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Barry Rubin’s blog is here: http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/
This article didn’t fit, so I’m honored to make it available here. What he writes is quite upsetting — here in the US it hasn’t gotten to this point yet.

Some European Intellectuals Go Insane With Hatred

By Barry Rubin

People in English-speaking countries are often horrified and outraged by what’s published in their language’s mass media. They have no idea what’s being published in other European languages!

This article isn’t typical but it shows the kind of lynch-mob insanity seizing much of Western Europe’s intellectual and cultural elites. I’ve written about a similar example here and let’s not forget the top-circulation Swedish newspaper that prominently published an article saying that Israel murdered Palestinians to steal their body parts.

De Volkskrant is one of the largest Dutch mainstream newspapers. It’s leftist but regularly publishes columns from people with an opposite view point.

Thomas von der Dunk, a historian and Labour party member as well as an influential intellectual (he’s weirdly eccentric but that isn’t so unusual in such circles), made the following points in an op-ed piece:

— What Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi has done in his country is less bad than Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip in 2009.

— Nobody should be outraged of the murder of the Fogel family, the parents and three of their little children, because they were living in a West Bank settlement on land stolen by an illegitimate government.

— Israelis living in land from which Palestinians have been driven out are like a Dutchman who in 1944 lived in the home of Jews deported to concentration camps. (There are probably far more Muslims living in Arabic-speaking states living in homes from which Jews were driven out–BR).

— Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are criminals as bad as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Qadhafi.

— Israel is an apartheid state and not a democracy or a state where law prevails.

— Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad could learn from Israel how to organize phony, pro-regime demonstrations.

In short, what we have now is not criticism of Israel or of its policies but a demonization of Israel by much of the European left that is starting to approach the hatred daily projected in Muslim-majority dictatorships.

Obviously, there are other voices heard, too, but in large sectors of the opinion-making elites—and every country is different of course—the level of irrational hatred is growing frightening. And for local Jews, the choice is to join the chorus, remain silent, leave, or face intimidation.

Technorati Tags: Barry Rubin, Europe, Israel, Thomas von der Dunk

Gideon Levy: how can we account for his warped perspective?

The Israeli Left becomes more pathological every day. Here is how Gideon Levy of Ha’aretz responded to the admission by Judge Richard Goldstone that “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document”:

Anyone who honored the first Goldstone has to honor him now as well, but still has to ask him: What happened? What exactly do you know today that you didn’t know then? Do you know today that criticizing Israel leads to a pressure-and-slander campaign that you can’t withstand, you “self-hating Jew”? This you could have known before.

Goldstone’s recent statement that “civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy” repudiates the central blood libel contained in the report that bears his name. But Levy thinks the facts support the original accusation:

But let’s put aside the torments and indecision of the no-longer-young Goldstone. Let’s also put aside the reports by the human rights organizations. Let’s make do with the findings of the IDF itself. According to Military Intelligence, 1,166 Palestinians were killed in the operation, 709 of them terrorists, 162 who may or may not have been armed, 295 bystanders, 80 under the age of 16 and 46 women.

All the other findings described a more serious picture, but let’s believe the IDF. Isn’t the killing of about 300 civilians, including dozens of women and children, a reason for penetrating national soul-searching? Were all of them killed by mistake? If so, don’t 300 different mistakes require conclusions? Is this the behavior of the most moral army in the world? If not, who takes responsibility?

Actually, yes, it is a remarkably good outcome for urban warfare, especially considering the fact — which  the Goldstone report itself notes — that Hamas had a deliberate policy of fighting from among civilians. Evelyn Gordon points out that, according to Red Cross figures, the proportion of civilian casualties in war for most of the last century has been close to 90%. IDF figures put the proportion in the Gaza war at 39%, and even NGO figures — including Palestinian NGOs — don’t approach the 90% that is routine for the wars of Europe, the US, etc.

Goldstone attributes his change of heart to information developed by the IDF’s own investigation that directly contradicts much of the NGO testimony upon which the Goldstone Report was based. But Levy, who simply discounts IDF information because of its source, turns on Goldstone himself, blaming his recantation on cowardice.

Levy writes as one who is burning with hatred and bitterness. His own solution to the problem of Hamas is not clear. In a recent interview, he writes

No doubt the government cannot tolerate attacks on the southern part of Israel — no government in the world would have tolerated it.  It couldn’t go on, Qassams every second day and the state lives with it?  This is out of the question.  The problem is that nobody asks why they launched the Qassams.  I guess that if Gaza would have been free, there would have been no Qassams.  But Gaza is not free, and the occupation didn’t end in Gaza — it just changed its form.

