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Is Islamophobia a serious threat to world peace? Here’s one who thinks so:

A UN expert on racism on Friday branded the defamation of religions - in particular critical portrayals of Islam in the West - a threat to world peace.

“Islamophobia today is the most serious form of religious defamation,” Doudou Diene told the UN Human Rights Council, which is currently holding a three-week session in Geneva.

Diene cited a caricature of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in a Swedish newspaper, a protest by far-right groups in Belgium Tuesday against the “Islamization of Europe,” and campaigns against the construction of mosques in Germany and Switzerland as evidence of an “ever increasing trend” toward anti-Islamic actions in Europe.

“We see the initiatives and activities of many groups and organizations which are working hard to bring about a war of civilizations,” he said, adding that right-wing groups were trying to equate Islam with violence and terrorism. — Jerusalem Post

It’s interesting that he sees Islamophobia as dangerous to world peace. All forms of religious prejudice are pernicious, of course, but they are not usually characterized as threats to world peace.

There is no doubt that the massive terrorist attacks in the West in this century — 9/11, the bombings in Madrid and London, etc. — were threats to world peace, and were indeed calculated to bring about a war of civilizations. And they were carried out in the name of Islam, no matter how marginal the conception of Islam held by the terrorists is.

And surveys have shown that in some places (e.g., the UK) the idea that terrorism in ‘defense’ of Islam is justified, while still a minority opinion, is not marginal at all — and it doesn’t take much to convince some people that Islam is under attack.

So what we have is this:

• Some Muslims have committed horrendous terrorist attacks against the West in the name of Islam.

• A significant minority of Muslims supports them.

• As a result, there has been a reaction against Islam in general (although only rarely a violent one), and the nativist right wing in Europe is taking advantage of it.

It seems strange to me that Dr. Diene sees this last as the threat to peace. It seems to me that the bombs and hijacked aircraft of the terrorists have already broken the peace. But this is the perspective of the UN.

Technorati Tags: Islamophobia, Islam, terrorism, Diene

From today’s Jerusalem Post:

A Cairo court sentenced the editors of four outspoken tabloids to a year in prison for insulting President Hosni Mubarak and his ruling party, judicial officials said Thursday.

Imagine if Israeli journalists could be jailed for insulting PM Olmert! There would be no news media, only full jails (the same goes for Americans and our president).

I thought of this yesterday while listening to a truly outrageous program on left-wing radio station KPFA, Berkeley. The commentator went on and on about the corporate stranglehold on the media and how it suppressed the ‘truth’ about 9/11, which in his view was that the WTC was not destroyed by planes piloted by radical Saudi Islamists, but rather was blown up by the Bush administration in order to give it an excuse to suppress domestic dissent and attack Muslim countries.

And this morning I read, in my local ‘corporate’ newspaper a column by Amy Goodman (also a KPFA personality), in which she praised Jimmy Carter for pointing out the ‘fact’ that Israel is an apartheid state because there are “roads that Palestinians are not permitted to drive on”.

By this I presume she meant the bypass roads in the West Bank, built to connect settlements to each other and to Israel proper, because Jewish vehicles driving on normal roads were subject to stoning at best, and very often shooting and firebombing — sometimes with multiple deaths as a result.

So actually, the racists here were the Palestinians, who did not permit Jews to travel, on pain of death. The Israeli response was to build roads, in some places surrounded by walls and fences, which did not have offramps in Palestinian towns. Apartheid!

Anyway, Amy Goodman can say what she likes, despite the corporate character of the media and the supposedly great power of the Jewish Lobby. And in Israel, Danny Rubinstein can say what he wants about his country, too, even if it borders on treason, and still keep his job.

Try it in Egypt or in Saudi Arabia, or indeed in any Arab country.

!שנה טובה

Technorati Tags: Israel, Media, Amy Goodman

I seem to have been wrong when I guessed that last week’s flyover of Syria was just intended to collect data about Syrian radar equipment. Apparently, something was bombed. But what? Here are a few known facts:

• Israel took a significant risk, diplomatically and militarily, to do this. So the target must have been important. And it must have been time-critical.

• Israel was entirely silent about the affair.

Ami Isseroff thinks that the Russians may have been building an antiaircraft installation to protect Mediterranean naval bases they are developing in the Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia, or perhaps a listening post such as the one in Lebanon which guided the successful missile strike on an Israeli ship in 2006.

