EclectEcon

Defund the United Nations (especially its so-called Rights groups)

From the NYTimes via Daily Alert:

UN Rights Council Orders Inquiry into Israel after Gaza Strife - Nick Cumming-Bruce
Acting in the aftermath of the fighting in Gaza, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday voted 24 to 9, with 14 abstentions, to approve a far-ranging inquiry into Israel's actions. Pakistan's UN ambassador Khalil Hashmi proposed the panel on behalf of the Organization of Islamic States. The resolution creating it does not mention Hamas or other Palestinian militant groups. [emphasis added]
    Israel denounced the decision as a one-sided sham. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized it for not acting against Hamas. "Once again, an immoral automatic majority at the council whitewashes a genocidal terrorist organization that deliberately targets Israeli civilians while turning Gaza's civilians into human shields." European states, which have backed the creation of a dozen commissions of inquiry in the last five years, voted against it or abstained.
    Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, cited the statement of a senior Hamas leader three days before the start of hostilities urging followers "to cut off the heads of Jews with knives." She said Hamas had fired 4,300 rockets from Palestinian homes, hospitals and schools, indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians. "Each one of these rockets constitutes a war crime."  (New York Times)

Lockdown Photo #157

The temperature "gauge" on the laundry room backup fridge/freezer

Previous Lockdown Photos can be seen here.

Harvard's Racial Discrimination and the Counterfactual

According to this article in The Boston Globe, one reason Harvard won its affirmative action defense in the suit launched by Students for Fair Admissions was that they presented testimony from African-American and Hispanic students to the effect that their admission to Harvard was tremendously beneficial to them.

To combat the statistically heavy case presented by two experts from Students for Fair Admissions, eight black, Latino, and Asian-American Harvard students and alumni took the stand to share their personal stories of making it to Harvard and the benefits of using race in admissions. Students for Fair Admissions [SFA] did not call any students or present any cases of applicants who were specifically disadvantaged by Harvard’s admissions process.

Apparently, by implication, the Students for Fair Admissions [SFA] lost in part because they didn't send a parade of students to the stand to testify that not being admitted to Harvard hurt them.

There's a good reason, I suspect.

The hypothetical, potential value-added from going to Harvard for those on the cusp but not admitted to Harvard would likely have been negligible. They almost surely went to other high- or possibly even higher-quality schools and ended up doing, roughly and on average, just as well as they would have done had they been admitted to Harvard. The SFA apparently presented no evidence that these students were harmed, undoubtedly because the value-added of attending Harvard is minimal for bright, capable students, relative to their next-best options.

This same argument should also be reversed and applied to all the students who were racially favoured by affirmative action at Harvard. If they, too, were bright and capable students then they would also likely have ended up attending some other high- or even higher-quality university. The enormous benefits to which they testified were almost surely not all due to having attended Harvard.

The Harvard defense team's strategy, at least in this regard worked, in part, because it is difficult to argue the counterfactual in court.

Let me add, though, that weighing the benefits to those who gained admission versus the losses suffered by those denied admission is the wrong approach. Racial discrimination is morally wrong, and here's hoping Harvard loses on appeal.

Insidious Discrimination

Remember these arguments in the 1950s-70s?

"Oh we have nothing against negros and we'd be happy to hire some. It's just that our customers are racist, and we'd lose business if we did hire black people."

Such statements were understandably ridiculed by people in the civil rights movement.

But nowadays, that same argument is used about Jews [h/t EL]. The best-selling novelist, Richard Zimler writes in The Guardian about the discrimination against Jews:

In early March, he [Zimler's publicist] called and confessed – in a distressed tone I’d never heard before – that he had just been turned down by two cultural organisations that had previously shown enthusiasm for hosting an event with me. “They asked me if you were Jewish, and the moment I said you were, they lost all interest,” he said. “They even stopped replying to my emails and returning my phone messages.”

I’ll call my publicist John as he prefers to remain anonymous. He has also asked me to refrain from identifying the organisations that reacted negatively to my being Jewish. John told me that the final conversations he had with the two event co-ordinators convinced him that they weren’t antisemitic themselves but they feared a backlash – protests by their members and others – if they extended an invitation to a Jewish writer.

Interestingly, Zimler understands criticisms of some of Israel's policies. After all, what country is blameless? But he has little, if anything, to do with Israel:

Let’s not get sidetracked with references to Israel. Although it’s perfectly legitimate for those who oppose Netanyahu’s policies to protest against them, I have no connection with Israel. I have neither investments nor family there. And my most well-known books take place in Portugal and Poland. It’s true my new novel is set in the Holy Land, but it takes place 2,000 years before the foundation of the state of Israel. As for my nationality, I’m American and Portuguese.

Clearly, the shunning of Zimler is because he is Jewish, and not because he is from Israel.

And undoubtedly I will be adding a book or two by Zimler to my e-collection. I'm open to recommendations.

