short summaries about each of the countries with links to more.

While We're Talking about Discrimination against Palestinian Arabs...

Let's keep in mind that after 1947 and urging Israeli Arabs to leave Israel, Jordan didn't want them, Syria didn't want them, Egypt didn't want them and Libya actively discriminates against them [this is from last August]:

Libya has implemented a program of taxing all of its Palestinian Arab residents.

According to Al Jazeera (Arabic), Palestinian Arabs in Libya are now forced to pay an annual fee of up to $1550, and they have to endure a host of new humiliations as well.

PalArabs have been banned from working in various jobs, including education. Relatives cannot visit them. Those who own cars are being taxed for more money than their monthly salaries. Travel documents are expiring and not being renewed, yet the Arab League does not allow Palestinian Arabs from obtaining passports from the countries they have lived in all their lives.

Residents note bitterly that all this is happening while Libya made a big show of sending a ship of aid to Gaza.

All of this is in contradiction with Libyan Law #10 of 1998 which was supposed to grant somewhat equal rights to Palestinian Arabs in that country.

And here are two  [update: three] more posters with relevance for anti-apartheid week:

Israel Apartheid Week? Small-minded Hypocrisy

Once again some universities are holding "Israel Apartheid Week". This set of demonstrations and information sessions really perplexes me. It isn't that Israel is perfect in its human rights record. Rather, I just do not understand why people single out Israel when the human rights records of so many other countries are so horrible by comparison (e.g. China's treatment of Tibet, Iran, Sudan, etc.). Also, what about the treatment of Jews in so many arab countries? And, just to be clear, the treatment of muslims and arabs in Israel is a far cry from anything that came to be known as apartheid in South Africa. 

I just cannot understand why the people who organize and support these events single out Israel as a villain in the middle east when the Israelis have done so much to promote human rights in comparison with so many other countries.

Two Distressing Items about Israel

From the Daily alert, news that mainstream arab news media claim the forest fires in northern Israel are God's wrath; and reports that many in Egypt have claimed the shark attacks in Gaza were part of a Mossad plot.

• Hamas Leader: Allah Is Scourging Israelis with Fire
  The fires ravaging northern Israel are God's expression of anger towards Israelis, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told Reuters on Sunday. "These are plagues from God," said Haniyeh. "Allah is punishing them."  (Jerusalem Post)
      See also Arabs Rejoiced over Israeli Forest Fire - Khaled Abu Toameh
  It is sad and abhorrent to see how many Arabs rejoiced over the big forest fire in northern Israel, calling it a "divine punishment" for Israelis and wishing that the blaze would spread to destroy all Jews. The messages of hate are the result of decades of incitement against Israel and Jews in the Arab media and mosques throughout the Arab and Islamic world. The comments serve as a reminder that many people in the Arab and Islamic countries still have not come to terms with Israel's right to exist.
      What is troubling is that these repugnant comments were posted on Web sites of major Arab media outlets that are not necessarily associated with radical Islam. Al-Arabiya and Asharq Al-Awsat are owned by members of the Saudi royal family which has been frequently targeted by Muslim fundamentalist groups like al-Qaeda. (Hudson Institute-New York)
• Egyptian Expert Shoots Down Conspiracy Theory Blaming Israel for Shark Attacks - Yasmine Fathi
  Mahmoud Hanafy, a professor of marine biology at the Suez Canal University, said it is "sad" that Egyptian national TV helped perpetuate the theory that last week's shark attacks at Sharm el-Sheikh were part of an Israeli conspiracy. On Sunday, Gen. Abdel-Fadeel Shosha, the governor of South Sinai, phoned a TV program to say that it is possible that Israeli intelligence was behind the incidents.
      Hanafy said the Oceanic White Tip shark, blamed for the attacks, does indeed exist in Egypt's waters. He added, "It is sad that they made a person whose only knowledge of sharks comes from the movie "Jaws" go on national TV to propagate this mumbo-jumbo."  (Al-Ahram-Egypt) 

I can imagine that some of our local conspiracy theorists would believe the sharks were trained by Mossad.

Israel a Rogue State? .... maybe it is....

The debaters at Oxbridge are superb wordsmiths. I stand in awe of their use of words and the developments of their arguments. But this one really stands out. Excerpts:

When you compare Israel to its regional neighbours, it becomes clear just how roguish Israel is. And here is the fourth argument [EE: read the entire piece for the other arguments]: Israel has a better human rights record than any of its neighbours. At no point in history, has there ever been a liberal democratic state in the Middle East -- except for Israel. Of all the countries in the Middle East, Israel is the only one where the LGBT community enjoys even a small measure of equality.

In Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and Syria, homosexual conduct is punishable by flogging, imprisonment, or both. But homosexuals there get off pretty lightly compared to their counterparts in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, who are put to death. Israeli homosexuals can adopt, openly serve in the army, enter civil unions, and are protected by exceptionally strongly worded ant-discrimination legislation. Beats a death sentence. In fact, it beats America.

Israel’s protection of its citizens’ civil liberties has earned international recognition. Freedom House is an NGO that releases an annual report on democracy and civil liberties in each of the 195 countries in the world. It ranks each country as “Free,” “Partly Free,” or “Not Free.”  In the Middle East, Israel is the only country that has earned designation as a “free” country. Not surprising given the level of freedom afforded to citizens in, say, Lebanon -- a country designated “partly free,” where there are laws against reporters criticizing not only the Lebanese government, but the Syrian regime as well. I’m hoping Ms. Booth will speak about this, given her experience working as a “journalist” for Iran.

Iran is a country given the rating of “not free,” putting it alongside China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Myanmar. In Iran, as Ms. Booth I hoped would have said in her speech, there is a special “Press Court” which prosecutes journalists for such heinous offences as criticizing the Ayatollah, reporting on stories damaging the “foundations of the Islamic republic,” using “suspicious (i.e., Western) sources,” or insulting Islam. Iran is the world leader in terms of jailed journalists, with 39 reporters (that we know of) in prison as of 2009. They also kicked out almost every Western journalist during the 2009 election. (I don't know if Ms Booth was affected by that.)

I guess we can’t really expect more from a theocracy. Which is what most countries in the Middle East are. Theocracies and autocracies. But Israel is the sole, the only, the rogue, democracy. Out of every country in the Middle East, only in Israel do anti-government protests and reporting go unquashed and uncensored.

The US State Department and Israel: getting it right

I am on a very interesting e-mail list called "Daily Alert" which provides news about Israel and the Middle East. This item appeared today, and I was delighted to see the US's continued strong support for Israel along with its growing concern about the increasing virulent forms of antisemitism that are emerging.

• U.S. Denounces "Obsession with Condemning Israel"
  Hannah Rosenthal, U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, told a conference on "Combating Anti-Semitism" in Ottawa, Canada, on Nov. 8: "Opposition to a policy by the State of Israel morphs into anti-Semitism easily and often. We record huge increases in anti-Semitism whenever there is activity in the Middle East. This form of anti-Semitism is more difficult for many to identify - but if all Jews are held responsible for the decisions of the sovereign State of Israel, when governments call upon and intimidate their Jewish communities to condemn Israeli actions, when academics from Israel are boycotted - this is not objecting to a policy - this is anti-Semitism."
      "Our State Department uses Natan Sharansky's framework for identifying when someone or a government crosses the line - when Israel is demonized, when Israel is held to different standards than the rest of the countries, and when Israel is delegitimized. These cases are not disagreements with a policy of Israel, this is anti-Semitism. The U.S. is often the only "no" vote in international bodies who seem to have an obsession with condemning Israel."  (U.S. State Department) 

 

Where Are Arab-Islamic Leaders on This? the church bombing in Baghdad

Salim Mansur asks pointed questions about leaders in the Arab-Islamic world in his most recent column:

... [I]f such an atrocity was not just another criminal event in a "normal" day across the Arab-Muslim world, then we should have heard of a special meeting being called at the UN, or in one of the capitals of member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to express outrage against those who killed innocent worshippers inside Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad.

We then should have heard of Muslim political and religious leaders expressing their grief over the dead and wounded — there were some 120 Iraqi Christians in attendance at the Sunday evening mass when Muslim terrorists attacked the church and left 58 dead with only a dozen escaping unhurt.

Instead, we have deathly silence of the Muslim leadership as non-Muslim minorities inside the Arab-Muslim world are routinely abused, their homes and places of worship under daily duress, and their hearts filled with fear of violent death in the hands of Muslim jihadis.

The silence signifies the abdication of any responsibility by governments of the Arab-Muslim world to protect non-Muslims in their countries, and severely punish those who target them.

... The simple truth is Muslims are among the worst perpetrators of crimes against non-Muslims, and penalties based on obsolete jurisprudence of Shariah implemented in Muslim states violate the UN Charter and the Declaration of Human Rights, to which they are signatories.