He speculates that if there were Russian military personnel present, that would explain Israel’s silence. And there would be little risk to November’s summit planned by the US, since the US would be happy to see the Russian installations — which threaten US forces in the region — destroyed.

If the target were simply Iranian weapons being delivered to Syria and/or Hezbollah, then one would have expected Israel to make a public fuss about it, thinks Isseroff.

He may be right that Russian personnel were present. But this doesn’t explain the urgency. Unless Israel thinks that war with Syria is imminent — which of course is another possibility — then this must have been a very, very important target.

What would count as such a target? In my opinion, only an existential threat: maybe a nuclear or other WMD installation (it’s been suggested that North Korea is selling off nuclear material).

If we are on the verge of an Israeli or US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, then whatever it was may have been intended for use in retaliation. This would explain the urgency, and the Israeli silence.

It would also explain the reluctance of the Israeli government to take action against Hamas in Gaza at this time, to focus attention on the major threat.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Syria, Russia, Iran

If you shoot literally thousands of missiles at populated areas, no matter how inaccurate they are, you are bound to hit something.

This time it was a tent at the IDF training base in Zikkim, about a mile from the border with the Gaza strip. All 69 of the injured were 18- and 19- year old draftees undergoing basic training; one had a leg amputated and another was hospitalized in critical condition with head injuries.

The Israeli government’s response, as reported in the Jerusalem Post, was simply unbelievable:

Olmert did not convene a special session of the security cabinet or any extraordinary security consultations in response to the attack…

Olmert’s position on cutting the supply of [electricity and water to Gaza] is that this would not be effective in stopping the rockets, and would bring in its wake a huge international outcry and harsh condemnations…

Government officials said a major IDF incursion into the Strip was unlikely. “By going into Gaza,” one official said, “we would be playing into their hands. That is exactly what they want. It resolves a number of issues for Hamas.”

Among those issues are uniting the Palestinians against Israel, involving Israel in a battle that would inevitably lead to “collateral damage” for which Israel would be widely condemned, and possibly scuttling fledgling Israeli-PA negotiations…

“We are in a very complicated diplomatic climate,” said one official. “If we go into Gaza in a large-scale operation, the November summit will definitely be canceled.” [my emphasis]

The damage that is done by Israel’s continued acquiescence to these murderous attacks to Israel’s deterrent power, civilian and military morale, and self-respect is incalculable. There is no doubt that Israel will at some point in the near future find itself at war with Hamas in Gaza anyway, so it’s hard for me to see why the government allows this to continue.

I have to hope that these statements are meant to mislead Hamas and friends, and that “a large-scale operation” is being prepared.

Technorati Tags: Gaza, Qassam, Zikkim, IDF, Israel

The Jewish Virtual Library is a good resource for historical information. This page describes the liberation of the Temple Mount and Western Wall in June, 1967. It contains an audio link to a live broadcast from an Israel Radio correspondent on the scene.

It also contains a transcript, in English, of some of the content of the Hebrew broadcast. In particular, there is this:

Command on the army wireless: Search the area, destroy all pockets of resistance and make sure to enter every single house, especially the holy places.

I was quite surprised to read this. “Enter every single house, especially the holy places”?

But when I listened to the actual broadcast, it was entirely different. Here is my literal translation of the same passage:

Comb the area, discover the source of the firing. Protect every building, in every way. Do not touch anything, especially in the holy places.

The fact is that — already at this point — Israeli authorities understood (maybe too well) the sensitivity of the Temple Mount.

In my opinion, the mistranslation gives entirely the wrong impression, one of a brutal IDF. The JVL is generally a pro-Israel site, so it’s hard to understand how this error occurred — and why it hasn’t been corrected, after they have been informed of it.

Here’s a link to the JVL contact page. If you understand Hebrew, listen to the broadcast — and tell JVL to fix the transcript and thank JVL for fixing the transcript!

Update [16 Sept 1544 PDT]: It’s fixed. We appreciate JVL’s concern for accuracy.

Technorati Tags: Six Days War, Jerusalem, Temple Mount, IDF

I agree: don’t change the Law of Return. But find a way to kick these ugly creatures out.

There are dozens more neo-Nazis in Israel, and police are working on finding them, Israel Police Insp.-Gen. David Cohen said on Monday, two days after police announced they had uncovered a neo-Nazi ring in Petah Tikva composed of former-Soviet Union immigrants.