 

 

 

Anti-semitism in Germany

Via Daily Alert, a daily news aggregator with news (good, bad, otherwise) about Israel:

Germany's Merkel Admits Threat to Jews 
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was interviewed by CNN's Christiane Amanpour in Berlin, condemned the rise of anti-Semitism in the country, saying Germany "always had a certain number of anti-Semites among us, unfortunately." 
    Merkel also condemned the fact that, "there is to this day not a single synagogue, a single day care center for Jewish children, not a single school for Jewish children that does not need to be guarded by German policemen." 

Actually, I'm intrigued that they had Amanpour do the interview. She has a reputation of not being favourably inclined toward Israel.

Confrontation, Responses, and (Bayesian) Priors

We all have reasonably strong views about the world, how it operates, and how we think it should operate. These strong views, or priors, affect how we interpret events.

So let me ask readers to pick an issue about which you have strong views. What would it take to get you to change your views?

Example:

One of my all-time favourite economics professors, the late nobel laureate Robert Fogel, was once a communist organizer. He became a Chicago-school near libertarian type economist because communism was wrong about the failures of capitalism.

Counterexample:

I have friends who are so strongly opposed to abortion, nothing would ever change their minds.

The former is a more scholarly approach; the latter is a more religious or moral approach.

So what would it take to get you to change your mind about ________?

For me:

• Minimum wages. I think they're wrong; I don't think that on average they help all the people they're intended to help; I think that in general gubmnt intrusion into markets inhibits economic growth and makes future generations of poor people much worse off than they would be if we had more economic growth. I'm nearly religious on this. I'm not sure I could be convinced to change my views (informed by the study of economics and the studies I've read about minimum wages).
• Global warming. I was skeptical about how much we're experiencing, but I'm beginning to shed that skepticism in the light of increasing data and information from some people I tend to trust. I'm still somewhat skeptical about how much is caused by humans. I'm not qualified to even try to understand the studies. I doubt that much we might do in Canada or possibly in North America will change things much. I do think we should prepare and help prepare to deal with it if, as, and to the extent we experience it.
• Coventry School and the the confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial. This incident is what prompted this post. What would prompt you to change your take on the situation? What if the boys had been from a secular school and carrying copies of Michelle Obama's book?

Seriously, for each contentious issue, I think it would be a good idea for us to ask ourselves, "Is it possible that I can be convinced otherwise?" If not, we're debating religion, which I'm willing to do in some settings [do we have a multi-verse with 11 dimensions? what caused the big bang? etc.]

and as I wrote [edited here] in a comment on my Facebook page earlier today:

I shouldn't do this, I know, but my views:
1. I'm anti-Trump, as I hope most of you know. But I'm probably anti-Trump for reasons different from those that many of you have. At the same time I know some very smart and caring people who are pro-Trump. My point? Don't use your or anyone else's views about Trump to judge a particular situation. Please.
2. I'm not anti-abortion, but I'm pro-adoption (my daughter was adopted). Colour me woefully ambivalent on the topic. My point: please don't use my or anyone else's views on abortion to judge a particular situation.
3. From what I've read and seen, the school the boys were from teaches stuff I strongly disagree with. That doesn't mean I hate these boys; that doesn't mean they were in the wrong at this confrontation.
4. I am not a fan of MAGA (I actually had to google it when the incident was first written about).
5. In this incident, no matter what you might think about the boys and their school and their hats, what did they do wrong in this confrontation? Especially I don't know what the one student did who was confronted by Phillips. He smiled or smirked, as we were taught to do in the Civil Rights movement; he reacted non-violently. 
6. If you condemn the boys for their behaviour in this instance because of their school, their hats, their parents, their politics, their views on abortion, etc. you've missed the point I was trying to make.
7. Like the writer of this Atlantic piece, I've held some wildly different, and (many would say) hateful or objectionable views over my lifetime. I have done some pretty uncaring things in my lifetime. But I hope people will not use those views or actions to judge me in any given situation. I know some do and some have, but please keep this in mind when writing about this particular situation. 

I'm sure I could write more. I probably will. I'm feeling so despondent though because of the comments I've read, both yesterday and today.😕

Addendum: Many of us can, and do, change our views on religious-type topics as well. I was once a conscientious objector to war. I think I may have been drifting away from that moral position but 9-11 sealed it for me. I was no longer a conscientious objector after that event. Also, I was once an atheist but cosmological questions turned me into a devout agnostic.

Is Canada's Prime Minister Anti-Jew?

Or is Justin Trudeau ignorant or maybe just afraid that if he mentions the word "Jews" he will be attacked by many Muslims and lose their votes? See this.  He failed to mention the Jews last year on International Holocaust Memorial Day.

It was an error, the government insisted. An embarrassing oversight. Lesson learned! Only … it wasn’t learned. This week, the prime minister dedicated Ottawa’s National Holocaust Monument with a plaque commemorating “the millions of men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust and … the survivors who persevered and were able to make their way to Canada after one of the darkest chapters in history.”

