Archive for September, 2011

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UN will vote for a racist, apartheid state and approve ethnic cleansing

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
Maen Areikat tells reporters that Palestine will be free of Jews

Maen Areikat tells reporters that Palestine will be free of Jews

The Palestinians are so confident that their program will succeed that they have stopped trying to hide its real nature:

By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that any future Palestinian state it seeks with help from the United Nations and the United States should be free of Jews.

After 44 years of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, “it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated,” PLO Ambassador Maen Areikat says.

“After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated,” Maen Areikat, the PLO ambassador, said during a meeting with reporters sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. He was responding to a question about the rights of minorities in a Palestine of the future.

Such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews, said Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. National Security Council official.

In case there is any question about what he means by ‘separation’, here is a snippet from an interview with Areikat last year in Tablet  (big h/t to Challah Hu Akbar):

Q: When you imagine a future Palestinian state, do you imagine it being a place where Jews, if they wish to become Palestinian citizens, could own property, vote in elections, and practice their religion freely?

A: I remember in the mid-’90s, the late [PLO official] Faisal Husseini said repeatedly “OK, if Israelis choose to stay in a future Palestinian state, they are more than welcome to do that. But under one condition: They have to respect and obey Palestinian laws, they cannot be living as Israelis. They have to respect Palestinian laws and abide by them.” When Faisal Husseini died, basically no Palestinian leader has publicly supported the notion that they can stay.

What we are saying is the following: We need to separate. We have to separate. We are in a forced marriage. We need to divorce. After we divorce, and everybody takes a period of time to recoup, rebound, whatever you want to call it, we may consider dating again.

Q: So, you think it would be necessary to first transfer and remove every Jew—

A: Absolutely. No, I’m not saying to transfer every Jew, I’m saying transfer Jews who, after an agreement with Israel, fall under the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state.

Q: Any Jew who is inside the borders of Palestine will have to leave?

A: Absolutely. I think this is a very necessary step, before we can allow the two states to somehow develop their separate national identities, and then maybe open up the doors for all kinds of cultural, social, political, economic exchanges, that freedom of movement of both citizens of Israelis and Palestinians from one area to another. You know you have to think of the day after.

There is a word for separation on racial/ethnic grounds — apartheid.

One could ask Areikat if his argument doesn’t also imply that Arab citizens of Israel must pick up and leave, or if it doesn’t invalidate the alleged ‘right of return’ for Arab refugees to Israel, but you already know he doesn’t think so.

Mahmoud Abbas also said something similar recently, but he didn’t use the word ‘Jew’. He said that “not one Israeli” would remain in the Palestinian state. No antisemitism here, it was suggested. Well, now there’s no doubt.

So the UN will vote for a declaration of an explicitly antisemitic, apartheid state, in effect validating the third major ethnic cleansing of Jews in the last 100 years — while at the same time they will be holding a conference condemning ‘racism’ (except of course that the conference will ignore racism and condemn the Jewish state).

Areikat was also asked whether homosexuals would be allowed in ‘Palestine’. “Ah, this is an issue that’s beyond my [authority],” he responded. No wonder Hitler is a hero to so many Palestinians.

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J Street gets a ‘Rabbinic Organizer’

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

By Vic Rosenthal

J Street: Hello, J Street. Ben Ami speaking.

Rabbi Malcolm Shain: Bon Ami? No, I didn’t want cleanser. I’m looking for J Street, the Pro-Israel, Pro-peace people.

JS: This is J Street. Although we could really use some Bon Ami. I can’t describe how disgusting the sink is since all the help quit. First we lost Spitalnick and Luria, and now Susskind has gone to Tides. Hmm, maybe some Tide would work on this sink.

MS: Oh. Well, I’m calling about the job…

JS: Great! Come over right away, and bring your mop and Bon Ami.

MS: No, not the janitorial job. I mean the Rabbinic Organizer that you advertised for. I’m Rabbi Shain. You can call me Mal.

JS: Oh. Are you sure you didn’t want the janitor position? It’s so hard to get good help these days. Well, we need to organize the Rabbis just as much as we need to clean the sink, so let’s go with that. First of all, I need to ask you one important question: are you absolutely, 100%, totally pro-Israel? Because that’s something we won’t compromise on.

MS: Positively. Whenever I’m in Israel, I join demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah or Bili’in. I work with Rabbis for Human Rights to protect Palestinian olive groves against those evil settlers. I work tirelessly for the Lef– er, I mean, for democracy. Because I love Israel and want to make it better!

JS: Well, that sounds good. What about here in the US?

MS: I’m pro-Israel here, too. I lead encounter groups for American Jews to meet real Palestinians to  learn how indigenous people are mistreated by the right-wing regime in Israel. Did you know that all Hamas wants is to end the occupation — and Bibi bombs them for it!