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter reiterated … that Israel should not hurry to change the Law of Return, which permitted the neo-Nazi youths to enter Israel, and that it was important to examine the matter very carefully. — Jerusalem Post

Germany has laws against neo-Nazi activity. Apparently, Israel does not, since nobody ever expected it. Making the Law of Return more restrictive might not help, and anyway it’s impossible and repellent to investigate the genealogy of prospective immigrants.

I’m hoping that the legal experts can find a way to deport them nevertheless. Imprisoning them will be expensive, and they will be able to recruit other prisoners to their cause.

However it’s done, they need to be removed from Israeli society. There are limits.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Nazis

There’s a great deal of speculation about an incident Thursday, in which Israeli warplanes overflew Syria, at some point flying supersonically, and may have been fired on by Syrian antiaircraft batteries. They apparently jettisoned fuel tanks which landed near the Syrian border with Turkey.

In an interview with the Dubai-based satellite TV channel Al Arabiya, Syrian parliament member Muhammad Habash claimed that Israel launched an attack mission – which failed.

Habash cited the Israeli Air Force’s attack on the Iraqi nuclear plant 26 years ago – which had immediate impact in the Israeli media as soon as the planes landed. If Israel had succeeded in attaining its aims this time too, Habash says, the world would certainly know. — YNet

The truth is probably much simpler.

Syria has recently obtained new antiaircraft systems from Russia. My guess is that the overflight was intended to provoke the Syrians into “lighting up” the radar equipment on these units, at which point the aircraft could collect data on frequencies and other key characteristics, making effective countermeasures possible.

One of the problems that surfaced in the 2006 war was a lack of preparation and intelligence, particularly in the ground forces, which were surprised by the weapons, fortifications, and command and control capabilities of Hezbollah. The IDF is under ‘new management’ now, with a new Chief of Staff, and there is good reason to believe that — like the air force — the ground forces will be well prepared for what they will encounter next time.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Syria, IDF

Another anniversary approaches. The day has become part of most Americans’ internal photo albums. What were you doing when? For some reason, I remember the phone calls. My son, serving in the IDF: “What the f—?” I didn’t know. My sister-in-law, a naval doctor in Washington: she wasn’t in the Pentagon that day.

Personally, I had never liked the WTC, built on the site of the beloved Radio Row where I spent so much time as a kid. But of course afterwards it broke my heart every time I saw the New York skyline without it.

I worked my way through college as a transmitter engineer at a local broadcast station; radio and electronics have been my hobby since I learned Morse code as a boy scout. So I was particularly affected by the death of another transmitter guy and radio ‘ham’, Steve Jacobson. Here he is with the antenna structure on the roof of 1 WTC :

I also remember the President speaking from an undisclosed location, looking like a rabbit in the headlights before he and his people got their tough guy act together, and Mayor Giuliani striding through the rubble looking presidential.

The usual suspects started blaming US support of Israel for the attack, and soon the rumors started that the Jews had stayed home from work that day, that the Mossad and the Bush Administration had cooperated to carry out the attack and blame Arabs (The look on Bush’s face from the undisclosed location was enough to refute that one), and so forth.

Here in Central California, in a remarkable combination of hateful racism and abysmal ignorance, several Sikhs were attacked for wearing turbans, and in Arizona one was shot to death.

Six years after, the controversy about the motives of the 9/11 attackers continues. It is impossible, however, to understand the attackers without taking into consideration their radical Islamism, which sees the West as an enemy which must be crushed or fundamentally changed.

On Tuesday (this year, as in 2001, September 11 is a Tuesday), the local Islamic Cultural Center has organized a “Unity walk” to a local church. There will be speakers and refreshments, and I presume that the point will be made that there is a difference between moderate Islam and the radical Islamism of the terrorists, which of course is correct.

I’ll have details on the rest.

Technorati Tags: 9/11

Nothing that I’ve read related to Israel recently has irritated me quite as much as this (”I look at Israel as just another country“):

“I am supposed to feel something towards Israel, but it’s such a mess over there I generally try not to think about it,” says Molly Umberger, a second-year student at Sarah Lawrence College in New York…

“Because I’m Jewish I should have a loyalty to Israel, but I happen to believe both Israel and Palestine made a lot of mistakes, so I’m not 100 percent in favor of what Israel is doing,” says Umberger, the daughter of [Naomi Paiss] the communications director of the New Israel Fund (NIF). But dismay with the situation or even criticism of Israel has not led Umberger to get more involved…

“My connection is not as strong as that of older generations. I feel I’m not as biased. My grandmother believes that no matter what Israel does, it is always right, but I look at it as just another country,” she explains…

“We are Zionist but very progressive,” says [Molly’s mother Naomi] Paiss.”We think it’s important that the NIF perspective be a part of what young students learn when they go to Israel for the first time.”

