FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

Recently I wrote an article called The One Voice Movement’s misleading numbers, in which I argued that the organization’s ‘process’ was in essence an attempt to promote a specific political point of view. Daniel Lubetzky, the movement’s founder unsurprisingly disagrees, and I am presenting his response here, exactly as I have received it — ed.

By Daniel Lubetzky

The process being described is part of a highly lauded citizen movement and process endorsed and supported by everyone from Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to Palestinian President Abbas, moderates who recognize the need to engage Palestinian and Israeli citizens at the grassroots to think through these issues and work to achieve consensus on the key pillars for how to resolve this conflict.

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There are lots of angry Muslims in the UK as a result of Salman Rushdie’s knighthood. Did you expect anything different?

This has the potential to be as bad or worse than the Danish cartoons:

TEHRAN, Iran - An high-level Iranian cleric said Friday that the religious edict calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie cannot be revoked, and he warned Britain was defying the Islamic world by granting the author knighthood…

“Awarding him means confronting 1.5 billion Muslims around the world,” Khatami said. “In Islamic Iran, the revolutionary fatwa … is still alive and cannot be changed.” Then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa in 1989, calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie because his book “The Satanic Verses” was deemed insulting to Islam…

“Earlier they had published cartoons of our Prophet, and now they have given an award to someone who deserves to be killed,” Abdul Ghafoor Hayderi told a crowd of about 1,000 people in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city…

“Rushdie is a hate figure across the Muslim world because of his insults to Islam,” said Anjem Choudray, protest organizer. “This honor will have ramifications here and across the world.” — AP

Thanks to Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons

Technorati Tags: Rushdie

Iran has admitted that it is funding Hamas and Hizbullah (as if there were any doubt):

Ali Larijani, the chairman of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, denied in an interview with Newsweek that Iran was providing arms to the Hamas. He admitted, however, that his country was funneling finances to the Islamic group, as well as to Hizbullah.

“We do support Hizbullah and Hamas, that is right,” Larijani said. “But these two are not terrorist groups. These are the two groups that are defending their own land.” — Jerusalem Post

The soon-to-be-nuclear Iran is a potent force in the Mideast, one of the two oil superpowers (the other is Saudi Arabia). Both have large military establishments. These superpowers, Shiite and Sunni respectively, vying for control of the region, agree on almost nothing except of course the proposition that Israel should be replaced by an Arab state.

Their anti-Israel work is performed by non-state proxies, such as Hamas and Hizbullah, as well as the still-immoderate Fatah, by allies such as Syria, and by diplomatic and propaganda activities throughout the world. In the name of Islam, both countries have contributed to the establishment of mosques and other institutions in many nations, all of which incidentally promote the view that Israel is the devil. They also apply pressure to their various trading partners, particularly in Europe where most of their oil is sold, to adopt anti-Israel postures. And of course they finance the constant din of accusations and lies about Israel that reaches every spot on the globe, 24/7.

This is particularly effective with the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, since it is often couched in religious terms, but also seems to be doing quite well in such places as the UK and Scandinavia.

The combined might of Arab armed forces that could be marshaled against Israel in a regional war runs into the millions, compared to Israel’s tiny standing army of 168,000 plus a few hundred thousand available as reserve soldiers for a limited time.

So the next time it’s suggested that Israel’s activities vs. Hamas and Hizbullah represent a mighty Goliath crushing a bunch of little Davids, remember this:

The terrorist militias are only the point of the spear.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office said Jerusalem wanted to hear a formal announcement from the new Palestinian Authority government saying it accepted the Quartet’s three benchmarks before transferring frozen tax revenues to the PA.

The cabinet is expected to take up the issue of releasing the funds, believed to be more than a half billion dollars, at its upcoming meeting on Sunday. The Quartet’s three conditions are the recognition of Israel, the renouncement [sic] of terrorism, and the acceptance of previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. — Jerusalem Post

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone would insist that the PA actually do something about corruption, about the criminal gangs that prey on the Palestinian population under its protection, and about the fact that so many of its ’security’ officers are also members of terrorist groups?

If the idea is that ultimately the new Fayyad government will develop into more than just a shell to be used to fight Hamas and an excuse for the Quartet to force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, and that ultimately it will be a vehicle for coexistence between Israel and at least the West Bank Palestinians — then it will need to be a real government that provides actual benefits, and not just a parasitic class that rules by force.