Query: when will the fatwa be issued against Salim Mansur? Or has one already been issued?

Outrageous Silencing of Supporters of Israel

From Melanie Phillips in The Spectator:

The 2010 Belfast Festival, held under the auspices of Queen’s University Belfast, convened a panel discussion last night on the topic ‘Conflict in the Middle East’. Last September, the Festival’s director, Graeme Farrow, invited Professor Geoffrey Alderman, a British Jewish commentator and defender of Israel, to take part in this panel, an invitation he accepted. To Alderman’s astonishment, last Friday afternoon he received an email from Farrow informing him that ‘a mistake’ had been made in inviting him,  and that although he could join the audience the event was to go ahead without his panel participation.

The other members of this panel were Professors Avi Shlaim of St Anthony’s College, Oxford and Beverley Milton Edwards, of Queens University, Belfast. Shlaim, an Israeli by birth who hasn’t lived in Israel for years, has made a career out of demonising Israel. Milton Edwards is a founder of Conflicts Forum, which shills for Hamas under the pretext of ‘dialogue’. It would appear that one or both of them objected to Alderman’s presence.

... 

Thus the delegitimisation, bullying and ostracism of the Jewish state morphs seamlessly into the delegitimisation, bullying and ostracism of Jews anywhere who support it. The Jewish state alone is not to be allowed to defend its existence; its Jewish supporters alone are not to be allowed to speak in defence of its right to do so.

Monstrous.

 

No Matter What Some People Say, I Take These Guys Pretty Seriously

From Daily Alert,

• Hizbullah Chief Echoes Iran's Call for Israel to Disappear - Mohamad Ali Harissi
  Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah echoed Iran's call on Wednesday for Israel to disappear, speaking during a mass rally in Beirut organized in honor of visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "President Ahmadinejad is right when he says Israel is illegitimate and should cease to exist," Nasrallah told an ecstatic crowd. Ahmadinejad, who has called Israel a "tumor," has denied the Holocaust and repeatedly said the Jewish state is "doomed to be wiped off the map." Last month he said the people of the Middle East are "capable of removing the Zionist regime" from the world scene. (AFP)
      See also Ahmadinejad: Lebanon a School of Jihad - Attila Somfalvi (Yne! t News)
      See also Ahmadinejad Denounces U.S. "Colonial Goals" at Hizbullah Rally - Nicholas Blanford (Christian Science Monitor)
      See also U.S. Lawmakers: Lebanon's Embrace of Ahmadinejad May Affect Military Aid - Jack Khoury (Ha'aretz) 

 

Palestinian Politics

My friend and colleague, Salim Mansur is visiting Israel and Palestine this summer. His reflections of his visit appear in his weekly column in The Toronto Sun. Today he wrote about his visit to Ramallah in a beautiful, complex, and inisightful piece. Some excerpts:

There is money here, plenty of it, and those who have it are not hesitant to flaunt it.

New cars, beautiful residences, fancy stores and restaurants will startle any outsider arriving here with his head filled by the mainstream media in the West about the misery of the West Bank occupation by Israelis.

There is also poverty, Israeli checkpoints, the fence or wall separating Palestinian territories from Israel and the Israeli settlements.

And there’s the politics of resentment that spill over any conversation with ordinary Palestinians fed on a diet of half-truths and endless lies by their leaders.

But visiting with Palestinians is also an invitation to hear their bitterness about Arab leaders, and of their experience with discrimination and violence in places such as Lebanon and Kuwait. ....

There is irony in the fact that there are two Palestinian entities between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.

If it were not for Israel in the middle, the war of words between these two Palestinian entities, or putative states, would become a ghastly shootout between the Iranian proxy in Gaza and mafia dons receiving protection money from the West and its Arab allies in the West Bank. [emphasis added]

Some Important Insights into Palestine and Israel

My friend BenS sent me this link from the NYTimes. The information in this piece leads to some pretty compelling views about the evolution of Israel and the devolution of peace in the Middle East. For those who would like to learn a bit more and can spare just a couple of minutes, I highly recommend it. Here are some pithy snippets:

From 1948 to 1967, when Egypt and Jordan ruled the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the Arab states failed to put these populations on the road to statehood. They also showed little interest in protecting their human rights or even in improving their quality of life — which is part of the reason why 120,000 West Bank Palestinians moved to the East Bank of the Jordan River and about 300,000 others emigrated abroad. “We couldn’t care less if all the refugees die,” an Egyptian diplomat once remarked. “There are enough Arabs around.”

... Saddam Hussein, in an effort to ennoble his predatory designs, claimed that he wouldn’t consider ending his August 1990 invasion of Kuwait without “the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Arab territories in Palestine.”

Shortly after the Persian Gulf War, Kuwaitis then set about punishing the P.L.O. for its support of Hussein — cutting off financial sponsorship, expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers and slaughtering thousands. Their retribution was so severe that Arafat was forced to acknowledge that “what Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories.”

The author of the piece implies there might be some cause for optimism in the Middle East. I hope he is correct, but I expect it will be a LONG time before there is much reconciliation.

It Ain't Over 'Til... well, It Will Never Be Over

What is wrong the sensible countries who are members of the United Nations?

While rogue states like North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan and China (to mention just a few) wantonly engage in human rights abuses and abhorrent violence against civilians, it is Israel that brings the UN Security Council together for more commissions and inquiries than any other nation.

Of course, the stark contrast is nothing new. It’s much easier to target Israel than it is to address the entrenched violence and inhumanity perpetrated in so many other United Nations member states. And, more recently, focusing on Israeli “sins” diverts attention from the real threat — a nuclear Iran. Iran’s recent announcement that it now has enough uranium for two nuclear bombs was completely obscured by the media frenzy surrounding the Gaza flotilla.

Former Prime Minister of Spain on Israel and the Middle East

José María Aznar was prime minister of Spain between 1996 and 2004. He wrote this article for The Times (UK) June 17th edition. I wish more people would heed his warnings. An excerpt:

The core of the problem lies in the ambiguous and often erroneous manner in which too many Western countries are now reacting to this situation. It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Middle East. Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.

Does that sound like at direct criticism of current US foreign policy? It does to me. Here is more:

To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Motivated by the need to rebuild our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the wave of aggression against Israel, and mindful that Israel’s strength is our strength and Israel’s weakness is our weakness, I have decided to promote a new Friends of Israel initiative with the help of some prominent people, including David Trimble, Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo (the former President of Peru), Marcello Pera (philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate), Fiamma Nirenstein (the Italian author and politician), the financier Robert Agostinelli and the Catholic intellectual George Weigel.

It is not our intention to defend any specific policy or any particular Israeli government. The sponsors of this initiative are certain to disagree at times with decisions taken by Jerusalem. We are democrats, and we believe in diversity.

What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. [emphasis added]

Some Additional Insights about the Flotilla

From "The Joys of Selective Outrage" by Peter Hitchens [h/t MA]:

I have been to Gaza once, long ago, and can confirm that it is pretty grim, and no doubt has grown much worse since. I think the idea that a blockade will persuade the Gazans to throw out their Hamas government is nonsensical and doomed, and I think Israel's recent behaviour towards Gaza has been cruel and stupid. I opposed and still condemn the recent Israeli military attack on Gaza, which failed to meet the criteria for a just war.

But I have a nagging suspicion that those who now adopt the cause of Gaza (and have swallowed whole the propaganda narrative of the 'Aid Convoy' versus the 'Wicked Zionists') are much, much more interested in undermining Israel's long-term right to exist than they are in the undoubted plight of the Gazans. And why, exactly is that? What is the reason for this selective outrage against one nation among dozens, by no means perfect but also by no means the most oppressive or violent or ill-run state in the world, let alone the Middle East?

The entire piece is well worth a look.

Strong Words from Melanie Phillips about the Flotilla.

My own question: why not take the humanitarian aid into Gaza through Egypt if you don't want it examined by the Israelis?

From Melanie Phillips:

The notion – uncritically swallowed by the lazy, ignorant and bigoted BBC and other western media – that the flotilla organisers are ‘peace activists’ is simply ludicrous. This research by the Danish Institute for International Studies details the part played by the IHH in Islamist terror in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya. According to the French magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere testifying at the Seattle trial of would-be al Qaeda Millenium bomber Ahmed Ressamin, the IHH had played ‘[a]n important role’ in the al Qaeda Millenium bomb plot targeting Los Angeles airport. It was also involved in weapons trafficking, and played in addition a key role in galvanizing anti-Western sentiment among Turkish Muslims in the lead-up to the 2003 war in Iraq. ‘Peace activists’ these people most certainly are not.

Let me add that so long as Hamas constitutionally threatens the destruction of Israel, it is to be expected that Israel will want to examine anything going into Gaza. As Phillips says, Israel permits tonnes of food, fuel, etc. to go into Gaza, something that even Levy, writing Haaretz sneered about but also acknowledged.