And what is the NIF perspective?

“Israel is a downer,” says New Israel Fund Director Bruce Temkin. “What people see is the occupation, corruption, a stalled peace process, and they are frustrated and turned off.” Where Israel used to be the central connecting point for identified Jews, today “Israel is a turnoff,” says Temkin.

I’m sorry Temkin is ‘down’ and ‘turned off’, but I wonder what is so special about Israel among the nations that these are the characteristics that so stand out for him?

Consider the US, the UK, France, Russia, etc. (don’t even mention the Arab countries or the PA!) Is there corruption? Are there military adventures, occupations, political problems that won’t go away? Can you say Iraq, Chechnya, Ireland? Rioting by disaffected ‘youths’? The response to hurricane Katrina?

Don’t forget that pre- and post-state Israel is almost unique in being under constant military and terrorist pressure from its neighbors for almost a century, and is now the object of a worldwide campaign of delegitimization whose goal is its destruction. Nevertheless Temkin is ‘turned off’ by occupation, corruption, etc.

The NIF is just another example (albeit a very well-funded and smooth one) of a ‘progressive’ Jewish organization which has internalized the propaganda of the enemies of Israel and as a result is actually working to damage it, not help it.

There is a difference between a Jew who doesn’t believe that everything Israel does is right, and one who thinks that it does not deserve her support.

It is not surprising that Molly Umberger feels as she does. She is simply reacting logically to the message that she has gotten at home, from the ‘progressive’ media, and from most of her teachers in the ‘progressive’ academic milieu.

Technorati Tags: Israel, New Israel Fund

The Washington Post has described a study by psychologist Norbert Schwartz which appears to show that attempts to dispel myths often have exactly the opposite result:

The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths…

The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people’s minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.

Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain’s subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true. [my emphasis]

So, the researchers suggest that the best way to counter a myth is to present opposing information without denying the original incorrect statement. Instead of saying “Saddam didn’t attack the US on 9/11, Osama bin Laden did”, one should say “Osama bin Laden was the one who attacked the US on 9/11″.

The article goes on to discuss some persistent myths:

…many in the Arab world [and not just the Arab world! — ed] are convinced that the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was not the work of Arab terrorists but was a controlled demolition; that 4,000 Jews working there had been warned to stay home that day; and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile rather than a plane.

The keys to making something memorable are repetition and emotional content. Probably a classic case of effective propaganda that has made use of these is the case of the ‘killing’ of 10-year old Mohammad al-Durah. Evidence may shortly be forced to light which will establish that not only was al-Durah not shot by Israelis, but rather that the entire incident was staged (see Joanna Chandler, The Al-Durah Hoax). But even if this is demonstrated conclusively, the effect on worldwide perceptions will be minimal.

Indeed, the Schwartz research indicates that discussing the hoax to refute it may only embed it more firmly in people’s minds!

Technorati Tags: propaganda, memory, al-Durah

Maybe one of my Israeli readers can explain this to me, because I don’t get it.

As everyone knows, Danny Rubinstein, Ha’aretz Arab affairs editor and member of the editorial board, spoke at the viciously anti-Israel UN ‘International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace‘:

Rubinstein, speaking before 350 guests at the European Union’s Brussels parliament building, said: “Today Israel is an apartheid state with different status for four different Palestinian groups: those in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israeli Palestinians,” the UN report on the conference says…

The ramifications of branding Israel as apartheid were outlined in several other sessions of the conference, which called for global sanctions and boycotts of the Jewish state. Rubinstein also spoke out in favor of recognizing Hamas’s election victory and against the “Partition Wall.” (IsraelNN)

Rubinstein, whose columns in Ha’aretz I have read with interest from time to time, is certainly of the left-wing persuasion. But he has never before shown signs of insanity.

The damage that Rubinstein has done is enormous, given his reputation and credentials. The word ‘apartheid’ — which manifestly does not apply to Israel – is code today for “treat Israel like South Africa; delegitimize it and punish it economically by boycotts and sanctions until the regime falls”. This is precisely the ‘Durban program‘ set in motion at the 2001 UN conference against racism held in Durban, South Africa.