So I suppose he advocates opening borders, relinquishing control over airspace and shipping, etc. The consequences of this would be obvious and tragic — yesterday’s attack on a school bus is an example. But in general he talks only from the point of view of the Palestinian Arabs, about how ‘the occupation’ is oppressive and must be ended. What will happen then, will happen, he seems to say.

“Nobody asks why they launched the Qassams,” he says. But do we need to ask? Don’t they tell us, in the Hamas covenant, in their media, and in the statements of their officials?

How can we account for his warped perspective?

I’m not qualified to psychoanalyze Levy, although someone like Dr. Kenneth Levin could use him as a case study in ‘Jewish delusional grandiosity (JDG)’ (I think I made up that term, but Levin would like it), the belief that Jews can protect themselves against antisemitic violence by a process of self-improvement, a process of making themselves better so that the antisemites will like them.

Note that this requires that the JDG sufferer must accept the antisemitic stereotypes of his persecutors. Is Levy’s outburst at Goldstone antisemitic? Perhaps.

By the way, Dr. Levin argues persuasively (The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege), that this strategy didn’t work throughout Jewish history, and is not working today.

You’d think that Levy, et al, would want to emigrate, and some other left-wing extremists like historian Ilan Pappé have done so. But perhaps part of the JDG syndrome is an exaggerated belief in the moral righteousness of one’s position, so that Levy sees himself as almost a martyr to ‘justice’:

It’s not always very pleasant, but do I have a choice?  I can’t change my mind, I will not stop raising my voice as long as I can raise my voice, and as long as I have the platforms to raise my voice — and altogether I still, as I said, feel very free to do so.  With all the price that I’m paying, it’s a relatively minor price.

Levy, as he admits, is doing well. Who pays the price for him, as well as myriad other media and academic personalities who are also anti-state activists, is the Jewish people.

Technorati Tags: Gideon Levy, Goldstone report, Israel

School bus struck by laser-guided antitank rocket fired across Gaza border

When I heard that Hamas had fired an antitank missile across the border directly at an Israeli school bus, wounding the driver and critically injuring a child — only the fact that the bus was otherwise empty prevented an even more horrendous outcome — I thought: they want a war. The fact that the attack was accompanied by a barrage of at least 50 rockets and mortars fired at Israeli towns and cities reinforced that assumption.

You can easily imagine their thinking: if a bus full of Jewish children goes up in flames, Israel will have to take the bait. But the last war was painful for Hamas. Why would they want another go-around?

I wasn’t surprised to see that Barry Rubin agrees with me that Hamas is looking for trouble. But here is his analysis of why:

The recent upheavals in the Arab world have emboldened revolutionary Islamists and Hamas most of all. Its close ally, the Muslim Brotherhood, can operate freely in Egypt. There is much support for Islamism in the Egyptian army. And even the “moderate” presidential candidate Muhammad ElBaradei said that Egypt would go to war if Israel attacked the Gaza Strip.

Does Egypt want war with Israel? Of course not. But Hamas calculates–and, of course, it often miscalculates–that crisis with Israel will increase its support from Egypt and perhaps even create a situation where Cairo intervenes on its side on some level.

At a minimum, thousands of Egyptian volunteers, mobilized by the Brotherhood, might fight on its side, money would be raised in Egypt on its behalf, and large amounts of arms would flow across the border.  Then, too, international public opinion could be mobilized against Israel with tales–often phony–of atrocities as happened last time. And the Palestinian Authority (PA), ruling the West Bank, could be shamed and subverted. While the PA can claim to be delivering some prosperity–which the West thinks is all people care about–Hamas can deliver heroism and jihad.

Rubin also points out that since the fall of the Mubarak regime, the border between Egypt and Gaza has been wide open, with weapons — like the antitank missile used in today’s attack or the Iranian Grad missiles fired at Ashkelon, etc. — freely flowing into Gaza.

Hamas thinks it can’t lose: either (1) the IDF will smash back into Gaza, and Hamas — with Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood help — will be able to put up a vicious fight, perhaps even drawing the Egyptian army into it, perhaps triggering a two-front war with Hizballah in the north. Or (2), Israel will content itself with limited retaliation, and Hamas can continue gaining points in the Arab world for its effectiveness at killing Jewish children with impunity.

Today’s attack was not random: it was a bright yellow school bus, and a laser-guided missile. The creature that pulled the trigger knew exactly what he was doing.

Hamas has already taken credit for the attack with the following statement:

Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza targeted with number of mortar shells the nearby Israeli settlements, bus driver and other Israeli settler were injured after a shell targeted their bus driving in the southern Israeli kibbutz of Sa’ad April 7, 2011.