JS: Yes, Israel would certainly be a more vibrant democracy without Bibi. How do you feel about a two-state solution?

MS: It’s absolutely essential! Two states for two peoples! One for the Palestinian people, and one for the Arabs!

JS: Er, Mal… you meant the Jewish People, didn’t you?

MS: Oh, of course. I forgot about them. They have rights, too.

JS: We need a dynamic organizer who can whip our Rabbinic Cabinet into shape. They’ve been fleeing like rats deserting a sinking– I mean, there’s been a lot of attrition lately. Some of them don’t understand how important it is for them to make us look– I mean, to be validators of our pro-Israel message. What we need is a community organizer for rabbis.

MS: A community organizer! How inspiring! Just like–

JS: Exactly. The sky is the limit. Now tell me — can you handle rabbis? Can you talk the lingo, quote the text and liturgy? Some of them are religious.

MS: No problemo! I know what to order in a Chinese restaurant. One state from column A, one from column B. Ha ha, get it? I even have a kipa in my pocket that I borrowed from a funeral, just in case.

JS: Er, yes. You sound perfect for the job. When can you start?

MS: Right away! My congregation decided not to renew my contract for some reason. Can you imagine? I’ll be over as soon as I get the tar and feathers off.

JS: Great! And Mal… pick up some Bon Ami on the way. We really need to take care of this sink.

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Palestinian supporters push fraudulent children’s art exhibit

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
Drawing allegedly made by a Palestinian child in Gaza

Drawing allegedly made by a Palestinian child in Gaza

By Vic Rosenthal

The Oakland, California Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) has become a focus of controversy after the cancellation of a scheduled exhibition of art supposedly by ‘Palestinian children’ from Gaza, aged 9-11.

The pictures are emotionally powerful, showing the victimization of civilians, especially children, by demonic Israeli soldiers. They include scenes of horror, fear and death as well as Palestinian and Jewish political symbols. Note the Israeli flag on the soldier, as well as the Palestinian flag, the map showing Israel as ‘Palestine’ and what appears to be the Hizballah logo above it in the illustration above.

The exhibit was cancelled after community residents protested that the images were not suitable for children — the museum’s intended audience — and that the one-sided, highly political content was inappropriate.

It is an example of two characteristics we find over and over in pro-Palestinian propaganda: reality inversion and a propensity for audacious lying.

Let’s take the second point first: the sponsoring organization, the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) claims that the pictures were drawn by children from 9 to 11 years of age. That’s nonsense. Look at the drawing above. Note how the viewer’s eye is drawn to the slightly off-center focal point, the child cowering in the corner, the suggestion of despair evoked by the black shading around him. Look at the effective representation of the soldier’s face with a few strokes. Look at the sureness of the lines, the bold strokes. Whoever drew this was either an adult artist or a remarkable prodigy, sophisticated both artistically and politically.

Here are two more examples:

Did a child draw this?

Did a child draw this?

Or this?

Or this?

I showed them to a professor of Art at a local university. Here is what she said about them:

The paintings (color drawings) are highly sophisticated especially in relationship to detail. Did you see the barbed wire? Also, there is a carefully drawn Star of David in each work. The authenticity of the painting is remarkable for a child’s hand. The drawing of the planes and helicopters, the man in the tower, the dynamic brushstrokes that are well conceived and controlled all seem to project a more mature approach to art. Could these “children” be in their late teens, college age, or young adults [MECA says they were 9 to 11 years old]? According to the the quote, “much of the artwork was produced by children.” I wonder how “much”? Also, it is possible that the “children” were directed by an adult who supervised and perhaps completed the initial drawing.

Like the ‘death’ of another Palestinian child, Mohammed Dura, this exhibition is an invention designed to demonize Israel.

I mentioned Palestinian reality inversion. This is the phenomenon of attributing to Israel the vicious tactics used by Arab terrorists themselves. One of these is the deliberate targeting of noncombatant children:

The Ma’alot massacre, in which 25 Israelis were killed including 22 children, the Bus of Blood (35 dead, 13 children), the attack on the nursery at Kibbutz Misgav Am (3 dead, 2 children), the Dolphinarium bombing (21 teens dead), the Sbarro Pizza bombing (15 dead, 5 children), the shooting at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva (8 dead, 7 teens), the vicious butchering of the Fogel family (5 dead, 3 children), the antitank rocket attack on a yellow school bus (1 child) — these are just a few of a long, long list.

The Palestinians know that nothing tugs at the heartstrings more than the suffering of children. So they make ours suffer and accuse us of doing it to them.