In order for this to happen, it will have to change drastically. It will have to provide openings for younger people (which means it will have to find younger Palestinians that still accept the idea of coexistence, possibly difficult today).

It will have to stop defining itself in terms of the struggle with Israel (as Fatah does by charter) and start defining itself in terms of service to its citizens. If it can’t do this, then it will never be able to get popular support, and in the long run even American arms and money will not save it — and West Bank Palestinians — from Hamas.

As I’ve said before, in order to survive, it will have to put helping Arabs above killing Jews.

Technorati Tags: Palestinians, Fayyad, Israel

The UK Jewish community has expressed concern about the physical safety of Jewish students on campuses in light of recent agitation relating to the UCU boycott resolution:

Henry Grunwald QC, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said, “Our community has been able to rely on the support of the Prime Minister throughout his tenure and he has repeatedly proved to be a true friend of Israel as well. However our community is now facing a different type of threat - a recent attempted boycott of Israel by members of the University and College Union will result in Jewish students being harassed and bullied on campus. There is need for direct action - not just on the floor of union debates but also on university campuses themselves. We are grateful for the Prime Minister’s robust criticism of such boycotts and we call on him to do whatever he can to secure the safety of Jewish students’ on campus.” — Jerusalem Post

The anti-Israel climate in the UK is getting worse, with a recent call by UNISON, the UK’s largest trade union, representing over 1.3 million members working in the public sector, private contractors and the utilities. Their boycott motion calls on Israel to

1) withdraw to its 1949-67 borders;
2) allow the refugees of 1948 to return home;
3) remove all its settlements from the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Occupied Syrian Al-Joulan [Golan Heights];
4) take down the Apartheid Wall; and
5) respect the Palestinian people’s right to national self-determination and to establish a state in the West bank and the Gaza Strip with its capital in Jerusalem.
…
Conference believes that ending the occupation demands concerted and sustained pressure upon Israel including an economic, cultural, academic and sporting boycott. — UNISON Web site

There’s more, but you get the idea.

Here in North America, the situation on campuses has not reached the point that it has in Britain, but there have been some incidents of harassment of pro-Israel speakers in the US and Canada; for example, take Daniel Pipes’ recent experience at the University of California Irvine, and also the demonstrations that prevented Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking at Concordia University in Montreal in 2002. There are numerous other examples.

One of the few bright spots in the American academic scene has been the declaration by several university presidents that they reject the concept of academic boycotts on the grounds that they stifle academic freedom.

I’ve asked Dr. John Welty, the president of our own California State University at Fresno to issue a similar declaration, and will publish it here if he does so.

Technorati Tags: UCU boycott, UNISON boycott, Israel

From the Jerusalem Post:

Labor MK Eitan Cabel called on Wednesday for the release of jailed Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti.

“Although I have said this many times before, behind closed doors and during private conversations, it’s time for Israel to do this act,” Cabel said during a speech in the Knesset Plenum.

“I am not trying to clear this man of everything he’s done,” Cabel continued. “But let me use the well-known cliché: ‘Peace is made with enemies.’ [Barghouti], it seems, has, more than the others, the ability, power, and courage to push this long-awaited change.”

Releasing Barghouti would be wrong for at least two reasons.

First, he is a convicted murderer. As a leader of the Tanzim militia, he gave orders for numerous violent attacks on Israelis. He was charged with 21 murders in a civilian court, and convicted of 5 (four Israelis and one Greek monk) plus one count of attempted murder for ordering a suicide car bomb attack that failed. Although his supporters claim that he is a political prisoner, people murdered for political motives are still dead.

Second, and unsurprisingly, considering his activities, he is not a peace partner. He is the author of the “prisoners’ document” which is considered a charter for a re-invigorated Palestinian movement. Here is what I wrote in January about the prisoners’ document:

This so-called “prisoners’ document” like everything else is not what the press would suggest. It calls for a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem (this has now become standard); the joining together of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad into a unified PLO which will lead the Palestinians — the latter two don’t even pretend to accept a Jewish Israel of any size in the Mideast; the return of refugees and release of prisoners “on the land of the fathers and grandfathers” — Israel proper; and “the right of the Palestinian people in resistance and clinging to the option of resistance with the various means”. There is a suggestion of limitations on violence — but just between Palestinian factions!

