A few little things:
1) What’s wrong with this picture?
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti said worldwide protests will result from a U.S. veto of a Palestinian state at the United Nations.
Barghouti, who has been imprisoned in Israel since 2002 for murdering Israelis but still remains influential in the Arab world, told an Egyptian news service that a U.S. veto of a Palestinian state would be a “historic, deadly mistake,” the French news agency AFP reported.
“Such a veto will be confronted by millions-strong protests throughout the Arab and Muslim world, indeed throughout the whole world,” he reportedly said.
Hello? He’s a convicted multiple murderer! Why is he “influential” and talking to the press? He should be dead. And so should mass murderess Ahlam Tamimi.
2) Suddenly he gets it (maybe):
British PM David Cameron, speaking in the House of Commons about the lawlessness in the streets,
No “phoney human rights concerns” about publishing CCTV images of suspects involved in rioting would be allowed to “get in the way of bringing these criminals to justice”.
Nope, “no phoney human rights concerns” when his country is attacked by barbarians!
3) Never missing a chance to hurt Israel,
President Obama is pressuring Israel to apologize to Turkey for self-defense. I suppose he’s right — the commandos trying to enforce what a UN commission admits is a legitimate blockade should have all lined up to be beaten, stabbed and shot by Turkish thugs.
How about Turkey apologizing to the Armenians — then we’ll talk.
Why Obama needs to be involved in this issue, when he still is only hinting at making an unequivocal statement that Butcher Bashar must quit, is beyond me.
4) Meet Gabriel Matthew Schivone
Gabriel Matthew Schivone
An “Audacity of Hope” passenger, Schivone calls himself a ‘Chicano Jew’ and a ‘person of color’. He doesn’t look colored, but what do I know*. An undergraduate at the University of Arizona, Tucson and coordinator of Arizona Jewish Voice for Peace, Schivone is uncompromising in his support for the Palestinian Arab ‘resistance’. In an op-ed published in Ha’aretz, he wrote
I am one of a growing number of young American Jews who are determined to shake off an assumed – and largely imposed – association with Israel. Prominent advocacy organizations, such as the American Jewish Committee, which proudly proclaim their unconditional support of Israel, for several years have been declaring their “serious concern” over the increasing “distancing” of young American Jews from the state.
But what Israel apologists like the AJC view as a crisis, I see as a positive development for American Jews, who, like other parts of U.S. society, are shifting from blind support for Israel to a more critical position that reflects opposition to our country’s backing for Israel’s policies.
But there seems to be a minor problem. He isn’t Jewish, in any recognizable sense!** Ha’aretz printed a letter from someone who knows Schivone personally, someone who agrees with him politically but felt the need to expose his deception:
Gabriel is not Jewish, whether in terms of ethnic ancestry, religious belief, or cultural identity. He has never identified as a Jew until it became useful in advancing his political agenda. During the High Holiday season of 2007, Gabriel told me that he discussed Israel with campus representatives of Chabad, identifying himself as a Jew. When asked why he did this, he explained that he has a distant Jewish relative and that “you use what you have.”
In all the time I’ve known him, he has never expressed feeling morally conflicted about Israel, nor has he succumbed to pressure to be “silent.” The editorial’s narrative is not Gabriel’s story, but one crafted to lend moral and emotional weight to his argument while appealing to the young, college-aged Jews whose participation is so vital to the pro-Palestinian movement.
In his response, Schivone is angry that his “most cherished sense of personal identity” has been challenged, but he doesn’t deny the substance of the charge.
* Yes, I understand that ‘person of color’ has nothing to do with pigmentation, but rather means that the person in question belongs to a group oppressed by Western colonialists, and is therefore permitted to ‘resist’ in any way he can. I just don’t buy the theory.
** No, I don’t care if he is halachically Jewish. If there is any sense in which ‘Jewish’ is meaningful, he doesn’t fit it.
Technorati Tags: Marwan Barghouti, David Cameron, Turkey, Gabriel Schivone, Israel
I would not put much reliance on David Cameron making the parallel between his own domestic barbarians and the whole would- be- jihad group of terrorists throughout the world who are Israel’s enemies. What struck me was the total incompetence and passivity of the British police before the rioters. They simply were not at all ready to really encounter the rioters. Naive and stupid were the British authorities on a major domestic concern, and naive and stupid they will probably continue to be in relating to the ‘jihadists’ of the world.
Agree with you in spades, Shalom. The local Governor General in the Saudi European Island Colony (formerly known as the United Kingdom) making a connection between his own and Israel’s legitimate right to self-defense? Fergitit.
As for Schivone, I’m sure the Iranians or Saudis are paying his bills. Some people will do ANYTHING to avoid having to make an honest living.