FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

US policy toward Israel has always been ambivalent, at best. Truman struggled with his State Department, particularly Secretary George Marshall, to recognize the state of Israel. Eisenhower was furious when Israel conspired with France and England to invade the Sinai in 1956, and threatened economic sanctions to force a withdrawal (he also promised that the US would guarantee free passage through the strait of Tiran, a promise the US broke in 1967). Ronald Reagan sold AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia against strident Israeli objections, and George H. W. Bush forced Israel to take no action while Iraqi Scud missiles were crashing into Tel Aviv.

The US has never accepted Israeli rights to Jerusalem — even West Jerusalem — and since the 1970’s, policy has been to try to undo the results of the 1967 war and return Israel to the 1949 armistice lines.

Having said that, the US was generous with military aid after 1967, particularly during the Cold War when Israel served as a bulwark against Soviet influence in the region. But keep in mind that aid money was spent to buy weapons from US contractors, so this was not all done out of love for the Jewish state.

There is reason to think that the present administration has decided to implement an even more aggressive policy. Apparently it’s been decided that it is not possible to undo 1967 without also undoing 1948.

The failure of Oslo, of Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal and of other diplomatic initiatives have produced a consensus in Israel that today there is no practical way to implement a two-state solution. At the same time, Fatah has escalated demands rather than becoming more moderate (or perhaps Fatah’s mask of moderation has fallen away). And of course, Hamas controls Gaza and 40% of the Palestinian population.

In any event, the Obama administration seems to have come to the conclusion that a sovereign Israel can’t be cajoled or even  pressured to accept an agreement with the Palestinians that it regards (correctly) as suicidal. So the approach will be to remove Israel’s independent volition — in effect to go back to the solution the State Department had pushed in 1948, a US-controlled “Trusteeship.”

This is what is meant in practice by the “American peace plan” which was created by Obama’s highly Israel-hostile Mideast team of Jones, Scowcroft, Brzezinski, Berger, Kurtzer, Power, etc.

Here is how Eliyakim HaEtzni explains it:

Alex Fishman, in an article in “Yediot Achronot” from April 9th, details what Obama presented to Netanyahu for his
signature [at their last meeting]:

• The withdrawal of the IDF from all the Arab cities of Judea and Samaria and a large proportion of the countryside, precluding all future Israeli military operations in those areas (pretty much the only way of preventing terrorist attacks against Israeli targets);
• Allowing the Palestinian Authority to resume operations unhindered in Jerusalem;
• Obligating Israel to cease any present or future building in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, amounting to the de facto division of the capitol [sic].

In addition, Obama demanded that Netanyahu continue the building freeze in Judea and Samaria indefinitely and hand over parts of Area C to the Ramallah authorities, changing its status to Area A, which prohibits Israelis from setting foot there. Obama required Netanyahu to relinquish the northern Dead Sea and parts of the Jordan Valley to enable the PA to develop tourism there.

All this must take place immediately, before the beginning of negotiations, while the negotiations themselves will determine the final border and, according to the American timetable, will be signed and sealed within two months….

First by forcing Netanyahu to create in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria conditions under which the territory is de facto handed over to the Arabs, and then by giving him a few months to play at the farce of negotiations, with the predetermined result of arriving at the American “peace plan.”

And that’s not all. There’s the Quartet’s declared intent to base the forced “peace” on foreign armies. The Americans and Europeans are offering Israel the services of foreign troops as a beneficence in response to Israel’s complaint that it will no longer be able to defend itself within the borders of the Green Line. Their answer to this is “security guarantees” backed up with a military presence in the Jordan Valley and along the Green Line. They tell us that their intention is to defend us from the Arabs while they tell the Arabs that their intention is to defend them from us. In effect, this military presence will tie our hands and will prevent the Israeli government from taking any independent military action. From then on, Israel will be a sovereign nation in name only. In fact, Israel will be a protectorate under international control, led by America.