Not that it matters, but the ‘settlements’ in question are inside the 1949 armistice lines, and ‘the other Israeli settler’ is 16 (some reports say 13) years old.

But you say, doesn’t it look bad to kill children?

Not to many Palestinian Arabs:

Udi and Ruth Fogel and three of their children – Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and three-month old baby Hadas – were murdered in the Israeli town of Itamar on March 11.

“63% of the Palestinians oppose and 32% support the attack in the Itamar settlement in the West Bank in which a family of five was murdered.” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, official PA newspaper, April 7, 2011] — PMW

Just one out of three! Imagine my relief.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas

There’s a new peace initiative in town. It is similar to the Clinton-Barak proposals of 2000, with the Golan Heights thrown in. It is framed as an Israeli response to the Arab (or Saudi) Peace Initiative. My feeling is that although it was officially created by a group of Israelis, including former security officials and relatives of former PM Itzhak Rabin, it is in essence the Obama Plan. And it is much worse than the Clinton-Barak proposals because of the influence of the Arab initiative.

Some things I noticed:

It begins thus:

Reaffirming that Israel’s strategic objective is to reach a historic compromise and permanent status agreements that shall determine the finality of all claims and the end of the Israeli Arab conflict…

This principle will not be a part of any permanent agreement signed with any Palestinian Arab faction, because it contradicts their national goals as set out in their founding documents — the assertion of Arab (and in the case of Hamas, Muslim) control over the entire area from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.

…the Israeli Palestinian conflict shall be resolved on the principle of two states for two nations: Palestine as a nation state for the Palestinians and Israel as a nation state for the Jews (in which the Arab minority will have equal and full civil rights as articulated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence).

“A nation state for the Jews” is not the same as ‘a Jewish state’. We know that the Arabs will not agree to recognize a “Jewish state”. Is a “state for the Jews” different? Apparently it is something less. It makes my head spin.

Regarding the Arab minority. It says the “will have equal and full civil rights…” Don’t they already? If not, what civil — as opposed to national rights don’t they have? Will they get additional rights that they don’t have today?

The state shall be demilitarized, exercising full authority over its internal security forces. The International community shall play an active role in providing border security and curbing terrorist threats.

‘Demilitarized’ will need to be defined, as will a mechanism for ensuring demilitarization. Count me very, very skeptical about the possibility of doing this in the real world. Regarding the ‘active role’ of the ‘international community’, will it work as well as it did in disarming Hizballah?

The borders shall be based on the June 4, 1967, lines, with agreed modifications subject to the following principles: the creation of territorial contiguity between the Palestinian territories; land swaps (not to exceed 7% of the West Bank) based on a 1:1 ratio, including the provision of a safe corridor between the West Bank and Gaza, under de facto Palestinian control.

I must ask: what is special about these ‘borders’, which are simply the 1949 armistice lines, which both Israel and the Arab states clearly did not accept as borders, and which UNSC resolution 242 implied were not ‘secure and defensible’? How did illegal Jordanian occupation for 19 years create an Arab claim on them? Israel has occupied them for longer than that, if occupation is a criterion for ownership.

How was it decided that ‘Palestine’ must have “territorial contiguity” but Israel not?

If 1949 lines plus 7% territorial swaps define the borders, many Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria will find themselves in ‘Palestine’. What will happen to them? The document doesn’t say, but Mahmoud Abbas has announced that no “continued Israeli presence, military or civil” will be allowed in ‘Palestine’. Will these new Jewish refugees be compensated? Will they be made to leave their homes by force? Will even one Arab be required to leave Israel?

Jerusalem is to be redivided. In Jerusalem,

The line shall be drawn so that: Jewish neighborhoods shall be under Israeli sovereignty; the Arab neighborhoods shall be under Palestinian sovereignty.

This sounds practical in principle, but in practice it may be impossible. The result will be more Jews and important Jewish sites ending up in ‘Palestine’. And I ask the same questions that I asked in the preceding paragraph.

the Temple Mount shall remain under a special no-sovereignty regime (“God Sovereignty”), with special agreed-upon arrangements, ensuring that Islamic holy places shall be administered by the Moslem Waqf, and Jewish holy sites and interests shall be administered by Israel. The implementation of these arrangements will be supervised by an Israeli-International committee

I love this. If only God would make his sovereignty manifest here there wouldn’t be a problem! But since Israel ceded day-to-day control of the Temple Mount to the Waqf in 1967, the Arabs have trampled Israeli sovereignty and priceless archaeological relics underfoot; how much more would they do so with an “Israeli-International committee” supervising them!