Although some Neturei Karta lunatics also spoke at the conference (they also attended Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial convention) and received an ovation for saying that Zionism was antisemitism, they did not damage Israel as much as Rubinstein, because everyone knows that they are crazy and on the Arabs’ payroll.

Pro-Israel observers who attended the Brussels event — titled “International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestine Peace” and held in the European Parliament — say it lived up to their worst expectations and was anything but a peace meeting.

Rubinstein shared the dais with British lawmaker Clare Short, who along with several other participants called for a boycott against Israel and said apartheid was worse in Israel than it had been in South Africa…

Speaker after speaker in Brussels decried Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and called for action against the Jewish state. Palestinian terrorism never received a mention, according to Jewish organizations who monitored the conference, including B’nai B’rith International.

[Speaking in England at the New London synagogue] Rubinstein denied knowing anything about the U.N. committee’s bias. — (JTA)

A member of the Ha’aretz editorial board hasn’t noticed the bias against Israel among UN NGOs? And he slept through all of the presentations mentioned above?

No, it seems to me that he has internalized the point of view expressed by Israel’s critics. Apparently this is the way they talk at the cocktail parties and editorial meetings that he attends:

“People do use the word apartheid in my circles. My newspaper increasingly uses that word. This is nothing new.”

Something is really, really wrong here.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Rubinstein, Ha’aretz, apartheid

Last Friday, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in the US, spoke (the full text of Rabbi Yoffie’s speech is here) at the convention of the Islamic Society of North America — the first leader of a major Jewish organization to agree to do so.

His remarks were mostly conciliatory in tone; he was outraged by the idea of profiling by police or antiterrorism agencies, fundamentalist Christian criticism of Islam, and the banning of headscarves in European public schools. And he said this:

The overwhelming majority of Jews reject violence by interpreting these [biblical] texts in a constructive way, but a tiny, extremist minority chooses destructive interpretations instead, finding in the sacred words a vengeful, hateful God. Especially disturbing is the fact that the moderate majority, at least some of the time, decides to cower in the face of the fanatic minority — perhaps because they seem more authentic, or appear to have greater faith and greater commitment. When this happens, my task as a rabbi is to rally that reasonable, often-silent majority and encourage them to assert the moderate principles that define their beliefs and Judaism’s highest ideals. My Christian and Muslim friends tell me that precisely the same dynamic operates in their traditions, and from what I can see, that is manifestly so. [my emphasis]

Here is how I understand this:

• There are a very few violent Jewish extremists.

This is correct; they include the late Baruch Goldstein, Yigal Amir, Eden Natan-Zada, and a few others that Americans have not heard of.

• In the event that the ’silent majority’ of non-extremist Jews doesn’t condemn them strongly enough, Rabbi Yoffie and other Jewish leaders make sure that nobody thinks that they represent normative Judaism.

• The situation is similar in the Christian and Muslim communities — although there may be a few more violent extremists there, an ‘alarming’ number — where the clergy does its best to discourage extremism and isolate extremists.

Well, that depends. In some places, for example, Britain and the Palestinian Authority, imams are in the forefront of encouraging violent extremism. Over there, normative Islam is radical Islam. But what about here in the US? In fact, many US mosques, financed by the Saudis and with Saudi-provided imams, do preach an extremist version of Islam.

Indeed, even ISNA, the group that Rabbi Yoffie is speaking to, has been accused of having a relationship to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood organization, and is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism funding case.

There is really no parallel in the Jewish or Christian communities. However, Rabbi Yoffie’s remarks seem to suggest that there is. He has spoken out strongly against Christian Fundamentalists whom he also sees as ‘fanatics’, although Christian terrorism (e.g., attacks on arbortionists) is relatively rare.

Rabbi Yoffie goes on to call for a dialogue between Jews and Muslims, “to strengthen and inspire one another as we fight the fanatics and work to promote the values of justice and love that are common to both our faiths”.

But ironically, Rabbi Yoffie has fought tooth and nail the attempts of Christian Zionists to establish a relationship with Jews (see my article, ‘Rabbi Yoffie and Pastor Hagee‘). Does he see Pastor Hagee as the same kind of ‘fanatic’ as Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman? One would almost think so.

Technorati Tags: Yoffie, URJ, ISNA