Notice something missing? Again?!

 Of course we know that gypsies and gays and others were also murdered during the Holocaust. But why has the Prime Minister failed to mention the primary target of the Holocaust murders, the Jews? And if not mentioning the Jews really was a mistake last year, what was it this year?

A Brief, Truncated History that Helps Explain My General Support for Israel

It was 50 years ago that the Six-Day War of 1967 was so effectively won by Israel. If that war had never happened, if Syria, Jordan, and Egypt (and the rest of the Arab League had recognized Israel's right to exist), things would be very different.

From an op-ed by Bret Stephens in the NYTimes,

Israel is not a nation of saints and has made its mistakes. The most serious of those is proliferation of West Bank settlements beyond those in historically recognized blocs.

But before we fall prey to the lazy trope of “50 years of occupation,” inevitably used to indict Israel, let’s note the following:

There would have been no occupation, and no settlements, if Egypt and its allies hadn’t recklessly provoked a war. Or if the “international community” hadn’t fecklessly abandoned Israel in its desperate hours. Or if Jordan hadn’t foolishly ignored Israel’s warnings to stay out of it. Or if the Arab League hadn’t arrogantly rejected the possibility of peace. [emphasis added]

A Palestinian state would most likely exist if Arafat hadn’t adopted terrorism as the calling card of Palestinian aspirations. Or if he hadn’t rejected the offer of a state 17 years ago. Or if he hadn’t renounced his renunciation of terror.

A Palestinian state would also most likely exist if Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas — now in the 13th year of his elected four-year term — hadn’t rejected it again nine years ago, and if Gazans hadn’t turned their territory into a terrifying model of Palestinian statehood, and if the United Nations didn’t treat Hamas’s attacks on Israel as a nuisance but Israel’s self-defense as a crime against humanity.

 

Related articles

Nakba for Whom? and When?

50 Years of Occupation? What about the previous 450 years or so? - EclectEcon

50 Years of Occupation? What about the previous 450 years or so?

Some provocative questions from The Elder Ziyon. He notes there is a UN Forum to mark 50 years of occupation and then continues,

Of course, they mean 50 years of "occupation" by Jews.

Because no one was overly concerned about the previous 19 years of "Palestinian territory" being annexed or administered by Jordan or Egypt.

Or the 30 years of British administration before that.

Or the 400 years of Ottoman rule before that.

No, the only interest in what the world now calls "Palestinian lands" only started when Jews have some level of control over them. Not when generations of others - Muslims and Christians, Arabs and non-Arabs - controlled the land.

Somehow, only the years when the life expectancy of Palestinians skyrocketed, when the infant mortality rate plummeted, when practically all of the universities and major hospitals were built in the territories - only those years are considered tragic.

The entire exercise of "50 years of occupation" is underlined by blatant hypocrisy. If there was no Six Day war, the West Bank Palestinian Arabs under Jordanian rule would be just as interesting as the East Bank Palestinians are today - meaning, not at all.  Gazans would remain in an effective Egyptian prison, with no ability to move to Egypt itself - but no one would be talking about it.

The self-rule that most Palestinians in the territories enjoy today would never have happened.

And no one would be writing op-eds about it.

 

 

People Respond to Incentives (part 17.001zillion)

The "martyr fund" creates incentives for people to become martyrs in Palestine. One way to become a martyr? become a terrorist.Yes, the martyr fund induces people to become terrorists.

From The Hill: [via Jack]

... That night, while Hallel slept, a young Palestinian named Mohammad Tra'ayra ... managed to climb over the fence that encircled Kiryat Arba. Tra’ayra was armed with a knife. He somehow made his way undetected to Hallel’s bedroom, and there he stabbed the sleeping girl numerous times.

The ensuing commotion aroused the settlement’s guards, and they rushed to Hallel’s bedroom and confronted Tra’ayra. He was shot dead. Hallel died of her wounds.

None of the foregoing facts are in dispute. Nor is there any dispute that the so-called Palestinian Martyr’s Fund pays Tra’ayra’s family $350 each month, because he is considered to be a “martyr” by the Palestinians.

...

On the day she learned of her son’s death, Tra'ayra’s mother called him a “hero” and a “martyr” because he had been killed after he fatally stabbed a sleeping 13-year-old girl. 

I can say with confidence that Hallel Yaffa Ariel’s mother was not similarly exultant when she learned of the death of her daughter.

People who are seriously interested in advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians ought to think carefully about the story of Hallel Yaffa Ariel and Tra’ayra, and about what it implies.

Related articles

Nakba for Whom? and When?