The solutions for the Palestinian refugees shall be agreed upon between Israel, the Palestinians and all regional parties in accordance with the following principles: Financial compensation shall be offered to the refugees and the host countries by the international community and Israel; the Palestinian refugees wishing to return (as mentioned in UNGAR 194) may do so only to the Palestinian state, with mutually agreed-upon symbolic exceptions who will be allowed to return to Israel.

Starting at the end, what will the “symbolic exceptions” symbolize? That Arab refugees have a ‘right of return’ in principle that is not actualized for practical reasons? Why isn’t it actualized, then? When will it be? Is this not inconsistent with the idea that the Arabs renounce all further claims against Israel?

Further, why should Israel have any part in compensating them? Compensating them for what? The Jewish refugees from Arab countries are mentioned, but there’s no mention of compensating them. The implication is that it is Israel’s fault, rather than the Arab leadership, both in Palestine and the Arab nations, that is responsible for the flight of the original refugees, and their continued inability to find permanent homes.

The document also calls for Israel to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria. There is no mention in this section of what Syria will do in return except follow the principles of the UN charter and international law, and there is no justification. Just like Czechoslovakia in 1938, Israel is told to give it up.  But the best guarantee of peace between Israel and Syria, one which does not require international peacekeepers, is the highly strategic Golan Heights. A true ‘peace’ agreement would leave it in Israel’s hands.

Further, there is an overriding practical reason that Israel must keep the Golan: many analysts will tell you that if Israel had not held the Golan in 1973, Syrian armies would almost certainly have reached major population centers in Israel. Judging by Syrian treatment of captured Israeli soldiers — horrendous beyond belief — Israel might have been driven to use its last-ditch nuclear deterrent in that case.

The parties will create regional security mechanisms, addressing shared threats and risks arising from states, terrorist organizations, marine pirate groups, and guerrilla organizations. to ensure the safety and security of the peoples of the region.

All of Israel’s conflicts, even the oft-questioned 1982 Lebanon War, have been defensive in nature, albeit on occasion tactically preemptive. The Middle East is full of crazy Arab propaganda about Israeli intentions to conquer the entire Middle East, commit genocide against the Palestinian Arabs, etc., but it is not possible to honestly accuse Israel of expansionism. On the other hand, all of the terrorist groups are supported and encouraged by Arab nations and Iran. So it is impossible for me to imagine that there can be a “regional mechanism” whose effect will be to protect Israel.

Last but not least:

Israel, the Arab States and the Islamic States commit to implement gradual steps towards establishing normal relations between them, in the spirit of the Arab Peace Initiative, which shall commence upon the launching of peace negotiations and shall be gradually upgraded to full normal relations (including diplomatic relations, open borders and economic ties) upon the signing of the permanent status agreements and throughout their implementation.

The “spirit of the Arab Peace Initiative” is precisely this: that until Israel completely meets all Arab demands — full withdrawal to 1967 lines, refugee rights, etc. — then and only then will the Arabs grant “full normal relations.” While the original Arab League initiative doesn’t clearly define “normal relations”, neither in that document nor this one is recognition of Israel as  Jewish state included.

Even insofar as Israel gets anything from this initiative, consider what is being offered: Israel is required to surrender all of its strategic, concrete advantages, including the Golan Heights whose security implications are immense, give up the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, evacuate its citizens from land from which it will withdraw, admit that it is responsible for the plight of the Arab refugees (which admission will have serious legal consequences at some point). In return, there will be no recognition of a Jewish state, and something called ‘normal relations’.

And what, in all this, guarantees Israel’s security after it pulls back to close to what have been called ‘Auschwitz borders’? Treaties, promises and international peacekeepers — peacekeepers which have been tried more than once in the Middle East and have never succeeded in keeping the peace! Indeed, UN troops in Lebanon have protected the terrorist Hizballah against Israel.

As far as treaties are concerned, consider that not one of the candidates for president in Egypt has said that he would not abrogate the peace treaty with Israel. Even the American-backed ‘moderate’ Mohammad el-Baradei said recently that under his presidency, Egypt would fight alongside Hamas if Israel invades Gaza!

This is not an ‘Israeli peace initiative’. It is the Arab initiative with a few tweaks that the Arabs will try to negotiate away anyway. It is blueprint to pressure Israel into giving up the means to defend itself.

Its proponents will tell you that it is intended to preempt a unilateral declaration of ‘Palestine’, which would be worse. Would it? I don’t think that’s clear.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Arab peace initiative, Israeli peace initiative