It makes no mention of recognition of Israel. Indeed, the word ‘Israel’ does not appear in any of its 18 points.

From time to time the idea of allowing the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas to be replaced by Barghouti is floated, probably by the US State Department, which is frantically trying to find a Palestinian strongman with whom they can deal. But a Palestinian Authority led by Barghouti would be worse for Israel than Hamas or Fatah, because he combines the violent hostility of Hamas with the veneer of international respectability possessed by Abbas.

Let me add that it’s time to put the oft-quoted remark about making peace with enemies in perspective. There are two ways to make peace with an enemy: he can become a friend, or at least a neutral; or you can defeat him.

The Oslo process was an attempt to do the former, and it failed. Unilateral withdrawal was an attempt to do the former, and it failed. There is no available Palestinian partner today, especially Marwan Barghouti, to make friends with. Peace will have to wait for the appearance of such a partner, or for another war in which the Palestinians will be defeated.

Which it will be is really up to the Palestinians.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Marwan Barghouti, prisoners’ document

Jimmy Carter…what can he be thinking?

DUBLIN, Ireland: The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday…

Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas…

Carter said the American-Israeli-European consensus to reopen direct aid to the new government in the West Bank, but to deny the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, represented an “effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples.” – IHT (AP)

Without exaggeration, Hamas is the most explicitly antisemitic organization that has any actual power since the NSDAP (the German Nazi party), both by word and by deed. It is also anti-Christian.

Hamas has chosen terrorism against civilian targets as its preferred tactic to achieve its goals, one of which is the destruction of a legitimate nation and the murder or dispersal of its people.

Hamas took over the Gaza strip in a violent coup in which hundreds died. This was not a democratic action.

Hamas intends to create an Islamic state, that is, one that is governed by Sha’aria, where women and non-Muslims have few rights, where images are prohibited (an unknown soldier statue in Gaza was destroyed for this reason), and where homosexuals will be stoned to death. This is not the kind of state that Jimmy Carter would want to live in, and I bet he wouldn’t want his daughter to live there either.

The Palestinians are cursed with horrible leadership, by Hamas and Fatah and also by all of the gang leaders and clan bosses that make their lives miserable. But Hamas is so much worse (despite its ability, lauded by Carter, to make the terroristic trains run on time).

Somebody (not me) might make the argument that because Hamas has been legitimately elected to control the Palestinian Authority, we should leave them alone.

But only a fool or a knave could suggest that we ought to support Hamas.

You decide which Carter is.

Technorati Tags: Carter, Hamas

Numerous universities, even those usually associated with radically anti-Israel opinions of students and faculty such as Columbia University and the University of California at Berkeley, have denounced the British University and College Union (UCU) boycott of Israeli academics.

In the words of Berkeley Chancellor John Birgeneau,

Their threat to cut off all funding, visits, and joint publishing with Israeli institutions violates the fundamental principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech that are the hallmarks of great universities nationally and internationally. We hold these values most deeply at Berkeley, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement.

I have asked the president of California State University at Fresno, Dr. John Welty, to issue a similar statement, and I urge all of my readers to write to their own local colleges and universities and their alma maters to request that they make their commitment to freedom of speech and inquiry manifest.

Technorati Tags: UCU boycott

Daniel Pipes has written the definitive analysis of the Hamas takeover of Gaza and its consequences for Israel, the region, and the US:

The Fatah-Hamas differences concern personnel, approaches, and tactics. They share allies and goals. Tehran arms both Hamas and Fatah. The “moderate” terrorists of Fatah and the bad terrorists of Hamas equally inculcate children with a barbaric creed of “martyrdom.” Both agree on eliminating the Jewish state. Neither shows a map with Israel present, or even Tel Aviv.

Fatah’s willingness to play a fraudulent diplomatic game has lured woolly-minded and gullible Westerners, including Israelis, to invest in it. The most recent folly was Washington’s decision to listen to its security coordinator in the region, Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, and send Fatah $59 million in military aid to fight Hamas – a policy that proved even more bone-headed when Hamas promptly seized those shipments for its own use.

One of these days, maybe, the idiot-savant “peace processors” will note the trail of disasters their handiwork has achieved. Instead of mulishly working to return Fatah and Jerusalem to the bargaining table, they might try focusing on gaining a change of heart among the roughly 80 percent of Palestinians, those still seeking to undo the outcome of the 1948-49 war by defeating Zionism and constructing a 22nd Arab state atop Israel’s carcass.