Israel, Gaza 1, Gaza 2, and Hamas

Politicians Hate You

Marion Pritchard (1920-2016)

Another hero in the battles against Nazi anti-semitism. The Washington Post article about her is much more thorough than the Wikipaedia entry. From WaPo,

“It was a beautiful spring morning, and it was a street I had known since I had been born, and all of a sudden you see little kids picked up by their pigtails or by a leg and thrown over the side of a truck,” Mrs. Pritchard said in an interview published in the volume “Voices From the Holocaust” by Harry James Cargas. “You stop but you can’t believe it.”

She watched two women attempt to stop the soldiers, only to be put in the truck with the children. At that moment, she said, she committed herself to fighting Nazi persecution in whatever way possible. ...

At times, she performed what was known as the “mission of disgrace,” falsely declaring herself to be the unwed mother of a baby to conceal the child’s Jewish identity. A toddler spent several months with her before she found a safer home outside Amsterdam. ...

One day, three Germans and a Dutch policeman came to search the house and left, having failed to detect the hideaway. Shortly thereafter, the Dutchman, who nonetheless suspected that something was awry, returned and discovered the hideout. Before he could make an arrest, Mrs. Pritchard grabbed a small revolver that she had kept for such an emergency and fatally shot him.

“I would do it again, under the same circumstances,” she told an interviewer years later, “but it still bothers me.”

Marion Pritchard died last week on December 11th, 2016. She was 96.

 

 

Algeria to Wipe Israel Off the Map --- Again

Many people in the middle east (and elsewhere, unfortunately) have refused to acknowledge the existence of the country of Israel ever since its creation in 1947. This attitude has been so strong that their gubmnts insist maps made of the middle east list only Palestine and not show Israel.

Oops... some mapmakers in Algeria seemed to have forgotten the prohibition of showing Israel on maps... and have faced outrage as a result. From the Elder of Ziyon (who cites numerous sources),

A map of the Middle East in an Algerian geography textbook that labels Israel by that name rather than with "Palestine" has evoked a public furor.

In response, the Ministry of National Education announced that the textbook would be removed from the seventh grade curriculum and that an investigation would be launched.

The offending map listing 'Israel' as opposed to 'Palestine'

Of course it is difficult to make maps of the middle east, with borders changing frequently and new ruling agencies like ISIS conquering and ruling various amorphous territories. But Israel has existed with its current borders for quite some time -- there no excuse for ignoring it.

What would happen if other countries printed maps that just lump Palestine in with Jordan and Syria, and put Gaza with Egypt?

There's a Reason Israelis Are Concerned

I just read this piece on the Daily Alert.

• Iran: Israel's Annihilation Is Imminent
  Speaking in Tehran on July 1, Revolutionary Guards Deputy Commander Hossein Salami said: "Today, more than ever, there is fertile ground - with the grace of God - for the annihilation, the wiping out, and the collapse of the Zionist regime. In Lebanon alone, over 100,000 missiles are ready to be launched....These missiles will pierce through space, and will strike at the heart of the Zionist regime. They will prepare the ground for its great collapse in the new era."
      "Tens of thousands of other high-precision, long-range missiles, with the necessary destructive capabilities, have been placed in various places throughout the Islamic world. They are just waiting for the command, so that when the trigger is pulled, the accursed bla! ck dot will be wiped off the geopolitical map of the world, once and for all."
      "Today, unlike in the past, the potential exists to destroy this regime and to make it collapse. The Zionist regime does not have strategic depth on the ground for defense purposes. In some places, the regime has a depth of only 14-24 kilometers. In a single ground attack, its back will be broken."  (MEMRI)

I generally find the material from MEMRI to be quite reliable.

Palestinian Christians

Quoted from the Elder of Ziyon [EE: emphasis added]:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Erasing Christian History

For Palestinian Christians, the destruction of the ancient Byzantine church ruins is yet a further attempt by Palestinian Muslim leaders to efface both Christian history and signs of any Christian presence in the West Bank and Gaza, under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas. A growing number of Christians feel they are being systematically targeted by both the PA and Hamas for being Christians.
Bulldozers were used to destroy some of the church artifacts; some Palestinian Christians accused both Hamas and the PA of copying ISIS tactics to demolish historic sites.
"Where are the heads of the churches in Jerusalem and the world?... Where are the Vatican and UNESCO? Where are the leaders and politicians who talk, talk, talk about national unity and the preservation of holy sites? Or is this a collective conspiracy to end our existence and history in the East?" — Sami Khalil, a Christian from the West Bank city of Nablus.
The plight of Palestinian Christians does not interest the international community. That is because Israel cannot be blamed for demolishing the antiquities. If the current policy against Christians persists, the day will come when no Christians will be left in Bethlehem.

There Are Lots of Folks Who Don't Think Israel Has a Right to Exist... regardless of the borders

I have a strong sense that many of my pro-Palestinian friends use lots of arguments to be anti-Israel, but in reality they just don't think Israel has the right to exist. I wonder if these people would feel the same way if the Arab countries had accepted the 1947 borders and not attacked Israel. 