The sponsoring organization, MECA, takes a radical position on the Arab-Israeli conflict:

  • MECA founder and Executive Director Barbara Lubin wrote “I think that the Jewish State is racist to the core.”  Lubin refers to the 1948 “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population” and wrote that “[t]he concept of ‘Jewish morality’ is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.”
  • In an interview, MECA Director of Gaza Projects, Dr. Mona El-Farra, explained that MECA refused USAID funding because it came with the condition that they promise “not [to] give any help or any aid whatsoever for the families of the militiamen, or their relatives, or anyone related to ‘terrorist attacks’” because “we consider it resistance” (emphasis added). — NGO Monitor

MECA plans to find another location for the show, perhaps in the street outside the museum. They are pitching the museum’s decision to cancel the show as ‘censorship’. Of course, this is nonsense — there is no free speech issue here. The museum is not required to give a platform to anyone who desires one, and it has a right to reject the exhibit on the grounds that it is inappropriate for its audience, is overt political propaganda — or because it is simply a fraud.

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The NY Times: on the dark side of the conflict

Monday, September 12th, 2011
Obama sails between the Scylla of US voters who support Israel and the Charybdis of his ‘friends’ in the Arab world.

Obama sails between the Scylla of US voters who support Israel and the Charybdis of his ‘friends’ in the Arab world.

The NY Times, in an editorial published on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, calls for the imposition of a Palestinian state because allowing a UN vote would be ‘ruinous’:

A United Nations vote on Palestinian membership would be ruinous. Yet with little time left before the U.N. General Assembly meets, the United States, Israel and Europe have shown insufficient urgency or boldness in trying to find a compromise solution.

Although it would provide a peg to hang violent disturbances on, maybe even a new intifada, and enable Palestinian ‘lawfare’ against Israel, a GA vote would not be ‘ruinous’ for Israel. The ruin would fall upon Barack Obama, whose decision to veto (or not) a subsequent Security Council resolution would put him between the Scylla of  US voters who support Israel and the Charybdis of his ‘friends’ in the Arab world.

So in order to save the President, the Times thinks that the US and Europe should hold Israel down while the Arabs rape her:

The United States and its Quartet partners (the European Union, the United Nations and Russia) should put a map and a deal on the table, with a timeline for concluding negotiations and a formal U.N. statehood vote. The core element: a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders with mutually agreed land swaps and guarantees for Israel’s security. The Security Council and the Arab League need to throw their full weight behind any plan.

Exactly what “mutually agreed” could mean here is unclear, since the Palestinians have said over and over “not one centimeter…” etc. The Palestinians rejected compromise offers in 2000 and 2008, so it’s hard to imagine that they would suddenly become more generous in the framework of a coerced settlement.

Regarding ‘guarantees’, can the Times possibly be serious? Did the guarantee Israel received from the US in 1956 that it would keep the Strait of Tiran open mean anything in 1967? What about the Multilateral Force in the Sinai that fled at Nasser’s request? Or the UN guarantee to prevent Hizballah from rearming after the 2006 war? If there is one thing that the Jewish people learned from the Holocaust, and from Israel’s wars that followed, it is that they must depend on themselves for their survival.

Since the Palestinians or the Arab league have never agreed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or to give up the demand to resettle Arab refugees in Israel, would such a coerced settlement force them to do so? How?

The Times tells us whose fault it is that direct negotiations haven’t succeeded:

Both sides share the blame with Mr. Obama and Arab leaders (we put the greater onus on Mr. Netanyahu, who has used any excuse to thwart peace efforts).

This is so far from the truth that it’s breathtaking. Obama encouraged the Palestinians to not return to negotiations after the Gaza war of 2008-9 by demanding a freeze on construction inside settlements, something that had never been a requirement before. Netanyahu agreed and there was a 10-month freeze with no results (except domestic political problems for him). Then the Palestinians demanded the freeze be extended for three months, and this time he did not agree.  So who’s doing the thwarting?

Since 1993, Israel has moved very far in the direction of compromise.  ‘Left-wing’ Itzhak Rabin was elected on a platform of opposition to a Palestinian state. Now ‘right-wing, hard-liner’ Netanyahu favors it. Israeli offers since 2000 have been more and more generous. But Palestinians still refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, still demand 1949 lines as borders and still demand right of return to Israel for Arab refugees. So naturally, the Times thinks that Israel should be pressured to move even farther:

Congress has threatened to cut millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority if it presses for a U.N. vote. Instead of just threatening the Palestinians, Congress should lean on Mr. Netanyahu to return to talks.

The theme of “whatever you do, don’t stop paying them” is continued:

Mr. Obama in particular needs to show firmer leadership in pressing Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas to resume talks. If a U.N. vote takes place, Washington and its partners will have to limit the damage, including continuing to finance the Palestinian Authority.

Simply put, pressure Netanyahu and try to bribe the Arabs (who will — as always — pocket the money and do what they want).