HaEtzni is a right-winger, a “settler advocate.” Nevertheless, his analysis can’t be faulted. Given the incompatibility between Palestinian demands and Israeli security, there is no way that the Palestinian state so sought by the Obama Administration can be brought into existence except against Israel’s will.

Obama has threatened that if the “proximity talks” don’t bear fruit by September/October he will produce the “American proposal” and call for a summit led by the hostile Quartet to beat Israel into submission. Perhaps he thinks that a foreign policy ‘success’ (he has never had one) will help the Democrats in November’s election.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Obama, Palestinians

Do you remember the New Israel Fund (NIF), the US charity that was recently the center of controversy when an Israeli Zionist group, Im Tirtzu, claimed that they funded the organizations responsible for the majority of the ‘documentation’ of alleged IDF crimes in the notorious Goldstone report?

The ‘moderate’ Left, including the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center, rushed to their defense. Im Tirtzu was accused of being composed of right-wing extremists or worse.

But let’s see who the real extremists are.

The BDS movement  (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) attempts to delegitimize Israel as a state, calling for boycotts in every area, economics, academics, sports, culture, science, etc. The campaign is designed on the model of the boycott of apartheid South Africa, the implication being that the Jewish state is equally immoral and illegitimate. The boycott is to be continued until Israel meets the following conditions:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

One would think that a pro-Israel charity would not fund groups calling for the ‘return’ of 4.5 million hostile ‘refugees’, something which, if it happens, would certainly mark the end of the state of Israel and the beginning of a bloody civil war. So what is the policy of the New Israel Fund with regard to BDS? Here is an excerpt from their FAQ (h/t: Israel Academia Monitor):

What is NIF’s position on boycott, divestment and sanctions?

NIF supports an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories as a central tenet of the strategic framework in which we operate.  The tactics known as ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions’ (BDS) are designed to pressure Israel to end the occupation, but NIF believes these tactics to be unproductive, inflammatory and ineffective because of the difficulties in defining an approach that is not overly broad, does not delegitimize Israel and will achieve the long-term goal.

So far, so good. Very moderate, if leftish. But it continues,

Although we will continue to communicate publicly and privately to our allies and grantees that NIF does not support BDS as a strategy or tactic, we will not reduce or eliminate our funding for grantees that differ with us on a tactical matter. NIF will not fund BDS activities nor support organizations for which BDS is a substantial element of their activities, but will support organizations that conform to our grant requirements if their support for BDS is incidental or subsidiary to their significant programs.

In other words, if an organization claims that its main goal is to improve the condition of Palestinian women but also supports BDS — no problem. And in fact there are numerous groups like this, since the universal Palestinian Arab position is that all of their problems are a direct result of ‘occupation’ — that is, the existence of Israel — and have no other cause.

So it’s clear that the NIF does fund groups working to delegitimize Israel — as long as they don’t say that this is their primary purpose!

Like J Street and others, the NIF trades on the Jewish commitment to social justice and helping others to turn the resources of the Jewish community against its own interest, the preservation of the state of Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel, NIF, BDS

I don’t know how many posts I’ve written about anti-Israel Jews — J Street, Israeli intellectuals, leftist anti-Zionists, etc. I even thought about creating a special category called “With Jews like these, who needs Arabs?”

The inimitable Michael Lerner of Tikkun Magazine, for example, recently gave an award to Richard Goldstone because… get ready for this — “the peace community both in Israel and around the world see Justice Goldstone as upholding the best ethical values of the Jewish community”. Ethical values?

It doesn’t work anymore to say “Oh, Michael Lerner (or Chomsky, or Finkelstein, or half the faculty of Tel Aviv University, etc.) is crazy. If the problem is mental illness, it’s an epidemic.

The latest is a new European organization called “JCall“. Like J Street, JCall claims to be “unfailingly” committed to the Jewish state, but nevertheless holds that “Systematic support of Israeli government policy is dangerous and does not serve the true interests of the state of Israel,” and calls for the EU and the US to “put pressure on both parties” to achieve a “solution” to the conflict.