But things like this continue to appall me. A Belgian crisis-line worker denies that Israel exists:

At least two Israelis were injured in the terror attacks in Brussels. Israel would like to fly them home and so in order to release them from the hospital, a Jewish volunteer called up the Crisis Center set up by the Ministry for Internal Affairs to ask about the procedure.

He was told that the Israeli victims could not be sent back to Israel, they can only be sent back to Palestine....

JTA adds:

Michael Freilich, the editor-in-chief of Joods Actueel, said it “defies imagination” that a Belgian state employee would display the anti-Israel behavior that is commonplace in Arab countries. He also called for punishing the operator instead of issuing the “standard apology.”

The recording’s release follows at least four recorded cases in which people who either spoke Arabic or wore Muslim traditional garb, destroyed, concealed or removed Israeli flags at an impromptu memorial space set up for the attacks’victims at Place de la Bourse in Brussels. It features many flags, including of Arab countries and the Palestinian Authority.

UPDATE: The Crisis Center apologized and says it fired the employee.

 

Columbia University and BDS

Professors at Columbia University have taken sides, with some pro-BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] and other anti-BDS.

The Elder of Ziyon has an interesting take on the split:

Of the 69 Columbia professors who signed a pro-BDS petition. 15 of them work in the anthropology department, six in philosophy, 13 in Middle East studies, two in Gender & Sexuality Studies, four in art history, six in history and eight in English, and only one in law.

The pro-Israel petition, on the other hand, has 26 signatures from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, 75 from the Columbia Medical Center, 27 from the Law School, and many others in the engineering and other medical fields.

In other words, the professors who support Israel are overwhelmingly specialists in fields where the truth often means the difference between life and death, and the ones who are anti-Israel largely do their work in fields where truth is a quaint and elastic concept.

This explains a lot.

I Wonder if the US Eavesdrops on Other Middle Eastern Gubmnts... Egypt? Iran? Turkey? UAE? Pakistan?

From the Daily Alert, summarizing/quoting the WSJ for one of many sources:

President Barack Obama announced two years ago he would curtail eavesdropping on friendly heads of state. But behind the scenes, the White House decided to keep certain allies under close watch, current and former U.S. officials said. Topping the list was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The National Security Agency's targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups.

  This account, stretching over two terms of the Obama administration, is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former U.S. intelligence and administration officials and reveals for the first time the extent of American spying on the Israeli prime minister. One tool was a cyber implant in Israeli networks that gave the NSA access to communications within the Israeli prime minister's office. (Wall Street Journal)

And to speculate about the answer to my question in the title to this post, I would be surprised if the US doesn't at least try to spy on the the leaders and gubmnts of the other countries. And, if they do, why do we not read about it (or have I not been reading it in the places that I read the news?)?

Indeed the Daily Alert carries this addition:

  See also Amidror: "The U.S. Listens In on Everyone"
Former Israeli national security adviser Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror told Army Radio the allegations of U.S. spying were unsurprising. "The U.S. listens in on everyone; we don't need to get excited about it. Everyone knows - it's a fact," he sa! id. "Israel is careful not to carry out any spying operations in the United States, not even a little bit."  (Times of Israel)
    See also below Commentary: The Phone Call that Upended U.S.-Israel Relations - Patrick O'Connor and Adam Entous (Wall Street Journal)

But at the same time, why does the algorithm for Typepad (my blogging tool and host) not provide any links to such articles for me to include at the bottom of this post. In fact that algorithm doesn't even include links to articles about the US spying on Israel's leaders.

Related articles

My Guess Is He'll Fawn Over Him

Israel, Turkey to restore ties

Did George Orwell write the script for Hamas?

Scholars without Borders

I have long been opposed to proposed boycotts of Israeli and Jewish scholars by those who disagree with Israel's policies in the Middle East. I've been writing about my opposition off and on for over a decade on my blog. I even went so far as to acquire affiliations with Bar-iLan and Haifa universities.

I recently learned of a group of scholars that has been created and which reflects my views. Steve Horwitz writes,

I do not support the BDS movement's attempts to quash academic discourse, put a stop to intellectual exchange, and turn scholarly work into a political tool. I will not join their boycott of Israeli academics or those of any other country. Boycotts can be legitimate and effective tools, but not when they are used against innocent people to punish them for the actions of their governments.

Because of that, some friends and I made this. I know that not all of you will agree with us. I hope that those of you who do will sign your names and share this widely.

I urge others who share our views to join the group. Scholars without Borders.

Twisted Archeology

 

Via The Elder of Ziyon

Condemning Murderers in Israel and Palestine

From the Elder of Ziyon, an important contrast:

[T]he murder of the Henkins is like the murders of Mohammed Abu Khdeir or of the Dawabashe family. In those cases the victims were targeted.

And when you compare apples to apples, the difference between the morality of those Zionists h [sic] despises and the Palestinians he loves becomes crystal clear.

Because Israeli society, from the Prime Minister to the people on the street, rose as one to condemn the murder of Abu Khdeir.