But I’ve saved  the best for last. Apparently the Times’ editorial writer fancies himself a diplomat, choosing to express himself with careful ambiguity. Stuck in incongruously as the next-to-last paragraph we find this:

It is astonishing that this late in the game, America and Europe remain divided over some aspects of a proposal for peace talks — like Israel’s demand for recognition as a Jewish state.

There is no hint about which side the Times thinks we should take! Is the demand for recognition just another example of Netanyahu’s ‘excuses’ to avoid negotiations? It’s not hard to guess. I would be astonished myself to find the Times pro-recognition. The rest of the editorial makes its position very clear.

Ten years after 9/11, the pressure to crush the last outpost of Western civilization in the Middle East is greater than ever, and the New York Times is firmly on the dark side of the conflict.

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Explaining Arab rage

Sunday, September 11th, 2011
Caricature of Avigdor Lieberman as a Nazi pig, displayed in an Egyptian demonstration

Caricature of Avigdor Lieberman as a Nazi pig, displayed in an Egyptian demonstration

To find something to illustrate this post, I googled ‘Egyptian antisemitic cartoons’. I got 152,000 images. I picked one that was colorful, though not as bloody as most of them (this one was done by a Belgian named Ben Heine, but was popular in Egyptian media and on posters).

If you were to ask an Egyptian why a slavering mob tore down a concrete wall and furiously hammered on an inner door (video here) just a few feet from six trapped Israeli security guards in order to try to tear them to pieces, they would likely say that they were furious over the death of several Egyptians during the recent terrorist attack near Eilat, and angry about Israel’s ‘treatment of Palestinians’.

Never mind that a) several of the terrorists were Egyptian citizens, b) seven Israeli Jews died in the attack which was launched from Egyptian soil, c) it’s quite likely that one of the Israeli casualties, police counterterrorism officer Pascal Avrahami, was murdered by Egyptian soldiers or police, and d) Israel apologized!

Oh, and never mind that the ‘treatment of Palestinians’ is a direct result of about 100 years of murder and terrorism directed at Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs.

The guards were armed and probably would have killed dozens before being overwhelmed. Then Egypt would have demanded an apology.

Nothing affected me personally more than this story, here in the words of PM Netanyahu:

During this long night, we were required to make many difficult decisions.  I would like to share with you one conversation from this night.  On the line was Yonatan, the security officer of the Embassy.  He and his men, six in number, were trapped in the Embassy building.  The mob entered the building and entered the office.  Only one door separated between the mob and Yonatan and his friends.  He sounded perfectly calm to me, and on the other hand understood the situation in which he and his colleagues found themselves.

During the ongoing event, he requested from the security officer in the Foreign Ministry one thing:  If something happens to me, he said, my parents should be notified face to face, and not by telephone.   I got on the phone line and I said to him, “Yonatan, be strong.  I promise you that the State of Israel will do everything in its power and will use all possible resources in the world in order to rescue you and your friends unharmed and whole from this situation.”

And thank God this morning they all landed in Israel.  A short while ago I spoke with Yonatan and his mother.  They sounded wonderful.

There is more than one story of what happened to Jews who were not so lucky. There was the lynching of the two reserve soldiers who accidentally drove into Ramallah (video here), and countless attempted murders in which Jewish Israelis were stoned or stabbed (horrifying video here).

Why do Egyptians and Palestinian Arabs, despite ‘peace’ treaties, hate Jews so much? The answer is simple: they are fed a constant diet of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda, by their leadership and by all Arab media. Here’s the way ‘peace’ is implemented:

  1. An Arab entity like the Egyptian government or the PLO makes a ‘peace’ agreement with Israel. Israel makes concrete concessions, like returning the Sinai to Egypt, or allowing the PLO to return from exile and set up a government. The ‘international community’ makes massive aid payments to the Arabs. The Arabs commit (in English) to peace with Israel, and explicitly agree to stop hateful incitement.
  2. The Arabs, officially and unofficially, ramp up incitement. Palestinian media glorifies terrorists and broadcasts the most horrible slanders against Jews and Israel. Egypt produces a TV series based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and an Arabic version of Mein Kampf is a best-seller.
  3. When the Arab masses inevitably explode in violence, the leadership blames ‘Israel’s treatment of Palestinians’, etc.

There are cultural factors that make this possible. The idea that a Jew could kill or humiliate an Arab under any circumstances is guaranteed to drive them wild. Arab politicians understand this, and it is always useful to divert unhappiness about the lack of food or jobs into anti-Israeli channels.

Israel and the West have made an error by ignoring the incitement, treating it as peripheral and unimportant. It is actually essential — if the Israel/Egypt peace treaty is abrogated, it will be a direct result of the incitement.

Update [12/3/2011 2301 PST]: added the information about the cartoonist, plus the fact that Israel apologized.

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