I suppose it’s worth saying again why ‘putting pressure on both sides’ won’t end the conflict (a more complete argument is here):

• While it’s possible to force Israeli concessions — viz. the recent ‘secret’ Jerusalem construction freeze — they are never matched by any softening of the Palestinian side, which will not even go so far as to agree that the Israel that will be left will belong to the Jews.
• As long as Hamas is in control of Gaza where 40% of the Palestinian Arabs live, no agreement will be worth anything.
• The Palestinian Authority has very little support. It’s famously corrupt, and is dominated by the Fatah ‘old guard’. There is almost no  interest in permanent peace with Israel among any of the Fatah members, old or young, who tend to see agreements only as a stepping stone to ultimate victory.
• Therefore, an imposed agreement would not ‘solve’ anything. Rather, it would simply create another hostile entity right next to the most heavily-populated part of Israel, making a three-front war almost a certainty.

This is not rocket science. If you are pro-Israel, you do not invite the 1000-pound gorillas of the EU and the US to sit on Israel and impose a solution that serves their own narrow interests.

As Barry Rubin pointed out in the ‘freeze’ article linked above, Israel’s government is in essence a unity government which includes the left-wing Labor Party of Ehud Barak. It is not a right-wing extremist government whose policy doesn’t serve the “true interests” of the state, as JCall implies. Israelis, who elected this government and who either fight to defend the state or send their children to do so, don’t need European Jews to tell them their business.

But the fact is that J Street, JCall, Tikkun, etc. are not pro-Israel, even though some of their donors are uninformed or stupid enough to accept their facile arguments. Their fully conscious members have to realize this, just like Richard Goldstone has to realize by now that he was snookered; and if he really were deserving of an ethics award he would admit it.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Jews, JCall, Goldstone 

The US Supreme court recently struck down a law banning animal abuse videos, videos so bad that just the idea is nauseating. I was distressed, but I understood. The principle of free speech is one of the foundations of our free society, and there is probably no place in the world where it is taken more seriously.

Some time ago I went to a talk by a Holocaust denier in my own neighborhood. That, too, was nauseating. But I understood why it was impossible to prevent this person from speaking. Unfortunately, this is the price we pay for the kind of society we want. Other nations have made different choices; Holocaust denial can get you put in jail in some European countries.

So when a young man warned the producers of South Park (of which I am not particularly a fan) that they might end up dead for depicting the Prophet Mohammad, he in effect crashed an airliner into one of the most important edifices of our American culture (please read what Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who should know, wrote about this).

Threats of lawsuits, boycotts, nasty blogs, etc. are one thing. They may or may not have what lawyers like to call a ‘chilling effect’ on free speech. But threats of murder are something else entirely, especially since there are numerous precedents that threats like this will be carried out. Think of Salman Rushdie, Theo Van Gogh, Kurt Westergaard, Hirsi Ali herself, etc. Indeed, Comedy Central bleeped out the mention of the name ‘Mohammad’ in a follow-up episode.

The first episode did not actually present an image of Mohammad, but had his voice come from inside a bear suit. In the same episode, Jesus is shown watching porn and Buddah snorting cocaine. The relatively mild treatment of Mohammad may already imply a degree of self-censorship.

Mohammad in a bear suit on South Park

The individual who made the threats, as well as publishing the names, addresses and pictures of the producers, is Abu Talhah al-Amrikee — Abu Talhah the American — who used to be called Zachary Adam Chesser, and was a student at George Mason University. His nom de guerre is ironic, since his actions are about as anti-American as anything one can imagine. And it doesn’t matter how marginal or crazy he is. It doesn’t take a sane man to pull a trigger.

Abu Talhah al-Amriki

The strategy of responding to self-defined insults with murderous violence is  an attack on a principle that Western culture has developed over several centuries at great cost; as I said, a foundation of our free society. The intent is to propel us back into the Middle Ages, where radical Islam lives.