Because Israelis raised cash to pay the victims of the Dawabashe arson/murder. 

Because the vast majority of Israelis are naturally disgusted and ashamed at the thought that one of their own could be responsible for such depravity. 

And how did Palestinians react to the murder of the Henkins? They celebrated. They shot off fireworks. The expressed uniform happiness on Facebook. 

I could not find a single Arabic voice in any message board or social media. As of this moment, a single article from Al Quds about the attack - showing the faces of the victims - has 4,500 Likes and 650 Facebook comments, every one uniformly happy that they were murdered. 

What does it say about Palestinian society that seemingly no one, from Abbas down to the streets of Nablus, can condemn the murders of the Henkins? What does it say about Palestinian society that the Khaled Abu Toamehs and the Bassam Eids and the Muhammad Zoabis and the Mohammed Dajanis, people who actually think of Jews as human beings, are so rare - and roundly hated?

This is the difference between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors. 

This is the difference between a moral society and one that is perverted.

That is the difference between a society that deserves respect and one that demands it.

Question for Jeremy Corbyn: Does Israel Have the Right To Exist?

From David Hirsh at Engage,

Labour leaders usually address both Labour Friends of Palestine and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) fringe meetings at Conference.  Corbyn had a particular job to do at LFI: he needed to reassure the Jewish community and antiracists that he understands what it is about his record that is so concerning:

He has presented a show on Press TV, Iran’s propaganda channel.  Iran wants Israel wiped off the map and has a public policy of Holocaust Denial.

Corbyn is a Patron of the “Palestine Solidarity Campaign” whose main business is to fight for a boycott of Israel.  Corbyn has reaffirmed his support for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel as recently as August 2015.

Corbyn has referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as “friends” and he said that they are dedicated to the good of the Palestinian people and to social and political justice in the Middle East.

Corbyn has jumped to the defence of antisemites, Raed Salah who indulged in medieval blood libel and Stephen Sizerwho said that Israel was behind 9/11. He continued to support “Deir Yassin Remembered” even when it was well known that it was run by a Holocaust Denier.  He has said that those who have raised these issues are making personal smears, not political criticism.

Corbyn sometimes says that he is for a two state solution but he also says, in a coded disavowal of such a solution, that the Palestinian right to return was “the key” to a solution.

So what did he say at the LFI meeting?

He refused to utter the word “Israel”.  He refused to say that he was for the right of Israel to exist, even within the ’67 borders. [emphasis added]

It is difficult to say that Israel has a right to exist and not also grant it some other options to defend itself. I really have to wonder if Jeremy Corbyn is so anti-Israel that he thinks it has no right to exist. I suspect he is and does.

Disappointing Developments in Iceland

Another from the Daily Alert:

• Reykjavik, Iceland, Votes to Boycott Goods from Israel - Paul Fontaine
  Reykjavik City Hall voted on Tuesday to ban the purchase of products from Israel. Kjartan Magnusson, an opposition councilperson, accused the ruling coalition of hypocrisy, pointing out that China still occupies Tibet, yet Mayor Dagur B. Eggertsson has accepted trips to China at the expense of the Chinese government. There is also no known proposal to boycott goods from China.
      Supreme Court lawyer Einar Gautur Steingrimsson said the move is unconstitutional and "goes beyond the city's role as a municipality." "This is just as illegal as refusing to do business with redheads," he said. (Reykjavik Grapevine-Iceland)

At least the city council is being called out for its racism and hypocrisy.

Speculation and THE Bomb

My guess is that Iran will have working nuclear weapons and missiles capable of "delivering" them within the next five or fewer years. (somehow using the verb "deliver" with launching a nuclear weapon cries for the use of quotation marks in my mind.)

My guess, also, is that the US and the West will do nothing more to impede this process, other than issue very strong and very meaningless proclamations and rhetoric.

I also am guessing that Israel would love to stop this but will be pressured by the West not to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.

As a result, I expect two things from Israel:

1. They will (continue to?) have bombers with nuclear warheads in the air and at the ready 24/7, prepared to annihilate Iran, or portions thereof, should Iran send any nuclear weapons to attack Israel. Iran's leaders will assume this. The only question then, is how much their religious fanaticism and hatred of Israel will overcome the presumed deterrent effect of Israel's potential retaliation. [Former students will recognize this as part of my exposition of game theory and the prisoners' dilemma. See this].
2. At the same time, with heavy assistance from the US, Israel will continue to work on its missile defense shield. The shield has been at best only partially successful against incoming rockets from Gaza, and it must be perfected to protect Israel from the possibility of incoming nuclear missiles from Iran (or elsewhere?).

What if bombers in the air and a missile shield don't deter Iran?