You must read the entire article here.

Technorati Tags: Daniel Pipes, Hamas, Fatah, Israel

There are lies, damn lies, and there are statistics (and various opinions about who originally said this).

Poll results can have multiple interpretations, even if the questions used to get them are honest — something that is often not the case.

For example, here are some probably reasonable numbers from a poll sponsored by The Israel Project (TIP) and reported in Ha’aretz:

TIP, an organization that strives to improve Israel’s image in America and the rest of the world, polled 500 representatives of the “opinion elite”: college graduates with annual incomes above $75,000, who vote in elections, and read newspapers and magazines…

They were asked, among other things, to rank their attitude toward Israel and Hamas, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah, on a scale of 1 to 100, with below 50 indicating a “cold” attitude and above it a “warm” attitude. Israel received a 66, while the others scored between 19 (Hezbollah) and 30 (Syria).

“Who is to blame for the instability in the Middle East?” the poll asked. Seventy-three percent blamed “Islamic extremism” and only 12 percent named “Israel and its policies.”

The poll contains some rather sad working assumptions: 57 percent “strongly agree” that “the Arab countries around Israel are hostile to its existence,” and 85 percent overall said they “agree” with that statement. Some 75 percent said they agreed that “the Arabs don’t really accept Israel’s right to exist.”

But there are also findings that suggest a possible course of action. For example, 70 percent cited the need to be “a leader in working for peace” as heading the list of 13 qualities required of an American “ally.” But only 16 percent saw this among Israel’s traits.

The implication in the last paragraph seems to be that Israel could improve its standing among the “opinion elite” by becoming, or appearing to become, a “leader in working for peace”.

There is, however, another interpretation which I like better.

To me, Israel’s high standing despite not being “a leader working for peace” indicates that the respondents understand that given the situation in Israel’s neighborhood today, it is not possible for Israel to be at the forefront of peace initiatives. And this is supported by their opinions about Arab attitudes and about the causes of instability.

The “opinion elite” is not so dumb after all.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Arabs, The Israel Project

The US has announced that it will resume direct aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), following a similar announcement by the European Union. The Israeli government will also start transferring withheld tax revenues to the PA government, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. And the US is planning to supply Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ forces in the West Bank with arms and ammunition to help it remain in control and fight Hamas.

Talking heads here in the US are discussing the “potential for peace with the new moderate Palestinian government”, and indeed Abbas has called for restarting peace talks with Israel. And Israelis are talking about helping Abbas out by removing checkpoints, releasing prisoners, etc.

Now hold on, everybody.

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The Islamic Hamas is turning up the heat on the few remaining Christians in Gaza:

Sunday, masked gunmen in Gaza City set fire to the Latin Church and went on a rampage inside the Rosary Sisters School on Sunday.

The attack was the first of its kind since Hamas took full control over the Gaza Strip last week…

Leaders of the Christian community in the Strip expressed deep concern over the fate of the Christians living under Hamas. They said most of them wanted to leave the Gaza out of fear for their lives. An estimated 2,500 Christians live in Gaza City.

[Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas condemned the attack as barbaric and despicable, and blamed Hamas militiamen. “The torching of the church is one of the fruits of the bloody coup that Hamas staged in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

Several Christian institutions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have been targeted by masked gunmen over the past few months. Last April, a bookstore run by the Bible Society in the Gaza Strip was bombed, but no one was hurt.

A group calling itself the Huda (Guidance) Army Organization threatened to target all Christians living in the Gaza Strip following remarks against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that were made last year by Pope Benedict XVI.

“We will target all Crusaders in the Gaza Strip,” the group said in a leaflet, “until the pope issues an official apology.”

“All centers belonging to Crusaders, including churches and institutions, will from now on be targeted,” it said. “We will even attack the Crusaders as they sit intoxicated in their homes.”

The Huda Army Organization said preparations had been completed “to strike at every Crusader and infidel on the purified land of Palestine “. — Jerusalem Post

Hamas has already done some ‘purification’ by bombing internet cafés, harassing women who are ‘improperly’ dressed, and tearing down statues — just like the Taliban.

Technorati Tags: Hamas, Gaza, Christians