It must be resisted as strongly as we resist attempts to crash airliners into our physical structures.

Technorati Tags: South Park, Abu Talhah al-Amrikee, radical Islam, Muslim violence

Ami Isseroff gives us a convincing description of the most likely scenario if Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon is not stopped:

By “nuclear Iran,” I mean an Iran that at least makes a convincing case that it has or could have nuclear weapons – that it has completed the fuel cycle. They needn’t test an actual bomb. They will use their military muscle as an umbrella to further their two goals: eliminating the Great Satan, the USA, from influence in the Middle East, and eliminating the Little Satan, Israel. They will create a Hezbollah movement in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia for example, where there are aggrieved Shi’ite populations (a majority in Bahrain) and a lot of oil. They will certainly gain control of Iraq, as well as tightening their grip on Syria and Lebanon.

They will control most of the oil reserves of the Middle East and demand a price for the oil. That price will be, as their leaders have stated, a “referendum” about the future of “Palestine” (meaning Israel) in which all the “Palestinian Arabs” in the world are allowed to participate. As there are a very large number of candidates for eligibility as “Palestinian Arabs” if criteria are sufficiently lax and imaginative, there is little doubt as to what the result of the referendum would be. Mr. Obama might be able to “live” with that for a while, but of course that would not be the end of Iranian demands, since their ultimate goal as Mr. Ahmadinejad announced, is a “world without the United States and Zionism.”

There are various things that might derail this plan, but an imposed Israeli-Palestinian ‘peace’ agreement is not one of them. Indeed, such a deal with the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority and in the presence of Hamas will simply create a hostile entity — another Gaza, if you will — next door to Israel’s heartland, completing its encirclement by Iran-linked enemies, and threatening a three-front war.

While the Iranian leadership obviously has religious and ideological reasons to want to eliminate Israel, there are also geopolitical ones: 1) Israel is the only state in the Middle East that is strong enough to be a threat to Iran’s plan to dominate the region, and 2) insofar as it is an ally of the US, it serves as a way for the US to project its power in the region.

It’s been suggested that an anti-Israel policy will get the conservative Arab regimes on our side, which will strengthen our hand with Iran. But those regimes will be the first targets of Iranian expansionism and they are already ‘on our side’ with regard to Iran (interestingly — although they will never say so publicly — some in the Arab world are hoping that Israel will solve the Iranian problem for them).

Israel is the keystone of Western interests in the region. If it’s removed, the structure will fall.

Can you imagine a world in which a third of the oil reserves — more, if you include Venezuela in the anti-US bloc — is under the control of Iran, where political speeches invariably close with shouts of “death to America!”?

US policy to contract and weaken Israel actually aids Iran, a declared enemy of the US. This policy is at best irrational and at worst treasonous.

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Just because someone is irrational doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have motives. Hitler lost the war in part because his irrational desire to wipe out the Jews of Europe at all costs interfered with rational decision-making.

There’s no shortage of important people who oppose Israel. There has always been a strong element, primarily in the State Department, that believes that the relationship between Israel and the US is an embarrassment, forced upon us by the Jewish Lobby. Truman recognized the state of Israel in 1948 in defiance of this group. It’s safe to say that there’s more than a bit of antisemitism among them.

There is also a Saudi-paid army of former officials and lobbyists that push this view. Chas Freeman, Jimmy Carter, James A. Baker, etc. are examples. Whatever their arguments, there’s a strong element of simple self-interest here.

More recently they’ve been joined by left-wing anti-Zionists, who consider the Palestinians third-world ‘people of color’ (never mind the actual colors of representative Israelis and Palestinians) who have been ‘colonized’ by Israel; these types suffuse the Obama Administration and apparently set the tone for White House attitudes. This is most likely Obama’s own view, although he plays his cards close to the vest. In recent years this group has also begun to be characterized by antisemitism.

Probably the only way to improve this administration’s policy will be to replace it.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Israel, Obama