• In anticipation of this possibility, Israel could launch a pre-emptive strike [a la 1967]. It worked against Iraq later, too. For some reason I expect Israel would be VERY reluctant to do this, but I wouldn't rule it out.
• Alternatively, Israel could have a good enough missile shield system in place that they could intercept the missile over Iran (or Iraq or Syria). Despite fairly compelling evidence to the contrary, Iran (and others surely) would claim that Israel launched the weapon. Sadly this lie would be believed by too many Israelphobes.

My major hope is that the threat of mutual annihilation will deter the outbreak of a nuclear war in the middle east. I'm not entirely optimistic, though. Sometimes information is imperfect, sometimes errors in reasoning are made, and sometimes determination and beliefs affect decisions in unbelievable ways.

Anti-Semitism in Greece

Blame the Jews? This report is shocking, maddening, distressing, and more.

In total, 67 percent of Greek respondents agreed with the majority of a list of anti-Semitic statements included in the survey. ...

According to the ADL poll, 90 percent of Greeks agreed with the statement that “Jews have too much power in the business world” and 85 percent agreed “Jews have too much power in international finance markets.”  ...

Over one-quarter of respondents also said they believe the number of Jews reported to have died in the Holocaust has been “greatly exaggerated.” One-third said Jews are “responsible for most of the world’s wars” and 41 percent agreed that “People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave.” 

The ADL poll is a follow-up to its 2014 Global 100 survey. Since 2014, the percentage of people holding anti-Semitic views in France, Germany, and Belgium has decreased. Each of these countries has recently experienced attacks on Jews. 

France had the most significant drop. Last year, 37 percent of respondents agreed with the majority of the list of anti-Jewish statements included in the survey. In the latest 2015 poll, just 17 percent agreed with the majority of the statements.

The poll also found widespread anti-Semitism among Muslims across Europe. Fifty-five percent agreed with the majority of anti-Jewish statements included in the survey.

However, European Muslims were still less likely to hold anti-Semitic views than Muslims in the Middle East, and significantly less likely to hold anti-Semitic views than the general population of Greece. [emphasis added]

Also see this in Haaretz:

In Greece, anti-Semitic viewpoints are aired frequently, particularly the notions that Jews control the global economy and politics. In 2012, when the Golden Dawn’s Kasidiaris read in Parliament from the anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the reading drew no condemnation from the other lawmakers present.

Nor was there public condemnation when Golden Dawn slammed the recent visit by the American Jewish Committee’s executive director, David Harris, as a trip to ensure further “Jewish influence over Greek political issues” and safeguard the interests of “international loan sharks.”

Golden Dawn hasn’t been alone in expressing such sentiments. ...

Even the mainstream political parties have long histories of using anti-Semitic tropes.

“Greeks are fond of conspiracy theories, as they are steeped in conspiracy on a personal level,” Euthymios Tsiliopoulos, a journalist and political commentator, wrote on the popular current affairs website The Times of Change in the wake of the Karypidis scandal.

“As so many things are conducted through under-the-table, backroom deals, most naturally assume that the whole world is run in this manner,” he wrote. “As such, there is willingness to believe that the hardships the country and its inhabitants have undergone throughout the centuries is due to the machinations of foreigners. After all, it’s easier to believe this than to fix the perennial ills plaguing Greek society.”

 

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This Is What Freedom of Religion Should Mean

Poll: 85% of Greeks Think Jew Banksters Have Too Much Power

What Strength: Cohabiting with a Jew and Refusing to give Nazi Salute

In social media I had seen this photo of a German who refused to give a Nazi salute, but I had never bothered to read the background story.

After his engagement to a Jewish woman was discovered, Landmesser was expelled from the Nazi Party.

Landmesser and Eckler decided to file a marriage application in Hamburg, but the union was denied under the newly enacted Nuremberg Laws.

The couple welcomed their first daughter, Ingrid, in October 1935.

And then on June 13, 1936, Landmesser gave a crossed-arm stance during Hitler's christening of a new German navy vessel. ...

In 1937, fed up, Landmesser attempted to flee Nazi Germany to Denmark with his family. But he was detained at the border and charged with "dishonoring the race," or "racial infamy," under the Nuremberg Laws.

A year later, Landmesser was acquitted for a lack of evidence and was instructed to not have a relationship with Eckler.

Refusing to abandon the mother of his child, Landmesser ignored Nazi wishes and was arrested again in 1938 and sentenced to nearly three years in a concentration camp.

He would never see the woman he loved or his child again.

The secret state police also arrested Eckler, who was several months pregnant with the couple's second daughter. She gave birth to Irene in prison and was sent to an all-women's concentration camp soon after her delivery.

Eckler is believed to have been transferred to what the Nazi's called a "euthanasia center" in 1942, where she died with 14,000 others.

 For more on August Landmesser, check out the Wikipaedia page on him. What a tragic, disgusting, amazing story.

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The tragically powerful story behind the lone German who refused to give Hitler the Nazi salut 

This Is What Freedom of Religion Should Mean

I love this statement, quoted in part by Steve Horwitz on Facebook with his introductory sentence:

Hey other traditionalist religious groups, this is how you do it in a pluralist liberal democracy (it's also why I'd never be an Orthodox Jew, but...):

"“In response to the decisions announced today by the United States Supreme Court with reference to the issue of legal recognition of same sex marriage, we reiterate the historical position of the Jewish faith, enunciated unequivocally in our Bible, Talmud and Codes, which forbids homosexual relationships and condemns the institutionalization of such relationships as marriages. Our religion is emphatic in defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. Our beliefs in this regard are unalterable. At the same time, we note that Judaism teaches respect for others and we condemn discrimination against individuals.

We are grateful that we live in a democratic society, in which all religions are free to express their opinions about social issues and to advocate vigorously for those opinions. The reason we opt to express our viewpoint in a public forum is because we believe that our Divine system of law not only dictates our beliefs and behaviors, but also represents a system of universal morality, and therefore can stake a claim in the national discourse. That morality, expressed in what has broadly been labeled Judeo-Christian ethics, has long had a place in American law and jurisprudence.

We also recognize that no religion has the right to dictate its beliefs to the entire body politic and we do not expect that secular law will always align with our viewpoint. Ultimately, decisions on social policy remain with the democratic process, and today the process has spoken and we accord the process and its result the utmost respect." [EE: emphasis added]

Now let's hope the processes they have given so much respect to give that respect back and allow them to have, in their words "appropriate accommodations and exemptions for institutions and individuals who abide by religious teachings that limit their ability to support same-sex relationships."

I do have some difficulties with the last paragraph, however. If a religious organization had discrimination against blacks or Jews as one of its tenets, on the one hand I would argue the state should dominate; on the other I would favour freedom of association. And that leaves me in a state of limbo. I expect the same might well be true in the case of religions that discriminate against LGBTs, or religious orders that admit only one sex into membership, etc.

July 4

If I were in England, I would go to Golder's Green on July 4th.... to buy bagels from Carmelli's. ... and just to be there just in case.

Addendum: to be clear, I'd be there to sit in the street or something to block/impede the anti-semites, not to be a part of their hate.

Is the US Abandoning Israel?

The US has certainly been drifting toward a less supportive position, for sure. Carolyn Glick pulls no punches here.

After going through the tired motions of pledging support for Israel, "when it matters," [US ambassador to the UN] Power refused to rule out the possibility that the US would support anti-Israel resolutions in the UN Security Council to limit Israeli sovereignty and control to the lands within the 1949 armistice lines — lines that are indefensible.

Such a move will be taken, she indicated, in order to midwife the establishment of a terrorist-supporting Palestinian state whose supposedly moderate leadership does not recognize Israel's right to exist, calls daily for its destruction, and uses the UN to delegitimize the Jewish state.

In other words, the Obama administration intends to pin Israel into indefensible borders while establishing a state committed to its destruction.

A key to understanding this position is that the pre-1967 borders are, if not indefensible, certainly very difficult to maintain. Another key is that some Zionists favour continued expansion into the West Bank. But to demand that Israel give up its buffer zone is tantamount to asking it to commit suicide or, at the very least, to suffer continued huge losses trying to defend itself within those pre-1967 borders.

 

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Victor Davis Hanson on Munich and Iran

What He Said

I don't agree with everything he says, but the Pope is right about the Armenian genocide. From Wikipaedia:

The Armenian Genocide^[7] (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանություն Hayots Tseghaspanutyun),^{[note 3]} also known as the Armenian Holocaust,^[8] the Armenian Massacres and, traditionally by Armenians, as Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"),^[9]was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects inside their historic homeland which lies within the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, [emphasis added] the day Ottoman authorities rounded up and arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre.^[10][11][12] Other indigenous and Christian ethnic groups such as the Assyrians and the Ottoman Greeks were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government, and their treatment is considered by many historians to be part of the same genocidal policy. The majority of Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being as a direct result of the genocide.

Raphael Lemkin was explicitly moved by the Armenian annihilation to coin the word genocide in 1943 and define systematic and premeditated exterminations within legal parameters.^[13] The Armenian Genocide is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides,^[14][15][16] because scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out in order to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust.^[17]

Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, denies the word genocide is an accurate term for the mass killings of Armenians that began under Ottoman rule in 1915. It has in recent years been faced with repeated calls to recognize them as genocide. To date, twenty-two countries have officially recognized the mass killings as genocide,^[18] a view which is shared by most genocide scholars and historians.

Pope Francis described it as the "First genocide of the XX century", causing a diplomatic incident with Turkey. The bishop of Romedefended his pronouncement by saying it was his duty to honour the memory of the innocent men, women and children who were "senselessly" murdered by Ottoman Turks 100 years before he became Pontiff. He also called on all heads of state and international organizations to recognize "the truth of what transpired and oppose such crimes without ceding to ambiguity or compromise." ^[19]

Drone Video of Auschwitz

Very moving video from the BBC: